Slacker moves to a flat design

Slacker just made a major change to flat design (for the better!). Did they have a non-flat, skeumorphic look in the past? Well, it wasn't as bad as Apple's iPad newsstand or reel-to-reel podcast metaphor but they used plenty of gradients and even a speaker-grill texture (below) on both sides of the web app almost to suggest 'hey, this is a music app!'

Consumers don't need those cues designed to look like the real world anymore - they need a simple, clean design to communicate intended use of the product and that's where flat design comes in.

The new Slacker design achieves that - it's ditched the black and heavily-textured interface for a clean, white design with large, readable type and simple, pictogram-style iconography. Although, there are some drop shadows to give the UI depth, the overall look is well-organized and the flat design allows me to find things (like the Create Station and My Music features) quickly.

Not to mention the approach on the web is Mobile First providing only the most critical features on the surface. The user experience is tablet-friendly (large buttons and type which translate quickly to other resolutions) and simple. The mobile UI is so similar to the web that the experience across devices is not only visually cohesive but also leverages most of the ways you use the app on the web (similar controls, buttons, icons and type).

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Google Doodle tribute to Les Paul

In honor of (what would have been) Les Paul's 96th birthday, today's Google Doodle is an interactive, recordable, electric guitar. Paul, after whom the Gibson Les Paul guitar is named, was one of the first electric guitars and he designed one of the first solid body electric models. He is also one of the few artists with a stand-along exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame . The Google Doodle, found at google.com , is typically an illustration created for one day to (among other things) celebrate a holiday or the birthday of someone famous. You simply hover over the strings to strum and create a song. A record button lets you save your song and send it to someone and you can even play back your own song while playing over it (like the overdubbing Paul made famous in the '40s). Click on the Doodle? Well, that will show you search results for Les Paul. Several music fans have recorded their own songs today including this one - 'Hey Jude' by The Beatles. Easy to use

A site map for a music application

For the past several months, I've been working with the CHIRP Radio volunteer tech team to design a mobile solution that allows station DJs to plan out their weekly shows. At a high level, a DJ should be able to browse and select songs from a massive music library, and add them to one or more playlists, which can be used for their shows. The app also has functionality like the ability to read album reviews, view recent activity by DJs in the app, and review a DJ's profile. A site map is an important artifact when designing any application or website. It shows how the overall navigation should be structured, can be used with end users to validate the taxonomy, and is helpful for developers as a companion to wireframes or mockups. Below is a site map I recently created for the project. The highest level navigation options are lighter in color, while as the user navigates deeper, darker colors are used to represent those options. The coloring isn't necessarily a known

Setting a price alert on Stubhub

A few weeks ago, my wife and I really wanted to see Alvvays and Frankie Rose at Metro in Chicago. But the show sold out and I was left to look for tickets second-hand. I've used Stubhub before to purchase concert tickets but up until now, hadn't tried their Price Alert feature which lets you set a ticket price max and be notified when the price goes below it. The user experience from beginning to end was really good. The feature is easy to find and provides very mobile-friendly controls to create the alert. The Price Alert tab was prominent on the event details screen - very easy to find. Note: today (1/5/18), Stubhub has removed those tabs and you have to tap an Info button top right of the viewport to look for the same feature. It's a still a good UX once you get there but it's an additional step. The Price Alert feature is intuitive and uses tappable numbers to let me pick the quantity of tickets (not a clunky dropdown menu or less efficient plus/minus p

music UX