Is Snapchat’s somewhat impenetrable experience design a feature and not a bug? Josh Elman explains the difference between intuitive design and shareable design. The latter reflects the deeply social nature of how humans learn, and capitalizes on people’s desires to learn and to teach. Just when I finally mastered NYC’s Whole Foods color-coded checkout lines, Amazon Go opened in …
Friday 5 — 9.30.2016
Black, teal, and coral: those are your color options for Snap Inc.’s new product, Spectacles—sunglasses with a pair of cameras. Your questions about how to use them are answered here. Will this be the breakthrough wearable device? Ben Thompson concludes that our wearable future isn’t here, and it’s probably not even close. I’ve often wondered how content gets into …
Friday 5 — 8.5.2016
Consider optimizing your analytics implementation for more lightweight use cases — e.g., monitoring and reporting, rather than exploration and data mining . Alex Couch captures a frustration I’ve experienced with all kinds of software projects—a great deal of energy is expended designing for what might end up being the rarest and most involved use case, neglecting the lighter weight, most common use cases. …
Friday 5 — 7.8.2016
A case for using paper rather than a purely digital approach underpins this article on how to get the most value out of wireframes. The goal is to focus your energy — and your stakeholders’ attention — on providing feedback that is high-level and conceptual rather than aesthetic and over-specific. This insider’s guide to Google docs at work …
Friday 5 — 6.24.2016
Slack has launched Buttons to ensure you never leave, advancing the platform from a discrete messaging app to a productive work hub. Now you can pay back a colleague, resolve a tech alert, update a project management task all from within Slack, thanks to some new APIs.
Friday 5 — 4.29.2016
Product Hunt delivers nine tools and resources that tell you everything you wanted to know about Snapchat but were afraid to ask. These tips may prevent your head from exploding when you try to understand Snapchat’s user interface. New axiom: Anything can be GIFed, will be GIFed — thanks to this new tool from Giphy. Is it …
Friday 5 — 4.1.2016
If the headlines you scroll through in your Facebook or Twitter feed seem remarkably similar, there’s a good reason for that. This Buzzsumo post on how to write viral headlines identifies the common elements that lead to successful reach. Low-res live video captured via mobile was all the rage last year with Meerkat and then Periscope, and recently Facebook Live videos seem …
Friday 5 — 3.4.2016
My mild obsession with work hacks is gratified by this list of 32 of the best productivity tools. I’ve also observed that my habits have changed over time — I use overarching to-do and project management apps like Evernote less, and little tools like Momentum more. When might it make sense to have a digital alter ego rather than …
Friday 5 — 2.26.2016
Snapchat now allows users to design and submit their own geofilters — overlays that appear on snaps sent within a defined area and timeframe. Techcrunch explains how to make your own., If you’re now perpetually wandering around with earbuds in, you’re likely spending some of that time listening to Spotify. But you may not know some of Spotify’s lesser-known, cool features, …
Friday 5 — 1.29.2016
Snapchat is targeting users over 35, but it’s not the most intuitive interface for people familiar with platforms like Facebook on a desktop. Now the service is making it easier for users to find one another with the ability to share your user name. Need more of a primer? The Wall Street Journal explains everything you ever …