June 8, 2011

Interface Details: Noah Scalin, Rita Rita, The Economist and more

The layout of black rectangles found on artist Noah Scalin’s website is reminiscent of paintings by Sol Lewitt, particularly his Wall Drawing 792. Mousing over each shape reveals underlying information. While initially arresting, it also invites curiosity—which is the underlying intent.



Discovered via Audree Lapierre: Two sides—one part Studio, one part Boutique—form the creative business Rita Rita. They are shown in an intuitive way, similar to two overlapping sheets of paper.



Discovered via Swissmiss: Photographer Russ Morris’ “Forever” take on the footer aims for longevity, enough said.



As a companion to its “Most commented” list, The Economist magazine visualized commented topics as interactive mind maps. The size of each key word correlates to popularity. It’s a variation of a tag cloud. Mouse over any key word to display the published comments for that selected topic. It steers attention to articles through reader feedback, siphoned through a bubble diagram.



Though the boundaries are unknown, dragging (the motion, not the emotion, though it could feel like both) your way through the limited-edition bags of Otaat does take work. Answering the question “What do these bags look like?” drives users to go along with the “click and drag” as opposed to the mainstream point-and-click convention. Such gall, especially applied to eCommerce, is appreciated.