The Fun Theory

This is several years old now, but still excellent examples of how to design an experience to harness and enhance an existing human behavior. I love that most of these examples incorporate sound as part of the experience.

See all the examples here.

Dear Airlines, Please Don't Piss Off Famous People With Blogs

Moby, from what I've heard, is one of more pleasant musicians touring these days. And this post on his blog about his experience with Air Portugal is nicely worded and could have been more pointed. But his worldwide audience of many, many fans can probably read between the lines:

so, they lied. but why? just for fun? just to torture tired travelling musicians? just to make annoying travel even more annoying?
did they get a memo from the devil that morning:
'whenever possible try to make air travel, which is already annoying, even more annoying.
sincerely,
the devil'

Read the whole post here.

Ericsson and Dave and his machines

A nice critique by Sherry Turkle of a new Ericsson ad (presumedly a series) portraying life with social media and machines that are aware. Hard to know what the brand is saying at this point, but the first installment is definitely pointing toward the dark side.

Some of you are going to look at this video — the story of a young guy named Dave (that's Dave in the picture just above) who's on his way home to an apartment where his stove, lights, vacuum cleaner, microwave and fireplace are feverishly anticipating his return, and you're going to say, "Ahhhhh, let me be Dave. If only I could have a place wired like his."

Others of you are going to want to take a sledgehammer to every lamp, toaster, vacuum cleaner and microchip in the place — and perhaps to Dave.

I don't know which side of the Dream Technology Divide you are on, but trust me, this is a polarizing video.

See the ad and read the critique here.

UK Rail tickets fail basic usability

Great article on how UK Rail tickets are designed for ticket takers, not train riders.

I overheard a familiar conversation on the train to London the other day. The ticket inspector was explaining to a passenger that their ticket was no good, the conversation went something like this.

Inspector: Tickets please Passenger: Here you go Inspector: I need both parts please Passenger: …. I only bought a single Inspector: Your ticket comes with a reservation. If you don’t have the reservation part you’ll need to buy a new ticket. Passenger: (Cue panicked fumbling through bags)… Oh here you go. Inspector: …Ahh see you’re on the wrong train. This ticket has booked you on the 7.45.

The passenger had to buy another ticket, or risk a penalty fare.

This got me thinking (As I looked down to check my own ticket). No wonder they didn’t know what train they were allowed to catch. These tickets make no sense. They are designed for ticket inspectors. Not for travellers.

You can read the entire article here.

Frank Gehry and Principles of Design

A great article by Christian Saylor in UX Magazine on design principles that inform the work of Frank Gehry, but also apply to any design effort.

Time and time again we see Frank Gehry, with great intention and thoughtful discipline, building great experiences around the needs of people. He never once started a project with the end goal of pleasing his client; rather, he approaches each engagement with a continuous devotion to the end user.

So if we take the Three Principles of Being Frank:

• purpose before presentation
• explore and iterate
• shape and movement

we begin to see some very foundational UX practices.

Full article here: http://uxmag.com/design/lets-be-frank

Clifford Geertz and the "thick description"

Another nice article by Jon Freach at Frog Design in the Atlantic:

http://m.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/07/what-designers-can-learn-from-a-pioneering-anthropologist/241333/

Sometime in the mid-90s, when I was learning how to use research in the design process, a mentor of mine, Rick Robinson, would hold book reviews on Fridays at e-Lab, one of the first ethnographic research consultancies that helped design firms, advertising agencies, and corporations understand their users and customers. During one of those late afternoon sessions, he introduced Clifford Geertz's book The Interpretation of Cultures and spoke about the role and importance that a "thick description" plays when describing our experiences in the field.