In the book, Do You Matter? How Great Design Will Make People Love Your Company, the authors take the reader through a series of car lots while shopping for some new wheels. As we traverse the mishmash of brands, we start to see something: Every product/brand is talking to us with its design language.

The “Bimmers” (BMW) with their sporty and sleek profile, the Volvos with their boxy, safe and sturdy design. Every line, curve, and layer, has a purpose. It tells a story about that brand and what it stands for. However, a few of the car brands that the authors look at have a language that is more like the “Tower of Babel“¹:

“That model looks kind of like it’s pretending to be a BMW, and the one over there is almost an Acura. Another looks a bit like a Mercury, another Toyota-ish, another with shades of Lexus, and so on.”

Sound familiar? This immediately takes me to the period in our cellphone market history that I refer to as, B.I. (Before iPhone). Do you remember what that looked like? The design language for those phones said to me: “I just violently puked out buttons, colors, and features to see what sells.” Then along came the iPhone and the entire design language changed. Apple decided that the software was what mattered. As Mike Rundle said in his article, “Every Phone Looks Like the iPhone”:

“Your phone becomes the app that it’s running. How many people focus intently on the bezel around the screen while they’re using their phone? No one does. You stare at the screen. As technology advances and miniaturizes, everything will get faster and smaller. The hardware will fade away and software will be the only thing people care about.”

The point is not that other smartphones are copying, or have no choice but to implement designs similar to, Apple. I’m saying that the story they are telling about themselves, through their design, is not about them at all. They are talking like Apple does. In the design of these products and sometimes marketing, they are communicating the strengths of someone else’s design, not their own. It’s not a Tower of Babel, it’s a “Tower of Apple.” We all know that Apple’s design language is very calculated. So, the obvious problem with trying to follow someone else’s design language is that you don’t know exactly why you are saying it. And when they change it, the products that follow it lose what little meaning they have.

When you design a Website or application — product or service of any kind — you are telling people a variety of things. You are communicating what matters to you (or to your client). You are building the story that will evoke an emotional connection with a customer. Every page on your site is an “about page.” If it’s not, it should be.

People don’t want to buy from (or hire) some cold, empty machine. They don’t want a list of services or products that came from nowhere. They want something they can connect with. In the case of a car, the customer will identify with it, imagining driving it and showing it to their friends. It will become an extension of them and their personality. For example, if someone buys a new hybrid car, it likely reflects them and tells others that they care/are concerned about the environment.

Adrian van Hooydonk, is a Dutch designer who is credited with a lot of the design language for BMW starting with the 7 Series. He designed it for a specific kind of driver and extended this design across their other lines. Some of those design cues showed up in other car brands as a sort of trend. This obviously happens all the time in digital design.¹

Web/interface design trends explode into life overnight and spread like a wildfire. Using these cues is fine. We know everything is a remix of something that came before. But, before you begin to design, it’s important to understand what you are trying to communicate and what you are saying about yourself. Or, if you have an existing product or site, ask: What is this saying? You might not like the answer. If it’s a mixture of design languages creating a cacophony of gibberish, then it’s probably time to step back and build your own design language.

Further reading

This post was inspired by an earlier short essay I did and by a section in this book: 1. Robert Brunner, Stewart Emery, Do You Matter? How Great Design Will Make People Love Your Company, FT Press, 2008, pp.156-178.

When Apple introduced the first iPad in 2010, I bought one immediately. I didn’t know what I’d use it for, but I was sure that I would find some use for it. I never did. I played around with it, wrote some code for it, but eventually stopped using it. I would pick it up from time to time to read something or watch a YouTube movie, but even that was a rare occurrence. I have since picked up an iPad 2, and I’m using it a lot more than the first iPad, but again, I’m pretty much only using it to consume content.

I suspect that most people use their iPads similarly: to surf the web, watch movies, play games, read books, and graphic novels. Essentially, to consume. Of course, there are always exceptions. There are great music and painting apps for the iPad, for example. But how many iPad owners are musicians or like to paint with their fingers? In the grand scheme of things, not many, I suspect.

So when I bought a TouchPad after HP discontinued it, I never assumed that I would use it for actual work. But I am doing just that. I’m using it to respond to email, to do research on the Internet, to take notes during meetings.

So why was it so easy for me to use the TouchPad for work, but not the iPad? I think it’s because there are a number of things the TouchPad does that make it more suitable for work.

Now that it is becoming increasingly obvious that HP won’t do anything useful with webOS, it’s time to start stealing¹ the things it does well. Here are some of these things.

Switching Apps

Sometimes, you agonize over how something should be designed. And then you come up with an idea, or see somebody else’s solution, and you’re just blown away by how obvious it seems. The cards UI for switching between apps in webOS is such an idea. I don’t think I need to elaborate. Nothing else I’ve seen comes close. By now, many other platforms have implemented their own versions of this concept, but the original remains the best.

One App, Many Screens

Almost every time I try to use the iPhone or iPad for writing a response to an email that is longer than «Okay» or «I’ll be there», I have this problem: I need to refer to another email. Maybe it’s something somebody said in an earlier conversation. Maybe it’s something from the mail I’m replying to, and I’ve already deleted it. Regardless, it constantly happens to me.

On iOS, it’s almost impossible to leave a draft, read another mail, and go back to the draft. It can be done, but it’s ridiculously cumbersome. On webOS?

Yep, the new email opens in its own card that’s attached to the Mail application’s card. You can easily go back to your other mails, search them, read them, copy text from them, do whatever you want. You can even start writing another mail, and easily switch between the two drafts.

Organizing Windows

Recently, I was in a meeting where we discussed color schemes for an application. We wanted to keep the number of colors as low as possible, but still have enough color to clearly show the difference between content foreground, content background, and application chrome. It occurred to me that 90s videogames did a pretty good job differentiating between layers — characters, environment, background, HUDs — using a very limited color palette. I wondered how they achieved this. So I did a quick Google search for screenshots from different games, and opened a few of them. Here’s what this looked like in webOS.

I’m looking at six different web pages at the same time. I can easily switch between them, add new ones, or removes ones I don’t need anymore. On the iPad, I’d be looking at a bunch of tabs with cryptic names.

Accounts

Document management on iOS is a mess. Every application implements its own scheme. They all work differently. Some allow you do open documents in other applications that support a matching file format. Others don’t. Some support Dropbox, or other services. Others don’t. Some allow you to organize your documents hierarchically or spatially, others don’t.

In webOS, you can set up different system-wide accounts.

Each of this account can provide a number of different services.

These services are immediately available in all webOS applications. QuickOffice doesn’t need to support Dropbox, or your Google Documents account; webOS handles this. QuickOffice just has to be a good citizen, support the proper webOS APIs, and it gets access to all of these services automatically.

Related to this, Windows Phone 7 has a concept called «contracts»,² which allows applications to interact with each other, and provide services that can be used by each other. This way, a photo application can call upon a Twitter application to share a picture on Twitter without implementing any Twitter-specific code, or a text editor can open a file from a Dropbox application without knowing what Dropbox is.

Neither of these two solutions are perfect, but both are much better than simply providing a global way of storing Twitter credentials.

Aside: I don’t think either webOS or Windows Phone 7 «solve» the «documents problem» on mobile devices, though. Documents should not be relegated into applications. Documents should be a first-level OS concept, the same way apps are. Document management, including document creation, should be handled by the system.

Splitting document management up into two parts, the way Windows and the Mac do it (with parts of it happening in the Finder, and parts of it happening in applications’ open/safe dialogs) is one of the dumbest things desktop systems do. It’s probably a result of technical constraints, rather than a conscious design decision (there wasn’t enough RAM to keep the Finder and an app in memory at the same time, thus apps had to replicate parts of the Finder). But somehow, it has survived into the present day.

The Keyboard

For a long time, Apple had the best touchscreen keyboard, bar none. Recently, others have caught up. The keyboard in Windows Phone 7 is fantastic, and the one in webOS also does a number of things right.

To begin with, it has a number row. No more switching between different modes to type numbers. You can access them directly.

My biggest problem with text input on iOS is its flaky autocorrection. I’m regularly typing words iOS doesn’t auto-correct properly, so I need a simple, quick way to revert autocorrection. iOS doesn’t have that. webOS does. Simply hit delete after webOS corrects something. Rather than deleting the last character, this undoes the autocorrection. Boom. Done.

But quite often, I type a lot of text, and don’t pay any attention to autocorrection. On iOS, this means I have to go back and closely read through my text to find every instance where iOS made a ducking error. Not so on webOS.

Autocorrections are underlined, can be easily identified, and, if necessary, quickly reverted.

Notifications

This could be an essay all on its own. iOS 5 has introduced a system for managing notifications, and it’s not bad. Certainly better than the cluttered mess that Android foists upon its users. But webOS still wins, doing a number of things that make notifications less intrusive, more useful, and more manageable.

One feature I particularly like is that you can just «shove» a notification away with your finger if you don’t want to see it anymore. It’s just a tiny thing, but it feels so much better and more satisfying than carefully hitting the tiny «delete» button on iOS.

Another neat feature is that webOS apps can resize to pretty much any size. So when a new notification appears, it doesn’t cover the application. Instead, the application shrinks a bit to make room for the notification.

Quick Access to Regularly Changed Settings

On my iPhone, I’m using David Barnard’s Launch Center to get to the Brightness setting. I don’t know if the people at Apple never change their phone’s brightness, but I do this quite often. It’s a chore.

On webOS?

Much easier.

Just Type

It’s a bit like a simple version of Quicksilver, except it’s built right into the OS. Of course, this works best with a hardware keyboard.

This Isn’t All

Of course, this article doesn’t list all of the amazing things webOS does. These are just some of the things that made it easier for me to do actual work on a TouchPad, compared to an iPad. But there’s a lot more webOS does right. For example, I really love the way you develop applications for webOS. And I actually think that the Veer is a pretty great phone.³

The Future

webOS isn’t quite dead yet. It’s just being open-sourced, which, when it happens to commercial software, often turns out to be the digital equivalent of being reanimated as a walking corpse in a George Romero movie. You’re still shuffling around a bit, and occasionally making some (mostly incomprehensible) noises, but you probably won’t make it too far anymore.

Of course, it’s not assured that this is the end of webOS. Maybe open-sourcing it will be the best thing that ever happened to webOS. But maybe it just means that HP doesn’t care anymore, and that webOS won’t receive much attention anymore. This would be unfortunate, because webOS is one of the few current mobile operating systems that are actually a joy to use. It’s been hurt by HP’s incompetent management, rather than any egregious faults of its own.

The least we can do now is to keep its best ideas alive, even if webOS itself won’t make it.

If you require a short url to link to this article, please use http://ignco.de/419

If you liked this, you'll love my book. It's called Designed for Use: Create Usable Interfaces for Applications and the Web. In it, I cover the whole design process, from user research and sketching to usability tests and A/B testing. But I don't just explain techniques, I also talk about concepts like discoverability, when and how to use animations, what we can learn from video games, and much more.

You can find out more about it (and order it directly, printed or as a DRM-free ebook) on the Pragmatic Programmers website.

Have you ever had to come up with copy all on your own? It’s a nearly impossible task, often leading to content that is unfocused and lifeless. Yet everyday, copywriters, clients – and, yes, editors too – publish content without much input from their stakeholders. In many ways, this is a wasteful process. Sites like Wikipedia prove that using the web for collaboration enables people to create better content, faster. It’s up to us as professionals to reconsider our process.

We all know that content is an essential part of a website’s user experience. Without it, there’s nothing for users to consume! Kristina Halvorson, Erin Kissane, Karen McGrane and others have explained the details of content strategy, content ownership and caring for your content but, despite providing a good editorial strategy, none of these tools help authors actually write the content they seek to maintain.

That’s where this article comes in – a way to develop content by working in pairs.

“Why pairs,” you might ask? Simple. It’s proven. Agile software development introduced the concept of “pair programming” and our work environments have never been the same. In pair programming, one of the programmers (the driver) writes the code while the other (the observer) reviews each line of code in real-time as it’s written (like a real-time debugger). Aside from the obvious benefits such as sharing knowledge across a team, there is even evidence that pair programming has positive effects on code quality and overall delivery time.

So, at my agency, we took a gamble and used an agile approach to develop content. It turns out that a pair-oriented, exploratory, collaborative approach is extremely valuable for crafting content, too. Several benefits soon emerged:

• The team thinks before publishing.
• It forces authors to stay focused.
• It helps colleagues form a mutual understanding of their content.
• It results in a more uniform tone.
• It allows authors to share best practices in regards to writing for the web.

All of these sound good, no? Here’s how you get started.

Step 1: Decide what content you want to work on

Make sure you know what content you’ll want to work on – for example a product page, a news article, or customer service content. Focus your efforts on content that is visited often and that you want to improve. Don’t know where to start? Look at the most visited pages in your analytics tool (such as Google Analytics) or conduct a survey to find out what content most people are interested in. For example, look at Gerry McGovern’s task identification approach.

Have a list of content outlined before you proceed to the next step.

Step 2: Arrange a workshop

The next step to creating good content is to gather the right people. Have your client identify important content contributors such as product owners, marketers, and people from customer service. Invite them to a meeting and let them know that no one has to be a trained copywriter; that the point of the workshop is to document a discussion. Make sure half of the attendees bring a laptop.

At the beginning of the workshop, clarify what the purpose of the workshop is (to practice pair writing) and why you want them to work in pairs (you get instant feedback). Explain that they are there to work with copy, but not everyone has to write their own articles. Remind them that this is a collaborative process, and that nothing major is expected of any individual.

Step 3: Make it pair-oriented

This is where the magic happens.

After the introduction, get the attendees in the workshop to pair up. Either ask them to find a partner or simply assign them. Next, have each pair grab a computer and fire up a word processing program. I suggest Google Docs, as it has great features such as comments, chat and sharing. This can come in handy both during and after the workshop.

Per pair, one person should be the main writer (the driver) while the other plays the role of the “antagonist” (the observer). As the writer writes, the antagonist should ask critical questions like:

• What is the text meant to solve for the end-user?
• Is this the best angle?
• Is the most important content at the top?
• Who is the target audience?
• What do you mean by this?

Step 4: Switch it up!

After about 45 minutes, ask your pairs to switch their partners. The point of switching is to get varied feedback from as many people as possible. Different attendees – be they product owners, marketers or customer service employees – will look at the same page differently and have a wide variety of input. This makes switching roles both fun and instructive!

Step 5: Present in plenary

After you’ve successfully switched pairs and allowed attendees to write for another 20 minutes or so, spend an hour doing a group discussion of the content created. Ask questions and help people understand the value of what they’re doing. Not only will attendees get a break from writing, they’ll also get even more useful feedback from their colleagues.

Step 6: Repeat if necessary

Pair writing is not limited to one workshop only. If necessary, arrange several workshops, full days or half days. Ask the same attendees each time or invite new people to join.

The purpose is to get everyone involved to understand the value of content and to write copy that actually works. You teach them how to review and critically assess their own and each other’s work. Sure, a text can be brilliant without any assistance from others. But most of the time, an article needs a second pair of eyes.

When will you pair?

Ideally, you should arrange several successive pair-writing workshops alongside the interaction design, prototyping and graphic design processes. This helps the client stay focused on crafting great content for their new website.

That said, you can arrange pair-writing workshops at any time you want after the launch of a website. Content can always be improved. Think of each workshop as an iteration toward an increasingly better user experience.

The workshops also help you identify content owners, or at least important contributors and people with domain knowledge, who will be able to support you in the future.

By Baruch Sachs Published: February 20, 2012 “As a UX professional working in a services organization, you face unique challenges for which a formal education in user experience does not really prepare you.” Since this is my introductory column for my new column Selling UX: A unique perspective on service UX, I’d first like to explain a little about my background and the world of services user experience that I’ll be writing about. After graduating with a degree in technical writing, I started off my career as a technical writer and, on the advice of my advisor, went straight into a Human Factors graduate program. Back then, I never thought I would be in a services role. Indeed, I did not even really know what it meant to be a UX consultant working for a software firm. I have since realized that, as a UX professional working in a services organization, you face unique challenges for which a formal education in user experience does not really prepare you.

By Peter Hornsby Published: February 20, 2012 “People are hardwired to make connections between cause and effect and, in some cases, to infer connections that do not actually exist.” During the Second World War, the USA established bases on a number of islands in the south seas. Having previously had little contact with the outside world, the islanders saw American aircraft landing that were filled with valuable materials. After the war ended and the Americans left, the islanders wanted the aircraft to continue to come and bring wealth to the island. So, they built imitations of the things that they perceived as having brought the aircraft. They laid fires alongside the runway, constructed a wooden hut where a man would sit with wooden pieces on his head like headphones, had someone stand on the runway waving wooden paddles, and so on. Yet, despite all of this effort, the planes did not come. While this cargo cult may appear foolish to modern eyes, people are hardwired to make connections between cause and effect and, in some cases, to infer connections that do not actually exist. (See, for instance, the classic work by B.F. Skinner on operant conditioning.

By Traci Lepore Published: February 20, 2012 “I assure you no art was ever less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and study of the great masters; of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament … I know nothing.”—Edgar Degas “I continue to be fascinated by Degas, his process, and the beauty of his work.” Degas may have said that he knew nothing of inspiration or spontaneity, but in reality, he knew their meaning better than most artists. More important, he understood the work that is necessary to make either happen. So, I continue to be fascinated by Degas, his process, and the beauty of his work. Therefore, I am choosing to get a little off topic to explore some important lessons from Degas and what I like to call his performance art.

By Laura Keller Published: February 20, 2012 “Emergencies lead to fascinating service design challenges, for which aligning the service experience between service providers and their customers and strong leadership skills are critical.” I watched the water come into our finished basement during Hurricane Irene. I don’t believe it—not again, I thought, as my husband and I quickly prioritized which of our remaining belongings from the last flood, only 17 months earlier, we wanted to salvage as the water rushed in. Thirty minutes later, the water stopped rising at four feet—a foot higher than the last time. My husband cautiously turned off the circuit breakers and determined whether the water had reached the gas line. I was seven months pregnant, so could help only by asking our less-affected neighbors for some assistance. The following weeks were all too familiar: filing a claim with our insurance, calling remediation experts to dry out the basement, calling plumbers for quotes to replace the hot water heater and boiler, calling electricians to replace outlets—the list went on and on. Throughout this entire experience, all we wanted was to get our house and lives back to normal.

By Janet M. Six Published: February 20, 2012 Send your questions to Ask UXmatters and get answers from some of the top professionals in UX. In this edition of Ask UXmatters, our UX experts discuss what organizational stories we should be teaching UX designers, as well as professional roadmaps for UX designers. In my monthly column, Ask UXmatters, our panel of UX experts answers readers’ questions about a broad range of user experience matters. To get answers to your own questions about UX strategy, design, user research, or any other topic of interest to UX professionals in an upcoming edition of Ask UXmatters, please send your questions to: ask.uxmatters@uxmatters.com.

Seems appropriate that I’m sharing this.

There have been some exciting conversations in the past six months around how people engage civically. With the rise and uncertain outcomes of Occupy Wall Street, people are questioning the effectiveness of the traditional means of expressing political voice and instigating change. This notion got my colleague PJ Onori and I thinking about what civic participation and expression could look like as the 21st century progresses. Our conclusion: take it digital, naturally.

Inspired by the great work that the folks at Code for America are doing, PJ and I came up with the idea of creating a university program that would get students to work together across academic disciplines (computer science, design, and liberal arts) to create software products that address real civic and social issues. We thought this kind of program would give students an educational experience rarely offered in college, while providing a different form of civic participation. It also provides an outlet for the students to work on something they help choose and own and have the opportunity to move forward after the class is over.

The structure of this class is relatively unique, and that's why we're so excited about it. The format is heavily influenced by how many startups work. The student team will work in a collaborative environment to turn ambiguous concepts into concrete solutions with the assistance of design professionals from Adaptive Path, Seabright Studios, and Grey Area Foundation For The Arts. The course guides students through typical stages of product design, from defining the problem space to concepting potential solutions, and ultimately prototyping, designing, and producing a finished product.

Our goal with this course is to provide the opportunity for students to gain exposure to concepts, methods, and professionals outside of their academic disciplines while getting first-hand experience creating a digital product for the purpose of serving their community.

We are delighted to announce this course is a reality. The professors we reached out to at the University of San Francisco were so excited about the nature and process of the course that they asked us to start right away. We are thrilled to be teaching a small class for the 2012 Spring Semester.  

Stay tuned for information as the class progresses…..

There have been some exciting conversations in the past six months around how people engage civically. With the rise and uncertain outcomes of Occupy Wall Street, people are questioning the effectiveness of the traditional means of expressing political voice and instigating change. This notion got my colleague PJ Onori and I thinking about what civic participation and expression could look like as the 21st century progresses. Our conclusion: take it digital, naturally.

Inspired by the great work that the folks at Code for America are doing, PJ and I came up with the idea of creating a university program that would get students to work together across academic disciplines (computer science, design, and liberal arts) to create software products that address real civic and social issues. We thought this kind of program would give students an educational experience rarely offered in college, while providing a different form of civic participation. It also provides an outlet for the students to work on something they help choose and own and have the opportunity to move forward after the class is over.

The structure of this class is relatively unique, and that's why we're so excited about it. The format is heavily influenced by how many startups work. The student team will work in a collaborative environment to turn ambiguous concepts into concrete solutions with the assistance of design professionals from Adaptive Path, Seabright Studios, and Grey Area Foundation For The Arts. The course guides students through typical stages of product design, from defining the problem space to concepting potential solutions, and ultimately prototyping, designing, and producing a finished product.

Our goal with this course is to provide the opportunity for students to gain exposure to concepts, methods, and professionals outside of their academic disciplines while getting first-hand experience creating a digital product for the purpose of serving their community.

We are delighted to announce this course is a reality. The professors we reached out to at the University of San Francisco were so excited about the nature and process of the course that they asked us to start right away. We are thrilled to be teaching a small class for the 2012 Spring Semester.  

Stay tuned for information as the class progresses…..

We might just try this huddle thing. 

Friend of Adaptive Path, Scott Berkun, defends brainstorming in a recent post on his blog. 

Khoi Vinh's generalizing about specializing has us conversating. 

Now you know. Slayer albums visualized and ranked by evilness.

We know it. You know it. But some don't know it—ux is important to customer engagement.

The end of ripped up photos! 

As much as we wish it were so sometimes, creativity isn't magic. Everything is a Remix, Part 3: The Elements of Creativity, explains. 

If Helvetica and other fonts were cats. 

 

 

We might just try this huddle thing. 

Friend of Adaptive Path, Scott Berkun, defends brainstorming in a recent post on his blog. 

Khoi Vinh's generalizing about specializing has us conversating. 

Now you know. Slayer albums visualized and ranked by evilness.

We know it. You know it. But some don't know it—ux is important to customer engagement.

The end of ripped up photos! 

As much as we wish it were so sometimes, creativity isn't magic. Everything is a Remix, Part 3: The Elements of Creativity, explains. 

If Helvetica and other fonts were cats. 

 

 

Apple turns bad customers into more profitable customers. Here’s how:

At Apple, store managers call every detractor within 24 hours. Initially, they found there were some detractors they couldn’t reach. Subsequent studies showed that detractors that they did reach purchased substantially  more Apple products and services than the others. Further studies showed that every hour spent calling detractors was generating more than $1,000 in revenue or additional sales of $25 million in the first year, which was a good return on the investment. 

In traditional management, where customers are secondary, the expense of following up with customers would seem like the first kind of expense to cut in a crunch. With these numbers in hand, Apple’s managers realize that this is one of the last things that should be cut.

…

At Apple, customer focus is thus not a vague slogan. It’s at the core of the way the stores are managed. Employees know where they stand among their peers in terms of NPS and where their stores stands relative to the rest of the stores in the region.

It makes Apple a lot of money:

Where a typical electronics store averages $1,200 per square foot in sales, mature Apple stores exceed $6,000 per square foot—the highest productivity in retailing of any kind.

…

Thus Apple practices radical management, where making money is the result, not the goal of the organization. The bottom line of its business is to delight the customer. We are indebted to The Ultimate Question 2.0 for showing us how they accomplish that on a daily basis.

Technology and innovative design have made many products and services more predictable and efficient, the two lower levels of Different's 7 Essentials of Customer Experience. Convenience, the next essential of customer experience, is a critical factor in determining how customers make decisions about what to buy, what services to use, where to go, and with whom to engage.

Conventional wisdom says that convenience is a factor of time and effort. On the surface, that’s true, but if you dig a little deeper to fully understand service convenience, you need to consider another factor: perception.

What Is Convenience in UX?

In 1927, an entrepreneurial worker at the Southland Ice Company in Dallas, Texas began selling milk, bread...read more By Ari Weissman

Reason #1: Because it's the last one you read.

Consider the American Idol effect, where studies show that the last entry in the competition has a greater chance of winning. You might call it recency bias.

Reason #2: Because it just might be the last blog post you ever read.

A recent study suggests that just because I said that it might be the last blog post you ever read, you'll probably value this post more highly because you think things might be coming to an end.

These human psychological baises make their way into experience design all the time. Consider how slot machines help you win small amounts frequently enough to keep you feeding coins into the slots.

The more interesting question is how they could be used to present the most helpful, productive, sustainable, or good-for-you option? I'm leaving you with that thought LAST so hopefully it'll stick with you.

Reason #1: Because it's the last one you read.

Consider the American Idol effect, where studies show that the last entry in the competition has a greater chance of winning. You might call it recency bias.

Reason #2: Because it just might be the last blog post you ever read.

A recent study suggests that just because I said that it might be the last blog post you ever read, you'll probably value this post more highly because you think things might be coming to an end.

These human psychological biases make their way into experience design all the time. Consider how slot machines help you win small amounts frequently enough to keep you feeding coins into the slots.

The more interesting question is how they could be used to present the most helpful, productive, sustainable, or good-for-you option? I'm leaving you with that thought LAST so hopefully it'll stick with you.

The physical environment around the new 250-meter-long "Observation Deck B" [artcom.de] at Zurich Airport has been infographically enhanced by German interaction design studio ART+COM. Several media installations and interactive exhibits enable visitors to learn new insights about the airport and its activities on the tarmac.

The most magical addition consists of a set of see-through telescopes that overlay context-aware information on top of the live image, offering useful information about airport buildings and any airplanes that appear in view. To detect the exact physical position of the airplanes, specific data has to be gathered from the tower, such as a plane's type, destination or point of origin. In addition, the graphics that appear on the floor and some of the walls resemble the markings on the runway and act as a guidance system. As half of the visitors are children, the open-air exhibition also includes several educational panels and an airport-themed playground.

Thnkx Monika (who was also the art director of this project).

The beautifully animated and interactive infographic "Four Ways to Slice Obama's 2013 Budget Proposal" [nytimes.com] by Shan Carter of the NYTimes shows how President Obama proposes to spend $3.7 trillion in 2013.

Each federal department is represented by a unique bubble, of which the surface area corresponds to the size of the according proposed budget, and the color depicts a positive or negative change in size. The data can be filtered in distinct ways: by types of spending (i.e. mandatory versus discretionary), by changes in comparison to the previous year, and by departmental total.

Via FlowingData.

See also: . Revealing How Unsubstantiated Rumors Spread via Twitter . A Dynamic Bubble Graph of Twitter Trends . Replaying the Twitter Messages During the World Cup . Ranking Fortune's Best Companies to Work For

He says he’s amused. Technically, I think it is the widest dialog box ever.