Showing posts with label experience. Show all posts
Showing posts with label experience. Show all posts
Foot buttons
Not sure where this is, but this lift / elevator has foot buttons for each floor! Awesome.
Evolution of the desktop
The history of the working desk in one neat little animated gif. Harvard Innovation Lab used real vintage items to create this evolution of the desk over the past 35 years in one short timelapse.
Responsive design
Funny pic. But it does raise a relevant question; how many devices do you test your website out on?
The short answer is 3: mobile, tablet, and desktop. Go for 320px, 768px, 1024px and adjust screen size by percentage for a fluid responsive layout.
But, if you're a company like The New York Times or Wordpress, then you'll be testing your service across every device out there.
Too many passwords!
When a website forces me to use upper case, lower case, numbers, and symbols in my password...
via 9gag
"Would you really take a game such as this so seriously?"
With 800,000 copies sold, Takeshi's Challenge is by no means an unknown game.
But, it was still a very niche game in the grand scheme of things and it never went any further than being released for Famicom in Japan (which is probably why you've never heard of it).
Japanese personality Kitano - Beat Takeshi to his fans - is a comedian, actor, writer, director, chat show host... he's best known for the insane gameshow Takeshi's Castle (and also as the teacher in the movie Battle Royale), but there are few mediums that haven't known his touch (the Japan Times once referred to him as "the king of all media"). It was just as Takeshi's Castle launched in Japan in 1986 that Takeshi began to dabble in video games.
Kitano originally claimed that the idea for the game came to him while drunk in a bar. The box says it all: "This game is made by a man who hates video games". The only advice given to prospective players? "Common sense is dangerous."
Watching people talk about this game with a mystical, utterly bemused recounting of how it came to be developed is utterly brilliant. Watching the game being played is ever better.
But, it was still a very niche game in the grand scheme of things and it never went any further than being released for Famicom in Japan (which is probably why you've never heard of it).
Japanese personality Kitano - Beat Takeshi to his fans - is a comedian, actor, writer, director, chat show host... he's best known for the insane gameshow Takeshi's Castle (and also as the teacher in the movie Battle Royale), but there are few mediums that haven't known his touch (the Japan Times once referred to him as "the king of all media"). It was just as Takeshi's Castle launched in Japan in 1986 that Takeshi began to dabble in video games.
Kitano originally claimed that the idea for the game came to him while drunk in a bar. The box says it all: "This game is made by a man who hates video games". The only advice given to prospective players? "Common sense is dangerous."
Watching people talk about this game with a mystical, utterly bemused recounting of how it came to be developed is utterly brilliant. Watching the game being played is ever better.
The viral anti-campaign image
Whilst browsing my Facebook news feed recently I came across this now infamous image that had been shared on from an animal rights group by a close friend.
Heineken sponsors dog fighting?!
No. Heineken does not.
Agreed, on first look it's a shocking image that has been round and round the angry swirling pool of online posts from fuming animal rights groups that apparently shows Heineken sponsorship banners on display at a dog fight. Having worked with Heineken Live recently it's something that deeply saddens the people there; it's a PR nightmare that just won't go away despite doing everything possible to explain how the photo came about.
To clarify:
A Mongolian nightclub owner put on a party and set up Heineken banners, later he then rented out his club for a dog fight but did not take the banners down, the photo was taken, it was discovered online and internet rage ensued.
It led to Heineken commissioning this infographic to help try and clear things up.
Unfortunately for Heineken this image just won't go away and has damaged the brand significantly. Every time it's assumed that everything has been explained for the last time the photo is yet again snatched up and furiously shared across various social networks.
After seeing it for the twentieth time online I realised that this was possibly one of the most successful anti-campaigns that a global brand has experienced. It was originally discovered online in April 2012 and circulated, but since then it has experienced several revivals and manages to capture the exact same intensity of emotion every time it comes round the block. As far as anti-campaigns go, it's unfortunately an incredibly successful one, I don't know of any actual campaigns that have even come close to the number of lifecycles that the Heineken one has had. It's the opposite of the Holy Grail of viral campaigns; an image that is relentlessly shared based on emotion. Brands pay advertising agencies a lot of money to try and come up with images which will somehow capture an emotion and compel the viewer to share it. But it's very difficult to do with a single image, hence the rise and rise of video marketing content, and the desire to "make it go viral".
The JCVD & Volvo campaign is the perfect example of this working the way a brand wants it to, 70 million views and counting. An immediately recognisable image from the advert that drove viewers crazy with excitement (was it for real, and how??). But the issue is that this was a video campaign, and not a single still image. Video content is widely consumed but nothing will compare to the amount that it is going to be used. It is on the verge of exploding onto every possible screen in every possible space in 2014, don't take just my word for it. The reason video creation and consumption is going to go flipping mental is because the infrastructure is finally in place to deliver it (fast enough connection speeds on devices that display it well, via services that are easy to use). The reason video is easier to use as a marketing medium is because with an single image it's much harder to encapsulate the brand and build a powerful enough emotion to drive the viewer to sharing it on.
Currently, images that have been doing well are ones that are used as part of a teaser to an article or video page. This used to be solely the territory of savvy YouTube users who knew that if you included a single frame of a woman's cleavage at the right point in a video that it could be selected as the video thumbnail preview image and in turn would generate huge amounts of video views because of 'curious' users clicking on it. However, this technique has evolved to become big business and posts (especially ones on Facebook) that feature "expertly crafted click-bait headlines and content designed to tug hard on heartstrings" do very well in terms of attracting huge volumes of traffic. This has become a common trend for content curation sites such as Upworthy, and there's a very good article on it all here.
Making a viral video is much easier than making a viral image. The image becomes a much more integral part of the brand and has to be flexible enough to be reused in different contexts (I'm pretty sure the dog fighting image has been claimed to be set in dozens of different countries). When it comes to an image that can be used over and over again the obvious answer is the internet meme, and the obvious case study for a meme used as a campaign is the Virgin Media success baby.
But, this was a campaign built on top of an already popular internet meme. Yes, it was still very clever (using success baby to sell digital services to people familiar with memes = jackpot) but it was not created for the purpose of the campaign, success baby was already popular and Virgin Media jumped on that.
"But there's loads of super popular images out there on the web!"
Yes, there are. Something like the Hand Of Hope is a great example of an image that went viral and was shared by people because it evoked a powerful emotion. The photo is of a surgeon who performed life saving surgery on a baby boy that was still in the womb, and at one point he was frozen with emotion as the baby reached out and grabbed his finger. Powerful, yes. But it wasn't a branded image.
Brands work hard to create a popular corner of the web by posting numerous images that as a collection build up the brand and what it represents. RedBull do this particularly well on their Instagram account. So we've got branded images becoming popular, but they're not super popular, probably will not be shared more than once by the same person, and it's a collection of images that capture the brand not a single image.
And this is really what this is all about; there hasn't yet been a successful campaign for a global brand that uses a single image that creates a hugely powerful emotion in people to compel them to share it with their friends through a number of user-generated campaign lifecycles at zero cost to the brand beyond the initial brief. (Perhaps that's the reason brands were originally designed logos, because it's just not possible to assign a single image to a brand). But things have evolved far beyond the days of MadMen-esque advertising and now the digital marketing landscape is receptive to the concept of the viral campaign image, but it's just that no one has cracked it yet.
Or has there already been a great image that does this? Let me know in the comments below.
-- Edit --
I wrote this post yesterday, and today I woke up to read that it actually happened. I'm a little surprised by the timing of it!
Last night Ellen DeGeneres hosted the Oscars 2014 and went on to make internet history by Tweeting a selfie which has become the most shared image (3 million retweets and counting) on Twitter. Needless to say it's sent people into a frenzy; the light-heartedness and apparent spontaneity of it all has captured people's emotions and resulted in a keen urge to share it on.
This is it.
A super viral campaign image.
As far as branded images go, this is the Holy Grail that I mentioned earlier. Firstly, it was organised by Samsung who are one of the sponsors of the Academy Awards Ceremony, and this will go down in history as a defining moment for the Oscars, mobile phone technology, journalism, and viral images.
Then it's also great promotion for the Ellen DeGeneres and her brand, and all the celebrities involved in the shot (including Kevin Spacey who pulled the best pose), and brilliantly also for the brother of Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o (for her role in 12 Years A Slave), Peter Nyong'o who successfully photobombed the selfie.
And so it's begun. Samsung (via Ellen) instigated a historical picture, a super viral campaign image, and as Mashable aptly puts it, "the internet has only made it better". It's already a meme, and no doubt this selfie will experience several lifecycles as it goes through hundreds of online articles and shared posts.
Samsung did it first, and hats off to them.
Now every other brand will be furiously working out how they can top it.
Heineken sponsors dog fighting?!
No. Heineken does not.
Agreed, on first look it's a shocking image that has been round and round the angry swirling pool of online posts from fuming animal rights groups that apparently shows Heineken sponsorship banners on display at a dog fight. Having worked with Heineken Live recently it's something that deeply saddens the people there; it's a PR nightmare that just won't go away despite doing everything possible to explain how the photo came about.
To clarify:
A Mongolian nightclub owner put on a party and set up Heineken banners, later he then rented out his club for a dog fight but did not take the banners down, the photo was taken, it was discovered online and internet rage ensued.
It led to Heineken commissioning this infographic to help try and clear things up.
Unfortunately for Heineken this image just won't go away and has damaged the brand significantly. Every time it's assumed that everything has been explained for the last time the photo is yet again snatched up and furiously shared across various social networks.
After seeing it for the twentieth time online I realised that this was possibly one of the most successful anti-campaigns that a global brand has experienced. It was originally discovered online in April 2012 and circulated, but since then it has experienced several revivals and manages to capture the exact same intensity of emotion every time it comes round the block. As far as anti-campaigns go, it's unfortunately an incredibly successful one, I don't know of any actual campaigns that have even come close to the number of lifecycles that the Heineken one has had. It's the opposite of the Holy Grail of viral campaigns; an image that is relentlessly shared based on emotion. Brands pay advertising agencies a lot of money to try and come up with images which will somehow capture an emotion and compel the viewer to share it. But it's very difficult to do with a single image, hence the rise and rise of video marketing content, and the desire to "make it go viral".
The JCVD & Volvo campaign is the perfect example of this working the way a brand wants it to, 70 million views and counting. An immediately recognisable image from the advert that drove viewers crazy with excitement (was it for real, and how??). But the issue is that this was a video campaign, and not a single still image. Video content is widely consumed but nothing will compare to the amount that it is going to be used. It is on the verge of exploding onto every possible screen in every possible space in 2014, don't take just my word for it. The reason video creation and consumption is going to go flipping mental is because the infrastructure is finally in place to deliver it (fast enough connection speeds on devices that display it well, via services that are easy to use). The reason video is easier to use as a marketing medium is because with an single image it's much harder to encapsulate the brand and build a powerful enough emotion to drive the viewer to sharing it on.
Currently, images that have been doing well are ones that are used as part of a teaser to an article or video page. This used to be solely the territory of savvy YouTube users who knew that if you included a single frame of a woman's cleavage at the right point in a video that it could be selected as the video thumbnail preview image and in turn would generate huge amounts of video views because of 'curious' users clicking on it. However, this technique has evolved to become big business and posts (especially ones on Facebook) that feature "expertly crafted click-bait headlines and content designed to tug hard on heartstrings" do very well in terms of attracting huge volumes of traffic. This has become a common trend for content curation sites such as Upworthy, and there's a very good article on it all here.
Making a viral video is much easier than making a viral image. The image becomes a much more integral part of the brand and has to be flexible enough to be reused in different contexts (I'm pretty sure the dog fighting image has been claimed to be set in dozens of different countries). When it comes to an image that can be used over and over again the obvious answer is the internet meme, and the obvious case study for a meme used as a campaign is the Virgin Media success baby.
But, this was a campaign built on top of an already popular internet meme. Yes, it was still very clever (using success baby to sell digital services to people familiar with memes = jackpot) but it was not created for the purpose of the campaign, success baby was already popular and Virgin Media jumped on that.
"But there's loads of super popular images out there on the web!"
Yes, there are. Something like the Hand Of Hope is a great example of an image that went viral and was shared by people because it evoked a powerful emotion. The photo is of a surgeon who performed life saving surgery on a baby boy that was still in the womb, and at one point he was frozen with emotion as the baby reached out and grabbed his finger. Powerful, yes. But it wasn't a branded image.
Brands work hard to create a popular corner of the web by posting numerous images that as a collection build up the brand and what it represents. RedBull do this particularly well on their Instagram account. So we've got branded images becoming popular, but they're not super popular, probably will not be shared more than once by the same person, and it's a collection of images that capture the brand not a single image.
And this is really what this is all about; there hasn't yet been a successful campaign for a global brand that uses a single image that creates a hugely powerful emotion in people to compel them to share it with their friends through a number of user-generated campaign lifecycles at zero cost to the brand beyond the initial brief. (Perhaps that's the reason brands were originally designed logos, because it's just not possible to assign a single image to a brand). But things have evolved far beyond the days of MadMen-esque advertising and now the digital marketing landscape is receptive to the concept of the viral campaign image, but it's just that no one has cracked it yet.
Or has there already been a great image that does this? Let me know in the comments below.
-- Edit --
I wrote this post yesterday, and today I woke up to read that it actually happened. I'm a little surprised by the timing of it!
Last night Ellen DeGeneres hosted the Oscars 2014 and went on to make internet history by Tweeting a selfie which has become the most shared image (3 million retweets and counting) on Twitter. Needless to say it's sent people into a frenzy; the light-heartedness and apparent spontaneity of it all has captured people's emotions and resulted in a keen urge to share it on.
This is it.
A super viral campaign image.
As far as branded images go, this is the Holy Grail that I mentioned earlier. Firstly, it was organised by Samsung who are one of the sponsors of the Academy Awards Ceremony, and this will go down in history as a defining moment for the Oscars, mobile phone technology, journalism, and viral images.
Then it's also great promotion for the Ellen DeGeneres and her brand, and all the celebrities involved in the shot (including Kevin Spacey who pulled the best pose), and brilliantly also for the brother of Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o (for her role in 12 Years A Slave), Peter Nyong'o who successfully photobombed the selfie.
And so it's begun. Samsung (via Ellen) instigated a historical picture, a super viral campaign image, and as Mashable aptly puts it, "the internet has only made it better". It's already a meme, and no doubt this selfie will experience several lifecycles as it goes through hundreds of online articles and shared posts.
Samsung did it first, and hats off to them.
Now every other brand will be furiously working out how they can top it.
Sorry, that username is already taken
That classic online problem; finding a username that's both memorable and not already been taken.
This is a fantastic collection of (often hilarious and ridiculous) user names that have already been taken.
sorrythatusernameisalreadytaken.tumblr.com
This is a fantastic collection of (often hilarious and ridiculous) user names that have already been taken.
sorrythatusernameisalreadytaken.tumblr.com
Why ugly interfaces work
The Bloomberg Terminal is an integrated computer system and service feed offering real-time financial data and trading. It has made its inventor a billionaire, and users often go for a multiscreen setup. So, it works but it is also incredibly ugly. So, why not redesign this clunky GUI?
Simplifying the interface of the terminal would not be accepted by most users because, as ethnographic studies show, they take pride on manipulating Bloomberg’s current “complex” interface. The pain inflicted by blatant UI flaws such as black background color and yellow and orange text is strangely transformed into the rewarding experience of feeling and looking like a hard-core professional.
The more painful the UI is, the more satisfied these users are.
The Bloomberg Terminal interface looks terrible, but it allows traders and other users to pretend you need to be experienced and knowledgeable to use it.
Read more via Core77
Reinventing Payphones
Reinventing Payphones - NYC I/O: The Responsive City
There are 11,412 pay phones in New York City that are almost never used.
So what happens when New York City runs a competition to redesign them into something practical and that uses modern technology?
This is Control Group's winning entry.
There are 11,412 pay phones in New York City that are almost never used.
So what happens when New York City runs a competition to redesign them into something practical and that uses modern technology?
This is Control Group's winning entry.
The BMW sound designers
How do you enhance the driving experience of a popular car brand in a highly competitive market? By considering an often overlooked but integral element of the user experience, the sound design of the product.
At BMW it has become such an exact science that 14 sound artists work on creating sounds that are functional and yet pleasent to the ear.
As one of the sound artists says, "a car needs the right soundtrack for maximum driving pleasure" and he's got a point - not only do the sounds a car makes need to be of a high quality, but also the unwanted sounds need to be removed. I've often thought this after stepping out of a nice car and enjoying the clunk of the door closing - automotive sound design is very similar to user experience design for the web in the sense that if it's done right then it's pleasantly ambient.
At BMW it has become such an exact science that 14 sound artists work on creating sounds that are functional and yet pleasent to the ear.
As one of the sound artists says, "a car needs the right soundtrack for maximum driving pleasure" and he's got a point - not only do the sounds a car makes need to be of a high quality, but also the unwanted sounds need to be removed. I've often thought this after stepping out of a nice car and enjoying the clunk of the door closing - automotive sound design is very similar to user experience design for the web in the sense that if it's done right then it's pleasantly ambient.
Automated Telephone Menus
If you have ever had the misfortune of encountering an automated telephone menu then you will already know exactly how terrible the user experience is on these things.
If you haven't here's how they work: rather than talking to a real person you are played a recording of a person introducing the service you have just called up (the recording has been edited and compressed so much that it sounds like a robot voice). The user is expected to select their options by timing their response precisely and pitched perfectly. The voice recognition software is often incredibly flawed at best, and the resulting user experience is enough to put you off ever
This brilliant recording demonstrates just how frustrating automated telephone menus can be:
A fantastic parody of an automated telephone menu is here by the Fonejacker:
If you haven't here's how they work: rather than talking to a real person you are played a recording of a person introducing the service you have just called up (the recording has been edited and compressed so much that it sounds like a robot voice). The user is expected to select their options by timing their response precisely and pitched perfectly. The voice recognition software is often incredibly flawed at best, and the resulting user experience is enough to put you off ever
This brilliant recording demonstrates just how frustrating automated telephone menus can be:
A fantastic parody of an automated telephone menu is here by the Fonejacker:
A Facebook Prototype
Australian-based-but-Swedish Interactive Art Director Fred Nerby has created this short but rather interesting video that proposes a new conceptual approach to Facebook's page layout. In terms of look and feel it does borrow quite heavily from the tiled interaction of the Nokia Lumia, and the branding does overlap a little. However, I really like the magnifying glass and overlay panel approach when viewing comments so that the user remains on the main page, and the split screen double scrolling panels is an interesting touch, but is it scalable? Also, the large profile images that look like they were taken on a modelling shoot might not be for everyone (it would be interesting to see what happens if users were encouraged to replace small avatar images with large glossy ones).
What this video really needs though is to placed in a contextual screen so that the viewer can see how this layout scales across platform (from desktop to tablet to mobile). It will be interesting to see if a Facebook spokesperson comments on this video as this new page layout and the sliding panel interaction all looks very similar to the new MySpace which was relaunched in December 2012.
What this video really needs though is to placed in a contextual screen so that the viewer can see how this layout scales across platform (from desktop to tablet to mobile). It will be interesting to see if a Facebook spokesperson comments on this video as this new page layout and the sliding panel interaction all looks very similar to the new MySpace which was relaunched in December 2012.
Facebook Prototype - Conceptional Approach from Fred Nerby on Vimeo.
Connecting
Excellent documentary on how the relationship with digital devices and human interaction is merging to the point that our devices fade into the background and enable the user rather than interrupt them. Interaction design is now about providing a platform for the user to mould and shape into something they find useful.
The 18 minute "Connecting" documentary is an exploration of the future of Interaction Design and User Experience from some of the industry's thought leaders. As the role of software is catapulting forward, Interaction Design is seen to be not only increasing in importance dramatically, but also expected to play a leading role in shaping the coming "Internet of things." Ultimately, when the digital and physical worlds become one, humans along with technology are potentially on the path to becoming a "super organism" capable of influencing and enabling a broad spectrum of new behaviors in the world.
The 18 minute "Connecting" documentary is an exploration of the future of Interaction Design and User Experience from some of the industry's thought leaders. As the role of software is catapulting forward, Interaction Design is seen to be not only increasing in importance dramatically, but also expected to play a leading role in shaping the coming "Internet of things." Ultimately, when the digital and physical worlds become one, humans along with technology are potentially on the path to becoming a "super organism" capable of influencing and enabling a broad spectrum of new behaviors in the world.
How Bad Online Shopping Experiences Look Like In Real Life
Google Analytics has produced a trio of excellent videos to help E-commerce sites improve their customer service by pointing out what not to do.
By putting the common mistakes and bad practices that online merchants make into a real life shop, the videos show how alienating bad user experience design and marketing can be for potential customers by ruining the experience of shopping online.
For instance, one of the videos highlights how frustrating it can be to check out online when there are too many security measures and hidden costs for customers to get through.
via Google Analytics
By putting the common mistakes and bad practices that online merchants make into a real life shop, the videos show how alienating bad user experience design and marketing can be for potential customers by ruining the experience of shopping online.
For instance, one of the videos highlights how frustrating it can be to check out online when there are too many security measures and hidden costs for customers to get through.
via Google Analytics
French reporter fails with touch screen
LCN News anchor fumbles with touch screen timeline, The reporter was trying to present a timeline of the conflict in Gaza when things went pear-shaped unruly graphics slipped out of view, expanded wildly and vanished from the screen.
Virtual Photo Walks
Share what you see with your camera with others in real time. Excellent evolution from taking video call technology and extending it to a virtual / augmented reality for those who can't get outside. This idea will only get better over the years as the technology improves.
Photographer John Butterill discovered a way to share his photo walks through Google+ Hangouts. Almost immediately photographers around the world began volunteering to share their view of the world with people whose mobility was limited.
Photographer John Butterill discovered a way to share his photo walks through Google+ Hangouts. Almost immediately photographers around the world began volunteering to share their view of the world with people whose mobility was limited.
Rory Sutherland's thoughts and observations
Fantastic animation by Animade which visualises some of Rory Sutherland's (Vice Chairman, OgilvyGroup UK) thoughts and observations. He talks about the ways people's patience is managed when having to wait for a service - it has been found that the inclusion of a timer will greatly reduce a person's frustration if they know exactly how long they have to wait.
Sight
Sight is an interested short film by Eran May-raz and Daniel Lazo that is set in the near future and explores a type of augmented reality that is overlaid onto everything people do. From recreation, to cooking, to social interaction, everything has levels and tips on how to be better.
This concept of overlaying information on your sight was also explored in this short clip by Keiichi Matsuda.
The effect on the character's eyes reminds me of "The entire history of you" episode from Charlie Brooker's 'Black Mirror" television series on Channel 4.
Sight from Sight Systems on Vimeo.
This concept of overlaying information on your sight was also explored in this short clip by Keiichi Matsuda.
The effect on the character's eyes reminds me of "The entire history of you" episode from Charlie Brooker's 'Black Mirror" television series on Channel 4.
21 Balançoires (21 Swings)
21 Swings, an exercise in musical cooperation.
Every spring, an interactive installation takes over a high-traffic area in Montréal’s Quartier des spectacles and sets a collective ritual. The installation offers a fresh look at the idea of cooperation, the notion that we can achieve more together than separately.
The result is a giant instrument made of 21 musical swings; each swing in motion triggers different notes, all the swings together compose a piece, but some sounds only emerge from cooperation.
The project stimulates ownership of the public space, bringing together people of all ages and backgrounds, and creating a place for playing and hanging out in the middle of the city centre.
Every spring, an interactive installation takes over a high-traffic area in Montréal’s Quartier des spectacles and sets a collective ritual. The installation offers a fresh look at the idea of cooperation, the notion that we can achieve more together than separately.
The result is a giant instrument made of 21 musical swings; each swing in motion triggers different notes, all the swings together compose a piece, but some sounds only emerge from cooperation.
The project stimulates ownership of the public space, bringing together people of all ages and backgrounds, and creating a place for playing and hanging out in the middle of the city centre.
21 Balançoires (21 Swings) from Daily Tous Les Jours on Vimeo.
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