Category: Personal
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You vs. I
In the responses to my previous proposal to use the second-person perspective in interaction design documentation and literature, Oleh Kovalchuke brought up an excellent concern: Using the word “you” in documentation can risk implying, if only subconsciously, that the reader — who is a developer, designer, etc — is the same person who will actually…
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User vs. You
There’s a huge debate going on in the UX community about the use of the word “user”. Some argue that the word demeans the people we are trying to help, that it distances us from them, and that it makes us unable to truly empathize with their wants and needs. Words like “people” and “humans”…
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Worth Starting, Not Worth Finishing?
Lately I’ve been starting a great number of blog posts, saving them as drafts, and then leaving them, unfinished, in my blog’s drafts queue for weeks (and now months) until at some point I realize the post is either no longer inspiring to me or somehow irrelevant. For example, Khoi Vinh recently posted a great…
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Moleskin Reward: One Million Dollars
I lost a small Moleskine notebook about six months ago (graphpaper, of course). I’ve since replaced it, but the reward for its return is the same as for my current book: One Million Dollars. How many other Moleskine owners have the same reward?
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Would Starbucks tell Dunkin’?
We recently stopped for coffee at an urban intersection where a Starbucks and a Dunkin’ Donuts sat on opposite corners, facing off in a classic retail rivalry like Macy’s & Gimbels. Deciding to avoid Starbuckian yuppiness (okay, we drink there all the time), we walked into the Dunkin’ Donuts. But something seemed wrong… the DD…
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BIKEZ MY RIDIN / TRAIL RAIL UR ON I’M
Quick, what does this sign on the bike trail say? If you’re like me, you will probably initially read it as saying “XING ROAD”. Then, maybe after a fraction of a second, your brain kicked in and told you that maybe you should reverse the order. You do this mental correction because you’ve probably grown…
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My First Podcast
A few months ago during an intermission at the 2007 IA Summit, Christina Wodtke and Bill Wetherell accosted me in the hallway of the Las Vegas Flamingo hotel. The next thing I knew, Christina was interviewing me for a new series of Boxes and Arrows podcasts. The 16-minute interview has just been published, and I’ve…