What 'Doodlers' and 'Coders' can teach Business about Experience Design

What Doodlers and <coders> can teach Business about Experience Design

Who is this? Candy (with a ‘WHY?’) Bernhardt , known for questioning business about strategy and goals currently Sr UX Architect @ Nokia

Candy as a < web> Designer … CAR RENTALS @ travelocity.com Current Car Rental Detail Page on travelocity.com Capacity icons Vendor-specific Photos & Upsell Current Car Rental List Page on travelocity.com Icons for Airport Location & Hassle See both counter prices & rates Basic car type illustrations & standard names Concept and test UI that is equal or better than competition. Differentiate the UI so it may be service marked. UX goal: Highlight better upsell offers, based on needs

Candy as a < web> Designer … CAR RENTALS @ travelocity.com Current Car Rental Detail Page on travelocity.com Vendor-specific Photos & Upsell Current Car Rental List Page on travelocity.com Icons for Airport Location & Hassle See both counter prices & rates Concept and test UI that is equal or better than competition. Differentiate the UI so it may be service marked. UX goal: Highlight better upsell offers, based on needs

Candy as an Information </Architect>… FLIGHTS @ travelocity.com Current TotalFlights SM displayon travelocity.com Current Fare Note popup on travelocity.com Ability to highlight unique contextual features with popup details Travel Time does vary by plane type, route and stops. Seat price availability window Concept and test UI that is equal or better than competition. Differentiate the UI so it may be service marked. UX goal: Highlight differentiators beyond price commodity Note: Information Designers are Doodlers , too!

Candy as an Information </Architect>… FLIGHTS @ travelocity.com Current TotalFlights SM display on travelocity.com Current Fare Note popup on travelocity.com Ability to highlight unique contextual features with popup details Travel Time does vary by plane type, route and stops. Seat message Concept and test UI that is equal or better than competition. Differentiate the UI so it may be service marked. UX goal: Highlight differentiators beyond price commodity

Candy as a Product Marketer… Candy’s UX Goal: Let the Powerhouse Talent Do Their Thing Agree on the vision and basic direction. Prepare to review amazing prototypes created when you stay out of the way! $ teve Brewer “Coding Powerhouse & Technical Business Czar” Travis Isaacs “Awesome Dude -ler” radiotime.com/mobile radiotime.com/partners/yahoo radiotime.com/partners Concerned with product categories, channels, advertising, partners, competitors, consumer readiness… LISTEN & RECORD WORLDWIDE AM/FM RADIO @ radiotime.com

What this talk is about: What’s “Experience Design” really ? Common misunderstandings in Business and ‘UI’ people How ‘Personality’ can help define solutions Other helpful resources to bridge the gap Why talk about it? Business may underestimate the differentiation from ‘wild’ Designer and Developer ideas because they have limited their own scope and competitiveness.

What’s Experience Design? In commercial use, it means defining or creating positive and memorable interactions – whether online or offline -- between people and a brand, product, or service. Experience designers identify existing touchpoints , create new ones , and craft ways to produce a focused, desired outcome . Adapted slightly from wikipedia

cre⋅a⋅tive –adjective Having the quality or power of creating. Resulting from originality of thought, expression, etc.; imaginative: creative writing. Originative; productive Using or creating exaggerated or skewed data, information, etc.: creative bookkeeping.

How can Doodlers & Coders have the same mindset? “ At best, it’s a common awareness , a thread that ties together people from different disciplines who care about good design , and who realize today’s increasingly complex design challenges require the synthesis of different varieties of design expertise.” Louis Rosenfeld on the practice of Designing Experiences - publisher at Rosenfeld Media and author of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web

12 Traits of a Great Interaction Designer Explain, present and create interactions and ideas that are conceptual . Broadly shape how people use products and services, but get compulsive over the little details that make them great. Work furiously and productively without ever touching a computer. Create sparks that can't be visualized in a static mock-up or screen. Have the ability to implement ideas, not just tell people how to do them . Understand computers and digital interactions, but spend just as much time uncovering other interesting things in life. ‘ Do' more than 'observe’ , and even more than 'say'. Care more about how people feel using a product or service than the 'right' way to use them. Are light blue collar- craftsman and salesman merged into one . Speak geek (work with engineers), tell stories (gab about marketing) and help businesses make money (sit in the big-kids meetings). Love challenges , thrive in unknowns and win teams over with results. Get excited about the smell of new sharpies (or new product and service challenges). Bryan Zmijewski - zurb.com blog

What this talk is about: What’s “Experience Design” really ? Common misunderstandings in Business and ‘UI’ people See the Business Perspective See the Creative Perspective A Typical Conversation Some Advice Getting Common Ground How ‘Personality’ can help define solutions Other helpful resources to bridge the gap

Meet the Business Mindset Possible Roles Owner Product…. … Marketing … What they look like Dressed Sharply May be in a lot of meetings Typically worried Terms used Fixed/ Variable costs Opportunity cost Maintenance fees Competition Speed to market Deals & Contracts Measures ROI : Return on Investment Proven Performance

Business Challenges Feeling useful and smart in creating solutions Staying in budget Meeting projected targets Getting an edge on competitors Find it difficult to measure and blindly trust what is heard from Tech & Design They have other people to convince, too!

HARSH </truth> Experience Design can make or break the relevancy of your Marketing. Consumer opinion (trust) depends on your business being transparent, coherent, and genuine.

Meet the Creative Mindset Possible Roles Artist Designer Developer Engineer … UX… What they look like Jeans Clever shirt designs Unique sneakers Their terms Users Scenarios and Tasks ‘ best practice’ Design & Flow Their measures Code standards Accessibility User testing Coolness Aesthetics

Creative Challenges Getting credibility with Business Flexibility and budget to do a job really well The unfulfilled promise of ‘Phase 2’

Harsh </ Truths> There’s no Holy Grail of Experience Design without some level of relationship building or Business understanding. Change takes time in most organizations and people You must have a business advocate to get it done at all Even startups can get in their own way and shelve great ideas You may be wrong! Get whatever user feedback you can to make sure your hypothesis can be proven or disproven.

A familiar scenario…. We’re really excited to work on this project! Okay, well let’s start a list of features and go from there I just want it like… copy.com

When UI Questions & Presents Ideas… What Biz people hear : “ What are you trying to achieve?” when they feel they have been clear “ Check out this cool, new…” which probably costs more “ There are several ways we can address that…” meaning there is flexibility Buzz terms like convergence, web services, software as a service, cloud computing, and various technical acronyms. Sounds smart, but no context. What Business should keep in mind : Be specific about your budget and desired outcome The features you have imagined may not be the best way to address your real goals Don’t be afraid to collaborate on a vision and inspire with a few examples and walk away Expect to get questions about your goals, likes, dislikes and why. Talented creatives will not support blindly copying another site’s features. You get what you pay for.

General Advice for Business Stay a bit open-minded. Design thinking is different from Finance and Marketing. Ask broader questions to walk through the creative mindset’s thinking process. It may lead to a surprise innovation. A creative genius is bound to be passionate and argumentative from time-to-time. It actually means they are good at what they do. Allow the flexibility to test new ideas that go against your own to ensure you are on track.

When Business Speaks… What Creatives hear: “ There’s no time or budget for that” “ That’s a ‘Nice-to-have’ or enhancement-- not business critical” “ Do it like…[some other company]” What Creatives should keep in mind : Business usually doesn’t understand what is ‘easy’, ‘hard’, or ‘new’ for you to build, but do care about $MONEY$ They assume that NEW or different means more money and more risk Business thinks they will ‘know it when they see it’, even though they may not (because they are usually not the target consumer). Gently help them understand that by teaching through examples Feedback is not a personal attack or lack of respect, but an opportunity to gather requirements which you can use to educate them later.

When Business Speaks… What to do : Expect to research links and/or prototypes to demonstrate live action Try to keep some excitement contained. It can scare them off. Create visuals that compare features side-by-side or before & after Explain your supportive reasoning as best you can without being argumentative or showing much agitation Beware of blank smiling and nodding, you could be using jargon they don’t understand Write down exact quotes from business to deconstruct and address again later What to say : Use general terms of high, low, and medium for level of effort and impact (usually different things) to help manage scope. Reframe requirements (yours and theirs) in terms of how they support project goals. Validity of how to do it can be tested later. Make up your own vision statement as you gather their goals.

General Advice for Creatives Stay a bit (respectfully) stubborn, but don’t address your difference in belief the same way every time. If you are right, there is bound to be more than one way to prove it or point it out. Really listen, and make sure you understand the business issues behind the objective. Find ways to illustrate why an approach may be better Pick your battles and make them small. Winning a series of small battles can make all the difference in building credibility.

DECODE: Some Basic Translation… Make it available to everyone = easy , <Accessible>, <CrossBrowser> maybe social … and I don’t really know who our target users are. Make it Pretty = Attractive to target users and justify the personality by helping me figure out who that is! Make it like… = I can’t verbalize my real goals or measures of success, so help me figure it out!

Get a Common Understanding What kind of site are you building? (The obvious questions… for whom? What’s the purpose? What’s your budget?) But HOW and to what level will the site communicate? What’s the personality? (Often overlooked and critical to a relationship with consumers)

Identify an Intended Level of Use

What this talk is about: What’s “Experience Design” really ? Common misunderstandings in Business and ‘UI’ people How ‘Personality’ can help define solutions What’s personality have to do with business? If you are going to be ‘like’ someone… Take a trip to the real world! Other helpful resources to bridge the gap

‘… most typical and deeply characteristic … [behavior] … about an individual that is distinctive and [which] sets apart from other[s]’ ‘ The reaction of other individuals to a person is what defines … personality’ Adapted from Theories of Personality (Wiley & Sons, 1970)

Result for jamin.org blog http://jamin.org/archives/2008/analyze-the-personality-of-your-blog/

Known techniques Personas to represent users Scenarios to represent tasks to accomplish Features to prioritize what to build Interesting conversation-starters Personas that represent business stakeholders Persona to represent the site personality

But what makes up personality!? What are your service ‘values’? How do you maintain service ‘authenticity’ in a way it remains useful and relevant? What is your company’s background or history? What attitude does your service convey? What age group and persuasion style best communicates your message?

Sites as High School Personalities? Smart Kid/Nerd – Know-it-All, “definitely smarter than me about what I should do”, A whiz, Go-to person for a specific answer Features: Think “Amazon” or “Google” Requires logic, but makes it look easy Note: Not easy or cheap to achieve!

Sites as High School Personalities? Class Favorite – Sociable, open, conversational, smart, but accepting and authentic, inclusive People tend to look forward to communication and typically are in awe but in a comfortable way . Possible site features: RSS OpenID, Facebook Connect Forums and comments blogs

Other High School Personalities? Average Joe – Know a lot of people, but not extremely well. Blends in with the crowd ‘ What’s their name ’? – Emo or Goth. A Drab crowd blender . Really doesn’t want to stand out, but does stand out in a bad way. Class clowns – whether Cheeky or Campy, good for entertainment, like YouTube Bullies – porn pop-ups Fake people – Ads that pretend to be real sites Drop outs – Had a lot of potential, but left the game :: Pownce 

Rethink ‘Best’ Practices as Common What is common is not differentiation. Take the time to get to know the business context and represent it authentically – not just technically or from the current business position. As an example… DONUT storefronts

The Krispy Difference A real world example of attention to detail and authenticity… Where a doughnut becomes craftsmanship.

Bring out what’s unique Appeal to special audiences

What this talk is about: What’s “Experience Design” really ? Common misunderstandings in Business and ‘UI’ people How ‘Personality’ can help define solutions Other helpful resources to bridge the gap

Books I’m reading Fascinating techniques for compromise and negotiation across cultural gaps. Great book for anyone wanting to build support for selling ideas

Conferences & Associations I’m the 2009 Local IxDA Coordinator. Look for a website soon-ish! March in Austin, TX! 1 day local event in Dallas, TX Sat, May 30 th more details to come!

That’s All Folks! Thanks  twitter / flickr / slideshare / facebook : digitalcandy

What 'Doodlers' and 'Coders' can teach Business about Experience Design

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