Bubble Stacks was the submission of Craig Birchler and Chatree Campiranon to the Home Tab Design Challenge (Winter ‘09).

“The Mozilla Labs Design Challenge is a series of events to encourage innovation, and experimentation in user interface design for the Web. [Their] aim is to provoke thought, facilitate discussion, and inspire future design directions for Firefox, the Mozilla project, and the Web as a whole.”

Bubble Stacks are an imaginative look into behavioral analysis. Using browsing habit data alone this concept improves the experience of memory access and recall by organizing concepts into logical packages of websites we call Stacks.

A window into your past experiences has the potential to open a world of thought and possibilities. Today, browser history provides no more imagination than a breadcrumb trail sequencing your online experiences. Usefulness extends little further than your memory can reach. Bubbles and Stacks open a window to your mind, providing the ability to extend your memory and organize your online experiences.

Learn more at bubblestacks.com.

The iPhone was a test run for a new world of personal computing. I would like to think Apple will parlay the success of the iPhone into advances in the mobile market by simply increasing the size of the screen and likely minor improvements in the processing power. The supposed iSlate is only a rumor at the moment, but at this point Apple would likely not risk losing its current, natural marketing momentum. When this device finally does appear, it will look very familiar to all of us.

It’s a genius move actually: Test the concept by creating a small pocket-sized device that improves heavily on one market (smart phones) while using the knowledge gained to support another fledgling market (true mobile and multi-touch computing).

A majority of the surrounding discussions are pushing the importance of the device’s performance specifications. This could not be further from the cornerstone of this discussion. The importance of this discussion focuses on what experience the device will provide. To understand this notion we must begin with OS X.

OS X is a wonderful operating system based around keyboard and mouse/trackpad input. Around the OS, Apple has wrapped very specifically designed set of hardware. Software on this OS takes great advantage of the power of the hardware and the available methods of input. Unfortunately our fat fingers don’t fall into one of these input methods on this OS. Apple does have another OS which does. The iPhone operating system can provide a very useful, very familiar experience. The hardware on such a device will be designed just as any other Apple device. Quality hardware will be provided, but its speed will be limited to something slightly more powerful than the current iPhone. Why would it need to be any better? Developers haven’t even yet begun to take full advantage of all the hardware which exists in such a small package to date. The strength of this device will be the applications which exist upon it. Applications exist by the thousands on the iPhone. With minor adjustments, most could thrive just as well, if not better on a larger screen.

My experience using tablets in and of themselves has never been pleasurable, or useful for that matter. Simply slapping a touch screen on any of the current OS’s in the market does not add to the usefulness of a computing device. You’ve simply succeeded in transferring the mouse from the desk to the screen. Consumers often forget the benefits received by quality design of the user’s interface. By simply increasing the size of the screen but keeping the standard iPhone interface, a new market is not built. Rather an old market is expanded. Users do not need to take the time to learn new means of interaction because they are completely familiar with a similar device. iPhone developers are (and so too will iSlate developers) forced – some willing, some unwilling – into a pattern of design which was created by Apple to improve usefulness and usability (efficiencies) in touch screen computing.

Apple has created a world where they control the experience. Some may not like it initially, but eventually we will all be drawn in.

I’m not going to lie; I still can’t tell the difference between slight variations of mint, but I now recognize that I simply don’t care. So long as I receive the benefit of oral fixation and cleaner scented breath, Wrigley’s Spearmint in classic baseball-card-stick shape will satisfy my needs. What I found myself caring about wasn’t the flavor, but the means to access it. Since my tongue couldn’t tell the difference between the flavors of gum, my mind began to focus on the difference in packaging.

You’ve seen countless variations of the same ultimate goal. There’s the tri-fold wallet style that unfolds like an FBI agent flashing his badge. There’s the over-the-counter style that keeps gum pieces hermetically sealed so as not to over dose. And of course there’s the classic 5-piece package that spills out its contents into your pocket after a single piece has been chewed. While each is interesting and part of a unique experience, I found one that Trident rose above the competition. Their incredibly simple package engineering that not only made accessing the gum a breeze, but its familiar shape caused me to immediately recall my experiences chewing Trident gum over the years.

Accessing the gum is based on a simple flick of the thumb. There are no complex, multiple folds or a reason to worry about the need of available perforations. Unlike a stingy box of cereal, the packaging closes easily the first time and every time there after. It’s easily the most logical, simplistic design of all modern gum packages available. But it isn’t this fact alone that makes Trident the king of fresh breath. No, it’s the combination of a quality user experience coupled with a clever package design that doesn’t promote itself as anything modern.

If you had a package of Trident at any point in the late 90’s or early in the new millennium, you’ll recognize the metallic sheen of foil covering the ends. In a previous life, unwrapping this foil was the method for accessing a piece. It was part of the brand identity and possibly the identity of an entire generation of gum packages. Today that same foil remains as a physical reminder of the history of the brand. Wrapping this foil is a thick, poster board-like paper that seems to help the packaging retain its rigidity.

This combination of retaining “the old” with an emphasis on use and desire is what makes Trident’s design king. Rather than rethink and overhaul the package design, the Trident took notice of product usage. A simply access point to the product and a rigid structure that would hold up under moderate pressure were obvious constraints of design. They likely are of most gum containers. However it was the added constraint of history and brand identity that makes the end result that much more impressive.

Simply put, when your competition sells a product seemingly identical to yours, as a designer you must focus on differentiating the experience in your favor. Knowing they have a product worthy of equal comparison to their competitors, Trident gum has focused on designing a package that remains true to the history of their brand while fulfilling the most basic needs of simplicity for their users.

Coming soon…

The site isnewontv.com (currently down while I work on some data retrieval issues) was designed for dedicated viewers of television shows. The purpose of the site was to provide a simple, dedicated URL where viewers could locate the date of the next new episode of a given show.

Thanks to online broadcasts and digital video recorders, the way we view television is shifting. Nearly gone are the days of channel surfing. Mindless clicking of the channel selector is being replaced by prerecorded shows and the ability to find something of specific desire on any of a dozen video sites. Media consumers are learning to better segment and organize their viewing habits to take better advantage of their time. The viewer no longer works for the television because the viewer has learned how to make the television work for them.

When it comes to watching shows on broadcast television or even prerecorded or streaming versions of the show, one important piece of information can provide the viewer with an enormous amount of control. Knowing when is the next new episode of my show going to be made available to them allows them to prepare. Prepare to watch the show live. Prepare the DVR to capture an episode or series. Prepare their schedule to view the episode online. Preparation is key for the television viewer of today.

This service is nothing new. Guides have been available for the entire existence of my life. But they have always organized themselves by the way television forced us to think: first by time, second by channel. The problem today is viewers who care enough to seek out a particular show already know this information. They know the channel and don’t necessarily care about the exact time. Prerecordngs (DVR and online broadcasts) have caused viewers to forget the old paradigm where memorizing the day of the week a show typically aired on was so important. isnewontv.com does not focus on explaining where to go to find the show but rather when it’s alright to go out and seek the new content. Rather than sifting through a cluttered television guide or battling with the often useless on-screen guides, the site provides immediate understanding of the most basic question of a dedicated viewer of a particular television show.

To ensure that the user hadn’t missed the previous episode, in the instance of a mid-season schedule break, in addition to the next episode date, I also provided the previous episode date.

URL’s were created using sub-domains listing the title of the show first, followed by the site’s title. For example, lost.isnewontv.com or theoffice.isnewontv.com.

ionianStory was designed to improve emotional connections between people. More specifically, the application bases itself on improving meaning behind the relationships which connect people together as friends, family or acquaintances. These relationships are based on the shared experiences we have with others. The memories we develop based upon these experiences are what we as humans use as the building blocks for emotional connections.

The application works by inviting individuals or groups of people to build experiences in a simple graphical based user work space by sequencing together series of events based upon persons, place, activity and relative time. As experiences are developed on the individual level, others who were knowledgeable of the events or were actually in attendance have the ability to add, remove or alter the series of events which made up a particular shared experience.

It is a predisposition of the design that human interaction revolves around two activities: telling stories of past experiences or creating new ones. The design bases its focus on the activity of story telling as a means of human expression and tool used to strengthen emotional connections between individuals. Stories even give us the ability to be more creative in our own lives via a greater understanding of human expression, in turn potentially creating more meaningful experiences in our respective futures.

The hope for this application is not to provide an additional means of interaction with other individuals in an online setting, but rather quite the opposite. ionianStory was developed to place its full emphasis on the importance of the experiences which join together two or more people. By providing an organized, interconnected online setting for users to recall, share and develop components of their past experiences we have the ability to strengthen face-to-face interactions through better retellings of stories themselves.

A description coming soon…

It looks like FolkTraditions is currently broken.