I'm with Michael.  This may not fit the concept of universal design, but
there are things to be learned from it. I found it readily intuitive.
Perhaps it depends on the individual user's cognitive preference (spatial vs
linguistic, etc.).

Design innovation is like evolutional innovation.  A broad variety of
possible models and approaches appear.  Some become broadly useful and
disseminate across many geographies and contexts (cats, for example, exist
as predators in a wide variety of ecologies); some end up filling very
specific niches in limited ways (pandas and eucalyptus).  Some fail
altogether.

Cultural and thought evolution occurs similarly. Memes (thought units, not
viral games) that are useful spread through a society and become adapted to
a broad variety of uses.  When a designer chooses a format, that designer is
buying into a particular thought mem re: design. The OLPC designers applied
a systems psychology approach to their work, treating each child as a
knowledge worker, and the resulting OS interface is very different from the
pre-determined "desktop" metaphor to which we are used.  See here:
http://laptop.org/en/laptop/interface/index.shtml

Thoughtpile is a promotional site, designed to provide fun, a sense of
engagement and participation, and perhaps even social utility. Not the worst
thought in the world, and a refreshing break from banner ad promos for
office furniture.  Take what you find useful to your purpose, and leave the
rest :-)

Alex O'Neal
UX Manager/SN analysis

--
The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The next best time is
now.


On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 1:12 PM, Michael Dunn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:

> Really?  Have you ever been here? http://www.thefwa.com/  Do you have any
> idea how high a demand there is for Actionscript programmers?
> Oh, and as to your point about the UX- If everybody did the same thing all
> the time instead of trying new methods to see if they might work, where
> does
> that leave innovation?  I think some elements don't work, but there's
> enough
> interesting ideas here to warrant discussion.
>
> On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 2:23 PM, Kevin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Bleh. I thought the days of completely Flash sites were a thing of the
> > past. And the interaction with the site is poor -- the text fields
> > don't look like text fields, the buttons don't look like buttons
> > and the navigation just isn't intuitive.
> >
> > The site does have a nice visual design look to it, but aesthetic is
> > only a fraction of good user experience design -- if people can't
> > intuitively use a site, what good does how cool it looks do?
> >
> >
> > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
> > Posted from the new ixda.org
> > http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=36319
> >
> >
> > ________________________________________________________________
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>
>
> --
> Michael Dunn
> FoolishStudios
> www.foolishstudios.com
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