I thought that showcasing 5 recent ‘screen favorites’ from my Evernote and why I like each of them can help others when they are searching for ideas and inspiration. If there is a theme to these it is ‘simplicity and function.’

Without further ado…

Why I like it: This player is simple, not cluttered, and shows the artist and track playing during a mix. Perfect for if you want to click to purchase a track you’re into.

Why I like it: While the visual design of This is Service Design Thinking could use some sprucing up, the concept is strong. Segmenting an ...]]> I often take screenshots (both web and mobile) of interesting, unique, and captivating interfaces and then upload them to Evernote. They are used as inspiration, and often help in everyday decision making when building interfaces and experiences.

I thought that showcasing 5 recent ‘screen favorites’ from my Evernote and why I like each of them can help others when they are searching for ideas and inspiration. If there is a theme to these it is ‘simplicity and function.’

Without further ado…

MixCloud Player

Why I like it: This player is simple, not cluttered, and shows the artist and track playing during a mix. Perfect for if you want to click to purchase a track you’re into.

This is Service Design Thinking

Why I like it: While the visual design of This is Service Design Thinking could use some sprucing up, the concept is strong. Segmenting an audience on a site not requiring a login is cool, interesting, and something I don’t see that often.

Tripbirds

Why I like it: When I first saw this I immediately understood the concept: A leaderboard for trips. Simple. Tripbirds do a great way of communicating this on their landing page, and have some great visual elements that communicate friendliness / playfulness.

Github Dashboard

Why I like it: Github is awesome, but it can be a little intimidating at first glance. They do a great job of showing ‘What’s Next’ and giving the user more options.

PeerIndex

Why I like it: Another interesting dashboard, PeerIndex uses color and to highlight key information to the user (such as activity across sites, whether the user is an authority, and audience reach). They also use Sparklines effectively in their Groups area.

Below are some other links to user interface resources:

• 14 of the Year’s Best Ideas in Interface Design
• 40 Detailed Examples of User Interface Design
• 9 Resources for User Interface Designers

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Jeff Gothelf of The Ladders has recorded a Webcast regarding how he uses Lean UX (I recommend you check it out!). Others, including Jared Spool, have questioned whether it is worth giving any attention.

1. Questioning the nature of deliverables: It doesn’t mean that there are ...]]> There are more and more articles online about ‘Lean UX’ (I’ve also seen Meetups focusing on the topic, as well as numerous conversations amongst colleagues). Is it as simple as working in shorter iterations rather than longer deliverable releases? Does it mean you show deliverables to the client and team(s) more often? Less annotations? First, let’s try to determine a baseline definition of what constitutes Lean UX and move forward from there.

Jeff Gothelf of The Ladders has recorded a Webcast regarding how he uses Lean UX (I recommend you check it out!). Others, including Jared Spool, have questioned whether it is worth giving any attention.

To me, Lean UX is about questioning the nature of deliverables and not working ‘in silo’ in Agile Development settings.

1. Questioning the nature of deliverables: It doesn’t mean that there are no deliverables, it means that having overly documented deliverables in an environment where changes and pivots are happening weekly / monthly / daily isn’t the best use of anyone’s time. Instead, sketches, prototypes, designs, and lots of user feedback / metrics are handed off and discussed amongst all stakeholders. Conversations between teams happen more frequently, and are often encouraged.

2. Working in silo: ‘Working in silo’ means that you are basically quarantined (either by yourself or your organization’s hierarchy) so that there is a division of labor similar to that of an assembly line: A developer or designer gets ‘the parts’ (in this case being wireframes, use cases, etc.) and assembles them into a finished product, often with little or no questioning (especially about big picture stuff).

3. Agile Development settings: Agile is a particular way of working, and refers mostly to Agile Development. Agile, often happening incrementally, means that there are going to be changes. Lots of changes. Lots of releases. Lots of bugs (and bug-fixing). Iteratively and cross-functionally.

Pro: Lean UX is fast

On products with hazy or changing definitions, Lean UX works wonders. What’s better than showing up one morning with entirely different sketches for your app based on what some core customers said over dinner the other night? Lean UX works wonders in these instances (not to mention saves time and money). If you can reduce time spent on unnecessary or irrelevant features and get to the core of what matters, then you can move faster and produce more quality products.

Con: Lean UX doesn’t work well with distributed teams

When you have teams working in silo all over the world (or at least not sitting in the same physical location) Lean UX presents challenges. Sketches, due to their low-fidelity nature, are best talked through rather than ‘handed off’. Add cultural differences and understandings to your remote team and real problems with Lean UX really set in. I remember a project I was working on where the development team was located in Europe. They had their own development schedule and way of working. Collaboration (and even communication) were sparse and nonexistent. There are ways around these problems, however. This article written by Jonathan Follett discuss this point in greater detail and presents software to help mitigate against these differences, such as MindMeister.

Pro: Lean UX breaks barriers

What better way to unite teams of designers, developers, and business stakeholders than practicing Lean UX? Cooper has a great post on Lean UX. They identify Product Stewardship as a real way to alleviate the stress of Product Managers / Owners in making all of the numerous (and often nefarious) decisions. By acting as the glue between multiple disciplines, a team with a great Product Steward is giving themselves a clear advantage in a highly competitive digital marketplace.

Con: Lean UX doesn’t work with hands-off clients

When clients are paying for a product and already have a set way of doing things, Lean UX isn’t necessarily the best option. If money = deliverable and the education process of advocating Lean UX is too risky, working in silo between disciplines might be the only way to finish successfully. Many clients prefer hands-off, and don’t have the same time on their hands to dip into a UX Designers’s sketches and iterations to offer their .02. In-between engagements you can slip them eBooks and Slideshares (like the one above!) so they can wrap their head around this new methodology.

Lean UX links:

• The 9 Principles of Lean User Experience
• Lean + UX + Agile
• Lean UX Machine
• Quora: Difference between Agile Development & Lean UX

Here are the source files used to make this tutorial: Logic Pro Files

Other great tutorials on how to harness the power of the Arpeggiator:

The picture above is a my proposed revision. Below is a snapshot of my current Google calendar.

The top 10 things I would change in it are:

1. Integration of Google Places reviews and stars. Nowhere is it so bewildering that reviews for locations are left out than Google Calendar. Google highlights reviews and a star-system into places found on Google Maps. Why leave these out of events? My calendar is filled up with various Meetups, and one way I filter out the ones I want to attend vs. those I don’t are ratings, price, and the number ...]]> I decided to re-design Google Calendar for fun, and attempt to create 10 new improvements in a design exercise. Their current calendar leaves a lot to be desired. I use it for almost every single event I attend, so it’s pain points really resonate with me.

The picture above is a my proposed revision. Below is a snapshot of my current Google calendar.

The top 10 things I would change in it are:

1. Integration of Google Places reviews and stars.
Nowhere is it so bewildering that reviews for locations are left out than Google Calendar. Google highlights reviews and a star-system into places found on Google Maps. Why leave these out of events? My calendar is filled up with various Meetups, and one way I filter out the ones I want to attend vs. those I don’t are ratings, price, and the number of stars the venue has.

2. Flyout events
A major pet peeve I have with the Internet is the amount of clicking and tapping it takes to do the most simple of actions. One way to improve Google Calendar is to add editing /viewing an event on the same page. In the below example, the user simply drags the bottom-right corner and expand to view more information, including an integrated Google Map, attendees, and description.

3. Visual iconography
Google Calendar is very sparse when it comes to things like incorporating company logos and people’s profile pictures into events. Why don’t they include them? For those of us who have a number of events to attend, browsing images vs. reading text is much better.

4. Google +1 integration.
This one is a no-brainer. Allow +1ing events.

5. Increased emphasis on Search
Increasing the prominence of the search bar communicates to users that you can search and find events.

6. Faceted browsing by social and location
Users should be able to filter and browse events by things like city and the amount of social activity connected to a particular event.

7. Events popular with  those in Google Circles
Google+ is a great way to see what others are doing, thinking, and reading. Why not include events that people in a user’s Circles are attending within Google Calendar?

8. Reduction of interface
9. Integration of Google Checkout
Numerous events cost money – allow event creators to integrate Google Checkout (or other services, such as Brown Paper Tickets) with the events they are hosting to allow attendees to RSVP and purchase tickets simultaneously.

10. Commenting on publicly available events.
Finally, comments are a prime indicator of user sentiment. Not including users’ comments on events diminishes the opportunity to exchange updates, suggestions, and context that is valuable to others.

Let’s say you have two people in a room, and both have ideas for a game.

One person states that he has an elaborate storyline thought out. It involves Viking warriors stopping an ancient clan of wizards from destroying their village. The Vikings become more powerful after every wizard they kill. The wizards come in droves, and some have magical powers, and the spells they cast can wreak havoc on the Viking longships you are building (while ...]]> I’ve spent the last few months struggling with ways of creating high quality mobile games using Unity3d. During that time I’ve worked with a great team and developed a solid (i.e. working) pipeline and process to design and develop engaging games. (These notes / thoughts relate to indie game developers working ‘in the wild’, certainly not larger studios with numerous resources).

Tip 1: Don’t overcomplicate things

Let’s say you have two people in a room, and both have ideas for a game.

One person states that he has an elaborate storyline thought out. It involves Viking warriors stopping an ancient clan of wizards from destroying their village. The Vikings become more powerful after every wizard they kill. The wizards come in droves, and some have magical powers, and the spells they cast can wreak havoc on the Viking longships you are building (while simultaneously fighting the wizards) that provide an added attack multiplier, depending on whether you have leveled up enough times to find the longswords buried in a cave at the edge of the wilderness. The wizards were exiled from the kingdom from a valiant Viking lord, and are now seeking their revenge.

The other guy says that he is working on a first person shooter, and has a simple prototype developed. He hands you his iPad with a primitive, but working, example.

All other things being equal, who do you believe will actually finish their game (that’s a rhetorical question)?

While it is always fun to think about story and features, these often overcomplicate the game. Just getting an enjoyable, working mechanic that you can put in someone’s hands and get some sense about whether it works as a game is at least 25% (If not more) of the project.

Tip 2: Forget about the art assets

It’s often a lot of fun to begin working on art assets before anything gets built. I’ve found that, unless there is already a very well-defined mechanic with gameplay elements speced out and validated, that creating the art assets first can actually hinder the development of the game.

One game I am in the middle of working on started as a standard platformer then, halfway through, morphed into an inverse Doodle Jump (where the main character is falling instead of moving endlessly higher). Tons of art assets went to waste. This could have been avoided had we focused on developing a solid mechanic before moving onto textures and other game elements.

Tip 3: Define the ‘kernel’ of your game, then build off of that

What is the core of your game? What makes it fun and enjoyable to play? What makes someone want to play the game again and again? Is it about solving different challenges? Is killing enemies central to your game? How about a casual game where you flick a football through the uprights? Once you determine the ‘kernel‘ of your game you can begin iterating and testing features. No kernel, no game.

Hopefully some of these tips below can shed some insights into strategies to make fun, engaging games (and not spend a whole lot of time doing it)!

The application leverages Urban Airship to handle in-app purchases. It has won numerous awards, was a featured app on iTunes, and made it into the top 20 applications for Free Weather applications.