Sure, there's good food to buy but that's not the only reason I'm a fan. While not really liking the sort of half baked tiki/naval/Pacific Islands aesthetic of the store, I like being there. I know that as soon as I pass the produce section I'll find some coffee to sample and sip while I shop.

Also, I look forward to seeing what employees have drawn and written on the signs. Here is my favorite from earlier today.

I'd like to know how many people take the time to read these little quips.

What's a good indicator that an organization is effectively capturing the hearts of their customers? Without solicitation, a customer makes a commercial for you.

Active Furniture is inconvenient on purpose. Reminds me of one of the times I heard someone say that they didn't want their library's furniture to be "too comfortable."

10/GUI is an attempt to move away from the mouse, into realistic multi-touch computing. Don't forget, somebody (Douglas Engelbart) had to invent the mouse too.

10/GUI from C. Miller on Vimeo.

Our UX Shakedown provides libraries with an easy to read, illustrated report detailing what's good on the site and what could be improved.

To celebrate the inception of INFLUX we're holding a contest and giving the winner a UX Shakedown.

The Contest

Convince us why we should give your site a Shakedown. How you do that is up to you. Make us laugh, make us outraged, inspire us, motivate us. You might want to keep in mind that we're big fans of things like flickr, watching videos online, and screencasts.

How to Submit

Use our contact form or mail info@influx.us.

Important Dates

Deadline for submissions: 31 December 2009, 11:59
Announcement of winners: 11 January 2010.

Fine Print

Nothing outrageous, just a couple things worth mentioning:

• The lucky winner is not obligated to do anything with the recommendations we come up with as a result of our Shakedown (but you know you'll want to!).
• We'd like to post selective results of the contest right here on the site. By entering the contest, you're agreeing to let us do that. And for that, we thank you!

Any questions? Leave comment, use our contact form or email info[at]influx.us

This is a nice way to facilitate some positive interaction.

Check out the URL too. It is semantic and, especially for an airline, pretty short.

http://jetblue.com/help/contactus/help_contact_compliments.aspx

First there was Helvetireader a clean, stripped-down skin for Google Reader inspired by Helvetica. Now there are similarly inspired interfaces for Gmail, Google Calendar, and Twitter. How much would I love to see Helvetilibrary?

With its old-timey feel it really stuck out among the (sterile looking in comparison) printed signs.

Let me caution, however, that this is nearly varsity level signage strategy. The imperfections of this sign are an asset only because it is surrounded by decent looking professionally designed signs. Much like library websites need to be easy to use before they can be filled with social goodness, signs in a library would have to be cohesively well designed before they could benefit from something like this.

• Drupal 7 User Experience Project
• the Drupal Redesign group on Flickr (complete with tantalizing wireframes and mock ups!)
• follow the #D7UX hashtag on Twitter

⌘ Grid aligned webpages using firebug & gridfox.

⌘ Mark Boulton's classic Five Simple Steps to Designing Grid Systems.