The Anatomy of an Experience Map Experience maps have become more prominent over the past few years, largely because companies are realizing the interconnectedness of the cross-channel experience. It’s becoming increasingly useful to gain insight in order to orchestrate service touchpoints over time and space. But I still see a dearth of quality references. When someone asks me for examples, the only good one I can reference is nForm’s published nearly two years ago. However, I believe their importance exceeds their prevalence. I’m often asked what defines a good experience map. But it’s not just about the illustration of the journey (that would simply be a journey map). Rail Europe experience map. The experience map highlighted above was part of an overall initiative for Rail Europe, Inc., a US distributor that offers North American travelers a single place to book rail tickets and passes throughout Europe, instead of going to numerous websites. First Steps An overall inventory of touchpoints for Rail Europe. The Lens
CES 2012: Understanding what you hear on the show floor It is CES week in Las Vegas and thousands of attendees are jostling for position in the crowded show booths to get a glimpse of the latest and greatest gadgets. The representatives working in the booths are trained how to best show the toys, and answer all questions about them appropriately. After attending shows like CES for years, you hear a lot of the same buzz words and phrases. Here are the most commonly heard booth snippets, and what the representatives really mean by them. See also: CES 2012: ZDNet’s news and product coverage We don't have a ship date or pricing for that yet. That's just a prototype. This fantastic gadget is our reference design. This is the thinnest/lightest/fastest/cheapest [device type] ever made. Up to 8 hours battery life. Sorry, the [gadget name] can't be used while held like that. It's better than the iPad/iPhone/MacBook Air. Image credit: Flickr user khelvan
Daniel W. Rasmus 12 Creative Design Elements Inspiring the Next Generation of UX It's been a long time since I've written about design here at Moz, but I spent my morning in a great meeting with Derric, and was inspired by a lot of his ideas and what we reviewed to revisit some of the emerging trends and outlier creatives that are opening our eyes to what's possible. Below, you'll find some truly exceptional, unique elements of creative layout and artistry, as well as simple tweaks to best practices that are pushing the field forward. Hopefully, a few will inspire your design directions, too! #1 - Products Floating on the Background Here's a good-looking page from Hugh & Crye Shirts, showcasing one of their garments: Not bad, right? But watch what happens when the product is lifted out of the photo context and floated onto the background (courtesy of designer Chris Svetlik): Pretty remarkable, right? Here's another example of the same principle at work from Makr Carry Goods, creators of some beautiful bags: #2 - Typography IS the Design #4 - The Vertical Storyteller
Why SOPA Is Dangerous I'm sure you've heard by now that SOPA is bad and would ruin the Internet, but have you actually read the bill? If not, it's worth reading, for two reasons. First, if you are going to oppose a bill, you should know exactly what you're opposing, not just the vague principle behind it. Second, it'll provide you with a valuable insight: that these bills are written in an attempt to obscure the truth. First off, I'm going to qualify that I'm not a lawyer. Here is the full text of the bill, as of Jan. 15, 2012. The Scalpel Section 102(a)(2) permits the attorney general to take action against foreign sites (i.e., sites that do not fall under U.S. jurisdiction) if "the owner or operator of such Internet site is facilitating the commission of [copyright infringement]." We'll expand on this further down, but the really scary thing here is that there isn't any qualification that the site be solely for the purpose of theft, only that it facilitate it. The Sledgehammer DEDICATED TO THEFT OF U.S.
Rise of the networked enterprise: Web 2.0 finds its payday - McKinsey Quarterly - Organization - Strategic Organization Every new technology has its skeptics. In the 1980s, many observers doubted that the broad use of information technologies such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) to remake processes would pay off in productivity improvements—indeed, the economist Robert Solow famously remarked, “You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.” Today, that sentiment has gravitated to Web 2.0 technologies. Management is trying to understand if they are a passing fad or an enduring trend that will underwrite a new era of better corporate performance. Podcast The rise of the networked enterprise: Web 2.0 finds its payday McKinsey Global Institute senior fellow Michael Chui discusses how leaders can prepare for the new business environment as well as the latest results from McKinsey’s survey of global executives on their use of Web 2.0. New McKinsey research shows that a payday could be arriving faster than expected. The findings Web 2.0 technologies are now more widely used
Can User Experience Be Beautiful? An Analysis Of Navigation In Portfolio Websites Advertisement When users land on your website, they typically read the content available. Then, the next thing that they will do is to try and familiarize themselves with your website. In this article, I’ll be analyzing the navigation elements of a particular category of websites, i.e. portfolios. These themes will be explored through a brief analysis of eight portfolio websites, carefully selected by the Smashing Team and, well, scrutinized by me! Dawid Wadach My first impression of Dawid Wadach’s website was “Whoa! The apparent absence of navigation is the first noticeable thing on wadach.com2. It was only after stopping to read what I was randomly and rapidly uncovering with my mouse that I actually noticed that the hidden parts contained the portfolio of websites designed by Wadach. Hovering over the white area uncovers some of the projects undertaken by Wadach. To be fair with Dawid, the menu is indeed visible as it’s located in the form of a button right next to his logo. Conclusion
Why SOPA and PIPA Won't Stop Real Piracy Supporters of the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA (and its Senate-sister the Protect Intellectual Property Act, PIPA) legislation — like the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) — argue that legislation is needed because online piracy puts jobs and industries at risk. While I agree that content piracy is a real problem, the language and implications of SOPA has the potential to hurt the very industries and content creators the bills purport to protect. Artists and content creators are understandably bothered by how easy it is to obtain content without payment. SEE ALSO: Artists: SOPA Would Hurt More Than Help The backers of SOPA and PIPA believe that forcing ISPs, search engines, web hosts and users to take responsibility for infringing behavior will put a stop to the infringement. Let's be clear — there is a large underground business that profits off of copyright infringement and digital piracy. First-run movies hit the streets in China before the films play at the Cineplex.
Social Media to Social Business Story-centered design: Hacking your brain to think like a user When I first started designing interactive products, it was a struggle. Small projects were fine. But when the interactions got more complex, I noticed that tools, team communication, and even my own thinking started breaking down. I used to design screens Back in college, we were mostly designing posters, book covers, homepages, and lots of other single-screens. When I moved to San Francisco and started designing apps, I kept working the same way: I designed a screen, or maybe a set of screens, and showed that set to the team. Screen-centered design doesn’t work for apps Once you’re dealing with an app that has a dozen screens and hundreds of states, you can’t hold the whole product in your head like a poster. We were thinking of the product as a set of screens. A user might first notice your product in a search result, browse around the product for a minute, and then leave. A product is not a set of screens — it’s the stories those screens enable. Story-centered design
Paint-On Solar Cells Developed by Notre Dame Researchers Government agencies using solar power may soon be ditching their panels in favor of paint brushes. Researchers at the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Nano Science and Technology (NDnano) have developed a “solar paint” that can be applied on to a conductive surface, such as transparent conducting glass or plastic, that turns the energy of the sun into electricity. The project consisted of taking nano-sized particles of titanium dioxide, coating them with either cadmium sulfide or cadmium selenide and suspending them in a water-alcohol mixture to create the paint. The semiconducting nanoparticles — called quantum dots — were mixed into a one-coat spreadable paste that can generate power, without using any special equipment. The team that worked on the solar paint was a small one, consisting of Lightcap, Prashant Kamat, professor of science in chemistry and biochemistry and an investigator at NDnano who led the research, and Matthew Genovese, an undergraduate student. Challenges Remain