03 Sep 2008 0734H

Google Chrome powered by . . . Apple?

Was dinking around with the Chrome browser last night and saw this:

About Google Chrome

Weird. Bits of Mozilla and such. So does this mean we’re playing around with what is essentially with a souped up version of Safari? Like Spinal Tap: “These go to 11.”

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Filed under Technology, Web

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01 Sep 2008 1330H

New Google browser?

The latest ploy by Google to own a piece of your desktop is your browser? That’s what this comic shows. Google Chrome, coming soon.

But if you were to create your own browser experience, what would it be like?

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Filed under Interaction Design, Technology, User Experience, Web

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26 Aug 2008 1519H

Something surprising

The other day I watched my four-year-old niece show exactly how conversant she is with the web. She is conversant to the degree that she can input in her own name and password into a site, and knows what the major web conventions are, and can play games with relative ease. Kinda makes you wonder what else she knows. I feel I should run u-tests with her now.

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Filed under Interaction Design, Technology, Usability, Web

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26 Aug 2008 0917H

Design for Democracy

Thanks to Ryan for pointing out this opinion piece on the Design for Democracy project. You can also see the interactive piece that shows how it would work. As user experience professionals, and as UPA members, we feel of course that the information design and interaction design are inseparable parts of the entire voting user experience. I myself did use the interactive software from Sequoia in the primaries, left much to be desired. We’ve talked about it.

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Filed under Information Design, Interaction Design, User Experience

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26 Aug 2008 0738H

Hate to say I told ya so

but not really. I suspected back in January at Macworld that the network would not be ready to handle the demand placed on it, and today Apple Insider confirms it:

Instead, it’s believed that changes will need to be made on the part of 3G providers to optimize their networks “in terms of number of towers, how they’re positioned and how much bandwidth each tower can handle.”

Still waiting for Godot. . .

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17 Aug 2008 1710H

Alan Cooper tries to set the record straight

You’ll remember an infamous debate between Kent Beck and Alan Cooper re: XP vs. interaction design waaaay back when. Alan tried to set the record straight at Agile 2008 in Toronto last week.

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Filed under Interaction Design, Technology, Work

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17 Aug 2008 0850H

Effective design problem solving

By way of Noise Between Stations, there’s a line in this work, my emphasis added, by Nigel Cross’s Expertise in Design:

Expert designers appear to be ‘ill-behaved’ problem solvers, especially in terms of the time and attention they spend on defining the problem. However, this seems to be appropriate behaviour, since some studies have suggested that over-concentration on problem definition does not lead to successful design outcomes. It appears that successful design behaviour is based not on extensive problem analysis, but on adequate ‘problem scoping’ and on a focused or directed approach to gathering problem information and prioritising criteria.

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Filed under Design, Product Design, Strategy

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17 Aug 2008 0647H

Biting the hand that feeds you

Seems a recent post at grokdotcom has inflamed the information architecture community: hardly worth mentioning really but for the strident responses drawn to that flame. I don’t think it’s wrong to say that interaction design or information architecture is faulty or point out how they are incomplete, and most mature disciplines at some point in the process of defining themselves have to, at some point or another, realize their limitations. You can see this in the way that information architecture has tried to claim interaction design to shore up its LIS-heavy moorings, and in the way that information architecture and interaction design, strictly speaking, don’t cover the web analytics/SEO/SEM-guided interactive marketing component very well. And of course they can’t: if you have sales targets you want to reach, there are many retailing variables to manipulate and the architecture and interaction components are only part of that equation. Healthy enough to realize where the interdisciplinary boundaries of user experience stop and where we’ll need to partner up with marketing strategists and the like. But, the argument grok is making is essentially that because IAs or IxDs are so limited disciplinarily, all the more reason to hire grok, starting at n dollars per engagement, to perform some work which would of course necessarily capitalize upon in some form or another the tremendous foundation of work laid down by information architects, interaction designers and user experience professionals overall, everywhere, for the last decade or more, and disregards how the discipline has evolved and continues to evolve into the interdisciplinary practice of user experience. That is nothing short of disingenuous and approaches galling.

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Filed under Information Architecture, Interaction Design, Strategy, User Experience, Work

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14 Aug 2008 1010H

Frivolity, but, hey: Uniqlock

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Filed under Design, Information Design, Visual Communications, Web

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10 Aug 2008 0826H

Gap goes back to basics

From BusinessWeek:

“For several years, Gap, under former Disney (DIS) executive Paul Pressler, relied heavily on focus groups and spent little time in the stores. Early on, Gap North American President Marka Hansen encouraged Robinson to have breakfast with store managers at Gap’s flagship on 34th Street in New York City. As he scribbled furiously in a yellow pad, the salespeople pointed out flaws: tank top straps that dug into women’s shoulders; confusing sizing that made male shoppers cross-eyed. And they rejected plans to revive a much-loathed novelty item called a sock monkey (yes, a monkey doll made from socks). ‘It was eye-opening,’ says Robinson of the meeting with store managers. ‘They are the only people who don’t have a motive except to sell product. I’ve said to every designer, “Get into the stores and talk to the salespeople.”‘”

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