“If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement 2005

Thanks Steve.

For the longest time I’ve defaulted with iStockPhoto, probably because I purchase credits that I never use up so I always go back so I don’t loose them but a couple of months ago I was approached by Fotolia, another stock site, and they gave me free access to some photos if I would try them out and let them know about my experience, so I agreed.

Just to tell a little about about Fotolia. They have been around since 2005 and so far, there are 12,278,167 images, vectors and HD videos available. One thing that I thought was interesting but I didn’t get to use was their Plug-In that instantly adds photos, videos and illustrations to PowerPoint or Word documents. I don’t want to be a sales person for them so if you want more information, head over to Wikipedia.

What I did want to share was my overall impressions with the site as far as usability. Since I am a interactive/UX designer I thought I would pay close attention to the ease of use and if it was easy to figure out for the first time user.

As far as ease of use, I was a little disappointed. There were actually a lot of steps, that weren’t obvious, to get my photo downloaded. To start off you could search for your photos and select with types you were looking for, pretty simple. You would get a list of search results back which you could scroll over to see an enlarged version of it, nothing new. You then had the option of putting the photo in a lightbox or adding it to your cart. This is where it got confusing and hard to use. If you wanted to purchase one image you would click on the image to view it. Here you could select the resolution size that you wanted. Once you select that it takes you directly to the shopping cart with your size still selected. Then you need to select a checkbox agreeing to the conditions and selecting continue. This normally wouldn’t be an issue but there is not a natural flow to what you need to do. Everything on the screen looks the same so you have to take a minute to look around and figure out what to do next. Then, assuming you have enough credits to purchase your selection, you are taken to a screen where you now have to download the photo. This screen also has the same problem that I mentioned before, you don’t know what to do. There are a couple of different links you can use to start the download but it isn’t obvious. Once you see the download links, you click it, and you finally have your image.

My overall thought, a little too difficult to use for a first-time user or even someone like me that occasionally comes to the site. I think the idea is right but the execution of it is long and hard to figure out especially if you only want to download only one image, which is usually my case. There are too many steps to get your photo and the “next” steps are hard to find. The selection was good and I could find some good shots that fit my needs, but the user experience was poor.

I was glad to see that Rob won, he really was the smartest player out there. My least favorite part of the game is having to listen to everyone on the jury be mad at the three people left because they weren’t voted out and they really played the game well. Regardless of how they got there, the three left outplayed anyone on the jury. It drives me crazy when they all go off on how they played the game with such high standards. Here’s a news flash, if you can’t handle lying and deceit, don’t play the game of Survivor.

At least there was one one the jury, David, who realized that and was smart enough to point it out to the rest.

Anyway, I love Survivor.

For today’s Web design projects, we must design for the way the world is, not the way we wish it were. This means accepting search dominance, and trying to help users with poor research skills.

Get out your library cards: Now you can wirelessly download electronic books from your local library using the Apple iPad or an Android tablet.

• The reason sketches are so awesome are because they are quick and disposable.
• Knowing your audience ensures that the purpose of your sketch is heard.
• The ultimate purpose behind any sketch is to visually convey an idea to an audience.