Jason Nunes

Artist Ross Racine’s work really hit me. Aerial views of fictional suburbs. Each was drawn freehand directly on the computer. Beautiful fantasies.

Found on SwissMiss

I mentioned this blog post in an earlier post. Here’s a quote:

Traditional agencies in the digital space (and indeed traditional digital agencies) are easily seduced by the power of Flash and the wonders of animation; we want attention and spectacle but what happens next? Why should the user stay, what are we asking them to do and where should they go next? The campaign microsite is perhaps the prime expression of this tendency-as Iain Tate puts it, impressively punchily, in Campaign:

“No one cares about your bloody microsite. In 2009 the flashy high production value microsite is finally starting to feel irrelevant. Sites that seem to do everything, but deliver nothing.”

At the opposite end of the spectrum, design in the digital space has become so seamless, effortless and professional that it’s arguably all getting a bit predictable. Usability was (quite rightly) the holy grail for many years, reaching its apotheosis in Jakob Nielsen’s controversial useit.com-the ultimate in functionality. Now it seems though that perhaps every easy, effortless site is much like every other easy, effortless site.

You know what’s always bugged me… this idea that usability is the only goal of user experience design. It leaves guys like me who came out of interactive design out of the equation. When I was first recruited by iXL it was because I was a broadcast designer, and because I understood things like motion, and visual and auditory feedback. Sure, part of what I was doing was making sites more usable by giving users clear feedback about what they could click on, and clue them in to what would happen if they did click on it, but it was also about trying to make the then static, boring web a bit more exciting, and tv like. Not slapping on motion for motion’s sake (which to me was the problem with splash screens, and so much early flash stuff) but to make the web a more pleasant, enjoyable, fun experience. I think most sr. level, intelligent people who do what I do know that there are many different components to a great UX, and usability is only one.

(Whoops, I originally said this was Jesse James Garrett‘s but it turns out it’s Peter Morville‘s. Heh… (sorry Jesse and Peter…) … thanks for the correction JJG! )

Usability is only one aspect of the whole. A UX needs to tackle all of the above:

1. useful
2. desirable
3. valuable
4. accessible
5. credible
6. findable
7. and last but not least usable

ANYWAY, not to get up on my soap box, but that’s what I think about this issue/debate… and I think the guy is absolutely right, there is a tension between usability and disruption… but that shouldn’t mean that there is then an inherent conflict between disruption and UX.

AND, (last thing I’ll say on the subject)… I actually don’t think that disruption is the right way to think about what the goals of most agencies are either. I think it’s an easy out. Like usability is to UX. Disruption is what we understand because that’s what traditional advertising is. It disrupts an experience with another, louder, hopefully somewhat entertaining experience, so someone can get paid. But, well, for me, the idea of advertising/marketing offering some value or utility, is where we might think about the standard disruption experience evolving. If the disruptive experience becomes useful, then it’s something that will be sought out, and it won’t need to disrupt. Of course, this is a whole heck of a lot harder to figure out… just like making an experience usable, and desirable is harder to figure out… but that’s what separates the true innovators in our fields from the dinosaurs who are 5 steps away from getting stuck in the tar pits.

Does that mean they’re played out? Or is this validation that they can be useful?

A model depicting Antonella, the imaginary woman who was the guiding personality for the Ford Verve, a design study that was the basis for the new Fiesta.

A while back a 37 Signals blog post started a whole debate in the UX community about the usefulness of personas as a design tool. As someone who uses them myself, I find that they can be very valuable, especially if they are based on real human beings with real needs & wants who you can ask questions and present concepts to. (I think 37 Signals would say something similar–build for a real person, not an imaginary one.) I have always shied away from personas based on demographic data, or fiction, rather using demographics to point me in the right direction to find a real human being to interview. But here Ford seems to be using demographic data to create fantasy people to make fantasy products for, and it seems to be working. Perhaps because cars are fetish objects as well as tools it’s OK to design for an idealized fictional person. Especially if you’ve done the research right, and can attempt to understand desire through data. But this brings up another debate that is often discussed in the UX community–the cool vs. the usable. Do we lose something by focusing solely on the usable and useful? (that’s for another post…)

ANYWAY, what do you think about this issue? Personas or no? Demographics based or real people? Or something completely different? Who do you design for?

Breaking The Commandments
Weldon James has never done anything wrong in his life. He’s the perfect employee, boyfriend, son, and Christian. But when his wild and crazy, womanizing, hard drinking best friend Ethan commits suicide, the cracks in Weldon’s life begin to show, and the existential angst sets in. What has Weldon done with his life? Where is he going? Why is he here? Hedonism? Happiness? Piety? Purity? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?! Weldon decides that to honor Ethan he must systematically break the 10 Commandments, even if it means losing everything that he thinks is important to him.

Found on Flickr – Image by Mason Poe

Scattered, Covered, & Smothered
A disaffected young woman who feels like she’s never had the chance to grow up, about to hit a milestone in her life–her 30th birthday–decides to take her destiny in her hands, and go for all the things she’s missing–a husband, a family, a traditional life–by kidnapping her high school crush, an aging football player/ladies man who has recently decided to chuck in the towel, get married, and settle down.