January 2010
17 posts
3 tags
Dummy Data
Don’t let your dummy data make you feel like a dummy.
It used to be that, when I was mocking up screens to show a customer, I would fill the screen with made-up content. For example, if there was an ID field, I would just randomly type in some numbers. If there was a table column labeled “Division”, I would enter “Division 1, Division 2, Division 3”. It was quick, and at a glance, it made the...
2 tags
iWife
The iPad is the perfect computer for a wife. Please don’t think me sexist—my wife has a Ph.D. in human genetics after all—but it is still common for a mother to stay at home or work part time so that they have more time to raise children. I have heard comments from several people already expressing that their wife will probably get an iPad instead of a laptop. My wife has an old Powerbook that we...
7 tags
The iPad is not revolutionary… yet.
At the time Steve Job’s took the stage, I was presenting a UI design to a customer in a secure facility where I wasn’t allowed to have any electronic devices. That’s a long way to say that I missed the minute by minute coverage, and I have not yet had time to watch the video. I have, however, read reports on a number of blogs. Apple calls the iPad revolutionary. It’s not.
The iPhone was...
1 tag
How Not to Serve Customers
I wanted to add my retirement account to Mint. To do this, you have to provide Mint with your log-in information. I had never had a reason to log into Alerus’ website, so I went there to set up my on-line account access. There was no link to register, but there was one that offered further instructions. Upon clicking this link, rather than another page of the website, a PDF was displayed. It was...
4 tags
In the Details: Undo
It seems like it’s been a long time since Google Maps introduced the ability to drag your route to change it. I posted about it when I discovered the new feature. It’s a brilliant feature, and I use it a lot. The one issue that I pointed out was that it didn’t have an undo function. Once you moved something, you would have to rely on your own memory to get it back where it started, or re-perform...
3 tags
Come see our latest creation.
I don’t tend to make predictions, and I try not to get caught up in the hype prior to one of Apple’s announcements. When rumors were flying about Apple developing a phone, I kept my expectations low and was completely blown away. Perhaps that taught me that I don’t need to keep my expectations low when it comes to Apple, or perhaps I’m just much more interested in the potential for a tablet than I...
3 tags
Arbitron
In 2007, the same year that Time Magazine named Apple’s iPhone the best invention of the year, they also selected Arbitron’s Portable People Meter as one of the runners-up. This claim was what staid my hand as I was about to toss another piece of junk mail in the trash. It was an invitation to join Arbitron’s ratings panel. I read more to find out what about this little grey box was so...
2 tags
Avatar
I don’t get out to the theater very often. That’s in large part due to being a father of two young girls, but probably just as much due to the fact that there aren’t many movies I really want to see. I heard enough about Avatar from people I respect that I decided to see it in the theater. I’m glad I did. It was a very enjoyable film.
I’m not going to give a review of Avatar, because that’s not...
2 tags
Cut to the Quicken
The Mac version of Quicken has gotten a little long in the tooth. It hasn’t been updated since 2007. I wrote back in September about my search for something to replace it and the announcement that they would be acquiring Mint. Well, I’ve been keeping tabs of the development of the next version due out in February. I just discovered some bad news.
Quicken is treating this as a new product, rather...
1 tag
Pulling an All-Nighter
It’s a very rare occurrence that I find myself working a lot of overtime. I’m typically able to manage my schedule such that I meet deadlines, internal or external, without much of a problem. Occasionally a client will have a deadline that requires extra work to meet. Sometimes I’ll just get swamped with more work than I can handle at one time. Last week was one of those times, thus the spotty...
4 tags
In Comparison: Special Characters
While headquartered here in Pittsburgh, my company has a number of satellite offices, some in other countries. We have customers in Europe, and I’ve done had to do quite a bit of design work for a German audience. I’ve created presentations for Daimler that I’ve been required to produce in both English and German. The point of explaining this is that I have often had the need of inserting special...
2 tags
Missplace
The more I use Illustrator, the more it seems like the unloved stepchild of the Creative Suite. I’ve started using InDesign now to create my design documentation, and so far, it seems to work much the way I expect it to. InDesign is much more like Freehand than Illustrator is.
When I would place sketches or screen mockups in a Freehand document, I could select multiple files and place them all in...
5 tags
Tales from the Field: Readability
Field workers are mobile. They aren’t sitting at a desk. They are walking, climbing, riding in vehicles, and often don’t have a steady, flat surface to rest a display. These conditions must be considered when designing user interfaces to support field workers.
The same general rules that apply to type on the printed page are germane to digital displays with a few special considerations....
4 tags
Practical Lessons from Games: Expansion
One of my family traditions is to play a lot of games together: board games, card games, whatever. This is the primary activity on New Year’s Eve. My brother is a game fanatic—I might even call him a game connoisseur. He has quite a collection and this year introduced us to Carcassone, a tile-based board game from Germany designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede.
I’m particularly fond of games in which...
4 tags
Oh Snap!
Of the many, my biggest complaint about Adobe Illustrator so far is its “snap to” functionality. I love smart guides—they’re one of my favorite additions to Photoshop since the introduction of layers. I use guides a lot, and I depend on the ability to have an object snap to a guide or another object.
Freehand didn’t have smart guides, but it had very good “snap”. Snap to guides, snap to grid,...
3 tags
Shortsighted Shortcut
I burned a number of DVDs to give to a few friends and family members over the holidays. When I give DVDs as gifts, I create labels for them. I was using the crummy piece of software that came with the CD Stomper to make the labels. As crummy as it is, it is quicker for me to use its built-in template than to recreate it in Photoshop or Illustrator. I had opened a file that I had used in the past...
2 tags
Magnetic
I received a lot of nice Christmas gifts this year, but there was one in particular that peaked my design senses. Actually, it was a stocking stuffer my wife received from her parents. It’s a set of measuring spoons. Whoopee, right?
I have one set of measuring spoons that came on a plastic ring. We took them off the ring and threw it away because it was annoying. If I only want to use one spoon,...
