Hi, I’m Matt Balara.I solve design problems with my head.

Who could possibly know more than Disney about guiding, exciting and entertaining people? Interface designers can learn a lot from “Mickey’s 10 Commandments”, developed by Walt Disney Imagineering President, Marty Sklar. (commandments in bold, my comments beneath)

1. Know your audienceThe first…

From the time Sumerians first scratched pictographs into clay tablets, we’ve created content by making our thoughts physical, be it on stone, sheepskin or paper. That’s around 5000 years of sealing our ideas in atoms, which are pretty resistant to…

Stowe Boyd responded to a typical re-hash of the “connectedness = overload = falling productivity” argument against social media, but to be honest, the argument (yawn) wasn’t nearly as interesting as Stowe’s response. It’s a lovely visionary rant about a future…

A chat with Ryan Singer after the next08 has been bouncing around in my head for a few days.

Photo by A30_Tsitika

We got onto some basic info architecture assumptions which define almost all sites my company makes, and most sites in the…

Early last year I lost a few extremely creative and intelligent colleagues, which was sad. What wasn’t sad at all was why they left—to work on a project which inspired and excited them all to the point that they’ve rarely…