One of the iPad apps that most people think is inevitable is some kind of remote control for home entertainment systems, but I think the conventional wisdom on this isn’t thinking big enough because we just can’t shake the idea of a “remote controller”. The basic idea is that you’d throw away all your remote … Continue reading The Un-Remote
I just finished reading Lolita; it was my first time reading it, but it was not my first Nabokov novel (having already enjoyed Pale Fire and Ada or Ardor). It was a 1955 American hardback edition, the first year Americans got their hands on the book. I don’t understand why anyone buys new classic books … Continue reading Reading Lolita On Paper
After waiting six months on a pre-order waiting list, I finally got my Fitbit two months ago. I was really looking forward to it — as a big fan of the Nike+ running tracking system, I was excited about Fitbit’s promise to not only track my running and walking, but to track my sleep patterns … Continue reading For Sale: Fitbit. Like New.
A few weeks ago, I got an email from a young undergrad interested in SVA’s Interaction Design MFA program (where I teach a class in the fundamentals of interaction design). The student, a talented web designer, was curious about the relationship between “web design” and “interaction design” and “user experience”, and what the future holds … Continue reading Letter to a Young Interaction Designer
I’ve submitted two talks for the 2010 SXSW Interactive conference. As you might know, SXSW’s selection process includes a period of public review to gauge general interest in the panels submitted (they call them “panels” even though many of the submissions, including my own, are single-speaker sessions). I would be deeply grateful if you, gentle … Continue reading Please vote for my SXSW panels!
Here’s an awesome idea for the camera industry. Like most of my seemingly awesome ideas, someone else has probably already thought of it (UPDATE: someone has already thought of it, sort of… skip to the bottom of this post). But just in case it’s at all novel, I offer it up for public review: Yesterday … Continue reading Idea: Multifocus Photography
Someone recently pointed me to an interesting book, Some Place Like Home: Using Design Psychology to Create Ideal Places, by Toby Israel. The book’s thesis is that a designers’ childhood environment profoundly affects their professional and adult design choices. The environments and objects children see and touch in their formative years will, according to Israel, … Continue reading UX Origins: How childhood experiences shape design choices
Apple is famous for their minimalist aesthetic, and infamous for occasionally taking the aesthetic too far and sacrificing usability. There’s the famous round mouse for the original iMac. There’s the symmetrical third-generation iPod remote control whose identical volume and previous/next buttons are impossible to distinguish. While not as egregious as the previous examples, Apple’s iPod … Continue reading Apple in Stereo
Touch Sight, a fascinating “camera” for blind people. For my entire design career, my colleagues and I have wrestled with the terminology we use to segment and focus our work, both in our careers and in our critiques. Whether it’s the “information architecture vs. interaction design” debate or the “visual design vs. graphic design” debate, … Continue reading See. Feel.