By Rain Noe - May 29

Browser Extension That Pauses Video When You Look Away, Yea or Nay?

From a UX perspective, what's a mere inconvenience vs. a hassle?

I consume a lot of video for work. My viewing is frequently interrupted by phone calls, dogs, delivery people hitting the buzzer, etc. Each time this happens I reflexively hit the spacebar to pause the video--and instead the browser window scrolls down half a screen while the video continues to

By Rain Noe - May 25

Check Out These Demonstrations of LeapMotion's AR-Based "Virtual Wearables"

What will AR interfaces look like? Well, if you're willing to wear Leap Motion's "Project North Star" headset, which looks like this… …the interfaces might look like this: The big floppy buttons are interesting. It's still early days, but it seems smaller, more precise buttons probably aren't in

By Emily Engle - Apr 30

Standards Manual's New Book Graphically Explains the History of the Emoji

Emoji has become almost like a second language to us, but where did it come from?

At its core, Emoji is a supplement language designed to accompany our own languages to give the appearance of human emotion during digital conversations. Weird, right? When MoMA announced that they had acquired the original set of emojis from Japan, people were confused for understandable reasons. Its often difficult for

By Emily Engle - Mar 21

adidas Recently Released Sneakers Designed to Look Good on Instagram

Giving social platforms power in the footwear design process and what that could mean for other industries

adidas recently unveiled a new silhouette called Deerupt, and if you ever had doubts social media could play a significant role in the design process, it's time to think again. If you religiously follow the sneaker world on Instagram, you've probably noticed an overload of images that look almost

By Rain Noe - Mar 19

Getting Wearables Right: Motiv's Smart Ring Should be a Lesson for Product Designers Seeking to Launch a New Product

World's Fair Nano Coverage: More Wearables with a Tale of Two Rings, Part 2

In the last entry we looked at the Talon gesture control ring, whose public reception will, we feel, be hamstrung by poor presentation. In contrast we think another smart ring we saw at the World's Fair Nano in San Francisco, called the Motiv Ring, is going to do well for

By Rain Noe - Mar 16

World's Fair Nano Coverage: Analyzing the UX of Wearables with Helix Cuffs vs. Apple's AirPods

Bracelet vs. pillbox

At the World's Fair Nano in San Francisco, multiple companies were hawking their wearable wares. The diversity in the category indicates that wearables are still unsolidified as a product category: Each company seems to be wondering "Should the design be led by technology/function, the user experience, or aesthetics?" In the

By Emily Engle - Mar 07

New Online Resource Colin Offers an Easy Way to Find and Communicate with Local Manufacturers

When starting a new product-based business, a major roadblock you'll likely hit is figuring how to bring your product to life for the first time. Outside of your homemade prototypes, you've never had to deal with finding a manufacturer before! But your product, whatever it may be, is in demand,

By Rain Noe - Mar 07

Future Tech: What are Your Ideas for Applications for These Display Concepts?

Universal Everything's 27 flexible display possibilities

In anticipation of the era when flexible display technology becomes viable, the UK-based digital art/design collective known as Universal Everything has envisioned a series of different display types. They've got one supercut that shows all 27 concepts which I'll place down at the bottom; I found the majority of them

By Rain Noe - Mar 07

Design Criticism: Vivo's Apex Smartphone Concept

Our thoughts on the pluses and minuses of the design features

Smartphone manufacturer Vivo has unveiled the Apex, a functioning concept smartphone that introduces some new features to the category. Check out the demo video first, then we'll get into it: The BezelSmartphone manufacturers all seem to be racing towards a bezel-less screen. (Confused about the difference between bevels and bezels?

By Rain Noe - Feb 16

How Should Apple Have Handled the HomePod Ring-Staining Issue?

And at least one guy is having Olympics-inspired fun with it

Years ago as a freelancer, I was working on a countertop pump bottle for a client. I'd observed that in my own home, the liquid soap pump bottle on my bathroom sink left a dirty ring beneath it; this was because water from your wet hands slowly dripped down the

By Zaza Zuilhof, Lead Designer at Tellart - Feb 12

When Brain-Computer Interfaces Go Mainstream, Will Dystopian Sci-Fi Be Our Only Guidance?

A look at how we can redirect negative feelings towards BCI to shape a preferable future

"I enter the subway. It's crowded as usual around this time, but I manage to find a vacant seat next to a Talker—a man carrying on a conversation on his phone in public space. Only grandpas do that these days. I take out my ThoughtReader. I just got a new

By Emily Engle - Feb 08

Bould Design's Latest Projects, Rylo and Vestaboard, Are All in the Tiny Details

Both designs make use of smartphone connectivity in productive ways

Bould Design recently announced two very different projects we have our eyes on at the moment: The first is Vestaboard—a multipurpose message board controlled by your smartphone. Instead of changing the letters on your seasonal farm-to-table restaurant's daily menu or your wall of inspirational quotes at the office (no

By Core Jr - Feb 08

Sponsored Post: Tune in Now to Catch the Awwwards Conference on Adobe Live!

The latest edition of the leading UX conference kicks off in Berlin this morning—follow along with Adobe's livestream today and tomorrow, February 8–9!

As the most visited online awards platform in the world, Awwwards is perfectly positioned to stage an ongoing series of conferences, bringing together leading UX experts and visionaries from around the world for two days of insight and inspiration. Kicking off in Berlin at this very moment, the latest edition

By Rain Noe - Jan 16

What the UI Design of the Hawaii Missile Alert Actually Looks Like, and a Suggested Design Improvement

…and of course, a hilarious GIF parody

Hawaiian news organization Honolulu Civic Beat has Tweeted this photo of the UI design that led to Saturday's missile alert: Needless to say the design is insanely bad. We've already covered how important the ramifications of a false alarm are; and whoever designed this couldn't use icons to distinguish these

By Rain Noe - Jan 15

Bad UI Design: Here's How Hawaii's Ballistic Missile False Alarm Happened

...and how it could have easily led to nuclear war

On Saturday, folks living in Hawaii received this chilling message on their phones: My friends and acquaintances who live there posted accounts on social media describing their scrambling panic. "It sucked big time for us here in Hawaii," my buddy Mike, a married father of two, wrote. "For a few

By Rain Noe - Dec 05, 2017

GM Launches In-Car eCommerce Capability. Yea or Nay?

Good idea, or bad/inappropriate UI?

General Motors has begun rolling out Marketplace, a software update to their 2017 models that enables drivers to shop from their cars. And I think this is one of those things that might've made some sense on paper, at least from a business standpoint, but that the real world is

By Emily Engle - Nov 30, 2017

Ron Faris on Designing Brand Experiences for the Nike SNKRS App

Faris discusses designing to change pre-existing behavior, working at Nike's s23NYC digital innovation studio and more

Ron Faris got his start developing brand experiences working for Virgin Media to produce the well-known Virgin Mobile music festival. Inspired by the energy of people waiting in line at the festivals he produced, Faris developed Virgin Mega, a mobile platform to engage communities while they wait in line to

By Rain Noe - Nov 27, 2017

Today's Urban Design Observation: The Idiot-Proof Interface Design on These Motorized Lifts

Cherry pickers like these are a pretty common sight in the city. They use them for everything from pruning trees to lighting movie scenes to hanging decorations for festivals. Well, I got up close and found they have a very nifty UI: That's pretty smart, and I imagine it speeds

By Emily Engle - Nov 15, 2017

Kickstarter Announces Drip: A New Online Platform Where You Can Kickstart Yourself

Subscribe to and follow creative individuals you believe in

Kickstarter has been all about inventive products and the stories behind them since day one. By now, we all know the basics of how the crowdfunding platform works—designer thinks of groundbreaking idea but needs funding, designer creates Kickstarter campaign to raise awareness and funding, designer either earns enough funding or

By Rain Noe - Nov 13, 2017

Bad Design Meets Unnecessary Technology: Guy Reviews ION Bottleless Water Cooler

When "UX" rhymes with "sucks"

Here's a great example of a product design that probably sounded great on paper, but clearly sucks to use in the real world. We present to you the Ion Bottleless Water Cooler: 1. The Initial Design Problem Office water coolers require the end user to lift that heavy jug of

By Rain Noe - Nov 09, 2017

When Design Changes Stink, and Here's How to Get Apple's Podcasts App to Autoplay Again

Usually when companies make things harder for the end user, they've got a good reason...right?

When the design of a product, service or system is willfully changed or something new is introduced, it is typically for one of several reasons: 1. Because it's better for the consumer.Example: The original iPod or iPhone. These objects provided a vastly improved user experience over what had come before.

By Jon Kolko - Oct 16, 2017

The New Materialism of the Home 

Modernist Studio looks into the future of the branded home experience

Modernist Studio focuses on strategy and design work for big brands. In working with these companies, we've seen a theme around "owning the consumer." Each company is fighting to become front and center in people's lives, with a particular focus on the home. Big companies speak about locking in customers

By Core Jr - Aug 25, 2017

A Digital Platform Advocating the Importance of Creative Research

Are.na is an exciting research website that allows designers and artists alike to connect dots and dig into creative interests

We currently live in a highly visual world dominated by ads, videos, and photography, supported by social media outlets like Pinterest that can be used to share them. For developers and founders of the website Are.na, the founding of their site was based upon a genuine desire for an online

By Rain Noe - Aug 17, 2017

Interactive Map Shows You the Exact Opposite End of the Globe From You

The Antipodes Map shows you where you'd wind up if you dug straight down

This is one of my dogs, Betsy, right before she starts furiously digging. She does it every time I take her to the beach and I joke that she's trying to get back to Japan, where her breed, the Shiba Inu, originates from. But assuming Betsy tunneled straight down from

By Rain Noe - Jul 25, 2017

Lenovo Shows Off Folding Tablet Prototype

Flexible LEDs are coming, and here's how they'd work

We all know flexible LED screens are possible, and that someone will eventually come out with a folding smartphone/tablet. The question is, who? Apple? The newly-resurgent, design-focused Microsoft? Judging by the video below, it looks like it may be none other than Lenovo. Take a look at the prototype they

By Rain Noe - Jul 21, 2017

These Jaw-Dropping Computer Graphics, Modeling & Design Advances Will be on Display at SIGGRAPH 2017

Computer-generated situations are rapidly catching up to reality

Most of you have heard of SIGGRAPH, but if you haven't it's "the premier international forum for disseminating new scholarly work in computer graphics and interactive techniques." This year's conference starts at the end of the month, and this teaser video shows you some of the astonishing CG advancements that

By Rain Noe - Jun 28, 2017

Working Prototype for an Up-Down-Sideways Elevator System

Here's how ThyssenKrupp's Multi elevator works

Three years ago we covered ThyssenKrupp's development of an elevator that could go up, down and sideways. Elevator lines in the future, we wrote, would look less like a series of shafts and more like Pac-Man. Tom Scott was lucky enough to gain admittance to ThyssenKrupp's towering elevator testing facility,

By Rain Noe - Jun 26, 2017

So THIS is What "Mixed Reality" Can Do

Pushing the boundaries of interactive projection mapping

VR, AR, MR: It seems certain our future will be filled with [something]-reality, and my guess is that augmented reality will have the most practical applications. In the service of pure art, however, creative studio Theoriz is pushing the boundaries of MR, or mixed reality, by combining VR tracking technologies

By Tenny Pinheiro - Jun 05, 2017

The Ins and Outs of a Design Sprint 

Finally, a design approach you can't afford to ignore.

When was the last time you choose the harder, more expensive approach to solve a problem? That is the reason why the adoption of the Design Sprint practice has been skyrocketing worldwide. But before backing up that claim, let me set the stage with some foundation for the reader that is unfamiliar with the term Design Sprint