Micro-Interactions: Making The Experience Portable
Update: Coverage on our panel in Ad Age (Digital Next)
Last week I went to a local gathering in Chicago where people in the industry were meeting informally over a few drinks. It's the typical scenerio that we keep seeing more of—most people had been meeting for the first time even though they had heard of each other from some type of social network or another such as Twitter.
Mike, an Apple employee was one of the first to greet me—and he extended a simple gesture. As he introduced himself he held up his iPhone which was displaying a digital name tag generated on the Web that he had just personalized moments ago. Within minutes, nearly half of the attendees of this small gathering were doing the same. it had gone "viral" so to speak—each person found our where they could customize their own "badge" and some were even adding "@" symbols so that their "Twitter friends" could recognize who they were.
And this I thought was a simple but relevant example of how we are having "micro-interactions" in ways that we we can take with us.
Today I'm moderating a panel on this very topic with Steve Rubel, Ian Shafer, Matt Dickman, Stephanie Agresta, And David Malouf. It should be a lot of fun as we'll be discussing how indivisuals and brands are making content and functionality "micro" and designing it "to-go". And of course a conference like this had to have both an iPhone and a Widget version (below). If you are going to the event, hope to see you there.
Do you feel that it these micro interactions are valuable because they are portable, or because they are so small, easy, and often?
I can see value in both, but wonder if it is more the portable nature of a micro-interaction/widget/etc where you can always be connected with a brand regardless of what you are doing rather than the fact that the interaction is subtle and easy.
But maybe I am missing the boat?
Posted by: Patrick Fire | Monday, June 16, 2008 at 08:31 AM
That was a really good idea, wasn't it? And to think that the gathering would give you blog fodder?
By the way, the page is loading really slowly for me for some reason. Is anyone else having this problem?
Posted by: Colonel Tribune | Monday, June 16, 2008 at 01:02 PM
Page loaded fine from Los Angeles, but Colonel Tribune mentioned my Facebook page is loading slowly?
Wish I could have made the Blogger Meetup, always have a great time with like minds.
Thank you for sharing the meetup.
Posted by: Edward Padgett | Monday, June 16, 2008 at 01:11 PM
@ Edward - That's because you have so many darn Facebook apps!
Posted by: Colonel Tribune | Monday, June 16, 2008 at 01:27 PM
what is the url to generate the iphone name tags like the one u show above? Thanks
Posted by: Zeb | Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at 04:17 PM
Wanted to see how the WidgetWebexpo was? I'd like to get involved next year as we've been talking to a lot of brands locally about widgetizing their experience, making it portable and fun. Seems everyone is talking about them but few have a true grasp of the what and why, and really whats possible :)
Posted by: Alex Funk | Monday, June 23, 2008 at 01:27 PM
My interest in micro-interactions is largely because how the interaction is representative of offline behavior. I asked a group of folks the other day how long is the longest Youtube video they would watch, average 2-3 min. Our lives revolve around micro-interactions. Value at each point is being capitalized on, whether at the urinal (ads), pumping gas (television) or conference (digital badges). 15-minutes of fame or infamy may be 15-seconds nowadays. Be valuable or be gone.
Posted by: Marty | Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 09:26 AM