In: Cool Tools| Geek Stuff| Interaction Design| Manifest Digital| Technology| User Experience Design| Videos
2 Jul 2009If you’re not a Fast Company subscriber or reader, you should be. There’s always some good content. It’s not always the first to report, but it does provide a great breadth and depth of topics, particularly around design and technology.
As a designer and techno-geek, Fast Company recently published a couple articles on “killer” Microsoft Surface Table applications. Still very much a technology looking for a solution, the Microsoft Surface Table continues to gain traction in the business world as we figure out just what to do with this BAT (big ass table). Anyway, there are some interesting applications that are showcased.
Of course I would be remiss if I didn’t give some shout outs to my friends over at Phenomblue for their Genesis application built for South by Southwest (SXSW) this year; a 3-D application allowing users to create virtual galaxies. Sweet.
And… of course, even though not mentioned, Manifest’s very own conference table application, originally designed for the interaction ‘09 conference, is pretty sweet in its own right.
In: Interaction Design| References| Research| User Experience Design
25 May 2009Recently, a student of my Interaction Design course at DePaul University asked about “ribbon” design in user interfaces. For you Microsoft Office users, you know what I mean – the new navigational element of the 2007 version. Anyway, she’s working on a fairly complex Windows-based application that is “used to drive specialized medical equipment that automates the preparatoin of intravenous nutrition solutions for critically ill patients”. Anyway, as part of our discussion, I came across some links that I haven’t seen for a while and given their great information, I thought I’d share here…
If you are familar with other great summaries of the design of the Office ribbon, please do share.
In: Branding| Cool Tools
24 May 2009I came across Wordoid.com today. It’s a site that generates “wordoids” given a few inputs that you provide – a language, a pattern and level of quality. The owners of the site say “wordoids” simply because what it comes up with is not always a real word. Think of brands and products or services such as Flickr or Meebo for example. I don’t have a lot of background context on how they received their names, but I can tell you that they’re not in Webster’s. Anyway, there’s not a whole lot on the site about how they generate the wordoids themselves, but they do use the word “automagically” in describing their process. I like that. Ya know, really technical jargon.
Here’s how they describe their product:
Wordoids are made-up words.
They look nice and feel great.
They are good for naming things.
I could see some uses for a creative brainstorm session or a naming activity of sorts. Although never a substitute for a few creative team members, a whiteboard and a beer or two, it seems to have an interesting appeal. The other nice feature is that for every wordoid provided, it provides you with whether or not the domain name is available or taken. Could a domain registrar be behind this tool? I’ve used Go Daddy to purchase domain names in the past and it always suggests additional similar domains for purchase based on what you’re buying. Hhmm…
Has anyone used this tool in that regard before? Let me know if you have, I’m curious.
Hiya, my name is Jason. I'm an experience design evangelist, business engineer and entrepreneur. I combine my knowledge, expertise and passion to create comprehensive, unmatched product experiences. Learn more