Three Perfect Tools An Article by Tim Bray www.tbray.org There is a particular joy in a product that just does what you need done, in about the way you expect or (thrillingly) better, and isn’t hard to figure out, and doesn’t change unnecessarily. Here are three to learn from. toolsperfectiondesign
Apps Getting Worse An Article by Tim Bray www.tbray.org Too often, a popular consumer app unexpectedly gets worse: Some combination of harder to use, missing features, and slower. At a time in history where software is significantly eating the world, this is nonsensical. It’s also damaging to the lives of the people who depend on these products. ...Maybe we ought to start promoting PMs who are willing to stand pat for an occasional release or three. Maybe we ought to fire all the consumer-product PMs. Maybe we ought to start including realistic customer-retraining-cost estimates in our product planning process. We need to stop breaking the software people use. Everyone deserves better. It begins with craft uxsoftwareproducts
Interoperable Personal Libraries and Ad Hoc Reading Groups An Article by Maggie Appleton maggieappleton.com We would need a system that enables people to: Publish a list of books they would be willing to discuss with other people to the open web. Antilibraries – collections of books you haven't read yet but would like to read – are particularly well suited to this proposition. See which books people in their social network want to discuss, and/or subscribe to other people's lists Be notified when 4+ people in their network have the same book on their discussion list – possibly via an email thread? Coordinate and schedule a time to read and discuss the book with that group. readingbooksnetworks