CompUSA is closing it’s doors. Apparently they are being liquidated. So now is the time to purchase electronics if one is near you. Maybe a color printer! It’s amazing to me how long it takes for predictions to come true. In the 80’s they said, “Computers will make a paperless office”. We still aren’t paperless,…
I added print.css to the blog. This is something I hardly ever do, but should. Printing is important. Now commadot.com prints properly. Mostly I hid things. But I found I had to update a few fonts and alignments. #body_left, #hero, #search, a.postToggle, div.item_panel, #header2, #footer, div.navigation, #comm_form { display:none } * * { font-family: verdana;…
User Experience Architect: “So guys, I am going to go to the user and try the product. Does the basic use case work?” Engineer: “Yes, it works.” Quality Assurance: “Yes, it works.” User after trying it: “No, it doesn’t work.” Engineer: “Must be user error.” Which part of the joke is funny? It doesn’t really…
Yesterday, someone I know had a bad day. It is a common occurence. Everyone has a bad day once in a while. It colors your whole outlook. How do these things happen? Bad days can be triggered by any number of things. Some are: Physical environment. If you are too hot, too cold, slept funny,…
Yesterday, I was struggling to achieve a basic goal. I wanted to list out the sections of the application and specify all the different buttons and menus and features. It was basically a quick outline of the product to be used as a UI specification doc. There are lots of task managers, but none achieved…
In any non-trivial piece of software you have alot of features. Often, there is a bug in some of those features. In the rollout phase of software, there are usually ALOT of bugs. People use the word “beta” to mean buggy, but it carries a deadly payload. When a user encounters one bug, they will…
I love the Web. I have loved it since Netscape 1.0 in 1994. Here is why, in the form of two stories. Thanksgiving, 1996, there were not that many websites in general, but there were a bunch. My step-mother said, “The internet is a fad. Mark my words, it will be gone in a couple…
I haven’t used Listernine in years. I was in Rite-aid this morning, buying Claritin and I saw the Listerine. I was looking for one for the kids, but I thought it might be better to try it on my own first. It’s ADA certified so I felt confident. I took a swing and started swishing…
We had a nice Thanksgiving this year. Penny was happy. Katie was happy, but not taller than Darcie. The kids got to ride their bikes in an empty mall parking lot. Ethan got to cook a little. Ben and Darcie were happy with their new baby Henry. All the extended family was there. Everyone had…
A new updated Internet Explorer tool is on the scene called DebugBar. I was excited at first for this tool because I think IE has no decent tools. However, my hopes were soon dashed. I might be stupid and it was there and I couldn’t see it, however, I could not find out how to…
A couple of years ago, I was interviewing for an interaction design position as Opsware. At the time, my only interaction design experience was with Hotkoko. They took interaction design super-seriously. Their work products were top-notch with every conceivable detail spelled out. I was thoroughly impressed. The product also looked really good. The head of…
I just couldnt get my head around the new easing naming conventions. (jQuery Plugin) So I made a cheat sheet page. (REMOVED) The naming convention is so techie. I really can’t get my head around them and what they mean. Some of them are so subtle in their differences, I can’t even tell if it’s…
Why do I care about PageRank? It’s not like I have, nor desire, any ads. I don’t even have much traffic. Yet, recently when my pageRank went from 4 to 5 in the google toolbar, I got this warm feeling. It makes me wonder if there is a UX nugget in here somewhere. How can…
I often see technology out there that is solid, but lacking a tiny bit of the details from a UX perspective. Or I would like to extend it a little bit more for a UX reason. When that happens, every once in a while, someone tells me I am “complaining” and says, “Why don’t you…