Ideas and Discoveries

Paris solves a problem with its bike-sharing program by turning hill-climbing into a game.

An uncertain economy makes it a good time for web workers to return to good-for-the-web core values.

I’m zipping under the English Channel to attend the FOWA conference in London.

My post office features a clever heat-map grid to announce slow and busy hours. A perfect idea for the web.

As Paris morphs into the Riviera, some clever icon design works its own transformation.

Add these to your browser for easy access to large images of book covers, album art or commercial products.

I wrote the “C25K” training program for new runners over a decade ago. Its philosophy overlaps neatly with my philosophy of software design.

Your faithful correspondent fell under the browbeating eye of authority on a few recent and essentially trivial occasions, making me think a bit about the effects of control, rule enforcement and tone in my own work.

Tons of cool historical design in the Paris subway is getting gutted.

When behind-the-scenes systems replace common sense and customer expectations. A parable at the coffee stand.

My latest scheme to improve productivity and creative flow: Screw around. Waste time. Make stuff. Banter. Play.

If you’ll be in Austin for the SXSW Interactive Festival over the next several days, be sure to say howdy.

A coffee tasting leaves a caffeine buzz and a lesson that applies to design, too: In matters of taste, subtlety is everything.

A park bench becomes a subversive design element. Every project needs one.

A neighborhood landmark gets a garish transformation, and thoughts wander to designer responsibility and online communities.

The Louvre lifts a photo ban, and visitors go insane. A small change in the rules can spark dramatic behavior shifts, not always for the better.

A new bike-sharing program in Paris suggests that a modest fee buys good behavior.