Informational Geometry

I was having dinner last night with a bunch of my girlfriends, during conversation I mentioned something about Facebook. My friend, Cindy said, "I get emails all the time by people wanting to be friends on Facebook. I think it's stupid and I just delete them." "What is Facebook?" another friend asked. "I never do that stuff" declared a third friend tersely. Being an UX person I seized the opportunity for some impromptu user research, I pressed Cindy to explain why she feels so strongly about about hating facebook. "All these things, facebook, youtube, myspace, friendster, are just a waste of time. I just dont care about any of that stuff!" I could tell she was just irritated by all those little invitations, as if they were some form of corporate sponsored email harassment. We all know people like Cindy. I know LOTS of people like her. Another friend (who does a lot of work on the internet) said, "I'm busy, and I hate it that I have ...

I was very surprised to login to LinkedIn today to discover "2 new colleagues from Studioroom" had joined LinkedIn. Wait, when did I hire two new people? There is another Studioroom people, and it's in Italy. These guys have a rather groovy flash site which...I cant tell...may have some inappropriate content on it. Great. I hope people don't confuse them with me. Clearly, this is a bug in LinkedIn. I wonder if I can just SAY I work at Google (in LinkedIn) without actually getting a job there?

Getting off the plane from New York City, back in San Francisco the other week, I felt a cold hard and fast end of summer. New York was more than warm, it is filled with more culture than Silicon Valley can point their mobile phone cameras at. Here, culture seems to revolve around facebook, tivo, and netflix. There, culture is a bar overflowing with music, style & conversation. Going from coast to coast made me realize all the PRETEND culture here in Silicon Valley. We obsess over technology news. We build online profiles so we can network. We try to "manage" our RSS feeds so we can try to be on top of trends. Alas lets admit that this isn't actually culture, these are all solitary activities which don't require interacting directly with other human beings. So I have to ask myself, is Silicon Valley the right place to practice user experience design ? Shouldn't designers, move around and interact with real people to find out what real people need or want? How...

I've been spending a lot of time on the east coast lately and there are some fascinating cultural differences between here and my home in Silicon Valley. I thought I'd share these cultural differences with you! 1. In Silicon Valley, the only thing that matters is the answer to this question "What comes after web 2.0.?" In Washington D.C. nobody really knows what web 2.0 is. 2. In Silicon Valley I am a "User Experience Designer". On the east coast I am just an internet person who designs websites. 3. In Silicon Valley a blog is an extension of who you are. If you don't have your own Blog or website there's something wrong with you. In Washington D.C. blogs are how you spy on government officials. And in New York City, blogs are how you find the best shopping. 4. In Silicon Valley most people use the web to chase " The Long Tail ". In Washington D.C. & Baltimore people just use the web to chase tail! See article , Craigslist used in BWI p...

Web Heuristics are guidelines for good web usability. Every company should have their own proprietary set of guidelines for product usability. But from what I've seen, most start up companies (in tech) focus more on rapid growth at the cost of actual usability. I am working on developing my own set of web 3.0 heuristics which I intend to publish on this blog for the benefit of all. My new set of heuristics will take into account newer internet trends and interfaces which I don't think are addressed by previously published guidelines. Like aspects of community, user generated content, sharing, rich media, and Flash interactions. I want to hear from you! If you are a web designer/developer and have some recommendations for research materials, please leave a comment . Not a developer? Comment about what sites you think are easy to use and which ones you hate. Thank you!

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...