Fit and Finish: Insight from the Ironworks User Experience Group

NASDAQ Online Community Story

At long last, here is the video podcast of my interview with Bruce Hashim, VP and General Manager of NASDAQ.com, regarding the launch of their online community.  I shared the transcript and background in this earlier post.

 

 

Searching for the Fundamental Flaw

I daydream occasionally about a hypothetical candy box of doctorates, from which I might some day pluck a thesis to pursue.  The creamy center of each potential research project is a variation on the urgent question HEY,WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON HERE! 

Among many burning questions, I really want to know: Why is software for users SO difficult to design well?

Hello Newman, Hello Opportunity

There’s a famous scene on the show Seinfeld where the mailman Newman is explaining why postal workers “go postal.” He says:

“Because the mail never stops. It just keeps coming and coming and coming. There's never a letup, It's relentless. Every day it piles up more and more, but the more you get out, the more it keeps coming in. And then the bar code reader breaks. And then it's Publisher's Clearinghouse day…”

If you are in charge of a website, you may be able to relate to the never-ending nature of the job. Unlike a book, a website is never finalized. You can never sit back, prop up your feet, and say “It’s finally done.” There’s always something that should be updated, something that needs better organization or something that should be redesigned. In this sense, your site is more like a newspaper (a new issue every day) than a book. New articles need to be written and updates need to be made often or the site will become stale and out of date. How much fun is it to read a newspaper that’s a month old?

The bad news with this is there’s always something to do. The good news is there’s always something to do.

While some, like Newman, would get frustrated in an environment where the work never stops, most of us find that aspect of our jobs enjoyable. The web provides the endless opportunity for incremental improvement. You can make your site a little better each day. Fix a form. Improve the readability. Optimize for search engines. Make a function more accessible. The to-do list is endless.

And we like it that way.

Enduring Artistic Classic? Or Derivative Knockoff?

(photo at left, by Evaristo Sa, AFP/Getty Images. Taken 3/1/2010)

I ran across this photo in the USA Today yesterday (wouldn't this make it the USA Yesterday?). I love this photo. It says so much... with no words. It tells a compelling story. It offers great support to the written story. Your heart aches for this woman. 

But... it also reminds me of the famous Dorothea Lange photo, "Migrant Mother" (top right) from 1936. Which led me to wonder whether this is an artistic masterpiece of an editorial photo, captured at just that moment of despair for this woman... or a derivative knockoff. The women even look similar and have the same pose. They both are saddened caretakers for other subjects in the photo. Do I like this photo because it says so much to me? Or do I like it because I always liked the older photo? It seems similar to the song I love TODAY because it reminds me of a song I loved yesteryear. 

I guess it's a matter of taste, really. I'd have to say it's a fantastic photo. I love everything about it, really: the exhausted dog with his head on her lap; the woman's aching despair as she looks over the heaping mound of what was her life before the earthquake.

Similarly to the Lange photo of its time, this photo seems so filled with emotion that it makes one want to help... Help repair that tape deck at her feet. Give that dog a bowl of food. Give that woman something, ANYTHING, which could help her. 

Any photo which can make us think of all of that has done its job, regardless of its reminders.

Learning from Kyle Cooper

Last week, I had the opportunity to go see film title design legend, Kyle Cooper. You may not know his name, but I'm sure you've seen his work. From the dark stylings of Se7en and Dawn of the Dead to the ultra technical work on Spiderman 1, 2 & 3 and The Incredible Hulk, this guy has come to redefine the title sequence. You can see his amazing demo reel on the ADCMW event page.