Man-Machine Interfaces. Learning From the Death of Air France 447.

Mai 10th, 2012 • Tech, Tools
Tags: Air France, Design, Flying, Interfaces, Planes, Strategy, Tech, Tools, UI, UX, World

I don’t like to fly. Being constantly quite anxious in planes I once started to try to understand plane crashes. The objective: to get to the roots of my fear. I was particularly moved by and interested in the horrific crash of Air France 447 in 2009 that cost 228 people’s lifes.

After recovering the lost flight recorder after months of desperate search from the depths of the Atlantic one thing became terribly clear: the series of flaws, mistakes, and misconceptions that lead to the disaster were connected (among other things) with the user interface design of the super modern Airbus Airbus A330-200.

At heart, the problem was one of feedback. In a world of flight dominated by computers, Airbus designs its planes with less tactile response (in the name of pilot comfort) and less potentially overwhelming information (in the name of clearer pilot decisions). In the case of Flight 447, some of the plane’s ducts froze up, removing the information of airspeed, and forcing the plane out of autopilot. In response, a pilot named Bonin pulled up on his stick, gaining a bit of altitude to, presumably, safely keep the plane in the sky. (via)

He didn’t.

The story of this fatal flight should make anyone interested in user interface design think.

Time to share four recent links on this topic – one of them is actually an interview with a friend of mine who is a pilot himself.

• Fastcodesign: How lousy cockpit design crashed an Airbus killing 228 people
• davaidavai.com: Hooked. Alex Wipf and his theory of flight.
• Worldhum: Malcolm Gladwell on Aviation Safety and Security

Just another chapter in the neverending story of how we expect technology to be fail-proof. Most of the time it is. Up to the point where technology and humans interact. Titanic anyone?

Social UX. My Article for Page Magazine.

November 16th, 2011 • Social, Trends
Tags: Article, Page, People, personal, Social Influence Marketing, Usability, UX

Just a quick update: German creative magazine Page has once again published an article from me. If you are a subscriber of Page and if you have issue 12.2011 on the desk please just go to page 90 where I (try to) give five tips for a more UX-focused approach to social media.

To cut a long story short: My perspective on social media (does anyone still use this term???) in this article is that all too often brands/agencies still focus too much on staging social campaigns instead on getting their house in order. Activation – and only activation – via social influence marketing should first and foremost enable consumers to profit more from using social functionalities than from not using it. The answer to a brief in the social realm must always revolve around solving a given problem, not to just drive people to a Facebook page. Form follows function, not vice versa.

The article is in German. And if you don’t have the magazine at home: here is a PDF. But don’t tell anyone.

Interface Design. A Day in 2014.

September 6th, 2010 • 5 comments Tech, Tools
Tags: Case Study, Cool, Creativity, Design, Experimental, Future, Ideas, Interfaces, Media, Mobile, Prediction, Presentation, Study, Tech, Tools, Touch, Usability, UX, visual, World

We all love interface design studies, don’t we? Notorious Swedish UX company TAT.SE has conducted an experiment in open innovation of User Interfaces. And the winner is this little case study staging a possible day in 2014. Nice one. I want the mirror (via).

Digital Magazines. Another future for print.

Dezember 18th, 2009 • 1 comment Ideas, Tech
Tags: Cool, Creativity, Experimental, Future, Ideas, Prediction, Presentation, Print, Tech, Trends, UX, visual, We like, World

Is print dead? If you read my own headlines you will find out that I am undecided as well. I am sure that the majority of mainstream print media nowadays is doomed. But, I think that some traditional print media products might reinvent themselves. Lately Outsider Magazine and Esquire came up with remarkable experiments in this sector.

Publishing thinktank Bonnier plus its partner Berg London have come up with this cool vision of how magazine UX might evolve. It’s a concept video and does not exist yet. But the concept convincingly uses digital media to create a rich and meaningful experience, while maintaining the relaxed and curated features of printed magazines. It illustrates one possible vision for digital magazines in the near future.

Good books. Designing Social Interfaces.

November 22nd, 2009 • 7 comments Books
Tags: Books, Design Patterns, Interfaces, Social Influence Marketing, UX, visual

‘Designing Social Interfaces’ is a new book by Christian Crumlish and Erin Malone about patterns, principles, and best practices in social interface design. It’s great compendium for all Art Directors, UX designers or concept developers who are or in the process to set up something which will be digital and social. Or to put it another way: It’s a great read for pretty much everyone who works as a creative in any digital driven agency.

Most people who work as creatives in a digital agency or as freelancers know the problem: Certain challenges will haunt you for the rest of your life. They simply return again, again and again. Let’s take i.e. a registration form. You won’t win a Cannes Lion by designing one. But you can make such an aweful lot of usability mistakes that none of your users will finally be able to use it. Design patterns are there to make your life easier when it comes to standard problems. Login forms, registration forms, movie player interfaces…these types of objects are well known and don’t have to be redesigned every time you meet one of them (think in learned, proven usability here). And to collect all of these UX best practice cases, Yahoo has published its great Yahoo! Design Pattern Library a couple of years ago – a standard in UX resources, created by the two usability experts who have just published the book I want to recommend now.

Designing Social Interfaces
No matter wether we talk about sharing options, online forums, or member interaction in brand communities – digital assets must be social nowadays to stay relevant. It’s no secret that social can mean pretty much everything. But as the title says: ‘Designing Social Interfaces’ wants to explain standard social tools and how we design them in the most effective way:

• Understand the overarching principles you need to consider for every website you create
• Learn basic design patterns for adding social components to an existing site
• Rein in misbehaving users on an active community site
• Build a social experience around a product or service and invite people to join
• Develop a social utility without having to build an entirely new infrastructure
• Enable users of your site’s content to interact with one another
• Offer your members the opportunity to connect in the real world
• Learn to recognize and avoid antipatterns: emergent bad practices in the social network and social media space

Read more »