Other game companies at the time assigned alphabet letters or colors to the buttons. We wanted something simple to remember, which is why we went with icons or symbols, and I came up with the triangle-circle-X-square combination immediately afterward. I gave each symbol a meaning and a color. The triangle refers to viewpoint; I had it represent one’s head or direction and made it green. Square refers to a piece of paper; I had it represent menus or documents and made it pink. The circle and X represent ‘yes’ or ‘no’ decision-making and I made them red and blue respectively. People thought those colors were mixed up, and I had to reinforce to management that that’s what I wanted.
After all these years, it’s great to hear the rational behind the symbols on the seminal controller. Triangle, Circle and X make sense (though I’m with “management” on the color choice for the last two).
I find Square = piece of paper to be an interesting relic of a tool that was designed before “digital” became the norm and we still had to hold on to analog metaphors.
There are a lot of reasons Flipboard is special and they absolutely deserve all the attention (and melted servers) they’re getting.
I suspect that many folks don’t even realize the potential they have to really have a profound effect on how people consume content going forward, particularly as we continue to find ourselves with more and more channels of content to make sense of.
Frankly, I think they’ll find themselves in that product design sweet spot where there are so many things they can do with their product and they’re going to have to be very smart in choosing which ones to pursue.
Rather than focus on their innovative interface, as many others already have, I wanted to write up a quick note on a feature I saw them tweet about recently: Sharing your Flipboard covers. It allows you to grab a snapshot of your dynamically-generated cover and share it via email and Twitter:
Did a friend of yours show up on your Flipboard cover and you want to let them know? Did a beautiful picture show up that you want to share? Tap the “share” icon in the top right corner of your screen to retweet the image on twitter or email it to friends and family.
It’s your magazine, share your covers.
For me, this feature loosely touches on the one thing I really miss as I’ve made the move to e-books – the loss of the book/magazine cover as both design artifact as well as social communication tool.
While I don’t think this is a feature a lot of people are going to use, it makes me confident that the people on the Flipboard team are aware of the subtle nuances that are part of the content consumption experience and that makes me even more excited to see where they take their product over the next year.
Read about the new feature here and check out their cameo in Apple’s most recent (and by far the best/most informative) ad for the iPad:
In 2007, Spanish bank BBVA engaged IDEO to rethink the way their ATMs worked. In 2009 the fruits of that labor began to see the light of day and the companies have done a really great job highlighting their insights and subsequent designs.
The average ATM experience is nothing special so the opportunity to innovate is there for the taking but few companies seem willing to put in the effort to really do so (BofA’s smart Enter button was one for me).
The IDEO/BBVA video’s got a few “how did it possibly take so long for someone to do it this way!?” ideas (the 90 degree shift in positioning of the ATMs and the “one slot to rule them all” stand out for me ). They also take a page out of Apple’s recent playbook of success in two ways: integrating the hardware + software from the get go and choosing to go full touchscreen to give them the flexibility to always provide the best interface to the user, no matter what they’re doing.
As devices like the iPad go more mainstream and touchscreen prices go down, I look forward to seeing more industries be forced to reconsider the interfaces that stand between them and their customers.
One could argue that “No Manual” needed is the pinnacle of product design but if you’re going to make a “manual” you could do far worse than this. So much nicer to help people experience your product in order to learn rather than just telling them how it works. Just lovely. (ht @adamwohl)
How did it take civilization this long to come up with something that makes SO MUCH SENSE? Sadly, you can’t go out and buy one yet but hopefully someday soon you will be able to.
Speaking of economy, it unfortunately looks like you can’t buy these yet, but now that the idea is out there someone will be marketing them soon. Nothing that’s invented ever dies. Especially not when it’s this cute and immediately useful.
Nice profile of the company and a little glimpse into @dens‘s past. ps: If you squint you can see me right behind Justin Bieber (will the jokes ever get old?)
Next Thursday I’ll be speaking on a panel called “Location, Location, Location” at Ad Age’s Creativity and Technology conference. The details of the panel are as follows: 6:20 Panel: Location, Location, Location Location-based services will undoubtedly be a bigger part of your personal life and the brand creativity world in the coming days. Find out [...]
