How do you turn an idea into something you can build? First step, don’t start thinking about the technology or design. Your two essential starting idea ingredients are a value proposition, a service, told as a story like ‘wouldn’t it be great if a person could do x and achieve y’. Then picture a person who would
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I’m back from my second year at SXSW, and the experience feels like when runners go to train in a place like Denver so when they go back to their normal elevation they have unusual energy. This is where the richest people in the world and the smartest people in the world literally rub shoulders, and while
I consider myself lucky that my first exposure to computing also introduced me to an elegant and effective computer interface. At the time, video games were in dedicated machines, with primitive graphics and joysticks, and computers were operated with a command line. The interface was a keyboard. With the command line prompt, you could launch
In order to do work, we create things, or disseminate information to each other. We write emails, create assets for use elsewhere. We attend meetings and document our progress. Some sell things and use Point of sale (POS) systems to facilitate payment. Most of these tasks can be accomplished easily on a tablet. Many already
My expectations were somewhat high, having many friends/co-workers come back from the event and asked about it they lacked words to describe. A convention so magical it renders people speechless. I can now say that I am also at a lack for summary words but will forge on, hopefully, to jog my own memory as
1. Old Spice Responses (Weiden+Kennedy) Wins Grand Prix, etc! Let’s get this one out of the way. No contest. Why? Because it took an already winning execution and brought it into lo-fi down-and-dirty Ernie Kovacs territory. A couple of props, a towel, and a deep connection to the always-on mantra of the internet. Make a
Don’t assume in a dropdown list that aphabetical is the ideal sort. Assume that questions that are meaningful to the business problem may require an example. Don’t assume that non-required questions should be asked anyway Indicate what the information will be used for. Never use a cancel button. Align right all submit buttons. Feburary UX
Its true that many of the people making design decisions on the web are not designers. They are engineers, business people, students, factory workers, race-car drivers, etc. Since content is the main value proposition of the internet, how can we keep bad design decisions from obscuring their contributions? Perhaps the philosophy of “do no harm”
One year or thereabouts past the introduction of the iPad, it seems safe that the term ‘touch computing’ has a sound footing in devices that are readily available in both the large, small, and medium sized flavor (Samsung galaxy). Contrast this to ‘normal’ computers and other sorts of remote controls which I supposed can be
Its been about two years since Apple opened up the API and allowed people to write programs directly with the interface elements available within the hardware and software of the iPod device. This has been an unprecedented success, more people have picked up Objective C, even more sales have taken place since the heydays of