I've had some recent miserable customer service experiences. That is, until I tweeted my misery. Seems companies with good social media plans wisely egosurf Twitter for grumblings. It's not that these are bad companies. Success has just made them so big that they have automated their customer service experience past the point of human usefulness. There seems to be no way to actually speak with someone. Calls go through what feels like 20 prompts and transfers. After about 45 minutes, I just feel like hanging up (but I'm usually mercilessly disconnected first).

Oddly, 30 seconds after I tweet about it, I receive a response via @company on twitter: A very friendly response. Then I receive a quick email with specific information I need to resolve the issue, and an accompanying very attentive phone call in only a matter of minutes. This is followed by an additional phone call and/or email after the service is completed just to make sure the issue has been resolved and I am happy again.

I'm beginning to wonder if I should bother with the normal channels for customer service at all and just go through Twitter first? The service is so much better.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/191074/why_ipad_is_the_childrens_toy_of_the_ye...

It's definitely true in our house. I've been showing my son websites, apps and videos with ours since he was about 4 months old. He's now taken it over, for the most part. In fact, he cries when I take it away, poor little guy.

The thing I find most frustrating, however, is the usability. It's not just that my son gets confused when switching from an interactive app to a video (thinking he can interact with the video the same way he does with the app, he's 9 months old afterall.) It's that the apps themselves have such poor usability. Especially children's apps. I love Elmo's Monster Maker from Sesame Street, for instance. But the navigation has hidden functionality and choices that you have to cycle through accidentally before you discover them. It's  like mystery meat all over again. Don't mean to just pick on them, because it's one of our favorites. There are also so many apps that don't lock away navigation while a game is in play and my kid accidentally changes screens and get continually frustrated.

There are a lot of really fun things about Apple's intuitive interfaces, but designers need to catch up with usability, particularly if Adobe's going to turn millions of them lose on the interactive world.

If you are a print designer,  you have probably noticed that the industry has been changing for quite a while. While print design will most likely stick around, there remains incredible opportunity for interactive design, which certainly makes it worth investing the time to explore the "other" side of design.

While you many not feel any more ready for interactive design than I am for some skinny jeans, there really is nothing to lose by trying. In fact, your design sensibilities for print will transfer nicely to the web. In the beginning, it can feel intimidating trying to figure out how code and web standards have evolved, not to mention how to design for mobi environments and applications. Don't fret. Many print designers have made the successful transition to web. Truth is, if you already understand good design for print, you just need to get acquainted with some differences for interactive design to better position yourself to get started.

Wrote this little article for a friend of mine. It will be published on her site at the end of December, but you can read it now, if you like.

12/2/11