YouTube has released an AI-powered emotion engine that helps video creators, aka influencers, understand which elements are most and least effective. YouFirst shows the video to a segment of the creator’s audience, uses facial recognition to identify the “power moments” that resonate, and can even tell you which groups of people enjoyed different parts of the content. Anyone remember when building …
Friday 5 — 3.17.2017
John Maeda and team released the 2017 Design in Tech report. Observations include lessons from Chinese design tech principles and practices; the value of inclusive design; and writing as a must-have skill. The early promise of social media as proxy for inclination to purchase has not been realized. HBR explores the marketing value of social media, and highlights …
Friday 5 — 2.24.2017
Amazon celebrated Alexa reaching 10,000 skills with a new musical game called Beat the Intro. The fast rise of Alexa skills invokes the inevitable comparison to Apple’s app store, and with it the associated growing pains of discovery. Is that really Michael Flynn on Twitter? Before you retweet or reply, take these steps to determine if a Twitter account is legit. How do leaders make the …
Friday 5 — 2.17.2017
To this erstwhile language geek, the application of technology beyond a language lab (look it up, kids) is intriguing. Mondly aims to marry language learning with virtual reality to advance immersion learning. In order to build a successful product, identify friction-killing tactics to engage and delight your users. These lessons from Amazon points to different kinds of friction, and …
Friday 5 — 2.3.2017
It’s hard to tease out what makes for a great use of color in interface design but like Potter Stewart, we know it when we see it. Explore these practical tips and tools for using color in UI design. Andrew Chen identifies the smart questions to ask to make sure you aren’t falling for the …
Friday 5 — 1.27.2017
It’s a mobile, social world, as this 2017 report by Hootsuite and We Are Social confirms. A few stats stood out: The shift of web traffic to mobile devices, the dominance of Facebook, and the hyper-penetration of mobile devices in some regions of the world. UX Matters tackles a question close to my heart: the difference …
Friday 5 — 1.6.2017
Paul Ford gave online donations to 33 charities, and you won’t believe what happened next. Actually, you would — he found a number of opportunities to improve the user experience in online giving. The headlines remind us that artificial intelligence is coming, and we’re all at risk of losing our jobs to the machines. Consider these four factors …
Friday 5 — 12.16.2016
Google released its 2016 year in search, with a pretty nifty user experience. Pokémon Go was the top term globally, but you can explore by type of search as well as other facets like geography and volume. Handy eye candy as the search engine comes under fire for some terrible fake news results. This week …
Friday 5 — 10.21.2016
The Harvard Business Review launched a Slack bot to deliver insights from more than 200 best-practice articles, neatly chunked into do’s and don’ts (an editorial feat I don’t envy.) The bot will send you daily articles, and serves up related case and article links. What are the ethics around creating ever more addictive new digital experiences? The Atlantic explores …
Friday 5 — 9.23.2016
As we perform more of our work collaboratively online — suddenly, nothing seems as antiquated as a corporate “shared drive” — there’s a lot of value in knowing the range of features available. These 18 Google docs tips, like the ability to search images by color, can help you keep up with recent improvements. Is a …