Facebook is for the 'oldies'

This is a new theory of mine - Facebook is not for young users.

Controversial, perhaps.

I have recently met a number of teenagers and they are all  not interested in FB. Mostly because schools are educating pupils that FB is dangerous and should be used with great care and as a result the young people that I met were not using and were not interested in using it. Interesting eigh? The youngers that I met were in to social media, such as Twitter so it wasn't that aspect...

One to ponder.

Google v's NSA

Saw this yesterday morning on Google's homepage and I thought WOW, things must be serious if Google is having to rely on the strength of it's users....check it out: stopwatching.us

Interesting experiences

Saw these and saw they were worth capturing:

You versus John Paulson:
https://mahifx.com/john-paulson/

Scale of the universe:
http://htwins.net/scale2/

Future of car sharing:
http://futureofcarsharing.com

http://www.logartis.info/site2011/#

http://www.immersive-garden.com/

GO APE is GREAT

The booking funnel on the Go Ape website is pretty good. I think that the parallax scroll to step customers through certain forms during the booking and checkout process is really nice, feels very slick. Also, found the clever use of AJAX widgets helpful.

Often it is the confirmation page, once the process is complete, that gets forgotten and is generally quite poor in terms of UX and engaging content. However I really liked the Go Ape confirmation page - it provides a really simple but eye catching agenda followed by lots of interesting information and handy hints about the site that you have just booked. Well done Go Ape digital team, good work.

There are some jitters on there like the error messaging could be a little more bold / helpful and the location of gift voucher redeem is hard to find... but those things are easy to fix...

IKEA and augmented catalogue

Loving the use of augmented reality in the new 2013 IKEA catalog.  Check out the experience you can get with the catalog and a mobile device. It pushes the possibilities of the content published and the different ways to communicate to a whole new level....


Some key info on how this will work:

The IKEA Catalog App will be made available on July 31st for tablets and smartphones, and users simply download the app, turn it on, and scan select pages of the catalog. Scanning will unveil interactive experiences, additional photos, stories, other inspiration, and it will unlock films that cannot be seen without the app.

“One of the catalog’s new main features is an accompanying (soon to launch) visual recognition app that will bring its pages, and the offerings within, to life in the form of inspirational videos, designer stories, ‘x-ray’ vision that peeks inside furniture, and more.”
Andreas Dahlqvist, Vice Chairman of ad agency McCann New York

Amazing! I can't wait to shop IKEA.. I guess that's the reaction that they were looking for!

Beautiful illustrations

I love these kind of sites that are beautifully illustrated and crafted, makes such a nice change from the bog standard (and expected) boxes and standard layouts. I am very in favour of mixing it up where the proposition and product support this kind of experience.

Some great examples are listed on the webdesignledger here that show how UXArchitects and UXCreatives can work together to come up with a gorgeous site.

My fav are:
http://www.jacquico.com/
http://thinknologies.com/
http://www.edxmas.pl/