Entrepreneur Loic Le Meur thinks global. His recent guest post in Techcrunch provides suggestions for startups that includes “Think global as you create the business”, “Hire people from all nationalities as much as possible”, and “Make a site that is language-ready from day one, even if you launch in English”. Seems like enlightened advice, given that so much new content on the web is still targeted exclusively to US (or at least, English-speaking) audiences. While it is understandable that some sites — like mint.com, that must interact directly with banks — remain US-only at launch, it is disheartening when even services that have been successful for years refuse to open up to the global marketplace (37signals, I’m looking at you).
This phenomenon is perhaps most annoying when dealing with media properties, which could clearly benefit from added exposure, and which seem deeply invested in the old broadcast model of distribution. To whit, this is what I get when I try to watch my favorite TV show (_House_) in the newly launched Hulu service:
There are no technical reasons for this; it seems like an entirely marketing-driven restriction, carried over from a world in which geography and distribution were intimately tied.
Culture (pop and otherwise) has been one of the US’s main exports during the past century, and it is an important part of continued American influence around the world. As more of our media usage moves online, this stubborn insistence on limiting distribution by geography is likely to curtail that influence. Putting up artificial borders around cultural artifacts to satisfy old-school business models seems as smart as setting the speed limit at 30 mph to keep the horse-carriages safe from automobiles.
March 13, 2008 | Archived in Globalization |
I’ve posted before about the 2008 IA Summit which will be held in Miami, Florida from 10-14 April. Miami is a major point of entry to the United States, which makes it a very convenient meeting point for many people traveling from abroad, especially those coming from Latin America.
The IA Institute has obtained a special discount with Copa Airlines of 20% of the airfare to Miami for registered Summit participants. To use the discount, passengers must go to their nearest Copa Airlines ticketing office and present discount code D01818, as well as proof of participation in the Summit (e.g. registration letter). The discount is valid for travel to Miami (and back) between 5-19 April, and cannot be applied on top of other promotions.
March 8, 2008 | Archived in Events |
Great op/ed article in today’s NY Times on the experiential nature of time:
The quest to spend time the way we do money is doomed to failure, because the time we experience bears little relation to time as read on a clock. The brain creates its own time, and it is this inner time, not clock time, that guides our actions.
Some good explanations there for the “time flies when you’re having fun” phenomenon.
March 7, 2008 | Archived in Productivity |
There’s a great article on FoundRead today about the importance of design, particularly for web startups. The article has a few choice quotes, but I was particularly drawn to this one:
When people visit your website, most won’t go through a fact-finding expedition to figure out your Series A numbers, who your investors are, and what your story is just to decide if your company can be trusted. Initial trust is a gut-feeling. The easiest way to put your company on that path is via well executed visual design that shows you put some effort, and money, into delivering a first-rate and satisfying experience to your customers.
I met recently with a prospect who wants to position his business as a high-end, “luxury” service provider. After much discussion about what this entails, I suggested we devise a strategy for their websites that tries to build trust rather than traffic or sales leads. This is, of course, a hard sell for most folks looking for ROI. It’s an odd objective, “building trust”. All the common indicators of website performance—traffic, sales, referrals, search engine positioning, etc.—are relatively easy to measure. But trust? Trust boils down to “gut feeling”, as the FoundRead article explains, and that is nigh impossible to quantify.
One of the biggest challenges I face in my day-to-day work is that much of what individuals consider trustworthy (especially when dealing with a primarily visual medium, like the web) is obtained from subtle cues that are specific to their own culture. Japanese users expect a different visual experience than someone from the Middle East, or from Central America. There are many companies in Central America that are trying to reach out to international audiences (especially in the US), and expect their websites to have “the best design possible” (in other words, to present a trustworthy image). However, in many cases clients are unprepared (or unable) to judge the trustworthiness of a design aimed at a different culture because their gut tells them something’s wrong. (In the case of designs aimed at US audiences, the reaction I usually get is that “it looks too dry”, by which they mean that not everything is flashing and blinking and bleeping and blaring music at the user.)
This is not an easy problem to solve. Empathy is one of the most valuable traits a designer can bring to a project, but empathy is not something that can be taught. While the designer can be very empathetic, there are good chances that the client won’t be, and the designer can do little to tell the client’s gut how to react.
March 5, 2008 | Archived in Design |
February 27, 2008 | Archived in Links |
February 21, 2008 | Archived in Links |
February 18, 2008 | Archived in Links |
Rosenfeld Media’s first book—Mental Models, by Indi Young—is available for purchase. Congrats to Lou Rosenfeld, Ms. Young, and the team at Rosenfeld Media!
Because I live so far away from the bright center of the galaxy, I usually have to wait a couple of weeks after ordering a book before I can actually read it. Not in this case, though: as an incentive to buying directly through them, Rosenfeld Media is including a digital (PDF) copy of the book with every purchase through their site. (The book can also be purchased in digital-only format.)
The upside is that the PDF file is perfectly formatted for reading in my Sony Reader. Reading PDFs on this device is usually unpleasant; most are formatted for 8 1/2” x 11” paper, and look like crap when displayed on the Reader’s 4” x 6” screen. The Mental Models book, however, is perfectly scaled for reading on this device. Take a look:
I’m very happy to see Lou’s dream of creating a publishing house dedicated to UX design make its mark in the world in a more tangible way. Support Rosenfeld Media by buying the book directly from rosenfeldmedia.com.
BTW, As further encouragement, Lou’s kindly made available a 10% “friends of Jorge” coupon. Just type in FOARAN10 when purchasing from the Rosenfeld Media site.
February 17, 2008 | Archived in Books |
