April 2014
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Why We Fail is available in eBook form at O’Reilly and all the reviewers there gave me 5 stars! Yay! Paul in Austin writes: The case studies alone provide an very interesting read to anybody who has some interest in technology in general. Each case study has been thoroughly researched with plenty of references. The…
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Trends in Design for Financial Services, April 2014
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1 min read
I frequently design financial services, and having just rolled off a project took some time to reflect on trends I’ve noticed. Here’s the first three that came to mind: Active participation by the affluent: Sometimes financial services companies assume the affluent don’t want to interact with computer services themselves. In reality, the affluent don’t want…
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Good Design Can Make the Elevator Pitch Futile
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2 min read
I had a five-minute conversation with an angel investor last week and described the product I’m working on. His response: “Similar things are being done by bigger companies with giant marketing budgets, so you’ll need a very clever marketing idea to succeed. What is it?” There was an uncomfortable pause. On one hand, I haven’t…
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Agile Ain’t Wishy Washy
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2 min read
As I write this there’s a group of about 15 developers and designers standing near my desk in a heated but constructive argument about how to check the design is right before the code heads off to QA. Occasionally the dichotomy of agile vs. waterfall is raised, and sometimes “agile” is used as a euphemism…