Month: May 2013
-
The Internet Slot Machine
A few years back The Guardian had a fascinating piece on how addictive (and also how disruptive to productivity) checking email is. The 'variable interval reinforcement schedule' of our inbox works in the same way that slot-machines do, rewarding actions only sometimes and not in predictable ways. Whilst there may often be little of importance or…
-
Designing With Constraints
"You know this moment: time is running out, the team is down by one, a player arcs the ball from downtown just as the buzzer sounds—and sinks it. it’s exhilarating. It’s heart breaking. And most of all, it’s good design." Much has been written about how an astute use of constraints can help focus problems and promote…
-
The Problem With Retargeting
…is that it's not quite good enough. We've all had it. Go to a retailer's site, have a bit of a browse not really intending to buy anything, and then you're followed around the web for the next month by said retailer with (usually) not very enticing banner ads that sometimes contain the products you…
-
A Missed Opportunity?
I had a fascinating breakfast meeting yesterday with Ed Bussey who is the CEO/Founder of Quill. Ed is a longtime digital and mobile exec and entrepreneur. Quill, his latest venture, is a rapidly growing content marketing company that specialises in content strategy, production and increasingly distribution. There were several things that struck me as interesting about…
-
Infinite and Parallax Scrolling
Thanks to Rubbishcorp for pointing at this wonderful Oakley site for their new Airbrake MX Google. It's a great piece of merchandising. HTML5 and CSS3 are enabling all kinds of design-rich in-browser experiences using infinite and parallax scrolling (where an illusion of depth is created by background images moving slower than foreground images). One of my…
-
When Every Page Is Your Homepage
"Instead of adding new flooring and fixtures, they've taken the house down to the foundation" Reuters are redesigning their site from the ground up and the approach that they're taking with it is fascinating. Most websites (news services included) put a lot of focus on the homepage to draw people into the site in the…
-
Post Of The Month – April 2013 – The Winner
Delighted to announce that the winner (by a clear margin) in this month's vote is Antony Mayfield's post on his excellent Firestarters talk titled 'Can Agencies Innovate?'. So well done Antony. You are duly entered into the hall of fame. Thanks everyone as always for taking part.
-
This Is Water
"There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way…" I remember the first time I read David Foster Wallace's commencement speech, given to a graduating class at Kenyon College, Ohio. This video is an evocative ten minute snippet of that wonderful talk, which is all…
-
Post Of The Month – May 2013 – The Vote
Thanks for the nominations. Our vote this month is between: The Art, Poetry & Music of Data Viz from Tom Uglow Restructing Britain by Louise Downe Can Agencies Innovate? from Antony Mayfield The Lean Analytics Cycle by Avinash Kaushik and Alistair Croll Introducing the Modern Marketing Manifesto from Ashley Friedlein On Expectation Of Privacy by Jonathan Zdziarski And you can…