UXD for Advertising - First Final Version (Part 3 of a Presentation In-Progress)

Written by Russ on February 25, 2008 – 6:08 pm

Somewhere between a newborn baby, which was just about 6 hours after I wrapped-up the last posting on this topic, and around 4am this morning, things really starting falling into place.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that a good friend and developer Troy, a co-worker who shall remain “Tom”, along with the feedback, approvals and blessings from folks like Peter Morville, Christina Wodtke, Stephen Collins and Peter Boersma. Truly, the insight, if not already-worked-on materials that these folks have in their arsenal, has allowed me to flesh out and bring a pretty solid presentation into maturity.

I’ve yet again updated my outline. It now reads as follows:

User Experience Design: An Overview

1. Title Page
2. Why is UXD Right for Us?
3. What is UXD? (long)
4. What is Information Architecture
5. What is User-Centered Design
6. What is UXD? (Redux)
7. UXD and the Project Life Cycle
8. UXD’s Involvement in the Project Life Cycle
9. UXD’s Work Product (not all-inclusive)
10. Why is UXD Important?
11. Whye is UXD Important to Brands
12. Brand and the User Experience (Dubberly’s Model of Brand)
13. What’s Next for UXD?
14. Questions & Critiques

There’s been a significant shift since I first started this task. I’ve spent a lot of time on research and revisions–mostly because I’ve not been able to get this out of my head. It’s important for all of us to understand that “what we do” is important within an organization. We not only need to do “what we do” but we have to do our part to make sure that others know–in the right way–when and where it is appropriate that we are engaged.

It can be delicate, particularly so when you are the only individual in the organization who practices the craft. How do you inform an organization that, “Oh, by the way, I should be involved in just about anything that we do” without coming across as a know-it-all expert?

Hey, that sounded like magic, or something!

It’s not magic, but as Lou Rosenfeld and Peter Morville have said, this certainly is something that involves “art and science”. Maybe it has some madness sprinkled in with method to other folks, but that further reinforces our responsibility to educate outward. And yes, that means with other people in different disciplines than our own.

It’s time to get off of the soapbox that I apparently just hopped on and get into what I’ve been working through with this presentation.

I felt I was missing the right way to open and close my presentation. Definitions alone can be kind of boring. Definitions of the types of work that we do is not the wrong thing to present on, but it is a bit abrupt when it comes to starting a presentation. I wanted something to ease people into what I would be discussing, and I was hoping it could be familiar.

Christina Wodtke had a pretty relevant quote by Steve Jobs in one of her presentations. Steve was asked why he believes that Apple’s customers are so loyal and how it has to do–very specifically–with a well-thought user experience. The quote sends a pretty clear message: Product Quality (which in this case is directly connected to, if not simply just “is” the User Experience) equals Brand Loyalty.

What is User Experience?
I kept my “What is UXD” slide, but updated it after a quick email exchange with Peter Morville. Peter claims that he works with his clients for designs that should last 5 years or more. The more I thought about it and the more I did some real reflection on the work I’ve done over the years, the more I realized he is firmly set in reality, whereas I must have been trying to cater to the salesperson side of me. The truth is, I think we would all like to be able to revisit and rework designs every year or so, but 5-10 years is a lot closer to how often clients / corporations tend to really think about it.

What is Information Architecture (or, the slide that everyone uses)
For whatever reason, I neglected previously to include my “What is IA” slide. I’m including it and wanted to point out that it wasn’t until later in my research that I found out that there are more than a couple of other folks who use almost the exact same slide that I do. I’m sure theirs were created first, so I’m not trying to take credit. If anything, it’s mildly amusing that so many people find this to be the right, credible way to explain Information Architecture.

What is User Experience Design (Redux / Short Version)
After a lot of avoidance, and then a lot of struggling, I sort of eeked-out a “What is UXD? (Redux / Shorter Version)”. This is the one slide that I’m having the most difficulty with, as I am finding it especially challenging to come up with a succinct way of saying “This is UXD”.

I’d be grateful for some input and feedback on this slide, if no other part of this whole process.

Why User Experience Design is Important
I created a slide to provide some simple explanations as to why UXD is important–it’s great that I’ve explained all the pieces of UXD and by now. My audience will hopefully be somewhat clued-in to why this is important. However, given the slide following this one (Why UXD is Important to Brand), it felt timely to give a nice rounding-off to what’s already been discussed. The key points are that UXD is agnostic, UXD maximizes usability, UXD minimizes design failures, UXD provides project–and operational–efficiencies, and finally (simply), UXD brings it all together.

Why is User Experience Design Important to Brands?
This was one of my newest, most challenging additions. Christina Wodtke has some outstanding information about how IA is very important to brand, the more I read through her materials, she’s absolutely correct. Christina states:

Brand Managers
CREATE
Brand Promises
FULFILLED BY
Brand Experiences

I doubt this is a secret to “Brand People”, so I’m not trying to pretend that I’m an inventor of anything, however, I started seeing a bit more into the information. User Experience is at the very CORE of the brand, and Brand Promises should really be fulfilled by GOOD BRAND EXPERIENCES.

A Good Brand Experience is an experience that meets or exceeds the expectations of a consumer (user), with a product (or anything related to the product, such as a commercial, print advertising, a website). Everything that touches any portion of the brand needs to be laser-focused on obtaining a Good Brand Experience. How many times have you seen a commercial or a TV Show or [anything] that has a URL attached to it and when you visited the website, you wondered why you, as a brand loyalist, wasted your time?

More than should be happening, I’d be willing to wager.

We all know that bad brand experiences mean that we’re going to tell about a dozen or so people about it. When you factor in blogging, reviews on websites, etc. that number begins to go through the roof! It’s time to find ways to foster relationships with the consumers–we need to provide a good experience for the brand champions that continues where the product ends. We need to cater to the champions we have and can keep–they are the biggest evangelists for our brands.

It was at this point that I found an interesting diagram around 360-degree Brand Stewardship at OgilvyPR.com that helped me better describe my points.

I thought that their diagrams on Mass Communication and Network Marketing were really good starting points for understanding how Brand works with a variety of mediums to get a message to a Consumer in order to drive experiences. I felt that they left out some of the static that often gets in the way, and some of the additional benefits that can come from the positive outcome. Consumers can buy more product–and that’s great–but when consumers become brand advocates and start to give endorsements, there’s more weight and consideration given to the message.

That mentioned, I tried to find a way of showing all of [that stuff above] in a single diagram. I’d love some feedback here–I think I did a pretty nice job of showing how this can/should work:

Brand and the User Experience
A nice continuation of the slide above already exists in Hugh Dubberly’s Model of a Brand. I snagged the portion that applied the best (thanks again to Christina Wodtke’s insights):

Product < - delivers -> Experience < - shapes -> Perception - builds -> Brand < - represents - Name.

It’s much prettier in the slide, so here’s the slide:

What’s Next for UXD?
I’ve already preached a bit above on this topic, but suffice it to say that this particular wrap-up slide (before the Questions & Critiques) has a lot to do with my beliefs about how I would like for UXD (and myself) to be involved within the organization that I work for. I’ve mentioned it before–this presentation has an angle to it that is self-serving for me. However, I believe that it should be–as it should be for you if you are giving this presentation of your own some day. There’s no harm in that–if you want to operate at a certain level, you need to be able to affect change in your organization, not just through the people you work with. You need, beyond being self-sufficient and able to manage yourself and/or others, to be the change that you want to see. As someone differently wiser than I once said, “You can either be the pebble or the stream…”

Hopefully, Dr. Don Norman’s notion about this works well for my audience. I have a slight bit of trepidation that this could come across as a bit harsh or too overly self-serving, but I think he’s dead-on:

“We will never make progress as long as we are resources and not leaders. Resources don’t discuss the business plan, the marketing strategy. Resources don’t help decide what the product or service will be in the first place. Resources are called in when the leaders think they are needed. They do their job and then get out of the way.”

Now What?
Now that I’ve gotten this far in a much shorter amount of time (but more man-hours than I would have imagined), I feel that I’m just about ready to bring the presentation to the people in my company that have good insight to the rest of the leadership. I want to give them the opportunity to take my presentation to task, kick the tires and force another iteration out of me.

From there, it’s show time.

Posted in Information Architecture, Presentations, User Experience Design | No Comments »

I Am A User Experience Practitioner (Part 2 of a Presentation In-Progress)

Written by Russ on February 22, 2008 – 1:56 am

When last we left our hero Russ, he was struggling to figure out his next steps for his presentation.

Fortunately, he was also wise enough to get a few hours of sleep, wake up fresh and start reviewing the work he’d already started (with the vital input of a few others).

The outline has changed again, and I suspect it is not for the final time. The new outline is:

User Experience Design: An Overview

1. Title Page
2. What is Information Architecture?
3. What is User-Centered Design?
4. What is User Experience Design? (long)
5. What is User Experience Design? (short)
6. UXD and the Project Life Cycle
7. UXD’s Involvement in the Project Life Cycle
8. UXD’s Work Product (not all-inclusive)
9. Why is UXD Important?
10. When should the UXD Team be engaged?
11. What are the roles / resources needed?
12. What are the job descriptions of the UXD Team?
13. What is an appropriate career path for members of the UXD team?

This is starting to feel better. My goal is still basically the same–I want to make sure that all of the right people (which is basically ALL of the people) from the top down understand what UXD is and what the value of UXD is within the organization. It’s also self-serving in that I want a little bit more out of my role and this feels like the right, proactive way to address that. When it comes down to being part of the problem or the solution, I try to get my head on the solution side of things.

Some Updates to Existing Content
I borrowed Peter Morville’s “UX Honeycomb” (which I think is probably one of the most borrowed images in existance for UXD) and found that it worked really well. The more I looked at it, the more I felt that I could add to it based upon what I know about where I’m at today.

I surrounded the honeycomb with a circle of Longevity:

I gave Longevity a definition of:

Longevity. Our [websites] must be able to stand the test of time without rebuilding from scratch. Users should expect to see the same styled website for about 1-2 years, with incremental modifications throughout its life.

I updated the slide for UXD & the Project Life Cycle to also include (Sales) Pitch and Post-Launch Evaluation:

Subsequently, I updated what used to be the “Skills Assessment” slide to try and be a better representation of where UXD should be, and how much UXD should be involved(from my perspective in my environment–this could be different for you):

What’s New?
I added a title page–I feel that if I’m going to sit down and work on something, I should at least make some progress, and this was guaranteed to be an easy task to complete (it’s still not 100% solid, but it exists).

Then, I created the “What is UXD? (short)” definition. That, too, is a work in-progress. I’m struggling a little bit right now with this, but inspiration struck in another area, so I shifted gears and added…

“Why UXD is Important” (to my organization). As of now, I’ve got some headings and copy that look a little like this:

UXD is Agnostic
User Experience Design should be involved in any project—not just websites!
UXD has been applied to Mobile Phones, Biometric Devices (fingerprint readers), Telephone Voice User Interface (VUI), Desktop Applications, Websites, Business Processes and more!

UXD Maximizes Usability
Wireframes and Prototypes can be used to for User Testing prior to beginning Visual Design and/or Development.

UXD Minimizes Design Failures
Task Flows and Wireframes are the “design before the design” that provide a well-defined canvas for visual design.

UXD Provides Project, Operational Efficiencies
Proper User Experience Design provides clear, thorough guidelines / direction for Visual Design, Development and Quality Assurance.

UXD Brings It All Together
[explanation copy missing]

This slide feels pretty good. I fell out of my groove a bit, but I do think that these explanations drive home why UXD is extremely important.

I’m trying to get the “Brings It All Together” to explain how we bring together the business goals and marketing goals and wrap them in a tidy UXD package. Maybe that’s almost it right there and I just need to apply my copyrighter hat.

Progress is good. I’ve been dutifully, quietly seeking feedback and making improvements based upon what I’ve been hearing. In essence, I’m treating this like nearly any project I’ve ever worked on: I create an outline / plan, I start a section of the work, I do a gut-check review, I revise and then I iterate through it all until I reach a stopping point. With a little luck, I’m a handful of hours away from completion, at which point I’ll make sure this is up on SlideShare in the event that anyone else finds this useful / helpful.

I’ve a feeling I’m not the only person who is in a situation where a presentation like this could be useful!

Posted in Information Architecture, Presentations, User Experience Design | 3 Comments »

Am I An Information Architect? (Part 1 of a Presentation in Progress)

Written by Russ on February 21, 2008 – 12:47 am

Am I an Information Architect?

It seems I’ve been asking myself that question a lot lately. Fortunately, there’s never a shortage for a discussion thread on the IAI list that lights a fire under everyone from Peter Boersma to Andrew Hinton and all the way back again. This week has been no different–and the stars could not have been better aligned.

I’ve been endeavoring to put together a clear, easy-to-consume presentation explaining not only “what I do” as an Information Architect for the company that I work for, but an overview of what Information Architecture is. I’d like to also cover when IA should be engaged and how we can be doing it better.

Pretty bold, eh? It’s certainly a lot easier to talk about doing something like this than it is to sit down and actually put it together.

I want to provide the business with an accurate depiction of what Russ, The Information Architecture Department actually does for them. Is it just more than site maps and wireframes and the random persona? The more I work through the process of putting together a cohesive explanation and presentation, the more that I realize that I’m more than an Information Architect. I’m instrumental to the success of the (Software) Development Life Cycle.

I realize that part of this exercise could be seen as self-serving–it is. I have professional and personal goals to attain, and I also want/need to ensure that any company that I work for is best prepared utilize my skills. This will not only attribute to my own satisfaction, but it will also provide the company with a clear understanding as to when it would be best to engage me.

The best way that I could see to achieve this was to find the right information amassed over the years of working in the field and couple it with plenty of input from some wise folks in the Information Architecture community who have already done this–or at least have some pretty serious opinions about it. I started out by identifying the topics that I felt would make a good foundation for the presentation. I even had a working title:

Why Information Architecture is [More] Important to This Company [Than You Think / Are Aware]

1. What is Information Architecture?
2. How important Information Architecture is to the organization?
3. How important Information Architecture to the industry? (advertising, for what it’s worth, and very!)
4. What types of roles / resources are needed?
5. Who Information Architecture interfaces / works with / influences?
6. What are Information Architecture deliverables?
7. When should Information Architecture be engaged?
8. What is an Information Architect’s job description?
9. What is an appropriate career path for an Information Architect?

Awesome, right? If nothing else, it was a start. Information Architect, they middle name is Iteration.

As with all things planned, once you start down the journey you realize that you might have brought along the wrong map. Peter Boersma was one of the “so-much-smarter-than-me” folks who was kind enough to provide some input and some of his previous presentation materials. One of the first things I found in an older presentation by Peter was a definition of User-Centered Design. Peter uses the definition of User-Centered Design from Microsoft and it was the first of a few key things that began to shift the direction of my presentation. When you couple that definition with Peter Morville’s 3 Circles of Information Architecture (slightly adjusted for the audience), the picture becomes a little more clear:

“User experience and interface design in the context of creating software (applications, websites, etc.) represents an approach that puts the user, rather than the system, at the center of the process.
This philosophy, called User-Centered Design, incorporates user concerns and advocacy from the beginning of the design process and dictates the needs of the user should be foremost in any design decisions*.”

I added the * to further explain that:

Executional Mandatories and Business Goals have priority and should be appropriately considered and/or negotiated to drive the best possible user experience.

Like it or not, sometimes you have to be able to work with a business requirement that you don’t like. You need to be able to make the best out of a less than perfect situation.

Then, through the wealth of information that is Semantic Studios and Peter Morville, I also “borrowed” the User Experience Honeycomb (and supporting, easy to understand definitions).

Morville has one of the easiest to understand approaches to UX, so rather than recreating the wheel as “Russ’s Stop Signs of UX”, I slightly modified his for my own use:

After I had created these first 2 slides with the help of Peter and Peter, I started to feel as if Information Architecture might not be the focus of my presentation. I was trying to figure out what was happening to make that shift– I was not sure if the definition that my organization uses for Information Architecture was inaccurate or if I was trying too hard to make Information Architect my official title (that never shows up on a business card).

I returned to the well. Peter Boersma identified a T-model that started out showing how IA and “Related Fields” would intersect, sharing some shallow and deep connecting points, but having some areas that never connected at all. Peter’s explanation is a lot easier to read than it is for me to paraphrase, so let me cut to the chase: Peter eventually morphed his T-model to show in the overlapping areas exactly where the User Experience practioners operate. He displays the various functional areas–such as Information Architecture, Visual Design, Usability, Interaction Design, etc. and shows how they all intersect with UX Design:

That’s a nice T-model, and that T-model opened my eyes to something slightly different than what Peter showed. I started to visualize the Software/Project Development Life Cycle and how it’s connected into User Experience Design:

Pretty cool, right? Your process may vary (YPMV), but it should be pretty easy to plug in. Almost everyone on a project is–or should be–a part of the User Experience Design, right?

Right. Even Peter admits that he is ready to give up the title of Big IA in favor (well, he says favour) of User Experience practitioner.

I agree, Peter. I agree!

And this is going to cost me some more umbrella drinks at the IA Summit in Miami in April. [sigh]

Then I saw a path to something beyond the Life Cycle. I started to see a measurement of my level, or depth of expertise:

That there is pretty darn cool. I think so, at least.

I fell in love with this idea pretty quickly and saw how this could be of great assistance even further down the road. While it could be somewhat subjective (as all assessments generally are), it could also be the foundation for a tool to measure and identify the UX maturity and career path of employees. Sure, it needs to be flushed out more, but the core appears to be sound.

What does all of this tell me? What have I learned at this point?

I’ve learned that, while I very much perform A LOT of Information Architecture tasks, I also perform a lot of tasks that are bucketed for different phases of the Project Life Cycle.

Does that make me a generalist?

Possibly, but I don’t think so. I feel more like a specialist who has had the (good?) fortune to have exposure and experience across a variety of functions. These various strengths support me in defining the role that I am looking for under the umbrella of User Experience Design.

Right now, the presentation “feels” as if it is about halfway complete. I think I need to update my original outline. Here is iteration #2:

What is User Experience Design and How It Fits in This Company

1. What is User-Centered Design?
2. What is User Experience Design (UXD)?
3. UXD & the Project Life Cycle
4. Skills Assessment of the UXD Team
5. What is the Work Product of UXD?
6. When should the UXD Team be engaged?
7. What are the roles / resources needed?
8. What are the job descriptions of the UXD Team?
9. What is an appropriate career path for members of the UXD team?

I’d appreciate any feedback and/or input based upon other experiences. How am I doing so far?

Posted in Information Architecture, Presentations, User Experience Design | No Comments »

Blogging Everywhere! (Not) Enough Already?

Written by Russ on February 12, 2008 – 1:58 pm

Hi, I’m Russ and I’m a blogger.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one–or if I’m talking about you. Or you.

Like many people, I enjoy blogging. Like many more people, I learned a long time ago that blogging–and blogging well in particular–requires a certain degree of commitment and effort. Putting a bunch of jumbled thoughts or ideas into words that are easy enough to digest and interesting enough to get through can be pretty challenging. Ask any of those folks over on the right side of the page (and then see when the last time any of them updated their blogs, too!) and I’ll bet that they’ll tell you that they started out with a lot to say and that they saw blogging as something slightly different than what it is for them today.  I bet that they’ll tell you that blogging just happens to be a labor of love for them, as well–but that it also offers up rewards, too.  More than one blogger has had a prospective employer contact them with piqued interest based upon a posting or perspective.

Not me, mind you, but it does happen.

For quite awhile, the blogging scene was really becoming the bandwagon to get on. People still have blogs–but maybe now it’s called your MySpace Blog / Page or your FaceBook Notes or what have you. Those are more for the hobbyists, I suspect. People need to be able to whip out that poetry and prose as it strikes them during the work day, right?

And there are more Professional Blogs, which is where I’d classify places like TechCrunch and others–they serve a broader purpose than to just ramble on about your new kitten or what you had for lunch with Jeffers and Kimmers and whatnot. Your favorite newspaper will likely have a blogging section with plenty of spirited conversations and commentary to support it. Some (me) would argue that the UserGlue UserBlog is a professional blog–because I try to keep this topical and you’ll probably never hear me mention my wife, my children nor my pets here. Probably; there’s a baby coming and I’m suspecting I may be uber-proud and feel the need to post an announcement or something. Just saying.

A lot of people that I know enjoy blogging for themselves–they feel good about it. They feel as if they’re contributing. Some even feel as if their personal blogs, whatever way that happens, help them to stay in touch with their friends and family without calling everyone, say every time they have a near-perfect bowling game.

My friend Wil uses his blog in many different ways–it’s a way to hone his craft as a writer (sometimes providing content for books that we release under Monolith Press), keep his friends, family and fan base up-to-date on what he’s doing and it’s a good way to provide information to his consumers who want to know where he will be appearing, what he will be performing in and any new product that may be for sale. All in one tidy place. Well, all in one place, at least.

I blog here. I blog personally on a different site. And now, that place that I call “work” when I’m not dividing my time between UserGlue, family and school, has a blog for people to get involved in, if they so desire. No one is forcing my hand on anything, but I’ve been made aware that the mechanism exists, “if I’d like to participate”.

I think it’s a great idea and it can help foster a community and culture among your peers–help you take a look at how other people see things, what they find important and what they notice in their work lives. I think it’s the right approach to take to NOT force anyone to joining your club of bloggers, but at the same time, I feel you should try to be involved in opportunities like this as they arise.

The problem is, where does all the content come from? Personally, I try to contribute here and on mailing lists (such as the IAI mailing list and I try to do my best to be an effective editor at Boxes and Arrows and I even try to provide insightful responses to questions at LinkedIn. That’s a lot for a guy who also has to author 4 papers every 2 weeks for Business Administration courses and has a pretty full load at work, as well.

Is it okay to provide duplicated content? Is it wrong to actively not participate? Should someone try to provide topics for people to respond to in order to help foster the community of the bloggers?

Where does it begin or end?

Posted in Blogging, Community | No Comments »