Finally! a place to go and talk about nerdy books that IAs love in safe, non-eyerolling company!
Yay to for kicking off the IA Bookclub which will meet for the first time in February to talk about .
I read this book in the first year I was doing my Masters when I first ever heard of captology, and it really changed the way that I thought about design. I’m looking forward to re-reading it and hearing what everyone’s got to say about it! (And to see how my reading of it has changed over the past few years).
I’ll get onto it just as soon as I finish re-reading . The first time I read that one was before the first dot com boom. The anecdotes and examples serve as massive flashbacks to that innocent time, but the guts of what Cooper has to say is just as inspiring as it ever was. Have you read it yet? It’s compulsary reading for anyone who’s anywhere *near* designing the way that people interact with technology.
Anyways, back to the book club. Here are the details:
what: London IA Bookclub
where: twentysix London, 1 Dorset street, London, W1U 4EG
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when: 7 Feb @ 7pm UPDATE: moved to 8 Feb @ 7pm
and back to 7 Feb again! (still 7pm)
UPDATE: Book Club is SOLD OUT! I think there might be a waiting list, but apparently we have 17 IA Geeks getting together to talk next week. Excellent!
twentysix are putting on some drinks and snacks, all you have to do is , read the book and come along!
“Just as water, gas, and electricity are brought into our houses from far off to satisfy our needs in response to a minimal effort, so we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images, which will appear and disappear at a simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sign.”
Once you know how to design and manipulate the space outside, inside, and around your content, you’ll be able to give your readers a head start, position products more precisely, and perhaps even begin to see your own content in a new light.
(tags: )
On a different note… I’m so bored of people who think that they’re cool because they can think of negative things to say about the iPhone… especially when practically all of them disclaimer it with ‘oh, I totally love it and I can’t wait to buy one, but…’. Sure, there are definitely some technical issues (how is this phone not 3G?! what’s with the built in battery? etc.) and of course we can’t make definitive statements about the usability of the interface until we actually get a proper look at one of the, in the flesh. But people, please.
Negativity is so 2006.
Speaking of which. 10 days in and my New Years Resolutions are miraculously still holding… How’re yours doing?
What a great follow on from my previous rant on mobile UI – go read Steve Jobs’ overview of what he thinks of the current breed of mobile phones and how fun they are (not!) to use, and what Apple have done about it.
This *has* to be the most lust-worthy device on the planet at the moment. I’d trade my Nokia N73 in a heartbeat for one of these.
What’s so cool about it?
it’s beautiful. When was the last time you saw a beautiful mobile UI? (I can hear you saying ‘never’ from here). The interface design is sexy. Lustworthy. Typical Apple.
it’s gestural. There’s one button, a home button, and your fingers do all the rest of the work. Check out the ‘slide to unlock’ in the image above. Forget millions of tiny buttons – you have the interface you need at the time to do the job you’re doing (because this puppy is a phone, an iPod and more!). Forget styluses – they’re a pain in the neck and get lost all the time. Fingers are the input device of the future.
it’s aware. It has sensors that tells it whether you’re looking at in in portrait or landscape mode and it adjusts accordingly. It knows when you’re using it as a phone and shuts off the interface. How clever!
It does all the work for you. Sometimes it’s the simple things that count. Having spent hours and hours configuring and setting up my new Nokia N73 to utilise all the stuff that’s installed on it and some of it’s capabilities. How much easier is the Apple approach where the device does all the work for you.
Oooh! and that Google Maps integration… I love it. Why didn’t we think of that already?
For a long time, usability and design people have been debating about whether or not people want ‘convergent’ or multifunctional devices. Is it possible for one device to be able to do many different things well? Or will a device always be primarily one animal that has some capabilities in other areas.
Apple has just made that debate completely redundant.
And the crazy thing is that the whole approach is so incredibly obvious. Look at the task that the user is trying to achieve and design the interface to support that. By removing the nightmarish restrictions of the hardware and replacing it with one big, responsive screen, Apple has shed all of these restrictions and with it, all the things we thought to be conventional about mobile phone design.
Sign me up. I want one now.
The only thing I’m a little sad about is how much of a fuss Steve is making about patenting all the cool things they’ve developed for this phone. More than 200 patents.
That’s not very caring, sharing 2.0 is it? (Of course, Apple shareholders might see this somewhat differently).
Check out the keynote for yourself at (brilliant live coverage, well done!)
My name is Leisa Reichelt. I am an independent consultant who works with organisations who want to better understand and improve the experience they're delivering their customers.
By improving Customer Experience we know that companies become more effective and profitable - winning more valuable and more loyal customers.
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