Exploring new and renewed ideas for how personal computing and the interfaces with which we think can better serve people’s lives – expanding opportunity, agency, curiosity, and creativity.
Essays & Experiments
The Interfaces With Which We Think
An introduction to my research — why it is what it is, why it matters, and what it’ll take to get right.
Heron
An applied research project investigating concepts in personal health informatics for individuals with chronic conditions.
With Sarah Obenauer.
OLLOS
An itemized personal computing environment that uses time as its organizing principle — organizing all your things in one unified timeline.
Itemized personal computing timeline
From 2021 to 2023, I worked on and in an experimental personal computing environment that was organized into one interface construct: the timeline.
Embark
Dynamic documents for making plans; a reaction to the rigid interfaces and data silos in today’s modern app landscape.
With industrial research lab Ink & Switch.
Lab notes
Gestural view construction
What if interfaces were as easy to construct as queries, letting you spin up views “from scratch” as needed?
Gestural view construction
Tag Navigator
A plugin for Obsidian that demonstrates the concept in the prior lab note on cross-reference navigation.
The Graph OS
What if the entire operating system were to work like a notes graph? What if every individual digital thing could be linked or backlinked in your overall digital graph?
Little Lab
The lab is open: a behind-the-scenes tour
New! A quick tour of the little lab’s websites (including tech stacks and designs), and our research notebooks.
Towards a graphics stack for personal software
New! An exploration of what makes personal software unique, and how a graphics stack might support its creation and use.
Adding to the corpus of ideas, some observations on process
In this member essay, I share some observations and reflections on process.
Experimenting with spaced review in OLLOS
A first look at a new experiment, and how it could be improved.
Reflections and updates after the first year of a membership program
And how the core work is evolving in its next year.
Reflections after a year of publishing lab notes
For 2021, I tried an experiment: publishing all of my thoughts and ideas on the future of the operating system.
How I approach my core work
My core work is independent research in computing, here’s the how and why.
These essays are published for Members of the Little Lab, occasionally made publicly available.
I think of my practice as a “little lab” — an indie research lab-of-one.
My work is graciously made possible thanks to funding from the community. You can support my work by becoming a Member of the Little Lab. Your membership helps me publish more lab notes, experiments, essays, and other work.
Plus, you’ll get access to the members’ portal with early demos, experiments, member essays, the field notes, and more.
Join 50+ Members of the Little Lab →Already a Member?
Enter the Little Lab →Lab Notes
As I explore the operating system of the future, I publish Lab Notes to “work with the lab door open,” inviting others’ thoughts along the way.
Open the Lab Notes
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Getting started
Latest
Items
LN 002: Universal data portability
LN 003: Universal reference containers
Item views
Item graphs
LN 012: References box & Topics
LN 013: Why is our thinking on computers so restrained?
Item services
Item networks & devices
Item systems
Item interfaces
Interface construction & composition, Time
Past
Songs I’m Made Of was a radio-style show with songwriters, where we discuss and play their songs and the ones that inspired them.
1997.chat was a faithful remake of AOL Instant Messenger — the sounds, away messages, animated buddy icons, et al. — made available during 2020’s early lockdowns to connect the world’s socially isolated. You can read my article or the Nylon article for more context.
Acquired by a new owner in 2021.
Simple Habits is a simple habit tracker with widgets for iPhone. You can read my Twitter thread for more context.
Want to purchase this project? Get in touch.
Products from earlier phases of my career:
Mail Pilot is an email client that introduced new ideas to email which have since become common in most email apps. It reached the #1 top paid app spot in the Mac App Store, and was featured in The New York Times (David Pogue: “an ingenious new email service”), TWiT (Leo Laporte: “a good app, and well worth it.”), and numerous Macworld reviews over the years (Nathan Alderman: “a clean, impressive, often beautiful way to manage unruly email”).
Throttle is a service that is the home for emails which shouldn’t be in your inbox, using unique email addresses per sender.
Misc
Conversation on Betaworks’ Tools for Thinking podcast · Interview on The Stack Overflow Podcast · Computer Science at Virginia Tech 50th Anniversary profile · Interview on Digital Crafters · Talk at Tools for Thought Rocks · Nylon: AIM is back to get you through quarantine · Want to chat? Get in touch.
Want to receive my work as I publish it?
My work is graciously supported by the community. Want to support my work? See memberships.