Taptu is growing and we’re looking for a few top-notch Java developers to join our Development team in Cambridge, UK. You don’t have to have many years of experience, but you need to show us you’re motivated and creative; we love contributors to open-source projects and people with exciting projects of their own. If you’ve created something remarkable, tell us about it!

We’re also looking for great academics and a track record that you can work hard and work smart.

Required skills:

• Plenty of Java development experience
• Server-side web development skills/knowledge (Java, Spring, Hibernate, MySQL, etc)
• Linux and scripting skills helpful
• Good communication skills and proactive attitude in making Taptu kick ass
• You win bonus points if you have previous experience working on mobile sites or search engine development.

Benefits:

• Competitive salary
• Health & life insurance and pension
• Free fresh fruits, smoothies and snack bars to keep your mind and body well fed
• A funky chill out room

If you think you can blow our socks off, then drop us an email on givemeajob@taptu.com with your CV and links to some of your projects.

If you’re an active Twitter user, you’ve most likely seen this video as it’s done the rounds today, but it’s simply too good to miss so I wanted to share it.

View it in high definition for the full experience!

It may be an advert for T-Mobile, but I have to admit, it’s just amazing to see. So would you say, art or advertising?

One of our objectives this year is to open up our doors and invite you to help us develop Taptu into something you can’t live without. Ok, well, at least into a service you really enjoy using regularly!

In December, you told us that you’d like it to be easier to report problems or make suggestions, and since then, our mobile feedback area has grown up a bit. We’ve made it easier to report a bug or problem, make a suggestion for the service or simply have a chat with other Taptu users by splitting it into three key areas. Every suggestion goes on our Friday Wishing Line email and Becky, Aidan and Kirsty aim to answer questions as quickly as possible.

It’s just one of the many ways you can reach us. You can also drop us a message @taptu on Twitter or come see us face to face at the many events we attend!

Next week, I’ll let you know where you can meet us in February and March in different parts of the world! Find us and we’ll buy you a drink

It’s been a while since we’ve participated in the Carnival of the Mobilists, a weekly gathering of the best posts on mobile in the week that has just ended. This week, it’s hosted by Dennis at Wapreview, who has been steaming ahead with great posts since the beginning of 2009.

My favourite post this week was Little Springs Design’s story of their office move, and the parallel between the challenges of getting a “vanilla” moving van and the inflexible phone tariffs we, as consumers, are often presented with. I view this post as a call for us all to review the usability and features of our services, products and devices this year. What could you do to give your users flexibility so that they can tailor your product to their needs?

If you’re looking for more great content, check out the first Carnival of the year which was hosted by Helen at Technokitten last week.

Just the other day we were having a brainstorming session about a future mobile application we’re developing. One of the issues we discussed was how we can speed up the search response time – the time the user waits for results to load after submitting their query.

While we’re chipping away milliseconds in every way we can by tweaking the service’s responsiveness with every release we do, we’re serving results as fast as possible and some aspects – such as network latency – is out of our control and can’t be made any faster.

Then it struck me – maybe we were thinking about it the wrong way. The problem was reminiscent of a real story, as quoted by Bruce Tognazzini of the Nielsen Norman Group:

“A classic example occurred in the 1930s in New York City, where “users” in a large new high-rise office building consistently complained about the wait times at the elevators. Engineers consulted concluded that there was no way to either speed up the elevators or to increase the number or capacity of the elevators. A designer was then called in, and he was able to solve the problem.
What the designer understood was that the real problem was not that wait time was too long, but that the wait time was perceived as too long. The designer solved the perception problem by placing floor-to-ceiling mirrors all around the elevator lobbies. People now engaged in looking at themselves and in surreptitiously looking at others, through the bounce off multiple mirrors. Their minds were fully occupied and time flew by.”

When solving any problem it’s easy to get tunnel-vision. It’s important to remind yourself “why are we doing it this way”, take a step back and readdress the actual problem. Rather than walking along, looking down at the pavement for ideas, try looking up at the sky…

As 2009 begins, we wanted to take the opportunity to share some of the UE design blogs we read regularly. For those interested in all aspects of user experience and mobile user experience, these should offer some varied reading into what people are thinking and working on in the field right now.

If you’re so inclined, feel free to grab the OPML file here to import into your RSS reader.

In early 2008, we also created a list of 20 great resources for mobile web developers and designers which you may like to have a look at again.

On with this year’s list, then!

Jan Chipchase – Future Perfect

Jan is a researcher for Nokia. He travels the world observing and understanding people in their own countries – recently in Afghanistan, Africa, Japan, China and many more countries. His blog consists of a range of beautiful photographs taken on his travels, with insightful observations at each step of the way. The guy has the most interesting job we’ve seen in a long time!

Boxes and Arrows

This site offers a wide range of articles and stories written by designers and consultants. It’s a good place to go if you want to find out about particular design methods and techniques. It has a deep searchable archive of the articles so you can find anything UE-related you can think of.

Signal vs Noise

The guys behind the site are pretty well known for their no-nonsense approach to software design and their products – including Basecamp. They are really clued up on design, web development, running a small business and have an ethos of ‘getting real’. Their writing is always compelling and relevant and the blog is updated daily.

Putting people first

The authors are a design consultancy, featuring and linking to stories and news from all over the user experience and usability world. The benefit of this blog is its wide coverage of all aspects of the UE field. It’s updated often too.

Scott Berkun

Scott Berkun is a writer and speaker specialising in business, design and user experience environments. He worked for a number of years at Microsoft and now works as a freelance author and speaker. His blog is always insightful, digestible and thought provoking. The ‘essays’ section of his blog offers varied and interesting articles around creative thinking, motivation and advice for managers to name a few.

Cooper Journal

The Cooper Journal is written by a team from an Interaction Design consultancy in San Francisco. The ethos of their blog is ‘A blog about design, business and the world we live in’. Different authors from within the company write regularly on everything from elevator design, to car dashboard design and how good designers can create ‘evil’! They update regularly and one of the best features is the breadth of content and authors.

Alexander van Elsas’s Weblog

Alexander comes from a mobile background. He often raises thought-provoking insights into new technologies and their effects on human behaviour.

UIE Brain Sparks

UIE Brain Sparks has frequent postings from its founder, Jared Spool. It mainly focuses on human observation and web usability.

Small Surfaces

Small Surfaces is a mobile-centric blog, touching on all aspects of the design process. You may have heard of its author, Gabriel White, from his involvement with two of the world’s leading design consultancies: Punchcut & Frog Design.

Adaptive Path Blog

Adaptive Path are a strategy and design consultancy based in San Francisco. They have a mixed-bag of authors, ranging from design researchers, marketing gurus, and design strategists. We’re even thinking of trying out Alexa’s ‘magnetic prototyping’ concept on our next project!

[Image: Jan Chipchase Blog: Mobile phone polishing services in Kabul]