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 [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Gadgetry'
Location Agnostic, Context Specific
February 7th, 2012 · 8 Comments · Accessibility, Gadgetry, Technology
Tags:Accessibility·Gadgetry·Learning·Technology·User Experience
From the archives: I love new toys!
January 30th, 2011 · 3 Comments · Gadgetry, Pleasure
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 [...]
Photo of the day: Visualizing Genres
June 17th, 2010 · 7 Comments · Gadgetry, Pain, Photography, User Experience
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 [...]
TD Bank’s Penny Arcade
August 22nd, 2009 · 58 Comments · Customer Experience, Gadgetry, Pleasure
[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 [...]
Photo of the day: Cigarette vending machine
May 12th, 2009 · 9 Comments · Gadgetry, Photography
On a recent trip to Pittsburgh, I passed this cigarette vending machine when I went to the restroom at Finnegan’s Wake (one of my favorite Irish pubs in town). It took me by surprise because they’ve been illegal in New York City for almost 20 years. I remember playing with the knobs as a little [...]
