Design, culture and technology musings.
I saw this when I got off the train at Waterloo in London.
It startled me enough to see how today’s toddlers get in-buggy DVD, but the way in which the child in the buggy (watching the Mr. Men or something) held it so it carefully and was really engaged with it.
What next? iPod enabled buggies?
Nope they’re out already too. I didn’t take a photo but I saw one whilst in a baby shop in Tarporley, Chesire.
Britain is closed.
Today was always going to be hugely disrupted because of the ‘adverse weather’ but I tried to get into work anyway.
Prior to traveling I tried to check the necessary pages of National Rail, London Transport and SouthWest Trains only to be disappointed by Error 404 pages and Runtime Errors.
Even as early as 6 a.m. both the National Rail and SouthWest Trains websites were down. The IVR system wasn’t really working either due to ‘high demand’ and I hate IVRs that hang up on you and say ‘We’re busy, f*ck off and come back later’.
I turned to Twitter and received a flurry of decent travel, tailored and localised to my needs, giving me every piece of rumour and unfiltered conjecture I need to stay at home.
Thanks @jasonmesut for trying to get in and discovering that you can’t. You saved me some wet toes.
Rumour has it that the under 30s with no children are traveling in to work today (I’ll add the source later).
I was in the process of arranging my new train season ticket when I felt the need to ask customer services something.
Naturally I navigate to this form only to find that their default option for an enquiry is ‘Praise’.
Nice one.
Technorati Tags:
Train, Travel, User Experience, Customer Service, South West Trains, Interaction Design, Forms
Nearly 2 years ago here at LBi, we started working with Multimap to redesign their public .com web property.
It was time for their loved, but ageing raster-map offering to be dragged inline with, then new and innovative, Google’s ’slippy’ Maps.
With a raft of new features including drag, zoom, pan, hybrid view,all stuff we take for granted now, we set about defining a sharpened mapping proposition that worked for both Multimap users and advertisers.
It was a brilliant project, great fun, hard work and really quite challenging. The guys at Multimap (which sold to Microsoft in December last year) were all smart cookies and pleasure to work with. Personally I see it as one of the triumphs of the team I work in here at LBi. Not only was it great solution, it was a great learning experience and those two things make for great projects. Certainly satisfactory ones.
Stephen Barber was, and still is, ace on this project. Will Bloor was his usual unremitting creative self, Peter Jupp smashed the design and Mike McIntyre and Gavin Edwards aced some complex interaction and James Norton provided some wonderful interface development. It was also a pleasure to see Lorenzo in action, which doesn’t happen nearly enough for some of us here at LBi.
Well, enough spouting from me. Multimap.com has just been named as an Honoree in the Service category at this years Webby awards.
This is no mean feat as only the best 15% of submissions attain the accolade and this from a pot of nearly 10,000 entries received from all 50 US states and over 60 countries.
Multimap is now owned by Microsoft, so expect to start using it a lot more as it integrates into all their properties. Exciting stuff indeed.
The guys I worked with on this project were:
JOSH DION BANDOriginally uploaded by yeyo1Whilst in New York I had the pleasure of one of those serendipitous moments when going out on a Thursday night.We jumped in a cab in Times Square, and whilst being with two American colleagues, we were none the wiser as to where we should go for a decent, non-toursity night out. Even though we were tipped to hit Greenwich Village for a few bars.
We said “take us to the decent bars” and the cabbie, all polite and trusting like, suggested we go down to Bleeker. When we got there we strayed into a bar called ‘The Bitter End‘.
For a $5 cover charge we could grab a stage side table and enjoy one or two beers. There was a band on who were okay (Stratespherous) and then a second that were really very good (Fools for April) an the third (The Josh Dion Band Official site MySpace site) were really really awesome.
This very energetic American, rocky, soulful, bluesy live group made my trip.We were on our way out after Fools for April as we wanted to see more of Bleeker, but when I saw the next band carrying in a Fender Rhodes. If you don’t know what one is (!) remember the opening to the TV show Taxi?.Anyway, I’m a fan of any band that has one. Then I noticed their bassist had a very similar bass guitar to me and I was staying. He was gooooood btw.
They set-up in an interesting way, with a drums at the front and as soon as they started energy and soul were the name of the day. They belted out what appears to be a set that’s done the rounds as you can buy a live album with something very similar to what I heard.No matter. they had the now full crowd of The Bitter End head-nodding, foot-tapping and jumping.
As it turns out, The Bitter End has somewhat of a pedigree when it comes to live music. Apparently a recognised hang-out for record industry types and new emerging bands, people to have played there include Stevie Wonder, Gil Scott-Heron, Curtis Mayfiled, Joan Baez, Jonie Mitchell and a few other names you may have heard of.It made me think that you couldn’t do this in London.
London is a place that requires not only inside knowledge, but clear planning. you couldn’t walk into a place like this, off the street and only pay $5 and see such quality bands.The Josh Dion Band are well worth checking out as they now have a residency, every Thursday at The Bitter End. I think they start at 9pm.
When I head back to NYC I’m making sure I’m there to see them. I only hope they come to London at some point.Thanks for making my trip guys.Anyone in New York on a Thursday – go check them out. Seriously. Go check them out.New York 1, London 0.
Happy New Year. Belatedly.
I’ve been struggling to get back to work since the holiday ended. Okay I took an extra week, but on my return I had to fly off to New York City for a pitch. Slightly glam? Yes. Tiring? Definitely.
Quick post today as I wanted to share my pictures of New York from a recent business trip. Even though it was a flying visit, what a city!
I was expecting lots of hustle, bustle and aggrevation. But instead I found polite, calm, easy going folks. What a difference to London. I can’t understand why people say these cities are alike.
I was told I’d hear ‘Hey! I’m walking here!” a lot, but nope. Not once.
The main thing that I noticed were the clean streets. Hardly any litter and no gum. It wasn’t smelly like London can be and was generally a very pleasant place indeed. I can’t wait to go back, preferably with Mrs Snowbadger and do some serious shopping.
Whilst there I had to rely on SMS to get me about as my company hadn’t sorted the necessary roaming facilities with Orange! Pah! Therefore no GPS Blackberry for me.
Anyway, using Twitter I could send SMSs and say
“On the corner of 55th and 7th. Need breakfast. Ideas?”
and I’d get a flurry of direct Twitter messages from my Twitterchums.
It certainly is an interesting medium.
Near on-demand advice from trusted sources in response to one single message.
If I had unprotected ‘Tweets’ I’m sure my network would be wider and I would have gotten some more ideas of how to spend my 24 hours, but as it stands a protected network means I get trusted recommendations and am not being talked into some sex dungeon for a New York based Twitter-stalker to kidnap a Snowbadger.
In a funny way it’s like taking you Twitterchums with you. Some might think it anoying, but if they do they can always switch updates off. I’m sure some have 
.
London Waterloo Says Goodbye to Le TrainOriginally uploaded by SnowbadgerI blogged this a while back, March this year in-fact, but it’s finally happened.It shut after 13 years and 81 million travellers.Blimey! Is it really 13 years since it opened? I remember it happening when I was just starting University.Waterloo has given it’s International train route over to St Pancras with the promise of 186 mph speeds.Imagine doing 186 mph through Kent en-route to the Chunnel. That must be amazing, I can’t wait to have a go.I’ve travelled via Eurostar a helluvalot over the last 2-3 years as I’ve been working with the lovely people at Orange and France Telecom, and I have to say I am a big fan.It’s so much less stressful than flying. You leave the centre of London and arrive in the centre of Paris.No queuing, no security, no fuss.Anyway, here’s a picture of the now closed Waterloo terminal.Why do they insist on calling the place you depart and arrive a terminal? It’s not nice, particularly if flying, people are already edgy.
This morning I was awaiting a physio appointment on a running injury I have when I was looking for something to read in the waiting room.All the usual dross was there. It never ceases to amaze me how old copies of Harpers & Queen, Country Life and Car magazine find their way into these places. Maybe it’s a tactic employed by some marketing people somewhere?Anyway, I picked up a 4-month-old copy of Time magazine and started reading when I strayed upon an advert for the new A340 XWB which means ‘Extra Wide Body’ – see what they did there. Genius.So it set me to thinking. Why oh why does an aerospace manufacturer feel it necessary to advertise in a consumer facing magazine such as Time?I mean it’s not like I ever get to choose the class of plane I fly on is it? In fact I rarely choose the airline, often being guided by price.Imagine the scenario.; ‘Hi return ticket to Berlin please. Oh and do you have any Airbus A340 XWBs available..? You do…? Oh good!’I guess it’s some random attempt at giving airlines a weird differentiator – ‘We use Airbus A340 XWBs. So fly with us.’Hmmm.Anyone know of any other campaigns of this type?I guess one that has been a little bit successful is the Intel chip, but then consumers could choose.Which reminds me, I once heard someone describe the new super jumbo A380′British Airways to Berlin. #ding ding da ding# with Scarebus inside’
My Del.icio.us Network
|
