These are trying times. The economy is in a downturn, the war in Iraq lingers on, gas costs over $4 a gallon, and large businesses in America are losing money. At times like this, I think back to WWII and the efforts of the government and businesses to bolster the economy, how they encouraged thrift, [...]

When I decided I wanted to be a designer, I was going out on a limb. The year was 1997, and I’d just completed my bachelor’s degree in English, had no design experience, and had only created one (very hideous) web site. Back then, Amazon.com was still in its infancy and I wasn’t even sure [...]

I always wanted to be a teacher. Ok, not always, since I already wrote about wanting to be a ninja. But starting in high school and going in to college, the plan was to be an English teacher. Since turning into a designer, I’ve either wanted to go to graduate school or teach. I only [...]

After going to the annual Web Visions conference here in Portland, I started thinking about the future of interactive design as a discipline. Who are we and what are we doing?
Things have changed so much since I created my first web page in 1996 back when I hand-coded everything using emacs. Now there’s real design [...]