maiden app launch

Very excited and relieved to say that my first iPhone project has gone live. Feel like I worked mighty hard on this one, collaborating on the design and managing the process from inception to delivery.

Must say, this was a fairly steep learning curve in terms of planning, learning new design conventions and dealing with Apple (our app review took 6 weeks!) But, overall, it has been really satisfying.

The app itself is all the best content and social elements of lovemoney.com, in one. The main bonus for users is the offline mode which means that lovemoney.com content can be enjoyed while folk are on their commute, even when connectivity is poor.

Beyond that, we really hope the app extends our reach and creates another successful path to discovery for the lovemoney.com brand. Certainly, the UI efficiencies make the app infinitely easy to use (in my opinion) and shows the lovemoney.com product in a new and exciting light.

The lovemoney.com Knowledge app is available on subscription for £2.99 and available now through the app store.

no neon anywhere

My first impression of poker websites was bad. Lots on lots of poor design, confusing bonus jargon and casino clichés. I was a bit perplexed and lost in a world of crap stock images and neon.

So, when I was asked to think about a poker website my initial reaction, naturally, was that I wasn't sure.

Every website I have ever worked on I've advocated brand values, decent usability and genuine service. It's a policy I would argue has worked well. 12 years on and I can't think of one site I've worked on that doesn't still exist in some form (CompuServe doesn't count, it was technically an ISP!)

Tantalisingly, the challenge lay in working out how to apply this 'career policy' to poker.

I needn't have worried though. I spoke to numerous poker players and industry insiders who more or less unilaterally agreed with my initial synopsis that poker websites are generally pretty clichéd affairs.

When I suggested we move away from neon, weak stock imagery, spammy seo copy, black backgrounds e.t.c... I met very little resistance at all.

And so is born the new www.onlinepoker.com - a website that provides:

- relevant content and tailored landing pages for both newbie and intermediate players.
- a Q&A forum where newbie players can find information from other newbies and more experienced players.
- poker room reviews that will give a responsible and helpful account of where to go and play online poker safely.

And it all comes with no neon anywhere! Smashing.

a foray in to football infographics

 

 
I've not blogged for a bit. I have been busy starting-up Runpath Digital (a digital agency run by the founders and owners lovemoney.com.) Check us out! (You can also now hire me if you like!)

We recently launched our client drive campaign 'Making Time To Think' and since then I've spent a bit of my time talking with potential new clients. All good.

One of the most interesting projects I've been working on from a personal perspective has been that for a client who asked us to think about some data visualisations for football.

The brief was to take certain data sets from a football scenarios (a penalty, a substitution etc..) and present them in a way that would be digestible and informative for a TV audience.

A quick overview of the work we did can be seen here. But, simply from the point of view of indulgence, revelry, enjoyment and posterity here are some things I picked up from the work.

(Unfortunately, I can only really say that the following points apply specifically to infographics on TV but hopefully there may also be nuggets that can be applied more broadly to creating infographics in general...)

At the project kick-off we spent a while considering if we were using the correct data sets. This point was pretty contentious in the user group. Immediately, this surfaced a couple of things about infographics:

1.) Actually, you perhaps don't 'necessarily' have to be 'too' prescriptive with the data you show in the graphic. Something I realised quickly was that different people are interested in different types of data and different levels of data. For example, some can handle a lot of data, some are overloaded easily. Some like percentages and ratios, some like raw numbers. So, sometimes being prescriptive about what people will want to see is hard. In fact, you could argue it's better just to concentrate on putting it out there.

2.) Kind of related to the above point is that it is probably a higher priority for the info graphic to present data sets clearly than extract absolute meaning from data sets themselves.

The actual job of finding meaning in the data is arguably better left open to the individual looking at the information in a new and visual way.

Beyond these broader points there were a few key things I picked up regarding actual infographic 'design treatments' :

1) Apply consistency. Where multiple screens are required it goes without saying that there should be consistency between them. Pretty quickly you want your viewer/user to get accustomed to the style with which you present the information on screen.

2) Understand and establish 'camps' within the data sets you have. We identified there were a few 'camps' within the football data we had. For example, vital player stats (player name, shirt number etc...) and player performance stats (goals, fouls committed, assists etc...)

3) Following on from above, we worked on individual treatments for the individual 'camps' within the data.  For example, we had a specific treatment for player vital stats that we shared between the screens we produced. We then created a distinct set of conventions for displaying the player performance stats. This seemed to work well as a way of scaling designs from one screen and scenario to another.

4) It is not necessary to re-invent the wheel with the infographic presentation. Stable treatments like simple bar charts can work well to present data clearly and boldly on screen. It's tempting to try more adventurous treaments, which is fine, but we didn't find it necessary in our case.

5) Transitions are really important. (Both for moving between graphics to indicate a change like a substitution and to help higlight and focus on individual elements of data on screen.)

6) Consider screen real-estate. While it is often ok to have lots of information on screen during analysis etc.. you do want to minimise screen intrusion whilst there is live action happening in the foreground.
 
Phew, that was a brain chuck! Feel better now!

All that's left to say is that if you work with infographics and agree/disagree with my piffle I'd love to hear your feedback below...

lovemoney.com v2 - a 'new' navigation concept

original concept graphic for lovemoney.com navigation

The redesign of lovemoney.com has now gone live. The site launched in 2009 and this redesign marks a v2 in its short history.

The main challenge we felt we had with lovemoney.com v1 was that we'd built a complicated product with features as diverse as written content, social apps and online banking/bank account aggregation.

Therefore, my brief/role in the redesign was to work with my team to unify the site experience, making it easier for users to get what they need efficiently when visiting the site.

We scratched our heads for a long while and finally settled on using a blend of mosaic profiling and personal preference setting to invent a navigation system which would hopefully make the site more cohesive and intuitive for users as they move around.

I've always thought of this 'navigation system' as a kind of 'universal language' that could be recognised in each section of the site, even if those site sections offer something quite different from each other. I should also say, I am rather fond of it!

The execution is hopefully pretty simple. When users register with lovemoney.com they are profiled (using mosaic.) Then, users are able to select topics (subjects of content) they are interested in and would like to follow. We then use a combination of these two actions to provide users with the ability to navigate and filter site sections in three distinct ways, either by:

You (a selection of content from a site section determined by the preferences the individual user has set.)
People Like You (content from a site section determined by the preferences set by those in an individual user's mosaic group.)
Everyone (all the content published and publicly available in that section of the site.)


It's early days but we are positive about this innovation and look forward to extending the premise more deeply in to the fabric of the user experience as we move forward.

More on the v2 redesign can be read here.

As ever, I'd be really interested to hear what people think of the new look site and this approach?

why building iPhone apps is still a good strategy in 2011

Not so long ago I was pretty dismissive about the future potential for iPhone app development. I had believed that in some respects this phenomenon was done, dusted....over. I was convinced that businesses (except the very innovative and very lucky few) were going to find it increasingly difficult to justify app development in 2011 and beyond.

Well, I think I was wrong. Very wrong, actually. Naive, even. I'd probably listened to too many people who talk about Android's aggressive growth as a platform, or Symbian's market share, or people who just think so far ahead about 'mobile' that their advice is inadvertently hard to apply in the here and now.

I didn't think businesses/developers could expect to charge for their apps. But, as it turns out, not all iPhone Apps are free. Far from it, actually. Roughly 58% of apps in the app store are paid apps. Furthermore, the current average price of an app in the store is around £1.75p (and if you take in to account the large number of free games in the app store, for many non-game apps, the price is considerably higher.).

What's more, the app economy itself is showing signs of evolving and maturing. Many big content publishers are now moving to subscription payment models (Washington Post, Fairfax Digital, Guardian, FT, The Times - to name a few.)

I also very much under-rated the efficiency and growing significance of software and hardware ecosystems. In this regard (like it or not) the reality is that Apple have created something so powerful through the combination of iTunes, app stores and decent hardware that everyone will struggle, not to catch-up, but simply to do as good a job. 

You only have to look at the UK online movie-on-demand market to see an example of the importance of the software/hardware ecosystem and the pivotal place of Apple in it. In 2009, 90% of online on-demand movie purchases went on to either an Apple device, Microsoft X-box or Sony PlayStation. Oh, and most of that 90% was Apple. 

In addition to the above, there's one other basic fact I was ignorant of. I simply didn't get how many people were using mobile devices and, more to the point, the profound impact that this is having on how we consume digital media. Morgan Stanley suggest that the number of global mobile internet users will match the number of global desktop internet users by as early as 2014. That is an incredible stat (if, indeed, it does actually happen.)

Just as interesting is what folk are using their mobiles for. Predictably, texting, email and news are right up there when it comes to current and predicted trends in mobile phone usage. But, the growth in popularity of things like social networking and banking/purchasing really opens the window on what kind of central role 'mobile devices' will increasingly play in our day to day lives over the coming years.

Plus, lets not forget the staggering usage stats of a device like Apple's iTouch. Users spend, on average, as much as 100 minutes a day on their apps.  How do they get the time?

It's stats like these that make me agree with experts who predict a three-fold growth in the already $10 billion strong app market in the next 5 years.

Despite the competition from Android and Microsoft and everyone else, I just feel that Apple will hold a position in a market which, lets face it, they invented. Sure, more app stores and platforms will develop but, put simply, even if they can match Apple for overall performance - simply through momentum - Apple and iPhone aren't going away anywhere soon.

So, to conclude, it is through a mixture of a maturing and more 'business friendly' app pricing market, the pivotal role Apple still plays in leading the way in software/hardware ecosystems and the very fact that more and more of us go 'mobile' in our behaviours each day, that I think iPhone apps should still make it in to business strategies in 2011.

Sorry Apple. I should have known better than to doubt you.