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By rphillippi, August 19, 2010 1:28 am

I wouldn’t normally utilize this space for such a thing but I am finding my back against the preverbal wall. I signed myself up to run for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training for the Nike Women’s Half Marathon in October. I need to raise $3000 and only have $200 with the recommit deadline looming on the horizon next week.

Now I hate to run and hate to ask people for money so why in the world would I sign myself up to do this!? There was the rub. I wanted to in every way push myself beyond my boundaries and found this to be a “safe” spot to try. Fundraising is challenging and I have found it to be even more challenging by the simple fact I am being faced with all my issues regarding money. The running seems easy in comparison. Even the 5 mile run I did the other day across hilly terrain.

Next I come to discover that in every possible way the fundraising system I was “gifted” with for the process is inherently broken. I went in and imported my address book from Gmail, started editing the email addresses one by one to ensure names were correct, only to come to discover that none of it works! I cannot select from the address book any of the names in the system because they are still the original names I imported (ie asmith rather than Alicia Smith). Nothing had changed at all! What’s up with that!? Talk about a user experience nightmare! I mean the site itself is an absolute disaster and then I come to find that I cannot even get letters out as I expected!? No wonder fundraising is such a nightmare. The systems the poor NGO’s of the world have to use are antiqued and painful and that’s on the plus side!

Here I wanted to challenge myself and in the process honor my mom who is a 30 year non-Hodgkins Lymphoma survivor and yet I have to work with antiquated, painful systems! So can you help a girl out here and donate? At least encourage me despite the horrible system I have to work with? I’d appreciate it either way. After all this I’ll make sure to straighten them out. Thank you so much in advance!

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By rphillippi, May 23, 2010 6:00 pm

“I haven’t done a wireframe in 2 years.” starts Todd Zaki Warfel in his talk about his intensive, iterative ideation sessions with clients followed by prototyping and discusses in this video why you should prototype. (Hat tip to theuxworkshop.tv.)

The process goes as follows:
1) Sketch: Start with quantity over quality. In about 5 minutes sketch 6-8 ideas.
2) Share: Throw them up on a wall side by side and present to the team. (Three minutes to pitch. Two minutes to critique. Four to 6 cycles in a day.)
3) Prototype: Figure out what to prototype (top 3-4 ideas).
3) Build: Bring it to life.

Why Prototype:
1) Work through our designs: Does it work? What doesn’t work? Where’s the hole(s)?
2) Communicate concepts: People are visual. They grasp what they see.
3) Sell an idea
4) Gauge technical feasibility
5) Test concepts with customers

What happens if you don’t (prototype)?
You get a domino effect. You think it’s going to work and testing shows otherwise. Yet you are in the middle of development. Or you have users screaming at the screen.

Six Guidelines:
1) Know your audience and intent.
2) Plan a little. Prototype the rest.
3) Set expectations.
4) You CAN sketch.
5) It’s not the Mona Lisa.
6) If you can’t really make it. Fake it.

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By rphillippi, April 2, 2010 11:45 pm

Games are invading the real world — and the runaway popularity of Farmville and Guitar Hero is just the beginning, says Jesse Schell. At the DICE Summit, he makes a startling prediction: a future full of points in the making. While brushing our teeth, getting enough sleep, everything we do we collect points for tax breaks, special incentives by companies. In one case there are points for the amount of soda we drink because we are not that far from every can of soda having a CPU and small camera to monitor our behaviour.

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By rphillippi, March 26, 2010 8:40 am

Sketch-a-Move from Superflux on Vimeo.

I’ve missed a couple weeks due to deadlines at work but here’s the next installment of UX Video of the Week. This one is a lot of fun to watch and only 5 minutes out of your day for some amusing commentary (by the girls in the video) and inspiration. Here Anab Jain and Louise Klinker, both graduates of the Royal College of Art’s Design Interactions MA program, show a nice example of the use of video for prototyping. (The project was also featured in Bill Buxton’s book “Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design”.)

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By rphillippi, March 8, 2010 8:53 am

Keynote originally presented by Nathan Shedroff at the IxDA conference in Savanna, Georgia in February 2010. It is recaptured here from the San Francisco, IxDA Redux.

Nathan Shedroff argues in his keynote address to the IxDA that we can no longer separate business, design, and sustainability. For companies it’s not just about products anymore.

What, then, is the intent behind consumption? We aren’t going to stop consumption. We can be taught not to be wasteful. New York City requires citizens to recycle or their buildings are fined. This requirement meant I needed to get educated about what should and should not be recycled. I found it unfortunate, when I moved away, that other cities in America are not also teaching this.

Meaning is the deepest connection that can be made between people or people & objects. Meaning is a hulu hoop around us that expands out to values, emotions, price, & features. Most buying decisions are based on emotional engagement.

There are 15 core meanings, such as, accomplishment, enlightenment, redemption, beauty, freedom, security, harmony, creation, duty, justice. We need to reframe “Less is More” to “More for Less” for everyone outside the sustainability & design worlds.

Interaction Designers are the most well posed to make meaning happen as we have models, research methods, comfort with ambiguity, are service orientated, and customer focused. Freedom and security can have different expressions based on prioritization & meaning.

Personally, I question that without some sort of business training, can designers speak the language of business so that they can be heard?

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By rphillippi, March 3, 2010 1:07 pm

If you don’t know Jeff Parks, you should. A former cognitive rehab therapist, Jeff, is now an Information Architect and consultant based in Ottawa, Canada. He shares some interesting insights into “being human” in the following video:

Being Human is NOT Quantifiable from Jeff Parks on Vimeo.

The Following are the Key Takeaways I got from the Video:

“Behaviour is a function of the person and their environment.”

You cannot sum up behaviour as easy as a bunch of numbers. “The experiences in our life ultimately determine our perspective. It is the culmination of experiences that ultimately shape our unique reality.” Not just one event.

Business/IT tends to care more about their processes and code then the user. Much like in family feud, the user stands in the sound proof booth and they know the answer but can’t tell the people who are up on stage (business & IT). We don’t take the time to talk to our users. Take the time to find out about the people you are designing for.

Seek First to Understand Then be Understood:
Find the reconcile force… Write out all the things you disagree about then move forward on all the things you agree about. This is where personas and wireframes come into play as a tool. They are tools to communicate ideas. Move forward from there with the how. (How do I get buy in for my ideas?)

No One is an Expert:
The industry is only ten years old. How many ten year olds do you know that have the answers to everything? According to Malcolm Gladwell it takes 10K hours to master anything.

Most of our work is about conveying meaning to others for others. By focusing on data points, we miss the emotion and the perception. (ie the Human Side AND the opportunity to connect.)

If you seem stuck then the answer may not be logical. Draw, do something creative, it’ll free up your mind and help you think outside the box.

Children have endless capacity to create. but we kill creativity ruthlessly. (When we design for human beings we take the human out of the equation.)

Trust is predicated on an understanding of what it is that you are trying to communicate. Trust is the biggest issue on the web, in the marketplace, in business, in government… it’s everywhere today. The web is a conversation but do you know WHO you are talking to?

We define the people we meet by WHAT they do not WHO they are. Human experience and what we remember cannot be put into a number.

“Designers have imagination, empathy, and intuition, which is just as legitimate as statistical data and are grounded in knowledge and principles. Design is an argumentative process and as the design must be argued for so too must the data. Neither is the final answer or truth; instead there’s a process of discovery and understanding.” – Uday Gayendar, VOIP for Oracle, Adobe, & Cisco

The only way to truly understand someone is the ability to connect with them in a balanced way.

“…no one will remember you for the car you drove of the things you owned. In life, what matters most at the connections you make with other people and the personal impact you had on their lives…” – William Oliver, Farmer (My Dad said something similar to me when a close personal friend died unexpectedly: “No one will remember you at the office.”)

We have so much potential and yet we squander it on useless data points.

Other Video’s & URL’s Mentioned by Jeff are as follows:
StoryCorps
Jake Barton
Jesse James Garrett
Lego Universe
Boxes and Arrows Podcasts
Podcast with Greg Vassallo

Special thank you to Jeff Parks for taking the time to share with us his thoughts!

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By rphillippi, March 1, 2010 10:00 am

I think of Donald Norman everyday when I walk into the executive conference room. There’s a glass door one must walk through in order to get into the executive offices. There’s a pull type door handle on the door but you must push to walk through. Thus I think of Donald Norman’s argument in the “Design of Everyday Things” about how everything should be designed according to the user. That the simple fact that I and everyone who walks through the door almost always pulls rather than pushes is a simple everyday argument for better design. Had the door had a push panel on it rather than a pull handle users would know to push rather than pull. It’s the simple changes that User Experience Designers deal with everyday that make the world better for all.

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By rphillippi, February 4, 2010 11:38 pm

I have gotten asked a lot in interviews lately. “So what are you? Do you consider yourself IA or IxD?” And I find myself asking, “Does it matter?”

I have to ask all UX professionals everywhere, “Why the divide?” Aren’t we as professionals in User Experience supposed to be about the design of that experience no matter the medium?

You could argue, much like Marshall McLuhan, “The medium is the message!” After all a content rich site is going to need a good IA to wrangle all that content but then that IA needs to also create the interface for the user to interact with all that content. Isn’t the interaction design?

On the flip side, you may have an interaction designer working on a content rich site such as CBS News is going to need to know how to wrangle all that content in order to increase find-ability. Isn’t that Information Architecture?

How much are we really different from each other? And does it really matter? In the end isn’t it all about the user and their experience anyway?

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By rphillippi, January 18, 2010 3:10 pm

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.

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By rphillippi, January 11, 2010 2:01 pm

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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By rphillippi, January 8, 2010 3:29 am

I came home today from playing soccer, injured.  If you know me, then you know that is not all that uncommon. I may regret this in the morning. Or perhaps not as it got me inspired to blog.

First I want to state that for 2010 I think I will be talking about User Experience in a more generalized way.  I find I put too much pressure on myself to say something profound in my blog. Like every blogger in the blog-o-sphere must say something profound that has massive universal impact rather than simply saying, “I think this about that.” Thus in order to take the pressure off and to encourage more blogging, I will blog about anything I think impacts experience or technology. I’ll ask more questions. I’ll talk about stuff that inspires my thinking. Speaking of, my biggest inspiration lately has been gaming.

Girls and Games.

Ask most females and they would tell you they are either 1) not a gamer or 2) there aren’t enough “girl games” out there for them. What does that really mean though?

Let’s start with point one: “I’m not a gamer”

Any girl who tells you this is simply lying. Truth is they have probably played several games as a kids. As a member of the female gender, they play games with their friends, lovers, and others they come across. They are just not the “normal” type of game we might think of. Girls are competitive in nature.  If you don’t believe me, watch females play soccer or volleyball. (Or fight over a man.)

That brings me to point two: “The games out there aren’t interesting to me.”

I had an interesting conversation with the people at Playdom during an interview a few weeks back. It turns out the game, “Sorority Life“, has a strong appeal to women in their 30/40/50’s whom have the desire at the end of the day to “kill”. (In other words they love the fight feature where they can challenge other women and win battles for money, power, status, or game items.) It is a release of stress for them.

While I was not a fan of Sorority Life (because it felt too girly),  ”Mafia Wars” (by Zynga) appealed to me for much of the same reason. Fascinating, isn’t it?

Why then aren’t more games built for girls that allow us to play to our competitive natures? The game industry is missing a key component to the type of experience girls would want in games. Perhaps there would be more peace in the world if we could take out our aggression within games?

Then again, probably not.

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By rphillippi, December 10, 2009 4:01 pm

What I learn from following UX Designers on Twitter:

User’s Brain vs Your Design – A Brief reminder of gestalt principles as applied to 2D design.

The Yahoo Pattern Library – Good to help explore ideas on how to design something. Not an end all be all answer.

The Semantic Web and a semantic search for Information Architecture.

Why Couples Therapy for Designers and Developers? – We often use a conveyor belt method to manage products. Designers do their work up front, then “hand off” their creation expecting it can be built and won’t change. Then the Developers need to create something they’ve previously had little involvement with. It’s critical that these transition phases be a two-way channel, and not the closing of a door. The detail of what works might be specific to your team, but in the end, our research shows that communication is what makes great teams work. Successful projects are built around the involvement and engagement of all parties at every phase of the project. How do you facilitate this? Bring everyone, including designers, developers, and stakeholders into the earliest discussions. Involve team members in solving problems that you encounter. Hold reviews after every phase during the project.

Other News:

The Top 10 Best UX Blogs
Interface Design Patterns (Data Visualization Collection)
Imitation, Sincere Form of Flattery?
Downturn Accelerates Demand for Open Source Software
Track Your Happiness with the iPhone

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By rphillippi, August 14, 2009 1:24 am

Lately I have noticed an increase in the amount of requests for “Social Media UX Designers”. This worries me. It worries me much like the Pied Piper whom led all the rats out of the village only for them to drown in the river. This is a drastic illustration of my perspective but it does illustrate a point.

Social media is about connections and sharing experiences. It will not suddenly give your business a boost without your business having a product/service your customers (ie users) fall in love with. If you as a business create a product that the users love they will run to Facebook or Twitter or any other service to let their network know about it. On the flip side, they will also say how much they hate it.

Business needs to understand this important distinction and consider their business strategy before implementing a social media tool to their toolbox. They need to ask why they think they need it and strategize that need along with exploring what users need. Combine the two with a social media strategy that fits your business and you might find you have utilized a tool to create a solution.

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By rphillippi, August 9, 2009 1:31 am

Smart Experience posted a small webinar about Carousels on their Facebook group.

Most of us in the industry design with carousels all the time. Smart Experience says they have become very popular because of their ability to provide a bunch of information visually. The mind processes information visually a lot faster than data.

If you plan to design with carousels then the first thing someone should know in designing carousels is that it is about imagery.  In fact, designing the imagery in a straight line allows the user to know just how many images there are within a carousel such as the example in the video.

Carousels create depth of field, much like flipping through several documents stacked on top of each other.

Always keep in mind that carousels are about browsing information, not searching.

Finally, Victor points out that carousels should be fun.  I don’t know that I agree with this last point of his. After all, some information found in carousels is hardly fun such as buying an appliance but then again what can we do as designers to make it interesting and unique? Can we allow the user to move in and out and around the object? Zoom in on certain features they need to learn more about? Add visualizations wherever needed to help explain features that may not be easily understood without a visit to a store?  As designers, we get to create those experiences in those modules.  To that point, it’s not just about creating a clean interface that gets the information the user needs to them but taking it a step further and helping the user to gain understanding when needed.

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By rphillippi, August 3, 2009 8:49 pm

[Original Link & Videos] Liz Danzico recently sought out the advice of digital designers and designer conspirers far and wide, to ask them to respond to the following:

So you’re thinking about becoming a designer? If I could tell you only one thing about going into the field, my advice would be ___________ .

They can be summarized as such:
- Be empathetic towards all (the team, client, etc). Understand behaviours.
- Think about more than just the design
- Know how to express yourself. “It’s the sign of an organized mind.”
- Differentiate yourself by understanding the big picture
- Learn for yourself and create your own opinions
- Have undying passion for what you do
- Use a camera as your visual sketchbook
- Nothing better than knowing something you have changed someone’s perspective
- Focus
- Seek out, embrace, and solve for different perspectives
- Constantly tackle problems at the edge of your ability
- Find the middle ground between clever and stupid
- Constant and consistent iteration

If I were to add my own it would be:
So you’re thinking about becoming a designer? If I could tell you only one thing about going into the field, my advice would be know your client’s business. Know their competitors and then know their users. Ask for specifics get inside their heads. Then solve for what their heart and soul asks for not for what they think they need. Also, know how to talk to people in other fields and backgrounds.

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By rphillippi, August 3, 2009 11:45 am

[Original Link] You go to a restaurant for dinner a friend recommended without knowing exactly what time they open. Unfortunately you arrive half an hour before they open and disappointed to see “Sorry we are closed” or “closed” sign. You feel “shut out”.

But what if the sign says “we will serve you later”?

The Jumbi-chu or sometimes Shitaku-chu – “we will serve you later” or literally “we are in preparation” signs are commonly seen at the front door’s of Japanese restaurants outside of their business hours. The other day I read an article of a Westerner living in Japan talking about this sign and he thinks it’s a very considerate way of saying “closed” because the guest feels the people working behind the door will welcome you later.

My non-Japanese friends often remind me that in Japan we enjoy “good service for free” and the typical Japanese service is:

Punctual and precise
Detailed
Not to tell people what you want because most of the time people know and will do it automatically
Living away from Japan …
When living in Canada for 2 years, I missed the Japanese parcel-delivery service. One time I could not receive a parcel and I was surprised to know that there was no re-delivery no matter how big the parcel is. In Japan you can request the re-delivery for free at your desired date and time, and although it’s not recommended, even if you miss the second delivery the parcel is re-delivered again and again until you receive it. While such a service mind-set usually provides much convenience to Japanese, it may cause “too much of a good thing problem” causing Japanese not to think consciously about our users.

As a usability consultant I conducted many web site competitor analysis and find that US companies seem to know what to provide their users and how to approach them. The common problems of Japanese websites:

Too much information is provided at a time – In usability tests we see users who are overwhelmed by the amount of information they see and they are unable to find what they really need.
Regardless of how much the users know about their services/products – The service/product information starts from their real names and content is dominated by business terms or technical features that users would not understand.
Writing how good their services/products are and not about the user benefits – Even if we read all the information, we are still left feeling “so what?”
In short, they just stick to explaining all the little features they think is good and not clear about who they are talking to and what/how information should be communicated clearly.

Why does this happen?
The Japanese are generally very good at providing services that take the customer’s situations into account. But why not on the websites? I think a major reason is that Japanese companies are behind in marketing compared to the western companies. The process of marketing usually starts from defining the target users first then the business goal is broken down into action plans (inductive). But most Japanese companies’ websites seem to do the reverse, starting from the small pieces of service/product features and not getting to the conclusion which communicates the benefit to the users (deductive). Seems like they force users to figure out the benefits and next steps themselves.

Different way of thinking?
As professor Richard Nisbett agues in “The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently…and Why”(2003), Asians are context and setting dependent and allow multiple causes, while Westerners are focal object/outcome oriented and pursue single cause and effect. Even in daily conversations Japanese tend to avoid taking a pronounced standpoint and expect others to read between lines, because it avoids conflicts with others and protects from unwanted counterarguments. This way of communication works if you can expect the middle or long term relationships. However, the nature of websites as media only allows “Treasure every encounter, for it will never recur” type of relationship. So, if websites are unable to catch the users at the first glance, they leave the sites very quickly.

In my 2 years in Canada I was “trained” by my Taiwanese friend to be more assertive to deal with different situations living a Western life. Years later, I joined the global usability community, and interestingly, I feel I do not need to be so assertive among usability professionals, no matter where they come from. Perhaps because the nature of usability work is empathetic i.e. to be “in your user’s shoes”, adaptive to different approaches across cultures and considerate before its demanded by others. The Japanese in general are good at considering other people’s situation and for Japanese companies to be more successful in the online communications, they need to provide the information in the shape so users can easily understand them in seconds not minutes or hours.

—————

What I really like about this article is that goes beyond a local culture and says we need to consider the needs of users beyond our own spectrum. I have worked for far too many firms who say, “We don’t need to consider accessibility as that’s only 2% of our users. Yet that 2% is millions of potential customers that organizations are missing out on. If you are truly an organization that cares, that means you care about ALL your customers not just the majority.

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By rphillippi, July 31, 2009 9:05 am

It can be said, I believe, that most of us hate automated systems. If given the option, we’d rather talk to a live human than a system. Today, it seems the automated system is taking over and the human touch is becoming a thing of the past. This is a great cost saving device for companies but could very well leave your user (ie customers) running elsewhere.

An example:

I called HSBC recently for a wire transfer between my accounts. When I reached a human, I was told I needed to use the automated system. After pressing the several numbers (1, 1, 3, 1, 2) to get to my destination, I am then given a confirmation code (#000000 for example) and a couple of fax numbers to send it to and then the system hangs up. This left me wondering what I am supposed to do with that.

I call up the help desk and ask, “What am I supposed to do with these numbers?” The conversation follows as such:

Help Desk: Go ahead and write down on a piece of paper your details, the details of the receiver, any contact details needed, and please sign it and send it in.
Me: Any piece of paper?
Help Desk: Yes
Me: Ok so not so automated then?
Help Desk: (after a laugh) No.

Not only did this leave me frustrated but it also left me wondering about the security of the system. Can anyone get my details and send my money elsewhere?

Leaving your customer frustrated and nervous about a situation will entice them to look elsewhere for the same service. This then becomes a loss in revenue for your business which can be easily fixed with a proper system.

Personally, I think I will be returning to PayPal for all my “wire transfer” needs until HSBC either:
1) Truly automates the system
2) Allows me human contact
3) Creates an automated system online

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By rphillippi, July 8, 2009 2:30 pm

I use my Twitter account mainly for work and gathering information from my friends about the latest and greatest going on in the UX community. With following 88 rather active Twitters, it’s often hard to keep up with all the articles they post so in an effort to not only summarize for myself but also pass on to anyone reading, here’s what I have seen over the last week:

Whitney Hess has posted the following:

Jess Bezos’s, the founder of Amazon.com, says, “Obsess over customers“. More importantly:

Obsess over customers: “When given the choice of obsessing over competitors or obsessing over customers, we always obsess over customers.”

Invent: “Any time we have a problem, we never accept either/or thinking. We try to figure out a solution that gets both things.”
Think long term: “It requires and allows a willingness to be misunderstood.”

It’s always Day 1: “There’s always more invention in the future. Always more customer innovation. New ways to obsess over customers.”

What I like about this video she has posted is it gets back to a point I have made about never losing touch with the customer. In all my experience with Six Sigma, Change Management, and User Experience, I think the only thing that really touches the customer is a culture of asking and consistently testing and iterating on your product line with your customers (or users). Hence why I have fallen into User Experience as a career.

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On top of this Business Week recently posted an article about the IDEA 09 Design Awards calling the article, “Designing a Better World” where they said, “Business leaders should care about design because it hits the bottom line… more than anything else, design builds a business.”

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By rphillippi, April 8, 2009 11:54 pm

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.

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By rphillippi, March 29, 2009 9:01 pm

(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…