Lessons Learned While Leaping

Back in October, I submitted my resignation to Happy Cog, and I felt that there was a pretty wide open road ahead of me. I had been talking to The Start-up™ since early August, and the “right fit” had been determined by both sides. The final words on the funding was really all that was being waited for.

I was excited. I had found myself in an opportunity that would allow me to work on the User Experience, focus on some Product Management, and put to good use many different Guerrilla Research Methods. For awhile, this was a bit of a dream come true. I was kind of itching with excitement!

As you read this, keep in mind that this is not about getting sympathy or whistle-blowing; it’s the way some things pan out. Sometimes, that is for the best, and I’m okay with chasing this adventure in a different direction now.

Frankly, had it not been for this curve ball, I doubt I would be moving in the direction that I currently am, with the velocity that I am currently moving at. Naturally, time will tell.

Now, shame on me, I should have been a lot more skeptical when The Founder™ pulled a bit of a focus flake-out on me in August. Rather than answer some specific questions about company operations, there was a lot of silence that ended some time in October. During that period, I was contemplating starting off on my own and making a go of things; it’s not an uncommon approach, but since The Start-up™ had shown back up and had enticed me with such things as:

good news – 1% has become 0.01%. will have some paper work for you soon.

Followed by, a day later:

i thought I had sent the message below to you yesterday! now 0.01% uncertainty has turned to 0.0%.

very excited and will have some paper work to you on monday.

A start date was determined as November 15, 2011.

This was followed by some freebie requests, like reviewing job descriptions, checking out some office space layouts, and things like that. And, of course, filling out that paperwork–the application form and the background check.

Funny thing about background checks. When your references (who you dutifully let know reference checks are coming) say “Hey, when am I supposed to provide a reference for you?”, the Spider Sense™ starts to tingle a bit. But, when you’ve got a start date in place, it can feel a bit like a formality–and let’s face it, some places don’t actually dive too deep into those things anyway.

On November 3rd, I did a check-in; I didn’t have an offer letter in my hands at this point and I’d been really diligent about getting my part of the bargain taken care of in a very timely fashion. There were some hints at the August-September flake-out happening, but I like to pretend I’m a positive person. Frankly, I was checking-in because if this bird was not going to fly, I needed to start doing some networking of my own and drumming up some work.

Fortunately, I got a response:

I just talked with my partners about that – they have been out this week at a conference and will be getting back to me before noon tomorrow with the specifics I need to include.

Sorry for the delay.

“The delay.” The Spidey Sense™ is a little more finely tuned for things like this, so when the “Do you have time to chat this afternoon” email came through next, well, I knew it wasn’t going to be offering me lots of options in the company. In fact, it was something slightly different:

Here’s the output of the call I just had with my partners.

We assumed that we would have our new contract signed by the end of last week and that hasn’t happened. There’s no indication that it won’t happen very soon, but the Nov 15 date I provided earlier was with the understanding that we’d be under contract by Nov 1.

All that said, my partners are asking me to put off your hire date until we are under contract.

Are you in a position to take additional project work through the end of the month?

My start date was bumped to December 1. This was with 2 weeks notice and right before Thanksgiving, so the timing wasn’t ideal, but it would be manageable. I don’t think this type of news puts anyone into one of those chaotically happy spirals; it’s a let down. Not a heartbreaking moment, just a slight twinge and, well, given the previous flake-outs, it was a big, big warning sign, too.

How big? Not that big, actually! Within 20 minutes, I received another email:

Just talked with [redacted] – they believe we will have an execution ready contract early next week.

Just trying to make sure you know this isn’t going to drag out.

Whew.

No problem, no worries, no need to pound the pavement–but just in case, maybe post to LinkedIn and Facebook that I’m looking for some project work to fill the gap. I mean, if I landed something that was a couple of weeks longer, it wouldn’t be a big deal, in my opinion, to ask them to slide back the start date a bit.

I did send back a note:

I would say that the timing for all of this is not ideal; it essentially leaves me with about a week to pull things together.

I understand the position that you and your partners are in, and I appreciate that you’re being straight with me. That means a lot.

I’ll try to fill this gap with something, and I’ll keep you apprised of what turns up for me and will assume you will be doing the same.

Everyone was trying to get along, and really remove the stress of the situation. I felt I needed to share that this was not an ideal situation for me, and I didn’t need to be coarse about it. Supportive response was quickly following:

I appreciate your understanding and promise we are making every effort to move things along as fast as possible. I am ready to have you on board.

A few more emails were exchanged about office space design and layout. Pretty normal “we’re on our way!” type of stuff, to me.

Until the following Monday came around, as I was en route to the airport to fly out to a client.

Do you have some time to catch up on the phone today? I have a 2-3 pm but am otherwise flexible.

If only I had been born yesterday, this would not have phased me. However, this was a very loud cup rattling against my cage. This was not the Really Good Email™ I was hoping for. This was the phone call with…

Our investors are making some mandates. You need to take a 1/3 pay cut.

This, of course, ended up being exactly one week before my last day. This is not a reality situation for me; I could have accepted these conditions, but I would have been trading in a lot more for it. I could have accepted the situation and started has a full time person who was also spending his full time looking for something else, and that is not the type of scenario I want to put someone else in, even if I felt they had pulled the rug out from under me.

I was offered contract work at a rate that I feel would have been pretty discounted. I understand the basis for the offer, as well as how that may have helped balance out the less-than-favorable handling of the situation. I mean, it was an effort–it was a try. I get that, and to some degree I respect that approach at trying to make sure there is some income, but I would still see it as a setting that I would not be able to truly commit myself to.

And, so, that is where we left it. I parted ways with The Start-up™ and my last day at Happy Cog is upon me. I have been fortunate enough that there are people that I have been having discussions with. They have been helpful in any number of ways, from networking to advice to leads to good conversations.

To be fair, I’d hate to be this founder. There’s a lesson about what kind of power/control you give up when you accept an investment from someone, too. Heck, there are many lessons, including the ones for me. That’s how it goes. I’ve gotten wiser, and it didn’t even take me a year.

I see this as a great opportunity. There is time now for me to work with any number of companies, in any number of scenarios. And that means that I have availability to partner with some great people and companies and identify the right opportunity/opportunities.

I am doing just that. I would love to talk to you about whatever it is you are working on. Please feel free to send me a note and then we can have some good conversations about what is next.

Interview with Whitney Hess [CrankyTalk]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Interview with Karl Fast [CrankyTalk]

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

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.

Interaction10 – Paola Antonelli – Talk to Me

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

Oh, and she hates that damn tamagotchi.

Paola Antonelli’s Bio:

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

Talk To Me Keynote Description:

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

My Notes on the Session:

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

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

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

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

Timo Arnall’s Bio:

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

Designing for the Web in the World Description:

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

My Notes from the Session:

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

Interaction10 – Jon Kolko – My Heart is in the Design

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

My Heart is in the Design Description:

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

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

Jon Kolko’s Bio:

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

My Notes on the Session:

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

Interaction10 – Dave Gray – Knowledge Games

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

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

Knowledge Games Description:

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

Dave Gray’s Bio:

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

My Notes on the Session:

Knowledge Games – Dave Gray

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

2009 – My Year in Review

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

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

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

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

This one’s for me.

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

Wow.

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

Let’s do this.

Designing for Inaccuracy?

I know it might come across as crazy, but I think there’s something to be said about designing for inaccuracy. And, of course, someone else has already probably thought of this and there’s a fancy (or simple) name for it.  That’s okay; it’s on my mind and I’d like to rattle it out.

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!

Solving the “Repeat Email Address” Form Issue. Maybe.

One of the mailing lists that I’m on had a question posed today about using “Repeat Email Address” in form validation.

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!