Saturday, October 31, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Companies with a VP of UX
One of Donald Norman's most interesting commands in his interview with Peter Merholz, of Adaptive path, is this: "Start being Vice Presidents".
I chuckled since it's not as if collectively all UX designers are thumbing our noses at the idea.
"Yeah I got another VP job offer. It's so annoying."
"Tell me about it. This executive recruiter followed me to lunch yesterday & paid for it while trying to sell me on his small, highly profitable start-up"
"Crazy"
"Yeah"
Then it struck me: who has a VP UX today?
Google, duh.
I wasn't so sure about Apple. It's harder to tell. Ex-Apple executive, Don Lindsay was tapped for a VP UX position at Research in Motion. In any case, Apple has a laser beam focus on UX through their design process, it certainly sounds like UX is ingrained in the culture. In any case, they both encourage creativity, UX design, testing, and metrics.
So what companies put UX on the same platform as Engineering, Human Resources, Finance, etc?
Vice presidents in User Experience
I tracked down over 500 VP UX's using linkedIn search but the following handful seemed the most significant as many of these companies are thought leaders & highly profitable businesses.
Wells Fargo
Sarah Bellrichard Vice President, User Experience Research & Design at [LinkedIn]
Google
Marissa Mayer, Vice President, Search Products & User Experience [Google's bio | LinkedIn ]
TiVo
Margaret Schmidt, Vice President of User Experience Design and Research [ Harvard Business Publishing article]
Palm
Matias Duarte Vice President of Human Interface and User Experience [UX Week 2009 interview | LinkedIn]
I chuckled since it's not as if collectively all UX designers are thumbing our noses at the idea.
"Yeah I got another VP job offer. It's so annoying."
"Tell me about it. This executive recruiter followed me to lunch yesterday & paid for it while trying to sell me on his small, highly profitable start-up"
"Crazy"
"Yeah"
Then it struck me: who has a VP UX today?
Google, duh.
I wasn't so sure about Apple. It's harder to tell. Ex-Apple executive, Don Lindsay was tapped for a VP UX position at Research in Motion. In any case, Apple has a laser beam focus on UX through their design process, it certainly sounds like UX is ingrained in the culture. In any case, they both encourage creativity, UX design, testing, and metrics.
So what companies put UX on the same platform as Engineering, Human Resources, Finance, etc?
Vice presidents in User Experience
I tracked down over 500 VP UX's using linkedIn search but the following handful seemed the most significant as many of these companies are thought leaders & highly profitable businesses.
Wells Fargo
Sarah Bellrichard Vice President, User Experience Research & Design at [LinkedIn]
Marissa Mayer, Vice President, Search Products & User Experience [Google's bio | LinkedIn ]TiVo
Margaret Schmidt, Vice President of User Experience Design and Research [ Harvard Business Publishing article]Palm
Matias Duarte Vice President of Human Interface and User Experience [UX Week 2009 interview | LinkedIn]
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
If 40 hours a week isn't enough...
In case you long for the love you get from your taskbar when your away from the machine, MySuiteStuff provides a constant reminder about what you do for a living with these Adobe pillows. It's a great way to announce "Here's what I do for work" to tech savvy visitors. For those less up on the tools of the designer trade, maybe they'll think think of elements on the periodic table in a foreign language.Seems a more modern interpretation of occupational figurine. Makes a great gift because it won't be in your house. :P
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
UX 101
These sites are regular stops for many UX designers. If they aren't they should be.
A sampling of the kinds of articles a UX designer might read:
Top ten info architecture mistakes Avoid bad “flow”
Article on meganavigation menus They’re big & they work
Information seeking modes Sure, you've thought about how users find something...but how do they find it again? Information seeking models for search.
Tufte’s article on labeling images Direct labeling is better then any kind of mapping
Behavior around system response time good for knowing when to have a spinner & when users will start multitasking
Making design patterns all web companies should have a style guide or page templates at minimum, but whipping one ups isn't exactly easy. Some pitfalls to avoid.
- Smashing Magazine usually visually beautiful & often useful
- Adaptive Path employee blogs, conference videos, conference downloads, podcasts, the list goes on.
- Boxes and Arrows articles & discussions
- User Interface Engineering academic tack
- Use It I've always liked this site's plain Jane approach
- Ask ET articles & discussions lead by Edward Tufte
A sampling of the kinds of articles a UX designer might read:
Top ten info architecture mistakes Avoid bad “flow”
Article on meganavigation menus They’re big & they work
Information seeking modes Sure, you've thought about how users find something...but how do they find it again? Information seeking models for search.
Tufte’s article on labeling images Direct labeling is better then any kind of mapping
Behavior around system response time good for knowing when to have a spinner & when users will start multitasking
Making design patterns all web companies should have a style guide or page templates at minimum, but whipping one ups isn't exactly easy. Some pitfalls to avoid.
Friday, October 2, 2009
my iPhone and me
I have two complaints about the iPhone:
One awesome thing about iPhones is that if you've got a great app idea, can make it happen, & deal with the Apple approval process, it will end up in the iTunes store. My coworker, Mark Allen, created an iPhone App called Loupe which allows you to nab colors you see in the real world & add them to a pallet. iPhone users can now put the crisp colors of the Golden Gate on a beautiful day to create an inspired website, logo, living room, anything with a color scheme.
- I still forget it's more than a phone I'll pull out my computer before correcting myself & choosing the little elegant solution.
- I don't have it with me all the time I recently thought "oooh! I should record this....where's my phone?" and since it was in the other room, I skipped it
One awesome thing about iPhones is that if you've got a great app idea, can make it happen, & deal with the Apple approval process, it will end up in the iTunes store. My coworker, Mark Allen, created an iPhone App called Loupe which allows you to nab colors you see in the real world & add them to a pallet. iPhone users can now put the crisp colors of the Golden Gate on a beautiful day to create an inspired website, logo, living room, anything with a color scheme.
Friday, September 25, 2009
UX Week 2009 in a nutshell
I have to gush some about Adaptive Path. They're professional, smart, and they deeply understand product management, content, & UX Design. I love how their workshops engage & connect professionals. I've learned so much about project management, presenting, engaging customers & coworkers.
My history with Adaptive Path Conferences...
My first AP workshop, was in Seattle I met the guys from Grupthink (a unique & early crowd source web app that unlike yahoo answers, is totally subjective & allows fun participation...Check out a great & not uncommon Grupthink post: What's the best construction achievement in world's architecture and engineering?). They were technical people with an awesome understanding of how to use AJAX for great UX, were fun & from Montana. Aside from meeting great people, I was exposed to excellent uses of AJAX in several web applications, how to do a content inventory & how to prioritize projects (one method anyway).
My second AP workshop was equally social & educational. I met the writer a great blog called InspireUX which I've mentioned before. Also, I gained a deep understanding how facets, taxonomies, terminology, and language structure can help people find things online (aka Search), even when they aren't sure of the product name. I remember the presenter, Branden Schaur threw rubber ducks at participants, which was fun.
This was my first UX week. The difference between UX week and other adaptive path workshops lies within the structure. UX week divides most days, save for the last day which is all presentations, into both lectures and workshops. Presentations can come from both Adaptive Path employees and industry leaders. One notable aspect of all three experiences was how far participants traveled. I met folks from all over, including: Europe, China, and the East Coast. That speaks volumes about the quality.
Highlight Reel
Here's a summary of only the most memorable portions for me
1. A general theme: Wireframes fail in UX because they don't capture the interactivity and require lots of explaining or hand-waving. As interaction design goes, they often don't cut the mustard & we need to rethink these deliverables.
2. A continued frustration: In casual discussions with many UX designers, it seems the field is still frustrated with their respective organizations methods for integrating UX into their process. Save for companies who approach UX as it's own business arm like Google, Apple, and surprisingly Wells Fargo, who have VP UX positions or companies that have UX well-integrated into their process at all levels like Mint.com and most well-run design firms, many folks still feel like the tech industry is lagging, knowing they want a strong UX but not having a deep understanding of what that means to the organizational structure or process. Worse, some companies still haven't gotten past seeing UX more as visual design & layout and the product managers not just owning the features but the interactions & structure that make them work. :(
3. Workshop 1: Sketching - Rachel Glaves
UX professionals should sketch more...it's low cost, allows one to provide several ideas before getting more high fidelity. We talked about sketching UX design patterns and used a variety of markers each designated with a different purpose:
4. Workshop 2: Prototyping - Dan Harrelson
960 degrees offers fun ajax web page templates which allow quick prototyping. This is only for designers willing to get their hands dirty. But the variety of tools like Omnigraffle, Axure, and good old Powerpoint, to name a few (Dan Harrelson provides many more here) makes it a lot easier. We used modified 960 grid system files and in less than an hour, we all had something to show which was interactive
4. Scott McCloud: was great, in part, because I love comic storytellers like Lynda Barry, I really enjoyed Scott McCloud's presentation. He provides tons of quick movement in his slides which is fun to watch. Better than me telling you, you should jsut check out his lecture.
5. Temple Grandin: I've read some of her work and certainly there's a lot to learn from Animal Science professor, Temple Grandin. As an autistic academic, she's got facinating insights into perception and cognition. Again, showing is better than telling in this case so here's University of California Television's video:
Other Attendee's Summaries
Alex Aitken took a stab at summarizing UX Week 2009 in a day-by-day approach
{ Day 1 }
{ Day 2 }
{ Day 3 }
{ Day 4 }
Dave Terry's photostream on Flickr provides a great visual approach
Related...
In Sum...
Conferences are a great break for the grind. I'm looking forward to the IA summit, which will be my first non-Adaptive Path conference. For me, Adaptive Path conferences disseminate very useful techniques and methods and the organization has made a name for itself as a thought leader--creating & sharing best practices for UX design. UX design is a really great field to be in today as more and more organizations & leaders come to understand not just what UX is, but how to engage a UX team so that the product & services that surround it, dazzle, delight, & surprise.
My history with Adaptive Path Conferences...
My first AP workshop, was in Seattle I met the guys from Grupthink (a unique & early crowd source web app that unlike yahoo answers, is totally subjective & allows fun participation...Check out a great & not uncommon Grupthink post: What's the best construction achievement in world's architecture and engineering?). They were technical people with an awesome understanding of how to use AJAX for great UX, were fun & from Montana. Aside from meeting great people, I was exposed to excellent uses of AJAX in several web applications, how to do a content inventory & how to prioritize projects (one method anyway).
My second AP workshop was equally social & educational. I met the writer a great blog called InspireUX which I've mentioned before. Also, I gained a deep understanding how facets, taxonomies, terminology, and language structure can help people find things online (aka Search), even when they aren't sure of the product name. I remember the presenter, Branden Schaur threw rubber ducks at participants, which was fun.This was my first UX week. The difference between UX week and other adaptive path workshops lies within the structure. UX week divides most days, save for the last day which is all presentations, into both lectures and workshops. Presentations can come from both Adaptive Path employees and industry leaders. One notable aspect of all three experiences was how far participants traveled. I met folks from all over, including: Europe, China, and the East Coast. That speaks volumes about the quality.
Highlight Reel
Here's a summary of only the most memorable portions for me
1. A general theme: Wireframes fail in UX because they don't capture the interactivity and require lots of explaining or hand-waving. As interaction design goes, they often don't cut the mustard & we need to rethink these deliverables.
2. A continued frustration: In casual discussions with many UX designers, it seems the field is still frustrated with their respective organizations methods for integrating UX into their process. Save for companies who approach UX as it's own business arm like Google, Apple, and surprisingly Wells Fargo, who have VP UX positions or companies that have UX well-integrated into their process at all levels like Mint.com and most well-run design firms, many folks still feel like the tech industry is lagging, knowing they want a strong UX but not having a deep understanding of what that means to the organizational structure or process. Worse, some companies still haven't gotten past seeing UX more as visual design & layout and the product managers not just owning the features but the interactions & structure that make them work. :(
3. Workshop 1: Sketching - Rachel Glaves
UX professionals should sketch more...it's low cost, allows one to provide several ideas before getting more high fidelity. We talked about sketching UX design patterns and used a variety of markers each designated with a different purpose:
- Thin black - first pass at elements
- Thick black - to call out more important elements
- Grey - De-emphasize background elements
- Yellow - highlight the one or the few things where you'd like to draw the viewer's attention
4. Workshop 2: Prototyping - Dan Harrelson
960 degrees offers fun ajax web page templates which allow quick prototyping. This is only for designers willing to get their hands dirty. But the variety of tools like Omnigraffle, Axure, and good old Powerpoint, to name a few (Dan Harrelson provides many more here) makes it a lot easier. We used modified 960 grid system files and in less than an hour, we all had something to show which was interactive
4. Scott McCloud: was great, in part, because I love comic storytellers like Lynda Barry, I really enjoyed Scott McCloud's presentation. He provides tons of quick movement in his slides which is fun to watch. Better than me telling you, you should jsut check out his lecture.
5. Temple Grandin: I've read some of her work and certainly there's a lot to learn from Animal Science professor, Temple Grandin. As an autistic academic, she's got facinating insights into perception and cognition. Again, showing is better than telling in this case so here's University of California Television's video:
Other Attendee's Summaries
Alex Aitken took a stab at summarizing UX Week 2009 in a day-by-day approach
{ Day 1 }
{ Day 2 }
{ Day 3 }
{ Day 4 }
Dave Terry's photostream on Flickr provides a great visual approach
Related...
In Sum...
Conferences are a great break for the grind. I'm looking forward to the IA summit, which will be my first non-Adaptive Path conference. For me, Adaptive Path conferences disseminate very useful techniques and methods and the organization has made a name for itself as a thought leader--creating & sharing best practices for UX design. UX design is a really great field to be in today as more and more organizations & leaders come to understand not just what UX is, but how to engage a UX team so that the product & services that surround it, dazzle, delight, & surprise.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
A leaf for the fall
I'm hard at work creating a ux week summary....& it's getting close. Just wanted to give you some Fall-colored eye content, thanks to another blog called Watercolor Ways
Thursday, September 17, 2009
I <3 Silverback
Silverback is my favorite tool for user testing screen & video capture.
Can it help you take electronic notes along the way? No.
Can you time tasks within the program? No.
So why do I like it?
It's easy, nimble, and cheap ($50!!! & 10% goes to a great cause). They make it easy by providing a free 30 day trial which is downloadable online.
Using Silverback has been a refreshing alternative to it's counterpart on the Microsoft platform, Techsmith's Morae. I don't want to knock Morae completely...it's got plenty of features. The most useful of which is a remote viewer so that coworkers and collaborators can view the product evaluations as they happen. But with a simple workaround? No contest.
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