Greetings and salutations. It’s a short week here at Tanagram as we prepare to celebrate our nation’s independence. We’ll be closed on Friday July 3rd. We hope you are too.
Here is a recap of this weeks interesting discussions:
GOOD.IS “a collaboration of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits pushing the world forward. Since 2006 we’ve been making a magazine, videos, and events for people who give a damn. This website is an ongoing exploration of what GOOD is and what it can be.”
While we’ve just met GOOD.IS, we’re big fans. They’ve recently release a series of transparencies from their magazine as a Flickr pool. Some really wonderful stuff.
Thank you Good for the inspiration on so many fronts. We are now members (free for startsies) and look forward to growing our relationship together. Oh.. and we think your site is quite good too!
We love iPhone applications. Heck we may even be making one of our own, but here are a few of our absolute favorites. Most are free - some are fee - all are worthy. (we are not).
GeoPedia - GeoPedia is basically a location-based Wikipedia interface for your iPhone.
AmazonMobile - The note/snapshot feature is still pretty cool!
iTransitBuddy - a robust, easy to use public transportation schedule application. Multiple cities including Chicago.
enCamp - BaseCamp application for the iPhone. Best of breed so far.
Facebook - We hate and love this app. Mostly love it.
GuitarToolKit - Guitar players this has chords, an accurate microphone-based tuner, metronome and more. Very cool.
Kindle for the iPhone - You don’t carry your Kindle everywhere but you carry your phone. The UI is super easy and readable.
NowPlaying - Movie listings, ratings and more.
OmniFocus - It’s expensive but nothing does GTD better.
PhoneFlix - Netflix client for iPhone. Very useful when a movie idea hits you on the train.
Skype - VOIP for your iPhone. We eagerly await SMS capabilities in the upcoming releases.
SpeedTest - Cuz we’re paranoid that our bandwidth is less than it should be. This app tests WIFI and EDGE/3G bandwidth speeds.
Tweetie - Absolutely the category killer for twitter clients. Worth the money.
Weatherbug - The best weather information we’ve seen to date.
Wordpress - If you’ve got a blog post that needs to be up now. This is the app for you.
FSS Hockey: Because when you’re waiting for half an hour to be seated at a restaurant, it’s time for a few games of air hockey.
ICanHasCheezBurger: Lolcats and LOL generation optimized for the iPhone.
Labyrinth - the most beautifully designed game application. This person knows physics.
Remote - if you have wifi, this app works with keynote.
CTABusTracker - really a web page, but use it alot and is very accurate.
Shazam - this music analyzer works surprisingly.
New York Times - they have made it more sophisticated, but it is also more unreliable.
Pandora - use it every day and very easy to use.
WunderRadio - great streaming radio application.
Units - the best designed measurement application
Bejewelled 2 - It’s addictive like crack.
Ocarina. $.99 turns your iPhone into a flutelike musical instrument.
Honorable mention (not quite applications)
TrafficGauge - Very easy to digest traffic info for your favorite major metropolitan areas. I use this web app EVERY day.
Meebo - use it every day
Do you have favorite apps that you can’t live without? Do share!
This site is beautiful not because it is user centric, not because it is ornate or flashy (pun intended) but because it creates a compelling environment for the user to play and experience the song multimodally. I found it nearly impossible to not listen to the entire song just because I was so captivated by the simple visual aesthetic and interaction. I think this site reminds us that some of the most memorable interactions are presented in the simplest of gestures. Nice job to http://www.herraizsoto.com, http://www.badabing.es, and http://www.zumbakamera.com. We invite you to explore their portfolios for further treats. Great work!!!
Tanagram Partners has collaborated with Baxter Credit Union (BCU) on a second redesign of their website. This effort reviewed the site structure and how to create a more streamlined call to action for non-members to get to the right products more efficiently. Tanagram reduced the number of page designs and created stronger axis points between content areas for simpler viewing.
iTeller, the member based portal to manage accounts was radically streamlined. The reduction of individual page designs declined by 85%, while increasing efficiencies and clustering content and navigation into a members panel.
This new site is in keeping with BCU’s history of providing members with the best tools to help them meet their goals. Tanagram Partners congratulates BCU on the effort taken to improve and redesign their site.
New and exciting concepts that merge the physical and digital are showing up every day. You know how excited we are by the premise but perhaps these will get you juiced as well.
Playstation 3 uses AR to enhance physical EYE OF JUDGEMENT (imagine deep movie voice guy reading that name) trading card game.
Another strange fetish-like avatar whose name translates to Cyber Figure Alice (ya, I know… CYBER?) from GeishaTokyo.com
Dennou Coil is an interesting Anime series that illustrates an augmented world. Finding the videos online is like a video game where you have to dodge popups and malware (be careful). Here’s the first episode.
I was recently speaking with Mark FelcanSmith, who is a UX manager at Sears.com, about Rosenfeld Media. Our conversation inspired me to realize that there is actually a book that I actually qualified to write for RM. Here is my pitch:
One of the key activities for anyone who moves into a UX leadership role is to assume responsibility for ordering dinner for the team on late nights at the office. To date, every UX leader has had to re-invent the wheel on learning this highly-intricate and crucial task. That is, until now. For the first time ever, UX leaders will have a definitive reference guide to go to get practical guidance on best practices and approaches to this challenging task.
Rosenfeld Media is proud to announce the acquisition of its newest title: Ordering Dinner for the Team: Challenges and Approaches.
This book will address a range of relevant topics including:
Buffet-style vs. individual orders - Weighing the relative benefits
Do you call a special meeting to take orders or interrupt each person while they are hard at work at their desk – Minimizing productivity loss
Handling special dietary needs (vegetarian, vegan, kosher/halal, gluten-free, food allergies)
Making sure you have enough napkins, and not the thin little restaurant ones that don’t do any good
What to do about the really lame plastic forks that break apart in your food when you use them
Where to dispose of all of the containers if the cleaning staff has already come by for the evening?
Do you offer any food to the security guard at the front desk who eyes the great looking food as it is delivered?
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