034 : The UX of time travel with SFCD Agency

SFCD Agency It’s a seemingly simple problem — tell the user what time it is in different countries around the world — with an endless number of solutions. There are a few questions you need to ask yourself before even touching pencil to paper: What’s the best way for humans to manipulate time? And really, what is time?

SFCD Agency took a break from client work to put out its first mobile application: Miranda. It’s a time zone converter with an elegant and unique user interface. In this episode, Yasser, the Head of Product and Strategy, and Dmitry, the Creative Director, share their experience making Miranda.

It’s an inside look at the app creation process within an agency, where ideas are brainstormed and workshopped into their final form.

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030 : A carefully crafted app launch with Jeremy Olson

Jeremy Olson Tapity It’s easy to look at somebody like Jeremy Olson and think, “wow, this guy came out of nowhere and just dominated the app scene!” His created his first app, Grades, while still in college, and it won him Apple’s prestigious Design Award in 2011. From there, he founded Tapity, an app development company that just launched its newest app Hours. He’s also the co-author of the popular App Design Handbook.

But creating a beautiful product is only one step in the process of releasing successful apps. In this interview, Jeremy takes me back to the beginning, and shares how he used a journal-like blog to make industry connections and build an audience before he even knew what he was doing. He also talks about turning app releases into launch events, which explains why Hours was covered by almost every major tech news website.

With over a million apps in the App Store, app success really is all about the launch. Jeremy shares exactly how he does it.

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028 : Better products through storytelling with Donna Lichaw

Donna Lichaw Storytelling has been a part of the human experience since the beginning of history (one of the reasons that we even have history). Our brains are wired to respond to stories — whether it’s an urban legend told to us around a campfire as a child, or the tale of an obese man who lost weight with an all-Subway diet.

Donna Lichaw knows a thing or two about the importance of narrative, having studied film for both her undergrad and graduate degrees. She now uses the power of the narrative arc to build compelling products that engage the user by leading them through a carefully crafted experience. She’s worked with companies such as Seamless, Citi, Bloomberg, and Atlantic Records, diving into the user experience and building products that stick.

This episode is amazing. My favorite part is when she applies the narrative arc to an app I’m working on, and we get to see the entire process in action (starts at 52:45).

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 58:18 — 46.9MB) | Embed

How to quickly make GIFs and become an outsourcing master

Using GIF Brewery to make a GIF

I still have the chat logs from my endless hours spent on AOL Instant Messenger back in high school (2000 – 2004). I rediscovered them recently and spent about ten minutes reading before I couldn’t go on any further. Every other word made me cringe.

There’s a very specific reason why I was cringing: I remembered exactly what I was thinking as I had those conversations, but that is not at all how it came across as I looked back at things. I thought I was properly communicating my thoughts, but everything was actually coming out all wrong. I wasn’t being witty, I was just being a jerk.

I’ve become slightly better with words since then (I hope!) but there’s only so far that text chats can get you. When you’re trying to explain something to someone, there are times when words aren’t enough. You need to show them.

But when you’re not sitting right next to that person, showing can be difficult. There are a few different ways to solve this problem. Chris Ducker, of Virtual Freedom, crafted what he calls the VA Training Trifecta, in which an entrepreneur can either text, audio, video, or some combination therein to communicate tasks with virtual staff.

But there’s another powerful tool that I use nearly everyday to quickly show people exactly what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about GIFs.

A GIF is the perfect communication tool for describing small bits of dynamic information, like how a button animation should work or the way something is working on your computer. You can guarantee that whoever you’re talking to can see exactly what you’re seeing, and it’s much easier to show rather than trying to describe the problem with words or going through the hassle of creating a huge screencast.

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, a GIF is worth over 9,000!

I’ve perfected a system that lets me make GIFs on my Mac in about 30 seconds. I’m going to show you exactly how I do it. Continue reading →

Win a free ticket to the MoDev UX conference!

MoDev UX Conference in DC

One lucky reader will win a free ticket to the MoDev UX conference in Washington, DC this month! That’s a $799 value, and all you need to do is tell me why you want to go — I’ve got a form at the bottom of this post. But first, I want to tell you why I’m going and why you should want to go, too.

Why are conferences important?

Once of the first books I bought when I decided to quit my job at The Verge and start freelancing and working on this website full-time was Deduct It!: Lower Your Small Business Taxes by Stephen Fishman. Up until that point, my knowledge of the United States tax system was practically nonexistent, and I got the book to make sure that my first small business venture got off on the right foot.

But reading Deduct It! had unexpected consequences beyond simply understanding the law: each new chapter gave me a ton of new ideas for growing my business.

I was expecting a book about tax law to be extremely boring, but it read more like an instruction manual for kicking ass in small business. By learning the laws pertaining to certain types of purchases and income, I discovered new assets to buy and revenue streams I never even considered.

They say that the best way to learn a new language is through total immersion. That’s exactly what happens at conferences. And speaking this new language is the best way to think differently about your own projects and problems.

Why should I learn UX?

A computer science degree doesn’t teach how to code — it teaches how to think. Students still need to independently study individual programming languages, but the computer science background makes learning new languages much easier. When you already understand the concept of a linked list or an array, it’s easier to learn how to write them in Ruby, Java, Objective-C, or any other programming language.

Similarly, user experience teaches a different way to think about problems. Learning a new method for structuring a website or app will reveal user problems you never even realized existed.

Novice…no longer!

I define a novice as a person who doesn’t know enough about a topic to even ask the right questions. I was a novice when I decided to make my first iPhone app, and remained a novice for much longer than was necessary due to my stubborn desire to learn how to code all by myself and never ask for help.

But I’ve learned that it doesn’t actually take very long to exit the novice stage. The best way to do it is to find someone who knows more than you and make them talk about the topic of interest. Listening to the way these “experts” talk, and the specific points they make, is truly the real fast lane out of novice-dom.

Alright, so gimme my ticket

Ah yes, the free ticket to the MoDev UX conference!

The people who run the MoDev conference have been kind enough to give me two tickets — one for myself and another to give to one lucky reader. You’ll have access to all the workshops and the entire conference for the full two days. That’s a $799 value.

All you need to do is fill out the form below. You have until midnight on Thursday, May 8th. I’ll be contacting the winner on Saturday, May 10th.

Good luck, and I hope to see you there!