Macadamian Blog

Designers and Engineers Unite!

At Macadamian we have a marketing challenge that has me stumped. When we describe that our core competency is both in User Experience design and software engineering, we often get blank stares. 

In the software industry, most consulting firms focus on one or the other. For us, it creates a classic Trout/Ries positioning challenge - people want to place us in the development bucket, or the design bucket. Furthermore, most software organizations approach the link between UX design and engineering in the same way - they either contract out the design and develop the product in-house, they hire two separate firms, or they in-source it, meaning their design team is a separate entity, on the other side of the building, that designs the product and throws it over the wall to the engineering team. 

The trouble is, by looking at design and development as a serial process, most software companies are missing an opportunity to create better products. Tight collaboration between UX design and software teams, where the two teams work together from day-one to release, create more cohesive, and more desirable products. Here's why:

The Current State of HTML5

A lot of people are starting to hear about HTML5, but news about it is scattered and current uses and trends are hard to keep up with. After talking with a colleague about how HTML5 is being used right now and who the major players are behind the technology, we realized that this information could be useful to others as well. On that note, here's a quick overview of the current state of HTML5.