Category: Article

My last post was on how ‘smart devices’ create overly complex designs by throwing in too many features and misusing their hardware. It showed how great design doesn’t need to be fancy. Design, in fact, can be free. This post wants to push those assumptions a bit, redesigning a product two ways: a modest improvement […]

As consumer devices get ‘smart’, they tend to sprout a large number push buttons. It’s almost cliche at this point to complain about them. The tiny buttons, hidden modes, and Konami Code interaction encourages mistakes and forces frequent trips to the user manual. Of course, they are survivable, but we don’t like them. As a […]

I borrowed a friend’s Tesla 3 yesterday. About 5 minutes into the ride, the windshield started fogging up. I couldn’t find the defroster on the large control screen Teslas are so famous for. In desperation, I tapped the CAR icon but that took me to the settings screen which ended up being a dead end. […]

My last post “The Future Needs Files” clearly touched a nerve. The comments covered concerns well beyond what I intended. This amazing energy shows how fundamental and impassioned we are when it comes to “storing my data”.  However, I made a mistake by titling my post “The Future needs FILES” as several assumed I meant some […]

For many mobile users, files are like dinosaurs, a holdover from the bygone desktop era. Sure, they “work” but, they’re mostly there because, you know, ancient history. I’ve discussed this issue for the last 2 years and I usually get some version of “get over it grandpa”.  I’m not here to tell you exactly what […]

UX is less about technique and more about teamwork. Getting everyone to agree on a common goal is where the real magic lives. But too often UX designers inadvertently sabotage that teamwork. Not intentionally, it’s just that, as a group, we UX designers have strong opinions that sometimes rub our teammates the wrong way. It’s […]

Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in. Isaac Asimov It all started while on vacation with my wife. We were driving a rental car to a remote location in Washington state. The car had a safety feature that beeped every […]

“Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.” Alan Kay This quote is meaningful to me as I’ve often struggled with a problem until an insight from a user test “changed my perspective”. I had this intuition that video games would also change my perspective. They seemed so much edgier, playing with deeper and more experimental UX […]

I asked Twitter for a good introductory book on UX. Something that would help startups or small teams “get” UX and help them understand the process and tasks needed to be done. No book can summarize all of UX (just like no book can summarize all of programming!) But I wanted a ‘starter book’ that […]

I’ve been on vacation these last two weeks, letting my mind go a bit fallow. While I still browse the web and read books (I’m really enjoying Factfulness by Hans Rosling), I try hard not to do too much. Vacations are my attempt to rehydrate the mind. In the bathroom of Hotel #4, I noticed […]