Time to read: 2 minutes Last night, I went to a lecture by Dinah Casson, of Casson-Mann, given at the RCA in Kensington. The gist of it was “think about the users”, and “they come to relax, learn, be surprised, laugh, cry, and leave as changed people”. Casson Mann design museums and exhibitions. If you made it to the AMAZING […] continue reading »
Time to read: 3 minutes What makes someone an expert? A wise woman once told me that you are an expert “when others come to you for answers”. Well. It does take a little bit more: such as the ability to answer questions, repeatedly, correctly, memorably. There is a requirement to educate, surprise and spread knowledge and skills. Do that […] continue reading »
Time to read: 4 minutes What if you owned a big mall, say out in Kent, and you had a website that existed, but that you weren’t sure was very helpful? Maybe your stores listing was confusing. I’d love to poke around a mall’s google analytics data! Look at failed searches, where users quit, what they type in… Treasure trove […] continue reading »
Time to read: 2 minutes Some random Monday sketches. All drawn today. The wireframes are from the structure of a website I’m spending some time thinking about. It talks about children and tech (across games, online security, education, and more) and I have to say I rather like it. quib.ly: for techie parents. (this is my tagline, not theirs) They […] continue reading »
Time to read: < 1 minute A sketch for a handbag inspired by Longchamp’s simple pliage “H” base pattern. Carries laptop in the centre, notebook, kindle, ipad in the “back”, and cables and other tidbits in the front. Handles would be wide for comfort. Longchamp’s laptop bags, to my surprise, value aesthetics over usability and persist in having stringy painful straps. […] continue reading »
Time to read: < 1 minute New goal: post a sneak photo of what went on in my sketchbook the previous week. Today, a simple unpolished sketch of various items that I carry with me every day. They don’t actually fit in the tiny handbag featured. And that’s part of the point of this sketch, to visualise how much stuff I […] continue reading »
Time to read: 4 minutes It’s 2013, and we should no longer be seeing unhelpful error messages. Some common mistakes and practices, with examples of how to make them better. […] continue reading »
Time to read: 2 minutes “An engineer cannot be caught writing poetry.” I was hooked. Artist, Designer and Inventor Bruno Munari wrote one of the most inspiring books on Design. Read it. Really. […] continue reading »
Time to read: 2 minutes Want to build a good brand? These are my top five suggestions for getting it right. If you know there will be an outage in service, warn your affected users, tell them when service will resume. And apologise. It sets expectations, demonstrates you are in control (even if that’s not true), and makes them feel […] continue reading »
Time to read: 2 minutes A friend of a friend needs a website. She’s an award-winning theatre director and professor in the USA, so her website needs to convey her experience and vision. I asked her why she does what she does, why she has chosen to direct, and she said that she loves telling stories, showing relationships about people, […] continue reading »