I wrote a post on my Sketch Hunt blog. It has a brief summary of 2016 milestones for Sketch and other related design tools. I also share some thoughts about what might come our way in 2017.
You can find it on Sketch Hunt, or see people’s comments and recommendations in the cross-posted version on Medium: “Looking ahead at Sketch and other design tools in 2017”.
As of mid-March 2016, I’ve joined the UX Strategy and Design firm founded by my long-time colleague Theresa Neil. Time has been flying by and the projects, team and clients are wonderful.
I plan to post more about the work we are doing. In the meantime, you can find me collaborating (virtually and IRL) with a team of about 20 other experienced design pros, working on projects that require:
Pingup recently shared some examples of how its appointments booking API could be used to power Conversational Commerce. Information was released at pingup.ai along with a new industry report: The Local Chatbot Disruption: The Upcoming Collision between Messaging and Local
Street Fight has published an article titled “Bot Local: Making Appointments Is Getting a Lot More Fun“, written by Rick Robinson. It covers Pingup’s solutions for powering conversational commerce. The piece includes an interview with Pingup CEO Mark Slater.
I’m excited to share that Pingup won the Local Search Association’s (LSA) highly competitive 2016 Ad-to-Action Award for Best Local Commerce Services.
Pingup has formally announced a deal with YP which expands Pingup’s publisher network and helps users that want to shorten the time between searching for a local business and making an appointment. YP will be the first local search publisher to offer Pingup’s real-time, in-context appointment scheduling capability across desktop, mobile and app.
Users of YP can now schedule appointments in real-time, with local businesses, using the “Book an Appointment” button found on business profiles and search results across YP’s website and native mobile apps.
For details, view the full press release – Pingup Expands Publisher Network with YP.
Casio Smart Outdoor Watch – WSD-F10. Source: casio.com
Companies, that are showing early success in wearables, address wear as a verb and make it the guiding principle of the holistic user experience for their products. This is why Apple Watch is getting critical feedback lately about needing to move Apple Watch marketing away from fitness and go all-in on the luxury, style and work/productivity markets. Read Cult of Mac’s article “Fitness apps are ruining the Apple Watch. Apple should scrap them.” for a thoughtful exploration of this argument.
Apple products don’t prioritize ‘wear’ as a verb, because Apple does not embrace a design philosophy that considers ‘wear and tear’. If they did, they’d design mobile and wearable products that survive real-world use vs. requiring a consumer to care for their devices as if they were a newborn baby. (more…)