Intervention

December 17, 2011 by sean 78 comments

I have a terrible addiction to new ideas.  Although I can occasionally achieve a state of flow in my corporate job, I can almost never achieve it in my free time.  I’m constantly chasing the new idea dragon.  When I look at the past year of output, it’s simply abysmal.  All I  have to show [...]

Gutenberg Diagram PSD Overlay

December 15, 2011 by sean Leave a comment

The Gutenberg Diagram is a concept popularized by newspaper designer Edmund C. Arnold in which a display divided into four equal areas can help designers ensure that they are taking full advantage of a user’s reading gravity, the natural path that most peoples’ eyes will follow when being presented with information.  In Western cultures we [...]

How your t-shirt can help you meet cool people

December 14, 2011 by sean 1 comment

Friends and family chide me for holding onto my t-shirts far longer than I should.  When I find one that fits right and feels comfortable, I tend to wear it past the point that it literally starts unravelling.  One of my favorites is a Zildjian shirt my dad gave me about 15 years ago for [...]

Disney Imagineering’s 4 Rules for Brainstorming

September 25, 2011 by sean Leave a comment

Rule #1: There is no such thing as a bad idea.  We never know how one idea (however far-fetched) might lead into another one that is exactly right. Rule #2: We don’t talk yet about why not.  There will be plenty of time for realities later, so we don’t want them to get in the [...]

Roll Your Own Pre-Launch Page

August 30, 2011 by sean 11 comments

A Pre-Launch Page is a way for you to build some interest with your target audience while you slave away in the shadows building your awesome new project.  It also allows you to build an email list of interested potential users, which could absolutely be your most precious asset in the beginning.  There are several [...]

You can say that again!

July 21, 2011 by sean Leave a comment

Trying to purchase tickets for the Natural History Museum of LA presents me with an awkward salutation dilemma. This reminds me of that scene in The Goonies, where they have to play the exact right piano keys or be dropped into a cavernous abyss. I hope I pick the right one! This kind of obvious [...]

Microsoft continues to fail at User Interface Design

July 15, 2011 by sean Leave a comment

I gave up on Microsoft improving their product interfaces a long time ago, but they still occasionally shock me with an especially terrible design decision.  Their new Outlook Web Access interface is an abomination.  I’ll eventually write up a post dissecting exactly why the whole UI is criminally awful, but for now I’m going to focus on [...]