Lea Ann Hutter > Becoming a User Experience Designer

Best User Experiences of 2011

2011-12-28T08:28:00.001-08:00

Transformational change: Martin Luther King

2011-01-17T22:05:00.000-08:00

My 2011 began with a big change. I started a new job as User Experience Designer at LinkedIn. During my first week, the Speaker Series kicked off with LinkedIn's CEO, Jeff Weiner, interviewing Martin Luther King III and Bernice King, the son and daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King. Steve Cadigan wrote a beautiful post about the event on the LinkedIn blog, accompanied by video highlights.

Some of the insights that resonated with me most:

• "We lost a father, and the world gained a message." - Martin Luther King III

• Dr. King worked to eradicate what he defined as the 3 evils - poverty, racism and militarism. Today, his legacy is continued through The King Center, a living memorial dedicated to the advancement of his and Coretta's work.

• What are the practices that empower a person to make a difference in the world? Congruency between what you are trying to do and what you believe, discipline, focus, compassion and being prepared.

• It's not about you. It's about empowering the people around you. If Dr. King saw just 5% good in a person, he would focus on that and pull it out. He also created synergy between people with very different talents.

• Learn how to disagree without being disagreeable. Dr. King worked to position things in a non-negative way - not an enemy, but an adversary.

• "Maintaining optimism is the essence of my being." - Martin Luther King III

After the interview I had the privilege to meet and thank Martin and Bernice. Martin is a genuinely sincere, joyful and funny man. Bernice is a brilliant speaker with a warm, succinct style. I am so deeply inspired by the both of them. Simply being in their presence is a gift that I'll always be grateful for.

My Best User Experiences in 2010

2010-12-31T13:19:00.000-08:00

As a UX designer, I am hyperaware that my experience is not representative of everyone else's. The things that delight and annoy me are not the same for you. The following is a personal recap of the products and experiences that left an indelible impression on me.

Memorable classes and events I’ve attended:

F8 Conference

Creating a Mindset for Achievement presentation by Carol Dweck at BayCHI

“That resonates with me!” presentation by the amazing Nancy Duarte

The first Warm Gun, Designing Happiness Conference

Adaptive Path’s UX Intensive - Design Strategy with Brandon Schauer

“How to Think Like a Designer” Stanford class taught by Barry Katz, fellow at IDEO (read about classes 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, 6)

Products/apps that delight me, educate me, help me discover things I like:

Boutiques.com is a Google product with a distinctly non-Google, fashion specific identity. It incorporates Like.com’s visual search technology to deliver a smart, stylish shopping experience. The power of Boutiques lies in (1) the effortless way I can provide feedback on what I like, don’t like, and why (2) the seemingly magical accuracy of product recommendations I receive based on just a few of my preferences (3) the high volume and consistent visual attractiveness of the product recommendations. If Boutiques catches on, Google plans to roll out similar products in different shopping verticals. Fashion and shopping competitors - watch out.

Facebook Login (Connect) on Etsy and Amazon are 2 of the best implementations I’ve used. Earlier this year I was the lead designer on Kaboodle.com’s Facebook Login experience. As part of our research, I fConected with dozens of sites to identify best practices. Personally, I found Etsy’s and Amazon’s experience superior because (1) they clearly communicated the benefits and addressed concerns upfront in their trusted brand voices (2) they delivered exactly what they described - relevant product suggestions based on friends and family’s Facebook likes. Both implementations helped me find holiday gifts that I had no idea even existed. Who knew there were cool LA Lakers and Depeche Mode handmade items on Etsy? My prediction for the future of shopping is that it will not be based on search, but will aggregate your location, likes/preferences, events and online activity to deliver a constant stream of relevant products that you validate to increase the volume and accuracy of the recommendations. Bring it on!

Quora is an A-List experience in UX/UI design, users, and the high caliber content they contribute. Some of my favorite questions of the moment include What’s the difference between UI design and UX Design? and Why is the such a stunningly short supply of designers in Silicon Valley right now?

Flipboard for iPad is my preferred way to consume Twitter. It elevates the content with beautiful typography and layout. It slows me down and lets me savor the words and ideas. It makes me want to sip a steaming cup of lemon ginger tea while reading. I just received a Kindle as a holiday gift. I haven’t had that kind of experience with it...yet.

Instagram for iPhone gives me 3 good reasons to look around and snap iamges (1) I can easily stylize my images to reflect my mood - edgy, nostalgic, playful (2) I receive almost instant validation from my Instagram addicted friends (3) it’s a stream of intimate visual storytelling from people I care about. No links. No articles. Minimal text. Just tiny, square, beautiful, shared moments.

Quotes that inspire me:

“To have an effect, you have to select.” – Jim Babbage quoting friend Kim Kavanaugh

“Anticipate the problems that your design solution creates and solve those too.” – Barry Katz

“The barrier to change is not too little caring, it is too much complexity. To turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see a solution, and see the impact. But complexity blocks all 3 steps.” – Bill Gates on the benefits of using pictures to aid problem solving

“I fight for the USER!” – Tron

Design Thinking with Barry Katz at Stanford: Class 6

2010-12-31T10:10:00.000-08:00

In the sixth How to Think Like a Designer class, Barry lead a discussion of the user research exercise that we participated in last week. We broke into teams of 2 and took turns interviewing each other about our work environment. We then identified key issues and brainstorm solutions. Some of the insights that came from the discussion of the exercise:

Be attentive to something that doesn’t fit. There's a tendency is to ignore the anomaly. It’s often the incongruous bits of data that that yield the greatest insights.

Make the most of your constraints. In class, we weren’t able to observe our partner in their work environment and we had limited time to conduct the interview. This is similar to real world professional practice, which is always constrained by time, money, technology. How do you know when you’ve dug deep enough? When you run out of time, money and/or technology (because technology is not available or does not exist). User research/interviews are a scalable procedure which can be applied over and over again throughout the course of the project.

Reframe the problem statement to discover the true issues Designers want to to be asked “what is your point of view on a wall?”, not “here’s a pile of bricks, build us a wall”. The danger of just building a wall without questioning why is that the solution may really be a window, not a wall. Around 2006, the DOE (Department of Energy) came to IDEO with a problem/question: why don’t Americans care about energy efficiency? User interviews turned into an inquiry into values which lead to the discovery: it’s not that Americans don’t care about energy efficiency, they just care about other things more – aesthetics (appearance of house and the appliances in it) and the safety and comfort of themselves and their family. The real challenge facing the DOE was to create energy efficient solutions that align with American values. The starting question presumed a set of values that was not correct. Read more about IDEO's process and solution here.

Design Thinking with Barry Katz at Stanford: Class 4 and 5

2010-11-03T08:34:00.000-07:00

In the fourth and fifth How to Think Like a Designer classes, Barry invited an excellent guest speaker, Gabriel Trionfi, User Researcher at Facebook. Previously, Gabriel was a Human Factors Community Leader at IDEO. He has a psychology and theater background, which he taps into when conducting interviews and facilitating research. He's a warm, open, insightful guy - definitely someone I'd enjoy working with.

Gabriel talked about the state of most experiences, which by default, aren’t designed. When experiences are designed, not all iterations are accounted for (EX: most chairs are optimized for sitting, not slouching). Experience takes place within an individual - it's a psychological phenomenon. You cannot point to the experience you designed, but the thing that facilitates the experience. Designers can constrain experiences, increase the probability of an experience happening, but there's no guarantees. Ideally as a designer, you’re looking forward seeing how you can change what is, iterating to get people to the better experience, the optimal state.

Gabriel said the #1 thing a User Researcher does is to provide authentic, grounded, meaningful inspiration to designers. Inspiration is required for innovation. As a User Researcher, you need to have genuine insights about people and the opportunity to share those insights with designers to help them find a reason for the design to be. User Research is a set of practices that help you discover valuable insights.

User Research has many names and overlaps with multiple disciplines: ergonomics, need finding, human factors, usability, HCI participatory design. Believing in Human Centered Design doesn’t make you a User Researcher, or at least doesn’t make you a good one. (Note: Don Norman wrote a fascinating article about the Dangers of Human Centered Design). Design research is not objective. It is subjective because we intend to design something from the start. If you don’t pursue inspiration you aren’t doing it right. It's about change, fluidity, being reactive, following insights to an end vs marketing research, which is generally about how many dollars are associated with different types of users.

User Research isn't just talking to people. It's about grounding your intuition. It's your job to interpret and understand if the insights you deliver are relevant and actionable. You need to take yourself out the picture – not in terms of your interpretation, but in terms of what users need and want (it might not be what you want). This is critical to being successful as a User Researcher. You already know what you think should happen. Everyone can be empathetic. Empathy is not a super power, it’s a practice, it’s a skill that can be honed.

Gabriel also shared some thoughts on working at Facebook. He said Facebook is an inventor's company - no company is pushing change as often as they are. At Facebook he represents users, synthesizes them, brings them into product conversations. He addressed students' questions about privacy and shared an interesting story. During the height of the privacy backlash this year, Facebook did not see a decline in users. While it's easy to attribute that to "people don't know, don't care", he talked about another possible reason he discovered while conducting research. During an interview, a Facebook user said that she read a news article on how to set Facebook privacy controls, and now she feels safe and empowered to use Facebook even more. An interesting lesson: with public exposure of issues also comes access to solutions that users may never have discovered otherwise.

When embarking on User Research, how do you determine what methodology to use? Have the question you want to answer lead you to the methodology. Here are some key methods that Gabriel described:

1. Empathy

Often the easiest to dismiss. It’s about the reality of the person you’re designing for, the reality of the problem as it exists today, and the reality of what you’re striving to create. There are different types of empathy: physical, social, emotional, cultural, and simulation/role playing aspects of the experience.

Physical Empathy – Change your physical experience to understand someone else’s. Ex: a man wearing a pregnancy (birthing) belly. When done in a team, it creates a social learning moment.

Emotional Empathy – seeking experiences that take you through a range of emotions similar to the people you are designing for.

Social Empathy – immerse yourself in social situations related to the experience you are designing for. Ex: IDEO sent a team of clients into Sephora to see how uncomfortable they felt trying to find quality products they were not familiar with.

Cultural empathy – go local and embed yourself in the culture relevant to your design. Live in different places, compare differences and similarities. The challenge is knowing if a behavior is novel or common in that culture. Ex: Gabe observed someone cutting pizza with scissors in Italy. Turns out that's a common practice. When you're not sure, ask people in that culture to evaluate it.

Emapthy through Re-enacting – observe an experience or journey and try to re-inact it yourself.

2. Observation:

Observation is a mindset. Sometimes throwing away the knowledge you have is the best thing to do when you’re observing. Then bring back your knowledge when you’re evaluating the findings. Narrow your focus to come up with more than casual observations. Be attentive to a certain problem. When do you start observing? Now. The best researchers and designers always have a camera and are always documenting. Train yourself to have it available and ready at all times.

What is the meaning behind when people say they like one thing, but they do another? Observe things that people are not articulating directly/well.

Body language - Wells Fargo was the first bank to put mirrors on their ATMs to make people feel more safe. This insight came from watching people look over their shoulders as they withdrew money.

Symbols of value and use – an elevator with worn buttons reveals where people are going most frequently.

Work-arounds – how have people designed their own solutions for challenges or unmet needs? Beausage – from use comes a beautiful patina.

What are people doing now – watching a current experience can help you understand what a future experience could be. What is the beginning, middle and end of an experience? Easy framework to use.

3. Interview:
People sharing their stories, history, attitudes, opinions and beliefs with you. Think about what questions you ask and how the questions are related to each other. Make it easy for people to tell a story.

How to interview:
- It's not about you.
- Be relaxed.
- Listen and don’t talk over others.
- Don’t end the pause. A pause means a person is thinking, and what they’re about to say will likely be unexpected to them…and you.
- Agreement biases exist. If you suggest an answer, you’ll get mediocre insights.
- Be as eye level as possible. Get on the floor with kids.
- Use body language to make people feel comfortable. Can be used to control the interview. It's not just talking to people, but a set of skills.
- Onstage/Backstage – think about what you’re going to say next in the back stage while still listening in the moment onstage.
- Record audio, time stamp with a marathon watch.

What to ask:
- Go in with a prepared discussion guide.
- Ask why? Ask 5 times to dive down. Even if you think you know the answer, ask anyway.
- Tell me a story about a time…this unlocks tons of gold.
- Set up your questions…a to b: first question is not what I’m interested in, it sets up second question.
- "Tell me your philosophy on…". The nature of philosophy is personal and makes a good question to ask.
- Ask indirect questions – compare and contrast. Does your sister do that? Why or why not? Does that resonate with you? Great for kids and shy people. Get them to tell them about other people in their lives. How do you think someone else would answer that.
- Double barrel questions can be great if intentional. EX: Why you’re taking the class, how is it going so far? A question like that is looking for customer satisfaction.

We ended the fifth class with an exercise in conducting interviews. We broke up into teams of two and took turns asking each other about our work environments with the goal of finding innovative solutions to our partner's issues. In the case that our partner did not have any issues, the challenge became how to find a related problem that was worthy of solving.

Design Thinking with Barry Katz at Stanford: Class 3

2010-10-17T23:25:00.000-07:00

In the third How to Think Like a Designer class, Barry started by sharing a story about an inspirational visit to a cutting edge recycling plant called Green Waste in Palo Alto, CA. He asked the class to guess what the #1 working hazard was. Breathing/lung issues? Carpal tunnel? No. 95% of all the injuries are needle sticks. Even though the workers wear needle resistant gloves, it's not possible at this time to completely avoid needle sticks. This ignited an impromptu brainstorming - use magnets to pull the needles from the piles, put RFID tags in needles so they can be scanned and seen, create more stick resistant gloves, provide needle repositories on public recycling bins, and more. The ideas ranged from changing the needles, to changing how they're identified, to changing the way they are discarded in the first place.

How far up the chain do we go when we look for a solution? It depends on the careful defining in the brief. Design solutions can behavioral, technical, social or legislative. Defining a brief is an art. The client often comes to the designer with "This is my problem." The designer needs to say, "No. You think that’s your problem. This is the real problem." Guiding a client to the proper posing of the issue in the first place is often the most difficult part of the process.

Barry talked about the 7 year itch phenomenon in the industry. First people were all about design methods, then design management, now it’s design thinking. It’s a sign of a profession that is continually renewing itself.

We then resumed where we left off last week on the origins of design thinking:
In the 1940s, Charles and Ray Eames brought high quality, thoughtful, methodical design to popular consumption locations like airports and dentist offices. Some of Charles' most timeless and resonant observations include:
- "Recognizing the need is the primary condition for design."
- "To whom does design address itself: to the greatest number, to the specialist of an enlightened matter, to a privileged social class? Design addresses itself to the need."
- "Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."
- "The details are not the details. They make the design."

In post WW2 Italy, Ettore Sottsass, contributed the idea that design is about postulations, projecting your thinking forward not just to a product that doesn’t exist, but a world that doesn’t exist – an exercise in imagination. Sottsass was an intellectually compelling designer and essayist who started his career as design director as Olivetti. His work with the Memphis Group reflected his fascination American culture. It was a rebuke to the Italian design establishment. The Memphis work sparked an interesting discussion:

What is the boundary between design and art? Some answers included:
-       If you have to have a boundary, put it anywhere you want.
-       Art is the maker’s perspecive, design is about the perspective of the user.
-       Art has no boundaries, design has constraints.
-       Art is a function of expression, design is an expression of function.
-       Depends on the maker’s intention and user’s perception.

Eames said there is no design without constraints. Three main design contraints are time, budget, technology. Time is most powerful constraint. The product cycle is short and competition to execute new ideas is strong.

The single most important question in design - how do you choose problems that matter?

In the 1970s, Victor Papanek wrote the book Design for the Real Word. His contribution was opening the discussion of design practice outward to create more socially conscious work. He traveled to third world countries and observed people creating solutions based on the materials that were available to them, such as a stove made of used license plates in Mexico. He also advocated that the design talents of the first world should apply themselves to third world issues.

Later Charles Eames was instrumental in crafting the Ahmedabad Declaration on Industrial Design Development:
1.     Define individual quality of life within cultural parameters.
2.     Find local answers to local needs using local materials and local skills.
3.     Encourage selective application of high technology.

Flash forward to 2010. A recent exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt in NYC titled Design for the other 90% showcased a broad variety of brilliant ideas solving immediate problems of local people.

Barry concluded with a story of an IDEO project he was involved in. Martin Fisher, a PhD in mechanical engineering Stanford, observed that what people in developing countries need is money in order to particiate in a global cash economy. His aim was to help turn a dependent slum dweller into an owner of a family farm that produces surplus that can be sold at market. To make this happen, water needed to be more readily available to sustain the crops. The solution had to be manufacturable and sellable for $150, transferrable by bike, and repairable locally. The solution came in a device named “The moneymaker”, a pressure irrigation pump which achieved this within the design constraints.

Next week an anthropologist at Facebook will be guest lecturing on how to conduct field observations. Stay tuned for more!

Design Thinking with Barry Katz at Stanford: Class 2

2010-10-10T17:15:00.000-07:00

In the second How to Think Like a Designer class, we explored the origins of design thinking:

1. Design history is the history not just of objects, but of ideas.

Primatologist Sherwood Washburn believed people don't make things. Things make people. Primitive tools have shaped our evolution.

The Historical Trajectory of Objects:

19th Century - the stand alone object is analog, mechanically straightforward, and operated by hands. Ex: Olivetti Typewriter
20th century - the plug in object makes no sense unless it's connected to electricity, which is both a restraint and an opportunity. Ex: Television sets
21st Century - the networked object opened up new product categories and made predecessors obsolete almost instantly. Ex: iPhone

The Historical Trajectory of Design Thinking:

In the 1840's, Henry Cole pioneered government recognition of design. He lobbied the British government for support for his campaign to improve standards in industrial design. He was appointed the first General Superintendent of the Department of Practical Art, tasked with improving industrial art and design education in Britain. He was also the inventor of the postage stamp and the Christmas card.

In 1851, Joseph Paxton made an important contribution to biomimicry inspired design in the Crystal Palace for The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations - the first World's Fair. The Crystal Palace could be considered the world's first horizontal skyscraper - revolutionary in its modular, prefabricated design and use of glass in a patterns that mirrored the structure of a leaf. Not only did he consider the architecture, but its use by thousands of people a day. He designed the wooden floorboards with slight spaces between them so dirt could be easily swept into the spaces below the floor. He then hired a huge group of boys to sweep the floors every evening, but soon realized that the bottom of ladies' dresses were doing the job.

In 1861, William Morris founded one of the first design firms, Morris & Co. He was dedicated to textile art, wallpaper and designed two typefaces as well. He brought to the designer's mental toolkit a set of principles that lead to excellence: (1) unity of fine and applied arts and their mutual dependency, (2) simplicity of form, propriety of ornament, honesty of material (3) the idea that good design is both an ethic and an aesthetic.

In the 189o's, Louis Sullivan made great contributions to the creation of the modern skyscraper, and coined the phrase "form follows function". Sullivan was a principal influence on Frank Lloyd Wright, who came to embrace Sullivan's designs and principles as the inspiration for his own work.

In 1907, Peter Behrens, along with 10 other designers, founded the German Werkbund, an organization focused on improving the overall level of taste in Germany by improving the design of everyday objects and products, including electric appliances such the fan. He could be considered one of the first design consultants.

In 1919, Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus ("House of Building" or "Building School"). His contribution to design thinking was multidisciplinary team building and collective intelligence. His design approach was formal, rational, manufacturable as exemplified in his famous door handle design.

In the 1930's, Henry Dreyfuss brought credible methodology to design thinking. He felt an empathy and moralistic obligation to people who used the products he designed. The usability improvements he made to everyday products were not based on style but common sense and a scientific analysis. He made contributions to ergonomics, anthropometrics, and human factors that serve as foundations to these disciplines today. I'm absolutely fascinated with Dreyfuss' work and have been reading his classic book Designing for People.

2. What is Collective Intelligence?

All the students broke up into groups of six and for 10 minutes, talked about what makes us the same and different - our occupations, reasons for taking the class, what type of thinker we are, something interesting about us. Much like the Breakfast Club, we were a very mixed group which included 2 user experience designers (one from a technical background, one from visual), a mathematician, a psychologist, a technical writer and a curious mother. Each group was asked to come up with a name that represented their identity. My group was Formula for Creativity: 4x2 (4 visual thinkers, 2 analytical ones). Our tag line: Diverse in background, United by the back row (where we all sat).

Though there was great diversity across all the students, almost everyone was drawn to the class because they want to explore ways to change and improve themselves and the world. Diversity can be a strength or a hindrance. As each group moves forward, we must learn how to leverage that diversity to create something greater than any individual contribution. That is part of the challenge of building collective intelligence.

3. What is Design Thinking?

A very common answer to the question, "What is design thinking?" is "problem solving." This could be considered a limited viewpoint. Barry challenges his students to to anticipate the problems that the solutions create and solve those too. It's important to ask, "What happens if I succeed? Will it change the world in ways I've anticipated?" A good example of this is the mobile phone, which enables people to talk and text while driving, resulting in thousands of deaths each year.

This week's assignment is to find a problem that matters, a problem worth solving that a design thinker grapples with. My mind immediately went to safety, especially while driving, as I've been thinking about commuting for our big project. I've been hearing about cars that take control away from a driver in order to prevent an accident. I'm intrigued and skeptical. Ideally people would have focus, awareness and consideration behind the wheel that would keep safe driving top of mind all the time. Is it about changing the device or the mindset of the person operating it? I'm also thinking about ways in which people can connect their health with their habits in order make positive changes in both. Attitude, behavior and control are the threads. I need more thought and research on this.

Design Thinking with Barry Katz at Stanford: Class 1

2010-09-29T07:49:00.001-07:00

I'm beyond excited about the new class I'm taking at Stanford! It's called How to Think Like a Designer taught by Barry Katz. Barry is a consulting professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University, professor of Humanities and Design at California College of the Arts, and fellow at IDEO, a design and innovation consultancy that I've been a major fan of for years.

Just being on the Stanford campus is inspiring! The 12 week class is held in the Mechanical Engineering building adjacent to the beautiful Memorial Church. I arrived a few minutes before start time and was lucky to get one of the last seats in the back (some people sat on the floor). There must be 70 students ranging from mid 20s to mid 50s, more people than anyone was expecting. The interest and enthusiasm in the room was palpable. I'm among people who love learning and collaborating. I am home!

Barry gave an excellent overview of his experience, which included a fascinating history of the Stanford d.school, CCA and IDEO. He told stories about innovative projects from each place, and observed an interesting switch in the undergrad/grad focus. In the past, students often received their undergraduate degrees in something general, like Liberal Arts, and then pursued a specialty in grad school. These days, more students get a specialized undergrad, then use their graduate studies to explore how they want to apply that specialization. He talked about the history of design thinking, including French industrial designer Ray Loewy who designed everything from locomotives to Lucky Strike cigarette packaging, and Nobel prize winning polymath Herbert Simon who studied human activity around human built systems. He also told us about the book, Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation, which he co-authored with Tim Brown from IDEO.

Barry closed the class by revealing our semester long assignment: improve the experience of commuting. He said it's our responsibility and opportunity to define what commuting means. Immediately my mind kicked into high gear:

Commuting by car: improving comfort, safety (requiring driving tests more often, offering greater rewards for passing driving tests/traffic school, driving tips while you drive, rewards for staying at or under speed limit), multitasking, distractions from children and pets, traffic alerts, construction, alleviating boredom (new suggested routes to and from work to discover new things), parking (parking meters, paying remotely, app to avoid parking tickets), making use of traffic cameras to provide commentary/emotional feedback, weather conditions, sun in your eyes (a windshield that can dim, like auto-tinting eye glasses), forgetting your laptop at home.

Commuting by train/bus/subway: seat comfort, mobile phone use (etiquitte, accessibility), falling asleep and missing your stop, cleanliness/smell, temperature, transferring, lack of seating, accessibility, accommodating packages, using public transport to move something other than yourself (pets, sick people, bulky objects), meeting people, schedules, waiting shelters, advertising, educational opportunities while you wait, empathy for customers and drivers/conductors, tickets, exact change, loosing cards, over capacity, traffic, construction. Also commuting by taxi and car/limo/van service, special events, parties.

Commuting by plane: orientation and relationship to public transportation, shuttle buses, loosing your boarding pass, boarding order, safety assurances, meeting people (Virgin's seat to seat IM), frequent business flyer perks/issues, sleeping in airport when weather is bad, lost luggage, luggage flies to airport before you do, delays, updates, sleeping on plane, empathy for fellow passengers, lighting, food and drink, staying hydrated, circulation, time zone changes, odors, temperature, storage, lap belts, safety instructions, wifi, barf bags.

Commuting on foot/bike/motorcycle: navigation, addresses, parking, carrying laptop, number of blocks to surrounding destinations (California Ave), comfort, weather, relationship of cars to people/bikes, giving the right of way, blind spots.

I can't wait to collaborate with new people and apply my passion for design thinking to important issues we all share.

Becoming more...User Experience Design and beyond

2010-06-09T06:44:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about getting a Masters that will challenge and enable me to do more of what I love: help people feel smart, have positive experiences, and learn to do anything with a sense of fascination, ease and joy. One place that I'm looking into is the dschool at Stanford. I'm also inspired by 2 close friends who recently decided to get their MBA and MFA. Thank you for making me feel like I can do it too.

2010-06-08T11:59:00.000-07:00

2010 Razorfish Outlook Report

Always enlightening and valuable. You can also check out more documents from Razorfish here.

Your intelligence is in your hands

2010-05-12T07:29:00.000-07:00

Last night I grew many neurons listening to Carol Dweck's presentation on Creating a Mindset for Achievement at BayCHI. Carol is a social psychologist, professor at Stanford and a leading researcher in the field of motivation. Her extensive research in young students' ability to learn and improve in the face of struggle is the heart of the fixed vs growth learning concept:

"I don't divide the word into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures. I divide them into the learners and the non-learners." - Benjamin Barber

According to Carol Dweck, people with the fixed learning mindset:

Believe intelligence is a fixed trait.
Feel they must look intelligent at all times. They don't publicly question anything for fear of revealing what they don't know. They hide their mistakes and deficiencies.
Avoid struggle and challenge because they believe learning must be effortless. They think struggle is proof that they lack the ability to learn that subject or skill.
Compare themselves to people who achieve less as proof that they are intelligent.

The fixed mindset provides no recipe for recovering from failures. Fixed mindset learners easily give up, retreat to comfortable topics, blame others, or look for other people to feel superior to. Fixed mindsets are cultivated early in life by parents and teachers who unknowingly suggest the values of a fixed mindset mentality. They praise kids when things come easy, tell them they're talented and smart, and they don't reward struggle or effort as often.

In my own experience, I think back to elementary school art class, where students were though of as natural talents or not. The ability to draw was not presented as a learnable skill (most likely because the teachers didn't posses it themselves), so teachers had to give "A's for effort". However, the perception remained that either you have it...or you don't. I've often encountered this attitude around "being creative" as well, as if it's some kind of magical power. Though some people do seem to be more effortlessly able to draw and think "creatively", I certainly believe both are skills can be acquired and sharpened with practice. Turns out one of the biggest obstacles to leaning is simply believing you're not capable.

People with the growth learning mindset:

Believe intelligence is a malleable quality, a potential that can be developed.
Are always trying to learn, ask questions, and don't feel unintelligent for not knowing the answers. They capitalize on mistakes and view them as part of the learning process.
Enjoy the hard work of learning as well as the outcome. They're not singularly focused on grades or whether or not their answers are right. They care about understanding the answers.
Compare themselves to people who achieve more, aspire to their level, and believe with hard work, they can get there.

As a user experience designer, I've noticed that any time I encounter a product that feels effortless to understand and operate, it makes me feel smart. My goal is to help other people feel the same way. When it comes to products, users should be engaged by the knowledge or entertainment that your product provides, not by trying to figure out what it is or how to access it. Is that just catering to the fixed mindset? In this case, I don't think so. Removing struggle gets people right to the stuff they care most about. That's not just good user experience, it's good business.

How F8 made me feel

2010-04-21T20:43:00.000-07:00

I just got home from the F8 Facebook Conference, and of course there's already thousands of recaps, predictions, warnings, praises and opinions flying on twitter, Mashable, TechCrunch, and blogs like this one by Jeremiah Owyang. What I'd like to share is my personal experience at F8.

Elated. Inspired. Energized. These are just a few things I felt at F8. I witnessed a major shift in the way we'll all be experiencing the world in the near future. And I'm not even taking about the actual sessions. Upon registering, I received a beautifully designed passport with a small rectangular token attached to it. I logged on to facebook.com/presence and typed in the number on the token, connecting my facebook identity to it. Whenever I entered a session, I tapped the token on a glowing scanner and it instantly created a post that says where I am. This worked for tagging photos too. My coworkers and I stood in front of a photo kiosk, a photo was snapped, and we tagged ourselves on the spot by tapping our tokens to the kiosk and touching our faces on the screen. And of course, the photo was auto posted to facebook. My first thought - when will we have permanent tokens subdermally inserted into out palms? With a swipe of your seemingly naked hand, you could potentially complete a credit card transaction, add shopping items to a list, bookmark an actual object or physical place. No more barriers between device and human. (For differing opinions on Facebook's RFID tokens, check out this post on Techcrunch.)

Here's some photos of the Facebook token, scanner and the larger than life screen that visualized patterns of everyone moving from scanner to scanner:

Here's the facebook presence token in my passport

Here's the glowing scanner - changes color when you've successfully connected

Here's the visualization showing people's movement patterns throughout the venue. Check out that "War Games" reference in the upper right :-)

One of the central themes of F8 was simplicity. Ahhh, simplicity. Everyone strives for it in their product. Many claim to have it, as if telling users something is simple on their home page makes it so. But facebook, they know how to do simplicity. Every session I attended used consistent language and visuals. At first it seemed a little repetitive, but then I realized - their united front made it simple and memorable. All the sessions spoke the same message, like a well conceived Presidential election.

There were 2 points in particular that to me, summarize their dedication to simplicity:

Simplicity by listening to users
Chris Cox, VP of Product, commented in his inspiring closing remarks that "the products were hacks". The team watched people "misuse" the product, then designed featured that enabled users to do what they wanted to do. He told the story of the early days before facebook had photo albums. The only place a user could upload a photo was their user profile, and they noticed some people were changing this photo multiple times a day. They looked at all the photo sites at the time - flickr, ophoto, kodak (to name just a few). There were so many things people could do with their photos on these sites. Sticking to their concept of being people-centric, they added just one main feature - the ability to tag people.

Simplicity by not listening to the users
In the "Designing for Social Web" session, Julie Zhou talked about some featured that users have asked for, such as the ability to see what friends have recently visited your profile. While this seems like a good idea on the surface, there's also a possibility that you could be seen as nosy, creepy, or just inappropriate if you keep visiting someone's profile. Another is the dislike button. Sure, there are things you really want to dislike sometimes, but instead you say nothing at all. What do these 2 things have in common? Facebook doesn't implement features that would potentially discourage people from sharing. The most important thing is that people feel comfortable sharing, and that action is as easy as possible. With the new soon to be ubiquitous like button, sharing what you love will become as commonplace as clicking a link.

One of the most important factors that has made facebook successful is their consistent adherence to a vision that works - making it people centric and keeping it simple. Their success also shows that these 2 things are the some of the hardest objectives to achieve, but when you do, you can change the world.

Four Keys To Fun

2010-03-29T06:51:00.001-07:00

On Saturday I attended a fascinating talk by Nicole Lazarro of XEODesign about emotions and user experience. Here's the slides:

Four Keys To Fun BayCHI Slides

Some of the most standout ideas:

1. Good games create fun though the choices the user makes. Fun shouldn't be limited to gaming. Why not make boring and stressful tasks like banking, health care, and learning a technical skill more fun? Fun doesn't mean lack of seriousness. It can be surprisingly delightful and easy. One of the best examples of fun learning is the Head First books from O'Reilly. I read the HTML/CSS book and completed the crossword puzzles at the end of each chapter - and enjoyed it! The more fun a task is, the easier it is to complete, the more you learn, the more motivated you are to keep learning. Emotions improve memory recall and performance. Feeling smart is fun.

2. Some of the most popular games are not gender specific. Farmville and Rock Band tap into social emotions - chumminess, admiration, competition and bonding through reciprocity. I love the Rock Band experience because it's an exciting way to create fun memories with friends. We gather at my place to enjoy the music, work together to unlock new cities, save each other when we fail out, laugh when someone can't sing, and compliment each other on our song scores, "96 percent complete with most energy? Rock on!"

Nicole pointed out that games that are targeted at exclusively "male" emotions (schadenfreude, aggression, rewards) and "female" emotions (helping, complimenting) are leaving all the other shared emotions on the table. The most successful games tap into all the social emotions throughout game play and inspire people to come back for more.

3. Making a game (or any experience) viral means having a simple goal, ways to connect with friends, and social tokens that increase in emotional value with use. Of all 3, I believe maintaining a simple goal is the most difficult. What starts out as a singular idea often gets clouded by positioning new features as equal to the core activity. What's the one thing that people enjoy most about your game (or product)? Do that better than anyone, then propel engagement by making it easy for people to share that and reward each other.

Social tokens are virtual gifts, compliments, private jokes, or anything that makes you feel like you're making real connections with other people. From a Facebook "poke" or "like it" to the prop icons like "You rock" on Kaboodle, these one click social acknowledgements are frictionless ways to create repeat engagement. And they're fun too.

The Social Media Revolution

2009-09-11T17:16:00.000-07:00

An attractive video brimming with facts about the future of social media, created by Eric Qualman from Socialnomics. Reminds me of the classic The Machine is Us/ing Us. A few memorable stats:

By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers
96% of them have joined a social network
If Facebook would be a country, it would be the world’s 4th largest
80% of companies are using LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees
80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices. People update anywhere, anytime. Imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?

how to be happy in business - venn diagram

2009-06-09T17:12:00.000-07:00

In my experience, this is the divine formula to career bliss. I discovered this diagram via my friend Ken Zirkel's tweet. It was created by Bud Caddell and posted to his blog what consumes me.

Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman

2009-06-08T15:21:00.001-07:00

I am a HUGE fan of Julius Shulman and this documentary is all about his ground breaking architectural photography. His images helped shape the careers of some of the greatest architects of the 20th Century: Richard Neutra, Rudolph Schindler, Pierre Koenig, John Lautner, and many others. I just got tickets to see this on Saturday, June 27th at the Los Angeles MOCA. When this is available on DVD I'll buy it too.

ThisNext's Shopping Map Experience featured on Forbes.com

2009-06-05T10:28:00.000-07:00

Watch people shop around the world in real time with ThisNext.com's highly addictive shopping map. ThisNext has customized this feature to create unique shopping experinces for Visa Europe and Pepsi/Propel. Check out Kym McNicholas' interview with Scott Morrow, CEO of ThisNext on Forbes.com

Low cost usability testing

2009-05-14T07:23:00.000-07:00

UserTesting.com is fast, cheap, quick and dirty testing - and that's a very good thing! You can commission one or more 15 minute tests specifying the demographic profile of your target audience, how many users you want, and what tasks you want them to perform on your site. The deliverable is a screen recording with think-aloud audio which is typically ready for viewing in 24 hours or less.

I heard about this via Steve Krug's e-newsletter, who passed along this fantastic deal: "until the end of May they're letting people buy pre-paid test credits at the old price, which are good for a year. If you haven't tried it yet, do it now (they have a 30-day money back guarantee) so that if you like it you can stock up on some credits while there's still time." If Steve Krug recommended it, you know it's good. Thanks Steve!

http://www.usertesting.com/index.aspx?Price=19

What I love about ThisNext

2009-04-22T16:12:00.001-07:00

I love the cool, eclectic products I discover on ThisNext - fashion, gadgets, eco friendly products, art, design objects and cupcake accessories. There's something for everyone here, and I get a kick out of browsing the site every time.

Going to the UIE Web App Summit

2009-04-14T08:31:00.000-07:00

The UIE Web App Summit is a 4 day event in Newport Beach starting this Sunday. I'll be attending Robert Hoekman's full day workshop "Web App Anatomy: Effective Interaction Design within Frameworks." I checked out Robert's 1 hour session at SXSW and liked what he had to say, so I'm really looking forward to a full day of learning from him. Here's the workshop description:

One of the hardest parts of any web application design project is the starting point. Making the jump from a high-level understanding of the application’s goals to the fine-grain detail necessary for the application’s design can be a brutal experience. After all, how do you know if you've captured all the essential elements or if you're leaving something crucial out?

That’s why we’ve asked Robert Hoekman, author of the bestselling books, Designing the Obvious and Designing the Moment, to talk about his nifty process for helping teams get started faster, whether they’re building a new application from scratch or enhancing an existing design. In his process, he’s put together a set of frameworks and principles aimed to jumpstart and focus the team’s design efforts.

In this new full-day seminar, you’ll learn to think about your application anatomically—to break it into essential subsystems that interact to make it fully functional. You’ll use frameworks—compiled sets of interaction design patterns—to form your design’s starting point. You’ll see how a complete set of frameworks can ensure the team includes all the important details you’ll need for important usage scenarios and creating enjoyable user experiences. Robert will also demonstrate how you’ll use his concrete set of interaction design principles to quickly resolve the hundreds of important decisions that will crop up during your design process. Robert has created a proven list of guiding principles with a record of empowering teams to reach new levels of excellence.

Check out the other full day workshops from Luke Wroblewski from Yahoo!, Dan Brown from Eight Shapes and more.

Lea Ann Hutter's Portfolio

2009-03-12T08:50:00.000-07:00

I'm currently a User Experience Designer at LinkedIn. My PDF portfolio features past UX and UI design solutions, branding and creative direction for companies such as:

Kaboodle.com
I worked as Senior UI Designer at Kaboodle.com, one of the earliest innovators in the social shopping space. My work at Kaboodle goes beyond visual design of core features to encompass product strategy, feature analysis, writing and wire framing complete task flows such as Facebook Login. I also work closely with product and engineering to develop iterations of the SEO catalog page and SEM landing page for A/B testing to increase affiliate monetization.

ThisNext.com
As the User Experience Designer at ThisNext.com, I developed UI solutions that balanced meeting revenue goals with creating an engaging user experience. I provided creative direction, maintained ThisNext’s brand across the network, concepted partner integrations and developed competitive analysis (industry wide and feature specific). I also lead a scrum team and managed other designers.

From 1999 to early 2008, I was Principal and Creative Director at Hutter Design. My focus was building solid, long term client relationships and delivering successful design solutions on time and budget. Most of my clients retained my services for 3 or more years for projects that ranged from branding, advertising, email marketing, web sites with CMS, UI design and usability consultation. Here's a few highlights:

Glow.com
I consulted with Glow on UI design that simplified the online shopping experience. I also designed the Glow logo and art directed the section graphics.

Wazap.com
I created high fidelity mock ups of proposed site features, search plug ins and supporting graphics for Wazap.com, the US gaming search engine.

The full scoop on these projects (with annotated visuals) is just a click away. I welcome you to check out my PDF portfolio and my résumé on LinkedIn.

The first LA UX book club

2009-01-23T11:46:00.000-08:00

There's so many excellent UX groups in LA and I'm thrilled to be part of a brand new one - the LA UX Book Club. We met for the first time at the Santa Monica library to discuss Bill Buxton's Sketching User Experiences. Our collective take on the book was that it was an epic sketch that needed editing. But it did provide a fantastic springboard for discussions about wireframing techniques, sketching as a tool vs as a deliverable, setting expectations as part of the design process, stealing time to sketch, the challenge of UX designing in agile, communicating and establishing trust with clients, and personas - useful or useless?

Check out some of the resources we discussed:
• Balsamiq, the online wireframing app that makes your wireframes look hand drawn
• GUI magnets for enhanced whiteboard sketching
• 3 book recommendations about communicating and pursuasion: Crucial Conversations, On Dialogue and Nudge
...and if you decide to skip the book, do check out Bill Buxton's talk at Interaction 08 (thanks for the link Elise!)

Fish

2009-01-20T17:37:00.001-08:00

Thomas Jefferson's definition of progress

2009-01-20T07:54:00.000-08:00

This powerful quote from Thomas Jefferson was read at the MLK celebration in DC yesterday: "I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

The time for a new coat has come. I am inspired, proud of America, and filled with gratitude on the inauguration day of Barak Obama.

Objectified

2009-01-08T08:23:00.000-08:00

Objectified, the new film by the director of Helvetica, is an exploration of how we perceive and design products for everyday use. A must see!

DIY Plant Twitter Kit

2008-10-30T15:04:00.001-07:00

Now here's a use for twitter I can really believe in. Stick this geeky little device in your plant pots and it will tweet its status, from needing water to scolding you for over watering. The plant gets its own twitter feed. This is so brilliant and necessary for my houseplants. I may have to go buy it for $99 at ThinkGeek

Web 2.0 Halloween humor

2008-10-28T21:12:00.000-07:00

Last week I went to the IxDA Halloween costume party at Almer/Blank in Venice. The theme was to dress up as your favorite web site or app (of which I have many), so I decided to go as a Web 2.0 cliché. I designed a "beta costuum" mini poster and wore it around my neck with a black chiffon ribbon. Too geeky?

Deconstructing Product Design

2008-10-23T07:09:00.000-07:00

Want to share your opinion on some of the most definitive products ever designed and be published in a book? Deconstructing Product Design is looking for personal usability reviews on 116 classics like the Eames LCW, the Alessi 9093 kettle and the Target Clear Rx Bottle. There's also some less commonly known selections such as the Jaipur Foot , an artificial limb that's so efficient, people who wear it can walk without suppport, run, and even climb a tree.

Web 2.Overkill

2008-10-16T11:48:00.000-07:00

The image above is a hypothetical example of what I think is overkill, yet would not be surprised to see. 2 weeks ago I hiked to Eagle Rock in Topanga State park, and when I got to the top there was a woman who was twittering and uploading photos to flickr. There was no civilization as far as the eye can see, so I was surprised that she'd even get iPhone reception. I understand and respect people's desire to twitter every moment of their lives, but sometimes it just seems - overkill. The image above is from enthree.

Hack the debate

2008-10-02T19:23:00.000-07:00

Current and Twitter have teamed up for the first time to integrate real-time Twitter messages over the live broacast of Biden vs Palin. Right now I'm designing a holiday guide product, IMing, reading tweets, listening to Sara Palin say "Dog- gone" and blogging. I might explode.

What happens in a world where interactions become tangible?

2008-08-10T14:59:00.000-07:00

Check out this video that illustrates the idea that an object's meaning will transcend its definition to include its associations with other objects, actions, people and more:

Tangible Actions in Motion from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

UX inspiration from Konigi

2008-06-22T08:54:00.000-07:00

Konigi is a beautiful site chock full of inspiration for user experience designers. They showcase examples of interface and visual design in their galleries and point you to some interesting UX resources in their notebook section.

The art of engaging UI design

2008-06-22T08:03:00.000-07:00

This quote by graphic design legend Paul Rand reflects a fundamental component of successful UI design: "Without content, there's no form. And without form there's no content. When form predominates, meaning is blunted. But when content predominates, interest lags. A work of of art is realized when form and content are indistinguishable. Art is an idea that has found its perfect form." Whether or not UI design or any visual design is art depends on your definition of art. When a UI interface helps a user do, think or feel something that transcends the UI, that's an art-like experience in my book. The best user experiences are when the interface seems to disappear and the user is fully engaged with the desire and purpose that fuels them.

Organization Geekery

2008-05-08T15:18:00.003-07:00

My collection of must haves to help you create logic, order, and beauty, online and off.

See more of my Organization Geekery list at ThisNext where I work as a User Experience Designer.

Thinking on your feet: Improv and Business

2008-04-29T07:50:00.000-07:00

Do you feel stuck when clients ask you tough questions? Do you get anxious when presenting in front of a group? If so, then join me at a really fun event I'm moderating called Thinking on Your Feet: Improv as a Presentation Skill-Builder. I've been taking improv comedy classes for over a year and it's helped me immensely with pitching new clients, interviewing and making presentations. This event is lead by Lloyd Ahlquist, a fantastic improviser and teacher. He'll show us how to use "hyper-listening" and "yes, and" to overcome that feeling of hesitation that makes presenting so tough. Come on down and get creative with your communication skills.

When and Where
Saturday May 3rd, 9:30-noon at Westside Eclectic

To Register
Call 818.558.3968 to reserve your seat
First 15 free tickets are free to AIGA members
Non Members are $40
More info at AIGA

Ideas for ideating online

2008-02-26T07:31:00.000-08:00

For the past 2 weeks I've been ideating mashup concepts for my UX design for web class. The students have been sharing links and observations through our class Google Group. Some of us use IM and phone to discuss each other’s projects. But the one thing that we haven't shared much of outside of class is our actual sketches. This has proven a challenge, as the kind of feedback you can give and receive from sharing sketches is much different, and better, than sharing ideas strictly with words.

Here's some interesting tools we could explore in our quest for online collaboration:

Cozimo
It's a real time multi user whiteboard! One of my clients recommended this to me and says it works like a charm on Mac and PC.

Flickr Photo Groups and SlideShare Groups
Flickr is the ubiquitous forum for viewing and commenting on images. SlideShare is like the multipage cousin of Flickr. And how great is it that there's a group that's collecting slide shows about Web 2.o tools for effective teaching? I did a quick scan and thought this one about Web 2.0 educational applications had a lot of great resources, some of which we've experimented with in our class, like Zoho and Google Docs. Personally, I found Google Docs to be more stable and robust than Zoho Writer, but there's a whole suite of tools that look worthy of exploring, such as web conferencing and project management software.

VoiceThread
"A VoiceThread is an online media album that can hold essentially any type of media (images, documents and videos) and allows people to make comments in 5 different ways - using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam) - and share them with anyone. A VoiceThread allows group conversations to be collected and shared in one place, from anywhere in the world." Think of the potential this has not only for our critiques, but for client presentations and online portfolios. My first (quick) impression is that it's also a great example of a user friendly GUI.

Who wants to test drive these tools with me?

LA UX Meetup: Tools of the Trade

2008-02-22T11:54:00.000-08:00

Join in the conversation about your favorite UX tools of the trade (software, crafty supplies, methods) in a speed-dating style event. There will be small groups/topics that will switch up quickly throughout the evening, so you'll get to share your experience with many people. It looks like a fun and engaging way to learn more about UX and connect with fellow designers. Hope to see you there!

Thursday, Mar 20th, 7:00 PM
Hosted by LA Times Interactive (downtown)
Max attendance set at 80, so sign up soon - details here

The first IxDA Interaction Conference

2008-02-14T21:29:00.000-08:00

I recently joined IxDA, The Interaction Design Association. IxD is "the branch of user experience design that defines the structure and behavior of interactive products and services". The heart of IxDA is the online forum where members discuss everything from tools and methodologies to books and educational resources. This is the first year that IxDA had a conference. Fellow UX designer Pat Lang just sent me a link to the conference videos, which I'm pleased to share here. Thanks Pat!

Serious Play

2008-02-13T22:46:00.001-08:00

I'm seriously considering shelling out $1,350 for Serious Play, a 3 day conference featuring the innovative minds of Irene Aum (User Experience Designer at Google), Tim Brown (President & CEO of IDEO), John Maeda and Philip Rosedale (Creator of Second Life). More than just a bunch of typical lectures, the conference speakers will lead 3 hour hands-on studios. The site doesn't say much about the studio topics yet, only that they range from "new creative strategies to product development and much more." If the studios are with any of the people I just mentioned, I may seriously have to go.

Presenting your ideas with passion

2008-02-11T07:42:00.000-08:00

One of the people I admire most is Steve Jobs, not just for his groundbreaking products, but the way he presents them. I came across a great BusinessWeek article that outlined 10 ways to deliver a presentation like Steve Jobs. This got me thinking about my own experiences with presenting, which is something I really enjoy.

One of the most memorable presentations I made was when I was Design Director at The Sloan Group. There I lead a creative team that worked exclusively on WorldSpace (international satellite radio). It was the largest account in the agency at the time with a 50k a month retainer. WorldSpace was a fascinating opportunity to develop a global B to B brand. We created advertising campaigns, trade show booths and marketing materials that were translated into everything from Arabic to Chinese.

One morning I flew to WorldSpace corporate headquarters in Washington DC with Cliff, the president of the Sloan Group, and the lead account exec. On the plane Cliff leaned over and told me that I would be presenting the 12 concepts we developed for a new division, WorldScape. I sat forward and gazed at each logo in the deck, envisioning myself describing each one. I thought about how genuinely proud I was of every concept - solid, stand alone graphic identities that represented what the product was all about.

Flash forward to the presentation. I stood at the head of a long, glossy conference table packed with 20 top marketing and technical heads of WorldSpace. I introduced each of the concepts as if they were people, with distinct personalities and points of view, but all relatives in the WorldSpace family. As I placed the last board down and thanked everyone, something very unexpected happened - everyone applauded. This was the moment I realized how powerful speaking with passion and conviction can be. When you truly believe in your own ideas, other people can too.

Image of Steve Jobs at MacWorld 2008 by dfarber via flickr, used under a Creative Commons license

The wonderful world of prototyping tools

2008-02-05T19:37:00.000-08:00

Last week I attended the LA User Experience Meetup at Wongdoody, a marketing ideas agency in Culver City. The focus of the evening was an iRise demo, a tool that makes wireframes and hi fidelity mock ups interactive and annotatable. It uses layout and functionality paradigms familiar to anyone who uses Adobe CS3 apps. iRise is definitely a big team tool, as it allows multiple people to work on 1 doc simultaneously, and the licensing price starts at 5k.

After the demo a few classmates and I got into a conversation about all the different prototyping tools available. So which ones should we be using? In my quest for the answer, I discovered a world of opinions, not just on the tools but how they're used together to communicate everything from rough ideas to polished presentations.

I recently joined IxDA and found some excellent threads on this topic. Check out What tools do you use for prototyping? and the feisty debate that sprang from that, Paper is not a prototyping tool. Here's just a few of the tools UX designers use:

1. Paper. Where ideas are born. Besides the shower.

2. Visio & Omnigraffle: Often referred to as Mac & PC equivalent of each other.

3. Axure & iRise. Similar in the fundamentals, but not in price.

4. Intuitect: First heard about this on Boxes and Arrows

5. Flash, Dreamweaver and After Effects: While Flash and Dreamweaver are often top of mind on the visual design/production end, they're commonly used for simulating interactions, such as a drag and drop. After Effects, a motion graphics app, can often express in movement what would be hard to describe in words.

6. HTML, CSS & AJAX: More control, but without the WYSISWG interface.

7. Photoshop, Illustrator, & InDesign: The crossover apps between print and web design.

8. Powerpoint and Keynote: Some people add their Visio wireframes in Powerpoint to create a client demo.

9. Canvas 11: Haven't heard much about it. Looks similar to Illustrator.

10. GUI magnets: Enhance your whiteboard or your fridge! Not a product you can buy... yet. But I want to. You can also make your own with magnetic backed paper from Staples.

There are more. Many more. Bottom line? The tools you use will most likely be determined by your company. Some companies test drive new tools while others stick to the tried and true. The most important things you need as a UX designer are your ideas. How you communicate them can take innumerable forms.

Image by scui3asteveo via flickr, used under a Creative Commons license

How I became a User Experience Designer

2008-01-31T16:33:00.000-08:00

After 15 years specializing in branding and creative direction for web and print, I’ve discovered that my intuitive talent for wireframing, planning, crafting requirement docs, iterative testing and advocating for all involved has a name - User Experience (UX) Design. In short, I bring clarity to complex information and tasks and design web sites that people enjoy using.

I’m officially transforming this blog into a collection of my knowledge and experiences as a UX designer. I’ll be sharing insights, resources and projects created for clients such as Saladino Style, M Represents, Wazap, as well as concepts I developed in two UCLAx classes in UX.

Currently I’m in week 3 of “User Experience Design for the Web” taught by the superb Ann Supawanich, dynamic advocate for UX designers and VP of UX at Schematic. I first took this class in the summer of 2007, taught by the accomplished UX Lead Jeanine Harriman, formerly of Avenue A Razorfish, now with Liquidnet. Both Ann and Jeanine are instrumental in my solid understanding of best practices and methodologies. They structured the classes like a working UX team, with exercises based on collaboration, real world interviews, on site user observation and testing. If you’re interested in taking this class, check out UCLAx site right now.

I invite you to join my exploration of intelligent simplicity and elegance in all things.

My zen calendar says...

2008-01-03T17:07:00.001-08:00

"Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine." - Shunryu Suzuki

Do what you are and you'll love what you do

2007-12-24T08:38:00.000-08:00

I was thinking about this post I read on Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist blog where she makes a case against the classic career advice of doing what you love,"Often, the thing we should do for our career is something we would only do if we were getting a reward. If you tell yourself that your job has to be something you’d do even if you didn’t get paid, you’ll be looking for a long time. Maybe forever. So why set that standard? The reward for doing a job is contributing to something larger than you are, participating in society, and being valued in the form of money... Here’s some practical advice: Do not what you love; do what you are. "

While I agree with Penelope's definition of a rewarding job, I'd go further by saying if your job makes you feel valuable and appreciated, you'll feel like you're doing something you love. I'd also add to that you need to feel challenged, because no one loves being indefinitely bored.

I'm a huge believer in doing what you are so you'll love what you do. For example, anyone who has ever worked with me as a client, boss or coworker knows that I'm super organized. I can't help myself really. I'm compelled to record and remember the details of everything I work on because it makes my life, and everyone else's, easier. I used to view this as a handy little trait to have, but I realize now that it's my career calling. I am, and I love being, a person who understands, organizes and simplifies huge amounts of complex information. This is one of many skills that has lead me to a new career - user experience design.

John Maeda for President (of RISD)

2007-12-22T00:20:00.000-08:00

Rhode Island School of Design just announced that John Maeda has accepted the offer to become the 16th president of RISD. Check out this short video where John talks about the position and reveals what he said to his daughter when she told him she wants to be an artist.

Bliss is like a flack jacket

2007-12-21T23:58:00.001-08:00

I just finished reading David Lynch's book Catching The Big Fish. It's a fascinating collection of his thoughts on film making, intuition, creativity, and transcendental mediation. "It's good for the artist to understand conflict and stress. Those things can give you ideas. But I guarantee you, if you have enough stress, it will get in the way of your creativity. You can understand conflict, but you don't have to live in it. So it just makes sense to nurture the place where strength and clarity come from - to dive in and enliven that. Bliss is like a flack jacket. It's a protecting thing. If you have enough bliss, it's invincibility."

David Lynch created a Foundation that promotes the teaching of stress-reducing Transcendental Meditation in schools. The Foundation also funds independent research institutions to assess the effects of the program on creativity, intelligence, brain functioning, learning disorders, anxiety, depression, and substance abuse.

The grooviest holiday music, baby!

2007-12-20T17:42:00.000-08:00

I'm crazy about Luxuria Music, an internet radio station that plays the kookiest collection of surf, swing, jazz, lounge and latin. If your eclectic taste ranges from Henry Mancini and Sammy Davis Jr. to The Beach Boys and the Osmonds, this is your mother ship of music.

These are 2 of my favorite things

2007-12-19T18:15:00.000-08:00

Mid century modern architecture and dessert? I'm in love.

Via core 77

Bold advice from Wynton Marsalis' dad

2007-12-18T15:38:00.000-08:00

I'm hooked on Iconoclasts, the Sundance Channel show that documents the insightful exchange between 2 very famous, and seemingly different people who greatly respect each other. In one episode, world renowned Jazz musician Wynton Marsalis talked about how he decided to dedicate his life to Jazz, like his father did. "When I was trying to determine what I was going to do after high school, all my school counselors, my mom, everyone was saying do not go into music - because you'll end up like your father. You'll basically be broke, struggling. You have to have something to fall back on. I asked my daddy, what should I do, man, should I have something to fall back on? He said the only advice I can give you is don't have anything to fall back on. Because what it will take for you to make it doing this, it's going to be very, very, very, very hard. So if you have something to fall back on, you're gonna fall back."

Everyone's related

2007-12-13T15:01:00.001-08:00

I just started exploring Geni, an online app that lets you create a family tree. You can invite your family by email and everyone can build it out together. Then you can click on any member and see the whole tree from their origin, as well as viewing as a list. There's also a personal profile/photo section for every member. It's an amazing view of not only how deep your roots are (your parents, grandparents), but how wide (your extended families through spouses, cousins). It gave me a very cool sense of belonging to something much bigger than I imagined - an infinite family.

Growing your own brand

2007-07-04T10:43:00.000-07:00

When I first talked with Pash about doing an AIGA Shop Talk event, we were both excited about the topic of growing your own brand, or as Pash also put it, “the cobbler’s kids have no shoes”. Pash is the successful head cobbler (aka Creative Director) at Trunk LTD, a lifestyle brand that creates vintage concert apparel. Last week AIGA members gathered for an unforgettable evening at Trunk’s Culver City HQ, complete with a mini bronze elephant (the company icon), bubble gum machine and checkered taxi in the lobby.

Whether you’re a one person show or principal of a large firm, we all find ourselves “without shoes” at times. Why? Because it’s hard to see our business objectively and present it succinctly. Pash was brilliant at getting to the heart of the challenge - knowing who you are, how to communicate it, and who to tell your story to. He talked about the 5 must haves every designer/firm needs to grow their brand:

1. The courage (and personality) to talk about what you do to everyone you meet.
2. A short blurb or summary of what you do and who you do it for. Don’t be vague, like some clients can be. We help clients not be vague.
3. A business card that’s with you at all times. Make it as memorable as you want to be.
4. Examples of your work. Not just a web site or portfolio, but a mini samples that are with you all the time.
5. A marketing strategy (not a business plan). Simply put - the way that you’re going to regularly connect with your network.

Sounds easy? It’s not. Most people have the business cards, portfolio and web site. They may even carry around work samples and send email newsletters or direct mail when things aren’t so busy around the office. But how many can describe what they do and who they do it for in a sentence? Without using the same banal jargon as everyone else? Can you? I’ve found 2 reasons why this is so challenging. First, designers are so much more than visual creators. We're also marketers, content developers, project managers, team leaders and business advisors. As Pash put it so well, “clients look to me for my opinion on what will help them accomplish their goals.” Second, many designers avoid specializing in an industry or discipline because we enjoy diversity and fear that specializing will limit our opportunities. The truth is that specializing not only helps potential clients identify you, it helps you find and prequalify them. It’s noteworthy that Pash placed courage and clarity before anything else. That's the source of answers to all the essential questions about you and your business.

What are the benefits of defining your own brand? Pash explained that a clear brand is a badge of credibility. It establishes and supports people’s perception of you - the one you want them to have. It’s the ultimate case study - a perfect example of your ability to build a complete communication message. Think of how effective you'll be as a cobbler with a unique pair of shoes for the whole family that is your brand.

Here's some resources that have helped me grow my brand:
- Now, Discover your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham
- Marketing Mentor helps you create your marketing plan and stick to it.
- Practical tips and teleclasses on cold calling
- A handy online tool that helps you sketch out your 15 second pitch
- Excellent articles on how to position your services and price your work
- A flickr collection of inspiring business card design

I welcome you to continue the conversation and share your thoughts here. What's your biggest challenge growing your brand?

Creative Talks: Eric Steuer on Reusable Culture

2007-06-28T12:32:00.000-07:00

I'm really looking forward to Eric Steuer's presentation on reusable culture. He'll look at ways that people around the world contribute to and draw from the massive pool of creative work on the Web to expand the worlds of art, education, and science. Eric is the creative director of Creative Commons, where he develops the organization's media and culture projects. He's also a contributing editor for Wired magazine, where he's written about the implications of digital culture on music and the concept of the "Infinite Album," whereby one album becomes a long shelf of songs and products, each carrying its own release date, distribution path, and price tag. A co-founder of Sneakmove Recordings, Eric is also a member of Meanest Man Contest, a hip-hop group with upcoming releases on Plug Research and Gold Robot Records.

Creative Talks is a forum for LA area designers to meet, get inspired, and learn from each other. It's free and open to the public - just be sure to RSVP on upcoming.
Wednesday, July 11 at Yahoo!

2450 Broadway, Santa Monica, California 90404
Snacks and socializing starts at 7:00pm. The talk is from 7:30 to 8:30pm.

Say hello to your inner self

2007-05-31T08:27:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder what your muscles and bones look like when you're riding a bike? The Specialized Body Geometry website is a fascinating look at the anatomy of a biker and ergonomic biking accessories like saddles, gloves and shoes. The products are showcased with exquisite animated illustrations, including a skeleton that spins, coasts, climbs, and does warm up stretches (turn your volume up so you don't miss the realistic sounds of knuckle cracking and head scratching). The success of this site is in the integration of product features and benefits with a memorable visual concept. Site designed by Goodby, Silverstein and Partners

I'm moderating an AIGA Shop Talk in June

2007-05-23T18:28:00.000-07:00

One of the best reasons to join AIGA LA is the Business Matters and Shop Talk events. They focus on real design biz issues like partnerships, money management, evaluating your business plan and dealing with difficult clients. That's why I joined the 2007 Shop Talk committee! Join me on Tuesday, June 26th for Shop Talk 3 Growing Your Own Brand. I'll be talking with Pash, former President of AIGA LA and Creative Director at Trunk LTD. We'll explore what it takes to actively shape your brand to attract a higher level of clients and projects. Get the full scoop and sign up on the AIGA LA events page.

Kernspiracy portfolio review night

2007-05-09T12:19:00.000-07:00

Designers, copy writers and other cool creatives came down for the Kernspiracy Portfolio Review Night at Machine Project. I totally enjoyed meeting and reviewing the portfolios of some very talented designers like Sandra Schwaiger (above), who just moved here from Germany a few weeks ago. Check out some photos of all the fun.

Otis designers ready for the real world

2007-04-25T13:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had the pleasure of reviewing portfolios of Otis students in
Terry Lee Stone's Professional Practices class. In just 2 weeks these Communication Design students will be officially on the hunt for full time work. I was especially impressed by Scott Benoit's beautiful combo of type and illustration (above).

Looking for inspiration (and a junior designer to hire)? Check out the Otis Class of 07 exhibition on May 11th from 6 to 9.

HOW inspiring

2006-06-27T10:03:00.000-07:00

Hello all! The HOW Design conference in Vegas was was one of the best gatherings of fun loving and friendly designers I've ever been a part of. Many of the presenters were truly outstanding. And HOW did a fantastic job of keeping us informed and entertained 'round the clock. Thanks everyone!

I feel so inspired, I started this blog to share some of my favorite HOW highlights, resources and outrageous fun:

Marketing is like exercise
Ilise Benun and Peleg Top's workshop on Monday was one of the best sources of practical advice on marketing and pricing your work. If you missed it, you can sign up for a FREE half hour phone consultation where you get a taste of their genuinely helpful marketing mentor program. I highly recommend Marketing Mentor
Makes so much sense:
"Get rich in a niche"
"Your positioning is how clients describe you when you're not in the room."
"When you specialize, clients feel like there is more value to your work, and will pay for it."
"Work with clients that are spending a budget, not their own money."

And the genius award goes to...
For anyone who can't get enough Michael Moschen, check out Quicktime videos of the keynote juggler
Makes you think:
"When I was a kid I had a game. I decided that whenever I would go into the woods alone, I would always come out a different way."
"Balance is not about standing still. It's a series of small, constant adjustments."

Brilliant!
When Andy Stefanovich asked everyone to give a standing O to Angelica, the designer that wants to change the world, I felt like all 3,000 attendees were recognizing each other for all the things we do that go unnoticed or unappreciated. Gave me goosebumps! Check out Andy's company, Play
Get that inspired feeling all over again:
"What can you alter just 1 degree? It can be the difference between average and brilliant."
"Experience everything to be able to empathize with everyone."
"When people say something is good, ask why."
"Never underestimate the power to have lunch. Make a list of 3 people to have lunch with now."
"Give the gift of conversation."

Resource center
Anyone get their orange card fully stamped? I swear I looked for Gmund 3 times but never found them. Corporate sponsorships, wine and free paper samples - hooray! Some faves:
• The Paper Mill sells small quantities of paper and envelopes.
• Emma lets you create email marketing with style.
• Jakprints produces small quantity t-shirts, stickers and more. They even have a page where they feature banner links to graphic designers, and they told me they are looking to feature more talented designers.

Some piss you off questions
David Baker delivered a strong dose of advice on what you should and shouldn't be doing to position your design biz and get better clients. I prefer his insightful email newsletter and FREE downloadable white papers at ReCourses
The bitter pill:
"Designers are often more afraid of starvation than dilution. We'd rather die working hard than not at all."
"It's unethical NOT to make a lot of money. The money you make is an indication of how much your clients value you."
"When clients are forthright with their budget, it's an indication of how much they trust you."
"Until you publicly broadcast your work, or your specialty, it doesn't count."
"You can borrow money, but you can't borrow marketing."

Stealth disco and podium humping
An audio, visual, and performance extravaganza, Chris Elkerton and Dave Gouveia from 3 Dogz Creative kept it light with an onstage logo contest, cool prizes, a podium humping demo and a bonus activity book! These guys reminded me of Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn in the Wedding Crashers, only they're designers (in Elvis costumes). They're not just funny, but damn talented too.
Check it out:
One of the prizes was Daniel Pink's book "A Whole New Mind"
It's top of my must read list now. Have you read it yet?

Punctuation substitution
Oh how I regret catching only the last 15 minutes of Ze Frank's session! You must check out Ze's super funny thoughts on how to send an undercover message to your "challenging" clients. Go right now - you will love this!

PO-PO!
Kevin O'Callaghan, chair of the SVA 3-d design program, hosted a wacky "Ironic Chef" themed competition that was designed by his students. I've been a major fan of the amazing "reinvent the everyday object" projects that come out of his classes for years. Check out the latest transformation of a Yugo And if you're in NYC, look for the exhibitions in Grand Central Terminal.
Made me cry with laughter:
I loved Stephan Bucher's "Hibernation is for suckers" and risqué bear slot machine, Justin Ahrens' Mickey Mouse eared bra wearing crane, and Zoa Martinez's abstract alligator paintings. But Jason Robinson of Springville, Utah ruled with PO-PO and Pigformers!

Early morning statistics
Moira Cullen, Design Director of Coca-Cola North America, gave a fantastic presentation about the growing value of design in business. She inspired me to start reading the Harvard Business Review I just heard she's writing a book (thanks Kevin), so all that factual goodness will be available to us then.
Fact # 187:
A fund of 63 publicly traded companies renowned for their use of design
outperformed the FTSE 100 Index during the 90's by 200%.

Party Time!
Sleep deprived and pumped up on Starbucks, I had the best time ever dancing with friends from New York, Panama, Puerto Rico and Illinois. Didn't that big circle we formed feel like a celebration of humanity?

Oh yeah! That's right!
The perfect ending to a totally inspiring event.
Sally Hogshead's radical web site is as smart and engaging as she is.
Radical truths:
"Expressing your truest self is your ultimate competitive advantage."
"Mistakes are tuition."
"The thing that is different about you - that's what makes you better."
"Take a look at what's not working and stop doing it."
"Do you want to be outstanding or comfortable?"
"Refuse to waste your career."

What inspires you? Where do you want to go with your design business/career? How can we help each other get there? Let's share ideas.