January 2013
3 posts
This won’t fit into a tweet. And sorry, it’s about job titles so feel free to scoot off.
A client recently asked me why I winced when describing myself as a ‘User Experience Designer’. Well, apart from the obvious embarrassment of it being a ridiculously pompous title, it has deeper ramifications when working with teams (almost always). It suggests user experience is the domain of an individual....
Anti-totem
I enjoyed episode 69 of 99% Invisible: The Brief and Tumultuous Life of the New UC Logo. It was fascinating for all the usual reasons that designers find the religious debates around logo-reboots interesting. We sympathise with the poor misunderstood designer. We chuckle at the well meaning but ignorant opinion of the layman. Before finally returning – with a collective sigh – to where we were...
2 tags
Metadesign at Hack Farm
A bunch of us – mainly Clearleft, but also co-conspirators Jessica, Mike, Brian and Andy – recently went on a thing called Hack Farm. We even made a site about it. And just-enough of a product. It was fun and I feel very honoured to be part of a team of enormously talented people.
I have to admit my interest in Hack Farm was weighted towards the process rather than the output itself. Part of my...
December 2012
1 post
“Leadership is 50 percent fiction/50 percent nonfiction. That is to say,...”
– Bobulate
October 2012
1 post
2 tags
“Design is no longer concerned only with things. Increasingly, design is...”
– Hugh Dubberly
September 2012
3 posts
This is rude:
This is not:
Let’s be polite. Especially when starting relationships.
I stumbled on this earlier.
It is, of course, a faux-leather-bound, vintage TV with a side-protruding, retro camera lens.
I was reminded of Russell’s Wired piece about the absence of futureness.
Everywhere the current look is classic, vintage and plain. We’re dressing like artisanal leather workers with sidelines in egg collecting and a thing for moustache wax. Where are the...
2 tags
Her: Tell me when you’ve worked out what it is.
Me: No, that’s kinda the point. I want to tell you so I can work out what it is.
James Burke says we ‘abhor complexity, and seek to simplify things whenever we can by whatever means we have at hand.’ I agree.
He also says ‘through fear of chaos we impose system on it’. I agree, again.
And we talk about the these kind of systems a...
July 2012
3 posts
“Beyond a certain critical mass, a building becomes a Big Building. Such a mass...”
– Brute Force Architecture and its Discontents - etc Rem Koolhaas, Bigness essay in S,M,L,XL
“They [clients] effectively pay a premium for an agency who knows what they’re...”
– Client/Agency Engagement is F*cked, Waterfall UX Design is a Symptom | disambiguity
“If you freeze an idea too quickly, you fall in love with it. If you refine it...”
– Jim Glymph, Gehry Partners
June 2012
1 post
“Unlike products, services are often designed or modified as they are delivered;...”
– Everything is a service
May 2012
1 post
2 tags
“The biggest impediment to service innovation is not a lack of ideas. It’s the...”
– Everything is a service
April 2012
2 posts
“Or consider this 2009 experiment, published in Science. The psychologists, at...”
– The Psychology of Architecture | Wired Science | Wired.com
“We’ll get to why this is important and necessary in a moment, but first we...”
– A radical manifesto for teaching computing | Education | The Observer
July 2011
3 posts
“Maybe tiki taka, like democratic government, is fast emerging as the only game...”
– Keep Calm and Carry On - The Run of Play
June 2011
1 post
“I see an analogy between the process of science and of evolution by natural...”
– Vilayanur Ramachandran, Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and professor with the Psychology from Responses | 2011 Annual Question | Edge
April 2011
1 post
5 tags
“Design for a world where Google is your homepage, Wikipedia is your CMS, and...”
– http://www.slideshare.net/reduxd/beyond-the-polar-bear
March 2011
2 posts
3 tags
“What’s the take-away? When you are solving a difficult problem re-ask the...”
– You Are Solving The Wrong Problem « Aza on Design
3 tags
February 2011
1 post
6 tags
On pause
I’m sitting in a restaurant. I pick up the menu and my choice is made: Eggs Benedict it is. The waiter approaches – he’s called Dave – and I place my order. Dave dutifully records my choice, smiles and retreats to the kitchen.
With little more than a grunt, Hans (the chef) takes the order from Dave and sets to work on my breakfast. He’s done this a million times.
After just a few...
January 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Enduring principle
“No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled. Nor will we proceed with force against him, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land. To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.”
Composed in 1215, this (design?) principle from The Magna Carter remains as relevant to today’s...
3 tags
“A gesture is an action that you finish without conscious thought once you have...”
– design rules by Jef Raskin - mprove.de
December 2010
1 post
“If you tell your barber that you like it short, but your significant other likes...”
– http://weblog.muledesign.com/2010/12/giving_better_feedback.php
November 2010
1 post
3 tags
“It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.”
– Voltaire
October 2010
2 posts
1 tag
“…let’s be honest: although most of us have plenty of perfectly serviceable...”
– http://www.43folders.com/2010/10/05/distraction
2 tags
“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he...”
– Leo Tolstoy
September 2010
2 posts
Watch
August 2010
1 post
“So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to...”
– The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - Chapter 4 (In a nutshell, this is Franklin’s Gambit)
June 2010
5 posts
“We agreed to hurt people who tell others “Looks like someone who has too much...”
– What I learned at FOO Camp ‘10 « Scott Berkun
WatchNorman Mailer and Marshall McLuhan Debating 1968
3 tags
“What’s the right approach to new products? Pick three key attributes or...”
– Paul Buchheit: If your product is Great, it doesn’t need to be Good.
1 tag
“It’s strange, but when I have to speak in front of an audience, I find it more...”
– What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki Murakami.
May 2010
6 posts
1 tag
WatchJohn Conway’s Game of Life on a monome (of course)
The Rules
For a space that is ‘populated’:
Each cell with one or no neighbors dies, as if by loneliness.
Each cell with four or more neighbors dies, as if by overpopulation.
Each cell with two or three neighbors survives.
For a space that is ‘empty’ or ‘unpopulated’
Each cell with three neighbors...
3 tags
““In David’s case,” Lombardo said, “he and Eric wrote a...”
– David Simon: Katrina and all that jazz | From the Observer | The Observer
2 tags
“There’s nothing wrong with the scientific study of usability. Until you pretend...”
– Don’t listen to Le Corbusier—or Jakob Nielsen : Cheerful
4 tags
“…experts are pragmatists, they re-set or re-frame the problem to make it...”
– Noise Between Stations » Two Things Design Experts Do That Novices Don’t
“Search is a way to harvest demand, not create it.”
– Dropbox’ Drew Houston
“The Marimba Phenomenon is what happens when you spend more on PR and marketing...”
– Massive Frontal PR is incompatible with Ship Early and Often - Joel on Software
April 2010
5 posts
“It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if...”
– Maslow’s hammer, Abraham Maslow
2 tags
“When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have...”
– Buckminster Fuller
3 tags
“What about those leaflets the POWs had on them, where they said we eat Belgian...”
– Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front.
1 tag
“So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to...”
– Benjamin Franklin - Wikiquote
March 2010
1 post
“Look, if you train a dog so that it eats only potatoes, and then after a while...”
– Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front.
February 2010
1 post
2 tags
iPad user experience guidelines
Support All Orientations
Enhance Interactivity (Don’t Just Add Features)
Flatten Your Information Hierarchy
Reduce Full-Screen Transitions
Enable Collaboration and Connectedness
Add Physicality and Heightened Realism
Delight People with Stunning Graphics
De-emphasize User Interface Controls
Minimize Modality
Rethink Your Lists
Consider Multifinger Gestures
Consider Popovers for Some...
