Why you should move that button 3px to the left

parislemon:

Braden Kowitz on the importance of the details in design:

There’s a curious brain hack at work here. Our minds are deeply tied to emotional states. Being frustrated or happy changes the way we approach problems. I have certainly been in a bad mood, gotten confused by a product, and found myself repeatedly smashing a button to no effect. In my frustration, I try the same thing, justharder. But it doesn’t help me accomplish my goal. 

When we’re happy, using an interface feels like play. The world looks like a puzzle, not a battle. So when we get confused, we’re more likely to explore and find other paths to success. There’s a whole book on this topic: Emotional Design by Don Norman. But here’s the important bit: Getting design details right can create positive emotional states that actually make products easier to use.

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“It pays off in your life when you’re in an elevator and people are uncomfortable. You can just say, “That’s a beautiful scarf.” It’s just thinking about making someone else feel comfortable. You don’t worry about yourself, because we’re vibrating together. If I can make yours just a little bit groovier, it’ll affect me. It comes back, somehow.”

Bill Murray, Star of ‘Hyde Park on Hudson’ - NYTimes.com (via rickwebb)

(via fred-wilson)

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“Pay attention to the fact that all the links you click on Twitter, on Facebook, on Pinterest, all take you to out of the simple flow of those apps and into a jarring, cluttered experience where the most appealing option is the back button. Stop being one of those dead-end experiences and start being more like what users have repeatedly demonstrated they prefer.”

Stop Publishing Web Pages - Anil Dash

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The Social Software Inflection Point

Paraphrasing Zuck in this video of his talk at Startup School 2011: 

In five years people won’t remember Facebook for the site itself. They’ll remember it for all the apps and services that were built on top of it. The last five years were about getting people connected, now the question becomes, what are all the things you can build now that you have all these connections in place?

He compares CD-ROM software (think AOL, MS Office, Quicken) with internet software (think Google, Mint, 37signals) in the 90’s/early 00’s. There was a point where people were selling both, and if you were going to create something new, you had to choose — old way or new way. Eventually there was a tipping point, and it became a no-brainer to make internet software. 

We’re a that tipping point with social software — software that is “social by design,” that uses social graph data and connections fuel the experience. You can choose to not to build on top of the social graph, and just build internet software, but doing so will increasingly be a losing strategy.

  • Ex: Internet Software = traditional ecommerce, Social Software = The Fancy & Pinterest
  • Ex: Internet Software = flickr, Social Software = Facebook Photos & Instagram
  • Ex: Internet Software = addictinggames.com, Social Software = Farmville and Draw Something

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