There’s a great scene in the Meryl Streep film, Julie & Julia, where Streep, playing Julia Child, is standing in her kitchen, crying as she cuts up onions. Dozens of onions, in fact, for no other reason than to practice cutting onions. Chefs who want to be at the top of their game do this. [...]

[This topic has set off a firestorm of debate. That's good. You can see my original post here. There have been thoughtful responses from Jennifer Tidwell, Hillel at Jackson Fish Market, Matt Nish-Lapidus, and Michael Angeles. This is my last post on the topic for a little while.] Not every job will require that a [...]

In almost every organization, design is a team activity. Yet how often do we sit down and discuss how the best teams work? To understand what it takes to create great designs, we’ve spent time with dozens of teams, some of whom are great at getting creative engaging designs out the door. And some that, [...]

[Continuing on the theme of designers who can code.] If you’re a designer, imagine you had a chance to work with two development teams. Team 1: One team has top-notch developers who know virtually nothing about design. They can code miracles, but the designs of their applications are horrible and frustrating to use. And they [...]

Go ahead. Ask the Question. You’re eager to attend the Web App Masters Tour. You know you’ll put into practice the insights that Jared Spool, Luke Wroblewski and Josh Clark share on mobile design. Your brain will be full of ideas from Stephen Anderson and Noah Iliinsky’s take on data visualization. The tips and techniques [...]

Whether it’s on the design side or development side there are tricks and techniques you can benefit from. Often, these tips can save you time and frustration. You may not even be aware of them unless someone actually shows them to you. Being able to see someone else’s approach reveals knowledge that you can’t find anywhere else. In this podcast, Jonathan Snook and Steve Smith join Jared Spool to discuss some of their best tips and techniques they learned from each other.

Happy New Year! We know a new year means looking forward and moving on to new adventures, challenges, and opportunities. But we’re glancing back at 2010 and sharing three of our most popular articles from 2010. Even in a few years, I think these articles will stand the test of time and still provide valuable [...]

A few weeks back, I watched a conversation on the Interaction Design Association’s (IxDA) discussion list that tried to assess whether one can call themselves a designer if they can’t draw. I’m not worried about what people call themselves, but the discussion about whether drawing is an essential skill captured my attention. I find it [...]

On the Content Strategy Mailing List there’s been a discussion about using the term curation. Amy Thibodeau asked if people were comfortable using it, and several folks mentioned it was working well to communicate what they were trying to accomplish with their content strategy. Amy responded to people’s enthusiasm with this interesting point: “For me [...]