It is of course customary at this time of year to review the twelve months past in a lengthy and uninteresting blog post. So I’ll…

Thrilled to see my article Getting real about Agile design published on A List Apart today. Hopefully it’ll stimulate some lively discussion about…

Users hate redesigns, or so we’re told. To be fair, the evidence does seem to support the argument: the last year or so has given…

Our tiny brains are reaching social saturation point. Any heavy email receiver, Twitter user or RSS subscriber will tell you that there comes a…

Yesterday the ‘New Xbox Experience’ (NXE) upgrade was finally rolled out to all Xbox Live users. The old system (created by AKQA…

I know, I know, it’s still five weeks away, but these things take a lot of forethought. My travel arrangements to The Lizard are already…

Some things aren’t meant to be measured. It’s bad enough that people read so much into their blog…

Until recently, I equated politics with duty: something that I must participate in, but that was never elevated above a choice between deeply unsatisfactory options.

I…

The concept of personality has us hooked; just look at Cosmo quizzes and the thousands of online personality tests. And rightly so: it’s something that…

A slightly shortened week, since Clearleft took Monday off for a day of printing press revelry at Ditchling Museum. Ditchling was, for many years,…

I’ve had a busy time of late, in particular thanks to a couple of days in Switzerland and Austria, followed by the Future Of Web…

The latest issue of .net magazine is out today,…

I’ve mentioned my doubts about large-scale gestural interfaces before, but wanted to reserve judgement until I’d tried one out properly. One of the more…

One of the benefits of following smart people on Twitter is that I regularly pick up on techniques and principles I’ve not heard of.…

More and more, I find myself less interested in what web designers have to say.

That’s not to say that there aren’t some very clever people…

Just found out that the video of my talk at Reboot in Copenhagen has been posted to the conference site:

A quick hurrah for my favourite typographic glyph, the interrobang.

Introduced by Martin K Speckter in 1962,…

In some design Utopia, everything would be tested. An unseen army of usability specialists would verify everything and free our minds from worrying about unforeseen…

Barclaycard just unveiled their new corporate identity.

Yep,…

During the radio silence of the last few weeks, I’ve turned my attention to other…

Quick personal post.

dConstruct was, of course, marvellous, but I shan’t…

I’ve decided to finally make the move to digital, so I’m selling all my CDs. Before I go…

I enjoyed Lloyd Davis’s post Stick your five-year plan, in which he argues the futility of long-term planning when it comes to one’s own…

It should come as no surprise that, as both an IA and a music snob, I keep my ID3 tags pretty much immaculate.…

I have a policy of muting TV adverts due to their inherent idiocy, but here’s one I actually unmuted. I’m a sucker for under-appreciated nick…

It occurs to me that the reason…

One of the difficulties of working in the internet industry is we sometimes feel like we’re fighting a losing battle against regulation. Despite the new…

The 1960s saw the first ideological skirmish in computer chess programming (and by extension much of the nascent field of AI) between two schools of…

The South By Southwest session picker has just gone online and I’m not too proud to shamelessly solicit votes for my session:

Divorce…

“If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.” – Mario Andretti

Control is a slippery thing. It’s important to our lives; we…

Some mashups are unlikelier than others. However, none as unlikely as the collision of Flickr and id’s classic shoot-em up Wolfenstein in Wolfenflickr 3D.

At last I have broadband. Too many stories to relate, but there’s one I’d particularly like to share.

While setting up my bedroom basics (alarm clock,…

The concept of “free” was, in…

I’m very fond of what Paul‘s done with the dConstruct 2008 buttons: in addition to the usual branded colours, you can also…

Despite some early WiFi problems (which prompted me to finally go out and buy the broadband dongle I’ve been considering for a while), I’d say…

So yes, it’s official, the new job is with the lovely Clearleft.

©…

I’m currently taking a short break before starting my new job (more to follow on this).

Obviously I’m relaxing and enjoying the weather, but I’m also…

I’m facing a pleasant dilemma. I’m off to All Tomorrow’s Parties next weekend, and it’s without a doubt the finest lineup they’ve ever had.…

And thus I emerge, blinking, on the other side, having seen things I wish to never see again. Debates on the security risks of chmod…

Making a few changes here (notably, making the long overdue move to Wordpress). In an Agile* fashion I’m just going to put it live then…

As with most people, when I get busy, blogging suffers. Instead, I’m unwinding by learning to cook. It’s been a long journey, levelling up on…

Sunday’s FA Cup…

One of the most widely…

Muxtape may not last all that long. Its beauty and simplicity will probably put paid to that, as it collapses under the weight of…

• Merlin Mann’s SXSW presentation – “uncomfortably sticky”
• Interesting article on the controls of Shadow of the Colossus. Seems to me (and this was…

Ask any web geek and they’ll tell you that the page, as we know it, is terminally ill. For many years, it was the proud…

Well, it’s out in the open now, so I should quickly share it here too – I’m leaving uSwitch early next month. I’ve learnt a…

Having one of those jobs that defies…

I’ve not yet stopped buying CDs because I like having the physical artefacts. Mostly because I have a pretty decent hi-fi setup that trumps any…

Two artists polled the musical tastes of the American public, then composed two songs containing the most widely-loved and -hated musical components. The Most…

• Lasagna Cat – live action versions of Garfield strips, with ridiculous (Dadaist?) musical homages. I found it horribly funny, but then I do like…

As I’m struggling with my WiFi yet again (I’m on the point of conceding that my MacBook has dodgy wiring – off to Regents Street…

Maybe a bit unfair to highlight…

Also deeply fond of spEak You’re bRanes, the zenith of user generated stupidity:

(Discussing a recent energy white paper) “The government have not said…

Just to air my love of ffffound.com, a new image bookmarking site in private beta (as every new website is these days). Full of beautiful…

I do find that creativity is hard to sustain in these grim winter months. Those creative juices flow much more freely in autumn. So big…

Time to share a current geeky web design crush: big footers. Seems that quite a few sites are now getting rather bottom-heavy and, you know,…

One thing bothers me about Bill Gates’s assertion that touch interfaces will be all the rage over the next few years. Namely that I’m…

• Australia plans web censorship, as seen in China, North Korea etc. For bonus points, they’re even using that truly idiotic “free speech = kiddie…