XKCD nailed it again. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this and it’s always the same. I think the most guilty of this has to be LinkedIn. They constantly send emails and then load the “touch” version of their site (which I have to say, takes about 1 full minute to load) [...]
I’m excited that Bureau of Trade is finally back and will be releasing its own products (with the help of Esquire). I got turned onto this group a few years ago. They present an amazingly fun daily digest of (generally men’s) products around a theme – from sailing the Cape of Good Hope to playing [...]
Games are deeply embedded into Chinese culture, so playful interaction is needed to entice more users. How do you tap into a culture of competition. Scale is Huge – How do you rethink your UI/UX to account for actions in the hundreds of thousands? Safety is of huge concern in China. Seatbelts, however, are rarely [...]
DIY has caused an influx of mass customization and rapid propogation of ideas wants massive customization (3-D printing technologies, open source software). Makers will start to own the interaction model through environmental changes. The old model is massive variation leading to a favorite construct, leading to slightly less variation, leading again to a favorite construct. [...]
Gamestorming! Use the 6/8/5 sketch method to rapidly get ideas out on paper without huge overhead. Does it pass the sniff test? Use feedback from sketches to influence design – people are more likely to give feedback on low-fi mockups. Iterate, sketch, and play with ideas to work the bad ideas out of your head. [...]
The more information you need, the worse off you are – users only want you to have the data you really need. Flow is important to gaining traction in small apps – every button, field, etc. is a new risk of losing a potential user. Build on networks people are already using. Facebook, Google +, [...]
In the Desktop world devs are often concerned with browsers, their capabilities, and their shortcomings. Differences in browsers account for most of the code changes. In the mobile space, that’s been take care of. Mobile FF, Opera Mini, and Webkit all provide a very similar, up-to-date experience on a wide array of devices. A new [...]
Consider context through research, it’s better than asking. The Model T was invented through research, Microsoft Clippy was invented through asking. Think about context in the environment for which you will be designing for. Touch for iPad is amazing, but in space nasa found that astronauts could not use touch the same way, physics was [...]
“The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products used every day have an effect on people and their well-being.” – Dieter Rams I’m not gonna argue with the man. I’ve been thinking a lot lately of how much stuff I have. It’s all about what I have vs. what I [...]