I love it!

An introspective article over at A List Apart by Luke Wroblewski delves into the reasons why…

we can do better. In fact, I believe we can get people engaged with digital services in a way that tells them how such services work and why they should care enough to use them. I also believe we can do this without explicitly making them fill out a sign-up form as a first step.

The blog is an excerpt from his forthcoming book, Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks (Rosenfeld Media, 2008), and you can read it here!

The article is super informative, and expounds upon the practice of gradual engagement, whereby a user is drawn into the website due to useful or practical information that pertains to their specific needs. Avoid gradual engagement solutions that simply distribute the various input fields in a sign-up form across multiple pages. It’s a good possibility that this will reduce efficiency and not delight anyone.

At SXSW last week, I was surprised to learn just how many people spend time out of their day Twittering. Yes, I had heard of Twitter, but I never understood the appeal of writing about every little thing I do during the day. And honestly, I don’t think people would want to know every detail of my life. In a sense, I agree with Eric Webber from AdAge, that Twitter is an “exercise in vanity and a reminder that our lives are filled with a lot of mundane activity.”

If you are unfamiliar with Twitter, it’s basically a personal page to write mini-blog posts, 140 characters or less, to keep your friends updated on your life. It’s your response to the question, “What are you doing?” Like other social networks, you can friend people and follow their updates. Common Craft explains the whole Twitter process very well in this YouTube video.

It seems that this way of communication has become extremely popular with professionals because everyone can update their Twitter page from their Blackberry, iPhone or other PDA device. In a way, it gives people something to do while they are waiting in line, sitting in a meeting or listening to a SXSW Interactive panel.

On a side note, Twitter played a large role in the Mark Zuckerberg Keynote interview, when the audience turned on interviewer Sara Lacey. It provided a way for the audience to band together and share similar thoughts about the interview as it was happening.

Without being a member of the site myself, the main appeal I see is getting snippets of information quickly. This is really part of a larger trend in communication. We all have shorter attention spans these days and this trend is beggining to be reflected in the ways we communicate. We prefer to send text messages to tell a friend that we are “running late to lunch,” instead of wasting a minute on a phone call. We want to get straight to the point when we get our news, so instead of taking the time to visit the websites for Fox News, CNN, etc, we use RSS feeds. People do not want to waste their time reading a lengthy news article, they want the facts quickly. This is especially evident in the fact that we have much more information thrown at us on a daily basis. More information than a person can absorb. So in order to grab as much information as possible, we want quick snippets of the headlines and that is exactly what Twitter offers, quick snippets.

While Twitter is mostly used for updates about individuals’ lives, I would not be surprised if news outlets start using a similar format to broadcast the daily headlines. The Twitter format has the potential to become the new way of communicating as people continue to demand a larger volume of information more quickly than before.

So instead of blogging about your day or writing an email to a friend, you will just have to answer the Twitter question, “What are you doing?”

TOP 5 CLIENT REQUESTS

1. My Unqualified Friends have different Ideas…
   - Judge the idea on its merits, reasonably explain why it may not work, due to your research, experience, etc.
2. Purple is my favorite color, Why don’t we use that?
   - Backup with documentation, color board, creative specs, etc
3. We need more stuff about the FOLD!!
   - A significant amount of research is available to show that users understand they can scroll for more content
4. There’s so much EMPTY SPACE, can’t you fill it?
   - White space contributes to the general hierarchy of the content. NO.
5. MAKE MY LOGO BIGGER
   –>NO. the content on the page is not the logo.

Establishing the Purpose:
Aesthetics and Function. The two cannot be removed from one another in web design. They exist as your highest priority and business principle.
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It was 5 days, 4 nights, 3 cars, 2 petty cabs, and 1 song later. I had made it back from SXSW Interactive 2008. Aside from the fact that this festival is in the greatest city in the US, SXSW was chock-full of the industry leaders and inspirers in web design, social media, gaming, and film. I felt like a six-year-old kid with candy in my mouth walking around my dad’s office suite on the 60th floor. Except, to the left of me was a corner area filled with legos … in front of me a beer garden … and to the right was guitar hero! I wasn’t in my Dad’s corner office, I was in My office, hanging out with my friends and being a part of something that didn’t have rules or standards. It’s called the web … and I’m a part of it? Hell yeah I’m a part of this. We all are, and we were all gathered here, in Austin, TX, to listen, learn and discuss it.

While there were many panels I could talk about in length, there is one I can’t stop thinking about. The panel, Interactive Media Trends – Are You On Top of It?, discussed the next generation of media users. Thinking of media, my mind instantly runs down the list :: Video games, DVD’s, blogs, wiki’s, mobile phones, podcasting, etc. I mentioned up there DVD’s, but it slipped my mind to put in the words Blu-Ray, that is until after the panel. I guess it should have dawned on me when in January of this year Warner Brothers Entertainment announced its release of DVD’s in Blu-Ray Disc format exclusively. Or when just one month after Warner Brothers decision, Disney, MGM, Sony and Fox all decided to follow suit. Damn. Am I that behind in technology? Or is this what consumers are asking for? Ah ha! I had come to the right panel. You cannot hide from the inevitable. Blu-Ray will hit stores this year, biting your old-school DVD player in the dust.

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After the dust settled on opening day of SXSW Interactive 2008, and people began to be focused on networking and learning, I dove headfirst into panels starting with “Managing Communities that Work.” This panel, on Saturday Morning, was lead by some of the most accomplished community builders who shared some of their secrets of success.

If you’ve ever built a community, or even tried to assist in facilitating one, you know that participation is key. When people don’t contribute to the community, it won’t grow, and therefore, won’t be successful. So what are some things that will help prompt participation? The panel collectively expressed that the number one mistake in community building is assuming that people will participate without being prompted or inspired. Here are some of most important elements they said would help with community involvement:

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About every 6 months someone comes to LevelTen with the novel idea that online medical records are going to change the world, and their right…sort of. If the medical industry as a whole were to adapt a universal system that would allow universal communication (think XML); then that would change the world. The problem is no system has been established and as such the industry does not want to move towards a platform that may be outdated or obsolete very quickly (think HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray).

This past Monday afternoon I attended Transforming Hospital Systems: The Digital Future of Healthcare, unfortunatley their focus was really on EMR or Electronic Medical Records and not necessarily online records. Some of the problems with handwritten records that could be solved by an electronic model include:

1. Illegible handwriting
2. Medication Interactions
3. Immediate access to vital data
4. Patient prescription abuse
5. Reduced medical overhead
6. Thousands of saved lives

I could go on; but clearly it’s time for a change. If the medical industry won’t do it on their own, it’s time the government took a good look at our system and did something to start saving lives.

The most interesting and entertaining lecture I went to at SXSW Interactive was titled, “Magic and Mental Models: Using Illusion to Simplify Designs.” The lecturer, Jared Spool, started out talking about how he has attended several magic conventions recently. So how do magic and web design relate? I will talk about three magic tricks that Jared demonstrated that can be brought to the realm of design.

Act I: The Role of Mental Models

In the first Act, on the projector screen, Jared showed the audience six cards of Jacks, Queens, and Kings and asked us to pick one of them. Being my favorite card in the deck, I picked the King of Hearts. He then took one of the cards away and told us the card he took away was our card that we picked. Sure enough, the King of Hearts was gone! How did he do it? When he showed the cards a second time he put up different suits of Jacks, Queens, and Kings. Any card the audience picked would be gone and the others appeared to stay the same.

The trick is about keeping the magic behind the scenes. Google keeps its search engine magic behind the scenes. It doesn’t tell the user the thousands of processes it uses to generate the results. It just displays them. Netflix’s Recommendations hides the magic as well. The process of matching ratings is transparent to the user. All the user knows is “these are my recommendations.”

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Recently a client came to us asking if it was possible to “deoptimize a site” so that it would not be listed on the first page of Google. After probing, we were told the reason for the inquiry was to protect the client’s online reputation. When searching for that individual by name, a court filing against that person came up as the #1 result. Whether the case was unfounded, true, or untrue, it could have a negative impact on business.

Reputation Management 101

A growing percentage of recruiters are now screening their candidates, especially for teaching positions, by searching for their profiles on social networking sites, as well as seeing what Google has to say. Even old information and photos can come back to haunt you.

A few years ago, I dated a girl whose family had already Googled my name by the time I met them and had found out what activities I was involved in throughout high school, read about my father’s art career, and listened to my high school rock band’s music my brother had posted five years previously.

Unfortunately, you can not deoptimize a site is that is not under your control, but there are many other tactics you can use to manage your online reputation, or push down negative listings. Here are a few ideas. Read the rest of this entry »

When I found out Facebook.com Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg would be giving the first keynote talk at SXSW I was beyond excited. In a sense, it was like seeing a celebrity for me because I have been a fan of the site even before I was able to join at my university. I was looking forward to what I expected to be an interesting talk by a very intelligent entraprenuer, but what I experienced was something very unexpected.

About 20 minutes into the interview, the crowd turned on the interviewing journalist, Business Week columnist Sarah Lacy. Even the people sitting around me seemed to be instantly annoyed and fed-up with Lacy’s questions and most importantly her interviewing style. I was not previously familiar with Lacy and while I am sure she has the skills to moderate a high-profile interview like this, she certainly didn’t choose the appropriate style and did not take into consideration the type of audience at SXSW. Several times she cut Zuckerberg off while he was trying to make a point, but the part that shocked me was when Lacy explained how Zuckerberg can look like a bird when he answers questions. Unprofessional but mostly irrelevant. Read the rest of this entry »

As a designer, I rely on my vision to impart a hierarchy of data within web pages. It takes a jarring reminder from the smart folks at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival to remind me that not everyone can see the colors I painstakingly deliberate over, the varied and specific shades that I cross-browser test for universal appeal. Even color contrast can be lost to a slight case of color-blindness.

Assistive technologies are on the rise, and we learned about a full spectrum that are available now.

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