Please leave our website now…

So, I was looking to buy tickets for the Blueman Group show in NYC. I rushed to ticketmaster.com and performed 2 searches to find out the best date for me. Trying to perform a 3rd search I get this page:

I thought I was hallucinating. This is definitly one of the worst messages I have ever seen on a commercial website. Not to mention the poor usability of the site which makes everything so complicated, irritating, slow.

On the other hand, it is a sweet reminder that there is so much work left to do in our field.
By the way – blueman is a MUST!! So, if you are around NYC…

Sight, Sound and Motion

“Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it.“ [Vincent Van Gogh, 1889]

You don’t have to cut yourself an ear to realize that!

The question is:
How to touch users’ emotions in order to create an engaging and compelling user experience on the web?

Using the power of richness to enhance simplicity

The new framework versions by Laszlo Systems (Open Laszlo 3.2) and Adobe (Flex 2) will facilitate the ability to develop Rich Internet Applications.
We are than, about to experience an even larger amount of Flash and Ajax over web sites/applications. One great example of the use of the Open Laszlo framework is done by Pandora.com, the excellent music “machine” that plays music of your taste.
But, “With great power comes great responsibility…” (Uncle Ben to Peter Parker in Spider-Man) Excessive use of such techniques, can result in complicated user-experiences, causing user frustration.
An interesting thing to note is that the Web2.0 wave took a great stand concerning User-Interfaces and experiences, taking it to extreme simplicity (Flickr, Basecamp, consumating and more…).
I say we should handle those abilities with care. I encourage you to learn those frameworks, but use their abilities in a balanced and smart manner, keeping the experiences simple, using those abilities to enrich it and engage the user, and not to frustrate her.
One example: The Organizr by Flickr (in the image above) is a rich Flash app that simplifies the task of arranging your photos and sets. It is a great example of using the power of richness to enhance simplicity.