UX

Patents take awhile…

Over three years ago, I was designing a interface for the Bosch Automotive group (as a consultant for Cynergy). Those interface's were rolled out to the public as part of ENCORE, an integrated diagnosis tablet powered by Android. Today I received the notification that the first patent has been granted (it was actually 10/6/2015). I have been eager for this day as this has been a long process and this is my first patent. I am listed with James Fish and Kevin Gray, both incredible partners when working on this project. As the process continues, I am hoping that the pending patents that I know about are approved and issued. 

This patent, number 9,153,078 is for "Graphical user interface capable of changing units of measurement. 

A graphical user interface is provided that can be used on a diagnostic tool. The graphical user interface allows a technician to operate various functions of the diagnostic tool including searching for additional information on the Internet, receiv…

A graphical user interface is provided that can be used on a diagnostic tool. The graphical user interface allows a technician to operate various functions of the diagnostic tool including searching for additional information on the Internet, receiving weather information that is relevant to certain diagnostic tests, and displaying in certain formats the retrieved vehicle data and when certain vehicles were last scanned or diagnosed.


Pandora anti-patterns disrespect its users and ruin its experience. Shame on them…

If I was advertising on Pandora I would be very concerned that the design of their controls, the placement of those controls and the presentation of ads on their platform were designed to cost me (as an advertiser MUCH more than they should. Pandora is using anti-patterns to drive unintended interactions. Eventually this will backfire, but in the meantime we as customers, are forced to deal with very poor user experience.

Devil in the details. Label placements matter.

Devil in the details. Label placements matter.

Which form design is better, top label or left label? It depends on what you want to achieve. For an enterprise payroll application speed, ease of use and the ability to localize the user-interface later won out.