Comments for Matt Balara, Freelance User Experience Designer in Sydney Australia

Comment on Desktop Magazine by Miss Wired

Miss Wired — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:01:12 +0000

That’s very cool getting your photos in Desktop. Congrats Matt!

Comment on Desktop Magazine by Matt Balara

Matt Balara — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:14:14 +0000

Okay, I wrote too quickly and didn’t explain exactly what happened. It’s not *quite* that bad, Nina. See the update above.

Comment on Desktop Magazine by Niina

Niina — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:40:41 +0000

That’s very poor form - they should have contacted you before using them to ask if you minded them being used, and to confirm the credits that should be attributed to the photos.

Comment on The Weakest Link or One Bad Apple Redux… by Matt Balara

Matt Balara — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 09:12:02 +0000

Yep, sure did. As I mentioned above, Apple totally nailed the in-store experience, and they also managed the follow-up well: I got an email the next day, asking for feedback and linking to a survey. I clicked through the ratings and linked to this and the previous post in the box at the end. One can only hope that they actually look at those surveys, and that someone with the power to improve the experience is taking notes.

Comment on The Design of Conference Badges by Faux

Faux — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:06:13 +0000

I like stephens badge the best

Comment on The Weakest Link or One Bad Apple Redux… by Abel

Abel — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:17:28 +0000

This is great! I had a similar annoying experience but not being computer minded never thought of an actual solution! I wonder, have you forwarded this idea and constructive criticism to Apple? They could be very interested!

Comment on A Tale of Two Experiences or One Bad Apple… by Alex

Alex — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:42:07 +0000

Wonder why they neglected this scenario at apple… It’s very important for branding. Your story came as surprise to me.

Comment on The Weakest Link or One Bad Apple Redux… by Tweets that mention The Weakest Link or One Bad Apple Redux… — Oct. 19th, 2009 — Matt Balara, Freelance User Experience Designer in Sydney Australia -- Topsy.com

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 06:06:37 +0000

[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Zaana Howard, Matt Balara. Matt Balara said: Freshly blogged: "The Weakest Link" - more thoughts on Apple's customer service: http://j.mp/psc75 #servicedesign #apple […]

Comment on A Tale of Two Experiences or One Bad Apple… by Matt Balara

Matt Balara — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 01:44:49 +0000

@Tom:
It wasn’t the fact that I couldn’t get an appointment immediately that I found irritating. It was the brusque manner in which I was presented with a dead end. If they’d at least let me know when I might be able to get an appointment I would’ve been satisfied (see my new post with a simple suggestion for improvement). When I did actually go to the store the experience was very smooth and satisfying.

@Ian:
Absolutely! Although overall I reckon Apple does it all pretty good. This feels like it was just an oversight, a weak link in the experience chain.

Comment on A Tale of Two Experiences or One Bad Apple… by Ian Stalvies

Ian Stalvies — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:40:42 +0000

Great description Matt - had a similar experience trying to renew my UK visa a few years back, they had TWO phone lines for the whole country - and if one of those lines was busy - which it always was - it actually DID hang up on you cold.

Based on her WDS preso last week, sounds like a job for Suze Ingram and Service Design, no?

Comment on A Tale of Two Experiences or One Bad Apple… by Tom Voirol

Tom Voirol — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:42:13 +0000

Excellent article, Matt. I’ve wondered about their Genius Bar policies too.

Effectively what you have is three resources - time and number of support staff. What Apple did was limit time by only allowing you to book Genius Bar appointments up to three days in advance. Every slot is twenty minutes so we have a restricted resource.

If that is how they want to play it then they will just have to scale up the number of staff on duty to accommodate the demand for support. Whenever you go to the shop though there are hardly ever more than 3 or 4 “geniuses” manning the 20 or so stations.

Underneath all the swanky design of Apple’s support offering there is something seriously wrong with their operations.

Comment on Grouse! The Web Directions South Wrap-up by xian

xian — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:43:19 +0000

fair enough! i was a bit impressed if that’s the right word by the blur of my hands in one of JJ’s pictures. I suppose virtuosity is relative…

Comment on Grouse! The Web Directions South Wrap-up by Matt Balara

Matt Balara — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:38:55 +0000

Christian,

it’s hard to see the tongue in the cheek in text, but none-the-less I was impressed at the very least by the speed of your Uke fingers!

Comment on Grouse! The Web Directions South Wrap-up by xian

xian — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:07:48 +0000

Thanks for the great write-up and kind comments. I must make it absolutely clear that I am the opposite of a virtuoso on the uke! I’ll accept “enthusiast” as an encomium, at best…

Comment on More, Better, Faster! by Ben Kraal

Ben Kraal — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:47:18 +0000

I prepared my slides to be as interesting as possible while stepping through what I was talking about in a logical way, taking the view that while everyone in the audience could more than keep up I might be presenting things outside of their direct experience.

And at the same time I put my slides together to, more or less, require that I am there waving my hands in front of them.

So when I put my slides up on slideshare (NB: not a typical practice if I am presenting at a research conference) I output them to have the notes fields included and that’s what I upload. Like Donna said, above, I was aware that people would be looking at my slides afterwards and I wanted them to be accessible.

Comment on More, Better, Faster! by Tweets that mention More, Better, Faster! — Oct. 11th, 2009 — Matt Balara, Freelance User Experience Designer in Sydney Australia -- Topsy.com

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:23:48 +0000

[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Matt Balara. Matt Balara said: My slides from #uzaustralia are up, with audio! http://ow.ly/tRAa […]

Comment on More, Better, Faster! by Donna Spencer

Donna Spencer — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:40:28 +0000

I definitely keep slideshare in mind (or wherever my slides end up). If I’m using an image-heavy deck I create hidden slides with notes. And my decks usually have some slides with bullet points, for use afterwards… I think this is very important. What’s the point of doing all that thinking, then only sharing it with a handful of people

Comment on More, Better, Faster! by Veit Lehmann

Veit Lehmann — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:45:15 +0000

Great presentation, Matt! I’m really thankful for having worked with you. And your footsteps are still clearly visible here in Hamburg. We’ve almost finished a project where we did exactly that iterative design/development process you’re talking about - and it worked really well! Drop me a note if you’re interested in details. Cheers!

Comment on Sketchnoting Oz IA by Tweets that mention Matt Balara, Freelance User Experience Designer in Sydney Australia : “ Sketchnoting Oz IA” Oct. 6th, 2009 -- Topsy.com

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:19:51 +0000

[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Matt Balara. Matt Balara said: Freshly blogged: an #ozia09 wrap-up with my experience and learnings from sketchnoting the conference. http://ow.ly/sQDd #sketchnotes […]

Comment on AR: Practical, Fluffy & Visionary by Yuval Ararat

Yuval Ararat — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:53:29 +0000

You forgot that you have to pay for each of these items separately and they will be expensive. so useless + expensive = utterly useless.

That book glasses trick is nice but its too expensive to put it in glasses, it will go to the kindle type and will be a combination of the LCD and e-Ink that will give you the same experience. and may be 3D-e-Ink but that’s too revolutionary.

BTW The guy is wearing that vest only because one of the hidden features of the wrist is to blow up things when you draw a perfect circle with the palm of you hand in the air at 45 degrees from the sun.