Cultivating moral jazz
Overview A couple of years ago I was a member of Creative Good’s UX Councils, and I had a chance to hear Barry Schwartz present a keynote based on the insights from his book Practical Wisdom. He is also the author of bestseller Paradox of Choice. That presentation continues to inform my thinking and the connections I’m making to other ideas, so I thought I would recap some of the most influential elements here. When I heard him speak, Barry introduced his presentation by telling us that what prompted the book (co-authored with Ken Sharpe) was the sense that we had was that...
Read MoreMultiscreen mobility
Over the past few weeks I’ve encountered a number of interesting articles which describe how the device landscape (and their patterns of use) are complex, and vary significantly by the user, the device type, and the task at hand. This creates all kind of challenges and opportunities for those of us working in the fields of user experience, software development, and related fields! A visualization of broadband usage data by device type starts to paint a picture of how usage varies by device: One of the first posts I read in this vein was by blogger Luke Wroblewski, who evaluated the...
Read MoreOn Lego
It’s hard to say who is more obsessed with Lego bricks – my kids, or their parents! My partner and I both feel that our childhoods were poorer for not having had our own Lego toys. We’ve made up for it by having more Legos in the house than we could possibly ever play with! The kids received small Lego kits for Christmas and Easter, and I am always stepping on some half constructed piece or part. For Christmas the boys also received an annual pass to Legoland, which is not far from us. I took my oldest during his Spring break (see picture taken in the lobby,...
Read MoreIntroducing Froggy!
In the past few months, it has become increasingly clear that my website and blog were woefully outdated, and that it was time for a refresh. I have been reticent to post until the site was up and fully navigable, but I think it’s close enough now that I can get back to producing content. So, welcome to my new integrated website and blog! I’ve permanently pulled down my old website, and all the traffic from my former blog on WordPress is being redirected here. I started a mommy blog in 2006, but once I had kids, it became difficult to blend my tweets and posts about poopy...
Read MoreArt, science, & pasta
Today I came across a really appetizing interesting site, which is an excerpt from a book called Pasta by Design, by George L. Legendre. What is so wonderful about it – to me at least – is that it brings together the math which produces the curves in the pasta, the technical reproduction of the pasta shape (which looks like a stipple contour drawing!), and then photographs, a brief origin / history of the shape, and even recommendations on how to eat it! You can browse the interactive site on the New York Times website. And a shout-out to one of my favorite bloggers Nathan Yau at...
Read MoreFriday yumminess
This week I had a chance to dig into my RSS reader this week for the first time in months, and I found a few things I thought I would pass along for fun. And in honor of this post I’m introducing a new tag – yummy. For those of you that know me in real life, you know that I use this word all the time. Let’s see if I can bring it to the blog with any consistency. :) The first site is a great sampling of well-done Customer Experience maps. What an great format for visualizing workflow, experience, and opportunities for future work! I may have to...
Read MoreLeaving SAP
In May this year I celebrated my thirteen year anniversary with SAP. It’s a wonderful company and it has been a great ride, but the time has finally come for me to take on some new challenges. I have been blessed to work with a group of extremely talented and motivated people over the years. Saying goodbye to my amazing team and the many great people I’ve worked with at SAP will undoubtably be the hardest part of leaving SAP. I’m leaving to work for a small management consultancy called ZS Associates, which is based in Evanston (just North of Chicago on Lake Michigan,...
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