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EVENTS

Insights & Blog_In Here and Out There

Our observations of the world around us

  • The Design Forty by Kendra Shimmell on October 10, 2008

    A couple of folks here started a weekly conference call a couple of weeks ago called Design Forty – a 40-minute conversation that is open to the public with a different design-related topic and featured guest every week.  This past Wednesday, our special guest was Steve Portigal of Portigal Consulting, and the topic was Design Hacks. You may find yourself asking…

    What is a “Design Hack” anyway?
    The first thought that popped into my head before jumping onto this weeks’ call was “What is a design hack?”

    First off, many of us don’t like the word “hack;” it has such a negative connotation. Second, we are sensitive to the word “hack” in association with the field of design. So, why discuss it? Is it because there is an undeniable trend towards faster and cheaper design and as responsible practitioners we need to have a position and a plan for moving forward? Or, is it simply a topic intended to get a rise out of fellow designers and thereby generate more emphatic conversation? Whatever the reason, this was an exciting call that generated dialog and stimulated thinking. The following is a recap of some of the Big Ideas:

    First things first, we need to define “Design Hack” in a positive light. The conversation quickly turned to our collective definition of “a Design Hack.” Where we landed: A design hack is not about short changing the design process. It is about finding clever, insightful ways to work smarter. By working smarter, designers save money and resources while maintaining greater focus on what’s important: Translation of consumer insights and creating a better vision for the future!

    Ideas for working smarter in Design Research & User Experience Design (thanks to everyone on the call!):


    • Tap craigslist when recruiting is not working out - avoid overwhelming your email with responses, link to Google Docs and have potential respondents complete the screener online.

    • Build rapport faster by making yourself at home. While doing in-home research, if someone offers you a drink, take it. The participant is trying to establish norms while you are in their home. Taking the drink builds rapport faster by putting them at ease.

    • Establish your analysis model up front. Use Morae to record, time stamp, and code the data in real time. After the study, export to Excel. Because the data is already coded, analysis is off to a good start.

    • Take ownership of the content by doing word for word transcription. This may seem more like a “reverse hack or slow design”, however internalizing data leads to more efficient analysis.

    • Create field reports for “on the fly” synthesis.  The insights that are gathered are organized while fielding rather than after the fielding is complete. For post analysis, the field reports are used as the data sample - saving time and resources.

    • Audio record team debriefs to capture the “off the cuff” synthesis and ideation that happens. Don’t lose these big ideas from when the team is excited and the experience is fresh!

    • Write it down. Effectively capture your design “ah has” (even when they happen in the shower). Write things down immediately (Have paper near by) and use Google Docs to collect and share. In the office, keep whiteboards in every room to capture team ideation.

    • Share your insights, even the small ones. Twitter and Delicious are a great means to get things in the open, even when they are tidbits of ideas.

    • Design on paper. Cut it up! Write out the interaction steps, sketch on paper, cut up your drawings and move them around. You can do the same in your graphics program, but it just FEELS different on paper. It’ll end up being faster, we promise.

    • Outline the framework of your deliverables up-front to save time. Also, use templates for common research instruments such as discussion guides, research plans, and screeners– to avoid “reinventing the wheel” each time.

    Hot conversations topics:


    • The rise of “Flickr Ethnography,” its implications to Design Research, and how analysis of people’s artifacts without understanding of emotion and intent is risky.

    • The Opportunities and Challenges of Remote Participatory Design.

    • The “Language Hack”— As designers are taking a greater role in guiding business strategy, our audiences are quickly becoming company executives. We need to mitigate “design speak” and communicate benefits in clear, simple terms.

    • Listen to learn more…

    Join next week’s Design Forty, where we’ll talk about Attention & Connection in Design with P&G’s Josh Norman.  Pre-registration required, go now!

    Helpful resources:

    Design Hacks from Lextant

    Transcribe faster with Windows Media Player

    New technology to take better notes: Livescribe Pen

    Capture, share ideas, and organize with Backpackit and Evernote

    The first research app for iPhone: TalkingPics

    *To see a complete list of who was on the call and who contributed, visit the archive site and check out the chat log and downloadable audio file!!  If you have iTunes you can subscribe to the Design Forty podcast following these instructions. 

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  • IDSA Polar Opposites Conference Recap by Lauren Serota & Wyatt Starosta on October 01, 2008

    About 2 weeks ago, a good group of us Lextantites made a trek to Phoenix, AZ for IDSA’s 2008 national conference, Polar Opposites. We think it’s safe to say that we all had an enjoyable time (especially during “pool breaks”); here is a recap of what we had going on and other things we learned.

    In total, we were involved in 4 official conference events.  Marty and Lauren, with the help of Philip White (ASU, IDSA EcoDesign chair) lead a workshop called Design Research meets Sustainable Design, which was an experimental session based on findings from IDSA via Lextant’s research the ideal design community for young design professionals. The 40+ session attendees were briefed on current trends in sustainable development & design research fundamentals before being divided in to smaller teams. The teams, led by design researchers from Lextant, Blackhagen Design & The Savannah College of Art and Design not only developed research plans to understand consumers’ perceptions, opinions, beliefs and attitudes of “green” issues such as Food waste, Bottled beverages and Hot water, they also identified specific process steps to achieve their goals. For example, one team tackling the issue of understanding an individual’s perception of hot water consumption came up with a unique solution -By putting a thermometer on the faucet they could record the temperature of the water and later during the interview probe the participant on whether or not the water was hot enough. This would not only allow the research team to better understand the question of “How hot is hot?,” but it would also help in developing metrics for engineers to use down the line. There were a ton of great ideas that came out of the workshop and our plan is to breathe some life into them by working with universities to turn them in to research projects for design students.

    Immediately following the research workshop, William Bullock (University of Illinois, IDSA SAGE chair), Brian Roderman (in2innovation, IDSA section VP) and Lauren lead Bourne vs. Bond – a designer’s life roundtable featuring young design professionals and their seasoned counterparts.  We had design greats such as Bill Moggridge, Bruce Claxton, George McCain and even our own Jim Couch participate in discussions (most of which were located at the bar) with designers of all ages to share experiences, and anecdotes of past successes and failures.  This was really tons of fun – it’s amazing how far a little direction and some introductions can go.

    People Can’t Tell You What They Want – and nine other design research myths.

    The following morning, Chris gave an engaging (and we’re not just brown-nosing) talk centered around dispelling design research myths called People Can’t Tell You What They Want – and nine other design research myths. The audience was littered with folks snapping shots of Chris’ slides (which can be downloaded here), and there were a few people in front of me that were consistently nodding in agreement while he explained the subtleties of conducting effective user-centered research.

    Finally, Chris and Marty sat in with the Blackhagen fellows on a panel called Resposables, tackling the medical industry’s disposable goods dilemma.  We sat this one out and opted to hear from Dan Harel from Smart, who did a talk on a few things including how designing and marketing to women has changed (a hat-tip to his co-workers in the Femme Den) and the absurd social and political uproar caused by made-up lyrics to Louis Louis in the 60s.  We’re still not quite sure what to make of this one (there wasn’t a clear thread throughout the presentation), but it was darn entertaining and thought-provoking, and we prefer that over linear and yawn-inducing any day.

    Other noteworthy events included Jon Kolko & Matt Schoenholz’s ridiculously well-attended Designing in the Face of Change talk, which described our shift socially (and our consequent responsibility as an industry) towards the need for thoughtful experience, emotional resonance and local relevance versus traditional, often commoditized “thing” design.

    Thanks goes out to Tim Atkins, Frank Tyneski, Larry Hoffer, Jill Richardson, Carrie Rice and all the other rad IDSA folks for putting together such a great event and providing a platform for fun and creative people to get together.

    For some more in-depth coverage of specific events, you can check out Jon Kolko’s notes.  Also, here are some more pics to browse through.

    Also, did we mention the pool?

    image

    Maybe we should have a caption contest? 

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  • Memo to online dating sites: you can do better by Katie Kimble on September 16, 2008

    Being a user experience expert with a degree in psychology gave me highly qualified insight into…my recent attempts at online dating. And if there’s anything I can offer these website developers, it’s that a different approach is needed to portray a more “honest” perspective on what the experience will likely entail for new users.

    In my experiences with research, a redundant theme is that users don’t want to be lied to — they don’t want sunshine where the sun don’t shine. Users want a realistic expectation to be set about the experience into which they’re about to drop some serious coin.

    So, I’d like to translate into plain English some of the standard slogans, tactics, and promises that Match.com uses to “lure” people to join the site.

    “Worlds Largest Online Dating Service” Translation: we aren’t selective at all so if you aren’t either, this is the place for you.

    “We guarantee you’ll meet someone in 6 months or your next 6 months are free” Well, therein lies the rub. You need to do some rigorous emailing and be pretty aggressive to get this deal, which they do not advertise. This makes it much more difficult to be selective about who you talk to on the site. If you are, this deal is not for you.

    Winking. Simply put, very annoying. “Winking” at someone, an online nudge designed to get your attention, should be limited. As a young woman, I received over 10 “winks” a day from people I like to call “serial winkers”. Match.com should not allow people to wink at others if they A. don’t meet my specifications for someone that I’m looking for (e.g. men under 32) and B. They wink at more than 1 person a day on average. Limitations on this specific feature would make for a much less aggressive environment and would allow women specifically to feel much less attacked and annoyed.

    I must qualify my cynicism with one caveat: I did meet someone interesting on match.com. So overall, I’d say the site did its job. But as far as user experience is concerned, online dating sites as a whole can do much more to improve the experience. Matters of the heart are sensitive, so be sensitive to your users’ needs by making it the most comfortable environment possible. If you need help, Lextant would be happy to do your research and redesign.

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