Almost every event I’ve been to lately — whether it’s within the marketing, technology, or social entrepreneurship communities — raises both the inevitability and the risks of artificial intelligence. There’s a lot of excitement and trepidation, and early consideration about where the responsibility for ethical AI resides. A new Pew report captures some of those …
Friday 5 — 9.9.2016
I hope you spent a good bit of summer staring at the sun-soaked scenery rather than a screen. Product Hunt can catch you up on what you’ve missed, with the 44 most loved products of the summer. Try Duolingo Tinycards for learning made fun, Snappa for crafting great graphics easily, or Great Apps Timeline for a nostalgic look at popular …
Friday 5 — 8.19.2016
Google Duo, a clean, simple mobile video calling (and soon, audio calling) app launched this week to take on Facetime. The jury is still out whether its simplicity will carry the day, or it will become the latest failed Google social tool (Buzz, Wave, Plus). Here’s a UX secret that will ruin apps for you: artificial …
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 — 6.17.2016
Mary Meeker’s annual internet trends report reveals that internet growth is finally losing its mojo, but certain behaviors, like photo sharing and voice, continue to rise. Read the slide deck (or just the analysis.) Pleased to see Candace Payne, aka Chewbacca mask lady, made slide 85! The New York Times explains dark patterns, websites that turn persuasive user experience design into a dark …
Friday 5 — 5.27.2016
Friday 5 is taking a break to go peer at people’s internet-enabled devices in 三门峡 and 西安 — neither of which I can pronounce, but Wikipedia can teach you. Back in time for Lionel Messi’s birthday, Friday, June 24. This UX reality check presents 14 hard truths about users. Most common mistakes I’ve seen (and committed) are ignoring the fact that …
Friday 5 — 4.15.2016
We’ve all been hearing a lot about bots — but what are they? Facebook Messenger’s new release paves the way for more bot interaction, and Engadget has compiled a list of Facebook Messenger bots in the works. The lag time between interactions is odd — my early interactions showed early bots are rough, if not outright frustrating and useless. What …
Friday 5 — 3.25.2016
Scott Brinker has released the 2016 marketing technology landscape diagram, mapping 3,874 solutions into six capability categories (shows above). The slide shows that “one platform to rule them all” has not yet emerged — middleware is enabling greater integration among them. When building a digital product, it’s easy for teams from marketing to development to get atomized and …
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 …