Facebook Is NOT Making You Miserable. YOU Are.

I am, sadly, pointing you to the source of my Saturday WTF:

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/12/facebook_is_making_us_miserabl.html by Daniel Gulati.

I don’t know Daniel, in fact, I don’t know any Gulatis at all. Daniel has authored an article that points blame to Facebook for making us (people) miserable.

I do know that I don’t agree with this:

In writing Passion & Purpose, I monitored and observed how Facebook was impacting the lives of hundreds of young businesspeople. As I went about my research, it became clear that behind all the liking, commenting, sharing, and posting, there were strong hints of jealousy, anxiety, and, in one case, depression. Said one interviewee about a Facebook friend, “Although he’s my best friend, I kind-of despise his updates.” Said another “Now, Facebook IS my work day.” As I dug deeper, I discovered disturbing by-products of Facebook’s rapid ascension — three new, distressing ways in which the social media giant is fundamentally altering our daily sense of well-being in both our personal and work lives.

I’ll counter with this: Jealousy, anxiety, and depression existed long before Facebook. If Facebook is altering anything, it’s merely the access to those who were previously not close enough, or instant enough in our lives.

That is, do you really give a crap about that person you haven’t seen since high school? If you did, why didn’t you use Google to find them YEARS ago. Or do you blindly accept the friendship request–or send it out–knowing that one of you, if not both of you, is merely trying to find out if the other one is a loser or successful, or whatever?

And I know that doesn’t happen all the time. But it happens. And a healthy portion of us are guilty of it.

If you don’t like it, quit it. It happens. I know plenty of people without a Facebook footprint, and plenty of people who have quit it, and plenty of people who simply don’t give it credence.

Don’t blame the book of faces. Blame the faces and how they use the book.

But, wait. There’s more:

First, it’s creating a den of comparison.

Life creates a den of comparison.

Ever have a sibling? Ever go to any sort of school? Ever been in a group of anything?

The good quote in the original article is useful: “And as we judge the entirety of our own lives against the top 1% of our friends’ lives, we’re setting impossible standards for ourselves, making us more miserable than ever.” which is attributed to Tom DeLong.

Tom didn’t blame Facebook. Tom didn’t articulate, in that quote, how we determine who the top 1% of our friends are, either.

Let me reiterate: This isn’t BECAUSE of Facebook, it’s because of HOW PEOPLE USE IT.

Oh, and because of life.

Second, it’s fragmenting our time.

Hold one. I’m sounding like a broken record.

How can we blame Facebook for this? I’m just really, really unclear on how a decision that people make on their own is something that Facebook should be blamed for.

If you don’t read the REALLY LONG EULA for iTunes yet you accept the terms and conditions within, you can’t be pissed if iTunes does something you don’t like or agree to after the fact.

Then again, fast food restaurants now have to warn you that HOT coffee is HOT.

Last, there’s a decline of close relationships.

Or maybe, just maybe, there’s an increase in the number of not-really-close-at-all-but-we’re-connected-anyway relationships, and that just makes the close relationships seem to be declining.

Wait, what?

And let me wrap this counter-crapfest with this:

But each time a Facebook interaction replaces a richer form of communication — such as an in-person meeting, a long phone call, or even a date at a restaurant — people miss opportunities to interact more deeply than Facebook could ever accommodate.

This is absolutely not true.

Everytime PEOPLE CHOOSE to use a Facebook interaction INSTEAD OF any other type of communication, such as in-person, etc. etc. then PEOPLE ARE CHOOSING TO MISS OPPORTUNITIES to interact in different, potentially more “deeply” ways.

I’m not BFFs with Facebook. Do I care about things people put on there? Sometimes. Do I sometimes feel jealous if someone gets something I don’t have? Yep.

THIS JUST IN: I’d be jealous if I heard about it in real life, too. Because I’m human.

To me, and maybe I’m the simple one here, this is simple: You can’t fault a tool for how people use it. You can’t blame a hammer for someone smashing their thumb with it. You can’t blame a bullet for a trigger getting pulled.

Don’t blame Facebook for people getting sucked in–part of that is to Facebook’s benefit, of course, but human behavior is human behavior without any tools in the way.

This, of course, would be akin to blaming a tweet stream for a misunderstanding, instead of trying to find another mechanism to fix it. Is that Twitter’s fault? Or are people potentially misusing the medium?

You tell me.

On Unicorns and a Guy Named Yoni

This has seriously gone on long enough.

And I’m looking at you. And you. And even you over there, who probably thinks I just mean all of those other people.

And if I’m being honest with myself, yeah, I’m looking at me, too, because I’ve done this before myself. Certainly, not on purpose, but I’ve done it.

If you’re landing on this blog, well, on purpose, then you probably know that there’s this thing called “User Experience Design” that’s kind of popular right now (but I can’t say as to how long that will last, nor that UXD will even last on its own).

Also, don’t get me wrong: HE is partly to blame, too. He’s let us all perpetuate this crap, too. Partly because he’s too nice, and partly because he gripes to me privately in IMs (well, so much for privately, now) that it’s been happening and it kind of ends there.

You might even have heard of this guy I’m talking about–Yoni. Jonathan “Yoni” Knoll.

Our community friend, and perhaps “guy who does far too much for far too little in return to the point that we almost expect things from him”-person, has an ugly label put on him.

That label is, sadly, “developer”.

Yeah, I said it.

But, developer in of itself isn’t the bad word–not at all. In fact, the developer-folk that I know are pretty awesome, and they wear the badge with pride. As well they should.

However, on Yoni, well, we need to stop using this label. It’s unkind and unfair–to him and to his career potential–to be boxed in like this.

You see, Yoni is a designer. He’s a damn good one, too. I have the authority to say this because I’ve not only worked with him on many of those community projects that he’s known for contributing to, but I’ve also worked with him in the capacity of “employee” (that sounds weird, but I guess it’s true).

Yeah. He can write lines of code. Fast. And really good.

But he also does all of that “designer” stuff that so many of us are happy to say that we do. There’s a ridiculously good chance that he’s better at it than most of us, too.

And that’s what needs to be known. He’s kind of a unicorn–except, well, I’ve seen his Photoshop skills, and let’s just say that he’s more of a UX Designer than a visual one and leave it at that. Still, he’s that unicorn-type that can not only design and define information architectures and interactions, but he can also breathe life into it.

And so he gets called “developer”, and sometimes, even “prototyper”, the latter of which I don’t think is so bad, of course, but I’m not certain that it’s as widely understood at the moment. I could be wrong, but “prototyper” still seems a little too “developer”-y to me at the moment. And labeling him that is simply wrong.

Also, I should cut to the chase, as this is rapidly turning in to one of those posts were I embarrass myself talking up one of friends.

The Chase

The .net Magazine award nominations thing got announced today. I nominated Yoni for one, and if you’ve ever worked with him, you already know that he’s earned your nomination. There is little denying this, so I ask you to simply consider nominating our unicorn friend in the Designer category.

That would be nice of you. That would be appropriate for him to win.

Here’s what I wrote, just in case you’re looking for a little inspiration:

“Developer of the year” is such a mistake here, as Yoni gets blanket-labeled that all the time. And that’s a mistake–he’s also a very thorough, thoughtful UX Designer who just happens to be more adept at code than you or most people you know. So, you see, he’s a Designer and a Developer and quite a bit more.

Frankly, you need the category of “Unicorn of the Year” in order to get this right.

Have you ever heard of a “Yoni Prototype”? Have you been fortunate enough to be a company that has one to show to your own clients, stakeholders, etc.?

If you had, you’d understand this nomination without batting an eye.

If you haven’t, you might have been under a rock, but that’s not all.

In addition to do the kind of work at the pace we all wish we could maintain, Jonathan also gives of his time–freely–to nearly any worthwhile cause, from the “F*ck Cancer” websites that help raise money for persons who have faced hardships with cancer to websites that support community-run conferences in User Experience.

Not only does he deliver and ship, he also gives back. When you’re looking at candidates, I ask you to consider reflecting on that point, as I don’t think you’ll find another person who gives back and still finds time to make a living making other people look so damn good.

You, too, can do one of these at: http://www.thenetawards.com/

There you have it. I’d like to see Yoni in the running for this “Designer” award. Hell, I’d love to see them create a “Unicorn” award, but until that happens, we’ve got this guy who probably gives of himself more than the rest of us, delivers and ships when he would be justified in not doing so, and also manages to help make a bunch of companies you’ve heard of look really good, either to themselves or to clients of their own.

Full disclosure: I carry bias in all of this. I guess that might make this “persuasive writing” then. And I can live with that.

Thank you for your consideration.

On Value, Worth

A woman goes to a mechanic to get her car fixed. The man takes a look at her car, starts it and listens to it intently. He shuts the car off, then pops the hood, takes a screwdriver and makes an adjustment.

He restarted the car and it sounded perfect. Good as new, you might say.

“That’ll be $110,” he said.

“WHAT??!! But that only took you 5 minutes!” was her immediate retort.

He simply replied, “$10 to turn the screw. $100 to know which screw to turn.”

I woke up today watching my pals Andy Budd and Jared Spool debate value and worth on the Twittery thing. Both sides were making some great points, and I’m not going to relive the discussion here (it was good, healthy, respectful and all those other things you hope for in tweety discourse); what I was reminded of is the story above.

The moral of that story is that you should understand your value and your worth. Survey your markets, talk to your peers, fill-out and read and review Salary Surveys from the professional organizations that you’re aware of–and reach out to find about more organizations that you are not yet aware of.

Understand what’s being charged for your product and determine how you measure comparatively, or adjust your pricing based upon what types of projects you want to work for, organizations you want to work for, etc. There is nothing wrong with giving yourself a pay cut because the non-profit you’re passionate about could use your expertise. And, if you are charging too much, the many flavors of “No” that you hear in relative short time will help you understand that. If you’re not charging enough… well, that should be somewhat obvious, too.

Just make sure you know which screws to turn.

Interview with Whitney Hess [CrankyTalk]

On October 22, 2010, I’ll be working with Dan Willis, Dan R. Brown and Adam Polansky to put on the CrankyTalk Workshop in Washington D.C. In the meantime, I’m sharing with you the full interviews that I did with a variety of professionals who do a lot of public speaking / performance as part of their careers, in order to help me gain some insight into how others prepare for their craft.

I met Whitney Hess at the 2008 IA Summit in Miami, Florida while sharing a table to discuss Kevin Cheng’s book on comics for Rosenfeld Media. Since then, she’s made a number of changes–from becoming a full time freelancer / owning her own business to writing a well-visited blog to her weekly “Whit Hour” to giving the closing plenary at the 2010 IA Summit in Phoenix. Whitney happily shared some of her own insights and lessons learned from presenting.

How do you create a new presentation, specifically in the conceptual phase?
Over the course of several weeks, I write one-liners as they pop into my head on post-it notes. Once I start thinking of the same one-liners again, I realize my brain is empty. I lay out all of the stickies on the floor and do a sort of affinity diagram, grouping the like items into categories. Then I label each category, and those become the sections of my talk (I try to create 3-5 sections). I put the sections in an order that I think will create the best flow, then type in each one-liner onto a slide and move the slides around within each section while talking out loud to myself to create the strongest story. Sometimes I rearrange the sections, or add transitional slides to ensure that everything flows well.

How do you prepare for the presentation once you have your content in place?
I don’t like to over-prepare, because when I do my talk ends up sounding forced and inauthentic. Instead I walk through each section, writing in any voice over that I want to be sure to hit into the Notes area for each slide. Then I walk through the whole thing once in real-time, speaking the voice over to my computer screen. I make any necessary tweaks to improve the flow, and then I put it to bed.

I might wake up the morning of the presentation with one new thought, which I’ll then add to the deck somewhere.

What are your “pre-presentation” rituals that help you get ready? Any rituals during the presentation that keep you in the flow?
Jared Spool taught me to always eat breakfast the day of a talk, so I do it even if I feel like throwing up. And I usually want to. I wake up with the shakes, they usually dissipate after breakfast, and then I’m fine until about 30 minutes before my presentation. I go into the bathroom, sometimes cry a little, and imagine ways to get out of having to give the talk — If I hide, will they find me? What will it do to my career if I just run away? — then I realize how ridiculous I’m being, splash some water on my face, and stride up to the stage. Once I’m up there looking out at the audience and I open my mouth, something else takes over and all the nerves go away.

How do you recover from losing your “flow”–when you’re in the middle of a presentation?
Sometimes I just can’t find the word I’m looking for or I forget the point I was trying to make. So I immediately skip to the next slide.

How have you combated stage fright in the past and/or how do you combat it today? What are the techniques you use–not the whole “see the audience in their underwear” stuff, but the real tricks that make it work for you.
See above. Also, once I’m up there, I’m no longer there in the present moment. I kind of black out, and only come to once the presentation is done and I’m off the stage. I rarely remember saying whatever I said up there — the entire hour is blank. Something else takes over and the fear just isn’t there.

About Whitney Hess
Whitney Hess is a user experience design consultant based in New York City. She helps make stuff easy and pleasurable to use.

As a strategic partner with Happy Cog, Whitney recently completed an extensive research initiative for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s website redesign. She was also the user experience consultant on Boxee’s beta redesign, and has worked with many other startups, agencies and major corporations.

Prior to going independent, Whitney was on the design team at Liquidnet, an international financial software company that runs the leading electronic marketplace for wholesale stock-trading. Previously, she was an interaction designer at two marketing agencies, Digitas and Tribal DDB, where her clients included American Express, The New York Times, Allstate, Claritin, Tropicana, and EarthLink. Most notably, she helped to conceive, design, and test an innovative card search tool for American Express, and is named as a co-inventor on its U.S. patent.

Whitney received a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Writing and a Master’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University. She writes about improving the human experience on her blog, Pleasure and Pain, and can always be reached via Twitter @whitneyhess.

Interview with Alex Dittmer [CrankyTalk]

On October 22, 2010, I’ll be working with Dan Willis, Dan R. Brown and Adam Polansky to put on the CrankyTalk Workshop in Washington D.C. In the meantime, I’m sharing with you the full interviews that I did with a variety of professionals who do a lot of public speaking / performance as part of their careers, in order to help me gain some insight into how others prepare for their craft.

My first interview is with actor and musician Alex Dittmer, of New York City. Alex and I happen to know each other from some community college days and have shared a stage for the musical “Godspell”. Many years have since passed, and Alex is a full time professional actor. I hope you learn from his insights.

I don’t really have stage fright anymore. The only time I get nervous or rattled is when I am unprepared. I subscribe to two mantras when performing. The first is, “Repetition is the key to mastery” and the second is “Nervousness (fear) is caused by lack of preparing”.

Have you ever been at a podium–done a presentation, a reading, played music, where you had to prepare in advance for it? If so, how do you create that presentation (song list, etc.), specifically in the conceptual phase?
All of my work comes from being prepared, even if it’s during an improv show.  You prepare the basic tenants of improv, the guidelines if you will and the structure builds itself. If it’s an acting gig, my job is to bring as much to the character as possible.  In my business we call that “homework”.  An actor has to do his homework and delve into his character and bring that to rehearsals so the group can share that and grow.
 
To prepare for the role conceptually can be as simple as reading the script several times. I tend to go over board.  I read the script and any history on the author or productions.  i also do a name search to see if there is significance to the name.  Also location history is important as is time the play is set in and the date the play was written in.  All of these factors offer a broad range of colors that the actor can use to paint the canvas of the character.
 
As an actor, how do you get into the mindset of “acting”? That is, as a presenter, I more or less “turn it on” when I’m presenting and know how I do it, but how do you become the character?
My answer may sound kinda silly or untrue, but it’s honestly how I feel.  I love acting.  There is nothing on earth that I have found anywhere that I feel more comfortable and confident doing. There is such a wonderful symbiotic relationship with the audience- a shared energy- that even if I were down, I couldn’t be once I crossed into the lighted stage.  So to give anything less than 100% would be like cheating on a spouse or loved one.  
 
I grew up in a blue collar home with blue collar parents and the work ethic they instilled in me still continues.  I realize that while my job is different from the 9-5 grind or factory work, I still have a job to do and I try to approach it that way.  Someone is paying me decent money to do something I would probably do for free because of my love and passion for it. So if I cash that check, I better deliver on what they are paying me to do.  So, in a long round about way, I guess I am always “on” once I walk into the theatre.  It is a kin to the reverence some people feel when they walk into Cathedral.
 
What are your “pre-acting” rituals that help you get ready? What about during the acting performance that keep you in character / the flow?
I have some pre-show things that I always do.  First I always stretch and get physically warmed up.  I do no less than 25 push-up prior to getting into costume and then the same amount when fully in the opening costume. I also vocalize.  My favorite thing in working the vocals is working on diction.  There is this consonant exercise that I learned in grad school that incorporates all the vowel sounds and the majority of consonants. It takes a little concentration and was something that I struggled with early on in Grad school.  So to do it in warm up reminds me that I always have room to improve.  I also re-read all of my lines in all of my scenes before the stage manager calls “places”. I do this in costume and sit in front of the make-up mirror.  I also always go pee when they call “five minutes to paces”. I’m not sure how I started that habit, but it seems to relax me.
 
The part about keeping in character / flow is a great question.  I think you may have meant about keeping in character in a two hour show.  That’s easy, the thing that I found difficult is doing the same show, twice a day for 6 – 8 months.  There was a time around the 2 -3 month period where I was saying the same dialogue, the same way and I felt I wasn’t being as fresh to the audience as I would have liked.  So I told the other actor (it was a two person show) that I am going to change the intention of some of my lines and let’s see where it goes. While the lines were exactly the same, the intent changed the dynamic of the scene which in turn changed the dynamic of the show. We would do this, from time to time, without telling each other.  That way we were forced to listen and it made the show fresh and alive for us and for each audience….even after 8 months.
 
How do you recover from losing your “flow”–when you fall out of character, or the moment, when you’re in the middle of a presentation or character or gig?
In acting we call it “going up”.  Everyone has a horror story on this.  Everyone has done it and everyone has been in a show that someone else has gone up and t affected the show.  My favorite on I’ve ever heard involves an older gentleman, but a community legend  who was playing the Friar in Romeo & Juliet for a summer stock professional show.  It was the scene where he was supposed to tell Juliet about the poison and the antidote.  He completely forgot his lines.  He looked at the actress playing Juliet.  Looked out at the crowd.  Looked back at the actress, and with abject fear on his face he yelled to her, “I’m going up!”.  The trained actress, fed him his lines by asking him questions and the scene was soon put back on track.
 
This is what should happen if there is an interruption in “the flow”.  If you know where the scene is supposed to go, even if you start going up you can usually find your way back.  It’s when you start to panic as an actor and not trust the work that you’ve done, that problems come along.  Mistakes happen, but problems are there when we focus on mistakes. Mistakes can be overcome in a second, problems can require a whole new set of tools. If I make mistakes I tend to push right on through and, if time permits, run back to my dressing room and write down the line or scene or moment that I F***ed up on.  This way I can go back and figure out what happened and reduce it for the next time.  I try my best to make any brief mistake appear smooth to the audience by not drawing attention to it. However, there are times that the audience wants in and it makes the moment more communal and the audience goes crazy.
 
I did a show where, in the final few minutes of the end of the play, one of the actors was to burst on and  improvise a line and then correct himself and say the real line.  This actor was pure genius and the improved lines were always hysterical. On the final night he ran in and blurted out his improved line which was, “Improv line!” the majority of the actors onstage just started cracking up, as we were waiting for some real line. The audience saw we were laughing and started laughing with us.  It was like a Carol Burnett moment. I honestly don’t remember how we ended that show, but I remember the audience waiting for us at the stage door and thanking us for such a fun time.
 
So if you go up, see how the audience reacts and don’t EVER fear. Just go with it, where ever the moment takes you and know where the story ends.  In the meantime, enjoy the new route that you took getting there.
 
How have you combatted stage fright in the past and/or how do you combat it today?  What are the techniques you use–not the whole “see the audience in their underwear” stuff, but the real tricks that make it work for you.
When I was younger I used to run around and try to get all the energy running through my body, out of my system.  I thought that this way, I would be able to perform better…to have more focus.  I used to get a case of the nerves when friends or family were coming to the show I was certifiable if I knew there was a reviewer in the house. Theatre folk tend to enjoy the histrionics. They thrive on the buzz of nerves and anxiety.  Nowadays, I can’t stand to be around those kind of people.  It’s wasted and unfocused energy.

I don’t really have stage fright anymore.  The only time I get nervous or rattled is when I am unprepared.  I subscribe to two mantras when performing.  The first is, “Repetition is the key to mastery” and the second is “Nervousness (fear) is caused by lack of preparing”.  They both pretty much mean the same thing. I only get nervous or concerned if I know I didn’t prepare properly.  As an actor, the majority of the time we are auditioning for a job. Sometimes we are told what to prepare and those are the gret auditions .  you can bring whatever you like from your prepared arsenal and blow them away.  Other times they send you (via your agent) parts of the script to memorize and want to see you do it in two days. You may have plans during those days, or a day job to pay the bills, but time will be working against you and you’ll want to act those scenes fully and only have a few hours to really focus on it.  It those auditions that make me nervous.

The key to getting through them is to make a mental deal with yourself that you will do the absolute best you can for that day and that moment. One of the things I’ve found most helpful was some advice one of my instructors gave me during grad school.  She told me to learn something from every audition and to make sure you take something positive away from it.  All too often actors, most people it seems, beat themselves up over moments like these when they are not at their best. They relive it in their minds a hundred time playing out the most damaging moments.  The perspective is where the difference is.  It the difference of saying, “Shit, I totally blew that line!” or “They never laughed when they were supposed to!” instead of, “Well that monologue doesn’t work well, I can dump it and learn something that works”. 

I realize this isn’t about nerves so much as perspective, but to me they go hand in hand.  If you prepare and approach it from a “win” standpoint, then nerves really don’t play into the scene.

About Alex Dittmer

Alex Dittmer is a native of rural Illinois but a recent transplant to New York. He received his BA in Theatre from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, IL and received his MFA in Acting from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. He has been seen onstage at the Tony Award winning CINCINNATI PLAYHOUSE IN THE PARK and has worked at the OBIE award winning PEARL THEATRE COMPANY and has had the honor and pleasure of sharing the stage with Tony and Emmy Award winning actress Julie Harris. He has been seen onstage throughout the midwest and parts of the East coast. Visit Alex’s website at www.alexdittmer.com.

2009 – My Year in Review

(Alternate title: “2009: A Year in Russview”. And yes, feel free to insert your favorite groaning noise here.)

I don’t have a “Top 10″ list or any sort of “10 Best”-something list.

I didn’t count those things this year, I didn’t put so much focus on the rest of the world in that sort of fashion, and if I’m lucky, I won’t forget the important things that I got to be a part of this year.  I could, however, probably sift through a ton of photos and find the Top 10 of my family, if I tried–but even that would be a challenge.

So, instead, and at the risk of coming across egotistical (which is not my intention), I’m going to review all of the stuff that I did this year that had some sort of an impact on my life.

This one’s for me.

• In January, I started work as Director of Experience Planning for Draftfcb in Chicago. I started building a practice around user experience, information architecture, strategic design and planning and frankly, I busted my ass for the better parts of 2009. That’s not a complaint–I knew it going in, and in many ways, the crazy parts were every bit what I expected (and more) and the great parts where just the same–and more. The investment in the relationship has been a lot like that of a marriage; I love the work I get to do, I’m fortunate to be able to spend my time with so many other talented people. When it works, all of that is that much better. When it doesn’t, I look to the lessons, ask for advice and input and hope to not repeat the mistakes. I’ve got one of the best bosses I’ve ever had and he challenges my thinking, makes me want to get better at shifting my view and solving from a different angle. I was lucky to grow my own practice this year; sharing the madness helps bring some clarity, but it also helps me learn a lot more about myself. I’m pretty grateful, again, to get to work with some wickedly talented folks.
• In February, I attended Interaction09 in Vancouver, and kicked-off the inaugural “Bromantic Dinner” with Jared Spool, Todd Zaki Warfel, Will Evans and Mario Bourque. It was legendary and I was appreciative–if not in awe–of the great company and great friends that had been so helpful to me along the way while we were wrapping up the book. I also tried oysters, and really don’t think I need to do that again. I was also lucky enough to sign-up a few speakers for the IDEA Conference later in the year. I’m hopeful that some of the side/back discussions can get resolved in 2010; so many folks with the same interests at heart and on the same page, it seems like things should align…
• Throughout most of January and the first half of February, I was also scrambling to wrap up a little project I like to call “A Project Guide to UX Design” (or A Project Guide to UX Design: For user experience designers in the field or in the making). This probably would never have happened without the help of Steve Baty. Why? Because he’s in Australia and could read chapters while we slept and give us timely feedback when we woke up. Think about Australia when you write your book! Writing a book was… well, it would have been a lot easier without a baby/toddler who ended up having some pretty serious allergies to dairy products–and the doctors didn’t figure it out, we did, after an insane battery of tests that caused me to miss a few events. Beyond that, it was an awesome experience, even after chopping out pages upon pages of copy, because…
• In March, I attended–and spoke at–my very first SXSW with Sir David of Armano in what was called a “Core Conversation” on the topic of “Friendship is Dead”. Look, David was the star of that show; I just started the idea (which was initially slated for myself, David Armano, Bill DeRouchey and Matthew Milan) and his name brought us the room full of people to listen to what we had to say. I don’t have any real misinterpretation about my own draw, but I certainly saw a few familiar faces in the chairs and I’ve spent more than a little bit of time exploring our online relationships. I’d say I held my own, at least until we got to…
• Cogaoke was crazy at SXSW. It was a karaoke contest and with a little (a lot, really) of frantic entering in of CAPTCHA to vote for yours truly, I got to take the very large stage in the very packed venue and sing some Hootie & the Blowfish. Wow, was I ever mediocre, but wow, was it ever fun!
• A Project Guide to UX Design also launched while I was at SXSW. I’ve got a lot of mixed feelings about how I feel we were handled as authors, especially as authors of what appears to be a fairly successful book. You might not know this, but authors do the lion’s share of the marketing–at least from my perspective. Publishers have the talent to recognize ideas and/or talent that’ll sell enough books to make a profit and they have the reach through distribution channels to help that along. For the most part, it was a lonely endeavor once we sent off the last pages and after we received our copies. Sure, there was a little hoopla and some marketing push here and there, but when you don’t know what to expect and you’ve been working closely with an editorial team for months and suddenly there’s nothing… Well, it’s a mix of emotions.
• Also in February–and I can talk about this finally–Todd Zaki Warfel and I put together a book proposal and submitted it to a couple of publishers. One publisher was very excited and spent a fair amount of time at SXSW talking to me about it, sent along a few emails about their excitement since they hadn’t published the previous book (they were interested, but the timing came in as the deal was being finalized with Peachpit) and then disappeared in a cloud of “other stuff happening”. That’s okay; it’s how it works, and I’m not bitter about it–it is what it is. Mostly, however, this proposal didn’t get any real traction until much later in the year. After SXSW was (hung)over, next up was…
• The IA Summit in beautiful Memphis, Tennessee. I was nearly a zombie after the run at SXSW the previous week, and I recall spending the afternoon in my room at The Peabody on a client call, but feeling elated that I was in one of my favorite cities in the country. The next day, my wife arrived and she got to meet everyone, hang out away from the kids and I got to be on the “Evolve or Die” panel with Gene Smith, Josh Porter & Christina Wodtke as well as give a solo presentation called “Heuristic Evaluation for the Pitch Process”. March was a blurrrrrrrr of epic proportions thanks to all of the traveling back and forth and presentationing.
• Right after the IA Summit, I got together with Todd Zaki Warfel, Fred Beecher and Will Evans to hash-out an idea that we’re going to be discussing in 2010 titled, “The Right Way to Wireframe”. I think it’s important that we put our money where our mouths are and decided to ask these fellas to step up and show our process and samples of our work and share it with the world. Fortunately, they bought off on the idea and we had a pretty nice proposal put together for a couple of conferences that has been very well received–far better than our expectations (except for CHI, which, well, whatever).
• April found Carolyn and I presenting at the Voices That Matter Conference in San Francisco. It was great to share the same space with so many other bright minds and great speakers–and frankly, intimidating to some degree, but getting to spend time hanging out with Steve Portigal, Christina Wodtke, Robert Hoekman, Jr. and a lot of the really great people at Peachpit / New Riders. Gotta be honest here: we didn’t do so hot. I like to blame it on presenting on the last day AND after Jared Spool and a flat room, but I don’t think we–or at least I–projected the energy we needed in the room. The reviews were far from great, and I took a few things away from the experience. But it was also odd, because just a few days later…
• Carolyn and I presented at the Chicago Interactive Meetup on the exact same topic and we really held the room and got really high overall remarks. Each audience is different, the energy of the speakers is different, home turf advantage, etc. Who knows? But we did a lot better and restored a bit of confidence that I was needing at this point in time.
• May came along and I had to miss the Web Strategy Summit put on by the brilliant minds at nForm. Everyone at nForm is top-notch and world-class (if not thought leaders, right? No, really…) and they completely understood when I had to back-out so we could get Avery in for some more tests to try and figure out why she wasn’t sleeping right, was fussy, stuffy, and an all around mess. I hated missing this conference and it was one of the biggest letdowns of 2009 for me. I’m hopeful that now that Miss Avery seems to be sleeping and on the right track, I’ll have another opportunity this year.
• Chicago’s UX Book Club also happened in May, featuring “A Project Guide to UX Design”. It was nice to meet somewhere that I could walk to from work, and also informally interview Abby Covert, who would be an addition to my “team” at Draftfcb. The whole event was great, and Chicago’s lucky to have Gabby Hon putting things together for us! My pal Steve Baty had started this UX Book Club thing at the tail end of 2008, and it’s done wonders for authors–I’ve attended a variety of meetings from Toronto to Minneapolis to Edmonton via Skype, and it was pretty great to be a part of. 2009 is starting off with more of these events, and it’s always a blast to get to engage with people who have an interest in the book!
• Somewhere along the way, Carolyn and I did a podcast interview with Peachpit which was a lot of fun for us, and helped get us some exposure for the book. The book also started getting positive reviews on Amazon and started making its way on a bunch of lists of books UX / IA / Designer-y types should own. It was fairly euphoric, when I wasn’t busy waiting for a horrible review to arrive and crush my already-fragile insecurities.
• June and July were just busy. Busy beyond belief. At work and on the planning front for the IDEA Conference. The IDEA team was busy wrapping up logistics, lining up speakers, planning a program, launching a website, getting registrations, making mistakes, recovering and generally propping each other up and making me realize what a great team I’d put together.
• At the end of July, I was able to bring my first employee on board. Just in time to take a much-needed vacation. Whew.
• At the end of July, I also flew out to Philadelphia during my vacation and went to the Philadelphia UX Book Club put on by Roz Duffy (@stellargirl) and hosted at the awesome offices of Happy Cog. Afterward, we had some local drinks with a bunch of folks (and I got to meet the Cavaluccis!) and then had dinner at El Vez with Kevin Hoffman, Angela Coulter, Mick & Jen Carvin, Roz…and maybe another person snuck in there that I forget? (sorry) If you’re ever in Philly, go there, and get the surf & turf tacos! Then, my pal Livia Labate picked me up and I stayed at her place and finally got to me the awesome Amelia Pousson. I got to visit the really cool Comcast Center the next day when I trailed Livia to work – that place is awesome. Finally, on the way out of town, Liv and I got to eat some true Philly Cheese Steaks (and I bagged a handful to bring home with me).
• August brought us the Agile Conference in Chicago, where Todd Zaki Warfel, Joe Sokohl, Jonathan “Yoni” Knoll and I did some pretty fun and well-received workshops on User Experience. In 3 days, we delivered our asses off. It was unreal what we pulled-off and that we were able to raise so much money for a non-profit in such a short period of time (basically, just during the closing keynote dinner). To summarize: We Ship.
• August also brought ad:tech to Chicago. It was interesting to see where ad agencies sit from the UX perspective, but also from Social Media and Mobile. Personally, I submitted 5 proposals to ad:tech in Chicago and I think a couple/few to New York, but I never heard back–not so much as a “sorry, but you were not selected” email. Instead, I emailed them and received a “we’re too busy to email everyone, but if you don’t hear from us in X days, you weren’t selected” email. Hey, it is what it is, and these are my thoughts and I’m not disparaging them nor the event, but now I have expectations moving forward, at least.
• And then something crazy happened. I went to Zappos to talk to their UX team. Brian Kalma invited me out and I got to spend about 90 minutes talking and listening to them and then I got a tour of the facilities. Visit the place yourself and take the tour and I promise you that you’ll be sold. It’s a pretty awesome place and it’s nearly impossible to NOT think about what it would be like to work with/for them, no matter how happy you are.
• Mid-September brought about the IDEA Conference. From everything I can tell, the numbers hovered around 250 attendees, the same as in 2008, but we added significantly more sponsors and managed to keep our registration the same while cutting out a few expenses. I’m a harsh critic of myself and I was fairly depressed after the event, even in light of the mostly positive feedback that we received. The conference, however, was pretty good. I think most people enjoyed it, enjoyed Toronto and left feeling pretty inspired. Matthew Milan saved my ass and stepped in as a last-minute speaker replacement and then rocked the damn house with his “Innovation Parkour” talk. Guys like Matthew make you realize how lucky you are to have great friends. But, the event wasn’t perfect, and the mistakes that were made were mine to own. There was stress and strain (and a pinched nerve to combat with that kept making my arm go numb throughout most of the summer and fall–thanks, body, for getting old on me) and I didn’t perform as well as I should have to a few folks, in particular Jeff Parks, and I’m sorry that happened and I own the mistake. At the same time, people like Yoni, Abby Covert, Brad Simpson, Mario Bourque, Denise Phillipsen, Andrew Hinton, Will Evans, Melissa Weaver and a host of others really stepped-up and helped prop me up to keep things moving along with only a few hitches. Overall, IDEA09 was a pretty big success and appears to have been the best by the numbers.
• Right after IDEA, Yoni and I worked up a few samples for how to tackle the Repeat Email Address issue. It was wild to work on something like this together–sketching ideas in IM and code and throwing them live for people from mailing lists, twitter, etc. to comment on and give us inspiration to do more. It’s great to now be able to implement some of these myself and to see them from others starting to filter out in the world. We’d love to tackle more issues like this–if you’ve got one, bring it! It’s much better than pontificating about it message after message on a mailing list, after all!
• Somewhere along the way, October snuck up on us and I became president of the Information Architecture Institute. I also started speaking to many of the founders and previous board members and I’ve learned more than I could have ever hoped about our history. The board has a great set of directors, but always a shortage of time and bandwidth.  It’s interesting to me that a lot of people don’t realize that the board of directors is entirely volunteer–anything we’re able to do for the IA Institute is on our own time, after our work and personal time (or in some cases, in place of). I used to think that the board was rather cliquey when I wasn’t on it, and now I realize that we, as board members, are so infrequently able to be together in-person, that we do our best to capitalize it and catch-up talk to and see as many people as possible. What I can assure you is that we’re all approachable and we all look forward to hearing from you. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to any of the board members, and please don’t hesitate to volunteer. Please.
• I was also fortunate enough to get to work with Leah Buley and Todd Zaki Warfel to curate the Research track of content for the 2010 IA Summit. I can safely say that we’ve got some great speakers lined up and what looks to be a great program overall.
• Out of the blue, I got a note from SXSW asking me to curate a workshop for them on Information Architecture. Yoni, of course, tells me that since I’m president of the IAI and have written a book, I could pretty much be a monkey and they’d choose me for such a task. Monkey or not, it was still pretty damn flattering. I chose 3 1-hour sessions that will be on taking place on Saturday, March 13th, 2009, and I’m pretty excited about that, too!
• November and December brought about the announcements of a few conferences for 2010, so I’ll be happily speaking at some of the primary User Experience conferences in the first quarter of next year. More on that later (different blog post).
• Unfortunately, I had to decline speaking at UPA (Usability Professionals Association) in Munich in May of 2010. It really stung to turn down the opportunity, but it’s difficult to, as a speaker / presenter, also pay for the conference on top of the airfare and hotel, which is all on top of the time that is invested for preparation. Side bar: I think that a lot of folks think that presenters (or at least, me, in this selfish case) have an easy task. For me, I generally put in around 1 hour per slide and I try to do about 1 slide per minute, depending upon the talk, etc. This is generally my time, above and beyond the day job and above and beyond the family / personal / volunteer time. Woe is me, right? That’s not what I’m trying to say–I bring this upon myself and I really, really enjoy how lucky and fortunate I am to be able to put ideas out there into the community. And it’s work–hard work. But it’s good work, if you can get it, and you can, if you put your mind to it, start to change the world through design.
• December winds down 2009, but winds up starting the big giant ball rolling that is the IDEA Conference for next year. Getting together a pretty kick-ass team, if I do say so myself.
• Throughout the entire year, I struggled to maintain a balance of work and personal time. It was challenging, but I do my best to sacrifice sleep over family time; there’s an abundance of caffeine at my disposal, but face to face time with my kids is something I’d never be able to get back, so it wasn’t an infrequent case that my office light burned late into the night and my eyes had bags under them, but it was worth it, and it is worth it every night at dinner time when we talk about the day, what we learned at school and explore the learnings of an almost-two-year-old. I’m hopeful to continue the trend for 2010 and to even amp it up a bit. I mean, by now, I should be used to this stuff, right?
• Also throughout September, October, November and December, Todd and I continued to work through our book proposal. We’ve been through multiple reviews by other professionals and have revised our proposal to the point where it actually kind of has a gleam to it. Now, we’re negotiating the contracts, but I dare say we’re so close to wrapping it up that we’ll be officially Writing A Book(tm) for Morgan Kaufmann in 2010. It’s going to be 4 glorious colors and on the topic of Research Methods. I think you’re going to like it, lots, and I say that knowing that Todd’s book, “Prototyping: A Practitioner’s Guide” is nothing short of amazing. I also say this because over the past year of working together from–from proposals to workshops to insane meals with top notch wines (trust me: trust Todd with your wine selections!) to contract negotiations, we find ourselves on the same page, easy to negotiate/argue with and still maintain civility and friendship. It should make for some solid book writing and new workshops and I’d say we’re pretty excited for 2010.

Wow.

That took a long time to write and is officially longer than at least a couple of chapters in “A Project Guide to UX Design”. And I’m sure I left things off and forgot to mention some people (and I’m sorry if you feel missed here!). It’s been a whirlwind and I think I’m sufficiently steeled and ready for 2010. I’m nervous and excited and it’s a big year all around.

Let’s do this.

IDEA09 Debts of Gratitude

I’m woefully behind on this, but it’s no less important that the people who propped-up the IDEA Conference experience get recognized.

Certainly, as chair of the 2009 IDEA Conference, there’s a bit of a light shone directly on me, but the reality is that there’s no way on earth that any conference could–or should, at least–be pulled off by a single person.

Without much more preamble, these fine folks let me lead and chose to follow–often challenging and questioning steps along the way, but always supporting the event and the community it is intended for.

I’m humbled to have been so fortunate to get to work with each of them.  Please take note of these fine individuals–and even if you didn’t get to attend IDEA, send them some love for the effort they chose to invest.

Jonathan Knoll
Affectionately known as Yoni throughout this little UX community of ours, he pulled all kinds of magic helping to integrate this pathetic little membership system knows as “Memberclicks” (and that’s in its politest form) into the IDEA website. But that’s not all–he also built the whole site from code line 0, with a ridiculous amount of speed, finesse and dedication.

As a community, we’re beyond lucky to have such a dedicated resource.  You don’t have to take my word for it–ask the IxDA, ASIS and just about anyone else with an idea or a need for assistance.  Thanks, Yoni. Thanks for all the help with IDEA, and thanks for being a friend.

Brad Simpson
Speaking of friends, from work to book-writing projects (Brad did my portion of the design prep for “A Project Guide to UX Design” and may be engaged again…) to the IDEA Conference, Brad has been there. When I first started working Brad a few years ago, I don’t think we liked each other very much.  Somewhere around 6 months in to the mix, we figured something out and there’s probably not a visual designer I’ve enjoyed working with more who has also had a great impact on my own work. He’s not “just a designer”; he’s thinker and wants to know the strategy and the story and then turns it all into something breathtaking.

Michael Leis
The man has a great ‘fro and a great ability to keep the ball rolling. Michael led the charge with sponsorships and marketing, and essentially became our primary copywriter.  We had more than double the amount of sponsorships from a dollars perspective and quite a few more than double from a numbers perspective based upon the previous year’s IDEA conference.  This was a huge success and we couldn’t have come close to touching it without Michael’s guidance, leadership and occasional “caw” noises.

Abby Covert
Abby’s a success story of the IAI’s Mentoring Program.  We began the program perhaps a year ago and when I had the opportunity to hire someone, I pinged her and was lucky enough to do so at just the right time in her life. Beyond that, she was a fantastic asset to our IDEA team, helping to keep things coordinated, picking up tasks along the way that needed an owner, and frankly, just helping to save me from a pile of daunting tasks.  And if you think this is all just me being kind to her, ask around. And look and see who’s the Producer for the IA Summit in 2010.  Abby’s great–and you’re going to see a lot more of her.

Will Evans
In 2008, Will took a couple of pot shots at the IDEA Conference.  In 2009, I called him on it. He manned-up and became part of the solution.  Will was great for helping us IA the IDEA website and in helping me gut-check my feelings on some of my speaker selections. Sure, he can’t manage a passport, but he was a huge asset to IDEA and a welcome addition to the Information Architecture Institute’s board of directors.

Mario Bourque
Our man on the ground in Toronto, Mario helped us find our hotel, checked out the MaRS space for us, and kept things moving on so many different levels. The man is the king of the set-up and tear-down, managing all things on the ground and had a perfect address for us to ship everything to. Sure, that seems odd, but let me tell you what a pain it would have been without that, and without his willingness to be the packhorse and keep all things together for us locally.  Glad to have Mario as a friend and as a key part of IDEA.

Denise Phillipsen
Denise jumped in and helped us in creating some great interview questions for our speakers and manned our table at the conference like a champ.  From time to time, we even saw her acting as nanny!

Dennis Schleicher
Thanks to Dennis and UX Sears, we had a last minute sponsor that has a great interest in supporting the UX Community! Not only should you want to work with Dennis and have him put you through thinking exercises, but you also want to have Dennis on your side to do recon and support.  Dennis was, and is, awesome, and it was great to have him as a part of the conference–and to see him on stage with Matthew Milan during “Innovation Parkour”.

Austin Govella
Austin was behind the scenes humor and coordination, also helping with our speaker interview questions.  He seemed to pop up like a paintball assassin–spraying us with wisdom and humor and then disappearing back into the mist.  Probably working on some Pimpformation Architect stuff…

Greg Corrin
Greg worked with me to create interview question for our speakers, and these ended up getting published on Boxes & Arrows.  He did some great research and helped us to put some intelligent questions in front of the speakers.

Todd Zaki Warfel
Todd was instrumental in helping us locate some key speakers and helped in keeping me sane around some of my ideas for speakers. He was a great asset behind the scenes.  A guy like Todd knows conferences (he’s doing a lot of great work for Interaction 10) and has created enough workshops to be a great adviser.

Cindy Chastain
Cindy and I played tag for weeks, if not months, trying to work out some great storytelling speakers. Unfortunately, timing never seemed quite right or there were too many hurdles in the way that prevented us from ever landing one of her connections–but her willingness to help and the value of her connections were invaluable to me.

Melissa Weaver
Oh, Melissa. So often overlooked behind the scenes of the IAI and IDEA Conferences. Nearly anyone who has ever touched anything IAI-related knows of Melissa, but they don’t know how much she manages behind the scenes, and I doubt we’d be able to pull much off successfully without her.

Noreen Whysel
Noreen, like Melissa, is always doing something behind the scenes to keep things moving along smoothly. From timely updates to the IA Institute website to gentle reminders of things that need to get done (and that most likely would have been overlooked). The IA Institute and IDEA are lucky to have Noreen & Melissa!

The Information Architecture Institute Board of Directors
Everyone on the board was continually supportive and seemed to be pretty impressed with the event as I was giving status reports–none of this is or was easy, folks, and they were always positive, even in light of the downturn economy.  Andrew Hinton stepped-up and worked the IAI table at the conference and everyone was always willing to lend a hand. Great group of people to be associated with, for certain. Christian Crumlish & Livia Labate stepped-up and helped to make sure the payments were in place for the swag and the space and a/v that we needed, and they did so very timely.

The USB Party Crowd
At the very last minute, Livia Labate came through with the USB drives that we needed from Comcast Interactive as a sponsor, which helped us keep the conference affordably green.  Unfortunately, that didn’t give us tons of time to get everything together, so on Sunday evening before the conference, there were whole bunch of people smashed into my hotel room creating an assembly line production that mass-copied files on to 250 USB drives, capped them and placed them back into their handy little boxes.

In about an hour.

Amazing what you can do when you get that many IAs/UXers in a room at the same time and everyone just wants to help achieve a goal (and part of that goal, I might add, was to “get back to drinking”, but any motivation was good motivation!). Hopefully I won’t forget anyone, and those people, in no particular order were:

Gabby Hon
Joan Vermette
Andrew Hinton
Jen Bohmbach
Yoni
Mick Carvin
Jenn Carvin
Christina Wodtke
Livia Labate
Erin Malone
Gene Smith
Chris Palle
Abby Covert
Michael Leis

I’d be remiss if I didn’t make mention of Jorge Arango who politely provided encouragement during some down times of the conference–Jorge was the chair for 2008′s very successful conference in Chicago, and much of what I learned for 2009 came from working with him.

Of course, I’m certain I missed someone–I’m not trying to overlook the speakers nor the sponsors in this post; this post is about the people who put in so much effort and personal time to help our community, the IDEA Conference and the Information Architecture Institute.

And I’m truly grateful.

*I’m really hoping I didn’t miss anyone, and I’m truly sorry if I did. Please email, IM or send me a DM if I inadvertently left you, or someone else, off the list.

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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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!)

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!)