DAN

So what’s the Google Plus problem? There’s really only one thing left: bad design and a confusing user interface.

Google is an engineer-driven company. These unbelievably talented engineers have always put code before pixels. They’ve made the fastest, smartest Web products around. But the design of Google Plus feels, well, undesigned. It isn’t beautiful, and in the age of the iPhone and mobile apps, good design is more important than anything.

Great piece explaining how design can make or break a digital product.

I read a great piece at uxmag.com that explains the importance of convenience in UX design. But the message translates to all business. Consider this quote from the piece:

In 1927, an entrepreneurial worker at the Southland Ice Company in Dallas, Texas began selling milk, bread, and eggs from a storefront on the ice dock to make a little extra money. Having access to an inexhaustible amount of ice for preserving the groceries, Joe Thompson was able to sell when other local grocery stores were closed in the late evenings and on weekends. For the first time, the local community could shop outside of typical business hours, whenever it suited them. Soon after, Joe added gasoline and various other food, drinks, and "convenience" items to his inventory in a new store with the unprecedented trading hours of 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. By 2011, 7-Eleven has grown to 41,000 locations worldwide and is the prototype for convenience.

When all things are equal, customers will use your competitor if the experience there is more convenient. In fact, there's reason to believe your prospects still will go to the competition if you're better and more affordable, but your competition is more convenient.

You have to think, What are people going to do with the device 99% of the time? Make sure every detail supports that main interaction," Fadell explains. "The iPod is about scrolling through long lists with one hand, and a thermostat is about dialing the temperature up or down.

Great piece on a great product's design and marketing.

Andy Rutledge wrote a sweeping piece deservedly condemning the current design approach to " digital news" and its business model. Here's a glimpse of his point:

Quality news requires quality presentation, free from the ridiculous array of experience-destroying marketing. Payment for the PRODUCT allows for this to happen. Experience-destroying penalties for getting the product for free create a broken system while at the same time destroying the value proposition for payment.

Though I find empirical evidence lacking for his suggestion that the model is purely subscription driven, I do hear what he's saying. I also believe that the current state of news design sucks horribly. Even the big boys look crappy. But simply suggesting that paywalls should be erected and the sites need to be clean and virtually ad-free sounds really good to me, but isn't a business reality right now — even though the news industry has nobody to blame but itself for getting into this "free news for all" predicament.

Nevertheless, Andy's redux site example for nytimes.com is pretty awesome.