During a recent trip to Barcelona I decided to catch up on some reading on the plane. I have several UX books piling up lately and admittedly I was behind. For my outbound trip I selected Peter Morville’s “_Ambient Findability_”:http://www.amazon.com/Ambient-Findability-What-Changes-Become/dp/0596007655, a book I have honestly had for a while, but time was never there. It was a quick, very digestable read – awesome considering how easily this could have become a convoluted mess. The book not only helps you understand how people find what they need, but what the roots of wayfinding are both in the digital and non-digital realms. It turns out my reading choice would be very appropriate for the trip.

Mike Davidson has a great post up today about the recently relaunched ESPN.com that has been getting a fair amount of attention as of late.

Given his past relationship with the site it seems that he should be involved in the discussion if anyone. I’m a regular reader of ESPN.com and other sports sites but the whole sports segment in general has seemed a bit hyperactive in terms of experience, I have never paid much regard to the design of these sites. For me the interaction was mostly with the content.

I have been forced to defend a lot of decisions made as of late regarding the experiences of print versus interactive media. Not in some strange Orwellian way, more like a five-year-old asks the same question, over and over just…well, just because.

Somehow I do end up working with a fair amount of writers that are new to online writing. These are tips for those writers out there who don’t have a lot of experience writing for the web. Admittedly, some of the writing on this site could use this advice as well – but I have never considered myself a writer – and self improvement is about the journey too.

There are a lot of stereotypes about non-profit clients. Some seem well-deserved and some not so much. Time does seem to move slower in those environments, and decision making can be a painfully slow process. I had an experience with one .org a few weeks ago that really surprised me.

A friend of mine asked as I was redesigning this site. At first I thought he was right, why not? But the more I pondered that question all I came back to was a multi-faceted no.

I’m a big believer in the power of community. I think a lot of organizations that are afraid of it need to embrace it or risk falling by the wayside. But I also believe that fragmenting a discussion detracts from the value of a group.

An overused metaphor for sure, but it still applies. I see sites all over the place that are crushing people on the initial page view with the amount of information they are trying to present.

I have a lot of friends that are pretty exceptional print designers, some of them are so good it makes me sick to think about it. I started my career thinking I would follow much the same path, but fortunately I was diverted along the way. I always have and always will love great print […]