Wihtout equivocation, and with some surprise, I can report that Microsoft’s Metro Guidelines are by far the best. They are well organized, with helpful but simple illustrations, and content that is lean and mean. Little touches, like this piece on converting an iPad app to Metro, are not only well executed, but also address a critical business need — encouraging adoption of the Metro OS — as well as a developer need.

By contrast, Android and Apple’s iOS guidelines are, frankly, messy, difficult to navigate, wordy, and lacking helpful examples.

In a future post: why I think Android and iOS should adopt (steal?) some of Metro’s excellent UX metaphors.

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Let me know what you think on Twitter: @mmcwatters

I’m excited to report that I’m currently working on an app for the new Windows 8 OS. As a lifelong Mac user and avid iOS fan, it’s nonetheless exciting to be designing for a totally new platform like Windows 8, with its unique visual language that eschews skeumorphism, and innovative wayfinding schemas.

The timeline is aggressive, the project scope ambitious, and it feels like navigating uncharted territory; in other words, it’s just what I like!

For the sake of confidentiality, I can’t report more than this, but as things progress, I’ll post updates.

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Let me know what you think on Twitter: @mmcwatters

In the healthcare space, they’re called patients. In the commerce space, they’re called customers. In the professional services space, they’re called clients.

But when we’re talking about how they interact with our digital systems and products, we suddenly start calling them ‘users.’ Heck, my field is called User Experience.

But let’s think about that first word: user. Not very warm, is it? Cold, clinical, abstract, it hardly suggests a sentient being.

But users are people. They have wants and needs; they get angry, they feel joy; they have hopes and fears. In fact, there really is no ‘they,’ because they are us. We are them.

This clarification of terms is more than just a nicety: when we use a dehumanizing term for our target audience, it’s easier to do things that serve our own needs first. It’s easier to make decisions based on organizational convenience and expediency rather than the needs of those we’re supposedly serving.

The term ‘user’ has its place, don’t get me wrong. But as much as possible, we who are in the business of building digital experiences should remember that, ultimately, our goal is to serve people.

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Let me know what you think on Twitter: @mmcwatters

Most of the time, a broken user experience has little to do with the design or implementation of the UX itself. Scrape the surface of even the smallest problems, and you’ll usually find:

• A broken product
• A broken organization
• A broken set of priorities
• Some combination of the above

All too often, our job as UX professionals isn’t to make something good even better. No, it’s to take something which is fundamentally broken — for the reasons noted above — and to try to hide that problem from users in the hopes of preventing further damage.

So here is a plea to companies, organizations or even individuals who want to build better user experiences: make sure your product works, your organization is aligned, and your priorities are in order before you set to work trying to improve your UX. Only then is true success possible.

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Let me know what you think on Twitter: @mmcwatters.

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 the way to richer, more immsersive and engaging experiences.

He was generous with his expertise, a good writer and speaker and, from what I’ve heard, a true gentleman.

RIP, Hillman.

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Let me know what you think on Twitter: @mmcwatters.

Here are some items I recently read and recommend.

Matt Gemmell describes what makes an interface attractive (to him, at least) in this article entitled Augmented Paper.

Curious about the difference between Adaptive and Responsive web / mobile design? Here are two articles that might help clear things up…or not:

• Adaptive vs. Responsive, What’s the Difference?
• Responsive & Adaptive Web Design

Josh Clark argues that Jakob Nielsen, usability guru, is wrong about mobile. (I agree.)

The Piracy Threshold by Matt Gemmell.

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Let me know what you think on Twitter: @mmcwatters.

If you, like me, feel that Apple Mail is suffering from feature bloat, getting slower and more unwieldy with each new release, Sparrow might be the minimalist alternative you’re looking for. Sparrow allows you to focus on email without distractions. As such, it foregoes some niceties (and even some must-haves), but after using it for a few weeks, I’m a convert.

Here is my micro-review:

Pros:

• Very fast. Feels much zippier than Apple Mail. No beachballs.
• Minimalist, but not unattractive, UI
• Focus is on mail, and little else
• Free with ads (paid version is ad-free)
•  Supports Gmail shortcuts
• Allows sending of large attachments via DropBox or CloudApp
• Facebook integration

Cons:

• No ability to move messages between accounts
• Threaded view is a bit confusing and can’t be turned off
• Attachment handling via DropBox and CloudApp could be more intuitive
• Minimalism means giving up some niceties, like composition preferences

I never thought I’d find a need to replace Apple Mail with a third-party option, but then I never thought I’d feel the need to replace iCal, and now I only use Fantastical to manage my calendar. Sparrow needs some work, especially when it comes to viewing and managing threaded messages and handling multiple email accounts, but for me, at least, it’s nimbleness and speed outweigh these minor inconveniences.

Note: Sparrow also has an iPhone app, and I wouldn’t be surprised if an iPad version was in the works as well.

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Let me know what you think on Twitter: @mmcwatters.

Home page work in progress.

Making progress on the designs for my experimental project with Jamie Forrest, The Tweet Hereafter.

The term “autism spectrum” is a bit of a misnomer, as it’s not actually spectrum in a linear sense at all.

In this post on my other blog, I illuminate how I’ve tackled the problem and hopefully created a more accurate, easier to understand diagram explaining where an individual might be on the so-called autism spectrum.

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 history of the GIF today, it still rankles to hear seemingly intelligent people say “JIF.”

I would tell them exactly what I told that Web producer nearly 15 years ago: “If you insist on saying ‘JIF,’ I’m going to start saying ‘Gay-PEG.’”

“Sure!” he said. I fired up Think-Sudoku, and handed him my iPad. I showed him that, unlike other sudoku apps, mine had a unique way of entering numbers. I also explained that, unlike most other apps, mine would have an unlimited number of games.

He was excited, and asked when he could buy it. I’ll take that as a good sign. I asked how much he would pay. “I don’t know…two or three dollars?” This confirms the price point I had in my head.

There’s nothing like a little user testing. Even on the subway.

The other day I found a page from a 20-year-old old sketchbook, and for the life of me I can’t remember why I was sketching a portrait and a cartoon spaceman on the same sheet of paper.

You’ll rarely go wrong by simplifying.

A simple, obvious thought, but one that can elude even the brightest among us at times. Often when I think I’ve hit a wall, I’ll remind myself to trim, strip, shave, and reduce. You can always build back up again, if you like.