Friday, February 06, 2015

This Week in EID - Episode 40



This week in EID was spent trying to find a replacement for Keith.  For those of you who haven’t heard, he is stepping down as site manager and indispensable partner.  It is really sad to see him go.  Darn those day jobs!!!  They always seem to get in the way of good volunteer passions. 

But we did have four good topics this week on the site.  We closed with what I think is the most important.  The article by Ev Williams (founder of Twitter) on the importance of measuring what is real rather than what is easy.  Page views, time on site, number of unique users – these just don’t cut it anymore.

Wednesday’s article about user stories is a warning lesson for all of us.  It is too easy to get sucked into a good story and completely miss the hazards, faults, and challenges ahead.  True for entrepreneurs, researchers, starting a new exercise program, or whatever you might have planned.

Tuesday’s piece on best practices is something I spend 20 minutes discussing every time I teach design – whether it is at the university level or in corporate training or when helping entrepreneurs.  They fall into the trap of following them blindly – not a good idea.

And Monday started out with the usual self-deception fallacy.  It explains a lot about life, especially those things that don’t make much sense – politics, autism-vaccine links, and more.