ScaryNoises Blog

Author: Brad Becker

  • On Being a Press Expert

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    Brad Becker
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    Since moving into product management, I’ve become initiated into the world of PR and national press. I stumbled into this article today and thought that some would find it interesting to see how this wacky world works. One footnote from me–who you are (or who you work for *cough*cough*microsoft) can have a radical effect on…

  • A Compendium of Interfaces

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    Brad Becker
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    Very cool site/blog that demos “next generation web interface and interaction design”. Great catalog of pieces of web interface innovations. They promise: “Unlike previous design review sites, DesignDemo will feature online demo movies of working interaction design, UI elements, and trends and best practices in web 2.0 user experience.” Max Kiesler – DesignDemo – Web…

  • What’s that yellow thing in the sky?

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    Brad Becker
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    There’s a reason that all the trees in Seattle are green…

  • It’s Alive!

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    Brad Becker
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    Microsoft Expression Interactive Designer – Free Trial So Expression Interactive Designer (AKA “Sparkle”) is finally publicly available in a CTP (pre-beta) download. Check it out and let us know what you think. The product is definitely not finished yet and your feedback counts. We also now have a new version of Expression Graphic Designer available.…

  • Bibliography

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    Brad Becker
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    I spoke at an internal Microsoft conference last week about why user experience matters. I promised a list of where to read more about user experience. I’ve finally fulfilled my promise for a bibliography–I created a Listmania starter list on Amazon. You can read the list here.

  • Changes

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    Brad Becker
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    So…few will care but I’ve had a fair number of changes recently including moving to Seattle, going to work as a Sr. Product Manager for Microsoft, selling a house, buying a house, buying a car, organizing my trading card collection…ok, not the last one but I think the rest are plenty. So…wait for it…here’s where…

  • A Good Day To Be A Designer

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    Brad Becker
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    So we had the new Macromedia Studio 8 ship yesterday and then today at PDC the Expression family of tools was released. Now I may be biased (I work at Microsoft now and I worked at Macromedia for several years) but I’d say Designers are getting a lot of love this week. Because as fun…

  • Old Dogs Learn New Tricks

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    Brad Becker
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    I’m at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference today and watched Bill Gates unveil various products including recent builds of Windows Vista. But the big surprise (other than the great video featuring Bill Gates and Napolean Dynamite as roommates) was the new UI in Office 12.

  • Flex Style Explorer

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    Brad Becker
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    Our man Peter has just posted an article about the Flex Style Explorer on Macromedia DevNet. Even better, the explorer is there to explore/download so check it out and start exploring. Note that you don’t actually need Flex to play with this. Peter’s a fellow user experience consultant for Macromedia Consulting, and is operating out…

  • Play your way to better UI’s

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    Brad Becker
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    Yes, that’s right–we all know it and now Mark Hurst at goodexperience.com has done something about it. I’m talking about computer games, people. Computer games are a major force of innovation driving both new developments in user interfaces, user experiences, and even hardware sales. (When’s the last time someone bought a new graphics card because…