Make sure you check out Christoper Patrick Ernst’s photography before you move on.

Change, Change, Change. These past few weeks have been about changes, friends. More on that soon, but first … a round up of what’s tickled my fancy lately.

• Content as Conversation – I posted a snippet of this article during the week. A great read from UX Mag about why a visit to your website is a conversation with your user. A must read.
• A great post from Khoi Vinh from last year, on not overdoing your web app’s explanations and coach-marks.
• Josh Porter’s greater new resource on the principles of user interface design.
• Is the internet making you sad?
• Some great videos on PSFK this week, including Clay Shirky on creativity, and Swiss Miss on the value of side projects.
• Interaction design in the cloud.
• If you’re into startups and haven’t read Tom Howard’s personal piece this week, don’t hesitate.
• How metaphors can improve the user experience
  

And last but certainly not least, listen to Google Translate Beatboxing!

Satisfying the conversation

Customer: Should I buy this?
Amazon: It gets five stars. That’s the best.

Customer: What do other people think of it?
Amazon: Look at the customer reviews. They’re right here.

Customer: Am I getting a good deal?
Amazon: You’re saving 3%.

Customer: How quickly can I get it? Should I just go to a store?
Amazon: It’s in stock. Don’t go to the store. We can get it to you tomorrow.

Customer: It’s a gift. When I go to the store, they wrap it for me. Will you?Amazon: Sure we will. “Gift-wrap available.”

Customer: Can I get something less expensive?
Amazon: Check out Outlet Toys.

Customer: What do I do ifI want to buy it?

Amazon: Right here. Add it to your cart.

Capitalizing on marketing moments

And then Amazon adds to the conversation:

Amazon: Not ready to buy it? Add it to your wish list.

Amazon: Now that you’ve decided to buy that, don’t you also want these other puzzles? Other people also bought these.

via Content as Conversation | UX Magazine - must read UX article if you’re interested in those things.

]]> http://www.ben-rowe.com/2012/05/07/talking-to-amazon/feed/ 0 http://www.ben-rowe.com/2012/05/01/dads-are-the-original-hipsters/ http://www.ben-rowe.com/2012/05/01/dads-are-the-original-hipsters/#comments Tue, 01 May 2012 14:06:38 +0000 Ben Rowe http://www.ben-rowe.com/?p=1921

Sorry. Why is it that not one of you has ever told me about Dads are the Original Hipsters?

Here’s a round up of some of the things I’ve read recently. Let’s start with something off-topic. Be amazed by these incredible miniature food scupltures!

• The Difference Between UX and UI: Subtleties Explained in Cereal.
• Instagram CEO, Kevin Systrom is a self taught coder. Loks like it paid off for him.
• How entreprenuers create their own luck.
• Good old Smashing magazine tells you to Give Your Website Soul With Emotionally Intelligent Interactions.
• Speech Bubble User Flows – an interesting way to combine Personas with Flow diagrams.
• Ryan Singer has some good advice for product managers.
• Melbournian’s and everyone else who knows here will be thrilled to hear that the Fetch founder Kate Kendall teams up with YouTube founders for Zeen.com launch.
• You should download Fish – it’s a short but heartfelt manifesto about the difference between liking something on the internet and loving something on the internet. It’s also an iphone app, and a neat little exploration into writing, typography and storytelling. http://www.robinsloan.com/fish/
• Oh, and Let’s end Networking. Please.

Melbourne, much like many other cities I’m sure, is in the midst of a Food Truck epidemic.

Fortunately for us, we now have wherethetruck.at - a newish website where I can see the locations of each truck, updated daily. Today, I had two trucks within walking distance of my place.

The site, built by Melbournites Xavier Verhoeven and Tom Kinsman, is a simple idea, and one to remind us of the beautiful potential of the web. You don’t have to build the next instagram. You don’t need always need an “Exit strategy”. Sometimes, you should just “Make a thing” for the heck of it.

wherethetruck.at is a perfect example of this.

But this week I’m thinking all about UX strategy, and I feel a blog post brewing.

In the meantime, here are some great articles I’ve read, and will probably reference, on the topic.

• UX Magazine : Making User and Customer Experience a Business Competency
• Johnny Holland : Planning your UX Strategy
• Paul Boag : User experience is not just about your website
• Smashing Mag : Why User Experience Cannot Be Designed
• Zurb : Jargon of the Day: User Experience Designer

First up, a wonderful tribute to the UX Designer – by Lyle Alzaldo. Hat tip to James Mansfield.

• Speaking of Hat Tips and Retweets, The Curators Code attempts to put some standards into web content attribution. ᔥ
  
• And speaking of UX, What is user experience strategy, anyway?
• The unmissable Nextness blog gives us a helpful guide for Introverts in ad agencies.
• Then there’s Jason Fried’s excellent post on giving it 5 minutes.
• As far as building products go, are we all just making more sugar water?
• If you’re into beautiful websites, you must check out Frank Chimero’s new one.
• My obligatory Pinterest article for the week - Pinterest’s Founding Designer Shares His Dead-Simple Design Philosophy.
• Jonathan Franzen: ‘Twitter is the ultimate irresponsible medium’

And I’ll finish with a link to some wonderful OCD photography!

So Just going through the process of setting it up from scratch.

There’s a few broken images and other bits and pieces to be tidied up, but I’ll get to that shortly.

It’s one I’ve been working on for a while, and aptly describes my mental state at the moment. Hope you like it.

DOWNLOAD

Running time 1 hour, 4 minutes.

Track Listing:

First up, the video above. A great visual manifesto for curiosity, The Future Belongs to the Curious done by the guys at Skillshare.

Also, some worky links:

• Convenience : The third essential of a customer-centric business. Via UX Mag.
• Life. Then Strategy – Why strategists should make stuff. (HT to Ned).
• Josh Porter thinks that it’s the Golden Age of Design in Startups.
• 52 Weeks of UX – The ghost of decisions past.
• IDEO: How Big Companies Can Learn From Start-ups via Forbes.
• DoLectures: Perry Chen gives a great talk about Kickstarter. The platform that’s changing how ideas are funded.
• Everyone’s talking about Clear, the newest to-do app with a near-invisible UI. Here’s Fast Company’s take.
• A PDF link that’s oldie but a goody – especially if you’re getting into agile as I am at the moment :: How to use user stories to drive your agile development.

And some not so worky links:

• Great examples of People as pixels.
• Are there are only two things you need to know about anything?
• Anyone who likes Guided by Voices should check out this new tumblr of Guided By Voices songs illustrated.
• Material World: A Portrait of the World’s Possessions
• If you’re in Melbourne this week, you should really check out the Martin Harris exhibition at Outre before it finishes. Martin is an amazing artist, and ivoteforart-ist to boot.
• Project Narwhal: How a top-secret Obama campaign program could change the 2012 race. Slate Magazine
• Watch Bon Iver’s 25-Minute 4AD Session.
• The final installment of Kirby Ferguson‘s “Everything is a remix” series came out this week. If you haven’t seen it, i suggest you head back to the start and watch all four. Brilliant series.