It's no secret that this book has been stalled. For a while. Well, that's being generous; we've been stalling on and off for years. And an unfinished book is one huge, pointy Damocles' Sword to have hanging over one's head. In fact, I'm sure if he was around today, Damocles would be an author.

Not being done isn't a total waste. Rich Wiggins and I felt we knew quite bit about site search analytics when we started out. Now it's hard to fathom how little we knew. It reminds me of learning a language. My four years of intensive Russian at the University of Michigan gave me the knowledge and confidence I needed to risk spending an entire summer studying in Leningrad (yes, it was still Leningrad back then, long before Putin reared his head). Only upon arriving there and conversing for three months did I realize how little I'd really learned.

But we've learned quite a lot since starting out, and I'm very optimistic that the book will be done soon. Recently, we've decided to reconfigure its authorship. Unlike me, Rich has a real job and many other fish to fry. And long distances (Michigan and New York might as well be Michigan and Waziristan) are hard on this sort of relationship too. So Marko Hurst is coming on board as my co-author. While I'm extremely sad that Rich and I won't finish this book together, it's thrilling to begin working with Marko, whose office at Roundarch is only a half hour away on the R train.

More importantly, Marko adds something that I only recently realized was missing from our plans for the book. Though he has excellent UX credentials, Marko is an analytics guy. He loves metrics, KPI, ROI. I imagine that his pajamas are covered with those little greek letters that signify statistical tests. I think we'll make a good combination: I'm a qualitative, design-y guy who has recently shed his fear of data and is trying to get other UX folks to do the same. Marko is a quantitatively-oriented analytics guy who also wants to help UX folks use data to back up their design decisions. Maybe together we'll have a good Reese's effect.

Reese's: that's what it's all about in UX. Today's best designers are people who don't fear The Other. They don't see themselves as quals fighting the good fight against those quants in management and IT. They're interested in both the what questions and the why questions. They naturally meld form and function. They are the true UX professionals, and I've had the great pleasure to work with some of this new generation over the past few years: well-rounded folks like Luke Wroblewski, Dave Shea, John Ferrara, and Carl Collins who find inspiration and practical value in anything related to design, regardless of its origin. I'm hoping that this book—as jointly conceived by a UX person and an analytics person—will help lead to more well-rounded UX designers.

Marko and I will be doing our best to reinvigorate this blog on our way to finishing up the book, which is already being substantially rewritten. Please stay tuned, and pitch in where you can.