Over the last few weeks, we’ve gathered together some great resources and information on constructing amazing user interfaces. Here, we’ll take a closer look at 10 beautiful interfaces — five for the web and five for mobile — that you can use as reference points in your own design.
If you have even a vague recollection of the era that these ads represent, it’s well worth clicking through these pages. Come for the 8x CD-ROM Drive for $149 and the 33,600 bps internal modem from $139, stay for the Apple inkjet printer for a staggering $379 and the Sega Genesis, which was apparently some ancient gaming device, for an equally staggering $122. All this and more, in the gallery below.
via Best Buy ad from 15 years ago reminds us how far we’ve come | DVICE.
In case your jaw has not been hitting the floor enough lately, here is an exquisite photograph of the Milky Way seemingly wedged into a mountainside of Nepal:
via The Milky Way from the top of the world | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine.
Users part of the initial roll out of the news feed redesign announced yesterday are also receiving several other unannounced changes to Facebook’s interface. These include an expansion of the character limit on posts from 500 to 5,000, a rollout of the floating navigation bar we saw tested last week, the ability to edit bookmarks in the home page’s left navigation bar, and a more convenient way to leave birthday greetings. Over the last few days Facebook has also buried the poke button within a drop down menu, and removed the ability to accompany a friend request with a message.
By launching these interface alterations now rather than amongst other sweeping updates at the f8 developer conference on Thursday, Facebook may be able to reduce the shock to users. The timing will also help the site keep attention focused on Platform-related updates that directly impact developers. Unfortunately, the combination of so many changes with the prompts necessary to explain them gives the home page a foreign look that may turn off some users.
Facebook has made two significant changes to how users interact with Pages. Now, users don’t need to have Liked a Page to be able to post on a Page’s wall or comment on its updates. This allows more users to join conversations, which could add more perspectives to discussions but also dilute them with unrelated comments, or drown them with complaints.
via Facebook Allows Users to Comment on Pages Without Liking Them, Adds Friend Activity Tab to Pages.
The company did some internal research and found that users, especially younger ones, were afraid to “Like” because of the implied endorsement. Less Liking, or sharing, means less interesting content on Facebook and fewer posts about what these users are doing.
Facebook’s bet is that more people will click a button that says they’ve “Listened” to a song or “Watched” a video, rather than simply liking it. That’s why Facebook will be rolling out “Watched,” “Listened” and “Read” buttons, as has been previously reported. But at Facebook’s f8 conference, the company will give developers the power to create their own actions.
Orabrush can thank a $28 Facebook ad buy for helping get its $5 tongue brushers into 3,500 Walmart stores. The retail partnership, announced today by Salt Lake City-based Orabrush, seemed in peril just a few months ago as the brand’s marketers felt the big box retailer was icing them.
“We were talking with Walmart, but then they kind of blacked out on us,” Jeffrey Harmon, Orabrush’s CMO, told ClickZ News. “They stopped returning our emails. For weeks and weeks, they weren’t responding. And we didn’t want the thing to go cold.”
That’s when Harmon bought ads on Facebook’s self-service platform targeting college graduates in Bentonville, AR, where Walmart is headquartered. The ad copy stated that Walmart employees had bad breath.
via How Orabrush’s $28 Facebook Ad Buy Won Over Walmart | ClickZ.
“Reseau Ferre de France” is a film promoting a railway infrastructure company of the same name (RFF). The movie displays tilt-shift technique and other visual effects. It was directed by Thierry Poiraud and cinematography by Patrick Messina.
If you are owner of one of these branded pages or if they fall in the area of your industry benchmark, take a look at this interesting distinction, which in easy numbers outlays the difference between these two social influencers.
via Do Top Facebook Brands Top Twitter as Well? – Socialbakers.
We always knew gamers had serious smarts, but now the rest of the world knows it, too. Gamers have been listed alongside scientists as responsible for cracking the code of how an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus is put together.
The accomplishment, chronicled in a recent issue of Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, is a puzzle that has stumped science for well over 10 years. The enzyme M-PMV, in the protease family, is key in the molecular structure of retroviruses that causes AIDS in simians and includes HIV. Understanding how a virus is put together is a major leap towards understanding how to construct drugs to combat disease.
via Scientists unravel AIDS virus mystery with unlikely ally: gamers | DVICE.