Brent Simmons writes about designing the first-launch experience for NetNewsWire 3.1. I find his reasoning especially interesting because MarsEdit also has a strong incentive to provide users with a smooth first-launch experience. One of the points that resonates most for me is Brent’s point about friction: Present as little friction as possible—don’t overwhelm the new [...]

I was cruising through Daring Fireball’s Linked List today, when I stumbled on the Ironic Sans blog. I was captivated not by the content, which is what motivated John Gruber to link it, but by the stunning visual appearance of the page design. I have a soft spot for digital media that defies its nature [...]

Google frustrates me by highlighting in their products some of the best and worst of web usability. Consider Google Maps, which won me over instantly when I first tried it, almost entirely because of the innovative (then) “drag to scroll” behavior you can rely on whenever you see a Google map. They won me over [...]