Embrace Failure

Happiness is like peeing in your pants. Everyone can see it, but only you can feel its warmth.

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ResearchKit did in 24 hours what would normally take 50 medical centers a year – Stanford University

Stanford University said that 11,000 iPhone owners signed up for a heart health study using Apple's newly-announced ResearchKit in the first 24 hours–completely unprecedented numbers. “To get 10,00...

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So You've Validated Your Startup Idea. What Next?

What happens once your startup idea is validated? What are the next steps? Here are some tips to get you going.

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I just programmed my own version of Tinder. I am releasing the source code for anyone who want's to use it. https://github.com/LunarFlash/MatchMe

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The One User Virality Test Every Mobile App Should Run

Serial entrepreneur and Shane Walker tweaked the Mint.com formula and came up with a way to not only gauge interest, but to test an app’s viral potential.

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Don't be affraid to fail

"Our fear of failure ... assures the progressive narrowing of the personality." "If I limit myself to knowledge that I consider true beyo

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It's summer in Japan. Students are starting to get out for vacation. Maybe they can spend their free time chasing each other around and jumping off rooftops.

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This video explains why most of us waste our lives

A short film edited by Cody McKibben.  We should not allow our selves to get stuck in a 9-5 cycle living an uninspired life. Life is short. This may sound cliche, but it is true. Real wealth is measured in time to do things you want to do, not by how much money you make. Live inspired!

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These scenic rides not only take you from one place to another, but provide with the breathtaking views and actually are worth driving for themselves alone!

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Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy | TechCrunch

One of the most dangerous things I’ve seen happen to people who are just starting to code is being told that it’s easy.

Hahaha this reminds me of the first time when I saw Objective-C blocks, delegation, or anonymous function in Java. 

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A Case Against the Hamburger Menu

Last time, I wrote about placing the hamburger menu on the right instead of the left. This article made me rethink the merit of using the hamburger menu at all. 

This article echoes one of my points “It doesn’t help that the button is often placed in the top left corner — the hardest place to reach when using the phone with just your right hand.” 

However, it also raise the point that “ what’s out of sight is out of mind. Any navigation options you hide behind the hamburger will be forgotten, or at least used a lot less.”

This makes a lot of sense to me, because I have personal anecdotal experience that seem to agree with what the author is saying. One of the apps I am working on recently launched in Apple’s iOS app store.  I was showing it off to an intelligent young lady on a date last week. She owns an iPhone, so I presumed that she should be quite familiar with the hamburger men. To my surprise she did not press it at all, and did not realize the app’s 2 very cool functionalities: Location based database, and user generated travel tips. 

This experience made me rethink about using the hamburger menu. I want to feature the best functions in the app more prominently rather than hiding them behind a button! For instance, Flickr is a good example of great functional UI using UITabBarController. 

Stay tuned! 

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UX Driven Mobile Programming: Menu on the Right is Better!

Ever since Facebook first introduced the sliding menu and the now ubiquitous "hamburger" menu icon in their iPhone app, it has become the "cool" thing to do. Literally everyone is doing it now in their app. I also used it in an earlier prototype of a travel guide app I am working on, hiding the menu behind the view controller in front.

The sliding style of design has several advantages. For instance, it allows more vertical screen real estate over using the Tab Bar Controller, and the animation to see your controller open and close is very sleek. 

I noticed a problem when I was designing my app using this pattern with the "hamburger" menu button on the left side of my view controller. The left side of the navigation bar is usually reserved for the "back button." 

If the content in an app has several levels, the user needs to use the back button to go back to the previous screen. The common solution, is to replace the menu button with the back button. It forces the user to traverse all the way back through the layers of the app in order to get to the menu button. I think this creates an inferioir user experience. 

I decided to reprogram my app to have the menu button on the right instead. Now the user can get to the menu and choose a different function of the app from anywhere in the content. 

I have also switched from using SWRevealViewController to RESideViewController because I like the animation better. :) It also makes tapping the screen back into focus easier to reach with your finger.

I think this approach is inherently more intuitive, and it is easier for a right handed user's finger to reach the menu button. 

After doing some research, I noticed that I am not alone in this line of thinking. There are some popular apps that has the menu button on the right:

So there you have it, I hope more developers  would consider ditching the old design pattern and put their menu icon on the right instead!

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Safe skies

Despite a recent tragedy, air flights are getting saferTHE disappearance of flight MH370, which lost contact with air-traffic control between Kuala Lumpur and...

Today's ‪#‎Dailychart‬ shows that despite a recent tragedy, air flights are getting safer.

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"There's no other way to explain this: HBO's Game of Thrones just released an official mixtape featuring killer verses by everyone from Big Boi to Bodega Bamz to Kilo Kush. Catch the Throne remixes the " -- My Comments : Epic

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""Patents are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution for a single purpose: to promote the progress of science and useful arts." Alas, when it comes to software, it.. " -- My Comments :

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100 Trips Everyone Should Take In Their Lifetime Megan Willett, businessinsider.com

With spring tan­ta­liz­ing­ly close, our minds are start­ing to drift toward vaca­tion.

And if you're stuck in front of a com­put­er all day, then yours prob­a­bly is, too.

We've updat­ed our buck­et list of trav­el des­ti­na­tions to include…

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Fascinating Aerial Views. Volume I

Have you ever wondered what your town looked like from above? We present 26 incredible sites from above. The heights sum up what is already impressive and give a breathtaking panorama.