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This blog is dedicated to product design issues.

I hope this online collection of notes would prove valuable not only to me but to all students and colleagues looking to develop innovating and interesting products. This site focuses on product design, conceptual design, interaction design, interface design, and failure analysis.

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Posts Tagged ‘ impulse buys ’

Lost in Translation: Cultural Differences in Advertising

July 30, 2011

“Lost in Translation” was a wonderful movie by Sofia Coppola, starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. It depicted the delicious confusion of Western tourists in total Japanese cultural emersion. In particular, the scenes where Bill Murray shoots a liquor commercial for the Japanese market are simply priceless. In retrospect, I see where Ms. Coppola...
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Thinking About Value

February 10, 2011
Thinking About Value

Which car do you find more pleasing? Which car would evoke a feeling of envy? Would you shake your head or starting thinking of how you can improve on the looks of your car? Which car’s origin would you place in the South Asia? Which in South America? Which owner cares about the aerodynamic...
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Branding & Emotional Design: The Culture of Sneakers

November 1, 2010
Branding & Emotional Design: The Culture of Sneakers

How do we spend our money? Well, the first cut goes to survival: essential goods and services that are absolutely necessary to our survival. Food, housing, medical care are all part of the basic necessities of life. Some, of course, are more necessary than others (we might postpone going to a dentist…but not for...
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Using Menu Psychology to Entice Diners

October 15, 2010

Kershaw, S., (2009). “Using Menu Psychology to Entice Diners.” New York Times Online. Visited on October 02, 2010: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/dining/23menus.html. This article discusses how an understanding of human psychology is being applied to sculpt a restaurant menu into a lucrative tool for the restaurateur. Restaurateurs play down the importance of the cost figure by eliminating...
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Miles of Aisles for a Gallon of Milk?

April 24, 2010

Article: Carless, W. (2008) “Miles of Aisles for a Gallon of Milk?” The New York Times. Visited on 10 September 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/business/10grocery.html Conceptual Design: In a world of giant grocery stores where consumers have to make mentally-taxing decisions on every product they consider purchasing, create a grocery store that caters to grab-and-go shopping patterns for...
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Pipsqueak Articles

Designing for the Blind

Not much to add here — how many other cool video games are there for visually disabled? Using tactile clues instead of visual signals...
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Special Preview: Philosophy of Interaction and User Experience

A person uses a piece of software, a Web site, or any other product — “virtual” or “real” — to achieve a goal. The...
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End-User Development (EUD) Educational Preview

This is an interesting collection of videos and background materials on End-User Development — situations when end users design and develop software for their...
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Thinking about the Science of Communication and Interaction

Alien Senses

In the Galaxy Far Far Away… What if sentient being evolved on a planet with permanent cloud cover? What if these being never saw...
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Using Positive Emotion to Change Behavior

Games can be used to change our behavior — make something fun, and we are likely to do it again and again. Psychologists call...
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Special Preview: Social Media by Thomas Erickson

Interfaces.com was given a free advanced preview of Thomas Erickson’s report and videos on social computing. The videos are very well produced and provide...
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Failure to Communicate

Failure to Communicate

Sometimes failure to communicate happens at the end of the product distribution line. Below are some examples of what happens when sales people don’t...
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Design Variables