Looks like someone needs to review their site…

Just shows how broken our legal system is, that corporations feel the need to include such disclaimers to – albeit fairly – protect themselves from risk.

Nice to see the blog resurrected, and especially with such a thought provoking article.

I think maybe, just maybe, you’ve had a bit of a brainspark there. It seems obvious now that you mention it, but I’d never thought of it and I’ve never come across someone else who’s thought of it either.

I suppose one potential problem is that there’s a risk of the whole thing being abused with companies becoming NPOs and just paying ludicrous wages to staff (to minimise profit).

Oh and there’s the fact that you’re turning the world upsidedown.

It’s certainly worth thinking more about, though. Maybe Formulate Information Design can be the first cab off the rank!

Cheers,
Jessica

Thanks for your comments. I agree that mixing green and blue might be a nice balance of colour association and brand. Green is definately a go/good/available colour. I don’t like the pink because of its association with stop/error/you’re bad.

With regard to your question – yes, there are 3 distinct states:

Available = green or pink
Mine = yellow or blue
Unavailable = grey

I’ll have a look at green/blue to see how it sits with the design.

Cheers
Rob

This is a good question. So much so that I’m going to respond with a question.

In your context, is the “available/unavailable” irrelevant if the object is “mine”? If so, I would make status a toggle /between/ the former and the latter.

In terms of colours, how about something a little different:

- Available = green
- Unavailable = grey
- Mine = blue (brand version)

My reasoning for the colours is as follows. Green is associated (in our culture, at least) with good, go, etc. Grey is the standard for unavailable things (e.g. links) on the Web.

For “mine”, I stayed away from yellow because it’s too traffic-light-like (green, yellow, red) and may suggest more “maybe” than “mine”. I also wouldn’t choose your corporate pink because it is so strongly associated with your brand that it might suggest “not mine but yours”. Also pink and green could pose problems for people with red/green colour blindness (the most common type). Blue, on the other hand, contrasts nicely with green (depending on the hues, of course) while still being a corporate colour.

I wouldn’t use just pink, blue and grey because pink and blue /both/ don’t have a strong place in a user’s mental model other than association with your company. Giving them green gives them at least one handle with something they are familiar with. And if you want users to buy things that are available, then green is a nice reinforcing colour.

Hope this helps. Would be a good question for IxDA: http://ixda.org/.

Cheers,
Jessica

Nice to hear from you. I must say, I tried really hard to work out your stance on the usability vs creativity issue from your post. Your comment “So I guess I have to sit on the fence for this one” led me to believe that you didn’t have a stance one way or the other. I admit that ‘assert’ was not correct word. Perhaps ‘questions’ is better?

Cheers
Rob

I just want to clarify that I did not and do not “assert” that usability stifles creativity. As a usability consultant, I would be mad to think so. The title of the post is merely reflecting the thoughts of some designers and developers I have spoken with.

Cheers,

Lisa

Once again, most bloggers got it twisted when it comes to Kathy Sierra. Maybe they need an alternative perspective……