Product Management UX/UI & Interacion Blog — Frank derFrankie Neulichedl
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EWO Book One - Silver mirrors

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The client wanted a “catalog” for his main audience – architects and urban planners – which was not the usual book filled with technical details and some nice drawings. They wanted to go a step further and to inspire the reader. Ewo produces a wide range of high tech lighting, mostly for outdoors.

Blinded by online shopping

How online shopping can take away your ability to shop local. A tell you a short story, half laughing, half crying.

It happened during my vacation. I wanted to get me an inflatable mattress (Lilo) - just a simple one to have fun while swimming in a lake. But where in the hell should I get one. I scratched my head and my first impulse was to open the laptop and search google for a shop to buy one. Well guess what - the result was no very satisfying. I couldn't get any good result - there is no local vendor search in Europe. Ordering them online was no option (I don't wanted to pay 5 Euro of shipping for a 4 Euro item and wait 2 days).

You think that I could have just run down the street to the next mall or shop who sells sport items. You're right, but I actually didn't remember where I could buy an inflatable mattress - I was blinded by online shopping. And there are good reasons for this:

  • I live (for the most time) in a rural area - the next mall is 150 km away
  • Local "we have all" stores are gone a long time - even sport shops just have clothes on their shelves. There is actually just one shop who has "sport-hardware" in my 30 km neighborhood and even they have only a limited choice of goods.
  • I'm used to buy exactly the item I want, not the item the vendor decides he wants to have in his store (Clothes are an exemption - I want to try them to know if they fit). It's frustrating to go/drive from shop to shop to find the product I want.
  • Online shopping has therefore become my main shopping experience - If I need something I look for the best product (recommandations/reviews), look online for the best price and buy it.

I'm so used now to shop online for the goods I need that I really can't tell you where in the neighborhood I would find the things I need. I did finally buy a mattress at a local sport shop - I was lucky, I stumbled over it driving by and they had one left. There was no choice but in the end I had fun with it in the lake.

Did you experience something similar - your stories are welcome.

Image by M.V. Jantzen

How to broaden a tv audience - why Sci-Fi has become SyFy

In various posts around the web you can find opinions on the new identity of the tv channel SyFy - formerly known as Sci-Fi Channel. While I don't want to go into the design details I want to express some thoughts why the probably made this change.

Search your GMail from your Firefox search box

I looked for a way to search my Inbox directly from the Firefox search box without another addon. I've found a way through the Opensearch capability of firefox. Since it's handy I wanted to share it with you even when it's not strictly design related ;-).

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Don't try harder

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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.

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Corporate Publishing doesn't need to be boring

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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.