paper & pencil

We Feel Fine

Wefeelfine.org is a set of very cool visualizations of real-time "feelings" snippets captured from blogs.  Really neat stuff!

Interaction Design Matters

Crappy interface embarrasses Sulu on national television—not cool describes an interface problem in a TV game show that embarrassed George Takei.

Fortunately the story has a happy ending, as George Takei went on to win $106,150 for the Japanese American National Museum. The take-away for the rest of us? Interaction design matters. Designers: test your systems under real conditions and don’t embarrass your users!

Countdown to a spanking

Countdown to a spanking is a short and very funny review of the software update process on Windows vs. Mac.

XP on the other hand, requires a 'Restart Now' or a 'Restart Later' before it gets out of my way, and choosing 'Restart Later' begins a Sisyphean cycle of misery until finally the computer has had enough of your sandbagging and counts down an automatic restart, like a mother counting down the time you have left before you get a spanking.

Sketchboards: Discover Better + Faster UX Solutions

Adaptive Path promotes sketchboarding as a precursor to creating wireframes. The technique the author describes is collaborative sketching. The goal being to work through possible design solutions quickly to increase the chances of "breakthrough moments".

The sketchboard is a low-fi technique that makes it possible for designers to explore and evaluate a range of interaction concepts while involving both business and technology partners. Unlike the process that results from wireframe-based design, the sketchboard quickly performs iterations on many possible solutions and then singles out the best user experience to document and build upon.