Photograph by Tamlyn Rhodes

I design sites and web apps that keep out of the way and let you get the job done. You might call me an interaction designer or a user experience consultant or a usability professional... I'm not sure myself.
More about me.

Blog

Twitter Trending Topics

The @trendingtopics Twitter bot tweets the topics that people are talking about most on Twitter. There’s also an RSS feed if you’re interested. It’s a very low tech solution and it’s not guaranteed to work but I find it quite useful. Read more »

Mixtape vol. 8 - “Yes”

Phew! It’s been a while. I actually compiled this mix back in May or June but didn’t get round to finishing it until now. Once again there’s no theme other than music I’m currently enjoying - or at least, was enjoying 4 months ago! Read more »

Search terms instead of URLs

Web addresses are horrible. They’re difficult to remember and poorly understood. Which is why I found the recent trend of suggesting search terms instead of quoting a URL interesting. Read more »

Heartfelt customer service

I read an interesting letter yesterday from Ecotricity, my electricity supplier. I received it a couple of weeks ago but hadn’t opened it because i thought it was a bill! Read more »

Guerilla user testing in Sheffield

Note: cross-posted from the PlusNet Community site.

Myself, Sam & Matt went out to Sheffield city centre on Monday afternoon for a spot of user testing. It’s the first user test I’ve run in the wild, previous times have been with friends & family or work colleagues. It was an interesting afternoon and we certainly learned a lot. Read more »

Google Lively sign-up usability

I had a quick play with Google Lively this morning. I’m going to avoid the obvious what-the-hell-is-Google-doing-releasing-a-shit-imitation-of-Second-Life question that everybody else is asking and instead look at some of the usability issues I encountered. Read more »

Things I found in my car (that I didn’t put there)

The car doctor unexpectedly had the car valeted, washed and partially resprayed. It looks pretty good now so I felt I had to do something about the junk that has accumulated inside. Here is a selection of the things I found. Read more »

NME.com in numbers

NME.com in numbersHere’s a screenshot of a typical NME.com page at a resolution of 1280×1024.

38% of the page is adverts. 10% is content (18% if you count the picture). As if that wasn’t bad enough, they use such a huge font that they only manage to fit 49 words of content on an entire screen!

Book Review: Web Form Design

Luke Wroblewksi’s new book on web form design, cunningly entitled Web Form Design, is an excellent work. It’s very easy to read (I breezed through chapters 2-6 last night) and full of screenshots and bullet-pointed, actionable design guidelines at the end of each chapter. Read more »

Server-side Greasemonkey

Today’s Gmail Labs announcement got me thinking about ways to allow users to customise a site. Greasemonkey is amazing but the problem is that the scripts are stored with the browser on the client-side. So if I install a script to enhance Gmail on my desktop, I will still get the unenhanced version when I log into Gmail on my laptop. But since the user script is just a bit of JavaScript, couldn’t Gmail allow me to install the user script on the server and then serve it back to me wherever I choose to access Gmail from? It’s only serving me the scripts I installed so it’s no more of a security risk than client-side Greasemonkey. Read more »

Earlier Entries »

Twitter

  • Overheard on the street "I feel like I'm wearing my Big Issue trousers. I've got big fucking issues with them: they're sticking up my arse." - 3 Jul, 09:00
  • RT @ArianeSherine: I'm reading a book by a woman who was "Fiction Editor" at the Daily Mail. At the Mail, doesn't that just mean "Editor"? - 2 Jul, 13:03
  • Interesting @trendingtopics debacle over #MrsSlocombesPussy. See bit.ly/AfVIL then bit.ly/18MKfD and bit.ly/uu0vm - 2 Jul, 12:37
More Twitter.

Photos

17 Jun: Lolgod

Lolgod

22 May: (Untitled)

22 May: (Untitled)

15 May: Rum at sun down

Rum at sun down

15 May: The Aurora

The Aurora

15 May: My parents are monkey people

My parents are monkey people

More on Flickr.