I confess – I’m for it. And I’ll go even further – I think “making it up as you go along” is one of the greatest, and most important processes of any age. … »

While in Phoenix, AZ last month for the Information Architecture Summit, I had breakfast with Crystal Kubitsky, a very smart designer from Comcast, who shared a very smart thought: “Our problem is that technology is moving faster than our psyche.” … »

We’ve been hearing a lot about privacy the last couple of years. And with the advent of Google Street View, GPS and location tracking, and growing social-media communities, we’re going to be hearing a lot more. What most folks don’t understand is that the concept of “privacy” is incredibly different depending on which side of the Atlantic you live. Yet in an increasingly globalized world, it’s becoming more and more important to acknowledge these divergent points of view.

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Along with globalization/globalisation, we increasingly see folks insist on standards (or more often beat each other over the head with standards). But have we actually “standardized” what we mean when we talk about “standardization”, “rules”, and “best practice”?

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The Johnnies have asked me to write a monthly column about culture and concerns as they relate to cross-border user experience (UX), in Europe and beyond. This is an honour for someone born in Texas, USA (me) but probably seems odd to most everyone else (you). Let me share some background.

My father was Austrian. My mother’s family was German. The “Old World” wasn’t just a place in the memory of an aging grandparent and we certainly didn’t worship our ethnicity (as third- and fourth-generation Americans are apt to do). We travelled extensively every year (Rome and Florence were almost always on the … »