Author Archives: Kristofer Layon

About Kristofer Layon

Mobile web and app designer; product manager; Peachpit author.

Forecast.io: some of the secret sauce revealed

Posted on May 7, 2013

Today I dug around the source code of forecast.io a bit, and learned about some easy wins that contribute to the native-like web app experience on my iPhone. Check out the code and see whether you want to use in … Continue reading →

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Forecast.io

Posted on May 6, 2013

Ever since it launched a few weeks ago, I’ve developed a mild obsession with Forecast.io. Quite simply, it is the most impressive standards-based web app I’ve ever seen. Whether you judge it on its design, data, or performance, it does … Continue reading →

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Product management for the web: the book

Posted on May 4, 2013

It’s official: I’m writing another book! And, happily, I submitted the introduction and chapter one to my editor today. Here’s an excerpt to let you know what it’s all about: Whether you are new to web or app design and … Continue reading →

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Completely amazing and utterly boring

Posted on March 16, 2013

That phone in your pocket…becomes just a part of your life. It’s something you use, something you rely on. And then completely forget about. And in its own way, that’s actually kind of mind-blowing. I really like these two Wired … Continue reading →

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The Minimum Viable Mobile User Experience

Posted on January 25, 2013

Slides and notes from my University of Minnesota Web Standards presentation about how product management methodology can increase design and development success. The presentation highlights what what “minimum viable” means (it’s not just the least amount of work possible!), ways to … Continue reading →

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2012: a great year

Posted on December 31, 2012

2012 was a really great year, and I thank everyone who played roles in making it so fantastic. I’m particularly indebted to my coworkers at Capella. I made a major transition from design and design management to product management when … Continue reading →

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Designing ebooks with web standards

Posted on December 5, 2012

Slides and notes from my CSS Dev 2012 presentation about how standards-based web designers can leverage their HTML, CSS, and JavaScript skills to deliver content via channels in addition to web browsers. The presentation highlights what makes books unique, how … Continue reading →

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Technology alone is not enough.

Posted on October 5, 2012

Technology alone is not enough. It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing. I’ll never forget the thrill of seeing Steve Jobs on stage at WWDC in 2010 … Continue reading →

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The Management Problem

Posted on August 29, 2012

Today, Whitney Hess wrote a great blog post entitled The Management Problem. In it, she argues: The problem with managers is that they’re totally disconnected from the everyday doing [that is] getting done. She goes on to suggest a solution, … Continue reading →

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Google puts their money where their customers’ needs are

Posted on August 20, 2012

A large part of my job as our company’s mobile product manager is acquiring and evaluating new devices as they hit the market. It’s critical for me to constantly evaluate how our mobile solutions perform on the hardware that our … Continue reading →

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