Once more into the UX harassment breach

Our sewer overflowed. Over the last half century the iron pipe from the house came out of alignment with our deteriorating concrete sewer line, creating a backup that flooded our basement bathroom with… sewage. At 7pm on a Saturday night.

Putting some color in a conference presentation

Earlier this year, the folks at Lavacon asked me to submit a talk for their Portland conference. I’d heard good things about LavaCon, but I also knew they were primarily focused on technical communication, documentation writing, and content…

Commonalities: “Past me” is an idiot

Sometimes, the developers I’m working with come to me and say, “Hey, um, what’s up with this part of the design? Because [insert problem scenario here].”

Sometimes, I’ve actually accounted for that problem scenario, and I’ll explain why I…

Thanksgiving

We started off the week of (American) Thanksgiving with a death in the extended family last Sunday.

Dealing with death isn’t easy at any time of year, but directly over a holiday week is much more challenging. Before we heard the news, we were already juggling the end of a…