I was in a car accident

At around 8:15 am Central Time, I was driving south down Industrial Rd in Dallas, Texas. As I crossed the intersection of Cole, a big black truck heading north turned onto Cole, colliding with the front left end of the car. Luckily, there was pretty much no one else on Industrial heading south, or there [...]

More from “The Don” Norman — Activity-Based Design

The hottest thread on the SIGIA-L mailing list concerns Don Norman’s recent essay, “Human-Centered Design Considered Harmful.” In it, he advocates shifting away from human-centered design (what most of us call “user-centered design”) towards activity-centered design. His central point is not to focus on “the user,” but on “the activity.” User-centered design emphasizes understanding the [...]

It’s Like Summer Camp for User Experience Types!

Shameless plug: Adaptive Path is going to Washington, D.C. next month, August 22 -25. This is our annual User Experience week – 4 days of talking about all manner of interesting issues (designing for Web 2.0, information architecture, content effectiveness, new user research methods), with interesting people (i.e., the other attendees.) We recently announced a [...]

Unbridled Venom, Airline Edition

Why does it seem that so many major American airlines are run by children? My last two trips have been plagued by bush-league inability to manage *their own* schedules. On the trip to and from Minneapolis, I was plagued by Northworst. Arriving in the Twin Cities, we were 15 minutes early at our gate…. Yay! [...]

Assassination Vacation – What’s Your Avocation?

It’s book week on peterme.com. Today: Assassination Vacation, by Sarah Vowell. Hipsters know Sarah Vowell from one or more of the following things: rock critic for Salon.com, contributor to radio show This American Life, voice of Violet in The Incredibles. Sarah, it turns out, has a thing for American history, and, in particular, presidential assassinations. [...]

Belated Review: Emotional Design, by Don Norman

This review is not belated relative to my reading of the book — I only finished it this past weekend. But it is belated relative to the book’s initial release — which is getting on a couple of years now. To its credit, Emotional Design is the best recent book on design I’ve read for [...]

One to Watch: History Detectives

Not sure what to watch during summer rerun doldrums? May I suggest PBS’s History Detectives? I got turned onto the show by Stacy, who, being an historical archaeologist, is a sucker for such things. The detectives are real live historians and such, with strong credentials. Each show is comprised of three “cases,” typically instigated by [...]

Brief Book Review: Freakonomics

A lot of time on airplanes and in hotel rooms allowed me to plow through Freakonomics, a book that you’ve probably already heard of by now. Maybe you’re still wondering, “Should I read it?” I would answer, “Yes.” For starters, it’s brief. You can probably get through it in 2 hours, 3 hours tops. Nice [...]

My Dad and Bruce Lee

In commemoration of the 32nd anniversary of Bruce Lee’s death, my dad writes about the time he met Bruce, a story which has always been one of my favorites to hear him tell.

I interview Jared Spool

In the latest Adaptive Path newsletter, you can find snippets of an interview I conducted with Jared Spool. Our original discussion lasted almost two hours — the thousand-some words here can be considered the “highlight reel.” Topics discussed: Probing business issues, setting up user research, hiring theater people, and common mistakes! Jared is joining us [...]

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Links, thoughts, and essays from Peter Merholz