We just published a new entry to our podcast. In this episode we discuss our recent UX Designer hiring process. Enjoy!
Podcast episode on hiring
15 Feb 2010
The Overlapping Disciplines of User Experience
15 Feb 2010
It’s about the joining of the different disciplines, and not particularly a discipline in and of itself. While the best designers have an awareness of the disciplines that surround and overlap theirs, to be considered an experience designer would necessarily require management and coordination between the disciplines to ensure holistic products. This is an essential skill for making the best products, of course, but I would guess this is often a temporary role that designers move into during key points in the design process from a starting point of one of the other disciplines. Without the “raw materials” of the disciplines that make up UX, UX would be empty indeed. Source
Gruber on the confused masses
13 Feb 2010
ReadWriteWeb has a weblog post that ranks highly in Google’s search results for “Facebook login”. The comments on the post are filled with complaints from confused people who think that this is the new Facebook login page.
It’s funny, yes, but it’s a fascinating glimpse at just how confused many people are about how web sites and browsers work. They don’t use bookmarks, they don’t type “facebook.com” in the location field. They just Google for whatever they’re looking for and assume the first result is correct. All this argument over whether the iPad is too simple — if anything it’s probably still too complex.
Ping Pong
13 Feb 2010
We love to play ping pong. We don’t compete with each other. We just get up and head to the table. We’ll volley for a bit, talk about the project we’re working, and go back to our desk feeling refreshed.
Is less self-defeating?
11 Feb 2010
So what concerns me is if this quest for creating simple software is hurting us. Are we creating a culture of users that require a dumbed down experience, at the expense of the increased efficiencies and productivity gains we can realize with more complex tools? Are we also stifling the creativity of the designers and developers who are afraid to provide useful features because of the fear that they may be complex or not immediately obvious?
Becoming an obsession
10 Feb 2010
Over the past several years, Gary has been introducing our team to football (soccer to us Yanks). We’ve been making it a regular thing to sneak over to the local Irish pub for lunchtime matches. On a personal level, I’ve become obsessed with watching Liverpool matches at 4:30am PST on Saturday mornings so that I can catch 12:30pm GMT matches.
Earlier today, our new friend and client Matthew Speakman from Spacewalk Creative joined us for a match. He admitted to having recently grown his own obsession with the sport.
Chalk
10 Feb 2010
Taken a few years ago after we went hiking as a team.
Argon
8 Feb 2010
From an exhibit at the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry
Portland's iPhone application
6 Feb 2010
The City of Portland has released a free iPhone application that allows people to report problems with any of the city infrastructures. This means that if you’re walking down the street and notice a pot hole, graffiti, knocked over trees, street signs, etc… you can stop, take a photo, and report it right there.
Look forward to hearing how well this works out for the city. Would be interested in knowing if they’ll be opening up the data collected as well.
Suggest your podcast topic ideas
6 Feb 2010
After taking a short break over the holiday season, we’re planning to start recording new episodes of the Planet Argon Podcast.
If you have any topics ideas, please let us know.