I first visited Tokyo in 2009 with my wife and we both loved the place. So alien from anything we had experienced before. We returned in 2010 on a budget and met up with Otaku legend Danny Choo as well as Linkedin connections Megumi Oyanagi and “OsakaSaul” Fleischman.

In 2011 we decided to visit again, this time with a good friend, Phuc Van Dang, who had never been to Japan before. All planned and well under way…

11/03/2011: Japan’s most powerful earthquake since records began struck.

…We still decided to go ahead with our planned visit. After all, it was planned for the 23rd of April, over a month later.

Having not been to Japan before, our friend didn’t really notice the change, but for us Tokyo was a city changed.

The most immediate and visible difference was that the big, vibrant neon lights had been turned off to save energy. Some had been switched on again by the time we visited. Shibuya crossing looked close to its old self but other places there where uncomfortably dark patches in the walls of neon lights.

And the population had changed. The first couple of days passed before I saw single other white person. That had not been the case on previous trips where I was actually surprised at the number of foreigners roaming the streets of Tokyo both tourists as well as residents.

However, whereever we went we were met with the same friendly attitude and supreme customer service, which was a great relief. The Tokyoites seemed to have moved on from the disaster or at least they were putting a very convincing face on.

In fact, speaking to Akira Nishitake, a Japanese artist friend, it seemed that the single worry on the Japanese mind at the time was the effect the looming energy crisis would have on air condition units in office buildings. I have not experienced Japanese summer, but I have heard it is very hot. So hot that some Tokyo-based companies had decided to relocate to other places in Japan fearing the potential of facing a summer without the trusty air con.

We had a wonderful two weeks of holiday in great company with both old friends and new friends. But the single image that stay with me from this holiday is that of empty restaurants.

Almost every restaurant we went to was empty of customers, which always brought the reality back to us: This was a people who was suffering and who either didn’t feel like going out due to personal experiences during the disaster or who felt it was inappropriate to go out as it could be seen as not caring for the suffering of fellow citizen.

Today Japan has moved forward. How could they not? But the there’s still a lot of work left to do. If you want to help I recommend buying QuakeBook –  A Twitter-sourced charity book about how the Japanese Earthquake at 2:46 on March 11, 2011 affected everybody living in Japan.

As a digital designer making business card is not something I do for clients so it is not a familiar process. Adding to that I always find it much more difficult to design something for myself.

Initial design thoughts

I didn’t want a business card that felt like a “designer’s business card” but rather I wanted a card that followed traditional business card design patterns, which would give me a more durable card that could work with any kind of design I would apply to any other collateral such as my websites or social media profiles.

Adding social media profiles… or not

As I was designing the card I was struggling with what social media profiles to add. My initial list was:

• Twitter
• Linkedin
• Instagram
• I was also considering Pinterest, Google+ even my Google map of London Restaurants.

This turned in to my biggest headache. Not only did it quickly fill up the real estate, it also seemed like just duplicating my name over and over again: @fransgaard, +fransgaard, fransgaard.com, fransgaard@gmail.com…etc. It felt both narcissistic and insecure at the same time.

Back to basics

So I went back to a blank slate, created a white front and a black back and started by adding my logo and nothing else. I then added my name and “Self-proclaimed digital native” as a pseudo job title because I like it and because I’ve had lots of good feedback on it since I started using it. I was happy so far…

Adding “Find fransgaard”

Now came my headache: Adding my online handle “fransgaard” to the card. I struggled with this for a long time, but made my break-through when I started adding Twitter, Linkedin and other social media icons to the card.

I thought the icons gave the card a cheap, low-quality look which I really did not want, but above the icons I had written “Find fransgaard on…” and I realised that the expression was not only applicable to social channels; it applied to my online presence in general as I am in the fortunate position of having a surname which is very unusual and I am the only digital professional in the family.

So “Find fransgaard online” became the content on the back with the aim of sending the reader on a mini-quest to find me somewhere online allowing them to search for me in their chosen channels.

Self-confidence versus user-friendly

The content on my card as this stage was:

• Logo
• Name
• Job title
• and the “Find fransgaard online” sign post

And that was it! I was happy with the card and almost sent the card to GoodPrint.co.uk but a little UX angel kept knocking at the side of my head saying:

“Sending people out to find fransgaard online is all good, but what if they just want a quick way to learn about you and contact you?”.

In the end the user experience profesional in me won and I added my website url and my email to the card leaving “find fransgaard online” to be a fun, but not vital way of establishing communication.

Proving the point: Facebook buying Instagram

In the end I added no social media channels to my business card design. It felt right and the day after I sent the business card to the printer that gut-feel proved right: Facebook bought Instagram.

I am a heavy Instagram user, but I am not sure I will stay now that Facebook has bought Instagram. I had originally planned to add my Instagram account to the business card. Had I done that I would now have a business card with a profile I may not be using for much longer.

Re-thinking how I promote my social media profiles online

I received the cards today and the process have made me think about how I promote social media profiles online.

Currently, here on this site, I have a whole mini lifestream down the left hand side pulling in content from Twitter and Flickr/Instagram, linking to all my other profiles and displaying social proof badges such as Kred and Klout.

Is this way of displaying social content actually to the benefit of the user? Do they need to see these or would more subtle links enough and prevent interference with the main content?

These thoughts are refreshing and I am currently designing a new interface following the same process as the business card design: Back to basics. Start with the logo, add the most vital navigation items and work from there and I like where this is heading so expect a new web design here very soon.

The original version of this article can be seen at the award-winning Capgemini – Capping IT Off blog.

Imagine a man taking a break from his overdue Powerpoint to surf the web a bit. He visits his favourite site only to be met with a massive fanfare obliterating the sound of silence in the open plan office making his boss stare him down with a P45 look in her eyes.

An instant way for the website to lose a customer.

It is widely accepted that music on websites is bad for the user experience.

But as with many generally accepted user experience best practices, nothing is set in stone as the web is moving and changing faster than quicksand on fast forward.

What was best practice yesterday, may not be so today and probably won’t be tomorrow.

The no-sound best practice was established when the big Flash sites full of epic music tracks and loud button noises hit the web (link contains sound). Today user experience professionals know to keep away from sound having burned their fingers creating these sites int he past.

The subtle return of sound

But sound have slowly been seeping back into the digital experience in recent years: Notifications sounds on instant message services; Social media alerts on mobiles and complete soundtracks on embedded videos and music sites.

“Sound is invasive, intrusive, and irresistible” so it is only natural it is making its way back in our digital lives. Online we already don’t have the sense of touch or taste so why limit ourselves from sound as well?

The Spotify Music Player opens the door for embedded music

Spotify, a music service that made headlines last year by joining forces with Facebook, announced today (11 Apr 2012) they are launching a play button for external sites to add a Spotify music player.

It is the first major attempt to return sound in full force to our digital lives, but I think it heralds a new dawn for music online and it is time to consider music and sound as part of the user experience online.

See the player in action on The Independent.

Yesterday Facebook bought Instagram!

Being a digital professional, I normally try to remain neutral to industry news like this, but I love my Instagram account so my reaction was… less controlled.

NOOOOOOO! Facebook buys Instagram :( blog.instagram.com/post/207850138… #in

— Robert Fransgaard (@fransgaard) April 9, 2012

Why did I react this way? How had Instagram become the first network I check in the morning in favour of my good old friend Twitter?

It’s all in mobile sharing

I’m not a photographer but I post photos from my iPhone to share the moment in an instant or a thought before it is gone. There were already photo sharing services, but none did what I really needed:

• My Facebook is limited to close friends and being worried about Facebook’s use of data I really only use it as a glorified messaging system.
• I am a Flickr Pro user but was never a fan of Flickr’s iPhone app partly because of the interface and partly because of it’s difficulty sharing to other social networks.
• Twitter image services such as YFrog provided the speed and integration I wanted but I feared losing the photos by scattering photos all over the internet.

Then Instagram came offering a fast, mobile-optimized user experience; Sharing options to lots of other social networks (allowing me to save photos to Flickr) and a lovely community to boot.

Why I am worried about Facebook buying Instagram

From a business point-of-view I can see the logic of Facebook buying Instagram as they stepped onto Facebook turf and did it better and Google are probably kicking themselves for not getting there first.

But from a user’s point of view I am not really keen on this for several reasons:

• What will Facebook do with my Instagram data? If you are not paying for the product, you are the product and Facebook is good at selling you.
• What will Facebook do with Instagram? Both parties are keen to stress that Instagram will continue as Instagram, but Facebook is notorious for buying start-ups,  dismantling them and reallocating their employees.
• What will happen with the Instagram user experience? Ads everywhere, suggested users, games, pokes, screwed up timelines, integration with Spotify… Worst case scenario is a user experience drowned in “helpful” services.
• Instagram exclusivity gone. Like it or not, Instagram had a alluring “members only” feel to it. It was only iPhone, it was only mobile. Facebook is the general public online and now Instagram will open its doors potentially losing the magic in the process… Yes, I’m a closet Apple snob I guess.

The opportunity for other photo-sharing networks.

According to this Mashable poll, people don’t like it but will they act? Will they follow Next Web’s guide to deleting Instagram accounts?

Users are dependant on Instagram in the same way as they are dependant on Facebook as a way to stay in touch with close friends, but even so it may only be a small elitist group of people who will be jumping ship here and now, because where should they go if they left Instagram?

This is a massive opportunity for established networks such as Flickr and Tumblr and for new ones such as Path, maybe even Google+. It all comes down to who can match Instagram’s great mobile user experience… right here and now, none of them can.

What will I do?

Personally I don’t feel like using Instagram anymore at the time of writing this, but I will keep my account… possibly deleting all images if I can find an easy way to do it to avoid Facebook’s data harvester.

But I will be looking for a new candidate to take over and looking at how the Flickr iPhone app has been evolving over the last year I am pleasantly surprised to see an option to share on Twitter.

I’ve just been watching a video of David Reed, a Principal Consultant for Capgemini Consulting, talking about his first 100 days with Capgemini and it made me think about why I, as a creative person, made the move to join Capgemini.

Having worked in the amazing London digital creative industry since 1999, in 2010 I was looking for a new job. As expected I started interviewing with various agencies but none of the roles really felt right. This scared me as some of the roles on offer where top jobs at great companies.

Having turned down the first few job offers, roles I would have accepted in the past, I decided to take a look at what I wanted and where the industry was heading.

Place your bets

Just then a recruitment agency contact me with a role that did not fit what I was looking for. The role was an internal role for a betting company. I had never considered inhouse roles as an option before and not being a betting/gambling man and not having the slightest interest in watching sports, this role seemed wrong on all accounts.

But because I was going through this what-do-I-want-to-do crisis I went to the interview and was really gobsmacked at the professional approach to digital design, including proper user testing, real objectives to reach and a tangible creative design process.

It felt like utopian version of agency world where the team had time to create properly crafted work that delivers tangible results.

In the end the role was too junior, but it was the first vacancy I got really exited about, which was strange as I had no personal interest in the product.

Rethinking my views on digital creative work

And then it hit me: In recent years companies are increasingly establishing internal digital departments owning the digital strategy and the creative thinking leaving only tactical design work to the agencies (banners, anyone?).

I started applying for inhouse jobs and suddenly the roles got more interesting. I think it is because the inhouse roles and teams felt like a grown-up version of the digital agency environment, which to some extend still suffers from the early days of web design working crazy hours, mixed with getting drunk and playing table fussball.

But was I ready to work for only a single brand? I was looking for a company where I could stay for a long time and the prospect of working with the same brand day in and day out for years and years didn’t feel all that appealing even though I had no experience to base that negative feeling on.

Why Capgemini

The Capgemini role felt like the best of both words: One one hand it had the professional feel of the inhouse teams I had met and on the other hand it offered the variety of working with several clients that agencies can offer.

But the single thing that made me go “yes” was the creative freedom a company like Capgemini can offer. Think about it for a second:

If you work for an digital agency your creativity is actually limited to what your development team can deliver.

With a company like Capgemini I would have an army of tens of thousands of developers behind me. Whatever crazy solution I come up with there would be at least one developer  capable of delivering my concept.

I joined Capgemini in the summer of 2010 and so far all of the above has been true:

1. I work within a UX team made of talented craftspeople in a professional organisation.
2. I work with a range of exiting projects and clients.
3. And I’ve made good use of the creative freedom of having an army of developers.

And there’s been further benefits: I have learned a lot of new things from some brilliant people (Windahl Finnigan, Laurence Buchanan and Guy Stephens to name a few). And this is the first time in many years I feel I am learning and growing rather than only teaching and mentoring.

I hope I’ll stay with Capgemini for a long time to come.