Over the past year me and my colleagues have been working hard on a fantastic project: SalesChamp. SalesChamp is a sales application running on tablets. It’s not purely an iPad application. As all the magic is happening in HTML5 this baby is cross-platform. As we are closing in on our TTM deadline we are readying all the important marketing stuff, like a kick-ass website and of course, business cards.
Fingerprint affordances on touch screens
My colleague Martin Kačmar from Brno recently visited our Haarlem office. Apart from attending the terrific PhoneGap Day we couldn’t let this opportunity go by to show him some examples of what Holland is really like. Hence, a visit to the Zaanse Schans was arranged. During our tour through the outdoor museum we visited “Specerijenmolen De Huisman“, a mill which was used for grinding herbs and spices in the good old days (no, not that kind of herbs…).
Google’s Changed Password Reminder
Two weeks ago I lost my fantastic Nexus S at Awakenings Festival. Five years back this wouldn’t be such a big problem. But nowadays that small device contains my entire (personal and business) life. I had a track-my-device app installed, but as the network was overloaded by 30.000 people asking each other “Where are you?” on WhatsApp, it didn’t work.
Information Overload @ UX Cocktail Hour
I love those talks where you are first blown away by the sheer brilliance of the subject (and the speaker), then get that feeling “it’s so obvious, how could I not have seen that?“. Those are the best. It’s the only occasion where you walk out feeling so incredibly dumb, yet with a big smile on your face.
Responsive HTML5 Touch Interfaces
At Yahoo!’s BayJax event Stephen Wood from Flickr gave an excellent talk on creating Responsive Touch Interfaces in HTML5. In his talk he discusses many things that probably a lot of people creating web apps for touch devices are struggling with.
Cool XKCD Reference in Liberated Pixel Cup
This is probably as geeky as it gets. Liberated Pixel Cup, a free (as in speech) game making contest sponsored by the CC, FSF, Mozilla and OpenGameArt.org, references one of the best XKCD comics in their kick-ass HTML5 demo.
Design Beautiful Errors
I love contingency design: the very important details of handling errors and turning a negative user experience into a positive one. Usually when working on form interaction I design four things:
Facebook’s Tiny Serving of Mystery Meat
One thing that always annoys me about Facebook is the quick-reply functionality in Facebook Messages. When the ↵-checkbox is checked or unchecked (I don’t know which state it is) hitting the enter key submits the message, instead of starting a new line.
Leverage Your Error Reports
When Google Chrome can’t reach a website, and has received the same outcome from multiple Chrome users, it reports that you’re not the only one struggling with the website. This is helpful, because as a user you learn that the problem is probably not on your end.