Safari launching on an iPhone (it took many tries to get this screenshot right!)

More and more gadgets use fancy animated graphics. From your cellphone to your high-end Linux box running Compiz Fusion, they’re all looking better than ever. But animation is more than looks. And today I’m going to cover many of the benefits of animations in software, from multiple angles.

Animations are exciting

Animations makes people go “Ooh” and “Aah”. This makes people happy, and they’ll be more likely to like the software. Even Vista with all its problems was famous for its Aero flip 3D. Bringing animations to your software also makes it seem more professional and complete. Static software is boring, animations are not. Too much is not good either, so finding a place in the middle is important.

Using animation to hide slowness

Everybody hates slow software. Animation is a great way to hide this. Of course, the best solution is to make software faster. But when this is not possible because of limitations in hardware, animations can be a great solution.

A very good example of this is launching apps on an iPhone. You zoom from the springboard (desktop) to the app. It may only take milliseconds, but it gives the app some extra time to start that doesn’t annoy you. Many apps are ready to use when the animation is done, making the launch seem instantaneous instead of having a tiny delay. This gives a great user experience, and is one of the “secrets” to why people love the iPhone.

Using animation to give feedback

Animations is a great way to give users feedback on their actions. When you click something, you expect something to happen. A good example is the jumping dock icon on Macs when you launch a program. Another one is minimizing windows on almost any operating system.

On Windows 7, you get outlines when dragging windows to the edge of the screen, highlighting that you are about to invoke the Snap feature.

Using animation to show relations

Animation is a great way to show how things are connected. A perfect example is switching screens in a table-based iPhone app. When you press an item in a table, the table slides off to the left and a detailed view comes in from the right. When you go back, the opposite happens. This gives the user a sense of relations between objects on and of the screen. The app seems more logical and self explanatory.

This works so well because we humans are wired to see relations between objects. This is also the reason why interfaces inspired by real world examples often work well (provided they are well executed).

How to implement the correct animations in your software

Knowing that animations can be used for many things is good and well, but how do you use them the right way? The easiest way to know if animating something is the right thing to do, ask yourself these questions:

1. Are you sure it won’t impact performance too much?
2. Will it help users understand what happened?
3. Will it make the software look better?
4. Will it make the software seem faster?
5. Are users going to be excited by it?
6. Is it fast to implement?

If the answer to at least three of these questions are yes, you should really consider implementing animations.

Finding the right animation for the task is even harder, but this is so different from case to case that I won’t recommend anything specific. A great general tip is to look at software you love to use and learn from it.

Often used animations most people undestand are zooming, bouncing and sliding. Be careful not to let the animations become the main focus. They should generally last for under 1 second and be gone. A bouncing icon that repeats over and over until you click is not a good user experience.

Debate, test and ask

Are you unsure about animations in your software? Do you want to learn more? Debate with friends, test software yourself and ask people what they think. Hit me up at twitter if you have any specific questions, or leave a comment below.

Good example of homemade fries. Not mine, they're always eaten before I can get the camera out.

Oh yes. Perfect homemade french fries. No, you don’t need fancy equipment or a lot of time. You just need some guidance. And I’m here to give it to you.

What you need:

• Saucepan
• Knife
• Potatoes
• Sunflower oil

Steps

1. Fill the saucepan 2/3 with water and heat to the boil while you:
   1. Peel the potatoes.
   2. Cut them into french fries size.
2. Boil the fries for 10 minutes. Should be almost eating ready in consistency. When done, let them dry on some paper.
3. Pour out all the water of the saucepan and make sure it is 100% dry.
4. Fill the saucepan with 1/2 with sunflower oil.
5. Put the saucepan back on the heat. Keep a lid close in case of fire. Don’t use full heat, but above medium.
   1. Put in one potato slice as your control.
   2. If you have a thermometer that can take the heat and oil, make sure you stay around 180 degrees centigrade.
6. When the control slice is golden, take it out and carefully put in the rest of your fries.
7. Use tongs to lift out fries when they’re done. Or use a slotted spoon if you have one. Let them dry on some paper.

Tips:

• If you’re making a lot, finished fries can be kept at 200 degrees centigrade in your owen while you make the rest.
• Season with french fries spice mix or salt before serving. Serve with ketchup. Perfect with all kinds of meat or fish.
• Don’t settle for the tiny size of McDonald’s fries. Double that is a good start.
• Experiment with different sizes and forms. Creative fries are well received at parties.
• You can reuse the sunflower oil. Just let it cool down and pour it into an empty bottle. Be sure to filter out any leftovers of the fries.

Enjoy!

Different peppers

Wondering what to get when buying spices? Here is a short list of spices and uses. I’ve got way more spices than this (over twice as much), but I consider these the essentials.

Essentials:

• Black pepper: use for almost anything, especially meat. Use as much as you feel like
• Salt: use for almost anything, use just enough to get the flavor you want (as little as possible)
• Red pepper powder: Perfect for rice, home made spice mixes, chicken and more
• Thyme: Great for pork, chicken and lamb. I use this many times every week.
• Oregano: The pizza spice! Perfect for italian food. Smell it and you should recognize it’s uses.
• Basil: Use in pizza and pasta sauces, pesto and more. Strong flavor, use with caution.
• Cardamom: Used in all sorts of baked goods, like wafles, muffins, buns and cinnamon rolls.
• Cinnamon: Many uses, but I use mainly for baking and rice porridge topping. See cinnamon rolls.
• Curry: The rice and chicken spice. Indian food.

Less used but great to have:

• Ginger powder: Used in much eastern food
• Cumin: The secret behind kebab meat. Together with ginger powder, red pepper powder and garlic this will rock you.
• Rosemary: Lamb, chicken and pork. I often use this one together with thyme

You should also have these spices in fresh or processed form:

Garlic

• Chili (use mild chili if you aren’t too fond of spicy stuff): gives your dish that extra “oomph”. Mexican food essential.
• Garlic: Really really healthy and tasty. Makes any meat stand out, use with rice and in stews and more. Essential in italian food.
• Onion: Used in almost all italian dishes, many more. Don’t be afraid to use a lot.
• Lemon: Gives you that fresh, bitter taste. Use with fish and pork on the grill. Perfect for drinks too.

Inspirational spice examples:

Beef

Spice richly with salt and pepper, rub a garlic clove over (it doesn’t seem to do much, but it really makes a difference). Rub the spices in together with olive oil before frying on high heat.

Lamb dish

Salmon

Mix 1/3 lemon juice and 2/3 olive oil. Add salt and pepper, coat with the mix. Let it sit for as long as possible up to 24 hours in your fridge before grilling or frying. A touch of soy sauce and chili doesn’t hurt, either.

Chicken

Salt, pepper, curry and red pepper powder. The same spices can also be used in a sauce based on chicken stock and cream.

Lamb meat

Salt, pepper, rosemary and thyme.

Check out thomassnielsen.com/food for more inspiration.

Be positive for your own enjoyment

If you manage to look positively at everything, it will bring happiness to you. You will generally have a better quality life if you manage to focus on the positive things in life.

How to change into a positive person

If you aren’t positive by nature (and most aren’t), this can be changed. It might not be easy, but it is worth it. My main suggestion is to try to look at everything as a challenge rather than a problem. This is the first big step in the right direction.

Don’t think “Oh no, I just got another task to finish before I go home today”. Rather, try to think of it this way: “How can I best finish this task in a good/creative and fast way?”. Don’t worry som much about the time and getting home fast, just think of it as another challenge! Making problems into challenges can even make boring tasks fun.

Positive = creative

If you manage to make this change, you will also find that you tend to come up with better and more creative solutions to challenges. Your brain will start to work better than before, and you will feel more awake and alive. Note: If your work is inherently non-creative (like assembly line work), this will be much harder.

If that is the case, I suggest looking for another job that you think will make you more happy. While you do, try to make these changes at home instead. Put on some music and make cooking fun. It is easy! Check out some of my recipes or watch shows such as Food Mob for inspiration. Listen to podcasts or music while cleaning. Make your life more fun, become more positive!

Positive as a job trait

In fact, if you work in marketing or sales, positivity is almost a required part of your job. So if you manage to be a positive person, your job will come more naturally and you will do much better. A positive and creative sales person is able to see the case from the customers perspective and help them find a solution. A marketing person should be able to transmit solutions to potential customers, not just product info. This can be a whole new post, so I’ll leave it at that.

Positivity is positive for everyone, not just you

When you are thinking positively about everything, it benefits both you and you peers. You’ll be the guy/gal that always brighten up the mood, and people love those people. You will even find that you succeed more at work, and you will even do better in job interviews.

Being positive is generally considered a good thing, and many businesses know that positive people tend to work more effectively also, as I talked about above.

Become the popular guy

If you manage to pull this off you will find yourself to be the go to guy/gal much more often than before. you will have an easier time getting friends too. If you think about it, wasn’t the popular kids at school always having fun? You should too.

My story

I figured it might be good to do a first hand example. I was pretty negative at my work the last half year of my last job. I didn’t get particularly well along with my boss, and my tasks were repetitive and boring. On my current job, I make much more decisions and I manage my own time and tasks.

The tasks in themselves aren’t always that much different, but the option to choose when and how to tackle them have been the big change for me. Together with getting things sorted out in my personal life, this has change me as a person and my life.

Learn from my mistakes, don’t replicate them

That said, I’m not perfect myself. I love to bitch about the local bus company, for example, since they are always late. I find this easy to do since I can’t change them. Ideally I wouldn’t do this, but it is better to do some semi-ironic bitching than really hating something, and it is much better to dislike the bus company than your job.

Where to go for more

Now this is only a short summary of ideas. I hope this was helpful, and I hope you gained some new ideas and insights. There are written many books about this subject, maybe you should check some of them out if you find it difficult to get started making changes. I wish you good luck, and one more advise: Believe you can succeed. You will.

As of this writing, Old Spice Guy is an Internet phenomenon. Old Spice have succeeded in creating a viral marketing campaign which is immensely successful.

This isn’t just luck. What can we take away from this campaign?

The Old Spice Guy marketing campaign succeeds because of these factors: They use humor. They play on looks (that guy is handsome, everybody can agree on that). And they respond directly to users.

The last part is what took this campaign from a hit to a viral phenomenon. Even with the limited resources of one actor, they made a whole community feel connected to him because they responded to many random users and a few key people like Kevin Rose.

When people feel involved, they listen and care. Care back, and you’ve got a lasting relationship.

They also (as I predicted) unleashed the beast of Jobs With Numbers™, showing how small this issue really was. 0,5% of users have even called Apple about the issue, and only 1,7% have returned their phone (compared to 6% on 3GS, which is also quite low if we are to believe Apple).

Me, I believed all along that this issue was overblown. I am going to get an iPhone 4, now happily with a free case. I use a case for my 3GS at work already, to stop myself from destroying it when I accidentally bump into stuff or scratching it when I get the phone up from my pocket past my keys hanging in the belt, ready to scratch anything in their path.

They also announced release dates for many more countries, including Norway, to be 30. July.

Well, today Apple will hold a special event, most likely to address this issue. I write “most likely” because they haven’t explicitly said so, just that the event will cover iPhone 4.

Predictions

I have two predictions, each quite likely. I think option 2 has a slightly better chance of being correct, detailed below.

Option 1

Apple will give out free bumpers or gift cards to all iPhone 4 buyers to date. New iPhone 4s will be bundled with a bumper of your choice.

Option 2

Apple will explain that they have discovered two possible issues, one in software and one in hardware. The software issue was partially fixed with today’s 4.0.1 update, but will be fully remedied by 4.1 coming soon. This will fix the problem for most people. The hardware issue will be explained to affect only some of the early adopters. Those who have experienced problems will be eligible for a free exchange at any Apple Store.

Apple will also announce that they’ve perfected the production method such that new iPhones will not experience this issue at all.

The usual stuff

Of course this will come after Apple goes through the usual list of iPhone reviews and numbers, praising the phone as the best smartphone ever. They may even be bold enough to mention that Consumer Reports rated the phone as the best smartphone to date but won’t recommend it, and hope they will change their mind now that the issue is resolved.

Altering the mindset

“Video conferencing is scary and difficult”. That was the vibe I sensed from my users when we first introduced it last fall. This is a bad starting point for teaching stuff. People who are scared of technology are way less likely to learn it well than people who are intrigued by it. What to do?

First I started with some good old marketing. The central court administration had already written a paper about the advantages of using videoconferencing in courts. I distributed this to every user in the court. This caused some judges to become excited about the possibilities, while some were still skeptical.

Demo time

This is one of the Tandberg VC units we use.

The next step was a demo. This was probably the single most important step of turning their mindset around. I structured the demo as following:

First I talked about the possibilities with this new technology. Cost savings, faster trials, shielding witnesses from people they don’t want to or shouldn’t meet, and so on.

Then I told them to think about the equipment as a phone with a display. Dial a number or select from the address list. This was an eye-opener for many. Suddenly the technology wasn’t as arcane anymore.

Thirdly I demonstrated a call. I did it slowly so everybody could follow along. Then I let judges who wanted to try for themselves repeat the call. When they exclaimed “wow, that was easy”, I was relieved.

When several people had tried to call, I proceeded to demo some more advanced features like PC presentations and camera movements.

Finally I promised that I would personally help everyone the first time they used the system during a trial, and in trials with lots of advanced uses.

The result

All this resulted in changing the mindset of many people from being scared of the technology to being intrigued by the possibilities. We have since become one of the district courts who uses this equipment most.

I’ve continued to support my users, and have written detailed guides for users who want to learn more. I’ve also shared our experiences with other courts.

I think the success of this technology introduction to three simple points:

• Compare the tech to simple tech the users use often
• demo the equipment and let the users try it voluntarily
• provide great support in the first phase and continue with support when needed.

If you follow these steps you can teach tech much more easily to non-techies and techies alike. Good luck.

Questions?

If you have any specific question about this product rollout, please feel free to contact me @thomassnielsen or use my contact form.

What is that plus icon next to the price?

I’ve heard many people ask what the plus icon next to app prices in the app store is.

The explanation is very simple: Apps with a plus symbol are adapted for both iPad and iPhone. Buy once, use native on both.

This is nothing but good news for you, so if you have an iPad or are planning to buy one, you should choose these apps when available.