Jerry Seinfeld may not be a designer, but we can learn a lot from his life of craftsmanship.

Continue Reading: What Jerry Seinfeld can teach us about interaction design

Lego product designer John Henry Harris shares fifteen design and innovation principles. Lots to like in here, including: “Build with your left hand, or with gardening gloves. That is how far the Lego designers will go to emulate what it is like to be 4 years old and trying to pick up and manipulate the […]

Continue Reading: What software people can learn from great Lego design

Ev Williams: “I see this mentality that I think is common, especially in Silicon Valley with engineer-driven start-ups who think they can test their way to success. They don’t acknowledge the dip. And with really hard problems, you don’t see market success right away. You have to be willing to go through the dark forest […]

Continue Reading: Don’t Be Too Data-Driven

Alexis Madrigal writes why we should want to pay for software: “Under these conditions, companies have to sell themselves because they do not have a sustainable business. And when they’re sold, they either A) get shut down or B) become part of an advertising machine, like Facebook’s. Truly, the only way to get around the […]

Continue Reading: Why You Should Want to Pay for Software, Instagram Edition

Good and realistic viewpoint by Fred Destin on startups and the reality of monetization in the wake of Instagram’s TOS mess. Money quote: “In the world of innovation I love that we champion ‘disruptive entrepreneurs’ who want to ‘change the world’.  We’re so far out there in assuming there is something inherently ethical or moral […]

Continue Reading: Instagram : follow your dreams, CANCELLED

Three lessons on pivoting your product that are too scary for most startups to do.

Continue Reading: Three lessons on pivoting your product from Orchestra

Funny piece by John Brandon called Much ado about Pinterest. John hits a funny middle place where he points out that Pinterest isn’t much more than a zeitgeist, merely showing what’s popular right now, but he also is very much drawn to it despite this. From a design standpoint, I find Pinterest fascinating. Pinterest has […]

Continue Reading: Much Ado About Pinterest

Good reminder by Clay Allsopp, which amounts to “Don’t judge software by its cover”. “When everything moves toward beautiful, it chips away at our ‘product survival’ instinct and makes it harder for us to tell the gold from the crap.” I’m glad that I’m seeing more and more people make the distinction between visual and […]

Continue Reading: We’re Better At (Visual) Design, And That’s Not Good

Thoughtful post on UI and Capability by Ryan Singer. Contains several important points, among them: “Affording a capability and styling it are both important. But it’s essential to know which one you are doing at a given time. Style is a matter of taste. Capability and clarity are not.” I like this distinction and tend […]

Continue Reading: UI and Capability

One of the biggest benefits of testing and prototyping is not often talked about: it gives you peace of mind.

Continue Reading: How UX designers sleep at night