Visit any karaoke studio and you’ll find a notebook full of songs, listed alphabetically by title or artist. While this architecture is useful for searching, it’s nearly useless for browsing, which is the prime behavior pattern for patrons. Looking laterally, the online music industry has quickly adapted this construct, offering social tagging, categorization, and recommendations. [...]
Tags: behavior, data, interaction
Conan is back. The outrage over NBC’s decision to bump The Tonight Show back to make room for Jay Leno’s new program completely misses the bigger picture. In an age of on-demand streaming media, network timeslot is irrelevant. Today’s viewer decides when, where, and how to consume his favorite content. Fan reaction to the incident [...]
Tags: content, distribution, metrics
In one of my entrepreneurship courses, my professor offered this thought: entrepreneurs are in the game either for the money or for the fame; decide which, because each alternative might lead to different choices, goals, and metrics for success. This dichotomy comes up constantly, but I believe it’s incomplete. In a recent research study regarding [...]
Tags: edgecrafting, innovation, interaction
Online advertising is all about increasing relevance and decreasing resistance. In the beginning Facebook launched an ad program to grow revenues. As any publisher will tell you, there is a certain inherent resistance to interacting with online advertising, usually expressed through complex conversion formulas. A major barrier to interacting with online ads is that you [...]
Tags: advertising, interaction
I’m continually shocked at how out of touch corporations are with the new information age. I’m amazed that in 2010, companies continue to sabotage their brand with ill-conceived actions such as this. The humorous (and widely viewed) videos Brian produced were in no way linked to Best Buy until their heavy-handed reaction. Three vital questions [...]
Tags: service
I stumbled upon a list analyzing ROI for top universities based upon cost of education vs lifetime earnings. The most interesting thing about the article however was the third comment from the top: “I always thought it would be an interesting experiment for any of these top schools to have their admissions people select an [...]
Tags: context, data, metrics, research, storytelling
Apple’s response to the iPhone 4′s reception complaints has been disappointing at best. In the age of social media and instant access to news, information, updates, communities, and sounding boards, why do companies still believe they can chant PR bylines to gloss over and ignore legitimate customer inquiries? To paraphrase Steve, ‘you’re doing it wrong.’ [...]
Employees go that extra mile to receive the highest marks on quarterly performance reviews, but often neglect the most important performance reviews, the ones the occur every time you interact with a customer. I had lunch a chain sandwich shop in town and decided to skip the soda for the healthier free alternative.After filling my [...]
Tags: Improvements, service
Consumers today are faced with information overload, to the extreme. The rapid expansion of the internet society is the main cause of this phenomenon. There are far too many options in every decision we make, so we must rely on gut feelings, recommendations, stereotypes, and context clues. What this means as a designer, is you [...]
Tags: behavior, data, interaction
“What are you doing right now?” or “What’s on your mind?” no matter how you say, this simple little interface addition has taken off like wildfire, stolen the spotlight, and completely changed the face of social media and user experience. What a clever twist, a private little soapbox for enthusiasts everywhere; a way to express [...]
Tags: innovation, interaction, web design
