There has been a trend over the last 20 years in telephones. That trend has been the trading of quality for mobility and features. Here is the progression: First, I had a land-line with a squigly cord. The quality of the call was usually perfect. The phone was comfortable on…
We moved into a new house a few months ago. We still have boxes left unpacked; pictures not on the wall. We had a nice surge of motivation to unpack, but then we ran out of steam. The whole job seems really enormous. It’s easier to just get through the…
I couldn’t help myself. I am using the 3.0 beta version of WordPress. It comes with a new theme that is pretty clean from an HTML standpoint. I haven’t made a theme in a long time, so I took the opportunity to build one up. Voila. It’s not done yet,…
There have been many analogies and metaphors used to describe the Goldman Sachs fraud case. I think alot of them are bad. John Stewart was very funny talking about them. Metaphors and Analogies are important tools for User Experience (UX) design. Not only is it helpful to explain to your…
Yes. I may seem cynical, but this wasn’t an accident. Apple purposely instructed that guy to leave his prototype at the bar. Apple is in the zone right now. They are dominating everything they do. The iPad is a runaway success, despite the menstrual name. The iPhone sales are through…
I’ve tried many different methods for font replacement on my site. I just can’t help wanting to use a fancy font. I just switched techniques, but here is the complete rundown. Cufon. A JavaScript implementation that uses Canvas tags to change the fonts of specified tags. It uses jQuery to…
It’s been almost a month of using Axure. It’s not all roses and sunshine, but it definitely is the best click-able prototype creation tool I have used. With that said, it still leaves ALOT to be desired. Here are some of the things that bug me on a daily basis. Labels Some background: If…
A conversation with Merlin: Me: Hey, can you conjure up a cow? Merlin: Sure [POOF]. Easy. Me: Cool! How about a purple cow? Merlin: Oh, hmm. That’s hard. Yes, but it will take a while. A conversation with an engineer: Me: Hey, can you make the data come back in…
Say hello to my little friend: And I thought the point of school wasn’t meant for learning.
At work, they hooked up with Waiter.com to provide lunch delivery. I just used the waiter.com site to register. I am not saying this is the worst site in the world. However, Waiter.com is freakishly bad. Look, if you are a website application/service, you have to understand how important it is that…
I wish someone had told me this as a child. The point of elementary school is not to learn. The point is not to train you for an adult life. The point of elementary school is to practice following instructions. Let’s jump to high school. The point of high school…
SME stands for Subject Matter Expert. It means that you have extensive experience doing tasks in a particular field. The question is “If you are looking for a designer, should you try to find one that is also a SME for the target domain?” The answer may seem counter-intuitive, but…
There is a technique I use alot when thinking about the architecture of a SaaS product. It’s called Main Street. It comes from when I visited Disney Land. The technique makes an analogy of building a product to designing a theme park. You have to decide where everything lives and how the…
What is the best method for a designer? Storyboards or Prototypes? Storyboards These are used to tell a specific story. You can not click wherever you want. It’s just a series of screens in a chronological order. I have used Visio, PowerPoint, Photoshop, Whiteboard, Paper and Balsamiq to make these…