What a Lovely Name
What a Lovely Name is a web experience that lets you browse thousands of baby names for your impending newborn. It’s the only site that lets you choose by name qualities and even fantasy names from the worlds of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and more. Look up the origin of names […]
Designer vs. Engineer — The Curse of Low Expectations
I was sitting at a dinner. The dinner was for speakers at a design conference. I was one of the speakers. Across from me sat another speaker. A software developer with an appreciation for beautifully designed software. This in itself is a good thing. You can have beautiful architectural plans but if the contractor has […]
Designer vs. Product Manager — The Turf Battle
In the early days of software development, designers were nary to be found. And even when they were involved, it was in spot roles like icon creation, or logo fashioning. There wasn’t awareness of the role a user experience designer could play because there were no such people. That said, it was obvious, that left […]
On Luck
There is a large market for business books. The shelves of your now closed local bookstore, and the virtual shelves of your thriving online bookstore are filled with these books. Invariably they all promise to tell you how to do something — create a successful business, hire the right people, get a great job, and […]
The “First Impression” Quandary
“You never get a second chance to make a first impression” or so they say. And when you’re designing a piece of software, this is certainly true. If you turn customers off of your product with a lousy first experience, it doesn’t matter how great the ongoing experience is as they’ll never have it. That […]