A Project Guide to UX Design: Why We Wrote the Book

This is the unedited, unabridged version of what started out as the introduction to the book, but a lot of it got edited out–it made sense to do so, but I think the story is worth telling. –Russ

I’ve been a mentor for the Information Architecture Institute for a couple of years now, and I started to notice a pattern (go figure) amongst the people that I was helping.  Most were either in positions where they were having difficulty landing jobs or they were not aligned with the expectations of prospective employers.  Some had outstanding education, but not always enough practical application of their UX design skills in a project-based setting to help them find ways to become engaged.

Then, I attended the Information Architecture Summit in 2008 and met a lot of new people, including a few people who stopped by the IA Institute’s Mentoring Booth.  The same themes seemed to resonate.  As I spoke to more and more people, it made sense to me that a book like this could be useful to many in the UX design field.

While at the IA Summit, I skipped a session and attended a focus group-like session with Lou Rosenfeld (Rosenfeld Media) and Kevin Cheng to discuss Kevin’s upcoming book “See What I Mean” that will teach you the process of using comics to communicate ideas.  My mind kicked into overdrive and I recall sitting there, trying to add value to the conversation while trying to jot notes onto my phone for future reference.

As is usual when people return from a conference that they got a lot out of, I returned back to Chicago exhausted—and fully energized and ready to take on the world again.  I reviewed my notes and I started creating an outline of what the project process has looked like to me over the years.

Out of the blue, either Carolyn Chandler or myself sent an email to the other, and the topic of my outline came up.  I shared it.  Carolyn sent a response with her own views and opinions.  The outline was revised.  Then descriptions started being created so that the outline made sense to us—and to other people who were kind enough to review what we were creating. Eventually—and by eventually, I mean a few months into the book with Peachpit—we came up with our final outline that became the book that is in your hands today.  Instead of trying to tackle the project alone, I found a very willing and capable co-author who was up to the task.

It was clear to me that Carolyn and I had a degree of overlap and very clear areas where one had more depth and focus than the other.  As you’ll see from the chapters, it was clear to us who fit where.  We set out to create a book to help you move through many of the steps of the project process, including some additional information to help you understand just what the heck the project process is, and a few other morsels that should help you if you are setting out to do this on your own as an independent consultant or a freelancer.

As you’ll see in many chapters of this book, we’re not trying to be everything to all people.  You’ll also see that we’re trying to provide you with the core information and knowledge that you should have to perform many of the duties you’ll be assigned as a UX designer.  You’ll see that beyond our own examples, we’re quick to provide you with examples that help you identify ways to jumpstart the basic materials and allow you to mash-up the information and create something newer, better, or even more suited to your own purposes.

We hope that we’ve done a decent job of articulating that this is a pretty good project approach toward UX design based upon the collaboration of a couple of people who received input from other people to get to where we are today.

We’re nothing, if not constantly trying to learn and improve <whatever we do>, with each iteration.  It’s why, to a degree, we’re in this field.

Welcome to “A Project Guide to UX Design”.

(Coming in March, 2009 on Peachpit Press’ Voices That Matter series)

(Check out the Facebook Group, too!)

Experiencing the Misconceptions of User Experience Design

Information Architecture Institute’s Advisor and UX “it girl” extraordinaire, Whitney Hess authored an article on Mashable yesterday that’s gotten a lot of buzz.  My description of Whitney isn’t facetious; she does a lot for our community to expand awareness and help make splashes where they aren’t being made.

We could all take a page from her book, frankly.

Sometime around Thanksgiving, I got a twitter Direct Message from Whit asking me what I thought was “the biggest misconception in UXD”.

I chuckled because I’d been working through this for a very long time, and I’d been having a number of conversations with Matthew Milan about this very same topic and how I really believe that we sell ourselves short by locking ourselves into “just” the user.

Whitney’s quote from me in the article as follows:

…just about the user

---

Russ Unger, experience design strategist, likes to say that the biggest misconception of UX design is the “U.” “There are a set of business objectives that are needing to be met—and we’re designing to that, as well,” he explains. “We just can’t always do what is best for the users. We have to try to make sure that we are presenting an overall experience that can meet as many goals and needs as possible for the business and the users.”As user experience designers we have to find the sweet spot between the user’s needs and the business goals, and furthermore ensure that the design is on brand.

Whit did a great job of distilling it down; I didn’t expect that what I had sent her would be carved in stone, but I definitely feel that the lengthier version gives a bit more insight and further explains my perspective (and as I mentioned to her, gives me something to blog about, too!).

I sent Whitney the following response:

Biggest misconception?

One of the biggest misconceptions I see is that people are getting too deep into “User” Experience Design.  That is, most times, we are solving a business problem and wrapping something useful and usable around it. There are a set of business objectives that are needing to be met—and we’re designing to that, as well.  In many cases, this forces “User” Experience Designers to choose between the lesser of evils and not really put forth what might be considered (by them) as the best possible solution.  I believe any of us in the field could nitpick on any site or application and make a snap judgment—but we would not know what business objective forced that design decision.

As an example:  I once worked for a large media company that identified banner ads as a revenue stream.  This required a large “island” ad to be placed on the page, and forgive me for even saying this, above the fold (not my requirement).  Some designers rebelled against this, but the way I saw this was that there is an ad on a page that had the potential to bring in enough revenue to pay multiple salaries each year—that’s ultimately a good thing, right?

I see us as Experience Designers, who truly try to provide what is best for a user—while making sure business objectives are met.  Unfortunately, we just can’t always do what is best for the users, so we have to try to make sure that we are presenting an overall experience that can meet as many goals and needs as possible for the business and the users.

Whitney edited this down to fit into her pretty lengthy article–which, by the way, had my name listed amongst people that I’m fortunate enough to be able to say that I’ve met, I’ve had conversations with, I’ve become friends with and who are my heroes in the industry. Author, of course, included, and ranking right up there near the top.

I’m more than a little honored to be amongst those people listed, and I’m flattered to have given a response that was considered insightful enough to be listed.

But, I have to say, I very specifically meant that the U–the USER part–of User Experience Design is one of the misconceptions that I see.

We don’t always have the fortune of working for the Users. We sometimes work for the Business requirements and the business objectives.  We are creating experiences for their users that are compelling the users to buy something.

Look, we’re a cost to companies, and they see it as a needed cost because we have the potential to save them money downstream by working toward the best interests of their users–to meet goals and objectives of the company.

We’re working with all that stuff. We’re working to simplify processes. We sometimes have to pick the lesser of many evils–and we do that, to a degree, for the user.

And the user isn’t always a customer, either.

cus·tom·er

1. One that buys goods or services.
2. Informal An individual with whom one must deal: a tough customer.

That’s far too narrow of a focus–for me.

Sometimes, the user is just a visitor. Sometimes, we identify business processes and/or communication processes (think to yourself how the editorial process might work for a large-scale CMS). Sometimes it’s a consumer–and that doesn’t have to be a customer. Sometimes the user is someone looking for information, and you can rationalize that however you’d like, but it’s not a customer.

Otherwise, it would be often called Customer Experience Design.

From where I sit, and from where I’ll be sitting soon, it’s Experience Design, Experience Strategy and/or Experience Planning. Who we do it for…  That may vary.

We’re always going to try to connect the dots with as much efficiency and clarity as possible, and that’s what is important.

IDEA 2008: An Interview with Andrew Hinton

My second interview with a speaker for the IDEA Conference is with Andrew Hinton. The IDEA Conference is in Chicago from October 7-8 (just in case you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past few months–or in case this is the first time you’ve ever seen anything I’ve written, as an alternative).

Andrew Hinton, on the other hand, spends most of his time in the Philadelphia-area. I’ve mentioned a few times–to Andrew and others–that he looks astonishingly just like his photo. In this day and age, there are a lot of photos out there that often capture a best side of people that doesn’t seem to exist, but Andrew’s pretty captures exactly him.

It’s really not that big of deal, and I’m not sure why this has amused me for so long, so I’ll apologize and move on to more interesting things–like my interview with Andrew.

For starters, you should know that Andrew Hinton is one of those guys that I often refer to as “so damn smart it that the things he easily discusses often makes my head hurt”.  That’s a compliment, and I consider myself lucky to get to work on this project for IDEA.

Andrew is also a father, and from brief side conversations with him since I’ve had the fortune to make his acquaintance, it is very clear that that particular part of his life is the most important and the part he cherishes the most.  Parenthood is difficult enough with all the rest of life getting in the way, and to be good at being a good parent and finding ways in a world that constantly tries to divide our attention, it can be next to impossible.  This is not only one of the biggest compliments I can pass along, and it is also reason enough for him to earn your respect.

And if you’re fortunate enough to get to see him present, he will sufficiently handle the rest.

I feel as if I’ve lauded enough praise, so now I’ll tease the interview that will be live on Boxes & Arrows later.

RU: What would you recommend to people who are just getting started in the field and who are interested in becoming more active in the industry—or who just want to follow in your footsteps.

AH: It means a lot to get involved in your community of practice. You don’t realize what an impact it makes on people around you, but it’s huge. Find some problem that needs solving that tickles your fancy, some skill or service that the community could benefit from that you get a kick out of working on, and dive in. Lurking is fine at times, but if you want to be “active in the industry” you have to engage. You can engage the conversation at any level, as long as you have a sense of humor & perspective about it. And read all kinds of stuff—don’t just read “design” crap all the time. We all breathe each other’s air way too much, and it’s important to get ideas from outside the UX bubble.

As for my footsteps, I don’t recommend them—mainly because I don’t know that I could’ve walked those steps on purpose if I’d tried. Which is to say, follow what obsesses and excites you, whatever crazy path that might take you down, and there’s probably somebody somewhere willing to pay you for doing it well.

Andrew Hinton will be speaking at the IDEA Conference on the topic of “Context”. You’ll probably want to be in Chicago from October 7-8 to learn more about that.

First 30 commenters get invited to the IDEA BBQ FTW.

Book 'em, Dano

I’m writing a book.

About User Experience Design.

For Peachpit Press.

With my long-time friend Carolyn Chandler.

(I had started this blog post with the background first, but let’s face it, the news is better than the back story!)

Ever since the IA Summit back in March, my life has been an absolute whirlwind. No single event has energized me more and excited me more about the career that I am in. There are so many kind, talented people in this field–there’s never a loss for someone willing to offer input and/or advice–and only out of the interest in helping a colleague succeed.

It makes me feel lucky even to be in this field.

If I had a nickel for every time I sent out a private message to someone on twitter, shot an email off to someone I’ve never met but have bonded with through the various social, etc. tools out there or sent an IM or text message to all the other folks, I’d be more than willing to buy us all our very own chumby.

The good news–for me–is that I’ve not had to pay those nickels. The bad news–for you–is that I’ve never gotten paid those nickels. So, you know… No chumby for you.

It was a couple of months back that I sat down and started to put together some of the thoughts that were banging through my head. I had been mentoring a few people through the IA Institute and there were some common themes bubbling up and they seemed to be in line with some of my own experiences. As a mentor, I hope to guide my mentees through some of the challenges as best as I can, hopefully avoiding some of unfortunate situations that I’ve been through.

Frankly, I’ve made a lot of mistakes. Some embarassing. Some financially unpleasant. Some caused bridges to be burned. Some bridges did a fine enough job burning themselves without any real help from me. Some were filled with a lot of disappointment.

In all cases, I made sure that I learned with every failure, no matter how microscopic and no matter how much it banged up and bruised my ego. There were a lot of times where I questioned whether or not I had what it takes to be in the business of business at all.

Like most things in life, however, tomorrow is always a new day, and all of those heartbreaking challenges led me to new lessons and new opportunities, and eventually, those painful situations started to be a thing of the past. Don’t get me wrong, there are always going to be bumps in the roads, but the bumps are a lot more managable these days and I’ve got an arsenal of all those experiences to help me out.

I thought that, much like some of the mentees I’ve worked with, many other people might share a lot of the challenges that I have had. I thought that, perhaps, I could spare them some of that pain, embarassment, bridge burning and even some of that financial discomfort.

I’m a nice guy, right?

(Yeah, well, take that with the humor it was intended with, please!)

I started putting together the outline for a book based upon those experiences and lessons learned. My thoughts were pretty simple–put this all into a nice little tidy package where someone could open it up and jump to any section and get the right information that they would need to appropriately arm themselves to handle the UX task at hand.

As I was writing the outline, I sent a networking email to Carolyn and we got into the “What’s up?” game with each other. I ended up sharing my outline with her and she had some fantastic feedback. Frankly, she also added a couple of ideas that were beyond my comfort zone and experience, but that also fit perfectly between the covers of the book that I was thinking of.

Carolyn is kind, brilliant, and generous to a fault. She offered to step-up and take on authoring challenges of some of the chapters for me–out of the kindness of her heart, and out of interest in being involved in such a cool project.

I would be foolish to turn down such a generous offer, so I didn’t. I didn’t stop there; we had been brilliantly playing off of each other in the back-and-forth of the outline, we had a built-in respect and sort of a nurturing and guiding toward each other’s content.

It was pretty cool and pretty exciting to process to be a part of.

So I asked her to simply be the co-author of the book.

She accepted.

We started putting together an outline and started going back and forth between some peers, asking questions, doing the research, making connections and, as of right now, we have officially signed with Peachpit Press to write a book that was tentatively titled:

User Experience Design for Small Teams with Large Responsibilities

We’re pretty sure that’s going to change (try saying it 10x fast!), but the book itself is underway. We’re going to cover a lot of a UXD process and a couple of other fun things that will help guide individuals who are new to the field, new to freelancing or who need some guidance through a project.

I am very excited about this opportunity and very lucky to have such an awesome co-author. I would also be remiss if I didn’t thank a bunch of people (who are not Carolyn), in no particular order: Bill DeRouchey, Christina Wodtke, Dan Brown, Lou Rosenfeld, Steve Baty, Donna Spencer, Wil Wheaton, Xian Crumlish, Mario Bourque, David Armano, Troy Lucht, Tom Napper, Brad Simpson, Kevin Cheng, Chris Miller and Kurt Karlenzig. All of these folks (and I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone; apologies if I have!) happily offered advices, reviewed notes, kicked me in the seat of my pants and/or criticized and praised where it was needed just to get this to point.

I can’t imagine what they’re on the hook for next, but when you’ve got even a moment of time to bend the ear of folks of this caliber, you should consider yourself pretty blessed.

I know I do.

It’s Time For Forever Web: Forever Learning, Changing, Learning, Improving

Sub-title: Beta is BS and Users Deserve Better

“Always in Beta” is one of those latest phrases that does a really good job of getting under my skin. Beta implies to me that something is purposefully not yet complete and that there are going to be some mistakes.

Some companies, like Adobe, do a really good job of utilizing a beta release program to snuff out issues that real users find and that are not in a “control” group of their selection.

That is a good thing.

However, launching a website and slapping a “beta” label on it often seems like an excuse to put garbage on the web very rapidly (in order to prove a business model, have a prototype, start to engage users, show to VCs, etc.). A “live” beta online often seems to be a mash-up of incomplete thoughts or a good reason to shrug shoulders and let issues fall off like water on a duck. Live beta mistakes are often paid for, in spades, by the users.

That is a bad thing.

We need to rid ourselves of excuses, take ownership and admit to users that, while we are relentlessly pursuing wickedly-awesome user experiences, we can make mistakes. Users need to know this and in return, they should realize that all mistakes made in the pursuit of a good user experience will ultimately lead to a correction of the mistakes down the road.

That, however, is not a beta, nor an excuse. It’s an honest, persistent state of being.

If You Build It Poorly, They Will Leave

We’ve all heard it before. There is a really good chance that many of us have said it before: If the user experience is bad, users will leave.

We’ve said that users who cannot find something are users who believe “it” does not exist.

We’ve said that we have to engage our users. We have to test our designs. We have to get to know our users to find out what makes them tick. We have to be committed to our users.

We have to do all of those things—OR ELSE.

Frankly, we say a lot of stuff and we stomp around with our “clients just don’t get it” hats on and the attitudes that all of this stuff is always right.

Maybe—just maybe—we’re not entirely right.

In fact, I think we are missing the mark more than just a little.

Crazy Talk? I Don’t Think So.

First, there are somethings we need to acknowledge and, in some cases, come to terms with.

We, as User Experience Practitioners, are NOT entirely right with all of the things that we say, all of the claims that we make and all of the preaching that we do. Even so, there is some good news…

Clients are starting to get it. It has been a slow coming, but more and more, we have jobs that are in demand. We have clients who want to make “things” better and more usable. We have clients and companies that think that an “Information Architect” or a “User Experience <something>” or a variation of those titles is something that is essential to their core process and that they need to hire those types in order to start things moving in the right direction.

Sure, often times they think we’re the cure, but much like launching a website without any sort of promotional efforts, we cannot simply happen in a vacuum, right?

Right.

There is a shift. Conference attendance appears to be up. Conferences appear to be happening every week and weekend in cities across the globe.

The tide is turning.

Value—or perceived value—is beginning to be majorly associated to User Experience Practitioners.

We are in demand.

And a lot of us are arrogant.

And a lot of us think that whatever we think is right.

Which is even more arrogant.

The User is ALWAYS Right

Nope.

Neither is your UXD Team

I am so sorry to tell you this, but the user is not always right. Of course, I’m also not naïve enough to actually think that I’m the first to put this copy. I’m not making an effort to be controversial—there is no controversy about it. It’s a fact—and even though we strive to provide users with what (we think) they want, they often do not even know what they need. For more case studies on this, well, look around the space you are currently occupying. Nearly everything in that space around you has an 800 number associated with it to a call center that deals with all kinds of customer requests (thank you, Mark Dronen). There are a lot of calls received to those call centers from people who need some assistance or support—and a lot of calls are also receive from people who have misused the product (let’s leave intention out of this for the moment).

Users often are the culprits of innovation as the mis-use something that was intended for another purpose. In the case of Flickr, companies may adapt. In the case of someone trying to use a hammer as a weapon, well, it’s not supposed to be a weapon. So, you know, the user is not always right.

Obviously, however, neither are clients.

Neither are you

Neither am I.

Can you swallow that? You’d better. At the core of all of this is something that we, as User Experience Practitioners, live in every minute of our professional lives:

The User Experience Never Ends

We all agree on that, right? We’ve all had someone ask us this in an interview as they’re trying to be clever and weed out the (ahem) fakers amongst us. If you have not experienced this, well, maybe hiring companies are finally figuring it out that we can all guess the correct answer to the question by now.

So, if the User Experience never ends, then we need to come to grips with the notion that the design process never ends, right?

Right.

It also means that we are forever striving to meet any number of objectives that are allegedly for our users and also happen to meet business goals and/or objectives, make stakeholders happy and make the people who sign the checks continue to sign those checks.

It means that, while we serve many masters and we must ALWAYS remain ever-diligent to our user goals/needs/objectives (and, ahem, that’s our one true master, right? Right.) and we do our best to accurately interpret them—nay, sell them—to our clients to deliver what is often perceived as a lesser evil, or that which is least wrong. Right?

Right.

As long as we’re being honest here, let’s remember that we’re very much steeped in the world of throw-away work (or “tries”) and iterations (“near misses”) that get us to an eventual sign-off (“conditional” or “x level” of “approval”) in order to get us to the point where prototypes (more “tries”) can lead to revisions (“post-approval enhancements”) prior to ever getting beyond development (“serious commitment”) and going live (“really serious approval”) where real users will give us real feedback that we will (should) turn into enhancements and improvements (“deviations from our best guesses and influenced decisions”) which can lead to another new project (“try, try again”).

Whew.

So What?

Now that’s the big question that should always be asked—and answered. No one should be surprised this heading is here as long as I am the author.

Everything we do when it comes to user research and user testing is done from a sampling. We do this to make best assumptions as to what behaviors are and what feedback is that can drive our projects/products to being the best that they can do for the largest possible audience.

So, we have to admit and be willing to accept a few things:

Some of those users are wrong. We need to either convert them, provide them with something that is useful to them or we simply need to find the right way to get rid of them. Sometimes users are not right for whatever it is that we are doing, and that’s okay.

We have to be willing to lose some users. We have to accept that we cannot be all things to all users and any change will bring about a risk in losing users. Because of this, we have to set an expectation to users that we are working very hard for them; we are evangelizing a never-ending user experience on their behalf and, by gosh, sometimes we have to get it wrong to get it right.

We have to get companies to admit that, along the way, there may be some mis-steps and there may be some mistakes and there may be some things that tested well but fail upon delivery. We have to get companies to talk about the fact that they are actively striving themselves to try and meet the moving target of user needs and that sometimes something goes a little wrong.

We have to talk about it. Our community needs to be able to educate our clients that this will happen.

We have to get clients to talk about it. Clients have to not only admit all of this to themselves, but to their users, as well. And no, they cannot call it BETA. Or my head will explode.

And we have to get customers to understand that one mis-step—maybe even two, or three or “x” mis-step isn’t a deal breaker. It is not enough to leave a company, a brand, a product for.

In fact, an acknowledged mis-step is all the more reason to stay with a company, a brand, a product.

Why?

Because, in my humblest of opinions, any company that is willing to make mistakes—and claim those mistakes as their own—in order to make “something” better for its users, is a company that a user should want to be connected to.

Really.

Keep Doing What You’re Doing. And More.

So, dear User Experience community, keep up the good work of educating your clients and evangelizing the never-ending UX Lifecycle. You’re doing a great job and I’m right there beside you in the thick of it all everyday.

(Really—I am!)

Do not forget, however, to educate your users. Help them understand that improvements and enhancements (or modifications, adjustments, tweaks, etc.) are being done their behalf.

Help them understand that we, and our clients, are learning from them and that every engagement they have with our clients is an engagement that we are all learning from—for them.

We may will make mistakes

We may make a left at Albequerque when we should have taken a right.

We may really, really make some wrong decisions on their behalf.

But it’s on their behalf, and that is important—because if we weren’t willing to make mistakes on their behalf, we would not be willing to learn from them so that we can better serve them.

We are constantly in flux, Some places claim to be “always in beta”. That’s lame—the intention may be to put out the message as I have been describing, but it’s also an excuse to never deliver a complete thought to users, and that is not what this is about.

Users are not stupid

Live Beta is the lie that is used to “go live” with mistakes and incomplete thoughts. It is an excuse to let someone else, sometimes users, write the requirements. It is a scapegoat that ensures that no one has to fully take the blame for an idea gone wrong. It’s “beta”, after all.

(There is a caveat here—some companies, like Adobe, Microsoft and others engage in live beta product releases that are successful and that are close to completion. They get a pass for certain cases.)

And to clarify: Beta releases are for a select group or for a select period of time–or both.  Mini-releases and updates are just that: mini-releases and updates. They do not constitute a beta, they constitute making improvements, enhancements and updates.  They fix something broken.  The beta should be over by then, so let’s just stop the lie.

Forever Web is the truth we use to let users know that we have though through all that we’ve learned and we’ve navigated the numerous corporate political battlefields to put forth the best that we can deliver. Forever Web let’s our users know that we are willing to make the mistakes on their behalf to move closer and closer to providing the best experience.

Oh, and that we’re going to keep doing it as long as we’re around.

User Experience Design for Brands on the Web – So What?

While the world is off bandwagoning on blog posts about Twitter and how much of an influence/frustration it is, I wanted to get back to the root of some things. I’ve been troubled a lot lately by just how bad it seems that web (online) experiences for brands are failing the consumers. The amount of money wasted on ignorance, well, I just don’t know.

As every good marketer should know–from Marketing 101–it is very important that you maintain a brand, or an extension of it. This means that you want people to not only use your product or service, but that you want them to see a benefit from it, and ultimately continue to use it in the future.

I think we should all agree that websites are an extension of any brand. Right?

Right.

Good. Now with that in mind, how do you maintain a website? (Let me make this clear right now: you don’t hire a webmaster and have him or her make updates for you or fix/update code or whatever. That’s not the right answer in this context.)

Since we know how to maintain a brand, then maintaining a website-the extension of our brand–the we know that we want to keep people coming back to it, keep them using it, attached to it, etc. Don’t forget me when I’m gone… (Thank you, Glass Tiger)

This seems pretty basic to me, and I’m a pretty basic guy. I’d expect that a range of people, from a VP of Marketing all the way down to First Year Marketing/Business Student, should be able to grasp it as well, right?

Right.

So, again, a website should be an extension of a brand, and we should constantly maintain the extension–just like we maintain the brand itself.

Now we’re all on the same page.

This means that your website–heck, even your entire online experience, should be one that keeps people coming back. Maybe that means you have a game. Maybe it means you offer some form community. Maybe it means that you constantly add new, relevant content. Maybe it means that you sponsor promotions. Maybe it means that you offer coupons. Maybe it means something wildly different than that. You get to decide, unless you’re so motivated to get ahold of me and invest in my time to help you with brainstorming and ideation, but I’m not trying to sell you on anything other than the wake-up call here.

Don’t limit yourself to your website; maybe it means you have a Facebook AND MySpace presence, and maybe, like Kids in the Hall and Psych, you offer interesting updates to your captive audience–and as an added bonus, the audience has the ability to interact with each other. These are both decent examples of brands that keep people in the loop and make them feel like they get a benefit for claiming that they are “fans”. The USA Network website does a great job of keeping the content fun and light to support Psych and other shows, which in essence are brands, as well.

By All Means, Don’t Take My Word for It. Do Some Research of Your Own.

But, I Did Some Research.

Once upon a time, within the past few months of my life, I gave a survey to about 60 or so people in regards to beverage websites that I asked them to view. It was a very simple survey (in exchange for answers, I offered consumers their pick from a grab bag of about $30 in CVS-purchased chocolates and candies–and yes, I had more than enough volunteers), with each person focusing on one of the 5 websites and then answering 10 questions. The first nine focused on rating things from 1-5 (for easy math), the last question asking whether or not the consumer would ever return to the website. Number ten was open-ended, and I asked for open comments, preferably focused upon what would prompt the consumer to return to the site.

The results were not astonishing. They were a little lower than I expected, and given some of the feedback, probably could have been lower still. I found that, out of the 5 different beverage websites listed, less than 10% of the consumers would have a reason to return and visit. In the open comments, the general responses were things like:

“You did not list a 0 as an option.” (This is true, I only listed 1-5)
“Maybe if there was a coupon.”
“This site sucked.”
“I don’t get [the site].”

You can take away what you want from this, but you should know that the websites tested were for some major, leading brands who spend some major bucks promoting their products.

Think about that.

Let’s recap for a moment: Less than 10% of the consumers surveyed would return to these brand websites.

Ummmmm…. Ouch.

A bunch of someones, somewheres, should be pretty embarassed.

If You Build It… They Will Come That’s Just the First Step

Some (a lot of) companies are spending A LOT of money on website design and development. Some companies are charging A LOT of money on website design and development. Almost ALL of them either are not talking or are not listening–or they think they don’t have the time and/or budget to create “something” the right way.

Fine. Here’s a solution: Tell these companies to save the money–better yet, tell them to pool the money and prioritize their brands so that one of the brands can have the right experience now. Next time there is a budget surplus, wash, rinse, repeat.

Until something is done that is different than the throwaway junk “experiences” that people barely visit and rarely visit more than once, things will continue to fail. Do NOT continue to invest in more failure–the consumers deserve better than this, and sooner or later, the competition will figure this out before the brands you’re working with do and then it may be too late.

All of these companies NEED to better understand what their consumers want. If that is the almighty coupon, then by gosh, give the consumers coupons (and make them ridiculously easy to find) as a reward for coming to the site. Start to build up some traffic, find out what consumers really want and find a way to provide it to them. It may be a community, in which case you can provide additional information and interactions to consumers and give them a voice. Cultivate and grow those voices into brand advocates and evangelists who can eventually help guide the brand toward its next product decision.

This is not hard math.

I’m just some guy in Chicago who thinks he knows a thing or two about User Experience. I think that “user experience never ends” means that I can’t just think about the website I’m working on today, but that I need to consider all the touchpoints along the way. I want your consumers to come back to the website, because I want you to be successful because my success is in part based upon that. Success makes us all happy. Then, umbrella drink time! (You’re buying)

Oh, and I also want you to build the right experience because it is a helluva a lot more fun for me to work on–that money thing should be an investment and should be able to be figured out. I mean, really, does one more commercial during America’s Top Model really have THAT much of an impact on whether or not you sell another can of <insert beverage here>?

But, if you want a basic website with a sitemap that I can put together on a single 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper, I’ll build that, too. My heart probably won’t be in it (but I’ll still do you a solid and give you quality output, of course) because I’m guessing it is going to be a crappy, potentially dead-ended experience and no one will come back and visit. These kind of sites don’t even make for good conversation in an interview.

That sort of thing castrates us. It makes us think “I could have been working in Insurance doing complex systems and never have to sweat all this social networking online viral blogging stuff that is so damn sexy” (not that Insurance isn’t the bees knees, mind you).

These poor experiences, the less-than-exciting websites lead me to inform you that if, as companies with brands and as the firms that do work for them, you don’t start getting it together, User Experience professionals may start becoming more difficult to find. For you, at least.

Again, Don’t Take My Word for It..

David Armano blogged:

We can actually create models of engagement that are sustainable over time. This is where the opportunities lie and we have to get serious about it…

There’s nothing there to loosely interpret. Big brands and advertising agencies and “interactive” shops and so on and so forth, you need to listen up. You need to wake up. This needs to be the extra shot in your latte.

User Experience Designers, Information Architects, Interaction Designers or whatever else you think we are and so title us, well, we want to do the right thing. We want to do the best thing for your consumers.

Partly because WE ARE YOUR CONSUMERS and we don’t like things that suck. We want to build loyalty, we want to see the bar raised and we’ve probably got some fan-F’ing-tastic ideas that you should be listening to.

Oh, and partly because we yearn to innovate and affect positive influence and change.

So What?

I’ve been trying to get people to ask and answer that question for years. No, it’s not my question, but ever since one of my favorite professors, Dr. Arthur Doederlein at Northern Illinois University, required students to not only right papers that answered specific questions, but also required us to prove our points, our rationales and establish what made our thinking valid by answering the “So What?”, I’ve used this.

It’s so simple, it’s silly.

When you create something–anything–for any audience, ask yourself “So what?”

Got that?

“I just made this marketing website for my brand. So what?”

If the answer is something like, “So my customers can have a place to get information and share their experiences with us so we can continue to evolve the brand to meet their needs”, you might be on the right track.

If not, you might be on the path of epic failure.

How Do You Display Your Samples of Work?

I started out this year by trying to find the right ways to rewrite a disastrous resume, explain what IA UXD is and now I’m trying to figure out the best way to tackle something that I’ve heard a lot of people (besides myself) in User Experience Design face challenges with:

How do I show samples of my work / my portfolio?

Almost anyone who is going to be interested in engaging you will want to see a portfolio of work in some form. The challenge lies not only in how to show that work, but when and where.  I happen to be pretty particular about these sorts of things and I have ideas about an approach that works best for everyone invloved. 

First and foremost is the how.  How do you show this work?  I can’t imagine that someone actually wants to receive the 26mb zip file with everything you’ve ever done. Full disclosure: I’ve sent that file out before and as I type this, I’m feeling more than a little embarassed by it. 

I like to have control over the situation. If samples of work are going to make or break the situation, then it is best to be present when the samples are being reviewed.  If that is not an option, you have to make a judgment call, and that’s never fun to do.  You have to also ask yourself some questions about the party asking you to do this–what is their motivation? Why do they need to see samples of work before they’ll discuss an opportunity with you? Will they send you samples of their work so that you can determine whether or not their work product is at the same level as yours?

That last question is a doozy, but it’s also a fair question to consider. The interview process is two-way, that should never be forgotten, and if you bring more to the table than the company can currently provide to its own clients or you will offer a significant improvement to an internal workflow and/or process, that’s a negotiation point that could be the difference between being hired as a Senior Information Architect and a Director of User Experience.

Not so much of a doozy now, is it?

The when and where aspects come next.  You’ve got to figure out what works best for you and what you’re willing to provide. I’m not the only person who has sent off nice samples of work only to never get another call back. I’m sure I’m not the only one who was seen their work product (or at least a very close cousin of it) show up from a previous prospective employer later in their career.

The ideal situation is to be present, in-person with whomever is going to review your work.  There is always more to the story than any particular piece of work is going to show. Many not-so-great decisions are made regardless of the recommendation of a good UX designer and you should be given the opportunity to explain it.  Plus, you need to allow the other party to ask the I-swear-if-I-get-asked-it-one-more-time-I’ll-scream-instead-of-simply-fake-laugh-and-answer-it question of, “When does the UX process end?”.

In the unfortunate event that you are not allowed to be present, you should present your work product in a fashion that shows your skill, provides some insight and doesn’t give away the whole magilla. This is why it makes sense to take a step back and analyze what your various work product is, organize it and prepare it to be seen by the right people and with enough information to move you along to the next phase of whatever (interview, sales) process that you are in.

Enough of this palaver. On with the show!

I started talking with peers in the IA/UX community about this dilemma. The general response was similar to what I’ve already discussed. The other response was that none of us really want to read someone else’s white paper about how involved they were in a project–those things serve a purpose that is generally not in an interview or sales pitch. Save the tree.

My approach, based upon previous experience as a mediocre designer, my desire to not give anyone else a free ride on my sweat and to gain control over how work product is displayed. The solution: Password-protected samples, with screenshots and summaries.

Pretty simple, pretty straight-forward and pretty well-received by a number of peers and other UX/IA managers.

First, I created a login screen. Sounds pretty simple–and it was:

As I went through the process and had a couple of people reviewing it, I decided to add a “Samples” tab in the top-right corner of the screen. This only appears if in the samples section and not on the rest of the site. To the rest of the world, it simply does not exist–and I’m okay with that. You’ll need to make that decision for yourself, obviously.

After much deliberation (see all that rambling above), I decided that my best approach was to categorize the work product that I have into logical sections, mostly based upon the types of deliverables I’ve been asked to provide samples of. The sections that I ended up with are:

Presentations
Personas
Site Maps
Wireframes
Other Documentation & Deliverables (Content Matrix, Annotations, Functional Requirements and Prototypes)

Once logged-in, a user would see a single-page listing of all of the deliverable types, a sampling of key deliverables and, for posterity, the ability to download resume versions. Each deliverable displays a thumbnail image, a title and 2-3 descriptive sentences about the project.

Additional peer review provided me with unanimous feedback: The amount and the voice of the content were perfect for what I set out to achieve. No one felt as if they were being overwhelmed–a couple of people even said that they enjoyed reviewing the samples because they felt they were in an easy, conversational review that was painless to get through.

I’d pay for that kind of feedback. That’s a beauty of the IA/UX community–I’ve never met a more willing, insightful and generous group of people.

When a user selects a specific deliverable from the main page, they are displayed the corresponding detail page. The detail pages display a recant of the overview of the project, 1-3 screenshots of the deliverable and a caption for each of the screenshots. I also provided navigation at the bottom of the page to allow users to view the page and quickly move on to the next sample.

I still have a page that links to full deliverables available–but that’s available for me. I don’t feel like it’s fair to anyone I’ve worked with / for to freely expose the work product that I’ve done while working with them. How you choose to manage this is up to you; I feel as if this solution works best–for me.  This allows me to  maintain control over who is seeing what, and when.

As always, your mileage may vary, and “it depends” on what will work for you.

What About That Login Page?
Great question! I’m glad you asked.

I spent a fair amount of time searching for the right solution–there are many, many out there and they range from “Wow, you really need to be an expert” to the equivalent of trying to translate hieroglyphics.

Then, I found what may have been the easiest solution to meet my needs. The only catch is that you will need to have access to your PHPMyAdmin / MySQL database so you can add usernames and passwords, but if you’re able to build this out, building out the ability to manage users should not be too difficult.

I found the PHP Loging Script Tutorial at PHP Easy Step. I found that building my pages took me less than an hour and that the only thing extra I needed to do was to make sure that you re checking for an active session on each page so that users cannot deep link to any of your samples without you being aware of it. That code is:

< ?
session_start();
if(!session_is_registered(myusername)){
header(“YOUR LOGIN PAGE HERE”);
}
?>

Of course, you do not need to use your login page upon a failure, you can just throw users to any page or other website that you’d like.

This concludes my lessons learned–hopefully you are able to find these useful. I’m more than willing to help you put together a login/password page in the event you find yourself hitting brick walls.

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!