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When was the last time you had a really enjoyable experience with a product or service? Do you remember how it made you feel? Do you remember what about it made you feel that way? What about your experience stuck out most in your mind? If you are like me, some of these questions can be fairly difficult to answer, while others may be incredibly obvious. On top of this, the answers may seem clearer in one case than they do in another. Welcome to the world of experience design. This post is primarily taken from the first part of a presentation I made a BarCamp Nashville in 2009, entitled “Whoa! Creating Engaging User Experiences“.

Slide from Whoa! Creating Engaging User Experiences

Today marks World AIDS Day, a movement that seeks to raise awareness of the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS. Of the 30 million people worldwide that live with the disease, more than 70 percent live in Africa. Nashville-based Blood:Water Mission is a grassroots organization that empowers communities to work together against the HIV/AIDS and water crises.

CentreSource had the honor of producing a video for BWM to show how they are an organization that is about action, not hand-outs. They are about empowering communities to fight against these dangerous threats, not about the status quo in failed programs. The video guides the viewer through the harrowing statistics, but then changes the mindset of despair to promoting one of hope and empowerment.

KickApps.com has released a new whitepaper outlining nine essential steps to creating a successful online community. For everyone who has ever wanted to create the next “Facebook Killer”, here’s your guide! All jokes aside, it’s easy to come up with an idea for a social network — after all, we’re naturally social creatures. However, the problem lies not in the idea but in its execution. There’s no magic recipe to make your idea successful, but follow these guidelines and you’ll at least have a good foundation to build on. Good luck!

For several years I was very involved in the 3d animation scene. In school I was a student volunteer (and team leader one year) at three SIGGRAPH conferences (2002, 2003, 2004). This morning, I came across this page: FJORG!. Fjorg! was a sort of iron-animator competition in which teams of animators had a set time during the conference to create a small animation. I won’t get into the details here, if you are interested… check out the page.

I’m currently working on a great new online community for one of our clients. During my research for this website, I came across an amazing presentation given at the Future of Web Apps 2007 Conference by Tara Hunt of Citizen Agency. In her presentation, Fostering Online Communities, Ms. Hunt outlines the basis for creating great online communities. She defines the various levels of online interaction, outlines the many aspects of effective social interaction on the web, explains the need for online communities, and much more. To listen to the presentation and to download the slideshow, go to futureofwebapps.com and look for the T. Hunt presentation on the front page.