Category: Design

Muddling Through eBay

Jun 24, 2007

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by

Christopher Fahey

in Branding and Marketing, Business, Design, Information Architecture, Information Design, Interface Design, Reviews, User Experience Design, Web

The online auction site eBay recently redesigned their site, and (as it usually has in the past) the new design is being subjected to some pretty harsh critique. When critics bash eBay’s design, they usually focus on the site’s general visual design, or on the information design of individual pages. Even I have in the…
Klutzes and Touch Screens

Jun 6, 2007

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by

Christopher Fahey

in Design, Information Architecture, Interface Design, Personal, Reviews, Technology, The Future, User Experience Design

The HTC Touch (ht Dave Malouf) is a new touch-screen mobile phone with an iPhone-like seductive user interface, replete with the same kind of stunning UI bells and whistles — animations, rotations, sliding, flinging, and bouncing — that we are all eagerly awaiting in the Apple iPhone. A recent review in MEX magazine, however, isn’t…
Creative Creationists

Jun 3, 2007

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by

Christopher Fahey

in Art, Design, Education, History, Politics, Reviews, Science, Technology, The Future, TV & Movies, User Experience Design

I’ve always wanted to believe that rational scientific thought and creative/artistic thinking are not just incompatible, but that they are in fact closely linked. Both in my personal art projects and in my professional work as an interaction designer, artistry and science have always gone hand in hand. My peers and friends generally share this…
Art Direction in the CSS Zen Garden

May 6, 2007

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by

Christopher Fahey

in Art, Design, graphpaper.com, Information Design, Interface Design, Reviews, User Experience Design, Web

I was browsing through the CSS Zen Garden recently, and I was struck again at just how great it is. [If you’re not familiar with the CSS Zen Garden, go there and you’ll figure it out] I don’t mean to say that I think the designs are all excellent (more than a few of them…
Going Naked

May 2, 2007

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by

Christopher Fahey

in Design, Images, Interface Design, Personal, Technology, User Experience Design

I have permanently removed the protective cases from my mobile phone and my iPod, and I am now using them both au natural. Why?
In Defense of PowerPointism

Apr 29, 2007

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by

Christopher Fahey

in Branding and Marketing, Business, Design, graphpaper.com, Information Design, Language, Personal, Social Interaction, Storytelling, User Experience Design

Will Wright‘s cryptic, clip-art crazy PowerPoint slides make sense when he’s right there talking about them. Microsoft’s PowerPoint is frequently blamed for the poor quality of many presentations and for a supposedly- disastrous state of communication in both the private and the public spheres. Public speakers are lambasted for their wooden stage presence, crippled by…
Predicting User Experience Success

Apr 20, 2007

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by

Christopher Fahey

in Branding and Marketing, Business, Design, Interface Design, Science, Social Interaction, TV & Movies, User Experience Design

A fascinating article in last Sunday’s New York Times documents a recent study in which it is shown that predicting the success of cultural products (such as movies or music) is impossible, and that a phenomenon called “cumultive advantage” — where people prefer something largely because other people already prefer it — will usually overcome…
Experience or Don’t Experience. There is no Try.

Apr 8, 2007

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by

Christopher Fahey

in Books, Branding and Marketing, Business, Design, graphpaper.com, Interface Design, Language, Reviews, Social Interaction, Storytelling, Technology, User Experience Design, Web

The word “experience” comes from the Latin word “experÄ«rÄ«”, or to try. It’s strange, then, that in modern English the two words, “experience” and “try”, have such different meanings: when we try something we tend to take a sip or a nibble, get our toes wet, or go for a test drive around the block.…
A Peek into the Sausage Factory (IA Summit Presentation Post-Mortem)

Apr 2, 2007

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by

Christopher Fahey

in Architecture, Art, Books, Business, Design, History, Information Architecture, Information Design, Language, Personal, Reviews, Storytelling, User Experience Design

My IA Summit presentation was an experiment in what is a new presentation style for me. I have long admired the rapid-fire presentation style of Lawrence Lessig (aka the “Lessig method“) and in particular the example of Dick Hardt’s keynote at Identity 2.0. Also, Iâ€™ve always wanted to achieve the same aesthetic and pedagogical dazzle…
Interaction Design Style (My IA Summit 2007 Presentation)

Apr 1, 2007

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by

Christopher Fahey

in Architecture, Art, Books, Business, Design, Gaming, graphpaper.com, History, Information Architecture, Information Design, Interface Design, Language, Music, Personal, Reviews, Technology, The Future, User Experience Design, Web, Work

It’s been a little less than a week since my IA Summit presentation. To my great surprise, it went really well. I mean really well. In the next day or so I will be posting a summary of my experiences preparing and discussing my topic, which was, in a word, style. Many people came to…