Indoor enthusiast. Co-founder of Stack Overflow and Discourse. Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about. Find me:
usability
I’m currently re-reading the book About Face. I hadn’t revisited this book since I bought the original version way back in 1995. The update, which was published in 2003, is a significant overhaul – and frankly much better than the original. Adding the second author, Robert Reimann, was a
software development concepts
I was struck by a comment in Steve Yegge’s not-so-new blog: How could you have arrived at [the conclusion that top tech companies do a good job at interviewing] after reading this blog entry? Did you read a different post than the one I wrote? I said interviewing is
usability
The Windows Live Local mapping service is surprisingly difficult to use. It certainly looks simple enough: Like everyone else, the first thing I do when I encounter a new mapping solution is try my current address. In this case it’s my work address. But when I press enter, I
gamedev
This Gamasutra article highlights some intriguing real world experiences in rapid prototyping: The project started in Spring 2005 with the goal of discovering and rapidly prototyping as many new forms of gameplay as possible. A team of four grad students, we locked ourselves in a room for a semester with
password management
I have fifty online logins, and I can’t remember any of them. What’s my password? I can’t use the same password for every website. That’s not secure. So every password is unique and specific to that website. And what’s my login name? Hopefully it’s
software development
One of the peculiarities of software development is how rapidly knowledge becomes obsolete. Dan Appleman cited a parable from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass which illustrates this wonderfully: ’Now! Now!’ cried the Queen. ’Faster! Faster!’ And they went so fast that at last they seemed to skim through
.net
Richard Grimes recently posted an Analysis of .NET Use in Longhorn and Vista, wherein he draws two conclusions: 1. Between PDC 2003 and the release of Vista Beta 1, Microsoft has decided that it is better to use native code for the operating system 2. Microsoft has shown no intention
programming
It’s remarkable how much you can learn from other programmers. Not by reading their code, mind you, but by realizing that programmers are human beings. Nowhere is that more evident than these two collections of interviews with notable programmers: Both Programmers At Work: Interviews with 19 Programmers Who Shaped
usability
It can be very difficult to sell usability, as Jared Spool notes in a 2004 interview: I learned quickly that business executives didn’t care about usability testing or information design. Explaining the importance of these areas didn’t get us any more work. Instead, when we’re in front
design
Which pill bottle would you rather use? The rightmost bottle was designed by Target to address the shortcomings of traditional pill bottles. And you probably decided which pill bottle you liked best within a twentieth of a second. When I suggested redesigning address input in web forms, there was some
browser
I like Firefox. I’ve even grown to like it slightly more than IE6, mostly because it has a far richer add-on ecosystem. But I have one serious problem with Firefox: This screenshot was taken after a few days of regular Firefox usage. That’s over 900 megabytes of memory
tag: technology trends
Our old friend, the OK Button, has gone through a few visual tweaks in the last twenty years of Windows: There is one constant, however: the use of OK. It’s an abbreviated form of Okay. But where did this word, and its convenient two-letter abbreviation, come from? The question