AniBlurbs (Column)

Succesfully optimizing the conversion rate of your website strongly depends on the way the user experiences your site. CoTweet’s Creative Director and co-Founder, Kyle Sollenberger, has rounded up ten design fundamentals on User Interface Design over on Think Vitamin. Below you’ll find a small subtract of some of the key takeaways to keep in mind with UIX:

Know your users’ goals
“Obsess over customers: when given the choice between obsessing over competitors or customers, always obsess over customers. Start with customers and work backward.” –Jeff Bezos, CEO amazon.com

Your users’ goals are yours, so learn them… …Find out what interfaces they like and sit down and watch how they use them…

Stick to web-wide Interface Design conventions
Users spend the majority of their time on interfaces other than your own (Facebook, MySpace, news  sites, etc.): There is no need to reinvent the wheel…

Consistency
“The more users’ expectations prove right, the more they will feel in control of the system and the more they will like it.” – Jakob Nielson

Your users need consistency. They need to know that once they learn to do something, they will be able to do it again… …A consistent interface… …increases their efficiency.

Provide feedback
Always inform your users of actions, changes in state and errors, or exceptions that occur. Visual cues or simple messaging can show the user whether his or her actions have led to the expected result.

Don’t EVER punish your users
No matter how clear your design is, people will make mistakes… …Design ways for users to undo actions, and be forgiving with varied inputs; no one likes to start over because he/she put in the wrong birth date format…

Iterate, iterate, iterate
…It is often said when developing interfaces that you need to fail fast, and iterate often…

As Creative Director of CoTweet Kyle -“@iamkyle”- Sollenberger oversees all design activities—from the layout, appearance and usability of products to the representation of corporate identity. Be sure to check out Kyle’s full post and more examples on Carsonified’s Blog.

A very evocative TED presentation by David Merill on an innovative way to interact with computers.  (For those reading this in a feed reader such as iGoogle or Netvibes, please check out the video after the jump.)

It should go without saying that these Shiftables could be an amazing leap ahead for innovative educational tools & programs, and that the endless opportunities don’t merely lie in the smart cubes themselves, but are only limited by the possibilities of the software that powers them.

The iPhone and Wii have proven what revolutionary, intuitive control methods can achieve with regards to mainstream product penetration and adaption in niche market segments, in ways that were previously unimaginable (i.e. Smart Phones and Game Consoles).

Now, scientists like Merill and the R&D wizzards at Microsoft Labs are charging through and will hopefully do the same for mLearning.

What do you think about these kind of innovations? Will we see them implemented along with the OLPC and the future vision of Microsoft Office Labs to offer the next quantum leap in education? And when will we see this happen? As soon as 2012? Or will we have to wait untill 2019?

Blog Action Day 2008 is just around the corner, please visit: http://blogactionday.org/ and get involved in a way you see fit!

While I’m at it, poverty worldwide today is not what you may think it is:

I’ve had a few links to the (legendary) inspiring presentations held at TED by Swedish Prof. Hans Rosling back in 2006 (see the video above) and 2007 posted in the AniBlurbs About section, alas the page is offline for the time being so this is an excellent opportunity to air them again ;)

Received some much appreciated feedback on my post about the Sony E3 presentation video on Gametrailers.com and felt that I had to clarify a few things.

Indeed it’s not THE best presentation ever, the presenter certainly wasn’t being authentic, but insiders have gotten used to that from Sony :)

The point I was trying to make is that within the context that it was presented in – i.e. the E3 Game event, the Game Industry and its followers- it was a perfect presentation. But you’d have to know the shared history to appreciate its meaning and impact. For everyone else it was superfluous, but I challenge any gaming outsider to keep track of the specialist press, blogs and the community for their reaction on this event, odds are Sony created the perfect buzz…

So no, I’m not urging anyone to use LitteBigPlanet on PlayStation 3 to present the annual revenue results to the board of directors and stakeholders, or to convince your client that this new radically improved product really has to be advertised using Guerilla Marketing around a Nine Inch Nails concert in Hong Kong.

Dare to be creative and purpose driven; if Powerpoint fits in with your target and the message, than that’s fine, but thinking outside the box and implementing it in a thoughtful way can work very enlightening for you and your audience.

For more on how to keep a focused and clean presentation, check out two recent riffs by Seth Godin here and here.

[As for me: This column is meant to be a learning ground for me too, so next time I'll refrain from only posting a link, slide or video and instead add a little clarification on the why and the what. Speaking of which, I seem to be having some technical issues with this site and the RSS, if anything went bogey let me know. Thanks a bundle.]