Improving Twitter Email Notifications

I am a regular Twitter user (@azollers), and I truly love the service because it connects me to a wide range of interesting people in my field. I feel a stronger connection to the UX community because of Twitter, and so leave my profile open to allow anyone to discover and follow me.

My biggest frustration with Twitter, however, is the proliferation of spammers in the form of bots, porn, and “social media marketers”. Not only do these profiles provide me with little value, I do not wish to be personally or professionally associated with them. My first defense against spam followers are the Twitter email notifications, which, when they actually work let me know who has followed me. These notification bring me no end of frustration because of their complete lack of information to help me make a decision regarding the legitimacy/credibility/interest of the person following me.

Twitter Email Notification

The current notification only provides the following information:

• username
• # of followers
• # of tweets
• # following
• the link to the profile
• link to block the person

Although the ratio of # of followers to # following is often a good indicator regarding the person – with a fairly equal ratio indicating that the person is not a spammer – it is not enough information. I am constantly forced to click on the link to visit the profile to get a better impression – and often accidently end up clicking the block link, because of poor readability.

The email notification would actually be much more useful if they contained the following information:

• The bio
• The full text of 2-3 most recent tweets
• Contacts we have in common
• Clear links to follow and block the person

Twitter already has all of this information and surfacing it would certainly help me make a reasonable decision about the individual. Whenever I am forced to view an individual’s profile, I always look at the bio first followed by their most recent tweets, RT, and mentions. If I could have this information up front, it would save me a lot of time and frustration, and actually make the email notifications valuable.

Filed under: Design, Social Media , email notifications, twitter, usability

What is User Experience Design?

I had a need yesterday for a quick definition of user experience and its subsequent value to business. I polled the twittersphere and scoured the web but didn’t find any resource that provided a “quick guide” to UX. Since I had an urgent need, I decided to write my own guide. The guide is a combination of my own ideas and resources (see reference list) I found on the web.

What is a user experience?

A “user experience” encompasses all aspects of the interactions an individual has with a company, its services, and its products.  An exemplary user experience meets current customer needs and anticipates future needs, exceeds customer expectations, sends a clear and strategic message, and delights the customer with innovative solutions.

For example, when Henry Ford built his first car, he was quoted as saying “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.” A company’s job is not to give users what they want, but to solve problems. The problems that companies are trying to solve are usually social, and so understanding people and how they interact with each other and their environment forms the key understanding and driving force of the product design and direction.

At the core, user experience advocates for the end-user and makes sure to bring the customer’s perspective into the decision making process. In order to achieve this user-centered approach, user experience designers engage in several activities:

• Observe customers in their natural environment to understand how they are currently interacting with existing systems, as well as get insight into how users view the world (their mental models).

• Build empathy and understanding of the customers within the entire product team

• Work with stakeholders to create unified product vision and a user experience strategy. Both the vision and the strategy aim to balance the user needs with business goals.

• Gather further customer data as needed to make educated design decisions

• Utilize sophisticated design methodologies for ideation and innovation of alternative solution to existing options, and constantly ask, “How will this help the customer kick ass?”

• Involve customers in the design process

• Create a structure and organizational system for information environments

• Ensure that the new solutions are useful, usable, desirable, findable, accessible, credible, valuable, memorable, and pleasing

• Continually listen to customer feedback and adapt to changing customer needs

• Keep in mind all the touch points of a user experience and ensure seamless integration between all components

What is the value in user experience?

In order to be competitive in the current global market, companies are embracing consumers and realizing the power of design.  A poorly designed product/service often frustrates customers, which ultimately affects the bottom line. A good customer experience correlates to loyalty. Loyalty corresponds to a customer’s willingness to buy another product from the firm, and a reluctance to switch business away from the firm. As any business knows, it is much more cost effective to keep existing customers than acquire new ones. Furthermore, the strong research aspect in user experience helps business understand why customers are behaving a certain way, and design can help influence behavior. Perhaps customers are dropping off during the checkout flow, not coming back to the site, or not renewing their license. User experience helps to find out why and provides solutions to the problem. For example, changing a single button on a site increased a site’s annual revenues by $300 million: http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button

Ultimately, user experience design places a strategic emphasis on the customer, providing value for both the business and the customer. Efficiency is no longer sufficient to be competitive in the current economic climate, a company needs to differentiate through user experience by allowing the customer’s to kick ass, while gaining revenue!

Some cool graphics:

Elements of User Experience Design by Jesse James Garrett: http://www.jjg.net/elements/pdf/elements.pdf

Facets of user experience:

http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000029.php

What is a user experience?

A “user experience” encompasses all aspects of the interactions an individual has with a company, its services, and its products.  An exemplary user experience meets current customer needs and anticipates future needs, exceeds customer expectations, sends a clear and strategic message, and delights the customer with innovative solutions.

For example, when Henry Ford built his first car, he was quoted as saying “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.” A company’s job is not to give users what they want, but to solve problems. The problems that companies are trying to solve are usually social, and so understanding people and how they interact with each other and their environment forms the key understanding and driving force of the product design and direction.

At the core, user experience advocates for the end-user and makes sure to bring the customer’s perspective into the decision making process. In order to achieve this user-centered approach, user experience designers engage in several activities:

• Observe customers in their natural environment to understand how they are currently interacting with existing systems, as well as get insight into how users view the world (their mental models).
• Build empathy and understanding of the customers within the entire product team
• Work with stakeholders to create unified product vision and a user experience strategy. Both the vision and the strategy aim to balance the user needs with business goals.
• Gather further customer data as needed to make educated design decisions
• Utilize sophisticated design methodologies for ideation and innovation of alternative solution to existing options, and constantly ask, “How will this help the customer kick ass?”
• Involve customers in the design process
• Create a structure and organizational system for information environments
• Ensure that the new solutions are useful, usable, desirable, findable, accessible, credible, valuable, memorable, and pleasing
• Continually listen to customer feedback and adapt to changing customer needs
• Keep in mind all the touch points of a user experience and ensure seamless integration between all components

What is the business value in user experience?

In order to be competitive in the current global market, companies are embracing consumers and realizing the power of design.  A poorly designed product/service often frustrates customers, which ultimately affects the bottom line. A good customer experience correlates to loyalty. Loyalty corresponds to a customer’s willingness to buy another product from the firm, and a reluctance to switch business away from the firm. As any business knows, it is much more cost effective to keep existing customers than acquire new ones. Furthermore, the strong research aspect in user experience helps business understand why customers are behaving a certain way, and design can help influence behavior. Perhaps customers are dropping off during the checkout flow, not coming back to the site, or not renewing their license. User experience helps to find out why and provides solutions to the problem. For example, changing a single button on a site increased a site’s annual revenues by $300 million: http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button

Ultimately, user experience design places a strategic emphasis on the customer, providing value for both the business and the customer. Efficiency is no longer sufficient to be competitive in the current economic climate, a company needs to differentiate through user experience by allowing the customer’s to kick ass, while gaining revenue!

Some cool graphics:

Elements of User Experience Design by Jesse James Garrett: http://www.jjg.net/elements/pdf/elements.pdf

Facets of user experience: http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000029.php

References

Nielson Norman Group definition of UX
UIE: The Difference between Usability and User Experience
Adaptive Path: Communicate the ROI for Design and Subject to Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World
Kathy Sierra: Subvert from Within: A User Focused Employee Guide

Forrester Research:
Culture and Process Drive Better Customer Experiences
Experience-Based Differentiation
The Business Impact of Customer Experience

Filed under: Thoughts, UX , business value, definition, UX

Trust and Client Relationships

I had an “ah-ha” moment recently. The moment was spurred by Josh’s talk at Refresh Boston in combination with my endless job search at the moment, and general self-reflection. I realized two things, which might be seem simple but have actually taken me 3 years to truly understand at an intuitive level, versus just a conceptual one.

1) Although any job will always have times when you might manage difficult conversations, many difficult conversations with clients can be avoided all together if there is a healthy amount of trust.

2) The UX field, either knowingly or not, sends a message that we are the experts. We know best because we talk to the user. This might have come about from the UX field struggling to get accepted as a profession, but has now proliferated so widely that it imbues a lot of work (and discussion lists) and gives newcomers to the field a false sense of righteousness. Theoretically, this might be true (and I would certainly like to believe it), but practically it just does not fly. Our job is not to dictate, but rather to listen, guide, communicate, and facilitate. We do not have all the answers, we are not always right, and we should not take this position when working with stakeholders. One gains much more trust in the service role than in the dictatorship role. I have personally made several huge mistakes by adopting the wrong attitude, which I thought was appropriate for my role as UX designer. I am now thoroughly humbled.

In order to re-educate myself a bit further, I reached out to some of my colleagues – Jeff Parks, Joshua Porter, Steve Baty, and Mark Sloan – and asked them for advice on gaining trust with a client. Here was some of the advice I was given. Most of the information below are quotes from emails.

• Listen. Listen for new insights, listen to understand the clients problem, listen much more than you talk. Ask questions to clarify and repeat back to the client what you have heard. You gain trust by assuring the client that you really care about their problem and are truly listening to them; rather than “pushing a square peg into a round hole”, that is trying to force your framework or mental model onto the client (Jeff Parks)
• Repeat and reiterate what you are working on. This allows clients to feel more confident that you are paying attention and listening (Josh Porter).
• Become a subject matter expert, build a good reputation locally and also within the UX community. Steve Baty suggests writing articles or giving presentations, answering questions in public forums and the like. Clients will cut you some slack when (inevitably) difficulties arise if you have a solid reputation. Also, you need to constantly deliver, so that when things do go wrong, clients know its the exception not the rule.
• Show insight early. Most clients show some misunderstanding, making assumptions about users and their behavior. The idea is to gently push back on that notion by providing insight into user behavior. This shows that you are a subject matter expert and that you can be trusted to make good decisions.
• Be honest. Learn to say “I don’t know” (Jeff Parks), and also be upfront about what you are delivering and when (Steve Baty).
• Plant seeds, and give them time to come to fruition. Know that it takes time for people to learn and make good decisions. What took you a week to decide cannot be related in 10 minutes in a meeting. Plant seeds of ideas and let the client mull it over (Mark Sloan).
• Use terms like “we” and “us”. Anything new will always get some pushback, sit back, take notes and don’t react right away. This will help curb some defensiveness that might come out (unintentionally). The pressure to come to a decision right away is usually the biggest trigger for anger and distrust. Say something like “we don’t seem convinced one way or the other, let’s capture this as an issue, think about it another
  day or so and then resolve it”. Using “we” and “us” reinforces the idea that you are working together
  and will help both you and them keep the right mind frame. (Mark Sloan).

Do you have more insights than what I listed above? Feel free to comment, I would love to know more tips and tricks!

ETA: I found some relevant articles which bring additional insights to this topic
Understanding Critical to Being Understood by Jeff Parks, Johnny Holland
8 Strategies for Successful Relations with Clients by Jeff Gardner, Smashing Magazine

Filed under: Thoughts , clients, trust, UX

Josh Porter at Refresh Boston

I just relocated to the Boston area, and in order to get myself acquainted with the local design community, I decided to attend Refresh Boston.

I am so glad that I went because Josh Porter gave a GREAT talk called “Designing in Recession”, where he went over tips and tricks for succeeding in the current economy. This blog post is a recap of the talk.

Your skills are not self-evident
Most people out there do not know what you do, so you need to be very clear about your skills set. Also, design skills are very conceptual, and we need to surface them. The best way to do this is to create a portfolio which outlines your process, deliverables, and project contributions. Josh does not recommend just having a screen shot that links to a live web page. It is not likely that you were responsible for the entire site, and so should be clear about which parts were your contribution. Also, the design of you portfolio should in some ways reflect your focus. If you are a visual designer your portfolio might be more visual catching than an information architect. Josh specifically keeps his website visually simple because those are not his strengths and he wants to market himself as a strategists versus a visual designer. If you don’t have a portfolio that you are happy with, or are just getting into the field and don’t have a portfolio yet, take an existing site and redesign it. Josh specifically mentioned Dustin Curtis who redesigned the American Airlines website (he was not working for AA) and even got a response from the AA team!

Find Your Focus
Although this may seem counter-intuitive, having a focus that differentiates you from other designers will help bring in business. It is tempting to think that a shop that can do it all is what clients are looking for, but its difficult to compete on those terms especially with so much competition from “chop shops” that can covers PSD to HTML in a manner of days. Also, having a focus will bring in business that truly interests you and speaks to your focus. Your focus should be some kind of niche, so coding to web standards is too general a focus as all designers aspire to comply with standards. SEO for drupal sites is an example of a great focus. Josh mentioned a guy who has a 50+ person company doing nothing but SEO for drupal sites! That guy really found his niche, what is yours?

Publish Your Thoughts
The way Josh gets much of his business is through the popularity of his blog. He recommends each designer find a channel that works for him/her. The point is to get your name out there and show people that you have something to say. He mentioned that many people have a hard time starting a blog because they think they don’t have anything to say. You have to remember though that some things that are easy for you are difficult to other people. Also, you can check out discussion lists and see where people are having problems and try to address them in your blog. Another option is to comment about someone else’s post on your blog. The key here is to be positive in your tone, even if you disagree. A lot of negativity will turn people off, and you might lose business, so even if you disagree with someone, embrace their ideas and then extend them. For example, say something to the effect of “Bob did a great job explaining X, here are some situations where X might not work…”

Be On Time
This is just a basic professional courtesy. Here the subject veered a bit towards not wasting your own time. Josh does not recommend working with clients that ask for spec work. Spec work is when a client says, “Show us what you are thinking and to help us making a decision about going forward”. This is basically a company trying to get you to do work for them for FREE. You are not getting paid to do the spec work, and have potentially wasted your time, especially if you are competing against other designers. Spec work is not the same thing as a competition, where all the work from the participants is public. Spec work is held privately within the company and may never see the light of day, additionally, the company may use your ideas in the future without proper compensation. Josh also stays away from creating 3 different comps for clients, he concentrates on creating one comp. The reason for this is that a comp (or wireframe in Josh’s case), takes into account a very specific prioritization and organizational scheme. This means there is one strategic organizational scheme, not 3.

Don’t Eat Alone
Go out and network, have one-on-one lunches with fellow colleagues to find out the secret and cool projects they are working on. You will always learn something new and valuable from others. As an addition to this, always celebrate your colleagues’ victories (even if you are secretly jealous!). This will spread good will and also help you make better design decisions in the future. Josh really loves how Tumblr engages new users, and secretly wishes he could have come up with that design. However, he did learn from it and uses similar concepts to help clients. Also, its important to become a good referrer. If you are not able to take a project, refer clients to a colleague (its helpful if the person has portfolio!). Its beneficial for all parties.

During the Q/A there were questions regarding dealing with clients. Josh says that is existing clients are much more valuable then potential ones. Don’t do a rush job for existing client, but rather try to do your best work because you already have their business and could get more work by keeping them happy. Also, don’t shy away from small projects because they often lead to larger ones. The small projects are sometimes the way that clients give you a “test” run before giving you a big project. This comes around to the issue of trust. It is important to gain a client’s trust early on. Josh recommends getting a win early in the project so there will be less second-guessing later. However, it is important to have a rational for your design so that you can justify your choices.

Overall it was a great session, and I am really happy I got to meet Josh!

Filed under: Design , Design, josh porter, refreshboston

Navigating Image Collections

I am currently working with a really awesome research group out of UCLA Libraries called Simul8. The purpose of the research group is to experiment with new designs for UCLA Library Services. The designs include revamping the current library website, but also go beyond to web to thinking about incorporating mobile technologies, and even rethinking the design of work spaces.

The first project that we have been working on is thinking of new interface designs for the UCLA image collection. The image collection contains thousands on images from a variety of topics including science, architecture, history, and art just to name a few. Currently, users have to select a specific image collection from long list, and then perform a search. The search interface differs for every collection, and honestly assumes expert users.

In order to broaden our thinking about image navigation, as a group, we did a competitive analysis of sorts, and found websites that have interesting image navigation features. I thought I would share some of these sites in case anyone else is working in this domain (in no particular order).

Flickr Related Tag Browser
http://www.airtightinteractive.com/projects/related_tag_browser/app/

NASA Image Gallery
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/iotd.html

Live Labs
http://livelabs.com/seadragon/

Simple Viewer
http://www.airtightinteractive.com/photos/

Mood Stream by Getty Images
http://moodstream.gettyimages.com/

Tilt Viewer
http://www.airtightinteractive.com/projects/tiltviewer/app/

Viewz
http://www.viewzi.com/search/whitevoid-photocloud/

Hardrock
http://memorabilia.hardrock.com/

SFMOMA Artscope
http://www.sfmoma.org/pages/artscope

Glocal
http://www.glocal.ca/

Horizontal Scrolling
http://www.simonhoegsberg.com/we_are_all_gonna_die/slider.html

Pattern Tap
http://patterntap.com/tap

Filed under: Design , image navigation

On Being A Generalist

I have been on the lookout for job opportunities since January. Due to the economic constraints at the moment, many job postings want a UX designer with visual design skills who can develop. Although I can do UX design and development, I am not very well versed in graphic/visual design. I was starting to worry that I am missing an important skill.

At SXSW, I spoke with John Kolko and asked him if visual design was a necessity for UX design. He said that since my designs touch the UI, I should understand the fundamentals. He specifically recommended taking class in composition, typography, color theory, and figure drawing.

All of this has been mulling in my head, and then Jared Spool posted this on the IxDA list: http://www.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=40833 Jared mentioned that ROLES don’t matter, SKILLS do, he also said this:

Our research showed there are core skills [that successful teams possess]: interaction design, information architecture, user research, visual design, information design, fast iteration management, copywriting, and editing.

After thinking everything over, including my own concerns, here is how I feel about being a generalist:

First, I completely agree with Jared, the ROLE and role name do not matter, the SKILLS do. People can call me an IA, UX, IxDA, UI, Web designer, whatever, I still bring the same skills to the table.

Out of the skills that Jared listed, here are the ones that I think specifically pertain to UX:

• user research: because we need to understand the domain and the users of the domain
• information architecture/information design: because we need to be able to thoughtfully and purposefully structure the content based on user and business goals
• interaction design: because interaction makes up the large chunk of the experience
• fast iteration management: because our first ideas are never the best ones, fail quickly and often

The skills that I think are “nice to have” but should NOT be required include:
- visual design
- copy writing and editing
- development (not mentioned in Jared’s list)

The “nice to have” skills that I have listed are in this category because they are professions onto themselves, and I think its unreasonable to believe that a UX designer will be able to master 4 different professions. I believe that if one expects this, then they are going to get a designer who is mediocre at everything. There really is only so much time in the day/life that one can dedicate to new skills, or breadth. Drawing on Jared’s analogy of doctor’s, we would not ask a cardio-thorasic surgeon to deliver a baby, why would we ask a UX designer to craft copy? Yes both a surgeon and an obstetrician are doctors and know the anatomy of a body, much like a UX designer and copywriter know the language, but the mastery of the skill is quite different. If doctor’s have specializations, why can’t UX designers?

This is not to say that people should narrowly specialize, I also agree with Jared on this point, if one is too narrow (only doing usability testing for example), then it could certainly hinder your job prospects because you should be able to apply what you learned from the usability testing to create an improved design, the company does not need to hire another person to do that.

However, visual design, development, and UX design often challenge each other, and it is necessary to have the tension for great designs to emerge. If one person is attempting to do all those jobs at once, they will start compromising on the UX as they begin to think about the code or the grid structure. The compromises start to happen conceptually and the designer becomes constrained.

Now Jared mentioned that the UX designer should have the fundamentals of each of those skills, I am not clear on what Jared means by fundamentals, but I think his definition goes further than my conceptualization – which is knowing enough about the domain to be able to communicate with your colleague. I feel that a UX designer needs to understand the basics of programming, visual design, and copy writing to enable meaningful conversations, debates, compromises and decisions. Understanding how your design is going to be developed has a significant impact on interaction, and one needs to understand those consequences. Similarly, if a visual design hinders usability, the UX designer needs to be able to communicate with the visual designer to come to some kind of agreement that does not break the visual flow. Yet, the UX designer should not necessarily have to create the visual design if the designer falls ill, for example.

Given all that I have said, I know many people have entered the UX field from different domains. I personally came from a computer science/programming background, so don’t mind doing front-end development as well as UX design if things get tight. Others might have come from a visual design background, and so can roll up their sleeves and also do that job. This does not mean that the visual designer needs to be able to code at my level, nor I need to be able to design at theirs. We have our respective skills, and will be able to find work that matches our skill set. This is our version of a cardio-thorasic surgeon vs an obstetrician.

My argument is that a good team should have a well-rounded UX designer (possessing all the required skills, with the nice-to-haves as bonuses), along side separate individuals doing visual design, programming, and copy writing/editing. The UX designer must coordinate with all of these people, but not necessarily be a master at all these skills. I agree with Jared that a good UX team should have ALL of these skills present on the team, I just don’t agree that a single individual should or can posses them.

For myself, I have decided to get better acquainted with the language of visual design, I have asked some friends for resource recommendations, and have put together this amazon wish list.

Also, these lessons were highly recommended: http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/web/50-totally-free-lessons-in-graphic-design-theory/

I know that I will never become an amazing visual designer, but it does not make me any less of a UX designer (who can code none-the-less!).

Filed under: Design, UX , career, skills, UX

IA Summit: Lessons from Slime Mold: How to Survive and Thrive in Ever-Changing Organizational Environments

Slime Mold

Kate Rutter gave a wonderfully passionate, informative, interactive, and engaging talk on what we can learn from slime mold. I loved her use of slime mold as a metaphor for our work environments, and also how she looked to nature to solve very human problems. I have always held the belief that many human breakthrough’s have occurred when we have turned to and learned from nature.

Throughout the talk, Kate recommended a few books:
Evocative Objects: Things We Think With by Sherry Turkle

Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software by Stephen Johnson

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath, Dan Heath

Here are my notes from the amazing talk:

Kate started out the talk by first telling us that slime mold are amazing because they are in constant conversation with the environment. When the environment is nourishing, the slime mold are thriving as multiple separate organisms. If the environment looses its abundance and is only able to sustain the slime mold, then the slime mold begin to signal each other and cluster. If the environment reaches a critical stage and is starving, then the slime mold form into slugs and attempt to survive.

After explaining this concept, Kate had the audience reenact the slime mold life cycle. A few volunteers were wearing white hotel robes to represent the slime mold, while the rest of the audience was the forest floor. The “forest” floor help up our hand when we were nourishing and the “slime mold” flitted about the room (in a very hilarious way!!). Then the forest floor lowered their hands a bit when there isn’t as much nourishment, and the slime mold began to send out distress signals and find each other. When the forest floor began to starve, the slime mold hunkered down and attempted to survive. This was REALLY FUN.

After the fun demonstration, Kate went on to connect the dots. She mentioned Lewin’s equation B=f(p, e) which states that behavior is a function of the person and the environment. She extended that notion to say that E = f(p, b) that the environment is a function of people and behavior, and by that token B=E, our behavior is our environment.

Now think about your organization/work environment. If you are in tune with your environment, then you can change your behavior accordingly. We can even learn which behaviors are the most appropriate from slime mold:

Environment: Nourishing
Behavior: Exploring, Sensing

Environment: Tough
Behavior: Sensing, signaling, clustering

Environment: Hostile
Behaviors: Sluggish, significant clustering (slime mold form into slugs)
You need to know: what won’t you give up? what can you leave behind? how much will you participate in collective action?

This translates to:
1) Sensing the organizational environment
2) Signaling to others (co-workers) about your senses. You can signal in different ways: great signals are loud and sticky and lead to change. High Volume Signals are memorable, energetic, have a pattern, are reinforced
Visual Signals get ideas through faster, and are able to communicate more information.
Choose the appropriate method of communication (signal) to get your message across
3) Band together as a team to support each other and survive

How does one create a rich work environment?

• Collective play
• Simple rules of engagement
• Shared Standards
• Always Sensing
• Always Signaling

Kate recommended the use of a TAZ: Temporary Autonomous Zone which is an area outside of social control, a temporary space outside formal structures of control where collective play and creativity can occur. This does not mean that people should not do work, but rather follow the motto of “we are having fun, but we’re not kidding”. Many of the most successful companies have R&D departments which are outside of the formal structure.

Moreover, team members can user multiple platforms to listen for, send, and reinforce signals:
Twitter, RSS, Google Alerts to sense industry, economic, web trends.
Keep all eyes open, use strategy documents and watch the market.
Work Out Loud = post work, notes, and info so that is visible in high-traffic areas. Open the doors to participating in design work. Hold open design sessions.

Happiness Checklist

• Have satisfying work to do
• Chance to be good at something
• Connect with people we truly like
• Opportunity to be part of something bigger

Kate concluded with 4 simple things – be more like slime mold:

• Make places and spaces for collective play
• Work out Loud
• Sense with intent: signal back what you learn
• Constantly tune behaviors

Filed under: Conferences , ia summit, ias09

IA Summit: Integrating Effective Prototyping into Your Design Process

Fred Beecher gave a really good, practical talk on how to integrate prototyping into the design process. There has been some chatter lately in the UX community about traditional deliverables being replaced by prototypes. As with prototypes, I think deliverables have their place based on what you are trying to accomplish, the time constraints, client/company culture. Personally, I hate documentation just for the sake of documentation. After my first job, I was interviewed at a firm that was astonished at how little documentation I had. I explained that my job consisted of communicating with 2 developers that I sat next to, I did not need to create elaborate documents for them as much of our communication was instantaneous. I also created a lot of prototypes, which was the extent of my documentation. Something that really hit home this year for me is this: All the artifacts that we create as designers are there to facilitate communication and further discussion, use what is appropriate for the situation, and do not go about creating things just because you feel that is your job. It is not your job, your job is converse, collaborate, generate ideas, and synthesize.

I will now step off my soap box and recap Fred’s presentation..

Integrating Effective Prototyping Into Your Design Process

View more presentations from Fred Beecher.

Fred mentioned that there are 2 dimensions to prototypes: visual fidelity (VF) and functional fidelity (FF). He then plotted them on an X-Y axis.

Sketches – low visual and functional fidelity
Paper wireframes – medium visual, low functional fidelity
Paper JPGS – high visual, low functional fidelity

Image Mapped Sketches – low visual, medium functional fidelity
Clickable wireframes – medium visual, medium functional
Image Mapped JPGS – high visual, medium functional

Proof of Concept – medium visual, medium-high functional
LVF Interactive Prototype – medium visual, high functional
HVF Interactive Prototype – medium-high visual, high functional
“Product Ready” – high visual and functional

Two additional dimensions:
Technical Fidelity – either “production ready” or not
Fidelity of Content – a prototype is NOT just interaction, content plays a large role in testing. Testing a prototype with crappy content will give you crappy data. Your prototype should have plausible content.

Given the many different types of prototypes, the trick is to know which one is most appropriate to use given the problem/question you wish to solve. The entire purpose of the prototype is to test/research. As with any research, we need to use the most appropriate method to solve the problem.

Here are some guidelines..

Low Visual Fidelity (LVF)/ Low Functional Fidelity (LFF) is good for:

• discovering missing functionality
• finding problems with workflow
• separating good UX design concepts from less good ones
• getting preliminary consensus from stakeholders

LVF/HFF

• Enabling the use of user testing as a design tool
• Proof of concept testing of isolated interactions
• Enabling remote prototype testing
• Validating design direction/implementation with stakeholders
• Supplementing paper documents

HVF/LFF

• Discovering any usability problems introduced by the design
• Finding out problems with workflow when testing with non-savvy users
• Iterating through multiple form factor concepts when working with physical devices

HVF/HFF

• Integrating new designs into an existing system
• User Testing with non-savvy user
• Supplementing printed documentation for offshore development
• Wowing stakeholders into submission

The best part of Fred’s talk was when he described how to incorporate prototyping in different process environments.

For Every Type of Business Process, first develop the detailed scenarios you want to test

Agile:
First develop the detailed scenarios you want to test
Sketch 2-3 design concepts and test to choose one
Build small interactive prototype for critical interactions and proof-of-concept test them
Work with the developer to get a production ready prototype and test it too

Waterfall:
First develop the detailed scenarios you want to test
Build an interactive prototype and walk through it with stakeholders
Simultaneously walk through prototype and documentation when handing it off to developers
Generate annotated prototype for developers reference

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IA Summit: Design Games for IA

Donna Spencer led a really fun session about utilizing games for design work. She said that playing games stimulates different parts of our brains, and can help us be more creative. Here are some games that she went over, I am really excited to put them to use!

Also see this Boxes and Arrows article: http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/using-design-games

Books: Thinkertoys by Michalko and Innovation Games by Hohmann

Games to Play with Users

Design the homepage – using markers and paper, ask the user to design a homepage that would be perfect for them. The drawing itself does not have to look like a homepage, and can be much more free form. The drawing will enable you to understand what is important to the user.

Divide the dollar – start with a set a of features (either pre-defined or generated by the user). Give the users 100 fake dollars and ask them to diving the amount among the feature list. Ask the users to explain the reasoning behind their choices. This will help with feature prioritization.

Metadata – show users an object and ask them to tell you what they call that ‘thing’. This will you understand how people think about objects.

Freelisting – tell me as many of [fill in the blank] as you can think about. Pay attention to both the order in which people list items, as well as if they take any significant pauses. The pauses indicate cognitive chunking and perhaps different categories.

Card Sorting – write content ideas on cards and ask users to sort them. You can spice it up by having time pressures, competition, or prizes.

Games for Design Teams

Idea cards – you have three piles of cards that contain adjectives, verbs, and nouns. Pick one card from each pile and then try to design the experience that is provided on the cards. Might also want to use these professional cards: http://www.metamemes.com/
Also these are awesome grow a game cards that can also be used for design: http://www.valuesatplay.org/?page_id=6
Someone in the session also recommended these: Oblique Strategy Cards

Reversal – attack the problem from the reverse direction. For example: “Going through airport security is painful, how do you make it worse?” This is a really fun activity, but can also helps you discover concepts that are important but might be easy to miss.

Design the Box – individuals or teams creates a box as if the product was going to be sold like a software package at Best Buy. Each person should design for the front, back, and side of the box. Some things to consider: the product name, the tagline, the short hook on the front to entice a consumer to pick it up, perhaps a picture. Once the box is designed, ask everyone to “sell” their product to everyone else in the team. This helps figure out the vision statement.

Other games that were suggested by session participants:

Brainwriter – come up with ideas, write them on sticky notes and put them on the wall. If running out of ideas, look over the ones on the wall and see if it sparks more. Then do an affinity sort on the sticky notes for further insight.

Different hats – design from different perspectives. For example, if I was Steve Jobs, what would the product look lke?

Reverse position statement – ask the stakeholders to come up with a vision statement that is the opposite of what they want, this might help clarify/specify the vision.

I totally love the idea of game use for design, and want pointers to more games! If you know of some, please let me know :)

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IA Summit: Managing Difficult Conversations

I am currently in Memphis enjoying the wonderful IA Summit for the second year in a row. My first order of business was taking Dan Brown’s workshop entitled “Managing Difficult Conversations”. My motivation for taking the workshop has been an increasing awareness that 10% of my job is IA/UX work and 90% is managing people and relationships, and in all honesty I am bad at 90% of my job. Although it was not immediately obvious to me, I was having trouble selling my ideas and facilitating collaboration. Also, at various jobs and from different people, I would constantly get comments about how I was coming off as too intense, too forceful, and too passionate. The situation came to a head when the boss at my latest company handed me “How to Win Friends & Influences People” by Dale Carnegie. It was pretty much a slap in the face of how 1) unaware I am of myself; 2) my inability to communicate properly; 3) my failure to facilitate open discussion. I have certainly done a lot of introspection since then, and I will continue to do so. The workshop really helped me jell a lot of things that were already floating around in my head, and also realize that it will take a few more years of work and practice to get truly good at this. I am however committed to working on improving myself. In hopes of helping others, and just spreading the EightShapes love, here are my notes from the session…

Part I

Best Practices

• rephrase negative statements
  Example: “We don’t have the requirements so we can’t start” vs “Once you provide us with the requirements, we can get started”
• rise above naysayers
• always start with the good
• openness over defensiveness
  Example: When someone is disagreeing with you, say “I think that’s a great idea. Perhaps we can talk about how it might work?”

Engage Your Audience

• Personalize the message by saying someone’s name
  Example: “John, what do you think about this?”
• Repeat the questions you’re asked
• Position your questions for success
• Use Humor

Empathize

• Know the situations, not just the people.
  People are facing pressures from others in the company, might be having problems with their personal life, and are generally situated in many layers of situations beyond the current one.
• Listen and seek to understand
  Sometimes people just need to get something off their chest, so its helpful just to listen to them and comfort them with understanding
• Don’t be quick to dismiss (even if you disagree)*
• Respond with acknowledgment of situation/emotion

Lighten Up

• Humor can be a powerful communication tool. When using humor: make it relevant; be on the lookout for material; prep and plan for jokes (don’t assume it will just come to you); when in doubt, point to yourself.

  If you are in a bad mood, feeling rushed, and are headed for a meeting, take 15 minutes before the meeting to do something to put yourself in a more positive mindset. Search for recipes, twitter, text, deep breathing, grab a snack, anything that will get out of that “zone”. Both your mind and body language will be effected and will help the meeting/discussion go smoother.

Part II

Improving your communication skills is really about introspection. If you are feeling anxious, annoyed, angry, look within yourself for the cause. Do you feel unappreciated? Not valued? Unheard? Try to get at the root cause of your problems, and figure out ways to help yourself through better communication with others. This is also a good time to learn about your own habits and characteristics, so that you can be more self-aware about your own communication patterns.

For IA’s, it is also important to understand that the deliverables are not the end product, they are there to help facilitate conversations, which in turn help make the product better. So its important to take a step back from the deliverables and understand that they are just one part of a process. When discussing deliverables, don’t look at it as a personal attack, but rather that they are doing their job of facilitating conversation and further thought. In fact, be prepared for challenges when presenting deliverables, as that is the whole point!

It is also important to understand the components of a conversation: at least 2 people, the message that is being communicated, the tool that is used to communicate the message, each person’s objective/agenda, personal perspectives, each individual’s habits and the skills that everyone uses to overcome the habits, the situation in which the conversation is taking place as well as all the external situations encompassing each individual.

When speaking with another person, it is important to understand their agenda – what drives them? what is their objective? This will help you use correct words/messages to persuade the other person.

It is also important to understand their communication habits (as well as your own). Some people prefer to converse exclusively via email, or phone, or in person. Utilize the method of communication that is most comfortable for the other person, even if it not the most convenient for you. This will put them at ease.

Part III

Characteristics

Below are some characteristics that Dan and Chris have found exist in people/clients/stakeholders, and some techniques on how to deal with them.

• No Direction – the person can’t tell you what’s wrong
  Techniques: Ask good specific questions, be mindful of the goals of the conversation, understand that these people might be motivated by fear/anxiety. Say things like “help me understand”, “I want to help you succeed,” act dumb and ask them to talk through the problem, point out how the design already accomplishes goals.
• Misdirected Passion – they feel strongly about the strangest things
  Techniques: Try to understand their perspective/agenda/passion, pick your battles, let them have their say, set expectations and explain context, do not avoid the problem. Say things like “these are really important points….
  let’s see how we can build that into design
  let’s concentrate on the agenda and address it at the next meeting
  i’ve set some time aside to discuss that
• Inconsistent Messaging – they talk out of both sides of their mouth
  Techniques: Bite your tongue (don’t call them out on it, well yesterday you said this), pick your battles, capture messages in writing, recap the decisions made in the meeting, and validate the captured decisions. Our job here is to help them find out what they want.
• Unwilling to admit ignorance – they get stuff wrong
  Your colleague or employee does not fully understand the project and produces a work that is off-track. Technique: Ask them to explain their thinking/rational, deflect responsibility onto the boss/client, avoid distractions by taking other work off their plate.

Other characteristic types not discussed in detail: no vision, no strength, no structure, not available, tunnel vision, prioritize reputation, poor communication skills, poor use of communication tools

Part IV

Situations

This part describes some of the situations that we are faced with, and how to deal with them.

• Too Many People Involved – the size of the ’stakeholder’ list is unwieldy and dramatically inhibiting progress
  Techniques: Identify the influencers/gatekeepers and speak directly to them, don’t ask quesions of the group, ask specific individuals, provide channels for individual feedback but publish for broader consumption
• Poor Team Member Performance – the performance of one or several team members is jeopardizing the project success
  Techniques: first identify all of the positive aspects of the performance, avoid explicit or implicit personal attacks, coach don’t point, use positive language, express confidence in abilities, negotiation.
• Defending Decisions – clarifying and rationalizing design choices when challenged
  Techniques: establish ‘common IA practices’ before design exercise, pick your battles, if supporting data isn’t there, explain the hypothesis, know your why’s, make sure stakeholders are on the ride for the whole way, help prioritize problems, show implications, focus on agreements – “we are not so far apart on this ..”

Other Situations: losing momentum, planning design, design reviews, defending progress, project failure, resolving conflict (internal and stakeholder.

Part V

Tricks of the Trade

• telling a good story and aligning it with your audience
• seeing other perspectives/agendas
• picking your battles: know when to turn on the passion. Getting a product that has most of your ideas is already an improvement to the product, even if you don’t get everything in.
• setting expectations/context – where you are in the project
• setting action items – the are of what do we do now?
• avoiding distractions, even if timely and relevant
• deflecting responsibility to a third party (common enemy)
• asking good questions
• letting others be right
• letting others have their say
• encouraging discussion
• finding out what stifles people – ppls mental blocks
• channeling other people – such as good critics

Filed under: Conferences , ia summit, ias09