This morning I received an invitation to join virb, a new online community. It appears as though they're gunning after the 8 million pound gorilla that is MySpace, which they must know is a gargantuan feat. That said, virb is a hell of a lot of fun to play around with.
It appears to be built on Rails (which I've been having a lot of fun with lately) and allows for adding music, photos, videos, blog posts and the like. It seems as though they've gone to a lot of trouble developing an interface that is easy to use, and the final product is very pretty.
The music player is fantastic - you can store your playlist, get recommendations from others, etc. The player is brilliantly simple to use. You can even plug virb into itunes and access your music from there. The artists putting music up there are really good too.
They've made it easy to customize your page as well - instead of resorting to hacks like div overlays and the like, they've baked massive customization right in. I'm sure myspace hacks will run in and ugly the place up in time, but there are some really pretty pages are already up there. Hopefully when it launches folks will look to them for inspiration vs. the monstrosities they're used to.
I have no idea whether this thing can take off (maybe they don't care about toppling MySpace - what's wrong with carving out your own niche on the net and being happy with it?) but I wish them well. It's very well thought-out, and the dozens of other social networking sites out there could learn a thing or two from these guys.
I love online banking. Between online bill pay, statements that are constantly updated, the lack of junk mail and live chatting whenever I need it, it's very close to the perfect service provider solution.
Unless I want to open a new account.
I needed to open a new checking account and decided to do so online. I live in New York but still use Colorado for my permanent address. When I set up the account I specified Colorado as the state I'd like to bank in. After completing the application you're told to wait five days, which I did. You're then told to print out a bunch of paperwork, sign it and mail it away. You're then told to wait some more.
You're then told that the bank mysteriously set up your account in Florida, via a middleman in North Carolina. You're told that they don't really know why this happened, but as a result, they'll need to change your application to Colorado. Then they tell you to wait for approval.
Then they tell you to print out the same forms again, sign them and mail them to a new office in the state in which you're banking. Then you're told to wait.
You then discover you've been approved - not by receiving an approval, but by receiving two emails. One tells you how to order checks (you just have to call with your account number that you don't know,) and the other tells you how convenient your online banking will be (you just need your account number that you don't know and you pin that you haven't selected.)
You then try online chat, but in order to have a conversation you need to know your account number and, you guessed it, your online pin - a second pin number that you also haven't selected.
Online banking is a beautiful thing, but online account creation leaves a lot to be desired.
I just blew up Basecamp.
Our company had been searching for a project management solution for a long time before I first joined the team. They had evaluated the pros and cons of Microsoft Project and other tools, and had deemed them all too user-unfriendly for their purposes.
In I trotted with the diea that we use Basecamp, then a fairly new tool on the market. It's brand promise is that project management will be painless - the interface is elegant, it doesn't take any time to train new users, and it allowed us to keep in contact with our clients on a regular basis. The company embraced the idea, and I looked like a genius.
Fast forward to today - we've been using Basecamp for almost a year now, and every project we've started (roughly 250 of them) are in the system. As much as possible, we've moved away from email communication to posting messages and attachments on Basecamp. It was a little hairy (think 150 late milestones greeting you every morning, 150 to-do's that someone in the company has to update every day,) but it got the job done.
Until yesterday.
I've long had a reputation for doing something first, then asking for permission. Usually it makes me look like the proverbial 'go-getter.' But sometimes it blows up in my face.
We had a server that wasn't being utilized much. It seemed like the perfect repository for all the files we'd be storing in Basecamp (nearly 8 gigs as of last week.) So of course I set this up without asking for permission, without really notifying anyone. Why deal with IT and all the headaches that comes with? I had the access info to set everything up myself - let them deal with the 30 other things they have going on.
Yesterday, they shut down the underutilized server. And every file that's ever been stored on Basecamp - every design mockup, every revision of copy, every data set - was wiped off the face of the earth.
We were able to back it up after discovering the problem, and we have the 8 gigs of files in safe hands. But clients can't get to them. And since we used Basecamp, and agreeing to what amounts to a 'use at your risk' policy in doing so, we can't make any modifications to the file paths to represent the new location of said files.
I've learned three lessons in the past 24 hours.
- There is a definite downside to a limited customer service model.
- As much as it pains you, it probably makes sense to talk with IT before making minor decisions...like where to store every piece of client communication your company has.
- I'm going to be fired within a week.
November 26, 2005
The extremely talented Andy Rutledge weighed in on the home page design for auction mega-giant eBay earlier today. His analysis was pretty thorough, and he managed to take a page that was extremely cluttered and hone in on what he felt were the most important pieces.
Andy does a great job of focusing on creating a "usable" site - reducing the number of competing elements, being consistent with links, etc. But while he does quite a bit to create a page that adheres to the guidelines put forth by the many usability experts in the marketplace, the focus on structural usability leads to a site that ignores some other factors that can lead to a good experience.
More...
November 20, 2005
I wonder if this whole concept of user experience needs to be re-evaluated.
For the majority of "user experience" people out there, the craft is primarily a technical one. It's about expediency - moving someone from one place to another as quickly and easily as possible. Admittedly, it's a noble and worthy goal - we've all been to way too many sites that are confusing, awkward, and underwhelming.
But it seems to me as though there's a whole lot more to creating a satisfying user experience than employing lots of white space and using breadcrumbs. We should certainly work to make our sites as friendly as possible to navigate around, but we also must acknowledge the other goals of people visiting our pieces of the web.
More...
November 16, 2005
Jakob Nielsen on ClearType, the plugin from Microsoft that anti-aliases screen text to make it more readable.
“ClearType will make this user at least 10% more productive while reading from the screen, for a gain of $2,000.”
I've had it for a few weeks now and I actually have enjoyed it quite a bit. You don't notice it until you go back to looking at another PC monitor - then the difference is pretty stark.
Windows is starting to really gain ground on Apple....circa what, 1995? Anyway...you can grab it here.
via Designorati.
November 14, 2005
Lots of things on the Internet make you smirk. But few make you laugh out loud in the conference room, forcing your colleagues to look up from what they're doing to look your way. This is one of them.
November 02, 2005
We're working on the next iteration of a pretty slick tool for students on campus, and It's a doozy from an interface standpoint. The company prides itself on customizing everything we do for clients, and it's a big reason why we've been so successful. But for interfaces it can be tough - every aspect of this app can be turned on or off depending on the client, which makes placement of elements difficult.
The main difficulty is that the elements don't all merit the same space. Some pieces don't really justify a large amount of screen real estate, while others would look downright silly if they're too small. So we decided on two sizes - should make things fairly straightforward.
But if elements are turned off, the placement of the remaining pieces looks strange, especially when a larger element is removed. What does one do with the missing space?
The app has no advertising (nothing we do does,) so slapping in some random ads isn't an option. The funniest scenario is for the school that only has one module (which happens.) What happens to the page then?
We're close to rolling it out, but it's been an interesting challenge. I'm curious how other people would address it...
And they said you couldn't learn anything from Tetris...
