We all have to be somewhere. Street, cross street, floor, and at what time defines us all. FourSquare even lets you tell your friends where you are at all times. It’s amazing to me that you can meet someone in all four dimensions every single day. We are a pretty ingenious lot. I was thinking…
Design is decisions. How do you make those decisions? There are many competing schools of thought. I’ll break them down and give you my experience with them all. A/B or Multivariate Testing Focus Groups Hallway Testing Consensus CYA Going with your gut Going with your gut As you can see form the past 4 posts,…
Design is decisions. How do you make those decisions? There are many competing schools of thought. I’ll break them down and give you my experience with them all. A/B or Multivariate Testing Focus Groups Hallway Testing Consensus CYA Going with your gut Consensus CYA CYA stands for Cover Your Ass. It basically means that you…
Design is decisions. How do you make those decisions? There are many competing schools of thought. I’ll break them down and give you my experience with them all. A/B or Multivariate Testing Focus Groups Hallway Testing Consensus CYA Going with your gut Hallway Testing Also known as, “Hey, come look at my screen!” This is…
Design is decisions. How do you make those decisions? There are many competing schools of thought. I’ll break them down and give you my experience with them all. A/B or Multivariate Testing Focus Groups Hallway Testing Consensus CYA Going with your gut Focus Groups There is a famous story from Sony. Sony Corporation asked teenagers…
For anyone who has turned on the World Cup on television this question is pretty obvious. What the $*#!@ is that damn buzzing noise?? It sounds like a swarm of bees or that my TV speakers are broken. Turns out it is a VuVuZela, see below. This infernal device ruins the entire experience for me. …
In the past 10 years, I think I have changed healthcare about half a dozen times. For me it was easy, but for Katie (wife) it has been a nightmare. You see, she takes care of all the paperwork. Health care in the US (and probably elsewhere) is saturated with paperwork and confusing rules. It…
Alot of bad assumptions, especially by non designers on this topic. The question is: If you have several tabs to use in navigation and you want the user to pay more attention to certain ones, how should you arrange the tabs? The most obvious one is the left most tab (assuming left-to-right reading) should be…
People mix these up all the time. Sometimes for malicious reasons (trying to “game” the system”) and sometimes just because it’s easier to look at the letter of the law. I am not referring to just legalisms, but rather instructions from teachers or bosses. The spirit of the more important aspect of the mission, but…
There is a great way of hiding the fact that you have no idea what you are talking about. Bury the listener in a mountain of details. I have seen this many times and it’s depressing each and every time. In government, the initiatives, bills, proposals, etc are presented in a way that makes it…
I met with a smart guy who is building out a user experience strength at his company. He said that he was trying to make his product “Lickable and Lovable“. Of course, I have been a huge proponent of Lovable applications and services. However, lickable or “sexy” is a different adjective that has different connotations.…
Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead… only try to realize the truth. Neo: What truth? Spoon boy: There is no spoon. Neo: There is no spoon? Spoon boy: Then you’ll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself. I often see product managers or…
I compiled a list of blog posts that I think would work well in a UX book. The Best of Commadot.com The link is at the top too. I need to look through the archives to see if I missed some. I imagine I did. What do you think of the list? How many of…
Generally, my trip to Florida was pretty tame. Swam in the pool. Swam in the ocean. Went to the park. Melted in the heat and humidity. The boys had fun. One highlight was Butterfly World in Florida. The bar was set extremely low. Ethan thought it would be stupid. When we got there, they gave…