I remembered a situation a short while ago when I was out with friends, two of them avid fans of different professional american football teams. They were talking in depth about the current season, making projections about who was going to ‘win it all”. I thought to myself ‘I know football, the rules, the game, etc, but this conversation takes it to a whole other level that I’m not equipped to be in’. And that was when it hit me.

You see, my football knowledge is equivalent to the UX knowledge of many non-UX people that speak up in meetings. Like them, I have a general knowledge about the topic, and may even provide high level insight, but I certainly can’t project who is going to “win it all”. Thus, these non-UX people can know about UX, and their interjections can actually prove helpful to us.

Therefore, as the people practicing UX, our job becomes first, not to prove these people wrong, but instead, to facilitate the sharing of their insight in a way that provides us with more ideas. And second, to use these moments as educational opportunities to explain in further detail our rationale. Be doing so we can teach the value of having a practicing UX person there, versus just having people that know high-level UX. From this, I guarantee that the next time they question our rationale, it will be with an air of respect, and an anxious-to-learn ear. And, how does that not make all of our jobs a little easier?

To make matters even worse many people see UX as everyone’s responsibility, and use that as an excuse to comment on all of our work. Thus, the amount of feedback that we receive is not only overwhelming, but it can be, at times, daunting. It is hard for many of us to not take this feedback as a sign that we are “doing UX” wrong.

Athletes also receive a lot of feedback. Align your wrist, go faster, slow down, be more sharp… the list goes on. My freshman year of high school, I tried out for the varsity soccer team. During tryouts, the coach was extremely demanding of me. He had feedback about my play constantly, and this made me certain that I wouldn’t make the team. Surprisingly enough, I was one of only 3 freshman that made the cut, and I couldn’t understand how. I went to the coach who helped me to make the connection. “If I didn’t see potential in you, I wouldn’t have provided any feedback at all. Feedback doesn’t mean failure”, he said. This principle is something we should also apply to practicing UX.

The next time that others are heavily commenting on how you did facilitating a meeting or how your concepts worked, or didn’t, don’t let it get you down. Instead keep in mind that if they didn’t see positive potential in your abilities, and didn’t respect you as the professional, they probably wouldn’t provide any feedback at all. This can help you to stop any negative thoughts you have towards yourself so that you can really hear the feedback, and apply it to make yourself and your work even better.

This is something that great coaches and athletes learned to do a long time ago. After each and every quarter, half, game the team sits together and reflects on what’s working, what isn’t, and how to get better. Sometimes this is a formal process, sometimes it is not, but either way it is a useful one. It allows the athletes to build what is already there, as opposed to starting from scratch. It’s like the old line says “in order to know where you are going you need to know where you have been.”. And this is true not only with athletics, but with our UX field as well.

By taking the time to reflect, even by ourselves, about our last meeting, project, deliverable, workshop… whatever, we begin to evaluate ourselves. We look into the positives and negatives, and we do this, not to criticize but to deconstruct and construct. We build off of what we already know, and can make ourselves better, without throwing away the knowledge that we have built up to this point.

The moral of the story is that projects aren’t the only things that you can and should iterate on. You can do the same with your UX career and skills, but in order to get where you are going you need to take a step back and reflect on where you have been.

Now, my surrender was not giving up. I certainly didn’t throw away my own game plan, I just didn’t push it on to others. Instead, I took down my wall and let in all the other ideas, processed them, combined them with my own to come up with new ways to win. And guess what happened? As soon as I surrendered those around me began to as well.

Being a UX person on a project team is no different. We can think our UX way of thinking and doing is the best way all we want, but pushing that way on to an unreceptive team, or being unreceptive to new ideas ourselves, will never bring success. Instead we need surrender our strong hold. Once we do that  not only will our team follow suit, but we can also begin to take in all the other knowledge around us, meld it with our way of doing and thinking and come to a successful solution for all.

For many people, including designers, sustainability is the buzzword of the moment.  Over the last 30 years, however, there has been a growing awareness of the environmental problems caused by the exponential growth and human development worldwide. The higher demands placed on the planet due to the growing demands of such things as food, energy and materials is reaching epidemic proportions. In short, many of the problems affecting us today are happening at rates faster than we can curb and counter. Some of these specific problems include the high rates of consumer goods wastage, air pollution, energy production, transportation and the consumption of natural resources. These are only a few of the problems with which we have to contend. But as we begin to narrow the focus down to our specific roles as designers, some concrete examples of these problem include the ever-pervasive mobile phones as well as other electronics with their high rates of disposals. Subsequently, these high rates of product disposal dictate higher rates of natural resources needed to replace those discarded items. While not only applicable to mobile phones and consumer or electronic goods, there are easily identifiable examples with which almost everyone can relate. These example of wastage can also be applied to many other scenarios, and serves to compound the overall problem, when we begin to apply to our work as designers of products as a whole. What this means at a fundamental level is that as designers from all spectrum, we need to actively engage and find solutions for this growing epidemic. We need to have a clearer  understanding of sustainability and what it means for us if we are to remain progressively relevant. We need to understand:

• What it means to be sustainable in the context of our work
• How to embrace, advocate and strategize for more sustainable design practices
• Practice sound environmental design with impact in our work

The premise of sustainability  asserts that for us to continue to survive as a society, we must ensure that both present and future generations can continue to thrive without compromising the lives and existence of either generation. This means that as we go about the task of designing products and services, we should do so more consciously and responsibility  and comply to a principle of sustainable design – the ideal that what we do today cannot take away from enabling future generations to sustain themselves. There are many drivers also forcing us to pay attention and one of these is the growing base of users advocating for more eco-conscious design.

Today, users are more aware of the environmental issues that face us collectively, and their rising expectations in product and service design, is a  major trends and drivers of sustainability as a business essential. User experience and design is therefore strategically positioned to change our value offering by incorporating sustainability metrics as part of the overall design criteria. Accordingly, we have an opportunity to transform user experience and design from a commoditized offering into a value-critical service by incorporating sustainability into the existing and emerging  frameworks that drive our practices. We are gifted with a foundation in good analytic tools and methods that can be extended to collect additional data from users about their product usage cycles.  Furthermore, the trends and challenges for sustainable practices make the business case for adopting and implementing a sustainability framework that incorporates user experience as essential.  The key success factors for implementing a sustainability-led user experience is foundational and necessary if we are to survive as a field with evolved value.

At its core, the design of everyday products, solutions and /or services is the problem that underlies the environmental issues we face today, and which we will continue to face the future. Design and designers are part of the environmental problem and we should feature prominently in finding solutions that produce more sustainable creations. Whether it is the design of a poorly built product that breaks down because of poor material selection, or the decisions that we make to design a physical product over a comparable service subscription solution option, are all part of the kinds of decisions that we we will have to address as we move forward. These are all decisions that eco-conscious user experience researchers and designers will face in the future.

At a more detailed level, we need to begin to question the value and output of the designs with which we are engaged and consciously address many questions that are have design touch-points. Some of these questions include but are not limited to:

• What is the ultimate goal of the design?
• Is there really a need for the new design? In some cases this decision is out of our control. However we can become advocates where possible.
• Are there solutions that would require little to less materials – for example a web – based service subscription over a solution that produces material waste?
• If material are used in the solution, are the materials used in the product ethically sourced?
• If material are used in the product you must design, are these materials toxic?
• Can my users service these products if they break?
• Is the product durable?
• Is the product too heavy; is it portable?
• Will the product have an afterlife?
• Is the product energy efficient?
• If there is a User Interface component have you provided the user with energy saving and management options?
• What does this design mean for universal access?

All of these questions map easily onto sustainability goals that we can set at the onset of design by having a deep level of user understanding and needs through research. Today the push for more eco-awareness in society, and subsequently in design, has created a new class of consumers,  whose core values align with such things as:

• Avoiding pollution;
• Conserving natural resources;
• Eliminating wasteful products;
• Being energy efficient;
• Universal design and access.

These consumers (users) have different criteria for their product experiences; they demand integration of their core values, not only in the final products but also in the design process. Understanding this paradigmatic user trends is the role of user experience in the age of sustainability. How can we respond to the changing user needs and goals and how can we tie this back to our role in development and design? Therefore, it stands to reason that as the field of sustainability ripens into a practice, we need to take a deeper look through the lens of our own world and anchor ourselves solidly on this large and amorphous field called sustainability and respond to the collective views of a growing force of socially conscious users.

How can we engage?

Regardless of the type of designer you are (visual, experience, interaction, or other, you can engage initially by embracing some fundamental guiding principles to design. Alan Cooper and Robert Reimann About Face (2003) touches upon the topic of ethical interaction design which could be applied here and used as foundational guides to sustainable design. Cooper and Reimann list four principles that designers can use as guides to design. The principles in many ways resonate with the sustainability movement and are still relevant today. According to Cooper and Reimann, interaction design needs to follow these key principles. They should be:

• Ethical [considerate, helpful]: Do no harm; improve human situations
• Purposeful [useful and usable]: Help users achieve their goals and aspirations: Accommodate uses contexts and capacities
• Pragmatic [viable and feasible]: Help commissioning organizations achieve their goals; accommodate business and technical requirements;
• Elegant [efficient, artful, affective]: Represent the simplest complete solution; Possess internal (self-revealing, understandable) coherence and appropriately accommodate and stimulate cognition and emotion

Further, we must engage at the tactical and strategic levels to translate the changing relationship that businesses will have with customers to ensure we meet a new standard of user experience.  Beginning by employing the basic ideas purported in such old time favorite books like Cooper and Reimann is a great first step.  The growing base of informed and ecologically conscious users do not care only about functionality but impose their core values on the products they purchase and chose to use in their daily lives. As user researchers and product designer we hold the key to engaging with the wider movement of sustainability at both strategic and tactical levels.

Why else should we care?

Against the backdrop of the growing criticism and the negative social and environmental implications of globalization, many companies have become active in reporting on activities undertaken to prevent these externalities of production. The trickle-down effect that will eventually have all layers of industry having shouldering some level of responsibility has led to an onslaught of new job titles such as a recent Amazon job posts:  Sr. Sustaining Engineer, Sustaining Product Design Engineer, Product Design Sustaining Manager. We need not even look far to see that companies in the Design space, such as Artefact are already taking strides into embracing sustainability as a part of their design cycle. On the reporting front, take for instance trends in Europe and Japan where sustainability reporting accompanies regulatory requirements and government encouragements. The number of reports that now include social reporting alongside financial, has increased considerably. Understanding and viewing the wider sustainability initiative through the lens of our own practice is important to evolve user experience and design as fields of practice and remain relevant as key decision drivers in the product lifecycle in the end.

It’s Time for the UX Community to Toughen Up

It’s time to take a giant step forward and realize we are the new brand leaders. Let’s consider a simple formula:  Brand = Experience. Keep it simple, it’s not Brand = Experience minus time it takes to code, minus designers whim, minus hastily written copy deck, minus client fear.

Just this: Brand = Experience.

We, the UX crowd, are the new brand leads. We are the ones who will win battles and wars in customer perception and preference.  Advertising leaves an impression, but digital interaction creates an immediate emotional state through functional creations.

Brand is emotion and effects living inside your phone or laptop and we are the creators of that connection. We are tasked with defining the tangible and real versions of brand interaction.

Digital is where consumers start, how they advocate and where they go for problems and all branded interaction is moving to digital.

Let me rephrase that: All branded interaction is digital. Period.

There are some laggard brands out there, so if if you’re working on a consumer brand that doesn’t have a digital product, get thinking… that brand is falling behind.

We Are A Breed Of Leader Who Has Left The Reins To Dangle For Too Long. 

Why are there so many people changing our vision?

When I talk to people about this, the most common response relates to the mythical beast of “Group Collaboration.”  I say this beast is mythical because any form of collaboration where one’s work is deemed less important than others is not collaboration at all.

Collaboration is agreement on a direction with everyone putting their piece to play.  It’s a wonderful utopian vision that rarely exists. Someone drives the bus. Someone owns the goat. Someone eats the bagel. Someone hoes the pavement. Someone hates bad cliches’ and likes to make his own. (Sorry, tangent)

In an agency structure, why are design and content not led by UX?  They are components of a user experience, but certainly neither is the whole. Design spawns from use and content is a child of voice, both of which manifest from UX efforts.

The brand experience is being affected by design and content, but those roles are not accountable for the end result of overall experience: they are not approaching the same problems in the same ways as the UX lead.

Evolution is a Constant

If brand preference is a spectrum of positive experience, we as experience designers need a bit of evolution.

Evolution means getting some credit for the improvements in brand perception that digital products are affecting.

We UX pros are all a strange shade of specialty, but we share the ability to create something from nothing, while keeping two conflicting thoughts in our head: managing complexity while advancing the experience.

Dig this: we love analytics and metics on site performance, so let’s move beyond the device and see how our work is measured on a larger scale.  Let’s get a conversation going that takes our domain of user success and transforms it into a measurable positive benefit on a brand.

If you are working on a brand being measured for brand sentiment, I encourage you to get with the group who’s performing those analytics and dig in like a tick on a dog’s ass.

As a group, we tend to think about the screen. How things move, what they do, how they react to different poking and clicking. What we sometimes overlook is the emotive value that comes by interacting with our creations. What if we tied an emotional value to the result of every interaction?  What’s the micro-value for a tap or a swipe?

This is where brand as experience starts to make sense.  If trust is a series of good experiences over time and positive brand sentiment is guided by trust, it’s a magnificent truth that we propel the brand.

So I’ll say it again, it’s time to toughen up and create something remarkable, moving UX forward and upward.

Design by Fire 2012

Andrew Heaton will be one of the speakers at Design by Fire 2012. The sixth Design by Fire Conference will take place on Friday 12 October, from 9:30 to 18:30 in San Francisco.

Now, I had never given this much thought and had seriously considered removing the MBA from my CV but my pride (and all the hours I put into to it) forced me to leave it on. Usually I just didn’t mention it much.

I don’t remember what I answered exactly, but it centered around strategy and analysis…..or something. As I remember it could have been a better answer.

I think partially I was a bit embarrassed of the degree. This is especially true in Sweden, where it isn’t so very well known outside from the top schools in Europe and the US and thus hard to relate to. Since it wasn’t a ‘design’ degree it somehow didn’t go over as relevant.

Advantages of an MBA in the UX area

Having worked a few years now in a number of UX agencies in Stockholm I have definitely seen the value of my MBA.

1. Ability to conduct analysis – this is probably the most valuable area that I learned from my MBA. The ability to structure, analyze, then communicate the results to an audience has been invaluable in my UX.

2. Real Cases – We were always exposed to the basic theories in various areas, but there were ALWAYS coupled with real case studies. Very little purely theoretical examples.

3. Education based on frameworks and mastery in applying them. No absolute right and wrong. – Now I have read some criticism of MBAs recently in light of the value of design thinking in business. Basically the argument goes – MBA education encourages one answer to the case while design thinking embraces multiple possible outcomes. In my experience this can’t be farther from the truth. For most cases we could propose many solutions as long as they could be justified. Believe me, if you have studied enough theories and frameworks you can justify anything. The best case studies that I did were ones that I combined frameworks from multiple areas to justify a innovation solution. Sounds a bit like design thinking doesn’t it?

4. Consider things in their entirety. By the end of your program you are encouraged to think holistically and apply your knowledge across many operational areas.

This last point bares some further explanation, since I think it is particularly relevant.

The Challenges of Silos

I have just finished following the UXLX event in Lisbon on twitter and noted the continuing discussion around ‘silos’ in organizations and how they limit effective UX thinking. I have been involved in the UX area for a few years now and attended a handful of conference. In all of these conferences, this issue of ‘silo crossing’ always comes up in varying degrees. Clearly this is an area of frustration.

The discussions seems to follow a similar patterns with a good dose of hand wringing.

‘The managers in department ________ just don’t understand the value of what we are doing… ‘

We need to ‘cross the silos’ or ‘ get a seat in the C-suite’ or something similar…

My true belief is that to integrate UX thinking into organizations will require people to meet somewhere in the middle between the silos. I agree with Peter Merholz that UX should be seen as a strategic effort as well embody tactical solutions (methods and tools). Until this is achieved we all will need to understand the other side.

To effectively eliminate silos (or at least minimize the effects), UX practitioners need to understand the other silos. To understand persons working in other silos we need to understand their motivations and how they define success. One way to do this is through business education.

When you look the core of a typical general MBA curriculum, you see a couple core areas:

1. Strategy;
2. Finance;
3. Marketing;
4. Human Motivation – extremely valuable;
5. Some sort of Quantitative Analysis.

All of these areas of knowledge have been beneficial, but what they have given me in my UX work is understanding.

Understanding of other departments and what their function is in an organisation and how they measure success. What makes them tick if you will.

Crossing Silos.

“Understanding other silos can make yours better.” – @kimgoodwin

Now I am not suggesting that all UX practitioners drop their wireframing tools and head off to business school. This is overkill.

But I do think that UXers should take the time to educate themselves in the basics of how businesses operate and organize themselves. Maybe shift the spotlight of their view point a bit more over to the other silo.

And UX consultancies and other organisations; the next time someone shows up at your door step with an MBA under their belt, give them a chance, they may just surprise you.

There is one key reason why I love professional wrestling: seeing that one moment where I can still suspend disbelief.

After reading two articles about what designers can learn from Ghandi and the Red Baron, I thought, wrestling taught me a lot more than this! So, what can designers learn from Professional Wrestling; a set of guys running around in their underwear? Actually a tremendous amount. I’ll share three key insights. Prepare yourself and set aside your judgements that this is white trash entertainment.

1. The Story

This is the most important part is wrestling, as well as design. In wrestling, without a story, you have just two guys rubbing eachother in their underwear, which is less than exciting. The story is what people buy into and makes them tune in. A great story has people wanting to see what happens next. You see the same thing in design. When you present to a client, executive, or team, you don’t present just a design; you present a story. You tell them how everything is set up and how it has all fallen into place; sharing the problems and the opportunities within this design. You tell them why the design matters and find that hook to pull your client in.

Walking into a client with no story is inviting them to give their opinion and random comments. Setting the stage for a story focuses their feedback. It gives them rails. It tells them you have a vision and a rationale and end point with the design. It empowers you with more to control over the direction and outcome of the design.

2. The Promo and art of selling

One of the most important parts of getting a story across in wrestling is the promo. You can have an amazing story and amazing wrestling, but without the ability to connect to the audience, it’s useless. If you can’t make people buy into the story and believe it, you’ll go no where. How many times have we all seen great designs crushed. Part of our role when we go in and present, is to take ideas, protect them, bring life to them, and sell them. Get the design, the potential and the story across to the client. Being dynamic and connecting in presentations is just as critical as the design itself. Not only that, but you have to believe in what you’re selling. You have to buy into your own story, you can’t just fake your way through a great presentation.

The best wrestling promos are the ones that are extensions of personalities. It’s the same with presenting your designs. The best designs are the ones that are extensions of what you love. Why would a client buy into something if you can’t even believe it. You have to be excited and enjoy what you do, because if you don’t, why would other people?

I can never stress how important it is to be a great presenter, and be “on” each time you’re in front of a client, no matter how simple the presentation may be. It’s something I see a lot of designers drop the ball on because they see the designs as selling themselves. The bad news is most often, they don’t.

3. The Patterns and spots

After watching wrestling for 20 years, and training (yes, I trained) for a few years, you learn there are patterns and spots. To simplify, patterns are common elements and spots are usually predefined moves that wrestlers have worked out before the match. Patterns are used to develop the way matches are put together.  Spots often represent a high point in a match to get the crowd moving.

Both regular patterns, and the ability to break patterns when needed are critical in great matches. In our design world, we hear about patterns non-stop. Desktop patterns, mobile patterns, gesture patterns… and we stick to those. We’ve heard presentations and read articles on those. Then we see new designs that come along and twist them or break them and create a new pattern. Or create a one-off for their design; but it works. We can’t always be a slave to patterns or we just end up the same as everyone else, but using them is what makes it comfortable and soothing. Just remember that sometimes we need to throw things out and say “what are we going to do for this to support our story, our goals, and how do we make people fall in love with this”. Don’t be afraid to change even the most common elements.

A spot, by contrast, a more of a signature element. A unique piece that brings the design together. You have the story, you’re presenting it, and now it’s time to pull out the piece that people cheer for. Most wrestlers have spots they perform exclusively. These are their signature moves, and out of respect, other wrestlers don’t do them. In the design world. This is like the animated control on the Path mobile application, or the genie window effect on a Mac. Moments that those designs are known for. In each story, and subsequent design you create, what are your signature elements? What are the moments that people see in your design that they connect to emotionally. That they do a little cheer for when it happens and they tell other people about about. Don’t have any? I’d recommend thinking a little more.

In closing, when you need inspiration for design, it’s not always looking at Apple or the obviously products that are there. Look for the non-obvious sources and what they can teach you. Pull from everything and bring something no one else has to the table.

From Adaptive Path’s Managing Experience 2010 conference.

Duration: 44 minutes

Managing Experience
Peter’s site

Today on Radio Johnny Jeff Parks talks with Fam Mirza, Founder & Executive Creative Director of Mirza Minds. Fam Mirza has had his work in the Superbowl halftime show, and national TV, in addition to working with several artists in the music industry formulating event concepts & marketing strategies; most recently with Sean P. Diddy Combs. Fam Mirza shares his insights about the importance of simplicity in the creation of successful events and experiences through engaging stories – including the 1 Face Watch – an initiative designed to promote awareness and raise funds to help solve health and environmental issues the world over.

Quotes

“It’s interesting to see in such an advanced age simplicity is still key. Not only in product designs, event concepts but also in user interfaces because no matter how advanced our society gets, the user will always want a fully functional and easy to use product – that’s just human nature.”

“Marshall Ganz is a professor at Harvard and he was also responsible for putting together the organizational model for President Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign…his storytelling method uses the story of ‘us’, the story of ‘self’ and the story of ‘now’ to tell a story and create change. It provokes the listener to take action!”

“A product is a product but once you put a story behind it now it’s more than a product. The story is the bridge that you can use to connect with the consumer and that should be the goal of any organization right now – to socialize a product.”

“The 1 Face Project is a mirror face watch – so you can see your face in it – the mission statement behind it is: ‘Changing the world – one face at a time!’ Each colour of the watch represents a different cause. The black is for Cancer. The white is for Poverty. The clear is for Water. The blue is for Climate Change. The red is for Heart Disease. The pink is for Breast Cancer. The proceeds go to their respective charities to create change in the world.”

Notes

* 1 Face Watch
* Mirza Minds design agency
* Follow Fam Mirza on Twitter