At the cusp of an important decision about how to move forward with the architecture and design of our mobile application, the team was deadlocked. Tech was looking for a design solution to mitigate architectural issues that were causing instability. Design, while equally concerned about app performance, wasn’t interested in making a quick fix—potentially adding superfluous UI elements—for the sake of expediency.
There is no doubt that Apple is a brilliant company—especially over the past decade. The ecosystem that was developed initially around music via the iTunes store and the iPod which evolved by adding film & television, enhanced video capabilities of the iPod, finally culminating with the App Store and iPhone/iPad was a masterful strategy.
Creating a prototype is usually the most effective means of expressing a designer’s vision. There is a hazard in prototyping though that may cloud a designer’s judgement, and, ultimately, lead to biased and irrational decision making.
The first 20-30 minutes of horror movies are my favorite. Generally, in the early part of the movie the offending monster hasn’t actually revealed itself yet. It’s all mood, atmosphere, and my imagination filling in the blanks. And, let’s face it, there is no team of Hollywood special effects artists that can match the boogeymen our minds are capable of conjuring. At some point in the second act, the hideous movie monster is revealed, and the fearsome beast I envisioned seems lacking.
Yesterday, I was able to spend some time with Google Glass, and it was very much like coming face-to-face with a very unfrightening cinematic beastie.
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The best teams—the teams that win championships, build empires, and bring home awards—have one simple thing in common… Trust.
Opinions are like assholes—everyone has one, and they all stink.
In addition to thousands of apps, the Google Play and iTunes App Stores are full of opinions. Those opinions constitute reviews. And those reviews can be very important to the businesses that invest millions of dollars in the design and development of mobile and desktop applications.
