Curiosity, empathy and analytical approach to behaviors lead to customer understanding, and finally to successful products and services.
Blog is on pause, but please do enjoy my tweets :)
You could think finding number 51 would be a piece of case
But in this case there has definitely been 'something else' in the designers mind. -Standard paper size and/or some readymade mechanics might be the good guesses..
Definitely this is as far from user oriented design you can go. Infact it almost feels like it is deliberate internal joke, which ended into production..
*update 17.4.2010*
Now compare to This one:
Flight patterns by Charlie McCarthy
For htat reason an enjoyable video from Vimeo by Charlie McCarthy =)
flight patterns from Charlie McCarthy on Vimeo.
Art critics
As an example you can see below a part of Lost in Yellow by Nina Roos and a caption of introduction by Pia Timberg. Both loaned without permission, in the name of art criticism.


The installation concists of three oil paintings made on polycarbonate plates. All three plates present a yellow silhuet female figure. Figure is leaning forward, like out of the painting. There is also something weird in the figure. Behind the figure to both sides, there is paddle like forms sticking out and the figure seems to be holding some kind of sticks in her hands. Her ball shaped wide skirt makes annotations to past. To the time already lost, but still present in the form of this painting.
I might be biased to study this piece, but as I could easily spot the brand label from the "skirt" I first got interested is the bike Honda or Kawasaki and secondary what was the painting all about. But i have to recon, I just couldn't get past this critic to really think about it..
New H1N1 influenza spread graph by WHO
WHO illustrates A(H1N1) spreading - 3.6.09
Influenza A(H1N1) spread rate graph - 9.5.09
WHO has now released a new 'interactive timeline of all cases' worth visiting.
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Sculptures: "Välitä" and "Viesti"
Sculptures under the topic Art - "Päivänvarjo"
Photo tagging - a simple application needed
Picasa provides rather simple possibility to edit and search IPTC tags. Few days ago I was glad to hear that even my favorite viewer IrfanView also provides a possibility to view and edit IPTC data of .jpg files with just a few klicks. -It could be easier, but it's sufficient.

The surprising thing is that applications use this powerfull and potentially delightfully simple tagging system so little or create a complicated system around it..
Somebody interested in creating a nice little viewer with intuitive and effective tagging possibilities would pobably make a huge impact on the scene!
Photo albums ease of use
Not that selection of webgallery for an Average Joe would be based on one single interaction, but still this is something to consider: In my default PC viewer(IrfanView) next picture is selected by simply using arrow keys. Also Facebook and Picasa has the same functionality. When using Flickr I have to use my mouse to click a small thumbnail to get next picture..
-So of to Picasa I go, thaks for great time Flickr. Disadvantages in this change are the looks and complexity of Picasa but advantages are simple and intuitive use and the fact that now I have all my stuff behind one Google account :)
Realistic marketing
Good guidance can patch bad design - into some extent
This carefully made guidance also tells a clear story how big problems products can create for the users and companies on service branch.
Celebrating tacit knowledge through service design
It took me some 15 years of intensive railroad usage to learn that after the announcement "Train leaves from gate 2", there is exactly 3 minutes time. Today, after 18 years, I learned that there is a yellow color coding in the timetable posters for leaving trains in opposite to arriving.
These information bits are examples of tacit knowledge, which would be useful if know, but is either difficult or considered less important to communicate. In modern world, consumers do not necessarily have time or will to start learning. -Experience should be readily available in full extent.
One task for service design is to find ways to communicate these service and company specific information bits, celebrate those and build a better brand and user experience through those.
-After all, you would like the customer to see your product as excellent as you see it, wouldn't you?







