Peachpit Interview Transcript – A Project Guide to UX Design with Russ Unger

Peachpit did a podcast interview with Carolyn Chandler and myself a couple of weeks ago, and I was fortunate enough to be able to transcribe my parts it. Below are my answers to the questions that were asked of us.

You can also listen to this online, or download a copy of the interview from Peachpit Author Talk.

What is user experience design?
In the book we define it broadly as “The creation and synchronization of the elements that affect users’ experience with a particular company (or product), with the intent of influencing their perceptions and behavior”.

That’s true–but I think that most people today tend to focus on the more digital aspects of user experience design; websites, software applications. But really, it gets down to considering all the pieces of the whole. That includes business goals and objectives, user expectations, desires and needs–oh, and what can be done within technical, time and budget constraints. All of this wrapped in the context in which the users would be interacting with it.

That’s not to say that we’re making trade-offs, per se, but that there’s rarely an environment without some degree of friction that presents you from doing what you’d do in a “perfect world”. It’s not just boxes and arrows, mind you. There’s a lot of thinking in the work that user experience designers do.

It’s almost never a perfect situation, but then again, that’s what makes it interesting!

What are some of the problems that arise when considering UX design? What challenges might other team members present?
The biggest problem that I see is when aspects of UX design aren’t considered necessary. In many cases, clients want an “expert on user experience design” to make all the decisions for them, and when they don’t agree with the proposed solutions, they sometimes may strongly suggest that a design behave a certain way–against the advice of the UX Designer. Good UX Designers know what opinions are like, so they’ll recommend that designs should be tested with users–and that step may get overlooked, resulting in a design that is either ill- or uninformed.

As far as other team members, the most frequent challenge that I’ve seen and hear of is lack of collaboration. User experience design doesn’t end when a designer is handed a wireframe, a developer is handed a functional spec and design files–it evolves. User experience designers know this, and they need to be engaged throughout the rest of the phases of the project–we’re flexible and we’re working toward the best end result, not laying down the law in document format. Collaboration helps us improve the experience and presents opportunities for us all to continue to learn from each other.

Who do you think really “gets” user experience design? Who is doing it right?
At the risk of seeming like a fanboy, I’d say that Jesse James Garret and Jared Spool really “get it”. I’ve been fortunate enough to speak to both of them over the course of the past year or so, and if nothing else, they really help me understand how far I have to go.

Jesse and Jared both have spent a lot of time observing and sharing information outward–if not pushing it to us–to pay attention beyond what’s directly in front of us. If you’ve been fortunate enough to see presentations from either of them, not only will it blow your mind, but you’ll find your way of approaching problems a bit different. Jesse and Adaptive Path have put together some pretty fantastic, well-thought and forward-thinking prototypes of web browsers and medical products and Jared has shared the findings of years of research to help us understand “real” behaviors, and the real value of research in the user experience design process.

For good measure, I have to throw in Stephen Anderson, who has given some pretty fantastic presentations around the influence and persuasion of design. He’s also a speaker at the IDEA Conference in Toronto in September this year.

You know who else? Dr. Temple Grandin. She’s written a few books that deal with her experience with Autism, but also how she puts into practice her visual thinking in order to be able to “test run” anything she’s designed. She has a great ability to put empathy into practice, and that’s something user experience designers should all strive to emulate.

Finally, Paul Arden, author of “It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be“–it’s a quick and easy read and has so many tenants that are so simple and that just sort of smack you upside the head.

What is one of the most common errors people make when designing for user experience?
There are a couple of things here–for me, when I first started out, I spent a lot more time opening a tool and getting started and then revising the heck out of the product. Now, I’m notorious for walking around with pencils and paper–I sketch everything, several times, prior to even opening up a digital tool and getting to work. And, even then, I find that I make enhancements from my sketching when I’m transferring to digital.

I also think that we tend to forget that our work isn’t about US, but it’s about the work–that is, we should not be taking offense at criticism, but taking feedback that drives us to better designs for our users. I’ve been saying it a bit more lately, and Peter Merholz mentioned it a few years back: The crit–being very critical of our designs, beating them up, taking no prisoners and attacking them, these are the things that will make our designs better in the end. We also get to be the gatekeepers of what we do with the critiques, but there’s a lot of value in even the most negative of comments. We’ve got to be able to face those head-on, and get to the point to where we request, if not require, the feedback prior to putting anything in front of a user or a client.

What advice would you offer others who are just beginning to tackle user experience design?
I believe that all user experience designers are “rotten with imperfection”–every time we get something we lust for, we choose something else to want. User experience design is similar; it does NOT end–once you’ve turned over a great finished product… well, it’s not finished. It’s time to evaluate, update and repeat, because users are pretty “rotten with imperfection”, themselves.

Embrace the rotten-ness. Don’t look forward to the end of a project, look forward to the next opportunity to improve.

Tackle the things you’ve not done before–Robert Hoekman, Jr. asked me what I think “we” are, and I said, “adaptable”. User experience designers need to be just that–it’s a young field. There’s always going to be something you’ve not tried before. Dive in. Fail, fail well, and hopefully fail in the right direction, but don’t stop asking questions and don’t stop learning from your mistakes.

Oh, and get involved in the user experience design community–the Information Architecture Institute, Interaction Design Association, UX Net, Usability Professionals Association and a whole slew of UX Book Clubs are all great organization and are all continually looking for volunteers to support their efforts. Volunteering is a great way to get experience and work with some of the top minds in the field. I can assure you I wouldn’t be where I am today without them, and I doubt I would have found my way to writing a book without being involved.

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Video Interview at SXSW with Russ Unger

Wow.

Feels so very vain to type that.

But, if you’re interested in seeing my ugly mug and listening to me talk about the book, “A Project Guide to UX Design” that I co-authored with Carolyn Chandler, please, check out the video!

Click here to see the video interview.

Feel free to lob tomatoes at your monitor as you deem necessary.

Chicago Interactive Design & Development Group – May 19, 2009

May 19, 2009, Carolyn Chandler (my co-author for A Project Guide to UX Design) presented at the Chicago Interactive Design & Development Group’s monthly meet-up. We presented our joint presentation (which is really Carolyn’s that we worked me in to), “Learning to Love Tension, Disruption & Chaos” that we had presented a couple of weeks ago at the Voices That Matter Web Design Conference in San Francisco.

It’s amazing what a difference 2 weeks can make! It’s also pretty amazing that we each only knew 1 person in the room–quite a few people less than we knew in San Francisco, and Chicago’s our home town! Not only that, I think we both were recovering from being a bit rattled from our presentation in San Francisco.

To be honest, the room was a bit flat–and that’s not to blame anyone, but it was a room with people in the web design space, on the last day of a conference and 2 fairly unknown authors.

Right after the always entertaining Jared Spool, too.

Hey, Jared’s one of those wicked-awesome, keynote-giving type of guys.

Hey, I’ve been hitting the stage and giving a handful of presentations this year and Jared’s been doing this for… let’s just say a bit more than I have. But, you know, sometimes the room can make a lot of difference.

That’s not to say we fell flat on our faces–there were some pretty good questions at VTM, but it felt dry. Regardless, I felt much better about my own abilities as a speaker (and a few people have been twittering my talk from the IA Summit on Heuristic Analysis for the Pitch Process in a positive light and that’s been a welcome boost to my own morale). Back to the local Meetup…

The room was pretty packed–it looked like around 50-60 people showed up, counting the late stragglers. We gave our presentations, felt the room was a bit more alive–and it was pretty nice to be in a room where everyone wasn’t staring down at a laptop. We also had some really great questions and genuinely interested people.

My portion of our discussion was on disruption, and Steve Portigal has been kind enough to work through this discussion. He provided some pretty good insights around how to re-frame problems, and that really helped me provide anecdotes that help others understand the value of disruption. Disruption can be something as simple as performing design testing with users, forcing very critical internal design reviews of your own work, or even getting your butt out of your chair and experiencing the environments where your end result will live (I give some examples using AMC’s touch screen kiosk and shower knobs that tend to paint the picture pretty clearly). We shouldn’t be afraid of someone knocking us off course–we should embrace it! We should be heading it off at the pass and encouraging it early on so we can get knocked out of our comfort zone and force us to be a bit more creative in the way we design. Disruption can be your friend.

Carolyn did a great job of talking about Chaos and Tension and how to work with them within the design process–there were some great questions around how to reign in chaos and how to wrestle with the tension to keep it balanced.

This group was outstanding–and it’s important to note that it’s been around for quite awhile. Judi Wunderlich, of Wunderland Group, has been setting up the local meetups. I’ve yet to be able to attend, and I can tell you that it’s been entirely my loss. The large group was attentive, interested and engaged and it was absolutely my pleasure and privilege to be asked to present to such an awesome audience.

Without Judi’s efforts, I’m not certain we’d have this type of meetup, and it’s important to recognize how lucky we are to have her support in our interactive community. Thanks, Judi!

This is been a rare local appearance–I’m really happy that I was able to take part, and look forward to getting more locally engaged. Support your local scene–they’re support is pretty fantastic!

If the User Can’t Find the Error Message, It Doesn’t Exist

Alternate Title: If a user can’t understand your message in 6.5 seconds, you’ve failed. If a user can’t understand an error message in 6.5 seconds, you’ve failed a lot worse.

The past weekend, I took my family to the local mega-movieplex to take in the latest in animated 3D family fun.

It’s rather established that I’m a bit of a geek–I love the interactive world, and frankly, if it wasn’t for the visual stimulation of seeing many products combined together, I probably would do all of my shopping online from the comfort of my home office.

This is serious.

I once purchased tickets to a movie in a remote location in Iowa.  From my iPhone.  While driving.

Because I could.

And, I twittered the experience, too.

Look, I might have a problem.

In preparation for the family outing, I did the usual routine (for me):

• Visit movie theater listing website
• Find earliest times that coincide with the 1-old’s nap time (experience tells me this is the best possible option for movies)
• Find the “purchase online” option (we’ve got 2 kids; the aforementioned 1-year old and a 5-year old–Avery & Sydney, respectively, if you were interested. They’re pretty adorable, but they also tend to be the single greatest factor in tardiness for our family)

The Experience
This particular Saturday was not much different–we were running late.  I was holding the baby bag and the hand of Sydney while my wife was carrying Avery as we scuttled (while looking left-right-left at every roadway) into the theater.  As per usual, I spotted the ticket dispensing kiosk and made a bee line to it, along with a handful of other adults.

I saw the AMC kiosk touch screen above and quickly tapped into it.  I found our movie and swiped my credit card–even though it didn’t ask me to do the latter.  It’s pretty infrequent that we go to movies as a family (the kids’ movies only come out so often), but in general, the pattern is pretty easy to figure out.

Nothing happened.

I looked around me, and sure enough, the whizz-click-whirr of the other kiosks seemed to be coupled with the adults fishing around for tickets and receipts in the slots below the kiosks.

It was a pretty big “WTF” moment for me.

Naturally, I tried again.

I failed.  Again.

Oh, and I’m no quitter, mind you.

I tried again.

More failure.  Not quite EPIC, but it was failure.

I looked over to see a pretty impatient family, and my frustration intensified.  I started to go through the process again, but reminded myself that I work in the “(User) Experience Design” field, and that if something wasn’t right, surely I’d find a way to let the frustrated father know what was wrong.

I started over.  Clean slate.

I looked at the screen above, and nothing stood out to me.  it was damn near maddening, to be honest.

Deep breath, Russ.  Deep breath.  The movie will still be there.

“Please touch screen to begin.”

[Logo / Branding]

[Some text that is probably promotional; it's small, not relevant]

The Sidebar with Historical Relevance (Maybe)
Then I remembered this quiz that a teacher gave me in 5th grade, I think.  The teacher passed out full sheets of paper. Two-sided, in fact.  The paper had a series of questions, the first of which was to “Read all the instructions before taking the quiz.”

Remember this quiz?

The last item, on the back side, at the bottom read something like this:

“Don’t answer anything in this quiz; do not mark up your paper. Please return it to the teacher.”

I remember doing a lot of erasing.

I also remember the teacher explaining that it was an exercise in reading instructions, which, apparently, 5th graders aren’t very good at.

Apparently, neither is a 39-year old father of two trying desperately to get into Monsters vs. Aliens 3D before the seats are all filled-up and the previews have started.

But, really, is that my fault?  Is it AMC Entertainment’s fault?

Somewhere along the line, it’s a healthy combination of both.

The Hidden Message (and Not-So-Hidden Meaning)

The message at the bottom of the screen reads:

“You may only browse the current schedule at this kiosk.
The printer ticket cutter experienced an error”

To be honest, the identification of the “printer ticket cutter” error is fairly impressive.  Heck, I didn’t need to know that much, but it was good to be so well-informed, and the notion of that error message alone kind of makes me think that someone was trying to make me understand that there was a hardware failure and it wasn’t the “stupid kiosk”, but the connected peripheral instead.

However…

The placement of the status of the machine and the error message are what caused my repeated failures.

I couldn’t see them.

I couldn’t find them in the 6.5 seconds–or less–that I actually paid attention to the screen.  And it was a lot less than 6.5 seconds, to be honest with you–as I mentioned, I’ve had some experience with these kiosks.

The failure occurred because the placement of the message was in the last possible place that I would think to look.  An error that prevents a device from functioning as expected needs to be displayed in a way that makes you understand that the core utility is unavailable.

This kiosk was a “browse only” kiosk.  It certainly wasn’t going to make AMC any money on this day–so why keep a very similar display available?

Instead, why not change the view to make people aware that this particular kiosk is out of commission?  Why not highlight–perhaps in different messaging or a different screen altogether that makes the “broken” kiosk stand out in some fashion?

A kiosk that appears different than all the others can be quickly scanned–and avoided–leaving the adult (me) not feeling like they’ve just wasted 5-10 minutes of a fidgety, anxious family.  Not only that, it prevents us from losing a spot in line and helps us to inform other victims/parents quickly.

What to do, what to do?

There’s a really simple solve for this–and I’m sure that mine is not the only one, but here goes.  Change the main screen–in fact, make sure people know that the kiosk is unable to do anything transactional.  Movie times are already posted everywhere; there’s no need for a person to browse through this kiosk, and it’s not going to make anyone any money until it’s fixed.  It only has potential to add frustration to a scenario that is generally perceived as an escape (hey, suspension of disbelief is a great way to get away from reality!), and that’s something that should be avoided.

Let’s change this screen–in a big way.  Instead of the standard “White on Red”, let’s consider reversing that.  Instead of the big logo and instructions, perhaps we should instead say:

“Currently Unavailable
Use other kiosk for ticket purchases.

We’re truly sorry for the inconvenience. Please use one of the other kiosks until we are able to fix the problem.”

That’s pretty simple.  Pretty easy to see, assuming a large enough font.  The obvious inverted color display should be enough to help inform users that something’s different, draw them in for a quick moment to understand what’s wrong and move on.

Without wasting any time standing in the wrong line or tap, tap, tapping the screen of a kiosk that cannot provide them any useful benefit–such as the tickets that they’d purchased online hours ago (and also paid a surcharge for–for the convenience).

So What?
It’s easy to forget that there’s a bigger experience than the screen we’re building or the moment that we think people are in.  A focus group wouldn’t uncover the frustration that I felt (or at least I doubt it would), so it’s important for designers to understand the environments that people are using whatever it is that they’re building.

As a father with kids, I doubt I’m a corner case.  I’m sure that I’m not nearly as popular as the tweens-through-teens and “date nighters” that are out there, but mine is a very reasonable segment.  When there is an additional cost to purchase the item for “convenience”, we damn well better make sure that we’re building something that is, after all, convenient.

Look at your user segments and your personas.  Talk to those people–either dive into your research and get a deeper understanding of their lifestyle or pick up the phone and call someone that you know who fits the mold.  In my case, I know a lot of parents who can never meet an arrival time, no matter how hard they try.  It’s probably a reason why no one shows up at 3p for a child’s birthday party.

That said, parents are the only ones who will get frustrated.  Anyone who is unable to locate your error message AND understand it is a likely candidate to become added customer service expense.  Every time something “self serve” is introduced, it really means “let us spend less on customer service by empowering the users”, or something a little less marketing-y than that.

The problem with that is basic. If you fail on an experience that does not require engagement with a human, it increases your engagement with humans and/or has the potential to subtract from your ability to sell.

Keep it findable. Keep it simple.

(There’s another lengthy blog post in here about how automated devices can lead to lower call center costs which can, in return, take away from operational costs, but that’s something else entirely.)

Praise for A Project Guide to UX Design

I’m down in Austin, Texas, for SXSW and have finally had the chance to see copies of the book! Things are hectic and there’s more information overload and internet underload (seems all connections down here are pretty sluggish from the growing masses of people all trying to be connected at the same time–go figure!),

We’ve heard the books have started shipping and we’ve received some copies of our own, so we felt it was time to share some of the praise and feedback that we’ve received:

“If Russ Unger and Carolyn Chandler were magicians, the Alliance would be after them for revealing their best secrets. Fortunately for you, they’re not. Russ and Carolyn have collected up sage wisdom previously only known to the most experienced UX project leaders and codified it for all to see. Now you can learn the secrets necessary to running great user experience projects.”

Jared M. Spool, CEO and founding principal of User Interface Engineering

“Is there one book that can tell you everything you need to know about designing user experiences? No. Is there a book that get you most of the way there? There is now. Carolyn and Russ have laid a solid foundation for planning and managing design projects. This is an essential handbook for anyone mired in the competing methodologies, the endless meetings, and all the moving parts of user experience design.”

Dan Brown, author of Communicating Design

“This book is a fantastic introduction to how to design great products for real people. But it covers much more than just design—it also includes all the things around design: managing projects, working with people, and communicating ideas. A great all-rounder.”

Donna Spencer, author of “Card Sorting: Designing Usable Categories”

“This is a practical, accessible, and very human guide to a very human activity: working together with people to make great things for other people.”

Steve Portigal, Portigal Consulting

“If you’ve heard of Wil Wheaton the author, you understand why I hold Russ Unger in such high regard. Russ’s experience and guidance was fundamental to the construction and design of Monolith Press, and he’s been one of the most valuable collaborators I’ve ever worked with.”

Wil Wheaton, author of Dancing Barefoot, Just a Geek, and The Happiest Days of our Lives

Some of the kindest and most generous words from people we genuinely respect. We hope you find the book a useful and valuable addition to your UX bookshelf!

On top of all of this wonderful praise, I was able to pass along a copy to Austin Govella, co-author of Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web, 2nd Edition, with Christina Wodtke. Later in the evening, Austin sent me one of the best, most succinct direct messages I’ve ever received on Twitter:

The book is great.

I don’t believe Austin’s one to throw praise around willy-nilly… and I’m completely flattered that I got that message.  Thanks, Austin!

I Love My Amazon Kindle. And I Love It On My iPhone.

When the first Amazon Kindle came out, I bought it.  I actually had to wait a month or so because demand was so high, but when I got it in January of 2008, I was really…

Underwhelmed.

I loved the damn thing, but it’s industrial design was… meh. The edges where too harsh.  It was bulky.  The big-ass buttons were too big ass.  Pages turned when I would rest the Kindle against my bag on the train and I’d lose my place.

It annoyed me.

But I loved feeding my reading habit and buying books on the train and just buying books to show off.  Plus, it was pretty cool to have the Wall Street Journal ready for me every day when I was ready for it.

Except, of course, that Wall Street Journal would not allow me to have web access to the paper unless I paid for that online access, as well.

I sold that Kindle a few weeks back, even though I loved it so.  To be honest, since I’ve been working on the book, my reading habit has dwindled severely.  Now I have a whole bunch of these presentation things I need to be working on (and I am), but I also have some spare time to get back into reading, so I was pretty happy to jump to the front of the line and place an order for a new Kindle as a first generation owner.

I got it last week, and the improvements are unreal.

Okay, they’re real. But they’re (almost) all the right ones!

No longer do you have to push a funky key combination to force the sleep mode. Instead, you flip the switch at the top–easy!  The buttons are smaller, and require a bit more impact and force (ie actual desire) to push, meaning you have substantially fewer accidental page turns!  This, naturally, makes me happy.

The pages, well, they turn quicker.  That makes me happy, too, except for the slight adjustment I’ve “learned” from when I push the page turn to when it turns… Ooops!  There’s that nifty little “read the words to me” feature, but it’s more to show it off than anything else.

I love that I can email my Kindle account PDFs or Documents and they’ll convert it for a dime and then I can read it at my leisure.  It’s annoying that it doesn’t keep images intact (I sent a PDF of The Book to it), but it’s nice to be able to read work, etc. documents NOT on the iPhone only.

In general, however, the industrial design rocks, the overall experience is greatly improved, the keyboard is better and the entire device just makes a lot more sense and seems about as right as it can be for an eReader, or whatever we’re calling them now.

The downsides that I currently see are:

No SD card for expansion of memory–but I never filled the last SD card, and Amazon will let you keep your digital books on their network, with the availability to pull them down whenever you want.  Not much of an issue from where I sit.

I still can’t print or grab snippets of text, send it somewhere and print it.  It’s minor, but it’s a pain in the butt to not be able to snag text, and article, etc. and print it off for reference.

This version did not come with a case like the previous version–I wasn’t a huge fan of the last case, but at least I had one and I didn’t pay extra for it.  In return, the package was a lot less, so I guess there’s some tiny bit of the environment that got saved, but I still had to shell out a bunch of bucks to get a neoprene case, which in turn required more packaging and shipping, so I think that ecological argument just got tossed right out the window into the smoggy air.  Just saying.

And it just got better…

Today, the Kindle iPhone application just came out, officially making Kindle hardware AND software, I think.  The application is free, and like all the other iPhone applications: select it, install it, use it.

I found all of my books in a place called “Archives”. I grabbed the most recent book I’ve been reading and it downloaded it to my iPhone.  In another tap, the book opened for me to read…

And this is where it got REALLY cool…

It opened up to the last page I read on my Kindle the day before.

No kidding!

While sitting in a doctor’s office this morning, I was flipping through pages–it was a thumb swipe from right-to-left–and I was able to exit the application and re-open to the same place.  A “refresh”-like looking button is on the screen, so I tapped it and in a few moments it let me know that I was at the furthest-most read page on any of my devices.

Pretty freaking cool, really.

Even cooler…

I didn’t have to “register a device” or make any limited number of devices “authorized” to use it, which is a hard lesson that our pals at Apple should start to learn–especially for those of us with iPods, iPhones, AppleTVs and more than one computer.

Kindle: I’m a fan. Thanks for listening and improving.  I hope the next changes are software changes so I don’t have to go through the sell-and-upgrade process again in a year.

Where’s Russ? (Spring 2009 Presentation Schedule)

Now that the heavy lifting for the book is pretty much complete (from the author perspective, of course), I have a few things that I need to get moving on.  Spring is going to be busy and fun, and I fully expect to learn a lot.  As of this posting, March and April are pretty busy months, and if you happen to be around at any of these places, please stop by and say hello!

South by Southwest (SXSW)
Austin, TX
March 13 – 17

I will be presenting a “Salon” with my good friend, David Armano, on Saturday, March 14th, from 6:30 – 7:30 pm at the Downtown Austin Hilton.  We will be presenting on the topic of “Friendship is Dead”, discussing how the proliferation of social networks have impacted what it means to be called a “friend” these days–is the world getting bigger and smaller at the same time?.

Apparently the Salon is a new thing for SXSW, and they’ll be providing some food and drinks (can’t say as to whether or not those will be alcoholic beverages, but with a sponsor like Miller Lite, we can all hope–especially the two of us who happen to be presenting!).

Information Architecture Summit
Memphis, TN
March 20-22

Also on March 18th, with Mario Bourque, presenting the workshop, “Career Workshop for Information Architects and other User Experience Professionals” from 8:30 – 12:30.

In addition, I’m on the “Evolve or Die” panel with Christina Wodtke, Josh Porter and Gene Smith (all of whom are, to some degree or another, in a bit of a hero light–and coincidentally, also Peachpit Authors).  Swing by and hear my dystopian view on Little IA, if you’re so inclined.  We must, after all, evolve, or we shall, indeed, die. Or at least become something a lot more like a commodity. Meh. Who has time for that type of boredom?

And, finally, to round off a tour of BBQ, Elvis, Sun Studios and beer-drinking goats (trust me, you’ll see), I’ll be giving my talk on “Selling IA/UX: Heuristic Evaluation for the Pitch Process” in which I’ll spend a little time engaging a crowd of 2s of people to discuss how low-hanging fruit can not only help you better engage your own teams, but how it can be a nice packageable deliverable for your pitch process.  Bonus: I’m going to give you a template to work in, as well! Yay!

Voices That Matter: Web Design Conference
San Francisco, CA
April 27 – 30

Early Bird pricing is through March 12, which is $200 off the normal price, plus, as my friends, Plus, I have a $200 “Friend of a Speaker” code that you can use: WBASPKR

Save some dough, see some insanely smart people and get your learn on!

Carolyn Chandler and I will be at the Voices That Matter: Web Design Conference presenting “Learning to Love Tension, Disruption and Chaos”–three different approaches that can lead to better design.  We’ll also be supporting the release of “A Project Guide to User Experience Design: For User Experience Designers in the Field or in the Making” (you can use the code “UXDESIGN” to save 35% at Peachpit and get free domestic shipping!), and we’ll be there with a great bunch of authors and presenters.  The learning will be fantastic, and I hear that the weather will be, too.

Apparently, I will be spending the next few conferences following around Christina Wodtke & Jared Spool. They’re very good company, and it’ll be nice to see familiar faces while I travel to do a little promotion of the book, as well as highlighting the strengths of Draftfcb’s interactive and digital capabilities.

If you end up attending any of the above, please don’t hesitate to introduce yourself!

I’m also working up a few other presentations that will be nice additions to what’s listed above. More on those later…

A Project Guide to UX Design: Why We Wrote the Book

This is the unedited, unabridged version of what started out as the introduction to the book, but a lot of it got edited out–it made sense to do so, but I think the story is worth telling. –Russ

I’ve been a mentor for the Information Architecture Institute for a couple of years now, and I started to notice a pattern (go figure) amongst the people that I was helping.  Most were either in positions where they were having difficulty landing jobs or they were not aligned with the expectations of prospective employers.  Some had outstanding education, but not always enough practical application of their UX design skills in a project-based setting to help them find ways to become engaged.

Then, I attended the Information Architecture Summit in 2008 and met a lot of new people, including a few people who stopped by the IA Institute’s Mentoring Booth.  The same themes seemed to resonate.  As I spoke to more and more people, it made sense to me that a book like this could be useful to many in the UX design field.

While at the IA Summit, I skipped a session and attended a focus group-like session with Lou Rosenfeld (Rosenfeld Media) and Kevin Cheng to discuss Kevin’s upcoming book “See What I Mean” that will teach you the process of using comics to communicate ideas.  My mind kicked into overdrive and I recall sitting there, trying to add value to the conversation while trying to jot notes onto my phone for future reference.

As is usual when people return from a conference that they got a lot out of, I returned back to Chicago exhausted—and fully energized and ready to take on the world again.  I reviewed my notes and I started creating an outline of what the project process has looked like to me over the years.

Out of the blue, either Carolyn Chandler or myself sent an email to the other, and the topic of my outline came up.  I shared it.  Carolyn sent a response with her own views and opinions.  The outline was revised.  Then descriptions started being created so that the outline made sense to us—and to other people who were kind enough to review what we were creating. Eventually—and by eventually, I mean a few months into the book with Peachpit—we came up with our final outline that became the book that is in your hands today.  Instead of trying to tackle the project alone, I found a very willing and capable co-author who was up to the task.

It was clear to me that Carolyn and I had a degree of overlap and very clear areas where one had more depth and focus than the other.  As you’ll see from the chapters, it was clear to us who fit where.  We set out to create a book to help you move through many of the steps of the project process, including some additional information to help you understand just what the heck the project process is, and a few other morsels that should help you if you are setting out to do this on your own as an independent consultant or a freelancer.

As you’ll see in many chapters of this book, we’re not trying to be everything to all people.  You’ll also see that we’re trying to provide you with the core information and knowledge that you should have to perform many of the duties you’ll be assigned as a UX designer.  You’ll see that beyond our own examples, we’re quick to provide you with examples that help you identify ways to jumpstart the basic materials and allow you to mash-up the information and create something newer, better, or even more suited to your own purposes.

We hope that we’ve done a decent job of articulating that this is a pretty good project approach toward UX design based upon the collaboration of a couple of people who received input from other people to get to where we are today.

We’re nothing, if not constantly trying to learn and improve <whatever we do>, with each iteration.  It’s why, to a degree, we’re in this field.

Welcome to “A Project Guide to UX Design”.

(Coming in March, 2009 on Peachpit Press’ Voices That Matter series)

(Check out the Facebook Group, too!)

Experiencing the Misconceptions of User Experience Design

Information Architecture Institute’s Advisor and UX “it girl” extraordinaire, Whitney Hess authored an article on Mashable yesterday that’s gotten a lot of buzz.  My description of Whitney isn’t facetious; she does a lot for our community to expand awareness and help make splashes where they aren’t being made.

We could all take a page from her book, frankly.

Sometime around Thanksgiving, I got a twitter Direct Message from Whit asking me what I thought was “the biggest misconception in UXD”.

I chuckled because I’d been working through this for a very long time, and I’d been having a number of conversations with Matthew Milan about this very same topic and how I really believe that we sell ourselves short by locking ourselves into “just” the user.

Whitney’s quote from me in the article as follows:

…just about the user

---

Russ Unger, experience design strategist, likes to say that the biggest misconception of UX design is the “U.” “There are a set of business objectives that are needing to be met—and we’re designing to that, as well,” he explains. “We just can’t always do what is best for the users. We have to try to make sure that we are presenting an overall experience that can meet as many goals and needs as possible for the business and the users.”As user experience designers we have to find the sweet spot between the user’s needs and the business goals, and furthermore ensure that the design is on brand.

Whit did a great job of distilling it down; I didn’t expect that what I had sent her would be carved in stone, but I definitely feel that the lengthier version gives a bit more insight and further explains my perspective (and as I mentioned to her, gives me something to blog about, too!).

I sent Whitney the following response:

Biggest misconception?

One of the biggest misconceptions I see is that people are getting too deep into “User” Experience Design.  That is, most times, we are solving a business problem and wrapping something useful and usable around it. There are a set of business objectives that are needing to be met—and we’re designing to that, as well.  In many cases, this forces “User” Experience Designers to choose between the lesser of evils and not really put forth what might be considered (by them) as the best possible solution.  I believe any of us in the field could nitpick on any site or application and make a snap judgment—but we would not know what business objective forced that design decision.

As an example:  I once worked for a large media company that identified banner ads as a revenue stream.  This required a large “island” ad to be placed on the page, and forgive me for even saying this, above the fold (not my requirement).  Some designers rebelled against this, but the way I saw this was that there is an ad on a page that had the potential to bring in enough revenue to pay multiple salaries each year—that’s ultimately a good thing, right?

I see us as Experience Designers, who truly try to provide what is best for a user—while making sure business objectives are met.  Unfortunately, we just can’t always do what is best for the users, so we have to try to make sure that we are presenting an overall experience that can meet as many goals and needs as possible for the business and the users.

Whitney edited this down to fit into her pretty lengthy article–which, by the way, had my name listed amongst people that I’m fortunate enough to be able to say that I’ve met, I’ve had conversations with, I’ve become friends with and who are my heroes in the industry. Author, of course, included, and ranking right up there near the top.

I’m more than a little honored to be amongst those people listed, and I’m flattered to have given a response that was considered insightful enough to be listed.

But, I have to say, I very specifically meant that the U–the USER part–of User Experience Design is one of the misconceptions that I see.

We don’t always have the fortune of working for the Users. We sometimes work for the Business requirements and the business objectives.  We are creating experiences for their users that are compelling the users to buy something.

Look, we’re a cost to companies, and they see it as a needed cost because we have the potential to save them money downstream by working toward the best interests of their users–to meet goals and objectives of the company.

We’re working with all that stuff. We’re working to simplify processes. We sometimes have to pick the lesser of many evils–and we do that, to a degree, for the user.

And the user isn’t always a customer, either.

cus·tom·er

1. One that buys goods or services.
2. Informal An individual with whom one must deal: a tough customer.

That’s far too narrow of a focus–for me.

Sometimes, the user is just a visitor. Sometimes, we identify business processes and/or communication processes (think to yourself how the editorial process might work for a large-scale CMS). Sometimes it’s a consumer–and that doesn’t have to be a customer. Sometimes the user is someone looking for information, and you can rationalize that however you’d like, but it’s not a customer.

Otherwise, it would be often called Customer Experience Design.

From where I sit, and from where I’ll be sitting soon, it’s Experience Design, Experience Strategy and/or Experience Planning. Who we do it for…  That may vary.

We’re always going to try to connect the dots with as much efficiency and clarity as possible, and that’s what is important.

Your “Only Once” Is My 3-6 Times

Today, David Armano posted a link to the newly updated ESPN.com website on Twitter for people to share some opinions and feedback.

I went to the site and saw that, still, ESPN thinks it’s an okay idea to play–with the volume ON–video on their home page.  Like most people in the same time zone as David, I’m at work, so I left the site rather quickly.

I let David know my experience and that I felt ESPN clearly is not speaking to their users, while people around me are chuckling at me for the burst of non-work-related audio coming from my workstation.

David’s response was, “It only happens once–refresh.”

(For the record, I’ve now seen it twice on the same computer and I’m not about to try and find out again, thanks, ESPN.)

It only happens once.

Is that the truth anymore?

I think it’s a lie.  A lie we tell ourselves and we instantly believe without letting it really surface.

And we’re forgetting about the fact that many people (still awaiting on a number about the average numbers of computers per household in 2008 from ChaCha, but…) have more than one computer in their experience–particularly those who, you know, actually go to websites.

I have a laptop for work (PC).  I have a personal laptop (MacBook).  I have a desktop (iMac). I have a home server (PC). I have a laptop for my wife (NetBook). And, finally, I have a laptop for my 5yo daughter (PC).

At any point in time, I could be using ANY ONE of those computers. And each “first time” I’ll have to go through whatever interstitial garbage you put up to thrill and wow me with.

For me, that’s 3-6 different times, and that’s if you “Only Once” actually works.

Look, I’m a realist.  I’m pretty certain that my numbers are a bit larger than the average household, but many households certainly DO have more than one computer within the realm of their “experience”, and it is something to consider.

Especially when your “Only Once” is not working.