Olivier Théreaux
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Through 2009 and 2010, Olivier Thereaux was Pheromone's Web architect and tech strategist. The lab was where he thought aloud about tech, mobile, interaction design and innovation. He keeps writing about life, the universe and everything on his own web space.

7 Dec 2010

Estimating Effort 101

In the course of my work, one of the things I see colleagues struggle with the most is the dreaded question: “how much will it cost?” and its evil twin “how long will it take?”.

This is an important question to be asked at an early stage in a project, especially when stakeholders (clients, managers) are trying to assess whether to go ahead with the project.

When faced with such a question, I’ve seen people usually split in two…

5 opinions  /  marie's opinion is the latest
22 Sep 2010

Meet the e-PAD

Somehow, someone managed to get us a piece of memorabilia: a genuine Android-driven e-Pad tablet.

4 opinions  /  Jon Masse's opinion is the latest
1 Sep 2010

Touche à tout

Un article publié ce matin dans New York Times, intitulé « To Win Over Users, Gadgets Have to Be Touchable» note la rapidité avec laquelles les interfaces tactiles ont été adoptées par les consommateurs, à un point tel que beaucoup se retrouvent frustrés lorsqu’un appareil ne réagit pas, tel qu’attendu, à un balayage ou pointage du doigt.

Finger Prince by opusinfinity, on Flickr

C’est ce que Sony a découvert, lors de tests avec des…

19 Jul 2010

How the Yahoo portal personalises User Experience

In the course of a week-long benchmark study of portals around the world we ran recently for one of our clients, I stumbled upon the home page for the Yahoo! portal in spain.

Yahoo España - Screenshot

Notice anything unusual? What fascinates me is how the top third of the page mentioned locations in no less than three countries. How? Why?

Near the top-left of the page, I can see an icon depicting a Canadian flag, along with a link to…

3 opinions  /  Chrystian Guy's opinion is the latest
2 Jun 2010

A comparison of performance, UX and dev-friendliness of various webfonts services

Recent technological progress has made the life of designers a little less miserable: with @font-face in CSS, Web Typography is no longer limited to a handful of choices.

The web is not print, however, and the embedding of nice typography seems to come with a few other issues: the first few site prototypes on which we worked with @font-face tended to be plagued with performance problems – a really big deal in our case, given that we manage high-traffic…

6 opinions  /  caleb's opinion is the latest
29 Apr 2010

La moribonde métaphore du site Web

Une discussion dans l’équipe de Pheromone sur les réflexions de Steve Jobs sur Flash a amené une intéressante question: est-ce que Jobs est en train de nous dire qu’il ne faut plus faire de sites web, mais uniquement des applis iPhone™?

Oui, et non.

Le web comme ecosystème d’information n’est pas en danger.

Les technologies du web ne sont pas en danger (au contraire – le même Steve Jobs par exemple se gargarise des technologies ouvertes du W3C comme…

22 Mar 2010

Trois modèles d’innovation

Comment une compagnie peut-elle être et rester innovatrice sur la durée? La plupart échoue – sombrant dans une bureaucratie qui beugle à ses employés “soyez créatifs”; d’autres se contente d’embaucher des créatifs, les essorer, jeter, et en embaucher de nouveaux. Et ceux qui font autrement?

karl's opinion is the latest
18 Feb 2010

Mobile World Congress, day 3


These are my notes for day 3 of the Mobile World Congress 2010, in Barcelona. For past entries, see my impressions on day 1 and my reading of the pre-summit consensus on mobile augmented reality on day 2.


This is day three of the congress and I think I am starting to get the hang of it! Orienting oneself in this maze of booths can be daunting at first, but one eventually finds…

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16 Feb 2010

The Rough Consensus on Mobile Augmented Reality


This is the second post in my coverage of Mobile World Congress (see also the first post with my first impressions and the major trends at the MWC). Today I finished reading the 30-odd position papers for the upcoming Mobile Augmented Reality Summit, and while I am not yet at liberty to share the location of the papers, I took the time to write down what I think is the rough consensus among the participants,

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15 Feb 2010

Mobile World Congress 2010, Day 1


I am currently in Barcelona, Spain for the 2010 edition of the Mobile World Congress. I will be trying to cover the event as I experience it, through pseudo-live-blogging articles. I also plan to produce an ePub report at the end.


After a week-end marred by flight delays, surprisingly cold weather and mild food poisoning, here I am on the Plaça d’Espanya, in one of my favorite cities in the world, about to enter the…

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