• Sep272011

    Our work for Ruck.us featured on TechCrunch

    Posted by Gene in Uncategorized, Design, Our Clients

    When we were approached to work on the design for the political based web app Ruck.us we were honestly a little skeptical. After all, a political web app? We’ve been involved in building political based websites for candidates for over 5 years now so who could blame us for doing a double take on this project. Turns out the people behind Ruck.us are top-notch, these guys seriously nailed their idea and came to us with a clear idea of what they wanted to do and how they wanted to work to achieve it.

    They’ve finally fully launched and to celebrate the launch they got themselves a pretty cool write up on TechCrunch:

    Ruck.us

    Ruck.us users simply visit the site, sign up, and select the issues that are relevant to them individually — whether that’s one issue or 25. As the user pokes around the site and responds to the user-generated questions they come across, the platform serves the user with a “Ruck”, which is the 50, 100, or 250 people (the size is elastic) that share the same viewpoints. The Ruck then constantly changes as the site learns more about the user and their political DNA.

    Next, the site establishes a communication feed, in which users can see what their Ruck is discussing, what links and stories they’re sharing, etc., as well as what your group is doing — the actions they’re taking, petitions they’re signing, who they’re donating to, and so on. Again, the focus here is on issues rather than political parties.

    Full post on TechCrunch

  • Sep022011

    AIGA InShow 2011

    Posted by Gene in Design, Creating Community

    InShow WoodThe AIGA InShow is a statewide design competition in South Carolina.
    Entries are now open and drop-off sites are set up in Columbia 09.16, Charleston 09.12 and Greenville 09.13 to make it easy for us to submit our work. The competition is now open to anyone who works in the design field, not just AIGA members - which is cool.

    A little background: the competition was designed to be the “Anti-Addy’s,” meaning that instead of having a huge category structure with many tiers and multiple awards, InShow’s concept was a simple one: You’re either “In” or you’re “Out.” Once submitted, work is divided up by category and three judges from outside of the South Carolina market decide their fate by judging it either “In” or “Out.” Judges are not given quotas, or rigid judging requirements, so the show totals and types of entries vary from year to year.

    There are some pretty cool judges this year, who are really hip to interactive work. So you should seriously consider entering this year.

  • Aug312011

    Julia and Jen Downs from Mailchimp do a Usability Test

    Posted by Gene in Design, Usability

    This week’s podcast (which is episode 67) features Jenn Downs (@BeParticular) from Mailchimp who came by the UnmatchedStyle office last month to do a remote usability study with Julia (@blueys). We held her hostage asked her if she would do an interview with us for a short featurette on usability testing.

    The UX team at Mailchimp seems to be pushing to get to more interesting info by visiting their users and also hosting in-house usability test viewing parties. In this blog post by Jenn, Sharing the UX Love, she goes into more detail on how they’re getting into these different approaches.

    Design Researcher

    Jenn’s position at Mailchimp is Design Researcher. Coming out of QA she’s responsible for tracking user issues with the Mailchimp product. Conducting usability studies and helping the UX team to understand where users are encountering trouble and helping to make the product better. I especially think it’s smart that they focus on doing usability tests in their customer’s environments, which is where the product really get’s used, not in some lab setting. They come out to your office, meet you in a coffee shop or show up at your home to gather their information.

  • Mar162011

    Don’t forget the login form!

    Posted by Gene in Design, Usability

    Our most recent podcast from unmatchedstyle.com - We investigate the strategic use of the login form and talk with Ron Lewis of Mailchimp about their creative login page designs.

    You can check the full post here.

  • Feb162010

    UMS design panel parts 1 & 2

    Posted by Gene in Design, Web Development

    In our recent design panel with Jason Beaird (@jasongraphix) and Molly Oakley(@mollyoakley) on unmatchedstyle.com, we talk about a few things, from current sites to design review processes within their companies to new and interesting techniques they are incorporating into their work.

    In Part 1 above, we talk about Dribbble.com, the new (and still invite-only) social inspiration site.

    In part 2 we talk about the design review process at their companies, then move onto to some new techniques being incorporated into their work. We finish up by focusing a bit on the great font site, fontsquirrel.com.

  • Jan062010

    Episode 31 - UMS Design Review

    Posted by Gene in Design

    It’s been a while, we’ve been busy I promise. Here’s a quick post to try to get back into things. I think you’ll like this one too. It covers an interesting design concept which is using a “special effect” or some other feature that’s “cool” to make people take notice of your website, but how in the end that might actually hurt you since it may not have anything to do with your website’s content.

    This week we talk about three sites, WebMynd, We Bleed Design and ADII Rockstar. In addition to the design, we discuss the usefulness (or detriment) of having visitors come to your site for reasons unrelated to the actual content of your site.

  • May192009

    Top 5 things users want in your website

    Posted by Gene in Design, Usability

    Here is another great blog post talking about what users look for in your website, be it copy or design. This one is from Patrick Neeman on usabilitycounts.com.

    Users want the message to be clear
    Users want context to see if they fit
    Users want consistency
    Users want to be heard without having to shout
    Users don’t want the shiny (unless it’s in context)
    Users want to be guided (without being guided)

    This is all about giving the user what they want expect and not what you the designer or developer think is a cool feature or the way you think it should be done. I’ve had the privilege of taking part in a good amount of real user studies on website’s i’ve worked on in the past, every time it is an eye opening experience and I learn something new about how people use the things I design. I couldn’t recommend more doing a simple usability test on something you are working on. Do it right now, go grab a friend put them behind the site you’re working on ask them to complete a task that is one of the main things the website is supposed to do and watch. Simple as that!

    My absolute favorite part of Patrick’s post is this:

    What does work are sites are are intuitive enough and forward thinking enough to provide a path for the user to go. The elements of user experience should be defined enough so the site acts the way the user thinks it should act i.e. the user shouldn’t have to learn it, especially for consumer facing sites. It’s about predictive user experience.

  • May142009

    Episode 17 - UMS Podcast

    Posted by Gene in Design, Web Development

    This week we talk about two ‘green’ web companies, Studio 7 Designs and EnviraMedia.

  • May052009

    Episode 16 - UMS Design Review Podcast

    Posted by Gene in Design, Usability

    Episode 16 of our podcast is up. It’s all about the details as we talk about ‘designthis’ and ‘Camp Creative Group’:

    This week we focus on Kevin Bryan’s portfolio site, designthis, and the site of Camp Creative Group.

  • Apr202009

    Gene and Jay on the AIGA Web Design Panel

    Posted by Gene in Design, Period Three News

    http://southcarolina.aiga.org

    Come check us out this month, Gene & Jay will be taking part in the AIGA SC chapter’s Web Design Panel.

    Join several South Carolina web design professionals as they discuss how they got into web design, what it takes to make it in the industry, tools of the trade, some of the current trends affecting the industry, and what the future may hold. Moderated discussion with Q&A to follow.

    There’s some really great web designers/developers that we’ll be talking with on the 23rd, I have much respect and admiration for everyone sitting on the panel so it’s going to be really insightful.

    April 23 AIGA SC Web Design Panel will be at USC, McMaster, Rm 214
    5:30 - Social Hour, 6:30 - Panel

    http://southcarolina.aiga.org/events/2009/04/29644238

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