We all have reasons for our love or disdain of Twitter.

It’s been around since 2006, which makes it about 400 in internet years—so it’s even somewhat shocking that it remains relevant. I don’t object that it has its share of self-involved, narcissists. I also can’t deny its strength as a tool for grassroots advocacy. In my day-to-day I utilize Twitter as a vehicle to deliver interesting stuff from handpicked curators, but the thing that keeps me tweeting, other than my desire to participate in a like-minded community not bound by geography, is something that Frank Chimero discussed at the Design Currency Conference in Vancouver in 2010- the element of delight in design.

So how is Twitter delightful?

Twitter has all kinds of uses and the organization of social events is one of them. The other day I had been tweeting with a couple of my friends who were organizing an outdoor projected Geena Davis-themed movie night. They were going to show a double feature and were crowdsourcing movie recommendations. I responded with the tweet: “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice?” Immediately upon tweeting that statement a user named @Betelgeuse_3 tweeted to me: “IT’S SHOWTIME!” (If you have seen the movie you know that repeating Beetlejuice three times conjures up a ghost played by Michael Keaton who says the previously delivered response). @Betelgeuse_3 had used Twitter to facilitate a shocking experience exactly as the movie character would have done.

It was so unexpected, so clever, so awesome.

This apparently spontaneous connection made me laugh for about 20 minutes and later upon relating the story, over several occasions, I experienced the same elation. It could be that I have an alternative sense of humour, but I think it was the “delight” created by the combination of surprise & nostalgia.

So how was it done? This experience was mediated by a Twitter Bot designed by Muffinlabs. It uses a keyword search which identified the combination of words and immediately tweets a response with a previously set statement. They have similar bots that are triggered by lines from Robocop, Princess Bride and Office Space. Muffinlabs states on their site that the bots are, “just for fun” and have made the code which they call Chatterbot available to everyone—with the stipulation that it is used for good, not evil.

Contemporary audiences have evolved and are not satisfied by the passive consumption of content—they desire to produce while they consume, to contribute while they connect. Twitter is successful at delivering all kinds of content but what makes it special is that it is punctuated with these witty & playful exchanges—random acts of delight. Some say it is just another medium, a trend that will fade over time, but for now it offers something more than your Google Reader, RSS feeds, newspapers or televisions do. It offers opportunities that yield thoughtful, well crafted, delightful experiences masterminded by real people going out of their way to turn the mundane into something special.

Corporate Identities are generally not known for being delightful—although, some of the best logos are infused with a hint of wit. A logo is just one of many touchpoints that comprise an identity, so a clever designer can find other ways to incorporate intrigue. Chimero highlighted interactive design as one such touchpoint that offers an opportunity to inject a delightful experience—which engages audiences on both intellectual and emotional levels. The key to creating this type of experience is having intimate knowledge of your audience, something that Muffinlabs had bang-on. Identity design is much more than doodles on a napkin, although that may be how it starts. It is a thorough understanding of a company, their clients, the competition, the industry, their aspirations and the best strategies to get them there.

So, do share; has Twitter delighted you? Or even better, in the wide world of design how have you managed to infuse some delight?

I’m basically a print designer, and even though I have done web design I worried that they would be “talking in code” and I’d be lost. I was pleasantly surprised—the presenters who showed some code did it in a way that I could understand. Even Eric Meyer’s chat on “CSS for evil” was presented in a way that made sense to the print designers like me!

Monday morning started with AEA founder Jeffrey Zeldman giving a history of Emoticons. From the simple smiley face to winking emoticons with hats and mustaches to the difference between eastern and western styles, we were impressed with Zelman’s vast knowledge.

Just joking :)

Seriously, you know that the next two days are going to be great when you hear things like “Beautiful no longer means flash-based.” Zeldman’s passionate opening on the history of the web—Web 2.0—set the tone of the conference. He kicked off AEA by showing inventions from history that led to the web, and showing why we stand at the dawn of a newer and more mature web powered by standards.

Following Zeldman, we heard from Sarah Parmenter on Crafting the User Experience. She discussed principles from human psychology, such as speed, simplicity, surprise, social behavior and stirring emotions, and she gave practical advice for using psychology when thinking about web design and user experience.

Rounding out the morning was Jason Santa Maria’s session On Web Typography. He began by talking about what makes a good web typeface and major typography considerations, such as dimensions, special features, prolonged reading and internationalization. “Good typography is invisible. Don’t make me think about reading, just let me read!” Then he talked about the advances and choices we now have with web fonts. Even though those advances are exciting, he cautioned, we still have to use good design and web standards.

The afternoon started with Scott Berkun talking about Why Designers Fail and What to Do About It. He gave us his thoughts on how we’d never learn and move forward without failure. He said all designers fail 95% of the time, but design suffers from a lack of failure analysis—how to look at the reasons we fail and what to do about it.

One of my favourite sessions was A Content Strategy Roadmap with Kristina Halvorson. She provided valuable insights into how we spend a lot of time on strategy, wireframes and design before obtaining content for our websites. Content often comes last, when it should come first. The bottomline: “Start designing from the content out, rather that the canvas in,” she said.

Finishing off the day was Luke Wroblewski, whose presentation Mobile Web Design Moves left me eager for his full-day mobile web design course. It was exciting to hear about the huge growth in mobile usage, the immense possibilities of mobile web design and how we need to think differently when designing for mobile devices.

Day two started off with Eric Meyer and his talk The CSS3 Anarchists’ Cookbook. Basically, he gave us tips and tricks on how to use CSS for “evil”—how to mess with your co-workers by changing up code in their browser’s user stylesheets. I was a little scared of this talk, but whenever Eric showed the code he showed examples of what it did so it made sense. It was a cheeky way to show the new tools in HTML5 and CSS3.

Jeremy Keith followed with a discussion of Design Principles. He talked about how your principles and design should match, and how this will help you reach your goals—“The more you can boil down your design principles, the better.” Aarron Walter then did a presentation titled Idea to Interface. It was great to learn how those iPhone apps you have in your mind would translate from just an idea into actuality. He said you need to give yourself permission to be the person with the idea, and he outlined how you would carry it through.

The afternoon continued with Andy Clarke and his presentation Smoke Gets in Your Eyes about CSS3 web animation. We learned about the latest CSS animation techniques, and he showed some entertaining videos, such as the Flash vs. Web rap battle.

Alexa Andrzejewski, the founder of Foodspotting, followed with an intriguing presention The Dimensions of a Good Experience. She talked about evaluating experiences using 10 principles from urban planning, and how these same qualities could be applied to digital experiences—“Design influences our experience of the world.” It was the process that led her to create the Foodspotting app.

Finishing off day two was the humourous and incredibly passionate Tom Coates talking about Everything the Network Touches. He reminded us all about how exciting and powerful the web is and how the network is not only extending to people but to objects and places. His final thought: “I am going to say something controversial: I don’t think we should have web standards. It’s only with the ability to explore and not be bound by rules and regulations that we going to create and discover new realms.”

With our minds on overload from these two days we headed into day three, Mobile Web Design with Luke Wroblewski. Again, I had no reason to worry that we’d be doing something super techincal. It was all digestible information. Talking to a crowd of 300, Luke did a great job of getting us to interact with him and each other. He started by asking the audience what we’d like to learn. We also did a few interactive projects by sharing in small groups. Throughout the day, Luke took us through the major considerations when designing for mobile: what the constraints are, stats on usage, what behaviours drive the use of mobile devices and how they are used.

AEA, you know how to throw a conference: 12 exceptionally fantastic speakers, a live Twitter feed, three parties and a soundtrack! If you’re looking to attend a fun web design conference that runs seamlessly with loads of exciting and passionate people, check out An Event Apart. Having attended many design conferences I found AEA to be among one of the best experiences I’ve had. I went from not knowing anything about this conference to coming back with practical experience and tools ready to be put to use in our office.

Further reading:
A List Apart
World Wide Web Consortium
Luke Wroblewski’s Notes on AEA Presentations

Bill Buxton is so cool. He’s Canadian, a massively talented designer, and arguably the world authority on interaction and usability design. What’s not to like? Oh, Buxton does work at Microsoft as their Principal Researcher, but I forgive him for wanting a big paycheck and working for the world’s most powerful software company. I’ve even had the pleasure of shaking his hand after he gave a stirring lecture at a conference some time ago and since then have been a big fan.

His book, Sketching User Experiences: Getting The Design Right and the Right Design, argues that sketching, prototyping, and iteration are essential parts of the design process itself. And I must say I agree—especially these days where the complex marriage of increased media with information appliances and reactive environments makes the convoluted behaviors of the devices we use as important as human behaviour itself.

In 2007 Buxton presented an excellent lecture about his thinking in this area at the Stanford University Human-Computer Interaction Program where he discussed the design process itself, from the perspective of methods, organization, and composition. See Bill Buxton’s Stanford lecture about sketching interactions on YouTube.