Today on Radio Johnny, Chris Baum talks with VP, User Experience at HUGE Brooklyn, Emily Wengert. Emily discusses her 2012 IA Summit presentation about designing with context. She covers how these ideas developed, what they mean when approaching a cross-channel design project, and gives examples of each of the contexts she explored in her talk. Her premise is that digital channels emerge more quickly than our typical design approaches are able to apply. Designing with context allows you to focus your design efforts in a way that lets the design process work across channels more effectively.

Quotes

“ While untangling why I didn’t agree with a client’s request, I realized that part of it was they wanted to think about mobile as just mobile…They weren’t thinking through what they could really be doing for their business at different moments. I wanted to get them to stop thinking of the channel, but that’s how they organized themselves.”

“Because of that one really sharp right-hand turn in that project, we’ve been able to shift the feature set they were developing and be able to talk through how to prioritize features that matter in different contexts to make sure you weren’t dropping the ball in any particular context…Fortunately, the business goals have started to align even more strongly with that kind of positioning of thinking about these different moments and delivering on them. That’s only given us more firepower behind the scenes.”

“We should really stop offering less on the phone, because they might just be at home, even with their laptop 6-8ft away. It suddenly means we have to stop turning mobile into this dumber thing…mobile is actually smarter b/c it has so many other things (gyroscope, GIS, access to other data that you keep in your phone)… we have to stop oversimplifying it to the point where we’re not helping people very much.”

Notes

* Follow Emily on Twitter @wallowmuddy
* Overview of Emily’s IA Summit presentation

Today on Radio Johnny, Chris Baum talks with Peter Stahl, Senior Interaction Designer for Cisco. Peter thinks we are at a crossroads in the design profession, with tools and deliverables that are optimized for static experience. Peter explores the distinction between rhythm and flow; how flow could work across channels; how flow can be a lens to reflect on the success of our projects and as designers; and finally, the ways our deliverables might morph to encourage flow for all involved on our projects.

Quotes

“I’m interested in coming up with some theory of what we’re after as user experience designers. The best user experiences are the ones where the user is no longer aware that they are participating in something that has been designed. Csikszentmihalyi’s theories, backed up by a great deal of research, resonated with me.”

“I find that, particularly as I work with younger designers, I’m hoping to use some sorts of principles that they can consult to decide whether they are going in the right direction rather than flailing about blindingly or using some random techniques from some random website to understand if they’re moving the ball forward, or downwards, sideways, or backwards.”

“We need new deliverables that reflect the new world of what our products are. They are no longer a series of static pages, so the deliverables need to evolve to reflect that. If we come up with a tool or a series of tools that help us accurately convey the vision of what our designs represent to a wider scope of people with less effort, then I think we’ll have really advanced the practice.”

Notes

* Follow Peter on Twitter @pstahl
* Find out more about Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi that inspired the presentation.

Today on Radio Johnny, Jeff Parks talks with Andrea Resmini from the 2012 IA Summit in New Orleans about his presentation “Groundhogs In The Source Code: Navigation as Cross-Channel Sense Making”. Andrea describes the ultimate goal of navigation is that of helping the end user understand the places and spaces in which they interact. Drawing on Hollywood movies like Groundhog Day and Source Code – and classic stories such as Dracula as metaphors – Andrea takes listeners on a quest to help them find their way through a variety of interactions.

Quotes

“I was trying to make the point… when we say ‘navigate’ we really want to say ‘understand’. It seems simple to make but it’s actually very, very complex if we don’t structure the experience of the reward.”

“The people who are actually investigating video games, and in general interactive spaces, are always dealing with how do you look at this – how do you criticize this, how do you look at these [spaces], and how do you theorize…I look at a game, for example, as if it were a story and that’s how I criticize. Whereas another faction says that, no that is not the way as a game is a very peculiar thing and it should be investigated as an actionable space – the story has nothing to do with how we should look at a game…. a number of people are recomposing this fracture [noting] both of these are true…and the way we can do that is the way quests are built.”

“I think the best point for us as IA and UX designers is that quests are actually a way to reconnect fragmented pieces of a narrative into one single cohesive experience. Which was the whole point of the talk since we were talking about cross-channel experiences, which are by definition something that is very fragmented over a number of devices, environments, places, and contexts. Quests seem to be a good way to think about a way of reconnecting something, not just the story.”

Notes

* Follow Andrea Resmini on Twitter @resmini
* 2013 IA Summit announced for Baltimore
* Andrea is one of the founders and Associate Editor at the Journal of Information Architecture
* Thank you to sponsors IA Summit for your support.

Today on Radio Johnny, Jeff Parks talks with Dane Howard about the evolution of an engaging design culture at eBay – by modeling PeViz. Dane shares how Pre-Visualizing inside eBay is allowing for an engagement model that works effectively for multi-disciplinary teams. This in turn is fostering a corporate culture allowing for designers to not only be at the table in business decisions, but also aid the company in the creation of the table.

Quotes

“I run the design groups from our fashion markets place, for instance. What we really enjoy is just a better understanding of the fashion market. So I’ve got designers who’ve come from Banana Republic or Gap that have worked in the fashion industry. With Motors for instance, these are people who have a fascination with having rebuilt some of their own cars or love that parts and accessory space, globally. A designer isn’t someone who works well particularly well in mobile or works well in social, works well on the web. It’s someone who has the capacity to think at scale on large interactive problems, cross-platform.”

“There are a lot of things that can happen to a company that can starve innovation…what we started to observe is that if We started to behave as designers differently we could use the discipline of design to make things and to surface a prototype or an experience that allowed the organization to make a decision around it… if we did that earlier in the process it would naturally force design to not only be at the table but help create the table!”

“We borrowed from Hollywood. We found that some of the great films that are being created today – particularly the big budget films have made quite a bit of investment around this stage they call Pre-Viz. Simply put, Pre-Visualization is a way of visualizing complex scenes, before filming, to experiment without having to incur the cost of actual production…We’ve got high stakes strategy that we would love to be able to visualize, to help us make decisions, before we invest in the product and decide to better scope it…this way of thinking…then allowed us to have a group inside of eBay that basically partnered with different parts of the business in order to help use design as one more input to help them make decisions on where they want to go.”

Notes

* eBay Design Built by design for design to help recruiting and conversations towards elevating design talent at eBay.
* FastCmomany Article – Six Bite Sized Innovation Lessons from eBays New Design Think Tank
* Follow Dane on Twitter @danemhoward
* Follow eBay design on Facebook
* Learn about others who will be presenting at the MX conference this year.

Whitney grew up in New York City and was initially interested in Computer Science, loves writing but missed technology and discovered HCI at Carnegie Mellon. Whitney talks about core principles for all of the work we do, underscoring the need for UX practitioners to become better negotiators and persuaders; and to focus on helping the organization become better at identifying areas of opportunity for our customers.

Quotes

“…one of the core tenets of the HCI program at Carnegie Mellon is this mantra… ‘the user is not like me’. As I got to know other practitioners in the broader community, there are some philosophical similarities between us no matter how we approach the work or what our educational backgrounds are… I became fascinated with those principles [about which we all] agree… the core principles for all of the work we do …mobile, web [regardless of] the context…”

“Think about User Experience as the way in which an organization operates and have it being core to its ethos… understanding how to be a great negotiator and great persuader… we often lack confidence in selling those ideas to the higher-ups within our organization as well as to other departments who are not in the trenches with us everyday.”

“We need to have a hand in not only designing the product but in defining what the product is, so that really does make us product strategists in a lot of ways… [we] need to be involved in the process a lot earlier than many of us currently are… understand the business needs and be able to communicate with the product folks as well as executives in the organization.”

Whitney will be talking at UX Hong Kong 17 & 18 February 2012.

Notes

* Follow Whitney Hess on Twitter.
* Learn about others who will be presenting at the second UX Hong Kong conference.
* Learn about Whitney Hess.
* Learn about Design Principles: The Philosophy of UX
* Learn about HCI at Carnegie Mellon

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 Daniel Szuc speaks with Bas Raijmakers about his topics at UX Hong Kong 17 & 18 February 2012. Bas has a social science background and studies how people use media and technology from an ethnographic point of view. Bas talks about the importance of telling stories of the people we design for while integrating those experiences into the design processes. Bas believes that by focusing on the stories of those for whom we are designing at the start, we can lead teams to intelligent design choices throughout a project’s lifecycle.

Quotes

“It’s important for our field to learn from [other] projects and [take time to] reflect … and find ways to express what we learn as knowledge.”

“I feel… reflection and making should not be separate. While you are in the field or in the workshop, these thoughts about the value of the work we do, come up. These are reflections and come up because you are engaged in the work. Doing the work brings up great ideas and how important it is to engage with designers to come up with good reflections together.”

“… techniques, methods, and processes that are related to co-creation and participatory techniques are a way of getting beyond the borders of your own discipline and allow you to collaborate with people in other disciplines… it is here [where] I include the participants because they are experts of their own everyday life …”

Bas is from STBY and talks about the importance of telling stories of the people we design for everyday. He discusses how integrating those stories into the design processes allows us to stay focused on the experiences our users want; allowing the design team to create an experience that follows the stories shared.

Notes

* Follow Bas Raijmakers on Twitter @hellobas
* Learn about others who will be presenting at the second UX Hong Kong conference
* Learn about Bas Raijmakers
* Learn about the Global Design Research Network (Reach) -
* Learn about the Service Design Network
* Learn about This is Service Design Thinking: Basics – Tools – Cases
* Learn about the Design Adcademy Eindhoven

Today on Radio Johnny Daniel Szuc speaks with Geke van Dijk about her topics at UX Hong Kong 17 & 18 February 2012. Geke specializes, at STBY, in design research for service innovation. She talks about the move from lab based testing to up front research, the service economy, consistent customer journeys as well as the importance of focusing on empathy when designing for other people.

Quotes

“… we needed to go out and visit people in their places … where they were actually making use of the web sites and mobile apps … we noticed the stories we got … were much broader than just online usage … from the stories and tests we could help our clients much more in the early stages with the concept development by moving it earlier in development the process … but how does it fit in the wider customer journey? Working with design teams, we found the consumer insights we created in the research were very interesting… they always said if we would have known this earlier in the process we could have used it in the concept development … it was quite a deliberate move to do the research earlier on in the design process and go out of the lab into the field and have a wider and strategic view with the client teams as well.”

“Co-production at the moment of truth … when the customer meets that organisation … and in service design one of the key constructs is when that moment is co-created … your customers are constructing the service delivery themselves … you can’t really predict how people are using the services … you need to have an integrated network of services … you need [to understand] the way people are using [your products / services] is [not a fixed process].”

“People are in the service economy and they are using multiple channels to get into touch with organisations … but on the inside of the companies (the service providers) that’s still a big struggle … many organisations are still organised as silos … you have the internet dept, call centre, marketing dept … sometimes they are even competitive with the KPI’s between each other… customers want to move seamlessly from one channel to another and have a consistent customer journey.”

Geke specializes in design research for service innovation. She talks about the move from lab based testing to up front research, the service economy, consistent customer journeys as well as the importance of focusing on empathy when designing for other people.

Notes

* Follow Geke on Twitter @hellogeke
* Learn about others who will be presenting at the second UX Hong Kong conference
* Learn about Geke van Dijk
* Learn about the Global Design Research Network (Reach) –
* Learn about the Service Design Network
* Learn about This is Service Design Thinking: Basics – Tools – Cases

Today on Radio Johnny Daniel Szuc speaks with Whitney Quesenbery about her topics at UX Hong Kong 17 & 18 February 2012. Whitney talks about the importance of storytelling, choosing the right UX method towards finding answers, and as we look forward, practitioner knowledge about both design and technology is critical. Whitney also talks about the trend of creating for the “social good” and how appreciating this movement can strengthen our approach to design.

Quotes

“Storytelling is a direct line from my work in theatre … understanding how we are all telling each other stories, when we try to understand someone who uses the products we make, we are trying to envision the story that they are telling themselves, what is the scenario that they are in, why are they interacting with us at all, and how can we create products that make that story a wonderful, easy, good story … as opposed to a bad, awful, difficulty, barrier filled story.

… all of a sudden we are really thinking about people situated in their lives and how the things we make fit into that life rather than how the person gets jammed into the software.

Over the years we have a pretty rich set of tools, how we move through the process … each of those techniques is really an answer … the answer needs to be modified to fit that new question … so it’s about understanding what question you are answering and then being able to think really hard about the right way to get that answer.

Summary

Whitney Quesenbery discusses the importance of storytelling in making products, how to choose the right UX method in projects, how practitioner knowledge about design and technology (a hybrid) is becoming important and how we should all continue to focus on people when designing products & services.

Notes

* Follow Whitney Quesenberry @whitneyq on Twitter
* Learn more about Whitney Quesenberry
* Learn about

Today on Radio Johnny Daniel Szuc speaks with Tomer Sharon from Google, who grew up in Tel Aviv Israel, studied at Bentley in the USA, has been in UX for about 12-13 years and focuses on research including past work at Checkpoint software technologies in Israel and now based in New York working as a Design Researcher at Google. Tomer will be speaking about one of the biggest challenges for UX practitioners which is how to persuade stakeholders to do and act on research.

Quotes

“Getting stakeholder buy in for UX research projects … people learn how to do research, but the soft skills are something that are hard, dealing with stakeholders who will not listen or won’t co-operate is hard”

Important to develop empathy towards your stakeholders as you do for your users. Learn as much as you can about the people you are dealing with, what bothers them, what is important for them, you will be surprised that UX is not the centre of the world … there are other things that are important and if they ignore you, there is probably a good reason for that … not always … empathy is one thing, humility is another thing … you are not always right, I learn that everyday.

one topic I see is called product personality and seen recent example of this with Apple’s Siri … use Siri not for completing tasks but asking it sill questions and just for fun … they like its personality, having a product personality means that a product communicates some human personality attributes that I as a user fit within the right context … its hard to do right.

Summary

Tomer will be speaking about one of the biggest challenges for UX practitioners which is how to persuade stakeholders to do and act on research. How to get them involved from the moment you start thinking about a research project, knowing your stakeholders and involving planting seeds. He is looking forward to the good food in Hong Kong and meeting the local UX community to understand the different angles and aspects of what is important for people in other parts of the world.

Notes

* Follow Tomer Sharon @tsharon on Twitter
* Follow UX Hong Kong @uxhk on Twitter
* Learn about others who will be presenting at the second UX Hong Kong conference.
* UX in Asia
* Learn about Tomer Sharon’s new book “It’s our research”