Henry Balanon

Best I’m Sorry card ever. collindonnell: Really should...

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:05:41 -0500

Best I’m Sorry card ever.

collindonnell:

Really should have said command + z.

curvedwhite:

“Ctrl+Z, I’m Sorry” letterpress card by Elizabeth Weil

davidkaneda: The “Deep” iPhone theme, well photographed...

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:05:37 -0500

davidkaneda:

The “Deep” iPhone theme, well photographed by William Hook.

"The best iPhone conference I’ve been to was 360iDev last year. This next one will blow the..."

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:43:32 -0500

“The best iPhone conference I’ve been to was 360iDev last year. This next one will blow the last year out of the water.”

- Henry Balanon (Buy tickets here)

detroitsxsw: Chevy SXSW Road Trip Auditions with @walkerau and...

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 09:45:21 -0500

detroitsxsw:

Chevy SXSW Road Trip Auditions with @walkerau and @bchesnutt.

Our detroitsxsw.com team road trip to Austin for SXSW 2010 is sponsored by Chevy and Urbane Apartments.

Music by SP - Swingin’ John Blair. Thanks Hubert.

Come to our SXSW send-off party. RSVP on Facebook. http://plancast.com/a/ywm

Thanks for the warning tag. I almost cut the electrical cord...

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:42:34 -0500

Thanks for the warning tag. I almost cut the electrical cord with scissors.

Helping Angela build her IKEA furniture.

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 13:10:05 -0500

Helping Angela build her IKEA furniture.

detroitsxsw: The @DaveMurr audition clips for the Chevy SXSW...

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:29:38 -0500

detroitsxsw:

The @DaveMurr audition clips for the Chevy SXSW Road Trip. #DETChevySXSW #detroitsxsw

The transitions on the Windows Phone 7 are super...

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:51:28 -0500

The transitions on the Windows Phone 7 are super slick.

davidkaneda:

The use of motion in the Windows Phone 7 Series user interface is brilliant. (via @davekaneda)

lishdorset: Just over a week ago, some nice kids in Detroit...

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 15:46:28 -0500

lishdorset:

Just over a week ago, some nice kids in Detroit had a Tumblr Meetup and it was pretty fun.

Our meetup was nice and laid back. We met up at the Detroit Brewing Co (great place, check out, very Tumblr friendly!). in downtown Detroit. We filled up some tables in the back and were appropriately noisy. It was great to see some friends and a few new faces. Hit of the night? The Tumblr swag. As Martha Stewart might say, “It’s a good thing.”

Hopefully we’ll do another Detroit meetup very soon. Thanks to Damian and Henry for their meetup know-how!

Here’s our guest list and some great Tumblrs/sites to follow:

Lish Dorset

Damian Rintelmann

Henry Balanon (OR balanon.com)

Vikash Shah

Jacob Wilkens

David Murray

Joe Hakim

Dan Nixon (OR 40 Days, 40 Beers)

Kim Huston

Beth Nixon

rickyv: In case you forgot, Uncle Phil from Fresh Prince was...

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 15:45:38 -0500

rickyv:

In case you forgot, Uncle Phil from Fresh Prince was the voice of Shredder on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He took the role very seriously.

Finally throwing away my old Palm device. We’ve come a...

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 18:30:34 -0500

Finally throwing away my old Palm device. We’ve come a long long way baby.

"While it’s true that traffic is now again actually worth something, the..."

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:21:22 -0500

“While it’s true that traffic is now again actually worth something, the give-everything-away-and-make-it-up-on-volume strategy stamps an expiration date on your company’s ass.”

- Evan Williams, creator of Twitter, 2005 (via davidkaneda)

AT&T and Others Announcing Rival to Apple App Store

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:06:31 -0500

AT&T and Others Announcing Rival to Apple App Store:

Twelve of the world’s biggest phone networks – including AT&T, Orange and Telefonica – will announce their rival technology tomorrow to Apple’s App Store. The combined audience for the app platform will be 2 billion customers. Phone manufacturers Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson are also on board for the launch.

The announcement is expected to take place at tomorrow’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, writes the Times, and will be good news for consumers. With the fragmentation of app stores from Apple, Android (Android) and others, many handsets and operators will now support a single standard of apps that work across multiple devices.

This is a pretty big deal! A more standardized approach to mobile applications brings lots of opportunties for developers.

via drintelmann via soupsoup

"Once you catch the UX disease, life changes. Doors open the wrong way. Machines are ridiculous...."

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 20:08:57 -0500

“Once you catch the UX disease, life changes. Doors open the wrong way. Machines are ridiculous. Everything can be done better.”

- Cennydd Bowles, via Twitter (via nikf) (via quatermain)

Google Buzz fail. Warning: Do not use Google Chat through...

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:41:00 -0500

Google Buzz fail. Warning: Do not use Google Chat through Google Buzz.

Solve Existing Problems

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:22:36 -0500

In our attempt to create amazing user experiences, we often want to push the envelope, to create something new, to show people a bright new future. But too often we fall into the novelty trap. The novelty trap is when, in an attempt to dazzle our clients and our users, we focus too much on the new and not enough on the now.

To create great user experiences we need to focus on the now. In reality the problems of our users are painfully mundane and often obvious. It is our task to ease this pain, and in doing so we might not invent some amazing new thing, but that’s OK. Success is incremental.

Consider the following companies, widely regarded as purveyors of great user experiences:

Netflix

Netflix lets you rent the exact same movies as every other rental service, but they make it easy to do right from your home and they work hard to give you solid movie recommendations. They succeeded by removing the painful problem imposed by nearly all rental companies, the dreaded late fee. Sometimes a good experience results not from addition, but from removal! Netflix did not solve a new problem, they solved an old one.

Zappos

Zappos sells one of the most mundane products imaginable: shoes. But by solving a widespread problem with faceless web-based companies (bad service), they stand out and shine. Service is one of the oldest problems known to business…in any age or time providing great service results in a great user experience.

Jetblue

Jetblue did something simple: they added personal viewing screens to the seat-backs in their airplanes. None of the technology was new, but the experience of being in control of your in-flight entertainment was. Couple that with food that isn’t horrible, and they quickly improved on the user experience of flight.

These companies did not solve future problems, they solved well-known, existing ones. That’s how you provide great user experiences, by alleviating the well-known pain points that already exist in the world.

So, when trying to articulate the problem to be solved, focus on the now, not the new.

Panelfly, a beautiful comic book app for the iPhone, has...

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 06:37:53 -0500

Panelfly, a beautiful comic book app for the iPhone, has announced their plans to support the iPad. They’ve already mocked up a great selection of screens—each showing incredible attention to detail and level of innovation for a yet unreleased OS.

(via davidkaneda)

staff: Tumblr Experiment: Photo Replies For the next 48 hours,...

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:59:28 -0500

staff:

Tumblr Experiment: Photo Replies

For the next 48 hours, you can let your followers reply to your posts with photos. Just check “Let people photo reply” when posting. Have fun!

Tip: When you see the camera icon in your Dashboard, you can drag-and-drop a photo from you desktop onto the icon to upload it immediately.

Doing some work at @urbane_space’s new community tables....

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:29:03 -0500

Doing some work at @urbane_space’s new community tables. Fit for a picnic :)

Angela just got perfect score on the Wii Fit Goalie mini-game

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 20:06:35 -0500

Angela just got perfect score on the Wii Fit Goalie mini-game