Interaction10 – Paola Antonelli – Talk to Me

Paola Antonelli’s keynote was probably my most favorite of the keynotes at Interaction10. She was a bit livelier than most, a bit more animated and had a great sense of humor about about her. She also had some great sensibilities about how design and technology should work.

Oh, and she hates that damn tamagotchi.

Paola Antonelli’s Bio:

Paola Antonelli is senior curator of architecture and design at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, where she has worked since 1994. Before MoMA, she curated design and architecture exhibitions in many countries and worked as contributing editor for Domus magazine and design editor of Abitare. She has lectured on design and architecture worldwide and has published numerous articles in publications ranging from Seed and Nest to The Harvard Design Review. Antonelli is author of a number of books, including Workspheres (2001), Objects of Design from the Modern Museum of Art (2003), Humble Masterpieces (2005), and Design and the Elastic Mind (2008).

Talk To Me Keynote Description:

Whether openly and actively, or in subtle, subliminal ways, things talk to us, and designers write the initial script that will let us develop and improvise the dialogue.

My Notes on the Session:

• We are now at the point with technology that we’re no longer drunk with it and we can finally do something really humane, has humane interfaces and make it elegant.
• She is more comfortable with objects than she is with people–objects talk to her about their properties.
• Technologists make revolutions, but designers bring it to life
• Computers evolved from being tools to being pets in your home–they started to have personalities.
• Post-it note was a mistake in the 60s that became a success in the 80s
• Real-world interfaces in the real world have become friendlier and friendlier–beginning to be pithy, have a degree of humanization to them.
• Throwie: an LED light with a battery and a magnet that you can throw up high and stick to metal. People make graffiti and give boring objects personalities with them.
• Laser Tagging by the Graffiti Research Lab – Used lasers to write on the sides of buildings.
• Seeing is Understanding
• Ref: Tufte (ick)
• Eames – Brought about multimedia before it really existed – Mathematica
• Access to Networks & Systems
• Access to networks & systems allow us to collect very disparate and complex sets of data and turn it into something visual that we can understand better/easier.
• Networks and systems can make devices somewhat irrelevant–as long as you have the data <somewhere> the device can easily be replaced.
• Making & Mixing the Worlds
• AR, Simulations, alternate ways to live & build
• Designers are now aware of resources, sustainability, etc.
• Grand Theft Auto is a wonderful simulation of a world that already exists.
• Portable systems may go away; it’s not augmented, but a blurring of the reality
• The connection between the real world and digital world will become seamless and this will make your experience “bigger”
• The symbol of this all is: @
• It’s not about possessing things now, it’s about tagging them. Where’s Gene Smith?
• Paola_Antonelli@moma.org if there’s anything about this you want to talk to her about
• Designers not only need to learn Anthropology, but need to take some screenwriting, drama, acting classes!

Interaction10 – Timo Arnall – Designing for the Web in the World

A handful of years ago, I worked for a mobile phone manufacturer, and that made Timo Arnall’s presentation on Designing for the Web in the World particularly interesting to me. I was fortunate enough to get to spend some time working on and thinking about Location Based Services (LBS) and RFID projects and getting to learn a bit more about where things are heading really gave my brain a jumpstart.

Here’s hoping my notes may give you a bit of that, too.

Timo Arnall’s Bio:

Timo Arnall is a designer working with interactive products and media. Timo leads an international research project on mobile technology, collaborates on interaction design work and lectures in design, media and technology. Timo’s work spans design, media and technology; interested in the ways in which products are used in everyday life, the emergent uses of new technologies and the design of products and services in local contexts and situations. Timo’s history of design work has included projects on the web, location-based and mobile services, film and interactive television production, art direction, motion graphics, installations and exhibitions.

Designing for the Web in the World Description:

From NFC mobile phones to Nabaztag and Nike+, there is an entirely new class of consumer product that becomes almost useless when disconnected from the network. How can designers deal with the vast complexity of designing not only interactive physical products, but the connections and resulting interactions with the data that they produce? In the Touch project we have been working with designing interactive products and services that involve RFID, NFC and mobile devices. The project has developed useful models for designing across tangible and mobile interactions, networks and the web, that allow us to see where existing products succeed or fail, and to get to a grip on the design of new networked products.

My Notes from the Session:

• Shows copper-lined pockets so people can’t scan his RFID “stuff”
• Shows “RFID-Proof” wallet to protect your personal wares (froms canning)
• References “Shaping Things” by Bruce Sterling (@bruces); calls it out as a short, fascinating read, but if all our products are trackable & traceable, maybe it has an impact on lifecycle, recycle-ability, etc.
• NFC is “Near Field Communications”
• NFC – The integration of RFID into mobile phones
• You can embed tags in everyday objects and then take actions upon them – similar to stuff I worked on for <insert mobile phone manufacturer here>.
• We are keen to “reframe” technology to make it fun, not talking about the utility of it all, but more about the exploration, the game-y-ness of it.
• RFID/NFC with youth testing seems to have gone from passive to active usage in a very short amount of time. Learning curve was quick & easy and it was fun for children to have simple controls that delivered fun, consumable actions.
• Showed RFID stickers; previous discussed those types of re/actions at <insert mobile phone manufacturer here> and it’s great to see that we really were looking at the future about 5 years ago.
• The part of the problem with this genre of products is that they become worthless without a network.  This echoes my feelings/fears about working in the cloud (that is, if the cloud.
• 3 Levels of thinking about designing network objects
• 1. The tangible experience.
• It’s become important to create things that live in our everyday lives & attach to our everyday objects
• 2. Objects need to have a connection to the outside world
• They need to also have a reason for doing this! In many ways, this ends up also being very social–sharing data of your workouts, your sleep patterns, etc.
• 3. Visualizing and perfection
• Once you start to collect and create data about/around a device, you need to start to visualize it, show people what’s going on with it.
• Design decisions for products that are connected need to be taken very seriously and need to considered for the *very* long-term. If the network and/or engagement dies, the usefulness of the product dies.
• This seems like an enormous risk (to me) when creating new products.  Does it kill the entrepreneur?
• Nike+ used as a good example. Absolutely; and the advantage of Nike money coupled with Apple money and long-term, low-risk of either/both of them going away. The product *should* have a pretty long shelf-life & you should be able to use it for a very long time.

Interaction10 – Rob Nero – TRKBRD: From Idea to Conception with Physical Prototype

Rob Nero’s presentation at the Pharmacy during Interaction10 was so packed that Todd Zaki Warfel, Brad Nunnally and I all ended up sitting on the floor in the very front of the room.

We may have had the best darn seats in the house. This presentation blew our minds. TRKBRD is far from a perfect nor finished device, but it’s a clever prototype that was fun to learn about.

Hands-down, more of our conferences need more talks like this. We learned of failures and successes and hacks and end-runs, and there was energy just in watching the story. This was definitely one of the highlights of an outstanding conference.

TRKBRD: From Idea to Conception to Physical Prototype Description:

Physical prototyping allows you to see and touch your design. You don’t have to pretend to use your design in order to test it, you can touch your design and feel the interactions firsthand.

My final project, in my first year of grad school, started as a theoretical idea for a brand new way to interface with a portable computer. The interface had never been done before, so there wasn’t hardware available for me to realize my idea or even test it with people. The only way to realize my idea physically was to use the Arduino electronics prototyping platform and create the interface device myself. With a lot of research, testing, and talking with other Arduino users, I brought my idea to fruition, the TRKBRD (trackboard) was born!

Read more of the TRKBRD Description >

Rob Nero’s Bio:

Rob is currently working on his Master’s thesis at the Interaction Design Masters program at Malmö University, in Malmö, Sweden. Before deciding to move to Sweden, he designed enterprise web applications for large and Fortune 500 companies for 10 years. Rob’s design projects while attending the Masters program include a music remix web site that was used in a national campaign for refugees, a Bluetooth-enabled music distribution box for an inner-city hip-hop club, and multiple physical prototyping projects with the Arduino platform.

After graduation in 2010, Rob is seeking employment opportunities in the physical and tangible interface areas. He hopes to continue his work in rapid physical prototyping, electronics, and people interaction in every adventure and future employment.

My Notes on the Session:

• Rob is a student at Malmo, Sweden and the last bit of his work for his degree was “Anything”. Yep, anything he wanted, but he had to create something.
• He was at a coffee shop doing work; his laptop barely fit on the table, as usual, and couldn’t use his mouse–hates the trackpad.
• He found a spatial problem to solve with his laptop and the space to work in–and trackpads keep getting smaller, and they’re a pain in the ass to use.
• The only way to make a smaller netbook is to sacrifice the trackpad space.
• Had the idea and the tools, wanted to make this new thing.
• Thought of: TrackBoard (keyboard and trackpad?)
• Combining keyboard and trackpad so as to create more available space.
• Recognized “zones” on the keyboard based upon where your hands sit on a keyboard for typing.
• Checked out the Arduino board (Arduino Duemilanove) – www.arduino.cc
• Rec: Getting Started with Arduino by Massimo Banzi
• Sparkfun.com is a good electronics site to check out.
• Built it
• Put 3 sensors around the board – Left, Top, Bottom
• Put 2 lasers–bottom-left, bottom-right
• Used Infrared lasers to avoid issues with light in the area
• He was able to get the x & y coords through this simple set up.
• Problem with Infrared: you can’t see it!
• But, you can hack a webcam and you can then see infrared – you can remove the lens or you can add over some exposed photo film (seems almost like an antique to find!)
• The Arduino programming language is pretty simple, some basic background in coding may help you.
• The memory on the Arduino is really small
• Arduino forums really helped to optimize the code and queries to make it much smaller in memory size.
• The end solution was 110 light sensors. The laser in the corner was to create the plane of light.
• Problem: He showed a professor, professor posted to Arduino blog, MakeZine.com picked it up….
• Then Engadget picked it up! Rob nearly died.
• Big exposure: 11,000+ video views (10-50 a day), 90,000+ links
• Now a Russian wants to rebuild as the equivalent of what Smart Boards/Walls are in the US (at my kid’s school)
• Final Prototype
• 
• Tested & Iterated
• Did “Man on the Street” Guerrilla User Testing
• Gave lots of demos, too
• Had focused feedback from the demos that he gave; felt people gave him real loves & hates
• trkbrd.it is the website, @TRKBRD is the twitters.
• He’s only doing this for his Masters; it’s not anything beyond that (at this point).
• He does some “faking it” in Flash since he doesn’t know Windows or Macintosh coding.
• Can double tap to open
• Single tap [X] to close it
• Independent control of both interfaces
• Can select/highlight text
• Can type without moving the cursor – but on the entire trackboard, not a real keyboard
• Also: This was awesome.

Interaction10 – Kevin Cheng – Augmented Reality: Is it Real? Should We Care?

Kevin Cheng was one of the first folks I met at the IA Summit in 2008 in Miami, and I’ve been a fan of him ever since. Besides being a bright chap and an all around good egg, he’s recently become a Product Manager at The Twitters (and they’re hiring, folks!), but you may also know him from such online comics as OK/Cancel. He’s also getting married on 10/10/10, but you’ll have to ask him some questions around that, yourself.

Augmented Reality: Is it Real? Should We Care? Description:

This year, we’ve seen the mobile market make incredible strides in technology. The iPhone, Android and Palm platforms have increased their functionality well beyond just being a phone and have added critical functions such as faster internet connectivity, video cameras, GPS and compasses. Handheld gaming devices have also converged, adding cameras and accelerometers to their devices.

The combination of all of these pieces have made Augmented Reality—overlaying information and technology virtually over what you see—become a true possibility. Suddenly, science fiction has become much less fictional.

This presentation will:
- share my personal experiences and insights from developing a game for this new medium
- cover some of the challenges and considerations when designing for such an experience
- the viability of this medium
- how we could apply aspects of augmented reality to projects
- include other examples of such projects on the market ranging from entertainment to practical applications

Kevin Cheng’s Bio:

Kevin Cheng splits his crayon time between many endeavors. He is a product manager at Twitter, the co-founder and artist for OK/ Cancel, a webcomic on user experience, and the author of the upcoming book, See What I Mean: How to Communicate Ideas with Comics. Most recently, he is also co-produced an iPhone augmented reality ghost hunting game. Kevin blogs at kevnull.com and has been known to Twitter as @k.

My Notes on the Session:

• Kevin saw a video on AR and thought about how this would be a cool ghost-hunting game.
• ARGH (Augmented Reality Ghost Hunter) is the app he built.
• Tom Caudell coined the term AR when he was working at Boeing on a project. 18 years ago. That’s right–18.
• Wikipedia def: Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery – creating a mixed reality. The augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements, such as sports scores on TV during a match. With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and object recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally usable. Artificial information about the environment and the objects in it can be stored and retrieved as an information layer on top of the real world view. The term augmented reality is believed to have been coined in 1990 by Thomas Caudell, an employee of Boeing at the time[1].
• Our reality is already being augmented–look at the 1st Down line overlay in football games, HUDs in video games, etc.
• AR is possible via LBS, Audio, etc.
• AR is here to stay; it’s main stream now, but not meeting it’s potential just yet.
• Why is NOW the right time?
• Google trends show it skyrocketing in 2009.
• Mobile seems to be a key reason for it to take off–especially cameras/video cameras.
• Reasonable Internet Connectivity
• GPS
• Compass
• Accelerometer – less, but you can do some cool things like running/motion, etc.
• What’s it being used for now?
• It’s being used in Art.
• Toys – Lego has a cool app where you can hold up the box and see the 3D version of what your end result will be.
• Topps baseball cards has some “attempts”
• Zombie killer game by Skittles–skittles are bombs for killing zombies
• USPS postal service demo – see if your item fits in the box.
• There’s a “live tweeting” app–Kevin pointed his phone to the room to see who is tweeting and got heat points. Pretty cool.
• Problems:
• Lack of design patterns
• And none of the existing ones are good
• The usage of AR is pretty immature
• Need to get some standards created for AR
• What if you wrote a “BurglAR” app? If objects are tagged and shared in the cloud and I see that you just bought at Plasma TV, I could know which house to watch and steal from!
• Clearly, no one is thinking about the deviant side of AR Design!
• GPS is not that accurate again. It’s not going to show you in exacting measurements where “things” are.
• Image recognition
• Processing on mobile – it’s just not there yet.
• RFID proliferation – not everyone (or enough people have all of the features to make this work well)
• Technology is not there yet!
• Looking Ahead for AR
• Jupiter Research: “The market for mobile AR services is expected to reach $732 million by 2014″. Was less than $1 million.
• Annual # of Mobile DLs featuring AR content is expected to rise to less than 1 million in 2009 to MORE THAN 400 MILLION by 2014.
• Smartphones are becoming more common
• Someone’s actually working on AR Contact Lenses!
• BMW and AR for Training of mechanics/engineeers.
• Google Goggles is an app that could have legs, too.
• Kevin says, “What’s interesting is that we (UXers) appear to be not all that interested”
• I don’t think we’re not interested, I just think the good ideas aren’t getting to US!
• Our technology consumption isn’t as fast as Japan, for example.  When I (Russ) worked in mobile, the US was at 18 months for a phone lifecycle and EMEA was more like 6 months.

Interaction10 – Jon Kolko – My Heart is in the Design

Unfortunately, I was a little late to arrive to Jon Kolko’s keynote, but I really enjoyed his presentation and wished his talk would have been longer. Without further pause, here’s some descriptions and some notes.

My Heart is in the Design Description:

Interaction design has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with shaping our engagement with society and with each other. As designers, we build the artifacts and frameworks that support this engagement, keeping us entertained, aroused, engaged and productive. We are cultural architects, and possess capabilities to enable massive change in an increasingly fragmented and tense world. We are, however, held back by three fundamental problems: a lack of quality, a lack of competent leadership, and a misappropriation of our skills.

This talk will examine the critical role we play in shaping culture, and will then describe the fundamental challenges that face interaction design as a discipline: the pursuit of quality, the need for intellect, and the void of leadership.

Jon Kolko’s Bio:

Jon Kolko is an Associate Creative Director at frog design. He has extensive experience in the professional world of interaction design, working around complicated technological constraints in order to best solve the problems of Fortune 500 clients. His work has extended into the domains of consumer electronics, mobility, supply chain management, demand planning, and customer-relationship management, and he has worked with clients such as AT&T, HP, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ford, IBM, Palm and other leaders of the Global 2000. The underlying theme of these problems and projects was the creation of a solution that was useful, usable, and desirable. He is the author of the text Thoughts on Interaction Design published by Morgan Kaufmann, and he sits on the Board of Directors for the IxDA.

My Notes on the Session:

• Design synthesis is the secret sauce for why design is powerful
• Design synthesis is an abductive sense-making process of manipulating and framing…
• If it is not ethical, it cannot be beautiful.
• “In today’s world, it’s apparent that good design is a privilege instead of being a right. In order to get good design into the hands of people who need it most of you ask many questions; how much does it costs should not be done.”
• Designing for real cultural change starts by understanding how people currently behave. -Mitch Murphy.
• Your work will change culture. Do work that is worth doing.

Interaction10 – Dave Gray – Knowledge Games

(Sorry, had some odd WordPress snafu–this is a repost of a post I somehow killed off inadvertantly)

Dave Gray’s session was–as always–fun, insightful and inspiring. He’s always a great speaker and a sure-fire bet to be one of your favorite sessions if you’re at a conference he’s presenting at. He did not let us down this time, and I hope my notes make sense.

Knowledge Games Description:

We’re moving from an industrial to a knowledge economy, where creativity and innovation will be the keys to value. New rules apply. Yet two hundred years of industrial habits are embedded in our workplaces, our schools and our systems of government. How must we change our work practices to thrive in the 21st Century? Dave Gray will share insights from his upcoming book on the work of creativity and innovation, due to be published in the first quarter of 2010.

Dave Gray’s Bio:

Dave Gray is the founder and chairman of XPLANE, an information design consultancy serving Fortune 100, NGO and government clients around the world. An artist, journalist and information designer, he is passionate about applied creativity.

My Notes on the Session:

Knowledge Games – Dave Gray

• The AK-47 has killed more people than any other weapon.
• Best designed weapon; can drop it in water, pick it up, still use it.
• A 12 year old can use it.
• Simple – Has 8 moving parts
• Rugged
• Reliable – many other guns would jam, etc. American soldiers would take the AK-47 from killed enemies
• Lightweight – can be used by a 12-year old, but also easily portable.
• Easy to manufacture; can make it in a machine shop
• Design is a Weapon that can be used for good or for bad. It’s a powerful tool for change.
• Design Philosophy: Don’t design for a perfect world, design for chaos. Because the world is filled with chaos.
• Design challenges have a starting point and an end point, but what do you do when the end point is vague and/or unknown?
• DG thinks of a process as more like a pachinko game; with all kinds of structure around it, but you don’t exactly what’s going to happen. There is unpredictability in the process.
• Some things are linear and some are non-linear. But they can be friends.
• Business process: a series of steps that are repeatable.
• Knowledge games: a mothod for inventing and discovering new processes.
• What is a game: A creation of a microworld that represents aspects of the real world.
• A game has boundaries and exists within time and space.
• A game has a goal
• A game has rules
• A game has artifacts
• A Game has players
• A game exists between a start point & end point. How do we define a goal when we don’t know the  goal?
• Fuzzy goals – you know you’re going somewhere, but will figure that out along the way. It can adjust & change as you move along.
• Conference Design: What if a conference was as good as all of the coffee breaks?
  • 10 Essential Rules:
  • 1. Opening & Closing – It’s all about rhythm. The rhythm of working with people. Game reference: Scrabble.
    • Two Rules
      • Never open & close at the same time; you can’t be creative & decisive at the same time
      • Always close what you open! It’s frustrating as hell if you don’t close things.
• 2. Fire-starting – getting people excited is a huge part of getting things done. Game reference: 20 questions
  • Get in touch with your ignorance; you need to get beyond knowing all of the answers & be happy to be wrong!
  • 5 Kinds of Questions
    • Opening – What has been keeping you up at night?
    • Examining – What is this? How does this work? Can you give me an example? What does the data indicate?
    • Experimenting – If we worked in a restaurant how would we solve this? What are we missing? What if all the barriers are removed?
    • Navigating – Is there some tension around this topic? How about a short break?
    • Closing – How would you prioritize these? What’s feasible for us to do in the next 2 weeks? Who will take responsibility for doing that?
• 3. Artifacts – usually portable, items that people have imbued with meaning even if we don’t know exactly what it is. Game example: Chess; you can’t play without knowing the rules of the pieces.
• 4. Node Generation – like sticky notes. Game example: Scattergories; generate as many notes as you can, get as much stuff on post-its, etc. around solving a problem.
• 5. Meaningful space – Think UPSIDE the box! What is the right kind of container for all of this stuff? Draw borders; think of Pros & Cons, axes, etc. to help define the space.
• 6. Sketching! Game reference: Pictionary!. There is no try! EVERYONE CAN SKETCH! Anyone who can write the alphabet and the numbers 1-10, can sketch!
• 7. Randomness – Shake things up! Game example: Dice
• 8. Improvisation – game Example: Charades!
• 9. Selection – This is where you make hard decisions. You have to kill some of your babies here. Game example: Jenga! Choose well.
• 10. Try something new. Every time you do something, try something new. If you do the same thing every time you’ll get bored & everyone will know it.  Game example: Operation! Keep it alive!
• Don’t be afraid to be wrong—you’ll find something no matter what!
• Paradox of discovery: You find things that you’re not looking for…
  • Basically, don’t over-think it!

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!)

Do We Really Need Associations, Anyway? Do They Need Us?

Within the past few weeks, I’ve noticed a lot of things happening around me that have made me wonder about the validity of professional associations of sorts, and if we really need them.

In general, I think the answer is “yes”, but mostly, I have to wonder if the add-on to that is “but for how long?”.

I’m not going to pretend that organizations like the IAI (full disclosure: I am on the Board of Directors) and IxDA haven’t helped me, personally, make many of the social and professional connections that I have today.  But, that was before.

Before all this social network stuff sort of just asploded in our faces and made everything so intimate, public and NOW NOW NOW!!

I’m grateful for these organizations, actually, as long as they work.

So, to answer my questions, I’d say the answer on both parts is:  YES

But the time is critical for them, I fear.

BUT… I think both need to evolve a little in order to find the right way to keep it all under the same roof.  There’s no problem with people owning initiatives, and it’s awesome that people can, over the course of a holiday weekend (in the US, of course) crank out 110% awesome.  The world wants things RIGHT NOW, and that makes waiting even more difficult than Tom Petty ever imagined. Organizations love to talk about and hate their red tape and people love to talk about and love/hate their organizations response times and excuses of the red tape.

It kind of stinks. But, it’s also a reality.  There’s got to be a way to make things happen and get organizations and “their people” all engaged, enabled and empowered to “get stuff done” so they can meet in the middle. There’s got to be some sort of an open framework we can create where people start running as fast as they can and as fast as they want with great (or not great, half-cocked, hair-brained) ideas and make them work for both in a way where both reap the rewards.

I’ve watched as people have identified a number of reasons why events should be near them (and sadly, watched while even less than Pareto would be happy with identified themselves as those willing to take part in the preparation and organization of such things), griped and/or yelled and/or bullied about certain attitudes and approaches to different locations and even, I’m sad to say, as people have thrown up their arms and politely asked, urgently requested and all-out yelled and hollered their requests for assistance.

Unfortunately, I watched those requests get sent, and then watched forward motion get made without support.

In fact, over the course of a holiday weekend in the United States, I watched Steve Baty take his half-baked “UX Book Club” idea and start to bake the hell out of it with his peers–many he’s never met, and some he may never meet in his life.  Will Evans and Andrew Boyd jumped-in to help, without any real call for support and they helped inject more excitement and energy into the project.

They organized.

They plotted.

They schemed.

(Admittedly, I got involved, thumb-tapped away on my iPhone as furiously as I possibly could and tried to keep up from the remote reaches of the inner-midwest USA)

They found new ideas from their existing ideas.

They created new ideas–blew them up to bigger than better than any one of them had dreamed-up before.

Mountains were made out of idea molehills, and frankly the whole world looked a helluva lot better from a “wow, that’d be really kick @$$” perspective.

They used the hell out of the back-channel to get people active, excited and to make sure they were missing as few opportunities as possible while engaging as many people who could help them.

They did this without the assistance of associations, organizations, fax machines, the USPS or DHL delivery service.  The did this without worrying about whether or not the location was one that suited everyone.

They did this because they love what they do, they love being active and they have heart, soul and no real spare time to donate to their communities, but they figure they can give up an extra hour of sleep a night to make something worthwhile.

How come so few people want so much but can’t come up with the same type of inertia–if I tried to stop Steve right now, he’d plow through me like a Mack truck going over a puddle.  This thing is happening!

And it’s awesome.

But “they” own it. That is, there is no owner beyond this collective of unorganized people who decided that their locations could read books once a month.

They DO need the support of organizations–organizations can help them with (perceived?) purchasing power, greater reach, and the potential for more opportunities and growth beyond these local book clubs.

I mean, if someone has the gusto to pick up a book and read once a month, maybe they also want to sit down once a month and watch a presentation on <something> or they want to grab a beer with others and talk about <something> or they want to schedule their own “camp” type of thing.

They DO need organizations. As Marc Andreesen says (courtesy of Christina Wodtke), “Organizations are GREAT distribution channels.” (okay, so Christina clarified this below, but I think it still stands)

Hell, they’re a great place for like-minded people to get together and change the world, rattle the status quo and shake the foundation of just about anything they set their minds to.

Organizations DO need them-these people are THEIR leaders of TODAY and TOMORROW.

One can do without the other, however. One can create the other, however.

One SHOULD inspire, engage and activate the other.

My point is that I think a lot of us get frustrated–I know I have, and I do–and we forget that these things all really do have connecting points and dependencies.

Most of us work in the User Experience space (if you’re reading this blog, at least I think you are)–you/we should all be connecting these boxes and we should all be wanting to solve these problems. We should be taking advantage of this “whatever-point-oh” web/world that we’re in and FIND NEW WAYS to be excited and energized and CREATE SOMETHING BETTER.

Because if we don’t, someone else will.

Will you?

I will.

In the upcoming weeks–nay, days, I will be sharing my initiatives for 2009 as a member of the Board of Directors of the Information Architecture Institute. None of these are impossible to achieve and all of them are valuable and will be worth your time if you choose to participate and/or lead these initiatives with me.

I can’t do it alone, and I want your help.

And you can make my ideas better. More awesome. More YOU. Oh. My. God. Think of how cool that is to see a seed turn into a tree right in front of your eyes and/or from the work of your own hands!

There are so many opportunities for us–from having fun to getting really dorky-technical.

It’s there. If someone hasn’t thought of it–and even if they have–pick up the idea torch and give it a try.

There are big things to be accomplished in 2009, and there are all types of leaders needed–in organizations and in the world at large.  Organizations always need more leaders and volunteers and will present you with opportunities you’d never dreamt of.  If an organization cannot or will not support you, challenge them–better yet, challenge yourself–and start building something great, and present it to them.

Don’t just BE the change you want to see…

CREATE the change you want to see.