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.

Remembering to Think About It, Giving Back to It

I’ve been very fortunate of late–I was chosen by SXSW (South by Southwest) to present a Core Conversation on the topic of “Friendship is Dead” with David Armano (It was originally submitted as a panel with Bill DeRouchey, Matthew Milan and David Armano).

I’ve been very lucky in that I was also voted by the membership of the Information Architecture Institute to serve on their Board of Directors, of which I am the Director of Events and Marketing. Why I bring this up will make more sense in the next paragraph, I promise.

When I was chosen to speak at SXSW, one of the first things that came to mind was if there was a way that I could help support the IAI membership, so I asked Hugh Forrest if there was anything that could be worked out between the two organizations.  It turns out that there was something that could be worked out, and SXSW has provided the IAI with 2 free passes to the Interactive portion of the conference in the form of a scholarship that you can win by answering some questions.

You can enter to win one of these scholarships by answering a few easy questions in essay format online at:

http://iainstitute.org/en/learn/education/sxsw_scholarship.php

This is a pretty serious opportunity! SXSW is pretty commonly known as one of “the” conferences to attend–and this will be my first one to attend, and I’m pretty excited about it!  You don’t have to go to see me to win (although if you win, I’d enjoy meeting you while we’re in the same place!), but it would be great if you sought out some of the folks from the IAI that will be there:

• Journey to the Center of Design – Jared Spool
• From Freelance to Agency: Start Small, Stay Small – Whitney Hess, Jeffrey Zeldman
• Social Patterns and Antipatterns For the Win – Christian Crumlish
• Wireframes for the Wicked – Nick Finck & Donna Spencer
• Friendship is Dead – Russ Unger

(And if I’ve missed anyone, please let me know so I can add them!)

Okay, so that’s really cool stuff, and I’m really excited that the IAI is able to do this and that a couple of deserving people can go see something cool that they wouldn’t normally get to do. That’s awesome!

But…

The big point here is this:  If you belong to an organization and you are fortunate enough to find yourself in the position to attend a conference, put on a conference or know someone at the conference, or any other event or occurrence,  just take a moment to remember that/those organization(s) and see if there is a way that you can bring something back that could benefit other people who may not be as fortunate as you, me or anyone else lucky enough to attend.

The worst thing that can happen is that you can simply be told “No”. That’s not big deal–it’s something that was never yours to begin with.

But! If someone says yes, then there is opportunity! There is a chance you can help someone get more out of their membership–but more importantly, more out of their career.  There is karma galore, and maybe that’s not your think, but goodwill has a pretty good way of finding its way back to people who are giving of it.

Some of the people I’ve come to know the best over the years and I’ve learned to count on, seek out for advice, rant and rave to or just shoot the breeze with via a late night IM or Skype session, I’ve found through the IAI and IxDA.

I don’t think that’s any small amount of coincidence.

And I’m working to find new ways to give more back–for all of us. Giving back on my own would be a bit selfish–I’d love to share that awesome feeling that I’ve gotten just from being able to put together a scholarship that people can take advantage of.

The really cool part?  Just yesterday I got an email from someone else interested in this scholarship business–interested in helping us provide more scholarship opportunities.  Other people are seeing the benefits for their events, as well as the communities that we’re all a part of!

That’s just a little bit more of the awesomeness that is snowballing out of risking a simple question.

So please, whenever you hear of an event, or an opportunity to help someone else out–even generally speaking, but especially for our various communities within User Experience–remember the organizations and the members who could benefit from any event–small, large, local or across the globe.

All of these organizations help provide community and opportunities to connect with other professionals, mentors, people with similar passions, people who can help you solve problems and even communities where you can find your place.

It’s easy to forget that, especially when you’re paying a membership fee and you may be inclined to think that someone else is paid to do that.  In the case of the IAI, I can tell you with sincerity that we (board members, volunteers) are not paid.  I’m pretty certain that the fine folks on the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) board of directors are not either. I’m not putting that out there because I feel that I deserve pay or any other sort of reward.

Far, far from it.

If anything, I feel as if I am the steward of a role for an organization that has given me so very much–from a great community of professionals that I often believe are so far out of my league in this industry to some of the same people who I’m fortunate enough to call “friend” and “mentor” or “advisor”.  I have a global group of connections–there are few places that I could travel to without feeling as if there is someone nearby that I know and could meet with for coffee, dinner, or just a great conversation.

That, is fortunate. Oh–and if you’re in these organizations, you, too, are fortunate. This greater community of User Experience professionals are so very helpful, even when they’re wildly busy. They’re passionate about what they do, about the growth and maturation of the field, and they’re willing to lead by example and impart their knowledge and wisdom to anyone who is willing to ask for it.

That, is something I cherish and intend to do whatever I can to try and help foster and see that whatever stagnation may be happening comes to an end. We have so many tools available to us–any of us–that breaks down the distances between us.  Tools that help us create communities that are tighter, closer-knit than ever before.  I think 2009 will be a year of exploring and finding the tools that fit and bringing people closer together, helping them no longer be islands. I hope so. I’m going to do my best, which probably involves losing a bit of sleep, to see that it does happen–but it’s worth it, and it’s fun to tinker and have a group of people who are willing to do that with you.

Gosh! I think I just claimed that it’s fun to find failure with a group of like-minded folks.

Will you help find failures with me?

(Imagine how awesome the successes will be!)