Regardless of the causes, this trend got me thinking. Can someone’s patience completely run out? Are we all born with varying degrees of patience that can be affected by what we do?  I’m starting to think that everyone is born with a reservoir of patience; and as the years tick by, the level can potentially drop. Visualizing a metaphor like this could help us measure and prevent the levels from dropping to a point where frustration takes over. As with water conservation, we need to learn to curb consumption, but we also rely on rain to replenish our supplies.

So, that leaves me with two more questions:
1) What can we do to burn less patience?
2) What can we do to replenish patience?

I’d love to hear from you guys.  Is there another way to explain the phenomenon of grumpy old men?

No related posts.

Television

NFL Network
A television network solely devoted to the NFL. Includes 8 live regular season games, in addition to preseason games and other game broadcasts. The NFL Network also offers year-round NFL programming. Learn more >

NFL RedZone
NFL RedZone is a brand new channel brought to you by NFL Network each Sunday afternoon during the season. NFL RedZone will jump from game to game to bring you key moments from around the league — live as they happen on the field in HD. DirecTV, Comcast, Verizon FIOS, and Dish Network will carry RedZone, with more carriers to come. Learn More >

NFL Sunday Ticket
NFL Sunday Ticket™ brings you access to up to 14 live games a week in the regular season.  With the player tracker, follow up to 18 players each week right on your screen – a perfect feature for Fantasy players! Also, get scores and stats of other games without missing the game you’re watching. This is carried exclusively on DirecTV.  Learn more >

Network TV
Throughout the season, catch selected games broadcast on FOX, CBS, NBC, and ESPN on Monday Nights. View the schedule >

Online

Game Center
NFL.com has launched a brand new Game Center experience, where you can follow live plays and stats from the game, making for a valuable fantasy football resource. Don’t forget to try out the new 3D Drive Chart view, and chat with other fans before, during and after the game.  Also for the first time ever, you will be able to watch in-game highlights, all without leaving Game Center! Check it out on nfl.com, by clicking on a game in the scorestrip.

Field Pass
NFL.com offers Field Pass, a subscription based product that allows you to listen to live game audio. Access live streaming audio and replays of over 250 NFL in-season games and replay archives going back to 2004; including preseason, regular season, and postseason match-ups. Get Field Pass >

Game Pass
If you live outside North America, you’re in for a treat. You can subscribe to live HD streaming video of every regular season NFL game online, and this access also includes archived broadcasts and NFL Network programming. And now for the first time, watch the all new RedZone channel as part of the Game Pass experience.  Get Game Pass >

Game Rewind
Watch every NFL game on-demand, commercial free, in its entirety. Control the archives of the 2008 and 2009 seasons in stunning HD quality video. Subscribe now, and never miss a game again. Get Game Rewind >

NFL.com/LIVE
NFL.com hosts NFL LIVE as a free on-line companion to the NFL Network broadcast games.  Submit questions to the experts and receive in-depth analysis of the game.  Learn more >

DirectTV Supercast
Included with NFL Sunday Ticket,  Supercast delivers live streaming video of every NFL Sunday Ticket game to your computer desktop. This also includes stats to track your favorite players’ performance. Learn More >

Fantasy Football
If you’ve played Fantasy Football online before, you’ll know that the likes of NFL, ESPN and Yahoo! Sports let you track your players’ performances in real-time. To many folks, following NFL games from their fantasy team’s point-of-view, is an engaging and fun experience.

Mobile

NFL Mobile Live
Get live audio broadcasts of every regular season game, live NFL Network games, live NFL Network 24/7 and customizable red zone alerts all on your Sprint mobile phone. Access the NFL whenever and however you want. Free for Sprint subscribers with any data plan. Learn more >

NFL Wireless
Use your mobile phone to access NFL.com anytime, anywhere. Keep up to date on the latest scores, news, and updates from NFL.com when you can’t be at your computer. Learn more >

DirectTV Supercast Mobile
Use your NFL Sunday Ticket subscription to access live games on your mobile phone.  This shares the same features as the Supercast computer application, meaning you can also enjoy live streaming video, highlights, scores and stats wherever you happen to be. Lear More >

Text Alerts
Sign up for mobile alerts and you’ll get instant scoring notifications as well as quarterly updates and end of game summaries. Learn more >

Radio

NFL Sunday Drive
Sirius Satellite Radio enables you to hear every game and also listen to the experts talk about the game 24/7/365.  Learn More >

Local Radio Stations
NFL teams run their own flagship radio stations, where you can listen to game-day coverage and around-the-clock analysis. Visit your team’s website for a full list of affiliates, or view all teams here.

Related posts:

1. AZCardinals.com Revamped for 2009 NFL Season Kickoff
2. Mobile Web Design trends for 2009
3. DetroitLions.com redesigned and ready for new season!

The Emotion Jacket

Paul Lemmens, a cognitive scientist in the User Experiences group of Philips, is researching the connection between emotion and touch, and how this can be used to evoke a wide range of emotions from excitement to relaxation. A jacket is worn by the user and it responds to signals encoded in a watched DVD. These signals trigger 64 independently controlled vibration motors that are distributed across the arms and torso.  This complex system of touch can then cause a shiver to go up a viewer’s spine or create butterflies in their stomach; and many other emotions to compliment the viewing experience. This kind of experience will heighten viewer empathy, by creating an emotional connection between them and the characters in the movie. Scientifically, this is a relatively unexplored territory, but as humans we have an intimate and innate connection between emotion and touch. Things look very promising for Philips as they strive to create a richer and more immersive entertainment experience for their customers.

The Hug Shirt™

This invention became famous when exhibited at Wired magazine’s NextFest and was named one of the best inventions for 2006 by Time Magazine. The Hug Shirt™ is worn and used to send and receive hugs over distance. Embedded in the shirt are sensors that feel the strength of the touch, the skin warmth and the heartbeat rate of the wearer. Actuators (receivers) also recreate the sensation of touch, warmth and emotion of the hug that has been sent from the distant sender. This experience is created by sending data from the shirt (via Bluetooth) to your mobile device, which in turn delivers the hug data to your friend’s phone, and ultimately to their shirt.  Even if one of the two doesn’t have a shirt, the “shirtless” can create and send a virtual hug using HugMe™ software running on their mobile device. Apart from the technology itself being noteworthy, a user-centered approach including prototypes and user testing was part of the product’s design process. Furthermore, this approach moved it to market more quickly with better results.

Shape Shifting Garments

In the spring of 2007, fashion designer Hussein Chalayan exhibited a range of clothing which demonstrated the use of memory shape alloys in haute couture design. Shape memory alloys potentially allow for perfect fit adjustable shaped garments. When you run a particular current through a fabric, a shape is created which is ‘remembered’ when the current is switched off. Apply a different current and a different shape is created. In other words, you have programmable clothing. This allows zippers to be closed, cloth gathered, and hemlines to rise, without human assistance.  Now you have fashion as you see fit, literally.

The Kickbee

Corey Menscher, a father-to-be, has constructed a device called the Kickbee that notifies him when his unborn baby kicks inside the womb. The Kickbee is a stretchable band with attached sensors, and is worn by a pregnant mother over her stomach. A micro-controller in the band then captures the movement of the baby kicking, and transmits the signals wirelessly to an application on a nearby computer. The computer in turn broadcasts short messages of “I kicked Mommy!” on Twitter, which can be shared with family and friends. As an expecting father, I see this as some kind of surrogate experience, a substitute for the real thing.

Force Feedback Gamer’s Vest

TN Games® has come up with an incredibly immersive impact-generating technology that utilizes an air compressor system to fire pneumatic cells, each capable of delivering up to 5 lbs of force. These cells fire at their own rates, force, and duration, giving players a wide set of sensory experiences that include punches, kicks, stabs, bullets, blasts, G-force, and other types of environmental contact effects. So if you were playing your favorite First Person Shooter, and you got hit by a bullet, you would feel the physical impact of the round, just as the game character would. The 3rd Space vest is the first product to harness TN Games’ impact-generating technology. The vest communicates with compatible games to give precise, 3 dimensionally accurate impacts where it happens, as it happens. You have to wonder about the safety of technology like this, especially under prolonged use and its potential for modification.

The Kokoro

Anaid Gomez Ortigoza, a student at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, is working on a project called ‘kokoro’ which is a wearable play-list generator for the iPod. What really stands out is the device’s ability to play music based on the pace of the user’s heart-rate. The idea is that your heart-rate changes based on your emotion or activity, and through rate change, your heart becomes an interface between you and your iPod. Matching songs to these variable rates will ideally match songs to your emotional or physical state. And while you may want to rely strictly an automatic match, there is still the ability for the user to override their heart’s choice by choosing a faster or slower setting. This works by picking up the wearer’s heart-rate via a sensor, and then transmitting the data to the Kokoro electronic device, which is housed in a textile pouch connected to an iPod.  This is a pretty simple concept but it represents a much more complex idea. That is, our body interfacing with devices on a passive and emotional level, and in doing so, freeing up our attention to focus on work or activities that require cognitive effort.

SmartLife HealthVest™

SmartLife® Technology have developed a textile based technology platform that monitors vital health signs such as ECG, heart rate, EMG, respiration, tidal flow and skin temperature. When worn, this technology continuously monitors a person’s vital signs throughout their daily lives on a 24/7 basis. The garments are designed in a very user-centric fashion, whereby the sensors are automatically in contact with the skin, their position is correctly located and the wearer requires little instruction for set-up or routine use. Data collected by the SmartLife HealthVest™ can be transmitted in real time via Bluetooth to a remote computer, PDA, or even a cell phone which in turn can alert medical personnel if necessary. The technology represents a paradigm shift from traditional high cost patient monitoring in hospitals to affordable unobtrusive remote personalized monitoring in the home or on the go; and is also an excellent example of how technology can enhance rather than disrupt life. SmartLife® stays true to their name by following a user-centered design, and turning health monitoring into a pleasant user experience. Now if only this replaced visits to the dentist!

“HAL” Robot Suit

Tsukuba University’s professor Yoshiyuki Sankai can stand tall as the inventor of this “Hybrid Assisted Limb®” or HAL. This technology is essentially a robot suit that can expand and improve the wearer’s physical capabilities.  When the wearer attempts to move, nerve signals are sent from the brain to the muscles. At this moment, HAL detects bio-signals on the surface of the skin and interprets the wearer’s intention before they actually move.  This enables HAL to move  as the wearer moves, in a synchronized non-delayed unison. Cyberdyne has embraced the overwhelming potential of HAL, and is expected to produce units for rehabilitation and physical training, disabled people, heavy labor, disaster rescue and entertainment. To own one will set you back nearly $60,000.

Soldier’s Suit

Whether we agree or not with how money is being spent on arms, the military is constantly looking to gain the edge through innovation. This desire provides a unique opportunity for technology and designers to save U.S. soldier’s lives. In 2020, the U.S. Army will roll out a suit that integrates nanotechnology, exoskeletons and liquid body armor. The suit’s helmet will house a GPS receiver, radio and network connections which enable each solider to be in constant contact with each other, and act either as individuals or as a collective. Closest to the body, a Warrior Physiological Status Monitoring System contains sensors that monitor physiological indicators such as heart-rate, blood pressure and hydration. This data is then relayed to medics who can determine whether to send in support, or provide feedback, and will be able to easily see where the solider is on a map. As protection, liquid body armor made of magnetorheological fluid protects the wearer. This fluid remains in a liquid state until an electrical pulse is applied. At this point, the armor changes from a soft state into a rigid state within thousandths of a second and protects the soldier by deflecting incoming bullets. Improving the soldier’s strength by 300% is made possible by a lower body exoskeleton made of lightweight composite devices attached to the wearer’s legs. The exoskeleton will also serve as a platform for mounting high-powered weapons. Researchers hope to see this developing technology mature in the next 15 to 20 years.

Invisibility Cloak

Firstly, as ridiculous as this sounds, inventing an invisibility cloak is based on physical laws. We see objects when the light falling on these objects is reflected back from their surface and into our eyes. The idea is to develop a device that prevents light from reflecting back into our eyes. Glass is already accomplishing such a thing, as we look right through it, but obviously wearing glass is not going to make us invisible. So what can possibly make the wearer invisible? Well according to researchers, the cloak design makes use of tiny needles to be fitted into a hairbrush shaped cone at angles and lengths that would force light to pass around the wearer. The major limitation of the current design is that it can bend light of a single wavelength and so only renders the object invisible under that specific wavelength of light. Developing a similar device that can bend lights of all wavelengths is still a technological challenge for researchers, but they have stated that it is possible according to the laws of physics. Even with invisibility under a single  light wavelength, the cloak could shield soldiers from night vision goggles. It could also be used to hide objects from laser designators used by the military to illuminate a target.  Sorry Harry Potter fans, you’re going to have to wait until technology catches up to you.

Bullet Dodging Body Armor

IBM was recently granted a patent for bionic body armor, originally filed last March, that’s intended to enable the wearer to dodge bullets. The device works by constantly emitting electromagnetic waves that bounce off any fast-moving projectiles. If the object in question is determined to be a threat, muscle stimulators activate and cause the wearer’s body to contort in such way to avoid being hit. It works under the idea that a sniper typically fires from a distance, given the armor time to detect the oncoming bullet and react accordingly. You have to wonder if The Matrix was a source of this inspiration.

Wearable Agriculture Suit

The Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology has developed an agriculture robot suit tailored to the 40% of Japan’s farm workers who are over the age of 65. Shigeki Toyama, a professor in robotics who developed the robotic harvesting and pruning suit, sought to make it industry and task-specific in order to generate cost savings in producing the suit. With Japan’s aging population, this solution seems to present a transition between human workers and what will ultimately become fully robotic ones. So you want to retire at 65? Forget it! Put this suit on and get back to work!

So what does all of this mean to us as designers?

• Firstly, I think it means we need to be aware of what technology exists and what is being developed out there. Think creatively and figure out how it can be leveraged and harnessed appropriately.
• Big corporations appreciate the massive potential of wearable technology, and are already filing patents, building prototypes and releasing to market. Take note of emerging players and follow them closely.
• Identify which industries are hungry for this kind of innovation. So far, entertainment, health care, fashion, sports and the military are embracing wearable technology.
• As designers we should be looking for lifestyle and vocational problems to solve. We have the ability to create experiences that can dramatically improve productivity through highly functional and pragmatic design. Designs can literally save and improve the quality of lives.
• Conduct ethnographic research by observing users “in the wild”.  This should be done prior to design to get an idea of how they go about their daily lives, and then again once they’re wearing the technology to see how it’s positively or negatively affecting them.
• Understand that designing wearable technology might be about allowing users to express themselves. This is especially true in the fashion and lifestyle industries.
• For certain applications, users will expect to experience things emotionally and physically.
• Identify data points and triggers on the human body. Think of how the wearer’s anatomy can be an interface for technology, in both directions. We are after all, a wonderful showcase of biological, chemical and electrical technology.
• Become skilled at sketching concepts and storyboarding. There could be many visual ways to communicate an idea, but make sure to place emphasis on storytelling. We may be dealing with abstract user interfaces that do not need wireframes, but rather require visual explanations for how the interface is used and technology works.
• A new kind of designer will be needed to pioneer and support the advancement and design of wearable technology. A hybrid set of skills will be required, with ideal candidates possessing a deep understanding of user experience principles, industrial design, and perhaps a background in technology too. There might also be demand for designers from specific industries such as fashion, health care, sports, etc.  But either way, designers that are massively out-of-the-box thinkers, will be highly sought after by both start-ups and corporations alike.

With this emerging technology and rapidly evolving user experience frontier, we should not abandon a user-centered approach to designing wearable technology. Staying true to this philosophy will make the transition for both users and designers a less stressful and more enjoyable one.  Yet while we stay the user-centered course, as designers we need to adapt and evolve our skills. Who knows, it might not be long before we’re wearing technology to design wearable technology.

Related posts:

1. IBM patents Matrix-style, bullet dodging armor
2. 20 User Experience Books you should own
3. 'Wearable Agrirobot' Power Suit Helps Aging Farm Workers

Using the Web can still be a very annoying experience!

We’ve come a long way on the web today. Or have we?  While we’ve innovated in many areas, we’ve also continued to disregard pre-existing issues. And in some cases, we have also created new ones. Here is my list of the top 65 most annoying things about the web today. They’re in no particular order, but I have organized them into what I consider core groups.

Poor Design

1. Illegible text. I can’t read that, it’s too small. And what on earth is that font called?
2. Busy backgrounds.  Oh MySpace, why do you allow users to create profiles like that? My eyes hurt.
3. Obscure links. I’m confused, can I click on that or not? Oh I get it, you don’t want me to view other pages.
4. Flyouts that are too large. Holy crap Yahoo!  This is a page within a flyout!
5. Drop-down menu navigation too many levels deep. OK, if I slowly move my mouse this way first… dammit Jim, I’m a doctor not a magician!
6. Complicated navigation. I just want to get to that page, the one over there! Oh I see, you want me to complete the maze first.
7. Abused centerpieces. Aren’t centerpieces supposed to serve as mechanisms for promotion, rather than areas to cram an entire page’s worth of content into itself? Call me an idealist, I guess.
8. Poor navigation labels. Give me a clue and use labels that make sense!
9. Clutter & chaos. With no emphasis or information hierarchy, it’s difficult for me to know what to look at, and what to do next.
10. Ugly WAPs. Many companies treat their WAP sites like a deformed step-child they keep in the basement.
11. Splash screens. Nice, a road block between your user and your home page.

Unfindable Information

1. Dysfunctional site search. (Sigh) Why didn’t this site just use Google?
2. Too many blog categories. Isn’t this what tags were meant for?
3. Contact info. I just want to speak to them on the phone! And when I say “them” i mean a human.
4. Invisible sign in. OK, so I registered, but how do I sign in?
5. Hidden account closure. I guess I’m a member for life now?
6. Unscannable info. I want to quickly know if this article is relevant. But alas, huge paragraphs, long headlines and no subheadings make for an unscannable chunk of data, and an indigestible piece of gristle.

No Content Strategy

1. No focus. Yada, yada, yada. Get to the point, what’s your message and what do you offer?
2. Spelling & grammar. Spelling mistakes are hard to forgive and really hurt credibility.
3. Ineffective product pages: What am I buying? Why should I buy this? Help me understand, and I’ll move down the purchase funnel!
4. Outdated. There’s nothing more thrilling than seeing a blog frozen in time. At some point, a landfill for websites is going to be needed.
5. Small photos. Why would I buy something I cannot see?

Auto-Behavior

1. Auto-playing home page video. Take note ESPN.com: the first thing I do when coming to your site is scramble to find the video pause button. And that’s when I’m surfing from home.
2. Auto browser resizing. And you did that because?
3. Customer service nags. Ironic really. Chat pop-ups appear like genies out of a lamp when I don’t need them.
4. Theme tunes. Got to love that auto-play music, especially when it cycles over and over and over, and over.
5. Auto opt-ins. It seems like an automatic opt-in is a contradiction in terms to me. No I don’t want your newsletter, and if I did, I’d opt-in.

Evil Forms

1. Unreadable captchas. Pure Evil. If I had a brick, why I would…
2. Too many fields. This is utterly exhausting. Oh forget it, I’m going to abandon this form.
3. Cryptic error messaging. OK, so I made a mistake. If you used English, I might be able to fix it.
4. No confirmation. Was I successful or not? I’m looking for anything here, a “thank-you”, a “job well done”, a “good boy”… anything that confirms the form was indeed a submitted form.
5. Too many constraints. I want to add my Canadian zip code, but you’re validating against the US format only!
6. Too small fields. How I’m supposed to enter my street address in that state-sized field?
7. The reset button. Do we really need this? I especially love it when I accidentally press “reset” instead of “submit”. It’s especially satisfying when it’s a long form.

Intrusive Advertising

1. Pop-ups. And that includes those fancy, flashy, moving, hard-to-close ones. Are you serious? This is 2009.
2. Interstitials. Thanks for adding another click and creating a barrier between me and your content! Give me a reason to leave, I dare you.
3. Flyouts via links in content. Oh darn, I didn’t know that was an ad! Thanks for punishing me.
4. Too many Google ads. I know there’s some content around here….
5. Long video pre-rolls. Is this ad ever going to end? Hang on; I forgot what video I clicked on.
6. The bus stop. Home pages that resemble bus stops — flyers, posters, graffiti all shouting at me. Sometimes, I swear I can even smell urine.

Accounts

1. Remembering user names and passwords. Seriously, how many do I need to keep track of? Just give me Facebook connect already!
2. Being forced to register for purchases. I just want to buy it, OK? Forget it, I’m going elsewhere.
3. Forced password reset. I just want to know my password! The one I chose but have forgotten. I know you know.
4. Getting locked out. I get the three-attempts-and-you’re-out idea, but it would be nice to know the rules before hand!
5. Password sent by “snail mail”. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. Should I expect a scroll to be delivered and read by a messenger?

Abuse

1. Spam. We still cannot cure this disease?
2. Viruses. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I’d say the anti-virus companies were creating these. You know, supply and demand and all.
3. Phishing. Particularly sneaky; and definitely a step beyond annoying.
4. Trolls on messageboards/blogs. Oh well, that’s life I guess – art imitating life and all.
5. Fake profiles. Am I following the real Steven Hawking on Twitter? It says here he went bowling last night.
6. Facebook app invitations. For the thousandth time, no I do not want to play Mob Wars, and no I don’t want a “pet in an egg” either.

Technology

1. Explorer 6. I speak for all developers here, if there’s a plug attached, please pull it. RIP Explorer 6.
2. Plug-ins. Not only do I have to download another plug-in, I have to keep these things current!
3. Entire sites built in flash. I don’t get it, why?
4. PDF overuse. Why couldn’t this PDF just be a web page?
5. Dell’s Netbook trackpad. Designed to be web browsing device, Dell’s Mini 10 trackpad has a trillion bells and whistles, but cannot fulfill basic tasks like moving the cursor from point A to point B without going to C first.
6. Small netbook screens. While mobile devices have optimized views for their screens, Netbooks and their 9 and 10 inch screens are caught in a weird place.
7. Inconsistent colors. Optimizing colors and contrast across both Macs and PCs is a designers nightmare.
8. Charging for Wi-Fi. Provide it free of charge, and the patrons will come!

Waiting

1. Slow page load. OK that’s it, I’ve been patient and their 3 seconds are up.
2. Comment approval. I thought, I articulated, I commented, I waited. Nothing.  That will teach me to contribute.
3. Black-hole between ordering and shipping. I took me 5 minutes to order this laptop, why isn’t it getting shipped? Should I place my order again? Should I cancel this order? What’s the order status?
4. Twitter is down again. I’m starting to think this is a feature. One akin to a long line outside a trendy night club.
5. Customer service. Since I cannot get a human on the phone, a 24 hour response time to my e-mail is not acceptable. Well look at that, I guess you just quantified the value of my business.
6. Submission timers. I saw this really great article! I know, I’ll post it on Reddit. And there’s another one, I’ll post that on Reddit too. What, I have to wait 10 minutes to post another article? That will  teach me to contribute.

Related posts:

1. The 10 Commandents for Designing Less Evil Forms
2. Best of the Web Weekly Roundup: September 5–11

1. Adblock Plus
Ever been annoyed by all those ads and banners on the internet that often take longer to download than everything else on the page? Install Adblock Plus now and get rid of them. Watch a quick overview.

2. Xmarks
Xmarks is the #1 bookmarking add-on. Install it on all your computers to keep your bookmarks and (optionally) passwords backed up and synchronized. Xmarks also helps you uncover the best of the web based on what millions of people are bookmarking.

3. Cooliris
The Cooliris 3D Wall — Simply the fastest and most stunning way to browse photos and videos from the Web or your desktop. Effortlessly scroll an infinite “3D Wall” of your content from Facebook, Google Images, YouTube, Flickr, and hundreds more.

4. Video DownloadHelper
This is a tool for web content extraction. Its purpose is to capture video and image files from many sites.Just surf the Web as you are used to, when DownloadHelper detects it can do something for you, the icon gets animated and a menu allows you to download files by simply clicking an item. For instance, if you go to a YouTube page, you’ll be able to download the video directly on your file system. It also works with MySpace, Google videos, DailyMotion, Porkolt, iFilm, DreamHost and others.

5. Yoono
All your social networks and instant messaging in one easy to use browser sidebar. Get all your friend updates, update your status and share stuff easily across Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and more – all at once! Simplify your online social life.

6. Shareaholic
Shareaholic is a lightweight and easy to use add-on for Firefox with a minimal browser footprint. Shareaholic makes it very simple to quickly, and very easily share, bookmark, and e-mail any web page via a wide array of your favorite web 2.0 social networking, bookmarking, blogging, and e-mail services.

7. WOT
WOT, Web of Trust, warns you about risky websites that try to scam visitors, deliver malware or send spam. Protect your computer against online threats by using WOT as your front-line layer of protection when browsing or searching in unfamiliar territory.

8.  TwitterBar
TwitterBar allows you to post to Twitter from Firefox’s address bar. A small Twitter icon sits to the right of your address bar; clicking on it will post your tweet, and you can hover your mouse over it to see how many characters you have left.

9. Fire.fm
Fire.fm gives you access to the extensive music library on Last.fm. Last.fm gives free radio to the US, UK, and Germany, plus subscriber-based service to the rest of the world. Listen to your favorite music and discover new artists in the process.

10.  WebMail Notifier
WebMail Notifier checks your webmail accounts and notifies the number of unread emails. Supports: gmail, yahoo, hotmail, daum, naver, empas, nate and more.

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3. Mozilla Labs: Ubiquity Updated

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die | By Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Drawing extensively on psychosocial studies on memory, emotion and motivation, their study is couched in terms of “stickiness”—that is, the art of making ideas unforgettable. They start by relating the gruesome urban legend about a man who succumbs to a barroom flirtation only to wake up in a tub of ice, victim of an organ-harvesting ring. What makes such stories memorable and ensures their spread around the globe? The authors credit six key principles: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions and stories.

A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future | By Daniel H. Pink
With visionary flare, Pink argues that business and everyday life will soon be dominated by right-brain thinkers. He identifies the roots and implications of transitioning from a society dominated by left-brain thinkers into something entirely different—although at times, he seems to be exhorting rather than observing the trend. As a narrator, Pink delivers in a well executed manner, with occasional hints of enthusiasm.

Technique for Producing Ideas | By James Young
Since its publication in 1965, A Technique for Producing Ideas has helped thousands of advertising copywriters smash through internal barriers to unleash their creativity. Professionals from poets and painters to scientists and engineers have also used the techniques in this concise, powerful book to generate exciting ideas on demand, at any time, on any subject. Now let James Webb Young’s unique insights help you look inside yourself to find that big, elusive idea–and once and for all lift the veil of mystery from the creative process.

How to Get Ideas | By Jack Foster
How To Get Ideas answers the basic questions of where do ideas come from, why do some people get so many of them, and is there some secret technique to getting more of them. How To Get Ideas answers these questions and demonstrates that any reader, regardless of age or skill, employment or training, can come up with more ideas, faster and easier than ever before in his or her life. Author Jack Foster shows how to condition the mind and become “idea-prone”; how to make the child within us and our sense of humor work for us; how to develop our curiosity, visualize our goals, rethinking our thinking, combine different ideas, and overcome our fear of rejection

IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea | By Sam Harrison
How do you unleash bursts of creativity, increase occurrences of spontaneity and ultimately find great ideas? Through anecdotes, interviews, quotes, tips, creative exercises and success stories from the biggest corporations in the country, author Sam Harrison shows you how to think outside the box—then throw away the box for good.

 
Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques | By Michael Michalko
Tinkertoys  will teach you how to generate new ideas for businesses, markets, sales techniques, and products and product extensions. Packed with fun and practical tools and exercises, it outlines 30 practical linear and intuitive techniques that can be used by individuals or groups to tackle and solve business problems in fresh, creative ways. An updated edition of the best-selling business creativity book, with more than 30 brainstorming techniques and hundreds of creative-thinking tips and tricks. Revision includes new techniques, examples, and sections on group brainstorming and endgames.

A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative  | By Roger von Oech
Now Roger von Oech’s fully illustrated and updated volume is filled with even more provocative puzzles, anecdotes, exercises, metaphors, cartoons, questions, quotations, stories, and tips designed to systematically break through your mental blocks and unlock your mind for creative thinking. This new edition will attract an entire new generation of readers with updated and mind-stretching material.

 
Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius | By Michael Michalko
What exactly is creativity? Why do some people seem to have so much of it? Can their secrets be learned? In this trail-blazing book, internationally renowned business creativity expert Michael Michalko answers these questions and more, bringing life-changing techniques into everyone’s reach. Michalko has researched and analyzed over 100 of history’s greatest thinkers-from Leonardo da Vinci to Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison to Walt Disney-to show readers how creative people think and how to put their secrets to use.

Caffeine for the Creative Mind | By Stefan Mumaw
For any designer or creative type who wants to quickly limber up their imagination on a daily basis, Wired helps readers get into the creative zone, from which all their best work springs. Packed with 15-minute simple and conceptual exercises, this guide will have readers reaching for markers, pencils, digital cameras, and more in order to develop a working and productive creative mindset.

Zing!: Five Steps and 101 Tips for Creativity On Command | By Sam Harrison
A five-step process for generating big ideas in business, personal, and professional contexts is outlined in this high-energy guide to the creative process. Real-world anecdotes and inspirational messages complement the straightforward discussions of exploring, being free, pausing, embracing, and enjoying life. These five steps cover issues such as how to use observation to uncover fresh ideas, how potential ideas are stymied, and how incubation allows the subconscious to find solutions.

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1. Recruiting Unsuitable Participants
It’s vital that you validate a design through the eyes of your user. But who are your users? Work with marketing folks to understand your target audience, and screen potential participants accordingly.  If you have recruited participants that are too advanced, they might not uncover usability issues that a more typical user might experience.  Regardless of how good the moderator might be, if you don’t have suitable and relevant participants, you won’t be getting an accurate usability assessment.

2. Not identifying the Critical Tasks
Have you identified the primary use cases and goal-oriented tasks?  Really think critically here, and focus on the  most important ones only. Hopefully you have already designed the user interface around these tasks, so bring them into the test. Write a test script that includes a moderator guide, and provide context to the tasks. Make users feel like they are in a real-life situation by telling them a story.E.g. “It’s 5 days before Christmas and you need to buy your nephew in Germany a Nintendo Wii”. Critical tasks are not only a usability concern, they’re equally impactful on the business. 

3. Testing Too Much For Too Long
Don’t feel like you have to test every single aspect of a user interface, nor every single possible task. Focus on what’s critical and if necessary, break the test into multiple phases. After 45 minutes or so, most users will tire and will have trouble focusing. So keep the sessions to under an hour if possible.

4. Allowing Participants to be Designers
As a general rule of thumb, you should be looking for what participants DO more than what they say. It’s OK to ask what their impressions are, especially when comparing a new design against an old one. Just be careful about taking their feedback literally.  E.g. A user may have a personal preference for red, and suggest that all buttons should be red and flashing. Now, taking this feedback literally could actually introduce usability issues. Observe, filter and interpret.

5. Asking Too Many Questions
Keep in mind that a usability test should be focused primarily on task completion, navigation, comprehension, and interaction. While it’s OK to ask some questions to understand how satisfied they are with the experience, most of the findings should be derived through observation and not questioning.

While these are what I consider the top 5 mistakes made, there are many more to consider. What other common mistakes would you add to this list?

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Visualizing search results can tread a fine line.  A fragile line that separates usefulness and gratuitousness.  To some degree, this judgement is subjective depending on the orientation of a user’s brain. The visual folks out there will  be drawn to visually rich interfaces, and in this case, search results. Take a look and let me know what you think. Useful or gratuitous?

1. Viewzi

Using Yahoo!, Google and Viddler, you can search the Web, images and videos. The results can then formatted as a power grid, a Google timeline, web screenshots, simple text, a photo tag cloud, and more. Results can be also customized as you can star or hide sites you care / don’t care about. Considering all the options to choose from, the interface is easy to use, and fun too! A robust, slick, feature-rich choice.  http://www.viewzi.com

2. Spezify

Using Yahoo!, Amazon, Twitter, Flickr, eBay and MSN, Spezify searches for text, images and video. The results are consumed on a wall, which can be panned in all directions.  What’s really practical and impressive is the ability to play video in-line, without leaving the results.  Spezify is a joy to use and might have been my first pick if it wasn’t for Viewzi’s more robust feature set. I’d also like to see Google added to Spezify’s sources.  http://www.spezify.com

3. Grokker

Grokker takes advantage of Yahoo!, Wikipedia, and Amazon Books search engines to perform its queries. The results are displayed in both a standard outline and a dynamic map; sorted by date, source, domain and then refined by selecting (or excluding) specific related keywords. Grokker isn’t the most visually appealing search engine, but it does keep one foot on traditional search engine turf. This might be good or bad, depending on your appetite for visuals being the primary means to browse or navigate through the results. http://www.grokker.com

4. Searchme

Searchme displays results in a dynamic carousel stack you can navigate back and forth. Searches are performed in multiple categories like videos, images, advertising, shopping, sport,, entertainment, news, and more. Other features include a parental filter, the possibility to play media right inside Searchme, and the sharing of your results via Twitter and Facebook.  I’m surprised that sharing and social book marking hasn’t been integrated across search engines more often. http://www.searchme.com

5. KartOO

KartOO searches the Web, images, videos and Wikipedia entries while using Google, and Yahoo! search engines The results can be displayed as visual map where related results are linked between them, which you can then use as additional search criteria.  A solid visual search engine, but does need a little help with their visual design and branding.  http://www.kartoo.com

Honorable Mentions:
http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html
http://www.cooliris.com/
http://www.quintura.com
http://www.eyeplorer.com/
http://www.ziipa.com/
http://www.redzee.com/
http://www.liveplasma.com/
http://www.ujiko.com/
http://www.search-cube.com/
http://middlespot.com/
http://oskope.com/
http://www.nexplore.com/

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“The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular,” said TV historian Tim Brooks, who helped launch Sci Fi Channel when he worked at USA Network.

The hope is that changing to “Syfy” is less geeky than the name “Sci Fi.” At least Dave Howe, president of the Sci Fi Channel is betting the farm on this one.

The network worked with the branding consultancy Landor Associates and went through about 300 possibilities before selecting “Syfy” as the new name and brand.

“When we tested this new name, the thing that we got back from our 18-to-34 techno-savvy crowd, which is quite a lot of our audience, is actually this is how you’d text it,” Mr. Howe said. “It made us feel much cooler, much more cutting-edge, much more hip, which was kind of bang-on what we wanted to achieve communication-wise.”

The network made the changeover on July 7, when it launched the new series “Warehouse 13.”

Syfy? Really? It’s honestly difficult for me to believe their approach, and the new brand fails on so many levels.

Why the rebrand fails:

• The logo doesn’t translate well to small sizes, and looks more like “Sgfg” in a smaller scale. 
• It looks like a typo, at first glance – or perhaps a sign for a Finnish Genetics Lab.
• This could be a new wonder drug for Syphilis – a particular strain from the future perhaps?
• Too much attention to the name, and not enough to the programming.
• Attempting to attract women, but confusing the existing viewer base.

This has the Tropicana OJ re-branding fiasco written all over it.

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The UX map above illustrates a scenario of an executive traveling on a plane and expands this to encompass his customer experience. Surrounding this persona, the wheel divides the experience into “before”, “during” and “after” segments; with each divided into specific “micro-experiences”. The wheel then layers emotions on each “micro-experience”, while also identifying “make or break” moments that could potentially result in a customer becoming an ex-customer.

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So, as designers for the web, how can we make forms less evil and more usable? Why by following these 10 commandments of course!

1. Use labels above your fields for reduced completion time.
2. Try to avoid using optional fields. These only make the form longer, and can’t be that important if they’re optional.
3. Group related content together for more organized forms.
4. Remove secondary actions and focus on primary ones. That is, most people don’t use “reset”, “cancel” or “back” but rather use “submit”, “continue” and “register”.
5. For long forms, break them out into steps with a progress indicator.
6. For short forms, consider using a modal window to allow users to sign-in or register without leaving their spot in on site.
7. Provide flexible data input. Don’t you hate it when you have to enter your phone number in a particular format? Allow users to enter as they prefer.
8. Clearly communicate when an error has occured at the top of the form in a visual language that can be repeated next to the field in question.
9. When a user submits a form, provide a visual clue that the “wheels are turning” and consider deactivating the “submit” button.
10. Once the form submission is successful, let the user know. This way they can stop sweating and know they have survived their confrontation with evil.

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I’m sure everyone is aware of the titanic battle between Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine, and Google. But I doubt the pundits give Bing any hope of pushing Google off their long occupied and solitary pedestal.

To get an idea of user preferences between the two search engine interfaces, Catalyst Group, a New York based usability research company brought the battle into the lab.

The Approach

• 12 subjects were recruited who all used Google as their main search engine.
• During the usability test, they were monitored with eye-tracking cameras.
• Afterwards, they were interviewed and completed a survey.

Eye-Tracking results

• All participants ignored Google’s navigation links along the top left of the page. (Web, Video, Images, etc.)
• Half of the participants used the Explore Pane on the left side of Bing’s home and results pages.
• Heat maps generated by the eye-tracking data, revealed people scrolling much further down Google’s search results pages.

Survey Results

• After the test subjects were asked to rate the search engines on visual design, organization of features, filtering options and relevance of results, Bing handily beat Google in all these criteria except search results relevance, where it tied.
• However, only 4 of the 12 said they preferred Bing overall. The other 8 said they preferred Google because they were used to it, or that Bing’s improvements were not enough to make them switch.

Catalyst CEO Nick Gould concludes that Microsoft “created something as good as Google and that is not good enough.” Overall, the test subjects “were not swayed.” No wonder Microsoft is spending up to $100 million on Bing marketing. With such a loyal mass of worshipers, it’s going to be difficult enough for Bing to scale the mountain before them, let alone dethrone the god of search engines.

View the complete study below:

Catalyst Group Bing V. Google Usability Study –

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What are your top 5 User Experience books?

1. Subject To Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World
   by Peter Merholz
2. Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning
   by Dan Brown
3. Contextual Design: A Customer-Centered Approach to Systems Designs (Interactive Technologies)
   by Hugh Beyer
4. Designing Web Navigation: Optimizing the User Experience
   by James Kalbach and Aaron Gustafson
5. Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices (Voices That Matter)
   by Dan Saffer
6. Designing for the Social Web (Voices That Matter)
   by Joshua Porter
7. Designing Interfaces
   by Jenifer Tidwell
8. Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design
   by Robert Hoekman Jr.
9. Designing Web Interfaces
   By Bill Scott
10. The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web (Voices That Matter)
    by Jesse James Garrett
11. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites
    by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville
    
12. A Project Guide to UX Design: For user experience designers in the field or in the making
    by Russ Unger and Carolyn Chandler
13. Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition
    by Steve Krug
14. Measuring the User Experience: Collecting, Analyzing, and Presenting Usability Metrics (Interactive Technologies)
    by Thomas Tullis
15. Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design
    by Bill Buxton
16. Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior
    by Indi Young
    
17. Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions
    by Tim Ash
    
18. Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks
    by Luke Wroblewski
19. The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures
    by Dan Roam
    
20. Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Research
    By Mike Kuniavsky

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It seems there has been a recent surge in search engines fighting for our attention. They all claim to serve information via their own unique approach. 

Google vs Bing vs Wolfram Alpha vs Hunch - You be the judge, which search engine is for you?

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Recently, a group called Improv Everywhere performed their Sixth Annual Mp3 Experiment. This one involved over 2,000 people of all ages downloading the same mp3 and pressing play at the same time.  As seen in the video, they responded to a creepy instructional voice (think SAW) and were mindlessly led (think cult) through a series of goofy activities.

At least it looks like everyone had a blast and ended up connecting on a human level. Perhaps this is a great example of technology catalyzing human connection. My recent post about embracing the caveman within is a relevant read.

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Furthermore, Ilardi fingers our modern, industrialized lifestyle as the key culprit behind the burgeoning depression epidemic, which continues to worsen despite decades of sharp increases in pharmaceutical consumption.

“A century ago, according to the best epidemiological evidence we have, the lifetime rate of depressive illness in the U.S. was about 1 percent,” said Ilardi. “The rate now stands at 23 percent. So we’ve had roughly a 20-fold increase over the course of a century. Since World War II there’s been roughly a 10-fold increase. And a recent study found the rate of depression has more than doubled in just the past decade.”

Published June 1, Ilardi’s book, The Depression Cure: The 6-Step Program to Beat Depression without Drugs
, is based on research suggesting that depression can be treated effectively by helping people reclaim healing habits from a more primitive way of life. In fact, Ilardi thinks this may be a superior approach than modern psychotherapy or antidepressant drugs, which typically work for only about half the patients who try them. The KU researcher heads a large treatment study, dubbed the Therapeutic Lifestyle Change project, which calls for patients to adopt six healing elements from the ancient past: consuming more omega-3 fatty acids; using engaging activity to combat rumination; getting regular sunlight exposure; increasing physical exercise; connecting more with others socially; and getting increased (and healthier) sleep.

“As a species, humans were never designed for the pace of modern life,” said Ilardi. “We’re designed for a different time – a time when people were physically active, when they were outside in the sun for most of the day, when they had extensive social connections and enjoyed continual face time with their friends and loved ones, when they experienced very little social isolation, when they had a much different diet, when they got considerably more sleep and when they had much less in the way of a relentless, demanding, stress-filled existence.”

Many elements of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle are robustly antidepressant, Ilardi said. In fact, the KU psychology professor mused that if the neurological benefits of exercise alone could be concentrated into a pill, it would become the best-selling, most-effective antidepressant ever marketed.

In addition to positive results from his own ongoing research study, Ilardi points to low rates of depression among contemporary peoples whose lifestyles mirror those of our ancestors. The American Amish, for example, have rates of depressive illness far lower than that of the broader American population. Likewise, anthropologist Edward Schieffelin observed that the Kaluli people of the New Guinea highlands – whose day-to-day existence of foraging and gardening is akin to that of our remote ancestors – are almost completely free of depressive illness.

For Ilardi, such findings are conclusive that depression primarily stems from modern living: social isolation, fast-food-laden diets, physical inactivity, sleep deprivation and less exposure to the outdoors.

With the explosion of social networking online, it’s obvious that today’s society is a composite of socially isolated individuals, whom through a variety of  online activities, are striving to fill a common void.  Perhaps the key to truly satisfying social connection, is for online activities to serve as catalysts for individuals to come together, rather than substitutes for the real thing.

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Curtis describes the project like this:

This Google Earth project offers an extensive mapping of North Korea’s economic, cultural, political, and military infrastructures. Through the topic menu, users of this program have easy access to geographical information on North Korea’s agriculture projects, aviation facilities, communications, hospitals, hotels, energy infrastructure, financial services, leisure destinations, manufacturing facilities, markets, mines, religious locations, restaurants, schools, and transportation infrastructure. In addition to locations of economic interest, this map also displays anti-aircraft locations, the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and Northern Line Limit Line (NLL), incarceration facilities, political monuments, political residencies, military bases, and nuclear facilities.

North Korean landmarks seen in Google Earth

 Truly impressive work. Get it here

This is yet another example of a coordinated and willing community empowering themselves, and achieving what would be unimaginable only a few years ago.  Perhaps the “eye in the sky” or the “big brother” could be a label worn by the community too.

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This is a great example of a brand staying current. With the recent surge of graphic novels being made into motion pictures, this recent Adidas commercial manages to mimic the drama and visual impact of its counterparts.  It’s not often a commercial a) excites the consumer and b) leaves them wanting to see more.

Furthermore, the integration of Messi and Zidane into the commercial is smart. They are leveraged as personalities who contribute to the storyline and brand, rather than cliched thumb-raised cardboard cutouts, endorsing a boot.

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An excellent documentary that reveals where Google has come from and where they’re headed, as well as their general philosophies and methodologies. We also get to see the faces, personalities, and egos behind the search engine.

Whether you agree or disagree with Google’s approach to leveraging information, this is a must watch video.

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Megan Fox on the cover of Esquire Magazine, June 2009.

Captured on the Red One Digital Camera (that’s a frame resolution of 4096×2304, or 9.4 megapixels), the video-sourced cover image of Megan Fox,  is thought to be a first in the magazine industry, challenging traditional SLR photography and the distinctions of photo vs video.

In terms of where this technology is best suited, I would imagine this approach makes more sense for shooting sports and other high-speed subject matter. Where a millisecond can make the difference between a great shot and a bad one.

Sadly, this is yet another step towards automating the photographic process, and leaving the photographer’s skill of anticipating and capturing a moment in time, obsolete.

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