Today on Radio Johnny Jeff Parks talks with the President and Managing Director at Adaptive Path, Brandon Schauer. Brandon discusses the skill sets required to be a manager in the UX space today and how this translates into success with the interdisciplinary teams that make up most organizations. Brandon also articulates the necessity to differentiate that of a UX thought leader and a UX manager, as well as some of the top trends that are emerging in this young field for designers interested in making this transition.

Quotes

“You have to realize that great UX designers don’t always end up making great UX managers. Some people’s career path is going to be about being the rock star designer… getting those 10,000 hours, getting to that expert level…other people, maybe they weren’t great UX designers but for some reason their brain really connects with UX management…”

“What I saw in 2011 was really a change to organizations realizing they needed a staff of people…it wasn’t staff of production or visual designers, it wasn’t a staff of coders… it was a staff of people who could actually do UX work. The mindset of many organization has changed from a UX team of one to a UX team of plenty…as soon as you have that you have a necessity to have managers.”

“One of the things I love doing is hosting events that are just targeted at people who manage user experience…there are a lot of conferences out there that help people around UX and what are the basic skill sets but not a lot where people can exchange ideas about what’s working for them and what’s not…like I said these people don’t have a mentor or someone who was in their position before…so the best thing we can do is provide a forum where they can talk to each other.

Notes

* Follow Brandon on Twitter @brandonschauer
* Learn about others who will be presenting at the MX conference this year.
* Leah Buley on Being a UX Team of One

Today on Radio Johnny, Jeff Parks talks with Kip Voytek about the ideas he shared at his recent presentation from Ignite New York. Kip suggests that we don’t unplug entirely from our digital lives, but instead discusses strategies for how we can change our own behavior and the way we consume and share information online.

Quotes

The challenge that I was setting for myself was finding balance without unplugging… the question for me was how do I find that balance within digital? It still seemed like the digital time that I was putting in I wasn’t getting that much out of – I was still getting a lot of links, a lot of cool stuff, a lot of tweet material but I wasn’t getting that kind of fulfillment. It was the balance in my digital life that I was after!

I think people who are reacting against technology or against the effects of technology… are mistaking the technology for the intention and the habits that we form.

It’s very easy on the web to keep track of the cool links, to turn something into a tweet, to build your brand…but to actually to try and harness it to get you knowledge deeper than Wikipedia gives you, to actually take on new things, that’s pretty cool to me!

Summary

Kip discusses three essential areas related to this talk at Ignite, including: the ability to build interior objects (soul objects); looking for more, not the next thing; and the desire to seek out voices rather than muddling through countless mailing lists in the digital world.

During his talk Kip quoted Emerson who stated “This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.” Unplugging is not the answer! Changing our own online behavior and understanding how to best engage with specific technologies is key when seeking both balance and deeper meaning in our digital lives.

Show Notes

* Kip’s Ignite NYC talk Shallows, Echos, and Inner Space
* Recommended reading: Hamlet’s Blackberry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age
* Recommended reading: The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding From You
* Recommended reading: The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing To Our Brains
* FireFox plug-in Track Me Not

Today on Radio Johnny, Jeff Parks talks with Steve Krug about his experiences and insights doing usability testing for over 20 years for a variety of clients such as Apple, Lexus, NPR, Bloomberg and many others.

Steve shares how people are using websites today, the largest issues facing most organizations when trying to design great experiences, encouraging all website owners to do some form of usability testing once a month – and no, this shouldn’t break the bank!

Quotes

The people who are creating the site say… ‘Well everyone knows what we do’… because it’s obvious to them…As a result they still think like back in the beginning of the web – there’s no point in using a lot of space to explain that to people – not realizing that a lot of people who are coming [to their site] are either in the dark about what they do, or worse, form an incorrect conclusion based on assumptions about what they do.

When we’re building the sites we tend to think people are going to be much more careful and measured in using them than they actually are. That’s one of the nice things about usability testing… the whole team gets to watch people use the site and it dawns on them that people are actually kind of sloppy in the use of what we’re building so we better make sure that it is robust so they don’t fall through the cracks.

I try to keep people very far away from the word ‘opinions’ because it’s the difference between focus groups, where you’re showing people and asking their opinions about it, and usability testing where you’re actually having them use it and seeing where they are having problems.

Summary

Steve discusses how usability testing on a regular basis can illustrate where users have to “muddle” through in areas that should flow, and the necessity to omit needless words from every page of your site. In addition Steve believes that even to this day one of the largest issues preventing clarity and a great experience is an organization’s inability to clearly explain what it is they do, to first time visitors.

Steve also discusses the need to remain neutral when running usability tests. He believes that moderators should communicate more like a counselor not providing cues or hints but asking them to talk out loud and provide feedback in their own words, and not that of the moderator.

Show Notes

Steve’s Blog
Forum for discussing do-it-yourself testing
Book page for Rocket Surgery Made Easy
Free downloadable scripts, forms, and checklists from Rocket Surgery Made Easy
Video of a demo usability test
Steve’s upcoming usability testing workshops in Seattle and London

Today on Radio Johnny, Jeff Parks talks with Mark Hurst who founded Creative Good, the Gel (Good Experience Live) conference, and is the author of Bit Literacy – Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail overload.

Mark shares stories from past presenters at Gel, as well as ideas from his more popular blog posts that he has been publishing for over a decade. In addition Mark discusses our collective need to look beyond the web and other technologies to find inspiration in creating good experiences for others.

Quotes

We can learn a lot more from people who are different from us, then if we are talking to people who are similar to us. So if you wanted to learn about User Experience and you’re a user experience consultant, why would you go to a conference where everyone else is a user experience consultant?

… a pattern I’ve seen a number of times in Gel presentations where someone comes to the stage to talk about a certain project… you quickly learn they are taking a multi-faceted approach to their career and their life; not simply going deep on one topic but trying to create a good experience in a number of different aspects, simultaneously.

Those few teams who decide to do things differently and really understand the user’s needs and what the ideal experience would be those are the ones who are going to win… what am I saying!? Those are the ones who are winning! Look at any industry right and now and you can pick out the truly customer centered organization because they tend to be the ones in the lead… and that trend is going to continue.

Summary

Drawing on the reality that customer experience is harder than it looks, Mark shares insights from recent blog posts illustrating the need for business to step outside the mental model of the corporation and into the world of the user and their needs and values.

Mark also discusses past presentations from the Gel conference demonstrating that some of the greatest sources of inspiration for designers can be found outside our own peer group and industry.

Show Notes

* Gel (Good experience live) Conference
* Video from Gel conference John Williams – Founder Frog’s Leap Winery
* Video from Gel conference Natasha Schull, Associate Professor at MIT
* Book by Mark Hurst: Bit Literacy – Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail overload
* Blog post: Customer experience is harder than it looks
* Blog post: How to create an experience that sells – and do you want that?
* Blog post: Ignore the customer experience, lose a billion dollars (Walmart case study)
* NY Times Article:

In a special series of podcasts that we’ll be calling “Classic Radio Johnny”, Jeff Parks shares some of the more popular discussions from the i.a.podcast; the show that helped to launch podcasts for Boxes and Arrows and now Radio Johnny.

In this discussion, recorded on April 5th, 2010 Jeff Parks had the pleasure of talking with Alla Zollers, Ryan Norris, and Zachary Spencer about the Agile process. They explain how all disciplines can benefit from a better understanding of the Agile methodology as well as the opportunities for UX professionals to build an even greater experience into everything they design.

Quotes

In each of these methodologies that fall under the Agile umbrella we find tools; we find value; we find approaches that are meant to solve even more complex problems than simply building a shopping cart or building a blog.

…it’s important to focus on what’s going on in your current sprint, but whether you’re a User Experience design person, whether you’re a Software Architect, whether you’re a Database Analyst, the ability to work with your product owner to understand what is slightly over the horizon greatly decreases risk – particularly in the UX and IA realm – to really generate more success.

The strength of Agile is that no one person is responsible for anything – it’s the team that is responsible…. roles and titles really start to not matter as much anymore so people just bring their skills to the table.

Summary

Alla, Ryan, and Zachary share their professional experiences working within and leading Agile teams over the past several years. They describe Agile as an opportunity for UX professionals to engage other disciplines in the creation of great software that focuses on the strengths of team members.

They also provide a brilliant plain language explanation of Agile terms such as Scrum, and Sprint and how Agile allows for all teams to keep focused not just on the creation of great software through the interaction with others on the team, but also to look beyond the current iteration to future needs.

Show Notes

* The Agile Manifesto
* Succeeding with Agile by Mike Chohn
* Bridging the Communication Gap: Specification by Example and Agile Acceptance Testing by Gojko Adzic
* The Art of Agile Development by James Shore
* Money Ball – The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis
* Rocket Surgery Made Easy by Steve Krug

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Today on Radio Johnny, Jeff Parks talks with Jeff Gothelf, Director of User Experience at The Ladders from the 2011 IA Summit about Lean User Experience.

Inspired by Agile and Lean methodologies, Lean UX is the practice of bringing the true nature of our work to light, faster with less emphasis on the deliverables and greater focus on the actual experiences being designed.

Quotes

Lean UX takes a different approach and says: What if we worked more collaboratively, focused more on the end state – the experience we are actually trying to design – instead of the documentation…iterated quickly, worked more efficiently, and brought the true nature of the work to light, faster?

The concept of Lean…came from Toyota’s manufacturing process. They focus on minimizing waste from a process. Lean UX really does the same thing. Lean UX doesn’t mean that we are doing less work… we’re looking at the full spectrum of tools in our own toolkit…all are still viable in the Lean process. We are deciding which tool to use at the right time and at the right depth. Just enough design. Just at the right time.

Every iteration will start to bear some of the fingerprints of those contributions from other team members. As soon as they start to see that, there’s a greater investment and ownership in the product itself; so the quality of the product will inevitably go up at that point… a developer, a product manager, a designer are far more invested in the work when you say “Here’s a problem let’s go solve this” instead of “Hey I’ve solved the problem – go build this!”

Summary

Jeff shares how integrating Agile and UX forced his team to think in new ways, inspiring questions such as: How can we define and design the experience in lighter ways? How do we break down misconceptions and bottlenecks triggered by long design cycles and collaborate better with our teammates? This questions pushed the team to go lighter and leaner, with the greatest outcome, that of teams learning to trust one another.

Jeff also discusses how Lean UX can help move design professionals away from traditional deliverables in many ways including: rapid iterations based on low-fidelity articfacts; faster customer validation; and breaking down communication barriers between multi-disciplinary teams by focusing on conversation over documentation.

Show Notes

* Follow Jeff on Twitter.
* Jeff Gothelf on Slideshare.
* Smashing Magazine: Lean UX – Getting out of the Deliverables Business
* Cooper: Lean UX, Product Stewardship, and Integrated Teams
* UX Booth: Can User Experience Designers be Lean?

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In a special series of podcasts that we’ll be calling “Classic Radio Johnny”, Jeff Parks shares some of the more popular discussions from the i.a.podcast; the show that helped to launch podcasts for Boxes and Arrows and now Radio Johnny.

In this discussion, recorded on February 11th, 2009, Ginny Redish shares some of the key ideas found in her book Letting Go of the Words – Writing Web Content that Works.

Quotes

People come to websites for the content but they come with their scenarios, their stories, their needs, their questions! So when we think about creating great web content we have to understand the people who are coming…not only the question they are coming to get answered to the task…but we have to understand their attitude — their state of mind.

…[users] are probably not coming for the news about what a Vice-President did last week, they’re coming for some need of theirs. That’s really one of the issues Content Strategy has to deal with! If people were thinking strategically of heir content from the point-of-view of their personas; and the scenarios and conversations of their site visitors, they would change their strategy from being primarily news…to primarily things that satisfy the user.

Always put the context first. Explain what we’re talking about and then tell people what to do.

Summary

Along with great examples and stories relating to the importance of a content strategy, Ginny also discusses:

* The importance of emotion when writing for the web
* Scenario writing when building Personas
* How important is the home page?
* Still trying to blast the myth of the fold
* When and when not to use PDF
* Pathway pages
* Eye-tracking analysis
* Creating content in an inverted pyramid style
* Push versus Pull
* The importance of providing proper context to the content being written

Show Notes

* The Elements of Content Strategy by Erin Kissane
* Clout: The Art and Science of Influential Web Content by Colleen Jones
* Content Strategy Meet-up Ottawa Colleen Jones presenting in April 2011
* Web Content 2011 Web Content Conference, Chicago, Illinois
* CS Forum London, England

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Today on Radio Johnny, Jeff Parks talks with Aaron Irizarry and Lynne Polischuik about the many benefits in using web analytics to drive design choices. They discuss using analytics as a means to get buy-in for design decisions—and by extension, building stronger lines of communication with other teams—and encourage all UX professionals to not be intimidated and just dive in.

Quotes

It can be rather intimidating. But the more I started looking at analytics, the more I started finding that there was validation and actually good guidance for design thinking and design decisions that I was making. Analytics went from something I wasn’t that into and then it started to turn into more of an ally.

Data can provide inspiration for design as well as show its value!

A lot of times there’s just a lack of understanding. By having analytics to back-up my decision I was able to to a little more education and get the buy-in easier. Instead of just arguing I just have facts…it’s not because I’m a designer and I think it’s cool it’s because this says it is or is not working and let’s base our decision off the most truthful and valid source that we can.

I think looking at analytics strategically, in the same way that we do UX is important … unless you ask those big questions up front and define what the goals are, it’s going to be very difficult to pick the appropriate tools.

Summary

Aaron and Lynne discuss the importance of finding a common ground within business when making recommendations on design choices. The data from current web analytic tools can provide a contextual conversation with business leaders to help UX professionals land the buy-in necessary to move designs forward.

They also talk about the importance of asking key questions that will clearly illustrate the goals of the website and metrics valued most. In turn, this will ensure the data collected can be shared with traditional business teams that illustrate why and how to make changes that will benefit the organization as a whole.

Show Notes

• Web Analytics Resources for UX professionals by Lynne Polischuik and Aaron Irizarry
• Follow Lynne on Twitter
• Lynne’s upcoming talk at the UA Summit in Denver Numbers are our Friends: Information Architects Make the Best Analysts
• Follow Aaron on Twitter
• Aaron’s upcoming talk at the IA Summit in Denver Discussing Design – The Art of Critique
• Designing for the Social Web by Josh Porter
• Slideshare – Metrics Driven Design by Josh Porter
• Startup Metrics for Pirates by Dave McClure
• Livia Labate’s IxD10 presentation Ceci Ne Pas Un KPI
• Web analytic services mentioned in this podcast include: ClickTale, Crazy Egg, Omniture
• Rosenfeld Media publication Web Form Design – Filling in the Blanks by Luke Wroblewski

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In a special series of podcasts that we’ll be calling “Classic Radio Johnny”, Jeff Parks shares some of the more popular discussions from the i.a.podcast; the show that helped to launch podcasts for Boxes and Arrows and now Radio Johnny.

In this discussion, recorded on September 21st, 2009, Eric Reiss and Jeff share a spirited conversation about leadership and the critical role we all must play in the design community, regardless of your title or process.

Quotes

I think part of what leaderships is about is results…noise is not the same as leadership. Noisy people create buzz, leadership creates results.

Max DePree who used to be the CEO of Herman Miller… said the first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. What is our reality? Let’s face it the business community doesn’t know what Information Architecture is and they don’t really care very much…the Interaction Designers have the same problem.

Cease not to learn until thou cease to live; Think that day lost wherein thou draw’st no letter, To make thyself learneder, wiser, better…I learn a lot from people who are a lot younger than I am and I would hate to think that I wasn’t in a position that I wasn’t able to learn from them.

Summary

Eric discusses the historical context of leadership citing the founders of the Industrial revolution and how we’ve mostly lead with a “carrot and stick” philosophy. He goes on to note that today, we need a third element that deals with the reality of the changes in lifestyle and corporate culture that the Information Age has thrust upon us all.

Eric also draws on traditional leadership experiences such as his time as a member of the Board of Directors for the Information Architecture Institute as well as less traditional and creative approaches to inspiring and motivating others in his past life as a director of plays.

Show Notes

* Joe Sokohol discusses the topic of Leadership in the inaugural launch of Radio Johnny
* The Industrial Revolution and Eli Whitney
* Evolving the Conversation beyond the tools that make up social media.
* Closing Plenary of the 2009 IA Summit by Jesse James Garrett
* Community of Practice – Interaction Design Association
* Community of Practice – Information Architecture Institute
* Design Research Discussion at IxD10 conference via The UX Workshop TV

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Today on Radio Johnny Jeff Parks talks with Indi Young about non-directed interviews. Indi shares the hallmarks of a non-directed interview and how to guide these conversations accordingly. She also shares the importance of understanding the difference between a screener and an interview; and the necessity to encourage interviewees to avoid statements of fact by focusing on verbs rather than nouns when sharing experiences.

Quotes

A lot of the work that we are trying to do is less quantitative and more qualitative. Non-Directed interviews are a way of getting qualitative data about what people are interested in telling you about their lives. Specifically the kind of non-directed interviewing has to do with generative research, not evaluative research.

You want to have surprises to come out…that’s why I say don’t write any interview questions down just write what your perimeter is…Set up that fence and try and keep the conversation within that fence; but keep your antenna up!

It’s not about the facts. The facts are what you just need for making sure you’ve got somebody who might possibly be able to have a conversation with you; but it’s not what the [non-directed] interview is about!

Summary

Indi describes non-directed interviews as free-format conversations exploring territory important to the participant. If done correctly, non-directed interviews are relaxed, informal, and fun for both people. There are no leading questions such as “Do you…?” Instead, the interviewer listens deeply and probes subjects the participant shares; in places that hint at revealing more insights into the participants’ mind.

Indi also shares the importance of avoiding statements of fact and the necessity of defining a scope for each conversation. The interviewer needs to judge on the fly whether the new concept the participant brings up is in scope, or might lead to something in scope, and to follow it accordingly.
.

Show Notes

* Mental Models – Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior by Indi Young

* What to cover during an interview and what to avoid.

* How to understand what a participant is saying better.

* Interviews are rich, but what else is rich, and what else can I use that I already have? And why shouldn’t I use a survey?

* Mental Model Sketches by Indi Young.

* An essay by Indi Young at Adaptive Path: Six Steps to Better Interviews and Simplified Task Analysis.

* Mike Kuniavsky Nondirected Interviews: How to Get More Out of Your Research Questions

* SpoolCast: Steve Portigal’s Deep Dive Interviewing Tips Revisited

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