I started out designing and coding very small eCommerce sites back when there was no such thing as web standards and Flash 3 had just been released. Over the next few years, I got heavily into site design, as well as Flash design and development, and even did some print design along the way. Interaction design was always part of my job?and it was always the part I loved the most?it just didn't have a name yet, and I had no idea I could make a career out of it. When I finally learned this, I stopped writing code and focused exclusively on interaction design.

Eventually, I realized I was having a lot more fun working on my own than I was at in-house positions working for other companies. I also started thinking that the best thing I could do as a designer is use it to help others, to improve their lives in some way. So I bailed out of corporate life and started Miskeeto, which is a team of consultants focused on socially-conscious projects.

Do you remember your first web design project? Tell us about it.

My first web design project was to build a site for a rock band I was in at the time (little known fact: I'm also a drummer). In fact, the only reason I got interested in the web at all was to market the band.

My wife spent a Sunday afternoon teaching me the basics of HTML, and told me at the same time that the primary goal of any design was to ensure that the people on the other side of the screen could use it easily and understand what was going on and how to find things. (This idea has obviously stuck with me since then!)

It was a sad little three-page site with some amateur photos of the band, a complete lack of compelling content, and no sense of style. But hey, it was still pretty clean for a first attempt.

You've worked with Adobe, Automattic, United Airlines, DoTheRightThing.com, Go Daddy Software and many other famous companies. Which experience was the most valuable for you and why?

Tough question, because they were all valuable experiences, but I think I have to go with Go Daddy.

The time I spent there is when I really learned how to run a design team and how to make UX design compatible with fast-paced application development cycles. I didn't realize it at the time, but these are things I desperately needed to learn before I could feel confident about starting and running Miskeeto.

Your An Event Apart profile page says you focus on 'socially-conscious projects that improve the world.' Like what? What are the criteria?

Well, Miskeeto is a very new company, so we're still trying to find our legs at the moment, but the idea is that we'll work with companies on socially-conscious products, sites, and services. DoTheRightThing, for example, is a for-profit company, but it's whole business model is about connecting companies with their audiences to hold an open discussion about corporate practices and how they impact the world. Other examples could be foundations, companies with non-profit divisions, hospitals, schools, and so on. Basically, if the goal of a project is to improve the world in some way, we're interested.

We also plan to work with NPOs (non-profit organizations) to further their efforts, and simultaneously leverage our corporate expertise to identify sponsors for these projects. We'll essentially do the legwork for the NPO to acquire funding for a project. Our main interest is national and international NPOs focused on environmental and humanitarian efforts, but we're certainly open to other types of projects as well.

For these organizations, we'll help build and/or improve their sites, teach them to use social media to raise awareness and encourage activism, show them how to improve their internal processes to increase effectiveness and efficiency, develop and run viral marketing campaigns, and so on. We're also beginning to talk about workshops we can put together for NPOs about how to effectively use social media and other subjects.

NPOs are usually the least adept when it comes to using the web to achieve their goals, but they're also the organizations that most desperately need to do it well. That's where Miskeeto comes in.

In your book "Designing the Moment: Web Interface Design Concepts in Action" that's coming out in April of 2008, you mention the "act of continually questioning designs [as] the key to consistently achieving good results." What are the key questions to ask?

It really boils down to three questions.

- Does this benefit the business?

- Does this benefit the user?

And if the answer to the first two questions is "Yes", you ask:

- How can this be made better?

The first two questions have to be a solid "Yes" to know you have a rock-star feature. If the answer to either one is "No", then you need to take it on a case-by-case basis. Ads, for example, don't often benefit users, but they can serve as the entire revenue model for a business.

The third question, "How can this be made better?", comes into play when you decide to move forward with a design, preferably because you got a genuine "Yes" to the first two questions.

Everything we do can be done better, even if we've already done our best.

To answer this question, you might need to research something about human behavior, run some usability tests, research design patterns, analyze other applications, or any number of things. Regardless, there's always a way to make something better, and for progress to be made, we need to keep looking for ways to do it.

Note that the question is not "Can this be made better?". The question is "How can this be made better?"

Once you make an improvement, you have to repeat the process. Ask the same three questions again to determine whether or not to keep going. Will another improvement benefit the business (usually by benefiting users)? Will it benefit users? If yes, how can it be made better?

Wash, rinse, repeat.

What is it that keeps you speaking at conferences, writing books, and maintaining your very popular website?

Users.

I want nothing more than for every single person who ever opens a browser to be able to understand, use, be productive with, and benefit from the web. Users are my primary motivation. I just want to help designers and developers understand how important it is to design for real human beings, as well as show them how it can be done.

Fortunately, speaking at conferences, writing books, and blogging also happens to be a lot of fun. I absolutely love what I do for a living, and it's far more than just a career to me. It's a way of life.

What design principles do you use in your daily work?

Here's a quick list of the core tenets of my approach to design (this was originally described here):

* Challenge standards, all the time, every time, because they can always be improved. This includes design and process standards.

* Never, ever stop asking questions ("What does this mean? Where can I learn more? What if we changed this color? How can this label be better?" etc.). Somewhere underneath all those questions is some illuminating truth that you can learn from and use in the future.

* Never be afraid to make decisions. All decisions are temporary. Make them, and be willing to be wrong. The only way to get better is to learn from your mistakes and accept that you're only as good as you can be in any given moment.

* Always be your own worst critic, and never stop critiquing your own work. Great work is the result of a whole lot of bad work.

* Find fault in every design. There's always something wrong. There's always something that can be improved. Find it, and obsess over fixing it. (Of course, to temper this, you should also be sure to praise valiant efforts, treat people well, give credit where credit is due, etc.)

* Solve for the moment.

You have an article on "Why Bad Design Succeeds." What about when good design fails? Have you encountered such incidents in your practice? What are typically the reasons for that?

I'm not convinced there are typical reasons for good design failing, but there's no denying that it happens.

Technologies can be simply too far ahead of their time ? Apple's Newton, for example. In other cases, a well-designed application can fail when another, inferior application already has mainstream adoption, perhaps because it was either first-to-market or employed a better marketing strategy.

More often than not, good design wins, but sometimes the world simply defies logic, and just refuses to function in a way that we accept as rational.

What are key ways to increase web site interactivity?

I'm going to assume you mean "improve web site interactivity", as increasing it is not a particularly good goal.

Some key ways to improve interactivity are to:

* make use of existing design patterns, which are easily recognizable from one application to the next, making interactions more learnable and repeatable.

* offer concise instructive elements, such as text, illustrations, screencasts, etc., so that users can get an explanation of how things work, and try to make the design self-evident in the first place, so that these instructive elements are a last resort.

* eliminate errors as much as possible, so that people can use an application without feeling they're doing things wrong all the time. Build forgiveness into the application.

* handle errors gracefully, without blaming the user or using cryptic system-speak.

Basically, designs should help users do things right in the first place, and when things go wrong, errors should help users get back on track with confidence.

What could make you walk away from a web design project?

Honestly, this hasn't ever happened, so I'm not sure what it would take. Though, I imagine an outright refusal to accept a reasonable argument would do the trick.

My job is to design what I believe is the correct solution based on the requirements of the business, its audience, scope, capabilities, etc. My job is not to simply do whatever a client tells me to do. They come to me for expertise, not for a trained monkey, and they know this when they hire me. As I work, though, I very often have to convince clients that the proposed solutions are the right ones, as well I should. These decisions are sometimes met with a bit of friction, be it political or otherwise (e.g. a CEO decides the application must include a feature that detracts from the goals of the project, despite all arguments against it). In these cases, I have to back up my decisions and justify my designs. In most cases, a little explanation is all it takes for us to reach a logical agreement.

So, a client that refused to accept a reasonable argument would really bother me. Once or twice?I could see getting through that. But if it happened repeatedly, I'd definitely consider walking away.

There are far too many good opportunities out there for me and the rest of Miskeeto to waste time battling through a situation like that.

What does it take for a web design project to be successful?

A lot of things, but mostly communication. Any project that involves more than one person runs a risk of total failure without effective communication.

Designs need to be thoroughly documented, developers need to understand the requirements of the designs, clients need to understand what to expect at each step of the process, and so on. If communication is lacking at any point, things can get messy.

The design itself also needs to communicate?its purpose, its usage, and the benefits of using it. If the design doesn't communicate, all the resources in the world won't guarantee you a good result.

At its core, design is all about communication, and those who do it well are excellent communicators in every aspect of their work.

What recent web design activities or product releases caught your attention?

Actually, I recently got into using collage as a design tool. It doesn't help me figure out how to make interactions more usable, by any means, but rather it helps me get my head into a project and get some inspiration. This is particularly helpful when working on more experiential applications?stuff that isn't purely utilitarian, but also meant to be very enjoyable and engaging. The loose associations in the imagery of a collage does wonders for helping me see things about the personality and tone of an application I would never notice without it.

I also love that it's another design activity I can perform away from a computer screen. It can be so much fun, and so beneficial to your mindset, to spend an afternoon away from the screen, working through design ideas in a completely different way. I have a nice space on the floor of my office I use to create collages, and I also have a magnetic whiteboard that almost covers one wall. Between the two, I can spend some quality time away from the computer, making design a little more of a physical activity (the whiteboard is over six-feet tall, and I use every inch of it). Just getting out of your chair and moving around a bit can completely change your perspective and inspire new trains of thought.

Collage is hardly a new idea, but until recently, I don't think I'd done it since I was in grade school, so it's been a lot of fun.

Strangely, at the same time I began rediscovering collage, I heard about a new web application, called Scrapblog, where you can create collages collaboratively or on your own and send to people, using images from your Flickr account and such or images you upload. Very easy to use, and great if you want to brainstorm with someone else who's not in your office. My fellow "miskeetos" live all over the place?we don't have a central office?so Scrapblog could end up being a great tool for us.

What are the three must-have apps you use everyday (web and/or desktop based)?

First is Basecamp, from 37signals. Without Basecamp, my life would be a swirling, disorganized mess of email, wikis, forum threads, and folders full of notes and images. It's also enabled us to work in a very collaborative, iterative process with clients, who have really appreciated the open communication.

We don't like to go off in caves and emerge weeks later with a design. We like to keep clients in on the process so the ideas keep flowing. It helps us form some really great, lasting relationships that are beneficial to all involved. I've always preferred iterative processes, and Basecamp does a great job of facilitating that.

Second is OmniGraffle, which I use for diagrams and wireframes. It's simple enough to let me focus on my work instead of the feature set, and robust enough to do what I need it to do without worrying about limitations. Highly recommended.

Finally, Apple Pages. I know, Pages is a strange choice, but honestly, writing is a big part of my work these days, and Pages has proven to be the perfect tool for usability reviews, proposals, book writing, etc.

Everything else I use could be replaced with other applications, but without these three, I'd fall apart.

What web design trends do you predict for 2008?

First, I think people will start to use social networking sites more selectively, despite that there will be a whole slew of new ones vying for out attention in the next year. I think a lot of the more active socialites out there will taper back and try to focus their connections on those that are more meaningful and personal. I also think organizations?companies, non-profits, etc.?will learn more about how to use these sites to their advantage?for marketing, conversations with their audiences, and so on.

Next, I think there will be a lot more focus on mobile applications. The iPhone really changed the game there?now everyone wants to have an iPhone application in their arsenal. But there is also still a ton of opportunity for development on other devices and platforms as mobile computing becomes increasingly popular and more affordable. And since many companies will surely try to compete with iPhone in the next year, it's highly likely it will become easier to create applications that work well on an array of devices.

I also think ? and this guess is just for fun ? that at least 20 new types of microblogging applications will pop up by year's end (think "Twitter for vertical markets", for example). Most will be awful, but one or two will catch on and pick up steam. Then one of them will be featured prominently at a major industry conference, and within a year, it will be a household term. At the same time, people that already microblog heavily will grow increasingly tired of all the frivolity of microblogging and, at the same time this yet-to-be-named application finds mainstream success, the geeks will all but abandon it.