Category: Uncategorized

What is the point of the UI Design review? to provide more information to ever increase the fidelity of the design with the understanding of the target workflows and users to communicate to the team to get buy-in from the team to critique design choices to challenge constraints What else happens in practice? an opportunity… Continue reading UI design reviews

This is brilliant design. A canvas containing cement allows the creation of a semipermanent structure in 24 hrs. The tent can be blown up and then soaked with water. After it dries the tent’s outer surface is cement and therefore durable. http://hunch.com/item/hn_3700624/

Wicked Problems in Design Thinking by Richard Buchanan This is a philosophical article on design and where design thinking belongs today. I was introduced to a few ideas and concepts that I had not encountered before. Most of the article is too “ivory tower” for me but I still woke up this morning thinking about… Continue reading Wicked Problems in Design Thinking

Here is the difference between good design and poor design from the visual standpoint. Stanford gives the information like this: http://www.stanford.edu/group/scspi/cgi-bin/facts.php A designer designed them like this: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663552/infographic-of-the-day-the-inequality-of-america?partner=homepage_newsletter See attached for big version.

Helen Walters explains what design thinking is and why it is useful. http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663480/helen-walters-design-thinking-buzzwords?partner=homepage_newsletter

“T-shaped is highly desired, but not sufficient. In staffing up teams, interview and test for I-shapedness. I don’t care how good someone is either at the pragmatic or abstract level, there is someone out there who is equally good and who has strength at both ends. Find that person.” – Bill Buxton http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jul2009/id20090713_332802.htm

I would love to create a design fair like the science fair. “An alarming study released last year found that American kids’ scores on tests measuring creativity have been steadily declining since 1990. The drop has serious implications for our nation’s competitiveness. A 1999 Department of Labor report outlining skills needed in the 21st-century workplace… Continue reading Teaching teens design

I thought this was pretty cool research that FastCompany review in an article. “Here’s one way you might use it: You’re on your usual early-morning jog. Your mp3 player is set to “shuffle.” A song comes up that you’ve heard one too many times. Instead of having to stop your run, take out your player,… Continue reading Alternate Input Device: Tapping Your Body

CIO Article: Politics in IT: Separate Operators From Performers How do you work with an operator?

Is this the antithesis of good interaction design? Build a car that requires you to plug in or attach to another car. This therefore requires that you negotiate with someone for every aspect of your trip. This is like the shortest thumbed ride ever. http://vimeo.com/4531703

Responsive Web design is the approach that suggests that design and development should respond to the user’s behavior and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation. The practice consists of a mix of flexible grids and layouts, images and an intelligent use of CSS media queries. As the user switches from their laptop to… Continue reading Responsive Web design

This is a great demonstration of using Kinect to operate a robot. This would be great for teaching people repetitive gross motor memory skills like I was doing at CRA. Having the ability to teach people how to enter a room and clear it requires repetitive actions and peripheral awareness. It would be interesting to… Continue reading Kinect Teloperation and Tutoring application

Top 12 UI designs of 2010 I want John’s Phone (a phone that sends and receives calls – that’s it) and would really like to try the Ref (a haptatic device to make you aware of your moods).

Secret of Success: Obsession You need to love what you do so much that you think about it all the time and do it all the time. That is the key differentiator. You need talent and intelligence, but it has to be coupled with obsession (or love as Malcolm says). http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2010/jul/26/secrets-of-success/

If you get a chance listen to these mini recordings of Tom Peters describing snippets from his new book. http://www.tompeters.com/books/little-big-things/ Do we want to deliver excellence? How do you do it?

The Bing-Facebook Alliance: Six Things You (and Google) Should Know is an article from Fast Company. The implications for Bing are interesting however for me as a user of these sites I have a distinct problem – my friends. Do I really want my searches influenced by the folks I have friended at this time.… Continue reading I need new friends ..

This is a great 54 min video on visualization with interviews with many people working visualization today. http://vimeo.com/14777910 by Geoff McGhee

About Face (Alan Cooper) Abstracting Craft: The Practiced Digital Hand (by Malcolm McCullough) Agile Experience Design (by Anders Ramsay) Card Sorting (by Donna Spencer) Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning (by: Dan Brown) Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems (Interactive Technologies) (by Hugh Beyer, Karen Holtzblatt) Design of Everyday Things (Don Norman)… Continue reading Design Books: A list Sept 2010

Laurie Rosenwald says that she does 100 things real fast and 99 are mistakes and she picks the 1 that is sort of ok and she uses that. http://vimeo.com/4152221 I love it. I have been walking around for the past few years telling everyone that 999 times out of a thousand I am wrong and… Continue reading Mistakes on Purpose

Barry Schwartz explains the paradox of choice: http://vimeo.com/4276540 Too much choice does not always mean better. Many times it leaves people feeling like they are missing something.

Are Your EEs Motivated by Only Money? Do your top performers work better if given more money? What are they motivated by? Dan Pink argues that they are motivated by 2 things assuming that they are paid correctly to begin with: Autonomy – I want to do want I am interested in Mastery – I… Continue reading Are Your EEs Motivated by Only Money?

What technologies work with which browsers? This site lets you narrow down what you are interested in quickly and compare across browsers and browser versions. http://caniuse.com/

What happens when human structures get too complex? They implode. http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/04/the-collapse-of-complex-business-models/ “In 1988, Joseph Tainter wrote a chilling book called The Collapse of Complex Societies. Tainter looked at several societies that gradually arrived at a level of remarkable sophistication then suddenly collapsed: the Romans, the Lowlands Maya, the inhabitants of Chaco canyon. Every one of… Continue reading What happens when human structures get too complex?

LukeW wrote up his notes from An Event Apart and had a couple of nuggets that I really liked. http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1051 “In his Emotional Interface Design talk at An Event Apart in Seattle WA, Aarron Walter talked about focusing on more than usability in Web application design by outlining ways to make stronger connections to people… Continue reading Design Expectations

How can you be more productive at work and on your team? Jason Fried of 37signals says that he and his team focus on not interrupting and reducing interruptions. Get into solving the problem and doing the work and ignore the interruptions. http://bigthink.com/ideas/18522