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A Look Inside Mobile Design Patterns
Invitations are helpful tips that are displayed the first time a user opens an application or arrives at a new place. They suggest actions and guide the user to the intended functionality. A simple invitation can turn an otherwise discouraging first time experience into a satisfying one.
via decodering.
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Yes, Experience Can Be Designed →
Experience designers investigate the motivations behind users’ behaviours—“Yes, Experience Can Be Designed”
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–Imagine the U.S. Census as conducted by direct marketers - that’s the social graph.
Social networks exist to sell you crap. The icky feeling you get when your friend starts to talk to you about Amway, or when you spot someone passing out business cards at a birthday party, is the entire driving force behind a site like Facebook.
If you haven’t read this yet, I can’t recommend it enough.
(via fascinated)
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How to identify the best design problems →
“One of the core principles of UX is to solve existing problems, or problems that people are already struggling with. While this might not be as glamorous as inventing a brand new thing it is more practical: it makes identifying problems easier and people are much more receptive to your design. If you’re solving a known problem you don’t have to convince anybody that your design is valuable…they already know exactly why they want to use it.”
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Stream of Awesomeness: Heroes →
As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.
-Ernest Hemingway
Understatement of the year in whatever year he said that. I’m not old, but I’m getting older and I’m hurting for heroes. Once you leave school, learning is no longer structured. You have to figure…
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Life is like riding a bicycle. In order to keep your balance you must keep moving.
– (via nickwynja) -
User Experience Trumps Pretty URLs, The End. →
Much is being said about the trend of adding “#!” into URLs by prominent websites like Twitter, the Gawker Media network of blogs and Facebook. While I love Jeremy Keith and the rest of the naysayer group, I must disagree here. This simply isn’t a huge problem for anyone but the…
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My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-1-16) →
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
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Hating Skype 5 for Mac? Here's a fix to remove the whitespace. →
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Signs you have a bad web designer
I put some thought into all of the initial client consultation meetings that I’ve had over the years and am still amazed at some of the bad experiences I’ve heard businesses go through to have a website built.
In the spirit of good humour I’ve created a list of things that a business owner does not want to hear from a website designer or developer, or who some have aptly named “the web dude”.
- “You need to jump on [insert name of current web 2.0-social-interweb-marketing scheme here] so that you can dominate the market and make wheelbarrows full of cash now.”
- “I can’t help you because I’m at my full-time job 16 hours of the day. Call me at 11 p.m. tonight.”
- ”I’m not sure what to suggest to you—can’t you just tell me what you want and I’ll build it?”
- “Sorry your website has taken 6 months too long to build. I was sick, on vacation, tending sheep and solving the world’s problems—you aren’t my only priority.”
- “We can build your website for $99 in 2 days. We have an expert team nestled away in the jungles of Malaysia waiting to serve your every need.”
- “We can’t add that 20x20 pixel graphic to your website—it’s out of scope.”
- “We don’t take support calls or emails. Please submit your request to our 50-step automated robo-support system. When we’ve read your ticket, we’ll let you know. Your expected wait time is 2-3 weeks.”
- “What’s a Google?”
- “We can’t show you our portfolio of work, but we do have 185 twitter followers and 44 Facebook likes.”
- “iF YoU donT payzz meeee nOw i gonnaz p0wn you n00b.”
- “Just download this template and plug in your logo. Bam. Done.”
- “Our CMS is easy—you can just edit your website in Microsoft Word.“
For some other fascinating and horrifying stories of client and website designer relations visit theoatmeal.com and clientsfromhell.net/ for more laughs.
Feel free to comment and add any other quotes you have from the “web designer from hell”.
Have a great 2011 everyone!
