Design By Candlelight

Is the future of digital a 4 day work week? Or will we work harder to become millionaires in 3 years? Tune in and find out.

Recently as I have been between consulting gigs I have been playing a lot of Mafia Wars on Facebook. I started playing in hopes that if I had an interview with Zynga (the creators of the game) that I would have something to talk about. However that interview never came. Meanwhile I ended up engrossed in this game. (If you could call it that.)

There is something fun in the experience of being a Mafioso and going out on jobs doing what you. I partially enjoyed the aspect of living this double life as my character grew and I was able to take out other families (hitlist) or rough up a local “gang” (robbing). For a period the challenge of getting to that next level (street thug to hitman to capo and so on) was an incredible thrill. If I mastered a level then I got a bonus and even going after that seemed like an interesting challenge. However, with most games there comes a point when you find yourself losing interest.

What’s interesting about Mafia Wars is not only the role playing aspect but how they used that in relation to a casual game. It is literally a game you can pick up and put down whenever the mood strikes (unless you are out of energy and/or health). However this is also a problem for the game. As one starts to lose interest they stop going to visit the game as much thus energy or health builds faster (seemingly) and they eventually find themselves in a place where they need to invest in the game (to buy Godfather points) or invite other friends to play with them. The first creates a problem for the recently unemployed and the second creates a problem with friends whom don’t care to add extra apps. Leaving customers to feel “put upon” to spend money or invite friends (who will probably grumble at the invite). Lou Carbone said in his talk, “Creating Customer Loyalty”, (at MX West 2007) we need to concern ourselves about with customers feel. User experience and (for games) “fun” is only one aspect of creating a system (games or otherwise) but really how does the customer feel?

I understand that companies need to make money in order to thrive but a customer feeling “put upon” is really only going to walk away. Thus how about an added solution to the game of Mafia Wars? Add an extra element to the game to allow users to make more Godfather points because as it stands now it takes weeks to get enough to do anything (unless you pay) and I feel there should be a balance that encourages me as a user to come back.

Give users an opportunity to win Godfather points through a shooting game (learning to be a hitman) or a “grand theft auto” casual game that teaches about other aspects of being a Mafioso. They must gain a certain number of points in the game to get a certain number of Godfather points and perhaps they can only play so many times a day.

All this does is add another level of rewards to help keep users engaged. If they still don’t feel like they are making enough and still want to invest in the game then definitely give them that option but adding this adds a balance that doesn’t exist right now.

(Or how I embarrassed myself in front of a room full of people.)

I’ve been at a negotiation seminar all weekend when during the last day I went up on stage to share my 30 second escalator speech. I delivered it only to be told I was insulting my client! I said, after several edits, “Who I work with is IT Managers who has the problem of unorganized web architecture. I help them attain more clients and build loyalty.” It sounded good to me!

However, the leader of the seminar pointed out to me that it is very likely that my client is someone who created that system and consequently would be quite put out by that statement.

After some work I ended up with, “Who I work with are web based businesses who would like to work with the customers they didn’t know they had.”

Much better right? Right. The experience taught me something though. As professionals we often talk in the language of the people we work with. We need to remember when engaging our audience(s) that they may not always known or understand what it is we do. We need to always keep in mind our audience. Consider it user experience within language…

The San Francisco division of the IxDA recently held a “redo” of the recent Interaction 09 Conference in Vancover. The slide that left me most moved was the one below:

This slide opened my eyes to how vital it is that we define user experience. After all if we do not define what we do then we risk not being heard, understood, or taken seriously. With standards and definitions then we can pass down our knowledge to younger practitioners and build credibility in the marketplace.

Other images from the IXDA Redux are found here

Pattie Maes & Pranav Mistry demonstrate a “Minority Report” type of interactive gaming. How would this change the way we interact with the web and games in general. User experience of the future goes 3D?

This is a great article defining IA Principles:

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Information architects still struggle to define the design principles that operate in their environment. Today I would like to give a set of design principles that was developed with an Information Architect a while ago. Design principles are not necessarily right or wrong but should be an accurate reflection of the fundamentals that guide decision making in an enterprise. The following should therefore not be seen as design principles fixed in concrete but rather as examples of business principles. Best practice is to define the design principle in terms of its Benefits and rationale as well as the implication to the enterprise and the counter argument expressing the potential negative impact of the design principle.

Design principle 1: Central management information

Description

All management information and business intelligence will be sourced from a single consolidated source of information

Benefits
• A central source of management information will provide the enterprise with a wide breath of reporting and analysis without being constraint by the organisations functional structuring.
• Users will become used to a single interface to management information allowing managers to become familiar with the infrastructure and extracting maximum benefit from all information available in the organisation.
• The central information will eliminate contradicting information sources and ensure accurate reporting of current affairs and identification of issues and opportunities.
• Increase the flexibility and manageability of providing information rapidly and effectively to support business decisions.
• Use best of breed analytic functionality to support management decision making
• Increased security in managing access to The enterprise’s management information

Implications
• Information must be sourced to the central information infrastructure from all the various operational applications as close to real time as possible
• No additional analytical modules are required for transactional applications.
• The interface to management information and training should be rolled out to all decision makers to effectively access information.

Counter argument
• The central management information might not be adequate in situations where real time analytics of transactional information is needed
• Information in the central information source might not be structured for a specific requirement and the development time might be too long to provide the information in time for a once off request.
• The assumption cannot be made that a single tool will satisfy all the information requirements. The information infrastructure will therefore consist of a variety of integrated tools.

(more…)

The San Francisco based User Experience Bookclub had their first meeting on Sunday February 15th. We talked about “The Myths of Innovation” by Scott Berkun. There was only 5 of us meeting at the Tiny Pictures office amidst the pouring rain outside.

We made the most of it as we discussed how each innovation is really just a series of smaller innovations. For instance your keyboard required the typewriter, electricity, plastics, written language, operating systems, circuits, USB connectors, and binary data. According to the book if any of these were not invented then the keyboard as we know it wouldn’t exist.

This led to the discussion of what or when something becomes an innovation. For instance when did twitter suddenly become “main stream”? If you watch the news today the reports will mention their twitter feeds. We felt that it was the marketability of Twitter. For instance those who were watching the Superbowl were also twittering about the commercials. “What was the deal with that commercial?” Or, “That (fill in blank) was a great commercial!”. In fact, it was discovered that Denny’s wasn’t really ready for the hype created around it’s Superbowl commercial. One of my own Twitter friends mentioned that their site had gone down due to traffic overload after appearing during the Superbowl to advertise their free breakfast.

We addressed each chapter of the book which addresses one myth, such as:
1 - The Myth of the Epiphany
2 - We Understand the History of Innovation
3 - There is a Method for Innovation
4 - People Love New Ideas
5 - The Lone Inventor
6 - Good Ideas are Hard to Find
7 - Your Boss Knows More about Innovation then You
8 - The Best Ideas Win
9 - Problems and Solutions
10 - Innovation is always Good

In the end, we walked away inspired. Innovation is different than we have come to believe. Innovation involves several people, time, and ideas. We are not lone inventors working towards a solution. It could be a solution for now that will lead to another idea. We are free now to change the world as we see fit unencumbered with the misconceptions about how innovation happens.

While exploring the option of spending a couple weeks in Italy in a dance intensive, I visited the site of the recommended hotel: Park Hotel La Grave

In process my computer crashed and on reload Firefox reloaded all my open tabs. Then as if from no where, there was music filling the air on a constant loop. I started going through each tab scrolling up and down frantically looking for the off switch. It was no where to be found. Instead I find myself reminded of Eddie Izzard’s skit about trying to get the printer to work:

No matter where I turn. I cannot find the off switch. Finally after 10 minutes of this frustration, I find the switch at the bottom of the home page!

Don’t get me wrong, there are definite distinct advantages to using sound in the right places at the right time. Jakob Nielsen points out that sound can “enhance the user experience substantially”. He adds that testing within a game environment using the same graphics but higher and lower quality sound led users to believe that the game had better graphics when better sound was utilized. However that was a game environment not a website.

When exploring the web most users are looking for information. In this case, I was looking for the amenities, price, and any reviews on the hotel. I didn’t care whether or not the hotel had a good atmosphere. After all in a hotel you mainly sleep. You aren’t looking for a home. Thus the music only frustrated me when I couldn’t locate the module to turn it off.

If you would like to use sound to create an experience than use it wisely and place it where the user can find it. The top right or even the right rail work beautifully for this purpose. The worst thing you can do to your user is frustrate them because you will lose them as a customer. Remember you never get a second chance to make a good first impression and on the web that is even more vital.

Both the US and UK (the future of Digital Britian) have recently announced or made mentions of moving towards a digital form.  Many may feel this is long overdue but with the new US president, Obama mentioning online digital records and revamping the White House web site once he took office, a move to digital within the government(s) is underway. The new website is rather impressive and quite a change from the old W site, a rather cluttered mess. You might argue that this says a lot about the state of W’s cabinet but I digress.  The new site does consider good design and leaves me to wonder if the governments of the world will all consider good design as we all move to a digital form of government.