I keep getting distracted when I try to listen to podcasts. My mind wanders, I check my email, before I know it I’m doing something entirely different and have forgotten that there’s someone talking in my ears. The podcast becomes background noise. I stop listening.
You could say it’s my fault. That I don’t have [...]

If you’re going to design a product with a smart ass attitude, then you really need to make an extra effort to make sure you get it right. Ms Dewey, a recent entrant to Search Engine Land, has all the attitude, but none of the smarts required to pull it off.
So, here’s the idea in [...]

OK. So I’m finally almost brave enough to send you in the direction of my very first ever podcast that I did for the Office 2.0 Podcast Jam. (Assuming you haven’t wandered over there and had a listen already.
I’ve been thinking a bit lately about this ‘cult of less‘ that 37 Signals seems to be [...]

I ordered some tickets from Ticketmaster the other day. For reasons known only to them, the only delivery option I have is Secure Mail. A few days ago I got an email or a txt message to let me know that they were planning to make a delivery sometime within a ridiculously large window of [...]

It was a busy day today, so at about 3pm I grabbed my bag and my phone and headed out to grab some lunch. Just as I got out the door, my phone rang. It was an unknown number.
I answered the phone, and a woman said she was from the Police.
She asked me to identify [...]

Having been a project manager in a past life, and still working day to day on projects, I watch with interest the deployment of a range of web based project management tools. In a lot of ways it’s like a dream come true. For most of us, Microsoft Project - the only real project management [...]

There’s a kind of grim irony in exploring Crazy Egg, only to discover that the very thing that would make their website and service useful for me would never be able to be detected using the tools that they provide.
Crazy Egg is designed to help you continually test and improve your site.
They do [...]

It’s been interesting to see the mixed reaction that FlickrMaps has received since it’s recent launch. After all, it’s such a cool idea, to be able to show on a map where you took your photo, and see what the rest of the world looks like through other people’s eyes. It’s like Google Earth with [...]

Customer research too expensive? Unless you’re working for an university with stringent ethical requirements to meet - you’re making your job too hard. Ethnography* is everywhere.
Last night, after Girly Geeks, I was on the tube on the way home and beside me sat a man performing a task that I *wish* I could have designed [...]

Unfortunately, very average customer experiences are not hard to come across… even from brands that you really want to like… It’s a shame, because sometimes the smallest things can make all the difference. Like… if you’re giving people an automated, machine driven service, then maybe play on what’s good about it - the speed, possibly [...]