Mobile Is Now Everything
The mouse didn’t exist until the Mother of All Demos in 1968, and cost as much as a car until Apple decided to ship them with the Macintosh and make them mainstream in the mid 80s. The normal computer, of windows, mouse pointer, and so… on is a quite recent phenomenon.
And maybe, was an anomaly. Maybe the real normal has always been direct screen manipulation. Pens, and touch. Which is what the vast billions of computing devices in the world, from phones to convertible tablet PCs, all work like now.
Are you designing for this new world or did it sneak up on you?
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How to Criticize Design
I regularly encounter people, or posts, that refer to all criticism as bad. That it stifles creativity, especially for us sensitive artsy designer types. I could hardly disagree more. Criticism is a key part of discovering new ideas and working collaboratively. I am not brilliant enough to get by without help from others.
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Designing Mobile Tables
Tables have an undeserved reputation for being evil and wrong in the digital environment. The semantic web (and CSS) didn’t just wipe out table based layouts, but made tables pariahs generally. We don’t build them when needed, and we don’t discuss how to make tables that work.
For mobile, it’s worse! Responsive tables are contemptuous of the need of users to view tabular data. Let’s talk about how to make good tables on mobile apps and websites, when you need to display that sort of information.
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Don't Assume Everyone Has Great Internet
Marketplace Tech did a series of stories recently on internet availability, with lots of good stats and stories. Most interesting to me was how the pandemic has really exposed the gigantic, structural flaws in our total-lack-of-a-system of providing broadband access to the US population.
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UX Design for Compliance-Heavy Applications
This month in Ask UXmatters, there was a question on design for compliance-heavy industries. There’s lots of good stuff in the responses, but I got quoted at length, in one big block, so submit for you my answer here which is basically:
Everything is a regulated industry.
Regulation is generally for good.
Regulation is just another constraint.
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Wasting Customer Loyalty with Terrible Customer Service
A brief tale of how chasing metrics is not actually solving customer problems, courtesy Rad Power Bikes.
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Why I Don't Boycott Amazon
Amazon is evil, so we must boycott them, shop local instead. But has anyone though this through really? Local stores suck also…
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The Snow Cruiser and Ego Over Context
A revoltionary machine for Arctic exploration, built by people who have never been there, tested on the sand dunes of Indiana. What could possibly go wrong?
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Designing for Progressive Disclosure
Links are one of the most foundational elements of connected digital technology. They long predate the Web and form the backbone of the whole concept of hypermedia.
This month, I am reviewing the concept of progressive disclosure as an extension of the foundational concept of hypertext/hypermedia, and listing the pros and cons of the most obvious and useful methods to expose more information in your app, website, or other digital touchscreen interface…
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Chernobyl to COVID — on Truth in Data
Data is not what it seems and certainly not what computers tell us it is. “Not great not terrible” is actually about an off-scale-high situation everyone ignores to misunderstand the severity of the data, and today we’re experiencing the same thing as we make personal and policy decisions around infection rates with incomplete data.
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Some Different Musings on the Future of the IoT, and 5G Especially
I don’t really get why, but thermostats on portable heaters, and most air conditioners, are awful. It seems like simple technology, but they are simply useless. To keep the greenhouse at a remotely reasonable temperature, we have to go out there three times a day, and change the settings.
But, the other week I got annoyed, googled, and found this…
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"Are You Sure?" vs. Undo: Design and Technology
This month’s column was going to be one of those tactical pattern ones, but it changed while I wrote it.
Every time I’m on a project with management of stuff in a list — which is most of them — there’s the ability to delete or remove items. The classic way is the guard condition, or an “Are you sure?” dialog…
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The Labor Illusion and Ethically Deceptive Design
People anthropomorphize most sufficiently complex systems, so they assume that difficult things act as they would for humans. Thus, they expect to see visible effort such as spending additional time to perform a hard task.
On the labor illusion, the use of artificial delays, and me being interviewed on video about some of this.
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Does No One Remember GIGO?
Design your systems better, to avoid capturing stupid data. And monitor what your system says to do lest to send happy greetings to people who are not happy or new, send acceptance letters to every applicant of your hard-to-get-into school, confuse one patient with another, or a thousand other stupid, rude, and downright dangerous mistakes that could be corrected easily if anyone cared, or was empowered to use their own judgement.
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The Snow Is In Dotted Lines
On how technology is all tricks to match human perception. If you don’t understand the technology, and make incorrect or out-of-date assumptions, it won’t go well.
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1, 2, 3 For Better Mobile Design
This is an easily readable version of the deck I often present. It makes it easier to follow along for those whose first language is not English, and is otherwise an easy way to view the information without resorting to a slide show or waiting for video.
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Type Sizes For Every Device
Digital products are about content. Even controls are pointless if users don’t understand their purpose and cannot read about what they do. The most important thing you can do for universal access and usability is to make sure everyone can read your website, app, or wearable.
Read on for reliable, research-based sizes for all your text and icons, on wearables, mobile phones, tablets, desktops and laptops.
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Is Focusing on Agile or Lean Damaging the Practice of UX? Part 1
I was one of the contributing experts quoted heavily in the latest Ask UXmatters Get expert answers columns. But in reading it this morning, I think it might need some additional explanation before I get letters. I answered very narrowly, so might end up sounding very, very negative about simply everything.
I keep seeing discussions of process where not only is UX blamed as usual, but even the concept of our disagreement with process, or the state of the industry, or the resulting products it itself a negative feature, and we’re inherently bad people, doing it wrong. So, some more framing…
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How to Criticize Design
I regularly encounter people, or posts, that refer to all criticism as bad. That it stifles creativity, especially for us sensitive artsy designer types. I could hardly disagree more. Criticism is a key part of discovering new ideas and working collaboratively. I am not brilliant enough to get by without help from others.
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