ux | work | life matters
Usability is a moving target. A user’s understanding of your application improves over time and your application’s interface should adapt to your user. – Layervault in Progressive Reduction Image source: www.flickr.com/photos/ivanclow/4260762246
This morning I woke up, as you do, put on my running clothes and then took them off again. I really wasn’t in the mood and felt low on water and energy after a hot night in the bedroom. Temperatures hit 33 degrees outside yesterday.
The second time I did my ‘Designing for everyone, anywhere, at any time’ talk I told the story of project flat and why one size fits all just ends up with a fair few misfits.
As I’m writing this I’m sat on a flight between Copenhagen and London, looking out over the clouds. I’ve just finished listening to Niklas Zennström’s ‘sommarprat‘ from earlier today, and I’m filled with optimism. The future is ours to make, shape and form, as long as we dare give it
Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. Leonard Cohen, Anthem Image source: www.flickr.com/photos/31878512@N06/4945216951/in/photostream
Last year I wrote about how I wanted to have a summer where I was in control of my time. Where I was able to mix holiday with working on byflock and my consulting business. As of today I’m doing just that.
This afternoon there was a tweet in my Twitter stream that made me particularly happy. Not surprisingly it had to do with working in a café and how it can boost creativity.
My siblings and I grew up in a household filled with the smells of freshly baked bread, cakes, pies and cookies and I was always close to the bowl, stealing a teaspoon or two of dough, and licking it clean afterwards.
Related to my post on moving away from a one size fits all in the workplace I’ve put together a survey about flexible working. It takes around 5 minutes to complete and once I have the number of answers I need, I’ll pull together the results and findings and share
The other week I tweeted a link to a post titled ‘Why employees shouldn’t have hours‘ and how I believe and agree with every single bit of it. As suspected it got a few comments so here is my slightly longer than 140 characters view on the topic.
You don’t differentiate through your product’s feature set, its battery life or any other spec. The difference is emotional: Don’t just do something for me, but make me happy while doing it. From the Mashable post With iOS 7, Apple Leads by Following Image source: www.flickr.com/photos/jdhancock/4354438814
If you want to find out how to use a new emerging tool, don’t ask the people who invent it, because they have a very narrow view of what it’s supposed to be used for. The people who are hacking it–the people who use it for crime, who use it
Throughout life we every now and then end up in situations where we “are sure” of the outcome. We can almost guarantee it’s going to go a certain way. More often than not when we exclaim as such it’s the bad outcome, not the good one, we usually have in
[youtube id=”MH5wMTV6n3w” width=”475″] Some Swedish truths and humour from the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö on Saturday 18th of May. Image source: www.flickr.com/photos/jdhancock/3383629917
I rarely get ill or have to go to the doctor, but sometimes like the other day I’m in need of their help. On Wednesday it so happened that kitty also needed to be seen by her form of doctor, the vet, but the service we got was very different.
[youtube id=”4q1dgn_C0AU” width=”475″] Dan Gilbert challenging the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want. Image source: www.flickr.com/photos/jdhancock/3383629917
Simple is terrific but simplistic is not. Don’t lose important complexity. Complexity gives our lives and interfaces texture. People don’t want dumbed down interfaces. They want uncomplicated experiences. Josh Clark via Luke W
I get the majority of my energy from being around people, but I also need a fair bit of alone time. Tonight D is out and I’m having a me time night.
A lot has happened in the last 10 years. Multiple devices and smartphones in particular have exploded and with that how we use the web and what we expect from it has changed.
Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present – Jim Rohn Image source: www.flickr.com/photos/aftab/3366342089