So let’s imagine an operating system that sees you’ve split up with your girlfriend and says sorry. A program that knows you were out drinking last night and therefore uses muted colours and suggests you take frequent breaks. A mobile that loves going on rollercoasters.

Technology has made our outputs so much quicker and more reliable, but without the hard work, patience and dedication of centuries of craftsmen we would be far, far behind.

I’ll admit it: I’m a little scared. I was too late for the bursting of the first bubble; every year I’ve spent in the industry has been one of growth. A potentially contracting market is a new thing for me.

The adult public’s taste is not necessarily ready to accept the logical solutions to their requirements if the solution implies too vast a departure from what they have been conditioned into accepting as the norm.

More and more, I find myself less interested in what web designers have to say.

To this day, I haven’t a clue about the cause; yes, I could have run some usability tests but for a lone image it would have been pure self-placating overkill.

We work on each piece, not knowing whether or not disaster lies around the corner. We have to delay solving potentially tricky problems, and can never be really sure that the site will work until we’ve completed it.

The Door Close button is a result of this pretence of control. On the majority of lifts it has absolutely no function since the lift is on a predetermined timer. However, tests show that users like the peace of mind.

So yes, it’s official, the new job is with the lovely Clearleft.

It seems daft for designers to reject the basic language of web standards and development. As an analogy, take reading music. As a member of a band, it helps to have an understanding of what it’s like to play other instruments; you don’t want to write parts that no one can play.

As well as, obviously, the eating, I think I’m drawn to the alchemy of cooking. Getting the raw materials and following a recipe, however mechanically, is a quite fascinating thing

In short, the more opportunities we give them to introduce negative modifying statements, the less likely they’ll buy from us.

Ask any web geek and they’ll tell you that the page, as we know it, is terminally ill. 

Seems that quite a few sites are now getting rather bottom-heavy and, you know, I think I quite like it.

One thing bothers me about Bill Gates’s assertion that touch interfaces will be all the rage over the next few years.