While in the User Experience discussion my ongoing experience with my ex VW Beetle came up. Is the overall brand experience a part of the user experience?

So this bridges the discussion at BarCampDC with a book I am reading (Interaction Design by Dan Saffer) with a convo I had with Cindy about her Beetle at BarcampDC…

Dan Saffer on emotional design:

“What would the Volkswagen Beetle be without whimsy?”

My answer: a piece of shit car.

While talking with Cindy at Barcamp she confessed that if her car died (knock on wood) she would be at odds to what new car to consider. I faced this same problem when mine died… forced myself to listen to logic and just bought the first Honda I test drove. If its not a beetle, it doesn’t really matter what kind of car it is as long as it doesn’t fall apart.

I cried that day.

The overwhelmingly positive emotional response a Beetle owner has can actually outweigh the negative fact that the car physically is a turd. A Beetle can have the windows fall out, the locks pop out of the door, the dashboard peel off and the owner still longs to buy another.

Every morning since the loss of my Beetle I walk out of my apartment and am disappointed not to see my car smiling back at me. Emotional design can be a heavy contributor to User Experience.

[tags]barcamp, barcampdc, barcampwashingtondc, Volkswagen, New Beetle, VW Beetle, User Experience, Emotional design[/tags]

I love Birthdays. I especially love my Birthday. Logically I know its just a little ridiculous to set aside a day to celebrate the unremarkable fact that I managed to dodge getting hit by a bus one more consecutive year, however the idea of one little day to pat myself on the back and say good job for making it, you deserve a drink, a cake, or… an iPhone.

Oh, damn… there it goes again, me thinking about my iPhone. Pesky little guy keeps coming up. The iPhone that I do not have and do not want for my birthday. Now don’t think this post is some sly way to hint to you that someone should get me one for my birthday. I am not (consciously) that type of person. If I wanted people to buy me something I would set up a registry at amazon.com, or wherever the hell they let people set up “I Want” lists for some occasion much less monumental than the birth of a child or a wedding.

When I found out Apple was coming out with the first all-in-one computer, the Bondi Blue iMac I was put on the waiting list to be one of the very first. When Volkswagen came out with the New Beetle I wanted to put my name on the list to be one of the very firsts… thought I had learned my lesson from the Bondi Blue iMac, and waited one whole year. Turned out that is still not enough time to have learned my lesson in Volkswagen years. Now there is the iPhone, too late to be one of the very firsts, but God help me from doing it again.

I pretty much think about running and buying an iPhone once every 15-20 minutes. Every news page and blog feed has some mention of it. I walk down the damn street and there is an ad for one on the back of a friggin’ magazine.

Upon striking up a conversation with stranger over their iPhone, I commented “I just wish it had iChat”. The owner then flashed me the iPhone riddled with text messages and said ” I don’t know what iChat is, but look how it displays these little balloons”. Taken back I realized I was in the presence of a “PC Guy”. Just as the iPod brought Apple hardware to the the Dell infested world it now is allowing Microsoft users to peak at those who gingerly frolic freely in a beautiful world interfaced by Apple.

[tags]iPhone, Apple, Mac, Apple Love, Apple Loyalty, iPhone Love [/tags]

Every 4 years the world gathers to celebrate the spirit of camaraderie and promote peace through competitive athletic competitions during the Olympic games. I barely raise an eyebrow. Its not that I don’t agree with or relate to values promoted in the Olympic spirit, I just have every little to relate to in the games themselves. The Olympic committee for the 2012 Games is trying to change that, and they kicked it off with the unveiling of the ugliest logo ever imaginable.

You may be thinking that me referring to the logo as being “ugly” is hardly constructive criticism. You are right. But it is how thousands of people around the world are referring to it, not just on major network news programming but on blogs and in e-mail lists. One of the defining differences in a logo versus a piece of art work is that it should communicate a common message to be effective. It seems to me based on my research the message this logo is carrying is “Look at me, I am an ugly Logo”.

I am on the Art Directors Club of Metro Washington DC’s mailing list. For about 2 days straight this logo was the topic of lots of conversation. Most of it revolving around the possibility that this logo was developed to appeal to a younger audience. A younger audience not represented on the list. Others carefully critiqued it’s ability to remain timeless and how with different renderings of the number “2″ it does not have a consistent visual vocabulary. While I agree with a lot of this criticism, the comment that struck me most was…

“What we should be discussing is how the firm that put that together was able to sell it to those writing the check. Yes, it’s bad design, but boy is it great salesmanship!”.

This got me thinking about the idea that the studio behind this logo possibly sold a lot more than just a a visual mark or even brand. It sold the idea that making such a non traditional visual representation of the Olympics would stir up talk about the Olympics, and what the Olympics mean. What if the studio behind this brand wanted to leverage word of mouth to reach those who hardly raise an eyebrow to the Olympics. Those who are so deeply submerged in their daily lives that the traditional media coverage and broadcast television is just background noise to them. Creating a stir through a non-traditional brand would be a very effective way to reach this audience.

I purposed this idea to my mom, who saw a segment about the whole stir on a morning show. She thought it highly unlikely that a group of people at a studio were sitting around thinking that deeply into this scenario. I told her that I had no way of knowing, but isn’t it interesting that her and I were having a conversation with the word “Olympics” in it for the first time since I was 10 years old.

[tags]London Olympic Logo, 2012 Olympics, ADCMW[/tags]