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/

Pay touch

Just came across a hotel in Ibiza that has a very clever digital strategy:

1/ use pay touch that guests sign up to as they check in. Meaning that it is super easy to buy things around the resort as you sign with your fingers

2/ give every guest a wrist band that doubles as your Facebook ID, then use kiosks around the resort so party goers can post quickly and easily to FB.

Love the use of integrated tech to improve the customer experience whilst boosting your social media and average spend!

http://http//www.ushuaiaibiza.com/en/

Nice checkout experience from Howies

Just came across this and thought it was worth a quick blog...

 1/ Nice & engaging email shot from Howies - targeting my penchant for bad taste Christmas jumpers and hoodies

2/ Visit website and browse around - experience is as expected ...

3/ Add items to basket and like the way that the basket is designed - able to see item photo, desc and costs, scroll to see other items in basket

4/ Checkout is well designed with accordion layout but specifically like the predictive postcode look up and order sumary on right hand side of screen.

It's been a while...

Dear Blog, I'm sorry that it has been a while since I last wrote on you. I hope that you will understand that the last year has been mental - new house, new job, new baby and all the time still running The Yard Creative. I promise that I won't leave you unloved for so long in the future. Cheers me dears, Sian xxx

Great online fast food experience

I never would have thought that ordering fast food online could be such a good experience but if you are a bit of a geek, like me, and you like pizza then try ordering online at Papa Johns



The online user journey is slick and encourages you to find your local store, the offers are easily applied and the live order status (aka knowing when to get your ass in to the car) is a real bonus.

But best of all, when you arrive to pick up (they do delivery too) the order has been processed, your pizzas boxed and clearly labeled with your name and the pizza type. All you have to do is pick up the pizza, sign a slip to say you have picked up and off you go!!!

Well done to Papa Johns in having such a well executed experience that seamlessly intergrates both online and offline services.

Oldie but a goodie

Just found this on my machine under 'Blog this', so I'm following my own instructions!

This was the BBC election site for the 2010 General Election - things I thought were worth blogging about:
- user generated video content
- interaction of the video content
- visual display of the video content

Very nice ineed! have a look and a play at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8602143.stm

The hungry basket

Found this and thought it was so lovely that I just couldn't resist blogging it!



http://www.threadless.com/

my digital life

://ionz.com.br/ to get your own personalised infographic. One thing I hope is that my life really isn't that simple to interpret!


Great example of a personalised info graphic. Check out http

break the form rules

Intersting conversion case study of a traditional form design v's an inline 'conversational' form... which one converted more...have a look for yourself:

online and in-store

Over the past 5-8 years the trend has been for companies to move services online in order to reduce costs streamline business processes and attract wider audiences. Is it time that online and in-store met in the middle of the road?

Moneysupermarket.com may have started this movement with their interactive shop window on Oxford Street at Christmas time. The window allowed shoppers to quickly and easily compare prices between stores whilst shopping.

With a little bit of creative thinking there could be bundles of opportunities for online services to appear on the high street:

• Design, save, share and compare your own bathroom/kitchen/living room within the furniture department of a department store
• Use mash-up technology to find products and stock counts when in-store
• Save gondola space in entertainment stores by using the online catalogue to browse music before buying the physical products
• Make more of the valuable space taken up by fitting rooms and reduce the annoying fitting room queues by using photo sharing sites to try on clothes and makeup

Both Tesco and Argos do a good job of blending their online experience with in-store due to their ‘order online and pick up in-store’ offering… but there is still the opportunity to take retail to the next ‘interactive’ level.

customer experience is everywhere

When at a shin-dig just the other week about 7 people, other than myself, were talking the talk about the importance of designing good customer experiences.

Admittedly, approximately 99% of the people at the party were in the creative industry in one way or another but I was still quite surprised to hear these golden words on so many lips.  I have been an advocate of designing customer experiences for over 8 years and I have not encountered a similar scenario - is customer experience becoming the buzz word?

I take some heart in this as it makes my quest easier if customer experience design becomes main stream - take The Yard Creative for instance, a young and fun commercial interior design agency - their USP is all about designing with customers in mind. A great way to make your business stand out from the rest.

Blending desktop and online

Loving the way that some interactions and widgets are coming into the mainstream making the everyday use of the web much more similar to the desktop experience.

Take a look at www.macwarehouse.co.uk this site manages to provide a good experience whilst making a play upon quite a lot of features that you would expect to find on a Mac computer.

Widgets are widely available but I quite like the Yahoo library.

Every tiny detail counts

"The devil is in the detail" is one rule that I always abide by - dark? Perhaps....

I think it is incredibly important to make sure that every tiny detail is considered when designing a solution, else you could end up with a solution that looks lovely but when you get down to using has silly idiosyncrasies that have just been overlooked.

Now put your user hat on: you are a busy business person and you have lots of important tasks that need your attention.  One of your many tasks for the next hour is to enter you company details in to a service directory.  There are 25 people in your company.  See how long and hard you have to think before you can choose the correct company size from the drop down (see image below)?

Nice 'New' feature

LOVEfilm really let me down the first time I attempted to register, however persevering reigned and the result - quite a nice site that makes it easy to manage your personal film preferences. 

I think the 'New' feature works well and is in a great location.  I also feel that the priority list is simple and effective.

Well done LOVEfilm, next thing to sort out is the page refresh when adding a film to your personal list and also the search / browse facilities.

Registration by stealth

Where it suits the business model and objectives of the site, I will often encourage clients to opt for registration by stealth.

The main idea behind registration by stealth is that, simply put, registration can often become a blocker to users using a site.  Registration by stealth looks to remove the formal 'registration' call to action and instead focuses on gathering the important bits of information (that the business requires) as the customer is using the parts of the site that they feel are important.

The result is a site that allows the user to move quite freely around the site and then provides them with a very quick and simple form that effectively registers them.  An example is www.justgiving.com where you can sponsor without registering then right at the end of the payment process the user is presented with a cleverly designed box that ask 'Save this card  for future use?', if the user then chooses to enter their password and verify their password - voila! the user is registered without any fuss.