Your Driverless Car is (Almost) Ready

August 02, 2016 by Gary Schroeder in Technology

People are the weak link in the automobile ecosystem. If we weren’t part of the control loop, things would be safer. A lot safer. It’s estimated that 94 percent of the world’s yearly 1.2 million automotive deaths involve human error. We’re uncorrectable bugs in the system, you and me. We get into accidents once every 500,000 miles, and cause fatalities once every 1.3 million miles. But the software that’s driving autonomous cars? It was performing at levels equal to or better than that error rate three years ago.

Faceted Search: a Real World Example

July 23, 2016 by Gary Schroeder in Information Architecture

Faceted search allows a user to narrow their choices down when searching for something online. This type of search is easy to understand if we look at a real world equivalent. Let's use the example of a car purchase I made in 2012

Different Approaches to the Search UI

July 17, 2016 by Gary Schroeder in User Experience

Different designers solve the same common problems in different ways. I was interested in looking at how a popular website handles its search interface. I decided (for no very good reason) to look at The Atlanticmagazine.

Awwward-winning? Not So Much (Pt. 2)

June 29, 2016 by Gary Schroeder in User Experience

Let's take a look at website judged by the good folks at www.awwwawards.com as having an excellent navigation system. Does it stand up to a detailed UX analysis?

Awwward-winning? Not So Much (Pt. 1)

June 29, 2016 by Gary Schroeder in User Experience

Let's take a look at the site of winemaker Chateau Yquem, a website judged by the good folks at www.awwwawards.com as having an excellent navigation system. How good is it?

Online Persona, a Wikipedia Entry

June 27, 2016 by Gary Schroeder in User Experience

Sometimes Wikipedia doesn't cover the topics you need to have defined. I think this is the case with personas as the term is understood in the web communications world. Here's my attempt to rectify that.

Icon Labels: the Good and the Bad

June 22, 2016 by Gary Schroeder

As the concepts that we try to symbolize through icons become more complex, the harder the designer has to work at finding an easily recognizable image. The best solution is usually to pair icons with a brief text label. Some designers solve this problem better than others.

You Don't Need a Website

June 20, 2016 by Gary Schroeder in Content Strategy

You don’t need a website unless you have something to say. If your job is to build websites, you’ll often be asked to build them before there are any words or images to carry on them. Sometimes, there’s nothing to say; the client simply knows that they want a website. Everybody has websites now. It’s standard. Your client thinks that they need one. But do they really? Your first step as a web designer is to help them figure out what they have to say.

I Can't Be Bothered

June 14, 2016 by Gary Schroeder in Technology

I used to pity the older adults in my life when I was a kid. They simply didn’t understand the way the modern world worked. My grandparents didn’t own a VCR and they didn't seem to care. They didn’t have cable service, no longer listened to music (in any format), and had no VCR, nor did they want any of those things. Decades later, I get it.