Thoughts and sketches on humans, nature, running, and the end of the world
Solitary designers, lonely geniuses, and isolated creative teams: it’s time for you to think about social interaction for your user interfaces. No, I am not talking about social software, user-created content, or Web 2.0. I am talking about any old-fashion user interface: because for us human beings any interaction is a social interaction–even when...
Talking about not going to conferences, it’s really amazing how much good information one can find online without moving from her chair. So, you would have liked to attend the 7th IA Summit in Vancouver, but didn’t have the money or the time? The Summit is not even finished yet and the debate on...
Shopping online is usually a solitary experience. It’s all between us and our computer. Electronic payments, automated messages, automated delivery, and the goods show up magically at our door (usually when we are not home) without any apparent human intervention. It’s convenient, efficient, anonymous, sterilized, and creepy. But in the world of The Long...
Last week, I had a chance to conduct user interviews after quite a while. I loved any minute of it. There is nothing more rewarding (for me) than spending two hours with people I never met before (and probably I will never meet again) trying to understand the world from their point of view....
Often I hear these broad blanket statements on what people do or don’t do online: “people don’t read,” “people don’t scroll,” “people don’t wait.” It’s usually from those who have just enough knowledge of usability to be dangerous, but sometimes, alas, I’ve heard usability people uttering them. When I hear statements like this I’ll...
Jared Spool and a couple of other folks at UI Engineering (Christine Perfetti and Joshua Porter) have started Brain Sparks, a new blog on web design, usability, and other interface issues. It’s interesting how long it’s taking to the traditional, old school usability world to embrace blogs and RSS. Jakob Nielsen doesn’t seem to...