I Voted
October 30th, 2008
So should YOU.
A couple of thoughts
October 30th, 2008
It’s time to stop reading and start creating.
I spend a lot of time reading about software products. I also spend a lot of time deciding whether features of other software products are worth incorporating into the products I personally design and build. While I think it’s important to consider what the competition is doing, the sheer volume of what’s out there can be stifling to productivity.
Don’t always look to improve.
I’m often asked to review designs to see how well they work. I always have to remind myself that the purpose of this exercise isn’t necessarily for me to improve something but rather to understand what the goals are and whether or not the design is an appropriate solution for those goals. If it is appropriate, leave it alone. Don’t overdesign something if it already works.
Back From Vacation
October 23rd, 2008
After two weeks off, we now return to your regularly scheduled sporadic updates. I have a lot to catch up on but here a few items to tide you over:
Gary Flake - Fast Company article about how he was convinced to join Microsoft and how he’s working as a change agent within that company.
Google Analytics API - Google announced quite a few new enterprise features for its analytics product. This includes an API. The wheels are turning.
Nielsen on Email - Love him or hate him, at least he’s thorough. Jakob Nielsen’s latest Alertbox explores the usability of transactional/confirmation email messages.
Weekly Roundup (UX Edition)
October 5th, 2008
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything related to user experience design so this week’s roundup is dedicated to getting back on topic:
ProtoShare - Interesting web app for creating wireframes and prototypes. I haven’t used this but it does look promising.
Inside Google’s Design Process - “Design is integral to everything we do. We don’t say ‘here’s a feature, here’s a spec, now go and build it.’ We design it, we build a prototype and we make it real…” This looks to be an approach being adopted by a large number of individuals and organizations and I personally find it to be very effective.
Calculating Color Contrast for Legible Text - Color + Code = Nice Solution.
Alan Cooper Quotes - “If a 10-year-old child behaved like software, he’d be sent to his room without supper.”
Sketching Tutorials - A large collection of videos, from MIT, about sketching.