I was thinking about what I should do with this blog. I’d like to keep updating it, but I didn’t want to rehash concepts that are said better elsewhere. So, I think what I will do is show good UX or bad UX “in the wild,” as I encounter it.
Let’s start with an oldy-but-a-goody. I was going through old vacation photos recently, and this is from Iceland last fall.
Here you can see a convenience store sign asking customers how they felt upon entering the store. The interesting thing is, I think it makes one feel in a better mood just being asked. It did for me.
I wonder if they keep that data, and if so, what they do with it? A perhaps-cynical part of me suspects the sign is merely shorthand to make the customer feel better, like how we ask people how they’re doing in real life. In impersonal situations, we don’t really care how they’re doing… it’s just small talk to make someone feel noticed.
And here’s an example of good design principles: I didn’t need to know Icelandic to recognize what was being asked of me. I suppose it says “HAPPY@NOT” as the brand, but the colors and facial expressions do most of the work, along with the question mark at the end of the sentence I cannot read.
It was a lot of fun (and probably germy) pressing those as I encountered them.
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