I could drink a case of you, my darling and still I’d be on my feet – Joni Mitchell

In February, my house went on fire while my family and I were at the Bronx Zoo (no one was home at the time). My husband and I returned to a completely charred, blackened, and wet home. Soot every where I looked, but then I turned to see my 5-year old macbook pro. It was covered with ashes, but still breathing – it’s sleep light indicator fading in and out. I burst out crying and my husband said “It’s going to be O.K.!” But they were not tears of sadness but of joy that my macbook pro was still alive.

So how did this all get started? How did I “get a case of” the macbook pro? When I bought it in August of 2007, after my apple cube died, I was 8 months pregnant and the macbook pro allowed me to work from home on Fridays. I could run parallels so that I could develop my site for the agency I worked for. It’s ease of use was a godsend at a time when I was very stressed at work and totally hormonal. The pleasure of using my mac continued through 2 more babies, working fulltime from home, and then starting my own consultancy from home.

When it finally stopped working last year, although it was no longer under apple care, apple completely rebuilt it and added a brand new battery. 2,000 dollars of repairs were done on the house for me.

Apple puts a lot of thought into giving us a case of it’s products. I was reading Seductive Interaction Design by Stephen Anderson when I Iearned they “own the patent for a Breathing Status LED Indicator…which ‘mimics the rhythm of breathing which is psychologically appealing.'”

So how can we create these kinds of experiences with our websites? There are some practical methods I’ve used that I’ll write about in my upcoming posts. These methods help teams generate a large amount of ideas, rapidly iterate, and create very engaging experiences. I’ll talk about going beyond user experience into creating a story that draws users in. The feeling of getting a case of a product or service can, and should, be carefully crafted.

I still have a case of my macbookpro, which works fine to this day. And our architect is drawing up plans to renovate our house.