THE COSMONAUTS

Mark Adams, managing director of Vitsoe, states it very clear when talking about their furniture. They make furniture that’s timeless because they don’t believe in recycling, they believe in designing adaptive systems that can be rearranged over time to suit different needs and scenarios.

the concept is to reuse your furniture…we see recycling as a defeat

Modularity and no-aesthetics as design is my big obsession when designing interactive products (mostly websites). It’s not about designing a good website, it’s about designing a system of elements that can be arranged in certain ways and that can fulfill the company needs over time and for different reasons. If done well, when there is a need for some module that’s not designed, its shape, look and behavior comes out of intuition, it’s evident. My goal is to leave something in the hands of my client that will be there in 4 years, probably rearranged, perhaps with more pieces but within the same system.

When I fist read the Ten Principles for Good Design (that was back in 2004) I was shocked. It was like a revelation that made reconsider all I knew about information architecture and HCI. Here are the ones that hit me harder:

4. Good Design helps a product be understood
6. Good Design is honest
7. Good Design is durable
10. Good Design is as little design as possible

In Dieter Rams’ words: less but better.

I deeply believe that honesty and beauty are two of the most important values in design. We put as much as we could in the redesign of the Search Results page of Minube for flights and hotels and the result has been good. Here it is:

Our assumptions

We (both minube and us) put extreme attention to what information mattered the most and made it stand above the secondary data. These were our main assumptions:

• Price matters most than company.
• Price (usually) matters most than hours.
• There is the cheapest and then the rest.
• Airlines are better recognized by their logos/colors than by their names.
• Some things don’t need to be a in a filter: price ranges, airline, websites searched, etc.
• Those with flexible dates need a different way to look at it.
• It’s easier to redo the search than to refine through ajax.
• Flight and flight back are consecutive, so let’s show them consecutive.
• It’s likely that your choice will be among the first 10 results (although you may want to see more).
• White space helps people identify choices, it makes everything clearer.
• Boxes help you separate between different types of content.
• It’s better to show just the essential data.

Old and new versions side to side

Minube is always quesioning how they do things and how these things can be improved. I like to say that at Vostok we are not good at innovating but at improving. The old version was good. But good as it was it could be, and should be improved. Here you have both versions side to side:

Facts prove it

We know the new one is more beautiful and more honest. Facts prove it. Raúl (Minube’s CEO) told me about the A/B Test results and the main indicators doubled in the new one. You should check Raúl’s post in Spanish about it.

We both believe

It’s a great thing we have clients who share our believes. Working with minube is always of great pleasure. We have a relationship based on trust and shared values. They also think that beauty and honesty are two of most important principles of good design.

Acabo de publicar toda la información sobre el próximo curso para formar a diseñadores de interacción. Será la tercera edición del Programa Vostok.

Very sharp article by Alberto Romero (Denegro) about the use and misuse of available space in Gmail for iPad: Back to sidebars and popups.

It left me thinking about Planetaki and its iPad version, whether it should have a sidebar or not.

This is the kind of mess you get when you create an account at Eskup and first log in:

For those of you who don’t know, Eskup is a kind of social network, twitter-like, microblogging plattform which merges Elpais.com content with user generated microposts. Kind of like the dull answer to “how do we, newspaper, take advantage of social media?”

El Pais seems pretty excited about this. Their excitement is directly proportional to my skepticism. They’ve done a great deal of programming for this and they’ve taken risks, which is good. But they URGENTLY need to rework the design and functionality so the product is more understandable and easy to use. Otherwise it will be another missed atempt at redefining online journalism in Spain.

We recently noticed that some people miss filling a gift card when sending flowers through floresfrescas.com. We know they miss them because some users later complain about not having that option. This is the solution Mark Mackay came up with:

These are some of the principles we’ve applied here:

• Place the alert as close as possible to the spot where the decision has to be made.
• Add visual feedback that something important is going on (the message flashes) so it is noticeable.
• Change the form (size, color and text) of the confirmation element to make sure the user notices the alert

Here’s the full scene:

If we knew that not noticing the cards was too frequent we’d consider haing another step in the process just for filling the cards. But we are unsure about that and there is no easy way for knowing this (no, usability tests don’t work for that because users pay extra attention when observed). So instead of redesigning the process making it more effective and painful we went with this “user interface hack”.

We want to build the best list of design (interaction, information, industrial, product design and architecture) movies and documentaries of all times. Here’s the deal: write down in the comment section the name of a film or doc that’s somehow design related and, in return, we’ll give you a code to watch any movie in Filmin‘s (Spain’s best streaming service for indie film) catalog for free.

We also have a promo code for a premium account at Filmin (any movie, any time anywhere) which we’ll give to the person who makes the best list (it’s ok to repeat some movie suggested by someone else). Easy peasy japanesey. A neat gift for little effort.

These are the movies/docs we have so far:

Kitchen Stories (Bent Hamer, 2003)

The Fountainhead (King Vidor, 1949)

Tucker: The Man and his Dream (Francis Ford Coppola, 1988)

Helvetica (Gary Hustwit, 2007)

Powers of 10 (and other films by Ray y Charles Eames, 1977)

The RTVE series ‘Elogio de la luz‘, each episode covering an architect

The Belly of an Architect (Peter Greenaway, 1987)

Sketches of Frank Gehry (Sydney Pollack, 2005)

Play Time (Jacques Tati, 1967)

Full disclosure: We’ve done Filmin’s web redesign and we love it (the service, not the redesign. Well… both). We’ll go into details in a future post.

It all came to be  with one of those ‘on the spur of the moment’ Twitter event kinda things. We ended up hosting a private reunion to talk about interaction design with some of the best senior designers out there and had loads of fun in the process. How cooler can it get?

Here’s video proof:

(via Barbarian Blog)

I love everytimezone.com. It’s a great example of how information visualisation and interactivity can solve a very complex problem. Check it out:

You may say “c’mon, that was solved a long tome ago” but common tools only give you the time difference. From that you can guess if it’s morning, afternoon, night… But you often feel confused wheter it’s “today or tomorrow or yesterday”. That’s exactly what everytimexone.com fixes.

I’m sure it would make a very popular iPad/iPhone app.

This is what happens when you put more effort on marketing than on design:

This post by Amit Gupta pretty much says everything about the issue here:

I ask you to go back to the 40′s. Try to portray families in the living room, around a big wooden radio listening to national broadcasts over SW and AM… Can you see it? It was old time radio. See Daddy with his pipe, granma and the kids all listening to daytime serials, soap operas, quiz shows…

It all changed dramatically in the 50′s when the transistor was invented. Technologically it allowed for smaller and cheaper radios. It was no longer one radio per family, neither one radio in the center of the house. It meant that content wasn’t shared anymore. Content was moved to the bedroom and to the car thus alloing new forms of entertainment: late night shows where people would call to air their confessions, and music in the cars. Youngsters could have their own radio. Rock’n'Roll was then on the streets.

The iPad could be the same catalyzer today.

The iPad as a transistor

Today I read this quote on how the managers of Hulu think it makes sense to move it to the iPad:

Typically media consumption in the house was confined to the living room or home office, tablets allow consumers to serendipitously discover and consume media in every room of the house.

Jason Kilar (hulu) at The New York Times

Don’t you see parallelisms? Traditional visual media (shows, movies, series) has always been something that was consumed socially. All we wanted was good content and both the biggest scren and the biggest couch we could afford on our living room. Laptops are ok for that but still they have a design that’s optimised for work (big keyboard+trackpad, short battery span, a complex UI and OS…).

The iPad could be the transistor for the new media. It could bring consumption of narrative media (especially audiovisual content) everywhere: to the very private sphere and to the streets, allowing for new forms of consumption.

Augmented reality, yes but also… Augmented fiction!

Imagine being on a vacation in Barcelona, stopping for a café at a terraza in a cal square at the Born while watching movie scenes that happened right there, on the streets you just walked. That’s not augmented reality but augmented fiction. Same goes for long train or plane trips (movies about hijacked planes, love stories on the train? Thousands!). Nothing impossible these days, we only need a comfortable device and an app that takes care of it.

That would also be possible for cheap productions, not just big movies. If I owned a hotel and had to make a promotional video about it I’d make a short fiction film instead where the barman, concierge and all the staff are part of a cool story wich at the same time informs the customers about all the hotel facilities. I would make it available on the internet, of course, but also for customers who are already there with their tablets. I woud even put that in context with the surroundings and the nearby attractions if it was a touristic destination, so it was informative to visitors. That’s geolocalisation mixed with amateur cinema mixed with portable media devices.

Private realities

Now think of private spaces, specifically your bedroom. Transistor radios favored programs where people would call to talk about their love problems, to complain about their jobs, to make anonymous confessions. Could a iPad-like device be good at that? Could it be better than a laptop? Perhaps, if we put a camera on it.

I see the iPad as the best videoconference tool ever (if it ever comes with a camera). And now I’m thinking of chatroulette. Not the best example but maybe a good starting point if someone ever comes up with an app that has different mood or themed chatrooms where you can have *real* conversations with *normal people* (not just perverts, or piano dudes).

I’m also thinking as videodiaries, private ones, just like the one Jake Sully had on Avatar. Wouldn’t you love to see yourself 10 years in te past talking about your life back then in a decent video quality? I’d love to do that right now if I had the right tool and could do it on the spot, not just in front of a computer that needed a surface to stand.

Yes, you can do all this that I mention with a laptop or even an iPhone but they are not optimised for that. The iPhone is not good for video and carrying a laptop while traveling and opening it in the middle of the street doesn’t sould like leisure. And… welll.. I know that the first models of the iPad won’t have camera or GPS but you get the point, right?

New audiences

The transistor made radios cheap and affordable. One family, one radio was no longer valid. Now the kid could have his transistor and go out with friends to listen to music. Radio stations saw the opportunity and started to air that new music the youth were listening. Not orchestras or big bands but Rock an Roll.

The iPad will be to our parents what the transistor radio was to the 50′s youth. They now barely use the computer and are unable to take full advantage of it. Websites are not designed for them, too crammed with lots of info and buttons. Operating systems are also a nightmare for those over 50 years old.

The iPad (or any tablet where file system and OS are invisible) will make a difference for these audiences. I’m not saying anything new here, you know… “the iPad will be the perfect computer for my mom” it has been said a thousand times already. But…

I see an oportunity for content to be tailored to these audiences. There is no media for them on the web right now. Studios make movies and shows for their audience and that’s people from 15 to 45 the most. Would that change if we had 10 milion elders ready to watch movies? All the classic movies would be available for them easily. Someone would make that move. Also new fiction could be made. Videoconference would be easy for them: no window resizing, no other programs on the background that would pop and overlap confusing them… Just contacts and a call button. Grandpa could call my son from everywhere, be that his favorite armchair or in the middle of a country walk when he sees that beautiful flower they were painting days ago and wants to show it to his grandson right away.

The transistor brought true mobility for old media and morphed it into something completely different. This new device, be it the iPad or whatever similar, allows for completely new scenarios too. The most exciting thing about it is that none of them is science fiction. It’s all completely available, it only needs some work from our side, which is what I’m about to do right now.

UPDATE: Michael Flarup has taken down the VV2 icons that were a ripoff and claims to have contacted Helveticons.ch in the hope of have the issue straightened out.

Some dude at iconpark.net is ripping off the excellent work of Maximilian Larsson on Helveticons. Check it out:

Click to see the whole comparison

This guy (who happens to be Michael Flarup @flarup) is on top of the Vostok’s Pyramid of Suckytude ^TM:

1. Appropiating the work of others (this totally sucks)
2. Just bitching (this sucks)
3. Just bullsitting (this kinda sucks)
4. Just theorizing (this doesn’t suck but doesn’t rock)
5. Doing, building (this doesn’t suck at all, it rocks)

Shame on you iconpark!!

Rouge Ameoba (Mac software workshop) has a great write-up about the usability of the my.SXSW iPhone App.

I was baffled by this particular interface controller:

At first it looks like a radio button, but it doesn’t make sense becuase there is no other choice. You might even fear tapping it, as there is no way to uncheck a radio button unless there is a second option. The perfect Catch-22 situation.

But if you tap it, it reveals it’s actually a checkbox which modifies its label! Just imagine being part of the support staff: I know it sounds stupid, but if you want to attend an event, tap on ‘No’..

This is the email you get from Floresfrescas.com when you purchase flowers:

We are kinda proud of how it is designed. Its main goal is to minimize uncertainty. Some of its virtues:

• It tells (and shows) right away what did you buy and when it will be delivered.
• Direct invoice download.
• A visual reminder that your flowers will arrive closed and will blossom after.
• Info on what to do if you want to change anything (links, email adresses and even a phone number).
• Minimal visual identity elements from Floresfrescas.com, just so you can identify the email quickly and without reading anything.
• Print-friendly layout.
• It can be read with images disabled (for those malware-aware).

  Confirmation emails are a very important part of a purchase process and sometimes are ignored by interaction designers. Do you have any good examples of this? How would you improve the Floresfrescas one?

I just turned off Buzz.

It took me a while to understand why I didn’t like it and then I realised it’s quite a simple reason. Google Buzz, like Twitter or Facebook are for entertainment while Gmail is mostly work.

When I want to concentrate I usually shut down anything distracting and focus on what I may be doing whereas it’s sketching, designing, writing emails, proposals, etc. I usually have a break every 10-15 minutes. Something short, just to check my planetaki, twitter and perhaps facebook (that happens less often). Everything is on separate tabs so work and distractions don’t get messed.

And then came Buzz with this bold number of “buzzs” right next to the number of messages in my inbox so every time I checked if there was eny new email I’d see that there was some fun going on at the Buzz Cantina and I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t have my Continuous Partial Attention the way it was supposed to be, in moderate intervals.

And friends, that is why I am shutting down buzz. Not because I don’t like it (in fact I really hate facebook for what it has and Buzz lacks) but because it’s too invasive, just like my friends throwing a party at our studio at office hours.

Now this is a nice proposal (Spanish) for a search engine redesign by Yusef Hassan:

Where Search does a “classic search”, Re-find looks on what I already have seen (and starts digging on my social info up in the cloud) and Discover does te opposite bringing results I’ve never seen before.

It makes sense to me, ¿Does it to you?

I think of UCD (User-Centered Design) a little as I think of Christianism. The fact I’m an atheist today does not stop me from recognizing that some Christian values have shaped my worldview and my belief system in very positive ways.

César Astudillo

Ariel Guersenzvaig, who knows me well and understands my take on user-centered design, refered me to Apple’s Secret? It Tells Us What We Should Love, an article that questions UCD as a tool for radical innovation. I’ve been moving from true believer in UCD to these positions over time and, although I think it’s easy to use Apple as an example, I consider this article by Roberto Verganti full of true statements:

User-centered innovation is perfect to drive incremental innovation, but hardly generates breakthroughs. In fact, it does not question existing needs, but rather reinforces them, thanks to its powerful methods.

Firms that create radical innovations make proposals. They put forward a vision. In doing that, of course, they take greater risks.

Thanks to this process these companies are serial radical innovators. Their non-user-centered proposals are not dreams without a foundation. Sometimes they fail. But when they work, people love them even more than products that have been developed by scrutinizing their needs.

User centered-design (observation, interviews, user testing, etc. ) is for those who want to improve something existing, not for those who want to create something new. Those need to understand human nature but don’t need to microscope every little behavior and take it as a starting point.