davereed:

marketingland:

The Death Of The QR Code

Damn it, and I still don’t own a smart phone. 

I hate things like this. First, the title is a blatant play for pageviews. There is nothing that indicates QR is dead, only that its adoption has been slower than expected: over-hyped or underperforming? You decide. I don’t disagree that adoption isn’t what it could/should be; It’s a chicken/egg problem. QR codes are huge in Japan (I know) largely because they’re everywhere and meaningful.

I’m a fan of SMS for its flexibility and availability, but his other suggestions pose the same — or different and bigger — problems as QR codes: Downloading a huge, inflexible (only compatible with one brand/experience) app? Sure, you need an app for QR codes, but you have loads of apps to choose from and you’re not constrained to Weight Watchers or whatever. While QR codes aren’t widely adopted, they solve the problems this guy calls out better than any of his solutions.

The problem isn’t the codes, per se, it’s the context. Improve the context, improve the outcome (which is also true for his alternative suggestions).

uxidea:

When it comes to submitting address data in registration processes the above-noted standart input sequence is common. In terms of categorisation hierarchy it is a mixed structure. This hierarchy seems to be untouchable. It´s inherited from envelopes and nobody would ever contest it´s sense.

Well, we do, because it is ineffective. If you want to to give the user an immediate response via AJAX form suggestions, you should rather go TopDown than BottomUp.

Assuming, that most customers are from planet earth, an effective localization process should look like this:

1.) Country 
Suggest a limited, decreasing list of countries while typing letters (like the standard selection of the great Chosen Plugin )

2.) Region / State
Suggest a limited, decreasing list of countries while typing letters.

3.) City
Suggest a limited, decreasing list of cities while typing letters in relation to the country.

4.) Street / Number
Suggest a limited, decreasing list of streets while typing letters as related to the city.

5.) Postcode
Auto-suggest postcode related to City + Street

If you ignore autofill functions this would be a more user friendly structure, because providing auto suggestions is always a good way to help the user fill out forms.

But if we analyze this process in terms of UX, filling out five forms sucks anyway. Why don´t we design the address registration process more intuitive and interactive? Why don´t we use a map to define an address? 
For example, Googles reverse geocoding functionality allows us to define addresses:

“The term geocoding generally refers to translating a human-readable address into a location on a map. The process of doing the converse, translating a location on the map into a human-readable address, is known as reverse geocoding.”
Googles Reverse Geocoding

We wonder, why we have never seen this, but maybe it might be the future.
What do you think?

I like this a lot and agree with the premise, but wonder if it’ll ever achieve mass adoption simply because it’s unusual and contrary to mental models. It would be fun to test in an IFTTT-like presentation.

(via Taking A Customer From Like To Love: The UX Of Long-Term Relationships | Smashing UX Design)

uxrave:

Multi-Device Layout Patterns

As usual, brilliant from @lukew 

slantback:

(via Photo: Your first design may be the best, but you… - (37signals))