A fantastic article on feedback loops at Wired gives a nice overview of what they are: “A feedback loop involves four distinct stages. First comes the data: A behavior must be measured, captured, and stored. This is the evidence stage. Second, the information must be relayed to the individual, not in the raw-data form in […]

Continue Reading: Functionality, Gamification, and Feedback Loops

Part 2 of an interview I did with Christine Perfetti on creating engaged and passionate users.

Continue Reading: Creating Engaged and Passionate Users, Part 2

With the rise of the Social Web as a primary channel for many businesses, creating engaged and passionate users becomes a primary problem…my friend Christine Perfetti of Perfetti Media recently interviewed me about how to incorporate social features into social applications. Here’s part 1 of our discussion. Christine: In the first edition of your book, […]

Continue Reading: Creating Engaged and Passionate Users, Part 1

A quick note that I’ll be giving a talk on Designing for Social at the Warm Gun Conference on October 8, 2010 in San Francisco, California. Also, discount code! Use the code bokardo to get 10% of the registration price. Designing for Social: 3 Core Principles My talk is going to be about three core […]

Continue Reading: Designing for Social: 3 Core Principles at the Warm Gun Conference Oct 8

A quick announcement about a workshop I’m giving in Boston in October on the Usage Lifecycle. The workshop is for designers, design managers, product folks, and other people responsible for web sites who are struggling with creating a great user experience. The workshop will cover, among other things: How to design for the psychology of […]

Continue Reading: Designing the Usage Lifecycle Workshop in Boston Oct 25

A fascinating read about the Dunning-Kruger Effect, which to my observation is enjoying somewhat of a heyday in certain circles. I see reference to it everywhere…well here is an interview with David Dunning, the one who originally thought of it. “There have been many psychological studies that tell us what we see and what we […]

Continue Reading: Dunning-Kruger Effect: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is Part 1

A great piece by Peter Bregman in the Harvard Business Review about How (And When) to Motivate Yourself:

I write at least one post a week. Does that take discipline? Sure. But when I break it down, the hardest part — the part for which I need the discipline — is sitting down to write. I’ll find all sorts of things to distract me from starting. But if I can get myself to start a post, I don’t need much discipline to finish it.

This is my experience as well. I spend lots of time noodling over whether or not to sit down and write. I’ll wonder when I’m going to do it, I’ll schedule my weekend morning so that it has writing time. I spend a lot of time doing this…way more than necessary.

But once I’ve started I’ve got momentum. It’s the sitting down that’s the hard part…where most of my consternation comes in. I think this is why some of the best thinkers had daily rituals…so they could spend less time planning and more time doing.

Bregman’s solution to moments in which to make decisions?

“Schedule them. Create an established time to second-guess yourself, a time when you know your commitment won’t be weakened by the temptations of the moment. If you’re going to break the diet, do it when your need for willpower is at its lowest. Decide to decide the next day, maybe after a healthy breakfast or a little exercise, when you know your inclination to stick to your goals will be naturally high.

via How (And When) to Motivate Yourself – Peter Bregman – Harvard Business Review.

Mike Davidson rightly points out why iPhone/iPad apps are often better than their web counterparts. It also amuses me when people talk about two things in particular with regard to the iPhone and iPad. First, how much better some companies’ iPhone apps are than their web sites, as if the company is somehow so much […]

Continue Reading: A good problem to have | Mike Industries

Facebook continues its bad behavior around user privacy.

Continue Reading: Facebook Behaving Badly

Paul Adams, UX researcher at Google, is studying what sorts of relationships people have online. His latest piece, Designing for Social Interaction: Strong, Weak, & Temporary Ties shows how people mostly use social networks to map their life, not create a whole new online one:

Continue Reading: Strong, Weak, & Temporary Ties