As I learn ...

January 10, 2011

Quora: making Q&A incredibly popular

Today I learned about Quora. Quora is an online Q&A service which launched publicly in June 2010, and provides a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited and organised by its (expert) users. I had heard lots of people raving about it, so I just wanted to see for myself whether it was…
January 5, 2011

Open data: it’s beautiful!

One of the things I love about the web is the ease and the speed with which it creates transparency and the way it forces institutions to open up and share. A great example is WikiLeaks where the recent release of secret cables from US diplomats caused a massive media and diplomatic storm. It draws…
December 29, 2010

HoverMe adds social context to the people you follow

I’m pretty sure there must be quite a few people out there who find it a pain to have to look at other people’s profiles in a separate places like Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Wouldn’t it be neat if there was a functionality to connect the various social profiles of each individual user? HoverMe is…
December 12, 2010

Doing (social) good, inspired by Facebook

First it was just a simple homepage containing a poll with slightly random questions (“If you had a daughter tomorrow, what would you name her?”), but last week it launched as a fully-fledged social network: Jumo aims to connect people around the issues and projects they care about. Chris Hughes, who you might have heard…
November 29, 2010

Book review: “Undercover User Experience Design”

When a colleague first told me about “guerilla user experience design”, I immediately started visualising people wearing balaclavas working on websites whilst hiding in shady corners. I then read a book titled Undercover user experience design written by Cennydd Bowles and James Box. Lots of organisations still seem reluctant to embrace user-centric design, citing time and budget…

Quora: making Q&A incredibly popular

Open data: it’s beautiful!

HoverMe adds social context to the people you follow

Doing (social) good, inspired by Facebook

Book review: “Undercover User Experience Design”