Products I like and wish I actually used
Sunday, January 3rd, 2010 Posted in Design, Gadgets, Usability, Web products | No Comments »Sometimes you see something that looks so cool that you want to use it, but quickly realise you don't have any actual compelling need or interest. I've raved a few times about products I'm using at the moment and really ...
Sprixi – useful image search?
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 Posted in Design, Web products | No Comments »It's trite, but it's true - the best products to build are those that people want. Sage words from Paul Graham, yet I'm always surprised at how many products out there are solutions looking for problems. That's why I was ...
Iconography
Thursday, August 13th, 2009 Posted in Design, Miscellaneous | No Comments »I thought this was a very literal (and ugly) choice for an icon, care of my247.com.au (why are there no decent Australian review sites?) Incidentally, Gelateria Cremona has what is easily the best gelato I've ever had. I can only imagine ...
The difficulty of simple design – part 2
Sunday, March 8th, 2009 Posted in Design, Usability, Web products | No Comments »In my last post about design simplicity, I touched on the difficulties involved in what does and doesn't make the cut for a design. Recently I noticed a forum post where one of the developers behind Plex (a really amazing media ...
The difficulty of simple design – part 1
Saturday, February 7th, 2009 Posted in Design, Usability, Web products | No Comments »The hardest part of being a designer is choosing what goes into the product. Deciding what should and shouldn't go in is actually a very difficult choice. You don't want it to be overcomplicated, but you want to have a competitive ...
Ranking crowdsourced data with curves
Saturday, October 25th, 2008 Posted in Design, Usability, Web products | No Comments »I'm a big fan of user review sites. I've been using TripAdvisor since at least 2002 to help plan my journeys, and Yelp is my new favourite site since moving to the US. Crowdsourcing information is usually a pretty good way ...
Does anyone actually notice a website being ‘free’?
Thursday, October 9th, 2008 Posted in Design, Web products | No Comments »I know that 'freemium' is a popular business model at the moment, but do everyday web users really notice this when they're using a site? Personally I always assume a site is free and am surprised/annoyed when it isn't, unless it ...
Cuil.com – the next Google?
Sunday, July 27th, 2008 Posted in Design, Startups, Web products | No Comments »From the way Mike Arrington carries on about it (oh and a bit more here too), you'd think so. My initial impressions are quite different (to be fair, he does state "...it doesn’t appear to have the depth of results ...
iRobot and lessons for design
Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 Posted in Design, Gadgets | No Comments »It's funny how something can be a great design, and yet with a few tweaks, it becomes completely awful. Witness the Roomba. I love my Roomba - I bought it in October 2006 when I moved in to my cottage and ...
Web Usability panel
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 Posted in Design, Usability | No Comments »I just got home from a presentation organised by WebGuild which was a panel discussion on web usability. Met lots of interesting people of course, but the highlight for me was of course hearing Tom Chi, Jeremy Ashley, and David ...
