Great interface
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Different views of microblogging
http://whentwitterisdown.com/ - life without microblogging
http://dawdlr.tumblr.com/ - old school style
http://dawdlr.tumblr.com/ - old school style
Comparing BMF
This post was on the 'Welcome to Optimism' weblog from wieden + kennedy London.
How does BMF compare? Are we a Fallon perhaps?
How agencies position themselves
There was a piece in Monday's Independent about how agencies sell themselves to clients. It rounded up the slogans and claims of a few agencies and presented them without much in the way of comment. It's easy to poke fun at these things (I will try to resist the temptation) but interesting to see how a few of these statements of intent compare.
JWT
Slogan: 'Time is the new currency'
They say: "The power of brands can be measured in their ability to attract people's time. Time is what's most valuable to people all around the world, and the way they spend it is predictive of the way they spend their money. Our role is to ensure that more people spend more time with our clients' brands, in the knowledge that their money will follow."
Well, maybe. (Unless your service is partly about convenience, like say, Google or Amazon. In which case, you might want your customers to spend less time with your brand.)
DDB
Slogan: 'Co-creation'
They say: "Co-creativity is a process that puts consumers at the heart of the solution. It's agnostic about where the best idea comes from – online, branded content, advertising, an event – in fact, it is increasingly likely that it is through combining all of these and more that the most creative and influential ideas will be gained."
This feels like an observation rather than a brand positioning.
M&CSAATCHI
Slogan: 'Brutal simplicity of thought'
They say: "The slogan comes from the idea that it's easier to complicate than simplify. Simple messages enter the brain quicker and stay there longer, so brutal simplicity of thought is therefore a painful necessity."
Well, true to their beliefs, this is at least simple and easy to understand. All that pain and brutality sounds a bit nasty, though. I'm a bit scared of M&C Saatchi now. I worry that they're going to pin me down and forcibly penetrate me with their brutally blunt tools.
Saatchi &Saatchi
Slogan: 'Nothing is impossible'
They say: "From the outset the Saatchi brothers broke the rules, challenged industry norms and created work that was groundbreaking in every respect. Brands are faced with the danger of becoming commodities that lack differentiation, but we believe that bold and infectious creativity can drive loyalty beyond reason for brands."
Surprising to see that Saatchi & Saatchi still talk about the long-departed brothers. Living in the past? I thought S&S was all about Lovemarks these days but no mention of that from The Indie.
BBH
Slogan: 'When the world zigs, zag'
They say: "Our first ad was a poster for Levi's black denim: a flock of white sheep heading one way, with one black sheep going the other way. The message captures our approach to life."
TBWA\London
Slogan: 'The disruption agency'
They say: "All brands have ambitions to outpace the competition, but too many go through life copying their competitors. We aim to uncover the clichés, assumptions and conventional wisdom that hold a category back, then look for opportunities for brands to grow by disrupting those conventions."
Well, the two above are just exactly the same, differently expressed, aren't they?
Ogilvy Group UK
Slogan: 'To be most valued by those who most value brands'
They say: "The slogan was coined in 1993, but its roots go deeper, to David Ogilvy's belief in the power of brands, as long as they stay relevant and continually refresh their appeal. Our view is that branding is a genuinely useful concept that helps good companies defeat bad ones, so the clients we most want are those who share this belief. We don't apologise for this idealism, since the most successful brands tend to have longstanding ideals at their core, which can be dramatised in myriad ways over time."
This is a mission, not a slogan. Can't really focus on this one as I have a problem with the use of the word 'myriad' in any context other than fairy tales.
Wieden + Kennedy
Slogan: 'Creating strong, provocative relationships between good companies and their customers'
They say: "We believe that great brands lead from the front. They provoke, inspire and change the cultural landscape. The most successful brands have fans, not customers, and the relationship between a brand and its fans is based on dialogue, not monologue."
Arrant nonsense.
Euro RSCG London
Slogan: 'Contagious ideas'
They say: "We live in a world where consumers can more judiciously edit what they consume, [and can] mould and reconfigure ideas relatively easily and be far more expressive to their friends, family and colleagues about what they like and don't like. Contagious ideas live beyond the space in which they first appeared by creating word of mouth, word of keyboard or media interest."
Well, Euro's Woolite campaign could certainly be categorised as some species of virulent virus, so they're practicing what they preach.
Fallon
Slogan: none
They say: "We choose not to have a fixed positioning point. In an increasingly open media and creative environment, where more is possible every day, we feel that it doesn't make sense to pre-pack what we do. What we do, and how we do it, is fundamentally bespoke and about building the confidence to do something different."
A very cunning justification for having no positioning at all. And it seems to be working for them. Maybe this shows that agencies don't really need a coherent or differentiating proposition. All they need to be successful is some smart people, some great clients and a shed-load of brilliant work. Simple.
http://wklondon.typepad.com/welcome_to_optimism/2008/02/how-agencies-po.html
How does BMF compare? Are we a Fallon perhaps?
There was a piece in Monday's Independent about how agencies sell themselves to clients. It rounded up the slogans and claims of a few agencies and presented them without much in the way of comment. It's easy to poke fun at these things (I will try to resist the temptation) but interesting to see how a few of these statements of intent compare.
JWT
Slogan: 'Time is the new currency'
They say: "The power of brands can be measured in their ability to attract people's time. Time is what's most valuable to people all around the world, and the way they spend it is predictive of the way they spend their money. Our role is to ensure that more people spend more time with our clients' brands, in the knowledge that their money will follow."
Well, maybe. (Unless your service is partly about convenience, like say, Google or Amazon. In which case, you might want your customers to spend less time with your brand.)
DDB
Slogan: 'Co-creation'
They say: "Co-creativity is a process that puts consumers at the heart of the solution. It's agnostic about where the best idea comes from – online, branded content, advertising, an event – in fact, it is increasingly likely that it is through combining all of these and more that the most creative and influential ideas will be gained."
This feels like an observation rather than a brand positioning.
M&CSAATCHI
Slogan: 'Brutal simplicity of thought'
They say: "The slogan comes from the idea that it's easier to complicate than simplify. Simple messages enter the brain quicker and stay there longer, so brutal simplicity of thought is therefore a painful necessity."
Well, true to their beliefs, this is at least simple and easy to understand. All that pain and brutality sounds a bit nasty, though. I'm a bit scared of M&C Saatchi now. I worry that they're going to pin me down and forcibly penetrate me with their brutally blunt tools.
Saatchi &Saatchi
Slogan: 'Nothing is impossible'
They say: "From the outset the Saatchi brothers broke the rules, challenged industry norms and created work that was groundbreaking in every respect. Brands are faced with the danger of becoming commodities that lack differentiation, but we believe that bold and infectious creativity can drive loyalty beyond reason for brands."
Surprising to see that Saatchi & Saatchi still talk about the long-departed brothers. Living in the past? I thought S&S was all about Lovemarks these days but no mention of that from The Indie.
BBH
Slogan: 'When the world zigs, zag'
They say: "Our first ad was a poster for Levi's black denim: a flock of white sheep heading one way, with one black sheep going the other way. The message captures our approach to life."
TBWA\London
Slogan: 'The disruption agency'
They say: "All brands have ambitions to outpace the competition, but too many go through life copying their competitors. We aim to uncover the clichés, assumptions and conventional wisdom that hold a category back, then look for opportunities for brands to grow by disrupting those conventions."
Well, the two above are just exactly the same, differently expressed, aren't they?
Ogilvy Group UK
Slogan: 'To be most valued by those who most value brands'
They say: "The slogan was coined in 1993, but its roots go deeper, to David Ogilvy's belief in the power of brands, as long as they stay relevant and continually refresh their appeal. Our view is that branding is a genuinely useful concept that helps good companies defeat bad ones, so the clients we most want are those who share this belief. We don't apologise for this idealism, since the most successful brands tend to have longstanding ideals at their core, which can be dramatised in myriad ways over time."
This is a mission, not a slogan. Can't really focus on this one as I have a problem with the use of the word 'myriad' in any context other than fairy tales.
Wieden + Kennedy
Slogan: 'Creating strong, provocative relationships between good companies and their customers'
They say: "We believe that great brands lead from the front. They provoke, inspire and change the cultural landscape. The most successful brands have fans, not customers, and the relationship between a brand and its fans is based on dialogue, not monologue."
Arrant nonsense.
Euro RSCG London
Slogan: 'Contagious ideas'
They say: "We live in a world where consumers can more judiciously edit what they consume, [and can] mould and reconfigure ideas relatively easily and be far more expressive to their friends, family and colleagues about what they like and don't like. Contagious ideas live beyond the space in which they first appeared by creating word of mouth, word of keyboard or media interest."
Well, Euro's Woolite campaign could certainly be categorised as some species of virulent virus, so they're practicing what they preach.
Fallon
Slogan: none
They say: "We choose not to have a fixed positioning point. In an increasingly open media and creative environment, where more is possible every day, we feel that it doesn't make sense to pre-pack what we do. What we do, and how we do it, is fundamentally bespoke and about building the confidence to do something different."
A very cunning justification for having no positioning at all. And it seems to be working for them. Maybe this shows that agencies don't really need a coherent or differentiating proposition. All they need to be successful is some smart people, some great clients and a shed-load of brilliant work. Simple.
http://wklondon.typepad.com/welcome_to_optimism/2008/02/how-agencies-po.html
In car advertising?
Thanks to AdAge for this post.
Steve Rubel on Digital Communications
By Steve Rubel
Published: June 02, 2008
If you think there's already enough to distract you in your life, just wait. With Americans spending 100 hours a year commuting, according to the Census Bureau, the internet is coming to your car in a big way -- and not just to the front seat either.
Dashboard navigation systems provide a natural entry point. Year-over-year unit sales of GPS devices grew nearly 500% during the 2007 holiday season, according to NPD.
Several GPS manufacturers such as Tele Atlas, which supplies systems to the automakers, already display the logos of nearby fast-food restaurants' gas stations. However, the screens are quickly getting more useful -- or cluttered, depending on your point of view. Navigon's high-end model, for example, features helpful restaurant reviews and ratings from Zagat.
Soon, devices that can both send and receive data will hit the market. Dash, for example, is integrating Web 2.0 crowdsourcing into its systems, allowing cars to send information back to the company to improve traffic calculations. As mobile broadband becomes more ubiquitous, it's conceivable that these devices will soon talk to your cellphone via Bluetooth and, thus, talk to social networks as well.
With send/receive capabilities and overall bandwidth improving, local contextual advertising, perhaps rich-media-based, is just around the corner. Google already allows users in Europe to send directions from the web to maps on connected dashboards. Microsoft is working in a system through its Sync technology to provide ad-supported, location-based information for which users would normally pay. (Disclosure: Microsoft and Zagat are clients of Edelman, my employer.)
The back seat offers perhaps more immediate promise for TV advertisers in search of new venues. In March Sirius and Chrysler launched an in-car video network called Backseat TV. The subscription service carries kids programming from Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel and Cartoon Network. Kids weaned on the service will surely demand more as the technology gets more sophisticated, perhaps to the chagrin of parents.
And therein lies the rub: Marketers will need to strike a careful balance to protect privacy and to not push into a space that many consider sacrosanct. However, given the size and captive nature of the in-car audience, the digital-advertising potential is becoming very clear.
http://adage.com/article?article_id=127433
Understanding teenagers in the digital space
This posts aims to investigate who teenagers are, how they use the Internet, and how we should be targeting them.
[Thanks to Sramana Mitra for this post]Teenagers are trendsetters and are early adopters and they total 33 million in the U.S. They are also aspirational in nature. They prefer to stay ahead of the pack. Research shows that 67% of the teenagers in the U.S. own a mobile phone and 45% of them have iPods. 32% of the teenagers play computer or video games frequently. According to CBSNews.com poll, teenagers on average spend 2.9 hours surfing the Internet daily and are among the most avid users of the Internet.
87% of the teenagers log on to the Internet from their home whereas around 75% of the teens log on from school or a friend’s house. The Internet is a vital part of the teenagers’ education process and 90% of the teens in the U.S. use the Internet to research school assignments. 88% of the teenagers’ use the Internet for email, 82% Instant Messaging, 68% social networking and 60% download music. Compared to 16% of adults, 28% of the teenagers have blogs and it is an important medium for them to share personal news and commentary.
According to reports published by USA Today an estimated 65% of undergraduates in US colleges are members of TheFacebook.com and an approximate 900,000 high school students hold accounts with either MySpace.com or Xanga.com. Teenagers dislike intrusive advertising but don’t mind brand messages and product placements, if they are informative or are subtle, especially, humorous.
Teen Favorites
According to Teenage Research Unlimited (TRU) 34% of the teenagers aged 12 to 19, ranked MySpace.com as their favorite website. Yahoo.com was second with 19% votes and Google.com claimed the third spot with 14% votes. They use Google.com and Yahoo.com to either check mail or search material for their assignments or stuff that they would like to buy or are curious about.
Social Networking is very popular among the teenagers and most of them spend on an average one hour daily to either post or read postings. MySpace.com, TheFacebook.com, Xanga.com and Tagged.com are the most popular social networking websites among the teenagers. Video and photo-sharing websites like YouTube.com and Flickr.com are fast catching on with the teens, who are creating profiles and sharing their videos and photo collections. iTunes is another favorite of the teens. Sports sites like ESPN.com are popular among the male teens.
Visit Alexa for the top 9 websites visited by teenagers.
Why Teenagers?
Teenagers are not into online shopping as only 6% shops online. However, they do spend a lot of time researching products online, which they intend to buy. Teenagers directly and indirectly control billions of dollars in purchasing power and according to TRU, teenagers helped spend around $159 billion in 2005 and this amount is expected to grow by 5% CAGR in the next 5 years. Since teens spend a lot of time online, marketers want to use the Internet to grab the eyeballs, create brand awareness and build brand loyalty among the teenagers who influence family purchase decisions.
Such has been the popularity of the Internet media that Teen People a popular teenage magazine has withdrawn its print edition and decided to concentrate on its website ONLY. According to TNS Media Intelligence advertisement revenues for TeenPeople.com has grown six folds from 2004 to 2005 indicating a strategic shift in advertising and elevating the Internet as the most preferred medium. Elle Girl also withdrew its print edition and is currently available only on the Net.
Teenagers today spend more time (average 2.9 hours) on the Internet than they spend reading newspaper or magazines. Online newspapers and magazines along with blogs are more interesting and spontaneous for these next generation kids as it provides them with an interactive platform to share views across the globe. eMarketer forecasts ad spending on social networking to reach $2 billion by 2010 and projects video ad spending to rise 82.2% in 2006 and 89.0% in 2007.
Prospective employers, college admissions offices, and marketers are logging on to social networking websites like MySpace.com to gather information about the teenagers and to fine tune their product and service offerings according to the teenagers’ preferences. These websites give a very good idea of what’s their on the teenagers’ mind. As teenagers discuss among themselves, marketers can find out, which sports, food, apparel, gadgets, cars are on the top of their mind.
Business Model
A large portion of the advertising dollars are shifting from traditional mediums like print and television to the digital media. Video game companies have radically shifted their marketing dollars to the web, and in fact, they are themselves becoming good places to advertise, as inline advertise in computer games become popular.
According to Fuse a youth-marketing agency, online advertising is much cheaper than other forms of advertising and could be done with a budget of $2,000 to $3,000. According to experts online advertising provides more bang for every dollar spend than print or television.
Advertisement revenues are the main source of revenues for these websites. The advertising rates for Yahoo start with low minimum monthly subscriptions ranging from $10 to $50. The average cost per click for teenage category is $0.12 while the overall cost per click is $0.07, which implies the cost-effective pricing for advertising space targeted at teenagers. Advertising can be placed on most websites with a budget of $3000. Attractive discounts are offered to advertisers with budgets over $10,000.
Social networking has experienced phenomenal growth in the past year and marketers are more than willing to associate with them as they see it as a wonderful opportunity to reach out to their target customer. U.S. ad spend on social networking is expected to be $865 million in 2007 and MySpace.com will account for $525 million or 60% of the total ad spend in 2007.
Though social networking on the Internet is a huge success, most of the websites are burning cash today and it will take a while before they generate profits. ClassMates.com a social networking website, which attracts around 125,000 visits daily and has over 3.5 million registered members from 30,000 High Schools, is a profitable venture.
Venture Capital, M&A and PE Activity
With the strong growth in revenues and profits of new age media companies like Google and Yahoo and the soaring popularity of Internet businesses like MySpace.com and YouTube.com, Venture Capital and Private Equity Firms are back scouting and investing in similar Internet businesses, especially those targeted at the youth. The social networking space targeted is experiencing a lot of investment from venture capitalists. VC’s expect Internet to be their preferred medium of communication. Teenage social networking is a niche segment that has exhibited significant growth in the past two years.
Below are details of some VC fundings of websites that are targeted at teenagers:
[Note: Friendster number is the recapitalized number.]
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation bought MySpace.com in mid 2005 for $580 million and today it is the fastest growing social network with over 140 million users. Google bought out YouTube.com in October 2006 for $1.65 billion. United Online acquired Classmates.com for $131.4 million in November 2004.
Competitive Market but Opportunity in Niche
Major media companies like Google, Yahoo, Viacom, News Corp. and AOL are all trying to woo the teenagers. Everyone wants a piece of the pie and so the Internet is full of clones of social networking, video and photo-sharing sites and with start-up costs low and VCs more than willing to fund new ventures in this space, it has resulted in over-crowding of the space. 2007 is expected to witness fierce competition in the social media space, and a lot of carcasses. Behavioral science shows that teenagers are fickle-minded and tend to change their tastes frequently. It is tough to hold on to their interest levels.
There is opportunity in niche websites targeted at teenagers as they spend a lot of time surfing the net. Research by Youth Trends show that young teens prefer visiting sites dedicated to them. If they are provided with quality, dynamic content, user friendly interface, with a chance to interact and play among themselves, it will appeal to them. Flip.com, a niche site for teenage girls by Publisher Conde Nast is slated to be launched in 2007, plans to do just that. Social networks still do not have adequate ROI metrics and this could be an opportunity for new generation networks to attract advertising dollars by leveraging the strength of their parent companies. In this case, CondeNast owns the popular fashion magazine Vogue, which might be able to direct both important celebrities, content and key advertisers their way.
Conclusion
Teenagers are being chased by the entrepreneurs, media companies and advertising dollars. iPod and iTunes became a massive hit by using the teenager segment as their penetration point. It remains to be seen who else does a comparably good job in leveraging this segment’s tremendous online presence and early-adoption capabilities. Obvious players in the Education industry are dogs, and sadly, they have not at all woken up to social networking’s significant potential in educating teenagers.
http://sramanamitra.com/articles/segments-and-lifestyles/teenagers/
When youth Twitter, they Plurk
When teens Twitter they do it on Plurk - a new site that rewards your increasing sociability with Karma credits and emoticons to visualise your feelings. I've joined, and its addictive. I can definitely see how teens would fall for this Facebook style microblog... but i wonder if it would really ever replace/match the status in Facebook? Thanks to FutureLab for this post.
Plurk, Twitter for Teens?
by: Karl Long
Just heard of this new service called Plurk which is a similar “microblogging” service rather like Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku etc. According to Venture Beat it launched in January this year and seems to be targeting a more teenage demographic.
bub.blicio.us asks the question “is Plurk another Twitter?” and in many ways it is, it’s a lifestreaming/microblogging platform with friends and fans etc. The one major difference that I see in Plurk is it’s “Karma” measure, and that is one of the only reasons why I think it will be interesting to watch what happens. Karma is essentially a measure of your level of participation in the Plurk system, and it’s the kind of explicit feedback that I think can fuel the growth of social systems. One of the reasons that Yelp is so successful is it has multiple feedback mechanisms that reward and recognize the right activity in the social network, and therefore encourages more of that activity. If you reward the right “value creating” activities on your social network you set up very powerful virtuous cycles.
Mind you, as bub.blicio.us also pointed out there is no apparent business model or revenue model, agreed, but what else is new.
Original Post: http://experiencecurve.com/archives/plurk-twitter-for-teens
Original Post: http://experiencecurve.com/archives/plurk-twitter-for-teens
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
The coolest thing ever - a visual diary of communication
This blog brings to attention a website showcasing a collection of images created by people using 'TODAY' - an awesome new mobile phone application detailed on their site and posted below.
Thanks to http://today.cada1.net/main.php/about for this post.
TODAY is a piece of generative design for mobile phones.
TODAY is a piece of generative design for mobile phones.
It’s an application that visualizes personal mobile communication. It sits on the periphery of the machine, monitoring our connectivity through the number and type of calls we receive, subtly displaying them back to us, in the form of a generative graphic. Here, the visual result is a figurative and seemingly abstract picture – the story of your day. Some days will be really colourful and wired, others quieter and more reflective, either way the resulting visuals will always be personal, unrepeatable and unique.
What lies at TODAY’s core was the idea of using personal data as the basis for an aesthetic system, while providing individuals with a visual diary of their communication patterns.
It’s an intimate piece that ‘lives’ in your pocket.
It's freely distributed for Symbian phones.
Credits:
A Project by CADA
Idea and Design: Sofia Oliveira/Jared Hawkey
Symbian Programming: Heitor Ferreira
Site Developer: Damian Stewart
Each event (call or message) has a graphic symbol that appears on the screen immediately after it's happened. The position of the symbols follows a chronological spiral structure, where the last event is displayed at the center of the spiral . This means that everytime there is a new event, all the graphic symbols move one position, the result being an ever changing and evolving image .
Based on your phone usage, the program generates a graphic of your communication, whereby each phone number used during the course of the cycle, is given a colour and each communication with that colour is measured in time and intensity. Here, intensity is given visual weight through the speed by which you attend the call: an urgent call being literally more colour saturated than an untimely unknown number.
TODAY is a reflection of the user's communication activity and it's output has been designed to be as clear as possible to the user, while providing an aesthetic experience. Visual criteria were simplified to ensure perceptual proximity to the data being visualized, and given that the app lives on such a personal piece of hardware, reading data that's so intimate, making it highly user-friendly was a point of principle.
The Visual System
Each event (call or message) is represented by a coloured graphical symbol that appears on the screen as soon as it's happened.
Each new contact (phone number) in a cycle is assigned a colour throughout the cycle, i.e., if my girlfriend on day X is red, all the contacts with her on that day will be red.
At the start of a new cycle, the first contact is given the colour that follows the last colour used in the previous cycle. Rotating the pallet, in this way, helps to ensure the results are more diverse.
The colours on the below table are examples of the application's 72 colour pallet.
Each colour's alpha (transparency or degree of colour saturation) mirrors the level of a call's intensity - measured by how long one takes to attend a call - in three states: 100%, 75%, 25% .
The size of the call symbol (full circles - incoming calls, or open circles - outgoing calls) expresses the duration of the call in an incremental manner: a long call is a larger circle, a short call a smaller one. To prevent a long argument covering up your so far beautiful graphic, the maximum circle size was restricted to 60% of the screen.
Variables and Visual System
Example 1: Progression of a cycle in three stages.
http://today.cada1.net/main.php
What lies at TODAY’s core was the idea of using personal data as the basis for an aesthetic system, while providing individuals with a visual diary of their communication patterns.
It’s an intimate piece that ‘lives’ in your pocket.
It's freely distributed for Symbian phones.
Credits:
A Project by CADA
Idea and Design: Sofia Oliveira/Jared Hawkey
Symbian Programming: Heitor Ferreira
Site Developer: Damian Stewart
How it works
TODAY processes the communication activity on Symbian based mobile phones. It runs on the background monitoring incoming and outgoing calls and messages (sms and mms) and stores, over a 24-hour or weekly cycle, the data gathered in real-time, such as how long the user took to answer a call, the called/calling party and duration.
TODAY processes the communication activity on Symbian based mobile phones. It runs on the background monitoring incoming and outgoing calls and messages (sms and mms) and stores, over a 24-hour or weekly cycle, the data gathered in real-time, such as how long the user took to answer a call, the called/calling party and duration.
Each event (call or message) has a graphic symbol that appears on the screen immediately after it's happened. The position of the symbols follows a chronological spiral structure, where the last event is displayed at the center of the spiral . This means that everytime there is a new event, all the graphic symbols move one position, the result being an ever changing and evolving image .
Based on your phone usage, the program generates a graphic of your communication, whereby each phone number used during the course of the cycle, is given a colour and each communication with that colour is measured in time and intensity. Here, intensity is given visual weight through the speed by which you attend the call: an urgent call being literally more colour saturated than an untimely unknown number.
TODAY is a reflection of the user's communication activity and it's output has been designed to be as clear as possible to the user, while providing an aesthetic experience. Visual criteria were simplified to ensure perceptual proximity to the data being visualized, and given that the app lives on such a personal piece of hardware, reading data that's so intimate, making it highly user-friendly was a point of principle.
The Visual System
Each event (call or message) is represented by a coloured graphical symbol that appears on the screen as soon as it's happened.
Each new contact (phone number) in a cycle is assigned a colour throughout the cycle, i.e., if my girlfriend on day X is red, all the contacts with her on that day will be red.
At the start of a new cycle, the first contact is given the colour that follows the last colour used in the previous cycle. Rotating the pallet, in this way, helps to ensure the results are more diverse.
The colours on the below table are examples of the application's 72 colour pallet.
Each colour's alpha (transparency or degree of colour saturation) mirrors the level of a call's intensity - measured by how long one takes to attend a call - in three states: 100%, 75%, 25% .
The size of the call symbol (full circles - incoming calls, or open circles - outgoing calls) expresses the duration of the call in an incremental manner: a long call is a larger circle, a short call a smaller one. To prevent a long argument covering up your so far beautiful graphic, the maximum circle size was restricted to 60% of the screen.
Variables and Visual System
Example 1: Progression of a cycle in three stages.
http://today.cada1.net/main.php
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