If you design or build anything for screens, I strongly recommend you see this presentation by @wilsonminer

Wilson Miner - When We Build from Build on Vimeo.

As I said in my previous post on the Build Conference. This is the most emotive and powerful presentation on design I've ever seen. It's also the only design presentation I've ever seen get a standing ovation. If you design or build anything for screens, I strongly recommend you take 40 mins to watch this.

Jonathan Ive On Simplicity

"Why do we assume that simple is good? Because with physical products, we have to feel we can dominate them. As you bring order to complexity, you find a way to make the product defer to you. Simplicity isn’t just a visual style. It’s not just minimalism or the absence of clutter. It involves digging through the depth of the complexity. To be truly simple, you have to go really deep. For example, to have no screws on something, you can end up having a product that is so convoluted and so complex. The better way is to go deeper with the simplicity, to understand everything about it and how it’s manufactured. You have to deeply understand the essence of a product in order to be able to get rid of the parts that are not essential."

Jonathan Ive, from the book, Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson
(via Aarrron Walter)

I'm looking for a junior digital designer (please RT)

Do you dream in pixels?
Do you Dribbble?
Do you have a strong opinion about Helvetica?
Do you have a bookmark folder labelled "Awesome Stuff" or "Design Samples" or something?
If you do and you have an attention to detail which some think is bordering on obsession, then if so, then this may be the job for you.

The Job...
UI design is an important part of this role, so there’ll be a lot of that
You’ll work closely with the Lead Designer (me) and members of the design team, also Content Managers and Developers
You’ll work on front end pages aligned to our brand guidelines
You will have the chance develop your job around what makes you tick, as long as that isn’t bear wrestling or covering yourself in yogurt in public places.
There’ll be conferences, seminars and other social schmoozey-type events which you’ll have to clean your shoes for.
Not only will you help us deliver and develop the MORE TH>N brand, but you will also be working with the entire global portfolio of the RSA Group.
The job is based in our Horsham offices. You'll be paid in money. You'll get a pension, gym discounts, flex time, parking, expenses, annual bonuses etc etc

You'll need...
Ideally you’ll have a degree in Design
One to three years experience working in a full time design role
An impressive portfolio of lickable design work which you don’t mind us pawing
An innate understanding of user interfaces and user experience design

If you're interested or you know someone who you recommend, then email me the details.

Designing the perfect UX for a TV

I've thought for a while that the progression of computers, phones and other touch screen or voice activated devices have left the trusty old TV behind. Sure you can buy "smart TVs" with in built apps, but they are still a long way from where technology has taken other screen based devices in our homes/lives. Even the sad old thermostat has moved forward.

I've often sat in front of the Sky+ and BT Vision interfaces and felt the 'design pain' that all designers feel when something just isn't up to standard. With all the talk around Google and Apple's TV projects in the pipelines my mind keeps turning over what the perfect UX would be for a TV. So here are my design ideas for how it could work. They are Apple bias, because they have the most robust ecosystem, but the devices are easily interchangeable.

1. The TV can act like today's standard digital TV by receiving scheduled channels
2. It can record content to schedule - as per Sky+, BT Vision, TiVo etc
3. It can stream content on demand (iPlayer, lovefilm, Spotify, 4oD etc)

Nothing radical so far, but here is where it gets better...
4. It allows me to buy (not just rent!) content - much like the iTunes store
5. It syncs with media content with my iPhone, so i can take my recorded and bought content out with me
6. My content can then be played out on other people's TVs from my iPhone  - using Airplay perhaps

No more remotes
7. The set can be fully controlled via voice commands (ala Siri)
8. Alternatively it can be controlled via my iPad, whilst allowing me to access additional services (Twitter, Facebook, Getglue or even ZeeBox) as I watch

It calls
9. Lastly a front facing camera that works with Facetime or Skype (potentially also connects with my Wii or Kinect, but that seems a bit of a weird hardware mash for the camera & sensors)

That's my vision. That's where I think TVs could be heading. I'm putting my money down, before the big guns start rolling out their offerings. At the end of the year I'm going to look back and see how much has been fulfilled.

I've updated my site

I've always had my own domain and built my own sites on it. I've got in to a habit of redesigning and rebuilding my site periodically, for no other reason than to test myself. I always set out to design something in a style that doesn't come naturally to me and build something beyond my understanding. This habit forces me out of my comfort zone and pushes me to learn new stuff.

This time round I decided that I would break from my own convention and use someone else's publishing platform. After trying out a few options I landed on Cargo, which is a beautifully built CMS, that allows a huge amount of flexibility. For the visual design I turned to a vintage, seaside style, as a hat tip to my hometown Brighton. I'm still not 100% comfortable with the style, but I'm making myself live with it for a while.

Feel free to take a look at my new site and if you have any comments send them to @martynreding

Designing For Emotion by Aarron Walter

I just finished off Designing For Emotion by Aarron Walter. Usually books from the Book Apart stable arre practical 'how to' guides, but the subject matter of this title makes it more of a theoretical affair. I won't go in to a full on book review, but here are the top points I marked in the book.

1: embedding personality in to your UX leads to customer loyalty. "Personalities foster friendship and serve as the platform for emotional connections.

2: Flickr used a simple competition to save an unplanned outage. "Though the site was down and many more were inconvienced, Flickr users remember the fun they had participating in the colouring contest, and for some, how great it was to win a free year of Pro service"

3: emotional design can act as insurance to product problems. "Emotional engagement can help us look past even the most serious infractions, leaving the good more prominent in our mind than the bad."

The voice of @morethanfreeman

Hey look. I done a video!

For the past couple of months I've been working with the teams at VCCP to create the next phase of MORE TH>N's latest digital campaign. This is the first fruits of our labour. Not an easy process by any measure, but I'm happy I got this piece through to the world.

Ever wondered about the voice of MORE TH>N Freeman? Ever asked "who asked is MORE TH>N Freeman?" - Well here is the man himself to explain...

I think 2011 was a vintage year for digital #design

I believe every creative industry has it's golden age. Arguably advertising had a boom period through the early 60's and again in the UK during the 80s. Brand design really gained popularity in the early 70s (largely thanks to Unimark, Saul Bass and Wolff Olins). Although digital design has had a couple of false starts I believe this year it really has come of age and over time designers will look back at this period in awe. Perhaps it sounds like i'm getting nostalgic in my old age, but look at the work we've seen this year.

Apple
It's impossible to talk about design in 2011 without talking about Apple. Even though it's been a rough year with the loss of the titanic Steve Jobs. The team at Apple have released a new, refined desktop operating system in Lion. They have overhauled their mobile operating system with iOS5, adding in a bucket load of beautifully refined new feature. They have also introduced iCloud and quietly sneaked out a new version of iTunes for iPad. Not to mention the beautiful work that has been coming and going on their dotcom site. It hasn't all been wonderful though. The new Cards and Find Friends apps are clearly below Apple's standards. None the less they still continue to lead the world of digital design.

Facebook
It's no secret in our industry that Facebook has been on a massive design shopping spree. Snapping up designers and creative directors from around the world. For the first time in it's history Facebook has started putting design in to the heart of its product developments. The first sign of their design progression comes in the eagerly anticapted Timelines update.

Google
Even the mighty Google, once famous for it's non-design, has rolled out a new UI design standard. The first product to given the new Google design treatment was Google+, quickly followed by Gmail, Calendar, Blogger and most recently on to YouTube. Going from highly un-designed, tech driven products to adopting a subtle, highly reserved aesthetic was done in a matter months and shows no sign of slowing down.

Microsoft Windows Phone
Good design and Microsoft rarely go together, but after years in design hell Microsoft launched the Windows phone OS. A highly original, yet comfortable new experience for smartphones. Based on solid aesthetic principles the level of thinking that has gone in to the UI here is highly unexpected. Hopefully the team behind the design of Metro will act as a case dtudy within Microsoft and we will see elements of this work bleeding in to the next version of Windows.

Twitter
For me Twitter comes Top of the Class in 2011. Although they are not operating on the scale of Google or Apple they have put out some leading UI design work. In the past six months Twitter has doubled in size, redesigned it's site to work across handheld devices, redesigned and relaunched it's flagship app, integrated in to Apple's OS, released an iPad app and if that wasn't enough they have just started rolling a stunning looking redesigned version of their web app.

Foursquare
I have a soft spot in my heart for the design team at Foursquare. I love the UI design work that each of their products is wrapped in. At the start of the year they redesigned their app, which only offered minor improvements. But the biggest "wow" this year has been the redesign of foursquare.com. If you haven't checked it out recently go have a look now.


BBC
The beeb continue to advance it's design guidelines. This year saw further developments within GEL. But also a redesigned homepage and a new weather site, which adopted a "tablet first" approach.

Other honourable mentions
It's not just the big names who have been pushing the design envelope. I've noted some interesting design coming out of newcomers Path, Flipboard and Stamped. Also Gowalla has been pushing it's product in new and unexpected ways. BankSimple is on the verge of releasing its user centric take on personal banking, which by the looks of it, is going to be huge in 2012.

All together it makes a pretty good argument for dubbing 2011 a vintage year for digital design.
 Don't you think?

UX is missing from your brand guidelines

Standard graphic communication tools – the brand book, the style guide, the tone of voice document – are important for designers working with intangibles, but they are not enough. They are from an era of broadcast: they tell us how to present our products to a mass audience, but they fail to describe how to create an experience that engages a single customer in a dialogue. In short, we’ve defined the ‘look’ but not the ’feel’.

Extract by Justin Stach at Serenpartners.com

Nest - The learning thermostat

This is Nest. It's a new thermostat being sold in the US.

You may very well ask 'why the billy bollocks a thermostat would be of any interest to me?'. Well my inquisitive friends this thermostat is not only a whole new approach to warming a home, but it's also the work of a group of former Apple designers, who have clearly brought a great deal of Apple's design attitude to this piece of work.

Everything from the product's inherently intelligent nature, to it's UI design has been created with love and attention. Looking at the site and the package shots, it's impossible to fault this work. It seems to be a perfect combination of product and digital design.

I'm very much looking forward to getting my hands on one of these when it becomes available in the UK. I predict Nest becoming very popular, in the near future.