Here are the things that I think are worth reading and checking out this week:   Forget Bitcoin, this Nike vending machine makes hard-earned sweat the newest currency On the streets of New York City, there’s a vending machine full of Nike gear–socks, T-shirts, hats–so you can get some fresh workout clothes on the go. The only catch is, it doesn’t take cash, debit, or credit. It only takes your hard-earned sweat through NIKE Fuel Brand points. I first saw this idea a few months ago in the Retail Lab at R/GA and was really intrigued.  I think it is interesting to see brands like Nike and MasterCard working to create these instant gratification rewards programs for using their products and services. Read the article here. David Kwong TED Talk: Two nerdy obsessions meet — and it’s magic David Kwong is the really interesting mix of a magician and also...

Here are the things that I think are worth reading and checking out this week:   10 tips on how to make slides that communicate your idea, from TED’s in-house expert Aaron Weyenberg is the master of slide decks at TED. He is their UX Lead  who creates the kind of presentations that pull you in and keep you captivated, but in an understated way that helps you focus on what’s actually being said. TED asked Aaron to bottle his Keynote wisdom so that others could benefit from it. I really like and agree with his 10 tips for making an effective slide deck, split into two parts: the big, overarching goals, and the little tips and tricks that make your presentation sing. Read the article here. You May Be Losing Users If Responsive Web Design Is Your Only Mobile Strategy This article look at the relationship between the mobile web and responsive design, starting with how to apply...

Here are the things that I think are worth reading and checking out this week:   6 Reasons Why Nobody Uses Your App There’s a dirty secret behind many of those hot new app startups you hear about every week. They have seed funding and a flashy landing page. They have everything except users, because nobody actually wanted the app. In a presentation at Google’s I/O conference, Tomer Sharon, Google Search User Experience Researcher, broke down the age-old question: “Why is nobody using my app?” You can watch the entire presentation in the video in the article which also does a nice job of simplifying the 30-minute presentation into the key takeaways. Read the article here. Tory Burch Gives The Fitness Tracker A Fashionable Makeover In an effort to make people actually want to wear wearable technology, designer Tory Burch has given the Fitbit fitness tracker a fashionable makeover....

Here are the things that I think are worth reading and checking out this week:   A Better Netflix with A Better Queue I am constantly fascinated to see new start-ups come in and improve upon what big brands are doing. In this case there is more than a little irony that it happened to Netflix as one developer has created the site A Better Queue which lets you filter Netflix’s instantly streaming movies by Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer, number of reviews, years, genres and lets you add movies straight to your queue. It was all done with Ruby on Rails, the Netflix API, and the Rotten Tomatoes API. It is till in the early days but if you use Netflix streaming this is the site you need to be using. Go to the site here. How GoPro Is Transforming Advertising As We Know It GoPro’s rising stock prices after its initial public offering (IPO) last week just go to show how powerful...

Here are the things that I think are worth reading and checking out this week:   How Google’s Project Ara Could Pave The Way For Next-Gen UI When you think about it, smartphones haven’t changed dramatically since the iPhone was first released in 2007. Sure, they have gotten faster, more powerful, and thinner. They have far better sound, displays, and cameras. But at the end of the day, we’re all still using our smartphones the same way we did then: by tapping a glass screen. Currently in the prototype phase, Project Ara allows you to snap together a smartphone out of individual components, almost like Lego. The advantage with this design isn’t just that you could update components, like a camera or a processor, as they become obsolete; a smartphone like Project Ara would also allow companies to explore more exotic haptic technologies, which could then be...