Goal vs Task-centered Design

Compare this to the iPhone ads at Apple.com What do you see?

Bell completely focusses on the “functions” you can do with a Pre. There is tapping, and zooming and sliding and pinching and so on. But guess what: people don’t care about that without context. It’s like flipping a switch. Without a result you are just going to do this because you are bored. Under normal circumstances you flip a switch you accomplish something. For example turning on a light. And then you have a task to accomplish a goal.

In comparison in the iPhone ads they show you how to accomplish goals. These might not be your daily goals, but it’s important how they a shown. It’s not about the single tasks, but about the end result a user likely wants to accomplish.

So the next time you think about a specific feature or function, think about how it will fit with the user’s goals.

The surprising science of motivation: Dan Pink

Dan Pink’s main points:

  1. Those 20th century rewards, those motivators we think are the natural part of business, do work, but only in a surprisingly narrow band of circumstances.
  2. Those of-then rewards often destroy creativity.
  3. The secret to high performance isn’t rewards and punishments but the unseen intrinsic drive. The drive to do things for their own sake. The drive to do things cause they matter.

XKCD on tech-support

Tech Support Cheat Sheet

Cooper’s Startus Air Concept

We thought it would be fun to put together an entry for this year’s I.D. Magazine Annual Review. As frequent travelers, we were particularly inspired by the project brief: design a graphic, object, or environment that would improve the experience of air travel.

We thought our approach was a good mix of practicality and inspiration, a premium loyalty service enabled by helpful bits of technology that would ease the pain and smooth the turbulence of business travel. Did we expect to win? Absolutely. Even though the judges didn’t share our enthusiasm, we’re happy with what we came up with, and we wanted to share it with you.