Interesting new screencasting utility for iOS apps - records taps, which is excellent.
Facebook Camera's log-in cleverness
Whenever we run user testing sessions for apps, we always test and re-test log-in flows. And as simple as we can make them, at a basic level, they annoy people, particularly on phone apps. Inevitably a user will turn to us and just say, “it’s my phone, why do I have to log in? It already knows who I am.” Facebook Camera might just be the first app that cracks that. Very nifty.
The shambolic Facebook IPO
“All of which means that the winners in this whole game were you and I: the quiet skeptical masses who simply sat back and watched the farce unfold. In the game of Facebook IPO, it turns out, the only winning move was not to play.”
Jonny Ive, interviewed on BBC Radio 4. Like many Apple quotes, that sounds so easy and obvious as to be trite. But compartmentalising is what many organisations drift towards. Fighting it is exceptionally hard, because many of the reasons for compartmentalising are (or seem) good: it makes accounting easier, it makes tracking responsibility easier… and yet, it causes so much complexity.Our goals are not compartmentalising… we’re very disciplined across the company, very clear, that our goal is to make the best product.
buzz, on the rhythm of the iOS user interface:
iOS UI Proportions (from Principia Arbiter: New Visual Proportions for the iOS User Interface, via Timoni West)
One thing I’ve noticed in a lot of custom iOS UIs (particularly ones designed by engineers) is a lack of attention to proportions. As this diagram demonstrates, the standard iOS UI has a visual rhythm—a major rhythm of 44 pixels and a minor rhythm of 11 pixels to be exact.
Designing The Week for iPad
Despite the fact the iPad for The Week was one of our biggest - and most successful - projects last year, I’ve not really written much about it, beyond one post looking at the product management lessons. Now Harry from Clearleft, the UX agency we worked with on The Week’s design, has written up his work on the app. It gives a good insight into designing the reading experience; particular highlights are the disparity in data density of a print DPS and iPad (1+2) screen, as well as how we responded when the first prototype tanked…
Square's approach to Product Management
Couple of interesting things in this Quora post; I think referring to the Product Managers as “Editors” is perhaps a step too far (labels are, in part, to give the unfamiliar clarity, after all) but the sentiment is bang on: the idea of editing, of selecting, of crafting a narrative, all are hugely important to product design.
The video is worth a watch, too: “Every details needs to be perfect, so you need to limit the number of details.”
How to avoid BS personas
Notes and slides from one of my favourite talks at SXSW earlier this year. I was reminded of it the other day when I was chatting to another of our Product Managers, and it’s well worth a link. Coming to Product from an Editorial background, I was always really interested in the idea of personas - that it gave empathy such a striking, central role - but they always seemed so wooden in practice. This is a really good set of suggestions about how to make personas work in a practical manner.
How Facebook knows just how popular other websites are
Obvious, but when laid out like this, really fascinating.
The Economist says Flipboard is a threat to publishers
As I noted previously, read it later services are morphing into read it elsewhere, and that’s a much bigger problem for publishers.
Magazines need to be transparent about their digital audiences - because its their future
Before It Goes Wrong: The Pre-Mortem
One problem with big projects is that they start to dictate terms to the team involved, rather than the other way round - and often, you’re not aware of it happening, at least not in public. Sure, you might have your worries that you keep to yourself, but the project generates its own gravity, the senior guys are demanding that you all have confidence and you’re tending to be optimistic…
And yet when things start going wrong, the failures don’t blindside you. They seem sort of obvious - we didn’t allow enough time for X, we underspent on Y… Sound familiar?
A really good way to avoid this happening is to engage in a pre-mortem - it’s just like a post-mortem, only you ask the key stakeholders to imagine the project has been completed (or at least, launched) and yet it has failed. They need to tell you why.
I’ve just completed a round of stakeholder interviews for a new, potentially pretty big project at work and added a pre-mortem question into the mix:
“Imagine it’s a year from now, and [project x] has launched. It’s been a total failure. Why do you think that has happened?”
I made sure to ask the question only in confidential one-on-one interviews, which helps people get away from the certainties a big project can generate of its own accord. It enables people to address (or at least to hint at) if there’s any discord on the team, and it does a very good job of pointing out areas where the project strategy is under stress. For us, it really helped crystallise areas we might have overlooked, and places people didn’t feel confident in the strategy, and I think we got a stronger product definition as a result.
More on NYT digital revenues
Another good Monday Note. Digital subs not doing too badly, but it’s a long game that requires commitment.
