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
Of Note: Better Text Annotations for the Web An Article by Brandon Dorn www.viget.com Show image 0 Show image 1 Generally speaking (and ignoring questions of styling, API availability, etc.), an ideal Web annotation pattern follows these principles: Annotations appear in close visual proximity to the primary content. Their design neither distracts from nor hides the primary content. The preceding principles are followed regardless of screen width. The only pattern I’ve found that meets these criteria is FiveThirtyEight’s. ...As it turns out, FiveThirtyEight didn't invent this pattern. It likely originated in medieval illuminated manuscripts which contain “interleave notes” — comments written literally between the lines. readingwwwaccessibility