This week on the blog, they featured the store design of Ikea which the study shows is a lot like a maze. The study says "because the layouts are so confusing, consumers fear they won’t be able to find an object again and wind up buying it just so it won’t disappear." That sounds pretty brilliant to me. Maybe it's annoying for consumers, but the prices bring them back. I think Wal-Mart is the same way. I once looked for bottled water for about 20 minutes, only to finally find out they had moved it to a completely different area of the store. Good business practice on their part, since they know people will still come back. Casinos are designed to have no windows so you forget how much time you've spent in there. While working as a page designer for The Working Press at the SPJ Convention in Las Vegas this year, I saw the sun exactly two time in four days; going to and coming from the airport. Unfortunately, in the magazine design world, I don't think we have these luxuries. If the design doesn't make sense to the reader right away or if it's too unorganized, they might skip reading the story. Unlike finding the bottled water at Wal-Mart, a reader should always know exactly where they are going.
One of my favorite stories on the site is about a study that suggests in order to cut emissions, cut parking spots. If people can't find parking they'll be forced to use other modes of transportation. As someone who is in a constant battle to find parking around Lee Hills Hall and at my apartment complex, I hate the idea, but think it's an interesting one. It's also a little humorous considering the monstrosity that is the new parking garage downtown.
I saw that infographic a couple of weeks ago and fell in love. I think it's a much more compelling way of telling a "round-up of what happened during the year" than a list or some of the other forms they take. I also think that it wouldn't be too difficult to replicate with a decent amount of time.
ReplyDeleteGOOD does a great job with their graphics. I also love that their magazine is about informing people on relevant issues going on in their communities.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the GOOD graphic. It sort of reminds me of those word cloud graphics. It's a great way to quickly glance at a graphic and see what the biggest news was, or how often a word is mentioned during a speech in the case of the word clouds. I also like the bubbles in this graphic because you can compare the size of each bubble to see how much more play a certain topic got in the news as opposed to trying to compare using raw numbers or data.
ReplyDeleteI love GOOD magazine! I had never heard of it until freshman year a copy mysteriously ended up in my mailbox in the dorm. It was a pink cover with a huge illustration of a cow on front. It must have been fate because I've been reading it ever since. Their graphics are amazing, and their flash videos are also very creative. They definitely present news in a way you would never have thought of.
ReplyDeleteGOOD is gorgeous for a purpose, which I love. Getting "The Daily GOOD" in my inbox every day is one of the highlights of my afternoon. I highly recommend subscribing to it, if you don't already!
ReplyDelete1. Love the How I Met Your Mother reference.
ReplyDelete2. I think you are so right about organization. It really depends on your medium and the cutsomer's/reader's interaction with your product. Even if you think about web content, users can always hit the back button and usually be directed to that page they wanted to remember (or look in their history, etc).
We rely on our reader's to have a basic knowledge of our product or how to navigate it based on previous experience. I think while designing we should focus on directing our readers as much as entertaining them to keep them engaged.