A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers.

Este livro foi construído como uma aventura conjunta de 470 pessoas de 45 países diferentes, durante um período de 6 meses, sob a liderança de Alexander Osterwalder.

A cada quinzena estas 470 pessoas recebiam capítulos do livro junto com propostas de alterações (que de fato eram consideradas).

O que realmente chama a atenção neste livro é que os seus autores, ao criarem um livro de modelos de negócios inovadores, fizeram o que poucos fazem: aplicaram o método sugerido ao próprio livro.

Ou seja, o livro teve um modelo de receitas de adesões ao projeto, foi impresso de forma independente e sua distribuição é pela Amazon.com

O resultado é simplesmente impecável em todos os aspectos, conteúdo, abordagem, diagramação, design…

Poucos livros conseguem reunir tantas dicas e métodos realmente aplicáveis para o desenvolvimento de novos modelos de negócio.

Confira abaixo um preview do livro ou compre pela amazon.

By Andrian Kreye*

There are few places oozing tradition like Oxford’s Randolph Hotel. During the TEDGlobal conference you would pass the restaurant where tea sandwiches are served on ornate étagères and enter a thickly carpeted room full of shelves filled with the works of progressive thinkers. The local bookshop had set up a satellite store for the event. Right there against the wall, a futuristic gadget was on display in a fancy jewel case. It looked like a military-grade USB stick made of brushed metal. A friendly gentleman from Boston explained that this was the Genome Key, made by his company, Knome. For a handsome fee, they would decipher your complete genome and deliver it on this small stick. Your biological present stored for a “gentech” future.

The Genome Key had all the markings of a great design object: the metallic sheen, the shiny box, the futuristic lines. But it wasn’t the look that made the Genome Key such a great example of intriguing design. It was the system surrounding and supporting this storage device; the aesthetic allure was just an afterthought. The Genome Key can record one’s complete genome, not just the part that is usable today. This avoids making it a soon-to-be-obsolete technology. Also, all of your genetic data is exclusively stored on this device only, so customers don’t have to worry that their most intimate information will be hacked from an institution’s database. The Genome Key, albeit far from a mass consumer product, embodied the new role of design that had become evident during the TED talks.

It has always been hard to explain what effect TED has on global trends. Each conference can be something like a high-voltage engine that gives ideas a velocity that propels them into the public mind with the impact of a Tesla Roadster on the shoulder of a clogged freeway. People take notice. Revolutionary ideas about design might not have originated at TED, but they did get the necessary exposure to gain further thrust.

Seismic shifts in thinking never happen as suddenly as an earthquake. The first tremors can be felt years or even decades before. As usual, a few threads materialized at this year’s TEDGlobal conference under the topic “The Substance of Things Not Seen.” None exemplified the essence of TED better than the paradigmatic shift in thinking about design.

This change of perspective might not be perceived as such a seismic shift in the design world itself, a world that has never been monolithic. Still, ask most people about design, and they will tell you that it belongs in the realm of aesthetics. And who could blame them for having this perception? Even basic texts, from Martin Heidegger to Walter Benjamin to Theodor Adorno, say the same thing: Art and design will change how the world looks, not how the world is.

There are exceptions. In 1980, at the “Forum Design”“ exhibition in the Austrian city of Linz, the Swiss art historian and sociologist Lucius Burckhart introduced his essay “Design is Invisible.” He didn’t accept design as an art form. He explained how design can only function if put in the context of a real-life situation. A city. An intersection. A workplace. Burckhart wasn’t just ahead of his time. He embodied the zeitgeist of the day. In 1980, design had just started to make inroads into general society. Chain stores such as IKEA and Habitat introduced design to the suburban home. Later, magazines such as Wallpaper turned the refined knowledge of design experts into mass-market values, just as Julia Child transformed the elitist art of French cooking into an everyday skill.

What design seemed to never lose, despite its populist efforts — from Bauhaus to Design Within Reach— was the stigma of being either a luxury or a means of seduction by industries trying to sell electronic gadgets or housewares. Marx’s essay on commodity fetishism kept the public’s perception of design hostage. This ideological struggle is as apparent as ever in the fight over the future of New York’s Ground Zero between the architects Daniel Libeskind and David Childs. Libeskind had an artistic vision with symbolist grandeur. Childs just wanted to make the site a working part of the city.

What had been a contradiction in New York has become a new way of thinking that unites two formerly antagonistic ways of viewing design. What has emerged at TED conferences through the years is a vision of design that does not limit itself to the parameters of form and function. Design has become the engine of innovation, giving mere ideas shape and substance. It has evolved into the highest form of communication, turning ideas into solutions. In fact, giving the TED Prize to the architect Cameron Sinclair in 2006 was a milestone event. Here was a young man with a vision of creating a network for open-source architecture to solve problems in emergency situations such as disasters and wars.

The work Sinclair has done with Architecture for Humanity has eased the suffering of thousands in the areas affected by the Indian Ocean tsunami, in the hurricane zone of Katrina, and in refugee centers around the world. He still embodies what many of this year’s TEDGlobal speakers put forth in Oxford.Ross Lovegrove defined his design as inspired by evolution. Janine Benyus discussed biomimicry, a theory of design in which man-made objects imitate the lessons of nature. Mathieu Lehanneur told us he had been designing this way without ever having heard about Benyus’ concepts.

Design has become a way of finding solutions. Aesthetics is just a part of this process. Maybe in a few decades we will look back at TEDGlobal and remember that shiny stick next to the bookshelves. For future generations, the Genome Key might very well become for the genetic age what the Walkman was for today’s digital age: the forefather of a revolution of omnipresent information permeating every part of our lives.

*Andrian Kreye edits the Arts and Essays section of the Süddeutsche Zeitung daily in Germany and was one of a handful of international journalists invited to attend TEDGlobal.

This article was originaly posted on design mind

by Bradley Hebdon.

We’ve come a long way on the web today. Or have we?  While we’ve innovated in many areas, we’ve also continued to disregard pre-existing issues. And in some cases, we have also created new ones. Here is my list of the top 65 most annoying things about the web today. They’re in no particular order, but I have organized them into what I consider core groups.

Using the Web can still be a very annoying experience!

Poor Design

1. Illegible text. I can’t read that, it’s too small. And what on earth is that font called?
2. Busy backgrounds.  Oh MySpace, why do you allow users to create profiles like that? My eyes hurt.
3. Obscure links. I’m confused, can I click on that or not? Oh I get it, you don’t want me to view other pages.
4. Flyouts that are too large. Holy crap Yahoo!  This is a page within a flyout!
5. Drop-down menu navigation too many levels deep. OK, if I slowly move my mouse this way first… dammit Jim, I’m a doctor not a magician!
6. Complicated navigation. I just want to get to that page, the one over there! Oh I see, you want me to complete the maze first.
7. Abused centerpieces. Aren’t centerpieces supposed to serve as mechanisms for promotion, rather than areas to cram an entire page’s worth of content into itself? Call me an idealist, I guess.
8. Poor navigation labels. Give me a clue and use labels that make sense!
9. Clutter & chaos. With no emphasis or information hierarchy, it’s difficult for me to know what to look at, and what to do next.
10. Ugly WAPs. Many companies treat their WAP sites like a deformed step-child they keep in the basement.
11. Splash screens. Nice, a road block between your user and your home page.

Unfindable Information

1. Dysfunctional site search. (Sigh) Why didn’t this site just use Google?
2. Too many blog categories. Isn’t this what tags were meant for?
3. Contact info. I just want to speak to them on the phone! And when I say “them” i mean a human.
4. Invisible sign in. OK, so I registered, but how do I sign in?
5. Hidden account closure. I guess I’m a member for life now?
6. Unscannable info. I want to quickly know if this article is relevant. But alas, huge paragraphs, long headlines and no subheadings make for an unscannable chunk of data, and an indigestible piece of gristle.

No Content Strategy

1. No focus. Yada, yada, yada. Get to the point, what’s your message and what do you offer?
2. Spelling & grammar. Spelling mistakes are hard to forgive and really hurt credibility.
3. Ineffective product pages: What am I buying? Why should I buy this? Help me understand, and I’ll move down the purchase funnel!
4. Outdated. There’s nothing more thrilling than seeing a blog frozen in time. At some point, a landfill for websites is going to be needed.
5. Small photos. Why would I buy something I cannot see?

Auto-Behavior

1. Auto-playing home page video. Take note ESPN.com: the first thing I do when coming to your site is scramble to find the video pause button. And that’s when I’m surfing from home.
2. Auto browser resizing. And you did that because?
3. Customer service nags. Ironic really. Chat pop-ups appear like genies out of a lamp when I don’t need them.
4. Theme tunes. Got to love that auto-play music, especially when it cycles over and over and over, and over.
5. Auto opt-ins. It seems like an automatic opt-in is a contradiction in terms to me. No I don’t want your newsletter, and if I did, I’d opt-in.

Evil Forms

1. Unreadable captchas. Pure Evil. If I had a brick, why I would…
2. Too many fields. This is utterly exhausting. Oh forget it, I’m going to abandon this form.
3. Cryptic error messaging. OK, so I made a mistake. If you used English, I might be able to fix it.
4. No confirmation. Was I successful or not? I’m looking for anything here, a “thank-you”, a “job well done”, a “good boy”… anything that confirms the form was indeed a submitted form.
5. Too many constraints. I want to add my Canadian zip code, but you’re validating against the US format only!
6. Too small fields. How I’m supposed to enter my street address in that state-sized field?
7. The reset button. Do we really need this? I especially love it when I accidentally press “reset” instead of “submit”. It’s especially satisfying when it’s a long form.

Intrusive Advertising

1. Pop-ups. And that includes those fancy, flashy, moving, hard-to-close ones. Are you serious? This is 2009.
2. Interstitials. Thanks for adding another click and creating a barrier between me and your content! Give me a reason to leave, I dare you.
3. Flyouts via links in content. Oh darn, I didn’t know that was an ad! Thanks for punishing me.
4. Too many Google ads. I know there’s some content around here….
5. Long video pre-rolls. Is this ad ever going to end? Hang on; I forgot what video I clicked on.
6. The bus stop. Home pages that resemble bus stops — flyers, posters, graffiti all shouting at me. Sometimes, I swear I can even smell urine.

Accounts

1. Remembering user names and passwords. Seriously, how many do I need to keep track of? Just give me Facebook connect already!
2. Being forced to register for purchases. I just want to buy it, OK? Forget it, I’m going elsewhere.
3. Forced password reset. I just want to know my password! The one I chose but have forgotten. I know you know.
4. Getting locked out. I get the three-attempts-and-you’re-out idea, but it would be nice to know the rules before hand!
5. Password sent by “snail mail”. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. Should I expect a scroll to be delivered and read by a messenger?

Abuse

1. Spam. We still cannot cure this disease?
2. Viruses. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I’d say the anti-virus companies were creating these. You know, supply and demand and all.
3. Phishing. Particularly sneaky; and definitely a step beyond annoying.
4. Trolls on messageboards/blogs. Oh well, that’s life I guess – art imitating life and all.
5. Fake profiles. Am I following the real Steven Hawking on Twitter? It says here he went bowling last night.
6. Facebook app invitations. For the thousandth time, no I do not want to play Mob Wars, and no I don’t want a “pet in an egg” either.

Technology

1. Explorer 6. I speak for all developers here, if there’s a plug attached, please pull it. RIP Explorer 6.
2. Plug-ins. Not only do I have to download another plug-in, I have to keep these things current!
3. Entire sites built in flash. I don’t get it, why?
4. PDF overuse. Why couldn’t this PDF just be a web page?
5. Dell’s Netbook trackpad. Designed to be web browsing device, Dell’s Mini 10 trackpad has a trillion bells and whistles, but cannot fulfill basic tasks like moving the cursor from point A to point B without going to C first.
6. Small netbook screens. While mobile devices have optimized views for their screens, Netbooks and their 9 and 10 inch screens are caught in a weird place.
7. Inconsistent colors. Optimizing colors and contrast across both Macs and PCs is a designers nightmare.
8. Charging for Wi-Fi. Provide it free of charge, and the patrons will come!

Waiting

1. Slow page load. OK that’s it, I’ve been patient and their 3 seconds are up.
2. Comment approval. I thought, I articulated, I commented, I waited. Nothing.  That will teach me to contribute.
3. Black-hole between ordering and shipping. I took me 5 minutes to order this laptop, why isn’t it getting shipped? Should I place my order again? Should I cancel this order? What’s the order status?
4. Twitter is down again. I’m starting to think this is a feature. One akin to a long line outside a trendy night club.
5. Customer service. Since I cannot get a human on the phone, a 24 hour response time to my e-mail is not acceptable. Well look at that, I guess you just quantified the value of my business.
6. Submission timers. I saw this really great article! I know, I’ll post it on Reddit. And there’s another one, I’ll post that on Reddit too. What, I have to wait 10 minutes to post another article? That will  teach me to contribute.

by Dmitry Fadeyev* [usabilitypost]

I’m not really an expert at cooking but I do love to watch professionals cook. I mean Michelin star level professionals. What these guys produce is really amazing and its also interesting to see just how much work some of these dishes involve and how many unique techniques are used. It’s not just food really, it’s art. Some art is there to be seen: paintings, some art is to be listened to: music, and some art is to be tasted. Anyhow… what does all this have to do with websites?

Well, what I do find interesting is that I’m seeing several parallels between cooking and designing interfaces and websites. Let’s see…

1. You need to pick complementary flavors
Creating a Michelin star winning dish requires a naturally good palate. You need to know how flavors come together in order to create a fusion that works. Choose the wrong ingredient and you could ruin the whole dish.

In web design you need to be able to create a design that works as a whole; when all the elements are sliced and coded it must come together as a coherent page, with each element reinforcing the other. Keeping a consistent theme is crucial, as is picking a color palette that works.

2. It’s all about the flavor of the main ingredients
Each dish has a star ingredient, be it the delicate scallop, or the hearty fillet of beef; everything else on the plate works to bring out its flavor. All the other elements should support that main ingredient and work to bring out its flavor. If there are too many other things on the plate, or the other flavors are overpowering, the main ingredient becomes in danger of getting lost.

Your web design is a user interface, and as such it’s an interface to something. That something is of course the site’s content. The content should always be the star, not the design (unless it’s a portfolio site where the site itself is often part of the content). A good interface works to bring out the content, make sense of it, and ultimately fade away.

3. Taste and presentation both matter
If you go to a restaurant, you expect your food to look good as well as taste good. These elements are part of delivering an experience. If the food tastes fantastic but looks like dog’s dinner then the experience is ruined.

Similarly, if the content on a website is great, but the interface is ugly, then you may still use the site but the user experience won’t be at a level that it could be. On the other side, fantastic design coupled with bad content just isn’t going to deliver. However, when you achieve a fusion of great design and great content you deliver a user experience that your visitors will enjoy and remember, which is sure to bring them back again and again.

4. Too many things on the plate confuse the palate
A good dish has a theme — a selection of flavors combined together with a direction and intent; a fusion that delivers a unique experience. Ingredients must be chosen well so that they go complement and reinforce each other. If you put too many ingredients on the plate then you risk confusing the palate as the dish becomes a cacophony of tastes.

The same is true in design. Too many fonts destroy the typographical theme of the page. Too many colors dilute the brand. Too much content makes the page difficult to digest. Don’t rush into styling everything or adding everything you can think of. Approach your web design with a strategic stance. What’s your branding — what color should dominate? What is the main font that you’re going to use and why? What should the reader get from this page? What don’t they want?

5. It takes restraint and confidence to achieve simplicity
A dish that looks simple doesn’t mean it will taste simple or deliver little. Simplicity has an elegance of its own.

Designing simple websites and interfaces is all about restraint. Yes, you can utilize the latest trends and Photoshop skills, you can add gradients, wet floors and highlights — but does the design really need it? What value do these things add, if any? Reducing a design to its most basic components and arranging them in a simple and elegant fashion isn’t easy — it’s very hard. Minimalism is beautiful because everything on the page is there for a reason, nothing is superfluous, and when form is so tightly wrapped around function the results are beautiful.

*Dmitry is a co-founder of Pixelshell web design studio. His latest project is called the Themes Boutique, a WordPress theme store. Other projects include Logospire, which is a user powered logo inspiration gallery. Dmitry also has a personal blog at Fadeyev.net