Some one forgot to ask the critical question,
What is the likely traffic that will hit our site during the offer and will our system be able to handle it?
Dr. Pepper said that they’d give a free Soda to all Americans if Guns’n’Roses released their new album this year. They did and the drinks company [...]

Posted in Marketing, Web design 1 Comment »

Motrin, a US healthcare company put on their home page a large video advert with the basic premise that mothers who carry their babies are likely to get back ache and their pain killers are right for the job. Nothing wrong with that, however the message was ill-judged “Wearing your baby seems to be [...]

Posted in Marketing, Social networks, Work 1 Comment »

“For you who have had the experience, no explanation is necessary. For you who have not, none is possible.”
I’m going to attribute that saying to Ram Dass, a Harvard professor who via psychedelic experiences ended up a spiritual teacher in the Eastern Tradition.
The problem with too much software/web design is that it is produced [...]

Posted in Customer Experience, Marketing, Methodology, Mobile phones, Web design, emotional design, innovation 1 Comment »

One of the things that bugs me in IT development is that the business is too often referred to as “the customer”.  “Customer” implies a transactional relationship.  A customer purchases from a seller; there is little incentive for any meaningful relationship as it will ultimately come down to price.  The buyer wants to pay as [...]

Posted in Work, innovation 3 Comments »

This blog was getting tired in its design so I’ve given it an overhaul, including introducing some widgets.  (What an awesome piece of software Wordpress is).  I’ve also added a new page with a bunch of published papers.  some classics in there (if I do say so myself) such as “Heat stress in night clubs” [...]

Posted in Work, usability 2 Comments »

It’s budgeting time with many organisations putting together their budets for 2009. In the current climate IT is an easy target for cutting costs. Stories such as “no new non-core projects till 2010″ and “no project that can’t demonstrate a postive ROI in 12 months” are abound. There is a risk that [...]

Posted in Agile, innovation No Comments »