New BART Website

Click here to visit the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) Website

I ride it everyday, so I keep in touch with their interactive presence. Also, being a design firm, we appreciate their new look and feel.

I like the new design, UI and functionality. The brown is a great addition to the brand color palette. The angled edges are an unexpected but smooth twist to the Web 2.0 rounded corners that everyone loves. The photos have a candid and real feeling to them too. They rotate every day or so.

The local culture or event feature is a good motivator. The BartTV is well produced and organized. They have a nice newsletter called myBART, that I imagine will become a full social networking where they can provide data based on your frequent searches and other activity. RSS feeds, email alerts, widgets...all of the Web 2.0 staples.

Great job BART!

I found another blog review of this site here.
...and another here.
....eccolo qua.

The iPhone app is top notch too. The design is not that great, but the functionality and the usability is great.

Solana Crawford at SNAP Summit 3

User Action! Leading Users to Action Through Design

Solana Crawford, Founder and Chief Design Officer at DESIGN about TOWN, presented yesterday at SNAP Summit 3. Let us know what you think! The presentation can be found on slideshare as well.

Solana Speaking to the SNAP Summit3 Conference

User action: the click moment - iPhone photo by Sean Crawford

See you at Snap Summit3!

SNAP Summit 3 takes place on October 28th, 2008 at the Parc55 Hotel.

Solana Crawford will be speaking at this conference about usability and user action....the click moment!

SNAP Summit 3 is San Francisco's leading conference on user experience and engagement.

Register for SNAP Summit 3 in order to:
* Meet key players and executives from top social sites and applications.
* Learn why leading social sites attract and retain more users.
* Discover new ways to make your site more viral, social, and addictive.

Solana Crawford's Presentation for Web 2.0 Berlin: User: Action! Leading Users to Action Through Design

Solana Crawford, founder and chief design officer at DESIGN about TOWN, just finished presenting at O'Reilly Media's Web 2.0 Berlin. Let us know if you saw the presentation, and what you thought! 

The presentation abstract and slide deck are below. For more presentations from Web 2.0 Berlin, click HERE.

Solana will also be speaking at SNAP Summit3, which takes place on October 28th, 2008 at the Parc55 Hotel in San Francsico. Drop us a line if you will be attending that event, we'd love to meet you.

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User: Action! Leading Users to Action Through Design: a presentation by Solana Crawford at O\'Reilly Media Web 2.0 Conference ,Berlin 2008

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: 2.0 web)

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User: Action! Leading Users to Action Through Design

Solana Crawford (DESIGN about TOWN) 
14:35 Thursday, 23-10-2008 
Location: A3-4 

There’s something that takes that extra step, that goes beyond user interface (form) and user experience (function)... And it is that moment that each company with online presence wants its target user to reach: the click-moment. Whether it is to donate, buy, sign up or send, it is that decision-making-second, right before the user takes action, that will change their state of mind, their mood, they way they feel based on the action that was just taken.

Design elements are key in accomplishing this. The right color choice will get you a new customer, and the wrong one can make you lose a potential investor. You need to show you know not just your product or service, but also your audience. Making them feel good about taking action takes you and your company a long ways.

What will be covered:
- Today’s design trends.
- Which design elements entice users to take action: Shapes, colors, images…
- Use of color to prompt users to take action.
- How simple or sophisticated to design your site so users take action.

A Design review with TechCrunch50 Winner "Yammer"

Congratulations Yammer on the TechCrunch50 recognition.


Yammer is a tool for making companies and organizations more productive through the exchange of short frequent answers to one simple question: "What are you working on?"


They won the big prize at the 2008 TechCrunch50 event, and as a high profile Social Networking tool, our very own Solana Crawford has provided a design review.

Nice logo, warm and friendly, web 2.0 design style. It's not surprising to see that a social networking site uses predominantly blue for its color (ex: Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, etc...) Some of blue's strongest connotations are friendship, trustworthiness and technology.

It's very clear what the user is supposed to do once he or she gets there, but Yammer fails in explaining in detail what it is that THEY do. Yammer is not obvious until the user reaches the demo video at the bottom of the landing page. Once the user signs up, everything is pretty clear, well organized and easy to navigate.


The user forum does another good job with a logo application, but landing on that page gives you a feeling of chaos until you get organized again.

Overall, Yammer's site, though dated, makes for a good experience....It's in the details. Just a few key design and UI considerations can lead Yammer's interface to 2009.

Below is the Yammer presentation from TechCrunch50. Notice the opening title screen with the TechCrunch50.

Solana Crawford, founder of DESIGN about TOWN speaking at Web 2.0 Berlin

Our very own Solana Crawford, the Founder and Chief Design Officer of DESIGN about TOWN, will be speaking at O'Reilly Media's Web 2.0 Conference in Berlin, Germany on Thursday, 10/23/08 at 2:30pm.

She will be speaking at the Design and User Experience Track and her topic will be User: Action! Leading users to action through design.

If you are going to be at the conference, sign up for Solana's session. Also, let us know if you are going to be there and would like to meet up. See you there!