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Tessie — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:05:33 +0000

“If your users are using a third-party product to make your product usable, you are doing something wrong”.

Interview with iA’s Oliver Reichenstein

Tessie — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 03:42:30 +0000

Oliver talks about his inspiration and drive to create the best designs. This is my take-away inspiration from the interview:

"The courage to do what needs to be done, no matter how politically realistic the concept might be is what drives us. Sometimes we get through with our unconditional thinking (as in the case of ZEIT ONLINE), sometimes we don’t. Luckily, we are now in a situation where we do not need to do free work anymore, so whether our designs get realized or not, we now get paid for being courageous. How cool is that?"

Oliver also talks about life and design in Japan and explains why the field of IA is not very developed over there.

Read the full article.

1 iPad sold every 3 seconds

Tessie — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 23:44:15 +0000

A nice infographic which summarises some interesting iPad stats. It's amazing that 1 iPad is sold every 3 seconds in the world considering that it isn't even available in all countries yet.

Posted via email from Fairfax Digital UX Blog

1 iPad sold every 3 seconds

Tessie — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 23:38:42 +0000

A nice infographic which summarises some interesting iPad stats. It's amazing that 1 iPad is sold every 3 seconds in the world considering that it isn't even available in all countries yet.

Posted via email from Fairfax Digital UX Blog

Emotional Design

Tessie — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 00:09:33 +0000

UX Magazine has published a great article on the art of of emotional design – that is, designing interfaces which play to the user's awareness of emotion. This is something UX practitioners don't often think about, but it's becoming even more apparent in the design of mobile touch devices like the iPhone and the iPad. If you're not convinced, ask yourself this question: which operating system do you think is happier – Windows or Mac OS X? I presume you would've picked Mac OS X because the icons bounce and wiggle. Perhaps the success of the iPhone and iPad can also be attributed to Apple's emotional UI, which on a mobile device, is personal and emotionally engaging.

Playing to the user's emotion will create a powerful user experience. It will also create a strong brand identity because it gives life and personality to the product. Emotional design, if executed well, can really differentiate your product and create brand loyalty.

Read the full article on UX Mag.

Posted via email from Fairfax Digital UX Blog

New and Improved Axure Library

Tessie — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 00:14:34 +0000

Here's some exciting news. Axure has just released version 2 of their widget library. Here are the improvements:

Consistent and improved styling
Polished interactivity
Standardized labeling
Expanded set of shapes & controls
Rollover, MouseDown, Selected, and Disabled styles for most controls
Includes all defaults

You can download it here.

Posted via email from Fairfax Digital UX Blog

Apple unveils iAd: a new ad platform for apps

Tessie — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 00:07:29 +0000

Steve Jobs has unveiled Apple's new advertising platform which serves ads inside apps. Apparently, iAd will deliver much more engaging ad experiences as the platform has been designed specifically for iPhone and iPad apps. 'In-app' ads will be able to feature rich media ads and provide more interactive engagement. The catch is… Apple will sell and host the ads themselves with a 60/40 revenue split (Apple keeps 40% of the revenue). It will be interesting to see the market's reaction to this 'Google-like' advertising model.

Read the full article.

Posted via email from Fairfax Digital UX Blog

Randwick City Library’s eBook collection

Tessie — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:30:19 +0000

To my surprise, the Randwick City Library in Sydney actually has a Digital Library website which allows you to borrow ebooks. Currently, the library only supports Adobe® PDF eBooks but it's a great start. There is also a good range of audio books.

To borrow an ebook, you will need to download and install Adobe® Digital Editions and have a library card. The best thing about it is that you will never accrue late fees because the ebook will automatically expire at the end of the loan period. The library is also open 24/7.

One might argue that there isn't a market for ebook loans since they are fairly cheap to download. Amazon sells Kindle ebooks for around the USD $10 dollar mark, and you can even get your hands on top sellers for $2.00. If libraries in the future have a wide range of ebooks for different devices, I can see this really taking off. Why pay for an ebook if you can borrow one for free? And if you're an ebook addict like me, it can get costly.

It's great to see the Randwick City Library embrace the digital era which leads me to the question, what will the local library look like 5 to 10 years from now? If ebook loans take off, will the sense of community which libraries foster soon disappear? Or will less book shelves give libraries more space, resources and opportunities to build more community?

You can check out the Randwick City Digital Library here.

Posted via email from Fairfax Digital UX Blog

Mobile App Marketplace: $17.5 Billion by 2012

Tessie — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 04:07:48 +0000

For those of us who are addicted to downloading mobile apps, we know it's going to be big. But how big? Mobile application store operator, GetJar, recently commissioned a study to answer this question and the stats are astounding.

The annual growth rate for mobile app downloads is 92%
By 2012, off-deck, paid apps will be the biggest source of revenue
In 2009, mobile operators accounted for more than 60% of apps' revenue
By 2012, mobile operators will account for less than 23% of apps' revenue
The app store growth (8 to 38 by 2012) is an increase of 375%
Revenue opportunities in Europe will grow from $1.5 billion in 2009 to $8.5 billion in 2012
Revenue opportunities in North America will grow from $2.1 billion to around $6.7 billion in 2012
Apps are most popular in Asia where they account for 37% of global downloads this past year
Users spent the most for apps in North America where they account for over 50% of revenue

And the iPad hasn't even hit the market yet.

Posted via email from Fairfax Digital UX Blog

Mobile App Marketplace: $17.5 Billion by 2012

Tessie — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 04:01:04 +0000

via readwriteweb.com

For those of us who are addicted to downloading mobile apps, we know it’s going to be big. But how big? Mobile application store operator, GetJar, recently commissioned a study to answer this question and the stats are astounding:

* The annual growth rate for mobile app downloads is 92%
* By 2012, off-deck, paid apps will be the biggest source of revenue
* In 2009, mobile operators accounted for more than 60% of apps’ revenue
* By 2012, mobile operators will account for less than 23% of apps’ revenue
* The app store growth (8 to 38 by 2012) is an increase of 375%
* Revenue opportunities in Europe will grow from $1.5 billion in 2009 to $8.5 billion in 2012
* Revenue opportunities in North America will grow from $2.1 billion to around $6.7 billion in 2012
* Apps are most popular in Asia where they account for 37% of global downloads this past year
* Users spent the most for apps in North America where they account for over 50% of revenue

And the iPad hasn’t even hit the market yet.