August 25th
A thought on Amazon’s new product page design
Amazon has designed themselves into a Local Maximum but mobile and tablet use will help get them out of it.
Continue Reading: A thought on Amazon’s new product page design
ARCHIVE: August, 2013
August 13th
Finding Focus
Fred Wilson, on reading the Steve Jobs biography and observing how Jobs brought product focus to Apple: “(Jobs) brought focus to the product line, and thus everything else. There’s this great scene in the book where Jobs draws a classic four quadrant chart, consumer and pro on one axis, desktop and laptop on the other. […]
Continue Reading: Finding Focus
August 12th
Can an app makes you fat?
Great post on Serious Pony about cognitive resources: Your app makes me fat. This post retells the story of feature bloat in terms of the cognitive effort it forces upon the people who use our design. As we add more features, we add additional friction to the user’s day, and not just while they’re using […]
Continue Reading: Can an app makes you fat?
August 9th
Singer’s vital elements of product design
Great post by Ryan Singer: Vital elements of the product design process. He outlines a simple way to think about the pieces of a product: the job it does, the design patterns you use, and the resulting product concept. Lots to like in this article, including this gem of an analogy: “When the job isn’t […]
Continue Reading: Singer’s vital elements of product design
August 8th
Get the idea?
A nice piece by Chris Dixon on why ideas matter…they are part of a plan. “In response to this pop culture misconception, it has become popular in the startup community to say things like “execution is everything” and “ideas don’t matter”. But the reality is that ideas do matter, just not in the narrow sense […]
Continue Reading: Get the idea?
August 7th
What is a website for?
Great post by Rian van der Merwe: Hey Marketers, making a website is not about you on getting the frame of reference right about your website. It’s not about you, or getting people to do what you want, it’s about providing a place where people can do what they want. Classic inversion problem…similar to the […]
Continue Reading: What is a website for?
August 6th
Beware the local maximum of creativity
Seth Godin makes an important observation: “Organizations that do nothing but measure the numbers rarely create breakthroughs.” I think he’s right. While it is critical to measure KPIs (key performance indicators) and that measurement is how you become successful, it’s not enough to keep you successful over the long term. If all you do is […]
Continue Reading: Beware the local maximum of creativity
August 4th
On Advertising
Thought of the day from Robert Stephens, founder of the Geek Squad (which Best Buy acquired in 2002): “Advertising is the tax you pay for being unremarkable.”
Continue Reading: On Advertising
August 3rd
Quality is the best business plan
John Lasseter of Pixar, in a recent interview in Fast Company: “Everything I do and everything Pixar does is based on a simple rule: Quality is the best business plan, period. I love this quote for several reasons. First, it makes perfect sense in light of what people like about Pixar. They tell well-crafted, sophisticated […]
Continue Reading: Quality is the best business plan
August 1st
Rosenberg’s Leadership Rules
A nice set of leadership rules by senior VP of Product at Google Jonathan Rosenberg. The ones that resonated most for me: “be a broken record”, “every word matters”, “tell stories”, strategies and tactics”, and “interview well”. In particular, telling stories is underutilized by almost every product team I’ve encountered.
Continue Reading: Rosenberg’s Leadership Rules
