At the end of last year, I contributed to a year-end roundup piece in A List Apart called “What I Learned About the Web in 2011.” I shared the most impactful lesson I had learned from various user research projects last year. CONTEXT IS KING The most important thing that 2011 taught me about web [Keep Reading…]
Historical Technology: Machines of Times Gone By
The Museum of the City of New York has one of the most extensive photo archives of historical NYC in existence. They made a significant portion of it (13,895 photos to be exact) available online last December, and when I first read about it on Gothamist, I must have spent hours combing through it all [Keep Reading…]
From the archives: I love new toys!
Pleasure and Pain is not my first blog. It’s probably my fifth, though it’s certainly the only one that ever took off. From September 2004 – August 2006, I had a blog called self-preservation (self-hosted WordPress, natch). At the time, I was pretty damn proud of myself for that witty title — and I kinda [Keep Reading…]
Photo of the day: Visualizing Genres
Hotel alarm clocks are usually a big pain in the butt. Hampton Inn aims to fix all that — and takes simplicity to inconceivable levels. They go so far past easy to use and intuitive that they come back around to obscure and pointless. They visualize musical genres. Columns for Classical Stream for Soft Rock [Keep Reading…]
Photo of the day: Penn Station, Charging Station
I’ve found myself at Penn Station quite a lot lately. You see, I’m working on the project of a lifetime with Happy Cog Philadelphia, so I visit by train from time-to-time. A few weeks ago I observed some unusual behavior: I’ve passed by this column dozens of times when I walk into the Amtrak area [Keep Reading…]
Photo of the day: Kickin’ It Old School
I’ve been riding Amtrak a lot lately, and I’ve seen a lot of businesspeople with their laptops and USB modems and BlackBerrys and bluetooth headsets. That has become the norm, even among the baby boomers. So much so that I had to do a double-take when I saw this sweet guy kickin’ it old school: [Keep Reading…]
Photo of the day: Do Not Disturb
I travel a lot and I’ve seen (and used) my fair share of Do Not Disturb signs. Most hang from the doorknob, and some are inserted into the card key slot. But who hasn’t experienced their shortcomings? Either they fall to the floor every time you open the door, or you aren’t given one at [Keep Reading…]
Whit Hour – Week 4
Thank you so much to the 25 or so folks who showed up for the fourth week of Whit Hour — my weekly one-hour video chat to answer any and all of your questions about user experience, consulting, and whatever else you throw at me. Join me next week on Sunday, August 30, 9-10pm Eastern [Keep Reading…]
TD Bank’s Penny Arcade
[UPDATE: I’m getting a lot of visitors from TD Bank’s Intranet. If you are a TD Bank / Commerce Bank employee, please leave a comment on this post with your thoughts!] I save my spare change in a ceramic vase that was given to me by my childhood babysitter. It isn’t cute like a piggy [Keep Reading…]
Who needs a plumber when you have Twitter?
I’m a do-it-yourself kinda girl, so instead of putting in a work order with the building staff, I’d prefer to at least try to fix things around the apartment myself. Lately I’ve been noticing a problem with my dishwasher, so I thought I’d ask Twitter: Not surprisingly, I got a lot of great advice. Here’s [Keep Reading…]
