Informational Geometry

Happy New Years! One of my resolutions this year is to be more creative. And since it is now officially the New Year I thought, why not get off to a good start and write a post on the blog? I know, right? It's been too long. Last year, 2015, my resolution was to save money. Nothing like buying a fixer upper to put that resolution at the top of your list every year! It came time for a phone upgrade but as I was in frugal-mode (still am, frankly) I waited, patiently for Black Friday to get me a deal.  I used to have an iPhone 5c. A sleek little number with a candy like green plastic shell. It served me well on commutes to and from DC. I would see other 5cs on the commute and smile at complete strangers. Like, "yeah, I see you and your cool affordable iPhone. You know it. I know it. We're in the club." Mostly these people just ignored me. At last, Black Friday came, but the internet said there were no deals! How could that be? Maybe I had too much turkey? Saturday I ...

So in reading about the drought in California I was inspired to try to design some kind of solution. I guess I was frustrated after reading the plethora of news about the drought and seeing little to no solutions mentioned. Just NYTimes naggery and finger pointing and stuff about how California's agricultural industry simply does not manage water well. How California has never implemented drought measures that other parts of world has. And then, maybe it's because I'm a gardener and I recycle water that I actually see this drought problem easily solvable. So here's my little Temple Grandin moment! An "array" of solar stills floating like enormous doughnuts on the sea. It would make me really happy if some people in California would try this out. 

Confliction - A sickness of conflict between one political idea and another. The Measles Outbreak of 2015 We can't tell parents what to do with their own kids But we want to tell parents what to do But the Government has NO RIGHT to tell parents what to do But we really really really just want to tell parents what to do But we can't. It's not cool OK but seriously, some other kids are at risk, and we should just make laws NO, we can't tell parents what to do with their own kids. THAT is already law! How about we trot out doctors and be really nice about telling parents what to do? Yeah, but a lot of people understandably don't trust pharmaceutical corporations OK let's use statistics, numbers! Let the data convince the parents! BUT, the LAW says, we can not tell parents what to do with their own kids

I keep reading about new technologies coming out and hearing about the wearbales innovation. Seems like Silicon Valley is trying very hard to break into some new markets, and they're pushing into some unfamiliar territory to get there. Yesterday I was reading about apps that will tell if the person you're speaking to on your smartphone, is lying. Yup. I suppose there's some benefits to technology like that but here's why it's being developed.... to sell you more stuff . It's more Big Brother  advertising crap. What about just improving the good old stuff we know everybody loves and will buy? Where is my ultra high definition sound? Better than a CD, over the internet? This seems like a multi-billion dollar challenge, that is technically and commercially obtainable. The data storage is there, the marketplaces are there, god knows the cloud is there, and the consumers are there - what's missing is the high definition sound! All that takes is some more techno...

In my last post,  Don't Fear The User Part 1 - Empowering Software Development With Usability Techniques , we talked about what usability is. The practice of making software easy to use. And that you accomplish this by listening to your target end user. Incidentally there is a great post on Good Experience today where Mark Hurst mentions his tweet: Before you get customers involved, first you should probably check if the boss can handle bad news. This is important because before you try to do usability work your boss needs to be on board. If you're boss is fearful and can't handle bad news then it might be a futile effort. Instead usability should be empowering. It will resolve problems and can help an organization meet its goals.  Now I'm going to elaborate on how to do it. Step 1: Who is The End User? User Experience Designers when we go to work, we do this thing called "User Centered Design". And all this means is we try to focus on The End User w...

Usability is the practice of making things easy to use Usability is the practice of making products, especially software, easy to use .  If you can think of some frustrating website that just didn't work, or even a bad customer service experience, you understand how important usability is. The whole world needs usability. Here we are just talking about the intersection where humans and computers meet - software. Since software is exploding, the industry needs user centered design more than ever. As consumers we need our smart phones and apps to be easy to use. But professionals probably need more usability than consumers... just so they can do their jobs. And sadly, way too many B to B applications and enterprise software are unwieldy and difficult to use. There is a way to fix software so it's easy to use. Incorporating usability techniques into your development process accomplishes two things. #1 it allows you to focus on the goal of making your product work as best i...

The funny thing about internet marketing is the people who would benefit from it the most probably are the same people with limited budgets - Artists, writers, and musicians.  Independent creative people and students usually don't have an annual marketing budget.  If you fall into the Artist category pay attention, this post is for you. I reveal how to simply use social media. If you DO have a marketing budget then contact me and let me show you how to ROCK your internet marketing. Writers have already blazed a trail on the internet and there are many websites dedicated to helping writers . Since I have a Fine Art background and I think like a designer, I'll focus on artists & other kinds of small businesses like restaurants. DO: Get yourself set-up with a website or blog First you need a "hub". A command center where you can connect to all sorts of social media and networking sites. In case you didn't know a blog is actually just another kind of websit...