Say Yeah!

What a deliciously exciting user interface. All the navigation...

smack416 — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:15:18 -0500

What a deliciously exciting user interface. All the navigation is either touch, swipe or pinch.

Design does matter.

smack416 — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:55:00 -0500

John Gruber, today:

For years, when Apple was down, they were held up as proof that making the best products didn’t matter. The Mac is better than Windows and look what happened was the refrain.

Not any more. Yesterday, Apple recorded the second most profitable quarter of any US company, ever. Just look at these charts from Dan Frommer:

These numbers are unreal. You’re looking at a hugely successful company launching itself into the stratosphere. And with no sign of slowing down, given the potential for the tablet market.

Quarter to quarter, year to year, we’re seeing how design, playing into every aspect of a company and its products can lead to world changing, mind-boggiling greatness. With design at this pervasive level, we’re seeing value for the consumer, for the company, for everyone, as Apple continues to innovate and provide opportunities to an ever growing ecosystem of consumers, designers, developers, and more.

As Dylan Tweney wrote this past August:

Jobs has spent 15 years building the ultimate machine for inventing, manufacturing and selling consumer electronics, and just because he’s retiring, the machine is not about to grind to a halt any time soon.

Amen to that.

And now back to our own design work!

Whither the TO Events Calendar.

smack416 — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:49:00 -0500

We shuttered the TO Events Calendar late last year because we:

1. Were having trouble managing it, because;

2. We hadn’t improved the technology to help make our lives easier as curators and your lives easier as contributors.

Our plan for the past year was to integrate Plancast via their API as they were (are?) doing a pretty good job of sucking in events from most of our event sources (Facebook, Meetup, Eventbrite, etc), leaving us with some leg work to grab events from proprietary software calendars from the likes of Rotman, the Toronto Board of Trade, etc.

Alas, word this week is that Plancast may be leaning towards extinction for many of the reasons we never attempted to commercialize our calendar software.

Kindly, Mark Hendrickson, founder and CEO of Plancast, has shared a thorough and insightful post-mortem. Some highlights:

Unlike other, more frequent content types such as status updates and photos (which can be shared numerous times per day), plans are suitable for only occasional sharing. Most people simply don’t go to that many events, and of those they do attend, many are not anticipated with a high degree of certainty. As a result, users don’t tend to develop a strong daily or weekly habit of contributing content.

This is low-volume, low retention content. From a mainstream point of view, it gets worse:

People also don’t proactively seek out events to attend as you might suppose. I’ve gotten into the habit of thinking about people as divided into two camps: those who have lots of free time and those who don’t.

While I wouldn’t agree with this assessment for those of us who were using the TO Events Calendar, it certainly speaks to why Plancast wasn’t able to take any steps towards profitability using a social sharing model.

There’s more from Mark at Techcrunch, but let’s get back to the TO Events Calendar.

In Toronto, we still have the issuing of aggregating media, tech, and design events from myriad disparate places on the Web. If anyone has any other suggestions on reviving the calendar by making it easy to import events from all over the place, we’re all ears. And, in the meantime, we’ll keep working to find the resources to solve this problem for ourselves and for you.

Peace.
Lee

Design for living, beginning tonight at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.

smack416 — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:43:43 -0500

From January 13 to January 17, browse to tiff.net/design for details on joining Gary Hustwit and friends in viewing his three-part exploration of modern design, the docs Helvetica, Objectified, and Urbanized.

Burton Kramer, Identities, chronicles an icon of Canadian design.

smack416 — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:03:05 -0500

Designers in Canada owe a debt to Burton Kramer. As Roger Remington states in the introduction of Burton Kramer, Identities:

Kramer became known as a staunch advocate of fully integrated design at a time when such an approach was virtually unknown in Canada.

Bringing this Swiss design ethos to Canada in the mid-60s was quite a revelation and, with Expo 67, gave Kramer and designers such as Moshe Safdie an opportunity to shine as the world visited Montreal.

Canadians of this era will remember Kramer’s work for Clairtone, a high-end Toronto based audio brand founded by Peter Munk (who’s foundation launched the remarkable Munk Debates).

Still in the mid-60s, Kramer was working with the Royal Ontario Museum to help define a consistent visual language across the variety of exhibitions.

And Canadians of all ages will recognize his work for CBC, CIBC, the Eaton Centre and Union Station.

Interior designers will appreciate his work for Teknion.

While Torontonian drivers may bristle slightly at the green P which doubtless reminds us of a few meter maid run ins.

Though Burton Kramer, Identities, doesn’t share much in the way of the process behind much of the work, there’s just so much to see here from a remarkable and culturally significant career.

You can find more info and order details at burtonkrameridentities.com.

Oh, wow, we totally need to find some great app designers.

smack416 — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:43:00 -0400

If you’re passionate about game play, game mechanics, game theory, sports, poker, first person shooters, beer and socializing, we want to hear from you. Well, only if you can design too. Say Yeah is hiring designers with Web, mobile and mobile app experience to support our gaming clients (console, PC and mobile) in their efforts to build a stronger, more rewarding relationship with their users, whether on Web or mobile devices, consoles, or elsewhere.

(See photo above for an example of one of our lonely desks and Aeron chairs).

A little about Say Yeah!

Say Yeah, the app design agency, is a leader in aligning business needs with consumer expectations through exceptional and iterative design processes. By understanding consumer behaviour, we’re able to design applications that work for consumers, helping them reach their goals as efficiently and enjoyably as possible, all while driving action around defined business needs. Whether Web, mobile, or desktop, Say Yeah designs apps that help make your consumer’s work and play life simpler so they can focus on doing the things they love.

Position summary.

Say Yeah is seeking an experienced interaction designer to help us move from strategy to screens for a variety of Web and mobile app projects, with a particular focus on the gaming industry. You’ll be part of a user experience team which includes research, strategy and design capabilities, working directly with top development partners and our internal QA and usability testing team.

Responsibilities.

In addition to working with other interaction designers and user experience strategists, you will be working closely with product management and dev teams.

You’ll be expected to have a keen understanding of design standards, development considerations across a variety of Web and mobile platforms, and user expectations and behaviours, all focused on taking user experience and business strategy docs and realizing these in feature complete, lush screen designs.

This of course means you’ll be expected to sweat the small stuff to help make user’s lives easier and more enjoyable, without sacrificing functionality, budget and timelines.

In the end, you’ll be responsible for creating user interface designs, graphics, animations, icons, style sheets, color schemes, templates and layouts, while identifying common typeface standards and ensuring consistency on a project by project basis.

We expect you to be thoughtful, intelligent and objective in your approach to design and be willing to collaborate across disciplines, while ensuring concepts meet user needs and business goals.

Essential skills and qualifications.

The prerequisites below focus on our senior designer requirements, but we’d love to hear from some smart juniors who feel they can solve some of these problems.

Graduate or post-graduate degree in a design related field such as; Interaction or Interface Design, Graphic Design, Multimedia, HCI, or the equivalent experience and training in an area directly relevant to this position.
3-5+ years experience as interaction designer with at least 1 year of experience developing handheld applications.
Understand the importance of aligning business goals with user goals.
A well structured and user centric design methodology.
A keen understanding of design and communication tenets, including visual and written look and feel.
A particular disdain for bad typography, Web and otherwise, and an unhealthy determination to define and stick to a grid, or break it in a fever of inspiration.
An understanding of the capabilities of web browsers, mobile applications and user interactions and an interest in keep abreast of the latest capabilities.
A passion for understanding game theory and game mechanics and helping users discover apps organically while rewarding them for their efforts.
Ability to communicate design principles and rationale to non-designers, including clients and developers.
Ability to build relationships across different disciplines and the ability to define success as a team effort, not individual pursuit.
The desire to delight users across a variety industries and interactive media, while tackling a number of different projects on a weekly basis.
An interest in making magical apps that can only come from solving difficult problems.

Additional assets.

Some more software specific capabilities and beneficial experience:

Experience prototyping Web apps and handheld devices, including user testing and research.
A familiarity with or experience working on agile development projects.
Experience with software tools such as OmniGraffle, Visio, Balsamiq.
Fluent in graphic/media design software, particularly Adobe Illustrator and OSX.

Work hard. Play hard.

We share an incredible office space with a fantastic development and product management shop in a wonderful downtown studio at Portland and Richmond in Toronto.

There’s beer in the fridge along with a kitchenette and private washroom within our space, and a vine covered back patio. We have room to play and share ideas, including an event space to collaborate in groups or one to one in ways that can challenge and inspire us, all while making sure there’s a dedicated space for you to focus on heads down work when you need to.

How to apply.

Please send an email to team@yousayyeah.com with a list of your accomplishments, portfolio and design interests.

We’re looking for:

An experienced Web and mobile app designer (with the prerequisites noted above.
A seasoned Web and mobile app designer, less experience, but equally diverse skill set, as noted above.
A junior Web and mobile app designer, capable of bringing creative insight to the table and not afraid of spending hours in Illustrator making vector magic.

If you feel you’ve got the chops, don’t hesitate to reach out. That said, we’re too busy to breathe right now so I’m afraid we can only get back to people we’ll be interviewing.

We look forward to hearing from you!

To the man who has shaped our industry and the work we do. From...

smack416 — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:13:57 -0400

To the man who has shaped our industry and the work we do. From how we work to how we think. Rest in peace.

The new Playstation Video Unlimited service highlights how a...

smack416 — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 10:51:05 -0400

The new Playstation Video Unlimited service highlights how a responsive, animated interface can be built with Javascript and access to hardware APIs.

Access to these APIs is not something that’s generally available on the PS3 platform now, but it does point to the future capabilities of both browser and hardware developers to build intuitive interfaces with a lot of great animation without the overhead of Flash. Exciting times!

"Discernment is the hardest part of marketing—seeing the world as it is, instead of how you..."

smack416 — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:47:10 -0400

“Discernment is the hardest part of marketing—seeing the world as it is, instead of how you experience it.”

- Seth Godin, on the law of large groups:

This explains why the people you see at the gym tend to be in better shape than you are. … People who are at the gym a lot (as in the people you see the most often) tend to be in better shape because they show up more often.

Iterate, baby!

smack416 — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 15:56:00 -0400

Foursquare’s Mari Sheibley talks about the evolution of Foursquare design on the iPhone, from Jan ‘09 through to August ‘11:

One of the great things about working on one product is the ability to iterate; the bad thing is you never feel like you’re done.

When foursquare started there was no real visual design on the app. Naveen was coding it up alone and he used all native Apple UI elements. I was helping out on the side and slowly we added custom elements and branding and for SXSW 2010 we did our first visual pass at the design. At that point I was doing everything, and it showed. One person can only do so much. Now we have a talented group of UI and UX designers and these days I mostly work on the iOS app.

We just put out a new build complete with a new blue navigation bar, photos inline, single tap cells and a newly designed check-in detail screen. I’m really proud of this current iteration of the app and can’t wait to see it continue to evolve.

view larger

I find it revealing that the article begins with “the bad thing is you never feel like you’re done” while talking about the process, evolution and latest iteration, Mari finishes with “I’m really proud of this current iteration of the app and can’t wait to see it continue to evolve.”

It’s that closing sentiment that really excites us and drives us to working long term with our customers. We thrive on the idea of delivering an iteration of an app that gets out in the wild, invites use, feedback, and let’s us discover right along with users unexpected ways to interact with the app. This is what we need to help iterate based on business needs and real world use. There’s simply nothing static or forever about what we do because every click leads to new insights. There is no complete. There’s only each iteration and what that teaches us. That’s exciting.

Redesigning the browser window.

smack416 — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 11:53:00 -0400

A wonderful exploration from Henrik Eneroth on the limitations of the current standard Web browser layout (tabs across the top, running left to right) when used on hi-res, wide screens.

This reference image sums up the dilemma presented when all of your controls are in thin little rows at the top of the page and yet the pages of the site you’re browsing are generally designed at 960 pixels wide on your 1200+ pixel wide screen. Henrik very appropriately name this image ‘mismatch’.

Read on for some proposed solutions from Henrik, with a particular focus on Apple’s new full screen view in OSX Lion. Apple’s been touting full screen as a primary feature of OSX Lion, but they seem to have rather lazily implemented this view in Safari.

"It’s all about removing the unnecessary."

smack416 — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 14:44:00 -0400

“It’s all about removing the unnecessary.”

- Jonathan Ive, Senior VP of Industrial Design at Apple.

From Five Low-Hanging UX Tips.

Oh Yeah.

smack416 — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 15:09:00 -0400

Oh Yeah.

OSX Lion: Form over function highlights.

smack416 — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 13:31:31 -0400

The two skeuomorphic apps which ship with OSX Lion, iCal and Address Book, offer some frustrating form over function compromises which obscure content.

iCal has relegated your list of Calendars to a recessed button top left. Clicking this pops up a semi-transparatent overlay with a list of your calendars which you can then toggle on/off, but there’s no way to make this list of calendars viewable at all times.

For the general user, this won’t be a concern, but in the office we’re all synced up to our iCal server so we have a handle on vacation schedules, meeting scheduling, and so on.

I don’t always want to see everyone’s calendar, so I generally toggle everyone off unless I’m looking for someone or need to book a group meeting. Dealing with this popup is doubtless going to be a pain.

Thankfully, Mail handled this right.

By default Mail loads with quick links to mailboxes and filters just under the primary toolbar, obscuring your complete list of folders.

However, there’s a lovely little show/hide button which drops a third column into mail and shows all your mailboxes.

This would be an easy addition to iCal without compromising the desktop leather; just show/hide my calendars in a column running down the left side.

Address book follows this pattern of obscuring data by default with no way to view the Address Book groups, contacts list and an individual contact all at the same time.

In this case, the two page spread of skeuomorphic address book means maximum two columns. Apple’s hacked this interface limitation to include a red tab which you use to toggle between a groups/contact list view and a list/contacts view. Form over function. Such a shame. It’s the content I’m after here, not stylized stacks of non-functioning pages.

"Think of it like this: jumping in a Mario game is very simple. You hit a button, Mario jumps. But..."

smack416 — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:51:21 -0400

“Think of it like this: jumping in a Mario game is very simple. You hit a button, Mario jumps. But once you know how to jump, you can use this ability to jump over gaps, jump on top of bricks, kill enemies, destroy bricks, hit coins out of coin bricks, get mushrooms, jump on top of flagpoles to get points, and much more. Learning one simple thing unlocks a very deep array of options. These are the kinds of features you want in your application.”

- Oliver Reichenstein in a footnote comparing Facebook to Google+.

"Make everything that CAN be alike as alike as possible. Let the differences between stuff jump out..."

smack416 — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 13:26:00 -0400

“Make everything that CAN be alike as alike as possible. Let the differences between stuff jump out as accents.”

- Mike Monteiro talking about simplifying a user interface so the differences in your content stand out, rather than trying to make every element look different.

Making every element look different inherently makes it more difficult to discover new content since you destroy easy to scan visual patterns. That, and you inevitably decrease the density of your content, which makes it more work for you to gather the information you need or want.

He’s got a great example in the article comparing Twitter to Google+ with comparative screen shots. Dig in!

Making searches more convenient on touch screens.

smack416 — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 16:26:31 -0400

Here’s a fantastic new interaction Microsoft’s just introduced with their updated Bing app for the iPad.

The skinny:

From our research, we know that many searches are inspired by things people see on the web. Today, it can be somewhat painful to search on a tablet when you’re engaged in reading something; just copying and pasting pieces of text from a webpage to a search box can take up to nine steps on the iPad. With Lasso you can circle and search in just two steps.

More about this update from the Bing Team here.

And you can download from the App Store here.

Startup apps and competition from heavy hitters.

smack416 — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 13:22:20 -0400

For a startup the biggest problem is almost never a competitor. The biggest problem is typically non-adoption.

Dan Moral rightly points out at StartupNorth that Apple introducing iMessage to the iPhone should help companies like Kik who up until now have been serving a space that only a small percentage of people likely knew or cared about, private messaging.

Nobody knows there is something better than texting available. Nobody knows that Kik exists. Well, Apple & iMessage are about to blow up the “private messenger” space. In an ideal world, as the market grows, Kik goes along with it.

This is a sound point of view contrasting the assumption that when Apple (or anyone with weight behind them) enters a market they destroy the incumbents. This jives with what we’ve heard from other app developers.

Here’s Marco Arment from Instapaper talking about Safari’s new ‘Reading List’ feature coming to iOS 5 and OSX Lion:

My biggest challenge isn’t winning over converts from my competitors: it’s explaining what Instapaper does and convincing people that they actually need it. Once they “get it”, they love it, but explaining its value in one quick, easy-to-understand, general-audience sentence is more difficult than you might imagine.

If Apple gets a bunch of Safari users — the browser that works best with Instapaper — to get into a “read later” workflow and see the value in such features, those users are prime potential Instapaper customers. And it gives me an easier way to explain it to them: “It’s like Safari’s Reading List, but better, in these ways.”

Daniel Pasco talking NetNewsWire with John Gruber reiterates this sentiment:

Safari’s RSS support is about as effective for serious information consumption as the notes feature in Apple Mail is for GTD.

What Apple brings to the table is mainstream awareness. And the more complex the problem they’re trying to solve, the more holes are left open for startups to tap into that awareness. In the case of RSS in Mail or Safari, there’s little doubt those tools do little for a news junky, particularly when Apple provides no means to sync these services to your mobile devices.

Apple’s foray into these areas is to serve casual users, not solve power user concerns. Once the average user is hooked on this basic functionality, then the opportunity arises for you to reach out and show them a more feature-rich app that helps them solve problems rather than just teases them as Apple is wont to do.

This is where it pays to understand when big players in the app space like Google, Apple, RIM, and Microsoft are looking to put their weight behind a particular trend or function.

A camera on every phone, with a very rudimentary Camera app opens up opportunities for apps like Instagram, and so on.

Marco continues:

Safari’s Reading List is either going to have no noticeable effect on Instapaper, or it will improve sales dramatically.

Watch these trends. Solve big problems in smart, easy to use ways. Win at being a startup.

Now when the parental units ask “what do you do at work...

smack416 — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 13:28:38 -0400

Now when the parental units ask “what do you do at work all day?” I will just send them this link.

Here’s a quality video from Santa Monica’s DKNG Studios showing them working from inspiration to Illustrator to screen print for their Black Keys poster.

Some weekend inspiration for everyone enjoying Canada Day tomorrow and Independence Day on Monday.

We're hiring! We're looking for a hyper organized marketing and project support person.

smack416 — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 17:30:06 -0400

Things are happening at Say Yeah that are making the business development and creative director’s heads spin.

So much on the go, so many projects with so many emails to sift through, blog articles to write, and people to connect with.

If you’re the kind of person who has a passion for design and loves playing with apps, while slightly OCD about being organized, we want to hear from you.

Tasks we’d love for you to be keen to tackle:

Help keep project deadlines organized.
Help manage the flow of email for the biz dev dude.
Help stay on top of local events and other goings on.
Help stay in touch with new contacts, moving from business cards to connections.
Help define and execute a regular blog publishing schedule.

A few notes on responsibilities:

Great writing makes us giddy. If you have the chops, we’ll want to throw some topics and article outlines at you so you can help keep our corporate blog fresh.
We have lots of receipts floating around. We may ask you to input these into the dreaded Quickbooks accounting software. If we find this makes sense, it still won’t be more than a half day a week at most.
We’ll also walk you through some of our beta apps so you can help us make sure they’re working the way they should. This means you get to try great new apps before they’re released and help shape their design and function.

A few notes on experience and pay:

We’re looking for the right person, not a specific degree. If you feel you have what it takes to tackle some or all of the above, get in touch at team@yousayyeah.com.
Whether you’re an intern or someone more seasoned, we’ll be talking short term contract before we segue into a salary commensurate with experience. That way we all get to see how well we work together and see if we can find the right set of responsibilities.

How to apply:

Please send an email to team@yousayyeah.com with a list of your accomplishments, portfolio if you’re keen to show off your writing chops, design interests, twitter and a link to your personal blog if you’ve got one. We’ll be in touch from there.

Our office:

We share space with a few other vibrant startups in a wonderful downtown studio at Spadina and Richmond in Toronto. Some highlights of the neighbourhood: everything you’d ever need to do in Toronto is within walking distance. This includes tennis courts, basketball, stellar foodstuffs, shopping, the Blue Jays, a dog park, and much, much more. I suppose the beach is too far, but that’s about it.

There’s beer in the fridge (though it’s a little warm in there right now, but I’m pretty sure that’ll be fixed soon) along with a kitchenette and private washroom within our space.

We’re looking for someone to occupy the desk pictured above, but if you feel there’s a fit for you at Say Yeah from afar, let us know.

And hey, if you’re an interactive designer (Web or mobile), we’re always looking for great designers to join our team, so feel free to send your resume and portfolio too.