One simple trick about picking a vanity URL. Make it easy to recall.

Canon are currently running and advert for a new camera with some fandangle special effects technology - let's you defy gravity while sitting on the ground - however they have opted to use the product model no. in the URL. Um. Ok. What was it called again?

Perhaps something simple, akin to 'what it said on the tin' is more apt? How about canon.co.uk/tree? That would have done would it not?

Sure, it might not have stroked the ego of the marketing bods in that pitch meeting, but surely having someone remember the ad, then actually going to the site as a result, would have given the said people a conversion boner?

It's amazing what a little bit of time, and a large helping of creativity can produce. This is a nice little stop motion number created by Lina Fridman and Maira Fridman - Doce Ballet Who said you should never play with your food!

Doce Ballet from Maira Fridman on Vimeo.

Skive, the agency I work for, recently moved office and are now located next to a primary school. When the kids aren't indoors learning to read, write, paint, or whatever kids at school do nowadays, they are outside running around and making the most of playtime. Gazing out the window to the noise I pondered. Why don't we, as adults, 'play' any more? Surley there are huge benefits, for mind and profession, in playing? This made me think back to a great speech that Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, gave at TED a few years back (yes I love TED talks) about the powerful link between creativity and play. This talk is brilliant! I love that idea that when channeled, play encourages a world of endless possibilities. When in a state of play, we are free from self-imposed barriers to sketch, prototype, test - actually create - all in the quest of good, appropriate design.

from Wired.com -> 'Scott Weaver toiled for 3,000 hours and brandished some 100,000 toothpicks to build a 9-foot-tall, 20-pound simulacrum of San Francisco. Ouch!'

Gotta pay those bills. No one likes paying them, some try to avoid them, but at the end of the day paying your bills is one of those 'responsible grown-up things' that your mum always talked about. Fine. The electric bill arrived. At least it's an online statement - a tree was saved. While environmentalists celebrated, I quietly wept at what was owed. Damn you cold winters! At least British Gas provide an online payment service, so I have been speared the pain, and more tears, of calling them. Now, I'm a big believer of business that have embraced the web, especially those that at the end of the day make it easier for me to fulfil my obligations. So I rocked along to the British Gas site, logged on in, selected 'make a payment'. All was going well. I'll be in and out in no time, safe in the knowledge the PS3 will be powered for another month. However, this is where I started to notice a few scratch marks, on an otherwise polished payment service. Firstly, I could only pay one account at a time. WTF? I owed both gas and electricity. I received the bill for both at the same time. Why can I pay for both at the same time? Sure I think that the fact you can pay online is great, but not to the point where I want to have to go through the process twice. What about time saving? [caption id="attachment_222" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Radio select - but I wanted to pay for both in one transaction"] [/caption] Perhaps the help question, aptly entitled 'Can I make more than one payment?' will be of assistance. Nope. [caption id="attachment_213" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Let's check out the help"] [/caption] [caption id="attachment_214" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Help says no"] [/caption] Fine, so I selected the account to pay. Roll on step two. What's this? [caption id="attachment_215" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Don't make me think please"] [/caption] It may seem like a small thing, but the fact I needed to stop and think about matching the numeric date on my card to the corresponding month in the drop down, is a rookie mistake. Matching systems with the real world is super important, especially when people are entering personal information. This issue could be simply resolved by adding (XX) in front of the month, where XX is the month number, so January would be displayed (01) January in the list. Right, step two rant over. Time to review my details then pay the man. But wait a minute. What's this? [caption id="attachment_217" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Come on. At least be consistent"] [/caption] The date is now numeric! Consistency please BG. Gripes aside, there are some good things about this process. For a start, the process is short. You also know where you are at each step, and help is provided along with the option to go back and correct any information. Finally, and most importantly, it works. Now where did I put that controller?

"Informed design is essential", according to Bill Buxton, and the man does know a thing or two about designing user experiences.  One way to make sure your design is informed is to adopt and integrate a user centred design (UCD) process. Will Sansbury has pulled together a good little presentation explaining the steps involved in UCD.  The goal of UCD - ensure that what you produce will meet the needs of the intended audience.

As good as the iPhone is, there are still a few features missing.  One being the ability to multi-task between the plethora of apps you have installed. This video by Ocean Observation shows how they would tackle the multitasking problem, and while their solution occupies too much home screen real estate for my liking (it could hide away and only appear when user taps the home key twice),  it is definitely a feature I would use. Wonder if the folk at Apple are pondering such things?

Nearness from timo on Vimeo.

Vid came in through the twitter-sphere courtesy of @odannyboy Entitled ‘Nearness’ the guys at touch hooked up with BERG made a short film that explores nearness in interactive technologies