January 2012
1 post
Communicating the value of Design Research
The days of competing on price or features is over. Prices can be beaten, features copied. To truly stand, your product must be well designed and offer a rewarding experience.
Not all companies fully grasp the importance of design yet. Sure, they hire some designers and throw around terms like UCD and UX; but more than often it is without understanding. Working at one of these companies can be...
December 2011
3 posts
“Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and...”
– Christopher Hitchens (via nevver)
“Creative workers are not motivated by money, directed by authority, or impressed...”
– Alan Cooper (via mralancooper)
The language of UX
is plain fucking English.
It’s fine to talk about intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, Gestalt principles, gamification, ethnographic studies, qualitative and quantitative research when talking to other practitioners, but these terms mean little outside of our little field. Nor does their use help our reputation of being pretentious douchebags within some circles.
Sure, buzzwords are handy...
November 2011
4 posts
“Software is not built with “resources”, nor is it built with “money”. It is...”
– Alan Cooper (via mralancooper)
“I want everything we do to be beautiful. I don’t give a damn whether the client...”
– Saul Bass
Beyond usable
Usable is vanilla, its a C grade. Aim higher.
Nobody ever recommended a restaurant because the food is edible, they say things like ‘the menu had these great stories about each cocktail’s invention’, ‘they played this cool authentic music’ and ‘food is served on these antique plates’. It’s details like this that create a memorable experience and...
“The future is already here. It’s just unevenly distributed.”
– William Gibson
July 2011
1 post
The value of gaming
Recently I’ve been doing a lot of research into gamification, which despite being a fairly revolting buzzword, is a fascinating topic. In my research I came across the talks and writings of Jane McGonigal, which has got me thinking for the first time ever - I don’t play enough games. I used to feel slightly superior to my friends that sunk 100 hours plus weekly into games like World...
June 2011
2 posts
UX isn't easy peasy, lemon squeezy
To illustrate my point about UX design really being product design I thought it would be useful to come up with an analogy.
This is product - it’s functional, it’ll get juice out of lemons; but how much thought went into it? It’s metal handle will become slippery and is rather uncomfortable.
This is a designer product - a beautiful object but not all that good at its job;...
UX - let's just call it what it is
I’ve heard User Experience design referred to as the most prestigious and pretentious job title in the industry or even plain bullshit, but really I think its the least understood. The problem, for me starts with the title. As Edward Tufte famously said “only two industries that refer to their customers as ‘users’”. The term ‘users’ dehumanizes’ the audience,...
May 2011
2 posts
The Joy of Singletasking
Humans are unable to effectively multitask, yet we are constantly attempting to. At work, while walking and driving, at leisure and at home. Although it may feel like we are, when we multitask we aren’t being more productive, we are actually just doing multiple things a fraction as well. With today’s culture, technology and lifestyles its hard not to; with smartphones, competitive...
The 'Oh yeah, I have a blog' update
I’m not going to apologise for not posting anything here for a while (I hate it when bloggers do that), my readership is low and the lack of posts will have had minimal impact on their lives. The truth is, I got distracted by tumblr (check out khalweir.tumblr.com if you like charts, graphic design, animated gifs, dinosaurs and bikes as much as I do), moving across London and to a new...
November 2010
1 post
Monthly roundup : November
Wow, 2010 is almost done! Its getting cold and my friends in the North are reporting epic snowfall.
:)
Rodrigo y Gabriela
I was lucky enough to get tickets to see the first of their 5 London shows, I’m still amazed by their extraordinary skill and the sound they can create from just two acoustic guitars.
Holiday!
I took a quick break and managed to visit 3 countries over a few days...
October 2010
2 posts
Monthly roundup : October
Its a been a busy month - I prepared a presentation for C21 Media’s Ipad Entertainment Summit, where the always excellent Stephen Fry gave an entertaining talk, learned a bunch from some of the smartest people in my industry at the Future of Web Apps and was asked to write about user testing for ‘probably the best digital marketing blog in the world’
:)
Boxee
Following from...
Whatever happened to Microsoft?
As I’m an avid fan of Apple products, some people assume I’m anti-Microsoft… that’s not true, I just dislike using crappy products. Anyone can make a crappy product; Apple’s Mighty Mouse and iPad Case suck, Google Wave was a flawed experiment and there is something very wrong with the way Diet Cherry Coke tastes. Microsoft have done some great work, their recent...
September 2010
2 posts
Monthly roundup : September
:)
Apple TV I briefly owned the previous Apple TV (it didn’t fit my needs at the time) but I love the simplicity of this new one. I’m done with the hassle of downloading media, the pain of codecs and formats and trailing cables from my laptop to my TV. I’ll be buying one of these or the Boxee device very soon.
New iPods The new line up is great, the Shuffle proves Apple...
Less is more
For various reasons, I’ve moved a lot in the past few years and with each move I’ve reduced my possessions. After reading recent articles such as this BBC one, I begun to think about minimising even further.
Its not even like I have that much stuff - a TV, a 5.1 surround system, MacBook Pro, iPhone, a drawer of assorted computery bits, a bunch of clothes, a collection of Vans skate...
July 2010
1 post
Foursquare, Gowalla - Fight!
Often hailed as the next big thing in Social Networking, location based applications are increasing in popularity as smartphones become more mainstream. Facebook and Twitter have proven that people love to share their thoughts with anyone that will listen, so sharing your location is an obvious next step. The giants in this relatively new market are Foursquare and Gowalla, both use the GPS which...
May 2010
2 posts
My Favourite Non-Tech Blogs
I follow over a hundred different blogs and twitter accounts, most of them tech related so I can keep up-to-date with the latest trends and topics in my industry; however I always take time to relax and read about my other interests. The following blogs are among my favourites and most often visited; they all have great designs and some amazing content, I hope you enjoy them too.
...
Inspiration is where you find it
Something I’ve come to realise as I’ve broadened my view on web application development, is to not rely solely on conventional sources such as books and blogs for learning. Think about it, were you ever shown how to use a hand dryer? What can their design teach you about UX design? Good design is good design, it doesn’t have to be a web based to inspire you to create a...
March 2010
1 post
Book review : REWORK
REWORK is the new book from 37Signals, a former web consultancy that now make a a suite of popular productivity web apps. The book’s authors are Jason Fried (co founder and president) and David Heinemeier Hansson (partner and the creator of Ruby on Rails). I’ve been using 37Signal’s project management tool, Basecamp for a few years now. While it isn’t the most feature...
February 2010
2 posts
4 Great movies so far this year
Food Inc
An eye-opening look into the American food industry; farmers that can’t choose what to grow, why it is cheaper to feed a family of four on fast food than fresh produce and how organic providers are fighting back. Visit www.foodincmovie.com for more information.
All Tomorrow’s Parties
A collection of footage collected from fans and musicians over a decade of the unique...
The Death of Flash?
I’ve never been a fan of Flash, either as a developer or as a user, so I’m excited to see the possible beginning of the end for what has become the defacto standard for multimedia on the Web. Its a common a complaint that the iPhone and upcoming iPad don’t have support for Flash, but why would they? The Flash player is a buggy, resource intensive , security risk that these...
January 2010
1 post
Do I even need a tablet?
Apple are apparently going to announce their oft rumoured tablet computer (possibly called the iSlate) in the next few weeks and Microsoft unveiled their underwhelming (stock Windows 7 on a 5” screen, really?) new ‘slate’ PCs at CES earlier this month. This form factor has been tried before but hasn’t been a widespread success, they are often large and bulky with poor...
December 2009
2 posts
2009 round up
So its finally going to be 2010, from now on we get to say ‘twenty-x’ instead of the clumsy ‘two thousand and x’. Already it feels like the future is now; surely hovercars and jetpacks will follow. This year, I lost over 20kg, took up mountain biking again, started growing my own chilli peppers and got into cooking and baking. I’ve been learning Codeignitor,...
The Awesome power of Social Media
Social media, urgh.. its become one of my most hated of buzzwords, but this week I was impressed with effectiviness of the RATM for Christmas No 1 Facebook Group. It was announced yesterday that Killing in the Name was the UK’s Christmas Number 1 with over half a million sales, beating the latest X Factor winner Joe McElderry. With just single single page on a website, the RATM for...
November 2009
1 post
Microformats
Microformats are additional markup that add semantics to content in web pages; their aim is so to improve the way information can be searched, extracted, indexed, cross-referenced or combined by software by describing content.
A good example of this is hCard, heres some basic contact information in plain HTML :
[sourcecode language=’html’]
Khal Weir
Work...
October 2009
2 posts
How I lost 20kg in 6 months
Just 6 months ago I was 20kg (around 3 stone) heavier, classified as obese according to the BMI, wearing 36” jeans and large t shirts, now I’m down to a 32” and small shirts; I feel great and am fitter than ever.
The key to losing weight is simply creating a calorie deficit, if you burn more calories than you consume - you lose weight. I figured I could do that without an...
Google Wave first impressions
I managed to snag an invite from a friend who was lucky enough to be invited to a Google Developers event. Just in case you don’t know Google Wave is the new web app from Google which they believe will replace traditional email and more. The project’s strapline is ‘what if email was invented now?’ and aims to solve some of the problems with they way we communicate online....
September 2009
2 posts
Great iPhone Apps
The App store has over 55,000 applications and I read recently that the average iPhone owner has spent $80 on apps. This is a round up of my favourite Apps, these apps are ones that I find useful to keep me connected when I’m away from a computer and which extend the usefulness of the iPhone allowing it to mimic expensive dedicated devices.
Weightbot http://www.tapbots.com
I’ve...
Snow Leopard vs Windows 7
I’ve recently installed two new operating systems on my Macbook Pro and thought I’d write a quick comparison of them. I’m predominantly a Mac user and no longer own a PC, yet I need Windows for testing (damn you IE!) and gaming (damn you Left 4 Dead!). Windows 7 Installing the Release Candidate of Windows 7 was quick, easy and a lot prettier than installing previous versions of...
July 2009
1 post
Real world Web Development
Web Development isn’t all sexy jQuery effects and fancy Photoshop brushes… its working late, wrestling with antiqued browsers and quirky email clients, fixing bugs in legacy code, seemingly endless copy changes from picky clients and nightmare server crashes.
I’ve seen plenty of guys eager to get into this industry join agencies and balk at the unglamorous tasks they’d...
June 2009
1 post
Design vs Development
This week I’ve been working on a new design for khalweir.co.uk, not something I’m used to - normally a colleague or friend will do design work for me and I’ll concentrate on development. I’m very much out of my comfort zone, but am learning new skills and will hopefully have something I’m pleased with soon, in the meantime I thought I’d share my story of a...
May 2009
1 post
Tools of the trade
These are the tools I use everyday and consider them essential for my work. I use Macs at both home and in the office so most of these are Mac only, sorry PC users!
Coda www.panic.com/coda
This is my favourite IDE, after years of using Dreamweaver, dabbling with Eclipse, Aptana and Netbeans - this is the one that gets everything right for me. The tabbed, all in one interface, is fantastic, the...