I've posted another interview excerpt from my book, this time with Larry Tesler, VP of Yahoo's User Experience and Design group, and creator of Tesler's Law of the Conservation of Complexity. Oh, and he's also the guy who created cut and paste.

Originally posted on Friday, February 24, 2006 | Link | Comments (1) | Trackback (0)

By now, you might know that Adaptive Path's first product, Measure Map, has been sold. I've been a MM addict user for about eight months now and my blog was one of the first 20 or so that was tracked by the service. I'd use it even if the people who made it didn't sit a few feet away from me. And I'm not alone. I've yet to hear of someone who didn't like the service, except to want more of it.

MM is a great example of a problem most people thought was solved--site statistics--rethought and designed. I'm proud of it even though I didn't have much to do with it. It's a fantastic achievement for Adaptive Path.

A year ago when I was interviewing for a job at AP, "The Product" was an ultra-top secret experiment to see if we could eat our own user experience dog food. A year later, Adaptive Path is closer to being what was described to me as a "worktank" (not a thinktank), where our ideas about design and about products are built, not just discussed. The launch of MM and the prospect of more products to come affirm that I made a good choice last year.

Although it was always part of the plan, I'm sorry to see Jeff go along with MM, but he's the product manager and I know my Google pals Chad Thornton and Elizabeth Windram will enjoy his company as much as I have. I wish him, and MM, well.

Originally posted on Tuesday, February 14, 2006 | Link | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)

I've been fortunate to get some great interviews for my upcoming book. Most of the interviews have been too long to publish in their entirety, so I'm excerpting them on the book's website and including some (great) material that unfortunately won't make it into the book. The first excerpt is an interview with Marc Rettig from Chapter 1, discussing the History and Future of Interaction Design.

Note to self: a collection of interviews/conversations about interaction design would make a great book too.

Originally posted on Saturday, February 11, 2006 | Link | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)

A trend I've observed in hour-long drama series lately is the desire to show, at the beginning of the episode, the most dramatic moment of that episode. Then, in brief bits, show the events leading up to that. Battlestar Galactica has used this in two mediocre episodes in a row now.

It's a cheap, easy device to build tension but unlike, say, Lost's flashbacks that reveal character and add layers of depth, these time shifts do nothing to increase our understanding of the situation or of the characters involved.

Time shifts can be used effectively. A great China Beach episode "Holly's Choice" was told backwards, but did it to inventively reveal the small choices that led to a major decision. The movie Memento too was told backwards to great effect.

If you need to jump in time to increase tension and spark interest in the episode, my guess is that the story isn't very strong.

Originally posted on Tuesday, February 7, 2006 | Link | Comments (3) | Trackback (0)

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