Just as there is a ticking bomb built into cut/⌘X – if you cut something, and then cut something else again without a paste in between, you overwrite the clipboard without any way to bring it back – there is another one that awaits you when you use undo/⌘Z. Here’s a typical undo chain, illustrated using Photoshop’s...

Completely unrelated to software, but sometimes stepping outside is what’s needed to develop perspective and find creative solutions – this is Practical Engineering’s video about the many electrical plugs and sockets in America: There are a lot more socket kinds than I expected, and sprinkled in between are some...

In a recent post, Jim Nielsen used the term “bulldozing of an interface”: I’ve found this to be true a lot as of late. Lots of tiny details that were meticulously crafted over years with specific rationales tied to real-world use cases, all completely bulldozed in a giant refactor. I liked that term and description,...

The relationship between keyboard manufacturers and standards bodies in various countries is so complex I barely understand a snippet of it. The most famous example must be the 1990s PowerBooks, which had a beige variant for Germany and Germany only, to conform with local laws that prescribed and enforced specific...

Inspired by a conversation with a friend, I made a mini site that’s an interactive representation of my design bookshelves: I am hoping it becomes a fun reference to browse, or something just enjoyable to play with. I made the interface feel very differently on desktop and mobile, and I hope both are fun. (There’s...

Make Some Noise is one of many fantastic improv comedy shows on Dropout. I noticed one of the ongoing themes is “tech gone bad,” so I compiled a short list below. I just find these really funny. Video call with shitty wifi: Logging in with 30-factor authentication: A cutscene in a video game that’s glitching out: In...

A big screen carries with it different UI expectations, and how that manifests itself in Apple TV’s Settings app, is that there’s always room for an additional hint about the thing you’ve just selected. So yes, I have been exploring Apple TV’s Settings after the recent update like any normal person would, and I have...

For the many early years of its existence, Chrome sported a pretty distinctive – perhaps even iconic? – look to its tabs… …with even the “new tab” button looking like a tab embryo waiting to be brought into existence. At some point, however, during one of the redesigns, the tabs have been flattened to look like many...

I linked to palette cycling before, and I was just reminded of palette cycling art by Mark Ferrari, who back in the 1990s made 30+ landscapes that looked like this: They have been collected on this webpage some 15 years ago, and I’m linking to it in part because it’s also a great explainer of how palette cycling...

Recently, I asked on social media, “Is there a UX design equivalent to this?”, and attached this photo: In case you don’t know, this is a (mythical) male-to-male power extender. Requests for those seem to spike around Christmas, and the reason is this: if you put up your lights, chain them together, and only then...

Three nice moments in Buttondown’s (pretty comprehensive) release notes: There is a filter and tags to search more easily. Blog entries are linked throughout, complete with cover images – it’s a nice way to distinguish small changes from big improvements. The fixes are attributed to specific people. (This part...

Fighting games require rather precise timing: the action is frenetic, the inputs rapid, and the outcomes can be determined by what players do down to – sometimes – individual one-sixtieth-of-a-second frames. This is fine when you play locally, but gets infinitely more tricky the moment you attempt to kick someone’s...