The Latest Articles, Ideas, Musings, & Rants
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Personalization or Commodification
These two articles go great together, but not like peanut butter and chocolate. More like oil and vinegar — two great tastes that don’t easily mix but go make leaves taste better. Lemme explain. The first article opens like this: Every moment, behind the scenes, the products you use are getting better at anticipating your needs and desires. Your Netflix homepage updates in real time, your food delivery app predicts what you’re craving, and your fitness app fine-tunes recommendations based on...
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Personalization might be the Biggest Problem
A recent article in my feed communicated something that I have been thinking pretty well, so I reproduce it here: …modern maps put everyone at the centre of the world. […] countries put themselves at the centre of world maps. The artefact and its perspective becomes defined by who commissioned or owned it. […] With being the centre of our own worlds, the products we buy are increasingly more personal or tailored to us. We also live in our own...
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Old Men at Rock Shows Part II
Where two men in their 40s (ahem) see bands reunite and play together with members who are in their 50s and 60s. War on Women, Slomosa, and Helmet at the Paradise, Boston Ugh. Parking in Boston. This is why old men like us dislike going to shows. Something as trivial as parking looms large when you are traveling over an hour and guiltily spending money on yourself. But the rock gods were shining down upon us because we happened in...
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UX Is Dead, Long Live UX
A clickbait title. Sigh. Another screed claiming that such and such is dead but actually, no, its not, its very much alive for this and this reason. The shift in mindset, from UX as a deliverable and business bottom line, to something else, is disingenuous. I think this was always what UX should be, and it was our fault that we made it a speciality that practiced very narrow processes and created narrow deliverables. The whole that UX was serving...
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The End of Programming as We Know It
Tim O’Reilly, founder of O’Reilly media, is someone to listen to. He popularized the term “open source” and ”Web 2.0” and has been in the industry for over 40 years. His observations about the changing landscape of programming and the web are a techo-optimist’s viewpoint backed by his deep experience. The article talks about how programming has already drastically changed. The first wave of computers required programmers to connect physical circuits to perform calculations. Then machine instructions replaced that tedious...
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The Internet, what sustains it, and Future-thinking
Been thinking about the future of the web quite a bit lately. I am not a futurist, so it is difficult to see what is happening now and then project that into the future. While I can be an optimist in person, in my head I am a pessimist. Whenever I try to model the future, it never looks good. The Pessimist’s Topics A.I. Overviews as one of the four horsemen But then again, we are in interesting and unprecedented...
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Weather Trends
It has been cold, cold, cold for more than a month now. Feels like ever since New Year’s day, we have been under freezing. Nights are in the teens, low twenties and days barely break over 32°. We have had more snow than usual, but not a lot of snow overall. A few inches here and there. Much of it is frozen in place now, as again, things are very cold and icy. Kentucky has had snow and mudslides from...
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The paradox of UX personalization
There have been many articles that rail against Spotify and the way it recommends more of the same music — never something truly surprising or interesting. This one broadens the idea to all algorithmic platforms, and I think it encapsulates the pitfalls well: As we engage, algorithms gradually narrow the selection to match our tastes. While this personalization enhances convenience, it also limits exposure, reinforcing familiar choices rather than expanding our horizons. The problem statement is sound. The author then goes...
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Severance Season 1
I’ve rewatched Severance Season 1 as preparation for the new Season 2. I’ve also been listening to the podcast where Ben Stiller and Adam go through each episode starting with Season 1. It’s been more revelatory this time. I remember watching it previously, but forgot most of it, likely because that was at least 2 years ago and it was still COVID-times. Now, things hit a different way. These moments really stuck with me this time around: The questions asked...
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Who is the internet for?
I’ve been thinking along these same lines recently. Chris Butler put it well in a recent article: People lived [in the internet] once, then AI moved in. But we’re still building a house for people. I think we might be building the wrong thing. He goes on to talk about old-school SEO and how that forced people to craft their content to fit the whims of machines. We provided meta data, titles of a certain length crammed with keywords (but...
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Old Men at Rock Shows
Where two men in their 40s (ahem) see bands reunite and play together with members who are in their 50s and 60s. Soul Coughing In September I decided to take advantage of the rare touring of Soul Coughing, one of the lessor known but strange and influential bands of the mid to late nineties. Not grungy and guitar-driven but jazz influenced with elements of electronic sampling and looping. I haven’t seen them live probably since the college years at a...
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Seeking the best To Do app for me
I’ve been on the hunt for To Do list management for some time now. I come back to paper lists again and again. There is something so satisfying about crossing something off, and then copying items over to a new list creates a positive tension as well — do I keep copying this item or do I admit it is not a priority? Still, paper lists are limiting. I have so many various tasks — Work, Freelance, side projects, and family. My...
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HBR Press Live: The Age of Outrage
Kartick studies the art and the science of building trust. Taught a course called “How to Lead in a Polarized World.” Five part framework: Turn down the temperature Wait for aggression to subside or actively change your environment to calm down. If there are high emotions, no one will manage themselves well. Make sense of the moment Understand what is causal or catalytic. Use the catalysts to determine how to address the causes. A trusted group of diverse voices can...
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Designing with AI: AI Playbook for Design Teams
Quotes and takeaways As designers, we are always responsible for how we use our tools, and that is the same with AI. This was a year ago, and she talked about the way engineers are seeing efficiencies with CoPilot. But now we now it is a mixed bag and there are complaints that people are not learning or retaining when AI is doing the work. “GenAI is the worst it’s ever going to be” so plan now for a future...
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Gentrified by design: Reflections on the role of algorithms in creative work.
Quotes and takeaways “[A]lgorithm-based curation leads us to consume content that is less diverse and more generic. It also shapes the content we create, whether we fully acknowledge that or not.” “[C]ulture has become increasingly homogeneous” and the homogenity of what we see day after day is shaping our perception of what “good” design is. “Creating something means exposing oneself to great levels of vulnerability. To think about the body of work, to find the pieces that match. Sincerity can...