Links of Note

Hey everybody,

A favor of you: Can you send me your top 5 usability links to your favorite sites, blogs, magazines, software, resources, etc.? I'd like to create a list of top usability links based on our collective feedback.


A few on my shortlist to get you thinking where I'm headed:

Boxesandarrows
Website Time Machine
Jakob Nielsen Useit
Nussbaum On Design
SitePoint Usability Blog


Let me know what you've been reading lately. We'll share the wealth and hopefully gain some new insights. Thanks.

UCD to User Designed: Nike ID

We're all aware of user centered design, but with emerging technologies, we can pass GO, collect $200 and watch users BECOME designers. Enter, Nike PhotoID.

The technology behind this isn't too complicated, but the experience design is interesting: see something that catches your eye, snap a picture, Nike sends you the matching shoes overlaid on your picture. Available via online ordering of course.

Masterminded by AKQA, London, NIKE PHOTOiD is a brand new mobile application which allows users to customize their own set of sneakers according to their physical surroundings. You simply take a picture of something on your camera phone (it could be anything from a piece of graffiti to an ice cream sundae) and then send this pic off to a shortcode via MMS. The NIKEiD website then picks out the two strongest colours from your image and uses them to colour your custom sneakers. Within a minute, you are sent a link with your design superimposed over the original source of pantone inspiration.

You can then save this image as wallpaper for your mobile, send it to a mate or, by entering the unique DESIGNiD at NIKEiD.com, link directly to your design to complete and actually purchase the sneakers. As one particularly over-excited sneaker-freak in our office inquired with a faint hint of dribble at the corner of his mouth: 'So I could take a picture of a grassy meadow and then it would text me a link to buy my very own Nike Grassy Meadows?' Yeap chap - that's about the long and short of it...

Via Contagious.

The Future of Design Is User Centered

This is a touch dated, but I thought I'd share in case you had not seen this. It's still quite good. IDEO’s David Kelley says that product design has become much less about the hardware and more about the user experience. He shows video of this new, broader approach, including footage from the Prada store in New York.

Meeting information

I got responses from my last post about locations and it appears that most of you would not have to travel great distances if we used the meeting space at my company's offices:

Choice Hotels International (See map below)
Western Headquarters
4225 East Windrose Dr.
Phoenix, AZ, US 85032

Again, if any of you would have extreme hardship in attending a meeting at this location, let me know.

I'll be setting up an introduction meeting in the coming weeks to give us all an opportunity to meet face to face and take a look at our initial charter and next steps.

Talk to you soon.


View Larger Map

Address & Locations

Hey everyone,

I wanted to get a gauge for where everyone is located in the Phoenix area or Arizona as a whole. When you get a chance, please email me at chris_brya AT choicehotels dot com and let me know what area in the valley you would be coming from for potential meeting location selection.

I have my company's corporate office and conference room in mind for initial meetings, but I don't want to use that if it's too far from most people.

Thanks.

PS: Can you believe it's already July?