documentation
Nicholas Zakas enumerates the number one reason why good JavaScript libraries fail: Lack of documentation. No matter how wonderful your library is and how intelligent its design, if you’re the only one who understands it, it doesn’t do any good. Documentation means not just autogenerated API references, but
identicons
Don Park invented Identicons last week. An Identicon is a small, anonymized visual glyph that represents your IP address. Don explains it better than I do: I originally came up with this idea to be used as an easy means of visually distinguishing multiple units of information, anything that can
design
Robert Cringley’s 1995 documentary Triumph of the Nerds: An Irreverent History of the PC Industry features dozens of fascinating interviews with icons of the software industry. It included a brief interview segment with Steve Jobs, where he said the following: The only problem with Microsoft is they just have
user experience
In Typing Trumps Pointing, I extolled the virtues of the full-text search included in Vista’s new Start Menu. As many commenters pointed out, the feature itself is nothing new: I love keyboard searching, but basically you say you are installing Vista, an entire operating system, just so you don’
search
Windows Vista gets criticized a lot in the press, mostly for not being OS X. Some of the criticisms are valid. It is terribly late. And the feature list has grown less and less impressive as the development process has worn on over the years. But Vista has one killer
user experience
I’ve largely been ignoring Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child initiative. I appreciate the nobility of the gesture, but how interesting can sub-$100 hardware running Linux really be? Well, that was before I read about the novel user interface they’re building into those small green and
usability
The standard login form is everywhere. It’s unavoidable. And it’s a giant pain in the butt. As much as we see login forms every day, you’d think we would have mastered them by now. Unfortunately, we haven’t. Here’s what I’ve observed users doing, over
programming languages
Eric Lippert is one of my favorite Microsoft bloggers. He’s one of those people who reminds you that Microsoft, despite all its problems, still employs a lot of incredibly thoughtful, near-genius programmers. Take a look at his greatest hits: * How many Microsoft employees does it take to change a
gaming
I couldn’t resist. In the innocent era of 8-bit arcades, you made characters female by adding a cute little pixelated red bow. Just like in Ms. Sawhorse Detective.
gifts
As a technology enthusiast with a bad impulse purchase habit, I’m unrepentantly difficult to buy gifts for. The way I figure it, the only reason to grow up is so you can afford to buy yourself all the crap your parents wouldn’t buy you when you were a
software development
I’m a Windows user, and I’m out to prove Wil Shipley wrong: Mac users love their machines; Windows users put up with their machines because they don’t believe there’s anything really better. I love the Mac user base because they tend to be people who are
user experience
Deep down inside every software developer, there’s a budding graphic designer waiting to get out. And if you let that happen, you’re in trouble. Or at least your users will be, anyway: Joseph Cooney calls this The Dialog: A developer needed a screen for something, one or two