As I write this, I’m not 100% certain, but I think #NewNewTwitter hasn’t yet been alive for 24 hours, at least not to the general population.

As I write this, I need to tell you that my relationship with Twitter is mostly via apps–probably most commonly through YoruFukurou (or NightOwl, if you prefer to translate).

This means that my relationship through twitter is, for the most part, not through the website. And in many cases, not even through Twitter’s own applications. You see, I sort of don’t make twitter a core part of my world these days. I like to skim it, and if I’m somewhere with a #hashtag associated with it, by all means I’ll pay attention, or temporarily add the hashtag to my Summizer iPhone app (this was bought by Twitter ages ago and then “sunsetted” or some other BS term for “assimilated and/or killed”), but really, that’s it.

Twitter is a content stream for me. And it’s neat. And it’s cool to see what some people are doing from time to time, and it’s even self-cool for me to sometimes throw out some crappy attempt at humor. At one point in time, Twitter was all about the lyrics, man, but then everyone else got the Twitter and it was time to call my favorite band a sell-out.

Or at least, it was time to not sweat getting tickets to every show and I no longer needed to say that I was a fan before you even knew who they were. Who give’s a rat’s backside, anyway?

So here’s my review on #NewNewTwitter:

It’s been out less than 24 hours. I looked at the website and I keep being pleasantly surprised at some of the changes in place. I looked at the iPhone app for some minutes on my commuter train this morning on the way to the big city for work and it was cool, and I wondered if some of the decisions were based upon user interviews or data or some Venn Diagram of both, but I didn’t think “holy balls that was stupid!” about anything… yet.

It’s not like #NewNewTwitter broke the model of 140 characters and a stream of information. It’s not like they put in place such changes that I was confused as to what I was looking at, like a location-based thingy earlier this year, that I just stopped using.

#NewNewTwitter didn’t go off the reservation, but it seems like they’re trying to find a way to do more without more actual real estate and without confusing people.

I don’t know if they talked to users. They didn’t talk to *this* user, but that doesn’t mean that they still didn’t. I don’t know that they owe me–or you–that explanation, either. I don’t know if they looked at data of any kind, or weird analytic overlays that tell them that 24 year old men tweet about fast food restaurants at 3p more than any other time of the day.

I don’t care, frankly. That’s on them to make that decision and to figure out if the decision has anything to do with making the app better for whomever they’re trying to serve.

And I’m guessing I’m not their big money audience demographic, and I’m okay with that. You should be, too, because you’d probably not design for you, if you weren’t there.

Maybe the music’s not too loud. Maybe you’re too old.

Like all things, getting used to change will continue to take time. Oh–and Twitter is free. Use it or don’t; and base it on the value you get out of it.

Tomorrow, I may feel different.

After all, 48 hours will have passed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

That label is, sadly, “developer”.

Yeah, I said it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Chase

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you for your consideration.

Karl Fast is one of this guys you wish you knew better (unless you already know him really well, in which case you’re just really happy about it). I’ve had the chance over the course of the past year or so to have a couple of great, informative chats with Karl, and I’m certainly better off for it. In addition, he’s a professor, which means that he’s putting himself up in front of a group of people on an almost daily basis, which means that I’m pretty sure he’s got some great advice when it comes to presenting. Let’s learn from Karl, shall we?

How do you create a new presentation, specifically in the conceptual phase?
I walk because walking helps me think. It’s the best method I’ve found for thinking through the ways I might approach a presentation. It’s a trick I use to tackle conceptually thorny problems. Good presentations fall into that category. Actually, most of the creative challenges in my life fall into that category.

While walking I start a monologue in my head. As I get more engaged in the problem this monologue builds. Eventually it spills out and I begin talking out loud. The voice in my head always sounds brilliant and flawless. Talking out loud helps me recognize when I’m not expressing myself clearly. Our culture associates people who talk to themselves with a need to be medicated, so I prefer to walk in places where I’m unlikely to meet other people. Given the car-centric nature of the modern world this is easier than it might seem. 

After walking and talking I move to pen and paper. This is a process of jotting down short phrases, key concepts, and stray thoughts and then stringing them together into a narrative. Jotting is how I take the meandering ideas from my walk, identify the conceptual landmarks, and bash them into a coherent whole. My notebook usually looks quite messy at this stage with words and phrases stitched together to indicate flow and relationships. The result wouldn’t make sense to anyone else, but it makes sense to me.

This is when I finally open PowerPoint or Keynote and start working on the visual components for the presentation. My jottings are the source material. There is a lot of iteration, but the final slides mostly follow my jottings. The slides start as text. Then I minimize the text, or eliminate it altogether, and add the necessary visuals.

I strive for the minimum set of slides to convey my message. Once I have a complete deck, I reduce it by thirty to fifty percent. My presentations are mostly about next-generation interfaces so I can rarely get away no slides. But I can always cut out a vast swath of my slides.

As I become a better speaker, I have found that I am more likely to give a good talk when I focus on the words and the art of speaking, rather than the visuals. All great speakers can hold an audience rapt with words. The visuals can help, but I’ve never seen a great talk based on great visuals and weak words. I’ve seen plenty of great talks with great words and weak visuals, or no visuals at all.

This sounds like a fairly neat linear process. It’s not. It’s actually quite messy and highly iterative. Messiness is creativity.

How do you prepare for the presentation once you have your content in place?
I run it through in my head a few times. I don’t speak in front of a mirror. But I will talk out certain parts to myself. The introduction is one of those parts. I always want the first few minutes to be smooth. This allows me to quickly get into the flow, and it’s a critical part of the talk for connecting with the audience. 

Once I have worked out all the details I usually set the talk aside and don’t worry about it much. If the talk has a lot of pre-written material—more script than slides—then I will time it and make sure I’m within the time limit. However, in most cases, I just set it aside until the talk.

I wish I could say that I always finish my talks ahead of schedule. It doesn’t happen as often as I would like. But even when I’m putting something together at the last minute, I have still been working through the talk in my mind—walking to and from the office—for at least a week. I’ve been jotting as part of that process. So I always have something to work from.

What are your “pre-presentation” rituals that help you get ready?  Any rituals during the presentation that keep you in  the flow?
I go through the presentation sometime within the hour leading up the talk. This usually involves three things.

• First, I flip through the entire deck, if I have one, to refresh my memory about the overall structure of the talk.
• Second, I rehearse the opening part of my talk. I don’t rehearse it all. I simply start doing my talk and stop after a few minutes. This is my main trick getting into the flow. I want to engage the audience immediately, so I try to memorize at least the opening segment.
• Third, I go over parts of the talk that I want to emphasize, that have specific phrases I want to say, or function as conceptual landmarks around which I have mentally structured the talk. These are usually transition points where I am ending one section and starting another, or summing up a series of points and stepping back to emphasize the central idea. I want to be clear in my mind about what those parts are.

How do you recover from losing your “flow”–when you’re in the middle of a presentation? 
I pause. I know I can say nothing for at least ten seconds before anyone will start to get nervous and wonder if something has gone wrong. That is usually plenty of time to gather my thoughts and move one.

I’ve never found flow to be much of a problem when giving a talk. Not if I have prepared well. My preparation is all about articulating the jumbled words in my head and corralling them into a meaningful sequence. By the time it comes to speak the whole speech is in my head and losing flow isn’t an issue. If it does happen, it’s minor, and a brief pause to collect my thoughts always puts me back on track.

How have you combated stage fright in the past and/or how do you combat it today?  What are the techniques you use–not the whole “see the audience in their underwear” stuff, but the real tricks that make it work for you.
The only time I remember having stage fright was in junior high, when I gave my first presentation to a group of peers. I was probably 12 years old. After my first few talks, my nervousness evaporated. I haven’t worried about stage fright since. I’m sure I have various physiological reactions—elevated heart rate or dilated pupils—but nothing that I would call stage fright.

Curiously, I used to get extremely nervous during Q&A sessions, not as the speaker, but as an audience member who wanted to ask the speaker a question. When I thought of a question, instead of listening to the talk, I would mull over how best to express it. I would obsess over possible phrasings and miss the rest of the talk. Eventually I learned to write down my question and redirect my attention to the talk. In most cases the speaker would answer the question later, someone else would ask a similar question, or I would decide the question wasn’t that important. My real insight was realizing that most Q&A sessions are boring. So now, if I still have a question, I approach the speaker after the talk and try to engage in a one-on-one discussion.

About Karl Fast
Karl Fast is a professor of User Experience Design at Kent State University. He is a founding member of the Information Architecture Institute. He researches the messy nature of complex information work and the epistemic benefits of interacting with visual abstractions. He’s also Canadian.

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.

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.

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!

The Back Story

The day before Thanksgiving, the family was all loaded-up into the (sigh) minivan and as I started backing out of the driveway, my wife punched the magical button on the GPS that would get the trip routing started.

We both looked at the estimated time of arrival and took deep sighs, knowing that we were in for a long trip with a 20 month old and a 6 year old in the back.  This isn’t the type of trip we look forward to as everyone gets restless.

Fast forward a few hours.  My wife and I both look at the GPS unit again, and we both kind of sigh out loud.  We both started to talk about the same thing at the same time–this damn GPS is accurate.

Accuracy is Good!

Absolutely.  However, in my Trailblazer’s GPS, it’s frequently (translation: always) not accurate.  So, after driving for a little while, the estimated time of arrival / length of time left to drive shifts enough to feel like we’re “making good time”.  In fact, I could argue that every time I (allegedly) (unknowingly) take some liberties with the speed limit, I feel as if I’ve accomplished something when the time shifts to my favor.

Who’s Fault is This?

At first, I wanted to blame Microsoft.

Why not, right? Everyone likes to blame Microsoft.

We’ve all seen that Windows file download / transfer dialog box that starts out telling you that you’ve got 18 years, 4 months and 12 hours remaining that quickly jumps to 45 minutes and then continues to shift as something magical happens to the various connections to your machine.

It’s annoying.

But, if I’m being honest, my Mac does the same damn thing. The various flavors of Linux I’ve used have done it, too.

So, it’s the fault of those who create operating systems?

Or, it’s the fault of those who simply create mathematic formulas. I think.

I’m not sure it matters, really.  It’s just that Garmin does one hell of a job in getting it right.

And that’s frustrating.

So What?

Exactly! So what does this have to do with anything?

Part of what’s been interesting to me about this is that I’ve been frustrated at not being able to beat the clock, or beat the game and arrive ahead of schedule. I looked forward to beating the clock and arriving “ahead of time”.

Look, it’s my quirk, but I highly doubt I’m alone here. We all like to win, even the little subtle victories like not stopping for restroom breaks so you can beat someone else’s best time.

Psychologically, each of us wants to win. We want to beat the machine. We want to be better and smarter than “that damn device in the dash”. We want to beat the computer at chess.

It’s how we’re wired.  Survival of the fittest? Kick the ass of SkyNet? All the above?

I don’t know, just yet.  I’m still pondering this, and I know it’s not new–the “winning” aspect is part of building engaging design.  We don’t want to dumb something down so much that it turns away our audience; instead, we want to provide them with enough stuff to figure out and learn along the way that they’re feeling successful and intelligent as they move through.  Perhaps this is part of what Stephen Anderson calls “Designing for Seductive Interactions”.

Perhaps it’s slightly different.  I don’t know yet, and like I said, I’m sure it’s already out there, so I welcome some direction and feedback here from the smart folks that you are.

Thanks!

I actually cringed as I typed that just now–that particular part of form validation is pretty annoying (to me, at least). I find it amusing that shift-tab, copy, tab, paste as a method for handling doesn’t cross anyone’s mind when creating these types of “validations” in forms.

There were a number of responses to the thread, but Steve Krug (yeah, that Steve Krug) put out the notion that he suspects most of the email address typos may originate in hasty typing, and they end up getting submitted because the user doesn’t realize that they’ve made a mistake.  Krug identifies that it’s possible, from his perspective, that the font used in many forms is fairly small and that makes it so that errors don’t actually jump out at the users.

Krug also suggested that it may be possible to help users catch the errors by displaying the email address in larger, clear monospaced font–possibly next to the or below the field where the typing occurs.

This stuck with me, but I wasn’t quite sold.

I pinged my friend Jonathan “Yoni” Knoll to see if he’d loan me about 15 minutes of his time to prototype something.  Lucky me, he had just that much time to spare.

We (and by we, I mean Yoni) put together a really quick prototype form–it’s important to note that we didn’t put much more than 15-20 minutes into this, and this is only to see how the form “feels”.  It can grow a number of different ways, styles and placements of elements can certainly be shifted around to your heart’s content.

The form looks pretty, uh, form-y:

Note at the bottom of the form the tiny little text letting you know that you should check your email address. In reality, I’m pretty sure most of us wouldn’t read it.

Also note that there was no “Repeat Email Address” text field in the form.

Instead, once you fill out your email address and tab away from it…

Notice that now my email address appears right before the Submit button.  Krug initially suggested that the re-display of the email address might work best in a larger font next to the field where you entered in your email address.

The way this placement works now, in the prototype version that Yoni and I worked-up, the last thing you see before you submit is your own email address.  I think this works particularly well in longer forms–it gives you the opportunity to re-check the most important piece of information in the form (to marketers, at least) right before you hit submit.  The little “edit” link jumps you back to the field where you can make edits quickly and continue on with the submit action.

See this live in action here: http://infinityplusone.com/form-test.html

Remember: this is a prototype.  One of the reasons that the edit link is to the left of the email address is because, after a couple attempts at placing it, this made the most sense to Yoni since email addresses are variable and that could cause the placement of the link to not always be in the exact same place.  Your mileage may vary; something may work better for you.

The important piece of this prototype is seeing how it works in action, and how it potentially solves for having the “Repeat Email Address” field in your forms.

Tinker with it–and let us know what you think!

Everyone–and I do mean everyone–on this team of exceptional individuals–has been burning the midnight oil to bring you an outstanding program at a gorgeous facility.  Oh, and at a price that is reasonable given our economic climate.  I am more than a little proud of this conference, and I really hope you’ll join us!

IDEA 2009 runs September 15 and 16 in Toronto where the world’s foremost thinkers and practitioners will share big ideas that inspire and practical solutions that improve the way people’s lives converge with technology.

Whether you’re a designer, strategist, writer, UX professional, IA, or working in anything interactive, you should attend IDEA 2009.

Create the future now

You see it at Starbucks. People gather, but they don’t talk with each other. They communicate with their networked public. Facebook could be considered the fourth largest country in the world, yet it’s dwarfed by the over 300 million Chinese who use Qzone.

IDEA 2009 explores how to design these experiences. From the psychology to create more loyal users, to the design strategies and practices that bridge the physical and virtual world. This new world is already becoming a reality for your clients, employers, and customers.

Speakers you need to see

Social and experience design isn’t your typical design issue. IDEA gathers leaders from a multitude of disciplines and perspectives to provide inspiration and practical take-aways on creating valuable experiences. Some of the speakers include:

• Jeff Dachis – CEO, Dachis Group, cofounder of Razorfish
• Christina Wodtke – Principal Instigator at LinkedIn
• Mary Newsom – Associate Editor, Charlotte Observer
• Michael Fassnacht – Executive Vice President, Worldwide Chief Strategy Officer, Draftfcb
• Christian Crumlish- Curator, Yahoo! Design Pattern Library (and co-author of the forthcoming Designing Social Interfaces)
• Luke Wroblewski – Director, Product Ideation & Design, Yahoo! Inc.
• Stephen P. Anderson – Product Strategy and Design Consultant
• Leisa Reichelt – Design Researcher & User Experience Designer working with Drupal’s open source community on Drupal 7
• Thomas Malaby – Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
• Erin Malone – Principal, Tangible UX (and co-author of the forthcoming Designing Social Interfaces)

Beyond the speakers, many of today’s brightest minds will attend and share what they know. In the intimate setting of the MaRS Centre, you’ll have the opportunity to exchange ideas and connect with leading practitioners from all over the world.

Built for today’s economy

IDEA presents the greatest combination of accessible industry leaders, valuable topics, and companies looking for professionals in the social and experience design space. You can talk directly to representatives from Critical Mass, Mad*Pow, Sapient, Usability Matters, Rosenfeld Media, and more.

All the information you need to know about the program, speakers, and sponsors can be found at the IDEA 2009 conference site. Hope to see you there!

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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