I'm a user experience designer and web developer, but not at the same time.

I'm a partner at Outlandish Ideas in London where we make web applications, data manipulation tools, prototypes and visualisations.

This website is broadly categorised into Techy stuff, Music, Travel and things which are only likely to be of interest to people who know me.

Blog

Things I found in my car (that I didn’t put there) 10 Jul

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.

NME.com in numbers 24 Jun

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 19 Jun

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.

Server-side Greasemonkey 6 Jun

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.

Reinventing Facebook’s Photo Albums 23 May

Facebook’s photo albums have the potential to be really, really good. As it is they’re just about passable. I’d like to present my vision for a proper, integrated photo sharing experience. If anyone from Facebook is listening, give me a call – I want to help you!

easyJet Global Warming Propaganda 21 May

“Flying produces a fraction of global greenhouse gases” says the reassuring sticker on the seat in front of me. “Ah, well that’s nice. Now that I don’t feel guilty about flying I think I’ll book another holiday!”

But, just for fun, lets look at those stats a little closer…

GeekUp Slides (Updated) 8 May

Thanks to everyone who came down to the Fat Cat this evening. I had a great time and I think others did too. Here are the slides from my Pecha Kucha presentation.

Cool Things 6 May

So it’s Monday again and… what it’s Tuesday? Where did Monday go? And I’ve got to do what by the end of the week? If being back at work after a bank holiday weekend of basking in the sun is making you feel a little stressed, here are some cool things to cheer you up.

Cheeky Email Form 5 May

It’s become quite a common practice to ask for websites to ask for your email address twice on sign-up forms. Re-confirming your email address supposedly reduces the chance of typing it in wrong altough I’ve often wondered if it’s really worth the extra effort. In any case I, like many people, save time by copying & pasting the address from the first form field into the second form field.

The folks at the Travel Lodge clearly decided that people like me shouldn’t be allowed to use our best judgement in filling out their sign-up form and have disabled pasting into the email reconfirmation field! By adding onpaste="return false" to each of the <input> tags they effectively prevent anyone with JavaScript enabled from pasting content into the form fields.

It confused the hell out of me. And annoyed me. But it did force me to retype my email address.

GeekUp Sheffield 1 May

GeekUp logoI’m honoured and excited to be doing a presentation at the first GeekUp Sheffield next Wednesday. It’s a condensed version of a workshop I did at PlusNet last month about how usability affects every aspect of our lives. By making people think about usability in everyday life I hope to encourage developers and designers think about usability in their work too. The presentation format is Pecha Kucha (20 slides shown for 20 seconds each) which I have never done before. I’m preparing the slides now and finding it quite challenging!

So if you’re in Sheffield on 7th May, pop down to the Fat Cat on Alma Street for some geeky fun. It’s free but you’ll have to buy your own beer. Big thanks to Jag Gill for making it happen.

« Later EntriesEarlier Entries »

Twitter

  • RT @Beatherder: ORBITAL TO HEADLINE ON SATURDAY NIGHT!!!!! Since the very first Beat-Herder, back when we sold the tickets from... htt ... - 1 Feb, 11:18
  • RT @ianvisits: If London Underground had Wi-Fi it would be full of Hipsters today working on laptops trying to keep warm in the tunnels. - 1 Feb, 11:16
  • Which is more disturbing: this one eighth speed ultra slow version of Wuthering Heights t.co/GtCnDr33 or the original? - 1 Feb, 10:27
More Twitter.

Photos

What will they think of next... 5 Dec

What will they think of next...

Grade one listed building. Unsuitable for penguins. 4 Dec

Grade one listed building. Unsuitable for penguins.

Ladybird 19 Nov

Ladybird

Someone at Haringey council has been reading 1984 21 Oct

Someone at Haringey council has been reading 1984

And just like that, it's autumn 4 Oct

And just like that, it's autumn

Sky 2 Sep

Sky

More on Flickr.