A Simpler and Friendlier Age Verification Page – UX Movement.

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Designing Tab Navigation the Right Way – UX Movement.

This is the first in a new series of blog posts where I review software related to the average UX professional.

For Mac users, there are countless options for coding environments. From full-featured WYSISYG editors such as Dreamweaver and RapidWeaver to the most basic text editors, the Mac platform can accomodate any coding style. My app of choice is TextMate. I was originally introduced to the program by a co-worker who had recently switched to Mac and found it to be his favorite. Another co-worker highly encouraged me to try BBEdit as well, since it supposedly had a much better community of developers working on plugins. As a long-term Dreamweaver user and even author of “Foundations of Dreamweaver”, I was highly critical and expected only the best. I spent a few days in each program and eventually narrowed it down to a few of my favorites. The final 3 were TextMate, BBEdit, and Jedit.

I chose TextMate in the end, due to it’s simplicity, usability, customizable interface, and bundle support. It made my life much easier in every way. I found that it had all the plugins that I needed and could customize things to improve upon Dreamweaver’s features, such as code completion, auto-formatting, etc. All the little hangups that I had become accustomed to with Dreamweaver were gone and all that was left was a pure, exciting coding experience.

My final rating of TextMate: 9.3 out of 10.

My final rating of BBEdit: 8.6 out of 10

My final rating of Jedit: 8.3 out of 10

Ratings were based on the following criteria: Usability, performance, flexibility, features, support, and community.

With all the talk about Facebook and privacy policies, it’s no surprise that someone would write an article about how it affects the user experience. The guys at Six Revisions have put together a really comprehensive look at why privacy is such a big concern, how it affects us, and why we seem to be okay with it. Identity is a very important issue and we seem to be at a turning point in our society, where our personal information seems value-less. Read this relatively short article in a few minutes and get involved in the discussion. Our future depends on it.

Privacy and the User Experience.

This is a live topic page. Everything is Cufon and aside from the load time, it looks great cross-browser. Click here to see it live

It wasn’t long ago that  I switched to the Mac completely, but as a UI designer, I immediately appreciated the subtlety, simplicity, and beauty that goes into every product they create. So when I saw this article, I had to read it. I had to know how Steve Jobs and his design team have been able to crank out quality product after quality product with consistency, speed, and affordability. The one that I found most interesting is the lack of market research. They don’t care what other people are producing since everyone else seems to be playing catch up anyways. Anyways, it’s definitely worth reading.

8 Things You Didn’t Know About Apple’s Design Culture | UX Movement.

Man, this article really hits my experience dead on. The best quote of the article was “Today the appropriate path for UX design education goes around, not through, nearly all universities and colleges.” I tend to agree with this statement. However, as a college student who studied film and digital media, I can say that while I don’t use any of the real applicable skills in my everyday job, I did learn something greater. I learned how to learn. And I learned that the only way to stay relevant in a field that changes so quickly is to always be learning. The old adage “Learn something new everyday” has been my mantra since high school. While other people are busy reading cute, fiction books, I’m reading technical manuals, blogs, and anything that will teach me how to be better at what I do. I would advise everyone to adopt this if they want to excel in any field.

Keep On Learning – 52 Weeks of UX