Preston Smalley

I’ve noticed a number of services are popping up that use email as an input method in very creative ways.

Here are a few examples:

Tripit (Travel site aimed at organizing your itineraries)

• Users can forward any confirmation email (e.g. from an airline, hotel, rental car company, or travel site) to a unique email address at tripit.com
• The service then parses the email for any relevant information (e.g. flight arrival and departure times) and posts it to your online account.
• The end result is a consolidated and normalized itinerary for your trip which you can share with your friends.

Highrise (37signals tool for managing customer relationships)

• Forward an email from a customer to your special email address at Highrise and it parse it for name, email, phone, company, and anything else it can from the signature/vCard.
• If the customer is already a contact then Highrise adds it to your log of comments on the customer along with a helpful little date stamp.
• You can even BCC this email when you write to the customer so that the correspondence is added to your log.

Flickr (Photo sharing website)

• Email photo attachments to your special email address at Flickr and it gets added to your account.
• Your subject line is used for the photo title and if you add “tags: ####, ####” anywhere in the email it will get parsed and added to your photo.

All of three of these do a good job of integrating into your life and not causing extra work on your part. As interaction designers if we’re not currently thinking of this as an input method we should.

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I read in Techcrunch about Yahoo!’s new improvements to search results. What caught my attention was how elegant the search suggestion widget operates. Unlike other search suggestion sites which annoyingly get in the way all the time with their smarts, this one senses hesitation in the search box and only then displays the results–that way it doesn’t get in the way. Also it correctly interprets arrow keys (down moves into the related search box widget). This kind of interaction design is not flashy but it is quite effective, meets the needs of the user and I think is a sign of where the web is going.

I give our yodeling friends up the peninsula a lot of credit for getting this one so right. While I’m an avid Google search user these improvements just might lure as a customer.

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At eBay we’re expanding our design team and I’m now looking for an Interaction Design Manager to lead a team of talented designers. 

In the role you’ll design direct your team on their projects from inception to launch enabling them to best meet their user needs and business goals. As we evolve from a mostly static user interface on eBay to more rich and interactive experiences you should champion new front-end technologies (e.g. AJAX, Adobe Flex, MS Silverlight) and broaden the innovation possibilities for our user experiences.

You should identify and implement process improvements and design methodologies that would make the design group more efficient and effective. We expect you to mentor the designers on your team with the goal of enhancing their abilities and helping them achieve a fulfilling career path. Finally, we’re looking for someone who is active in the design community and who is looking to maintain or expand the current role they’re playing thru talks, conferences, and networking.

Contact me if you’d like more information.

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