RIP Hillman Curtis
I was saddened this morning to learn of the untimely passing of Hillman Curtis. Hillman was a true Web pioneer, a digital adventurer. He was someone who saw the potential of the Internet when others saw only limitations. For those of us who were building the Web in the mid- and late-90s, Hillman showed us ...
It’s Not Peanut Butter
In the late 90s I was working with a web producer (remember those?) who insisted on saying, “JIF.” I finally snapped. “It’s GIF, not JIF! It stands for Graphics Interchange Format. Note the word is ‘graphics,’ not ‘giraffics.’” To which he wisely replied, “Who cares?” He’s absolutely right. Nonetheless, watching this cute video about the ...
Easy and Hard
Recently I was asked why I suggested a Cancel button be moved to the right of a Delete button in a dialogue box. The confusion was understandable: in this particular UX, the paradigm had been established that termination actions were on the left, whereas continuation actions were on the right. My response was that, since ...
What I Do
Describing what I do for a living to people unfamilar with the UX profession often elicits confused looks and/or polite head nodding. With that in mind, a few months ago I asked several UX professionals whom I admire how they describe what they do for a living. I received some great answers, and one of my ...
The Backlash Backlash
We all know the story: Facebook introduces a new feature or revises an existing feature, and there’s a cacophonous outcry from disgruntled users. Then, time passes, and people get used to the changes. Or they don’t, but they get by anyway. But this time there’s a backlash backlash afoot, people who are frustrated by those ...
User in Chief
The genius of Steve Jobs is not in his creative or technical chops, but in his ability to be the ultimate user. He is able to tap into his own sensibilities to discern what will be great, and what will be a flop. More to the point, however, he is driven by his own own ...
Tablet: Big Phone, Small PC, or Other?
Someone once called television “radio with pictures.” I think this is an apt analogy for the argument that tablets are neither small PCs nor big phones. If you use a tablet for any period of time, you realize pretty quickly you’re not interacting with it the same way you would with a phone or PC. ...
Share Early, Share Often
There’s a natural tendency to want to share your work with your client only when you feel it’s really buttoned-up and nailed down. However, years of experience have taught me that the earlier and more frequently you share your work with your client, the better off you’ll be in the long run. Sure, some clients ...
Marketing for Suckers?
An interesting discussion here, following the question, “Is marketing what you do when your product sucks?” My response: There is a misconception that great products don’t need marketing. Well, if that were the case, I don’t think Apple would invest as much as it does in marketing. Or, look at TiVo: a brilliant product that was ...
Information is Mercurial
Some believe that “information wants to be free.” It’s an interesting concept, but as Daniel Jalkut more accurately stated it, “information wants to be everywhere.” I think information is like mercury. If you’ve ever seen it in its natural state, mercury is quite easily penned up in any container, but as soon as it’s released, ...
Even Invoices Matter
You only get a few chances to make a connection to your customers, so you should treat them with great care. Even the most humble, workaday communications provide an opportunity to develop a meaningful rapport. Take the email invoice I received from Plywerk, a small, eco-friendly art supply company in Portland, OR: it could have ...
Ignore the Context
Yesterday I received the email pasted below (apparently it made the rounds a couple of years ago, but I somehow missed it). It is based on a true, and very cool, story. The lesson as outlined in the email is a standard saw: don’t let life pass you by. However, I think there’s another lesson ...
