Microsoft have just announced an update to Windows Phone 8. As one of the five, maybe six people who actually bought a WP8 handset I found this interesting. Then I read the blog post about it, and rushed off to write somewhat less than a thousand words about a single picture. The blog post announces … Read more
To nobody’s enormous surprise, I’ve spent a chunk of this morning bickering on Twitter. In this case, largely in the wake of the Galaxy Gear smart watch. Clayton Christensen was famously wrong about the iPhone the first time around. Now, he’s a couple orders of magnitude smarter than I am, but I basically want to … Read more
In my previous post, I’ve covered the morning sessions at AMC2012. Here’s the rest of the write-up. I’ve skipped Charles Nixon’s session which was a blend of funky futurism and professional development advice, but you can see his slides here. I’ve also skipped the Google presentation, as it was a little thin on insight. 6 … Read more
Yesterday I went to Another Marketing Conference. I honestly can’t tell if the title is just tipping over into smug, but in the balance of things that doesn’t matter, because it was a good conference. There was an enjoyable blend of theoretical and practical, and enough inter-disciplinary spread to keep my inner dilettante grinning from … Read more
If you read my rant, you’ll know that I’m getting a bit of a bee in my bonnet about user interface text. But rather than just yelling about the way the world should be (short version: no UI text would suck), it seemed prudent to actually gather some data. Rachel Potts has made an excellent … Read more
Last week, at the Technical Communication UK conference, I did a little lightning talk. It wasn’t very nice. This is perhaps unsurprising, given that the session was billed as “rants” – an opportunity for people to get things off their chests. Boy, did I. In fact, my first line was more or less: “You’re sleepwalking … Read more
Recently, I got an email about content inventories. This is not habitually a joyous occasion. Anybody who’s had to compile one – and that’s anybody who’s serious about the web – will attest that it’s a miserable experience. Making a content inventory is in that “necessary but horrible” category; it’s like talking to that doting … Read more
Technical Communication UK is probably the best professional conference I’ve been to. Last year, I spoke there on content strategy, and this year I’ll be co-hosting a workshop on embedded user assistance. Obviously, I’d love people to come along to that; but there are some other sessions I’d like to flag up for anybody thinking … Read more
A fair bit has been written about novelty error messages, particularly web 404 pages. Opinion seems broadly split about whether they’re charming or unprofessional, but lots of them are pretty memorable. In the cases of a 404 page, I’m not sure it’s something you want people remembering, but the idea is probably to try and … Read more
This is the video of presentation I gave at UA Europe and TCUK this year. The actual sub-title was “Content strategy at Red Gate Software”, but this heading feels more honest. For anybody who missed it, or is just vaguely interested, here’s a link to me talking about de-suckifying the web. [link deprecated] You can … Read more
The 3D edition of Tron: Legacy opens with embedded user assistance. The film starts with an iconic white-on-black command-prompt message exhorting viewers to keep their 3D glasses on throughout. I can’t quote it verbatim, and at the time of writing nor could anybody findable with 5 minutes of googling. But it was something like: “Although … Read more
Regardless of how good it is, you’d have to have a heart of stone not to make snide remarks about Rockmelt. After all, on the surface it looks a lot like some people spent two years building a browser instead of just bashing out a Chrome extension over a wet weekend. It probably does some … Read more
Or at least find a way to use it right. Last week, a blog I read went off on a bit of a rant about Instagram. The post seems to be suffering from a little data vs information befuddlement, and a slight miss-location of the value of photographs. But its perspective is one that had … Read more
I came across three things a while back that made me smile: Nation Shudders At Large Block Of Uninterrupted Text An article in the Onion, gently needling the atrophy of reading and attention Big Graphic Blueprint Nathan Yau at Flowing Data pokes fun at design patterns InternetOnlineWebsite.com A really slick piece of advertising making the … Read more
Last week (16th -17th Sept) saw the UA Europe conference in Stockholm (a lovely city, by the way). I was speaking, but since this is one of my few blog posts that isn’t self-aggrandizing codswallop, I’ll gloss over that. It was well-enough received, despite some localization issues around a largely European audience, and my rather … Read more
Last week, over on a blog called Flyosity, there was a post: Your design is wrong I liked it, I liked it a lot. Although many of the errors it cites may seem like rather small things, I absolutely buy the idea of objective design mistakes. It got me thinking about examples from the world … Read more
Technical Communication UK 2010 (#TCUK10 and @TCUK_conf for twitter folks) is, unsurprisingly, a large conference about tech comms. It’s hosted by the ISTC, and last year is was diverse, informative, and generally moderately awesome. This year is shaping up to be no different. If you’re at all interested in tech comms, info design, content strategy, … Read more
Last night, I was challenged to explain (and defend) content strategy. Three sheets to the wind after a pub quiz, this is no simple task, but I hope I acquitted myself passably. I say “hope” because there was a really interesting question I couldn’t answer to my own satisfaction. I wonder if any of you … Read more
In April, Paris hosted the first ever Content Strategy Forum. The event’s website proudly proclaims: 170 attendees, 18 nationalities, 17 speakers, 1 volcano… Content Strategy Forum 2010 rocked the world! The volcano was in Iceland, and the closest we came to rocking the world was a cursory mention in the Huffington Post, but I’ll grant … Read more
Last night was the CS London group’s event Content Strategy, Manhattan Style. Yes, it’s a terrible title, feeling like a self-conscious grasp for chic, something sadly commensurate with the venue. Fortunately, this was not commensurate with the event itself, which was lively, relevant, and engaging. Although mostly if you’re a consultant. This is a strong … Read more
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