Informational Geometry

This Sunday the New York Times reported that growth in online retail is slowing. They cited the usual vague business analysis of why ecommerce is expected to slow, while overlooking obvious design and user experience reasons as to why this is happening. Read the article: Online Sales Loose Steam I would argue that the user experience of shopping online is stale and outdated. Most online store 'templates' are much smaller than they need to be. They look as if they we're designed 7 years ago and never updated to be targeted for newer, larger monitors. Many top ecommerce sites really don't take advantage of todays high speed, broadband, connectivity in their UI. For example, today we have the ability to offer consumers HD (high definition) photos of products, but we don't. In fact, I'm sure retailers already have HD product photos for use in print catalogs, so why can't they leave them in high resolution when they put them online? And ther...

On Thursday May 24th I got to go to the facebook.com developer conference, f8 where facebook announced some major new features. Now anyone can develop an 'Application' and share it with the entire facebook network. These apps can be anything! Best of all, facebook will let you build a store, or use advertising to generate revenue through your app. I designed a game for Prosper.com called Fantasy Banker. Go ahead, play amongst your friends. Facebook has over 25 million users and expects that number to double in the next year. They rival google in web traffic, and they capture a young, internet savvy audience. I think they are successful because they have a truly personalized interface (that works, basically because it puts together and displays tons of dynamic, contextual, user information). The personalization creates a voyeuristic quality, and a wonderful user experience in facebook. I really enjoyed f8. I actually got interviewed! Thank you Prosper for letting me des...

... so I wrote it a poem ipod o ipod getting sick all the time crashing on my five star songs (even though you don't display the stars) ipod o ipod why do you play so many repeats? are you sick of my music? ipod o ipod you hold so much more than the same old songs so why don't you work? Better?

A very funny thing happened to me yesterday. A recruiter called me about a position he had, and it is literally my old job at AOL, The position is for mail.aol.com. Of course the recruiter asked if I could refer a friend to him. (And why would I want to give a free referral bonus to him when I personally know the hiring manager?) So if anybody reading this post desires to work on an email app then please leave your email address right here in a comment! But this begs the question(s), am I the only interaction designer who feels less than inspired by the thought of maintaining a UI for email? Is this type of work really appropriate for a senior designer ? Did I get the feeling in my Google interviews that they were eager to fob off the mail-designer role too? I wonder if this is the same at Yahoo?

I started a new job. I am very very pleased to be contracting at an exciting 'web 2.0' company. It's unlike any other place I've worked for. Their color palate consists of only 4 colors. Can you guess who it is? (no it's not google) It's very interesting to be back at a start up. First impressions? I am the only designer out of over 50 employees 90% of my coworkers are guys No phone? no problem The kitchen smells funny Everybody can see/hear/smell everything I do You can find me on the Yahoo! messenger whilst at this job.

I thought it would be interesting to see how cities on Craigslist compare to each other when looking for jobs in the web design/information design category. Here's a side by side image made from last weeks Craigslist postings April 2nd-6th showing; San Francisco Bay Area, Washington DC Area, Seattle, Portland, New York City, & Los Angeles. New York City has the most jobs... but who actually wants to live in a 400 square foot studio apartment or pay $4000/month in rent? Not me. SF Bay Area is has the most per person There's just more work here per capita. But who actually wants to live in a 800 square foot apartment that costs $2000 to rent? Sux. Los Angeles competes LA really competes in 3rd place here, but you gotta love your car. Washington DC What is UP with Washington? Hello! ever heard of Information Design? It's like, informational dark ages back there in our nations capital. Seattle, Portland Something seems strangely light here. Why aren't there more w...

A lot of truth gets revealed here on my blog. Now y'all know why I favor drinks in person over IM. Thank you, New York Times. Think you can juggle the phone, e-mail, instant messages and work? New research shows the limits of multitasking. What does this mean for all those web 2.0 'community' products that rely on messengers?