Product Management UX/UI & Interacion Blog — Frank derFrankie Neulichedl

New Google Feedburner UI spotted - a quick overview

Feedburner is a service for webmasters and website owners to track their RSS-Feed subscribers and much more. RSS did not make it to the general public as everyone hoped, but still are very important. Google bought the company behind Feedburner a couple of years ago and beyond a small integration into Google Analytics and Google Adsense nothing happened for years. Today I spotted the "Try the new beta" and here are some screenshots of the interface.

The new Dashboard features messages, your top items and top feeds.

The Feed list features a neat little graph of your reach. Note if you have more clicks than views you are using your rss feed on Twitter or Facebook.

The Feed overview is very well structured and gives you the ability to hide values from the chart. At the moment if you select all time in the date selector it shows only the last two month - I hope they will import the old data over from the classic Interface. But it's proof that they build it from scratch since they clearly have a new database as source.

The single Item display does not show much - but I'm sure they will improve this.

The Subscriber overview has just got more colorful, nothing special I can see here.

This on the other side is interesting. It shows you the endpoints (formerly known as "USE") where your items have been shown and clicked. It would be great if you could reach out to the url shorteners and import their data as well to see effective endpoints even for shortened urls.

All in all it loads quite fast and works well. It gives me a better overview and maybe I start to analyze my feed stats again.

A guide to Evolution vs Revolution in Website-Redesign

How to decide if you need a complete new design or just some improvement? Here some questions to ask yourself and if you answer the majority with yes you need a complete overhaul.

5 techniques to get your creativity started

I've got an email from a reader of this blog with a common problem... how to get creativity started:

I am into graphic design, working as a finalizer for the last 10 years. I'm working in an Advertising Agency, I want to become an art director. I look at the ads on Ads of the world and get inspired. I found them very easy but when I'm trying to do something my mind doesn't open. Is there any exercise where i can learn and fullfull my dream of becoming an art director.

Being creative is one part of being an art director - and for sure the most fun part. As you can see from the blog there are other activities (organizing, planning, guidance to people) involved in real art direction. But as for creativity there are now really good resources and tools.

1) The word Creativity is a misconception

In advertising and design you mostly don't "create" but you "combine in a new and interesting way" - Don't get fooled by the word creativity - you don't have to reinvent the wheel, just use the wheel in a new way. To read more about this - here is an extensive lesson about "Creativity on demand"

For example: A friend of mine "stitched" his book on fabric instead of printing it on paper.

2) Use the tools the right way

So many people think that they know how to brain storm - but they don't. There are many creativity tools like leathering, brain storming, fishing etc. - but if you don't use them correctly you will not get results. I covered brain storming in this blog post - so read this and storm on.

3) Creativity comes from having many interests

One of the best ways to "open" your mind to creative ideas ist by having a "open" mind all the time. Don't just be interested in graphic design. I'm interested practically in everything (except passive sports = watching someone else doing sport). I want to know how the people lived 100 years ago in Siberia. I cook, hike, bike, run, go to museums about just everything. I listen to podcasts during work about the most desperate themes and from around the world. You don't have to remember everything but sometimes there are things that remain in your mind. And by taking this things from around the world into a new context you are really creative.

An example: It's quite usual here to collect stickers of soccer player for kids in Europe... everyone did this - I used the same principle for a firm. They made stickers from their employees and an album. Who finished the collection has received a price. And the benefit for the firm? All employees have finished the album and in the end everyone knew anyone in every department.

4) Creativity is Teamwork

The image of the lonely creative mind is still present in the minds of everyone. But actually the best creative ideas come from teams - small teams to be exact. Only by interacting and discussing your ideas you have the possibility to expand them and to iterate on them. A modern system for creative temawork is featured in my blog post on this site here.

5) Books and Cards that help

Here is a collection of books and Cards that can help you

Relaunch of my portfolio site – part 1: Own portfolio site vs. online portfolio site

There are beautiful portfolio sites out there in the web and I wanted to redo my portfolio site - but I had a few thoughts

Don't try harder

Sometimes things just won't work. You made a nice communication concept, build a campaign and everything the execution was impeccable. But when you and your client look at the results they don't meet the expectations. Now what should you do? Normally we would think that we would try harder - but you shouldn't.

Corporate Publishing doesn't need to be boring

I will start my new series about corporate publishing by demystifying a myth - corporate publishing is boring. I will show you in this lesson how you can make a graphically stunning article about the introduction of a new window hardware product line by telling a story.

Finding the right jobs for your trainee

I had in the past problems finding the right jobs for the trainees as I was caught up in my daily routine and when they actually showed up at my desk I wondered what would fit. I therefore setup a routine for finding jobs around the year to have them ready. Find out how I did it and the 3 rules for successfully managing a graphic design trainee.

Retouching to cut photo shooting costs?

As an art director one of your jobs is to ensure that the quality of the final product lives up to the standard you set. To ensure this quality you have to look at all aspects. We already discussed the copywriting part, now let's look at the photography.

Organizing your files

At the end of the day you and you team have to work with the files every day, not the IT-department, so it's time to get in charge. Here a few tips.

The art director as a coach

Get more time for research and creativity by coaching your team to the next level of graphic design. I show you how to find the right balance between being a coworker and leading the team to success.

Establishing your role as an art director

Leading a graphic design team is never easy. How do you relate to your team, how should it be organized? Here some real live expiriences.

5 guerilla alternatives to brain storming

Guerilla fighters are known for having a great impact without huge investments in humans or weaponry. I translated this concept into my guerilla alternatives to brain storming.

Creativity on demand

Creativity is nothing magical - is the result of a process and a mindset. How to avoid a creativity-stall and improve your creative output.