The Mind Imp

Tablets are coming, and will change everything

Wired and Adobe have created a pretty amazing ‘Wired Reader’ for tablets that’s well worth looking at:
link

Why is this important…?
Abobe isn’t dead: Air on the iPad – who knew (OK, probably most of you, but I didn’t)?
Print design isn’t dead: in fact the tablet looks like the screen is big enough to take a magazine-style layout. The workflow also seems to be changing – you would no longer need a dedicated ‘print’ and ‘web’ publishing team
Display advertising isn’t dead: some of the 360-degree ads here will launch a whole new wave of immersive, interactive campaigns.

Why is this exciting…
The future of our industry will be a lot more complex: more sophisticated interactions to plan for, more ways of integrating and using data, more digital devices and channels us all to consider.
“An opportunity to reset the economics” of digital – well that sounds… transformational…

Still think the iPad is just an oversized iPhone?

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Howies: two moments of delight in the eCommerce experience

I’ve long been a big Howies fan, so it’s not exactly my first time ordering from their site. But I came across two little details in the eCommerce experience that really set the site apart.

Firstly, if you’ve not put enough in your basket to get free shipping, but click Checkout, you get a lightbox-style alert:

Second, the confirmation message after checking out just shows they’ve put so much thought into their copy writing (wish I could write better):

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Going quickly, together

“If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. We have to go quickly, together.”

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/al_gore_s_new_thinking_on_the_climate_crisis.html

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Guardian mobile: some of the content, none of the style

The Guardian has at long last launched a mobile site. So the good news is that it doesn’t crash my iPhone browser.

But having used it for a week or so instead of the full site, I’m finding I look at it less and less. Because while it’s simple, it doesn’t attempt to be as immersive as the full site.

And this is a real shame. The Guardian has led the way online by creating ways of exploring news and commentary that really make the most of the medium.

I’m assuming here, perhaps wrongly, that the mobile site is intended for use by iPhone users (or maybe it’s aimed at Blackberry users?). And on the iPhone it feels really flat, primarily because user journeys are incredibly shallow. You read an article, you (maybe) get to page 2, then you go back.

If I had the time I would sketch what a true Guardian mobile experience would look like. But I don’t. Damn.

**UPDATE**
The Guardian has just released (as in today, I think), an API to allow people to experiment with their own versions of their content – love the idea! Anyone technical fancy having a play, if I sketch up how I’d do it?

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