[Personal UX/UI review] signs in Seolleung Stn. perhaps

Issue: the ceiling sign has misled me not to go under the sign but look for an exit sign located on the far left on this photo

Recommendation: include exit numbers in the ceiling sign for passengers' intuitive understanding of direction 

[Personal UX/UI review] Samsung Electronics newspaper and light box ads

Issue: still hardware specs ads

(c.f. Samsung's video ad: http://www.samsung.com/africa_pt/?brightcove=2748971527001#latest-home)

Recommendation: advertise how the optical zoom and smartphone combination enhance people's lives 

Issue: information architecture of this light box display is not intuitive enough to understand which text explains which picture

Recommendation: visual categorization of information needs to be implemented 

For example, 

Apple story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGtP6ZQ6Lt8&feature=share

Nexus 7 ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx7HF0RaE10

[Personal UX/UI review] 2nd floor store design, logo positioning,pricing

Positive: clean window and bright lighting for 2nd floor restaurant

Lesson: to attract customers on the 2nd floor, deal with issues that customers care the most (e.g. hygiene, doubts about shaggy business) 

Issue: no logo

Recommendation: put logo in front of company name to increase brand recognition and awareness

Issue: same product with different pricing

Recommendation: standardize pricing (i.e. make the price the same)

[Personal UX/UI review] Google Drive's lack of system detection

Issue: though users already downloaded the application, this Google Drive, a cloud-base web application doesn't detect that (c.f. Google+ doesn't detect installed app on users' smartphone, either) 

Solution: if installed, simply remove the icon from users' Drive webpage

Lesson: website needs to be able to "customize" or "respond" to users' current system 

[Personal UX/UI review] McDelivery site and alarm app from McDonald's

Usually on weekends, I find myself visiting Korean McDelivery site to order burgers and stuff. The other day I happened to notice time-limitation sales technique widely used by TV home shopping channels has been implemented in McDonald's home-delivery website. 

Positive: display remaining time for selected order to psychologically influence users to convert from website visitors to purchasers

Positive: "kind" reminder message to nudge users for purchase

Positive: as a "punishment" failed to click order button, users need to start all over again. What a great incentive system! 

Positive: even a utility app which comes with free coffee promotion displays timer-limitation; this system truly works because the system incentivized me to visit the restaurant this morning! 

[Fireside Chat] Lessons Learned from Y Combinator & 500 Startups

Title	Fireside Chat- Lessons Learned from Y Combinator & 500 Startups
Place	D Camp
Time	October 16, 2013 7PM~9PM
Speaker	Niket Desai (@niket), Josh Wilson (@makaniaki), Yaron Binur (@ybinur)
Organizer	AppCenter (http://onoffmix.com/event/19682)
Focus	What to do in startups

I.       Key Takeaway: 

1.       Move fast, stay hungry and focused

2.     Stay with customers from day zero      

II.      Lesson from Y Combinator

1.       What you’re building should be meaningful to users

2.     Your product or service needs to make users would be willing to pay for it, download it, or come back periodically

3.     Talk to your customers and speed up (bringing your prototype and getting feedback are so much faster than coding)

4.     No need to waste time and money on managerial stuff e.g. payroll, tax, etc. (use accelerator program such as Y Combinator)

5.     Know why you need an accelerator before asking one  

III.     Other lessons

1.       Get more feedbacks early

2.     Utilize usability, user testing, surveys from day zero

3.     Always sell yourself (i.e. elevator speech to other people)  

IV.    Ways to be acquired

1.       Visibility: Get yourself known (e.g. Top 50 Tech Crunch)

2.     Be focused (e.g. home related thing for Redbeacon)

3.     Make hard decision in valuing and selling your business

V.      How do you see failure?

1.       Fail fast and early and often (c.f. Paul Graham)

1)     Fail consistently every time (B/c with failure you learn something)    

VI.    Go to Silicon Valley to build or stay in Korea?

1.       go global and support multiple languages (e.g. Skype started as global service from day one)

2.       know what you’re doing (e.g. non-consumer facing products such as security, technology, infra doesn’t need to be physically in the States)

VII.   Where to locate HW and SW offices?

1.       be where your customers are

2.     learn from Waze- R&D center in Israel but operation offices in the US

[Personal UX/UI review] front yard design trend?

Some similarities found for front yard design among shops. A trend?

Observation: wooden look front yard design 

Issue: hard to see what's this restaurant is selling; the front yard design seems to be closed

Solution: get rid of plants and make it open like the cases above perhaps?