Heading up the Development side of our Digital offering, Rob took some time to find out how developers around the globe are adding fun to what many would consider menial tasks.
Within healthcare, we always have a careful approach to user engagement; however, here are a few ways difficult or mundane situations can be tackled with a smile and a laugh.
Back To Top.
Tholman on Github has taken the standard ‘Back to Top’ button and put a fun spin on it, adding everyone’s favourite standard: Elevator Music.
It’s a fun and quirky addition to some useful core website functionality, and given the right topic, could be exactly what your client is looking for.
If it’s too light-hearted, why not use a particular sound effect or piece of music related to your content’s subject matter?
Looks Like You Need Iceland.
More than six months into a global pandemic, even the most zen, mindful of us can be excused for wanting to scream into the void. Fortunately, with the void not readily available to the general public, Iceland’s board of tourism has stepped in and created lookslikeyouneediceland.com.
This fantastic site allows any visitor to record their most impressive scream safely from the comfort of their own home and then broadcast it ‘into the wide-open spaces of Iceland as therapy’.
The site itself is clean, to the point, as well as reflective of the need to scream we have all been feeling as of late, culminating in an inventive and whimsical way of promoting the beautiful country.
I Miss the Office
Similarly, for those out there missing the ‘fizz and excitement’ of physically being in an office, I present imisstheoffice.eu. This beautifully illustrated site is a virtual soundboard of everyone’s favourite office sounds, from the clunky 1990’s printer to a ping pong table, to the mhmm’s you hear through the wall while colleagues are on a conference call.
And for anyone feeling too calm since working from home, I suggest clicking on everything and then turning up the number of colleagues to the max for a genuinely hellish audio soundscape.
DeLorean Ipsum Text Generator
Finally, as developers, we all love a good generator. However, using the same ones day in day out can become slightly monotonous (I made the change to PlaceKitten.com years ago for initial design).
Lorem Ipsum has saved our skins when it comes to prototyping and building out sites time and time again, and fun generators are easy to find like Zombie Ipsum and Pirate Ipsum.
However, for my personal favourite, Satori Studio has used their love a certain movie franchise to create ‘the most future-proof lorem ipsum tool’. The generator creates a number of paragraphs you choose with placeholder text lifted from the Back to the Future script.
Summary
These projects all vary in application suitability and intention. However, they all show how approaching a task with a smile can help improve even the smallest of projects.
Whether that’s bringing in tourism, or getting back to the top of a page, we need to think a little differently.
I don’t believe everything a developer makes has to ‘see a need fill a need’, but if it can at least make someone smile, that’s enough for me.
