We spend a good part of our days filling out screen-based forms. Some forms are easy to fill out because a thoughtful designer has taken best practices into account. Some forms are painful because they create confusion over what's expected. They're ambiguous or they require too much typing. Here's a snippet of wisdom that I wanted to save for later use: ditch the placeholder text.
Read MoreGovernment agencies need to explain and promote the value of their efforts to taxpayers. They’re in a constant fight for government tax dollars as surely as corporations are in competition for consumer dollars. An all-star social media user within the U.S. government is NASA. Let’s take a look at how they use social to their best advantage and contrast their efforts with two of their closest counterparts: the European Space Agency (ESA) and Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, better known as SpaceX.
Read MoreI created the web animations in this demo reel as an example of what can be done with Adobe Edge Animate. I used the Creative Cloud 2015 version and picked one of my favorite subjects.
In his book The Social Code, author Patrick Hanlon argues that social media communities can be characterized by seven distinct elements: a creation story, a creed, icons, rituals, sacred words or lexicons, non-believers, and a leader. In this post, I'm going to test his thesis by comparing his criteria to a Facebook interest group called “Space Hipsters.”
Read MoreWhile we are now awash in digital communities which foster constructive dialogue between widely varying groups, so too are we at pains to distinguish truth from propaganda and outright fantasy.
Read MoreAn axiom of website or app development is “know thy user for they are not you.” It’s easy for an experienced designer to assume that she knows what the end user needs. Even worse, a designer might assume that the end user will be forced to accept what’s given to them, particularly if it’s believed that they have no alternative.
Read MoreAnd now for a break in my usual blog fare. No web design or user experience topics in this post, just a video I made of my recent trip to Iceland.
In the age of the corporate intranet, one of the most obvious methods for taking the temperature of the staff is the online comment forum or discussion board. It is precisely because the solution seems so obvious that the decision to adopt it is usually made without a thoughtful consideration of the consequences. The manager who asks for employee feedback may get more than she bargained for. Save yourself some aggravation (and unpleasant surprises) by being honest about how much feedback you're really willing to accept.
Read MoreI think this might be the truest statement about design that I've come across. Who better than Milton Glaser to say it?
Slide by @Colly
People are the weak link in the automobile ecosystem. If we weren’t part of the control loop, things would be safer. A lot safer. It’s estimated that 94 percent of the world’s yearly 1.2 million automotive deaths involve human error. We’re uncorrectable bugs in the system, you and me. We get into accidents once every 500,000 miles, and cause fatalities once every 1.3 million miles. But the software that’s driving autonomous cars? It was performing at levels equal to or better than that error rate three years ago.
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