My first experience in improvisational comedy was in 1989. I was a freshman at Texas A&M University. Some of the students in the theater department decided to get an improv troupe started and somehow talked me into joining them. In the beginning, I was petrified to perform without a script. Looking back now, I can see just how much improv has taught me and how it informs the decisions I make when working with a project team to create a
Continue readingImagine if you will information architecture as a pimply-faced, malcontent teenager. IA is eager to express and redefine itself. It wants to be an individual yet accepted by its peers. It is simultaneously aggravated and apathetic about its parents, mentors, and role-models. It is a bit of a mess, but a wonderful, beautiful mess with endless opportunity and potential. The IA Summit (and information architecture) enters adolescence The first IA Summit was held April 8-9, 2000, in Boston, MA, and
Continue readingMy Android phone died on the train when I was several stops away from my destination. I should have remembered where I was supposed to get off, but, like everyone else, I rely on technology to offload cognitive processes when I should be using my brain. Wait, I thought, I have both my iPad and my laptop in my backpack. I felt ridiculously conspicuous pulling out either just to check Google Maps. Between the two, I chose the iPad. It’s
Continue readingWhen I was eleven, my parents bought a Mac Plus. It had a tiny monochrome screen, a floppy drive, and 1MB of memory. And it came with something called HyperCard. HyperCard let you make stuff. It had documents called stacks, each a series of cards – similar to PowerPoint today. In addition to graphics and text, you could create buttons and tell them what to do – flip to another card, show or hide an object, and so forth. Down at
Continue readingIt feels like we are experiencing a fascinating “Powers of 10”-style paradox with experience design and the digital design community — where we’re excitedly pushing beyond interface on many levels — attacking multiple interfaces at once with responsive and adaptive design and seriously embracing the massive world of service design and that broader brand and customer “experience” — yet also pushing deep into the extreme details of interface on other levels — tackling unique design rules tailored for the nuances
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