Process
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What’s Better
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1 min read
Hmmmm, I wonder if Christopher Alexander would like What’s Better? Isn’t this the sort of thing he was talking about to test something’s ‘wholeness’, simply comparing two things to see which people liked more? I’m not kidding.
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Internet R&D
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1 min read
Mr Patent: ‘There’s an endless series of problems, things that the company needs us to solve, and we go and do that.’ I wonder if any Internet companies have dedicated R&D departments for finding solutions to problems (as opposed to developing new products), or if we all keep fixing the same things repeatedly in different…
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Lockheed Project Management
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2 min read
Fast Company has an interesting article on the management approach at Lockheed Martin that led to winning the U.S. Joint Strike Fighter contract. One important point is the willingness of the Pentagon to prove out the technology during the bidding process: ‘The defense department gave both Boeing and Lockheed $1.1 billion in funding to develop…
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Customer Service Organization
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2 min read
Dear Mr. Lombardi, I will forward your comments to our E-commerce department to see if this information can be added to the error screen. Please let me know if I may be of any further assistance. Thank you, Member Service Officer An email from my bank, this is the same problem as when I was…
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Retail Design
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1 min read
Her shop in Brooklyn is small but cozy. In a line around the walls are framed samples of her work with inlaid photos of the happy customers. The storefront blends in with the others on the block. The simple sign over the window reads, ‘Websites – Cheap.’ Patrons come in and chat about what they’d…
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Intertwingled Conversations
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1 min read
Sharing a desk with Craig, I noticed it’s not unusual for him to be talking to one team member on his mobile while conducting multiple simultaneous IM sessions.
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Writer’s Workshop Critique Format
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3 min read
Looking for a Lighweight Way to Receive Peer Feedback In the past I attempted to improve the quality of information architecture work on the department level using heuristic analysis. It’s relatively easy to do, but in reality I found analysis sessions difficult to run because 1) the presentation and feedback process is time consuming due…
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Estimating Time for Design
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1 min read
Words of wisdom from Shel:
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Usable, Useful, Desirable
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1 min read
Apparently Liz Sanders of Sonic Rim coined the phraseRazorfish uses it often, as do othersIt sounds like an updated “Firmatas, Utilitas, Venustas” from the architectural historian VitruviasVitruvius on proportion I’ve been thinking that different kinds of artifacts have different ratios of usability, usefulness, and desirability. It’d be nice to express this at the beginning of…