MySpace UX Studio tour by Kara Swisher
Kara Swisher of allthingsd stopped by this week for a preview of what we’ve been working on at myspace.
Archived entries for Featured
2XL Robot
Yes, I totally -and I mean totally- had one of these. This little buddy would quiz you over 8 track, reward you with some tunes and it looks like give you a little workout. I love that Playboy Mag is one of the pubs that’s quoted in this commercial. Wii Fit inspiration perhaps?
Anti-Theft Lunch Bags
Tired of having your food stolen by sticky-fingered coworkers or roommates? Bullies taking your kid’s lunch? Well, worry no more . . . Anti-Theft Lunch Bags are sandwich bags that have green splotches printed on both sides, making your freshly prepared lunch look spoiled. Don’t suffer the injustice of having your sandwich stolen again! Protect your lunch with Anti-Theft Lunch Bags.
25 bags for $10 from Think of The
Concept video on the future of digital magazines
This video prototype shows the take of the Mag+ project by Berg + Bonnier.
Twiistup is Growing Up
Twiistup was created to showoff innovative creations, share new opportunities and above all else, have some fun. Since Twiistup 1 in February, 2007 we have experienced five exciting events that have served as a catalyst for even more growth in SoCal. I’m proud to say that we’ve participated in a grassroots movement that has unified some highly original bits and pieces, attracted a global audience and redefined the mid-week mixer.
Through Twiistup, I personally have had the privilege of connecting with some seriously talented individuals. My initial intent was to connect with designers and developers in the LA area, but the community that I was introduced to far surpassed my craziest dreams. Throughout tech, media and entertainment, the entrepreneurship and energy that exists in SoCal is off the charts. So much so, that I ditched my Silicon Valley gig for a startup in the heart of Santa Monica.
After the initial experiment, and success, of Twiistup 1, my intention was to grow it into something much bigger and brighter. And grow it did! Our first event had a capacity of 200 people, our fifth event had over 1000 attendees. While I’ve had great support of some key people in LA, I’ve now realized Twiistup has grown beyond my own capacity limitations (aka, my day job).
So, I am really excited to announce that Twiistup will take on new ownership and expand beyond its trademark “Showoff” competition, and signature evening event, to include a full conference agenda. There are also plans to help seed similar event models in other cities. This is huge for the LA tech community and the Twiistup brand, and seems to be the logical next step in it’s evolution. No worries, Twiistup will remain “an alternative to traditional networking events” and continue to serve up the unique, creative and unexpected.
[quote from the new boss] “Twiistup had expanded from a small grassroots local event to one of the most well regarded regional showcases for tech and media. This investment allows us to carry out Mike’s vision of adding a full conference agenda to the famed evening event and making it more of a national draw,” said new Twiistup Producer, Francisco Dao, a LA-based entrepreneur who will be taking over day-to-day management. [end of quote]
I will still be involved with Twiistup as a creative advisor and will continue to participate in all of the excitement that’s happening in SoCal. I’ll still be in the area focusing more attention to another company I helped start called Tsavo Media.
Thank you to all those that have contributed to Twiistup’s success – so many in the LA tech scene made this a true community effort, but I have to call out Nicole Jordan and Jeremiah Abraham. Another is my wife, Steph Macadaan, the self proclaimed Director of Pretty Much Everything. While I’d love to say that I am some kind of genius-magician pulling off these events on top of my day job, it just wasn’t the case and she deserves way more credit than she ever received.
See you at an event soon!
History of Twiistup
Photos and video from all 5 Twiistup events
Twiistup 1 / Feb 2007 / Zanzibar in Santa Monica / 200 attendees
‘Sketched Video’ made with a sketch pad and a sharpie on my kitchen table. Can you find the typo?
Photos from that hot night at Zanzibar.
Twiistup 2 / Aug 2007 / Air Conditioned Supper Club in Venice / 300 attendees
‘Showoffs’ video
Interviews!
Photos
Twiistup 3 / Jan 2008 / Air Conditioned Supper Club in Venice / 300 attendees
Covered on CBS
Photos
Perez Hilton chats with Shira Lazar
TechZulu’s take
Twiistup 4 / Jul 2008 / Viceroy in Santa Monica / 600 attendees
Steve Weibe of King of Kong chats with Robert Scoble
More Video
TechZulu
Photos
Twiistup 5 / Feb 2009 / Hangar 8 at the Santa Monica Airport / 1000 attendees
Rich DeMuro of Synchedupshow.com
From lalawag
From Bub.blicio.us
Photos
Random fact: We infused our sister event in Vancouver BC with some Twiistup love. Here’s one of the many videos..
How MacGyver would do design research
How MacGyver would do design research – notes from Web 2.0 Expo
speaking: M. Jackson Wilkinson
Not hearing anything new yet but some good baseline reminders of things like..
· Use your feedback loop
· Talk to people that talk to customers
· Only research the things you need to know about
· Talk to fewer people
Now talking about ID and the power of sketching and paper prototypes. Now discussing the benefit of quickly creating prototypes over investing time into high fidelity concepts – since early prototypes often have lots to iron out, better to keep it rough versus investing in deep development. Easier to make quick changes and adapt the concept to the higher order user needs. Quick, rough, assume you’re going to fail and don’t resist changes at the early design phase. Again, nothing earth shattering, but very good reminders.
Alternative Designs
The speaker is talking about how it’s important to have alternative designs for your clients.
Expertise
ID’s are poor at leveraging their expertise - power of the mullet. MacGyver always knows what to do with his tools (whoa) – ID’s need to be confident like MacGyver.
Design Thinking
Trial and error, iterate, the best ways to get from point A to B – but not very efficient. So you try shortcuts, like design theory – helps get closer tot he solution before you have to do the work – research from other disciplines – from cognitive psychology, social theory – find good solutions for your problem. These are not wholesale solutions but can suggest how you solve your problem. Social Identity Theory is how people perceive you – this becomes problematic when it comes to social networks. The challenge is you want to project a different persona and social networks are dealing with this through groups.
Design Principles
Cognitive load – eg, showing a UI for renaming files which looks like SAP’s expense tool or better yet, the control panel from the Space Shuttle. Users freak out because the cognitive load is so high. Users panic when they see lots of UI that represents learning and ‘work.’ Now showing contrast with a Mac wizard that walks you through the process step by step. Good for a novice user. In short simplify.
Loss Aversion
People are more likely to take action when they have something to lose rather than something to gain. Do the to learn versus do this or you’ll lose $100. Users are more likely to take action when they think they’ll lose something. You’re going to lose your work – don’t you want to sign up so you don’t lose? Netvibes did this – save this page or you’ll lose your progress.
Design Patterns
Solutions many others have had to particular design problem on the past. EG on Digg, vote to promote pattern – want users to surface things at the top, like reddit, digg, etc. Auto complete is another one – see it on the Yahoo Design Library – type in the text field, provides drop down and provide suggestions tht make sense. Warning – these are solutions to other problems and might not address some little difference you have with your design problem.
Patterns reinforced with solid research
Yahoo!
welie
(need other good examples – please comment!)
Heuristics
Became unpopular because they’re not research based. In short, here’s a list of things that you have collective wisdom around that are wrong with your soft/webware before you invest a ton in user research. While not popular with hardcore researchers, an efficient way to start solving problems because sometimes the problems are obvious.
Analytics in the context of research
Good to point out where there might be a problem not so good at telling you what’s causing the problem. He didn’t go deep here but did address via a question.
Now you have the power of the mullet.
These are just my notes so please get the full preso here:
jackson@jounce.net
http://speakerrate.com/whafro
@whafro
Hip Techies Dig Scene In West L.A.
Twiistup gets another mention on CNNMoney thanks to the great article from Brian Deagon.