World Usability Day was established in 2005 by the Usability Professionals Association. Each year, design professionals come together to discuss how to “develop technologies in a way that serves people first.” On November 8, 2018, professionals met at almost 100 locations around the world to discuss the how to “Make Life Easy.” I attended World Usability … Read more What Can Usability Teach Us About Working Together?
What makes a good story? More specifically, does a good story require a specific format? I’m intrigued by some experimental storytelling formats I’ve discovered recently. I’m not convinced they entirely work, but I applaud the attempts. Try out the following: Phone Stories Check out Popup Magazine’s Phone Stories. Call 415.452.6057 to hear someone tell you … Read more Once Upon a Time: Experiments in Storytelling
Ugg. Another group project. Aside from the drain that group project work puts on introverts (or, in Myer-Briggs’ nomenclature, those INTJs like me), group projects can be awful. It is practically professional suicide to suggest that you hate group projects and that, more over, they aren’t the most efficient and effective way to complete projects. But … Read more Collaboration: Ecstasy & Agony
Unless you have put an extraordinary amount of effort into embracing your inner luddite for the last few months–not to mention avoiding most of literate humanity–you’ve at least heard of Serial. Serial is the podcast phenomenon narrated by This American Life‘s Sarah Koenig, which takes listeners on an investigative journey the 1999 murder of 17 … Read more Information Design and “Serial”
Like many in the Sandwich Generation, lately I’ve been spending an unfortunate amount of time thinking about the hazards of growing old–especially when you are poor–today. When you go to the hospital you get great care (expensive, I’m sure), but your out-of-hospital care is crappy. After a couple of weeks out of the hospital, back … Read more A Fitbit For Grandma
Paper prototypes can seem passe with all the cool tools that allow users to react to initial concepts. But At TecEd in Ann Arbor they took it to a whole new level. Creating an entire operating room in a small conference room in their office, they were able to get feedback on a new design. … Read more A Whole New Type of Paper Prototype
Recently I’ve been working with clients that want to encourage some kind of political or social action from their users. Nonprofit organizations, in particular, often want to encourage some type of action from users: write you congressman, sign a petition, donate to end poverty. I’ve been a little horrified at the poor approach many of … Read more Designing for Empathy–and Action
I got a chance to play with Google Glass recently. I was not one of the many people instantly attracted to it when I first heard about it, so I was amazed to discover that I really liked it! The display is not distracting (or not as distracting as I feared) and it is … Read more Google Glass: Unexpectedly Fun
The most engaging human-computer interaction in the movie Her is the embodied, almost immersive gameplay, punctuated by the hilarious interactions with the foul-mouthed cartoon kid with the giant head. But the most pervasive input type by far in the movie is conversational; almost the entire movie is a conversation between the main character (the amazing … Read more Say What? Respect Your OS
I recently worked with a team to develop a site to promote a vacation rental property. The client has a lovely second home in the Orlando area that he makes available for rent. While he has a relationship with a local property management company, he wants to promote and rent the home himself. The client … Read more UX Doesn’t End With the Final Click
