Links

Good article that ties user experience to front end performance.

My old early-Rails adopter friend, Tobias, of Shopify shares how they the share their reporting metrics with the organization.

2012 was a big, enormous, giant year for the team here at the Planet Argon World Headquarters. We launched a multitude of new projects; we traveled for both work and pleasure; we blogged extensively about web development, project management, and capsized kayaks; and, most importantly, we got a foosball table. We’re proud of everything that we accomplished in 2012, and we’d love to share our experiences, photos, and writings with all of you.

We thought outside of the box this year when designing and implementing our annual Year in Review page. For many of you, the Planet Argon team probably just seems like a bunch of extremely good-looking faces on the Who We Are page, but we’re so much more! Join us as we flex our performing skills and reenact all of the major events of 2012. In addition to the immersive video, the 2012 YIR includes photos of our infamous antics and links to many of our blog posts, which can be consolidated into a reading list with a simple click of the mouse or tap of the screen. We sure hope you enjoy it!

We helped out one of our fellow local businesses raise the funds to get a new marquee. We’re big fans of this historic Portland landmark and glad that we could do something to help shape the neighborhood for (we hope) many decades to come.

“People don’t hate progress, they just prefer inertia. This stops them from buying your product even when it’s the logical choice.”

An interesting piece on the other factors going on in a potential customers head.

Luke Wroblewski writes on his blog

Passwords on the Web have long been riddled with usability issues. From overly complex security requirements to difficult to use input fields, passwords frequently result in frustrated customers and lost business. The situation is even worse on mobile where small screens and imprecise fingers are the norm.

I couldn't agree more. With mobile devices, the vast majority of the time the device is being viewed by only one person. Having them suffer through the password masking feature is a UX failure.

Mobile app frameworks should incorporate controls that let the user decide when to have the extra security of password masking.

It is the first ever Design Week Portland and I stopped by Fullscreen PM last night, a “casual creative show and tell meet up” and one of the multitude of nifty DWP events. There were a bunch of cool projects that artists, designers, and developers showed off, but I particularly liked Kaleidoscope, made by the folks at Instrument. It’s a beautiful javascript-based physics toy with which you can generate revolving clouds of customizable particles and then split it all apart into a lovely fracturing kaleidoscope. Hypnotic on large screens, engaging and interactive on handheld devices, Kaleidoscope is definitely worth exploring.

The folks over at "appfog":http://appfog.com/ have put together an extensive argument for why Portland could be the best city in the United States for developers.... and covered a lot of compelling things related to the local developer ecosystem.

Having said that... they missed everything around Portland that makes me stay in the area. All the hiking within "60 miles of Portland":http://www.amazon.com/60-Hikes-Within-Miles-Including/dp/0897329759 (there are even several trails within the city limits!), all of the rivers for kayaking, windsurfing, the snow resorts, all of the camping and backpacking that we can explore... etc.

Outside of getting immersed into your craft, it's nice to get out of the city to ponder those technical challenges while on a hike.

What a novel idea: Put a ton of effort and creativity into the task of advertising an open position, and I guarantee that the caliber of the applicants will be higher. And man that penguin is cute.

I’ve been fascinated by some recent blog articles (like the The Best Interface is No Interface) that force you to step back and think about what you’re really doing. What are you really designing? And why?

This article in UX Magazine takes a look a the impact of designing for the experience vs. designing a memory.