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)
The team at Panic have rigged up this amazing (and beautiful) real-time display of the data immediately relevant to their team. Projects that fall in the cross section of dataviz and productivity really interest me. It reminds me a bit of the dashboard that Crispin Porter + Bogusky set up to visualize the health and status of their ongoing projects.
Here’s some info from the team at Panic:
What’s on the board?
The idea quickly grew beyond “Project Status”, and has become a hub of all sorts of internal Panic information. What you’re actually looking at is an internal-only webpage that updates frequently using AJAX which shows:
E-Mail Queue — number of messages / number of days.
Project Status — sorry for the heavy censorship — you know how it is!
Important Countdowns
Revenue — comparing yesterday to the day before, not so insightful (yet).
Live Tri-Met Bus Arrivals — when it’s time to go home!
The Panic Calendar
Employee Twitter Messages
Any @Panic Twitter Messages — i.e., be nice! They go on our screen!
I highly recommend you head on over to their blog and read all about it.
I think my “7 Circles of Web Chicanery Hell” post is coming together right before my eyes. Today’s entrant into the mix is the hidden “Delete Account” button.
Yesterday I received an email from an app I signed up for months ago and haven’t used since (the startup behind this app will remain nameless). After going back to the site I determined I wanted to delete my account and so I set off on what amounted to a Homerian odyssey to do so.
I started with the obvious place, Account Settings, and found nothing. The next place I checked was the Help section. Nothing. Finally I ended up at the FAQs. No luck. Tic toc tic toc. So frustrated. Finally I decided to send an email and request my account be canceled only to receive this email the next day:
Hi Alex,
Can I ask why you want to leave [startup]? What can we do to retain you as a user? We are in an early stage and are trying to improve as we go along. Your feedback will help. If you still want your account deleted, we can take care of it.
Argh!
As someone who’s built products and cultivated a user base myself, I know the importance of growing and listening to your user base. That being said, this habit of not only making the Delete Account button difficult to find but making it completely unavailable shows an utter lack of respect for your users.
Getting feedback from users as to why they’re leaving your service is incredibly valuable and that has been successfully handled by many companies as a part of the Delete Account process that users have the option to fill out. Users looking for this functionality already want to go. Making them waste time looking for a link only to ultimately feel trapped and then forcing them into 2 email exchanges before finally granting their request (I’m still awaiting confirmation) is really bad form and can almost guarantee they’ll never be back and never say anything nice about you to others.
Your users should feel like they can come and go as they please. If you’ve designed the best experience you can, not only will they want to stay but they’ll want to help you make it even better.
I’m happy to announce that Tinker Studio will taking part in the Square beta program so as of today, I’m ready to accept payment for services via my iPhone + my Square. I also plan on making Square central to the massive stoop sale Karen and I are planning for when the season turns.
Not familiar with Square? Check out the excellent demo and you’ll know exactly why it’s important:
A couple of weeks ago, New York City-based online grocer, FreshDirect launched their iPhone app (iTunes link), enabling their customers to easily shop for groceries in a way that caters to the needs of an audience that is increasingly mobile.
This is doubly exciting for me: first, as a huge fan of the brand and weekly FreshDirect customer for the past 7+ years but secondly as a mobile designer as it was the last project I had the amazing chance to lead while I was at Schematic.
FreshDirect.com occupies a very unique place in the world of online shopping for many reasons that I’m sure you can imagine. At a high level, it presents a fundamentally different shopping experience because a) many of their customers shop weekly and b) those shopping experience involves building a cart with many more items than most other cart-based online shopping sites. This creates very specific interaction needs that that the team at FreshDirect has spent the better part of the last decade honing and improving on their website. Solving the problem of taking the relevant parts of that experience and making them mobile was a really exciting one to tackle and this app is the result of that process.
We focused on designing an experience that complemented and enhanced the primary web experience while always remaining cognizant of the mobile medium – giving you quick access to previous orders and custom shopping lists you’ve created on the site, browsing your favorite items and weekly specials, updating your delivery times or searching for any item in the store for those times when you remember that one thing you neglected to throw in your cart.
Working on a mobile product for a local brand like FreshDirect that, if done right, could make a weekly routine that people undergo more pleasant, efficient and rewarding, was one of the best professional opportunities I’ve had as a designer. I couldn’t be more proud of the team I got to work with on the project and I’m so excited that everyone’s work is now out in the world for people to use. Also, FreshDirect has a history of listening to its customers to continually enhance their products so know that any thoughts/feedback you have on the app. will be welcomed by their team.
If you’re in New York and you feel that you’ve got better things to do with your time than spend hours each week combing the aisles of your local C-Town, check out FreshDirect and make sure you give the new iPhone app a spin (iTunes Link). Hope you like it!
Update from the comments: Also, wanted to let everyone know Fresh Direct just launched a contest to promote the app. Grand prize winner gets $500 Apple Store credit + $500 Fresh Direct credit, check it out: http://bit.ly/FD_AppContest
Candy Chang is back with another beautiful project demystifying legalese for a particular group of people, in this case, street vendors in New York City. She’s created a visually stunning booklet that attempts to clearly communicate policies the that will ultimately determine how vendors can make their living in the city.
It makes me so happy to see design continue to infiltrate the city at a municipal level. Who knows, maybe someday we’ll even have some super awesome manhole covers like they do in Japan. Dare to dream, right?
Here’s some more background on the project:
Six pairs of sunglasses, five hand bags, and countless hot dogs, biryani, falafel, and dumplings: these are but a few of the things Candy has consumed thanks to New York City’s 10,000+ street vendors. It wasn’t until recently, however, that she realized how much drama they have to endure to make an honest living. As part of Making Policy Public, Candy collaborated with The Street Vendor Project and the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) to research, compile, and design this guide to street vending in New York City. Many vendors are being fined $1000 for little things like parking their cart too far away from the curb, not “conspicuously” wearing their vending license, and other rules buried in the City’s regulation book full of intimidating jargon that would make even the most patient person cry. This guide helps clarify the rules through diagrams and minimal text in English, Bengali, Arabic, Chinese and Spanish, so NYC’s diverse vendors can understand their rights, avoid fines, and earn an honest living.
You can check out more info and plenty of more pictures here
PS: If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the marvelous work she did for NYC Tenants’ Rights.
After tweeting once every couple of months that I’m looking for an app/service that allows me to consume the links/photos/videos the people I follow are tweeting about, I was finally introduced to Readtwit (Thanks, @fchi!)
As people continue to get more and more comfortable with Twitter and start following more people, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep up with the firehose of information contained within. While I’ve accepted I won’t always be able to keep up on people’s tweets about walking their dogs, going for a run and cooking dinner (I’m guilty of all three so settle down), I would like a way to stay up on all the media that’s being shared. Enter Readtwit.
Put simply, Readtwit creates an RSS feed of all the things the people you follow are linking to and converts it into a nice, clean RSS feed that you can dump into many of the most popular readers out there.
See below for an example of what a Mashable post looks like in my Google Reader. Notice how they include the context of who tweeted the content and what they had to say about it.
Also, in the footer of every piece of content, they give you two really useful links. One that allows you to hide future links from the person who tweeted that piece of content and a link that enables you to let them know that a particular piece of content is rendering incorrectly – presumably due to complications parsing, etc. (This weekend I was having problems with links coming from Radar and Twitpic.) The latter is more interesting to me because it shows that they are leaning on their users to help them create a better experience for everyone.
As someone who’s a heavy information consumer primarily using Twitter/Google Reader/Instapaper as my main tools of choice, I get the feeling that Readtwit is going to fit right in and actually streamline some of that workflow.
If you’re in a similar spot with your content consumption, I highly recommend you give it a try: Readtwit.
With just a snippet of extra code, get a great looking report on how mobile users are accessing your site. Here’s a look at a full report. (via teendrama)
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I maintain a more traditional blog, covering a wide range of topics over at www.alexrainert.com.
I'm a husband, new father & owner of a lovably neurotic vizsla. Obsessed with information, design, emerging tech, sports & food. Years ago I co-founded dodgeball.com and I'm currently head of product at foursquare.
A couple of weeks ago, New York City-based online grocer, 
