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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

Title Page
Why is UXD Right for Us?
What is UXD? (long)
What is Information Architecture
What is User-Centered Design
What is UXD? (Redux)
UXD and the Project Life Cycle
UXD’s Involvement in the Project Life Cycle
UXD’s Work Product (not all-inclusive)
Why is UXD Important?
Whye is UXD Important to Brands
Brand and the User Experience (Dubberly’s Model of Brand)
What’s Next for UXD?
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.