J!nx is a clothing manufacturer that produces video game-inspired and licensed clothing. They hold merchandising rights to many video game-related properties (‘The Guild’, ‘Starcraft’, ‘Eve Online’) and cater to gamers, a technically proficient and lucrative market. Jinx has set some unique best practices for e-commerce that demonstrate how well it understands its... [Read more]
For the last year, the publishing industry’s complacency about digital media has been rocked by the furor over the iPad (as well as other tablets arriving on the scene). Now our research – picture-in-picture usability testing of native versus “replica” iPad magazine apps – is shedding some light on logical next steps. Publishers and iPad: From underestimation to magical... [Read more]
There may be times when you should consider looking to your brand ambassadors for help with a time-consuming aspect of your company’s operations. One effective model: recruiting your user base as moderators for a forum. Not only is it good business; it can also be a great user experience for participants as well as observers. Of course, Slashdot is the pioneer in involving its user base on a... [Read more]
I need to read. Always have. I can down books a lot faster than most, and I am bereft without something meaningful to read, especially on my frequent business trips. Anyone who knows me knows I love Vanity Fair as much as I love cyberpunk. They also know I spend a lot of time evaluating user experience (UX) for magazine apps, and all sorts of other digital products. So what does it mean when someone... [Read more]
Last week I had the privilege of participating in an event called UX for Good/UXXU 2011, organized by individuals (Insight Labs’ Jeff Leitner and Manifest Digital’s Jason Ulaszek) who saw an opportunity for five nonprofit organizations to benefit from the design discipline of user experience. Like any first-time project involving volunteers, it had its ups and downs. It also brimmed over... [Read more]
We continue to conduct usability evaluations on mostly disappointing magazine iPad apps. The usability problems for most magazine apps are sadly predictable, and much too common. Users, whether experienced iPad owners or first-time experimenters, run into trouble when trying to find tables of contents; when trying to reach a specific article within a magazine app; when distinguishing advertising from... [Read more]
Here at Interface Guru, we’ve been surveying project teams involved in the development of magazine-based apps for the iPad. It’s a topic of burning interest to many of our media clients. Our goal: to identify the most engaging, useful, usable media apps. And to find out how they got that way. We’re sorry to say that as of this writing, at the end of 2010, great brand experiences on... [Read more]
Long before the theatrical release of TRON Legacy On December 16th, I – and many others - had the opportunity to see TRON Legacy content (such as first looks at trailers and concept art) ahead of any media outlet, by playing the TRON Legacy Alternate Reality Game. The TRON campaign is a masterpiece of marketing via user experience, and demonstrates a carefully designed digital strategy. In... [Read more]
The beginning numbers for Black Friday and Cyber Monday – fuel for America’s economic engine – are rolling in. And they’re looking marginally better than last year’s. But they could be even better. Why? Because e-commerce sites are rife with usability problems – the kind that make users go elsewhere, or order less than they might have. We’re sorry to say that... [Read more]
Recently, I led a workshop in New York at MPA (formerly Magazine Publishers of America) for media professionals on evaluating usability for iPad apps. I was pleased to see some of the biggest names in the business in my workshop, where our goal was to learn how to evaluate usability and present the results in real-time. The tasks selected for evaluation included finding the table of contents in a magazine... [Read more]
