Jeff Croft

I’m a digital product designer and developer in Seattle, WA. I currently work with Simply Measured, and recently co-founded Lendle, a Kindle book sharing service.

Some of my past clients include Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Copious, The New York Review of Books, Django, The Lawrence Journal-World, and the University of Washington.

I’ve authored two books on web and interactive design and spoken at dozens of conferences around the world.

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December 2010

  • Link // 12.29.2010 // 11:13 AM // 2 Comments

    URL Design

    Good piece. Also, if your development platform doesnt let you have full control over the design of your URLs, get a new one.

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  • Link // 12.29.2010 // 10:58 AM // 0 Comments

    ‘Like an Army of 41 Shades of Blue’

    Terrific piece on the business model for Google’s Android, and especially what it means to Google’s OEM partners,

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  • Link // 12.20.2010 // 10:24 AM // 0 Comments

    A Holiday Message from Ricky Gervais: Why I’m An Atheist

    Well-written and interesting, regardless of your beliefs.

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  • Link // 12.19.2010 // 5:39 PM // 0 Comments

    Behind the scenes: 37signals.com Redesign

    Great post by Jamie at 37signals about the process of redesigning their main site. 37 has always had a terrific grasp of interaction design, usability, and messaging, but recently they’re really stepped up their game on the visual end, as well. Gotta think Jamie has had something to do with that. Really nice to see the design iterations for what is, ultimately, a really nicely-done site.

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  • Link // 12.18.2010 // 12:19 PM // 2 Comments

    Notes on “how to clone delicious in 48 hours”

    A good reminder that the whole, “I could build that in a weekend” thing is usually a fallacy. Sure, the frameworks and libraries we have today make building the core of most web apps fast and painless. But there’s a lot more to productizing and launching an app than that core. You’ve got to deal with design, user experience, scaling, merchant accounts, legal docs (terms, privacy, etc.), scaling, SSL, security, scaling, lost password flows, error messages, copywriting, deployment strategies, scaling, backups, APIs and API docs, unit tests, scaling, and so much more. So, when your programmer tells you the app you want is “simple” and he can build it in “no time,” realize he probably just means the core functionality, not everything that is required to productize and launch your project.

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  • Blog entry // 12.17.2010 // 2:31 PM // 23 Comments

    Almost certainly the world’s most comprehensive Seattle neighborhood guide

    I’ve lived in Seattle for about three and a half years now, and in that time, I’ve had several friends move here (or at least consider it). A couple years ago, one of my homegirls was thinking about moving to the upper left, and I crafted an extensive guide to Seattle neighborhoods for her. Since then, I’ve edited it several times and sent it to many others. I figured now is as good a time as any to go ahead and post the thing publicly.

    First, a few disclaimers:

    1. This is all based on my opinion. You may disagree, and that’s totally fair. Comments are welcome.
    2. It was originally written for, and it still sort of targeted at, a person who is young (or young-at-heart), single, and enjoys the nightlife. If you’re more of a family person, the opinions may not apply quite as cleanly.
    3. Several neighborhoods are left off, simply because I haven’t spent enough time in them to have an opinion. Frankly, I think the fact that in three and a half years I haven’t spent much time in them means they’re probably not worth living in.
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  • Link // 12.16.2010 // 7:09 PM // 0 Comments

    Word Lens

    Astonishingly impressive piece of iOS software that translates text in the real world on the fly, using the iPhone camera. For example, point your phone at a street sign, and see the sign in a different language — in real time. This is the first piece of “augmented reality” software that didn’t feel cheesy to me. Amazing. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” right?

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  • Link // 12.16.2010 // 6:13 PM // 1 Comment

    Sites that landed jobs at 37signals

    An interesting look at some sites that caught the attention of the folks at 37.

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  • Link // 12.16.2010 // 5:28 PM // 0 Comments

    Yahoo to close Delicious

    Yahoo is terrible these days. Pinboard.in is a good replacement. Zootool is worth a look, as well.

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  • Link // 12.16.2010 // 1:25 PM // 0 Comments

    @behoff’s tools and services for 2010

    Brian writes up some tools and services he’s been using this year — I need to check several of these out.

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  • Link // 12.16.2010 // 12:57 PM // 0 Comments

    Tracking changes to fields in Django

    David Cramer shows off the clever solution they use at Disqus for tracking changes to fields on Django model instances.

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  • Photo // 12.05.2010 // 8:18 AM // Seattle, WA // flickr

    Purple Mountain Majesty

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