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Volume 1, Issue 1 of the Journal of IA

May 6, 2009 by Whitney Hess 1 Comment

The very first issue of the Journal of Information Architecture was published yesterday, after much dedication and tirelessness from contributors around the world. The Journal of Information Architecture is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. Its aim is to facilitate the systematic development of the scientific body of knowledge in the field of information architecture. The long [Keep Reading…]

Tips and Tricks for BlackBerry Users

May 6, 2009 by Whitney Hess 2 Comments

If you’ve been reading this blog for long enough, you know I don’t own an iPhone. How is it possible for a designer to not own an iPhone? Read one of my most popular posts: “Why I don’t have an iPhone (but might someday).” I am the proud owner of a BlackBerry 8830 World Edition [Keep Reading…]

Photo of the day: Whirlpool dishwasher utensil tray

May 6, 2009 by Whitney Hess 49 Comments

A few years ago I went out with a guy who made me dinner in his apartment. I’m going to refrain from saying what I thought of the food. But at the end of the meal as we brought the dishes into the kitchen, I noticed that his dishwasher had a unique design that I’d [Keep Reading…]

Twitter’s confirmation message is a usability fail

May 6, 2009 by Whitney Hess 11 Comments

Folks know that I use this blog to call out poor user experiences, and often I’ll get requests from people to discuss a particular usability failure that gets their goat. Recently my friend Michael Gruen asked me to talk about Twitter’s relatively new design for confirmation messages, a white bar that runs along the top [Keep Reading…]

Photo of the day: Tropicana grocery display

May 5, 2009 by Whitney Hess 4 Comments

I don’t want to beat a dead horse here. We all know that Tropicana redesigned their cartons and there was a major backlash from consumers. In the end it was pulled from the shelves, but not before Matt Knell was able to snap this unbelievable pic: Matt showed me this photo on his iPhone recently [Keep Reading…]

Photo of the day: A 90-year-old’s cell phone

May 4, 2009 by Whitney Hess 11 Comments

You know how you share one set of grandparents with your first cousins? I’m sad to say that my grandparents have all passed on, but I’m still very lucky to still have one nonagenarian in my life — my first cousins’ other grandmother. Her name is Jill and ever since I was a little kid [Keep Reading…]

My Interaction 09 recap on Boxes and Arrows

May 4, 2009 by Whitney Hess Leave a Comment

Interaction 09, IxDA’s 2nd annual conference, took place in Vancouver this year in early February. As usual, I live-Twittered most of the sessions and posted the tweets here on the blog: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3. The NY chapter of IxDA hosted an Interaction 09 recap event for those who were unable [Keep Reading…]

Come see me at the 140 Characters Conference

May 1, 2009 by Whitney Hess Leave a Comment

In 140 characters: My mug among the “cast of characters”:

Twitter as group therapy

May 1, 2009 by Whitney Hess 6 Comments

I was in a foul mood last night. Independent consulting certainly has its perks (and it’s definitely the best decision I’ve made in my career), but sometimes having no one to pat you on the back, tell you when you screwed up, help you improve your designs, help you get out of a sticky situation, [Keep Reading…]

Digital Conversion PSA

April 30, 2009 by Whitney Hess Leave a Comment

On June 12, 2009, analog will die. The Digital TV Transition (DTV) website has everything you need to know about making the switch. There are no less than 50 pages of full text explaining how to painlessly prepare. A variety of downloadable PDFs are available to guide you through the converter box installation process. There’s [Keep Reading…]