Imagine the scenario…
BOSS: Worker, I sent you a very important email. We need to discuss part – but not all – of this email in our 12 pm meeting.
WORKER: Understood. I will print every other page of the email and bring it to our meeting.
…which led to this feature:
I like this dialog box a lot. By focusing on the scenario of use, Outlook’s design team was able to eliminate unnecessary controls like “Print range.”
Because, after all, no one wants to print only a single page of a 10 mile long email chain.
The organizational psychologist in me loves to read insider accounts of life at innovative organizations like Google.
10 Insights From 11 Months Of Working At Google | Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik
Avinash’s blog and book are must-reads for anyone interested in web analytics.
What a great slogan for user research!
Rather, her process was simple enough to resonate with anyone on a Web team. And perhaps more importantly, it would help connect Web teams to other core parts of their organizations who were skeptical of spending even another cent on their web sites.
In the end, using Indi’s process, we were able to convince teams that we weren’t researching all the creativity out of their projects. We were researching the risk out. And no matter how the industry is faring, that’s a story people want to hear.
Taken from Jeffrey Veen’s forward to Indi Young’s new book, Mental Models. I love the cover design.
Dan Saffer wrote a brief message about the negative impact No Child Left Behind will have on the critical thinking skills of future designers. I agree with what he says, but what he describes is is a trend that pre-dates NCLB (though that legislation is a worthy target). What do you think?
A Brief Message: No Child Left Behind Is Leaving Designers Behind
Robert sends in a fine example of the classic 1-2 combo of Comic Sans and a spiral notebook background image.
It’s just like we’re back in school, taking notes about how to drive a manual transmission!
Shifting Techniques
The Sullivan nod is a sales technique used to create a subconscious suggestion to a customer to purchase one particular item out of a list of like items. It is used most frequently by bartenders and waiters when reciting lists of items (such as alcohol or wine) in the hopes of getting the customer to select a particular brand. A Sullivan nod is executed by nodding slightly, by approximately 10–15 degrees, when the item it is hoped the customer will choose is reached. The key is to make the nod perceptible, yet subtle, so as to not distract. The nod is best done with lists less than 5 items in length. Studies have concluded that 60–70% of the time, a Sullivan nod will result in the customer choosing the ‘recommended’ item.
Text size, text weight, subtle background colors are three top-of-my-head ideas. Even those are likely to be consciously noticed and thus ineffective.
Sullivan nod – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia via a long trail of vias, BoingBoing is where I found it.
I had no idea Brian Eno created the ubiquitous Microsoft Windows startup sound. Cool trivia aside, Eno’s description of the creative constraints are revealing:
The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas. I’d been working on my own music for a while and was quite lost, actually. And I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, “Here’s a specific problem – solve it.” The thing from the agency said, “We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional,” this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said “and it must be 3¼ seconds long.” I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Eno#The_Microsoft_Sound
Co-taught by Grant McCracken, author of one of my favorite blogs. The course outline will probably be enough to get me thinking, even if the course readings won’t be online.
We have chosen to set this methodology course in the demanding context of a real world study. Students will be asked to master the ethnographic method even as they use it for a practical purpose. Our topic is whether and how the Public Broadcasting System may embrace new media. Specifically, can PBS use the new technologies for production, communication, interaction and networking to change what it is and how it connects with its audiences?
http://www.cultureby.com/trilogy/2008/01/so-youd-like-to.html
sense of the word.
Sans Comic Sans is written by