I just read and enjoyed this:
The computing industry progresses in two mostly independent cycles: financial and product cycles. There has been a lot of handwringing lately about where we are in the financial cycle. Financial markets get a lot of attention. They tend to fluctuate unpredictably and sometimes wildly.
I just read and enjoyed this:
In 1634, the rage among the Dutch to possess [tulips] was so great that the ordinary industry of the country was neglected, and the population, even to its lowest dregs, embarked in the tulip trade.
I just read and enjoyed this:
In February 2006, Jeff Han gave a demo of an experimental ‘multitouch’ interface, as a ‘TED’ talk. I’ve embedded the video below. Watching this today, the things he shows seems pretty banal – every $50 Android phone does this! – and yet the audience, mostly relatively sophisticated and tech-focused people, gasps and applauds. What is banal now was amazing then.
I just read and enjoyed this: “A Year of Google Maps & Apple Maps”
I just read and enjoyed this:
The designers of the game of life, such as they are, may have erred in structuring the game in a way that encourages young people to seek an alternate reality. They have spread the thrills and valuable items too thinly and have tweaked the settings to reward special skills that cannot be mastered easily even by those prepared to spend long hours doing so. Unsurprisingly, some players are giving up, while others are filling the time not taken up in rewarding, well-compensated work with games painstakingly designed to make them feel good.
I just read and enjoyed this:
The secretive ride-hailing giant Uber rarely discusses internal matters in public. But in March, facing crises on multiple fronts, top officials convened a call for reporters to insist that Uber was changing its culture and would no longer tolerate “brilliant jerks.”
Read “How Uber Uses Psychological Tricks to Push Its Drivers’ Buttons”
I just read and enjoyed this:
The history of computers is often told as a history of objects, from the abacus to the Babbage engine up through the code-breaking machines of World War II.
I just read and enjoyed this:
Design-system builders should resist the lure of the new. Don’t confuse design-system work with a rebrand or a tech-stack overhaul. The system’s design patterns should be familiar, even boring.
The job is not to invent, but to curate.
Read “The Most Exciting Design Systems Are Boring”
Reminds me of a great article by Cap Watkins from a few years back (that for some reason I haven’t linked to before) about the boring designer:
The boring designer realizes that the glory isn’t in putting their personal stamp on everything they touch. In fact, most of the time, it’s about leaving no trace of themselves. The boring designer loves consistency. The boring designer loves a style guide. They love not having to worry about choosing the wrong blue or accidentally introducing a new pattern.
Also related: Obvious always wins.
I just read and enjoyed this:
In 1966, Joseph Weizenbaum sat in MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, a room crowded less by people than hulking frames of computer hardware. Before him was a teleprinter, an electronic typewriter that displays both input and output — a paper computer display.
I just read and enjoyed this:
A few years ago, backstage at a conference, I spotted a blind woman using her phone. The phone was speaking everything her finger touched on the screen, allowing her to tear through her apps. My jaw hit the floor.
Read “The little-known iPhone feature that lets blind people see with their fingers”
