visual design & credibility
14 May 2013
"An organization of real human beings who are trying to address genuinely complex issues ought not generate a webpage as smooth and featureless as a bowlful of Maalox." http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/005850.html this is why Google's old design (2003 - 2009) was friendly...
Expensify's marketing reminds me of YUCK, not WIN.
5 March 2013
Expensify is pretty good software. At a previous job I tried getting our accounting department to use it, but apparently they preferred to make me print out their sadistic and nonsensical spreadsheet, fill it out, attach receipts, and then re-input...
Honorary mention: iTunes 11 via Farhad Manjoo (Slate)
29 November 2012
Won't Someone Take iTunes Out Back and Shoot It? Apple's horrible, bloated program needs to die. "Each new upgrade brings more suckage into your computer. It makes itself slower. It adds three or four more capabilities you'll never need....
MSFT usability disasters: Ignoring results
20 November 2012
I recently questioned whether executives, CEOs, and some product managers are even able to truly listen to the findings of user research. Quite a few of them, I've seen, are not able to truly absorb feedback that fundamentally conflicts...
Are startup founders able to really listen to user research?
6 November 2012
Just read Laura Klein's post Startups Shouldn't Hire User Researchers. She makes a lot of sense, but I found myself a little bit troubled by her conclusion. I agree completely with Klein's premise: User research is critical to startups. How...
A false consistency may be the hobgoblin of little minds...
2 November 2012
...but I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to bitch about how in iTunes full-window mode SPACE toggles between "pause" and "play", and in tiny-playbar-mode, it means "rewind to the beginning of the song and start it again"....
Clear: Validation logic should match page instructions.
6 September 2012
Registering for Clear (www.clearme.com), their password field says: Password: (minimum 8 letters, must include 1 number, no special characters) So I type a nice long passphrase. (What are "special characters"? Is a space "special"? Is a period "special"? Is...
Why save time? (Ghandi + Gilbreth quotes)
1 August 2012
Had this interaction with Hunter Walk on Twitter: @hunterwalk "But what do you want to save time FOR?" "...For mumblety-peg, if that's where your heart lies." -- Frank Gilbreth— Ellen Beldner (@ellenbeldner) August 1, 2012 The full quote, from Cheaper...
Tesla's Clever Brand+Product Strategy
27 July 2012
Will Oremus published a column in Slate about the Tesla S luxury sedan. The column was part tech review of the car and part cultural commentary on what it felt like to him to be driving a luxury forefront-of-technology...
Like being kicked when you're down: Fireworks File Recovery
25 July 2012
Me: Hmm, it's been a little while. About time to save this Fireworks file! [CMD-S] Fireworks CS5: *CRASH* Me: Good thing there's on-crash file recovery. MacOS: BigComplicatedProjectFile.fw.png size 232 bytes Me: Oh fuck. It lost my work. Why doesn't...
Design and uncertainty
11 July 2012
"We want a designer who really BELIEVES in their design. They should be willing to fight for it." "But what if your belief is wrong?" When I was graduating from CMU's HCI program a while back, I was asked to...
"The promotion of superstition and belief in paranormal phenomena dulls people's minds and establishes dangerous misconceptions about reality in our society."
9 July 2012
Via Slate / New Scientist A skeptic faces possible charges for debunking Mumbai's miracle statue. Sanal Edamaruku faces a Catholic backlash after insisting that the "holy" water dripping from a statue of Christ in Mumbai, India, came from a leaky...
Steve Jobs & the power of ideas (via Give it Five Minutes)
16 March 2012
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3124-give-it-five-minutes If you aren't sure why this is important, think about this quote from Jonathan Ive regarding Steve Jobs' reverence for ideas: And just as Steve loved ideas, and loved making stuff, he treated the process of creativity with a...
Apple: Tabbed Inspectors Suck; Adobe and Omni get it right.
29 February 2012
Could you PLEASE redesign your OS conventions for big screens? Or at least afford some expert accelerators for people with big monitors? This drives me nuts whenever I use Keynote. Most common tasks: Bullet points, type style changes, and borders on...
Miss Manners on Interaction Design*
21 February 2012
"People who are deluged with information on a subject in which they have limited interest (apologies to the couple, but such is life) do not become increasingly informed. Quite the opposite. They tune out." -- Miss Manners' Guide to a...