It was just over two centuries ago that the global population was 1 billion — in 1804. But better medicine and improved agriculture resulted in higher life expectancy for children, dramatically increasing the world population, especially in the West.

As higher standards of living and better health care are reaching more parts of the world, the rates of fertility — and population growth — have started to slow down, though the population will continue to grow for the foreseeable future:

The world’s population will grow to 9 billion over the next 50 years — and only by raising the living standards of the poorest can we check population growth. This is the paradoxical answer that Hans Rosling unveils at TED@Cannes using colorful new data display technology (you’ll see):

See more insightful & fun Hans Rosling presentations here.

• Best of Hans Rosling
• Wings of Life: The Hidden Beauty of Pollination
• What is Intelligence?
• The Secret Powers of Time
• Story Power! Tools to Create Engaging Content

Watch this absolutely amazing & beautiful video about the seductive love dance between flowers and pollinators! To really see the details, I encourage you to watch this short film full-screen and in HD:

Pollination is vital to life on Earth, but largely unseen by the human eye. Filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg shows us the intricate world of pollen and pollinators with gorgeous high-speed images from his film "Wings of Life," inspired by the vanishing of one of nature’s primary pollinators, the honeybee.

Also see Louie Schwartzberg presenting this video at TED.

• Fantastic Fungi: The Spirit of Good
• How the Aurora Borealis Works
• Saving the Planet!
• Douglas Adams: Parrots the Universe and Everything
• Beautiful time-lapse video of the Earth from ISS

Dr. Mike Evans, an Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of Toronto, and a staff physician at St. Michael’s Hospital, created a video to help us learn what the best thing we can do for our health:

His finding is simple: 30 minutes of exercise each day can make a large impact on your health!

• The Khan Academy
• Is Your Office Chair Killing You?
• Born To Run
• Will Smith About The Key to Life
• Why We Do What We Do?

The following beautiful short video is an excerpt from the feature documentary by Louie Schwartzberg following notable mycologist, Paul Stamets, as he discusses the important role mushrooms play in the survival and health of the earth and human species:

"I believe nature is a force of Good & good is not only a concept, it s a spirit." – Paul Stamets

• Wings of Life: The Hidden Beauty of Pollination
• How the Aurora Borealis Works
• Saving the Planet!
• Douglas Adams: Parrots the Universe and Everything
• Beautiful time-lapse video of the Earth from ISS

The auroras also known as the northern and southern lights are some of the most spectacular skywatching experiences on the planet and never fail to delight observers lucky enough to see them. Auroras can be green, red or blue and often they will be a combination of colors.

The Vikings thought that auroras were reflections off the armor of the mythical Valkyries. To the native Eskimos of Greenland and nearby Canada, auroras were communications from the dead. To American Indians, they were lights from huge campfires far ­to the north. In medieval times, auroras were omens of war or disasters, such as plague.

Today, we know that they’re a light phenomenon caused by high-energy particles from the sun’s solar winds interacting with the Earth’s magnetic field. Because auroras are caused by the interaction of solar winds with the Earth’s magnetic field, you can see them most often near the poles, both north and south. In the north, they’re called aurora borealis, or Northern Lights. Aurora is the name of the Roman goddess of the dawn, and "boreal" means "north" in Latin. In the southern hemisphere, auroras are called aurora australis (Latin for "south"). ^[1]

See how they work in this short video that illuminates the cosmic secret of the Northern lights, one of our planet’s most magnificent wonders: ^[2]

Infographic: How the Aurora Borealis Works: ^[3]

Here is a stunning photo of the aurora borealis floating over a volcano: ^[4]

And here are some stunning impressions of the aurora from northern Norway and Russia:

References

[1] How Auroras Work
[2] How the Aurora Borealis Works
[3] Aurora Guide: How the Northern Lights Work (Infographic)
[4] Stunning Photos of the Northern Lights Floating Over an Icelandic Volcano

• Wings of Life: The Hidden Beauty of Pollination
• Fantastic Fungi: The Spirit of Good
• Beautiful time-lapse video of the Earth from ISS
• Project Tuva
• Douglas Adams: Parrots the Universe and Everything

The artist and visual designer Yang Liu was born in China and lives in Germany since she was 14. By growing up in two very different places with very different traditions she was able to experience the differences between the two cultures first-hand.

Drawing from her own experience Yang Liu created minimalistic visualizations using simple symbols and shapes to convey just how different the two cultures are. The blue side represents Germany (or western culture) and the red side China (or eastern culture):

Read an interview with Liu about the project here.

• Watch Matt Dancing Badly Around The World
• Mona Lisa: Why Is She Smiling?
• Best of Hans Rosling
• 7 Billion People: How Did We Get So Big So Fast?
• What’s Easier? To Change Yourself or the World Around You?

A couple years ago the Windows Phone design team realized that the design path that Windows Mobile was on was not sustainable and decided start afresh.

When given the chance for a fresh start, the Windows Phone design team drew from many sources of inspiration to determine the guiding principles for the next generation phone interface. Sources included Swiss influenced print and packaging with its emphasis on simplicity, way-finding graphics found in transportation hubs and other Microsoft software such as Zune, Office Labs and games with a strong focus on motion and content over chrome. ^[1]

Metro is the name of the new design language originally created for the Windows Phone 7 interface and now also used for the Xbox 360 Dashboard and Windows 8.

Guiding Principles of the Metro Design Language

There a few core concepts of the Metro design language which we’ll outline here. Each concept, or guiding principle, contributes to the look and feel of the whole system as well as the layout and frequency of elements used within the interface. These principles govern not only Microsoft’s own Metro apps, but should govern applications that independent developers create as well. ^[2]

Clean, Light, Open and Fast

Unlike previous incarnations of the Windows interface where stuffing everything on one screen and making maximum use of your screen real estate was considered a good thing, Microsoft’s new direction is that interfaces should be very simple and have a good deal of white space. Focus the user on the primary tasks and reduce clutter. This makes the UI feel smart, open, fast, and responsive. ^[3]

Live tiles are a great example of simplicity. The screenshot above of the new metrofied Xbox 360 dashboard could be on a tablet and you wouldn’t know the difference because it’s so simple it can scale to different form factors. ^[4]

Celebrate Typography

Type is information, type is beautiful. Not only is it attractive to the eye, but it can also be functional. The right balance of weight and positioning can create a visual hierarchy. Additionally, well placed type can help lead you to more content.

Alive in Motion

Motion is what brings the interface to life. Transitions are just as important as graphical design. By developing a consistent set of motions or animations, a system is created that provides context for usability, navigation, extra dimension and depth and improves the perceived performance of the whole interface.

The best Metro experiences are the ones that are alive and colorful while at the same time emphasize typography and simplicity.

Content, Not Chrome

Content not Chrome is one of the more unique principles of Metro. By removing all notions of extra chrome in the UI, the content becomes the main focus. This is especially relevant due to direct interaction with the content.

Authentically Digital

Sometimes, this principle is simply called “honesty”. Design explicitly for the form factor. Don’t hold the user to real-world limitations or waste space on design elements that don’t relate to the function you are looking to accomplish.

References

[1] From Transportation to Pixels: The story of Metro
[2] Metro Design Language of Windows Phone 7
[3] Metro Design Principles for Windows Phone, Windows 8 & Xbox 360
[4] When Metro design falls off the tracks – The three pillars of Metro

• UI Platforms: Which One Would You Pick?
• The Story of the Office Ribbon
• How to Create Attractive, User Friendly Applications?
• Designing the ULTIMATE Twitter Client
• SharedMinds Desktop – Quickstart

It’s a wonderful world! This teaser to Sir David Attenborough documentary Frozen Planet will put a smile on your face and you will will sing along…

“The colors of a rainbow, so pretty in the sky, are also on the faces of people going by…”

Also watch the mashup of the Louis Armstrong song combined with the breathtaking footage from David Attenborough and Louie Schwartzberg here.

• Wings of Life: The Hidden Beauty of Pollination
• Will Smith About The Key to Life
• Why We Do What We Do?
• Where Good Ideas Come From
• What’s Easier? To Change Yourself or the World Around You?

In the movie Minority Report, Tom Cruise is chased by an army of government deployed robotic spider spies attempting to hunt him down:

Although this is science fiction, the US military and others are working on robotic spy bots that already drop the fiction part of the equation. This is amazing from a technology point of view and a bit scary at the same time. The following is a summary of spy bots that already exist today.

A robotic hummingbird

Pentagon researchers are building a robotic hummingbird (spy-drone with camera) for potential use as a flying spy that is capable of maneuvering through windows and inside buildings. So the next time you see a hummingbird look twice you might be watched by the military!

The robotic hummingbird is one the TIME Magazine’s list of the top 50 inventions for 2011. Watch it fly and spy:

Watch the video about the making of here.

A robot that flies like a bird

Festo, a German industrial control and automation company, built SmartBird – a robot that flies like a bird:

It is a large, lightweight robot, modeled on a seagull, that flies by flapping its wings. See it fly:

And from the same company comes AirPenguin, a flying robot based on a penguin.

GroundBot, A spherical all-terrain surveillance robot

GroundBot by Swedish robotics firm Rotundus is an all-terrain, amphibious surveillance robot in the shape of a bug-eyed sphere. Roughly the size of a car tire, the robot moves silently at up to six mph.

GroundBot houses two cameras which provide a stereoscopic view to its remote operator.

Flying quadrotor drones

At the University of Pennsylvania a team is working on an autonomous quadrotor drones for surveillance:

In the following video you will see this small autonomous drones perform precise maneuvers like flight through windows:

The latest experiment from this team is a swarm of nano quadrotors. See them here.

• When Ideas Have Sex
• What is Intelligence?
• Seadragon / Deep Zoom Technology
• Scott Berkun: The Myths of Innovation
• Project Natal

The inner chatterbox is the little voice inside, the voice that tries to drive you crazy and often succeeds! It nags, criticizes, or otherwise distracts you from performing at your best. We are so used to its presence we often don’t even notice it is talking to us. The problem with this mindless chatter is that when you think a thought long enough it begins to build up a manifestation that will eventually come to pass.

So what does mind chatter sound like? You may recognize this from your own experience or just read the following funny story from the situation is hopeless, but not serious (the pursuit of unhappiness), by Paul Watzlawick:

A man wants to hang a painting. He has the nail, but not the hammer. Therefore it occurs to him to go over to the neighbor and ask him to lend him his hammer.

But at this point, doubt sets in. What if he doesn’t want to lend me the hammer? Yesterday he barely spoke to me. Maybe he was in a hurry. Or, perhaps, he holds something against me. But why? I didn’t do anything to him.

If he would ask me to lend him something, I would, at once. How can he refuse to lend me his hammer? People like him make other people’s life miserable. Worst, he thinks that I need him because he has a hammer. This has got to stop!

And suddenly the guy runs to the neighbor’s door, rings, and before letting him say anything, he screams: “you can keep your hammer, you bastard!”

If your inner chatter is negative then you need to stop the voice going on inside your head and replace it with positive thoughts like "I can figure out how to make this work." You need to do this over and over again until your negative mind chatter is replaced with positive thoughts.

As author and motivational speaker Brian Tracey says:

"Perhaps the most powerful influence on your attitude and personality is what you say to yourself, and believe. It is not what happens to you, but how you respond internally to what happens to you, that determines your thoughts and feeling and, ultimately, your actions. By controlling your inner dialogue, or "self-talk," you can begin to assert control over every other dimension of your life."

• Wear Sunscreen
• Top 3 Inspirational Stories
• The Story of The Pencil
• The Starfish Story: Make a Difference!
• The Penguin Story

"If it’s going to be work, it really ought to be work you LOVE". “Why waste your time doing sh*t you hate?” – Gary Vaynerchuk

If you are somebody who needs a kick into the b*** from time to time to get things done watch Gary Vaynerchuk talk and you will not be disappointed ;-)

The Internet has made the formula for success simpler than ever, he argues. So there’s now no excuse not to do what makes you happy.

• Wear Sunscreen
• Top 3 Inspirational Stories
• The Story of The Pencil
• The Starfish Story: Make a Difference!
• The Penguin Story

Dolphins are highly social, playful, curious, intelligent and they make underwater bubble rings just for fun! :-)

• Watch Matt Dancing Badly Around The World
• Top 3 Cool & Funny Dance Videos
• Saving the Planet!
• Microsoft Surface Parody
• Bobby McFerrin Hacks Your Brain with Music

It often seems to take something as huge as a plane crash to open our eyes to what’s really important. Ric Elias had a front-row seat on Flight 1549, the plane that crash-landed in the Hudson River in New York in January 2009. What went through his mind as the doomed plane went down? At TED, he tells his story publicly for the first time.

In this inspiring talk he shares what he learned by his near-death experience:

1. “I learned that it all changes in an instant. We have this bucket list, we have these things we want to do in life, and I thought about all the people I wanted to reach out to that I didn’t, all the fences I wanted to mend, all the experiences I wanted to have and I never did I no longer want to postpone anything in life. And that urgency, that purpose, has really changed my life.”
2. “I decided to eliminate negative energy from my life. I no longer try to be right; I choose to be happy.“
3. “I only wish I could see my kids grow up. I realized that the only thing that matters in my life is being a great dad”

Ric said, “I was given the gift of getting to see into the future and come back and live differently.”  – When you look back, at the end of your life, what will you see? And will you like what you see? How would you change?

• The Inspiring Story of Rick and Dick Hoyt
• Nick Vujicic – A Man With No Arms, No Legs And No Limits!
• Amy Purdy: Living beyond Limits
• Wear Sunscreen
• Top 3 Inspirational Stories

Amber Rae is a passion catalyst, doer, thinker and creator who follows her heart and challenges conventional wisdom. She once quit her stable job, sold her car and belongings, gave all but 12 outfits to charity and jumped on a plane to New York with one suitcase, a laptop, and a dream.

Soon after the move she discovered her life mission which is to inspiring people. Amber dreams of world in which everyone is fulfilling their full potential, fearlessly giving their gifts to the world, and living their own ideal life.

After years of working with big brands and people like Apple, Seth Godin and Derek Sivers she formed her own guiding beliefs on why and how to life her live:

I collect moments, not things.

Why vs. What

Why inspires. Why makes others believe. No one cares what you do, they care why you do it.

Make More Decisions

The best way to learn is to do. Act now. Making a mistake is better than not making a decision.

Hell Yes! Or No

Inspired by Derek Sivers, when deciding whether to do something, if I feel anything less than “Wow! Amazing! Absolutely! Hell yes!” – then my answer is no. I’ve found that when I stop chasing the wrong things, I give the right things a chance to catch me.Trust Your Gut

Your gut is a signal. Don’t analyze it. Listen to it. It will help you discover your true passions and natural talents.

Everything is Connected, Love Accordingly.

Instead of asking, “What can I get from life?”, see what happens when you ask, “What can I give?”

Focus on Abundance

Examples of abundant thinking = there is plenty of money out there and I’ll always have enough. There are so many fish in the sea and the perfect man is out there for me. Examples of scarcity thinking = I’m scared I’ll run out of money. I’m afraid I’m not good enough for him/her. Focus on Abundance.

Break Rules that Don’t Matter

I don’t have to live how others expect me to. Challenge norms. Shape your world, don’t adapt to it. Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

Modify on the Fly

Embrace unpredictability and be flexible in the pursuit. Live for the question and experience the answer.

Let Go of Sunk Costs

The law of sunk costs says that nothing leading up to today matters in the decision you’ll make tomorrow. For example: the pre-med student who has one semester left takes a class and realizes he does not want to be a doctor. There’s no way. It doesn’t feel right. Does he finish the semester and get the piece of paper? Or, does he stop and go find what he loves? Law of Sunk Costs say that he stops and discovers his love.

Militant Transparency

In communicating any decision, ask “How can I be as honest and transparent as possible?” We cannot control how other people react to what we say and do, but we can control how we act and behave.

If you like to get in touch with Amber visit her here: http://tumblr.heyamberrae.com

• Wear Sunscreen
• Top 3 Inspirational Stories
• The Story of The Pencil
• The Starfish Story: Make a Difference!
• The Penguin Story

Spot-on! Calvin & Hobbes on creativity…

Sounds familiar? ;-)

• What’s Easier? To Change Yourself or the World Around You?
• Watch Matt Dancing Badly Around The World
• Top 3 Cool & Funny Dance Videos
• The World’s First Computer Bug!
• Saving the Planet!

“If my life were a book, and I were the author, how would I want this story to go?” This is the question that Amy Purdy asked herself when she lost both of her legs at the age of 19. In this moving and powerful talk, she shows us how to draw inspiration from life’s obstacles. She encourages us to take control of our lives, and our limits.

After bacterial meningitis took her legs, Amy struggled with depression, and only beat it when she learned to accept her new reality, but not any limitations. After being unable to find prosthetics that would allow her to snowboard, she built her own. Today, she is a world champion female adaptive snowboarder. In 2005, she co-founded Adaptive Action Sports, a non-profit dedicated to introducing people with physical challenges to action sports.

Amy talks about the power of imagination. She explains how our lives are not determined by what happens to us, but by the choices we make. Imagination allows us to break down borders, to move beyond our circumstances, to create and constantly progress. This is truly one of the most inspiring and emotional videos you will  watch. It will make you think differently about your life and what is possible.

“It’s believing in those dreams and facing our fears head on that allows us to live our lives beyond our limits.” – Amy Purdy

• The Inspiring Story of Rick and Dick Hoyt
• Ric Elias: 3 things I learned while my plane crashed
• Nick Vujicic – A Man With No Arms, No Legs And No Limits!
• Wear Sunscreen
• Top 3 Inspirational Stories

Here is a list of the best stories I collected over time from many of the wonderfully inspiring stories available on the web and elsewhere. If one of those stories resonates with you, moves you or puts a smile on your face then do the same for somebody else by sharing this site with your friends or by leaving a comment.

1) The Penguin Story

This story is about finding your personal strength and having the courage to do what you love.

Read more…

2) Eagle or Seashell?

This story is about decision and courage.

Read more…

3) The Inspiring Story of Rick and Dick Hoyt

This story is about overcoming limits and developing supernatural strength driven by love.

Read more…

More Inspirational Stories

The Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams	Juggling Five Balls Of Life	The Starfish Story: Make a Difference!
The Story of The Pencil	Wear Sunscreen	Nick Vujicic – A Man With No Arms, No Legs And No Limits!

What are your favorite inspirational stories around the web? Please share in the comments below.

Spread the Inspiration!

If you have been moved by one of the stories presented here, consider spreading the word to your friends.

• Wear Sunscreen
• The Story of The Pencil
• The Starfish Story: Make a Difference!
• The Penguin Story
• The Inspiring Story of Rick and Dick Hoyt

How do you value your time? Do you find yourself wishing you had an extra day in a week? In this wonderfully animated video (10 min), Professor Philip Zimbardo conveys how our individual perspectives of time affect our work, health and well-being. Time influences who we are as a person, how we view relationships and how we act in the world.

According to Professor Philip Zimbardo the six main “time zones” people inhabit are the following:

Past positive: people that focus on happy memories

Past negative: people that focus on regret

Present hedonistic: people that live in the moment and constantly pursue pleasure

Present fatalistic: people that never plan because what’s the point

Future focused: people that prioritize work over play and always plan ahead

Future transcendent: people that believe true eternal life begins only after the death of the mortal body

Are you past negative or positive, present hedonistic or future orientated? He argues whole countries, cities and populations can be ranked by these criteria’s.

Watch the full length (41 min) RSA talk here. And here are links to the mentioned “Marshmallow Experiment”: Kids Marshmallow Experiment (Funny) and The Marshmallow Experiment & Time explained by Professor Philip Zimbardo.

• Time Management
• Put First Things First
• Gary Vaynerchuk: Do what you love (no excuses!)
• Best of Hans Rosling
• 7 Billion People: How Did We Get So Big So Fast?

In this fun and entertaining talk author and Carnegie Mellon alum Scott Berkun shows that much of what we know about innovation is wrong as he explores the history of innovation and creative thinking.

• When Ideas Have Sex
• What is Intelligence?
• Seadragon / Deep Zoom Technology
• Robotic Spies
• Project Natal

Watch this beautiful time-lapse video of the International Space Station’s view from space.  This short time-lapse video edited by Michael König pieces together some truly stunning photographs taken between August and October 2011 above places such as the US, the Sahara desert and Australia. Most impressive are those of the Aurora Borealis and Australis:

In the following video Commander Mike Fossum explained how he took those amazing shots:

• How the Aurora Borealis Works
• Wings of Life: The Hidden Beauty of Pollination
• Project Tuva
• Fantastic Fungi: The Spirit of Good
• Douglas Adams: Parrots the Universe and Everything

The following video is a lovely reminder of what it takes to be and stay creative.

1. Make lists
2. Carry a Notebook everywhere
3. Try free writing
4. Get away from the computer
5. Quit beating yourself up
6. Take breaks
7. Sing in the shower
8. Drink coffee
9. Listen to new music
10. Be open
11. Surround yourself with creative people
12. Get feedback
13. Collaborate
14. Don’t give up
15. Practice
16. Allow yourself to make mistakes
17. Go somewhere new
18. Count your blessings
19. Get lots of rest
20. Take risks
21. Break the rules
22. Don’t force it
23. Read a page of the dictionary
24. Create a framework
25. Stop trying to be someone else’s perfect
26. Got an idea? write it down
27. Clean your workspace
28. Have fun
29. Finish something

• Where Good Ideas Come From
• Shu Ha Ri: The Stages of Learning to Mastery
• Good artists Copy, Great artists Steal
• Find What You Love
• A Toolbox for Creativity & Leadership

I recently stumbled upon this great piano cover of the Braveheart Love Theme (For The Love Of A Princess) on YouTube:

This inspired me to create this list of my top 5 movie theme songs of all time:

1) Braveheart Theme

2) Pirates of the Caribbean- He’s a Pirate

3) Imperial March (or Darth Vader’s Theme) from Star Wars

4) Requiem for a Dream

5) Amélie

Bonus

• Mission Impossible Theme
• 2001 A Space Odyssey Opening
• The Bridge on the River Kwai Soundtrack
• The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Theme
• Lord of The Rings – May it be
• ‎"Over The Rainbow" – the famous theme song from the movie "The Wizard Of OZ" (1939)
• Pink Panther Theme Song
• Ghostbusters Opening
• The theme song to Ridley Scotts movie "1492: Conquest of Paradise" composed by Vangelis
• Theme from Highlander: Princes of the Universe, Gimme The Prize (Kurgan’s Theme)
• The Last of the Mohicans
• Beverly Hills Cop (Axel F)
• Shrek Soundtrack – Fairy Tale
• James Bond 007 Movie Theme Music
• Jaws Soundtrack
• Rocky: Full Theme, Eye of the Tiger
• Pulp Fiction – Opening Theme
• Back To The Future Theme
• The Phantom Of The Opera
• The Fall Guy Intro
• Bonanza Theme Song
• Titanic Theme Song
• The Bodyguard Theme
• Dirty Dancing: Time of my Life
• Pretty Woman
• Cruel Intentions: Every you Every me

What are your favorite movie theme songs? Let me know in the comments.

• Man on Wire
• Wings of Life: The Hidden Beauty of Pollination
• Wear Sunscreen
• Watch Matt Dancing Badly Around The World
• Validation

Douglas Adams was the best-selling British author and satirist who created The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

In this fun and entertaining talk at the University of California recorded shortly before his death, he shares hilarious accounts of some of the apparently absurd lifestyles of the world’s creatures. He talks about blind river dolphins, reclusive lemurs, a parrot as fearless as it is lovelorn …

Douglas Adams’ close encounters with these rare and unusual animals reveal that evolution, ever ingenious, can be fickle too.

And don’t miss the funny story about trying to buy – for scientific reasons ;-) – condoms in Shanghai. (starts at 0:49:00)

• Wings of Life: The Hidden Beauty of Pollination
• Wear Sunscreen
• Validation
• SIGNS
• Project Tuva

In this article I like to share my mental model about UI / UX development. It is all about creating attractive, user friendly applications. But in order to do this you need to understand attraction in the first place.

What is Attraction?

Studies have shown that almost 50 percent of all women make up their mind within the first 30 seconds of meeting a man about whether he is a potential partner. Men take a little longer. Men take about half an hour on average to make up their mind.

The first impression is influence by your outward appearances like the way you look and dress, your body language and how you communicate inner values like confidence, self esteem and humor.

Although those qualities can be categorized in a kind of “outer game” and “inner game” they are not independent of each other. For example self-confidence will reflect in the way you carry yourself and the tone of your voice.

If you found this paragraph interesting I also recommend watching Andy Budd excellent talk about Seductive Design.

The Outer Game and Inner Game of UI Development

In a similar way as in interpersonal relationships we can identify an “outer game” and “inner game” that make up an attractive, user friendly application:

• The “outer game” is defined by the whole User Experience of the application. The user experience itself can divided into two main areas namely Usability Engineering and Visual & Interaction Design.
• The “inner game” is defined by the technology related “inner workings” of the application. This can be further divided into Software Architecture and UI Technology.

Like in interpersonal relationships the “outer game” and “inner game” of UI development are not independent of each other. For example if an application does not work reliable it does not matter how appealing the visual design is.

Usability Engineering

This is where it normally starts after having a broad understanding of the requirements.

According to “usability guru” Jakob Nielsen usability is a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use. The word "usability" also refers to methods for improving ease-of-use during the design process.

However it is often very complex and time consuming to make something simple and easy to use. I love the following quote which summarizes this situation very well:

This means to simplify something you need to put a lot of effort into it:

Just throwing the latest & coolest technology at the problem will not necessarily get the job done. Usability engineering is a way to find out how to best support people in getting their job done. This includes activities like:

• Understanding the user needs and use cases
• Interviews with potential end users
• Describing use cases, user roles & tasks
• Developing a role model
• Paper prototyping, creating concept screens & mockups
• Performing usability tests

At this stage it is also a good practice to look at suitable design patterns and to get inspiration on how other’s are solving similar problems. The result is a detailed usability concept of the screen layout, navigation and workflow description for each user role and task.

Software Architecture

Many modern software applications are designed with modularity and extensibility in mind and support their own plug-in system.

An application is composed of pluggable components called modules or plug-ins. The shell is the actual application that is responsible for loading and initializing base client services, loading and initializing modules, and providing the basic UI of the application. It also provides the overall user interface structure and defines the layout of the main window, navigation controls and workspaces.

Modules or plug-ins are distinct deployment units. Typically they contain functionally discrete pieces, but they integrate with the user interface, communicate with the shell, and communicate with each other. The shell and infrastructure provide access to services required by modules throughout the application. This means that the modules can leverage these capabilities instead of having to implement them themselves. This allows a solution to be developed much more quickly because the infrastructure is already in place – the modules can focus on the business logic and their piece of the overall solution instead of focusing on the basic foundation required to provide the necessary capabilities.

This approach enables the separation of concerns between infrastructure and module development.

UI Technology

Today the possibilities to develop rich user experiences are amazing! However it can be quite a challenge to choose the right technology for the task at hand. There are just so many options out there.

With technologies like HTML 5, Flex, JavaFX, Silverlight and WPF the borders between rich desktop applications and rich Internet applications are blurring more and more. Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, Google and Sun are competing head to head to attract as many developers and users as possible. They all provide their own technologies and runtime environments. To get an overview about the technology offerings of those big players read the following article: UI Platforms: Which One Would You Pick?

Visual & Interaction Design

The importance of design changed over time. Visual design nowadays is a critical success factor. The area of Visual & Interaction Design includes activities like:

• The creation of Visual Design Prototypes
• The definition of Design Guidelines
• Designing the visual appearance of the UI
• Interaction Design
• Icon Design
• Branding Considerations

Because visual design is a central part in the development process it is very important the collaboration between designers and developers is a smooth one.

How to Measure the Attractiveness of Your Application?

AttrakDiff is a survey technique that enables you to measure how the attractiveness of your application is experienced, in terms of usability and appearance and whether optimization is necessary.

The survey consists of numerous word-pairs which simplify the rating procedure. Each word of a pair represents the extreme opposite. There are other possible gradations to choose from between the two extremes.

An example of a word-pair is illustrated here:

This rating means that the product is essentially likable but that there is still room for improvement.

Read more about the AttrakDiff survey technique here.

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Do you remember those moments of real happiness? Think about it for a moment.

I was really happy when…

…when my girlfriend said "I love you" for the first time!

…when I found a lost birdie while cleaning the rain pipe

…when my uncle came to see me; he passed away 8 month ago

…when I became the 1000001st customer at a big department store (The 1000000th won an Audi TT and a 10000 Euro gift voucher). Anyway… in return I am healthy

…when I finally was able to go to the toilet after a 4 hour balloon flight

Did one of those stories put a smile on your face? If yes then do the same for somebody else by sharing your moments of happiness! Remember: Sometimes it’s the little things in life that make us really happy.

Answer the above question by posting a comment below.

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