Cadence & Slang.

Sold out.

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:29:01 -0400

Paper copies of Cadence & Slang are now sold out, but the PDF version is - as always - still on sale. Thanks for your support, everybody.

SxSW, again.

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 10:30:18 -0500

I will be at SxSW. This year, I’ll be speaking, too. Two things are of note, then:

1. New orders won’t ship until March 16, because I’m the one who packs and ships them, and I’ll be out of town.

2. If you find yourself in Austin, too, I’ll have some copies of the book for sale. Hunt me down - probably the best way is through Twitter - and you can pay in person. (Yes, I take cards.)

Alright, that’s it. Have a good week!

Cadence & Slang PDF available!

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 08:20:27 -0500

After a lot of hard work, Cadence & Slang is now available in PDF form. I’m really excited about this, and have put a lot of effort into making it fit the form. Everything from the errata should be reflected in the PDF’s updates. The whole book is re-typeset for 8.5”x11”, in a new typeface that should look nicer on printers and computer displays. It also looks great on iPads. Do you have an iPad? Or a dot matrix? Copies are $25.

And because I don’t think it makes much sense to pay twice for the same content, everyone who bought a physical book will receive the PDF for free. I’m in the process of contacting everybody who purchased through Google Checkout, but many people paid me in cash or through Square, and I don’t have your emails. (Feel free to email or tweet at me if you need a copy; I’m pretty lax about this.)

I really hope you enjoy this. Cadence & Slang has been a labor of love for me, and I’m tremendously excited to expand its audience in this way. I know it’s been a long time coming, so I hope it’s worth the wait.

4.2.7 corrected

Sun, 28 Nov 2010 18:14:54 -0500

I’ve fixed some major issues with 4.2.7 in the errata. Many thanks to Anders Kierulf for his assistance!

The book is printed!

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 11:03:00 -0400

Printing. All done, and I received two advance copies of Cadence & Slang yesterday. They look awesome. After so many months of fretting about the final product, it looks like things have finally paid off. I’ll be mailing one of the copies to the Library of Congress today. Here’s what they look like:

Release party. If you live in Chicago, I’m going to be at New Wave Coffee (the southeast corner of Logan/Milwaukee) on Thursday, October 21 from 6p to 10p for a little release party. I’ll have copies of Cadence & Slang on hand, and you can come with a credit card - I take them with Square, an app that fits Cadence’s principles rather wonderfully. If you don’t live in Chicago, tell your Chicagoan friends to come out and support.

The manuscript is finished.

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 16:34:22 -0400

Hey all - it’s been a while since I’ve posted to this news section, but I’m writing longer updates at my Kickstarter project of late. The manuscript is finished and printing has begun. For more details, follow my backer updates.

Many thanks for all your interest!

Positive Space.

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:24:30 -0500

Anthony Zinni was gracious enough to lend me a soapbox to talk about Cadence & Slang over at his design blog, Positive Space. My writeup is posted right now, so you should go and check it out!

I’ve also written up some more on my Kickstarter’s posts about my writing process and heuristic usability.

November.

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:20:58 -0500

So we’re into November. I’ve stopped bugging you with daily reasons. Donations are about to top $4,000 - almost halfway there.

But most notably, I’m starting to write in longer form over at my Kickstarter project. I just wrote a big post about everybody’s favorite topic: heuristic usability evaulation! You should head over and check it out.

Reason #25.

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:39:50 -0400

Already people have had their novels, contemporary photography, shipping costs, and absurd emoji translations funded in full. In the grand scheme, Cadence & Slang is just one more data point in a long string of dreams come true of some really passionate individuals. I’m honored to be a part of it, and I harbor tremendous faith in what it’s done so far. If you could help by pledging your support, you’d make one random dude in Chicago who cares about something a lot - enough to publish an entire book about it - very, very happy.

Pledge to Cadence & Slang today.

Reason #24.

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:21:25 -0400

If you bought a $3 latte at Starbucks this morning, then you probably just wasted $2 to convey caffeine into your half-asleep body. I humbly implore you not to make the same mistake tomorrow morning. The minimum pledge amount is only $1. Every single dollar moves us closer to the goal, and tiny pledges build up really quickly.

Pledge to Cadence & Slang today.

Reason #23.

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:53:37 -0400

These days, many authors rely less on the conventional structures of publishing - shopping the manuscript around, subjecting themselves to editorial cuts, changing the book’s design to be branded better - and go it alone. Their works end up with more integrity, authenticity, and consistency as a result.

Pledge to Cadence & Slang today.

Reason #22.

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:18:00 -0400

If you’ve ever bought a Flip Video, pretty much anything from Apple or Nintendo in the past ten years, or any hardware or software that’s appeared to “just work” and get out of your way, then you believe in good design - and are voting for it with your wallet. If you’ve ever read John Maeda’s Laws of Simplicity or Edward Tufte’s The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, then you understand the value of simplicity in technology. All of these products are parts of a trend that Cadence & Slang discusses at length. Pledging to my book is a natural extension of your belief that good design sells, and should be supported.

Pledge to Cadence & Slang today.

Reason #21.

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:23:05 -0400

You’re part of this story, too. I’m posting excerpts from Cadence & Slang periodically, and solicit feedback. If you donate, you get in on this process, and can involve yourself as much as you’d like. It’s like Wikipedia, but for ranting about why the term “webinar” sucks.

Pledge to Cadence & Slang today.

Reason #20.

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:04:47 -0400

Interaction design is a tiny niche inside of another tiny niche. Cadence & Slang will publicize the goals of this group of people to broader masses, making good usability into something everyone could care about.

Pledge to Cadence & Slang today.

Reason #19.

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:58:40 -0400

You’re helping the limited and small production run of something that’s an exemplar of its internal principles. Cadence & Slang is an attempt to make a book as well-designed and usable as the products that it discusses.

Pledge to Cadence & Slang today.

Reason #18.

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:59:10 -0400

You’re giving new ideas about good design to your friends and colleagues. By pre-ordering Cadence & Slang, you enable the production cost of 1,000 copies.

Pledge to Cadence & Slang today.

Reason #17.

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:34:13 -0400

People who may not normally be exposed to good design could have their mind changed by Cadence & Slang. Wide distribution of the book increases the likelihood of its influencing contradictory viewpoints.

Pledge to Cadence & Slang today.

Kickstarter update.

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:29:59 -0400

I’ve begun posting some longer pieces to my Kickstarter project. One of these just went live about ten minutes ago. I’d love if you headed over and checked it out.

Reason #16.

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:58:28 -0400

For the most part, Cadence & Slang is accessible to anybody that has intermediate experience with technology. You don’t have to connect to your ISDN from your SCSI using an IDKFA to get it. You don’t have to work in IT to get it. You don’t have to be a software engineer to get it.

Pledge to Cadence & Slang today.

Reasons #12, 13, 14, and 15.

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:04:42 -0400

So I was in San Francisco for the weekend, and true to expectation the list of reasons was totally derailed. Let’s play catch-up:

12. I have 5 years of experience, and I have a portfolio to back it up. In my off hours, I write reviews of any products that pique my interest at I see what you did there.

13. Good interaction design has formed nearly every technological thing worth caring about in the past five years: the Wii, the iPhone, Firefox, and Windows 7 - to name only a few.

14. Since the beginning of this decade, entire software suites - OmniGraffle, Axure, and Microsoft Expression - have been built that are dedicated to creating good interactions.

15. The more time that you devote to design when developing a product, the happier your users will be. Cadence & Slang tells you how to start considering design from day zero.

Pledge to Cadence & Slang today.