Author: Christopher Fahey
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The Scope Creep
“Scope Creep”, also known as “Feature Creep” and “Creeping Featuritis“, is the tendency of development teams to constantly find opportunities to add new features to a product. It is widely considered to be deadly: It’s obviously destructive to project schedules, but adding new features also has an enormous impact on much more than just the…
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Writing Technologies: From Cuneiform to Cyborg
In a previous post, I mentioned the “Technologies of Writing” show I saw during SXSW at Austin’s Harry Ransom Center. Since then, I’ve had several occasions to think about the exhibit again. So I thought I’d go a little more into some of the highlights from the show and share some of the related thoughts…
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NYC Gets a Gehry
Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp is building a new headquarters on Manhattan’s west side in Chelsea. And it’s a Frank Gehry building! This is exciting news, and there’s lots to see and talk about even now, long before the building is even completed. New York’s Architectural Draught We’ve all seen Gehry’s signature works over the last decade…
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Micro RFP: JavaScript Dynamic Style Changer
I don’t have the skill to do something that might be really simple for you to do. If you think you can help, please leave a note or email me with your thoughts. Thanks! Need: I want a small JavaScript function that will parse through each of a certain type of CSS element on a…
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My First Race
Heading for the starting line. I did my first bike race today! Peggy and I showed up at the crack of dawn this morning at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park for a 6-lap, 20 mile road race. It was thrilling to ride with over a hundred other riders, thirty of them in my racing class (Category-5, the…
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IA Summit 2006: The Science (and Pseudo-Science) of Personas
I attended a fascinating IA Summit presentation by Molecular’s Steve Mulder called “Bringing More Science to Persona Creation“. Lately I’ve been pretty interested in how different companies approach user personas, so this was a must-see for me. I was impressed with Steve’s insights into user persona creation, but this was tempered by a fear that,…
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IA Summit 2006: You’re *both* right!
Information architects reaching a sound compromise. One of the most potent themes emerging from the 2006 IA Summit is that on many issues of IA debate it’s possible for both sides to be correct. That is, that you can combine or connect two or more seemingly different design strategies or technolgoies to form a final,…
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IA Summit 2006: The IA is IN
Victor Lombardi consults yours truly for some serious mentoring. Photo by Michael Braly. Someone Eric Reiss set up this lovely “Mentoring Booth” at the IA Summit. I needed a place to sit down to work on some laptop stuff — and I figured making a bit of a spectacle of myself wouldn’t be so bad…
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IA Summit 2006: Wireframes I & II
Even as we develop more robust wireframing systems, flat printable wireframes are still easy to draft quickly, and easy for clients to consume. Two wireframe sessions in a row were scheduled on Saturday. It’s hard for me to say much about these panels because I have some pretty strong ideas about how to improve the…
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IA Summit 2006: Upgrading
After being forced to spend Friday night at the Vancouver Days Inn, I tried to check in at the Hyatt the next day, only to learn that they overbooked the hotel and I was going to be bumped again. They offered to put me up in a hotel across the street, the Fairmont. Not knowing…