From Frog, How To Collect Consumers' Data Without Freaking Them Out Personally, I’m having trouble giving it up. By "it," I mean information about me, details that I’ve worked hard to safeguard and keep private. In fact, the same companies that are now soliciting, or simply taking, my personal data still encourage me to create strong user IDs and passwords to protect my privacy. After working in the product strategy, design, and development industries for nearly 25 years, I’ve seen how relinquishing some of my autonomy can be a good thing. Here are five tips for brand leaders to consider when harvesting personal data so consumers feel okay about giving it up. Listen to Your Consumers Successful dental visits and successful data withdrawal have one thing in common—when performed by experts, they can be pain-free and both parties benefit from the experience. Disney is a good example of this. Be Transparent About Data Usage In any relationship, shady maneuvers raise eyebrows and suspicion. Offer Elective Data Sharing Offer Consumer Benefits
Creative Latitude: Articles It's amazing how much visual material businesses create. I like that, though. It tends to keep me in business. Think about the typical mid-size company. They have signage, stationery, forms, vehicle graphics, uniforms, brochures, catalogs, webs sites, newsletters and advertisements to name a few things. A design audit is a review of all the visual elements used by a business, as well as its message to the public. And, it's not just for the big guys. A design audit concerns itself with the consistency of visual style and message. An audit begins with the collection of all visual elements a business creates. As companies expand, they often start to have materials created and printed in remote locations. So, is that a big deal? Visual style and message are a big part of branding. We communicate with words, but also with our mannerisms, body language, clothes, attitudes, etc. A design audit brings all the inconsistencies to light. 2002, Neil Tortorella
Principles of Flat Design Flat design – the design community just can’t stop talking about it. And feelings are strong. Most designers either can’t get enough of this trend, or absolutely hate it. I am somewhere in the middle. Good design is about creating something useful that works. So let’s examine what makes something flat. No Added Effects Flat design gets its name from the shapes used. The concept works without embellishment – drop shadows, bevels, embossing, gradients or other tools that add depth. Nothing is added to make elements look more realistic, such as tricks designed to make items appear 3D in skeuomorphic design projects. So what makes it work? Simple Elements Flat design uses many simple user interface elements, such as buttons and icons. Each UI element should be simple and easy to click or tap. In addition to simple styling, go bold with color on clickable buttons to encourage use. Need help getting started? Focus on Typography Type should also tell users how to use the design. Focus on Color
Twitter Announces Its First Commerce Product — A “Buy” Button On Mobile After months of reports and rumors, Twitter is announcing its first commerce product. The company first signaled its interest in this area last year, when it hired former Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard to lead its commerce team. Then it started recruiting other commerce specialists, and Recode got its hands on mock-ups of a Buy Now button. So Twitter is officially announcing that Buy button today — in a blog post, the company says it will be visible to “a small percentage of U.S. users (that will grow over time).” And even though the test is starting out on mobile, a company spokesperson said it will be moving onto desktop soon as well. Twitter says it’s partnering with a number of companies to make the Buy Now button happen, starting social shopping company Fancy, digital content seller Gumroad, fan commerce company Musictoday, and payments company Stripe.
Skeuomorphism in User Interface Design, What is It? In the last few weeks the debate over skeuomorphism has been getting more and more heated. I would like to make two points for you in this post. First, what skeuomorphism actually is – as I’ve seen so many people not fully understand it – and two some examples of it for you to get inspired by. What skeuomorphism actually is? Skeuomorphism is the imitation of another object by copying its material AND shape AND functionality. I have noticed way too many people assume that skeuomorphism is only about the texture like faux leather or faux wood. Let’s take a look at the famous – or infamous if you prefer – Apple newsstand bookshelf. What is it not? Some things are sometimes confused to be skeuomorphism when they are not. So anything that was created for the digital world without being first a physical object is not skeuomorphism. Of course, this is following the definition very strictly. Is it bad or good? It is ever going to go away? Personally, it is like country music to me…
How Google Unified Its Products With A Humble Index Card If you hadn’t noticed, every Google service has been trending toward a certain understated elegance. The company’s infamous era of championing 41 shades of blue is long over, as the company has learned to embrace clean lines, airy typography, and liberal white space across their platforms. But amidst implementing these long-established good design practices, Google rediscovered an old idea: index cards. Just like index and business cards of yore (or at least the late '90s), Google’s cards are plain, white rectangles peppered with nothing more than a little bit of type and maybe a photo. We first saw cards returning results through Search’s Knowledge Graph, as Google began summarizing Wikipedia entries into condensed blurbs. Yes, Google is even developing cards on cards. Are Cards Good Design, Or A Foregone Conclusion? "It’s not like we’ve invented a new way to organize information," admits Matias Duarte, UX director for Android. Cards Spread Like A Virus Through Google
7 | Think Of Your Life As A Game. This Strategy Guide Tells You How To Win It At times, maybe in our darker moments, some of us have probably entertained the thought that our earthly existence is just a game. And others among us may have "gamified" certain parts of our life--fitness, let's say. But what if you actually did view your whole life as a game--a video game--and used gaming strategy to make every decision? Oliver Emberton is the founder of Silktide, a company whose software improves website functionality and efficiency. Now the blogger and programmer has turned life coach, and his goal is to improve the functionality and efficiency of your daily existence. He's done so with a "Strategy Guide to Life": a faux RPG instruction sheet on how to navigate the real world. "In a way I'm writing for myself 10 years ago," Emberton tells us. At first read, the advice is all very obvious. The strategy guide includes insight on getting stuff done: "Your willpower level is especially important. Emberton says the Sims was a major inspiration for the strategy guide.
CSS and the Golden Ratio A few weekes ago while at Brooklyn Beta, I was lucky enough to sit next to Scott Kellum during lunch. He mentioned how recently he had been interested in the idea of making fractals using nested CSS shapes with sizes defined by ems. I was excited to play with the idea, and so I began working with the golden ratio (1.618033988...). (after 4 years of architecture school, it still has a soft spot in my heart.) Getting the basic shape was easy enough, though I needed to do some tweaking with the positioning to keep the rectangles radiating from the center. click to toggle css visibility click to toggle html visibility Then I began work to create the ubiquitous golden spiral. however, after a bit, I realized my css was flawed (see below). nothing aligned quite right. click to toggle html visibility (same old, just some more classes) After getting lost in the possibilities and hacking away at the CSS, I realized the answer was simple (as is the case with most problems of this type). tweet