–Engage

“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it.” - Steve Jobs

Wow, that was so easy!!!!! How could I have missed that????

Ya ever have one of those moment when you are using software when you just tell yourself, "How could I have missed that??" You search and search for how to do something that you KNOW is possible, but you can't figure it out. Then ... when someone tells you how ...

Functioning Form – Web Application Form Layout

Luke recently posted an article about form widget layout. It talks about the placement of labels in relation to the form input elements. I think he's basically nailed it, but didn't take it to the next level. He is right by suggesting that left aligned labels are ideal for longer ...

iPod Shuffle – Can’t choose?

Ta Da! ... Introducing the new, none-more-white, iPod Shuffle by Apple -- click here Ok, dang is it small. Size of a trident pack according to the picture. I would also say it is quite affordable at 512mb for $100. But there is definitely something major missing. I mean, look ...

What Makes a Design Seem ‘Intuitive’?

Jared Spool of User Interface Engineering, wrote up a piece attempting to describe what makes something intuitive entitled, "What Makes a Design Seem 'Intuitive'?". I think that this article is nice paired next to the one by Don Norman recently put up on UI Garden (a new English/Chinese bilingual e-zine) and ...

Spirit Softworks :: 2004 Salary Survey

Here is a great salary survey. This is coming just in time so I can now justify a raise. Boooyah!

I’m Hiring!

JOB ANNOUNCEMENT: Position: User Experience Designer, (Full-Time, Permanent) Location: New York, NY (will relocate for right candidate) We are looking for someone to join our growing Product Design group as a user experience designer. Responsibilities include producing innovative, visually appealing human interface designs; creating design prototypes; planning and conducting usability testing; working with developers to make designs ...

To train or not to train …

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about help, documentation and training. My current employment does a lot of what I would call unnecessary training. I have heard the word "training" too often used as a way out of doing a real investment to determine the right solution for the context ...

New Year’s Followup

Well a lot of people probably think I spouted a bunch of nonsense and did nothing about it. The reality is that I spent $35 total on my New Year's celebrating and gave $40 to Oxfam &/or Doctors Without Borders through the host of our event at the "Hope and ...

Why It’s Not Damning to Define the Thing

This was originally published by ACM Interactions magazine in their May-June, 2013 Edition as part of their Confessions column. I re-print it here with their permission as columns like these are not made available to the public as a whole. Thank you ACM for allowing me to do this. Why It's ...

Coordination vs. Collaboration

Recently I've been made aware of different ways of thinking about "collaboration". It kinda took me for surprise be specially given the geo-social contexts, but there is no ignoring it. What I learned as two completely different activities some use the same word for or more correctly use the term ...

Report from Up to All Of Us

I'm currently on a plane heading back home after a short weekend with a group of mostly instructional designers who are at a new type of unconference (something I've never experienced before). It felt more like a retreat than a conference due to the setting and the style of interaction ...
December 12th 2012
Tags: education, general thoughts One Comment

As Corona says, “Change your Latitude [Longitude]” – Travel is awesome.

Today I sparked a bit of a conversation after I tweeted: Everyone who is creative should move every 5-10 years; to minimally find a way to live somewhere else for a yr (sabbatical). http://twitter.com/daveixd/status/278919010391826432 Why do I put such importance on travel? What value does it give a creative person? And to the ...

Today Johnny Holland says Goodbye and I am sad & grateful

Today Johnny Holland, the amazing Interaction Design online magazine says goodbye. This news makes me feel both sad and grateful. Johnny Holland (JH) has been a rare place that allowed me to include my voice where other magazines rejected the types of topics I was interested in discussing: esoteric, foundational, semantic, ...

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