March 2008
28 posts
2 tags
Satisfraction
ChangeWave released a report today on the trends in corporate smart phone purchases. It’s no surprise that RIM has the lion’s share with 73%. Palm’s market share is steadily declining (currently 18%, down 10 points in the past year). Newcomer Apple holds 5% with the iPhone. As part of that study, they measured satisfaction per manufacturer. This is where it gets interesting....
February 2008
23 posts
3 tags
Morph
Nokia has a video up on YouTube showing a futuristic concept device based on nanotechnologies. While the technology itself is quite cool, I appreciated the video as an example of good concept sketching. Rather than creating high-fidelity renderings with 3-D modeling software, they used elegant animation. It clearly communicates that this is a concept only—not something currently in production or...
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Techsuck
Time has been weighing on my thoughts lately. I never seem to have enough of it. I’m involved in so many activities, all of them rewarding, but I’m stretched awfully thin. Technology impacts my time quite a bit. Certainly, there are ways that technology saves a lot of time for me, but this is balanced by all of the time I spend doing things that I wouldn’t be doing if it...
4 tags
Choice Bits from Alan Cooper
I don’t take a lot of notes. I did, however, make sure to write down anything that really made me think during the sessions at Interaction 08. These are my notes from Alan Cooper’s opening keynote. One of his major points is that “best to market” beats “first to market”. Business administrators tend to focus on “first to market” because they...
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Driving a Living Room
Being a relatively young adult, I have only owned three cars thus far: a Dodge Neon, a Chrysler PT Cruiser, and a Chrysler Voyager. The latter two are currently in my garage. We’re currently looking to replace the Voyager. I’ve been digging the features of the new line of Chrysler minivans. I’ve always liked Chrysler cars, and have always felt that the other companies were...
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Luke Arm
Dean Kamen is at it again. The inventor of the AutoSyringe, the first insulin pump, the all-terrain wheel chair, and most recently, the Segway has over 440 patents, many of them in the realm of medical devices. His current venture is commonly called the Luke Arm, referencing the artificial hand Luke Skywalker is fitted with at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. Kamen’s bionic arm is an...
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Pseudo Tabs
I’m in the market for a new car, looking to replace a Chrysler Voyager. I was checking out the Mazda5 on their site, and decided to use their “Build a Vehicle” feature (shown below). I selected a trim and transmission, and then pressed the “Colors” tab. Nothing happened. I clicked again. Still nothing. I clicked the “Model” tab and was returned to the...
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frAgile
Interaction 08 saw quite a bit of debate around the role of design in an Agile development environment. Viewpoints ranged from Jeff White and Jim Unger’s process that includes developers in the brainstorming sessions, giving them shared ownership of the solution and appreciation of the designer as an expert to the near-militant stance of Alan Cooper and Bill Buxton who felt that we should be...
4 tags
Designer's Toolbelt: Thermo
The most exciting thing I saw at Interaction 08 was a demo of Thermo, Adobe’s upcoming user interface prototyping tool. Narciso Jaramillo, a senior computer scientist with Adobe, took some time to show me what they’ve been up to. Not long ago, I wrote about Axure and how it doesn’t fit my needs. Thermo is exactly what I need. Thermo will allow you to open a file from Photoshop,...
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Design Delivers
One of my co-workers told me the other day that he started out with the typical engineering mindset that it was most important to build a thing right. As he has matured in his career and gained experience working with customers and users, he now believes that what matters most is that you build the right thing. One of the coolest examples of good design shown at Interaction 08 was in David...
3 tags
I'm a Designer
On Sunday, as I was walking between the River Club and the Sheraton on my way to another session, I realized I was walking beside David Armano, author of the blog Logic + Emotion. I’ve been reading his blog regularly for some time now, so I introduced myself and told him so. He asked what I do, and I explained that I worked for a small software development firm. He responded, “Wow,...
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Sharing the Pain
Saturday night’s reception at Interaction 08 was hosted by Microsoft. Aside from the four Xboxs that were set up (one of which was running Rock Band… with a stage!), the event was marked for me by a discussion I had with three Microsoft employees (well, one was a former employee). I found it quite interesting that they are in an identical situation to my own. While they have a large...
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Things I Learned at Interaction 08
Bamboo chairs are aesthetically pleasing, but they aren’t very comfortable. Appetizers are apparently best served in an assortment of glass dishes and vases, and some orchids are edible. Rock Band is a lot of fun. The UI is well designed, and the gameplay is quite sophisticated. I must be getting old, though, because I didn’t know any of the songs. The name tags were well designed,...
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Schwag Bag
One of the most important questions to be answered about any conference is, of course, “What’s in the schwag bag?” Interaction 08 delivered in spades. The Bag - Black (of course) canvas tote with the conference logo and requisite smattering of sponsor logos. Pretty standard stuff. T-Shirt - Black (of course) with the conference logo tastefully centered high across the chest and a...
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I'm a Selfish Social Butterfly
I’m back from Interaction 08, and I’ll be posting about it for several days. This was an outstanding conference for a multitude of reasons. From a professional standpoint, I’ve been inspired and rejuvenated. I have brought back a few things that I think I can apply to my work. As my company paid my way, I think they can be satisfied that I got their money’s worth. I...
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Interaction 08
I’m catching a plane for Savannah this morning. I hope to gain a lot of inspiration (and a few blog topics) over the weekend. If you’re there too, look me up and say hello. Here’s the schedule I finally decided on.Friday, February 08, 2008 13:00 - 16:00: Agile and Interaction Design - Jeff Patton, Josh Evnin 19:00 - 21:00: Opening Reception sponsored by SAP Saturday, February 09,...
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Starting Off on the Wrong Foot
I’ve been quite happy with my Verizon FiOS internet service. It’s fast, reliable, and competitively priced. I’ve been anxiously awaiting the opportunity to add their digital television service. I’ve subscribed to Dish Networks since I moved in over four years ago, and it has been a good service. However, I now have a large Sony Bravia LCD television, and I’m ready for...
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Designer's Toolbelt: Axure
The Pittsburgh local IxDA group held their first programmed event last night. Their were approximately ten of us in attendance, meeting in the Viz (General Dynamics C4 Systems) office space. We were treated to two demonstrations by our members Julie Carlini of Thermo Fisher Scientific and David Bishop of Maya. Julie presented Axure, a tool for prototyping and specifying user interfaces, while...
4 tags
iTunes as Design Pattern
I was having a discussion with one of my co-workers about the UI design of one of our products. I was explaining what I thought the life-cycle should be for a particular type of data, and I used iTunes as an example to illustrate my point. A couple hours later, my co-worker told me that he had just been on the phone with the product manager and used my iTunes analogy. The product manager told him...
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Design on the Soles of Her Shoes
One trait of a good designer is that they are observant—much more so than the average person. They tend to notice things that “normal” people wouldn’t give a second thought. Furthermore, when a designer makes an observation, they proceed to puzzle out the reason behind it. I’ll give an example.
I was sitting in the front pew at church yesterday morning while the congregation was taking...
CrowdVine
Interaction 08 is only a week away, and I’m getting pretty excited about it. This is due in part to CrowdVine, a web service that allows groups to set up their own social networking site. Now, I’ve never had any particular interest in the likes of Facebook and MySpace. I do have a LinkedIn account, and while I don’t actively pursue it, I can certainly see its merits. I am really...
