…or “Why You Need a Graphic Designer” The book’s title caught my eye instantly.  ”Visual Literacy”  Intriguing.  I took it home, and over the next few days, I learned just how blind I was to the art of visual communication. Completely illiterate. The book begins with exercises: “By using four black squares of the same [...]

One way to compare how different mobile platforms are doing is to look at the usage numbers from a popular app. Facebook reports their usage numbers alongside other apps (see here here here & here).  I went and graphed the usage figures a few weeks ago and present them below [no guarantee they're 100% up-to-date...in fact it looks like the Android and [...]

I recently had the pleasure of meeting two MBA students with big ambitions: they want to redefine online shopping. I sat back in my chair and listened closely as they pitched their ideas for an entirely new online shopping experience. 3D this, interactive that, Web 2.0 the other thing. As they laid out the extensive feature set [...]

Good interfaces should be designed around an economy of clicks. Or in the case of the iPhone, an economy of taps. Put simply: apps should allow users to achieve key goals with as few finger taps as possible. Exit Strategy NYC’s extremely simple interface asks only three key pieces of information: 1) What subway line [...]

Every week the New York Times seems to run an article about Foursquare, the redhot mobile game. Most has been technology press, but one NY/Region piece stood out as especially interesting. Beyond Twitter: An App That Lets You Truly See City is written by a non-technology columnist and describes how the ‘tips’ feature of foursquare opened the writer’s [...]