UX Booth has a nice article about dealing with user error, and they use an eBay clip as a good example. Props to Carrie Buckingham and Mark Lapole who designed the icon and treatment (and who are part of my awesome team.)
Archive for the ‘design’ Category
Handing User Error with Care
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009Kill Your Darlings
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009Great article from Forbes.com author Nilofer Merchant about how sometimes you have to get rid of your precious ideas. Resonates with me because I just had to let go of a particular design direction that I thought was sparse and beautiful, but just wasn’t a big enough change.
Vacation!
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009Just got back from a road trip with Todd to Yosemite, Mono Lake and Tahoe. Wow. Days and days of real beauty – it truly is healing. We hiked and drew and took many many photos (with my new iphone.) I am refreshed.
Check out the pics on flickr.
Indulgent personal story
Monday, June 29th, 2009I’ve written a long post over on open salon about my Bat Mitzvah – which was many many years ago today. Lots of silly pics of my family…
Infinite Summer
Monday, June 22nd, 2009Some friends have dared me to participate in the infinite summer readathon, and I’ve just downloaded the book to my kindle. Check out the site – lots of interesting facts and advice on how to get through this amazing work.
The challenge
Join endurance bibliophiles from around the world in reading Infinite Jest over the summer of 2009, June 21st to September 22nd. A thousand pages1 ÷ 92 days = 75 pages a week. No sweat.
1. Plus endnotesa.
a. A lot of them.
Looking at the calendar I’ve got to get to page 63 by friday – already I am behind!
Ooh la la prototyping
Monday, June 15th, 2009Just had a really great conversation with my team about innovation, mental models, navigation and visual hierarchy. What helped spark all this great thinking? An interactive prototype showing three slightly different versions of an idea. The designer worked with a prototyper – it took about a week to turn around, because as it was coded she began to codify the design and work through the interactions. The team topped it all off with an interesting design review where we openly discussed the various model’s successes and failures, what we might change/add, and how we might use the prototypes to sell our idea.
Now this may not seem out of the ordinary for many of you, but our development model here has been not to waste effort, and that means prototype using reusable code. For me, that just defeats the purpose, but changing how things are done is not an easy feat. I am working to sell the idea of prototyping at all levels – from designers and dev to PMs and biz folks. But its slow.
In the past, I’ve been all about prototyping – from quick and dirty paper sketches to throw-away html. Or full-color mocks linked to mimic an interactive experience. Depending on what we were trying to learn of course. We are designing interactive experiences – we need to think about those interactions, and only using mocks/wireframes doesn’t always cut it. We have to think about the entire experience.
I see people turn their heads and quickly look away
Sunday, June 14th, 2009I have a new condo and can’t stop looking at furniture online. I am torn between my love for ornate, traditional details (like moldings on bookcases) and retro modern stuff from the mid 50s. I seem to want a formica kitchen set! I already have (lets say) eclectic taste. So I look through great sites but cant make any decisions.
I just don’t know what to do with myself
Sunday, September 14th, 2008I’ve been watching a new series on AMC called Mad Men, about advertising folks in 1960, and I’m really struck by the titles. I think they are definitely an homage to Saul Bass, who created some of the most memorable work ever. See a gallery of examples, particularly “the Man with the Golden Arm”, “North by Northwest” and “The Seven Year Itch.”
I am actually a little bit obsessed with film titles. Some of my favorites:
There’s a whole generation with a new explanation
Monday, March 5th, 2007Just spent a few glorious days in NYC at the AIGA Gain conference.
A few takeaways:
- Why do designers wear uniforms? (I know we really don’t officially, but how many of us wore rectangle glasses, mostly black, interesting messenger bags and artful hairstyles?)
- Tom Kelley is smart, engaging, and quite the storyteller. I admire his enthusiasm and style. I’m a Tom Kelley groupie.
- Many of the presenters spoke about their user-centered methodology, using ethnography and empathy to see the solutions that are just staring at us in the face, and my teams have been doing this stuff for longer than I can remember. Wow — I’m on the leading edge! Who’d have thunk it?
- I am re-inspired to design thoughtfully — I can use design to do good
- Everyone has trouble articulating design rationale’s to non-designers. I am not alone.
- My friends Jody, Wendy and Marcy are the best and I miss them.
Lately things just don’t seem the same
Thursday, December 14th, 2006This morning I had a phone conversation with a “design luminary,” someone who used to lead the UX dept of a former company. It was just a catch up — and we both talked about our respective teams, challenges and processes.
There was much gossip about mutual friends too.
But what got me really excited was when we talked about our design philosophies — essentially she believes that the traditional model of a creative director’s vision executed by a team of designers doesn’t make for innovative experience design, and I’m in total agreement. I’ve ranted previously about the value of design reviews — one of the most basic positives of a more natural collaborative design process is that the team dynamic can really inspire iterative ways of thinking. I strive to be the kind of leader who trusts the team to do what they do best — and when they surprise me I get inspired. Its not about me being the alpha designer — its about making the best product we can.
