[IxDA Discuss] Call for Proposals for UX Australia 2010
- UX Australia 2010: Call for proposals - We are very pleased to announce the call for proposals for UX Australia 2010. The conference program for UX Australia 2010 will be based on your submissions, to ensure that the conference reflects current user experience practice and also reflects the types of presentations you would like to see. We are calling for proposals for main conference presentations and for pre-conference workshops. Key dates - The key dates are: * 21 Mar 2009: Proposals close (this is not a flexible date - we will close on midnight AEST this date) * 22 Mar 2009: Reviewing starts * mid Apr 2009: Speakers notified * 1 May 2009: Conference registration opens (with full program available) Guiding principles - The key principles for UX Australia presentations are that they are grounded in experience, focus on practice and engage the audience. For example, your presentation may be a case study for a particular project, a discussion of design principles or a description of techniques you’ve used in different situations. Your presentation shouldn’t be an idea about how something should happen, or about something for which you have little experience. Presentations should not be overly academic (research findings are acceptable as long as they are, again, grounded in practice). Most importantly, presentations should describe interesting problems and how you solved them. There will be no sales pitches for products; or presentations that primarily describe a service offering of a company. Sponsors do not get an automatic right to present. Review proposals - UX Australia 2010 is a community-reviewed conference, and we need people to help with reviewing. Reviewers should have experience in some aspect of user experience design and an interest in helping us create a great program for the conference. We'll ask you to read up to 6 presentation proposals, rate according to criteria and provide constructive comment. We expect the time required will be up to 3 hours, and will be done between 22 March 2 April. If you have time in that period, and are interested, please register via the UX Australia conference management system [http://www.conference-service.com/uxaust10/registration.cgi?] (select the box that asks about reviewing). We'll contact you in mid March to get ready. Where do I start? - Keen? Start here: * Guiding principles: http://www.uxaustralia.com.au/conference-2010/program/guiding-principles * Call for proposals: http://www.uxaustralia.com.au/conference-2010/program/call-for-proposals * Register as a reviewer:http://www.conference-service.com/uxaust10/registration.cgi ? Thanks Steve Baty UX Australia -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Studios | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: st...@meldstudios.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] UPDATE: Call for Proposals for UX Australia 2010
Update: Conference dates are August 25-27 at the Langham Hotel in Melbourne, Australia. On 2 February 2010 08:38, Steve Baty steveb...@gmail.com wrote: - UX Australia 2010: Call for proposals - We are very pleased to announce the call for proposals for UX Australia 2010. The conference program for UX Australia 2010 will be based on your submissions, to ensure that the conference reflects current user experience practice and also reflects the types of presentations you would like to see. We are calling for proposals for main conference presentations and for pre-conference workshops. Key dates - The key dates are: * 21 Mar 2009: Proposals close (this is not a flexible date - we will close on midnight AEST this date) * 22 Mar 2009: Reviewing starts * mid Apr 2009: Speakers notified * 1 May 2009: Conference registration opens (with full program available) Guiding principles - The key principles for UX Australia presentations are that they are grounded in experience, focus on practice and engage the audience. For example, your presentation may be a case study for a particular project, a discussion of design principles or a description of techniques you’ve used in different situations. Your presentation shouldn’t be an idea about how something should happen, or about something for which you have little experience. Presentations should not be overly academic (research findings are acceptable as long as they are, again, grounded in practice). Most importantly, presentations should describe interesting problems and how you solved them. There will be no sales pitches for products; or presentations that primarily describe a service offering of a company. Sponsors do not get an automatic right to present. Review proposals - UX Australia 2010 is a community-reviewed conference, and we need people to help with reviewing. Reviewers should have experience in some aspect of user experience design and an interest in helping us create a great program for the conference. We'll ask you to read up to 6 presentation proposals, rate according to criteria and provide constructive comment. We expect the time required will be up to 3 hours, and will be done between 22 March 2 April. If you have time in that period, and are interested, please register via the UX Australia conference management system [http://www.conference-service.com/uxaust10/registration.cgi?] (select the box that asks about reviewing). We'll contact you in mid March to get ready. Where do I start? - Keen? Start here: * Guiding principles: http://www.uxaustralia.com.au/conference-2010/program/guiding-principles * Call for proposals: http://www.uxaustralia.com.au/conference-2010/program/call-for-proposals * Register as a reviewer:http://www.conference-service.com/uxaust10/registration.cgi ? Thanks Steve Baty UX Australia Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] iPad.
OK, so aside from the name... -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Studios | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: st...@meldstudios.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] iPad.
Luke, I like your assessment. A few additional points: - how well the iPad will work as an ebook reader with a glossy, reflective screen - particularly outdoors or in natural lighting - is a concern. A removable anti-glare cover/film might be a good addition; - the choice of separate iPod iTunes Store seems a strange one to me. And branding the media library as iPod - when the iPhone has the exact same capabilities with an iTunes app - doesn't gel. - I'm curious to see the licensing model around books. US-only distribution at the outset raises concerns for me. - I would also liked to have seen a stylus or pen option. The form-factor lends itself to hand-written note-taking and would have been an interesting extension to the iPhone/iPod Touch experience. - hardware connections on Apple products are a major annoyance for me, so I'm hoping the dock connector is the same as the iPhone. - I really wish there was the ability to run multiple applications at once and switch between them. I barely understand this on the iPhone; I don't get it at all on a device like this one. Steve 2010/1/28 Luke Wroblewski l...@lukew.com Since no one has brought it up yet... I'll go. Overall what was expected. The big innovation for me is all this stuff integrated in one simple package. Which is kind of being glossed over in the press. and the price point -very low. -liked the rebuilt apple apps. calendar contacts are nicely rethought. lots of new ui in iwork. -the times demo is just the start of the kind of integrated media experiences you can build. my thoughts on that: http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?951 -the http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?951%0A-the cover is awesome design it supports swivel, tip, and protects -the $9 for numbers vs. $229 for excel is really interesting from a business perspective Notable hardware gaps (concerning cause no software update will fix) -camera -storage sizes 64GB for videos, photos, and music -does not cut it -usb port -it uses camera adaptors instead -GPS only on 3G model -how's it work with an iphone? Notable software gaps (can/will be addressed with software updates) -multiple iphone apps running at once -multiple users -how do you share the device at home? -doesn't run flash = many holes on web pages -no really new interactions -all iphone UI or the most part. but lots of the floating controls outlined here: http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?983 your thoughts? :: ::Luke Wroblewski -[ www.lukew.com ] ::Principal/Founder, LukeW Ideation Design ::l...@lukew.com | 408.513.7207 :: ::Blog: http://www.lukew.com/ff/ ::New Book: http://www.lukew.com/resources/web_form_design.asp ::Book: http://www.lukew.com/resources/site_seeing.html :: Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Studios | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: st...@meldstudios.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] iPad.
Realising that the iPhone also has an iPod app for music/etc. So I recant my earlier complaint about that point. 2010/1/28 Neil Cadsawan n...@cadsawan.net Good points Luke, Steve. The other thing is that the iPad is not a stand-alone product. It's still an accessory to a Mac. With only 64GB of space, you'll fill that up quickly. You still need a Mac (or PC) for the iPad to sync with. To expound on Luke's question of how does it work with an iPhone, I don't think it does. This doesn't create a triangle of iPhone, Mac, iPad. It's now a V with the Mac at the vertex. I think it would be interesting if it ran OS X and also ran iPhone apps. Then it would create triangle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=48704 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Studios | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: st...@meldstudios.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Trust and URLs
Brian, My own experience supports Jared's view below. A simple translation of URL will generally not cause concerns (when noticed at all), especially if the site site content match the visitor's expectations going in. Regards Steve 2009/12/29 Jared Spool jsp...@uie.com Brian wrote: Any repercussions from the users/visitors? Trust issues? Confusion? Don’t notice? In My Opinion: most users won't notice. It'll depend far more on the content. Why did people type in pear.com to begin with? It wasn't a random act -- something told them to do that. Whatever content is on the resulting page, that should match their expectation. If it matches, they won't bother to check the URL. You might want to check into the work of BJ Fogg and his studies on trust and credibility online. Jared -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Article on Number of Usability Test Participants
If your client website has 1 million visitors a year, a usability issue that effects 10% of the users would be unlikely to be discovered on a test of only 5 to 10 users, but would give 100,000 people a bad experience when they visit the site. Actually, that's not true. You'd be fairly likely to discover it with only 5-10 users - in the 65%+ range of 'likely'. Manufacturing quality control systems and product quality testing have been using such statistical methods since the 20's and they went through heavy refinement and sophistication in the 60's, 70's and 80's. It's also worth repeating the message both Jakob Jared Spool are constantly talking about: test iteratively with a group of 5-10 participants. You'll find that 65%+ figure above rises to 99%+ in that case. Again, doesn't change your basic points about cultural diversity and behaviour affecting the test parameters, but your above point is not entirely accurate. Cheers Steve 2009/10/2 James Page jamesp...@gmail.com It is dependent on how many issues there are, the cultural variance of your user base, and the margin of error you are happy with. Five users or even 10 is not enough on a modern well designed web site. The easy way to think of a Usability Test is a treasure hunt. If the treasure is very obvious then you will need fewer people, if less obvious then you will need more people. If you increase the area of the hunt then you will need more people. Most of the advocates of only testing 5 to 10 users, experience comes from one country. Behaviour changes significantly country by country, even in Western Europe. See my blog post here : http://blog.feralabs.com/2009/01/does-culture-effect-online-behaviour/ If your client website has 1 million visitors a year, a usability issue that effects 10% of the users would be unlikely to be discovered on a test of only 5 to 10 users, but would give 100,000 people a bad experience when they visit the site. Can you find treasure with only five or ten users. Of course you can. But how sure can you be that you have found even significant issues. A very good argument in why 10 is not enough is Woolrych and Cockton 2001. They point out an issue in Nielsen formula in that he does not take into account the visibility of an issue. They show using only 5 users can significantly under count even significant usability issues. The following powerpoint from an eyetracking study demonstrates the issue with only using a few users. http://docs.realeyes.it/why50.ppt You may also want to look at the margin of error for the test that you are doing. All the best James blog.feralabs.com 2009/10/1 Will Hacker willhac...@sbcglobal.net Chris, There is not any statistical formula or method that will tell you the correct number of people to test. In my experience it depends on the functions you are testing, how many test scenarios you want to run and how many of those can be done by one participant in one session, and how many different levels of expertise you need (e.g. novice, intermediate, and/or expert) to really exercise your application. I have gotten valuable insight from testing 6-10 people for ecommerce sites with fairly common functionality that people are generally familiar with but have used more for more complex applications where there are different levels of features that some users rely on heavily and others never use. I do believe that any testing is better than none, and realize you are likely limited by time and budget. I think you can usually get fairly effective results with 10 or fewer people. Will . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=46278 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help ..
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Article on Number of Usability Test Participants
James, Excellent points. Nielsen argues that 5 users will discover 84% of the issues; not that the likelihood of finding a particular issue is 84% - thus the discrepancy in our figures (41% 65% respectively). (And I can't believe I'm defending Nielsen's figures, but this is one of his better studies) The results from '93 were re-evaluated more recently for Web-based systems with similar results. There's also some good theory on this from sociology and cultural anthropology - but I think we're moving far afield from the original question. Regarding the manufacturing reference - which I introduced, granted - units tend to be tested in batches for the reason you mention. The presence of defects in a batch signals a problem and further testing is carried out. I also like the approach Amazon (and others) take in response to your last point, which is to release new features to small (for them) numbers of users - 1,000, then 5,000 etc - so that these low-incidence problems can surface. When the potential impact is high, this is a really solid approach to take. Regards Steve 2009/10/2 James Page jamesp...@gmail.com Steve, The real issue is that the example I have given is that it is over simplistic. It is dependent on sterile lab conditions, and the user population been the same in the lab and in the real world. And there only being one issue that effects 10% of the user population. One of the great beauties of the world is the complexity and diversity of people. In the sterile lab people are tested on the same machine (we have found machine configuration such as screen size has a bearing on behaviour), and they don't have the distractions that normally effect the user in the real world. Actually, that's not true. You'd be fairly likely to discover it with only 5-10 users - in the 65%+ range of 'likely'. For 5 uses that is only 41% (1-(1-0.1)^5), and for 10 it is 65%. This is far off from Nielson number that 5 users will find 84% of the issues. (1-(1-0.31)^5) If I was manufacturing and there was a 45% chance that 10% of my cars leave the production line with a fault, there is a high chance that consumers would stop buying my product, the company would go bust, and I would be out a job. From my experience of production lines a sample size of 10 for a production of one million units would be considered extremely low. We have moved allong way since 1993 when Nielsen and Landauer's paper was published. The web was not arround, and the profile of users was very different. The web has changed that. We will need to test with more people as websites traffic increases, and we get better at web site design. For example if we assume that designers of a web site have been using good design principles and therefore an issue only effects 2.5% of users. Then 10 users in a test will only discover that issue 22% of the time. But using our 1 million visitors a year example the issue will mean that 25,000 people will experience problems. But we do agree that each population needs it's own test. And I totally agree that testing iteratively is a good idea. @William -- Woolrych and Cockton 2001 argument applies to simple task based tests. See http://osiris.sunderland.ac.uk/~cs0awo/hci%202001%20short.pdfhttp://osiris.sunderland.ac.uk/%7Ecs0awo/hci%202001%20short.pdf All the best James blog.feralabs.com PS (*Disclaimer*) Due to my belief that usability testing needs not just to be more statistically sound, but also be able to test a wide range of users from different cultures I co-founded www.webnographer.com a remote usability testing tool. So I am advocate for testing with more geographically diverse users than normal lab tests. 2009/10/2 Steve Baty steveb...@gmail.com If your client website has 1 million visitors a year, a usability issue that effects 10% of the users would be unlikely to be discovered on a test of only 5 to 10 users, but would give 100,000 people a bad experience when they visit the site. Actually, that's not true. You'd be fairly likely to discover it with only 5-10 users - in the 65%+ range of 'likely'. Manufacturing quality control systems and product quality testing have been using such statistical methods since the 20's and they went through heavy refinement and sophistication in the 60's, 70's and 80's. It's also worth repeating the message both Jakob Jared Spool are constantly talking about: test iteratively with a group of 5-10 participants. You'll find that 65%+ figure above rises to 99%+ in that case. Again, doesn't change your basic points about cultural diversity and behaviour affecting the test parameters, but your above point is not entirely accurate. Cheers Steve 2009/10/2 James Page jamesp...@gmail.com It is dependent on how many issues there are, the cultural variance of your user base, and the margin of error you are happy with. Five users or even 10 is not enough on a modern well designed web site
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Article on Number of Usability Test Participants
I'm not sure I understand your line of reasoning, Thomas. What issues are we identifying in the wireframes if not those same issues that might otherwise make it through into the final product? Certainly at a different level of detail; and definitely our early tests aren't able to show up everything; but that hardly makes it an absurd statement. 2009/10/2 Thomas Petersen t...@hellobrand.com It's also worth repeating the message both Jakob Jared Spool are constantly talking about: test iteratively with a group of 5-10 participants. You'll find that 65% figure above rises to 99% in that case I find this an absurd statement. The above can only have some merit if we are talking about the actual product being tested. If we are talking wireframes or any other replacements for the real thing whatever you will find have very little if anything to do with what you find in the end. The real issues arise after the launch not before and the real question is not how many participants but at what point participants should be used. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=46278 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Article on Number of Usability Test Participants
James, More good points. I did some calculations a while back on the confidence intervals for pass/fail user tests - http://www.meld.com.au/2006/05/when-100-isnt-really-100-updated - the more interesting part being the link to a paper on estimators of expected values. Worth a read if you haven't seen it. I'll try to dig up the more recent paper - working from memory on that one. Regarding the anthropology sociology references - I was referring more to the notion of uncovering societal norms rather than the specific 'supporting a sample size of x'. Coming back to your first point: yeah, the use of the .31 is a simplification for the sake of one of his free articles; it's a modal figure based on (his words) a large number of projects. So, looking at a range of figures, you would have some projects where more users were needed (to your earlier point), and in some cases - few - you could get away with less (although I admit that the use of less than 5 participants causes me some concern). Anyway, enjoying the discussion, and I still think we're violently in agreement on the basic point :) Cheers Steve 2009/10/2 James Page jamesp...@gmail.com Steve, Woolrych and Cockton argue that the discrepancy is Nielsen's constant of .31. Neilson assumes all issues have the same visibility. We have not even added the extra dimension of evaluator effect :-) Do you have a reference for the more resent paper? I would be interested in reading it. On the manufacturing side most of the metrics use a margin of error. With just 10 users your margin of error will be about +/-35% (very rough calculation). That is far better than no test, but still would be considered extremely low in a manufacturing process. In Anthropology most of papers I have read use far greater sample sizes than just a population of 10. Yes it depends on the subject mater. The Anthropologist will use techniques like using informers, which increases the number of participants. And the Anthropologist is studying the population over months if not years, so there are far more observations. @thomas testing the wireframe will only show up what is already visible. But if a feature has an issue, and it is implemented in the wireframe, then a test will show it up. Discovering an issue early is surely better than later. I think your statement iterates the idea that testing frequently is a good idea. All the best James blog.feralabs.com 2009/10/2 Steve Baty steveb...@gmail.com James, Excellent points. Nielsen argues that 5 users will discover 84% of the issues; not that the likelihood of finding a particular issue is 84% - thus the discrepancy in our figures (41% 65% respectively). (And I can't believe I'm defending Nielsen's figures, but this is one of his better studies) The results from '93 were re-evaluated more recently for Web-based systems with similar results. There's also some good theory on this from sociology and cultural anthropology - but I think we're moving far afield from the original question. Regarding the manufacturing reference - which I introduced, granted - units tend to be tested in batches for the reason you mention. The presence of defects in a batch signals a problem and further testing is carried out. I also like the approach Amazon (and others) take in response to your last point, which is to release new features to small (for them) numbers of users - 1,000, then 5,000 etc - so that these low-incidence problems can surface. When the potential impact is high, this is a really solid approach to take. Regards Steve 2009/10/2 James Page jamesp...@gmail.com Steve, The real issue is that the example I have given is that it is over simplistic. It is dependent on sterile lab conditions, and the user population been the same in the lab and in the real world. And there only being one issue that effects 10% of the user population. One of the great beauties of the world is the complexity and diversity of people. In the sterile lab people are tested on the same machine (we have found machine configuration such as screen size has a bearing on behaviour), and they don't have the distractions that normally effect the user in the real world. Actually, that's not true. You'd be fairly likely to discover it with only 5-10 users - in the 65%+ range of 'likely'. For 5 uses that is only 41% (1-(1-0.1)^5), and for 10 it is 65%. This is far off from Nielson number that 5 users will find 84% of the issues. (1-(1-0.31)^5) If I was manufacturing and there was a 45% chance that 10% of my cars leave the production line with a fault, there is a high chance that consumers would stop buying my product, the company would go bust, and I would be out a job. From my experience of production lines a sample size of 10 for a production of one million units would be considered extremely low. We have moved allong way since 1993 when Nielsen and Landauer's paper was published. The web
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Article on Number of Usability Test Participants
Sorry Bryan, but I need to call this out: testing a small number of representative users as effective as a lot of random users. You give the impression that larger studies choose random users as test participants. You'll find that testing sessions run to meet statistical standards are required to select a representative sample in a highly structured and formalised manner. They choose 'users at random'; they don't choose random users. And the result is a much more rigorous representation of your audience. However, what happens on this large scale is not very different to what we do on a small scale when choosing users from each persona. This is a type of stratified random sample, and the way you select the representative from each is likely to be a fairly random method. None of which changes the point you were trying to make, which is that smaller tests can be highly effective, and a much more efficient use of your budget. Regards Steve 2009/10/2 Bryan Minihan bjmini...@gmail.com Here's the link I've used before...from Jakob Nielsen. Argue his credibility if you'd like, but in practice I've seen testing a small number of representative users as effective as a lot of random users. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/2319.html -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Exploring the Magic of Design
So you're thinking of magic in the Arthur C. Clarke sense of any sufficiently advanced technology (or service)...? 2009/9/28 Dave Malouf dave@gmail.com actually, I was totally thinking of #3 the professional and how they orchestrate and choreograph a performance experience. WE (the pros) all know what we are doing, but that sense of awe and delight we can't in thinking it is Mystical, is the goal for many classes of products and services. How did that waiter know I needed more bread? If you go to a Michelin rated restaurant they are just trained to serve. stuff like that. AND! here's the clincher, it is all b/c of you that I even have insight into that world. All those conversations about your son and the card tricks. But also through my understanding of the Mage from Babylon 5. -- dave On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 7:08 PM, Jared Spool jsp...@uie.com wrote: Hi David, I'm intrigued with your comment: But what Designers do IS magic! That act of synthesis towards craft towards implementation is a wondrous magical thing once turned into a Palm Pre or HP NetBook Mini that brings new areas of delight that were never there before. What's wrong with magic? What's wrong with the unexplained? Or the secretly explained (LIKE MAGIC!). Magic is an awesome metaphor. You're right about it's wondrous qualities. What's interesting to me about the choice of magic is the point of view that sees it as magical. There are three approaches to the point-of-view thing: 1) We look at magic from the Harry Potter or Terry Pratchett view where there are things happening on a level that mortals aren't meant to understand. 2) We look at magic from a more phantasmal viewpoint, where there are forces in the universe that just defy explanation (ala Shroud of Turin or the creation of the solar system, but on a more productive level) 3) We look at magic from the viewpoint of a professional magician (ala David Copperfield or Penn Teller), where the magicians view the process as explainable, but design an experience for their audience that is mystical. I think, if we're going to assert that there are magical qualities to design, we should pick which one we want to go with. Personally, I'd go with the professional magician viewpoint, because that means that we have control over it (and don't require special powers). It also, in my mind, is the closest thing to experience design as we think of it today. One of the things I like about the comparison to professional magic is that magicians, when they get together to talk/teach/share their craft, don't ever talk about the magical elements, except from the perspective of the audience. For example, there's a saying amongst magicians: That's when the magic happens It describes the magical moment, a point in the audience's experience when they are to think that the core element of the trick (such as the chosen card moving from the deck into the magician's coat pocket) is happening. Of course, the mechanics of the trick happened at another point in time. The magical moment is part of the experience design, focusing the magician on the audience p.o.v. Is that what you were thinking? Or were you thinking it might be a different perspective on magic? Jared -- Dave Malouf http://davemalouf.com/ http://twitter.com/daveixd http://scad.edu/industrialdesign http://ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] OzCHI 24 hour challenge
IxDA is proudly supporting a student design challenge as part of the OzCHI 09 conference http://www.ozchi.org/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page, being held in Melbourne in November. Here's some information on the challenge: 24 Hour Design Challenge The OZCHI conference student design challenge is a great opportunity for students from around the world to win a travel scholarship to Melbourne, Australia, and attend an international conference about interaction design to meet peers, academics, and professionals from the field. In line with the conference theme Design: Open 24/7 the challenge is organised as two separate 24 hour events: Online Challenge The first 24-hour event takes place online on 12-13 September 2009, starting at 8am (AEST). Teams of 2-5 students from around the world are invited to develop a solution for a state-of-the-art research problem requiring interaction design and HCI skills. Submission will be judged by a panel of international experts (see below). Top entries will be published in the official conference proceedings. The winning team will be awarded a travel scholarship for attending OZCHI in Melbourne, to (partly) cover travel, accommodation and/or conference registration. Conference Challenge The second 24-hour event will take place at the OZCHI conference, in Melbourne, on 23-24 November 2009. All students registered for the conference are invited to participate in this challenge. Teams will have 24 hours to develop an application based on mobile and ubiquitous computing technologies and designed for the local context - the City of Melbourne. Teams will also receive mentoring support from experts and professionals in the field. Submissions will be exhibited during the conference. The top three entries from this round will earn a Certificate of Recognition and prizes sponsored by our industry partners. More information can be found at the 24 Hour Challenge Web site: http://www.ozchi.org/mediawiki/24/ http://www.ozchi.org/mediawiki/24/%20 The competition is open to students from around the world. Regards Steve -- Steve Baty Director, Communications IxDA Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] IxDA Board Retreat – August 200 9
Hello IxDA, The Board of Directors of the IxDA met recently - over the weekend of August 14-16 - to discuss the progress the organization is making towards its mission to advance the discipline of interaction design. We'd like to share with you some of our discussions and decisions from that weekend. We've posted a summary at http://www.ixda.org/blog/2009/08/ixd-board-retreat-august-2009/ Thanks, Steve Director -- Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] [JOB] UX Designer - Sydney, Australia
Meld has reached that point where I need help to get through the work that’s building up. There’s work on social media strategy and planning to do; work on communications strategy and design to do; work on the strategy, design implementation of a Website for a small not-for-profit; and some other bits and pieces. Rather than specify a bunch of skills, knowledge of experience withs, let me just say what I need you to be able to do: - Be observant. Listen, watch, take notes. Ask questions. Communicate what you’ve observed - visually, verbally and in writing; - Be thoughtful. Discuss what you’ve seen and heard, and tie it to what you’ve done before, read about, or experienced; - Be creative. Based on your understanding of what you’ve observed, discussed, and learned, explore possible solutions - through sketching and prototyping - and communicate those ideas visually, verbally and in writing; - Learn. Get better, each time. Ask questions; read; try things out; seek clarification and advice. And at the end of each day, week, month and year, be able to do something new, better than you could previously. - Be honest. In your dealings with me, with our clients, and with yourself. For more details, please see http://www.meld.com.au/2009/07/meld-is-hiring-ux-designer-wanted Regards Steve -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Director, IxDA - ixda.org Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 26-28 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Fundraiser: 7 Hours to go and Apogee Usability Asia have stepped up to the plate
Apogee Usability Asia (thanks to Dan Szuc) are giving away copies of The Usability Kit http://www.sitepoint.com/kits/usability1/ - valued at close to $200 USD - to the next 5 people who donate $100 or more to IxDA fundraiser, to help us deliver our next-generation Website. *Apogee Usability Asia* http://apogeehk.com/ - based in Hong Kong, China - is Asia's leading Usability Research consulting services provider. Apogee assists companies like Yahoo China, FedEx, eBay, Cathay Pacific, HSBC, PCCW and others with User Research. Thank you -- Steve 'Doc' Baty Director, IxDA - ixda.org Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Fundraiser: 7 Hours to go and Apogee Usability Asia have stepped up to the plate
Reposting Apogee Usability Asia (thanks to Dan Szuc) are giving away copies of TheUsability Kit http://www.sitepoint.com/kits/usability1/ - valued at close to $200 USD - to the next 5 people who donate $100 or more to IxDA fundraiser, to help us deliver our next-generation Website. *Apogee Usability Asia* http://apogeehk.com/ - based in Hong Kong, China -is Asia's leading Usability Research consulting services provider. Apogeeassists companies like Yahoo China, FedEx, eBay, Cathay Pacific, HSBC, PCCWand others with User Research. Thank you PS: Due to what we'll call a 'widget malfunction', our counter is displaying as having reset to $0. We'll keep a count of the total during these last few hours! -- Steve 'Doc' Baty Director, IxDA - ixda.org Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Thank you for all of your support
We can't thank you enough, and are thankful that so many of you stepped up to chip in. But we'll try. THANK YOU. And not just for the contributions - which were awesome: for the blog posts, the tweets, the retweets, the suggestions, reminders and moral support. Those efforts were just as important to the success of these past few days. We'd also like to thank and acknowledge the IA Institute and the organizing committee for IDEA2009 for their ongoing friendship and support of IxDA. Their gift of a ticket to IDEA2009 was a valuable contribution, as were their efforts - both official and personal - to help with this fundraising effort. We would also like to thank the UPA for their kind contribution to the fund, echoing Livia's sentiments about the community coming together for common cause. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Steve Director, IxDA. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] [Plug]: Early-bird pricing for UX Australia ends 30 June.
There's only one week to go until early-bird pricing ends (midnight AEST, 30 June) for UX Australia http://uxaustralia.com.au/, which runs from 26-28 August, in Australia's capitol Canberra. Here are five great reasons why you should register nowhttp://uxaustralia.com.au/register : 1. You'll* save money*. Early-bird prices save you $100 on the main conference and full day workshops; and $50 on half-day workshops 2. You could *win free stuff* - we'll enter you in a draw for licences for Axure RP Pro and Saasu (thanks to our sponsors for these) 3. You'll *hear first* about any important announcements 4. You'll get to *be involved earlier *about important decisions about the program and social events 5. You'll be helping us *plan ahead* And even better, you don't have to pay straight away. You can register now and pay when you are ready. What are you waiting for? Prices are: - Main conference, full price: $700 - Main conference, full-time students: $300 - Pre-conference workshops, full day: $450 - Pre-conference workshops, half day: $250 Conference program [image: Header] If you need more convincing, check out the fantastic content. Four pre-conference workshops: - Half-day: Scribble your way to success!http://uxaustralia.createsend3.com/t/r/l/ijjlkd/chkhuoy/rMatt Balara - Half-day: Interaction design studiohttp://uxaustralia.createsend3.com/t/r/l/ijjlkd/chkhuoy/y. Shane Morris - Full day: The Usability Kit workshophttp://uxaustralia.createsend3.com/t/r/l/ijjlkd/chkhuoy/j. Daniel Szuc Gerry Gaffney - Full day: Research methods for user experience designhttp://uxaustralia.createsend3.com/t/r/l/ijjlkd/chkhuoy/t. Patrick Kennedy And 23 main conference presentationshttp://uxaustralia.createsend3.com/t/r/l/ijjlkd/chkhuoy/i from 28 fantastic speakershttp://uxaustralia.createsend3.com/t/r/l/ijjlkd/chkhuoy/d, including a keynote presentation from Alex Wright, User Experience Director for the New York Times. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] [Plug]: Early-bird pricing for UX Australia ends 30 June.
Complete link failure :( Registrations can be made at: http://www.uxaustralia.com.au/conference-2009/registration Steve 2009/6/24 Steve Baty - UX Australia st...@uxaustralia.com.au There's only one week to go until early-bird pricing ends (midnight AEST, 30 June) for UX Australia http://uxaustralia.com.au/, which runs from 26-28 August, in Australia's capitol Canberra. Here are five great reasons why you should register nowhttp://uxaustralia.com.au/register : 1. You'll* save money*. Early-bird prices save you $100 on the main conference and full day workshops; and $50 on half-day workshops 2. You could *win free stuff* - we'll enter you in a draw for licences for Axure RP Pro and Saasu (thanks to our sponsors for these) 3. You'll *hear first* about any important announcements 4. You'll get to *be involved earlier *about important decisions about the program and social events 5. You'll be helping us *plan ahead* And even better, you don't have to pay straight away. You can register now and pay when you are ready. What are you waiting for? Prices are: - Main conference, full price: $700 - Main conference, full-time students: $300 - Pre-conference workshops, full day: $450 - Pre-conference workshops, half day: $250 Conference program [image: Header] If you need more convincing, check out the fantastic content. Four pre-conference workshops: - Half-day: Scribble your way to success!http://uxaustralia.createsend3.com/t/r/l/ijjlkd/chkhuoy/rMatt Balara - Half-day: Interaction design studiohttp://uxaustralia.createsend3.com/t/r/l/ijjlkd/chkhuoy/y. Shane Morris - Full day: The Usability Kit workshophttp://uxaustralia.createsend3.com/t/r/l/ijjlkd/chkhuoy/j. Daniel Szuc Gerry Gaffney - Full day: Research methods for user experience designhttp://uxaustralia.createsend3.com/t/r/l/ijjlkd/chkhuoy/t. Patrick Kennedy And 23 main conference presentationshttp://uxaustralia.createsend3.com/t/r/l/ijjlkd/chkhuoy/i from 28 fantastic speakershttp://uxaustralia.createsend3.com/t/r/l/ijjlkd/chkhuoy/d, including a keynote presentation from Alex Wright, User Experience Director for the New York Times. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Audience segmentation and user modelling
I'm interested in hearing about the different techniques people use to represent the differences in the audience for products, services, applications etc. It's OK if they're not explicitly used in the design process or if you recognise the short-comings of that particular method. I'm just trying to understand the range. Here's what I've got so far: - Market segmentation - purchasing triggers, feature-centric; aim to understand price points, messaging, feature combinations - Personas - behaviours, needs, scenarios of use; aim to understand problem space context of use; empathetic - Lifecycles - temporal segmentation, stage of lifecycle determines differentiation - Capability - proficiency with a technology or product - Experience lifecycle - sequence of interactions across touch-points, where the position in lifecycle is the focus - Mental models - different thought frameworks drive design decisions - Demographic - age or socio-economic factors - User maps Do you use any of the above in your design work or something else? How do you target your design when the audience is heterogenous? Steve -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org UX Australia: 26-28 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Biz models and design Re: Shaun Inman's Fever
I'm going to just agree with Peter (and Todd's early statement). The business model is a fundamental component that is difficult to separate out. It can be, but you start to really fragment the design of your offering. I think Andrei was simply asking us to look beyond the business model - which he recognised contained some contentious choices - to the parts of the software design that are most central to the discussions generally undertaken on this list and the work of the people on it. The business model is not the exclusive domain of MBA types - and there's a stereotype that needs quashing - but an integrated consideration for the entire design process. Steve 2009/6/19 Peter Merholz pete...@peterme.com On Jun 18, 2009, at 1:19 PM, Vishal Iyer wrote: Business model is most definitely *not* a part of design Wow. This statement made me choke on my ale (I'm in London). Business model is definitely part of the customer experience, as Jeff Bezos so admirably pointed out: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_09/b4121034637296.htm Internally, customer service is a component of customer experience, he says. Customer experience includes having the lowest price, having the fastest delivery, having it reliable enough so that you don't need to contact [anyone]. Then you save customer service for those truly unusual situations. You know, I got my book and it's missing pages 47 through 58, he says, breaking into a booming laugh. Business model is very much the success of iPod -- the chain of services that allow you to easily acquire music and get it on your player. Business model is the thing thwarting Tivo's success, no matter how brilliant it's user interface design. We as designers have a lot to contribute toward thinking through business model implications. --peter Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Director, IxDA - ixda.org Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 26-28 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Mentoring, eh?
Kevin, You can go here: http://www.ixda.org/mentee.php to sign up to be matched. And you can read the program introduction at: http://www.ixda.org/blog/2009/06/ixda-mentorship-program/ Regards Steve 2009/6/18 Kevin Tu tu.ke...@gmail.com How does one sign up to be matched with a mentor? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=42967 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Director, IxDA - ixda.org Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 26-28 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] What is an Experience Strategy?
Peter, Jared, I agree with Peter's two comments here with respect to competition in NGO charitable organization. And I note the definition of experience strategy I have put forward is largely commercial in stance. I would argue, however, that copying someone else is not much of a 'strategy'; although creating something easily copied by others in an NGO context might not be such a bad thing. Peter, I don't agree with your Point 2 as a criticism of the article, although I'm not clear on whether you read the article itself, or are just reacting to the definition taken from it. The article talks about intention being a part of the strategy; it talks about being an articulation of both 'the what' 'the how'; it also talks about vision and specific actions to put that vision into practice. So, I'm not clear in what regard outcomes have been overlooked. With regard to your point about overestimating activities versus planning: I think I'll just need to disagree. I don't think it invites rigidity, nor do I think the activity is more important than the end result - that's why the vision for the experience is so important. But the people on the ground need specifics or else all that will be delivered is an incoherent mess; not the experience desired. Steve 2009/6/8 Peter Merholz pete...@peterme.com Two points: 1. I agree with Jared's concern. In an earlier (and excellent) thread on this list about Strategic Interaction Design http://www.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=36819, I wrote I think it might be harmful to equate 'strategy' with 'business' as many are doing here. The point of an experience strategy is less about differentiation and competition, and more about identifying who/what you are, and making the most of that. Obviously, the US National Cancer Institute benefits from an experience strategy, though not necessarily from a unreplicable one. It's also worth noting, though, that USNCI *do* have competitors, and have to identify how the experience they deliver is good enough to encourage engagement. For them, I'm guessing their primary competitors are things like blogs and other institutes and even Wikipedia, non-authoritative sources that may be disseminating what the USNCI would consider potentially harmful information, and with whose audience the USNCI is vying for attention. Anyway, experience strategies need to understand that there are things that compete for a potential customer/user's time and attention, but don't have to be about replicability and outperformance. 2. Outcomes and results Steve's post overlooks two essential elements of any strategy: a plan, and an understanding of desired impact. And any discussion of strategy has to involve planning, because, at heart, a strategy is little more than a plan. And a strategy without a clear sense of defined success is, well, a bad strategy (it's this approach that got us into our quagmire with Iraq.) Steve's original definition overestimate the role of activities. I actually think specifying activities is less important than identifying: - a philosophy that undergirds your behavior - a vision for what to achieve - an understanding of what success means If you focus too much on that collection of activities, you potentially miss out on the need to change course in order to achieve your ultimate goal. --peter On Jun 7, 2009, at 6:51 AM, Jared Spool wrote: On Jun 6, 2009, at 6:57 AM, Steve Baty - UX Events wrote: Is it clear? Would you add to it? Qualify it? An experience strategy is that collection of activities that an organization chooses to undertake to deliver a series of (positive, exceptional) interactions which, when taken together, constitute an (product or service) offering that is superior in some meaningful, hard-to-replicate way; that is unique, distinct distinguishable from that available from a competitor. In addition to the length, it's occurred to me that there's something else that is troubling me about this otherwise excellent definition. It really only works in a commercial setting. How would the folks at Cancer.gov, the US National Cancer Institute (part of the National Institutes of Health), apply this? They don't really need something that is superior in some meaningful, hard-to-replicate way; that is unique, distinct distinguishable from that available from a competitor. But they do need a definition that lets them define a minimal quality. There are lots of folks trying to put together a successful experience strategy that aren't in the commercial sector where differentiation from competitors is the ideal objective. Jared Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http
Re: [IxDA Discuss] What is an Experience Strategy?
Peter, List, Reading back over my last message and it comes across as being very snarky wrt to whether you'd read the article. That wasn't my intention, and I apologize. On that point I was intending to seek clarification, but phrasing was all wrong. Regards Steve On 08/06/2009, Steve Baty steveb...@gmail.com wrote: Peter, Jared, I agree with Peter's two comments here with respect to competition in NGO charitable organization. And I note the definition of experience strategy I have put forward is largely commercial in stance. I would argue, however, that copying someone else is not much of a 'strategy'; although creating something easily copied by others in an NGO context might not be such a bad thing. Peter, I don't agree with your Point 2 as a criticism of the article, although I'm not clear on whether you read the article itself, or are just reacting to the definition taken from it. The article talks about intention being a part of the strategy; it talks about being an articulation of both 'the what' 'the how'; it also talks about vision and specific actions to put that vision into practice. So, I'm not clear in what regard outcomes have been overlooked. With regard to your point about overestimating activities versus planning: I think I'll just need to disagree. I don't think it invites rigidity, nor do I think the activity is more important than the end result - that's why the vision for the experience is so important. But the people on the ground need specifics or else all that will be delivered is an incoherent mess; not the experience desired. Steve 2009/6/8 Peter Merholz pete...@peterme.com Two points: 1. I agree with Jared's concern. In an earlier (and excellent) thread on this list about Strategic Interaction Design http://www.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=36819, I wrote I think it might be harmful to equate 'strategy' with 'business' as many are doing here. The point of an experience strategy is less about differentiation and competition, and more about identifying who/what you are, and making the most of that. Obviously, the US National Cancer Institute benefits from an experience strategy, though not necessarily from a unreplicable one. It's also worth noting, though, that USNCI *do* have competitors, and have to identify how the experience they deliver is good enough to encourage engagement. For them, I'm guessing their primary competitors are things like blogs and other institutes and even Wikipedia, non-authoritative sources that may be disseminating what the USNCI would consider potentially harmful information, and with whose audience the USNCI is vying for attention. Anyway, experience strategies need to understand that there are things that compete for a potential customer/user's time and attention, but don't have to be about replicability and outperformance. 2. Outcomes and results Steve's post overlooks two essential elements of any strategy: a plan, and an understanding of desired impact. And any discussion of strategy has to involve planning, because, at heart, a strategy is little more than a plan. And a strategy without a clear sense of defined success is, well, a bad strategy (it's this approach that got us into our quagmire with Iraq.) Steve's original definition overestimate the role of activities. I actually think specifying activities is less important than identifying: - a philosophy that undergirds your behavior - a vision for what to achieve - an understanding of what success means If you focus too much on that collection of activities, you potentially miss out on the need to change course in order to achieve your ultimate goal. --peter On Jun 7, 2009, at 6:51 AM, Jared Spool wrote: On Jun 6, 2009, at 6:57 AM, Steve Baty - UX Events wrote: Is it clear? Would you add to it? Qualify it? An experience strategy is that collection of activities that an organization chooses to undertake to deliver a series of (positive, exceptional) interactions which, when taken together, constitute an (product or service) offering that is superior in some meaningful, hard-to-replicate way; that is unique, distinct distinguishable from that available from a competitor. In addition to the length, it's occurred to me that there's something else that is troubling me about this otherwise excellent definition. It really only works in a commercial setting. How would the folks at Cancer.gov, the US National Cancer Institute (part of the National Institutes of Health), apply this? They don't really need something that is superior in some meaningful, hard-to-replicate way; that is unique, distinct distinguishable from that available from a competitor. But they do need a definition that lets them define a minimal quality. There are lots of folks trying to put together a successful experience strategy that aren't in the commercial sector where differentiation from
Re: [IxDA Discuss] What is an Experience Strategy?
Jared, Isn't it OK for a definition to put forward a view of the 'ideal state' rather than attempt to capture all the messy gradations from non-existent to awesome? We could all grow old before we agree on how best to articulate the distinction between plain vanilla and ideal. Hell, this is our second attempt this year at 'strategy' and, whilst excellent, the last one failed to reach any real conclusion or consensus about what does/does not constitute strategy (although I think we're all hoping Dan includes a strong statement in his book). There are some companies who survive by doing the same thing as some market leader - a lot of retail fashion falls into that category, to be honest. Your aim shifts to reach, scale and cost instead of creative leadership. But it's a valid strategy with respect to experience. To answer your point about what I hope to achieve: I'm generally dealing with clients of Type II (couldn't resist), and trying to move them to being of Type 3. I think this type of articulation (mine or someone else's) will help new companies put in place the right strategy - and supporting culture, structure, philosophy, vision (to speak to Peter's earlier point) - from the outset. In that sense they're moving from 1 - 3, but not in the way you intended. I agree that for a company struggling to grasp a strategy at all, moving to an ideal situation will be difficult. Cheers Steve 2009/6/8 Jared Spool jsp...@uie.com I think you need to separate out the notion of a 'strategy' from an 'ideal strategy.' Copying someone else is a strategy. In some contexts (though I can't think of an example right now), it could possibly be an ideal strategy. There are really three states that I see: 1) Not having any strategy. 2) Having a strategy, but one that isn't very good. 3) Having an ideal strategy, that will yield successful results. With your definition, are you trying to transition people from 1 to 2, or from 2 to 3. I think, if you try to do from 1 to 3, you're results won't be what you hope them to be. In my opinion, for the folks who need this discussion, it's too much distance in one jump. Jared -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Director, IxDA - ixda.org Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 26-28 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] What is an Experience Strategy?
Ah, I think I see what you mean. We run into trouble in the second half of the description when I talk about it being unique and distinctive etc. So, from here: ... that is superior in some meaningful, hard-to-replicate way; that is unique, distinct distinguishable from that available from a competitor. - which comes right back to what Robert said initially (sorry Robert, missed this point earlier). So if we were to take everything up to that point: An experience strategy is that collection of activities that an organization chooses to undertake to deliver a series of (positive, exceptional) interactions which, when taken together, constitute an (product or service) offering. We might also explicitly address Peter's criticisms by adding something like: ... incorporating a coherent experience vision, organizational philosophy, and plan. - so as not to present these as distinct from the strategy, but forming a part of, or consideration in that strategy (just to be clear on the fact that the strategy doesn't formulate the philosophy, for example) And then we could have a separate discussion about what the point of such a strategy might be in helping to achieve some organizational goal around sustainable competitive advantage or finding the cure for breast cancer or feeding the homeless. Does that work better for people? Steve 2009/6/8 Jared Spool jsp...@uie.com On Jun 7, 2009, at 8:27 PM, Steve Baty wrote: Isn't it OK for a definition to put forward a view of the 'ideal state' rather than attempt to capture all the messy gradations from non-existent to awesome? We could all grow old before we agree on how best to articulate the distinction between plain vanilla and ideal. Sure. But I think the problem you're facing is that you're trying to answer two different questions: What is an experience strategy? is different from What makes an ideal experience strategy? In the latter, we don't have to explain that a strategy is actions because we know that's what a strategy is. And then we can talk about what the ideal actions are, which may be different based on the context, such as commercial or non-commercial. If you try and answer both in a single definition, you get trouble, I think. Jared -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Director, IxDA - ixda.org Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 26-28 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] What is an Experience Strategy?
Jared, Are you OK with the notion of an offering? The (product or service) part was put in there to give something specific by way of example, otherwise it was feeling too vague. Steve 2009/6/8 Jared Spool jsp...@uie.com On Jun 7, 2009, at 8:53 PM, Steve Baty wrote: An experience strategy is that collection of activities that an organization chooses to undertake to deliver a series of (positive, exceptional) interactions which, when taken together, constitute an (product or service) offering. We might also explicitly address Peter's criticisms by adding something like: ... incorporating a coherent experience vision, organizational philosophy, and plan. Does that work better for people? I think it works better. I'm still concerned about ...constitute an (product or service) offering. though. If you use a Joseph Pine-style definition (http://is.gd/SgJ3), you see an evolution of product - service - experience. Experience spans a single instantiation of product or service. Experience is the sum of all touchpoint interactions, across the lifetime of the relationship between the user and the organization. Not sure how you adjust your clause to move beyond a single instantiation. Jared -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Director, IxDA - ixda.org Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 26-28 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] What is an Experience Strategy?
Hmm... I'm not sure I agree that 'offering' implies a single instance - at least it doesn't for me. An interaction is a single instance; maybe even a single component of a single instance; the offering is much broader than that. I'll throw that open: does anyone have a better term than 'offering' that would overcome any tacit implication of being a single instance of a product, service or system? Other than circular references to 'experience', obviously. Does 'offering' imply that (singularity) for you in the first place? Cheers Steve 2009/6/8 Jared Spool jsp...@uie.com No. I guess I'm saying that an offering implies a single instance at a single moment, like buying a coffee. An experience is something that has (potentially) a long time span with (if we're lucky) hundreds or thousands of offerings. It's clear that Apple's strategy of providing the Apple store helps make the experience of being an iPod owner better. And it's clear that Apple's focus on great design makes the iPod into a fashion statement. One *could* look at these as part of the iPod offering, but I think it's something much bigger. Jared On Jun 7, 2009, at 9:18 PM, Steve Baty wrote: Jared, Are you OK with the notion of an offering? The (product or service) part was put in there to give something specific by way of example, otherwise it was feeling too vague. Steve 2009/6/8 Jared Spool jsp...@uie.com On Jun 7, 2009, at 8:53 PM, Steve Baty wrote: An experience strategy is that collection of activities that an organization chooses to undertake to deliver a series of (positive, exceptional) interactions which, when taken together, constitute an (product or service) offering. We might also explicitly address Peter's criticisms by adding something like: ... incorporating a coherent experience vision, organizational philosophy, and plan. Does that work better for people? I think it works better. I'm still concerned about ...constitute an (product or service) offering. though. If you use a Joseph Pine-style definition (http://is.gd/SgJ3), you see an evolution of product - service - experience. Experience spans a single instantiation of product or service. Experience is the sum of all touchpoint interactions, across the lifetime of the relationship between the user and the organization. Not sure how you adjust your clause to move beyond a single instantiation. Jared -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Director, IxDA - ixda.org Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 26-28 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Director, IxDA - ixda.org Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 26-28 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] What is an Experience Strategy?
Hello IxDA, I'm really interested to get feedback from people on the description/definition of Experience strategy contained in this article of mine: http://johnnyholland.org/magazine/2009/06/what-is-an-experience-strategy/ Is it clear? Would you add to it? Qualify it? Best regards Steve -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Director, IxDA - ixda.org Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 26-28 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] [Plug] UX Australia 2009: Registration open
UX Australia 2009: Registration open Conference registration pricing [image: Header] Registration for UX Australia 2009 is now open (it took us a while to get here, read about why http://uxaustralia.cmail1.com/t/r/l/tuiuhk/l/r). *Early-bird pricing is available until 30 June 2009*. Prices are: - Main conference, full price: $700 - Main conference, full-time students: $300 - Pre-conference workshops, full day: $450 - Pre-conference workshops, half day: $250 As an incentive to sign up early, *the first 50 registrations will go into a draw to win stuff. *Yes, we are going to give away licences for Axure RP Pro and Saasu to three lucky people. Full conference program [image: Header] The full conference program is now available. We have four pre-conference workshops: - Half-day: Scribble your way to success!http://uxaustralia.cmail1.com/t/r/l/tuiuhk/l/yMatt Balara - Half-day: Interaction design studiohttp://uxaustralia.cmail1.com/t/r/l/tuiuhk/l/j. Shane Morris - Full day: The Usability Kit workshophttp://uxaustralia.cmail1.com/t/r/l/tuiuhk/l/t. Daniel Szuc Gerry Gaffney - Full day: Research methods for user experience designhttp://uxaustralia.cmail1.com/t/r/l/tuiuhk/l/i. Patrick Kennedy And 23 main conference presentationshttp://uxaustralia.cmail1.com/t/r/l/tuiuhk/l/d from 28 fantastic speakers http://uxaustralia.cmail1.com/t/r/l/tuiuhk/l/h. We'll be putting together the essential social program over the next two months. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Nice Research on Persona Effectiveness
I don't like the characterisation of personas as fictitious, since that conveys a perjorative sense of being made up. Personas, like all audience segmentation and user modelling techniques, are an articulation of a collection of shared attributes. The lines between segments can be fuzzy, and the narrative provided to capture the flavour or essence of the segment can feel like story-telling, but the attributes (or dimensions) and the values of those attributes are very real. I don't believe that this is the same as mistaking the map for the landscape; nor is it mistaking a map for a sign-post. If I describe the Australian desert landscape using stories and memories from a hundred different locations, does it matter that no single place shares all of those qualities, or is it more important that you'd now be able to design a product much better suited to that landscape? Steve 2009/5/30 Robert Hoekman Jr rob...@rhjr.net Oh, definitely. I think the main issue is that designers dispute that they're fictitious, when they are, in fact, fictitious. Why bother arguing that red is blue? Instead of arguing that they're real, designers should try embracing the idea that personas are the maps in your analogy. Maps can help you get to Albuquerque without actually being road signs. Personas can help you design good stuff without actually being living, breathing people. They are based on real people and are designed to reflect and represent real people, much in the same way that maps reflect the route to Albuquerque. As such, they (personas and maps) are a great way to make sure we all stay on the same path. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Nice Research on Persona Effectiveness
Where I was heading was the replacement of 'fictitious' with 'representative' or some other less perjorative term to describe personas. Don't get me wrong: I'm not a persona fan-boy. But the underlying techniques - quantitative qualitative - for deriving these audience segmentations (not just personas) is sound and warrants greater (respect isn't quite the right word) consideration. Steve 2009/5/31 Jared Spool jsp...@uie.com On May 30, 2009, at 5:18 PM, Robert Hoekman Jr wrote: A map of J.R.R. Tolkien's Shire is fictitious. A map of Manhattan is not. A map of Manhattan is documentation of a real place. Personas are not documentation of real people — they're hybrid, man-made, archetypal, representative descriptions that arebased on real people. Uh-huh. Except maps aren't true documentation of real places, since much of the detail of the real places are left out of the maps. A map of Manhattan may not show any of the buildings or contours of the city and even may leave out important streets. The cartographer abstracts the important content and intentionally leaves out the rest. That's the secret behind good map design. And this is just a game of semantics. Where are we going with this? Jared -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Director, IxDA - ixda.org Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 26-28 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] [EVENT] UX Book Club Sydney - 6pm June 2nd
The next meeting of UX Book Club Sydney will take place on Tuesday June 2nd at 6pm. Where: News Digital Media, Level 23, 175 Liverpool Street, Sydney When: 6pm for 6:30pm start. Tuesday June 2nd Book: Subject to Change by Adaptive Path I look forward to seeing you there. -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Director, IxDA - ixda.org Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 26-28 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Examples: 'Out of stock' messages on e-commerce sites
Just to clarify, and I know I wasn't clear first time around so: my apologies. The reason for retaining discontinued or superseded products is that a returning customer - who's initiated product research, but hasn't yet made a purchase - will be frustrated by the disappearance of the product if it isn't explained. The product can also act as a gateway to other support materials about the product - how to get the product serviced; access to instruction manuals; other downloads; accessories - and as such can be a useful navigational device to keep around. However, you want the product's status to be clearly indicated as discontinued or superseded so that customers are aware of their options in relation to purchasing the product. Regards Steve 2009/5/20 elizabeth esp.par...@gmail.com If a product had been discontinued, I would either take it off the website altogether or, if was really famous for some reason and still attracted traffic, (classic designs, how the company got started etc), separate it from the online shopping section, there's usually too much information to process at the best of times, without having to filter out products that will never be available, - overwhelming, time-consuming AND disappointing!! -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Director, IxDA - ixda.org Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 26-28 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Examples: 'Out of stock' messages on e-commerce sites
Julian, The point I would make is that customers don't really care whether the item is in stock or not. They're interested in how quickly they can receive the product. So focus your messages around that part of the experience. Tell them if a product has been discontinued and you can no longer supply it. Tell them if a product has been superseded and let them know what the replacement product will be. Otherwise, tell them how quickly you can deliver it, from today, if they order it now. Don't bother them with why it takes that long, unless they show an interest in the details (so make sure the details are handy). And if there are different delivery options that will get the product to them sooner (or take longer) - let them know that as well. Amazon does a good job of communicating this information to customers. They're not alone, though. Hope that helps. Steve 2009/5/19 Julian Mccrea julian.mcc...@wearegt.com Hey guys and gals, Has anyone seen any good examples of out of stock messages on e-commerce sites? What I am looking for are examples which show a company to have: 1) The right tone i.e. honest, apologetic, encouraging etc 2) The right time to deliver the message in the userflow i.e. is it best represented on the product page, as opposed to at the basket. Thanks in advance, Julian McCrea User Experience Architect GT The Griffin Building 83 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1R 5AR switchboard: +44 (0)20 7343 3700 mobile: +44 (0)7965 458 585 fax: +44 (0)20 7343 3701 We're recruiting! Visit: http://www.wearegt.com blocked::http://www.goodtechnology.com/ thinking human font face=arial size=-1The information contained within this email is confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient any disclosure, copying, distribution or other use of, or reliance upon, this information is strictly prohibited. If you received this email in error, please notify the sender by replying to this message and then delete it from your system. Thank you. Please advise immediately if you or your employer does not consent to email for messages of this kind. Opinions, conclusions and other information in this message that do not relate to the official business of the WPP Group shall be understood as neither given nor endorsed by it. GT and its employees conduct business in accordance with the WPP Code of Business Conduct and Corporate Responsibility Policy; these can be found on www.wpp.com. This email originated from GT London Ltd, company registration number 2974377 (registered in the UK). Registered Office: The Griffin Building, 83 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1R 5AR. VAT No: GB 649885074 GT is a member of IPA and IAB./font Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Director, IxDA - ixda.org Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 26-28 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Tale of buying a chair
In a completely different sense, I always used to love Telstra's site - www.telstra.com - as a way of highlighting the disconnect between the brand promise Making life easier and the reality as evidenced by your interaction with the business. 2009/5/20 Donna Spencer don...@maadmob.net The two examples I use (when I teach) to show this disconnect are Crumpler (crumpler.com.au) and Dr Martens (drmartens.com). Both fantastic products with insanely bad web presence! Scott McDaniel wrote: X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 090519-0, 19/05/2009), Inbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean That's really the shame of it - the way many might experience the physical product is represented by the sub-par online experience. -- Donna Spencer - Maadmob do...@maadmob.net 02 6255 4993 / 0409778693 http://maadmob.com.au/ http://www.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/cardsorting/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Director, IxDA - ixda.org Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 26-28 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Books or articles that cover analysis of user/design research data well.
Still looking for articles, books or presentations containing good discussion or explanation of the analysis of design research. Many thanks Steve Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] [EVENT] UX Book Club Boston (with Steve Krug) - May 6th
I think that is so cool :) One of many things I love about the UX book club :) 2009/4/30 Jason Robb ja...@jasonrobb.com We're reading Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug. Best part is, Steve has agreed to come. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Books or articles that cover analysis of user/design research data well.
I put the call out yesterday via Twitter and thought I'd try to tap into the IxDA community for more assistance... I'm looking for examples of texts - books or articles (printed, journals, blogs, online magazines) - I'd happily accept presentations - that provide good coverage of analysis of research data. I don't mind if that data is quantitative or qualitative; and I'm not interested in whether the method of analysis would stand up to the yardstick of scientific rigour. I'm looking for the pearls of practical wisdom you refer back to time and again when it comes time to dive into an analysis task. The references I've received to-date have been compiled here: http://www.meld.com.au/2009/04/analysis-of-design-research-data-resource-list It's a fairly short list and I'm sure there are more out there. And don't be shy: if you think you've written something yourself that fits the bill, let me know about those too. Thank you Steve -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] [Event] Recap: IxDA New York's April Event at Liquidnet
Peter, No, thank *you* and everyone involved in hosting the event. I was very fortunate to be able to watch the event via the live stream through the UX Workshop and enjoyed it incredibly. I look forward to the next event with a great deal of interest (Cindy's presentation at IA Summit was one of my favourites). Regards Steve 2009/4/27 NYC IxDA nyc.i...@gmail.com Thanks to everyone who came out last Wednesday for Kim Goodwin's talk on designing a unified user experience. It was nice to get a better understanding of how Cooper Design approaches project work and their design philosophy. A special shout-out to Kim for taking time out of her busy schedule to speak to us, and to Liquidnet for providing the event space and refreshements! I hope to see all of you in a few weeks at our May event, “Experience Themes: A Storymaking Technique Applied to Design” featuring Cindy Chastain. The event takes place on Tuesday the 12th. Look for more details soon! See you then, Peter March IxDA New York Local Leader Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Searching People: Best Practices
Vincent, Both options have plenty to recommend them. The one thing Google lacks which I think is particularly useful when searching for people is a phonetic matching algorithm. This can help overcome issues with names like Louise, Louisa, Louissa, etc; when looking for a person who's name you've only heard. So I'd be looking for a solution that tackles that aspect of the problem. Regards Steve Baty 2009/4/9 Vincent v...@entyi.com Hi All, Currently have some questions about searching an internal directory of 20,000+ people. There's some thinking that a Google appliance utilizing a white bar with rich search capability (parameters / facets on particular attributes) would be enough to narrow down to who you're looking for. There's an opposing thought that an advanced search is required Upfront for searching by a particular first name, last name, company name, etc. We don't have capacity to build both. Also, testing search functionality is *not* possible until the very end of release which naturally limits any actions to be taken based on results of user testing. While I've been observing here for a while, I don't recall any discussions on best practices for approaching people search and curious if anyone has some direction and thinking here? Much appreciated, Vincent Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] PSD/PNG to ARGB (4444)- BMP format
Rajesh, I'd suggest this is not the appropriate list for such a question. Technical advice of this nature is best sourced elsewhere. Regards Steve 2009/4/6 rajesh ghodke rajesh.i...@gmail.com Dear all, Has anybody worked on converting assets (building blocks)which are 24bit PNG to BMP (ARGB - )format where in image data stores/(keep intact) alpha values? Or Extracting BMP (ARGB - 4-444) from PSD files? PSD's allow to extract XRGB (1-555)or RGB (565) or XRGB (4-444) but it seems it needs some change in settings to manage ARGB (4-444) Can anyone throw some light... Thanking in advance Rajesh Ghodke Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] [EVENT]: Reminder - UX Book Club Sydney - Tuesday 7th April, 6pm
Pauric, Great idea! I might collate our thoughts from tonight and send you the highlights :) Cheers Steve 2009/4/6 Pauric radioren...@gmail.com Hi Steve, Boston IxDA has Josh discuss his book at our bookclub on the 23rd. We have created a space for people to pose questions to Josh about his book. http://tinyurl.com/cqdwgu We are planning on recording his talk along with the QA session, and for every question we received you are entered in a raffle for some books! For more details: http://bostonixda.org/ Regards /pauric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41004 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] [EVENT]: Reminder - UX Book Club Sydney - Tuesday 7th April, 6pm
The next UX Book Club Sydney event will take place this Tuesday 7th April from 6pm. Book: Designing for the Social Web, Joshua Porter When: 6:00p for 6:30p start - 8:00pm Where: News Digital Media, 175 Liverpool St, Sydney Hope to see you there -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] the alignment of the practices and outcomes of IA and IxD
Liz, My first reaction was: Cool! My only real issue with this representation is the lack of physical design disciplines and their relationship to UX. I'm thinking specifically of industrial design and architecture (in its various forms - building, interior, landscape). I'd like to see these included in the model to provide coverage of physical and hybrid designed environments. Cheers Steve 2009/4/6 Elizabeth Bacon li...@elizabethbacon.com Hey folks, Hope I'm not beating a dead horse here (whinny!) but I would be glad for feedback on this sundial model of the UX fields that I put together. See http://ebacon.posterous.com/fields-of-user-experience-sundial-model It occurs to me that this model could be a way of presenting IxD along with our other skills to recruiters and business. What if we bought into this model as a way to represent our skills, and had different sundials displayed on our IxDA profiles? :) @PeterMe, I also have posted a thought on why Kim's recent book doesn't address IA explicitly. Cheers, Liz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=40789 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | Skype: steve_baty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Editor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] the alignment of the practices and outcomes ofIA and IxD
Janna, The core techniques of information architecture, and those of interaction design, can be articulated in a manner which I think is fairly uncontentious. We also have several visual representations - and descriptions - of the areas in which IA overlaps with IxD; where IxD overlaps with Industrial Design; where IA overlaps with Architecture (wayfinding in physical spaces, for example); and the application of all these disciplines to larger scale issues - the total experience of an airport, for example. And there is a great deal of overlap in the underlying techniques used by each of these disciplines: in research, analysis, evaluation. We are able to share a lot of knowledge and understanding around these fundamentals. I'd also think we can focus on problem solving and the solutions to those problems and look at the role played by the various core techniques - and discuss the ways in which both the approach to problem-solving and the solution may have been improved or influenced by the application of those techniques. Regards Steve 2009/4/1 Janna Hicks DeVylder ja...@devylder.com I'd like to start seeing some ideas about how we can move forward, for those whose interests lie in both camps organizationally as well as those whose work lives straddle/sit/are the two. On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 4:36 PM, Jorge Arango jara...@jarango.com wrote: On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 7:41 AM, dave malouf dave@gmail.com wrote: I don't care about IAs. I really don't. Your work is almost superfluous to me in my world. Nothing more need be said. Now, perhaps those of us who /do/ care about constructive dialog between these fields can move along without paying heed to your thoughts on the matter. ~ Jorge Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Contributor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Synthesis as an analysis activity in design research
David, Thank you for the detailed view of your process. You raise one point that I'd like to tease out: although you have a separate stage that is solely focused on synthesis activities - Consolidation; your Research stage includes other, smaller but no less significant, synthesis activities. Did I understand that correctly? Things like: visually sketch out other relevant models (sequence, flow, physical, etc.) One of the things I'd like to understand better is the way in which these smaller tasks - right across design research - are intertwined. It's that intermingling which makes them so difficult to identify, understand and improve. Thanks again Steve 2009/3/30 David B.Rondeau david.rond...@incontextdesign.com For me, the work is broken down a little differently. (I work at InContext Design and so use the Contextual Design methodology created by Holtzblatt and Beyer). Using this methodology, the process is broken more into Research and Consolidation (or synthesis), with analysis being part of Research. The Research phase consists of gathering information: we talk to the client and other stakeholders to understand the business needs and technical constraints, and we do Contextual Inquiry interviews with users. As part of this Research phase we have an interpretation session after each interview%u2014this is our analysis. We recount the interview and capture the details that are relevant to our focus. This includes capturing notes to later build an affinity diagram, and visually sketch out other relevant models (sequence, flow, physical, etc.). We do this so everyone on the team can have a shared understanding about what happened during the interview. For me, this analysis is just part of the research%u2014but it is separate from synthesis as Steve initially suggested. After enough interviews are completed, we then consolidate each model across all users. Using our process, we take each individual sketch and combine them to create new consolidated sketches. This is where the synthesis takes place and you begin to see the larger picture of the work across all the users. The sketching that we do in these phases is different than the sketching that Brad Nunnally discussed, but similar to what Dave Malouf raised. In these phases, we use sketches to understand the data and to share and communicate that understanding to the team and eventually to the client. (Yes, the sketching here is synthetic, but that's not the main purpose.) We don't sketch solutions until consolidation is done and we have a full picture of the work across the user population. Once into the design phase though, I agree wholeheartedly that designers should be sketching their ideas. We have a saying, If nothing is being captured, then you are just talking in the air. Without a shared representation, it's hard to build a shared understanding and make a decision. Personally, I find it very difficult to even think about design without sketching. I suspect that our process may be different than most. If so, I'd be curious to hear how other processes differ in terms of research, analysis, and synthesis. David Rondeau Design Chair Twitter: dbrondeau -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Contributor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Synthesis as an analysis activity in designresearch
Gretchen, I think that's a good characterisation, and fits with what I am thinking. There seems to be a point at which we pause and reflect on the data - as it was, and as it is after we've done some work with it - after which the real Synthesis phase begins. Looking back at my article, this is where you get into techniques like abstraction and generalisation; and the heavy lifting of design begins. I also like your reference to a story - that thread around which our insights are woven into a compelling here's where we're headed that contains elements of both the 'what' and the 'why'. In Cindy Chastain's IA Summit presentation she introduced the notion of a theme (in the context of story-telling/film-making) as this core idea or thread. Her presentation is worth a look: http://www.slideshare.net/cchastain/experience-themes-an-element-of-story-applied-to-design-1190389# Regards, Steve 2009/3/31 Gretchen Anderson gretc...@lunar.com There's Synthesis and synthesis. You always do some synthesis along the way, you can't help it. But the Synthesis is a really important step that should be distinct from Research. This is where you are really putting the whole picture together. And checking assumptions: Did everyone really say x? Or do I just think that? Finally, I find that your audience won't hang with you if you don't have a great story about what you did and what you found. And I don't mean the story is we did this, and we think this. You need to really craft your findings to capture all the nuances that lead you to a design direction. This is Synthesis. -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Contributor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] [Reminder] UX Australia call for reviewers
The Call for Proposals for UX Australia ( http://www.uxaustralia.com.au/conference-2009) is well under way and has generated a lot of interest. But in the excitement of announcing the Call for Proposals you may have missed that we're also looking for volunteers from the community to help select the conference content! As a community-based conference UX Australia is encouraging UX practitioners to get involved in the conference as much as possible. And to make it into a conference that is really meeting the needs of the UX community, we're looking for volunteers to help review presentation proposals when the Call for Proposals closes on March 29. We know that not everyone will be able to attend the conference - either as a presenter or an attendee - but this is your opportunity to help shape the conference anyway. To register as a volunteer reviewer please visit http://www.uxaustralia.com.au/conference-2009/program/call-for-reviewers and sign up. We look forward to hearing from you. Steve Baty Organizer, UX Australia -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Organizer | UX Australia | P: +61 417 061 292 UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Successful designers must influence productdirection and strategy
Andrei, Right on. More specifically: If you can't describe how money gets into the 'Cash from Operations' - revenue - then you're working with a severe handicap as far as your understanding of the business is concerned. For Russell: But I'm curious: at a time when even the Harvard Business Review is calling for a fundamental re-evaluation of the role of management and management practice, why for God's sake should you be satisfied to influence other people? Now is *the best opportunity ever* for design to take a more direct role in the setting of corporate strategy. The business world is reeling in the face of turbulence and uncertainty and here we are talking about 'influencing' the people who led you there? Why not kick the chair out from under them and show them the door? Regards Steve 2009/2/24 Andrei Herasimchuk aherasimc...@involutionstudios.com On Feb 23, 2009, at 12:15 PM, Sara Summers wrote: If designers want to affect those decisions they must learn to look at the world from strategy executives' perspectives just as they look at the world from their users' perspectives when designing products for them. Your dead on with this concept, however I would love to hear more about how designers can gain executive perspectives. In a word: Money. Learn to look at your company's business in pure financial terms and it will go a long way towards your understanding of how to work with your executives. If you open your companies yearly financial reports and don't get them, well, there's your first place to start to digging in. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Chief Design Officer, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. and...@involutionstudios.com c. +1 408 306 6422 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Contributor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Successful designers must influence productdirection and strategy
Andrei, Right on. More specifically: take a look at the company's cashflow statements. If you can't describe how money gets into the 'Cash from Operations' - revenue - then you're working with a severe handicap as far as your understanding of the busi 2009/2/24 Andrei Herasimchuk aherasimc...@involutionstudios.com On Feb 23, 2009, at 12:15 PM, Sara Summers wrote: If designers want to affect those decisions they must learn to look at the world from strategy executives' perspectives just as they look at the world from their users' perspectives when designing products for them. Your dead on with this concept, however I would love to hear more about how designers can gain executive perspectives. In a word: Money. Learn to look at your company's business in pure financial terms and it will go a long way towards your understanding of how to work with your executives. If you open your companies yearly financial reports and don't get them, well, there's your first place to start to digging in. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Chief Design Officer, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. and...@involutionstudios.com c. +1 408 306 6422 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Contributor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Field labels for non-native speakers of English
Marcus, My experience in this area is with commercial/transactional systems. The main insight from that work I would offer is that you focus your attention on those fields most likely to stop someone from completing the registration form. We tackled this issue by carrying out user research with non-English participants, and getting feedback from them on which field labels cause them the most confusion - to the point where they would abort the process rather than risk going ahead with something they didn't full understand. In our research these were mostly centred on options related directly to the product/service being purchased, rather than fields such as name, address etc. So, for example, we found that options relating to double versus a twin room were commonly confused. In your case, if the registration process includes some selection of service options - provide additional explanation around these items. Make that description as unambiguous as you can - include pictures or diagrams if necessary. Best regards Steve Baty 2009/2/23 Marcus Coghlan marcuscogh...@gmail.com Hi all, I'm currently involved in a redesign of a registration form aimed primarily at native English speakers, but with increasing use by non-native speakers, especially from Asia. Unfortunately, using non-english labels is out of scope for the time being. Has anyone come across research on which name field labels are most readily understood by non-native speakers? a) surname, last name, family name b) given name, first name Any recommendations on these or other easily confused form labels would be much appreciated. Thanks, Marcus Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Contributor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Should IxDA support a US National Design Policy?
Josh, I'd like to tie this back to the mission of the IxDA and highlight two of the points from that statement: * Evangelism* - Promoting awareness of the discipline, craft, and value of interaction design and design research among businesses, academia, consumers, and colleagues *Innovation* - Advancing the discipline of interaction design On the surface of it at least it would seem that the US National Design policy - and specifically the involvement of the IxDA as a professional association in the formative and developmental stages of that policy - are consistent with those two objectives. What better way to demonstrate the relevance and importance of interaction design to a broader audience than to become actively involved in such an initiative. I recognise that the IxDA's membership will not benefit equally from involvement in such a program. As an Australian member of the IxDA the benefits would be much more indirect than they would for US members. However, I recognise the leadership role the US plays in public policy on a global stage; the influence of US on Australian government policy-making is clear. Similarly, raising the profile of IxD as a discipline with the ability to tackle big problems can only help practitioners in all parts of the world. So, with some call for caution with respect to the allocation of overall resources of the IxDA, I would support our involvement. Best Regards Steve 2009/2/19 Josh Seiden joshsei...@gmail.com Folk, Recently, a group of leaders from various US design organizations came together to discuss the question of a US National design policy. This summit meeting resulted in 10 design policy recommendations, which can be found here: http://www.designpolicy.org/usdp/policy-proposals.html (The full report on the summit meeting can be found here: http://www.designpolicy.org/usdp/summit-report.html) After the summit meeting, the leaders of this initiative contacted IxDA to ask for our participation and endorsement. In turn, the Board has asked me to reach out to you--the community--to help us decide how (or if) IxDA should participate. The Board finds much to support in the 10 policy initiatives. In particular, the spirit of optimistic patriotism is welcome, and we certainly support the efforts of those who are motivated by that spirit. That said, the 10 policy proposals include some items that the Board strongly disagreed with as well. The Board finds itself similarly split on whether or not the very idea of design organizations partnering with government is a good idea. What do you think? Should IxDA get involved? Are there specific initiatives that YOU would like to support by working alongside your IxDA peers? Are there alternative ways you would like to see IxDA proceed? For quick reference, here are the the 10 recommendations: 1. Formalize an American Design Council to partner with the U.S. Government. 2. Set guidelines for legibility, literacy, and accessibility for all government communications. 3. Target 2030 for carbon neutral buildings. 4. Create an Assistant Secretary for Design and Innovation position within the Department of Commerce to promote design. 5. Expand national grants to support interdisciplinary community design assistance programs based on human-centered design principles. 6. Commission a report to measure and document design's contribution to the U.S. economy. 7. Revive the Presidential Design Awards to be held every year and use triple bottom-line criteria (economic, social, and environmental benefit) for evaluation. 8. Establish national grants for basic design research. 9. Modify the patent process to reflect the types of intellectual property created by designers. 10. Encourage direct government investment in design innovation. What do you think? How do you see IxDA's role relating to this? Thanks, Josh Seiden -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Contributo: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
Angel, After Andrei's post I thought of Kai's Power Tools as well. Kai Krause was the guy's name. Along with Phil Clemenger a little later on. Steve 2009/2/18 Angel Marquez angel.marq...@gmail.com That metatools guy that did kai's power goo. Those interfaces were amazing on mac os 7.5.3 -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Contributor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
Correction: Phil Clevenger was the other guy's name. 2009/2/18 Steve Baty steveb...@gmail.com Angel, After Andrei's post I thought of Kai's Power Tools as well. Kai Krause was the guy's name. Along with Phil Clemenger a little later on. Steve 2009/2/18 Angel Marquez angel.marq...@gmail.com That metatools guy that did kai's power goo. Those interfaces were amazing on mac os 7.5.3 -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Contributor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] UX Book Club - an update
Since I wrote this update two more UX Book Club groups have been formed. These two sum up for me so much of what I love about this concept: Amsterdam, Holland; and Warsaw, Poland. Welcome :) Steve -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 26-28 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Experience Definition
Nehal, I suggest you just go with something simple like Experience = F(perception, memory, soul, emotion, time) and forget the rest of the faux mathematics. What I've written is still meaningless because it suggests some objective, quantification of experience. Yours has the added problem of not making any sense. Unless you'd like to try and explain your choice of expressions, and why you think there is some linear function that models experience? At least with the function I've provided we can focus on a discussion of the variables. Regards Steve 2009/2/7 Nehal Almurbati n.almurb...@gmail.com Hi What is your definition of an experience? What make your design unique, is it its experience?? And does interaction enhance an experience or alienate the user if used repetitively? Here is my definition of an experience Experience = [(New perception of designed things by body or mind - memory) + (Soul × emotions)]/ Time What do you think? Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 26-28 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Experience Definition
Nehal, I think this is a much more productive way to think about what we mean by the term 'experience'. You've articulated a few variables that can affect a person's experience: expectation borne of experience - which is essentially a conflation of your use of familiarity, memory, and the references to either getting, or not getting what you expected. You also talk about the notion that experiences are built up over time. The working definition of an experience I prefer is the one that goes something like An experience is the aggregate of all interactions with a product/service/thing/entity. I think that this definition encapsulates most of the elements you've mentioned. I don't agree with your statement: an experience is what you get when you didn't achieve what you wanted. I have to ask: what is it called when we *do* achieve what we wanted? If the interaction is consistent with your expectation isn't that also an experience? But basically, I disagree with the notion that it's reasonable to attempt to model experience using mathematics. Especially using undefined terms such as 'soul' and rather unwieldy concepts - mathematically speaking - such as memory or emotion. Lastly, it's probably worth pointing out that experience is a qualitative concept. Whilst you may be able to measure the intensity of an experience - in subjective terms; or the effect of that experience on some other attribute - such as brand perception; the experience itself is not subject to such analysis; it can only be described in terms of other things. You might like to take a read of Eric Reiss' attempt at defining (user) experience http://www.fatdux.com/blog/2009/01/10/a-definition-of-user-experience/. Regards Steve 2009/2/7 Nehal Almerbati n.almurb...@gmail.com Steve Going with simple variables don%u2019t show the relationships they have if intersected, as it is the situation with every experience ... meaning: an experience is what you get when you didn%u2019t achieve what you wanted... but the %u2019you%u2019 here is related to how you have familiarise yourself with the new design, that might have hints of earlier design experiences which your memory recall and subtract from the new experience influence... If your mind or body had imagined or visualized this experience and didn%u2019t get it the way it was supposed to be, then you%u2019re getting something new out of it. Taking into consideration the numbers of times this experience or similar ones happened to the user, or divide it to the number and period of its accuration which will defiantly effect the UX. And with the use of technology the time element is an ever changing variable that really effect the new experience. Right ? -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 26-28 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] UX Book Club - an update
Back around Thanksgiving I floated the idea (here and elsewhere) of forming a book club in Sydney to meet and discuss books about user experience (broadly speaking). The idea resonated with a lot of other people and very quickly UX Book Clubs were being formed around the world, thanks in no small part to the efforts of people like Andrew Boyd and Will Evans. Having just held our first meeting of the Sydney group, I thought I would take the opportunity to provide an update on the progress of the initiative, and report on some of the experiences people have had in the various meetings around the world. The UX Book Club site/wiki - uxbookclub.org - currently shows 39 groups in various states of formation, several with over 50 participants and some just with a single individual expressing an interest. Many groups continue to use the wiki as their primary means of coordination, but a growing number have set up Facebook or Google Groups, along with their own twitter accounts, booksharing and miscellaneous other forms of communication. As such, it is difficult to put an accurate figure on the total number of people interested in participating, but those registered through the wiki number over 500. The first meeting was held in Silicon Valley in mid-December (they held there second meeting earlier today), followed by meetings in New York and Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, Canberra, Sydney Austin. Over the next few weeks there will be meeting held in Atlanta, Minnesota, Melbourne, Tel Aviv, Brisbane, Toronto, London and Chicago. All of which is nice, but doesn't tell the full tale. The full tale includes a look at what the meetings are actually like, and what the attendees get out of them. The Sydney meeting this past Tuesday seems to have been fairly typical of the experiences across the board - with local variations in terms of weather, location, and numbers. But the stories seem to have a consistent theme: great discussion; lots of energy; a good time had by all. Our meeting in Sydney was held at the offices of the News Digital Media team (usit.com.au) in their New York Lounge. Their hospitality was greatly appreciated, and the space was perfect for the event. 24 people attended, which was a very good turnout, and we hope to see a similar (or better!) turnout at the next event in April. The event was structured along the same lines as that used by New York City (thanks to Cindy Chastain) and applied successfully in Los Angeles. We opened with a brief welcome and introduction (from me), and then a volunteer from the group gave a 5-minute overview of the book (in our case Bill Buxton's Sketching User Experiences). We then broke into two groups (10 13 with me floating) and headed to opposite ends of the Lounge to discuss the book in detail. Cindy's rationale for the smaller groups was that they give everyone a much better opportunity to contribute to the discussion - and this was borne out by the comments I received afterwards. After a good solid hour or so of group discussion we came back together, had a bit of a recap; thanked everyone for attending; thanked our hosts; and relocated to a nearby pub to carry on. The 'official' proceedings kicked off at 6pm and ended just after 8pm. The 'after-hours' discussions wound up a couple of hours after that. The entire event was terribly uncomplicated, and I highly recommend it. Better yet, the discussion highlighted areas of the book I hadn't really considered important on first reading, but has encouraged me to go back and re-read those parts, armed with some real-world anecdotes to help make it more concrete. I'm already looking forward to the next one. -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 26-28 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Online book club
James, The UX Book Club site has a page for a virtual book club group - http://uxbookclub.org/doku.php?id=anywhere - but no firm plans, and no coordinator. There are also a number of locations listed without only one or two participants, and these might also be interested in something virtual. It's a great idea, but no one is driving it; if you'd like to help coordinate it that would be fantastic. Regards Steve 2009/2/6 James Bond jbon...@gmail.com This may have been previously covered in another thread, but would anyone be interested in doing this online. I am not in a major city where I can participate easily, but I was thinking something along the lines of a Skype conference call (or IM chat room) as the central meeting place? I figure I can't be the only one on the list not near a major resource of IxD/UXers. James Bond Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 26-28 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] ANNOUNCE: UX Australia 2009
We're very excited to announce UX Australia 2009 - Australia's new user experience design conference, which will include a day of pre-conference workshops and two days of conference presentations. The conference will be held in Canberra (Australia) from 26-28 August at Hotel Realm. A call for proposals will open on 16 Feb 2009. Keep up to date by: - Check out the website: http://uxaustralia.com.au/ - Following us on twitter: uxaustralia - Subscribe to the fortnightly newsletter (with conference news, ux articles, jobs events): http://www.uxaustralia.com.au/subscribe -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia 2009: http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] User Experience Deliverables
I see the pixel-perfect design comps as serving one of two purposes: i) As a conceptual exploration of the visual design. That is, a stage of visual design iteration; and ii) As a final pre-production stage in the overall process. So in one sense I'd happily include these into the broader category of concept designs; but in the other they're a separate deliverable in their own right. Steve 2009/1/29 Peter Morville morvi...@semanticstudios.com Thanks for the positive feedback, the constructive criticism, and the questions. The map is intended as a tool to help folks (myself included) think about the mix of deliverables they might use in any given project. It's not intended to be comprehensive (or prescriptive) but rather to reflect the diversity of potential documents and artifacts. And, I assume that many projects will only involve a small subset of these. I lumped pixel-perfect mockups or design comps under the broader category of concept designs, but I recognize that's a (big) stretch. That leads me to a question: what is a good broader category that could include design comps AND their equivalents in domains beyond web/print design (e.g., physical buildings and spaces and products)? I'm not sure I agree that design comps are the equivalent of blueprints for building a house...to me, those are a system map...but, of course, I'm not a real architect, so I could be wrong :-) Peter Morville President, Semantic Studios http://semanticstudios.com/ http://findability.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Neat use of Tufte's sparklines: Airline pet incidents
Angel, I must be experiencing Saturday night blinker-vision, but I don't see the sparklines in that site. Where are they? Steve 2009/1/24 Angel Marquez angel.marq...@gmail.com http://www.breathingearth.net/ -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Would you test my designs?
Jeff, (Written in the most reasonable tone...) What you're attempting to do is admirable: gather a group of experienced (and qualified - for your needs) interaction designers who are willing to provide you with assistance, as a way of improving your own work. In many respects, it's for exactly that reason that I'm a member of this discussion list. I'd like you to consider the function of this list in relation to your needs, and tell us why a discussion of your design questions - as they arise - would be inappropriate in a list environment. And I ask that because a big part of what makes this list valuable to so many people is that questions from hundreds of people each month are considered, discussed, and (hopefully) resolved, through the collective input of the thousands of designers participating. In setting up your own 'panel of experts', you're essentially taking away a part of the value of the list for others. You will find that there is also a reaction to providing free advice: in the context of the discussion list many participants are more than happy to offer up their expertise to the betterment of the group; but they will be reluctant to do the same for an individual; and a professional at that. So I'd ask you to ponder the option of continuing to post your questions openly to the list and letting the entire community both contribute and, in so doing, learn. Regards Steve 2009/1/24 Jeff Noyes jeff.no...@acquia.com I'm an interaction designer myself, and want to collect advice from peers. Is that so wrong? On Jan 23, 2009, at 3:31 AM, Mike Padgett wrote: This forum is for people who want to discuss issues, theories, methods, etc. about interaction design practice. (http://www.ixda.org/discuss.php) Um, so how do *you* qualify? Actually, I am interested in free design advice. I attached a survey, which will qualify the person giving the advice. So long as you qualify, I'm all ears. On Jan 22, 2009, at 4:40 PM, Andrew Boyd wrote: Hi Jeff, I'm sure it was not your intent, but it reads like you are after people to provide free design advice, but you would like to interview them first :) Cheers, Andrew Andrew Boyd faci...@gmail.com http://uxbookclub.org -- connect, read, discuss On 23/01/2009, at 5:31 AM, Jeff Noyes jeff.no...@acquia.com wrote: I need to create a panel of users to guide our design direction. I'm looking for people to help. This shouldn't take much of your time, e.g, an occasional review of screens, or a quick remote usability study (requires only a computer and phone/skype). I essentially need folks that are familiar with social publishing sites like Ning.com or CMS tools like Wordpress.com. If you think you can help, please respond to this 4 question survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=SfOJUOrIbXlvihjQhHQTVw_3d_3d Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Drawbacks of using Flex for data processing application?
Nasir, This has not been my experience. I've seen it take much, much longer for the development team to get up to speed on Flex than 2 days. I'm not sure whether you mean ready to start or able to work just as efficiently as they could in insert previous dev language but the latter case has certainly *not* been my experience. Regards Steve 2009/1/24 Nasir Barday nasir.bar...@ixda.org Jeff, I know you were digging for drawbacks, but finding people with the right skillset is less of an issue. If you're already a developer that knows ActionScript (or Java/C/C++ in my case), the platform is very easy to pick up. If you've got that kind of skillset lying around, you can have an engineering team up in about two days (under a day if they're real sharp). -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Living the Job Enterprise UX Research by Doing (vs. Observation)
Julian, My first impression is that this is a fantastic idea! There's nothing like actually *doing* a job to understand what it's like for the person. Just remember that your perspective - as someone who'll get to walk away at the end of the day(s) or week - will still be somewhat different from the person who makes their living from it. I've never actually undertaken this type of research; only gone so far as contextual inquiry and observation. The only time I've done something similar is by undertaking job interviews to learn how better to conduct them for my own company :) Regards Steve 2009/1/22 Julez huj...@gmail.com Hi, Does anyone out there have the experience of actually performing a given job (for at least a day or three, perhaps longer) as a means of really researching context, tasks etc.? Specifically, I am thinking of an enterprise context, where the user doesn't have choice in tools, workflow and there are some highly developed skills (ie more than the basic web skills of an e-commerce user). Also, I am contrasting this approach to on-site observation, empathic modeling and user role playing. For example, working in a call center as a first line telephone customer care agent. Sitting down with call center agent, getting some basic training and having that person watch your back to prevent major catastrophes, You answer calls, use the system(s) to retrieve and enter information etc., essentially it is you performing the job. This was something I though of proposing ages ago when I wanted to analyze and model the work of a particular type of system analyst. It never came to fruition (due mainly to technical skills gap, but also legal issues with outsider using systems) and I ended up doing standard contextual observations. It was great for insight into high-level aspects of the product and job that had issues (most of which we were already aware of) but not much nuance. It is inspired by a story I heard (circa 2001?) about a financial analyst getting a job at an Amazon.com warehouse as a means of gauging their likelihood of hitting/exceeding their numbers. There are a myriad of reasons not to do this, namely resource/time constraints, but I am curious to see if other IxDers, particularly those with a research bent have experience with this and could provide some input on how it compares to CI. Of course input from people with no experience is also welcome. What context was this performed in? (Real vs. Realistic Simulation) Did you have some basic, prior understanding of the domain? Did you do training? What did you call it? (methodology) Was it disruptive to work setting? Does it provide a level of insight worth the time/hassle of setting it up? Cheers, Julian Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Design Strategy: Archetypes vs. Analytics
Speaking as someone with a) a real passion for numbers; b) a degree in mathematical statistical modelling; and c) a bit of experience in this thing we call user experience design - I have to wholeheartedly agree with Katie's arguments below. We can learn *a lot* about people either individually or collectively by surveying, recording, measuring, collating, analysing, aggregating and reporting. But around the hard knot of clusters of similar-appearing people such an undertaking might produce, is a whole fuzzy world of real individuals. We humans are messy creatures: very hard to pin down, and sometimes prone to get all contrary when you try. We have emotions, hormones, moods, good days bad; we get obsessed, easily distracted; we change our minds. The numbers won't tell that whole story - ever. The moment you become solely reliant on numerical data to describe people you're making a very large and dangerous abstraction that is not justified by the observed world. Steve 2009/1/17 Katie Albers ka...@firstthought.com The use of data sets encourages a false sense of knowledge on the part of people using them. As T.S. Eliot pointed out (and this is a paraphrase), we have lost wisdom in knowledge, lost knowledge in information, and lost information in data. snip The acquisition of the zero, the definition of calculus, the practice of rigorous statistical analysis, mathematical modelling, all these things are very important to our world and our culture today. But you can be fluent in all of them and you still can't use them as the basic tools of developing a strikingly good interaction, or experience or interface. Don't forget negative numbers, the irrationals (pi etc), a complex numbers (sqrt(-1) = i) ! None of which help explain people any better; although very good for engineering. Numbers are attractive because they offer a sense of Correctness...there is only one right answer (although, as we used to say at MIT, 2+2=5 for very large values of 2 and very small values of 5). That still doesn't mean that they're always the right tool. snip Katie Katie Albers Founder Principal Consultant FirstThought User Experience Strategy Project Management 310 356 7550 ka...@firstthought.com -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Strategic Interaction Design
Dan, In addition to the excellent responses you've already received from Mark, Tania, Andrew, Fred and others, I would include the need to understand the concepts of differentiation and positioning (in a business sense) and the ways in which interaction design can contribute to corporate (or organizational) strategy in these areas. An example from the interaction design space would be the iPhone and the original iPod and how the IxD of these devices created a clear departure from the existing offerings in (respectively) the smartphone and MP3 player markets. You could also cite examples from consumer electronics in the industrial design space by comparing the approach of Bang Olufsen with Bose, and the approach to differentiation used by each company in the design of speakers. In digital environments you can see this in operation in the differentiation strategy employed by Google with it's search engine interface at initial release as compared to the interaction design employed by Yahoo! and Alta Vista during the same period. There are numerous other examples - including one you used yourself several years ago with the choice by Victoria's Secret not to employ a 'shopping cart' metaphor on it's Web site, but to use a shopping bag instead. Differentiation is at the core of business strategy and is an important concept for IxD practitioners to firmly grasp and apply to their work. Steve -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal Consultant | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Functional Level Personas Was dd character sheet as a persona model
James, The key point is there is essentially no way to generalize from a well-specified persona to a population of interest, and thus no way to say anything about the users of interest. The process should work in reverse: a persona is a representation of a specific sub-population derived from the research. From that process, you should arrive at representations that are illustrative, predictive to some meaningful extent, and identifiable in the sense that stakeholders should be able to 'see' in the persona some real person from the population. The mathematics and statistics in the article you've cited are not very good, and the arguments presented based on those are specious. They ignore areas of analysis such as principal components analysis, multi-dimensional scaling, or factorial analysis; or the basics of clustering and segmentation. The example of Patrick is worse than meaningless. I find this statement from the article particularly amusing: Unfortunately, both personas themselves and the raw data used to develop them are generally protected by non-disclosure agreements. Without verifiable data, we have nothing more than assertion of validity by persona creators and advocates themselves. I'm not a card-carrying fan of personas. The article cited, however, is clearly the opposite. Steve -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal Consultant | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Calendars integration online
Will, I was curious as to the basis for this assertion. I'd be interested in any research or testing you might have come across on this item. 2008/12/21 William Brall dam...@earthlink.net People don't think in months, they think in weeks. Steve -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal Consultant | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] good examples for disability and web 2.0??
Maria, You might like to take a look at some of the work Derek Featherstone has been doing in this area. His presentation to Web Direction South in September can be found here: http://www.webdirections.org/resources/jeremy-keith-derek-featherstone-web-apps-ajax-kung-fu-meets-accessibility-feng-shui/ A Google search for 'derek featherstone web 2.0' will give you a bunch more examples from him, or check out his site at: http://boxofchocolates.ca/ Regards Steve 2008/12/19 Maria De Monte mtdemo...@yahoo.it Hello folks, talking about web 2.0 and its moving toward a 3.0 era, I've been questioning myself about how web 2.0 has prompted accessibility problems by people with disabilities. It seems to me, in fact, that disability matters are still solved with classic solutions. However, I think the possibilites given by web 2.0, and the new coding languages which came up with it, give huge possibilities towards shaping web services to solve disability concerns in web surfing. Have you any good examples of web 2.0 applications with strong disability concerns? -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal Consultant | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Interaction Designers: What is your elevator pitch?
'Design' implies purpose or intent. There are organizing principles to the cosmos; and chaos theory, or non-linear dynamical systems theory, demonstrates that quite complex - and unpredictable - behaviour can result from a few simple rules. In fact, we can predict the point at which things will become unpredictable, but then we're out of luck. However, that isn't science in the context that Dan was using it, I believe. If I understand his reference correctly, and the original comment regarding science that triggered it, he was referring to scientific method - hypothesis, experiment, observation, conclusion - and I'd agree that the role of science in interaction design is not that central, whilst still be useful in many contexts. Steve 2008/12/20 Angel Marquez angel.marq...@gmail.com So, are you saying their is no underlying design behind the cosmos and say something like horticulture? Aren't science and nature friends, partners? Wouldn't the ultimate design objective be to create something that appears unrepeatable but the underlying pattern could never be discovered, uncertainty principle esque... -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal Consultant | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Dominating the space
Mike, Although Google well and truly dominates the search space, Facebook and iPhone are not in the same class. Facebook's dominance is market and demographic-specific, being out-performed in some age brackets by MySpace and Bebo (pre-teens teens); and countries, by a wide range of competing social networks. The iPhone is definitely dominating the media, but Nokia is still the largest seller of mobile devices globally; and Blackberry is a very strong competitor in the smartphone market specifically. There are also cultural and geographic differences: iPhone has had a fairly luke-warm reception in Japan (if memory serves) for example. It's also worth pointing out that Google does not just dominate the search engine market. It is also, as a direct result, dominating the online advertising space, where five years ago the dominant market player would have been someone like DoubleClick. Which is not to argue the point, but reinforces your underlying point that market leaders change. Since we're talking about online/digital type markets, you might as well throw in Netscape capitulating to Internet Explorer, and the current rise of Firefox as another example of the changing landscape. In each of these cases the forces at work are very different. Google's success was tied to a very different approach to the problem of finding things on the Web. Where others were developing more and more complex models of directory-style indices and keyword search, Google came out with an offering that was stunning in its simplicity. And delivered results on a scale not matched by any of the competing services. Where Yahoo and MSN, altavista et al were curating collections in the tens of millions; Google's early offering delivered results drawn from a collection numbering in the billions of pages. It was faster; less complicated; easier to understand; and more likely to return a meaningful result. It was also easy for advertisers to understand and buy into. Competition for Google as a search engine could come from an unlikely source. It is possible that a social network like Twitter could erode Google's dominance as our primary source of 'finding things on the Web'. I already receive a large amount of my resources via Twitter; with a substantial collection being delivered via RSS feeds. More importantly: I trust those sources much more than I do results in a search engine. So as these services grow and extend their reach, the value of those networks as a source of information will also grow, with the value of each successive connection being much greater than simply +1. Facebook's success - and I'm not arguing it's success (let's not turn this into a discussion of whether or not it's making a profit, revenue, or is likely to survive) - as a social network came from several factors: it was targeted at college students (initially) rather than attempting to compete head-to-head with MySpace in the teenage market; it provided a platform for other businesses to develop applications to enhance the overall value of the service (arguable, but still a factor); and opened itself up to non-college participants in time for their early adapters to be graduating and moving out into the world. MySpace, on the other hand, hasn't really 'aged' with it's members, thereby providing the opportunity for Facebook to capitalise on that end of the market. The 'next Facebook' may already exist; or it might be just around the corner. Or it might be that Facebook evolves and strengthens it's market position. The first hurdle it needs to clear is to introduce a strong revenue model that allows it to survive and enhance itself. Time will tell whether or not they can do that successfully. The iPhone, for me at least, represents an interim step between the mobile phone as a purely communications device, and the truly personal connect me to the world and keep me entertained device that we'll see in 5-10 years time. The iPhone's days are numbered, although it represents a great leap forward towards that future device. It has some unique characteristics that make it appealing: the touch interface, with the gestural elements that make it much richer experientially than other offerings; the integration with iTunes, and the iPod capabilities of music, movies, TV photos; and, perhaps most significantly, the introduction of the App Store - and all of the third-party applications - that open up a wealth of opportunities for both iPhone users and third-party developers to use the iPhone as a platform more so than a stand-alone device. The iPhone has helped to redefine what we expect from a 'mobile phone', but it's importance for me is the direction that it gives to other device manufacturers as to how they'll need to compete in the future. It may be that the iPhone killer won't come from Nokia, Motorola, HTC or Siemens, but from Apple themselves. And that's just fine by me. Regards Steve 2008/12/19 Mike Scarpiello mscarpie...@gmail.com Google (search),
Re: [IxDA Discuss] ThoughtPile.org
My first piece of feedback being rather more on the facetious side, I thought - inspired by Will's ongoing commentary - that I might elucidate somewhat. I don't like the site. I don't want to search blindly through an undifferentiated list of objects in the (possibly) vain hope of finding something useful. The site works a little bit like that memory game you play with pairs of symbols, except you never 'show' anything, and there's no sense of completion; ever. The objects you have viewed don't even retain some hint or clue as to what was in them after you close them; they just rather unhelpfully turn themselves grey. I'm all for 'fun' and 'play' in Web sites, but there are certain characteristics that are required - like rewards, for example. The interaction design isn't particularly unique - you see similar concepts in use in mind mapping tools for example - so it doesn't even really qualify in the 'innovation' stakes. Overall I thought this was an idea that was released into the world with a lot of thought and work still to do. Steve 2008/12/17 Will Evans wkeva...@gmail.com Oh, right - and one more thing - Perhaps we should have a completely different set of heuristics by which we review and discuss sites clearly designed by a marketing/advertising agency. We should not use HCI, usability heuristics, best practices or notions of affordance or any other design principle found in the literature and beaten into us by demanding sadist professors. Think of it as - um - handicapping, fairness doctrine, or simply short-bus special treatment. It's unfair to judge them using the same measuring stick as real UX professionals; it's bad for their self-esteem and we should be sensitive to that. Not all pigs are created equal - some are more unequal than others - certainly the ones prone to putting on more lipstick. ~ will Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems Will Evans | User Experience Architect tel: +1.617.281.1281 | w...@semanticfoundry.com aim: semanticwill gtalk: semanticwill twitter: semanticwill skype: semanticwill On Dec 16, 2008, at 3:00 PM, Will Evans wrote: Keep wondering about this marketing website. And the topic won't seem to die. 1. If we all adhered to rules, where would innovation come from. I am not defending the site, usable is only one facet in the 7 facet honeycomb of user experience, and it's importance is ONLY relative to the context of the design, the goals of the business/stakeholders and the users. I have no idea what those are - but usable is just one attribute, not all 7, and even the most ardent, hardcore Jacob Nielson that I have talked to is incapable of answer this one simple question: When reviewing an application, product, or website -- when do you/your team deem it 'usable enough'? 2. Ogilvy, one of the founders of modern advertising, had a book, Ogilvy on Advertising, which is a classic. It also has a number of rules regarding effective positioning, branding, and selling of a product. If everyone in advertising followed that book religiously, we would have never have had the True ads for Budweiser. Or the frogs. Rules of thumb are good; heuristics, well applied, are useful, but orthodoxy is an evil slave-master beating creativity and innovation into desperate submission and it's your obligation to challenge him and his bastard step-child, design patterns. :-) Rock On! ~ will Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems Will Evans | User Experience Architect tel: +1.617.281.1281 | w...@semanticfoundry.com aim: semanticwill gtalk: semanticwill twitter: semanticwill skype: semanticwill On Dec 16, 2008, at 11:48 AM, Kevin wrote: I'm not saying there isn't room for all-Flash sites, Michael, I just thought that for a truly solid and accessible interface, Flash just wasn't the way to go. The linked site above crashed my computer and I have a pretty solid machine -- it hogged WAY too much RAM and took a too long to download. Pretty or cool or desirable doesn't make a site usable. I used to be a total Flash advocate until I started designing sites for wide audiences. Perhaps someday Flash will be completely accessible and usable for everyone, but I'm not convinced it's there yet. BTW -- most of those highly-paid actionscripters don't have a iota of usability training -- the site linked above and the link you posted is proof of that. I got the hang of the site listed above after a while (after rebooting my laptop twice), but for something that's angled for commercial means an all-Flash
Re: [IxDA Discuss] [Event] DETAILS: Wed. December 10 -- IxDA NYC's David Malouf and guests discuss The State of IxD Today -- hosted by Bloomberg
Nasir, Thank you for setting up the stream tonight - it was great to be able to log in and follow events. My feedback as a remote observer is as follows: * the quality of the video tonight was not as good as the stream from Will's presentation last month; * The video was very pixelated and difficult to make out any real details. Certainly the slides were indistinguishable; I was lucky that I was able to follow along using the google docs version. * The sound was, mostly, good, but spiked rather disturbingly during periods of applause and laughter. * The chat is only really useful if the comments I post are conveyed, in some manner, to the speaker. For example, a question could be relayed to the speaker as a proxy for being there. However, I know that this isn't always possible - clearly. Usually, though, there are a few comments asking for clarification about a question from the audience that wasn't audible through the audio and at those times it's good to have someone actually following the chat and responding. That's about all. I have to reiterate: it was great to be able to see the presentation. Regards Steve 2008/12/11 Nasir Barday [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks to everyone who came out tonight! Our amazing hosts at Bloomberg, the cats that made good on their RSVPs, Ted Booth, Jennifer Bove, and Dave Malouf all made this another great NYC event! Add to that the post-post-reception going away afterparty for Dave, and the night was complete :). I want to solicit feedback on our stream of the event tonight, and of our streams of the past few events. If you joined, what went well/ill, and what can we do to add to the ex-event experience? Audio and video quality? Is the chat useful? Helpful to have someone watching and talking back during the evwnt? If you didn't join, what could we have done better on our side? I'm working on a streaming best practices guide for F2Fs around the globe in the hopes of taking out the guesswork (and thus making streams more common). Please send your thawts off-list. Cheers, good night, and good luck! - Nasir On Dec 10, 2008, at 3:13 PM, Nasir Barday [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A ping to everyone about tonight's event. This is your last chance to see Dave Malouf speak in NYC! And for those of you waiting for him to come to Savannah, Georgia, and for people in other cities, check out the stream we're setting up here: http://snipurl.com/7qwel [www_ustream_tv]. The show starts at 7:00pm EST, with To boot, the setup for tonight's event is going to be off the chain! Needless to say, the physical experience will be worth weathering the rain, not to mention the afterparty around the block! Refreshments start at 6:15pm, and the talk starts at 7:00pm EST (come before 7pm to avoid disappointment!). Cheers, and see y'all tonight! - Nasir On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 11:20 PM, NYC IxDA [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Please join us at a very special December event: IxDA co-founder David Malouf and guest colleagues will engage the NYC community in a discussion of the state of interaction design today. Topics covered will include General IxD Practice, Sketching and Prototyping, Education, Richness and Openness, and Defining The Damn Thing. David's guests include Ted Booth, Interaction Design Director at Smart Design, and Jennifer Bove, Vice President of Interaction Design at HUGE, Inc. Everyone is welcome—bring your colleagues, your thoughts, questions, and experiences! The event format is intended to be a lively, participatory discussion. Our host for the evening is Bloomberg, the leading global provider of financial data, news and analytics. Refreshments will be served. View Bloomberg's creative digital invitation here: http://tinyurl.com/5vmrd9 = RSVP: http://tinyurl.com/6c57pk The event is free of charge. Only those on the guest list will be admitted; please bring photo ID. = WHEN Wednesday, December 10, 2008 6:15 – 7:00 networking and refreshments 7:00 – 8:00 presentation 8:00 – 8:30 QA and discussion (Please arrive promptly. Guests may not be admitted after 7:00 PM) WHERE Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue New York, NY 10022 http://www.bloomberg.com Map: http://tinyurl.com/6jc7n8 Subway: 4, 5, 6 to 59th Street station After the presentation, we'll head to a nearby location (TBD) to give David a proper send-off; he departs NYC to move to Savannah in mid-December. ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS David Malouf—Professor of Interaction Design, Savannah College of Art Design After 15 years of working in industry as an interaction designer, most recently at Motorola Enterprise Mobility, David will move to academia in January 2009 and begin teaching interaction design within the Industrial Design Department of the Savannah College of Art Design (SCAD.edu). David is also a founder and the first Vice President of the Interaction Design Association. Ted Booth—Interaction Design Director, Smart
Re: [IxDA Discuss] ThoughtPile.org
On the plus side, if you just let it sit there it's rather hypnotic. I had a great nap after just a few minutes of watching. 2008/12/10 Michael Andrews [EMAIL PROTECTED] I find this silly. What am I supposed to click on? It is a treasure hunt, which assumes I am interested in other people's spewing of random thoughts to begin with -- which I am not. Treasure hunts only work when there's a treasure to find. I just see a bunch of orange circles with innane writing in them. Not very interesting, even though I like orange. -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal Consultant | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Design for impulse Behavior Economics
Dave, Interesting article: thanks for sharing it with us. Designing for behavioural change is a central consideration in the UX strategy work I do, but I haven't really paid enough attention to the aggregate effect of lots of individual changes in behaviour, and how to design for the resulting impact. It's a step in my thinking that occurs at a tacit level (I believe), but isn't often communicated explicitly to those around me, and so loses a lot of the desired strength in the final design. Because I'm not really thinking about that aspect of the design consciously, I don't identify that as the cause of any dissatisfaction; it's something that should be an explicit design goal. Thanks again Steve 2008/12/9 Will Evans [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nice find! As interaction designers - we actually have more influence over behavior, and can at least design for desired behaviors in the user's interactions with the system - I am thinking most specifically about when Porter discusses in his book the reputation and rewards system employed by Yelp's IxD which informs, encourages, and guides certain behaviors while deminishing others. This was also done by Digg - which removed their hall of fame, and today you noticed a designers desire to provide a platform by which to engage in some level of sociality when you got pelted on facebook with snow balls and then kvetched about it on twitter :-) Must grab a bite to eat, but will read the article later this evening. -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal Consultant | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] UX requirements for IT consumption?
Alex, The best answer here is going to be: go and ask them. In the past I've produced a whole range of different documentation for development folks for this purpose, from use cases to straight business requirements to content object models. The best results I've had, however, have come when I've been able to pull the tech lead into the requirements process and have them produce their own documentation side-by-side with what I'm doing. Regards Steve 2008/12/4 Alexandra O'Neal [EMAIL PROTECTED] We're considering a major site redesign, going beyond interface to changing how things behave on the back end. Since good UX starts from the ground up, I'm spending a lot of time pulling taxonomy needs, describing scenarios, determining relationships between categories, etc. In the past when I did this I had a much more hands-on role in developing the database architecture, etc. Now I'm an independent contributor in a non-IT dept, and I'm being asked to develop the redesign requirements from which they will build. I'm not sure how much data to provide to (a) not do someone else's job for them - don't want to step on any toes! while (b) also assuring they have what they need to do the job. My thought is to provide use-case scenarios and the minimum taxonomic requirements, along with where those to map to existing categories, and let them figure out the specific tables, etc. Please note, this is *not* at the IA/UI stage yet. This is to assure that while the IA/UI work is done, any concurrent (or sooner!) development efforts from IT meet the eventual need. Has anyone else developed this kind of requirements documentation? What did you send? Thank, Alex O'Neal ux manager/knowledge engineer -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal Consultant | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] UXBookClubs (Canada? Online)
Aaron, Check out http://uxbookclub.org/doku.php?id=vancouver There are a few names in there already. Regards Steve 2008/11/30 Aaron M. Holmes [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hi All, I'm a Canadian and would be interested. I'm located in Kelowna, and can make it to Vancouver once in a while - didn't see a West coast group yet. Cheers, Aaron -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Erica Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2008 5:45 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] UXBookClubs (Canada? Online) Canadians et al, I know of Mario, and I know of one other Canadian who has expressed interest. Curious, are there other Canadians here interested in discussing books? Should it be online since there are few of us over a large area? Are others interested in an online discussion, even if it's posted on the site somehow rather than in the mailing list? Or are people happy discussing books right on the list? Thoughts? Cheers, Erica Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal Consultant | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] UXBookClubs in general (was re: UX Book Club Washington D.C.)
If I could also mention that the UX Book Club also has groups forming in Canberra, Sydney, Sunshine Coast, NYC, Twin Cities, Toronto, Tokyo, and London with others in discussion. The http://uxbookclub.org site has the beginnings of each group, but - more importantly - it's a place for you to record your interest in joining the group forming in your city - or starting up your own if your city is currently not listed there. Cheers Steve 2008/11/30 Will Evans [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hi all, IxDA Washington DC now has a UX Book Club. We have a page on the UX Book Club Wiki, we have our first 2 books chosen, and now we just need folks who are interested to come on by and show interest by joining. *Description*: The UX Book Club Washington D.C.%20http://uxbookclub.org/doku.php?id=washington_dcseeks to enhance the abilities and knowledge of user experience professionals from information architects and interaction designers to visual designers and usability specialists to augment their understanding for excellence in UX practice, ixd design theory while building a passionate local community. Subjects of interest to this club span design theory, design research and user experience research practices and processes. The books include the strategy and business of design, UX design theory and history, methodology, usability research, and the ethics of UX professionals, while networking and having some fun. In this first year, we will read, review, and discuss *8 books*. Moderation and discussion lead will rotate throughout the group so that everyone eventually gets a chance to frame the conversation and contribute to group learning. I have taken the liberty of choosing the first two books to jump start the group, but afterwards books will be chosen by some democratic mechanism based on group interest. The first two books are Bill Buxton's *Sketching User Experiences*, and Dan Saffer's *Designing for Interaction*. Our first scheduled meeting will be the mid-January, date TBD, but I wanted folks interested to be able to get the first two books now and have time to finish Buxton's Sketching User Experiences before the first meeting. Cheers! http://uxbookclub.org/doku.php?id=washington_dc Go to the page and add your name if you want to start reading and then join the discussion group. -- ~ will Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems - Will Evans | User Experience Architect tel: +1.617.281.1281 | [EMAIL PROTECTED] aim: semanticwill gtalk: semanticwill twitter: semanticwill skype: semanticwill - Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal Consultant | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] UX Book Club: looking for shows of interest and feedback
Apologies for the cross-posting --- I'm thinking of starting up a UX Book Club in Sydney. The group would meet once a month (1 - see below), and would come together to discuss a particular UX book. The club would operate as follows: * Everyone who attends needs to read the nominated book (you won't be barred from entry, but it helps everyone get more out of the night); * Everyone needs to jot down and bring along: 2 things in the book that really struck a chord; and 1 thing they either hated, disagreed with; or don't understand. * The book would be within the practice of user experience, which might include books like Indi Young's Mental Models; Dan Saffer's Design Gestural Interfaces; Todd Zakiwarfel's Prototyping; and classics such as Don't Make Me Think; the Inmates Are Running the Asylum; etc. * The book should not be arduous to read! * Next Month's book will be announced at the current meeting. * Communication via twitter through mailing lists like IAI-members, IxDA and some of the LinkedIn groups dealing with UX and/or IA. In keeping with the book-club theme the location would be somewhere like a wine bar (or a bookstore), although the noise level has to be low, and be able to accommodate a group of 15-30 people. As an added twist, each book might - where appropriate - include a film reference to watch along with reading the book. So, for example, Todd's bookon prototyping - or Buxton's book on sketching - might be read in conjunction with a viewing of IronMan. Dan Saffer's book on gestural interfaces might be read in conjunction with a viewing of Minority Report or Quantum of Solace. People would be instructed to watch the film with the topic of the book in mind. An alternative - if a venue could be found - would be to show parts of the movie at the book club meeting, but I think it's more managable if people watch it themselves. I know some of the authors who's books we'll be reading/critiquing follow this list: in principle, would you be willing to provide a signed copy of your book as a prize for the group? Would it get to be too much of a burden if this sort of thing sprang up in a bunch of different places and each one was asking for a freebie!? Such a meeting would provide experienced folks with a chance to revisit some classics in a critical light; as well as getting an incentive to read some more current materials. And for less experienced folks it would provide them with a forum to ask those 'I don't get it' questions that they might otherwise never understand. I haven't sorted out a location for the get-together; and it will probably not start meeting until after Christmas. Do you think that would work? Do you know if anything similar has been tried (and failed) previously? Note 1: There has been some discussion as to whether monthly would be too frequent. Thoughts on this point would be welcome. -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal Consultant | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] New Gmail themes
What *doesn't* make sense is that the haven't just provided the user with the ability to set the three or four colours themselves and generate a stylesheet from those settings. Technically it isn't a big step, so why put out the half-assed version where I get to choose from a limited set of themes that may (or probably don't) appeal to me? Steve 2008/11/21 seth b [EMAIL PROTECTED] Smart move by Google. Allowing customization and providing multiple options via CSS is something that should be done standard on all SaaS apps. I'm shocked more apps don't offer it. -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal Consultant | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] perceived problems with personas
Michael, 2008/11/17 Michael Stiso [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1) *Frankenstein.* As I understand it, the better persona practitioners will base their constructions on real-world data. Essentially, they use various methods to gather a bunch of data on behaviors, attitudes, and demographics from some population, and then reorganize and combine the various data points into some mock person. If that is correct, then it would seem that the resulting persona doesn't represent any actual user -- it's just made up of parts of real users, like a Frankenstein's monster. As James Pagehttp://gamma.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=35466#35613said in a comment on the ACD/UCD thread, the result is a fiction. I think this point is the major misconception about the creation of a good persona. As Liz outlines, and Will alludes to, a persona is an archetype representing a segment of the audience. To derive those archetypes one does not copy and paste characteristics from real users willy-nilly to craft a pleasant-looking, but fictional user. Just like in market research, persona creation is a segmentation exercise that should be a) driven by real user research; b) analysed using appropriate techniques. In this case, one of several forms of multi-variate statistical analysis ranging from the simple (cross-tabulation, or radial maps) to the complex (clustering analysis, multi-dimensional scaling, or factor analysis). In each case the aim is to identify groupings or clusters of users who share a largely overlapping set of characteristics in those dimensions relevant to your design problem. Personas - when done in this manner - *are not* fictional; they're representative, and that's a whole world of difference. Regards Steve -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal Consultant | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Jared, I see the choice between using ACD or UCD as being determined by whether or not the system (product, service etc) under design substantively and meaningfully addresses the needs of an homogeneous or heterogeneous community of users. In the case of the former - homogeneous - collection of users, with respect to the system, ACD is an appropriate choice; in the case of the latter, it seems to me that UCD would be the more appropriate choice. This may be an over-simplification of the choice on my part, and an arbitrary dichotomy, but this is how I see the use of each design approach playing out in practice. Best regards Steve -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal Consultant | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Research on ebook usage preference
This isn't exactly 'research' but it is relevant, I think - http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com/2008/07/what-i-want-from-e-book-reader.html Regards Steve 2008/11/4 Fernandes, Fabio (APG) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hello, I'm looking for any research you could share that relates to the use of ebooks and possible user preference on its delivery format (true to text vs. not). Thanks in advance for any insight or documents you can point me to. Best, Fabio Fernandes Fabio L. Fernandes User Experience Design Manager, CUA Cengage Learning, Digital Solutions Group [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal Consultant | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Is simplicity the answer? I am with John Maeda on this one.
I think it's important to make a distinction between simplicity and 'less features'. John Maeda's statement regarding 'thoughtful reduction' should not be translated as 'less features' or even 'less capability'. Removing functionality and capability is one way to achieve simplicity, but it is not the only one; the challenge of the designer is to achieve simplicity through other means. Steve 2008/10/31 [EMAIL PROTECTED] I recently read John Maeda`s book `The Laws of Simplicity` and also visit his website http://lawsofsimplicity.com/ The Laws of Simplicity is a book written in the same style Don Norman wrote `The Design of Future Things`. Few days back I came across the following link http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/simplicity_is_not_th.html wherein my Guru states that Simplicity is NOT The answer. My Guru states that `I conclude that the entire argument between features and simplicity is misguided. People might very well desire more capability and ease of use, but do not equate this to more features or to simplicity. What people want is usable devices, which translates into understandable ones.` John Maeda states in his book `The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction`. I was looking at my several remote controls and VHS and DVD players... Even though these devises had understandable buttons and features, my mind would still regard fewer buttons as a more userfriendly and easy to use product. For me Maeda`s statement makes sense hence I am with John on this one. If you disagree please comment. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal Consultant | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Twitter
You might enjoy this: an example of Tweet-noir - http://stilgherrian.com/sydney/gonzo-twitter-1-saturday-evening-in-newtown/ 2008/10/28 live [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wicked sense of wordplay? Ukelele? I guess Bill DeRouchey! Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Terms and Conditions with a twist
The online game - Eve Online eve-online.com - implements this for their TC during the installation. When you scroll to the bottom of the text you get the option to accept or decline - but not before. This is an installed application rather than a Web site, but the principle is as you've described it. Regards Steve 2008/10/27 McLaughlin Designs [EMAIL PROTECTED] I am looking for sample of Terms and Conditions acceptance with a bit of a twist. Generally when I have set up TC acceptance in the past, there is a scrollable box with all the legal text followed by either a check box to say that you have read/accept the TC or there are radio button for yes and no about accepting them. In either case a person never has to actually read, or even scroll to the bottom of, the TC text. The common stuff... However I have a client that will not accept (no pun intended) this. Their legal team is insisting that the user is forced to at least reach the bottom of the TC before they can accept them. They do understand that this does not mean that anyone had read the text, but they want to be able to say that at least someone has been forced to reach the end of the text before accepting it. While I have some ideas about how to go about this, I was wondering if anyone knew of some sample that are online now that are doing this. BTW – This is not something that is arguable with the legal team about not having this capability. Thanks - http://www.ixda.org/help -- -- Steve 'Doc' Baty B.Sc (Maths), M.EC, MBA Principal Consultant Meld Consulting M: +61 417 061 292 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Design Research: Practice noticing stuff and telling stories
Will, I use a combination of delicious, evernote, and Moleskin notebooks. There's nothing formal or disciplined about it; and I've only really started doing it consistently in the past couple of years. Cheers Steve 2008/10/25 Will Evans [EMAIL PROTECTED] Does anyone have a 'suitcase' where the stick stuff they find? I know some of us may use flickr, del.icio.us or other means of collecting inspiration. Moleskin? How do you record your observations and remember where you got inspriration from? I know this is one possible use for @zakiwarfel's research framework which can of course be used for user research/testing but can also be used for book writing and design research. Anyone have a formal process/framework out there? -- -- Steve 'Doc' Baty B.Sc (Maths), M.EC, MBA Principal Consultant Meld Consulting M: +61 417 061 292 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Design Research: Practice noticing stuff and telling stories
I would make mention of two points by way of requirements for such a system: * it should be as immediate as flipping open a sketchbook; or that should at least be your aim. So MMS integration; twitter integration; photo-blogging etc * it should replicate down to my local machine a la MobileMe. This service needs to be persistent, and that means I need a copy of it that I can reach at any time. 2008/10/26 Andy Polaine [EMAIL PROTECTED] I'm with Pieter in that I like to have stuff stored all over the place so that I'm not reliant on one service/site. Google is about the only place I trust not to go bankrupt anytime soon. (Trust in what they do with the data is, of course, another issue) -- Steve 'Doc' Baty B.Sc (Maths), M.EC, MBA Principal Consultant Meld Consulting M: +61 417 061 292 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Joe the Plumber as Persona
Courtney, Australia's stimulus package will work if those low- and middle-income households don't do the exact same thing as the US and use it to pay down their credit card debt (which is high in Australia per capita) or save it instead. This is, as you say, the piece missing from the public personas that might make them work in they way we need them: enough detail about the characteristics that will actually help predict behaviour. And this, I think, is at the heart of personas and their use(less)fulness: do they contain attributes and details about the audience segment that helps us design for them *in order to achieve a change in behaviour*. In the cases of these various stimulus packages, the *relevant* details are thin on the ground. Steve 2008/10/25 Jordan, Courtney [EMAIL PROTECTED] Just to build on this discussion which I think is an excellent idea and something that should have been done a long time ago...perhaps we could have come up with economic stimulus concepts that worked better and had the desired effect. The majority of the last stimulus checks went to paying down debts and bills, rather than to boost consumer spending, as the government had hoped. A more throrough development of the personas that needed to be helped would have undoubtedly had a more positive economic impact. ___ It's interesting what Australia's doing - helping the people who need it most. article excerpt The surprise package primarily targets pensioners, low and middle-income families, carers and first-home buyers, and is aimed at boosting consumer spending./exerpt http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Business/Australia_unveils_massi ve_economic_stimulus_package/articleshow/3592920.cmshttp://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Business/Australia_unveils_massive_economic_stimulus_package/articleshow/3592920.cms Courtney Jordan -- -- Steve 'Doc' Baty B.Sc (Maths), M.EC, MBA Principal Consultant Meld Consulting M: +61 417 061 292 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Twitter
Melissa, You'll find me @docbaty - and my only recommendation would be to try twitter (if you haven't already) and see what *you* get out of it, since it seems to be different for everybody. But I thoroughly enjoy the fact that I can chat/banter/debate with fellow practitioners like Russ Unger, Will Evans, Dave Malouf, Dan Brown, Mario Bourque, Livia Labate, Christina Wodtke etc etc at any time throughout the day. As well as speak to my wife about my day; let my Dad know what I'm up to; vent a little; organize a beer in the local pub with anyone who happens to be nearby; source staff for a project; or catch up with friends. Give it a try. Steve 2008/10/23 Melissa Sherman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Interested in finding out who's using Twitter and what for – (Personal updates? Reinforcing/building communities? Work related announcements?) and if anyone has found novel, possibly unintended, uses for the product. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- -- Steve 'Doc' Baty B.Sc (Maths), M.EC, MBA Principal Consultant Meld Consulting M: +61 417 061 292 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Member, UPA - www.upassoc.org Member, IA Institute - www.iainstitute.org Member, IxDA - www.ixda.org Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Fwd: Tips, Tricks, and Techniques
I read this more as things my grandpa would tell me if he were a UX designer... In that context these all work for me. It seems I can't work the reply/reply all buttons either as I sent the following direct to Dan: *Meaning through context*: the context of information supplies and changes its meaning, relevance, and usefulness. Steve 2008/10/23 Will Evans [EMAIL PROTECTED] I think of tips and tricks as in, when confronted with X situation, do Y, and that those are very different than heuristics, guiding principals, mantras, best practices - which some of these really sound like. Tips and Tricks: *1. Paradox of choice: It is more difficult for users to choose from many options.* This doesn't feel like a tip or a trick - it seems like an aphorism - measure twice, cut once is a tip, haste makes waste is an aphorism - no? * 2. Context through content: Exemplars can clarify categories.* Again - this doesn't quite feel like a tip or trick - be honest, am I just not getting you? *3. Plain language: Jargon-free language tends to have the longest reach.* Good tip, and also good guiding principle * 4. Multiple front doors: Any page on the site may be a home page.* Good tip and principle * 5. Scale and growth: Expect content to grow and create navigation systems that accommodate growth.* Build to scale would be a better tip. Maybe its just phrasing which, like semantics, I suppose - is either critically important or as ephemeral and useful as a fart in the wind (which Jared says actually can be very useful - if it is well placed). *6.Multiple wayfinding systems: Give users more than one way of finding information.* Good tip and guiding principle *7. Abstraction, templating, modularization: Sites are composed of templates and components.* To what end? To make the site more efficiently built? Is this for the user or the developer? Who benefits from this? Is it a design principle or tip? Not sure. *8. Progressive disclosure: Reveal bits of information at a time to create a strong scent.* Yeah - I don't know if I feel the love here - sometimes people don't want the UI to be coquettish - give me the whole enchilada so I can see if it's worth it - and I think the wayfinding systems accounts for scent - not progressive disclosure, no? just some thoughts - I think you done good here, and no doubt people will agree with you and eviscerate me - but all for a good cause. Peace. On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 10:20 AM, Dan Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [Originally appeared on IAI's mailing list. A couple people suggested I post this here, to IxDA's discussion list, and provide a little more context.] context type=more If you didn't see Jared Spool's keynote at the IA Summit earlier this year, you missed an interesting perspective on user-centered design. One of my main take-aways was that the key ingredient to a successful design team is not a solid, formal methodology. Instead, it's that the design team shares a common vision and the designers have a set of good tips and tricks to draw from. /context Ever since Jared's keynote in Miami, I've been thinking about the tips, tricks, and techniques for information architects. For me, the exercise is about excluding (a) rules of thumb (which generally don't account for context) and (b) techniques pertaining to interface design rather than internal structures (because there are already a lot of UI tips tricks). I've compiled eight (a good number!) of them. I'm using these as the first chapter in my revised Intro to IA class, so if you've got good (or bad or contrary) examples of these techniques, I'd love to see them! Paradox of choice: It is more difficult for users to choose from many options. Context through content: Exemplars can clarify categories. Plain language: Jargon-free language tends to have the longest reach. Multiple front doors: Any page on the site may be a home page. Scale and growth: Expect content to grow and create navigation systems that accommodate growth. Multiple wayfinding systems: Give users more than one way of finding information. Abstraction, templating, modularization: Sites are composed of templates and components. Progressive disclosure: Reveal bits of information at a time to create a strong scent. I'm less interested in discussing the merits of Jared's findings. Whether or not you're a strong proponent of formal methodology or not, having a set of design principles (to borrow a term from Leah Buley's talk) seems important in any situation. While these can vary from project to project (accounting for specific contexts), I do have a core platform that drives most of my thinking. Looking forward to your thoughts! -- Dan -- Dan Brown, Principal • (301) 801-4850 EightShapes, LLC • eightshapes.com Also at: communicatingdesign.com • greenonions.com -- Dan
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Joe the Plumber as Persona
This notion of voter archetypes is used a lot as a rhetorical device in politics. Even if politicians sometimes drill in a specific individual - like this case - and we see the same thing occurring frequently in Australian politics A pensioner living on $xx/wk and receiving healthcare etc etc will be affected in the following way by this policy change. Like personas, these voter archetypes are intended to make a more concrete connection between the policy and the 'real people' of the electorate. This is the first time I've seen archetypes used so frequently and prominantly in US politics, although that may reflect me more than anything. Joe Six-pack, Joe the Plumber and the people on Main St, small-town, USA are all intended to evoke a particular image of 'real Americans' which is exactly the purpose of personas - common understanding of an audience (electoral) segment. Steve 2008/10/17 Will Evans [EMAIL PROTECTED] Really good point you bring up though. I know when Steve Mulder was writing The User is Always Right - he really hoped it would gain traction outside the arena of UX people and be adopted by marketing and advertising folks as well On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 11:37 AM, Michael Micheletti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -- -- Steve 'Doc' Baty B.Sc (Maths), M.EC, MBA Principal Consultant Meld Consulting M: +61 417 061 292 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] UX Statistics: http://uxstats.blogspot.com Member, UPA - www.upassoc.org Member, IA Institute - www.iainstitute.org Member, IxDA - www.ixda.org Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Guerilla/DIY Usability Ethnography Research- Lazyweb, advisement...
Nina, I wrote a piece for UXMatters a little while back which might be of interest, although it doesn't quite touch on your particular circumstance - it may trigger some thoughts, though - http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000287.php One of the first things I suggest you do is to get a hold of any call-centre logs from your various support areas. And talk to the sales reps with a semi-structured interview. It sounds like you'd have a difficult time getting an overseas trip approved, so I'll leave that out for the moment. However, try and get your sales reps to identify users - or potential customers - who would be happy to talk to you about their decision-making processes or experiences with the product itself. Then conduct a series of phone interviews and work through the results as a purely qualitative process. This may help you target some specific research opportunities, and be in a position to argue the case for that overseas ethnographic research project :) Steve 2008/10/16 Nina Alter [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hi Gang: So, I'm working with a startup right now, that has zero funding (for real, not because they don't understand/support design) for Usability and User Research studies... and I'm trying to get creative with how to gap this void, with tangible information of some sort. Our users are in other countries- and as point-people there, I have a few sales reps, tho that's it. My immediate craving is to just get to know our users beyond our own (and industry-wide) assumptions about them- and for Christmas, a chewy Ethnography study falling out of the sky would shoot this designer straight over the moon. So I'm asking y'all here for suggestions/recommendations of resources (books or online stuff) to help me develop some initial getting-to-know-our-users work... and then guidance with how to collect/analyze/assemble findings from mid-process usability studies. Initially I'm thinking that surveys might be my only option in this- and suggestions to help in composing/planning those would be awesome- as would be other ideas of additional/alternate/better devices to employ. I'm very lucky in that I've worked with some incredible individual researchers and research firms over the last 5 years, and have learned so much from them... but one of the greatest things I've learned from all of my involvement with research/study projects, is simply how little I really know at all. Any suggestions, feedback, or guidance would be truly appreciated. Thanks!! : ) nina Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- -- Steve 'Doc' Baty B.Sc (Maths), M.EC, MBA Principal Consultant Meld Consulting M: +61 417 061 292 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] UX Statistics: http://uxstats.blogspot.com Member, UPA - www.upassoc.org Member, IA Institute - www.iainstitute.org Member, IxDA - www.ixda.org Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] 7 habits of highly effective...
A burning desire for simplicity - elegance, aesthetic, form, concept. This sums it up for me. 2008/10/15 Will Evans [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dude - you are so spot on for a number of those - especially true with some of the best visual designers I know :-) Steve Steve 'Doc' Baty B.Sc (Maths), M.EC, MBA Principal Consultant Meld Consulting M: +61 417 061 292 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] UX Statistics: http://uxstats.blogspot.com Member, UPA - www.upassoc.org Member, IA Institute - www.iainstitute.org Member, IxDA - www.ixda.org Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Finally! My Prayers Will Be Answered. In 3 years.
Andrei 2008/10/11 Andrei Herasimchuk [EMAIL PROTECTED] Blizzard has around that for World of Warcraft paying $15 a month, and it's just a game. I think Facebook would be able to pull it off. In the context of this discussion WoW is more that 'just a game'. There is a very deep and extensive social dimension to most of the massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPG) and that forms a very large part of their draw. Those millions ponying up $15/month to play WoW aren't doing it just so they can swing a sword or ride a griffon (i.e. the 'game' part); the social computing element is enormously important. Steve Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Do you regard Interaction Design as good name for your design practice? else, what's your prefer?
I think of myself within the sphere of user experience. Interaction, interface, information, service, decision-making, form components of the work that I carry out, but the focus of the effort is on the experience. Steve 2008/10/11 Jarod Tang [EMAIL PROTECTED] As we found (interaction related) guys talk about the design in different names ( interaction design, user experience design or user interface design , etc). Myself also found shifting between the names back and forth in different projects along the time. What's your preferred name for your real world design practice? Cheers, -- Jarod Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Finally! My Prayers Will Be Answered. In 3 years.
Jared, One of the interesting aspects of Facebook's business-model-in-training is the work they're doing on targeting - highly-focused advertising based on the individual's stated interests, as compared to Google's inferential model based on search terms or email content. We're yet to see how successful Facebook will be in their implementation of this functionality, particularly with respect to intelligently mining a person's profile, but it's an interesting and unique approach to the challenge of delivering value to advertisers. Steve 2008/10/10 Jared Spool [EMAIL PROTECTED] What I've been praying for, to learn what Facebook's business plan is, will be finally answered! In 3 years, once Mark Zuckerberg figures it out. http://is.gd/3MSY Silicon Alley Insider: Zuckerberg: Facebook Will Have A Business Plan In Three Years If you've had a nagging suspicion that Mark Zuckerberg really doesn't know how he'll turn Facebook into a business, wonder no more. You're right. Here he is talking to German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: 'What every great internet company has done is to figure out a way to make money that has to match to what they are doing on the site. I don't think social networks can be monetized in the same way that search did. But on both sites people find information valuable. I'm pretty sure that we will find an analogous business model. But we are experimenting already. One group is very focused on targeting; another part is focused on social recommendation from your friends. In three years from now we have to figure out what the optimum model is. But that is not our primary focus today.' If you're counting, three years from now would be nearly 7 years since Mark (and others) started Facebook at Harvard, and four years since Microsoft plowed $240 million into the company. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
