Good piece by Gerry McGovern on designing for tasks not engagement. Money quote: “Traditional marketing is about getting attention but online marketing is about giving it.” I don’t agree with Gerry’s conclusion that engagement is a bad metric…it depends on what you define as engagement. If reading marketing copy = engagement, then yeah, that’s a […]

Continue Reading: Customer engagement is not a good metric

Nice bio in the NYTimes of the elusive Maria Popova (aka @brainpicker). I’m a big fan of her blog, Brain Pickings. Maria is a master curator of cool stuff.

Continue Reading: Maria Popova Has Some Big Ideas

Good design advice here. However, I balk when I read “go out and do some research to better understand their audience”. I know it’s true, and designers who have done it know how valuable research is, but I know far too many product people who just don’t do it. How do you convince people to […]

Continue Reading: Product design advice from Instagram’s Mike Krieger

In case you haven’t seen this yet: Little Big Details is a great tumblog that archives small, subtle interface elements that sometimes make a big difference.

Continue Reading: Little Big Details

What you get when you search Pinterest for web design is pretty interesting. Good way to grab some quick inspiration…

Continue Reading: Pinterest / Web design

Matt Haughey’s take on why Twitter is more fun and pleasurable than Facebook. Interestingly, Haughey likes Twitter’s lack of memory and sees Facebook as living in the past. Makes sense.

Continue Reading: Why I love Twitter and barely tolerate Facebook

A really nicely done app from Apple, Cards. You can design greeting cards right from your iPhone or iPad, and then the service sends a physical card to the recipient. I’ve received one, they’re better than most cards you’ll get this holiday season. /via Nelson

Continue Reading: Impressive App: Cards for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad

Fascinating results from the Obama fundraising efforts, which further underscores the value of email. The best performing email subjects were “I will be outspent” and simply “Hey”. Article contains some great ideas for testing your own subject lines.

Continue Reading: The Science Behind Those Obama Campaign E-Mails