Visualizing a Virtual World Using Player Interactions

This is a video that overlays instances of a player interaction, in this case player-deaths, onto the 3-D virtual landscape. 11 million points "draw" the virtual world in which the interactions took place. Fascinating.



Read more:

• Infovore » The System and The World

Hat tip: @DataMarket

OT- Acoustics in Pictures: Stringed theory

When I was studying music, acoustics was one of the cooler classes I got to take. Check out these images that show how instruments resonate:

"Researchers at Cardiff University reporting at the Acoustical Society of America meeting have presented striking images of stringed instruments made using 'holographic interferometry', which allows them to visualise precisely how and where the soundboards of instruments."

Read more:

  • BBC News - In Pictures: Stringed theory

Dotting the 'i's: Annotation Applescript for Omnigraffle

I'm a big fan of Omnigraffle for wireframing and concept diagrams; we use Omnigraffle at Clearspring when we create UI deliverables for AddThis.com. We don't always develop detailed docs – often we're rapidly iterating and work directly in code – but when we do, there's always the job of writing the specs for the wireframe.

This post by Meredith Noble from Usability Matters outlines using Applescript to automatically add, increment, remove, and decrement "wireframe dots" in a wireframe: those little numbers providing labels to each of the specs. Changing all the numbers because one was added or removed during the design process is a pain, why not let a script do the work?

Read on:

     • Annotation (“Wireframe Dot”) Applescripts for Omnigraffle | usability matters™

RefreshDC: Using Data to Inform Design

At Thursday night's RefreshDC panel, "Data-Driven Design", I had the opportunity to talk about the various kinds of research and tools we use at Clearspring to design the AddThis sharing platform. Using data to inform design is fundamental to how we approach user experience at Clearspring, and we do our best to incorporate different kinds of information to inform decision-making.

The tools we use could be placed into two groups:

• Quantitative tools, such as internal reporting, Google Anaytics, and Google Website Optimizer
• Qualitative tools, such as surveys, user testing, and field research

The real power of this suite of data-gathering methods, however, is when multiple tools can be used together to accomplish a larger objective.

Here are a several themes that we discussed on the panel or were brought up by the bunch of great questions from the audience: 

• Start with a question or hypothesis: any statistics can be interpreted multiple ways, so know what question or problem you're trying to solve and make sure your empirical design is sound
• Use multiple techniques to more thoroughly understand a problem:  I described a project where we used a combination of field research, A/B testing, multivariate testing, user testing and event tracking to optimize the process we have that allows publishers to get AddThis code for their sites.
• Not all tools are created equally: Paul Koch of Vigit Labs demonstrated how heatmaps can be used to understand how users are utilizing pages in ways that wouldn't be obvious with other tools
• Beware of local maximums: optimizing one particular stat can be a rabbit hole preventing you from stepping back and recognizing a much larger opportunity – be sure you're solving the right problems.
• Be data-informed, but use common-sense: data and research are powerful tools in your arsenal, but there are also reasons to choose not to follow the data; these include brand identify, business strategy, user interests, external forces like regulatory bodies, and other reasons. I included this topic in my November Refresh DC talk, Designing for One Billion People, and you read/listen more about this from Jeff Gothlef, Julie Zhou, and Adam Mosseri.
• Many tools are free or inexpensive: so there's no excuse not to be using data to inform your next design! I've included links below to some of the tools we discussed.

More about the event:

• Pictures from the event
• Panel participants, from the Eventbrite page for the event

Here are links to some of the tools we discussed:

• Google Analytics
• Google Website Optimizer
• Usertesting.com
• Optimizely
• BT Buckets
• Surveymonkey.com

Sharing Information Corrupts Wisdom of Crowds

Sharing information may thwart "wisdom of crowds", suggests recent research.

Read more at:

Sharing Information Corrupts Wisdom of Crowds

Demographics of Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Twitter

A detailed breakdown of demographics for Facebook, Twitter, blogging and other social services from AdAge:

      •  Demographics of Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter

Over at AddThis.com, we track usage of social services across our platform, in over 70 languages, in our Service Directory. There are some interesting differences; for instance, on the AddThis platform, users from the Philippines beat out those from Indonesia:

      •  Facebook Details

These differences could suggest that certain demographics use Facebook differently – some using more of Facebook's social networking features, while other sharing more content.

We use this kind of information to help optimize our sharing tools for those sharing in different languages and locales, so our publishers don't have to worry whether their visitors are being presented with the most appropriate sharing services. 

Using Data to Inform Design

Back in November I gave a presentation at DC Refresh titled Designing for One Billion People. One of the strategies I mentioned was being data-informed, rather than data-driven. The idea is that research and testing should be used to test hypotheses and inform decisions, but at the end of the day a designer has to base his or her decisions not just on numbers, but also other priorities like brand identity, business strategy and common sense.

[If you haven't already read it, Jeff Gothelf wrote a great post about this topic: "You vs. The Data: When to Stop Optimizing and Start Thinking."

This week, I have the privilege of joining Craig Green (web strategist at Network Solutions) and Paul Koch (marketing specialist at Viget Labs) on a DC Refresh panel moderated by Motley Fool's Greg Robleto to discuss data-driven design:

"This month’s event focuses on the science of making data-driven design decisions and the art of knowing when to listen and when to ignore the numbers. Join us this upcoming Thursday at Viget Labs for a panel discussion with seasoned experts in design, development and strategy as we discuss techniques, tips, and helpful tools for making calculated design decisions."

If you're interested in attending, we'll be at Viget Labs this Thursday evening at 6:30pm, May 19th. You can register (it's free) at Eventbrite:

• http://refreshdc-may2011.eventbrite.com/

Hope to see you there- be sure to say hello!

The Maker's Schedule

Came across this article recently – it's been around a while – which does a nice job of capturing the difference between managing time when you're an individual contributor or a manager. For creative folk (and I include my engineering brethren in that category, as programming is just as creative as wire-framing), interruptions just murder "flow". You're deep in a problem, you have a bunch of information in your head or a great idea how to solve that tricky snag and then... there's a meeting.

Personally, I try to group meetings together in my calendar as there's nothing worse than a day with a bunch of meetings with 30 minutes or an hour between each. That day's pretty much a wash. I also like working early mornings, because I can usually get a few hours in before sprint standups and other meetings start.

At Clearspring, we instituted a "quiet day" on Wednesday when we try not to have any meetings at all, so there's an uninterrupted day at least once a week. Another trick it to avoid checking email constantly; tackle it in batches several times a day.

So how do you manage your time to maximize productivity? Check out Paul Graham's original article here: Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule