Celebrating 100 posts and 6 years of UI design craft on flow|state

This post marks my 100th post on flow|state. My /posts/2005/07-11-cant-sleep.html” >first post was on July 11, 2005, so by pure coincidence this milestone comes exactly on the blog’s birthday. There was a 1½ year blogging hiatus in 2009-10 (because 1 startup + 3 little kids = 0 discretionary time), so I’ve done about 4½ years of actual blogging. This works out to a post roughly every two weeks.

I’m still passionate about learning and teaching the craft of user interface design. When I started this blog, I thought I would focus exclusively on client-side app UI, but I shifted my attention to the web when my company, Cozi, did so in 2008; later my interests extended to mobile UI as well.

I’ve tried to focus on my own direct personal experiences as a UX designer, with an eye towards sharing practical knowledge to people in the industry, or conveying a sense of the designer’s work to a general audience. I generally prefer to write about the products I know best: the ones I’ve worked on. In cases where I critique other products to make a point, I try to concentrate on the nitty-gritty details of a UI that may go overlooked by users, but which nevertheless affect the user experience.

This focus is borne out in this list of the most popular posts on flow|state, either having driven the biggest transient spikes in traffic or for driving the most visits over time.

1. The fractal nature of UI design problems
2. Showing the complete range of choices in a grid
3. Cozi calendar UI overhaul
4. Every app has a scary basement
5. Form validation feedback: Be slow to complain, and quick to forgive
6. OpenID: Great idea, bewildering consumer experience
7. Looking forward to seeing Facebook apps drop their pointless mystery
8. Zune: a fine music subscription device
9. Reconsidering stock controls to create an optimized user experience
10. Once a routine animation has made its point, speed it up

One thing I’ve missed over the past year is more engagement with you, the readers. A while back I tried to ward off comment trolls and spam by turning on the requirement that commenters must be signed in. This kept away trolls and spam—and everyone else. On the suggestion of a friend, I’m giving unsigned moderated comments a try to see that encourages more discussion.

In that spirit, I’d love to hear from you about this blog, especially the sorts of posts you’ve found most helpful or interesting. Leave a comment or send email via the About page.

Thanks for reading!