I’m playing this game on my phone called Clusterduck where you try to get ducks to lay eggs to make other ducks. And it got me thinking about cognitive load. Cognitive load refers to the amount of working memory your brain needs to use to do whatever it’s doing.  In UX, we often refer to … Continue reading “Cognitive load explained using ducks”

I miss affordances. Affordances in computing UIs are nothing new. When designers and developers first put words on a screen, there was a need to convey what one could do with those words and pictures. Menus? Buttons? Dropdowns? All of the fundamental UI elements we’ve had for 30+ years started with deliberate design decisions – … Continue reading “Affordances are dead; long live affordances”

In April of 2020, CGP Gray posted the following video: It’s been in the back of my mind ever since. And I mean way back, way way back, behind the stress of the pandemic and the work angst and the political angst and… Well, let’s just say that I’ve had a lot of reasons to … Continue reading “Keeping the core running”