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Invision is dead, the rebrand that wasn't, motorbikes with eyes
Friday 12 Jan
Hi there, folks, welcome to Whiteboard.
Well, it sure is chilly out there in England. I hope you’re keeping warm and dry!
Here's the first of my regular roundups on product design, UX, research, and culture. It’s a collection of my favourite links, articles, websites or discussions from the week, with some commentary.
You’ll probably find it interesting if you like digital product design, anything to do with behavioural research or usability, SaaS or startups, or even a bit of design culture.
So, if you like it, do let me know. Forward it to your pals so they can subscribe, too.
And if you don’t like it, keep it to yourself.
Cheers.
Tom HaczewskiDirector, The User Story
News
Invision is no more

Last week, Invision announced that they were closing down operations after they sold Freehand to Miro.
If I’m honest, I’m not sure it comes as a huge surprise. Without any real innovation for a few years, and with other tools like Figma overtaking them in development and feature sets, it felt a bit inevitable.
We moved away from Invision years ago, as commenting on designs is now included in most mainstream design tools, including Figma, which is our tool of choice.
They’re closing the tool later this year, but aside from a couple of larger enterprise clients that probably felt stuck with it ‘because that’s what we use’, I would imagine other smaller organisations will find it pretty trivial to move.
The WHSmith rebrand that wasn’t

After WHSmith rolled out new branding across a bunch of their stores late last year, to much public confusion and outcry, Mark Ritson from Marketing Week attempted to make it clear that it was a test and that it wasn’t planned to be a full rebrand.
Rebrands are often seen inside businesses as a strong signal, a pivotal comma in a brand's story, and as a result, little testing is often done before a new brand is unleashed on an unsuspecting population of customers.
Perhaps because of WHSmith’s heritage, there would inevitably be some complainants. Humans don’t like change. We find it very difficult to reconcile differences with concepts we hold in our learned models of the world, especially with a brand we see in every major train station and airport in the country.
The nostalgia effect in play here is strong. We put much greater weight onto concepts that we hold dear in our early memories or those that ‘hark back’ to better times.
And in times like these, this effect is probably even stronger.
So it does feel like this ‘test’ could play two roles - seeing what the public makes of the new branding (which, I must admit, does look a lot like the NHS logo) - but also easing us all into the shift in the visual brand identity, preparing the way for a full rollout later with less whinging.
Either way, this goes to show that testing is paramount regardless of what you’re developing. New developments and large changes are always going to have an impact, and you won’t know if it’s good or bad until you test it.
Motorbikes with eyes

Verge Motorcycles launched a revolutionary new computer vision system for their TS Ultra electric motorcycle, which is definitely worth checking out.
The bike is pretty incredible already, with the motor built into the rear wheel directly rather than requiring a chain or shaft drive, but the new series of sensors and cameras is a marvel and paves the way for far greater safety for motorcyclists.
As a biker myself (and a sensible one, mum), I am all for any new design features that help motorcyclists be more aware of the idiot car drivers around them.
Yes, I know that not all drivers are motorcyclist killers, but still.
Check your bloody mirrors.
What we’re up to.

🖥️ Creating Sticky Experiences webinar30 Jan, 4pmI’ll be going through the basics of how you can start creating more sticky experiences for users of your product.Sign up here
👩💻 Codebar18 Jan, 6pmHolly, our Lead Experience Designer, runs this free coding workshop in Norwich.Sign up here
🧠 The Business of Learning25 Jan, 12pmI’ll be heading to Norfolk Network’s next event. If you happen to be there to, do come and say hello!
Thanks for reading.
You’re a lovely person, and you have nice hair.
As you’re here to the end, here’s my thought for the week to leave you on:
The sooner you try to prove yourself wrong,
the less time you’ll spend being wrong.
See you next time, friends!