POST DIGITAL

Designing The 2012 Election

Calling all FIT, Parsons and SVA students: here's the latest way to get involved in President Obama's 2012 campaign.  Runway to Win, fashion designers' effort for Obama's reelection campaign, is holding a Design Challenge in which any designer can submit their designs to the current collection of Runway to Win gear.

If your design is selected, it will be sold in the Runway to Win collection, right alongside the likes of Marc Jacobs, Proenza Schouler, Jason Wu, Diane Von Furstenberg and more. As cool as that sounds, that's not the best part. The best part comes when the winning designers each receive a fully produced version of their item autographed by Anna Wintour.  Common That's hot!  (Have you seen the September Issue?)

Go to RunwayToWin.com to submit your Hope, Change or "Yes, we can!" themed design. 

on: qr codes - nailing the basics and adding value for consumers

QR codes are quickly becoming a part of any integrated marketing campaign. Also known as quick response codes, they are a useful way to encourage consumers to interact with a brand. They can be used to direct a magazine reader to a product’s ecommerce site, give additional product information or deliver a special coupon. 

Who is using QR codes?

According to a 2011 study conducted by marketing firm MGH, QR code awareness is high among smartphone users. One-third of them have used QR codes, and two-thirds have seen one. Users who were aware of QR codes tended to be more educated and affluent, and the majority used one to get a coupon or additional information. The largest majority of users were ages 35-54 and users were almost evenly split between men and women. As more well-known brands incorporate QR codes into their marketing campaigns, awareness is certain to grow in all demographics.

How do I use them effectively?

There are some very basic steps to take before employing a QR code in a campaign. Before trying the fancy stuff, ensure the basics are in place:

• Give the potential user a website URL to download a code reader. Mobile-Barcodes.com has an extensive list.
• The QR code should go to a site designed specifically for mobile.
• The QR code should not be in a place with poor cell reception such as a subway stop or underground office.
• Measure the success of QR codes with a trackable URL, which will provide stats on the number of QR code scans per hour as well as the devices used.

The most important thing to remember in effective QR code use is to provide value for the consumer. This can certainly be a coupon or promotion, but also think of information or a service as added value. An instructional video that provides information on how to use a product (along with selling points) provides value. So does services such as a Store Finder or ecommerce solution.

Unique applications

There have been some excellent examples of how to use QR codes to increase brand engagement by adding value for the user. Starbucks got an early jump on the movement with the Starbucks Card Mobile Application. Customers load an account with money, and the pull up their account’s QR code at the register for quick and easy payment. The QR code provides the added value of convenience and time saving.

In February, Jimmy Fallon broke the late-night show tradition of holding up the performing band’s album cover. Instead of the album, he flashed a QR code that led viewers to an exclusive music video. The clip became a trending topic on Twitter, magnifying exposure for both the band and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

Web-based event registration site Eventbrite experimented with using QR codes at registration desks. Whether it’s a conference or a concert, attendees hate waiting in a long line just to fill out an attendee form. When attendees registered with Eventbrite they were sent a QR code in their confirmation. Event coordinators quickly scanned the codes, gathering attendee information quickly and accurately.

These are just a few examples of the creative and engaging ways QR codes can be used. Think of the growing use of QR codes as an opportunity to develop new ways of engaging with the people who care about your brand.

on: the future of retail

This week's presentation was a ton of fun to research. Who doesn't like to shop...non-stop? The Future of Retail: A Post Digital Approach to Shopper Marketing was an exercise in innovation and imaging the future of shopping.

While we are well into a the third decade of eCommerce and a new thriving generation of mCommerce technology has emerged, a number of ideas have surfaced as a beta of a new economy of commerce and consumerism. It begins by realizing that the aging of the Baby Boom generation is giving way to the coming of age of Generation Y, which has caused seismic shifts in consumer demand and shopping habits. Retail stores that have adapted [i.e. Best Buy, Sephora, Levi's ] to the new consumer demographics have begun to thrive in spite of the great recession.

The Future of Retail: 

A Post Digital Approach to Shopper Marketing

View more presentations from Joanna Pena-Bickley

Beyond a perpetually evolving, decentralized shopping experience, retailers must begin to contemplate the impact of digital and social medias on the path to purchase. In this presentation I pose a simple challenge to the audience; If the the entire world can be a store; how would your customers make instant purchases regardless of time and place?

on: project hope

Jigsaw a creative group based out of Milwaukee came up with an heart-warming interactive exhibit at St. Vincents Regional Cancer Center at St. Mary’s Hospital where 7,000 guests could engage with a 45′ X 7′ rear-projecting interactive wall. Guests could walk by the wall, engage with hundreds of hand written messages drifting around the color changing field. Guests could then us a stylus to write a message of hope on a kiosk which would be re-written on the wall. This wall was a living, breathing organism. Some of the messages would read “Hope is a smile on a child’s face,” “Hope is another year with my mom”, “Hope is my family”. This exhibit blurs the line between a creative campaign and makes an emotional connection with each member that views it, breathes it or lives in the space it is in.

The messages submitted are displayed in their original handwriting on an experiential site. The “Hope Is___” site [@ http://www.stateofthearthope.com/hopeis/] invites people to share their message of hope with the community and read other inspirational messages.

on: h&m's holiday site

This years best holiday site. Many retailers stay true to their stoggy user expereinces and CMS for the holidays - NOT H&M - If you want the best in fashion ecom this holiday season check out this site http://www.hm.com/gb/#/holiday2010/

on: twitter's redesign

For those of us who still use the twitter interface to send tweets you have probably taken note of what I think is one of the best social software redesigns. Twitter’s redesign was much more than a facelift.

My favorite part of the new Twitter.com is that it integrates multimedia content into the stream, a feature users have loved in third party and desktop apps.

What's your favorite part of the redesign?

on: internet design - layout

If you have been listening to the experts this past year, you should know that the web is dead. This month Wired magazine proclaims "Long Live The Internet." So what does that mean for Web design? We must evolve to Internet Design!  The rise of NUI [touch screen or natural user interface] and mobile based hardware is driving lighter, simpler services and apps.  This evolution has tremendous impact for designers.

There’s a lot that goes into crafting a fabulous internet or digital experience, but I believe it can be broken down into four main components. Over the next four days I will break down the four key components of a great internet design with examples and resources. Follow along and feel free to contribute! 

Part One: Your Audience Needs A Solid Layout! 
It all starts with an idea, a goal or a vision. All aspects of a great design must compliment each other while helping achieve the end goals of the service or app. The importance of having a good foundation applies to just about everything in life. If the foundation is wrong, everything on top of it will crumble. In app and internet service design, the foundation is your layout. Your layout should dramatize an idea or core service behind the app. Laying out an app or internet service involves placing all the content and navigational elements. Dependent on how you bring your app to life, you must establish a hierarchy in these elements that gives the most important ones prominence, and this should be determined by how you think your audience should use the app. 

1.1: The Audience: Learn as much as you can about your audience. Ethnographic research has been my favorite form of research. When you can't do that eMarketer and internet listening will also give you a basis of insights about your audience and what they expect out of the brand.

1.2: Wireframes: No matter the audience, I start by sketching out basic wireframes. I put all of my digital toys away and pick up a paper and pencil. I am not a fan of art direction in a wireframe. However, I do believe that it's an easy way to nail down an idea through layout. 

Wireframes should be seen as the bare-bones representation of the various elements that will appear in the interface. Wire frames are typically made up of gray scale boxes and blocks of placeholder text. The key is to keep things simple and not get caught up in color and design elements.

[ image via dirtyalpacas ]  

Not everyone feels good about the presenting their ideas via pad and paper. I usually take my pencils and then use a digital tool to organize them for presentations. There are several different routes that a designer can take for creating wireframes, and there are tons of applications designed specifically for this. Here are some of my favorite digital wire framing tools:

1. OmniGraffle
2. Cacoo
3. MockFlow
4. Balsamiq Mockups 
5. Pencil Project

I would recommend reading or subscribing to Wireframes Magazine. It is a blog written by information architects and interaction designers that has lots of info and examples of layouts and wireframing.

1.3 Whitespace: Lots of white space is the new black! One sign you have a great layout can can be found in the negative space. [ No the space does not have to be physically white.] Many designers make the mistake of over crowding their app designs. Don’t be afraid to let your pages breathe. Adding larger amounts of white or negative space will actually give your design a more sophisticated and updated look. Take a look at the use of negative space in these apps and services:

1. reeder 
2. Awesome Note
3. Color Stream 
4. iShots 
5. Weightbot
6. Incredibooth 
7. Camera +

Stay Tuned...Next Up: Part Two: Typography!

on: creative errors

A large part of experience design is designing for the we know the user will do and then taking it a step further in designing for what we know they can do.  Error pages are often neglected by designers because they are rarely seen, or at least that’s the plan. But we all know things happen. A visitor may incorrectly enter a url, or try to find something on your site that just isn’t there. These are times when the 404 page will receive a few visits, but visiting an error page isn’t necessarily part of a pleasant user experience.  In this post I have rounded up a few of my favorites.

nokia's ovi love

carsonified

at first sigth

joyent

hdqt.co.uk

product planner

chrisglass.com

xhtml kitchen

twurn

agens

on: audi's augmented reality calendar

a balsy move. imagine getting an automotive company calendar without cars in it. the audi augmented reality calendar prompts users to download an app on to your iPhone so you can get the first glimpse of the new Audi A1.

on: football boots and your future

This is one to watch! This is the first stage of a Nike journey that will ultimately see fans around the world write their own future through experiences that put them at the center of the action. In June, fans will be able to live like their heroes through a unique experience on nikefootball.com that generates ripple videos and visuals from their own photos and information, placing them at the center stage.

Write The Future from Nalden on Vimeo.

It was directed by renowned Hollywood director and producer Alejandro G. Iñarritu (21 Grams, Babel). Footballers can use this creative to build their own Facebook campaign to get noticed and selected for “The Chance” – an elite Nike Academy football camp in partnership with the Barclays Premier League in England that allows players to get scouted and get noticed at the highest level of the game.

This is epic!