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I recently had the pleasure of connecting with colleagues in Croatia Vibor Cipan and Darko Čengija about Wall of Tweets.

My first experience with Wall of Tweets was while watching talks at the TEDxMälaren event in June; and I really enjoyed the interaction!

Context is easily lost, and often misunderstood on Twitter. Live tweeting is another popular process, but unless one is sitting in on the presentation it is very difficult to convert the value of the ideas into meaningful actions in only 140 characters.

At the TEDxMälaren event I was able to watch the presentation (from Ottawa, Canada) and connect with others around the world simultaneously.

As TechCrunch recently published:

While current solutions like Twitterfall are free, they don’t look as nice and end up showing some of the tweets late, due to a limit on the API calls from the centralized Twitterfall server. Wall of Tweets is a paid service, so they do guarantee it will work, as well as letting you host it on your own server if you really want to.

As a special promotion, Wall of Tweets is offering all UX, IA and design-related conferences worldwide with free licenses – both online HTML versions and rich, venue-based versions. All you need to do is to send Vibor an email and ask for a free license. You can reach him at vcATfatduxDOTcom

Recent examples of Wall of Tweets:

Anyhow, I wanted to share some news with you. I sincerely love those opportunities when we get some time and chance to share what are we working on and how do we see the world around us via this blog.

On July 9th there will be exactly 9 months since our official incorporation. Before joining FatDUX, I’ve worked at Microsoft Development Center in Copenhagen, Denmark. My team there was really proud on the fact that they have consistent and strong track of record delivering the solutions, products and services to customers. We used to celebrate product releases with “We deliver” parties. And that culture of constant ability to deliver was something that has influenced and shaped me, and now the team I’m leading here in Zagreb.

So, nine months behind us – we have delivered, too. Pun intended.

It’s hard to list all the projects and clients we’ve worked with and to list specifics of those projects – some are still under NDA, but I can say that we’ve been working on all UX fronts – from mobile, desktop and web solutions, digital signage, copywriting, SEO and analytics to consulting and education. We’ve bitch slapped the crisis and opened some new opportunities and markets outside the Croatia and Europe.

Staying lean and effective is one of my personal goals. Delivering exceptional value to our customers is our DNA. Delivering constantly is our mission.

If I have to pick a single project we’ve worked on, it’s definitely our Wall of Tweets twitter wall. It’s a best available customized twitter wall solution. Hands down. Used and accessed by thousands of users every month, used by clients big and small, it’s something we did for fun, as a pet project. We kept it simple. Powerful. Engaging. And we still keep innovating and delivering on those values.

So, as we are approaching our first birthday (by the way, our mothership, The FatDUX Group has celebrated 4 successfully years last week, hear, hear!), I’m confident and inspired more than ever that we will keep delivering. After all, with this team, it’s just a game. One we are so passionate about.

It’s what customers expect from us. It’s what we must give to the world. It’s what we LOVE.

1. My boss was pulling his hair trying to fix his voicemail, so he left the phone on my desk.

2. Well – how can you truly appreciate what you have, before knowing if something better is out there?

iPhone and HTC Desire side by side

First glance
HTC Desire’s interface fades in comparison to the extremely intuitive and user-friendly one of the iPhone. iPhone does everything you’d expect it to do, and has only one main navigational button. Desire has several buttons with various and unclear functions.

Already after trying to accomplish just a few fairly simple tasks, I felt a bit stupid. I’m sure that a lot of well-meaning developers have spent a lot of time making this a user-friendly phone, but it’s like they had a big bucket of logic and just stuffed it in there, hoping for the best.

I did manage to complete the tasks I had in mind, but I didn’t quite understand the process until it was actually done.

Logic should be conceived before, and not after completing a task!

A tailored suit
HTC Desire provides a lot of opportunities for personalization, and this will definitely increase the ease of use, in the long run for the individual user. This is one of the major downsides to the iPhone; the degree to which you can customize it. HTC Desire (and other Android phones) are different.

Whereas iPhone is the Swiss knife – a slick multi-tool with great and diverse functionality – HTC Desire is a whole toolbox. You get to decide exactly which tools you carry and exactly how big your hammer is. It might be a big mess in there, but you can always find a screwdriver bit that fits if you look hard enough.

I see this as a huge advantage for the power user, but probably more of a distraction to the user who just wants to make calls, browse and listen to music.

Although logic may not be Desire’s trademark, I stumbled across one thing that it does way better than the iPhone; the browser automatically re-shapes text, according to the width, when zooming. This means that you only have to scroll one way while reading. This is very valuable, since browsing is one of the core features of these kinds of phones.
I probably wouldn’t even have noticed this, if it wasn’t because I’m used to the double-scrolling on my iPhone. And this is what great usability is all about; making things so easy that you wouldn’t even consider it to be “a solved issue”.

Navigation
By default, HTC Desire comes with seven different home scenes. Seven! Quite intimidating when you’re first trying to figure out what’s going on. I like iPhone’s approach better, where you create screens as you go along.

As I mentioned in the beginning, Desire has several navigational buttons – real physical buttons outside the screen. In my opinion this creates more confusion than value to the user. One of the things I love about touch-screen phones is that the navigation is contextual. This creates instant comprehension of your options because buttons are labeled exactly to the given situation, and not with a generic icon. Introducing five permanent buttons like HTC has done with Desire, simply breaks this great convention.

A specific example of where this can end wrong is when you have to scroll down to find the button you’re looking for. You might not even get to the scrolling part because you are unaware of the fact that the screen holds more information. Left with a bunch of buttons to push, you might end up loosing all the info you’ve just typed in, because you choose to push the button with the sweet little icon, which is actually the home button. By keeping the navigation strictly on-screen and strictly contextual, this will never occur.

Much like iPhone’s Spotlight, Desire has an internal search function as well. To me, Spotlight has proven to be one of the most powerful and fast ways to navigate. By typing just a few characters, you are able to find contacts, emails, songs, calendar posts and much more. Desire has extended their search function to include suggested web searches. In my opinion, this decreases the efficiency because it broadens the search so much that you have to type at least twice the amount of characters to find what you’re looking for.

With a great name comes great responsibility
As stated in the dictionary: ”Android = a robot resembling a human being”.

We can all agree that even the most advanced cell phone on the market is far from being human. Nonetheless, Google has chosen to name their mobile operating system as if it is exactly this. Overkill? I actually think Android is quite a clever name. It passes through the message well, that this system has more to it than just standard cell phone capabilities.

The problem is, that if I should put a head on the human being, whom the system resembles, and hence HTC Desire, it would be a software developer. Considering it is in direct competition with the iPhone, a slightly broader target group seems appropriate.

Verdict
There’s no real right and wrong here. It all breaks down to your specific needs. A good example is the way it works together with Google. If you are a Google user, you will benefit greatly from the integrated synchronization features, if you’re not, it’s just more noise on the line.

I think HTC Desire is a great phone, and I would recommend it anytime – but only to the right persons.

Personally I’m going to stick with my iPhone. It has the functionality I need, and it lets me access it quick and easy. And it still is, the sweetest piece of eye candy out there.

Vision statements are particularly dangerous. Like watching two people make out in a darkened cinema, the better the content, the more distasteful it is to an outside observer:

“We’re going to be number one in our market by…[action item].”

The more effective the action item, the less likely it is that you’ll want to broadcast this information to your competition.

“Don’t write naughty words on walls if you can’t spell”
The “boilerplate” text printed on the rear cover of a brochure, or the front of a website is equally political. Enthusiastic sales reps and other unskilled laborers think that adding useless adjectives and overworked buzzwords will improve the message.

I just looked through some of the strategic mission/vision stuff I’ve written the past 10 years or so. Curiously, the text that was screwed around with the least, often belongs to the companies that have done the best.

As a public service, I have glued together some of the blather and buzz I’ve witnessed into a single, universal boilerplate.

About [the company]
Headquartered in [someplace], we are leaders in [something]. Since [sometime], our client-centric core competencies have represented the highest standards of quality and reliability, coupled with service that truly delights. We align our customers’ needs with current best-practice usage paradigms and thus enable people to seamlessly leverage their abilities and maximize their efficiency in a truly proactive manner. Our ongoing commitment to sustainable innovation ensures that we will remain the preferred supplier for our clients around the [world, region, country, neighborhood, wherever].

 Use it with my blessing. It’s free and could save you thousands of euros in short term copywriting fees. But hey, no one reads this anyway…or do they?

1. “There is no definition, so we can make up our own.”
No. The definitions are there, although the details may differ. User experience (UX) deals with how people interact with stuff – it represents the sum of their reactions and subjective perceptions. So, don’t go off on your own until you’ve bothered to do a simple search on Google. If nothing else, it will keep you from making a complete fool of yourself by confusing UX with usability.

2. “If the experts disagree, then the discipline isn’t really mature.”
No. Experts disagree in all fields. Doctors argue about the best treatments. So do designers. If you’re looking for a “mature” field, stick to horseback riding, which hasn’t changed much the past couple of hundred years. Instead, consider that most fields are “evolving”. User experience is one of these.

3. “User experience is only about computers and stuff.”
No. User experience is all around us. Eat a freshly picked strawberry. That’s a user experience, too. The problem seems to stem from the word “user”, which turns up in “user-friendly” and other computer-worldly clichés. But until we find a better word, it will have to do.

4. “If it’s on a screen, it must have something to do with IT.”
No. Just because a book is printed on paper, it doesn’t mean Tolstoy was working for the lumber industry. Granted, computers may be involved. But in the online world, UX focuses on what goes on the screen and less on how it got there.

5. “User experience is a subset of [some other discipline]”
No. User experience is the umbrella under which many other highly structured activities take place – from information architecture to service management to graphic design to usability evaluation. If you put UX on equal (or lessor) footing with other disciplines, it’s easy to ignore it in favour of something more tangible – yet the forest continues to exist even if you only focus on the trees. And like a real umbrella, you’ll first notice you’ve lost UX when it starts to rain.

Got a myth to add to the list? Post a comment – the floor is yours.

Five.

Two of them have been great. Three of them have been lousy. The last one I bought (about two months ago) is the worst of the lot. You’d think I’d learn to choose a good one, but this just hasn’t happened.

What I want from a dishwasher
I figure a good dishwasher should do four things:

- hold a lot of dishes

- wash dishes

- dry dishes

- not break dishes

As someone in the user-experience industry, I don’t think this is an unreasonable set of basic requirements.

“Easy to use” is also a good quality. I’ll get back to that.

Usability testing in real life
My mom had an old GE dishwasher which served her faithfully for over 30 years. When it broke a couple of years ago, I bought a new GE for her. But she insisted the dishes didn’t get clean. So I investigated the next time I returned for a visit. It seems you have to slam the door shut much harder than a 90-year-old is able. Honestly, I practically had to kick it shut myself. In other words, the machine never actually washed the dishes because my mother lacks the strength to shut the damned door.

Lesson One: Make sure you can actually start the machine.

The decline of civilization
In 1985, I bought my very first dishwasher for myself. A Bauknecht. Good German machine. Very quiet (39dB). And it was a dream to operate. It did everything you’d want a dishwasher to do. The first time I used it, I was convinced that every dish in the world deserved a ride in this wonderful contraption.

Ten years later, it died. Don’t know why. Just did.

I bought a new Bauknecht. Twice as expensive. There were several icons on the panel I never did figure out. Although touted as having the lowest noise level on the market, it was a lot noisier than the unit it replaced. In-depth interviews with my dishes indicated that they were satisfied with the quality of the washing, but not ecstatic.

Lesson Two: Don’t believe the brochure.

New house, new dishwasher
A year later, my wife and I sold our flat and moved to a house where we immediately started remodelling the kitchen. And we bought a Danish-made dishwasher from Vølund – completely hidden front panel, very elegant.

The Vølund was brilliant. The best machine yet. Easy to load, intuitive affordances (e.g. I could figure out where to put stuff inside the beast), great results. In fact, the only minus was that any Martini glass placed in the front-left corner of the upper rack would ALWAYS crack.

Two months ago, our Vølund died after 14 years of faithful service. Again, no particular reason, the dear thing just stopped working. Weeks passed before I could bring myself to let someone take it to the dump.

The trip to the store was a…trip
My wife and I liked the invisibility of our old Vølund (fully hidden front panel). So down we went to the local appliance store to find a replacement. Sadly, Vølund doesn’t make dishwashers anymore.

Why does a dishwasher WITHOUT a cabinet cost more than one WITH a cabinet? By a factor of about 25%? Price moves up to around EUR 600 for the cheapest “integrated” model.

“Ohh. You don’t want to buy that one. It has a nasty cheap plastic pan at the bottom. You really want a full-stainless washing chamber,” said the helpful salesman. Add another EUR 200 (and a new expression to my growing “I know all the cool technical stuff” vocabulary).

Lesson Three: stainless is better than plastic (I guess…)

LG – “Life’s Good” – for someone else
We briefly considered Miele, but I had worked in an ad agency that went through Miele dishwashers at the rate of one every three years (as we were doing their advertising, we felt obligated to use their products). So, in search of genuine quality, my wife and I decided on an LG from Korea. It cost on the wrong side of EUR 1000 but, hey, it was top of the line. Only problem, it doesn’t really do any of the stuff a dishwasher should do.

“Low noise level” says the brochure. But this is noiser than that 1985 Bauknecht.

“Saves energy.” Only if you don’t use it. The “eco” program doesn’t get the dishes clean. The “auto” program takes hours and hours to complete unless you want to dry stuff by hand.

Lesson Four: see Lesson Two.

Affordances…meh
The insides are arranged so that it holds lots of dishes, but I wish LG would send me a photo showing me how they intended the various 21st-century racks and shelves and baskets to be used. I can’t figure it out. In practice, it holds about 20% fewer items than my dear old Vølund. I’m seriously wondering if Korean dishes have a very different shape than Danish dishes.

Glasses break. All kinds of glasses. In many different locations within the machine. That’s why Martini glasses get washed by hand these days. Always. Think about it: I just spent EUR 1000 on a device that is now making me wash glasses by hand!

When this contraption runs, it smells like there’s some plastic burning. I’m afraid to run it at night or when we’re leaving the house. The smell makes me nervous, even though the installer says this is “normal”. Does that mean all my other dishwashers have been “abnormal”? Just asking…

Back in 1985, I just went out and bought my Bauknecht. And it was great. Today, there are too many choices, too many controls, too many decisions to make.

All I want is clean dishes. Is that really too much to ask?

My mantra of late has been that search engine optimization must be part of the strategy at the beginning of a site design or redesign project.  I believe that user experience is as much about how users find the site as with their experience once they get there.  At the 2010 IA Summit in Phoenix, I presented a poster session on an SEO/UX design framework that sees search optimization as part of the UX engagement throughout the project lifecycle.

- Discovery comes before experience. Including search optimization in discovery sessions with the client provides opportunities to illuminate the state of the competitive landscape and the current search visibility state of the existing site. During this stage, I give the client a brief education in how search engines work. Despite the sophistication behind how results are presented, the core functionality of search technology is still based on information retrieval methods from the early days of electronic data storage. In order to appear in the results, the search terms used must appear in the content.

- Planning reduces the signal to noise ratio for the search engine spider. Search engine spiders do not have eyes, ears, thumbs or fingers. They cannot read the messaging in sticky Flash and Silverlight applications. They cannot hear instructions or compelling evidence contained in videos. They cannot “click” anything to move forward. Provide on the page or in the code annotation for all rich media to make sure that the messaging contained here makes its way to search results.

- Build a relevant site structure.  Something that you keep in the attic of your garage is likely less important to you than something kept in the cabinet over your coffee machine. Search engine spiders interpret your site structure as an indicator of relevance. Content buried deep in the structure is seen as less relevant that content found closer to the home page.  Design site and link structures that reveal context and importance.

- Create a flexible design to ensure ongoing visibility. There is no “set it and forget it” in search engine optimization.  Post-launch optimization continues with analysis and measurement. Analyze search terms driving traffic to the site, bounce rate, time on site and other analytics to discern patterns and anticipate customer needs or interests. What were they looking for? Did they find it? Benchmark positioning for key metadata phrases prior to redesign. Run regular placement reports to chart progress and provide quantitative evidence of effectiveness.

Following a roadmap of optimization through the stages of a website project is a step is extending the user experience to from start to finish.

Download the Search Engine Optimization and User Experience Design Framework Poster

So, here we are, more than 6 months after our official incorporation. Thriving. Taking the phrase „crisis is an opportunity“ seriously and making it a part of our own DNA. Bitch-slapping the economic downturn… Oh, and having fun along the way. Just like we all should do.

But there are many challenges here. Both personal and business related. Today, I want to celebrate the idea of Team. It doesn’t matter what Team we are talking about – what matters is the fact that Team is crucial. It’s late Friday evening here at Zagreb while I’m writing this post. I’ve just sent huge e-mail to Antun and Darko, our core team members here in Croatia. It was one of the most serious e-mails I’ve sent away in a long time. I need help. And I’m looking for that help from my Team.

For all our lives we are being encouraged to be strong. Often, we are being told that asking for help is a sign of weakness. Well, I’m able to see, live and celebrate the fact that saying something like that is wrong.

When faced with challenges – it’s more than OK to ask for help. Actually, it is necessary. Being able to say: “I have a problem and I need your help!” is not easy. But it is something that needs to be done.

I’m blessed with the fact that I’m managing terrific people here in our Zagreb office. More than that, I’m happy to be able to ask for and receive help.

This last week, we’ve attended Microsoft’s WinDays conference held in Rovinj, beautiful town located in Istria, largest Croatian peninsula. I’ve delivered presentation about how to prepare your apps for Windows 7 and new UX concepts and, as a Team, we’ve also delivered our very popular Wall of Tweets solution along with the interactive displays concepts and service design implementations. It was a blast.

But also it was an eye-opener in terms of what more we can do. Living the Team, building the Team and asking the Team for help and support is what is needed. Business part of the conference was focused around the topics of innovation and society based on knowledge. Our Prime minister, Jadranka Kosor (she was the one opening the conference) has presented her package of reforms and measures that are supposed to make Croatian economy better and more innovative. They are tough, much needed and will encounter serious resistance in some parts of Croatian society.  Personally, I wholeheartedly do support those measures, only I’m afraid that they are more like the list of good wishes and intentions. We miss inner readiness and will to make them real.

We miss Team. We, as a society and as individuals are only looking for our own matters. We do lack ability to see wider picture. And most importantly, we miss the ability to be and stay humble. Not by killing the proudness and individualism in us – but by nurturing the ability to be humble and allow us to develop better relations with other people, friends, our clients and even our competitors.

My personal business goal for FatDUX Zagreb by the end of 2010 is not to grow our revenue and client base (that is going good, thanks for asking!) but it is to be more effective, time efficient and humble. Humble to ourselves, to our friends, to everyone… It’s not something that can be reported in Excel spreadsheets but it as of the utmost importance for the business.

And yes – I need help and that is why I asked for it. I asked my Team.

Humble 101? Lesson 1? You tell me…

Sign of good things to come...

About a month ago, I visited the much touted Terminal 5 at London’s Heathrow Airport for the first time. The airy, vaulted space is the nicest of Heathrow’s offerings, but that isn’t really a recommendation – Terminals 1-4 set the bar pretty low as these things go. But I did have an opportunity to eat at celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey’s “Plane Food”.

Let me put it this way, the experience was so good, I just might start flying British Airways again. For those of you who have seen my service-design presentation, you’ll know that this is high praise indeed.

An airport restaurant by design
The first thing you notice is the friendly, attentive staff. There are a lot of them in crisp black uniforms. These are not kids who took a low-paying job that bores them to tears; the “Plane Food” crew is professional, polite, and efficient. And they actually know something about food.

Next, there’s the menu. Real food at affordable prices. And a full bar.

The table is set with good china, decent glasses, and steel cutlery (in a security approved design).

And finally, there’s the layout. For once, a designer has understood that people in airports drag around rolling luggage. Plane Food features ample space between the tables so you can concentrate on your meal and not on keeping your bags from being kicked.

The entry leads visitors away from the hustle of the terminal and into a more relaxing environment.

Great food, superb service
My entire extended family was on its way to Miami from Copenhagen. While the women opted for noodles at Wagamama, my son-in-law, Lars, and I were curious to see what Gordon Ramsey had to offer. After all, most of the world has seen the foul-mouthed chef on one of his various culinary reality shows. Well, Chef Ramsey clearly knows how to create a successful restaurant – even in an airport terminal.

The menu was large and varied – something for every taste, yet wonderfully uncomplicated. Lars (who happens to be a professional chef) opted for pasta, I had a mushroom and truffle risotto. Both dishes were exquisite; the pasta homemade and perfectly al dente; the risotto velvety and with real truffles, not just a few drops of oil.

And our servers were as good as any I’ve met at other restaurants.

The picnic box
For those of us who loathe airline food, Gordon Ramsey has reinvented the picnic lunch. For GBP 11.95, you get a full three-course cold meal in a nifty insulated canvas lunchbox. Just to put this into perspective, Scandinavian Airlines charges just about the same for a tired old cheese sandwich and a canned Bloody Mary on board their flights.

The picnic menu offers a choice of four starters, four main courses, and four desserts. There are options for both vegetarians and meat-eaters (strict vegans are advised to stick to Wagamama).

When returning to Denmark a week later, the entire family bought picnics to take home. Here’s mine:

Tiger prawn salad with watercress and soy sesame dressing
Cumbrian honey-roast and parma ham with slow roast vine tomatoes
Chocolate and pecan brownie with crème Chantilly

Absolutely fabulous!

The picnic box contains everything you need for a great meal, from sauces to cutlery.

UX and the British Airways business plan
FatDUX Creative Director Søren Muus and I are off to the IA Summit conference in Phoenix, AZ in a few weeks time. We actually booked on British Airways just so we could visit Plane Food. Hmm…maybe Gordon Ramsey should take over beleaguered BA CEO Willie Walsh’s job for a while. Who knows what might happen?

Full menus, prices, cocktail lists, and more photos can be found at Plane Food’s website.

Interaction with dead trees
I had a client years ago that refused to allow paper into the office. Everything was electronic. Needless to say, this got them a lot of PR, but made them fairly ineffective. Let’s face it, paper is really, really useful. (I’m partial to beermats…for taking notes).

But honestly, is all this paper really necessary? How can we make the world a little more sustainable? Just look at what I dragged home from Savannah:

2 train tickets for the Copenhagen subway
1 printout of a so-called “e-ticket”
4 boarding passes from Delta
2 luggage receipts
5 security stickers of various kinds on passport and luggage
1 receipt for currency exchange at Danske Bank
3 taxi receipts (1 Danish, two US)
1 paper conference badge
4 schedules and maps from inside the badge
1 map of Savannah
17 sundry receipts for meals, drinks, and other conference-related expenses
1 reservation sheet from the Hyatt
1 welcome letter from the Hyatt
1 check-out description from the Hyatt
1 bill from the Hyatt
3 Delta paper napkins (with sketches)
12 pieces of promotional literature from the conference sponsors
14 pieces of United States paper currency
43 business cards

"Empty your pockets in the plastic tray provided"