Author Archive
The heliotropic entrepreneur
Have you created a UNC VoiceThread account yet? VoiceThread is a web-based application that “allows users to post media files and then invite others to provide comments in writing, with voice or with video.” ITS Teaching and Learning has partnered with the VoiceThread folks to roll out a UNC VoiceThread pilot.
Andrew Synowiez, a co-founder, graduated from UNC in 2005 with a BS in Computer Science and lives in downtown Durham. Andrew has also spent time at NPR, published photos in Sports Illustrated and USA Today, and digs heliotropism. Andrew took some time away from building a company and studying the diurnal motion of plant parts to answer a few of my questions…
What is your role at VoiceThread?
Something akin to a Chief Aesthetics Officer. I’m responsible for the look and feel (design) of essentially everything people can see and interact with on VoiceThread.
How many active VoiceThread accounts?
Around 100,000 users.
You’re not positioning VoiceThread as a “Web 2.0″ application. How come?
Because we fundamentally don’t understand most “Web 2.0″ business models which often seem to be based on fantastical exit strategies and market delusions about “new realities.” You should build what you understand and so we’re building VoiceThread’s business like you would a paint store, a restaurant, or even a print magazine. Online business can look and behave so very different from off-line ones, but great businesses are more alike than different. We imagine being a part of our customers lives 5 years from now and work back from there.
Webmonkey Returns
A roommate in college maintained a popular Radiohead fan site, “Lift.” It boasted more traffic than most sites hosted at the University of Kentucky, our school, back in 1997. I was inspired and wanted to display stuff on a computer screen too! But how? Jon showed me around Netscape Composer and Webmonkey answered the other questions: How does a web form work? Should I use HTML frames? How do I create an animated gif? What’s the difference between Java and JavaScript. Most importantly, How do I make a career out of making web sites?!
Webmonkey was an essential resource at the time and offered newbies and seasoned veterans tips, tricks, and reference tools. Webmonkey authors were also outspoken, opinionated, and helped shape the emerging digital and web culture. Eventually the site lost relevance and disappeared… until April 2008. Webmonkey 2.0 has launched.
Show Me, Don’t Tell Me
Web Services has been researching screen recording software for demos, presentations, and training videos. We recently purchased a product called Camtasia Studio (with education discount). Ultimately, the goal is to add voice narration, text annotations, and integrate the videos with a training app such as Moodle.
Any difficulties viewing the video above? Please let me know. Thanks!
Custom Webclip Icons for iPhone
Remember the first time you saw a little web site icon pop up in your browser’s address bar? It was like, “Cool! How did they do that?” Fast forward to 2008 and with the most recent software update for the iPhone, users can save bookmark icons (webclips) to their phone’s desktop. Fortunately, it takes even less time than creating a “favicon.ico” image and you never have to worry about it strange disappearances (IE 6). It’s as simple as creating a 57×57 .png and uploading to your server’s root. Name the file apple-touch-icon.png. Don’t forget to add the rounded border and glassy effect necessary for Apple aesthetic goodness.
Stylin’
Checked out edustyle? The site is described as a “web design gallery dedicated to higher education websites and powered by higher education web design professionals. Users submit, review, and comment on sites they like (or don’t like). The aim is for higher ed web professionals to learn from and be inspired by the work of their peers. Once a month two sites are selected as Noteworthy based on user votes and feedback.” Consider me inspired. Some of the featured work–particularly from smaller liberal arts schools and seminaries–is exceptional. Some crowd pleasers:
The Interview
The most discussed event of SXSW Interactive 2008 was probably the now infamous interview with Business Week’s Sarah Lacy and Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg. This was an interview that started with excited geeks dancing in the aisles (seriously) and ended with an audience revolt. I can’t think of another SXSW discussion, panel, gathering, or event that captured so many themes that are at the heart of the changes in media, PR, social networks, tech, Web 2.0, and so on.
Julio Fernandez (with permission)
So what happened? Jeff Jarvis, Brian Solis, and the Guardian’s Jemima Kiss do a great job of breaking it down. Take your pick and you’ll have a pretty good understanding of how the interview unfolded.
Can ignoring users be a good thing?
I noticed a recurring theme during SXSW design-oriented panels and discussions: the need to rethink the role of user testing and research. Web Designers have long advocated user testing, contextual inquiry, and other user-centered design methods. Too often, user feedback may improve a product or site’s usability, but the results don’t exactly quicken the pulse. The problem is that folks are comfortable with what is familiar. But we’re in an era when user interfaces are taking a great leap forward. For example, imagine showing a mobile phone user a low-end Nokia phone back in 2005. You observe how she uses the different features and applications and even ask for tips on how to enhance the phone’s usability. Chances are that she would not say, “Get rid of the plastic keyboard buttons and make everything touch screen. Oh and I want to be able to ’see’ my voicemail
and I should be able to zoom in and out by pinching my fingers.” It may sound heretical, but here’s the thing: people don’t always know what they want. But as soon as something extraordinary comes along, they embrace it.
Julia Hanna’s HBS Working Knowledge article, “Radical Design, Radical Results,” puts it this way:
“Focus groups and market research can help to define a product, of course, but Verganti has found that design-driven innovation is not user-centered. Instead, it comes from within the organization. “Rather than being pulled by user requirements,” he wrote recently, “design-driven innovation is pushed by a firm’s vision about possible new product meanings and languages that could diffuse in society.”
User research will remain an integral part of the design process, but to achieve something special, could it make sense to ignore your customers for awhile?
SXSW Interactive in Less than a Minute (Again)
Animoto turned a lot of heads at SXSW: the company announced a new Facebook app and later took home an award at the 11th Annual Web Awards in the “Film/TV” category. We think the app works pretty well with our conference pics too…
