One thing that we in UX have in common with software developers is that we’re constantly learning. Another thing is that the process of learning is very frequently painful, because we recognize how stupid the decisions we made in the past were. We all have a Past Me, and Past Me is an idiot.
Now on The Interconnected: We didn’t have these problems when I was your age, before you stepped on my lawn
Yeah.
You know, buying software is actually harder than it’s been most of the time that I’ve been using computers.
I’m not saying I prefer the limitations of floppy disks, especially the physical limitations of their fragility.
I am saying that after buying Microsoft Word for the Mac, I earned a good rant.
We didn’t have these problems when I was your age, before you stepped on my lawn.
Now on The Interconnected: Page Integrity Testing
One of the least-talked-about responsibilities of UX Designers (in part because not all of us are required to do it, or do it well) is testing pages in the Quality Assurance (QA) stage before they go to production.
I’m working with three different teams to test our pages for three different projects, so I’m pretty knee-deep in testing right now. The result? Page Integrity Testing, three tips for helping developers help me produce quality products. (Or three tips for helping me help developers produce quality products. We’re all in this together.)
Now on The Interconnected: Organize Stuff: The Game
I am a Minecraft player, but I’m probably not a normal Minecraft player. I’m more like an XKCD Minecraft player, only I don’t need painkillers to sort things.
I love sorting things.
I also love telling my own stories about things, even as I justify sorting them. On my other, more fiction-oriented, website, you can find One Among the Dead, the ongoing diary of a woman dropped into a Minecraft world, just trying to survive.
Anyway, this week on The Interconnected, I fawn over sorting bricks.
Now on Skrift: Saving the future, one interface at a time
In Saving the Future, One Interface at a Time, I explain for Skrift’s audience why the interfaces of Star Trek suck so horribly badly… and what they can look for in current designs to keep that horrible future from becoming true.