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.

Microsoft & Xbox Live: When Customer Service Goes Drastically Wrong

Alternately titled: How Microsoft is Stealing $50 from Me. You Could Be Next.

Here’s the simple breakdown of the story:

October 20: Xbox Live emails me, account will auto-renew next month
November 20: Xbox Live emails me, account renewal a success!
November 21: Xbox Live emails me, prepaid card for 12+1 months has been successfully applied!
November 21: Xbox Live emails me, again confirming prepaid card successfully applied!
March 3: Xbox Live emails me, prepaid card being canceled tomorrow!

So, in internet-speak, I said, “WTF!?”

The story seems pretty clear, but after some grueling time on the phone with Microsoft, first in India and then in the United States, Microsoft has made it pretty clear to me that I’ve done something wrong, I’m borderline a criminal and they absolutely WILL NOT be giving me a credit for a prepaid card, nor will they refund it, supply a code for re-use, etc.

The longer, more detailed story, as it has been explained to me, via “Jason” and “Christine” at Microsoft, in regards to Case Reference #1061488919

The details in all of this are still murky to me–Microsoft apparently has a policy, but I’m not sure how they see it as either logical, customer-friendly or even helpful.

At the time of authoring this, I see it as stealing from me.

When I first signed-up for my Xbox Live account, I apparently used a credit card that was eventually replaced due to some fraudulent usage. Since I want to remain upfront and honest about this–as I have since the beginning with Microsoft (even when I was irate after asking 6 different times to please speak to someone else)–I was unsure which card I had used, but in the event that it was the card in question, I wanted to cover my bases.

Almost a month before my account was set to expire–or rather, drop back down to “Silver” Status, my pals at Microsoft sent me this:

From: “MICROSOFT *XBOX LIVE”
Subject: Automatic Renewal Notification for Xbox Live 12 mo. Gold Membership
Date: Sun, October 21, 2007 1:11 am
To: russ

Dear Russell,

Your subscription to Xbox Live 12 mo. Gold Membership is scheduled to be automatically renewed on Tuesday, November 20, 2007. Here is a description of the service:

Welcome to the future of gaming and online entertainment. As a new Xbox Live® Gold member, you will enjoy access to demos, trailers, downloads, tournaments, friends, and your gamertag, your unique digital identity. For only $49.95 plus applicable taxes per year, your 12-month Xbox Live Gold Membership gives you all the rewards, privileges, and possibilities that come with being a Gold member. Your membership will automatically renew to an annual membership at the then current price, unless you change your renewal or cancel before your membership ends. Pricing details can be viewed in the Account Management area of your gamer profile. For information about changing or canceling your membership and your membership refund policy, go to www.xbox.com/live/accounts.

Please confirm that your account and payment information is up to date.

To update your credit card information:
1. Select your gamer card.
2. Select Account Management.
3. Select Memberships.
4. Select the membership you want to update.
For more info, go to www.xbox.com/support or call Xbox Customer Support at 1 (800) 4MY-XBOX.

Thank you for using Microsoft Online Services.

The Xbox Live team.

Note: Please do not respond to this message.
To receive notifications at a different e-mail address:
1. Select your gamer card.
2. Select Account Management.
3. Select Contact Information.
4. Sign in with your Passport Network credentials.
5. Update your e-mail address.
Form: 12

Cool! Thanks, Microsoft. I’m glad we’re friends and you reminded me about this. I wonder what card I used…

See, I thought for certain that a declined card from Microsoft would have an email generated saying “Russ, your card is bad, click here to fix this and we’ll be friends again.” But that didn’t happen. Instead, what happened was this:
In fact, Microsoft was kind enough to confirm that this was groovy, too, and that we’re still BFFs:

From: “MICROSOFT *XBOX LIVE”
Subject: Confirmation of renewal of Xbox Live 12 mo. Gold Membership
Date: Tue, November 20, 2007 12:51 am
To: russ

Dear Russell,

This mail is confirmation that you have successfully renewed your subscription to Xbox Live 12 mo. Gold Membership. This renewal goes into effect on Tuesday, November 20, 2007. Here is a description of the service:

Welcome to the future of gaming and online entertainment. As a new Xbox Live® Gold member, you will enjoy access to demos, trailers, downloads, tournaments, friends, and your gamertag, your unique digital identity. For only $49.95 plus applicable taxes per year, your 12-month Xbox Live Gold Membership gives you all the rewards, privileges, and possibilities that come with being a Gold member. Your membership will automatically renew to an annual membership at the then current price, unless you change your renewal or cancel before your membership ends. Pricing details can be viewed in the Account Management area of your gamer profile. For information about changing or canceling your membership and your membership refund policy, go to www.xbox.com/live/accounts.

If you have any questions, please go to www.xbox.com/support or call Xbox Customer Support at 1 (800) 4MY-XBOX.

Thank you for using Microsoft Online Services.

The Xbox Live team.

Note: Please do not respond to this message.
To receive notifications at a different e-mail address:
1. Select your gamer card.
2. Select Account Management.
3. Select Contact Information.
4. Sign in with your Passport Network credentials.
5. Update your e-mail address.
Form: 24

Okay, so my immediate thoughts are this: Awesome! I must have used some other credit card instead! Cool!

Reality: According to Microsoft, a successful renewal is not the same as the SETTLING of the account.

Customer Reality: Uhhhh, what’s the difference? Why would you give me a receipt of “success” when I’ve not paid for something? They don’t give me a receipt at the grocery store until I actually pay for my groceries and the cash, check or credit card is deemed to be “good” tender.

However, I soldiered on, probably playing some Halo 3 in my spare time. My Xbox Live 12+1 Month PrePaid card arrived from Amazon (thank you, Amazon Prime!). I went ahead and applied the card to my account–knowing me, I’d misplace it within the next year, anyway.

From: “MICROSOFT *XBOX LIVE”
Subject: Renewal Confirmation for Xbox Live Prepaid 12 + 1 Month Gold Membership Card.
Date: Wed, November 21, 2007 6:51 pm
To: russ

Dear Russell,

This mail is confirmation that you have successfully renewed Xbox Live Prepaid 12 + 1 Month Gold Membership Card.. The subscription will expire on Sunday, December 20, 2009. Here is a description of the service:

Welcome to the future of gaming and online entertainment. As a new Xbox Live® Gold member, you will enjoy access to demos, trailers, downloads, tournaments, friends, and your gamertag, your unique digital identity. Your 13-month Xbox Live Gold Membership gives you all the rewards, privileges, and possibilities that come with being a Gold member. At the end of 13 months, your membership will automatically change to a Silver Membership, unless you use another prepaid card or change your membership renewal options. Pricing details can be viewed in the Account Management area of your gamer profile. For information about changing or canceling your membership and your membership refund policy, go to www.xbox.com/live/accounts.

If you have any questions, please go to www.xbox.com/support or call Xbox Customer Support at 1 (800) 4MY-XBOX.
Thank you for using Microsoft Online Services.

The Xbox Live team.

Note: Please do not respond to this message.
To receive notifications at a different e-mail address:
1. Select your gamer card.
2. Select Account Management.
3. Select Contact Information.
4. Sign in with your Passport Network credentials.
5. Update your e-mail address.
Form: 42

Why, you’re welcome, Microsoft! Thanks for acknowledging that. Wait–what’s this? Oh, thank you for acknowledging it TWICE:

From: “MICROSOFT *XBOX LIVE”
Subject: Renewal Confirmation for Xbox Live Prepaid 12 + 1 Month Gold Membership Card.
Date: Wed, November 21, 2007 6:51 pm
To: russ

Dear Russell,

This mail is confirmation that you have successfully renewed Xbox Live Prepaid 12 + 1 Month Gold Membership Card.. The subscription will expire on Sunday, December 20, 2009. Here is a description of the service:

Welcome to the future of gaming and online entertainment. As a new Xbox Live® Gold member, you will enjoy access to demos, trailers, downloads, tournaments, friends, and your gamertag, your unique digital identity. Your 13-month Xbox Live Gold Membership gives you all the rewards, privileges, and possibilities that come with being a Gold member. At the end of 13 months, your membership will automatically change to a Silver Membership, unless you use another prepaid card or change your membership renewal options. Pricing details can be viewed in the Account Management area of your gamer profile. For information about changing or canceling your membership and your membership refund policy, go to www.xbox.com/live/accounts.

If you have any questions, please go to www.xbox.com/support or call Xbox Customer Support at 1 (800) 4MY-XBOX.
Thank you for using Microsoft Online Services.

The Xbox Live team.

Note: Please do not respond to this message.
To receive notifications at a different e-mail address:
1. Select your gamer card.
2. Select Account Management.
3. Select Contact Information.
4. Sign in with your Passport Network credentials.
5. Update your e-mail address.
Form: 42

And this, folks, was apparently my biggest, most evil and malicious mistake. THIS is where Microsoft decided that it is appropriate to steal from me, you, and any other customer in the world.

See, when I applied this prepaid card–which, by the way, could have been a nice gift from a parent, a nerd-supporting spouse, a nerdy boss, whatever–I did what is called “stacking” by Microsoft.

I’m still not sure how this is wrong. But apparently, when you “stack” AND you have an invalid credit card on file that they continue to attempt to charge, this is where you begin to earn your criminal status.

Allegedly, Microsoft sent me 2 follow-up emails to let me know that my card had been declined. I do not have those, but I have every email I’ve received that isn’t SPAM since 1997. Including all 5 emails referring to my Xbox Live account.

Microsoft has proof that those emails were sent–none that they were received mind you–and if I did not receive them, that’s an issue with my server and none of their concern. They do not, will not, pick up the phone to call you.

No, instead they send you an email that says this:

From: “MICROSOFT *XBOX LIVE”
Subject: Confirmation of cancellation of Xbox Live Prepaid 12 + 1 Month Gold Membership Card.
Date: Thu, March 13, 2008 7:37 pm
To: russ

Dear Russell,

This mail is confirmation that your subscription to Xbox Live Prepaid 12 + 1 Month Gold Membership Card. has been cancelled on Friday, March 14, 2008.

If you have questions about this cancellation, or if you want to reactivate your subscription, please go to www.xbox.com/support or call Xbox Customer Support at 1 (800) 4MY-XBOX.

Thank you for using Microsoft Online Services.

The Xbox Live team.

Note: Please do not respond to this message.
To receive notifications at a different e-mail address:
1. Select your gamer card.
2. Select Account Management.
3. Select Contact Information.
4. Sign in with your Passport Network credentials.
5. Update your e-mail address.
Form: 22

I received this on March 13th. I immediately picked up the phone and called my buddies at Microsoft. We’re BFFs, after all, and I wanted to know what I could have done to upset my pals. We should be able to hang out until December 2009, man!

After asking 6 different times to speak to someone else because the CSR from India was only repeating herself from a script and causing me phone rage, I finally spoke to “Jason” the supervisor who made a lot of wild claims.

He actually asked me if I read the Terms of Service. That’s the equivalent of “I’m not going to help you, you have the fine print to contend with”. Customer Service 101, I suppose.

Even so, as of November 2007, I had 25 months that I was paying for. If the credit card was declined, the appropriate response would be to simply subtract 12 of those months–the prepaid card was just that PRE PAID. PAID IN ADVANCE.

Microsoft: Your account is in billing violation and is in collections with Microsoft. If you would have called in before it was sent to them, we could have helped you. We WILL NOT be refunding, replacing or anything else to compensate for the prepaid card we’ve just canceled. We won’t even subtract the months you’ve used it. We would have, however, waived the $15 in fees and reinstate your account, at which point in time you can pay for service how you like or you can provide a new credit card.

Me: Okay, I’d like to fix the situations. We were tight before. Good friends, even. Look, how about I go ahead and give you a new credit card and I pay for a whole year–and we’ll just call the time that you’ve suspended my account as a wash since I’ve been busy with work, school, blogging about NotchUp, having a new baby, playing that new Mario game on the Wii and everything else. We’ll be buds again, we can hang out and I’ll let you play drums in Rock Band.

Oh, and just give me back that 12+1 month card, because, after all, it was PRE PAID.

Microsoft: Nope. We’re not friends. You’re a criminal. You were sent to collections and we canceled your PRE PAID card that you STACKED (gasp!) on your account that had a bad credit card on it. You, sir, do not get to keep your 12+1 months. It is gone. The code was “consumed” and we added it to your account. We’re canceling it.

Me: Wait, what?

Okay, so that’s poking a little fun at a situation that has gotten tense and terse. Microsoft will not budge.

The Resolution?
For starters, I’m blogging about this. I’m contacting the local “Fixer” people at the Big City Newspaper (Chicago Sun Times) to see if they can help. Google will be my friend and raise this up the flag pole.

What Do I Want to Happen?
I only want what is fair, and that’s all I’ve asked for since the beginning. I didn’t start out being the ticked-off, phone-rage guy who wanted free service for life and all the cheat codes for every game and whatnot.

I want my PRE PAID card back–I PRE PAID for service that was taken away from me by a billing snafu–not anything that was behavioral or deceptive, but a pretty simple–and easy to rectify–mistake.

This should be no problem. I should, at the very least, have the remaining balance of my PRE PAID card available to me–I should NOT be canceled. That’s simply unfair, and it is the equivalent of stealing.

Microsoft, make this right. I promise I’ll be BFFs again and I promise I’ll tell everyone that you did.

So, Whatever Happened to that Presentation, Anyway?

Good question.

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

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

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

What is User Experience Design: An Overview

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

User Experience Design: An Overview

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

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

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

Hey, that sounded like magic, or something!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brand Managers
CREATE
Brand Promises
FULFILLED BY
Brand Experiences

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From there, it’s show time.

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

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

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

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

User Experience Design: An Overview

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

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

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

I surrounded the honeycomb with a circle of Longevity:

I gave Longevity a definition of:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UXD Brings It All Together
[explanation copy missing]

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

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

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

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

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

Am I an Information Architect?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I added the * to further explain that:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I agree, Peter. I agree!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Does that make me a generalist?

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

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

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

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

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

Blogging Everywhere! (Not) Enough Already?

Hi, I’m Russ and I’m a blogger.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one–or if I’m talking about you. Or you.

Like many people, I enjoy blogging. Like many more people, I learned a long time ago that blogging–and blogging well in particular–requires a certain degree of commitment and effort. Putting a bunch of jumbled thoughts or ideas into words that are easy enough to digest and interesting enough to get through can be pretty challenging. Ask any of those folks over on the right side of the page (and then see when the last time any of them updated their blogs, too!) and I’ll bet that they’ll tell you that they started out with a lot to say and that they saw blogging as something slightly different than what it is for them today.  I bet that they’ll tell you that blogging just happens to be a labor of love for them, as well–but that it also offers up rewards, too.  More than one blogger has had a prospective employer contact them with piqued interest based upon a posting or perspective.

Not me, mind you, but it does happen.

For quite awhile, the blogging scene was really becoming the bandwagon to get on. People still have blogs–but maybe now it’s called your MySpace Blog / Page or your FaceBook Notes or what have you. Those are more for the hobbyists, I suspect. People need to be able to whip out that poetry and prose as it strikes them during the work day, right?

And there are more Professional Blogs, which is where I’d classify places like TechCrunch and others–they serve a broader purpose than to just ramble on about your new kitten or what you had for lunch with Jeffers and Kimmers and whatnot. Your favorite newspaper will likely have a blogging section with plenty of spirited conversations and commentary to support it. Some (me) would argue that the UserGlue UserBlog is a professional blog–because I try to keep this topical and you’ll probably never hear me mention my wife, my children nor my pets here. Probably; there’s a baby coming and I’m suspecting I may be uber-proud and feel the need to post an announcement or something. Just saying.

A lot of people that I know enjoy blogging for themselves–they feel good about it. They feel as if they’re contributing. Some even feel as if their personal blogs, whatever way that happens, help them to stay in touch with their friends and family without calling everyone, say every time they have a near-perfect bowling game.

My friend Wil uses his blog in many different ways–it’s a way to hone his craft as a writer (sometimes providing content for books that we release under Monolith Press), keep his friends, family and fan base up-to-date on what he’s doing and it’s a good way to provide information to his consumers who want to know where he will be appearing, what he will be performing in and any new product that may be for sale. All in one tidy place. Well, all in one place, at least.

I blog here. I blog personally on a different site. And now, that place that I call “work” when I’m not dividing my time between UserGlue, family and school, has a blog for people to get involved in, if they so desire. No one is forcing my hand on anything, but I’ve been made aware that the mechanism exists, “if I’d like to participate”.

I think it’s a great idea and it can help foster a community and culture among your peers–help you take a look at how other people see things, what they find important and what they notice in their work lives. I think it’s the right approach to take to NOT force anyone to joining your club of bloggers, but at the same time, I feel you should try to be involved in opportunities like this as they arise.

The problem is, where does all the content come from? Personally, I try to contribute here and on mailing lists (such as the IAI mailing list and I try to do my best to be an effective editor at Boxes and Arrows and I even try to provide insightful responses to questions at LinkedIn. That’s a lot for a guy who also has to author 4 papers every 2 weeks for Business Administration courses and has a pretty full load at work, as well.

Is it okay to provide duplicated content? Is it wrong to actively not participate? Should someone try to provide topics for people to respond to in order to help foster the community of the bloggers?

Where does it begin or end?

NotchUp Vs. GrandCentral: Design By, Uh, Someone Else’s Design?

I don’t like NotchUp’s Terms of Service–I think I’ve made that clear. I don’t think I’m malicious about this, but I do think it is important that people be made aware of what they’re getting into.

Now, however, I’m beginning to truly dislike NotchUp, in general.

Since writing my post “NotchUp Privacy Down“, I’ve been Googling through the web to find out what people are thinking out in the rest of the world.

In my cyber-adventures, as it were, I’ve seen a lot of mentions about how NotchUp and GrandCentral seem to share the same graphical design.

Let’s take a look, shall we?

GrandCentral:

NotchUp:

I checked out GrandCentral.com’s History section, and they started their company in 2005. I’d say that gives them the benefit of the doubt. Granted, they may have purchased the site from a template company and NotchUp may have done the same, but it seems unlikely.

I’m sure this is beyond my capabilities to prove anything, but I’ll let the screen shots do the talking. I can tell you that when I did a comparison of the sites on 2 different layers in Photoshop, they were same width from the left and right borders–which very much appear to be the exact same drop shadow border. The backgrounds in their content areas appear to be pretty similar as well.

Sure, site rip-offs happen all the time. Hey, we couldn’t stop Vanilla Ice from working Queen’s “Under Pressure” into “Ice Ice Baby”, we’re certainly not going to stop people from “designing” the alleged same web site, right?

Ponder away.

To me, it just tells more of the story that is NotchUp. The level of trust that I have for them is far less than it was, well, when I received the invitation from a trusted friend.

————————

Sadly, it seems most people are more interested in the “How can I make money” aspect instead of the “Totally free isn’t just about cash” perspective that I seem to take. Christian Crumlish was cool enough to mention a posting that I sent out to the Information Architecture Institute’s mailing list–to the point that he even apologized to folks that he’d sent invites to.

People are starting to notice, and I think that’s a good thing. Hey, as long as I’m spending a moment talking about things, it was pretty cool that the NotchUp question on LinkedIn actually had a link to the posting I wrote–even before I had a chance to point it out.

I’m hopeful that people will slow down, take a deep breath and make wise decisions about their personal information.

I’ll leave you with a final thought:

How would you feel if LinkedIn suddenly changed their Terms of Service and/or Privacy Policy to match that of NotchUp?

NotchUp, Privacy Down

Lately, I’ve seen a few discussions in regards to various forms of social/business networking, etc. I’ve also received a few invites to join NotchUp, which appears to be the new kid on the block, and I started to enter into their process since I was invited to the “Beta” by a couple of known and trusted colleagues.

In part of checking them out, I do what I always do whenever I see checkbox that says that I agree to someone’s terms of use–I read their terms of use.

From the start, NotchUp’s terms of use doesn’t read like the other places I trust. In fact, it reads like something familiar. It reads like something from a company I worked for many years ago that tried to sign people up for a job site only to in turn sell their information to companies. I’m sure you’ve seen several of these, some of them are akin to College Scholarships “just for signing up for free magazine subscriptions”.

Since my spider-sense was tingling, I knew I needed to read on–so I did:

9. NotchUp reserves the right to offer third party services and products to You based on the preferences that You identify in your registration and at any time thereafter; such offers may be made by NotchUp or by third parties.

That’s right: NotchUp can sell your information to third parties.

Full disclosure here: I did not get through the rest of their registration because, frankly, I don’t like to agree to Terms of Use before I get to see just what my privacy settings can be. They do offer up such a tab in their settings, but it is disabled and not viewable.

10. Without limiting any of the other disclaimers of warranty set forth in these Terms, NotchUp does not provide or make any representation as to the quality or nature of any of the third party products or services purchased through NotchUp.com or any other NotchUp Site, or any other representation, warranty or guaranty. Any such undertaking, representation, warranty or guaranty would be furnished solely by the provider of such third party products or services, under the terms agreed to by the provider.

This basically says that once you’re on someone else’s email list (after they’ve sold your information), they no longer take any ownership of how it is used. Think about that one. It can translate loosely to this:

Once we sell your information, it’s out of our hands. If you change your privacy settings with us, we’ll follow that setting, but if someone we’ve sold your list to sells that list or does not allow you to remove yourself from it, etc. etc. we’re not responsible. There would be a lot of hurdles to overcome to find out just where in the heck your name has ended up.

Not only that:

18. You understand and acknowledge that you have no ownership rights in your NotchUp account (“NotchUp Account”), and that if you cancel your NotchUp Account, all your account information from NotchUp, including resumes, profiles, cover letters, network contacts, saved jobs, questionnaires and email mailing lists, will be marked as deleted in NotchUp’s databases and will be removed from any public area of the NotchUp Sites. Information may continue to be available for some period of time because of delays in propagating such deletion through NotchUp’s web servers. In addition, third parties may retain cached copies of your Information.

“Marked as deleted” - got that? Not removed, but flagged as deleted and no longer publicly displayed. They’ll still have it, still own it. Those third parties may retained “cached copies” of your information–which means that they’ve got a snapshot view from a specific purchase point and they may continue to use the list from a specific date or merge it with a new list, etc.

19. Your email and other data that you submit as part of the resume will be made available to our recruiters and employers. NotchUp.com doesn’t have any control over how that data would be used. If you don’t want any such data to be displayed your only remedy is not to post any resume.

At least this is pretty black and white. But, of course, since the purpose of NotchUp is to connect employers and candidates, it sure seems pretty useless to have a profile without a resume, right? At least the listed this right up top and not 2/3s of the way down on their Terms of Use page.

Oh. Wait.

I should also mention that the only way you can find out about their privacy policy and terms of use is currently, at the time of this writing, by attempting to sign-up and following the link.

They do a fine job of telling you how safe and secure their site is. You have to read between the lines to understand just how little they’re actually offering you. My gut feeling was that they want you to feel that your information is secure and you can control how the other users of the site can view you–which is great. But what about the people who buy lists from them?

There is the potential to give up a lot of your rights to your resume and personal information, in my opinion. I’m posting this as caution to folks here—this site feels like a bandwagon with a “generate a mailing list” approach to it. I’ve worked for those companies in the past and the end result seems to be me feeling as if I need to create a new email account and trying desperately to remove my personal information from, well, just about everywhere.

Maybe it sounds a bit overly-concerned, and I’ll accept that. I’ll also say that I’ve been the victim of identity theft more than once in the past and it’s not fun having to deal with it. Since NotchUp takes ownership of your information and sells it to who knows who, you really are just exposing yourself without any real means of controlling how that works. And NotchUp isn’t on the hook for anything.

LinkedIn, for what it’s worth, takes its approach this way:

• We will never rent or sell your personally identifiable information to third parties for marketing purposes
• We will never share your contact information with another user, without your consent.
• Any sensitive information that you provide will be secured with all industry standard protocols and technology

That’s pretty nice of them, and I think that’s what we’d all prefer.

Interestingly enough, NotchUp allows you to “instantaneously import your LinkedIn profile into NotchUp to use as your NotchUp profile.” That means that all that privacy protection you get at LinkedIn could be gone within moments. In essence, they’re taking advantage of our lack-of-desire to fill out yet another profile form, using technology to ease that pain, and then potentially reaping the rowards of selling that data.

Likewise, Facebook says this (and we all know they’ve faced some scrutiny):

Facebook follows two core principles:
1. You should have control over your personal information.
Facebook helps you share information with your friends and people around you. You choose what information you put in your profile, including contact and personal information, pictures, interests and groups you join. And you control the users with whom you share that information through the privacy settings on the My Privacy page.
2. You should have access to the information others want to share.
There is an increasing amount of information available out there, and you may want to know what relates to you, your friends, and people around you. We want to help you easily get that information.

It’s easy to jump on the proverbial bandwagon when it comes to social networking—or even professional networking. We all have a couple of things about any site or application that we wish were improved–even the ones we’ve worked on the design for. It makes it easy for a company to come out with an updated approach to something we already find some benefit in using. Unfortunately, it’s just as easy for these companies to throw out a privacy policy that is easy to ignored—and then your privacy could be as well.

I urge you all to proceed with caution and I urge you to take the time to read—very carefully—the terms and conditions, privacy policies, histories and about us sections of any websites you consider joining. NotchUp’s next-to-last statement kind of summarizes what’s happening on their site:

The only winners in all of this are job boards and headhunters.

That’s right, they summarize by saying the above, but the truth is in what they do NOT tell you:

They’ve created a new winner if enough people sign up: NotchUp.

Falling Down

There is not much on this earth that will make you realize just how little you know about the elevator that you stand in everyday than a very large, obnoxious noise followed by an abrupt jerking motion. I was the bottom of the shaft when this happened to me yesterday and I loosely recall erratically looking all over the elevator for the “stop falling” or “emergency brake” button. Once the elevator came to rest and the door opened, I moved toward an area that I thought would be safe (inside the elevator) still and looked cautiously around the car before catching my breath and stepping out.

I wonder, would anyone really recall that they should put their air mask on themselves first prior to helping the elderly or small children on an airplane in a disaster mode? Would you know where your flotation device is?

Does life require more quizzes, or have we settled on the success and failure rates in our world? Or now, more than ever, do we really need to focus on making everyday objects more usable?