Serious Play

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

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

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

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...

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