I have been a big fan of the StackExchange sites. They are extremely well crafted applications that fill a really important need on the web. I was miserable when there were two sites (uxexchange.com) and (ui.stackexchange.com) which split the community in half, so I was happy when they consolidated to just one (ux.stackexchange.com). I had…
I went to REI on Fathers Day. They told me something fascinating. Their return policy is “Keep the receipt, but otherwise, bring it back whenever you want for any reason. Even if you lose the receipt, that’s ok.” WOW! With this knowledge in my head, I walked straight to the shoe department and bought me…
In any project, the first step is to try and architect your solution. How is this going to be done? If you need to paint your house, just getting your supplies, choosing your colors and scheduling the work takes a significant portion of time. Painting that first wall is the hump. After that, you can…
I used to watch Tony Blair answer questions to the House of Commons. He seemed brilliant to me, but the best part was his book. This book seemed to have magical powers. It contained every detail imaginable to help Tony answer questions. How many garbage cans were knocked over last week in the south end…
Product Design (when done correctly) requires alot of thinking. Thinking about the past, present and future of your product, customers and roadmap. Thinking about the Past Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. – George Santayana, Reason in Common Sense The most common form of this thinking is related to patterns. You…
I think there is an art to job postings. Many of them don’t get read and the candidate only reads the title. I know I have been guilty of not reading the text. Mainly, I think it’s because most of the text is completely inane. Must have 5+ years of experience in a 3 year…
If you want something done right, your going to have to do it yourself. The proverb has a long history beginning with Miles Coverdale in Matrymonye (1541): That whych thou cannest do conueniently thyselfe commytte it not to another. I was talking to engineer who was distraught. He was frustrated because he spent about 2…
I love pencils. I use the Dixon Ticonderoga 2HB pencils. They are not splintery and sharpen well. I have an electric sharpener on my desk. I sharpen the pencil before I go into meetings. I use them in my notebook to take notes or doodle. Example from last week: Doodling has been proven to help…
Two people sitting at a desk is the most productive form of communication. The reason is that there is a simple interaction model. You have each person communicating and listening to only one person. There is a reason Pair Programming isn’t called Triple or Quadruple Programming. Each person you add to the mix makes communication…
This might seem counter-intuitive, but I’ll try and explain. First 30 Customers When you have only a few customers, you can lavish attention on them. The first 30 customers, you can give them your personal instant messenger, have lunch with them, go to their offices and get to know their kids. You can turn the…
The other day, Marketo hosted the first UX Eye for the Developer Guy Mid Peninsula edition. For those of you who don’t know, UX Eye is a meetup of 30-50 designers, engineers, entrepreneurs and product managers. The format is set up so 1-3 companies can demo their product and the group could do some pure unadulterated User Experience Design.…
I told a few people about JIRA Client and got a nearly universal response. They were confused as to what I was talking about. The confusion, I believe stems from the name of the product. JIRA has a web interface out of the box. Some people call the browser in a web application the “client”.…
Recently, we moved from one project/bug system to JIRA with GreenHopper. The system is highly programmable with lots of plugins and so far, we have made good strides forward. It’s not perfect by any means, but so far, so good. One area I have not been thrilled is the GreenHopper interface. Some people here love…
I absolutely loved this article by Paul Graham called Makers Schedule, Managers Schedule. It basically describes the cadence difference between people who are in meetings most of the day and people who have deliverables like designers or programmers. I drew charts to illustrate: Notice that the manager has meetings all day in one-hour chunks. For…