Ouch. So, Nike+ Running, an app loved by many runners got suddenly retired in favor of… Nike+ Run Club. And most everyone is extremely upset about this seemingly random, sudden update.
This is a textbook example for companies on how NOT to do things. While the Nike+ Run Club update features an admittedly smooth, sleek and hip design (transitions everywhere, the icons in the tab bar bounce when tapped… and that color palette!), users who loved sharing their runs on Facebook now have to deal with additional steps to do so, in a move that screams “let’s make this way clunkier than before, just because.” On top of that, information that used to be readily available within the app is now being handed in a sweet PDF through their Facebook page.
So sad. It is rather cringeworthy. Anyway, check out The Verge’s coverage of it here.
Listening to user feedback before doing any kind of move like this goes a long way, really!
OTHER DESIGN-RELEVANT NEWS
Webflow's upcoming interactions
Popular design + code tool Webflow released a sweet, beautiful new page showcasing some of the new interactions the team has been working on. Parallax scrolling? Check. Elements on the page that react to your mouse cursor? Check. You can even play around with a timeline-based animation tool. And it’s all built with Webflow. Have you tried it yet?
Using UX to tackle racism
Nextdoor is a social network for your neighborhood. When the Nextdoor team realized that a lot of the “Suspicious Activity” reports were mostly racially-motivated, it decided to take some action – by altering the process a bit. In this example, a change in the reporting form is allowing people to think about whether they’re actually helping their neighborhood or just being a little biased. And it worked! The racist posts dropped by 75%.
The sun will rise again
As we know, Sunrise was set to die on August 31. However, Microsoft announced that it wouldn’t pull the plug just yet. Still, if you have already moved on, fret not, for Kin Calendar might just be the Sunrise replacement you were looking for, seeing as this is the one calendar app specifically built to replace Sunrise. While it’s still in its early stages, the current web app version is very nice and, more importantly, familiar.
An analysis of a great scene from Sicario
Oh boy. Denis Villeneuve's Sicario was a treat to watch, with its bleak and gritty atmosphere, the constant feeling of unease aided by a great use of tension buildups. Anyway. This video from CineFix attempts to go over what makes one of those tension buildups, specifically the one from the border-crossing scene. So bloody effective. Pun intended.
SO, WE WENT ON THE INTERNET AND FOUND...
Your own VR music studio – Take a break from the beautiful and brilliant, yet also incredibly horrifying, Mosh Pit Simulator, and instead be the one creating the music in SoundStage. Now on Early Access on Steam!
Photos from distant times get facelifts – Most of us designers are aware of how painstakingly frustrating coloring a photo can be. Marina Maral displays her amazing skills for that task using historical photos, and the result is nothing short of stunning.
This Twitter feed sharing video game box art – Exactly that. And they are quite frequent at sharing.
NOW PLAYING
Here is where we share what our team members have been exposing their eardrums to the most during the week. This week, Ales Nesetril shares his sound wave of preference.
“Great energetic hit from my ultimate favorite electronic music label -– Owsla. I usually listen to more aggressive tracks, but I fell in love with this one over the summer. The positivity shines from its title alone, and then you listen to it in the morning and get an instant boost for the whole day.”
