After eight years of reliable service, it was time to replace my primary laptop, a 2012 MacBook Pro. It had been my first non-work Mac, and I gave it a lengthy review after buying it.

Back then, I luckily bought the last model before Apple made numerous user-hostile changes to their laptops, such as their unreliable butterfly keyboard, sub-par ( Read more... )

Do you remember eating Post Alpha-Bits cereal when you were a kid? I certainly do.

One thing I distinctly remember was taking a ‘D’ or an ‘M’ or a ‘P’ and nibbling the serifs off. Mind you, this was a good quarter-century before I learned what a serif was. I must have been a typographer prodigy!

( Read more... )

As part of this whole move thing, I’ve begun looking into UX job opportunities in Pittsburgh. Naturally, I’m gonna start by looking into things I know work here in Boston: tech meetups, events, and local branches of national groups.

Among the most successful branch groups here is something called Refresh Boston. Here’s how they describe themselves ( Read more... )

It doesn’t happen often, but there was an interesting TED talk recently. The topic-a little esoteric for some, perhaps-was flag design, and specifically municipal flag design.

Flags-at least well-designed flags-are cool, so I checked it out.

The talk is structured largely by the five principles of flag design:

1. Keep it simple
2. Use meaningful ( Read more... )

O-taaay… first week back in the working world. Impressions?

After taking two years off, Monday I started working for www.edvisors.com, a small ( Read more... )

unicornpearlz asked: How the heck did you get so good at marketing?

I’d say there are probably three factors.

The first is just simple observation. Since no one can escape being ( Read more... )

Venting about some UI annoyances.

Bad Drop-Downs

When a drop-down is active, typing a letter will take you to the first entry that begins with that letter. Pressing the letter repeatedly will go to the next entry in the list that begins with that letter.

For example, in a list of states, clicking on the drop-down and pressing ( Read more... )