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Small but significant usability sins that websites should never commit

http://www.elezea.com/2012/09/usability-sins

Small but significant usability sins that websites should never commit. So, here it is — an incomplete, top-of-mind list of usability sins your website should never commit, based on data gathered through in-person usability testing:. Don’t use an asterisk (*) to mark required form fields. By the way, Luke agrees with me. Don’t open links in new browser tabs. Don’t have an FAQ page. Most users don’t know what. Don’t use PDFs at all. This confuses users. Any mouse-over movement gives users a trigger th...

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The 9x effect in product development

http://www.elezea.com/2013/07/9x-effect

The 9x effect in product development. From Benedict Evens definitely deserves all the attention it’s been getting. In. Glass, Home and solipsism. Benedict talks about the fallacy of thinking that customers care as much about your product as you do. You can think of people as users or customers but they’re not yours. They don’t belong to you, and they may barely even care that you exist. A little bit earlier he discusses Google Glass and says this:. This image from the article explains the concept well:.

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The real reason we’re upset about Sparrow’s acquisition

http://www.elezea.com/2012/07/sparrow-google-acquisition

The real reason we’re upset about Sparrow’s acquisition. When the news hit that Sparrow has been acquired by Google. You could almost hear the collective sigh from those who use and love this wonderful iOS and Mac OS X email client. Many people ( myself included. Took to Twitter to voice our disappointment with this move, especially about the fact there there will be no additional development on the app. The response from many others was that we should just get over ourselves:. We need to reframe this ar...

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If software is eating the world, Medium is eating its content.

http://www.elezea.com/2013/08/medium-is-eating-all-the-content

If software is eating the world, Medium is eating its content. About two years ago Marc Andreessen proclaimed that software is eating the world. Beware the WSJ paywall):. My own theory is that we are in the middle of a dramatic and broad technological and economic shift in which software companies are poised to take over large swathes of the economy. Why is this platform so successful, and why does it have such a strong brand? Why Medium May Succeed Where Quora Did Not. Medium is certainly a great platfo...

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Stop telling us how much everything sucks

http://www.elezea.com/2012/12/maybe-it-doesnt-suck

Stop telling us how much everything sucks. Last night Cennydd Bowles tweeted something that really resonated with me:. Never ascribe to stupidity that which is adequately explained by complexity. Mdash; Cennydd Bowles (@Cennydd) December 3, 2012. It reminded me of Erin Kissane’s contribution to the A List Apart article. What I Learned About the Web in 2011. If a single idea has followed me around this year, from politics to art and work to friendships, it’s been this one: it’s more complicated than that.

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What children’s drawings would look like if they were painted realistically

http://www.elezea.com/2011/12/realistic-childrens-paintings

What children’s drawings would look like if they were painted realistically. Is one of those projects that make me love the Internet for its ability to expose amazing creative talent to a worldwide audience. Illustrator Dave DeVries. Started with a simple question:. What would a child’s drawing look like if it were painted realistically? In his own words. That was it… no research, no years of toil, just the curiosity of seeing Jessica’s drawings come to life. Buy “The Monster Engine” on Amazon. Buy on Sm...

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Why enterprise software is so bad

http://www.elezea.com/2015/03/why-enterprise-software-bad

Why enterprise software is so bad. My day didn’t start great. The first thing I read was Michael Dubakov’s statement about enterprise software people (i.e., people like me) in. Enterprise software vendors have no taste. My current theory is that enterprise software vendors have no taste. CEO, VP of development, Product managers that focus on enterprise market all of them have no fucking taste. There is no taste in companies. Nobody, you guys. Literally. Fallacy. It sure. Like a logical conclusion:. So th...

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The dangers of teaching without doing

http://www.elezea.com/2011/11/make-and-teach

The dangers of teaching without doing. I love teaching and writing about user experience and design, and have often wondered what would happen if I tried to make a full-time career out of doing that. My main fear (well, apart from the fear of failing miserably) has always been that if I stop designing and building products, those muscles might atrophy. Bret Victor puts that fear into words in his great piece. Some Thoughts on Teaching. My book is now available. Buy on Amazon.com. Buy on Smashing Magazine.

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A product strategy approach to understanding Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp

http://www.elezea.com/2014/03/facebook-instagram-whatsapp-product-strategy

A product strategy approach to understanding Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. A few months ago I wrote about the forces at work when people choose a product. I discussed the Jobs-To-Be-Done concept of Progress-Making Forces. And shared this diagram to illustrate what happens when we try to get people to use our product instead of someone else’s:. Going Against The Grain. How do people currently send photos to each other? In the context of the the forces diagram. So the big question for Facebook is ...