Noise Between Stations

Andy Hertzfeld, of the original Macintosh team, writes about the prototype of Vista: a prototype for OSAF’s Networked Personal Information Manager. As a view into a development process that must integrate many different modules into one flexible interface it’s a must read. I’m also glad to see he landed somewhere that has a good chance [...]

Sometimes pushing, via email, still wins over pulling via websites. There’s a handful of sites I want to monitor but lack the time or attention to surf, even as an RSS feed. Lately I’ve been using iMorph’s Infominder service. They basically check a site for changes and send you an update. Nice touches are thrown [...]

I had a good laugh when I was looking at Jesse’s book site and came upon a section titled The obligatory fake FAQ. This touches on one of those seemingly innocent requests that drive me up the wall: people who want to ‘create’ frequently asked questions. The original format was a beautiful thing, a bottom-up [...]

Has anyone written about what it’s like to create controlled vocabularies (CVs) in the context of actual project work? I can’t think of any. Below are some spurious notes of my recent experience, probably not understandable to anyone else ’cause I don’t have time to instruct. We’re racing to deadlines and I’m driving as fast [...]

Pleasing writing on the MetaDesign site… Information needs design. You cannot not communicate. It looks good and it makes sense. MetaDesign…an international network of visual engineers, bringing a broad perspective to the complex challenges of everyday communications.

Homeless man sits and reads newspaper behind Metropolitan Museum of Art Descriptions of beautiful day in New York. Museum patrons don’t seem to notice. How rear of museum borders Central Park. A giant grid of modernist glass forms backdrop. Just inside, figures and busts from Romans and Greeks.

A user experience idea, part of the LazyWeb PositioningBlogReader is a useful, everyday tool for many people. While other content tracking, reading, or ranking applications came and went, BlogReader has consistently provided the content readers wanted in an easy and flexible way, and in doing so has become an ingrained part of many people’s everyday [...]

Frank Lloyd Wright spent three months ‘doing nothing’ (I would imagine he was thinking) before sketching for three hours to produce the drawings for Falling Water. He could imagine the entire structure, and subsequently furnish the details. With each work he was allowed to experiment and push the boundaries. And clients came to him for [...]

I’m designing a site for my sister’s fiance’s business, he does interior design and construction contracting. While my idea for the IA and navigation is simple and workable, it just ain’t compelling. About Us, Services, Portfolio [yawn]… I asked the designer to spruce it up and she was like, um, ok… What do customers get [...]

“There is an assumption about meetings and gatherings that’s so old it’s almost genetic. Conferences ask people to come as passive information gatherers. We’re drawn by big name speakers and then sit and wait for information to flow downwards. Yet when you ask people where they learned and contributed the most, they’ll inevitably say it [...]

Alternate career idea #51: Form a small team of crack Internet peeps to provide quick and simple services in the developing world. For example, imagine a SWAT team dropping into Afghanistan to set up a simple website to disseminate information within the new government, complete with no-nonsense hardware and training. Then we’re off to somewhere [...]

You’ve probably seen the Mindset List, published each year by Beloit College. It goes like this… Most students entering college this fall were born in 1984. A Southerner has always been President of the United States Cars have always had eye-level rear stop lights, CD players, and air bags. George Foreman has always been a [...]

Cisco just posted a demo of the new Cisco.com site that will launch soon. It’s a good little overview of what customers will notice in the redesign. I was lucky enough to spend time with some of the design team a few months ago. The site will be a fascinating study for several reasons, including [...]