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- Productivity Nirvana
- Company Love
- No Nike+ for iPhone (e71 musings)
- Olympic Medal Map
- The Fold
- From Research to Personas
What’s In The Loop
- Nokia Mobile
- Reading Online
- UX Pioneers
- Am I Seeing Python Everywhere?
- Lazy mom pushes stroller while on a Segway
- The antithesis of usability...
- Secretary with lightning quick hands
- Cooper | Insights | Journal of Design | Articles | About Face 3: Foreword
- Orange Cone: An unusual addition to the UI collection
- National Design Awards | Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
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The Loop
Company Love
Quick link to a BusinessWeek book review "How Great Design Makes People Love Your Company". I've been gravitating toward the concept that traditional marketing is (dare I say) dead. And the age of customer/user experience is upon us. Philosophically, I cannot think of any slice of marketing or business strategy that cannot be absorbed by big User Experience.
No Nike+ for iPhone (e71 musings)
Looks like some people are a little bit upset about this. My attitude has been changing toward Apple a bit over the past few months. I'll try to get a longer post up about where I think Apple is headed. It's quite an interesting time for service design. I think companies like Apple and Nike are definitely forging new ground.
I recently did my due diligence and settled on a Nokia e71, running the Symbian s60 platform. I replaced a Blackberry Curve which was working out okay, but like many users, I just wasn't feeling that I was getting everything that I wanted in my smartphone.
What to say about the e71 without gushing. It's been like an extension of my hand for the past three weeks. What have I been using it for specifically? Here is a short list:
- email of course - there are two modes, so when i check out of work (rarely), I can switch over and check my personal accounts, and not work. Simple, but it's actually a nice to disengage from the office sometimes... sometimes.
- internet radio - that's right. the e71 is 3G, GSM, WiFi, so i'm when I connect through a WiFi hotspot, I'm streaming music down. Connection management is not so great, but there is Psiloc Connect to take up the slack.
- following up to the WiFi and 3G, I can use JoikuSpot to set up a WLAN hotspot that other users can connect to - can you say - KILLER!
- Bluetooth syncing with iCal - right now in the office we're using Daylite as a CRM, synced to iCal, and Spanning Sync to sync iCal with Google Calendar - everything is on my phone. If I haven't synced, I can just check Google Calendar through the browser. The benefit of syncing is that I have alerts on the phone home screen.
- Fring - again, can you say KILLER! I'm making Skype out calls over the phone when connected to a WiFi network.
- Google Maps - GPS is baked in. Works fine for free.
- The browser is passable when reading nytimes and cnn for mobile. Flash will run through the Flash Lite - Realplayer is also built in and there is a mobile version of YouTube if you need to get your G4 fix. (not to fan the flames, but Apple is being sued for claiming that all web content is viewable through the iPhone - the e71 closes the deal on that claim)
- Media player is way ahead of the BB media player. Moving away from iPhone/iTunes will really make you think hard about all that DRM music you bought from iTunes. Yes, I'll admit it. I'm crying in my beer.
Those are the big benefits that I see of the e71 so far (other obvious ones being full qwerty keyboard and a massive replaceable battery). To bring this hurried post full circle. I recently downloaded Nokia SportsTracker. I'll post in a few weeks once I've used it on some runs and share my thoughts.
Some links:
http://sportstracker.nokia.com/
http://www.skyfire.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4VkGs_pXm0
http://www.joiku.com/
http://www.s60.com/life
http://www.fring.com
Read My Mind
One of the challenges we sometimes face is explaining how search works and what results should be returned when users search a site. Oftentimes if the search doesn't return the exact result the user is searching for then the search is "broken".
I Feel Your Pain
It's amazing what people tell you when you're conducting user research. It can be a virtual outpouring of angst, desire and need. I recently experienced this while conducting user research for a large web application redesign project.
Uncanny Parallels
Last week I had the pleasure to catch Scott McCloud speaking on his 50 state Making Comics tour. His book Understanding Comics is classic. The cross-over between comics and the filed of experience design (inclusive of interaction design–especially IxD–and information architecture) is uncanny. It seems that this relationship continues in his new book Making Comics; which I have yet to buy. Scott’s passion is definitely comics and he is an astute observer and scholar of comics form. Though I have never been much of a comic book reader, I do love comic strips in the paper. So I felt a bit out of place at the talk, I did find some–again–uncanny crossover between Scott’s world of comics and mine.
Google Analytics Redesign
Google recently released a redesigned version of the Google Analytics interface. Leading the charge was Jeff Veen, formerly of Adaptive Path and now a user experience team lead at Google. Veen moved over to Google when Google purchased Measure Map from Adaptive Path. Measure Map is a blog analytics application designed and built by Adaptive Path. It is also an exercise in interface love. The design is simple and yet powerful.
Adaptable Interfaces
One of the most interesting presentations at the IA Summit was on Creating Adaptable Interfaces by Stephen Anderson. Adaptable interfaces learn or inuit usage patterns of users to better meet the users goals and needs. Simply, this can range from: auto-resizing a text-box to fit all of the user's typed in content, creating worn paths on a web page, or rolling-up the directions from your home to the highway when using Google Maps to get directions "after the 50th time".
Amazon Sign Out Woes?
Have you ever noticed that it is almost impossible to figure out how to sign out of Amazon? The other day I tried in vain to sign out of Amazon. I looked for a sign out link or button throughout the page I was on. I even went back to the home page and looked. Then I remembered, I had been down this road before, there’s a sign out link in the help section of the site—at least there used to be. When I found the “Signing Out” page—it took a few minutes—the sign out link was no longer there. Instead Amazon gives detailed instructions: click on the “If you’re not Kevin Silver, click here” link and then submit the sign-in form, but be sure to leave all of the fields blank. On the “Signing Out” page Amazon states, “We recommend that you sign out only when you feel that you must. If we can't identify you, it will be difficult for us to identify items that might be of interest to you.” “Oh, that’s great,” I thought, “nice way to empower your users, never ever allow them to figure out how to sign out, unless they find and read the three step process.”
What does design mean?
Design is on my mind. This is mostly driven by my extracurricular reading, currently “Thoughtful Interaction Design”; I just finished Saffer’s book: “Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices”. Also, I sift through numerous blogs daily that focus on user experience and design in general. At work, we have been talking about design and the meaning of user experience extensively over the last few months. Our conversations culminated in Chris’ Intro to UXD presentation for the local STC chapter. I attended the presentation and enjoyed the discussion afterwards. At one point during the discussion, I explained how to utilize design as an approach to tackle problems faced in creating a sound user experience. I found myself giving a rote answer: design is about solving problems using design thinking, user centered methodologies, and so forth...
Intro to UXD
On Saturday the 16th I gave a presentation, "Introduction to User Experience Design" to the Society for Technical Communication at Ktech in Albuquerque.