UI

Usability Guru Pours Cold Water on Kindle Fire

John Paczkowski in News on December 5, 2011 at 2:20 pm PT

What’s annoying, heavy and slow and suffers from bad UI design?

Early Adopter: Is the Future of User Experience Design Made of Paper and Polish?

Drake Martinet, Associate Editor, All Things Digital in News on February 21, 2011 at 12:10 am PT

Everyone can move a sticky note. This is the concept of the trio of creators of UXPin, a paper prototyping kit for mocking up a Web site before a single line of code is ever written. It has become popular with designers who value speed and iteration–and, now, they’ll be able to UXPin-up a whole new set of interfaces.

PlayBook on Track for Q1 Kick-Off

John Paczkowski in Mobile on January 7, 2011 at 3:00 am PT

Research in Motion’s PlayBook tablet is on schedule for launch in the first calendar quarter of 2011. And that’s the word from the company itself.

Mac App Store Lacks Social Apps, Save for Twitter

Liz Gannes in Social on January 6, 2011 at 11:43 am PT

Social apps are few and far between for the grand opening today of Apple’s Mac App Store, meant to be a desktop app marketplace equivalent to the highly successful app stores for Apple devices.

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer and Ray Ozzie Live at D8

John Paczkowski in D8 on June 3, 2010 at 8:17 am PT

As an indicator of the headwinds facing Microsoft and its CEO, Steve Ballmer, today, two pieces of news last week are worth considering. The first, that Apple had overtaken Microsoft as the world’s most valuable technology company, would seem to signal Microsoft is no longer quite the driving force in technology that it once was, particularly in the consumer space. The second, word of a restructuring that will give Ballmer greater oversight of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division, indicates the company is scrambling to change this.

D8 Video: Steve Jobs on the Origins of the iPad

John Paczkowski in D8 on June 1, 2010 at 9:47 pm PT

Apple’s iPad may have followed the iPhone to market, but it preceded the smartphone conceptually. During a Tuesday evening interview at D8, CEO Steve Jobs said the idea for the iPhone was born of a very early tablet prototype that would years later become the iPad.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs Live at D8: All We Want to Do is Make Better Products

John Paczkowski in D8 on June 1, 2010 at 5:45 pm PT

Much has happened since Apple CEO Steve Jobs last appeared on the D stage. At that time, in May 2007, the iPhone hadn’t yet arrived at market, the app ecosystem it would usher in was still gestating and the iPad was simply a long-running rumor.

Exclusive: Palm Loses Mobile Design Guru Matias Duarte to Google

John Paczkowski in News on May 27, 2010 at 4:45 am PT

Looks like Palm is suffering a bit of post-acquisition talent drain. Mobile user interface master Matias Duarte has left the company and hired on at the most obvious of places: Google. His new job? User Experience Director for Android.

Bach and Allard Out at Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division [Internal Memo]

John Paczkowski in News on May 25, 2010 at 9:00 am PT

Microsoft is reorganizing its Entertainment and Devices Division and when it’s finished, the two people who have largely defined the business unit for the past few years will be gone. EDD Group President Robbie Bach and J Allard, its senior VP of Design and Development, are leaving those positions and Microsoft as well. After the jump, the full text of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s memo announcing the moves.

Google’s App Store for the Web

John Paczkowski in News on May 19, 2010 at 1:41 pm PT

At its annual I/O conference Wednesday, Google previewed a Web applications storefront it plans to build into its Chrome browser and forthcoming Chrome OS.