Viaspire - Define.Innovate.Maximize.

Working Through Screens - 100 Ideas Worth Reading

There is an amazing downloadable book out by Flashbulb Interaction that comprehensively reviews 100 Ideas for Envisioning Powerful, Engaging, and Productive User Experiences in Knowledge Work. It is probably one of the most exceptional publications I have read and re-read in a long while.

The thorough approach, concepts and flow of information designed in this eBook is truly an amazing investment in creating real value in this information age, specifically for knowledge work.

Jacob Burghardt writes Working through Screens: 100 Ideas for Envisioning Powerful, Engaging, and Productive User Experiences in Knowledge Work as a reference for product teams creating new or iteratively improved applications for thinking work. Written for use during early, formative conversations, it provides teams with a broad range of considerations for setting the overall direction and priorities for their onscreen tools. With hundreds of envisioning questions and fictional examples from clinical research, financial trading, and architecture, this volume can help definers and designers to explore innovative new directions for their products.

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• Download “Idea Cards” >>

Brand Friendly

As I ended my original post on My Friends, I realized there was a natural follow up for brands engaging in social media to connect with partners, consumers, fans, etc.

Within the context of social networking, the definition of friend comes with the responsibility of a trusted and  responsive relationship.

As brands and brand representatives are connecting more intimately with their followers, there has been much discussion about the appropriateness and community effort required to cultivate and sustain a conversation and trusted relationship. When you think about making a connection at this "friend" level from brand-to-consumer and/or consumer-to-brand - setting clear expectations of what this relationship means and how it is cared for, trusted and valued will reveal the true sincerity of transparency and authenticity in this relationship.

If there was one brand representative who completely excels at this naturally is @Comcastcares on Twitter. Frank Eliason, the "friend" at the heart of @Comcastcares lives and breaths a responsive, "we can help" presence on behalf of Comcast that to me is remarkable and the perfect case study in being "brand friendly" in social networking.

Good visual design leads to more meaningful interactions

Luke Wroblewski of User Interface Engineering published a great article this week on the importance of First Impressions Through Visual Web Design.

Wroblewski's notes that visual design ("when done right") helps Web users clearly understand:

- What am I looking at?
- How do I use this?
- Why would I want to use this Web site?
and I would like to add...
- Where do I start or take action next?

Wroblewski outlines how visual design helps to communicate quickly, form (and move beyond) first impressions, as well as allow Web users to find information and next steps through scannability - all leading to a more meaningful interaction online.

Read more >>

Track What's Mentioned on the Social Web with SocialMention

I read a great blog post by David Berkowitz today on Blog Search Stuck in Beta and it really captured a long-time complaint I've had about search engines, specifically for blogs and blog content. Whether you use Google or a micro-search specifically for blogs, overall they have been very ineffective in my experience.

Taking a look at the blog search landscape, Berkowitz finds there is a lot missing to the search experience, particularly "a sense of understanding a user’s purpose." (Big cheers! Smiles! Total agreement!)

 

Ending my day today, I learned of SocialMention, which I feel starts to address the Social Web and how blog and micro-blog content is out there and in the mix. Not unlike other cool search tools, like Lijit, SocialMention really does everything on my "nice to have" wish list for a Social Web search engine. SocialMention provides search results that are organized by blogs, micro-blogs (like Twitter mentions, Brightkite and Posterous posts, etc.), bookmarks, comments and so on.This is not just a search for blogs, but when we searched one of our own, Extraordinique we were so pleased with the immediacy and comprehensive return of results.

Our experience with SocialMention exceeds any results we've ever been able to extract from Google, Google Blog Search, Technorati and others.

In seconds, SocialMention had every post we've done on Extraordinique, all of our micro-blog conversations involving "Extraordinique," social bookmarks in Digg and Del.icio.us, comment threads, including FriendFeed, and the list goes on. It is the next great aggregator of numerous social media sources remixing it into a single stream of really useful and valuable information.

It is a thing of beauty to see all of this information indexed so quickly and so well organized. It will be such a useful tool for brand and community managers to keep up on all "SocialMentions."

Great idea. Great execution. Great results!

I imagine this will show up in SocialMention's "socialmention search query," so while I have your attention -- Thanks! You rock! And why no @SocialMention? Your fans and your critics want to include you in the conversation while they learn about you and endure some of the heavy loads. :)

Rethinking the User Experience - AdWeek

AdWeek touches on User Experience this week in an article - Rethinking the User Experience, Web designers should consider how using a site reflects upon the brand. It's a great overview of how user experience (UX) is integral to the design and development of online interactions and perceptions. It is a helpful overview to see and understand how many different disciplines, from accessbility to usability play a role under UX design. Moreover, the article makes a clear connection that good user experience is equally tied to positive reinforcement of the brand. Good experience is a good reflection on the brand. Good experience design helps to establish and reinforce positive relationships, increased customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.

User Experience Quick Links for Week Ending 08.15.2008

InspireUX Quote: Confusion and Clutter

Post: Individualization and leadership feedback
By: A User's Guide to Managing User Experience Teams

Post: The SEO Guide to Information Architecture
By: AudetteMedia

Post: Design for Emotion & Flow
By: Trevor van Gorp | Boxes & Arrows

Post: The Pursuit of Interface Design Simplicity
By: Luke Wroblewski | LukeW Interface Designs

Post: Content Moderation: There's More Than Meets the Eye
By: Steven Noble, Forrester

Bridging the Gap - Shopping Made Simple

Gap is one of those great brands and retail experiences that has taken some blows financially over the recent years. When you think of great, inspiring lifestyle brands, building extraordinary brand loyalty, the Gap is on par with Apple, Volkswagen, IKEA and now Target (of all brands), in my opinion.

But, the Gap has struggled financially as well in its classic identity. Today, I read a great article in Business Week about "A Fashion Guy Gets Gap Back to Basics." While Design chief Patrick Robinson is taking the Gap back to the quality of the basic, classic styles the Gap is known (and loved for), he also quotes he can "design the best T-shirt,...but if we don't put it in the right stores in the right amount of sizes," then it is out of his hands. Robinson says, "It's going to take this whole company to [succeed]."

From my morning read about the Gap to an email this afternoon, I received word that the Gap and its affiliate brands, Old Navy, Banana Republic and Piperlime, have launched Shopping Made Simple an integrated online shopping experience that allows online consumers to browse and buy from all four stores adding to one shopping bag with integrated check out. Additionally, another convenience built into the online shopping experience is one seven dollar flat shipping rate* and free returns.

The Gap and its affiliate brands are aggregating to create an experience much like what many consumers have come to expect by shopping online at Amazon.

As mentioned in earlier posts, Tis the Season to Redesign, which means we will be seeing more innovation in e-commerce and enhanced user experience models to optimize convenience, increase satisaction and build loyalty for the upcoming shopping season. This new 4-in-1 shopping experience by Gap is a competitive way to streamline the shopping experience around the consumer -- making it "simple" and convenient to shop with the Gap online.

Looks like the Gap is bridging the "gaps" of past challenges and unifying the brand experience to benefit the consumer.

Go Gap!

*Exception: Piperlime orders ship free.

Good UI Design Is Humble

I absolutely love InspireUX for their timely and poignant quotes from thought leaders in the User Experience community. Today's quote couldn't be more true.

Participating in scores of development meetings over the years, the collective thinking has always included a mix of perspectives and approaches, but not always a shared vision for the expected outcomes intended for the end user. Surprising, and a huge fatal flaw we've observed, in most cases.

This quote by Jono DiCarlo emphasizes the need for a flexible, responsive and adaptive approach to good UI design. Respecting the user's input, perspective and abilities is paramount to evolving the system created for them.

DiCarlo recently wrote a great post that speaks to his development philosophy that indicates, among his other posts, it's "Not the User's Fault" with These things I believe.

 

Social Media Delivers HyperTargeting for Advertisers

We've written about context, context, context over and over again and how the user experience must be relevant and engaging. In the world of online advertising, the same demand applies, particularly when brands are looking for ways to better connect on all levels with consumers. Creating the right awareness, with the right message, at the right time to the right people has been the ultimate quest for marketers online.

Today, the Wall Street Journal reports that MySpace's HyperTargeting advertising solution will let marketers deliver their specific ads to specific groups of users. MySpace has sorted and analyzed an estimated 118 million monthly visitors to MySpace to gauge their interests and then categorized them into more than 1,000 "buckets," which will identify the "Dancing With the Stars" viewers to the Nascar or scrapbooking enthusiasts.

According to MySpace, HyperTargeting "leverages the self-expressed interests and passions of millions and millions of MySpace members -- allowing [marketers] to reach the consumer most likely to be receptive of their brand."

Hypertargeting is Personalization 2.0 on an advertising level.
There is nothing really new here to me, but it finally feels like the deep customer data and rich analytics are here to mine and deliver relevant marketing to consumers.

HyperTargeting proposes to go beyond generalized demographics with exact profiling on behaviors and interests. With the expansive community MySpace has generated, the idea of tapping into and developing dense and clearly mapped profiles, should be very appealing to marketers.

Now, I'm curious if this will impact and/or improve the MySpace member experience. That seems like it should be a huge focus for MySpace, considering the evolution and migration of the online community.

User Experience: Context, Context, Context

Yesterday, I wrote about two new redesigns launched and realized I failed to really address the pros and cons of "context" included within the designs. ReadWriteWeb has a great article today on Beyond the API: Why Companies Should Have a Presence on All Major Platforms, which places context (and what the user's value most") at the center of the user experience framework.

A long-standing mantra on the Web has been "Content is King." For most working in user experience, however, we've had to educate most that the richest content can't reign without a well-designed user experience.

Sound the horns and roll out the red carpet, user experience is now annointed king!
ReadWriteWeb notes that "user interface innovation is a major part of the ongoing web revolution" and outlines the emergence of contextual user interfaces in user experience design.

With posts this week on Personalization 2.0 and now this post, there is a major challenge to deliver a more streamlined experience that is based more intelligently on context. ReadWriteWeb states: "The new user experience is about fluidity."

As I wrote yesterday, "simplifying the experience improves the experience." Users cannot afford to be bombarded with too many options. They need an experience that allows them to be easily self-directed to find and select the information or services they need quickly and easily.

Side note:
To write this post, I ended up revisiting a 2005 post on Putting Context into Context by Jared Spool, which examines the fundamental importance of "context." Flashing forward to 2008, how context can be delivered now in 2008 and beyond is where things really gets interesting.

Related Post:
The Rise of Contextual User Interfaces