User Experience Design is about asking the fundamental question: Why? Why do people love the things they love and hate the things they hate and ignore most of the rest? Why does the world act the way it does? Once you understand Why something happens, you can design a strategy to…
This is pure unexpected WOW. Watch the video and ask yourself, “Did I just say wow? That was unexpected?” Great song, great video. I hope you like it.
I have this horrible mini-UX experience in LinkedIn. Overall, I love LinkedIn, but this one tiny thing is like a small pipe in a hallway that I keep stubbing my toe against. You can try it out too. Go to LinkedIn and look at the top right. You see the…
Which is more important? Something that is easy to learn or something that is fun to use once it’s learned? Most software developers get this exactly wrong. Riding a bicycle. At first, riding a bicycle is scary and physically painful. (Falling off a bike is not fun) However, once you…
How do you decide what to build next? Let’s start with some high level categories: New Whiz Bang Features. Sales is going to love demo’ing. Marketing is going to love the story-telling. Polish the Apple. This is going back over existing features and making them better. More polished, more nuanced.…
We switched to Verizon Wireless many years ago. We were using Cingular?AT&T and were greatly relieved when we switched. The network was much better. No more dropped calls, no more static. We were in “4 bar” nirvana. We got super simple clamshell phones with virtually no features. I bought a…
Firefox has been generally open source with their design process. It’s an interesting approach and bound to get people interested and possibily to inspire some great ideas. On the other hand, it’s alot of work to manage the flow of ideas. Their latest challenge is to re-conceptualize how bookmarks, history…
On my blog, there is a Digsby widget that allows you to instant message me. The problem is that I forget to sign out of Digsby at night. So I come in to work in the morning and have 2 or 3 messages, but the person is gone from the…
I recently watched Coraline with the kids. The movie was pretty clever and well done, but I found it highly derivative. Here is what it made me think: BeetleJuice (1988) – My goodness, the artwork was so reminiscent the genius BeetleJuice, but more importantly, I found a strong similarity to the main characters…
I was listening to Barney Frank today on NPR. He said, regarding the healthcare debate, that republicans and democrats are basically on the same page on the big picture. They both believed there is a real issue that needs serious attention. However, he described that when you went into the…
This happens all the time. You have a design and it could go in several directions. All directions have pros and cons. What do you do? My technique is to mockup (quickly) as many of the alternatives as possible. Give them all a chance to survive the bright light of…
I love well done satire.
The US Government started this program called “Cash for Clunkers“. It gives $4000 to anyone who is trading in an old piece of crap for a new shiny car. The goal is to increase the overall gas efficiency as well as spur the automotive industry. They allocated $2 billion dollars.…
What is the best way to gather user research? I believe Dian Fossey is a great role model for how to achieve great results and learn about your users lives. Dian didn’t ask the gorillas “So, tell me what kind of personality you have?” Obviously, the gorillas would not have…