Because it's bigger than that.

Some say there is a turf battle coming, I think it's a lack of understanding, and I think it's already here.

The battle we (they and I) speak of is the vision and strategy for digital products. We have these roles like Information Architecture, Interaction Design, and Visual Design... not to mention prototyping and writing code... then we also have these partners in the shape of Product Managers.

It's the difference between the 'product' and the 'experience' that's important to understand. There are process problems that the software can not solve elegantly... but with vision, and potentially through the interface, we can. There lies, just outside of your app, your site, or your software logistical problems... problems in space and time... problems that surface only through field work to understand the context of need and use. Being there, watching, listening, asking questions, and then putting the prototype in their hands (you know who) is the best way to try, fail, learn, try again, and ultimately... provide the solution.

The user's experience... it's much bigger than the product.

the paradox of social media.

When I was just a youngster, I spent 12 days deep in the woods of Canada with a bunch of  buddies and canoes. When we finally surfaced from the wilderness we were told that the war had ended. A year later, after two weeks in the mountains we surfaced to hear of our President resigning. Both were huge events. And, we had missed both of them, or had we? Those news epiphanies almost overshadowed the fun we had had on our adventures. Years later, I remember recalling the freedom I felt as a teenager during those trips. I often wonder if the missing weight and tediousness of worldly events weren’t at least a small part of that freedom.

I’ve read at length Saul Wurman’s writings on the anxiety of information and overload. But I wonder if we’ve wandered into something else. Something more burdensome.

I was in grad school when the facebook thing took hold. This allowed me an inclusion that my working peers were not privy to. An early adopter one might say. In the following years facebook served me well as a conduit to my friends and family while moving about the country for corporate jobs. Just recently, I stopped all of that and have not looked at facebook in a few weeks. 

We now have a shared ubiquity and awareness of our friends and family that is unprecedented. Frankly, I’m not sure you can really have 300 friends, though my friend Juli (and oddly a friend of her’s named Matt) have a remarkable and unique capacity for names and faces that is well… both wonderful and a bit intimidating. They both literally know and recall hundreds of people… but I’m well off track. 

Do I really need to know that someone I once worked with for three months just had a great time at Pitchfork (an indy music fest in Chicago)? Probably not. Is there an effective way to filter them? No, not with offending them (de-friending). It’s just too much… and that’s not even considering the bombardment of ads and political agendas. And it’s not that I don’t care… I just don’t think I have the capacity. I’m (and should be) much more concerned with issues inside my household and with the people I see and hear from every day and week. I feel relieved and not only less distracted… much less stressed. I’m pretty confident that those who care, know who to find me… and we’ll have much more fun catching up face-to-face.

process: sequencing and ownership

I was reading an Agile blog this morning. I know I shouldn't, but I did.

The author was complaining about a product manager coming to the group with fully thought out requirements and stories that were too long and complex. And again, I thought... is this about control and making requirements up as we go along?

For any project to be somewhat efficient and effective we must have some sequencing and some expertise that drives decisions. Group think is aggregate. If you understand statistics you know that there really is a very minimal amount of understanding that comes from averages. Similarly, group or aggregate thinking renders severely compromised decisions. Higher levels of expertise should be allowed to take responsibility and make final calls. Further, some level of individual work (divide and conquer) must exist. A team does not always need 5 or 6 people standing at the whiteboard to execute the simple or most detailed of functionality.

There is an element of sequencing that makes sense as a project progresses. Requirements come before solutions. Sketches come before code... it’s critical in any process... even agile and lean.

In most software development work... 50-85% is fairly standard and doesn’t require huge efforts of innovation. Many times meeting expectations (quick adoption) is more important than improving process.

The agonizing downslide...

We are still witnessing an agonizing fall from mobile supremacy. Reading yet another article about the demise of the Research in Motion (RIM) I was struck by what seems obvious. Their quick rise was due primarily to a happy accident... the post 911 logjam of the traditional telecom networks. Days after 911, the US government began to distribute thousand of Blackberries to government officials because RIM had built their own network that was under utilized and had plenty of available bandwidth. That market advantage wasn’t bound to last. 

The perception of Apple (RIM’s primary predator) having the audacity to build a phone was seen as very high risk. It was sooo outside of their expertise... they weren’t part of the sanctioned club. It’s interesting how many people, and especially people driving strategy, perceive risk. Risk is not reckless... it’s not guess work, and it’s not typically without extensive calculations and homework. Most interpret skydiving, scuba diving, rock climbing as risky endeavors. Yet ALL of the people I know that undertake these hobbies are as careful, skilled, studied, and prepared professionals I’ve ever worked with. They are way way aware and cautious about their approach (to everything frankly) and the possible outcomes.

But the real story here is how hardware and software need to work together. Blackberry fell in to a trap that Motorola had long honed... developing hardware in a vacuum and sharing the ‘thing’ to their software development team once it was near completion so that they could design software. They saw it has a platform rather than an integrated product offering. Motorola designed and manufactured incredible hardware... for years and years. Where they fell down repeatedly was in the development of not only good user facing software, but how it integrated with their hardware. 

Every time I stand in front of an ATM or a grocery store checkout I am reminded of this conundrum. Software must be integrated with the hardware development process. The teams need not only to talk, but to sit side by side.

The inherent problem of ‘locking down’ product requirements.

Many managers, in a struggle to accomplish completion of projects insist that product requirements be locked down prior to the process of solutioning. Often this is a symptom of a disconnect between product management and design. 

Locking down requirements moves a problem from one that is complicated... to one that is either complex or merely simple. It reduces the variable nature of problem solving from one of multiple solutions to the potential of a ‘right’ solution. But, it does that using unreal or arbitrary constraints. Things change. Our understandings change. And the ‘locking down’ of product requirements ignores that. It isolates the definition of the problem we are trying to solve to an instance... an instance that may pass us by as a mere blip on the path we travel.

I’ve been quoted as saying that, “locking down product requirements is lazy management”... and I stand by that. Reducing the problem to a non changing situation, and reducing our solutions to a stagnant state of understanding reduces out ability to solve the problem optimally. It changes the entire focus from finding the best solution, to getting the job done. That, is not an optimal compromise.

Heros

I’ve been struggling lately with the notion of ‘no heros’. The concept caught my eye when reading the book “LeanUX” and I hesitated to pass quick judgement. After all, one person’s hero can be another person’s prima donna.... so some level setting in definition is in order. 

Individual contributors need the opportunity to rise up and have impact. When building a cohesive, collaboratively rich, and productive, work culture public acknowledgment of ‘work done great’ is a critical part of the formula.... and MUST be encouraged. 

In the online and software space, many of the designers I’ve worked with thrive on this... as do product managers, project coordinators, and certainly developers. Granted, some like to revel in private victories... but high performers that find ways to break through in critical moments will always be heros to me... and I’ll continue to celebrate those contributions.

Can we please move forward?

I like listening to Patsy Cline or watching Gone with the Wind on occasion. But lately, I haven’t felt all that nostalgic.

Watching new products as they are released and reviewing a ton of interaction design work recently I am struck by the observation that a large part of our industry is stuck. They simply aren’t progressing.

As one tiny example... why are we still focused and utilizing menus and buttons so prevalently. Front end code has advanced... we can now make objects actionable... but why aren’t we? Have we flatlined? Have we forgotten Fitt’s Law? Or did you ever learn it in the first place?

There is huge demand for people that can organize and design the plans for software. So much demand in fact that a large part of our field is now staffed by people that don’t have adequate training or experience. They are smart, quick to pick up on patterns, and often very good with clients - but they don’t know how to explore, invent, or take risk, and they don’t have enough foundational understanding of human cognition, behavior, or the notion of context.

While the industry (UX, iX, IA, whatever) is maturing, we aren’t yet mature and we shouldn’t stop innovating. Those huge libraries of patterns, styles, and standards out there aren’t ‘safe, aren’t stabilizing... they are stagnating. 

Considerations for implementing responsive design:

Screen size

This is the most obvious and often the single obsession when designing a site for both desktop and mobile. The smart strategy is to work mostly in percentages, but using device detection can help to augment a table of padding and dimensions in CSS. The Safari browse also make automatic compensation for landscape vs portrait display and there is little that can be done to augment this.

Bandwidth

When working with mobile devices it’s important to consider the amount and the complexity of you functionality. In less than optimal situations your working with what are essentially the dial up speeds of old. Additionally, you don’t have the same processor power of a full computer so loading tasks into the browser can slow things considerably. In testing and surveys it has been found that users are less tolerant of slow load times on mobile that on computers.

In particular, HD video and resizing graphics can be a burden on load time. More problematic is heavy or poor use of java script. Lazy load or staged loading of functionality can help, but generally does not solve page load problems.

Interaction models

Touch screens utilize different interaction than mouse and keyboard computers. Using public domain scripting libraries can approximate native OS (particularly iOS) touch screen interactions but they are no where near as elegant or sophisticated. In many cases native interactions can only be approximated, if accomplished at all. Lastly, these libraries are typically java script which will cause considerable page load lag.

Context

This is probably the most important consideration. User are typically operating under different situations and with different priorities when using a mobile device that when sitting at a computer. Understanding your user’s context of use is critical. For instance, if you’re a retailer, your store locator (or address/map/directions) is probably significantly more important on a mobile device. Adjusting the hierarchy of elements within the site, or on a single page is a prudent step in developing a successful responsive strategy. The one demographic exception to this might be preteens and teenagers who utilize mobile devices more like traditional computers that any other group of users. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to understand the context of use, only that the mobile utilization will be more similar to computer use than with other user groups.

Developer Resources

Developing convertible sites or sites that render and function appropriately on differing devices has been a long work in progress and continues to evolve. As more devices and operating systems are released into the market the complexity levels continue to rise. This makes finding the appropriate developers a challenge. Determining the level of sophistication and complexity in your sites responsiveness may be driven by resource limitation over any other consideration.

As a final thought, it's important to assess the complexity of your main site, and the capabilities of your team. Making the site for computer consumption and for mobile consumption is not the goal. While consistency is important, sameness is not, and making the site work for your users in context is more important than all of this. Many content based strategists will tell you other wise, but if your site is too complex, and your team not up to the 'responsive' task, a separate mobile site has some advantages.

Interaction Designers pay heed.

These are the golden years of earnings for you. Do not waste them.

Pattern libraries, best of class, industry standards, OS interface kits, and the flattening maturity of the industry are all working against you. We are arguably reaching a point where out best work is becoming plenty ‘good enough’ for the market.

The interaction designer (not unlike the developer) is in high demand. It’s important to understand that this demand is an opportunity beyond your current high salaries and job choice freedom. There are ways to work around you and smart startups will be first, and then corporate managers working to reduce cost, increase productivity, and lower the risk of paying you. 

So what can you do about it? 

• continue on the learning path. This is not a trade school profession... the targets are fast moving. Much like the world of software developers, a relatively small percentage of those holding the interaction designer title are really good at what they do. To be average, frankly, is fairly easy. To be excellent and measure up to the rack starts takes a lot of work.

• Invest in yourself.  Don't wait for your employer to buck up and send you to a conference. Take a percentage of you salary and invest. Good for networking, learning, and even promoting your personal brand, they pay huge dividends.

• move away from the tactical. The future of what we do is strategic. The tactical work you are doing right now is already being commoditized.

• attain new skill sets. Management, business, and research are excellent edge skill sets to augment what you have. Understand though, branching out can take time away from keeping up as an interaction designer.

While certainly not crying wolf, the future is clear. The demand and scarcity of supply that is garnering high salaries in the short run will work against you in the long run. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Dear Photobucket,

Please stop trying to be the end all of my social needs through my (private) photo storage. Your need to monetize and upgrade the site has taken away the very functionality I utilize.

Your beta, flat out doesn't work in safari or firefox. And, reverting to the legacy version is no longer effective (in spite of plenty of user feedback).

You might try taking control of functionality away from the product group and turning it over to a qualified UX crew. They are likely to be in touch with your current users, that is, if you are talking to them.

A bird in hand... (you oughta know the rest).


Your 60 days are up... I'm moving on.

pbase.com anyone?

design thinking has been hijacked.

It was pretty simple really... this whole design thinking thing. Then, rather unpredictably (at least to me), a whole bunch of people jumped on board that didn't have a clue... trying to use this 'thing' to move their careers forward.

But what is it really?

It's good to start out any academic conversation by establishing some definitions. Design thinking is super simple. There are a bunch of methods that help designers process, synthesize, and produce. These methods are pretty different and sometimes even unique to a design studio and a good designer's processes. Guys like Bruce Nussbaum and Roger Martin came upon some of these, thought they had value, and they started talking and writing about them. Being high profile business experts, people listened. Design thinking is simply taking these methods and applying them to non-design situations... you know, business, engineering etc.

But here's the thing... these are APPLIED methods. Yes, if you aren't applying any of these methods or processes you can't... let me repeat CAN'T be an expert on them. Further, you aren't going to be able to talk as an expert, write as an expert, or improve them as an expert might if you're not utilizing them.

So, not to pass an opportunity by... the theorists and the career minded MBA's and even a few articulate  engineers jump on board... (we gotta get into this design stuff guys... it's the next big thing!) and the whole thing moves in different directions with the loudest voices working to shift the definition and make it their own 'thing'.

The conversations is now so watered down, misdirected, and over intellectualized that it has no focus and really no meaning. Is design thinking dead? No, but the movement, and the most apparent conversations are. Design methods will still evolve, will stay relevant, and continue to be smartly applied in other areas... but I very much doubt those loud voices you hear will be part of any meaningful utilization. Why? Because they aren't designers and they aren't applying these methods to real work.

Weather

Not sure if you've noticed, but weather dot com has released a new version of their app that is spectacular. They've stopped trying to shoe horn features in. They've stopped trying to be something they're not. And they've got some first rate engineering.

The new app has just the right amount of information. It's organization and information hierarchy are excellent. And, the app is very fast.

Kudos for the focus and the restraint.

a focus group of one.

Not to long ago I had a dVP of engineering tell me, “you can’t tell me I don’t understand the customer or the customer experience”. I didn’t laugh, but chuckled a bit inside. He then told me that user experience design is part of engineering. I kept a straight face (I think).

Alan Cooper described this phenomena years ago in, “the inmates are running the asylum”. Alan, a developer by trade took a lot of flak for the book, but in the end, adhering to some basic principles implied within the text has proven  advantageous time and time again to those armed with the insights.

Engineers are typically much smarter and more technically adept than the mainstream audience targeted by consumer products. It’s nearly impossible to unlearn that expertise. It’s also really difficult to empathize in an abstract fashion. Even seasoned user researchers are reticent to prescribe general user guidelines across platforms and products. They continue to uncover important cultural and behavioral hurdles for design consideration.

One of the first rules of user experience or interaction design is to NOT design for ones self. Yes, I know there are a handful of successful products who’s inventor claims they designed for themselves and it ‘just took off’. These are the exceptions. There is also a movement within interaction design described as ‘genius design’ driven. This is, in theory, where the designer has so much domain knowledge that they know what customers need before the customer does. I’d contend that the customer is feeling the pain or wishing for the ability well before the designer is.... they just don’t articulate it in our forums. Genius design is effective in highly specialized and technical fields, but is not the norm.

The upshot here is the empathy towards users and customers is not a afterthought or of minimal effort. Real expertise is needed in gaining insights and in the synthesizing of those insights into actions and design direction. There is a growing knowledge base of process and practice that should be implemented... at least if you want to improve actual results in usage.

more thoughts on judgement.

Not everyone needs to be a leader, and there can be great comfort in being a follower. In fact, fast follower is a very under utilized strategy in the market today. The fast follower strategy allows you to closely monitor the market leaders, capitalize on their R&D investments, and stay or catch up. But like many strategies and tactics embraced by mbas, it’s often not thoughtful. The fast follower strategy is not the same as parroting.  It is not a blind outsourcing of critical thinking or judgement.

It takes a great deal of time and energy to observe, research and understand what another company is doing. So often the critical information behind an action is camouflaged from outsiders for obvious reasons. The tendency to read a book such as ‘Good to Great’  (a really good read btw) and apply remedies as recipes can be catastrophic. Any grafted solution must be verified and measured against your specific situation. In so many cases the differences are large enough to render the recipe nearly irrelevant. One of my favorite professors used to classify these as ‘type 3 errors’... solving the wrong problem.

The other critical element in these endeavors, is the removal of concern for one’s reputation and public image. I’ve had the opportunity to watch this in action recently in very high profile arenas. The presumption that because you are in charge, you are the smartest (whatever that means to you) person in the room only adds to potential errors. If you truly do hire people smarter than you, then you should put trust in that investment. As a leader, you certainly need to own the judgement. But that doesn’t mean that the research and consideration prior to ‘the decision’ should be your’s alone. 

Years ago I had the opportunity to spend quality time with a very smart man. Barnett Helzberg took over a family retail business in the midwest and grew it into a giant. I learned a tremendous amount in the days I spent with Mr. Helzberg, but the most powerful concept I came away with was his pension for being the ‘dumbest guy in the room’. Mr. Helzberg hired smart people and he trained them well. He aligned them with his core approach to business and delivering value. He put his confidence in them and empowered them. Hiring ‘people smarter than me’ wasn’t just a managerial posture for him. 

Bold decisions and market leading actions are not without risk. Thoughtful and strong follow-through is a critical component of successful judgement, but I think the mistake I see most often in business is the result of arrogance and ego driven decisions.

the nature of transactions and facebook

Does the world need yet anther diatribe regarding the Facebook IPO debacle? Probably not, but here I go anyway. Facebook's IPO failed because of greed and a fundamental misunderstanding about transactions.

My transactional understandings are rooted in a simple concept in sales in called "win win". A transaction should be equitable to all involved. And, in any successful transaction all parties need to come away with something of worth. Inherent in any transaction is what we call a 'deal', or the worth of engaging in the transaction. For the moment we'll refer to this worth as 'profit'. I'm likely stretching your understanding of 'profit', but bare with me. 

Profit is that range between the most you might give up under any circumstances, and the least possible. HIgh service, reputation, warranty, etc… these are all part of the inherent 'profit'. If Seller A the only one offering a 'thing' for sale, they might be tempted to charge the highest price known for that 'thing'. This would be Seller A not sharing profit. You, the purchaser, are not likely to favor this arrangement and will be less than willing to come back and repeat it, unless you have no other choice. For the retailer, discounts and coupons, are first a way to garner your attention, but secondarily (and very importantly) they are a way to show you that they are willing to share the profit with you. Their first goal is to get the sale. The second goal is that you remember them favorably towards the next transaction. Pretty simple right?

As an interesting point of reference, a transaction in which part A holds all of the cards, and extracts ALL of the profit would most likely be a singular transaction with little or no chance of a voluntary follow up transaction. A mugging would be a good example of this type of transaction.

Back to Facebook. The investment bankers, lawyers, and executives in charge of the Facebook IPO failed to make an accurate assessment of worth, and/or, got greedy. Offering stock at the apex of success does not offer investors the opportunity share in much, if any, of the profit. Short term gain is why many people invest in IPO's. For Facebook shareholders, there is none. The only difference between Facebook and digg.com right now is public access towards ownership of a dwindling asset. 

the melee and confusion over 'responsive'

So… the hot thing in the web the last few months is a book called ‘responsive web design’. It’s a good book, very tactical, applicable in may instances. So why do I bring this up? Because like many things, it is getting distorted, misinterpreted and in some ways both under and over acknowledged.

The over arching goal of all IA, IxDA’s, UXA’s etc is to match the experience we help to create with the context of use and to some extent the expectations of the user. Back before there was something called interaction design, I used to hire industrial designers. Not because I was doing industrial design, but because they, more than any other school of design understood context. And in the 15 years that I’ve been working in this space, it’s been an constant effort to be more contextually aware.

Responsive design is not a thing. It’s not really even a set of tools or methods. It’s simply a book title. It is a book about trying to embrace context across the many devices that now have access to the web.

At the executive level there is always a danger of over simplification. New executives often use catch phrases as levers to promise progress… SEO, agile, and user centric are recent examples of this. I doubt many at the VP level of fortune 500 companies have taken time (or should) to read the book. So logically, the have an abridged definition. That definition is often optimistic as user experience folks struggle to achieve in alignment with product or engineering regarding their user experience aspirations.

So when you’re talking upwards in your company about ‘responsive’, what do you think they hear? More often than not, the key words heard will be ‘more efficient’, they’ll also hear ‘one-size-fits-all”, they hear ‘cheaper’. The responsive book is not targeting and should not be targeting any of those. All of that work is about making the experience better. Our customers rarely need mobile tools while setting at their desk. And they likely don’t need every feature on their handset.

Here are four simple constructs for developing web experiences for a range of devices and context.

~ Design to scale for multiple screen sizes. (yep, pretty obvious)

~ Consider the interaction differences between key/mouse, and touch devices.

~ Prioritize based upon the context of use.

~ Include or exclude functionality thoughtfully across devices anticipating the context of use.

There is not a lot of magic or need for ‘special sauce’ in the mobile space these days. A good, well educated user experience architect (UXA) will have deep understanding for context of use and will take care to thoughtfully investigate, empathize and consider these uses in the design. This is what good interaction design is.

The predictable state of retail.

Standing in line last night at a big box store (that sells office supplies), a curious sequence of events had me thinking how desperate all of this seems. I was there to buy a simple cardboard box. In the transaction, I was asked if I had or wanted a warranty card. I was then asked if I wanted to get a deal (2 for $10) on printer paper. As my transaction came to a close, I was handed three pieces of paper. My receipt was expected, and a coupon for my next visit was also somewhat expected, but the coupon for a local shoe store was not. How does all of this relate to my visit for a cardboard box?

The trend towards infinite expansion of offerings, and 'anything for a buck' promotions reminds me a couple of other industries... notably the airlines and long distance calling. You've probably noticed that long distance calling is now free, and airlines have resorted to silly things like charging extra for snacks and your luggage.

There is always someone who will work for less. That's not a disruptive business model. That's competition. Retailers need to focus on what they do well. They deliver immediacy, they deliver a human touch point, they allow you to try on that blouse, and they offer an opportunity for customer service. These are core attributes that brick and mortar stores offer over and above most any dot com. Focus on what you do best, and scale to meet demand.

Why you should not have a mobile UX team.

A radical thought? Maybe, but it’s worth considering. Silo’d teams may make sense for technology solutions, but not for user or customer centric work. Should you have a dedicated mobile engineering group? Maybe, but this thought is primarily focused on UX.

In this era, successful products rarely come from pure engineering efforts. That is the ‘technology first’ approach of a bygone era. That doesn’t mean that have a first rate engineering team isn’t important. It is as important as it ever has been. What it means is that the real tactical advantage in competitive markets is a focus on customer needs. It always has to come first…

but back to the first point…

What we thought about mobile just 12-18 months ago is now old school. Yes, some people still make lists on their desktop and send it to the phone, but that is now latent behavior. If you want to capture the early adopters (who by the way will be your loudest advocates when you’re successful) you have to think differently. Mobile needs to be an integrated strategy, not separate and definitely not an after thought.

But here is the real trick to mobile. Very little of it is specialized. If your mobile strategy and design crew don’t really really understand the context of use… then they probably should not be designing in the user experience realm anyway. Context… which is key to understanding mobile, is a core insight for ANY designer working in this space.

So arm your user experience team with tools, thoughts and the freedom to think beyond the desktop and in the mobile space. It’s what they want to be doing anyway.

Customer Service

from the description on Crunchbase regarding Tony Hsieh of Zappos:

"He eventually joined Zappos full time in 2000. Under his leadership, Zappos has grown gross merchandise sales from $1.6M in 2000 to $840M in 2007 by focusing relentlessly on customer service."

very telling.

Should we treat our bosses like we treat our kids?

There comes a time in every person's life when we need to realize that parenting is about doing what's best for the kid over the long haul. Yes we want them to 'be' happy, but making them happy day in day out is not. Teaching them to love themselves is the key... than and only then can they find happiness. Parenting is often about doing the hard thing... or more... about making your child do the hard thing.

In 'free agent nation' Daniel Pink pontificates about the average tenure of the corporate employee being very shot in comparison to our parent's era. Does this mean we answer up to extend or amplify our career? After all... we may not really be invested for the long haul. We may see ourselves with a five year stint... the company will go on... and I've got to gain as much ground as I can in those five (I'm exaggerating because my boss is likely to read this) years.

I think I am old school. I thin operating from the perspective that 'I can always get another job' is appropriate. It puts you in a position to answer hard questions, serve the bad tasting medicine and in short, do the right thing.