July 2007
14 posts
Design In Absentia
I just spent a week in a log cabin.
I find the images this statement conjures in others’ minds to be amusing. Some think I mean a log home—a house built to plan with pre-machined logs. Others imagine a tiny, one or two-room hunting shack. What I’m referring to is an actual, hand-built log cabin that is large enough to comfortably house three families for a week of R&R. It has...
Vacation
No fax, no phone, no internet. I’m on vacation. Posting will resume July 29.
National Design Awards
This past Wednesday saw the National Design Awards presented at the White House. Sponsored by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the event awarded 10 top designers and architects. Laura Bush declared it a day to remember “design’s ability to influence the way we live.”
The awards covered architecture, product design, communication design, interior design, and landscape...
Culture is Key
Adaptive Path’s blog had a thought-provoking post a couple weeks ago titled “How many of your team’s ideas are in the iPhone?” This caught my attention, since visual voicemail was a concept I pitched to Ericsson several years ago. The crux of the article, however, dealt with the potential empowerment of interaction designers due to the iPhone’s success.
Kim said:...
Rock Bottom
It seems to me that the air travel experience has hit rock bottom. I flew from Pittsburgh, PA to Charleston, SC and back last week. That trip involved the following mishaps:
1. Two delays due to the late arrival of the crews.
2. A self-check-in kiosk wouldn’t give me a ticket for my connecting flight. I was told that the flight was overbooked and I didn’t have a seat. This turned...
This Island Has Bridges
I was reading Re:View on the plane last week. That’s the newsletter—more of a magazine, really—published by CMU’s School of Design. The most recent issue includes writings from alumni explaining how the program influenced what they are doing now, including graduates from 1983 to present. It made me nostalgic for my days as a graduate student.
I miss having mentors. Not that I...
Back in the Saddle
I returned from a 5-day business trip Friday night. I was tired, and I decided I could wait one more day to return to my nightly endeavor of posting to this blog. Saturday night, I completely forgot about it. It’s easy to fall out of a routine.
During the course of a year, I’ll work on a diverse array of projects. Some will have short schedules, while others will stretch over several...
Gone User Testin'
I’ll be on a business trip all week, observing field trials of a new application. I won’t likely have internet access, so there won’t be any posts until Friday.
UI Float
I ordered a root beer float at the diner yesterday. It came in a tall glass. The vanilla ice cream rose well above the rim. I inserted a straw and took a long sip. Something about this action caused a reaction in the root beer, which rose in a froth to overflow the glass and pool on the marble table top. The waitress noticed me sopping it up with a wad of napkins and said, “Oh, that always...
Empty Cash Cache
A tradition at my office finds a group of us going out to lunch every Friday. We’ve only been in our current building for a year, and we are still occasionally finding a new place to try. Today the lunch bunch discovered a small diner. The food was decent, the prices were fair, and the service was reasonable. We decided to add it to our list of regular establishments.
When I attempted to...
Once Upon a Time
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…
I listened to the radio. There was a great morning show that I listened to during my commute. There was music that I enjoyed and news about local events. I honestly can’t remember the last time I listened to the radio. I had given it up and carried a stack of CDs to and from the car every day. Then I got an iPod. Now I listen to podcasts...
What Women Want
Perhaps today I should be waxing poetic about our country’s freedom or the the design of fireworks displays. Patriotism aside, that’s not what is currently on my mind.
Today I had the pleasure of leaving my fingerprints on the glass front of an iPhone (Thanks, Jeff!). Now, I’ve read enough about the iPhone by this point that I knew exactly what to expect. I had faith in Apple...
Bruce Sterling on Design
I just saw this clip today on MIT’s Technology Review. Bruce Sterling speaks about design as well as any designer I’ve ever heard. He thinks like a designer, too. His story about drivers crashing into the walls of the accelerator is classic.
iPhone Retail Experience
From a recent Tekes press release:
“Business development in services companies, regardless of the sector, must begin with the customers, not the competitors. Today’s customers are very demanding and aware, which is why launching a new service requires deep insight into currently unmet customer needs and the ability to turn this knowledge into a unique customer experience. An...
June 2007
26 posts
Happy iDay!
We’ve climaxed. The iPhone has finally been released. Customers lined up outside of Apple and AT&T stores all across the country, as did mayors and tech celebrities.
So why don’t I have an iPhone? After a week’s worth of posts explaining why I’m buying one, shouldn’t I now be proclaiming that it lives up to the hype? I honestly wish I was. However, I’m...
Why I’m Buying an iPhone: Part 5
I’m not very fond of my Treo’s keyboard. The buttons are tiny, and I have relatively large fingers. I rarely use it. I purchased Tealscript so that I could use handwriting recognition as I did on older Palms. I prefer this to the keyboard, but it doesn’t work as well as it did on my past Palms, because there isn’t a separate area for writing. You write over top of the UI,...
Why I’m Buying an iPhone: Part 4
I’ve never owned a laptop. Don’t get me wrong, I think laptops are extremely useful, but I’m a desk-bound worker. I need multiple, large monitors, plenty of desk space, and a lot of peripherals. I don’t travel often enough to make a laptop necessary. Unfortunately, this means that when I do travel, I’m completely cut off. I have no way of accessing my email or the...
Why I'm Buying an iPhone: Part 3
Considering that calls are a phone’s primary function, they sure do a lousy job managing them. I’ve never seen a phone, even one specifically designed as a conference phone, that clearly presents possible actions.
I’ve never liked call waiting, because I don’t trust it to put the person I’m currently speaking to on hold. I’ve observed other people who will...
Why I'm Buying an iPhone: Part 2
Why is synching so difficult? As good as my old Palm devices were, they always got confused when I would synch them with two different machines. I would end up with duplicate entries in my calendar, duplicates in my address book, and occasionally, something would just disappear.
Currently, I use Missing Synch with my Treo. I purchased it because it claimed to synch more data between the Palm...
Why I'm Buying an iPhone: Part 1
In the Beginning
I started using a Palm in 1999. I was provided a Palm III to evaluate for a project I was working on at CMU. I put it through its paces, and it won me over. I was allowed to keep it as I moved to my new job in 2000. In 2001, the Palm III died, and I replaced it with a Palm V. Come 2003, I finally gave in and purchased my first cell phone, a Motorola flip-phone. In early 2004, I...
