Jonathon Colman - Seven Things That Caught My Eye This Week - Web Directions

Jonathon Colman — Seven Things That Caught My Eye This Week

• By: Maxine
• Tweet: @maxine
• August 26, 2014

No doubt about it, we’ve got an amazing collection of interesting and talented people on the Web Directions 2014 program! I got to thinking how they’d stumble upon some pretty interesting things in their travels around the Web, so I got in touch and asked “What’s caught your eye this week?” Jonathon Colman, Content Strategist at Facebook, gets us off to a great start with his “Seven Things”. Jonathon will be sharing his thoughts on “Building better products with content strategy” in the Product Track at Web Directions 2014, and judging by the following reading and watching list, it’ll be a session not to miss!

Onboarding Teardowns

You’ve seen teardowns of the latest phone or other gadget, but what about virtual teardowns of software interfaces? This site delightfully dissects new user experiences and examines what makes them work (or fail!).

Interface Writing: Code for Humans

My friend Nicole Fenton wrote a lovely piece on the challenges of writing for interfaces. These are problems I grapple with every day—it’s hard (but fun!) to make things clear for 1B+ people all over the world. Here’s a video of her presenting on the same topic.

Hanx Writer

Tom Hanks released an app. And it’s a typewriter. And it’s fun!

Turn Any YouTube Video Into A GIF By Just Adding “GIF” To The URL

This. Changes. EVERYTHING.

Designing E.T.’s Experience: Interview with UX Week Speaker Doug Vakoch of SETI Institute

I’m a sci-​​fi nut. And a hard-​​core “Doctor Who” fan (new series just started—squeee!). I did a talk recently about the communication challenges of SETI, so an interview with an actual SETI scientist that links together communications with technology with the capital-​​U “Unknown” really turns my crank.

Why I Design at Facebook

My colleague Julie Zhuo talks about why she designs at Facebook, tells a story about Facebook’s very first designer, and the traits that make designers successful.

Six Habits of Highly Empathic People

This is an older (2012) resource that I just stumbled on. A lot of us talk about empathy as if it were a meme or fad. This article by the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California at Berkeley discusses the behaviours you need to practice to actually become more empathetic to the people around you. Fascinating and useful!

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