Information design
Build your visual resume with ResumUp.com
I have been working on the concept of making the traditional all text resume into something more engaging through design and infographics for a long time. I believe in the idea so much that I’ve had a visual version of my resume on my portfolio site for the past five years. I had hoped that a concept like this would catch on in time and thanks to ResumUp.com it looks like that time has finally come. Getting started is easy as instead of having to enter innumerable fields of data you only need to connect to Facebook or LinkedIn. You can then tweak any of the data and since it is still in beta you will probably need to do so. After the import it said my position was ‘construction manager and roofing consultant’. But after you make those tweaks the resulting resume and metrics dashboard is an orgy of information design. I hope that having tools like this that are easily accessible to the masses will change perceptions that even a simple resume can be elevated to something more with the use of design.
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What’s your social media Klout?
I came across an interesting new site that is still in beta development this week called Klout.com that measures your overall online influence. You log-in using Facebook or Twitter and after authorizing it to look at all your social media services that use 35 different variables to give you an influence score ranging from 1 to 100 with higher scores representing a wider and stronger sphere of influence.
You can look at how they arrived at the score through a metrics driven visual dashboard broken into true reach, amplification probability and network influence. True reach calculates the influence for each individual relationship taking into account factors such as whether an individual has shared or acted upon your content and the likelihood that they saw it. Amplification probability looks at your ability to create content that compels others to respond and high-velocity content that spreads into networks beyond your own is a key component of influence. Network influence measures actions like retweets, @messages, follows, lists, comments, and likes to measure the authority and the quality of your content.
Your score and social media behavior then put you into one of sixteen categories. They range from the low level Dabbler who is just starting out in social media to the Thought Leader is who a visionary in their industry. I am categorized as an Explorer which is “Someone who is actively engage in the social web, constantly trying out new ways to interact and network. You’re exploring the ecosystem and making it work for you. Your level of activity and engagement shows that you “get it”, we predict you’ll be moving up.”
The quality of the score analysis is very detailed, very interesting and vert good. The site also cuts the data into interesting displays and graphs like Klout Style which create a 4 dimension visual map showing your score and category against key people you follow.
But nothing everything is so wonderful as you clearly see other areas are clearly still in Beta. The most noticeable beta data results for me was the topics sections that lists the top 5 topics you most influence. For me it was creativity (I’d really hope that was number one) followed by soda, KFC, diabetes and marketing. How they came up with two through four is beyond me since I never eat at KFC, have given up drinking soda and have written anything about diabetes. I may have written about KFC and soda advertising campaigns two or three times in nine years.
If Twitter and Facebook aren’t funding these guys they are idiots because the introduction of game mechanics into the social media landscape makes it even more addicting as you want to post more content, get more followers so you can see your score and classification rise.
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I love a good inforgraphic
I love the thought and design that goes into a greta inforgraphic. Two of the best I’ve seen lately came from the team over at Vitamin Tablet. The first takes a look at where to go once you have the great idea that will to take you to internet stardom – click here to see it full size.
This infographic is a visual illustration of the genealogy of the advertising industry, from early incarnations of agencies in the 19th century all the way to the modern day blitz of mergers and acquisitions by the big holding companies - click here to see it full size.
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GOAB: Experience TV Concept
For a long time, watching television was very straightforward. For as long as I can remember it has been sitting on the couch in the living room facing the TV with a set number of channels playing certain shows at a designated time. Technology has completely changed that concept with the introduction of DVR’s to record shows to watch whenever you want and mobile apps that can set those DVRs from anywhere.
So as technology continues to evolve where does that experience go from here? The guys over at Syzygy labs spent some time to think about that question and came up with what I think is the best possible solution I’ve seen so far. You can watch the video above or check out their site that documents all of their thinking here.
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Re-design or re-merchandise failing site functionality?
Over the course of my career I have designed A LOT of big, intricate, transactional, multi-lingual web sites and inevitably after you launch the site there is some piece of functionality that isn’t performing as well as you had hoped or isn’t being received the way you thought it would be by the end user of the site. When that happens you are faced with a really difficult decision on what to do with that part of the site: Do you panic and change everything? Do you just ignore it and give it time? Do you continue to try different options in a desperate attempt to hit the right combination? How do you fix it?
Over the years I’ve found the best solution to this problem isn’t found in the answers to any of those questions because too many companies and designers think that when something isn’t performing the way they had hoped that they need to run off and do a re-design. I have found that if you take the time to really understand the problem before you do anything drastic because you might have the functionality or the tools that your audience is looking for when they come to your site but they aren’t able to find it or understand how to use it. It is a natural process that as you work on something like a design or an interface you start to become blind to some of the details and problems because you have a different perspective of that work than someone who is seeing it for the first time. I try to get my designers to develop short term memory loss so this doesn’t happen to them in their work but it is a hard process that takes time. Until that skill develops show your work to as many people as you can in your studio or your family to try to get a fresh opinion on things and see if they see what you want them to see.
If you go through the process of doing this informal testing and you don’t get the results you hoped for then don’t rush to judgement until you understand why it’s happening. Think of it like a product in a brick and mortar store that isn’t selling and to change that you need to re-merchandise that product with better store placement or signage so people pay attention to it. So translating that into interface design you need to use the same techniques and your answer could be found in better messaging so people understand how to use it or it could be taking the content out of that drop down and putting it into a list to expose it. These simple changes can have a huge impact and get people to finally understand what you were trying to accomplish.
The other technique that I use a lot to re-merchandise interface functionality is the concept staging. It is exactly the same as what they do in movies and theater where after the stage is set with all the actors you need to coordinate how they move to help tell the story. It is something I brought with me from the days I did special effects animation and broadcast design when I realized that I could use motion to control the viewers eye and where they looked on the screen. It works so well because a viewers eye will naturally be drawn to motion. If you have a screen that is still then when something moves your eye instantly jumps to the movement. You can use that to your advantage in interface design. Use motion to get the user to focus on a specific area of the page or even walk them through the interface without ever using a single word of copy.
This technique of staging was something we used with great results on the redesign of Westin.com. We had a minimal, clean design we loved but there were three critical areas of information the guest needed to see and understand how they interacted with each other. We did about 100 combinations that tested how we could get guests to understand those relationships by using motion to get them to see the first critical menu and then we worked on the staging so they would understand the consequences of their decisions. It took a while to get all of those things right but we were able to get it working really well and we did it without adding a single word of explanation.
So next time you find your site not performing the way you hoped take a little time and due diligence to really understand the problem. It could be that a simple change could make you a hero.
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Designing the face of IBM’s Watson
There has been a lot of press this week about IBM’s Watson super computer playing on Jeopardy against the shows two greatest champions. In all the hype one story that has been overlooked and I think is the most interesting one of all. It’s how Flash godfather and Praystation founder turned visual artist Joshua Davis designed the “face” of Watson for IBM. It is really fascinating to watch two things in this video. The first thing is how Josh created Watson’s face (skip to around 1:35) as a blend of the IBM Smarter Planet logo and his own art that had actual meaning beyond just looking cool. The second thing is that they were able to get Josh so calm and focused for the video because talking to him is always so much fun as the jet lag from his constant world travel and his Red Bull level fight for control of his consciousness. All in all check out the video because the work is fantastic and it is very cool to see Josh’s work recognized on this level.
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Dollar Rede$ign Project
I came across the Dollar Rede$ign Project today which is an interesting exercise by a number of artists to look at how to redesign the US Dollar. I especially liked the work of San Francisco based design studio Dowling | Duncan who made a number of interesting changes including using different colors for different bills, keeping the width of the bills the same but varying the height to make it easier to identify how much money you have and changing the orientation to a vertical format which the way the majority of people hand over their money. They also chose imagery for each note that directly related to it’s value so the $1 is the first African American president, the $5 is the five biggest native American tribes and the $10 is the bill of rights. They then overprinted the imagery with infographics and pattens relating to that particular subject matter. You can vote for your favorite between now and September 30th when the poll closes and a winner and two runners up will be named.
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The visual resume
I have continued to tinker with my idea of creating a new format for designer’s resume that leaves boring Word files behind for more color and visual layout. I recently updated the visual version of my resume with a new more compact and informative layout that lays out my whole career on one page. If you have any thoughts let me hear then and if your have your own version I would love to see it.
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MapQuest finally gets some direction
Mapquest was one of the early originators of online mapping but the brand and it’s site have been dormant for a very long time. They are trying to change all of that and close the gap on Google by making a comeback with a new site and some new branding.
New branding – It’s a logo, it’s an equation, it’s a character?
Let’s start by taking a look at their new logo / icon which is a departure from the old color palette and design with the addition to a new logo mark. When I saw the new logo for the first time I honestly thought it looked like M to the power of Q. I know other people either simply see the letters M and Q or get far more creative and see the letters forming a dog or elephant like character with the Q as the head of the animal. I can see how you could all of those interpretations but I keep debating with myself how I feel about the logo. On the one hand it is unique and I can’t think of another logo where you are able to see it so many different ways but I’m not convinced all that interpretation leads to a lasting or positive brand impression. MapQuest is trying to embrace all as these different forms as they acknowledge and explain them all in their new brand video but I think their explanations go too far into overreaching marketing speak trying to give every form meaning that relates to the site. If the three it would seem that the brand may be favoring the creature interpretation because on the new site the logo can be seen tapping its feet while content loads.
MapQuest.com – Differentiated or redecorated?
Google Maps
For me a new logo is nice but the real question is what are they doing on the new MapQuest.com that is going to differentiate the site and pull it ahead of Google Maps? I started in the obvious place by pulling up both sites and searching for the same address to do a side-by-side comparison. It was a bit of a disappointment when after all the build up I couldn’t really find any significant differences. I went down the list of features on both sites. Zoomable map – check. Street views – check. Live traffic – check. Search nearby – check. While MapQuest had a slightly cleaner design with more modern interface buttons the only real difference I could find took a page from a few popular iPhone apps and added an icon bar where you can quickly display restaurants, parks, movie theaters, etc. near your chosen location. They have also gone those basic markers to ass time sensitive content like ‘July 4th events’ and paid branded content from companies like Holiday Inn so you can find the nearest hotel.
It was only after I did some digging that I did find one interesting feature on the site. You can plan your trip online and save the results to the My Maps section and then either customize the map with your own information or pull up the route you want to take on your iPhone through their application. It’s a useful feature I would probably use when I travel because I don’t always 100% trust my car’s navigation system. The problem is that I NEVER saw one mention of this feature anywhere on the site outside of an extremely short mention of it in their new brand video. This is a huge miss for a brand trying to create some differentiation from a competitors who has a huge market share over them.
So when I look at this re-launch as whole I don’t see how they are going to gain any ground on Google. Using language like ‘started designing with a blank canvas’ sound promising but then you need to deliver something that is truly breakthrough and takes advantage of an opportunity like that and doesn’t have that canvas look more like a xerox than an a new original work of art.
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web.without.words
Found an interesting site today called web.without.words which was developed by Paul Armstrong to visually represent the idea that hierarchy, grid systems and uniformity ultimately leads to a more natural user experience. He takes the overall structure of any website, strips it naked of the distractions of text and ads and images and showing a site for what the eye unconsciously perceives – pattern, consistency, unformity, predictability and balance. Each site has this visual breakdown and some analysis of the structure. There aren’t as many examples as you would hope for but it is an interesting approach to analyzing popular sites.
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