We’re very happy to announce the recent launch of the new Google Ventures identity and web site. Congratulations to everyone involved! It was a terrific, successful collaborative effort with the Google Ventures team, and we’re excited to see the new site and brand come to life.

Overview
Google Ventures is the new venture investment arm of Google. They came to Sequence with a vision for taking their brand to the next level, and manifesting this new vision in both a core visual identity, business system, and new web site. We were excited by the opportunity and jumped in with our strategy and design hats firmly attached.

Redesign objectives
Google Ventures had a number of goals for the redesign project:

• Strike the right balance between Google’s “scrappy,” young and slightly irreverent brand, and that of a trusted and sophisticated venture capital business
• Provide adequate differentiation from more traditional VCs
• Create a website and overall design system that are scalable enough to support future portfolio expansion
• Highlight the unique connection to the larger Google network — 20,000 strong and growing — while still reflecting the actual degree of autonomy between Google Ventures and Google Inc.
• Create a great user experience for site visitors (entrepreneurs, partners and investors) that highlights Google Ventures’ uniqueness, personality and portfolio

The Sequence solution
Like all of our design projects, we started this one by first digging into their business strategy, and then matching the clients objectives with the needs of their audiences. Here’s how we approached the Google Ventures design:

• Use photography extensively to provide a rich visual experience distinct from parent Google’s minimalist approach, and to offer a more engaging experience than that created by other VCs
• Keep the site as simple as possible, but no simpler, while allowing for future portfolio expansion
• Pursue an editorial strategy that focuses on short, crisp messages that help establish the brand as approachable, trustworthy and smart
• Use all-Google technologies under the hood (e.g., Blogger, Google Analytics, JS libraries, highly optimized code)

In a nutshell
We’re very proud to have helped Google launch this new brand and we can’t wait to see what new ventures they help bring into the world.

We’ve been doing a lot of work with Chipotle Mexican Grill over the past few years, and we’re super excited and proud to finally announce the launch of their new web site at www.chipotle.com.

The site is the culmination of almost a full year of designing, copywriting, illustrating, filming, prototyping and coding.

We had two primary design objectives. The first was to provide easy access to the core content and functionality of the site (menu and company information, store locations, online ordering, etc). Our second objective was to help Chipotle bring to life the story of “Food with Integrity”—their philosophy of using naturally-raised and sustainable ingredients to make better tasting, healthier and more responsible food. It’s a big part of their culture and comes down straight from their passionate foodie CEO, Steve Ells. The trick was finding a way of telling this story that wasn’t preachy, boring or too political. And doing it in a way that felt true to the quirky and irreverent Chipotle brand personality.

Getting into the mindset of a fanatical Chipotle burrito fan turned out to be pretty easy (honestly, have you tried that barbacoa?), and that was the inspiration for creating the hand-lettered illustrative style we call “passionate ramblings” that is used throughout the site. We wrote and illustrated (and re-wrote and re-illustrated) all of these, and Chipotle liked them so much that they have started using them all over the place.

One of our other big ideas for the site was to create a not-so-secret secret world – a sort of parallel chipotle.com experience filled with easter eggs, fun factoids, and little gizmos, games and movies. Lurking just beneath the surface of the real site (which is why we call it going “under the foil”), you can poke around and find all sorts of fun stuff (check out one of our favorites, the Porkquest video, by using the red string to head “Below the foil” on the home page, then scrolling to the bottom).

And if all that exploring and pointing and clicking has got you hankering for some tasty, naturally-rasied carnitas, by all means, order yourself some lunch!

When Sequence was chosen by OpenTable to design and develop its iPad app, we were giddy.

As regular, devoted users of the OpenTable web and mobile offerings, we were thrilled to get the opportunity to help make the OpenTable iPad vision real. As you’ll see when you try the app, it takes full advantage of the iPad’s rich, large display and touchscreen interactivity.

For mobile and web app projects, Sequence uses an agile design and development process, and we used this process for the OpenTable iPad effort. The approach is unlike the traditional waterfall where interaction design and visual design outputs are stacks of wireframes and comps approved by the client and then passed to development in serial fashion.

The Sequence method is collaborative and iterative. Instead of looking at an endless succession of static wireframes and screens, our clients get to see working prototypes, interactions and functionality early. Our approach integrates product management, user experience design, and development in an innovative and efficient process that is framed by a brand’s innovation goals, time-to-market pressures, and development reality.

The team structure of Sequence-style agile design and development is flexible. In some cases, the client’s development organization builds the app. In other cases, like the OpenTable iPad effort, Sequence’s integrated user experience and development team works shoulder-to-shoulder with the client’s product management team to design and develop an application.

In the coming months, we’ll be talking about a variety of new mobile and web applications we’ve designed and developed using this innovative, nimble, and cost-effective process.

The world of social media is awash in a sea of data: followers, friends, likes, links, purchases, engagement. Anyone trying to make sense of (and justify) their social media efforts has to dive into this sea. Fortunately, there are a plethora of tools tools available (free and otherwise) that slice and dice this data in different ways. But how much do they actually help? In the case of many of the free tools out there, the basic principles of information design are taking a backseat, with incomprehensible charts, mysterious metrics and marginal usability ruling the day and obscuring the valuable information present.

Below are a few examples of information design in free social media analytics tools that could use some improvement. It’s not an impossible task; a few simple refinements would make a huge difference. Instead, sometimes we’re just left scratching our heads, or even worse, drawing the wrong conclusions.

NOTE: Most of these free tools are new and still evolving, with developers contributing their time and efforts to bring a little order to the chaos. It’s easy to criticize and forget the innumerable hours of hard work that go into creating and improving free web apps. So, if any of you developers are reading this, keep up the good work!

Problem 1: Poorly labeled axes on graphs cause confusion

Every self-respecting graph must provide clearly labeled axes. Without them, data is left naked, and the viewer is left guessing about what’s being shown. Unfortunately, unlabeled or poorly labeled axes seem to rule the day with many social media graphs.

Twitalyzer: Graph of followers over time shows start and end dates in text, but not on the actual graph (not to mention the data being incorrect)

Klout: No dates on horizontal axis for Klout rating over time

Problem 2: Non-linear data scales misrepresent information

In scientific data presentation, one encounters data scaled in a number of different ways (e.g., linear, logarithmic). Most web analytics tools (for social media or otherwise), use linear scales. Regardless, the scale should be labeled and used correctly.

In the particularly egregious example below, TwitterGrader shows followers over time and labels the axes, but the axes are a total mess (not linear, not logarithmic). As a result, what looks at first like a decreased rate of follower adoption is nothing of the sort.

TwitterGrader: Incorrect scale on x-axis (i.e., 3 months is the same length as 1 day) leads to the wrong conclusions

Problem 3: Mysterious metrics, poorly displayed

It seems like many social media analytics tools use different metrics, none of which are standardized. These metrics are presented in dashboards with bold numbers, bright colors, arrows and checkboxes and thumbs up or down. But what do they actually mean and is good information design used to help clarify? Invariably, definitions are not shown inline, so one has to click around to find what a given metric means. Additionally, scales are not provided for context; raw numbers are shown, and it’s left to the user to figure out the maximum and minimum for any given value, not to mention whether or not a given number is “good” or “bad.”

Klout is an example of a powerful tool that’s grown a lot, but that still has some confusing ways of presenting metrics and data.

Klout: What's the minimum and maximum value for these scores? What do the colors mean, or the metrics, for that matter?

Twitalyzer: More metrics with no scales, meaningless colors, and unclear data representations (e.g., why three arrows for one and two for the other?)

In Twitalyzer’s defense, their latest interface has inserted a popup window that tries to clarify the metrics and visual presentation of information. The alternative would be to design things clearly in the first place, so that excessive instructional content isn’t needed. Additionally, when basic things like legends or descriptors are hidden one or two clicks away, it takes people away from what they’re there to do: analyze data.

Twitalyzer: Popup legend explains somewhat cryptic information design

Problem 4: Lots of data is stale, but it’s not obvious

A lot of the free social media tools out there only scan for data when told. As a result, much of what you’ll see is out of date, and not just by days or weeks, but often months. Unfortunately, information in these interfaces doesn’t always make it clear over what time period a data set applies, or the last time a given profile was scanned. A little information design would go a long way to fixing this problem.

Conclusion: Caveat emptor

All of the examples shown above are for free tools, and in this case, you usually get what you pay for. Lots of data, some useful functionality, but some pretty rough edges. More sophisticated enterprise tools (like Radian6, Scout Labs, Sysomos or Viral Heat), don’t seem to suffer from these information design oversights, and it’s likely that the best free tools will improve significantly over time.

In the meantime, if you’re using free social media analytics tools, take the time to understand exactly how data is being presented, and the metrics being used. Free tools are great, and many are pretty powerful, but careless interpretation could transform great insights to lies or propaganda.

What are your thoughts? Are there free social media tools out there that you think get it right from an information design perspective?

We’ve consistently seen demand for three key types of video and motion design efforts with our clients:

(1) Inspiration: To provide a crisp articulation of company or project goals and objectives in a compelling and emotive way.

(2) Visualization: To explore and explain new mobile and web app interaction models in a manner more closely tied to the actual interaction of the final product.

(3) Promotion: To promote new and interesting products or services by creating viral excitement.

Most recently, Sequence has created two promotional videos for Roku (a leader in the media-streaming device category), and they have managed to garner over 100,000 views since their release. (Check them out below.)

But we’re only getting started.

Stay tuned (the metaphor seems to make much more sense when it refers to video, doesn’t it?) for a slew of upcoming Sequence video projects in the works.

Roku’s new Netflix experience

UFC Channel on Roku