Archive for the 'Opinions' Category

Choosing a Programming Language to Learn

Monday, April 28th, 2008

Over the past few weeks I’ve been doing a lot of research on what programming language to learn. Being that my programming knowledge is limited, many of the arguments for or against a language were in terms that were beyond my experience level. You end up with a Catch-22 situation. You need experience to chose […]

Sharing and Communicating on the Interwebs

Saturday, April 19th, 2008

We’re currently in what can be described as a social gold rush. Services come and go fast enough to make your head spin. The hardest part for me has been trying to create logical structure and organization in my mind for how all these services are arranged in my life. I tend to need […]

Jetblue Confusion

Sunday, March 9th, 2008

The JetBlue kiosk is pretty amazing. It’s clean, simple and is a joy to use. I especially LOVE the very gratifying audible click when you select options. So much more effective with a little mid-bass added versus the” treble-y” mouse click. But I did notice one flaw on a recent trip. Why don’t the seat […]

Perception of Designers and Developers

Sunday, March 9th, 2008

While debating with Omar, our Lead Developer at Scrapblog, about a small chunk of UI, I noticed something interesting about the dynamic between a designer and developer. A designer trusts his eyes regardless of the logic behind the scenes, while a developer trusts the logic regardless of what he sees. In this situation I was […]

Against Happiness

Friday, February 22nd, 2008

My girlfriend Heather is a huge fan of The Secret. I however, am not. I am completely turned off and very skeptical of the glossy, Oprah-fied marketing campaign surrounding a very simple concept. Having said that, it may come as no surprise to you that I have often been labeled as negative. I’ve always […]

My $.02: What’s a Blog? (Seth Godin)

Thursday, February 21st, 2008

I agree with this post from Seth Godin, and since comments are off I’ll add my $.02 here.
I think that following the “musts” is an act of fear and laziness. I’ll be the first to say that people perform better within the boundaries of constraints, but not if you use them as a crutch. The […]

The Journey or the Destination?

Tuesday, February 5th, 2008

I read a great post today on Ask the Wizard (via 37signals) regarding the lack of a need for a business model when starting a new project. This is the type of thinking that anyone who wants to build a successful product should consider. Everyone would love to make money with their product, but […]

Defining the Initial Release

Saturday, January 12th, 2008

I’ve been diligently working on the IA for my side project and come to the point where I have to make the tough decision as to what will constitute the first release. I could go in one direction that would convey the concept and could be done relatively quickly, but holds back a great deal […]

Familiarity vs. Innovation

Friday, December 28th, 2007

Often times an interface designer will come upon a situation where he/she has discovered a superior, yet unconventional solution to a given design problem. The solution may be one that requires less time, less clicks or simply makes more logical sense, but at the same time may have a learning curve associated with it. Should […]

5 Things Application Designers Can Learn from Gambling

Monday, December 10th, 2007

Gambling involves betting a portion of money towards the goal of a larger return. This is not unlike what we do when building an application. We select the features we will implement with the hope that those features will form a valuable tool that is greater than the sum of its parts. But the similarities […]