“The biggest mistake I observe when it comes to information architecture is in the naming of pages and sections. The problem manifests itself in three ways:

• Use of jargon: Every industry and company has its jargon. Web design is certainly no exception with more acronyms than you can shake a stick at. The problem is that you can never assume your users will know all the acronyms. They maybe new to the sector or use a slightly different variation of your companies terminology. The names of your sections and pages should be free of jargon and where possible, product names that the users will not have previously encountered. Page and section titles should be descriptive of their content in the plainest language possible.
• Long names: Although naming should be descriptive they should also be short. Ideally all menu items should be one or two words long. The idea is that users should be able to quickly scan down the list of pages available and identify the one most likely to have content they need.
• Inconsistent naming: Be careful that the way you refer to pages does not change depending on which section you are in. Every link to a page should be referred to in the same way. Where a page title needs to be longer than the wording used in menu items make sure it mirrors it closely. Inconsistent naming can cause confusion and doubt in users making them unsure if they have previously viewed a particular page.”

A lot of people in this world think meetings are evil. I tend to be one of those people, actually. But let me clarify- it’s meetings that take 3 hours to accomplish what could have been knocked out in 30 minutes that get under my skin.

I have a deep appreciation for group communication. People working together, touching base frequently, actively collaborating and working toward the best possible result. There’s nothing negative about that.

I just think there are ways to go about it that don’t require half a day’s attention. Frequent e-mails showing progress, phone calls to touch base, and some occasional face time is nice! And I like to think our clients agree. After all, once we’ve determined we’re all on the same page, don’t they want us spending more time working on their project than talking about it?

Cool guy.

Inventor Portrait: Ralph Baer from David Friedman on Vimeo.

Bret Victor – Inventing on Principle from CUSEC on Vimeo.

via http://waxy.org/links/

About Apple’s possible entry into the TV biz:

“We’ve not seen what they’ve done but what we can say is that they don’t have 10,000 people in R&D in the vision category,” [Samsung product manager Chris Moseley] said.

(Because more people working on a project always equals more quality right?)
http://www.macrumors.com/2012/02/14/samsung-underestimating-apples-potential-impact-on-television-market/

During the Holidays, we usually take some time off from work to enjoy friends, family and a break from the daily grind. So, our response time might be a little slower than usual until we’re back in the full swing of things on January 3.

If you have an emergency during that time, though, just shoot us an e-mail- we’ll do our best to get you taken care of as quickly as we can.

Happy Holidays!

Wearing many hats can be exhausting. And rewarding, and painstaking, and refreshing. Guess that’s what you get if you have all those hats on…

I’ve given it some thought, though, and I’ve decided how I feel about the whole blending interests and being pretty good at all of them vs focusing on one thing and mastering it conversation.

When it comes down to it, I think being able to do lots of things makes you more valuable. When you’re confidently strong in several areas, is it really necessary to then “master” one of them and forsake the rest? Keep Reading

College didn’t do me a damn bit of good.

That’s not to say I didn’t take advantage of the classes I took, or do my homework, or participate in group discussions… I did. I was actually a relatively good student. But still, here I am doing work that’s directly related to my degree (communications) and I feel like everything I’ve learned has been on the job. That’s right- on the job, not in the classroom.

It makes perfect sense that I feel this way, because it’s the world we live in. We’re a self-taught generation, no professors necessary. We learn from each other’s mistakes, successes, trials and tribulations. No no no, we don’t use self-help to reach our goals, but we are self-taught, and that’s a huge difference.

I’m not the only one who feels this way.

“With the amount of awesome tutorial blogs and design blogs out there, I don’t see any reason for a degree.” – Mike Smith

“I have worked with other programmers with and without degrees. Some were good and some not; having a degree didn’t seem to make any difference as to which pot they fell into.” – Stack Overflow

I think Peter Chang sums it up quite nicely.

“…before I went to college I was self-taught and after college I consider myself to be self-teaching all the time. Learning should never end.”