joshuago’s Bookmarks

You stare at the thing all day, years on end. Of course you think the UI looks tired.

But once I started getting people to view and interact with my prototypes, I realized that one of the big problems was that people didn’t give good feedback when the prototype you present to them is too perfect.

As important as they are, flows are hard to communicate during the design process. Drawing out every state of a flow is too time-consuming. And drawings become instantly outdated as screens change. On the other hand, flows written down into stories or paragraphs are hard to reference and don’t easily decompose into checklists for design and review.

Let’s build great companies that are here to fight, here to win, and here to stay until the next generation after us comes along and kicks all our asses. And again and again and again. That’s how better happens.

If you're a regular at a restaurant and the staff has one off-night, you can be patient because you know the food is worth the wait. If it's your first visit... not so much. And, importantly, you probably won't return. Initial impressions count, in software and in everything else.

Our success in bringing health care costs under control ultimately depends on whether Washington can summon the political will to take on and reform a second, even more powerful industry: the food industry.

Medical experts say the incidence of DVT followed by pulmonary embolism, which is fatal about 30% of the time, is increasing in the hospital. That's because many patients are older, more obese, and are undergoing more complicated and invasive surgeries.

Health reformers always smash up against two unpalatable truths. We are all going to die. And the demand for interventions that might postpone that day far outstrips the supply.

A wasteful insurance system; distorted incentives; a bias toward treatment; moral hazard; hidden costs and a lack of transparency; curbed competition; service to the wrong customer. These are the problems at the foundation of our health-care system, resulting in a slow rot and requiring more and more money just to keep the system from collapsing.

If a new drug were as effective at saving lives as Peter Pronovost’s checklist, there would be a nationwide marketing campaign urging doctors to use it.