Todd Sattersten :: Astronaut Projects

SXSW - Kathy Sierra

Here are streaming thoughts from Kathy Sierra on Creating Passionate Users:

It is not about the product--it is about helping them do.

What can we help people kick ass doing?

If you help users be passionate you get the some of the spillover passion.

You need to get past the brain's crap filter.

Chemistry---people need to feel something, think about how you are communicating...weird, novel, different...keep the brain thinking that it is something important...the brain likes the unresolved. Funny..faces...beautiful...sexy...scary

Conversation beats formal lecture.

Talk to the brain not the mind...

Get people past the Suck Threshold and the Passion Threshold. There is an image of experitse, a meaningful benefit, and a series of steps to get there.

To get people to remember, you need to use emotion.

Need to balance challenge versus knowledge and skill.

How do we keep users in flow?

Get There Attention
Challenging Activity
Payoff

You need levels to keep people going.

Levels don't need to be obvious.

Hero's Journey

• Life is normal
• Something happens to change that
• Things really suck
• Hero overcomes bad things
• Return to the new normal

Create Playful Work

T-Shirt First Development - people want to identify themselves with you

Give them something to talk about? Make it ambiguous. Coldplay, Fair Trade, and the two black rectangles...

It doesn't matter what they think about you...it is about how people feel about themselves.

If spend more time in flow, they have happier lives

Tags: sxsw2006

Lucky You

I bought my brother a gift card to iTunes for Christmas.

The Apple Store At Mayfair made the experience as simple as could be. I did not know buying something in a store could be made more simple and enjoyable.

There was a special iPod desk in the front of the store. I walked up and waited in a very short line (because it moved so quickly). Most folks were dropping $250 without blinking on Nanos. I grabbed the card I needed. The clerk scan my credit card in a Symbol handheld unit. He confirmed my email address (which he already had from my past purchases) and told me my receipt would be sent directly to my mailbox. People buying hardware were told the receipt was already in the box.

The nice man placed a sticker on the top of the card to confirm my purchase. It wasn't a sticker dot or a roll of tape with repeating Apple logos. No, it was a rectangular sticker with the Apple logo that said "Lucky you."

Another take on HOW

This might be a better gauge of the quality of the How Design Conference.

This piece is from a designer's perspective.

HOW Design Conference Disappoints

I spent the last four days at the HOW Design Conference in Chicago.

I came away utterly disappointed.

I hoped to spend four days with designers and soaking up some of the sensibilities of those creative types. I wanted to become a better client. I wanted to get an idea of how to integrate design better into product and service offerings.

This is what I got instead. There was an illustrator who showed a bunch of work and talked about how he could read auras (his grandmother was a psychic). There was this Austrian designer who clicked through slides of his portfolio. Great stuff, but I don't know any more than I did when I walked in. The whole conference seemed to be like that for me. Lots of pictures and not much to learn.

I would love to see a gathering of businesspeople where we could talk with designers about how to improve what we offer by using better design. Is there anything like that now?

P.S. There was some upside. I was able to catch dinner with Ben and Jackie, lunch with Andrea and Joy, and spend a few hours in Millennium Park.

Blogging Panel at the HOW Design Conference

I have been at the HOW Design Conference for the past day and a half.

I attended their blogging session entitled "Daily Candy: Is Blogging Good For You? Or Does It Just Cause Cavities?

There were 60 people at the session. This was pretty poor turnout when considering there are about 3500 people at the event.

The moderator Steve Heller started by asking how many people in the audience were bloggers. Six people in the audience raised their hands.

Heller also said that blogs are a part of normal reading now at NYT. He comes into the office now and sees everyone reading blogs. He says it adds about 30 minutes of additional reading per day.

The two blogs that were talked about the most were Design Observer and Speak Up. If you are of the design bend or are interested, you should check them out.

Calatrava is the man!

Santiago Calatrava has won the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal for 2005.

We are a pretty big fan of him here in Milwaukee. He was the architect for the new wing of the Milwaukee Art Museum. The space is amazing and has raised the bar for future projects in the city.

[via Thinking by Peter]

Tufte Summary

The guys at 37signals have a summary of the workshop Edward Tufte held in Chicago on Tuesday and Wednesday.