4. Cluing time! This can either be fun or drudgery, depending on who you ask. I love writing a good, misdirected clue, and solvers who have some experience love that feeling of having to get into the brain of the constructor and editor.

Early in the week, the clues are pretty straightforward, and increase in difficulty as the week progresses. The editor is responsible for making sure that the clues fit the day of the week, are clear and play fair with the solvers, and are generally well-written. There are tricks that the constructor uses to let the solver know that something else might be going on rather than it being a straightforward clue. For example, if you see a question mark at the end of a clue, that indicates that some wordplay is involved.

In what ways has software changed that process? Do you see any differences in puzzles that are built with software versus ones done by hand?

I think that having software available for constructing has made it possible for people to be more prolific, although whether that’s a good thing is left for better minds than mine to determine. Personally, I don’t like puzzles that rely on the pre-programmed words and phrases and seem to be just churned out, although I know it exists. You can hit a button that says “autofill,” and if the grid is fillable, it fills.

But that doesn’t make it a good puzzle. And it’s very obvious when someone has done that. You can have words in there that are not only not commonly used or are of interest to the average solver, but they might not even make sense. I would much rather see constructors who take the time to create or “handfill” a puzzle with current words and phrases that are of interest to people today. Or at least, if they’re not current or within my own knowledge base, they are “gettable” through the crossings, and make me feel interested in learning about them. I always love learning new words, but there has to be a valid reason for it being in the puzzle.

Getting away from the question of crossword construction, do you think technology—particularly the web—is changing the process of solving puzzles for people?

Oh, yes. While there are many solvers who continue to solve in the print paper and in books and magazines like Games Magazine, the online solving community has exploded. People are solving on the web, on their tablets, on their phones … anywhere and anyway they can get a fix. And I think that some people, who are called speed solvers and who like to time themselves to see how fast they can solve, like solving on a computer, because most of them can type faster than they can write.

I see so many sites where you can look up clues if you are stumped. I was just wondering the other day if calls to the Times’s clues hotline had fallen off a cliff.

Yes, Googling a clue has gotten very popular, although there are a significant number of solvers who consider that “cheating.” I, personally, don’t think it’s cheating unless you’re competing in a tournament. As Will Shortz says, it’s your puzzle; you can solve it any way you want. And I think that if you have to Google something to help you complete the puzzle and you learn something from having done it, that’s a good thing.