process

Back! Done! Cancel! Save! Mobile apps sport a bevy of buttons to dismiss a view, but their proper placement isn’t always obvious. Here are the general rules to follow.

The history of New York City’s aggressive grid of city streets offers plenty of lessons for digital designers.

Jakob Nielsen’s dubious mobile website guidelines make the mistake of assuming that there’s such a thing as “this is mobile content, and this is not.”

Designers often conflate device context with user context—or worse, with user intent. “This is mobile, so they’ll never want to do that.” ”This is mobile, so it’s aimed only at users on the go.” Friends, this is hooey.

The good folks at O’Reilly interviewed me this week about how new technologies change how we should think about interface design as both consumers and designers.

If you want to take advantage of the new iPad’s gorgeous screen (and of course you do), every image you push down the wire is about to put on a ton of weight. That has implications in lots of places and for lots of people.

Big changes are afoot in the new Twitter app for iPhone, with both good and bad things happening with the app’s gesture interactions. Here’s a hard look.

In an interview with Webdesigner Depot, I shared some future-friendly thinking about adapting to the needs of a whole universe of connected devices.

I thought my first CNN appearance marked the next generation of a new device. Instead, it was an unwitting tribute to Steve Jobs. Rest in peace, Steve, we miss you.

I’m pitching a SXSW talk about crafting discoverable gestures and joyous touchscreen interfaces. I could use your vote.

Designing for touch means creating direct interactions that shed three decades of abstract desktop metaphors. As designers, that means we have some deprogramming to do.

I couldn’t stop giggling when I saw my ugly mug on this tea towel created by the good folks at Future of Web Design.

A gallery of mobile horrors calls itself “an argument for closed systems,” but more subtly, it’s really an argument that bad taste abounds.

Just ordered “Helvetica and the New York City Subway System” based on an engaging review by Michael Bierut.

I just finished teaching an eight-week class on tapworthy iPhone design and user experience. If you missed it, all 12 hours of video are available for sale.

SXSW spilled over the levees of Austin’s infrastructure, creating logistical headaches that sank the conference. But man, it sure was fun. Also: I gave a talk on iPad app design.

Touchscreens introduce new interface metaphors, as well as new techniques to subtly help our audiences understand how to use our apps. Suzanne offers some useful examples.