In Harry Potter, all of the newspapers have pictures that move by magic. The reality is that this magic is pretty much here now. My inexpensive digital camera takes photos or short video clips. You can take video clips with your iPhone too. These short video clips are downloaded off the camera by Picasa and…
For a long time now, we have been using TargetProcess at work as our work planning/bug tracking tool. At first I liked it OK. Over time I liked it less and less. At some point, we hit rock bottom and I said, “Let’s try and set this up again, but this time, let’s read the…
Chrome is the browser I reach for most of the time. Here is the good/bad/beautiful. Firs tthe good. Speed. It’s much faster than the other browsers in launching and loading. Everything jusgt seems faster in Chrome. Tabs. The details of the tabs are genius. The nice smooth lines with a gentle slope is much more…
Hi, My name is Glen and I am addicted to beta software. My latest fix comes from Office 2010. Even before the official beta program, a version of it was leaked to the web. Waht does Microsoft expect me to do? Ignore the leaked version!? Are they insane. Of course, I found it and installed…
I heard this concept from Victor Cho at Intuit a few years ago and just read about it again this morning in Small is the New Big by Seth Godin. The basic concept can be described in this picture. Let’s say you live on the little mound at the bottom (Island A). This is, in…
There are 5 ways that a user will guess how to do a certain function. Buttons/Links Menus Right-Click Drag and Drop Keyboard Shortcuts Each of these ways is more or less comfortable for a random user. Personally, I am a right-clicker. I right-click on everything and am usually disappointed. However, when it works, I am…
Microsoft named their new search engine “bing”. I don’t think they realize how lame that sounds. Every time I hear it, I think of this scene from Groundhog’s Day. (Great movie) I imagine Steve Balmer saying, “Yeah, i love it. They search for something and BING! they found it!” This is the same man who…
Recently, I was in some conversations about development practices. I believe the methodology used in a technology company has a huge impact on the quality of the product. I drew up a little diagram to show the differences under ideal conditions. To be as fair as possible, I had the product launch on the exact…
I couldn’t help myself. I downloaded and installed the Office 2010 technical preview. It’s definetely not baked all the way through, but it clearly shows the direction Microsoft is going. The big news is that Outlook now has a ribbon. Additionally, they have made some significant changes to the Outlook UI. There are two very…
A friend asked me for a list of books that are required reading for a User Experience developer. Specifically, this friend is a graphic designer and might want to branch out to UX in general. Feel free to add to my list here. The Design of Everyday Things and Emotional Design. Read these twice. They…
I was just talking with a friend about a product he thought had an excellent user experience. It is the Vibram FiveFingers shoe. These are really cool looking to me and I can easily see how they might be very comfortable. My friend said that they changed his life. He walks more now, hikes more.…
Always try to use verbs for your affirmative and negative actions. Imagine the button is a normal person (not an engineer) saying exactly what they want to do. Example: [Cancel My Subscription] [No, Keep it]. Make it crystal clear what the buttons mean. Never use OK and Cancel. OK isn’t clear. Besides, the user wants…
I recently lost a little $15 radio I had. It wasn’t fancy, but it was small and got the three stations I listen to. Since losing it, I tried to replace it and have struggled to find something decent. My first try was the iPod Radio adapter. It’s way too expensive at $50, but I…
Windows 7 has the capability to point the desktop wallpaper at a folder and it will change the background like a slide show. You can set it to change frequently up to once every ten seconds. This sounded nice to me, so I gave it a try. Clearly, no one on the Windows 7 design…