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
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.
Two weeks ago, BusinessWeek’s next Design and Innovation blog asked for my thoughts on this month’s Facebook home page redesign, as a kind of follow-up to my thoughts in those same virtual pages a year ago. I was asked to opine on the new design without having viewed the actual live site, which was launching … Continue reading Web 2.0 Incomplete
One of the problems faced by designers trying to integrate their work with most software development processes, even (or possibly especially) with Agile development, is that the literature makes no distinction between software development and software design, or at least no distinction that makes any sense to dedicated user experience designers. The common complaint among … Continue reading Are We Designing Interactions or Designing Software?
In his Time Magazine Person of the Year interview, Barack Obama said “it turns out there’s some spending that has to be done on information technology, for example, that we can do very swiftly.” If recent speeches by the new President are any sign, I sure hope he’s talking about rural broadband access. Like many … Continue reading Tubes for the Sticks
I loved this picture so much I just had to find a way to look at it every day to make the moment last. And now, if you have an iPhone, you can, too. Presenting the Farewell George Bush iPhone Wallpaper! Download it. Credit for this image is “Reuters AFP/Saul Loeb/Pool” (UPDATE: Full credits in … Continue reading Farewell
As you might already know, The School of Visual Arts, one of New York’s leading art and design institutions, is gearing up for a brand new MFA in Interaction Design program beginning this September. SVA has for many years been highly regarded, especially for its vibrant and cutting edge MFA programs (for example in Design … Continue reading Mastering Interaction Design: Deadline January 15th!
Newsweek invited four “hot” design firms to “reboot” the brand of the Republican party to appeal to younger voters. Not an easy challenge. And while the design work itself looks good, I think each of them missed the big picture objective by failing to speak to core Republican values. First up is Pentagram. Pentagram proposes … Continue reading Grand Old Redesign
What do you do with a video camera? You video. I’ve always wanted to coin a phrase or invent a word, to have a term of my own invention be spoken by thousands or even millions of people every day. An astonishingly large number of my friends and peers have done exactly this, some spectacularly … Continue reading Video is a Verb
You can’t really validate or invalidate a design idea just by looking at it and declaring it a success or failure because of some best practice or design heuristic that usually works. You’re just talking about theories. Ultimately, no design disputes can be settled convincingly without making a model and testing it out. But a … Continue reading Adversarial Design, Part 2: Testing by Discussing