I recently spoke with Aral Balkan, the designer and developer of the popular Twitter client for the iPhone – Feathers. The interface design of Feathers has unique points of engagement that is quickly building a strong fan base around it. It’s more than a usable application, it’s pleasurable.
Aral shares some interesting insights into how he is encouraging emotional engagement in his app.
In this talk, Sinek explains the golden circle – a simple model that can guide the way we think about the things we make. At the center of that model is the word “why”, and it’s the thing that separates the good thinkers from the great thinkers.
While researching emotional design for my 2010 An Event Apart talks “Learning to Love Humans: Emotional Interface Design”, I interviewed a number of interface designers to gain insight into the processes and techniques they are using to connect with their audience. Mark Jardine the is the designer behind the hugely popular Tapbots iPhone apps.
User Experience Designer Robert Hoekman Jr has written a pair of wonderfully lucid books that examine best practices in interaction design. In Designing the Obvious, and Designing the Moment, Hoekman extolls the virtues of understanding specific user tasks rather than generalized user personas. It’s easiest to design usable interfaces when the activity it serves is clearly understood.