Friday, July 22, 2011

End on a good note!

Regarded as one of the most influential living psychologists, Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize for his pioneering work in behavioral economics. His lecture "The riddle of experience vs. memory", teaches us two important lessons:
  1. Our perceptions . . .well, don't trust them all the time. 
  2. The final parts of an experience are disproportionately  heavily weighted in our minds. They leave a more lasting influence. So if you are crafting an experience, end on a strong note.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Do you sketchboard?

One of the more fun activities in user experience design is working with a group to sketch and plan. Nothing is more enjoyable than watching a group construct an early draft of a customer experience on paper, thinking through the process and coming up with something that can be put into a more formal document.


Here's Adaptive Path's How to video on creating sketchboards:

Sunday, July 10, 2011

A scene from the office

Here are my favorite markers ever. Sharpies. The color variety and as they say in the beauty world "payoff" is awesome. 
Here are the markers in action. I created these using the pages of a book.

Friday, July 8, 2011

The story of two logos: Fliptop vs Versartis

Here are two logos I found while researching companies on the ever useful CrunchBase:
When I see a logo like FlipTop I think:
  • If this is how much time and effort they put into their brand, I bet they are awesome at what they do too.
  • They are modern, fun and competent.
  • I'd be excited to meet someone from this company, not to mention work with them. They get it.
 
When I see a logo like Versartis I think:
  • This is most definitely a B2B company that is comfortable with minimal branding effort since their products do the heavy lifting.
  • Design is not a priority here.
  • If I work with them, it runs the risk of rolling a boulder uphill. As a UX designer I could have an impact if the product or the platform is new. I'd need to investigate how the team works so I can tell what kind of change the company is and is not open to. This will drastically effect the success of the project. Excellent UX designers want the customer/user to rule. This is much more difficult when the legacy dictates.
  • STILL, their products must be demo'ed, trialed, or sold. A better user experience is something that will help deepen customer trust.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Control+P+Print!

A friend of mine introduced me to Eddie Izzard and if you've never heard of him I'm excited for you to watch this video. Rather than operate from a script (he credits his dyslexia as the reason scripts don't work for him), he free associates comedy.

This clip was part of an encore in which Eddie Izzard describes his love hate relationship with computers:


Oh and if you wonder about his adorable cross-dressing, watch this: