Stop trying to dismiss the task in order to create something different. Instead, transform the ordinary into something remarkable.
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So my Killerclips.com co-founder and brother reaches out to NBC Universal about our cease and desist to remove their clip content from our site knowing that its for educational purposes (like DMCA section 12d).
This is the followup:
Hey bro, I left you a message. NBC-Universal are assholes. We will have to take our stuff down. By the way we were too slow and we didn’t step it up enough with our quote ideas. They basically copied our whole thing. The lady I was talking to said tehy have there own site Hulu.com. It looks surprisingly similar to our site, once you go into the movie clips portion. I am pissed.
That sums it up. The takeaway — trust your gut and phunk the rest, more importantly make it happen quickly because if your slow then you lose.
Got a couple emails from Universal and Sony about DMCA copyright infringement which are very broad stroke in their allegations.
Killerclips.com is an education site for hard core movie fans. It does allow downloads, sell movie clip content and it clearly gives credit to those involved in creating and distributing the movie content being played (for less than 60 seconds). In fact, it provides links to purchase the film being previewed from Amazon or rented from Netflix.
No matter. I got no bucks and I cannot cry, this innovator cant deny — you can suck my ding ding!
Just wanted to throw that out there…you can do whatever you want with it that the art of movie clip references in every dialogue is equivalent to sport geek out moments or even literary references popular to mention in parties.
What’s even more intense, are the mid 20 kids busting out nintendo game control unlock sequences for Contra, Mario Brothers and the like…
We regurgitate the media we consume and create more media by sharing it with others in interesting circumstances that allow for it to be entertaining. This is the passion of the modern individual to seek out the intersection of something very familiar in an unfamiliar context but making sense immediately.
Copyright restriction is a necessary thing, but it cannot choke the natural tendencies of human behavior to creatively reflect media in clever forms. Maybe is just not that sexy, but this guy is! 
When I was at college (drinking beer and making some effort at that degree in design) all the professors told me the same thing : keep a reference book.
Yes, the reference book. A book of work that others had done that would someday inspire and inform future work. Or, as I called it, the copycat folder.
Don’t get me wrong, I love to be inspired, and when I see something that’s really cool or innovative, I will certainly swipe it for future use, but to maintain a book of crutches never made sense to me.
It does to some… I know designers and creative directors who have made a career of aping the latest thing. I’ve probly got some tooth damage from all the gritting done when I used to go to design reviews and heard “Did you guys all see this thing that VW did….”
Now, it’s doubtful these people go home and flog themselves relentlessly while chanting “mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maximus culpa…” They seem to be fine with what they’ve done, and that’s cool… it’s never lonely in the middle and they all seem happy enough.
But not me. And to some degree, it’s a big ‘fuck you’ to all the hacks I see in the world, but I do the opposite of a reference book. I keep IdeaBooks.
Everything I’ve ever done is stored somewhere in one of these books (PDFs really). I’ve got IdeaBooks for pretty much every topic out there. My favorite is the “Cute Orphan” book, all my favorite ideas that never got used.
Some ideas are tiny (a tidy ‘what do you want to do’ widget that turns Navigation nouns into user verbs) some are bizarre (The tiny site/control panel that acts as a guide to related topics… Modernista, you owe me $20 for that one) and some are giant sprawling concepts for sites that may never exist (I name these things like “Fluid Louis” “Uncle Nodey” and “Crusty Bob”).
It’s really less the output of the books and more the effort taken to take a small idea and see if you can play it out a bit. Tinker with something that’s uniquely yours, not a copy of something you just saw. Explain it and put some basic requirements together, see if it’s a real idea, or just a cheap parlor trick.
I think everyone should give it a try, I’m guessing you’d be surprised how many cute orphans you’ve left untended.
I give loaded pistols to chimpanzees… sometimes they hit a target, sometimes they shoot their toes off.
I don’t even know where to start on this one.
I recently had a pretty big presenation. It was a magnificent disaster. I’ve decided to regard it as a very successful dada event (Dada on Wikipedia).
From that event, one thing really bugs me. The phrases “We’ll make it look nice later.” and “Well, that group does the user experience when you’re done.”
I’m employed by a technology company. I’ve done all sorts of work, from very straightforward MarCom stuff though all manner of digital marketing. But currently, I am, as my Parisian friend Julien put it “working in the basement.”
As the king of all UX at this place, I’ve been working very hard to get a single, simple point across : Everything we do, is done for the user.
Now, this is ripe for argument from all manner of code geek, account lizard, and those strange animated business suits that wander around.
They will say things like “it’s all about cost reduction for the client” or “the collaboration software enables rapid deployment of robust technologies” or some other bullshit.
Here’s the gist tho.. if all these things are so convoluted and require all manner of help from outside groups, then the client is going about the business wrong and should really just close up the majority of their online presence. It’s obviously too difficult to manage.
But we all know that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that ultimately, we want to keep on communicating with users, we want them to love us and our products, we want new and shiny things on our sites.
So it always ends up back at the user. What we do is for them.
Now, back to my original thought….
In the past few years, I’ve helped develop a few key products for my company. I’ve stressed that all the work we do towards technology is useless unless it results in something amazing when it’s seen by a user.
So I start at the user and work backwards. “What I want to do” is the basis for “How will this work”
Luckily, I have a team of very smart technologists who have similar views of changing the world, or at least having some monument erected in their name at a later date.
So… NO! it doesn’t get pretty after the fact. It gets developed from the lowest point of origin into something that was always designed to be seen, touched, smelled, felt, and used by someone.
One group is not responsible for UX, everyone is. You clients of freakish nature may have forgotten how to think about your users, but I have not.
I was talking with a friend about car configurators, which is a topic I spend a lot of time on.
He was discussing this idea about inline config, having a small window open at specific times and ask the user to add or select an option.
In essence, a very good idea, I have several prototype screens for this sort of thing.
The problem became that the designers were struggling to figure out how the window operated, how it minimized, how the user re-activated it, and so on.
Here’s the root of the problem : They devised a Method that did not support the Object or the Action.
The super-duper Tigerstripe Approach tells us every task-based design problem has three main components. In this case they were The Car (The Object), letting users do partial configs (The Action) and the small floating window (The Method).
When one starts with a method, as many people like to do (“Dude, what if it just popped up there randomly!”), problems usually arrive.
Similar problems arise when a site-based method or set of rules is used inflexibly for all manner of data display or user interaction.
Here’s a tip, go in the right order :
Q: What are we talking about?
A: The Object
Q: What is the user response we want to promote?
A: The Action
Q: What is the best way for the user to interact with the system?
A: The Method
Save yourself some grief, there’s a reason UX is a different discipline that UI.
Saw this today : Japan: URL’s Are Totally Out
Apparently, rather than advertise a URL, many ads in Japan are presenting a few choice keywords to search on.
With a decent URL harder and harder to find, and the rise of metadata, it makes a lot of sense.
It also makes sense if the use of the search can perpetuate a positive and high ranking for the right destination. Built-in rankings, baby!
It opens the question tho, with the highly competitive keyword mongering that corporations are involved in, would this work in the US?
To go to sleep.
That statement does not make sense when you read it. Its not intended to be funny. But if you think about it, or even better, if you appreciate moments of when you have had coffee and feel asleep right after then maybe you understand.
My point is user experience is an art and not a science because technology moves so fast. Faster than drinking 4 shots in the morning and 4 shots after lunch. I feel like this intro is very much like trying to get someone to do the no pants dance
In the last 30 years, how have humans increased their ability to communicate with each other? Check out Social Life of Information for the details…
The phone has gone from a telegraph to voice, to information services (operators) to personal communication id’s to media broadcast beacons. As it evolves, the mobile phone will re-invent how human conventions will be branded as information design and relevancy are enhanced with communication.
With so many possibilities, these standards are surfaced with habits familiarized with a digital brand experience such as Skyping, Twittering, Google mobile mapping etc. They will continue to bubble up as we merge context and media tagging.
“You are sleeping, you don’t want to believe, you are sleeping” – The Smiths
BTW: Right now I feel like a SPAM copy creator that has been trained to make intelligent jibberish relevant enough to squeeze past your junk filter and hopefully gain your attention for less than a second.
I’ve been accused on multiple occasions of being a music snob. I am not a music snob.
I’ve also been accused of hating what is popular, simply because it is popular. This also is untrue.
Popular is usually shiny, a bit too perfect, and ultimately quite fake.
This is why Joe Strummer will always be better than any auto-tuned, packaged, top 40, american idol.
Joe strummer was authentic. Not because he was perfect, but because of his flaws.
Authenticity is a hard thing to come by these days. Sometimes it’s hard to convey what is real.
I’ve been leaning hard on the Japanese concept of Wabi-Sabi, The beauty of imperfection.
Wabi-Sabi carries emotion more than awe. The comfort of lived in furniture. The satisfaction of hand crafting a fence. The freedom from chasing the unattainable.
How does that relate to online UX?
Here’s how : The beautiful site has become ordinary and by that, untrustworthy. The site which promises value, but my not be pristine now has the advantage.
Oddly, the same ham-fisted “designers” who tell me they love things like Google and the iPod and Tivo, are the same to push a huge happy falsely designed world at me at every design review.
(sidebar: what the hell happened to subtlety?)
And then there’s a small, but very vocal group of people hollering about “Ugly Design” and promoting an aesthetic that is by design, horrific and just plain creepy.
Authentic is not beauty or ugliness… authentic is emotional reality, proven in design.
Grab a book on Wabi-Sabi… see where it takes you.
Yes, it’s true.
Your users are dicks. They are a bunch of selfish knobs who have no appreciation for your efforts.
This is no reason to pander to them. After all, if they knew what they were doing, they’d have your job.
I’ve been seeing some alarming things lately. There’s a book out there called “worship at the altar of the user” or something like that. I’m not going to bother looking it up.
Here’s the thing… as a UX professional, I know the success of what I do depends on user adoption. I also know that my expertise gives me the ability to sway and influence users, to give them new opportunities and to move beyond what is common.
I agree that testing is important, and can inform many things, but I don’t rely on it to tell me any answers.
My friend Alan had a great quote “Don’t use research as a drunkard uses a lamp post, for support rather than illumination”
I have a similar one that I use “Stop using the rear-view mirror to figure out where you’re going”
I have to tell you to stop it.
You really need to realize there is no distinction between your brand and your product.
if you’re serious about changing your brand, start by making a better product.
I’ve always known my image and reputation depend on the quality of my work. You are no different.
When I hear the phrase “we want to be the (apple/google/nike) of our industry” it just makes me shake my head in disbelief.
Make better decisions and you will improve your brand. Spend some time improving your products and you’ll improve your brand.
Spend some time with the word Innovation. It’s good for you.
No one believes your crap advertising any more. You are transparent, get used to it.
Apple no longer needs a tagline. Mini has build their own gestalt.
Starbucks flounders, Nike fights to stay on top.
And there are millions of brands with nothing to say.
The exercise I use is one my wife uses in Public Relations…
Are you The First, The Best or The Only?
If you are none of these things, you are telling someone else’s story with your own modification.
If that modification isn’t something wonderous, there will be trouble.
Sometimes entire brands are that tiny bit of difference, that little bit of magic love that causes notice.
I recall when Wired in the late 90s predicted the coming of the superstar geeks. Now user experience is just as much about interactive intuitive thinking as it is entertaining with dynamic frameworks derived from gaming metaphors and the like.
The wow factor is the discovery process that hollyweb architects prescribe with their palette of rich media, sensible organization filtered by context, and a visual system that anticipates change and movement.
Form and function in a funk all its own — naturally giving your online user an immediate pulse to relevant information, feedback, and branded distribution of self-expression.
Armed with digital appliances, they are capturing “the real”, making it engaging and clever enough to harvest more fans and motivate others to respond. Is your message compelling enough to trigger your community to self-organize and share?
Marketing an identity that empowers your audience to evolve the message itself. Steering that herd with an interaction model that gives each individual in the community the opportunity to sell your brand, that is web media.
Apparently it makes kids cry.
With a Dave Eggers’ penned first half detailing a lousy family life for Max, and a Spike Jonze 2nd half with Max becoming King of the Wild Things, this looked like the movie of the year.
I remember the book being a bit scary. I remember Max being a bit dicky and mean as kids tend to be. I remember monsters wanting to eat him if he dared leave.
It’s not really a “kiddie” book, but it’s doomed to be a “kiddie” movie.
The studio (you know, the guys who give us crap like Norbit and Bee Movie) have decided to send it back and have it re-written and re-shot. Link Here
I am on my 3rd iPhone, entered refurbished replacement-ville in early Jan 2008. The reason for the latest replacement is the same from the previous replacement (touchscreen failure) prompting my gf to ask the Apple ‘genius’ if my latest replacement is actually my original iphone
Admittedly, I am an Apple evangelist and own some stocks. But this brand is going through some growing pains and it starts with customer service.
Scenario: You wake up on a Saturday morning and your touchscreen does not work, you reboot like 10x and the touchscreen is still completely dead, transparent to you of course because you think that continuously rebooting the software will make it go away.
I don’t know how capacative touchscreen works, but i know its cool (for similar humor try this quote from Zoolander). Abstractions aside, that Saturday morning I realized when you put your brand on the line as a mobile phone (basically your public communication ID) — you also need to approach customer service experiences from a telco point of view, not an IT point of view.
As a non-pro care member, which basically means I can’t just walk up to the Apple retail store and say: “Hey, I can’t receive or send calls from my iPhone…because my touchscreen is dead”. Instead I have to use a computer, sign up as a “guest” in the iPod queue and pick a date and a time slot to claim my troubleshoot ticket to my local Apple genius.
As a geek, i think an ATM like scheduler user interface to book your Apple genius is cool for IT requests, but when I could only choose Sunday (the next day) to service my phone over the weekend! Funk dat By the way, I did try the other retail locations and actually had technical difficulties with the scheduling application itself adding fuel to el fuego.
Adamantly, I went to the store Saturday morning anyways and presented my case waited approximately 1hr and got a replacement. The lesson here for me is that Apple is getting bigger and losing some intimacy with the loyal Apple consumers. Back in the day premium customer service membership like Pro Care was standard — that is what separated Apple from rest.
Another lesson overall from a user experience point of view is that customer service scenarios for phone service trump digital appliance troubleshooting issues.
If you’ve not heard about the recent Maxim / Black Crowes feud, I’ll attempt to summarize.
Our players :
The Black Crowes, a southern rock band who are famous for 2 amazing records and a slew that followed of diminishing quality.
Maxim, the tits and ass magazine you look at in the airport magazine rack that’s full of instructional articles on how to maintain your lifestyle as a douchebag.
The Crowes have a new LP coming out, which is heralded as “a return to form.” Maxim ran a review of the album, giving it 2.5 stars.
The reason for the hubbub is that no one from Maxim has heard the album.
Here’s my .02….
If you are in the business of hype… fabricating emotion from ether, don’t be surprised when it backfires.
There is a lot of hype about the new Crowes album. I’ve heard all about a “return to form,” comparisons to The Southern Harmony and “the sonic majesty” or some other shit. I like the Crowes, I find their first 2 albums the be amazingly good… their second to be one of the better albums of the 90s, but like anything, I’m leery when I see so much bullshit built up over something that’s doesn’t exist yet.
Maxim wrote a review based on a combination of a few things : Response to massive hype, the Crowes reputation, and the quality of their last 3-5 albums which were also surrounded by the same type of hype.
Fair? Not at all, but if the Crowes PR can tell me it’s the best album they’ve ever released, why can’t a rag like Maxim tell me it’s just not that good with the same amount of credibility?
Environments.
Why do we like to talk about environments?
What makes that such an appealing alternative to page, or event?
An environment combines several key emotional and physical aspects into a single, very understandable concept.
Architecture and interior design are very comprehensive disciplines. Both have an inherent combination of Art and Science that appeals to us all.
Living Spaces
Think of a room in your house
If it gets cluttered, it gets uncomfortable.
If it’s empty, it’s devoid of purpose.
Typically, when a space gets overwhelmed with clutter, we tend to take 2 actions:
- Spread it out (hence the shed)
- Throw it out
Online, we don’t tend to live in our own spaces, so we take less care.
To simply claim something is an environment is typically wrong
Each environmental space we create has 2 main reasons for existing :
- It Must have a Function
- It Must be Comfortable
Therefore
When we declare something to be an environment, it has to have the following defined:
What is the Purpose?
- What is the Size & Shape?
- What is the Decor?
- What is the Activity?
If we are unable to define the space, it is not a proper environment.
Worksheet
What is the Purpose?
Why are we creating this space? What is it meant to contain or describe?
What is the Size & Shape?
Does it contain multiple activities or spaces? Are there pre-defined constraints?
What is the Decor?
What is the aesthetic of the space? Is it unique or follow a previous direction?
What is the Activity?
What is the expected use of the space? What is its intended use?
After sending the link to this around, I got hit with a response from a very talented code geek, she said “reading this blog makes me realize how little I really do know about IA.”
Despite having Information Architect in my title for a number of years, I never believed it.
I’ve always been in the business of design, without regard to scale or scope. Design is the action of solving problems, the manifestation of optimistic activity. That’s what I do.
For example, back in the early 90s, when the web was just getting moving, I built websites…That is, I did the art, writing, coding, FTP, server maintenance, etc.
It was all the same… if you didn’t know how to code, your design was shit. If you didn’t understand design, no amount of code could hide that.
Once people got all mixed up in trying to specialize, a bit was lost.
Here’s something I found very interesting :
In Greek techne meant ’skill.’ The ancient Greeks didn’t separate art from techne, but called all artists and craftsmen technitai (makers).
The Japanese don’t have a word for art, they use a word synonymous with function, purpose and aesthetics – geijutsu.
Exerpts from the Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fetcher
It’s that slight difference in perception that sepearates the iPod from the Kindle.
Once there was this separation of activity, I was exposed to this rather bitchy bureaucracy about who’s job was what, and what one group couldn’t do. This led to a lot of debate and name calling (F’ckn pixel pushers), but ultimately reminded me if you have something you feel you need to protect that badly, you’re probably afraid of being exposed as a fraud.
It was also odd that some people were so quick to jump into a group and adopt all the mannerisms and quirks of that group without question. I’m sure it was comfortable, and enhanced the continuation of constant employment, but I think Maude said it best:
Maude : I should like to change into a sunflower most of all. They’re so tall and simple. What flower would you like to be?
Harold : I don’t know. One of these, maybe. (holds a daisy)
Maude : Why do you say that?
Harold : Because they’re all alike.
Maude : Oooh, but they’re not. Look. See, some are smaller, some are fatter, some grow to the left, some to the right, some even have lost some petals. All kinds of observable differences. You see, Harold, I feel that much of the world’s sorrow comes from people who are this, (she points to a daisy), yet allow themselves be treated as that. (gestures to a field of daisies)
Anyways, my titles change, but I’m always in the business of design. I’m guessing there’s a lot more out there.
As a fellow automotive IA, I was on the front lines of this scaling problem. Which asks a larger question, why does everything have to be on the same hub?
Why does a vehicle brand have to organize all the vehicle lines within the same site? It’s logical from a business point of view but too risky to make everything tiered and cumbersome to navigate. The hard part is getting the user experience to match the branding of the vehicle versus the car manufacturer’s holistic brand version of one site fits all.
Car organization should remain at the database level abstracted to the user. Keep the site simple and emphasize a “strong center” which is focused on supporting the user’s interests during the research phase.
Create an engaging (shell) introduction on determining who your user is, invest in an interaction model that is smart, easy and helps users frame guided factors on comparing and evaluating vehicle particulars, if they want more choices they’ll opt for it. Add behind the scenes business logic when referral sites push them to your site. So many ways to drive content into how a site should be organized.
From there you can anticipate and measure these preference-paths into scenarios that inform what categories match users interests. Get crazy and tell these big company cultures to hub it out, bitch!
