Why Apple is a great web company

Found this very interesting as my opinion was/is/maybe that Apple sucks at the web but more accurately I think Apple sucks at websites. Some elements, design, usability and content usability are strong and often copied but iTunes on the web, no mobile version of Apple.com and other elements point to a lack of cohesion/planning.

I’m an unabashed Apple fanboy but it’s nice to know that the Californian giant has very visible flaws and it’ll be interesting and stimulating to see how it deals with these flaws.

I do agree with a lot of what John Gruber has to say about Apple’s embrace of the web and it makes me giggle as it reminds me of Microsoft’s laughable “embrace and extend” statement that loosely translated meant ‘railroaded towards our business aims’. Apple still seeks to influence web standards in its favour but at lease honours those standards.

Focusing on experience

User experience is a slightly cold phrase to describe a very human interaction. It could be a simple as a door that doesn’t open the way you expect, the feel and way you use an iPhone, the way in which you use a piece of software on a computer or how you interact with a website.

I’ve spent more than 15 years working in user experience but not from a focused, trained to do this now do this as a job direction. No, my route to working in user experience came from making or ‘designing’ things that people used – record stores, magazines, newsletters, websites, online music stores and software to name a few.

It wasn’t even the heart of what I did day to day but always formed an important part of each role. Listening to the customer/user/client seemed one of the best ways to build a better product and so sell more product etc. As my career has progressed, without really knowing it, I’ve alway managed to ensure the next role had a little more UX involved in it. That includes some major sidesteps in career path from retail to journalism, journalism to digital media, digital media to ux.

Finally now, user experience is all I do for work. I’ve dropped salary, changed titled, made all the steps that make a CV a horror show to explain to potential new employers! However, the point is that I’ve arrived at a job and career that didn’t really exist as a recognised job even 10 years ago. So I guess I was just waiting for the path to exist before I took it.

The best part is that all of that work experience to date only adds to and assists what I do for work. I’ve a much broader understanding of many different types of business, founded often on having actually worked in them. I sometime wish I’d followed the educational path to this point but I simply didn’t know that this is what I wanted to do then.

So, from the UK, via the US, you can now find me in New Zealand as a user experience designer. And the best part is that the route forward is filled with even more opportunity as user experience becomes more valued and better understood.

Beyond TV

Interesting points, especially when you remove the MS schpiel from slides 12-13.

Europe Logs On

View more presentations from crossthebreeze.

20 years on…

The web is 20 years old today, thanks Sir Tim, and I have more than a little to be thankful for as I’d be a business journalist covering the Middle East if it weren’t for Sir Tim’s idea. Now that’s not a bad thing to be and I’d be damn proud if that were my career, however here I am working in the most exciting, fast-moving, evolving business in the world. OK, I’m going to be starting a new chapter soon but in all honesty the digital media world is more exciting and full of even more opportunities than ever.

From amazing apps that connect my mobile world with my web world and make my life easier through to great simple sites like Scanwich, which just makes me smile (and hungry), what a great place to be at such a time!