This weekend I am buried in a seminar on how to be a more engaging public speaker. Most of us fear public speaking. We fear being embarrassed in front of crowds or not being seen as credible in what we are talking about. I too have those fears, which is why I am in the seminar.

Our homework tonight was to write our defining moment, a story about why we are talking about what we’re talking about, so here’s mine:

Having started my career as a visual designer, I was quite happy just dealing with colors, objects, and fonts. As long as clients were happy, I was happy. Though throughout that time I found I really struggled with clients who didn’t appreciate my viewpoint on design. Like most designers I felt I was the expert in all things related to the “beautification” of a product.

Then the dot com crash hit and my life changed forever. After a year of underemployment and struggling to make ends meet I landed in the mortgage industry. I was working in a call center taking calls from people who needed their mortgage loan yesterday. I came to the quick realization that people didn’t understand finance nor did I to be frank. Calls such as “now I can afford a home with this interest only loan” & “I need to pay my contractor who started a month ago; why hasn’t this loan closed?” left me more then a little concerned. This would be an ongoing theme in my life as I began the journey towards financial literacy.

Then I landed in the insurance industry working on a change program to shift resources around the company, save money, and streamline the overall business. Here I suddenly had a new voice. I was hired to work on the internal web site redesign and any other admin related tasks. Having come out of the dot com bust with experience in web design I was a perfect fit for this small group. I knocked out the redesign, creating what I would (years later) come to understand were called wireframes and user flows not specs and process flows. They began to move me around to other similar projects and before I knew it I was a business analyst bringing design thinking to business objectives and suddenly it hit me. There was something to the designers way of thinking that was a different more encompassing approach to problem solving then the traditional MBA thinking. I began to explore what this meant and eventually found my way to Interaction Design but it was that project starting as an Administrative Assistant that led me where I am today.

1) Research – The last time I was a part of a startup was in 1998 during the Dot Com boom. It was a great time to be a part of a startup. I had missed the energy of one and was curious to see what people are doing and if that energy was still around.

It was! The excitement and energy in the room was addicting. You wanted to be there, even if you didn’t sleep till Sunday evening. The projects themselves were very exciting as well from Flout (an anonymous mobile posting app) to Metayoo (mobile professional networking) to a bridal app that helped brides with planning and decision making to RexMobi (a prescription reminder and tracker). Tons of creativity went into the weekend.

2) Creative Project Hunting – I’ve long had a desire to design for mobile and to do something radically different than the day to day projects I work on. Not only was it mobile weekend but I also got to push the limits of my own skill sets which leads me to point 3.

3) Skill Building – I got to both test the waters with Business Model Generation and work on my visual design skills. I don’t consider myself a visual designer despite a background in it because I have worked with some of the very best in their field. I still have a lot to learn to be as good as a visual designer as I am an interaction designer. However,what I learned about myself is that in a pinch I will figure it out and get the job done.

They then drilled into, “What does it mean to be a master?” “You have to start at the beginning. Being a beginner sucks but you need to practice, practice, practice. Once you learn how to complete tricks then you can mimic the masters. Once you figure out how to mimic the masters then you can innovate. Take baby steps on innovation.” In other words, “Observe, mimic, practice, practice, practice, innovate, and repeat.” Be willing to fail at something. Be willing to experiment. Be willing to just simply try.

Next up they asked, “How do we get on a plan to mastery?” Let me preface this with Jane McGonigal’s TED talk. In it she said it takes 1000 hours to master something. One thousand hours. Reed speaks about how the more “I know about anything, the better prepared I am to handle what comes up. The more I know, the better I become at my art.” What surprised and delighted me if as a performer he even claimed to understand the behind the scenes tech. As a former stage hand and sound technician who has worked with such names as Ugly Kid Joe, Corrosion of Conformity, Richard Marx, Steven Curtis Chapman, Coolio to name a few, I was taken aback repeating on twitter several times just how much this impressed me. As most of those named cannot make the same claims. Jared added that we need to consider the “Broken Comb Model”. Gain expertise in various areas. Some will be stronger than others but look to gain understanding not just in UX but in game, business analysis, strategy, IA, etc. Practice by continuing to build on that knowledge. Practice is not work. Practice makes us a better person. Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. No one will make a game out of it for you so try different routines and different things to keep it fresh. Magicians talk about what it takes to practice but we as an industry never talk about the time, space, & budget that it takes to practice.

Great talk guys! May just end up my favorite of the conference.

Fact Company recently posted about Craigslist going to Washington. The article points out:

Civil litigators have been considering class action lawsuits on behalf of minors who say their abuse was enabled through the site. Another of tomorrow’s witnesses, Tina Frundt, Founder of the nonprofit Courtney’s House, says that the majority of kids helped by her nonprofit “have been trafficked through Craigslist.” Their average age when they entered prostitution was 12, she adds.

However, the site is “protected by a federal law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which exempts sites like Craigslist from legal liability for content created by users.”

As a content creator and designer of the digital products we use, this got me thinking about the greater ramifications across the web for anything currently in distribution or created in the future. What happens if the government does suddenly step in and begins to censor the content we consume?

Don’t get me wrong as a proponent of ending modern day slavery (aka human trafficking), I am one of the first to tell you that Craigslist putting an end to their Adult section is a good thing. Though it does worry me about where that traffic will be driven to now. Redbook? Other sites? I am not certain either way about how this affects the push to end slavery. My concern would be that it drives it further underground. However this post is not about that so let me return to my point.

If the government censors Craigslist, then who’s next? With enough pressure from the public do we censor others who will attempt to claim the right of free speech? How does that affect those of us in the digital space? Is the freedom of the web dead? Guess we’ll find out around 1pm EDT tomorrow when an announcement regarding Craigslist comes out tomorrow. Then we’ll see how this changes (if it changes) our landscape.

With the latest in technology it could change the way we live, hear, and interact with the world around us. Everything we see and touch would be both a digital layer and a physical layer. Add to this it could be invisible. Our eyes could video tape everything we see. How would that change our communication with each other? What happens when our bodies are so completely connected with technology that we send and receive information at all times, even when we are asleep?

Occasionally, I will post videos that aren’t a conversation about UX or business but rather are inspiration to information design, a new way of thinking, or something else entirely. In this case, I love the information graphics and just how well this piece is put together. I hope it inspires some new visual designs video, information, or otherwise out of you, my readers.

Disclaimer: The poster of this video does not necessarily agree nor disagree with the politics within the video. Rather she admires the work done on it.

Mark Baskinger on Drawing Ideas and Communicating Interaction from Johnny Holland on Vimeo.

Here Mark Baskinger (associate professor at Carnegie Mellon’s School of Design) talks to Johnny about drawing ideas, the differences between industrial designers and interaction designers, and how interaction designers can use sketching to communicate their designs better.

Sketch
Sketching is nothing more than showing what’s in your head. Everyone can communicate through drawing. Industrial Designers are very skilled at communicating their ideas within space and real time. It’s part of their vernacular. Interaction Designers are only expected to do that at certain stages and rarely go beyond the basics (ie stick figures). Since Industrial Designers can draw and illustrate in 3D, Interaction Designers should strive to sketch like Industrial Designers.

Construct a Visual Conversation
Use something accessible to the client to get them sketching (ie – a crayon at a cheap Italian restaurant) and talking about their ideas. Clients need to learn about the process. They will feel like they are directing but really they are learning through sketching. As a designer we are interpreting their direction as boundaries, wishes, and desires.

The physicality of the old (like a sliding phone) is what’s locked away in our brains but the new (like an iPad) is still foreign. There’s a disconnect to communicating the new verses what we know as the old. Form needs to embody the desired behaviour. Touch screen is becoming ubiquitous. Thus we need to put the old and new together in a meaningful way or users will break the old. Over time there has to be a record that shows the expected movement. Then connect it back to the person. Through the sketches, tell the story of the product.

Figure out what the value is that you are giving to business. Until everyday people can choose a product based on the interaction not on the cost, then interaction design will still be trying to persuade business they are a needed asset.

This video wins UX Video of this week simply because of it’s creative approach to job hunting. It’s impressive. I bet those of you that follow me could top it. Show me your talent and post a response here.

For this week a little fun. A new take on an old Queen favorite. Leave it to the Muppets to create a great emotional and engaging experience with puppets and music!

As a designer, I am responsible for the experiences I create for my users. Whether creating a financial web site or a game, I need to consider how people will interact with that information. What excites me about this video is it takes an everyday object and creates a new and unique experience which changes the behaviour of the user. Interesting.

Another example is Mint.com.

Most people would say that they 1) do not understand finance and/or 2) find it rather boring. I am included in that population. Until the day I found myself working in finance, I can honestly say I didn’t understand it. No one spent time explaining it to me. School never had a class in it. How was I ever to understand it? I was frustrated with money.

Enter Mint.com and all of a sudden you have users who say, “Mint.com has changed the way I view my finances.” Really? Why is that?

Mint adds color and graphics. It talks to you about your money. Shows you where you are spending, where you can cut, helps you budget, watch your investments grow, etc. It provides a simple interface for ease of use and understanding. It has changed behaviour and the user’s understanding of their money.

How much more as designers can we help our users understand things they do not and affect behaviour within applications, web sites, games, and other digital means? What can we look to, to help us explore new forms of interactive understanding? Every project differs. In the case of JunoBaby it simply needed to be a simple module to help users understand the company. In the case of AEG (redesign live soon), it was an interactive flash piece that explained the historical timeline of the company through imagery and video while matching with the historical periods in time to help users better understand the time periods the company was making such decisions.

I was watching Top Gear on the BBC and they were discussing the design of the road signs for the highways (Fast forward to 4:45 within the video).

In the 1950′s when the government was developing the motor ways in the UK, they realised that the current signs were not going to work. Thus a professor and his former student got the job to redesign all the road signs around the UK. They utilized colors and upper and lower case lettering for faster reading. They also changed up the design of the “children at play” sign to look like the student and her brother when they were young. Their objective was to make the signs clear and easy to read while moving at traditional speeds in the UK. You can find the final product here.

I remember my design classes at design school taught the importance of clean & clear design. Not to mention with road signs you need to consider not only your local audience but the tourist who may read the imagery of the sign differently than you intend. How then does this translate to the web or other forms of digital media?

Road signs in digital media are usually navigation based. Interaction Designers and User Experience Specialists will recommend things like breadcrumbs, as well as, utilizing colors and font sizes to help users figure out where they are within a site. For example when I worked on the CBS News redesign we explored colors like yellow for the Early Show, red for 60 Minutes, and blue for 48 Hours. These visual clues give users an immediate (unspoken) impact which says I am in X section of the site. It’s the way the users find their way or what UX professionals call wayfinding.

Though with that in mind, I ask my fellow UX pros if perhaps when talking about UX with people whom don’t know or understand what we do perhaps we need to use road signs to explain how people find their way through a site. What road signs will users look for when they come to your site? Will the signs say move forward?  Dangerous curves ahead? Stop? What does your site say about you and will users manage to find their way?  Will they find your site a nice drive in the country?  Or a dangerous rocky road ahead?

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Steve Portigal was up first to walk us through his sold out workshop called, “Well, we did all this research … now what?”

My Twitter Feeds on SP:

“Who cares about terminology. Examine, infer and apply to business or design.” I’d say apply to both. Why should they be different.

“Stay out of solution land. Try different methods”

When stuck come up with really bad ideas to encourage creativity.

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Second was Kumi Akiyoshi with “Feeling: What Makes an Engaging Product?“.  The slides from the presentation are below:

Third was Ian Swinson with “Postcard Patterns”.

Postcards = simple straight forward messaging

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Fourth was Nadya Direkova with “What’s in a game? A look at game design best practices as prime influencers of interaction design.”  The slides from the presentation are below:

Twitter:

Is google a single player or multiplayer game? How many of us get to design apps in 3d?

This is review so far. It’s all about the same from my game design class at Parsons.

Simply controls. Friend invites to play with friends. (AdverGames)

Create a reward in health. Physical Therapy… Doing # of exercises = whatever

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Kim Goodwin “each one teach one” – people are now saying I experienced good design. This is easier than that.

Twitter:

“Nothing special about the iPhone. Technology is simple. It’s design they are selling. And we’re paying a lot of money for good design.”

“Corporate Americas new found belief in design is fragile.”

A lot of good ideas end up collecting dust. “It’s someone else’s fault. We need to take responsibility.”

Sales people understand progressive commitment. Get people involved in the research and so on to understand reasoning. Pushes commitment.

Even those who are use to rational decisions can be susceptable to emotion. (Ie the Mini Cooper)

Bargaining a normal part of Change Management. “I’ll have the salad with the cake.”

Ixd = generation creation

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In summary -

Personal gripe: Another thing about less is more on presentation slides… Less information focuses the audience on you and what you are saying. Avoids info overload

At the bar afterwards: “We’re designing behaviour”