This week’s Link Drop had a heavy does of experience and service design stuff. I suppose it’s an interesting reaction to all the graphic design posts I talked about last week. I guess I like to keep things balanced. Other things to take note of are the posts on authenticity and cup communicators. While they don’t exactly fit together there’s some interesting things to look at in terms of what meaning is for an object.

Answering the Call to Service Design: An Interview with Phi-Hong Ha



I haven’t come across much info from the AIGA in regards to service design. While I do think the goals and the spirit of that type of design has been around much longer than is suggested in the interview under different names, the break down and context of the discussion is helpful for those that may not know about this type of design.

Adobe’s Approach to Service Design



The beginning of this post feels like an infomercial for Adobe. After the first paragraph it does go into some great insights about a real company’s process of shifting from desktop to more of an online service provider. Lots of valuable insights, I wish more more on the inside would share details like this.

Here’s a hint — if the data format has an “®” by its name, it probably isn’t great for transparency or open data.



Fascinating quote to think about…

On Authenticity



I like how the issues of absolutes (or lack thereof) is touched upon. I also had to smile when I read the line “They aren’t inauthentic rocks and trees; they are authentic fake rocks and trees”. Along the way there’s some good questions about how design research can play a role in finding the patterns.

Agile User Experience Projects



This kind of turns the idea of UX person on it’s head a bit. From my experience the person that stays in paper too long gets kind of lost in the details while if something is on screen with real/fake data, a lot of those traditional UX details can be fleshed out. To be honest I think this warrants a bigger post from me than a simple Link Drop link—stay tuned.

Content-tious Strategy



The only thing missing from this post from my pov is to get real content on the screen asap as opposed to playing on paper for months.

It’s About Helping Your Users Become Awesome (or: “Being Better is Better” by Kathy Sierra)



If we step back for a minute about whether we should call users user’s or people, this bullet point list of things to make the experience for people is pretty good. My open question though is this, surely this type of stuff has been presented a million times already. Is there a way to balance this kind of info with something that’s new that can move things forward?

“Can You Say That in English? Explaining UX Research to Clients” in A List Apart Magazine



There’s a lot of valuable information in this post—what’s interesting to me is that publisher only choose to show the first paragraph before sending people off to the other site to read the whole thing. I’m not sure why the entire post couldn’t be on both sites, after all he did write it. That aside, the UX breakdown for talking with clients is pretty good. After a while when people within their own silo are only speaking to each other, it’s hard to realize that everyone doesn’t get what you get.

The Peculiar Logic of Remote Control Design



Anything about remote control design is fascinating to me.

Get Mental Notes



I bought these because three other people that I follow on twitter said they bought them. I’m not sure when they’re coming so I can’t say if they’re any good or not, but it’s worth taking a look for the site design, content and possibly because it’s a tool that might help you.

Which policy proposal should be the US NDPI’s top priority for 2010?



I voted for “Expand national grants to support interdisciplinary community design programs based on human-centered design principles”. There are way too many silo professions within design at the moment and they need to be broken apart.

Architizer: The Facebook for Architects



This community concept is fascinating to me because it’s taking the tools of social media, making them contextual and in effect creating a new organization. Compare that model to the old type of design organization—all that someone needs to do now is create a community online that can compete with everyone else, and they don’t have the baggage of history which can be seen as a plus or not.

Feelin’ the love



This is a fascinating response to a post where a company asked that their design be taken down from a blog. Classy response from a friend of DesignNotes, Josh explains why he did decide to go along and about how a site like his could actually help the business. I’d keep an eye on this site for the next year or two—my guess with a couple revs, of the site it will be a place to go for real world design criticism.

Goldman Bet on Housing Crash



More info on financial stuff that the average person isn’t/wasn’t aware of…

Independent Booksellers of NYC



Nice map of the alternatives for buying books in NYC.

The Singular



A website with models and polaroids is never a bad strategy for content.

Cup communicator



There’s something really great about this project. There’s always the concern that as technology move ahead, some of the old visual symbols as they transition into something new loose their metaphorical meaning. Think of the rotary phone for example. The tin can tied with string is one of those things that will always be around. It’s a toy of communication at a really basic level that everyone gets and has experienced. This project takes that into the tech age. The special thing is that metaphor isn’t lost, and if the project was explored twenty years again with a newer tech aspect to it, the same meaning would still be conveyed.

You Don’t Have to Be Buddhist to Know Nothing



Looks like a good book to read.

Typically for me if I see something twice in a somewhat unique manner it usually feels like a pattern to me. Chances are if there’s at least two of the “thing” out there, it’s only a matter of time before I see it elsewhere. The current “thing” that I’ve started to notice is a nice, simple and effective play on the idea of smiley face. While I haven’t seen the rapid gestures of the smile more in the usual areas, I’ve noticed it pop up on 32nd and 16th streets. There’s two things that I like about it. Very fast message to convey, the meaning is pretty obvious, and easily reproducible. It also reminds me of the Love Me stuff that tends to be finding it’s way more around the city. Again a similar approach of conveying a message very quickly and easily reproducible on different scales.

The building is made up of 14,000 equilateral triangles. Some are solar panels, some are windows, others just fill out the structure. The net result is a building that manages to mask the black behemoths you're used to seeing.

gawkerGallery(5399516,4,''); I love how the exterior influences the interior lighting, not to mention how great it all looks when lit up. [Inhabitat]

Tweets are the new press release it would seem. Above was the invite for the event to present the new logo for the New York Public Library. Unfortunately I was able attend the unveiling however I still was able to get a glance of the new logo as it was tweeted. I don’t have much information but it seemed like the reason for the adjusted logo was that it did not convert well at small sizes in digital format. I’ll leave it up to you to compare the old logo that’s in the tweet and the new version above it.

This is a post from the Freshome Magazine, who bring you the latest news in Interior Design, Decorating, Furniture and Architecture.

Stylish Apartment For Sale in Linnéstaden, Sweeden

The clip is pretty interesting, even if you're not normally enamored with Apple. Ive is the most prominent tech designer of the last two decades, and I like his philosophy on "getting design out of the way." Hopefully the clip motivates you guys to go see the full movie, which is great, even if it doesn't reach the heights of Hustwit's previous effort Helvetica.

This is a post from the Freshome Magazine, who bring you the latest news in Interior Design, Decorating, Furniture and Architecture.

Turning an Old Pool Into a Skaters’ Heaven : Octopus by NEVERCREW’S

This is a post from the Freshome Magazine, who bring you the latest news in Interior Design, Decorating, Furniture and Architecture.

Metz Residence in Minneapolis

This is a post from the Freshome Magazine, who bring you the latest news in Interior Design, Decorating, Furniture and Architecture.

‘Anamorphism’ : A Stunning Street Project by Ninja182

French designers Sophie Françon and François Mangeol have collaborated to create a range of modular school furniture. (more…)