There’s a great interview in ReadWriteWeb with the founder of Flipboard on the months leading up to the product launch and what informed what the product eventually became.

It’s a great read all the way through but two things in particular stood out for me:

For a product that has been universally lauded (even on this blog) for its novel approach to interaction, it’s interesting to hear what their starting point was for their design process:

When we got together, we decided to do a thought experiment: imagine if the Web was washed away in a hurricane and we needed to build a new one from scratch. What would it look like? How would it be different? What would the user interface be? Would there still be the notion of a browser? If you build a totally new Web, knowing everything we know today and where the technology is and where it’s likely to be heading, what would you do differently?

It’s incredibly difficult to successfully execute on this “blank slate” approach to design but it really feels like this team has pulled it off.

Something that clearly helped them be able to take that approach is that they were designing Flipboard before there was an actual piece of hardware to design it for (they were months into their process before Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad).

Product designers often struggle to balance technology constraints with solving a genuine human need. Unfortunately the former often ends up shaping the the product more than they would want. This is a fascinating case study of seeing what can happen (and what you can accomplish) when you’re forced to come at a problem purely from the users’ point of view:

When I traveled, I would buy magazines before I got on an airplane. I love magazines, I read them all the time. As I was reading them, I’d ask myself: “Why is it that the Web isn’t as beautiful as these magazines? What could we do to make the web a more beautiful place?” And of course, along with that line of thinking, I was saying to myself: “If this [Apple] tablet that is rumored ever happens, it would be the perfect form factor for doing exactly that – for making websites as beautiful as magazines.”

The date that I started realizing we needed to go more towards the magazine approach, in terms of the aesthetics and design, was in the September-October time frame.

As we talked more about it, we decided that the best way to start would be on this theoretical product that Apple was rumored to be doing. And then when Apple actually announced it [in January 2010], it was obviously very exciting for us. We realized that it was as we had hoped – that it would be the platform that could allow us to re-visualize the web in a way that maps more to print. So it would be the perfect place for us to start. And then, as we came to that realization, we married that up with social media. And we realized what we’re really doing here is creating a social magazine. We first started calling it a social magazine in January.

I recommend checking out the whole piece and if you don’t have it, go grab the app (iTunes link)

Atlanta photographer Jason Travis has done an exquisite job capturing and presenting 60 different people and the things they carry with them in a series called Persona. I love the voyeuristic spirit behind it and I find the detailed yet incomplete picture these pieces tell about their subjects fascinating. Many of the flickr photos have notes tagged to the objects, which them which makes them even more interesting.

Needless to say, I’m a huge sucker for projects like this and took part in a similar one myself (quaintly named There’s a lot of crap in my bag).

Check out the whole set on Flickr.
Check out Jason’s photography.

Who knows if this is actually even physically or technically possible but I’m totally in love with the concept and the thinking behind it. The renderings are mesmerizingly well executed, too.

Learn more: Air Umbrella by Je Sung Park » Yanko Design.

(hat tip to Jake)

The moment I saw screenshots of Roundarch’s work on the real-time stats dashboard for the New York Jets’ new stadium I was smitten and not just because I’m a huge fan of the Jets (as well as Rex Ryan’s leadership model). I love how they’ve taken really complex information that spans different categories (food, parking, merchandise) and made it clear, accessible and actionable (and very much on brand, btw).

The Jets’ executive team gets:

What exactly is the system capable of? Let’s start with concessions and merchandise. While a game is underway, NY Jets’ owner Woody Johnson will see a four-panel layout that shows a variety of metrics, from gross spending to total transactions to average amount spent per transaction. The stadium is virtually divided up by each level, and Johnson can zoom in on individual stores and concession stands to see which jerseys are selling, or which beer isn’t. The stadium is heat-mapped too, so if lines are getting to long, mobile vendors can be directed to help ease the burden.

While the fans benefit as well:

The Command Center won’t just help managers and executives, but will soon aim to improve the fan experience as well. Cisco has invested $100 million into the stadium, and one rep estimates the company’s technology could provide fans with estimated wait times in the near future. The dashboard will also warn of choke points at stadium gates and concession stands, so fans can be informed of how to avoid the longest line for a burger, or the best way to exit after the game.

Companies have always had data at their disposal to use to help them make decisions but I think we’re going to start seeing companies seeing the value in thoughtful interface design as a window to that data and that makes me really excited.

Read more about it over at Fast Company

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.

[Read more]

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:

Awesome awesome visualization of Inception. The more I think about and talk about the movie with others, the more I need to see it again.

(via Inception Infographic by ~dehahs)

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.

Be sure to check out the IDEO/BBVA case study.

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.

Read more here.

I totally *love* this visual style. They’re all pretty rad but this one’s my favorite. See the rest here.