Always complain I’ve had a terrible time with EE customer services recently. Too boring to share the details, but it involved lots of calls to various call centres – and not one person helped me, until I made an official complaint. At this point someone started calling us back – and finally I spoke to someone who... More
The duty to be interesting Some people have irritating ways of talking. They do that thing where their voice raises up at the end of every sentence. Others annoy us by speaking in monotone. They might do any number of these things. Allowing your voice to be irritating is lazy. If we are taking the trouble to say something to... More
Feeling embarrassed by new tech Some iPad doodlings My latest device is the iPad Pro. I have the Logitech Keyboard and, of course, a pencil. It feels like after 10 or so iterations, the iPad is finally more than just a toy. It’s a laptop alternative, and one that has the potential to help shape the future of work. In... More
Why I like argumentative people Some people are argumentative by nature. In a room full of agreeing people, they’re the ones looking for a way to disagree. Their default position is ‘no, it won’t work like that’. Their hat is black. I like these people! For a start, it is usually easy to know where you are with them. They... More
Re-drawing the collaboration diagram I’m sure you’ll have seen this diagram before. Classic Venn diagram showing the mixture of technical (feasibility), business (viability) and user interests (desirability) It shows the balance of interests required for great design. Without this balance we’re in for trouble: Skewing too much towards… …might yield screens that… Technical interests look like the database Business... More
Automate everything? Re-reading Frank Chimero’s excellent article, The Web’s Grain, I was struck by this simple point he makes: "...the less you have to do, the less say you have" A simple view of this could see us equating quite a few different things: more convenience = less stuff to do as a user = less control... More
How to handle disagreements I had an disagreement with a colleague the other day. It started quietly… **Me**: "What happened to the <design element I liked>?" **Colleague**: "Oh, we lost that. That came out." **Me**: "Really. Why?" **Colleague**: "It was causing confusion, the users we've been talking to preferred something simpler" I had delegated this last round of research... More
Worrying about the wrong things I’ve been sleeping terribly over the last month or so. Waking up in the middle of the night thinking about ridiculously unimportant things. Right now, these are detailed project related things. Stuff I should really have a note-book for – and leave at work. In this knowledge economy, we’re paid to have problems mull around... More
Designing modal interactions For me, a ‘modal interaction’ is one that facilities a single, focused type of interplay between human and computer. It’s a moment where you’re doing just one thing, without any distraction. As soon as you use the word ‘modal’, you might start thinking of ‘modal dialogues’ or ‘modal windows’ – which ask the user a... More
Mediocrity – and how it happens Too often we give up fighting for the best possible outcomes. The odds are impossibly stacked against us. Someone or some system of people are in our way – and we learn to pick our battles. Worse than that – we learn how not to fight. Sadly, this all might start in school, where you... More
