Interaction10 – Livia Labate – Ceci n’est pas une KPI

I’m proud to call Livia Labate a good friend and a fellow board member for the IA Institute, so I’ll admit having bias here. That aside, she gave a great presentation and everyone learned a bit more about Key Performance Indicators, as well as the challenges and struggles that Livia went through in her journey to be able to share this information with us.

Ceci n’est pas une KPI Session Description:

“What are the Key Performance Indicators of a succesful user experience?” asked the business stakeholder, “It depends” answered the wise interaction designer…

Inquiries about measuring or managing anything seek to answer an underlying question: How do we know we are doing a good job?

(So, how DO you know you are doing a good job in the work that you do?)

While many UX practitioners like to answer this question with ‘when we achieve our goals’, we have struggled as a community to identify and articulate approaches and measures to assess how successful our solutions are.

More at the Interaction10 Website >

Livia Labate’s Bio:

Livia Labate is a user experience designer practicing in Philadelphia at Comcast Interactive Media. She also currenty on the IA Institute Board of Directors and co-chairing the 2010 and 2011 IA Summits. In other words, she loves the UX world and enjoys giving back to the community.

Here are my notes from Livia’s awesome session–I hope she’ll continue her exploration on the topic so we can learn more!

How do we value success in UX?
- Livia promises us she has more questions than answers

How do we KNOW we are doing a good job?
- Livia asked all the designers at Comcast “How do you make decisions?”
- The theme was that people were wanting to know how they were doing a good job throughout the interviews.

How do we MEASURE UX?
- She had to put the question aside; couldn’t get a definitive answer.
- Felt it was a lot like asking someone to measure love.
- Do I have to deal with all those NUMBERS?
- We’re really consumers of data, but we’re not analysts

NUMBERS
- When people hand numbers that were meaningful for them, they really didn’t want to investigate <the problem> further.
- Numbers by themselves don’t express meaning–context really help us understand the way to answer a question.
- Jared Spool made her read “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.
- “Statistics do not have the power of language, it’s just numbers.”

METRICS
- “You can’t manage what you don’t measure” – W. Edwards Deming (or Peter Drucker)
- We need to focus on the outcome
- “You can’t improve what you don’t understand.”
- A metric is a unit of measure. It’s a quantitative measurement that describes events or trends.
- A KPI is a metric that helps you understand HOW you are doing against your objectives.
- Context really sets the frame for what KPIs make sense. A competitor will most likely have different KPIs.
- KPIlibrary.com is a good resource for finding–big surprise–KPIs
- KPIs will help us play the game, as soon as we know what they are?
- He who knows the KPIs can direct the conversation(s)

USER EXPERIENCE
- How can we measure the undefinable?
- Focus on the outcome
- The task completion rate
- The time a task requires
- The error rate
- Users’ subjective satisfaction
- Morville created the honeycomb to help clients move beyond just usability.
- Livia talks about “Linking Elephants”; references Adaptive Path’s 2005 report on Leveraging Business Value: How ROI Changes User Experience
- Livia tried to do this, but it was difficult/impossible for her in the projects she tried it with.
- It’s not a KPI in it’s own right, but it can be useful for framing a conversation.

Why KPIs?
- KPIs are concrete metrics
–quantifiable and measurable
-KPIs are relative measures
–to predefined objectives
-KPIs are understood in context
–circumstances in which they are measured
-KPIs are about behaviors
–and this is why we like them!

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.

###

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!)

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.

My Name is Russ. I’m Running for the Information Architecture Institute Board of Directors

And I’m running on a platform with Matthew Milan and Livia Labate.

Over the past few weeks, we have spent a lot of time together working through some of the key issues that we think are real, real important and that are in the best interests of the membership of the Information Architecture Institute.

Unlike many election (ahem, POTUS), this isn’t an “us versus them” thing. We’re not “against” anyone, per se, we’re simply like-minded on things from a high-level perspective and we are passionate about the organization and the members. There is absolutely nothing but respect and appreciation for those who are current board members or who have been board members in the past.

I’d say we would all agree that the IAI has had nothing but a positive impact on us, and we want to give back.

That said, I’m posting, verbatim, my Bio and Position Statement, as submitted for candidacy to the IAI Board of Directors. Here goes…

Russ Unger’s Bio

I have been working on websites since 1993—when there was only Notepad to code with and Mosaic was the only browser around. That was when I found that my interest in User Experience Design and Information Architecture began to flourish.

Since then, I have worked with a number of major brands on large-scale Intranet and Extranet applications. I have also worked off-line, creating unique biometric (fingerprint reader) applications and have been responsible for creating user interfaces for mobile. I have also taught courses in Web and Interactive/Flash Design.

I have been active in our community as an editor for Boxes and Arrows and have recently explored the role of author. In addition, I am currently co-authoring a book on User Experience Design with Carolyn Chandler for Peachpit Press.

I am a mentor for the IAI and have worked with several mentees to assist them in their careers.  This experience has allowed me to revisit and renew my appreciation for people who are just starting out in their careers and what we, as an organization, can do to further support them.

I am the current Event Coordinator for the IDEA Conference.  I have actively pursued and landed several sponsors for the conference through my personal contacts.  I have assisted in identifying various speakers and have encouraged many to become speakers. I have supported the effort for many months and have learned a great deal about the Information Architecture Institute and conference planning and marketing.  This has been a lot of effort—and a lot of fun.  I would like for my involvement to continue beyond IDEA and feel I would be a valuable member to the board.

Position Statement: Vision, Empowerment & Transparency

Matthew Milan, Livia Labate and I are running on a common platform in the hopes of being able to make a more meaningful impact to the Information Architecture Institute if we are elected.

Finally, we strongly believe that the IA Institute should have a clear vision of its role within the User Experience community and more importantly how it contributes to the advancement of the field of Information Architecture. With strong vision comes strong capability, and we have a duty to our membership to provide this role.

The Information Architecture Institute is an organization that our founders and previous boards of directors have built-up and established as one that is well respected. I am constantly reminded of how proud I am to be a part of the IAI every time I meet or engage another member of this thriving community.  My goal is to continue to guide our organization into a long-term future of sustainable growth.

We are at a critical time in our growth and evolution as an organization.  To me, the highest priorities are to establish a more transparent organization with a long-term vision that empowers our membership. We have an incredibly gifted member base, many of whom are very interested in becoming more active, helping to grow and shape our organization.

Moving forward with the doors wide open, it is crucial that the IAI continue evolving as a transparent organization.

IAI members need the ability to become as aware and active within the organization as they choose to be—with ease.  Support can come in ways large and small: through publicly displayed meeting minutes, open-attendance Board of Directors meetings or other methods, such as via Twitter, Directors blogs, etc. An increased transparency of our on-going efforts and activities is something that we can be proud of, and reach out with.

We need to identify new ways to empower our members further by helping them in the field, where it counts the most.  As a dynamic organization of professionals, we do a fantastic job of being at all of the places where we all are supposed to be.  We need to get better at being at the places we currently are not at.

Now is the time to use our membership’s successes to help them open doors into other industries and start reaching out to organizations where the relationships are as untapped as the mutual benefits.

A few introductory approaches to this could include:

• Encouraging our membership to present at other industry conferences; selling is one thing, educating and sharing knowledge on the value of Information Architecture throughout the business world will create true long-term strength.
• Improving upon the established marketing of the organization and help our members “Sell IA”.
• Engaging beyond our members, to the companies who are interested in working with us. These companies need coaching and education that foster understanding common career goals, paths and placement of these roles as pillars of their organizational structure. We can help them “Sell IA” to the companies they work for.
• Expanding IAI outreach to aide and assist the people in our field who are (or will be) new to the workforce. We should start in the college years by speaking to students and counselors.  We need to help them understand what skills companies value, and to help them locate jobs.  We need to coach them on appropriate types of work product and examples to be able to show and highlight experience and growing expertise.  As a mentor, these particular issues strike close to home; many of our members who are new to the workforce are communicating that they are having difficulties finding their first jobs.

The IAI can continue to expand and lead with a clearly defined vision for our future, initiatives to empower our members by providing appropriate marketing, training and tools that meet their needs, and by becoming a more transparent organization that we all have the power to engage and influence.

I hope to be a part of this.

Contact Information
I would be happy to further explore our position in greater detail.  Please feel free to contact me via any of the methods below.

• Twitter:
• http://www.twitter.com/openiai
• http://www.twitter.com/russu
• Join the discussion on Facebook at:
• http://bit.ly/openiai
• LinkedIn:
• http://www.linkedin.com/in/russunger
• I blog at UserGlue UserBlog:
• http://www.userglue.com/blog
• I can be reached via email at:
• russ [at] [this domain]

So, Whatever Happened to that Presentation, Anyway?

Good question.

Fortunately, I’ve got a pretty good answer, too.

I finished the presentation–well, the first portion of the presentation. The more I reviewed my presentation about User Experience Design: An Overview, the more I realized that it’s a pretty “okay” presentation. It’s almost a “corporate” presentation. It has too much information on it–and not enough message.

That presentation is now the Handout for the real presentation, which I’m currently working on, more or less in my spare time–which has dwindled as I’m trying to wrap up a first semester in Business Administration by Monday. You can get this handout (presentation) at from my SlideShare account here:

What is User Experience Design: An Overview

Keep in mind that I target the Advertising industry with my handout (presentation), but I think it can pretty easily apply to a lot of different areas. The choice is obviously not mine, but yours, if you choose to borrow. Please just let me know, eh?

All of that stated, the next steps are fairly simple for me. I’m going to make the presentation a lot more visually appealing to a broader audience–I want the core of the message to stick with the most people. I want the depth of the presentation–the handout–to resonate with the people who are invested enough to require a deeper understanding. I want them to talk to engage me in a deeper conversation that possibly leads to action.

That next version of the presentation is coming from Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds. I urge you to take a look. I’d also recommend checking out the work of Stephen Collins at acidlabs.

I’ll post an update when I can make progress on the much more visual version of this presentation.

For next time: How do we display our “portfolio” as UX Designers?

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

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

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

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

User Experience Design: An Overview

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

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

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

Hey, that sounded like magic, or something!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brand Managers
CREATE
Brand Promises
FULFILLED BY
Brand Experiences

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From there, it’s show time.

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

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

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

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

User Experience Design: An Overview

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

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

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

I surrounded the honeycomb with a circle of Longevity:

I gave Longevity a definition of:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UXD Brings It All Together
[explanation copy missing]

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

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

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

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

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

Am I an Information Architect?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I added the * to further explain that:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I agree, Peter. I agree!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Does that make me a generalist?

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

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

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

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

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