Interface Design Blog: the good, the bad, and the utterly unusable...
Mindgames at Toys’R'Us
Posted on | September 3, 2010 | No Comments
In what appears to be an attempt to speed up the lagging evolution by weeding out the slow-brained, Toys’R’Us store in Redwood City, CA put this sign on its automatic sliding glass entrance door. David graciously took this photo for me as my camera was showing no signs of life.
Entrance Only sign at Toys'R'Us
What a fine example of a GUI twilight zone! Expertly blending the internationally recognized STOP/DO NOT ENTER icon design pattern with, essentially, an invitation to enter the store, Toys’R’Us caused my brain gasping for air while trying to reconcile the two. When we approached the glass door, the first reaction was, obviously, to not enter. After all, we all know what a red circle with a white brick across means. In any language and in any country. So, I started towards the other set of sliding doors. Turned out they had a similar (except yellow with a black brick) sign that said “Exit Only”. Which caused me to re-examine the original red sign and this time to actually read the words. Cautiously, we approached the door, still not completely sure if this was, in fact, the entrance (only). It was – the doors slid open.
Fascinating. Being a designer, I come across usability issues on the web all the time. I am used to it. But even in the virtual world, I rarely see something so disconcerting for the brain! When a person going through a sequence of actions on the web, an unclear next step makes a difference between a happy user (bought product, signed up for service, etc.) and an unhappy user (left the website unable to accomplish the goal). If I faced a similar navigational problem on a website, I would have abandoned it and looked for what I needed elsewhere. But in the brick-and-mortar world, we already drove to Redwood City, dealt with the weekend shopping traffic, found a precious parking spot… We weren’t going to leave so easily.
One is left to wonder what made the store managers decide to slap this sign on the door instead of a plain and simple “Entrance”. What bizarre occurrence or faulty logic led to this decision?…
Enter iPhone 4
Posted on | June 7, 2010 | No Comments
In the WWDC keynote, Steve Jobs started with the iPad, but the new iPhone 4 stole the show: http://live.gdgt.com/2010/06/07/live-wwdc-2010-keynote-coverage/#11-45-55-am
Is Apple launching a local advertising network for iPhone? Probably.
Posted on | February 5, 2010 | No Comments
Apple today notified developers of iPhone applications that it is prohibited to use the iPhone’s location information for local advertising. Location data can only be used for “beneficial information” starting now.
This is significant for reasons beyond the usual “Apple is a control freak that hurts developers” discussion. Location based advertising increasingly appears to be the most effective and fastest growing form of advertising on the mobile web. BIA Kelsey, an analyst firm, studied mobile use in late 2009 and noted the following:
“…searches for local products or services now exceed out-of-market searches by a wide margin…
- 18.5 percent searched the Internet for local products or services
- 15.9 percent obtained information about movies or other entertainment
- 13.3 percent obtained information about restaurants or bars
- 11.1 percent searched the Internet for products or services outside their local area
- 4 percent purchased a physical item that needed to be shipped (e.g., a book)
- 3 percent used a coupon from their mobile phone”
Additionally, Apple acquired the mobile advertising company Quattro Wireless only a few weeks ago.
It is increasingly clear that Apple is not merely trying to control developers for the sake of controlling their platform. They have a specific interest in capturing the fast growing local advertising market before Google obtains the same dominance there they have on web advertising. This isn’t the only gem in the mobile web ecosystem, but it’s definitely one that is worth owning.
What next? It seems clear that we’ll see a local advertising solution from Apple in the near future. Ok, that’s a smart move through it’s frustrating to see the developer community get the short end of the stick here… again. This is almost definitely reduce the level of innovation by developers to create smart solutions to local advertising problems.
It’s also likely we will see a wave of buyouts of mobile advertising platforms by carriers and the other mobile handset OEMs this year in a last ditch attempt to preserve their position in the mobile market value chain. No carrier wants to be just a commodity data pipe. And no handset manufacturer wants to get left in the dust.
While carriers certainly don’t want to get too close to Google, they may have no choice in the matter given their alternatives could be reduced to cowing to Apple by the end of 2010. It’s going to be a dynamic year for the mobile market…
Tags: admob > apple > google > iphone > mobileadvertising > quattrowireless