It’s Not You; It’s Me

Jun 20, 2008

Is saying goodbye really that hard? Apparently, yes: yes it is. Instead of following through and cutting ties properly, I have to admit, I’ve been taking the easy way out.

For longer than I feel comfortable discussing, I’ve been relying on Apple Mail’s Junk filter to be the bad guy. Instead of taking the few extra seconds to unsubscribe from unwanted email newsletters, I’ve trained Junk to inauspiciously hide mail I’m too lazy to deal with myself.

I’m well aware of Training Mode and respect Mail’s ability to learn. But no matter. The Flavorpill newsletter I signed up for in hopes of being the first to know? The Daily Candy list I subscribed to in hopes of being first at the sample sale? The Threadless announcements I subscribed to hoping to never have to deal with Women’s Medium being sold out again? No slight against these fine texts (and they really are), but I just lost interest. They’re all junk to me now. (more…)

Announcing New MFA in Interaction Design

Jun 12, 2008

Today, the School of Visual Arts in New York City is unveiling a project we’ve been working on for some time: a new Master of Fine Arts in Interaction Design, a program to launch in Fall of 2009. The program was jointly concepted by Steven Heller, co-founder (with Lita Talarico) of the renowned MFA Designer as Author program, and me over the last several months. I’ll be charting a new path of sorts in coming months, taking on the position as Chair of the program, while continuing to foster my own information architecture and user research practice in parallel.

The program is in the early stages of development as we shape the curriculum and work with faculty and potential faculty. The caliber of the instructors so far is quite staggering even to me, and I’m thrilled to see what is emerging with each new component. (more…)

Everything New is Old Again

Jun 3, 2008

For as far as we’ve come, are we just evolving back to where we started? As part a panel for The HappyCorp‘s publishing workshop for New York’s Design Week recently, I helped field questions from an audience of online publishers. Their primary questions were about “RSS,” focused on ways they can improve the reading experience of their content through feed readers.

As I listened to my co-panelists answer, I heard them describing not new ways to design for reading in social environments, not new strategies for user engagement, but something pretty pedestrian: how to improve the isolated reading experience.

Designers are becoming more masterful at creating social experiences, yet reading with most feed readers is still much like reading a magazine or a book: isolated but portable, modular yet somewhat sequential. While that timing and sequence is controlled by the reader, it is still a solo experience. (more…)

Filling in the Blanks

May 5, 2008

If you’ve been thinking more about web forms recently, you’re not alone. Luke Wroblewski has been actively campaigning for better-designed forms, educating and evangelizing about a topic hardly considered before: the design of forms. Even if you’ve been unable to catch his worldwide talks (and even more so if you have), you need to drop everything. Right now. Because his book, Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks, is now available for sale. (more…)

Not the Innovation I Used to Know

Apr 23, 2008

Despite popular opinion, vocabulary can actually be pretty volatile. Take “innovate,” for example. At one point in the not-so-distant past, “innovation” had some pretty positive connotations. We aimed to be innovative; books on innovation crowded our reading lists; we bookmarked and emailed articles mentioning the topic. But somewhere along the way, “innovation” became dirty. The word has lost its way. (more…)

For Data’s Sake: An Interview with Jonathan Harris

Apr 1, 2008

I’ve always been that person who brings a something to write on to every meeting — a sketchbook specifically. But for years I never used it to sketch; instead, I fill it with fairly rigorous notes of every meeting detail. Almost ten years of sketchbooks are archived neatly nearby (by size, then date), and their notes, historical artifacts of meeting narratives for later reference.

But last year, I had the pleasure of working with Jonathan Harris. After meetings with Harris, I watched my 10-year-old sketchbook-tradition change: what used to be pages of fairly rigid text notes evolved into charts, scatterplot graphs, four-quadrant diagrams, and Venn diagrams. (more…)

The WordPress on the Street

Mar 31, 2008

A quick Monday note to mention a recent project I’m quite excited about. WordPress fans may already know that the redesign of the administration panel has been talked about for some time. Well, this weekend saw the release of WordPress 2.5, which included improvements far and wide, including the redesign of the admin.

I’m honored to have been a small part of its redesign. WordPress approached Happy Cog to streamline WordPress’ information architecture and design. We worked with the valliant Matt Mullenweg, who in turn gathered feedback from the team at Auttomatic, while we developed a new structural and design system. (more…)

After-Dinner Links

Mar 18, 2008

It used to be that having drinks after dinner was a sign of something substantive. First dates that led to after-dinner drinks signified something promising; group dinners that moved the conversation to a bar signified a good time; a professional dinner meeting that started and ended with martinis, a success.

But the drink is no longer the only signifier of substance, I’m finding. It’s post-dinner links that are really indicative of substance. (more…)

Rain or Shine: Zappos and the Art of Consistency

Mar 12, 2008

On Sunday, SXSW Interactive brought the unexpected: inside, the first onstage marriage proposal, and outside, a downpour. Austin typically gets just over two inches of rain in March, but Sunday, just in time for thousands of web people to descend on the downtown area for lunch, it poured. And while a few came prepared for the weather, most did not.

Of all people, Zappos, the online shoe seller, stepped in to help. Zappos representatives, posted at key doors to the conference center, handed out perfectly packaged Zappos-branded ponchos. (more…)

Indi Young and Mental Models: An Experience in the Making

Feb 21, 2008

To finish something is quite delightful. Watching other people — people you admire — finish something is the next-best thing. That’s why I’m duly delighted to report that Indi Young’s first book, Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy With Human Behavior, is in publication and available for purchase from Rosenfeld Media (although I’m not the first to report as much).

The book’s official description:

“There is no single methodology for creating the perfect product — but you can increase your odds. One of the best ways is to understand users’ reasons for doing things. Mental Models gives you the tools to help you grasp, and design for, those reasons.

Adaptive Path co-founder Indi Young has written a roll-up-your-sleeves book for designers, managers, and anyone else interested in making design strategic, and successful.”

And while part of Rosenfeld Media’s process, as publisher, is behind us for now (save promotion and marketing), the reader experience with the book is just beginning. (more…)

Examining the Ordinary

Jan 21, 2008

This month marked my five-year anniversary as a subscriber and an allegiant fan of Cook’s Illustrated magazine. The publication started out 15 years ago, but in recent years, the Cook’s folks have been growing a small but venerable empire with a website, the more colorful and gregarious Cook’s Country, and the television show, “America’s Test Kitchen.” It’s become an elegant and relentless cooks’ paradise. (more…)

If It Can’t Say Anything Nice, Gmail Says It Anyway

Jan 7, 2008

Nevermind what you thought about your friends — Gmail might know better.

I think I know where my relationships stand — whether they’re with close, everyday friends, online friends, work friends, childhood friends — I can sum them up in a few sentences. (In fact, I have complex taxonomies for thinking about them, but that’s for another post.) And even though these relationships seem fairly uncomplicated, there are nuances that aren’t discussed out loud; details that go unsaid. And sometimes, important details get missed entirely as I speed through my day.

But it appears that Gmail might be able to help avoid, or at least inform, these overlooked details. Gmail can be used to prescribe the nature of relationships. (more…)