February 2013
1 post
“Finally, in contrast to the fast paced world of minimal design where the mantra...”
– The Four Waves of User-Centered Design | UX Magazine
January 2013
1 post
November 2012
0 posts
WatchA video sketch envisioning the Firefox start page UI on Windows 8 using the Metro UI.
August 2012
1 post
March 2012
1 post
my most favorited tweet from MX Conference
UX managers design the process not the product. #mxconf12 Ian Swinson
— brandon schauer (@brandonschauer) March 5, 2012
February 2012
1 post
You've heard of 'Peak Oil.' What about 'Peak TV'?
Peak Oil is the idea that one day (soon) the world will top out on the amount of oil it can extract from the earth and it will start a decline. Maybe TV might soon hit its own peak where it’s no longer guaranteed engagement with an audience.
NYTimes covers a recent study showing that while TV is still American’s favorite pastime, use of the TV for entertainment is suddenly starting to...
October 2011
4 posts
The Business Case For (Or Against) Service Design
Today at the Service Design Network Conference in San Francisco I presented the Business Case For (Or Against) Service Design.
I care about service design because I come at it as a leader of an organization that design services for our clients. Therefore, it’s in my best interest to know how and why it delivers real value. The more value it creates, the more organization will seek out, use, and...
Q: who's designing services? A: not service...
I wanted to better pose the question that I ended yesterday’s post on market sizing for service design. Here goes:
If roughly half-a-billion dollars is spent on the design and planning of services in the U.S., then why are service designers only doing $70 million of that work? (And for the record, I think this is an extremely conservative guess at the total market size.)
I think the...
market sizing for service design, round 2
Based on some prior fact-finding, I constructed the following two estimates of the total U.S. market for service design, in dollars. They’re very rough, but the only attempt I’ve seen at doing it.
First, a top-down evaluation of the market size. This estimate works from the size of the U.S. service economy down to how much a subset of businesses would spend on planning and designing...
market sizing for service design
In preparation for my talk at the upcoming Service Design Global Conference I’ve been taking a stab at sizing the U.S. market for service design. Here’s the start of what I’ve turned up:
What’s the size of the U.S. service economy?
Even as early as 1999, services accounted for roughly 80% of the U.S. economy [source: U.S. Department of Commerce report]...
September 2011
1 post
Knobs, Buttons, & Dials: A Brief History of NASA's... →
Here’s my wife’s presentation on the evolution of interaction design, devices, and culture at NASA Johnson Space Center’s Mission Control Center. There’s some great stories about precursors to email, IM, and other technologies, as well as how interactions evolved — or didn’t — in the change from analog to digital
#proud
July 2011
1 post
top 5 themes most critical to UX this year
Some friends chairing a conference asked me today what I though the top 5 themes would be most critical to UX over the coming year. I said:
designing for mobile as the primary digital channel
experiences that bridge two channels — I used to say ‘web plus one channel,’ but it might be moving to ‘mobile plus one channel’
designing for and managing through the explosion of...
March 2011
1 post
8 rules to being a better manager
Usually when you read guidance on management and HR it’s a lot of conjecture. That’s what I like about Google’s research on 8 good behaviors of managers — its based on Google-style rigorous analysis of data. They poured through review data and interviews to find out what made a good boss at Google.
Here’s the 8 good behaviors of managers:
Be a good coach
Empower your...
February 2011
2 posts
restaurants on agile?
Something about the NYTime’s article “The Perfect Menu. Now Chang It.” makes me think of agile or kaizen:
Park Avenue Winter/Spring/Summer/Fall, a restaurant in New York, has completely transformed its menu and dining room every three months since June 2007. Craig Koketsu, the executive chef, says that the changeover now takes just two days because every dish is minutely...
5 tags
more on the little secret to product planning:...
Last week I posted this video on the Adaptive Path blog, showing the value that a cupcake mentality can bring to successful product planning:
I’ve found this cake metaphor to be a powerful concept because:
Everyone feels the pressure to get results quickly — whether the challenge is moving a business metric or responding to competition, everyone feels the need to make an impact in...
December 2010
1 post
Communicating experiences? Be visual →
Even the New York Times needs more than words to successfully communicate a customer experience. In an article about web retailers bullying customers, they used this comic to get it right.
November 2010
2 posts
4 tags
what normal people want from tv
I talked with Peter Merholz following his talk at the New TeeVee conference on What Normal People Want From TV:
I asked Peter about the reported rise in behaviors where people will both watch TV and use their computer simultaneously:
“A recent Nielsen study found that consumers now spend on average 3 hours and 41 minutes per month watching TV and browsing the Internet simultaneously...
October 2010
14 posts
“There are no easy answers for content publishers right now, which is why in some...”
– Khoi Vinh on My iPad Magazine Stand pointed to by @henningfischer
2 tags
“Designers become machine nerds. Machines define what you can do. That and...”
– Zero History by William Gibson
2 tags
Positional good: 'How much do I need?’ vs. 'I want...
I love behavioral economics because the field defines helpful concepts for understanding humans behaving as humans; oh, and they often back it with real empirical research, not just opinion. The better we understand how we behave the better we can design for good outcomes.
An example of such a concept from the Rotman Magazine’s Q&A interview with Dan Ariely, the behavioral economist:
...
3 tags
The two smart pieces of Amazon's approach to...
@Peterme pointed out this great Q&A thread on Quora on “What is Amazon’s approach to product development and product management?”
There’s two great ideas here that I push all the time with clients, internally at Adaptive Path, and when I teach and speak:
Working backwards — working backwards from the customer rather than starting with a product then trying to make it...
2 tags
William Gibson narrative on the commoditization of...
I’ve been thinking a bit on the commoditization of common (user-centered) design practices. Overall, it’s a good thing that organizations more often think about their services with the customer in the forefront. Practice-wise, it clearly means we can push farther ahead.
I’m reading William Gibson’s Zero History novel, and enjoyed this exchanges between the wealthy and...
“Starr insists that companies he funds can express their mission statement in...”
– The Eight-Word Mission Statement, reported by Eric Hellweg of HBR
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something,...”
– Buckminster Fuller (via jeanphony)
WatchOne day an email thread at Adaptive Path went a litte off the rails. It was worth making a little movie about it: smile with your eyes.
I also enjoyed dusting off the video skills. It’s so damn easy to throw something together. We should be prototyping experiences in movies ALL THE TIME. Telling little stories until we get them right.
“He always looked at things from the perspective of what was the user’s...”
– John Sculley: The Secrets of Steve Jobs’ Success | Cult of Mac
“Anyone who’s done serious iPhone development can tell you there’s a...”
– How much does it cost to develop an iPhone application? - Stack Overflow
WatchEvery year I host MX, a conference on managing and leading experiences. It’s for the people who have advanced in their career to managing experiences and teams. It’s these people talking frankly about what works, what doesn’t, and what we have to invent as we move ahead.
If this is for you, then come join us. And use FOBS code for 15% off. This year MX is March 6-7.
WatchAt Failcon 2009, I shared my thoughts on how smart design failures can begat success in the presentation design failures are part of success. This is the forth of four experience hacks that I shared.
January 2010
1 post
4 tags
designing for experiences across channels
This is some early and raw thinking I’ve been doing about designing and delivering experiences successfully across many touchpoints.
Organizations are channel-bound. Customers aren’t. This outlines components and practices necessary to deliver great customer experiences across more than a single channel.
With the proliferation of new screens and new moments in peoples’ lives, it’s natural...
October 2009
1 post
2 tags
4 experience hacks
Can you significant improve a customer experience simply by following a few simple procedures? That’s what I’m going to explore for an upcoming talk at Failcon in San Francisco.
No it’s not ideal No, I don’t think that you can simply follow a few recipes and create a mind-blowing customer experience. That takes culture, leadership, vision, and other through-and-through elements that go to the...
July 2009
1 post
1 tag
Should there be a calorie symbol?
California recently passed a law requirement restaurants with more than 20 chains to post the calorie content of their food on menus and interior menu boards.
It’s a smart law, but it brings up an interesting issue: there’s no simple symbol for the calorie unit. This will clutter up boards and menus with “Cal.” listed all over the place. It seems like there’s a growing need for a calorie...
February 2009
1 post
1 tag
Are goals the way to change?
We’ve all heard JFK’s goal to send an man to the moon within the decade. At workplaces, we use goals to set targets and motivate each other. I myself am very goal oriented. But theWharton School of Business has a great reviewof a new paper by Lisa D. Ordóñez from the Eller College of Management and Adam D. Galinsky of the Kellogg School of Management titled, “Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side...
November 2008
1 post
1 tag
Obama’s O: not the first idea
From the New York Times’ Campaign Stops blog, who interviewed Sol Sender, graphic designer of the Barack Obama ‘O’ logo:
Q: How many iterations did you go through before deciding on this “O”? Was it your first idea?
A: We actually presented seven or eight options in the first round, and the one that was ultimately chosen was among these. In terms of our internal process, though, I believe...
October 2008
2 posts
1 tag
Ideas are cheap. Have a lot of them.
This past week at CanUX I presented sketchboards, a low-fi technique that makes it possible for designers to explore and evaluate a range of interaction concepts. One thing we worked on was using a template that accommodates the sketching of 6 ideas. Here’s an example:
After some sketching on a problem, I asked the audience to tell me which sketch captured their best idea (the first, second,...
2 tags
Sketchboards at CanUX
I’m lucky to have the pleasure of spending several days at CanUX in Banff, Alberta, plus getting the chance to present the skethboards method with the great folks at the conference. Here’s a sample of what I’m sharing:
the slides (PDF)
the templates (PPT)
and a rough iphone template (PDF)
And here’s a quick list of the references I might be dropping during the session:
The sketchboards...
September 2008
1 post
2 tags
open sourcing prosthetics
We have open source browsers, operating systems, and other digital solutions, but it’s heartening to see open source also make it into physical products. October’sScientific American covers the Open Prosthetics Project, a clearinghouse for free new designs for better prosthetics. (Just think of groups of people swapping and checking in CAD files instead of pieces of code.)
All started by...
July 2008
1 post
1 tag
startup spaces
Need a startup idea? Venture firm Y Combinator has already done some of the intial thinking for you, classifying the spaces in which they’d like to see startup ideas. Some of my favorites from their list:
9. Photo/video sharing services. A lot of the most popular sites on the web are for photo sharing. But the sites classified as social networks are also largely about photo sharing. As much...
May 2008
1 post
2 tags
Peter focuses on experience with Businessweek
This week Peter talked with BusinessWeekreporter Matt Vella about Subject to Change and the approaches necessary for focusing on experience as the product you deliver to customers.
On of my favorite points from the podcast was on lessons learned from our recent Managing Experience Conference. Peter put together patterns he was hearing from design leaders like Cordell Ratzlaff of Cisco and Chip...
April 2008
2 posts
4 tags
Don Norman’s “one perfect book”
Over the past year-plus, I’ve been working on a book with my colleagues Perter Merholz, David Verba, andTodd Wilkens. The result is an interesting take on how organizations can embrace both the emerging and the long-held concepts behind research, design, and agile development to become more nimble and prepare to succeed in an uncertain future. We called it Subject to Change.
We’re glad to see...
2 tags
background on ‘the long wow’ at the IASummit
Tomorrow at the IASummit I’ll be presenting on The Long Wow, a systematic approach for building great customer experiences that lead to real customer loyalty. It’s one of three approaches to practicing design differently that I outline in Adaptive Path’s new book Subject to Change. This is a talk that I have a lot of fun with, so I’ll looking forward to doing it.
The premise of these three...
March 2008
1 post
4 tags
designers should talk about failure
There are thousands of case studies where design leads to success. But what about the cases where design leads to failure? These cases get swept under the rug and never talked about. So we never learn.
I was inspired by this when reading Jonathan Baldwin’s post about designers needing to take responsibility for the fault of Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport. Imagine what might be learned if the...
February 2008
1 post
2 tags
Geek Squad takes creative where it isn’t
Geek Squad started with one college drop out, a car with a logo, and a lot of creativity. Founder and Chief Inspector Robert Stephens just spoke at “Customer Service is the New Marketing,” Sataisfaction’s one-day conference in SF.
Robert dropped out once from tech school and then again from art school. But between the two he seemed to gain a deep appreciation of the difference between...
January 2008
2 posts
3 tags
Researching the designers: Where Stuff Comes From
I’ve been diving back into a book I set aside a while back — Where Stuff Comes From by sociologist Harvey Molotch. It’s insightful because it’s a review of the design industry from the view of an outsider. His review of “how things come to be” dispassionately confirms many things you knew to be true but may not have heard said so simply. Some excerpts from just the first 3 chapters:
“Most...
1 tag
our broken story of stuff
Annie Leonard’s flash video on the Story of Stuff puts all the things you probably knew about our world system of production and consumption into a straightforward 20-minute video that shows how broken this system really is.
Just a few excerpts:
our national identity has become one of consumers; not teachers or farmers, but of consumers. After 9/11, Bush told us to shop.
only 1% of the...
December 2007
1 post
3 tags
The year in ideas — for UX, strategy, and fun
In the New York Times Magazine’s 7th Annual Year in Ideas I found a few interesting experience and strategy related ideas:
Two-Birds-With-One-Stone Resistance Multipurpose tools are less likely to be selected by people for real-world tasks. It’s explained that, “connecting one tool or method to multiple goals weakens the mental association between that means and any one goal.” So remember that...
