Essential UX Layers for Agile and Lean Design Teams

Like many solutions to difficult problems, the true answer lies in stepping back, taking a deep breath, and focusing on the bigger picture despite the immediate smaller ones.

Bolefloor Natural-Cut Flooring

cameronmoll:

Here’s an idea that’s both aesthetically beautiful and ecologically sound. Cutting along the grain line, rather than in straight lines, “allows more floors per forest.” The result is stunning. Check out the gallery for additional samples.

/via @buildllc & @mikeindustries

CSS3 vs. CSS: A Speed Benchmark

A great little test by Trent Walton over at Smashing Magazine to learn the true advantages or lack of advantages of using CSS techniques to replace images where possible in a web design.

A Dog Day Friday Night

Designers.mx: Headphone Candy

If you’re anything like us, you love music as much as design. We’re asking some of the industry’s top designers to let us in on one of their secrets…¹

I’d certainly recommend this to more than just my designer friends, but what a great site. I posted Cameron Moll’s mix earlier, and would recommend that mix highly.

Check a few out.

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1. designers.mx homepage text ↩

The Film Sessions By Cameron Moll

A fantastic mix of film scores to help get anyone through the work day.

Welcome

cursorblinks:

Good afternoon.

I expect this to be a slow, but hopefully steady process. I am by no means a prolific or expert writer. I consider it to be a process of learning, re-learning, and starting over again.

I’ve tried blogging in different forms, over the last few years, and Tumblr seems to be what has stuck.

This new bit of pixels will contain me and my interests. Some of the topics that will be covered here include:

• technology
• sports
• entertainment
• art

I do not however, feel constrained to write or post within any particular topic. I do hope you enjoy the content that this feed provides, and would love for you to add it to your RSS reader of choice, or simply bookmark this site. I look forward to sharing my thoughts with you.

-Mark Tegethoff

(Source: cursorblinks)

The real cost of Android to Google

Horace Dediu on the challenges of curating the development and deployment of Android.

Daring Fireball Linked List: I Saw This Coming All Along

O-P-E-N,

Open.

Twitter Blog: So a bar walks into an app...

Takes a lot to admit you were wrong. Kudos to the Twitter team for owning the mistake.

Amazon to Apple: Oh, it is sooo ON!!!

Fascinating take by the always thoughtful Andy Ihnatko on the budding rivalry between Amazon and Apple, and why Amazon may and probably is the ultimate rival for Apple that Google is trying to be.

Google is filled with genius engineers that build some great products, but they seem to lack an overall vision and direction as a company. Amazon is an expert at selling things and building an experience to match.

Competition like this can only lead to good things for us consumers.

(Source: daringfireball.net)

Tech Specs

There have been countless pixels generated since the first generation iPad was announced on-stage by Apple CEO Steve Jobs in the early part of 2010. As time went on, the device proved to be a smash hit, and brought the device class of “tablets” into the mainstream.

Now, as we move into the middle of 2011, and Apple has released iPad 2, I thought it a good time to share some thoughts on the device, and more importantly, what it represents.

The iPad 2, much like the original iPad before it, has debuted to much consumer fanfare and critical befuddlement. While most critics have overwhelmingly positive impressions of the device, there has been what I can only best describe as an undertone of, “Is this it?” It’s an interesting phenomenon for sure, and quite understandable when you view the world as most critics, tech writers, and geeks do. In their world, a devices is only as good as the megapixels, gigahertz, and gigabytes tell them.

Many pixels have recently been used to both justify and mock Steve Jobs use of the word Post-PC in his recent iPad-unveiling keynote. I would posit that Jobs was not referring so much to a “new” class of computing devices, but rather describing a new category of appliances and/or consoles. By this I mean that Apple sees their mobile product line as a group of devices that shares just as much in common with say a washing machine or microwave as it does with a desktop personal computer. For most consumers, buying a new household appliance results in a few major decisions: Is it reliable? Is it considered to be the best model on the market? And how much does it cost? Obviously there is a subset of customers that care about the technology that makes the product work, and technically how it works, but that group of people is definitely in the minority.

I think that Apple gets this, and to a certain extent, always has. They have famously and historically tended to focus on the experience of their products, from the physical form and look of their hardware, to the responsiveness and feel of their software. As tech space has evolved to a point where the gigahertz and gigabytes have gotten to a point of negligible differences to the end user, Apple’s expertise at building an overall experience has begun to separate its devices from the pack. Users and consumers tend not to care so much about how a product works, when it works with little to no lag or delay, thus the question becomes less about what chip is powering a phone, and more about how easy it is to use. Less about how much RAM the manufacturer was able to successfully able cram in, and more about the entertainment and/or opportunities for productivity that it provides.

For reasons like these, I find it strange to read device reviews that give a device high marks for things like performance, feel, experience and innovations, perhaps the only true measures of a devices worth, but then spend time criticizing a “lack of RAM” or “underpowered processor.”

Who cares about the processor speed or the quality of the RAM chips when the devices performance is nearly flawless? Why does it matter?

If it’s faster, it’s faster, regardless of the “magic” behind it.

Daring Fireball Linked List: Slashdot Comment on Google Dropping H.264 in Chrome

Don’t be evil indeed.

How Google TV Could Hand Netflix the entire streaming universe « blog maverick

Sobering, but very smart analysis from Mark Cuban on this one.

I find it humorous how many people out there expect to be given things like television entertainment for free. Do these people realize that the medium of television was more or less invented as a way for corporations and companies to raise awareness and sell products?

Television programs, when broadcast over the air for free, are simply the interludes between the money-making ads. Why would that change on the Internet?

Jeff Rock: Down the Memory Hole

jeffrock:

During the Apple Fourth Quarter Results Conference Call, Steve Jobs made a rather curious redirection:

Audience question: Any updates on your stance on Flash?

Jobs: Flash memory? We love flash memory.

The gentleman that asked that question was obviously referring to Adobe Flash, which Steve…