The Missing Z, What's Really Missing

The Missing Z, What’s Really Missing

May 6th, 2011 by Souppie - Web

First things first, I am not a “social media guru” like the rest of my fellow Lebanese who have a Twitter handle or work for a company that posts banners online (Hey some things never change…)

Anyways, this is strictly my personal, amateurish opinion.

First, We all have to admit that nineteen84 and Eastline marketing did something different and not just invited bloggers to binge on food and write a review. It was something different.

BUT, according to my little knowledge and n00b skills in social media, I would’ve done it in a different way:

A spot in the news, 30 seconds, talking about the Zs missing
Pick a few of their regular customers and not bloggers, send them the ransom letter
Newspaper article talking about it
Releasing footage of security cams nearby and not candid shots
Do the whole bloggers thing (if they must)
The finale

That’s about it! If you have any other suggestion please do share. We gotta give it up to both agencies, they got people talking about it, love it or not, even some other missing letters showed up on Twitter too. Kudos (but think it over next time)

Here’s a “nice/cute” example done for the SNCF customers, unrelated but cute nevertheless

Little UX stuff that make me smile: Twitter.com

May 4th, 2011 by Souppie - Design

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Handsets I owned till now (Nokia wins)

May 4th, 2011 by Souppie - Random

The picture gives you a broader picture? My very first handset was a Nokia 2110 back in 1998. In addition to all the Nokia handsets that I owned (the image doesn’t have the E72/E75/8800, so add them to the list please, thank you), I owned (in no particular order)

5 HTC handsets (TyTN, P4350, Shift, Touch Diamond, Nexus 1)
One Sony handset (CMD Z1),
One Alcatel handset (Can’t remember its number, an extremely small blue/grey phone)
One Ericsson 688
One Blackberry Bold 2
One Iphone 4

I seriously have a phone addiction. With all these handsets, Nokia clearly wins (stupid amount of handsets I bought) I should’ve saved them all and started a pseudo-museum!

Click to enlarge the picture (it’s huge) and add to the list E72, E75, 8800 and E7. Now I am off to find a new addiction.(Thank you Antoine for the image and helping me to point out how sick I was/am)

A Public Service Announcement

April 28th, 2011 by Souppie - Thoughts

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23od 2a3waj bass 7ki jeles

Tribute to UX Design II

April 27th, 2011 by Souppie - Web

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ILUVUXDESIGN part II from lyle on Vimeo.

Wireframing Part Quatre: Tools

April 19th, 2011 by Souppie - Design

There are no holy grail/one stop solution for wireframing, it’s all about your personal preference, but a RULE OF THUMB, always start with:

Pen and Paper

My personal weapon of choice, just any paper/notebook, no need for a moleskine, spend your money somewhere else, and just like @Dpan said: “Real UXers sketch ideas on the skin of actual moles“, just make sure the notebook has grids so it would be easier for you to create proportional components to a certain extent.

I always start with a black marker/pen for the initial sketches, gives me less freedom to “erase and add” it’s just my way of controlling the urge to add and go nuts.

After that I use a few colored markers just to highlight some elements/actions…

Desktop/Web Tools:

Axure

a wireframing/prototyping tool, you can export your sketches to html and explore the site navigation/flow/IxD. To be honest I never liked working on it, even though it is easy to master. You SHOULD give it a try though.

Omnigraffle (Mac/Ipad)

My personal weapon of choice, no prototyping here, just wireframing/diagrams/charts…

Balsamiq

A rapid wireframing tool, based on Adobe Air, it’s “cute” to play around and I do love to tinker around with it form time to time, it gives the feeling of a pen and paper sketches. It is another must use (if you are using a laptop forget it, UI gets too restrained)

I am not going to do a VS post here, all are available for trial, check them out.

Google Drawings

If you are one of the persons who like to “venture deep” inside Google, you surely stumbled upon Google drawings inside docs. A must try too!

I can go on and list 1001 tools, just start tinkering with these, a lot of options out there, it’s all about what really tickles your fancy and gets the job done, but whatever you choose, always, ALWAYS start with a pen and paper…

Till next time, happy sketching!

Wireframing Part Trois: Creating wireframes

April 11th, 2011 by Souppie - Design

The mini series (accelerated crash course) continues today with creating wireframes.

A wireframe can be dead simple or overly complicated, depending on what you need and want. The most simple form is rough sketches on a paper (or any writable surface for that matter) or simply a digital wireframe (omnigraffle is my weapon of choice for wireframing)

Complicated website= complicated wireframe

What to put in a wireframe?

Whatever it takes to reflect the purpose and goal of each page. Do not forget the header/footer/menu/content area and then move to the more specific components such as widgets/search/breadcrumbs etc

First thing I love to do is the “site breakdown”, basically a rough quick sitemap and notes of each page and what it includes and take it from there.

As I mentioned in previous posts, you can go as detailed or as minimalist as you want, depending on the nature of your project/site.

Low or high fidelity wireframe?

It really is about the culture and how the designers really work. I always go for low fidelity wireframes just because people tend to get distracted by high fidelity wireframes commenting on colors/logos and missing the whole point of thing and most of the time the designers get affected/influenced by it.

In the next post, we will take a quick look at the tools and software to use!

Media Temple and Social Media

April 8th, 2011 by Souppie - Thoughts

It all goes back to March 10th, 2010. A friend of mine asked publicly which hosting service to go with, I recommended Media Temple, and definitely know that it’s more expensive than others, but at the end of the day you get what you pay for (it’s the Bentley of hosting!)

I got a DM for @mediatemple asking me for my size and address and thanking me for being an ambassador and an advocate of their service.

I got a t-shirt and what I love the most: STICKERS! See this is a small gesture by the folks of Media Temple, you are talking here about a giant that cares about the “small players” using their service (20$ per month…peanuts!) A perfect example of how small gestures can do a lot of impact and not just counting on their great service and support.

Thank you for the gift (Sara C!) I just looooooove it!