Large Entertainment Company’s Content Management System – User Experience

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Wireframe

Wireframe

Major University’s Distance Learning Process – User Experience

Working with one of our repeat clients, we at Plastic Past devised the flow of students through the a major university’s distance learning application process.

System process flow

Popular Women’s Fashion Label’s Facebook App – User Experience

Game-like interaction design where users upload photos of themselves looking stylish to compete with each other.

BlackBook Guides – User Experience

For the BlackBook Guides Facebook App, Plastic Past designed the user experience to be as informative and functional as possible, while giving users every excuse to share and take social action on any piece of content.  This meant working closely with BlackBook to design a set of APIs that they would use as the backend technology to support usage of their data on Facebook as well as on future social platforms, including as mobile devices.

Users could comment and browse venues sorted in a variety of ways, as well as see their friends’ favorite venues, where their friends were planning to go, and share content wither other users explicitly through Facebook invitations, notifications, or email.

Newest venues

Friends of Friends

Venue details

MTV Music Challenge – User Experience

MTV brought on Plastic Past to design a music promotion vehicle that had game-like elements and could run on a variety of social network platforms, including Facebook and their own proprietary mtv.com network.  What we came up with uses elements from popular television quiz-shows, MTV’s own existing games, viral apps on Facebook, as well as the creativity inherent in new ideas.

Home screen wireframe

Subcategory home wireframe

Quiz question wireframe

Quiz help line wireframe

Nationwide Online Classifieds- User Experience

Working once again with our friends at Transparensee, Amos Bloomberg flushed out the details of an entire new way for one of the nations largest classifieds listings services, to allow their customers – publishers across the country – to streamline their classifieds ad systems online and in print.  A large part of the user experience was understanding the limitations of print, and how that affects the capabilities supplied online.

Princeton Review – User Experience

Princeton Review brought us on to entirely recreate the flow of their site in order to enhance the level of user engagement by designing social network elements and by designing with the anticipation of using Transparensee’s fuzzy search engine.  Princeton Review was rapidly losing market share to competitors, such as Kaplan, and were pretty sure their antiquated website was mostly to blame.

Working within the severe constraints of the business requirements and the limitations arising from how their data was stored technically, we created an entirely new User Experience that allowed potential students to quickly find courses suited to their study habits.  If a student didn’t find what they were looking for, they could create their own course, find an instructor they liked, and invite their friends to join it.

This put the control of finding courses into the hands of the students themselves, and bringing Princeton Review into the Age of Engagement.

Overview of user flow

User flow for creating courses

User flow of a signup wizard

Flow of a course setup wizard

VH1 My Lil Lohan Facebook App – User Experience

For VH1, we created a user experience like no other for the My Lil Lohan Facebook App.  Using pop culture references to the volatile but beautiful Lindsay Lohan, and game-like experience design, My Lil Lohan allowed users to adopt a “pet” Lindsay Lohan, and treat her to all things good and bad as they saw fit.  In other words, users became responsible for their Lil Lohans.  And they could compete to see whose Lil Lohan was doing better (or worse), while at the same time giving gifts or harmful substances to their opponents Lil Lohans in order to better themselves.

My Lil Lohan Facebook home screen

My Lil Lohan home wireframe

My Lil Lohan rankings wireframe

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Dirty Secret Facebook App

Dirty Secret is a Facebook application that allows users to spill the beans about their friends anonymously.  Users can browse secrets within their friend communities, within their “networks”, or for everyone, including strangers.

Each secret has a comment board and a voting system attached to it where users can debate the veracity of the claims being made.  Only The person about whom the secret is told has the right to delete it.

Dirty Secret screen

Dirty Secret screen

Subway Status Facebook App

Subway Status is an application for Facebook that allows New Yorkers to post updates on the status of the subways, meet their neighbors and read service announcements pulled from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Web site. Users can check for delays, complain about local transit issues — such as the campaign for an F train express — and keep track of weekend changes, all without leaving their social network.

By combining the New York transportation experience with new forms of social networking, Plastic Past is augmenting the normal subway experience and bridging the boundaries between online and offline activities.

IN THE PRESS

“A Site Where Riders Can Compare Notes (And Complain, Too)“, New York Times, August 23, 2007

“Facebook To Reduce Rage, Increase Hookups On Subway“, New York Magazine, August 22, 2007

“Even the Subway’s on Facebook“, Metro NY, August 28, 2007

“The subways are in your facebook, upadatin’ ur transit alerts“, Second Ave. Sagas, August 23, 2007

Click to go to Subway Status on Facebook