I just read Bret Victor's "A Brief Rant On The Future Of Interaction Design" from November '11, and I can't recommend it highly enough. Are touchscreen devices robbing us of the tactile experience of the world, reducing everything to "pictures under glass?" Can you run your life with a finger?

Chinese Rights?

Interesting,. Got an inquiry about Chinese language rights from "Big Apple Agency, Inc." of Taipei. Legit? Don't know. Stay tuned - I'll ask Amazon (I have some kind of exclusivity deal through the Kindle store).

The Positive "Why"

Ask “why” yourself. But you also want your audience, your user, to ask, in a positive way. Not, “why the hell..?” but an interested “why is it this way instead of that way?”

The Design Equivalent of "Aloha"

"Finished" can mean many things.

When you give your client a finished rough draft, they will react as if it were meant to be a complete, polished, ready-for-release product. And they won't want to understand why it's not.

When you give your client a finished product, they will react as if it were time for broad changes and revisions.

And they won't want to understand why it's not.

Not mine?

Nope.

It's not yours anymore.

Not if it's anything like "art."

Because art doesn't count if nobody else sees it, hears it, experiences it -- and each of these things allows that other person to own it, in a way.

So, if you did it right and made some art - relax a little as the opinions and the ideas come rolling in.

Borrowing drives buying

Amazon offers Kindle store ebooks through the Kindle Owners Lending Library (http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1000739811) . The hitch, if there is one, is that you agree to make your ebook exclusive to Kindle for 90 days. You also get a share of a royalty fund (I'm not at all clear on how that part works).


So I signed the LBBD up. I had only offered the book through the Kindle store, anyhow, and I thought it was reasonable to let people borrow the book.


And they have. And sales have almost doubled.


Hmmm.  Stands to reason that trying something -- like a book by an author you've never heard of (like me) -- provides a risk-free way to see if you like it. And some people will (and some people did) and then some of them will decide to buy one. 




Which is how public libraries support the publishing (and music, and move) industry. So hopefully this kind of thing  -- Library Ebook Lending Under Attack -- doesn't happen.

Now available in paperback...

The Little Black Book of Design, my collection of design-related quotes, has been doing well in the Kindle store. Now you can get it on paper.

Ten bucks, and it does look pretty spiffy, and you can riffle through the pages to get a random thought when you need one.