A while back I installed the “Ding!” application from Southwest Airlines. Today, I am uninstalling that application.
While the application does have some upsides, they are not the upsides you want. The app is unobtrusive. This is good for most applications from a simplicity standpoint, but it’s not great to have your users think “at least I don’t have to look at this all the time.” After opening the application from the system tray, where it resides full time, you are greeted to a window with a questionable color palette and one link.
The buttons on the right are not buttons at all, but rather links to Southwest’s airlines. While this program is not malware of any kind, its dishonest design generates worlds of mistrust.
Lastly, the app is not useful for me at all. Every “Ding!” price that I’ve seen so far in the past few weeks has been for a one-way trip. I have no use for one-way tickets. I’m sure there are people out there who do buy one-way tickets on a whim, but they don’t have any immediate family, job, or other commitment to speak of.
If you install this app, it won’t cause any harm beyond taking up space on your machine, but that’s all it did for me.
Chris Noessel has written an article entitled One Free Interaction which neatly chronicles a new pattern for designers. As users become bored, the mental noise in their head can sometimes translate into a interactive noise. As Chris describes it:
“One free interaction” is a prospective design pattern that gives software and hardware a more humane feel. It exists outside of task flows and the concept of users as task-doers. Instead it sits in the “in between” spaces, suiting users as fidgeters, communicators, and people who play with things.
I am so glad someone has taken the time to document my nervous ticks and give them a name. It makes me feel slightly normal. I regularly do both the page snapback and de-re-selecting interactions. It’s fun.
One small challenge I have is from a purely linguistic standpoint. I believe the term “neutral interaction” to better fit the idea of a completely consequence-free interaction. Apart from a developer’s standpoint I can see the idea of a “free interaction” being more provocative, however it struck me at first of being “free” to implement, which is not the case.
These interactions, “free” or “neutral,” are so satisfying, I want to start building them into all my future projects. They absolutely create a bond between user and software, as Chris notes. The more an action is repeated, the more the software becomes an extension of the user. While I can’t recall any program I’ve made that has reached that level of connection to the user, it is a good goal.
Amazon has announced the successor to their eBook industry-starting Kindle, the aptly named Kindle 2. As far as crafting an update to a wildly popular product goes, Amazon has done very well here. They have kept the obvious successful features (wireless book downloads, slim form factor, decent screen), and added just a few new features (new button layout, text-to-speech, thinner form factor) for some pizzazz.
eBook readers have been a part of the technology world for over a decade, under many different names. Despite what should be an obvious appeal of taking your entire library with you anywhere you are, they have never taken off until the original Kindle. In my mind the reason for this is the same reason that digital music never really took off until the appearance of the iTunes store: consumers want their name-brand content, not generic content.
The Kindle, and now the Kindle 2, can deliver all the content that is available through bookstores to you quickly and at a much lower price point. And, you don’t need to worry about losing your content if you lose your Kindle; anytime you want to redownload from Amazon it’s right there.
Like Apple updating a wildly popular iPod with a new version to buy, the Kindle 2 will draw in new customers while tempting existing customers to upgrade.
Technology moves quick, and Apple is not one to let their customers hang on to old products for too long. There are far too many cool, shiny toys to buy, so letting you sit on old and boring, but functional, laptops would be negligent.
To that end Apple has announced that, along with a number of other products, the PowerBook G4 is obsolete. This means that Apple will stop producing replacement parts for this machine.
I’m sorry, sweetheart, but this means that your laptop is official old.