Game design lessons for interaction design talk
Just saw that the lightning talk I gave at DEFUSE Dublin towards the end of last year is up on youtube.
Thanks to Ben.
ASOS Marketplace is live
On the 17th March, I left my job at EMC Consulting (formerly Conchango). On the 19th of March, with my fledgling company Orangered I started doing some work for Profero. My first project was to work on a pitch for ASOS, a company I’ve admired for sometime who are known for doing interesting things in the online retail space in particular with regards to fashion.
Apparently ASOS were doing some sort of marketplace site which would allow their customers to sell to one another. Well after a successful pitch and 6 months building the site (with one of the best teams of people I’ve worked with), it’s live.
I’m delighted with what’s been achieved in such a short space of time. It’s a pretty rare thing for me to get to the end of a project like this and feel so happy with the results rather than lamenting what might have been. That is a credit too the developers, for caring about the design and user experience as much as the code, and to the client, ASOS. Throughout the company, but most particularly the product owners have a keen eye for what works, a drive for quality in everything, but also another trait which is so important with any product owner - they know where to give and take, when to insist on a feature and when to sacrifice one.
Marketplace is not finished, I’m not sure if it ever will be. Its is not a site that will be left to lie fallow over the next year. Instead ASOS have learned a little from agile start ups and launched early, prepared to make mistakes but learn from them. To trust their brand is strong enough to hold their course should any stormy waves buffet the good ship Marketplace - rather than wrap it in cotton wool.
I can’t wait.
Gamification Links & Reading
Seth Priebatsch: The game layer on top of the world
http://www.ted.com/talks/seth_priebatsch_the_game_layer_on_top_of_the_world.htmlDesign with intent - how to influence behaviour
http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/including
downloadable design with intent toolkit
http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2010/04/10/design-with-intent-toolkit-1-0-now-online/Learning from game design: 11 gambits for influencing user behaviour
http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2010/03/22/learning-from-game-design-11-gambits-for-influencing-user-behaviour/Some other random but interesting articles:
SCVNGR’s Secret Game Mechanics Playdeck:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/25/scvngr-game-mechanics/HOW TO: Use Game Mechanics to Power Your Business
http://mashable.com/2010/07/13/game-mechanics-business/
Upcoming talks in Dublin
I’m going to be speaking at a couple of events in dublin over the next week.
On Friday I’m talking at the Dublin Web Summit in the Developer, Designer & Mobile stream. My talk is on at 12.15 on the topic of “Game design lessons for interaction design”, I’m also sitting on a panel discussion at 12.24 with Josh Williams from Gowalla and my old friend Paul Campbell.
On Tuesday I’ll be talking at the IXDA Defuse event at the Sugar Club doing a lighting talk also on the topic of game design and interaction design.
Both promise to be great events so if you’re about for one or both say “hi”.
Frustrating Paypal
Here’s a scenario.
I need to pay for an event ticket with paypal. I have a paypal account - great I’ll use that.
I enter email and password.
No funds in my account to pay.
I’ll log into my account to add funds. Adding funds takes 5-7 days, that’s not going to work.
Oh well I see there’s an option to pay with a debit card. Fill in details. Continue… Can’t use an email associated with a paypal account.
Try again with different email… Can’t use a debit card associated with a paypal account.
Use credit card. It works. great.
Check email - that’ll be my confirmation right?
Wrong. That’ll be the email telling me I’ve no got limited access to my paypal account cause they think it’s been hacked. Wonderful.
No point to this. Just a rant.
Data Visualisation: Football Related Arrests
Here’s a data visualisation I put together to see what I could do with some of the recently released government data.
Must credit David McCandless, whose blog Information is Beautiful has provided the inspiration and heavily influenced the look and feel of this design. If you find this interesting his work will blow your mind. I’ll try to be more original in future efforts. Also the Guardian Datablog is an excellent source of both data, ideas, and visualisations.
The data for this is also available.
In Conversation with the Author
Just to warn you, this is a twitter post. Even worse, it’s a twitter is great because… post. So you’ve been warned okay.
A couple of times recently I’ve commented on a book I’ve been reading on twitter and mentioned the author in my post. Both times the author has promptly replied in a very genuine way. Twitter enables that sort of instant gratification dialog with someone who you wouldn’t normally get a chance to interact with. It succeeds because there is no obligation or onus on the recipient of an @ message to respond.
The first time this happened was with Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) when I commented that I was a bit disappointed with his book that it didn’t really cater for the more knowledgeable audience and was a bit basic for me. His response and his disappointment that I hadn’t enjoyed it was really heartfelt.
The second time this happened was just yesterday when I received a reply from Tom Chatfield (@tomchatfield). I’d just received his book, Fun Inc.; Why games are the 21st century’s most serious business. I mentioned that I hoped the book goes beyond the usual games are important anecdotes, facts and figures that are generally rolled out on this topic. His reply was simple and to the point. “you and me both”.
I don’t think this sort of dialog would have been possible in the past without significant investment of time and effort on both sides.
Fair Play?
I’ve taken the Liberty of making a few adjustments to the FIFA Fair Play logo.
The original…
5th November Bing vs Google
Bing remember remembers the 5th of November.
Google remembers the Cookie Monster.
