Facebook’s New Wall Design Falls Short

For those of you who frequent facebook, you’ve probably noticed they’ve been making their stuff more ajaxy, and just all around faster and better feeling. One of the most noticeable changes is their improvements to posting on someone’s wall. It now looks like the following:

This is now at the top of each Facebook user’s wall

It’s fantastic. A great addition. I get to click 1 less button and it’s right there at the top of their wall. Makes for easy posting. However, I think they missed a step.

This comes up when you hit “Post”

When you go to post, they have a nice box that pops up telling you that you’re posting (see above). This isn’t so bad. It could be better, and is easily made better with my suggested design (I imagine there are other techniques that could just as easily make it better).

Facebook telling you your post has been made

 

At some point during the “Posting…” message, your post pops onto that person’s wall, and if you’re not paying attention, you might have missed it. Not to worry, though. They gave you this useful message of “Post Successful!” to make sure, just in case you did miss your message randomly popping up onto that person’s wall, you’ll know.

Fantastic! But… why not just show me that my post is being made and is now up? The Yellow Fade Technique isn’t exactly a new idea, or new tech. Look, we can even link the current “Posting…” message to the technique. As the “Posting…” message is on screen, the actual post can fade in.

Suggested Design Change: Show the user instead of tell them

The user just hit the “Post” button

With the above, when the user hits the post button, the page loads in where their post is going to go. The colors and format between “Posting…” and the box are the same, as to link the “Posting…” thought to the new area.

This is how we notify the user the message was posted

Once the message is actually “posted” by the Facebook system itself, the yellow box quickly fades to reveal the user’s new post. When the box over the message is completely gone, so is the “Posting…” message. We’ve now just showed the user that we know they told Facebook to post their message, their message is in the process of being posted, their message has now been posted (once the box fades away), and where it was posted- all visually, within seconds.

To show this idea even more, after “Post” is hit, the message area could be temporarily disabled to further solidify the posting that is occurring. There are other improvements that could be made off of this as well.

That’s just my $.02c. Any thoughts? Anyone have any other suggested ideas or improvements?

[Update] Since writing this, a thought has occurred to me on how they currently notify users of posts and why they may have gone that route. Really, it’s quite a simple and possible reason: it’s less corporate. The design of Facebook is in essence an almost polished, homegrown look. Because of that, the method they use may be better than what I prescribed because of it’s non-corporate look.

Comodity, Luxury… Boutique?

There’s been a lot of discussion over on Tara’s blog about the concept of Boutique. While I am going to be referencing her blog posts, the majority of the actual evolution is occurring in the comments themselves, so if you don’t read those you’re missing about half the content.

The original conversation started with this post laying out the rough idea of Boutique, which Tara followed up with a more solidified idea as well as a graphical chart comparing Luxury, Commodity, and Boutique. That conversation is still going on in the comments to a degree. I thought I would also say that when I initially heard Tara’s description of Boutique it reminded me of this post about ‘slow’ marketing.

One thing I’d like to mention is if you haven’t been to Tara’s blog or haven’t invested a lot of time reading it yet, you should. Out of the many blogs I read over, hers makes me feel the most involved in the conversations that take place, as is especially the case with this most recent one on Boutique.

Embrace the niche

There are ~300,000,000 people in the U.S. alone.

I garuntee close to none of them are normal.

Not only are every one of those 300 million people not normal, they all have a need that isn’t being met as well as they’d like, and they could all use something to make their life better or express themselves better.

Be creative. Stray into the weird, be unique. Chances are there is a niche waiting for just that. Find the opportunity, find the niche, and embrace them with your creativity.

How to do Time Value of Money on a Ti-83 Plus

This post, while not particularly relevant to things I normally write on here is something I felt necessary to write. In this post I will explain how to do time value of money (TVM) calculations on a Ti-83 Plus (which I assume is same for a Ti-83). The reason being, I find it ridiculous that finance professors ask you to purchase an entirely different calculator after most every student (at least for business) has already purchased an expensive Ti-83 for calculus. I am doing this in hopes of saving at least a few college students the $30 that the new calculator would cost. May those of you who saved the $30 use it on something interesting… like on your girlfriend (or your next date), a healthy dinner (for once), a ridiculously priced text-book, or to continue to feed your drinking problem.

How to do TVM on a Ti-83 Plus

Firstly, get familiar with the following process:

1. Turn on your calculator
2. Press “Apps”
3. Press “Finance”
4. Press “TVM Solver”

The TVM Solver is the place where you will always be going to to enter in the values for your calculation. That said, you will see the following variables when you go to the TVM Solver.

N = # of years.
I% = The % interest (or discount if you’re receiving money you) you are expecting.
PV = Initial Investment (this number should be negative if you are investing, as you’re giving your investing your money).
FV = Future value
PMT = Number of payments per period (period set below).
P/Y = Periods per year (should generally be one).
BEGIN = You should have your Ti-83 be on “END” by default, but you will want to change it to begin when dealing with annuity due.
END = You want to have this set when dealing with ordinary annuity.

Examples of using TVM Solver to do financial calculations

Now you know a little about what those numbers mean. Let’s take a look at what numbers we put where to do what.

Question 1:
We want to invest $1000 today and want it to be $5000 10 years from now. What is the interest rate we need to accomplish this?

To calculate this we will go to TVM Solver (Apps -> Finance -> TVM Solver) and set the listed variables to the following:

N = 10
I% = 0 (because we don’t know what the interest rate is)
PV = -1000 (negative 1000 because that’s how much we’re investing)
PMT = 0 (no additional payments being paid / period )
FV = 5000 (this is how much we want to have by the end of 10 years)
P/Y = 1

After entering in all that, hid “2nd” then “Mode” to take you back to your main display screen. Next, press “Apps”, “Finance” and then from the list find “TVM_I%” and press it.
Your result should be 17.46%
This means that if you invest $1000 today and want $5000 in 10 years from now, the interest rate you must have is 17.46%.

Question 2:
What must I invest now at 8% to get $5000 10 years from now?

Setting up our variables in TVM_Solver again:

N = 10 (10 years)
I% = 8 (enter whole numbers, TVM Solver converts it to .08 for you)
PV = 0 (0 because we want to know how much to invest to get $5000)
PMT = 0 (no additional payments being paid / period )
FV = 5000 (this is how much we want to have by the end of 10 years)
P/Y = 1

After entering in all that, hid “2nd” then “Mode” to take you back to your main display screen. Next, press “Apps”, “Finance” and then from the list find “TVM_PV” and press it.
Your result should be -2315.96
This means that if you invest (so you’re investing, thus no longer in your position, which is why it’s negative) $2315.96 today at 8%, in 10 years you will have $5000.

Basically the way it works is everything under “TVM_Solver” in the Apps -> Finance section of your calculator is a function that does a calculation based off of the values entered in TVM_Solver. So, to calculate something like the number of payments necessary, you’d fill in the necessary data in TVM_Solver, setting PMT to 0, and then running TVM_PMT.

Hope this helps some people. Feel free to comment to this with any questions.

Take the time and your customers will too.

Today my girlfriend recounted to me an experience she had at the local coffee shop on campus called Java City. I was actually surprised that she brought it up, since business, contrary to being my major, isn’t something that she usually brings up on her own (probably for fear that I will never stop talking when she does- a justified fear). So you can imagine my surprise when she brought up the experience she had at Java City (especially as I had recently been criticizing their business practice of charging $0.15c for a cup of water).

Her experience is centered around hot chocolate (which she loves). She usually gets hot chocolate whenever we go to a coffee shop, so she’s had her taste of a variety of hot chocolates by various coffee shops (Starbucks, Port City Java, etc). I personally consider her a hot chocolate aficionado. With this considered, I was surprised when she started telling me about this great experience she had at Java City.

The experience revolves around the creation of her hot chocolate. Apparently it was something new she hadn’t experienced before. She described to me in detail the process one of the employees went through to make her hot chocolate. How he meticulously adjusted the machine a few different times to get what appeared as just the right flavor, and slowly added the whip cream in a near artistic fashion. From there, before finally transferring this delectable hot chocolate to my girlfriend, he asked her if she would like any chocolate on top. She agreed, and he spent another small portion of time carefully dripping the chocolate on the top of the whip cream, ending by giving this carefully and artistically crafted cup of hot chocolate to her, for her to enjoy. She explained this all to me, ending with “It was the best cup of hot chocolate I’ve had.”

That, my friends, is the power of experience. Now, I also thought about the WOM this would generate. At first I discounted that notion due to the fact that she could just be telling me this because I am her boyfriend. However, later that night on several occasions she also recounted her experience to some of our other friends. Experience matters.

People notice when companies take the time to care. That Java City employee took a little more time to put some effort and care into my girlfriend’s hot chocolate. She noticed and has told many people that Java City is her preferred place for hot chocolate and about that carefully made cup of hot chocolate. That small amount of time for my girlfriend has brought more customers, including myself, their way.

Six Word Story

Over on Middle Zone Musings is a creative challenge to write stories in only 6 words. Sounded like a lot of fun, and seeing as how I like creativity, and I like challenges, I thought I’d write up some quickies to add.

I’m cold. The new fireplace? Anarchy.

Keep laughing. I drop-kick puppies.

Walking alone, I stop. A puddle!

“… but in the best way possible.”

Cat like reflexes. I’m no cat.

Have you seen my pants? Really?

“Cut the lights.” They did. Laughter.

Love at first sight? My ideas.

Not enough time? Only sleep Sundays.

You poked me in the eye!

Internet. Cellphone. Laptop. Don’t unplug me.

I wiggled my fingers. Like pineapples.

Update:

Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! I lost.

Empty bottle. Empty promises. Empty night.

Flaming pillars. Unique memories. Happy birthday.

“Moo, Oink, Woof,” said the goose.

“Ouch! My finger!” I hate geese.

Unique shape. White blanket- new experience.

I’m king. Bounce, bounce. You’re out.

Red light. Green light… Red light.

You collect $200… oh, pay up.

Enjoy!

X marks the spot

There is a reason beyond the booty as to why being a pirate was (and is!) such an attractive occupation. It’s because it was simpler than a lot of other things.

There was one main thing a pirate always dreamed of – treasure.

There was also one main reason as to why that’s what pirates always dreamed of – a treasure map.

A treasure map took the perceived anxiety, time, and frustration out of finding the treasure. Not just that, but a treasure map did something special beyond its step-by-step guidance. It gave you a tangible reassurance now of your future success.

People don’t want to feel stupid, they don’t want to fail, and they don’t want to be frustrated. It’s something I talk about daily with people, but that’s because it’s something I see done wrong on a daily basis. Simplifying things makes things easier to do- like purchasing your product, or getting enjoyment from your product, or getting the word spread about your company, or getting the assistance you need.

If simplicity is something too ambiguous to wrap your head around (as it often can be), think of it this way- what can you create a treasure map for? 

Deliver.

I just posted about Fractured Universe, but I thought I would do a quick follow-up post.

I was talking with a friend of mine who happens to be in our private alpha testing group. As he has been experiencing some of what we’re doing and as I was filling him in on the full story of some of the exciting things we plan to do, he said the following, quite excitedly.

“That sounds so sweet… I want to experience that!”

And that right there is the key. The thing is, and this is where most companies, teams, and people get stuck- it sounds sweet. Anyone can think up things that people want to experience all day long, things that sound sweet, but if people don’t deliver then none of that matters. If you get a response like that, then make sure you setup a process to deliver. Not just for the sake of delivering something that sounds sweet, but because by delivering you gain something more valuable- you gain your communities trust.

Here’s to creating a process to deliver. Here’s to authentically cherishing trust.

Fractured Universe

Catacombs outside of Lasphar (in game shot)

While I have a couple of posts lurking in the background, I have been unable to finalize them into public content. This is primarily due to the fact that the game development team that I work with doing game design, business, and marketing for (the later two to come) is in its crunch time.

We are indie developers creating Fractured Universe, an MMORPG. FU is many things beyond an indie mmorpg, and I will get into that when I have more time. Our team of 6 developers has been making outstanding progress. We have managed to produce a playable alpha within ~<3 months and are going to have a public load test on our game at the end of this month. That’s not what’s exciting, however.

What’s exciting is how we’re going about it and just what we’re planning to do. That is, we’re aiming to make this an MMO that really involves players more than the others. Unlike World of Warcraft, the world you experience a month from now will not be the same world you know today. That’s because of the impact and involvement players have. Unfortunately I do not have time to say more now, but rest assured, I will be posting more about FU later.

Always Changing

In a recent leadership meeting with the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapter I am a part of here we discussed a number of things. One of which was quality vs. quantity when it came to increasing the chapter’s numbers in general.

Now, to me, there isn’t much to discuss with quality vs. quantity. Quality will yield quantity. Enough said. However, a comment followed:

“Either way, it’s obviously better to be growing. Obviously it’s better to be growing to some 60 people than to be at a stagnant 25.”

I think this person missed the main point. It’s not better to be growing it’s better to be changing. It doesn’t matter whether the chapter’s numbers are increasing or decreasing, so long as they are changing. This is an important distinction to make.

Change tells you something.

If you suddenly lose 10 people, this change tells you something. You can use this information to look at what’s being done and what might need to be done. Maybe you shouldn’t even do anything. It could be that this is a positive decrease as opposed to a negative one. I would say it’s better to have 10 dedicated members who really take something out of what’s being done than 50 who don’t (That in itself is worth more discussion. You can read about it a bit more over on Chris Houchen’s blog where he referenced Fast Company).

With that in mind, what can you do to ensure that a change is always happening, whether it be an increase or a decrease?