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There is talk of innovation everywhere. Governments and business are talking about ways to close the innovation gap, to stimulate the economy and growth through innovation. Within this talk there is a great deal of focus on development: developing new apps, developing new technologies, developing a culture of innovation.

“The power of the grid is to lift the designer outside of the protective capriciousness of the "self" by providing an existing set of possibilities, a set of rules.” Ellen Lupton 

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Companies spend a lot of money developing a navigation structure but often do not spend much time testing it with users. We know it’s important to test our navigation structures, especially on content-rich websites but testing often gets shortened, pushed to the end of a project or eliminated all together.

“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” Vincent Van Gogh

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 Bring up the idea of using Focus Groups with most User Researchers and they will look at you as if you said you’ve been abducted by aliens. The skepticism is not totally unwarranted. Undergrad Psychology books are filled with examples of how focus groups are full of social dynamics that can produce misleading results. What researchers seem to forget is that all methods have their biases.

I was recently lamenting to a friend of mine that I couldn’t go for a walk, because I’d inevitably end up at a Starbucks, where I would then buy a mocha that negated any benefits of the walk. My friend sensibly suggested that I leave my purse behind and just take my phone.

This is a picture of the fire escape route from a hotel where I recently stayed.  I am sure this image is perfectly clear to the architect or engineers that worked on this building.  Unfortunately, the designers of the information failed to understand their audience and, more importantly, the context in which the information will be consumed

The Kinect, for Microsoft’s Xbox 360, came out almost a year ago. It’s a control interface that uses only motion sensors and voice recognition to control the gaming console.

Recently a friend of mine asked me if I knew any freelance writers who would be interested in a temporary gig. He needed someone to write a few general audience pamphlets about his gaming company. Nothing too technical.