User Experience

The Google User Experience team aims to create designs that are useful, fast, simple, engaging, innovative, universal, profitable, beautiful, trustworthy, and personable. Achieving a harmonious balance of these ten principles is a constant challenge. A product that gets the balance right is "Googley" – and will satisfy and delight people all over the world.

Ten principles that contribute to a Googley user experience:

1. Focus on people – their lives, their work, their dreams
2. Every millisecond counts
3. Simplicity is powerful
4. Engage beginners and attract experts
5. Dare to innovate
6. Design for the world
7. Plan for today’s and tomorrow’s business
8. Delight the eye without distracting the mind
9. Be worthy of people’s trust
10. Add a human touch

Our view at Google is that's a transitory phase in the development of the whole social web, and that those friend relationships that you create on these sites should be usable and portable and allow you to get benefit no matter where you go on the web. - Joe Kraus

Can the Internet be made more social? This is a question with which Joe Kraus, director of product management at Google, constantly has to grapple. He believes every killer app on the web -- instant messaging, e-mail, blogging, photo-sharing -- has succeeded because it helps people connect with one another. For Kraus, this means the Internet has an inherently social character, but it can be enhanced further -- an area he continues to explore through Google initiatives such as Open Social and Friend Connect. Wharton legal studies professor Kevin Werbach spoke with Kraus recently about the increasing socialization of the Internet.

Read the interview here...

I am not sure about you, but when a huge site like MySpace does a redesign, it must be a feat to pull it off. Plausible indeed. Although it’s not an earth shattering change, but, for the ugliest social networking site of all time, its a welcome one. It should launch sometime next week. More screenshots here...

Harvard Business Review has published an article by Tim Brown, the CEO of IDEO, on design thinking.
Tim is certain that thinking like a designer can transform the way you develop products, services, processes—and even strategy!

In the past, design has most often occurred fairly far downstream in the development process and has focused on making new products aesthetically attractive or enhancing brand perception through smart, evocative advertising. Today, as innovation’s terrain expands to encompass human-centered processes and services as well as products, companies are asking designers to create ideas rather than to simply dress them up.

Read entire article...

I miss home. Serious.

pete was juggling tomatoes.

bored. so he telephoned a few friends. “how about getting together to make an anti-racism national unity song and music video?” all said yes without hesitation. not because pete threatened them with a sharp and rusty knife. but only because they love malaysia.

the contingent swelled to 52 people a few days later. it included filmmakers, dancers, singers, producers, musicians, actors, entrepreneurs, designers, footballers, activists, celebrities, students and a florist. nobody would be paid. yet they were enthused. not because they were high on speed. only because they love Malaysia.

they gathered to record the song. it had a catchy chorus and was able to induce a mass sing-along. everyone was happy when it was done. they named it ‘here in my home’. then more people joined. the party now included more than 120 people. but the budget remained exactly zero. it seems even the spreadsheet loves malaysia.

everyone turned up for the video shoot. much fun was had and friendships made. video editors went to work after the shoot was done. both the recording and the video would be given away for free. a gift to the nation. from those who love malaysia to those who feel the same.

did you ask what this is all about?

it’s about love.

[editor: 'text too cheesy. please revise.'] [geek: 'no.']

What an evening I must say! I am pretty satisfied with the turnout as well as how the event was managed from A to Z. Of course, we did a couple of mistakes which we should have known better, but well, we learnt, and we move on. I also managed to give an introduction to The Digital Movement (TDM) for the folks, which I am most grateful for. It was a crucial moment for us, that people anticipate and understand that we are more than just mere events. And I can't emphasis enough that TDM is seriously going through a very interesting transition. We have lots of ideas and plans in store but I am most passionate on building a good foundation. Build to last. A movement, not a monument.

The evening ended with much excitement in the air. Some say, it's a day they will never forget. The day they met one of the Father of the Internet. Well, the same goes for me. Not everyone would have a chance to have a photo with him. I did! :-)

Here are some blog posts/streamed media of the event itself:

• http://qik.com/video/84697 | streamed live during the event
• http://alvinology.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/an-evening-with-vinton-cerf/
• http://blog.simplyjean.com/2008/05/23/live-blogging-at-tracking-the-internet-into-the-21st-century/
• http://ian.onthereddot.com/2008/05/24/a-very-special-evening-with-vinton-cerf-from-google/
• http://twitter.com/twistedian
• http://yuhuibc.blogspot.com/2008/05/recap-of-vinton-cerfs-presentation-at.html
• http://rainelai.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/meeting-vinton-g-cerf/
  

Design Anthropology takes user research to a whole new level. Dr. Elizabeth Tunstall explains in an essay on Adobe Design Center’s Think Tank how this emerging field can help to redefine design by exploring what it means to be human.

Designers primarily concern themselves with how to create a "successful" communication, product, or experience. But with the past 10 years of globalization, digitalization, and ever increasing design complexity, designers have come to realize that to answer the question of design "success" requires that they answer that question of how the processes and artifacts of design help define what it means to be human. This "humanness" can range from how humans control the environment through tools (homo faber); how high-heeled shoes affect natural ways of walking; to moral issues of how participation in the design process empowers marginalized communities. In this space, the practice and theory of design anthropology has emerged.

Read entire article...

One Laptop Per Child, the group developing a low-cost computer for children in the developing world, has unveiled designs for a sleeker, more stylish version of the XO laptop.

The new laptop, which will be smaller and more energy efficient than its predecessor, won’t be available until 2010. When it does arrive it will have two touch-sensitive screens, enabling it to be held like a book.

Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the organisation that builds and promotes the laptops, said that the replacement will be cheaper than the current model. The XO laptop available now costs $188, despite the group’s aim to keep the price at $100. So far 600,000 of the computers have been sold.

One Laptop Per Child recently announced that the computer would be available with Microsoft’s Windows operating system. Until now only Linux-based laptops were available.

The (UK) Times reports on how you don’t need a computer anymore to browse people’s profiles.

“After the explosion in internet-based social networking (MySpace, Facebook) doing the same thing in real life instead of in front of a computer became an obvious next step. Much of it is already happening on a small scale as dozens of companies seek to exploit social networking on the go.”

“So how does it work? The key is the coming together of internet-connected mobile phones and location or proximity technology.” […]

“Effectively, by linking these two developments, your phone can tell if someone is near you and can access lots of information about them - the perfect ingredients for real social interaction.” […]

“One company based in Berlin has just gone live with its mobile social network. More than 3,000 young Germans have signed up to the aka-aki service in just over a month.”

Read entire article...

Saw this at Vivo today...it's pretty impressive but I doubt I would want to wear a pair of glasses for an hour or so. It just feels so "uncomfortable". Don't you think so?

Samsung introduces its new line of 3D-Ready DLP® HDTVs. These DLPs are equipped with technologies with inherent speed advantages over the Digital Micro-mirror Device (DMD) to generate the left and right images required for stereoscopic viewing. With the combination of this and recent technical innovations in shutter glasses, the user is able to experience a realistic high quailty, high definition 3-D image on their Samsung DLP® television set. More info here...