Adobe takes CS6 into the cloud with Creative Cloud
Software is a multi-billion dollar industry but that doesn't mean it hasn't changed dramatically in the past several years. From the rise of the app store to software-as-a-service, how software is bought and sold has been evolving rapidly.
That creates both opportunity and challenges for software's biggest players.
Mobile magic moments: transform the trivial
When mobile or tablet design is executed well, the device feels like the extension of our bodies. Because interfaces respond even before we consciously give them a command.
Often, the interface “dissolves in behavior” and we feel empowered, as though the device we hold in our hand is the equivalent of Iron Man’s suit of cybernetic armor, or Batman’s utility belt.
I call this empowering experience a “Magic Moment”.
Most importantly, these “Magic Moments” make people fall in love with your app, show it to their friends, telling, nay, insisting they download the app and experience the magic for themselves. These are the moments we designers live for.
And mobile and tablet devices are more suited to creating and fostering “magic moments” than any other device.
Google+ brand pages: 20 of the best photo strips
Google+ is growing rapidly: business pages are taking hold, and the platform is becoming a viable marketing channel for larger brands at least.
It's definitely short of room to manoeuvre when it comes to how your profile looks however. Each page is locked down to the same structure (for now), and so at the moment there's not a lot you can do.
Thinking creatively is therefore tough, in fact, it focuses almost solely around the photo strip that resembles Facebook's Timeline banner. I'm not talking features (rich content, engaging conversation and hangouts galore just about cover that), I'm talking design.
As such, we've compiled 20 examples of brands that have managed to stand out from the crowd with the little they have to work with.
New YouTube design leaked
Business Review USA has taken screenshots of what looks like a leak of Google’s new design for YouTube.
Art Director Freddie Pierce noticed the updates, which point towards an enhanced social media experience throughout.
Understanding user experience within customer centricity
This article is the first in a series of extracts taken from Econsultancy's new Internet Marketing Strategy Briefing. The free-to-download report covers the most important online trends in digital marketing that we are witnessing.
This extract, written by Econsultancy's Research Director, Linus Gregoriadis, will focus on the user experience aspect of customer centricity, although other topics covered within the document include channel diversification, data, social media and content strategy.
30 user experience quotes to warm your soul
Is design a science or an art? I reckon that, as far as the web is concerned, it’s a bit of both.
I searched on Google for an answer to the question and while I didn’t quite find one, I did spot a rather lovely Venn diagram created by The Imaginary Foundation. Try replacing the word ‘wonder’ with ‘design’, and we’re pretty much there…
Designing a wonderful user experience is a key part of trying to create an amazing customer experience, which is much broader, anchored as it is in products, service, process, fulfilment and so on. This is something we’re all – presumably – trying to do.
I’m not a big fan of inspirational quotes, much less those awful posters, but sometimes a smart soundbite or pithy observation can help us to spot the wood from the trees. As such I’ve compiled a bunch of my favourite quotes relating to the user experience and design. Hat tip to this thread on Quora and uxquotes.com.
The world’s best team-focused 'about' pages
All websites should have an ‘about’ page, containing information on the company’s history, news and people. Some firms create a dedicated area to display team members, and I’ve spotted a few that are doing this remarkably well.
These pages are clean, creative and compelling. Some of them prove beyond doubt that a clever idea doesn't mean that you need to use sluggish technology.
The first example is genius…
Are Google's SERPs getting too messy?
Google might as well have been called Simple. Back when Google was a new entrant in the search engine market and larger competitors were cluttering up their homepages with as much content as could be aggregated on a single page, Google took a different approach and offered internet users an alternative: a clean, if not sparse, homepage that focused on one thing -- search.
Relatively-speaking, that homepage hasn't changed much in the past decade. But what has changed: Google's SERPs.
Thinking outside the box and other bad advice
Earlier this month I opened CREATE 2009, a forum for academics and practitioners to share creative and innovative ideas for human computer interaction (HCI).
The conference's theme was ‘Creative inventions and innovations for everyday HCI’ so to start things off I outlined my four step approach to help designers find more creative solutions to their problems.
Six 'I's' to help you create ingenious digital marketing campaigns
To loosely follow on from a previous post, it’s not necessarily advisable to ignore innovation and creativity under the current global economic conditions. However, when faced with this kind of negative environment, thinking up imaginative ways to engage with users through existing channels can sometimes become a bit stale.
Here, I’ve compiled a few different examples of relatively recent online campaigns that caught my attention through their resourcefulness and that follow six identifiable 'I's'.
