Gamification, a term you’ve no doubtingly heard of by now, has found a way to break through the trend barrier and enter into our every day lives.

Through these mechanisms, companies and various product makers have found a way to engage audiences through game-like mastery (and some trickery), enticing them to interacting with their product and seamlessly immersing these “games” in our daily lives.

We’ve already noted the rise of gaming as a way to create engagement among consumers, but we didn’t expect to see it applied so soon to something as seemingly mundane as public transport. Sure enough, though, Chromaroma is a new application from UK-based Mudlark that turns Tube travel in London into a rewarding game.
~futuramb

By providing positive feedback these uniquely powerful games are not only fun, but also make the user feel good about themselves, thereby ensuring repeat visits to obtain ‘gold-star’ status.

Further Reading:
A Gamification Framework for Interaction Designers (UX Mag)
‘Gamifying’ The System To Create Better Behavior (NPR)

I had the pleasure to be asked by Oliver Lindberg to partake in this month’s website build-off for .NET magazine (issue 212). The build-off feature has always been one of my favorite sections of the magazine and I was thrilled to get a chance to participate. The brief was to mock up a contact page that was both user-friendly, aesthetically pleasing, but also technologically sound to help provide visitors (and prospective clients) the necessary tools to get in touch.

I had a lot of fun creating this and was really pleased to be included amongst such a great group of creatives.

This pretty little animation tribute to ux designers really made me smile.  Thanks Lyle!

Plates as pie charts? A clever little idea, the Wheel of Nutrition plates are designed by two recent design-school grads based in Milan, Rui Pereira and Hafsteinn Juliusson.  The idea is to help visually convey proper consumption and promote healthier eating habits.

While the premise is very original and has a lot of potential, the idea of a flat pie chart seems a bit unfinished .  I would have loved to see the plates as a square or rectangular design where food segments were housed in their own little units to help aid in portion control.  Some fun nutrition facts presented with some eye-catching typography would be a great addition too.

Now that the iPad is finally here, I might replace my Moleskin with one of these slicksters.

Forget inches & millimeters, these Pixel Pads are printed with environmentally friendly low or no VOC vegetable-based inks and provide pixel x pixel precession when drafting those highly detailed wireframes. Pads with various browser frames to come too!