This is a universal statement. It is not what you do. It is how you do it. Some examples: MP3 players were pretty popular before the iPod came out. iPod added iTunes, the spinning dial and a nicer visual design. Same for iPhone’s touch screen and wifi access. Honda had the Insight hybrid for years…
Naming things is super important. People will like something or hate it based on appearances and names. See “Don’t Think of an Elephant” by Lakoff or “Blink” by Gladwell for more details, but suffice it to say, “People make decisions quickly based on very little criteria”. Microsoft is naming their next operating system “Seven” or…
Being in the software industry, this topic has been on my mind for years. What does Quality software mean? What are the trade-offs? When do you release the software? How does this affect the user experience? Examples: 1. Photoshop CS4. I purchased a copy of Photoshop CS4 about a month ago. At first I was…
Sometimes, you start the day and think, “The Jets are going to win, and I am not going to completely reinstall my operating system!” Well, it’s the end of the day and I was completely wrong. I first downloaded some photos off our newish Canon Powershot SD890IS. Then, I uploaded them to our Picasa web…
We have Verizon and love the service in general. Great reception compared to AT&T, which we had previously. We have had very simple LG phones for a long time. Since we have been in the contract for 2 years, we have the option of upgrading. Katie desires to check her Google Calendar from wherever she…
At work, I had noticed that there was s0me activity on Twitter around the product. In other words (for my mom), people were publically saying things about Marketo, some good and some bad. I joined twitter to see what the hubbub was. I now have Twitter account with actual tweets. Gee, that makes me feel…
Apple usually has great experience design. The one exception is their emails. They always show up and look horrible. They rely WAY too much on images and the result is that their presentation is unintelligible. On the left is the email the way it actually looks. On the right is how Apple intended it to…
I used to play aD&D (Advanced Dungeones and Dragons) when I was about 10 years old. It was made by a company called TSR. It was a great game that exercised my imagination and taught me how to think creatively. It also gave me a life-long appreciation for mythology and cross-culturalism. The books back then…
There is an old story I tell to describe a common engineering project that goes wrong. The Setup A customer wanted us to build a content management system for them. They insisted we use Linux/Perl instead of Windows/Cold Fusion. We had never used Linux/Perl before, but one of our employees said, “I can do it,…
I love when things are designed well. Recently, I had my teeth cleaned. I don’t go to the dentist enough, but when I do, I usually get all serious about my teeth for a few months. I was in the drug store looking for floss and spent about 10 minutes staring at the selection. It…
I don’t have the opportunity to use plugins as much as I would like. Today, I stumbled upon one that I think has excellent UX. It is the jQuery LightBox. Keyboard shortcuts, nice fade transitions, great usability for next/back and pleasant titles. If I were using a lightbox plugin, I think this is the one…
The sandbox is pretty easy to work with. I haven’t checked it in IE6, but things seem to be going smoothly. I decided a “cloud” motif. The truth is, I am not much of a graphic designer. I know what looks good, but I can’t produce my own stuff very easily. Clouds allow me to…
I just upgraded to WordPress 2.7 beta 2. It was confusing at first because I had a plagin that hid the tree on the left. It’s an interesting upgrade so far. Some things seem better for me, and some things just rub me the wrong way. It’s just a beta, so I am not terribly…
I just upgraded my work computer to Photoshop CS4 Standard. I am not a power user of Photoshop. Actually, I am just a hack, but I get alot done with it. Sort of like my jQuery skills. Before going in to the upgrade, I want to declare my pre-conceived notions. I had already assumed that…