Experience Planner

Here’s some of what I’ve been reading and thinking about this week.

Fever, a Self-Hosted Feed Reader (TechCrunch)

Here’s another example of “Genius Design” in action. Shaun Inman designed a new type of RSS reader, which actually sounds really intriguing to me and would probably match well with my own style of managing RSS feeds. Previously, Shawn created other successful web products by designing with himself as the only intended audience. In fact, in the TechCrunch article he says, “I designed Fever (like Mint) first and foremost for myself. Any money I make on top of the personal utility I get out of it is just icing on the cake.”

That’s a totally valid approach to design, especially since he’s upfront about not caring who else gets benefit from the product. But Shaun is lucky to be working only on products for himself and where he already has deep knowledge of the space. For most design projects, I would argue that insights developed through user research are critical to making a great design.

Did Chase consider the importance of the customer experience before throwing out WaMu’s “Occasio”? (AdaptivePath)

I love this story, even though it’s kind of sad. When Chase took over Washington Mutual bank locations, they redesigned them to meet their usual business objective: aggressively cross-selling financial services. But in doing so, they (probably unwittingly) destroyed a customer utopia.

Customer experience has so many parallels to user experience design online. Yes, we need to design to achieve business objectives, but not at the cost of turning off customers. The key to good product design is finding the balance between meeting business objectives and serving customer needs.

Nielsen Debunks Myths On Teens And Media – They Still Watch TV! (TechCrunch)

Would you have guessed that adults between 21 and 35 watch online videos 35% more than teens? Or that adults spend 25 hours and 15 minutes per month browsing the internet, versus only 11 hours and 32 minutes per month for teenagers? This kind of research is so important for debunking myths about our target audiences and helping us keep a clear understanding of where and how to reach them.

The Semantic Web (Adaptive Path)

The semantic web really interests me since it holds the potential for us to finally build Star Trek-like computers — ones the actually understand what we’re saying and can intelligently answer our questions. Unfortunately, discussions of the semantic web have mostly been relegated to:

1. Confused nonsense about Web 3.0
2. Detailed discussions of the technology necessary to make it work

So I was encouraged to see Chiara Fox from Adaptive Path say that the industry is making progress. The technology is now reasonably well understood so we can now get busy actually doing it. In fact, just this year at the IA Summit, some people from the BBC presented about their thorough and very smart efforts to catalog and present all of the BBC’s content in a semantically valid way. Very clever stuff!

hello, nicely done
Wanted to give some recognition to the crew running CB2’s e-commerce site.

I’m obsessed with small design details that can help pull together a composition. And, I most definitely respect a crew that can bust those out under what I’d imagine were probably “tight timelines.”

a little background
CB2 is the cheapie sister of Crate & Barrel. Their prime prospect are those loft living, highly successful, aloof hottie 20somethings … and all of their peers out in the hinterland sub/exurbs that make up the 99.9% rest of CB2’s business. So, shake the net, and you get a design-friendly lot who may or may not subscribe to Ready Made.

so, i was saying
Knowing all of this, you can see how CB2’s background is a lovely little piece. I present to you the background via Zoom view:

CB2.com uses 5x5 graph paper as a background--equity win. Score!

stop me when i start to overanalyze
I’ve not done any research into CB2 as to how the website is put together. Likely it is inhouse, but it very well could have been put together by an agency.

Either way, the graph paper is a smart touch … it’s a simple little detail that can make a site seem like a cohesive piece.

Consider a semiotic analysis. A ruler, a pen, and graph paper are among the basic elements of design. Graph paper signifies design and design sensibility. High design, sure, sure. But it also connotes the act of design thinking and perhaps just plain thinking. Most of their consumers may never put pen or pencil to graph paper, but the background art gives them a little Moleskine Pocket Reporter of their own.

My boss’s boss at agency X just forwarded an email to the team: On November 13th, 2008, LexisNexis and Elsevier Science will be hosting the tri-state (OH, KY, IN) World Usability Day event in Miamisburg, Ohio.

This year’s WUD theme is Usability in Transportation. As the event planners say in their email: “The tri-state area is lucky to have many different practitioners from many industries and disciplines so we feel it is more important to share what we do with our colleagues than to stick to the theme. This is our time to appreciate all the good work in usability, UX, and UCD in our community.”

Right now, they’re looking for participants. So if you’re in the OH, KY, IN area, be sure to come to the event or share some work… there will be refreshments and a keynote speaker.

For more information:

http://www.worldusabilityday.org/