Users don’t tend to ask for large-scale site overhauls; massive changes mean having to learn a new UI, and that’s rarely something that folks get excited about. Massive changes also tend to feel unnecessary (it worked before, why fix it?) and arbitrary (why did this thing change and that other thing didn’t?) How, then, to explain to users why changes were necessary, why you made the changes you did, and how to effectively use the new UI?

(Twitter didn’t do a great job of explaining why it made a small but significant change last week, and users staged a minor revolt.)

The Google AdWords team made a smart decision to make a video about changes to the AdWords administrative interface. Team members describe how they collected user feedback to inform changes to the interface, and how these changes make the user experience better. The video makes the interface changes feel necessary (they significantly improve site performance) and human (real people put lots of thought into how to make this better, and the new features represent their best efforts).

In the future, “games are going to be one possible dimension of your personality.”

Via fora.tv

The unpleasant set of experiences that commonly comprise air travel these days include: being charged an additional fee to check a bag; sitting on the floor near wherever you can find a power outlet; and having to separate out liquids into a separate bag. These are commonplace annoyances that for various reasons weren’t part of air travel just a few years ago.

Yet, even though the experience of flying has changed in fundamental ways, luggage, an essential part of this experience, hasn’t evolved much.

That’s why I’m psyched about ZÜCA luggage, which I just found out about. “With a built-in seat (seriously) and removable packing pouches that stack like drawers, this patented new concept in travel is like nothing else.”

I like the luggage but what I like even more is the spirit of it—the thoughtful understanding of the realities of travel and the creative rebuilding of a commoditized product.

There’s a lot of talk of jobs getting chopped and savings being slashed. In the interest of spreading positivity, let’s focus on chopping and slashing vegetables, instead!

My awesome product designer friend Jeff Beene (nerveaction.com) and his business partner Chris Raia (christopherraia.net) have designed a new line of kitchen tools that I’m swooning over.

I do seem to spend a sizable chunk of my time dismembering vegetables, and the Cut & Prep System looks like it will make that process faster, safer, and more pleasurable. And isn’t that the ultimate goal of any thoughtful design?

Found in today’s nytimes.com, a compelling proposal for a ballot re-design.

Amaztype uses the amazon.com API to pull search results for a given keyword, then returns results in the shape of the search term. My name returns a lot of different editions of Julie of the Wolves.

(Another great find from Kristin.)

Wordle has been making the rounds lately but I’ve just gotten in to mess around with it — and it’s fabulous.

Here is a Wordle rendering of all of my del.icio.us tags:

Sure, it’s just a tag cloud. But, because the final layout is so well done and the creation interface is so thoughtfully put together, the data can be manipulated and understood in a way that wouldn’t be possible with traditional tag clouds.

Check out Jeremy Keith’s Social Buzzword Generator at socialbuzz.adactio.com.

Why do I have to answer so many questions when I just want to shut down my laptop and go home?

Textpad: Do you want to save untitled.txt?
Me: No! If I’d wanted to save it, I would have.
Entourage: Do you want to empty your junkmail folder?
Me: I don’t care! Maybe I do, but why do I have to decide right now?
Firefox: You are about to close 10 tabs. Are you sure you want to continue?
Me: Yes! Why else would I be trying to shut down the machine?

Imagine if our houses were like this. (Error: you are about to leave the kitchen without emptying the dishwasher. Cancel | Yes | No ) We would not stand for it.

Why can’t I just turn off the computer? Is it really such a dumb machine that it can’t remember the last version of all open files? I wish I had a switch labeled “just turn off, I mean it, it’s time to go home and I don’t want to deal with you anymore.”

Steve Ganz uncovered this gem: