Tags to Richness

Based on the neuroscience books I’ve read I’ve come up with a really easy way to explain to someone how the brain works.  Below the illustration I explain the nature of the three components of the brain: You, the Nag and your Body.

You

Your consciousness and personality.  The lump sum of your memory and experience that determines how you make decisions and who you are.

The Nag

The various parts of your biology that you can’t change but that push and pull you to make certain decisions.  The Nag tends to be very simple and straightforward in its needs.  The Nag’s needs tend to revolve around food, sex and survival.  The Nag cannot be reasoned with, only ignored and suppressed.

The Nag is hyper aware of what is outside your body and will scream and yell at you to get something it wants.  If you’ve ever driven by a McDonald’s with a three year old in the back seat you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Your Body

The machine that transports You and the Nag.  Your Body needs fuel and constant maintenance.  Eventually your Body will have too many miles and break down and die.

I’ve spent some time the last couple weeks trying to envision the near and long-term future of interfaces.  I came away with the following useful nuggets.

1. Currently interfaces are moving out into the world where the people are

In my mind the biggest breakthrough with smart phones is that all that functionality that used to be on that computer in the corner is now traveling with me out in the world.  I’m more compelled to use technology now because it’s with me as I live my life.  Mark Weiser called it ubiquitous computing.  My lifetime will most likely see ubiquitous computing reach an advanced level of maturation.

2. But the real event will be when we finally learn to reprogram our biology and the biology around us

Ubiquitous computing in its current state is about making smaller computers that can be a part of a variety of current and future devices.  But I ask you, why waste time creating new devices when you can just reprogram the devices already out there, i.e. our bodies, minds and the nature all around us.  The sad or happy truth is that this will happen some day whether we like it or not.  The six million dollar question is who will do it first and how humanistic will they be? But it’s exciting to me to think about reprogramming the human brain to increase it’s memory speed and capacity, for example.  Or better yet, being able to transfer our memories and our identity over time, defeating death.

3. The mash-up of artificial intelligence and applications

Back to the short-term, artificial intelligence is really the future of apps.  I don’t know about you but I absolutely hate yet another app I have to learn and spend time using.  All those casual consumers who love their Wii’s won’t waste time with Gowalla, only the tech nerds care.  I personally don’t want more apps that require more of my time, I want less apps that do more.  Artificial intelligence, or the creation of an algorithm that can resolve complex problems for me with little input from me is where the real money is.

4. Eventually all those independent AIs will become the singularity

Eventually all the artificial intelligences we invent will merge into a single superintelligence that governs our lives.  This is what Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil called the singularity.  The funny thing is after pondering this for some time I realized that as a species we’ve been designing and iterating on the design of the singularity since the beginning of known time, we’ve just called it God or Gods instead of a supercomputer.  At some point when the pack of engineers sit down to invent a governing intelligence I imagine them referring to all the religious texts and history to devise the initial version.

There’s one other thing to keep in mind here though, and that has to do with reprogramming our biology.  When we start reprogramming our biology and re-engineering our bodies and minds, we may not need a singularity as we conceive of it today simply because at that point we will have become a different kind of species with different needs.

At my company everything the marketing team does falls under our sales funnel.  This means that everything I do as the UX designer falls under one of the segments of this funnel.  With this relationship, it’s easy for me to demonstrate how my UX work affects my company’s bottom line.

You’ve probably heard of the sales funnel before.  Every company has their own version.  I’ve illustrated below the sales funnel my company uses.  Below that I briefly list the UX work related to each phase of the funnel.  My company’s product is a subscription based web application, so our funnel reflects the sales phases that come with a subscription based app.

My company decides what design we should pursue next by taking a look at the current metrics of our sales funnel.  The part of the funnel that is the lowest or suffering the most gets the highest priority.

1. Impressions and Clicks: The UX goal here is to get people to click in less than two seconds and introduce the brand.  UX deliverables: Banner ads that are either static, flash or dynamic. 

2. Trial Taker Rate: The UX goal here is to introduce people to the application and do whatever else it takes to get them to take the free trial.  UX deliverables: Landing pages, homepages and micro sites.

3. Conversion Rate: The UX goal here is to get people to their first success in the application during their free trial, ideally within the first few minutes of their using the app.  UX deliverables: The application itself, especially functionality related to the first success.  It might also include all the detailed functionality and experience.

4. Retention Rate: The UX goal here is to keep people subscribed to the application for as long as possible once they have converted.  UX deliverables: The application itself, with experiences designed to last over time and/or over a desired customer life cycle.

In 2005 I had the privilege of attending a three day workshop by the D.M.A. (Direct Marketing Association).  I recently dug up my notes for a project I’m working on and came across this great list I had put together based on that workshop.  The list is still applicable today as I design UX that sells:

1. Multiple offers in one promotion equals lesser sales.
2. Direct marketing leads the customer to take an action.  Advertising is solely for building brand awareness.
3. Broad based media like TV, Radio and Print are best used to find new customers.
4. 40/40/20 rule:  Direct marketing success depends on 40% on reaching the right audience, 40% on the offer or promotion and only 20% on the creative execution.
5. Features are all about the product.  Benefits are all about the customer.  Benefits are more likely to sell the customer.
6. The direct marketing industry is highly prone to mistakes.  Expect to make a lot of mistakes.
7. Find out what products your customers want to buy and make those, rather then developing a product and then try to find a market for it.
8. Average creative can sell a great offer.
9. Testing equals what, research answers why.

In 2010 Wired magazine published an article about the death of the web.  Basically it was pointing out the fact that the mobile market was the next big thing and people were moving away from the web.  What I can’t wait for is the day when Wired announces the death of development.  By that I mean the day when software development is so cheap and easy that most companies will finally put design first.

I realize that some companies put design first already, but they are few and far between where I come from.  Most of the companies I have worked for here in Utah don’t work that way.  Think about it from the small town, small business owner’s perspective.  If I want to start any kind of electronic based business (and I don’t really know what I’m doing) what’s the first and most important hire I’m going to make?  The engineer of course.  That’s because at the end of the day if I don’t have someone who can actually build what I want built then I’m totally wasting my time.  And so the viscous cycle begins. 

The vast majority of development today isn’t easy, so I have to hire a very talented and experienced person.  These people are not common and aren’t cheap.  When I finally find my guy most of my budget goes towards his or her salary.  To make a long story short, after hiring an accountant, marketer, customer service rep, lawyer and so on (all extremely critical roles for a business), my money is all spent.

Case in point, I have my current design job primarily because I was originally considered as a flash developer.  I had to make my current position as an interaction designer into what it is after I got hired.

Software development hasn’t been around nearly as long as other industries.  But if the history of the construction industry is any indicator, someday development will be so refined that almost anyone can do it with just a little education.  And then on that day, when development skill is a dime a dozen, perhaps designers won’t be such an afterthought as they are today.

It’s that time of year again, when many designers take time to update their portfolios to keep them from getting stale.  I spent most of my free design time in 2010 fine-tuning my own, here are some of my learnings.

1. The people looking at our portfolios know exactly what we do

I’ve heard many a hiring manager ask a designer, “What exactly did you do on this project?”  These hiring managers know what a wireframe, flow chart, persona, usability lab and a prototype are.  And more importantly, they know that that is exactly what we are going to be doing day in and day out for them.  So that’s exactly what they want to see in your portfolio, your wireframes, flow charts, personas, labs, prototypes and any other artifacts you create.  They care less about the overall project and more about your specific contribution.

2. Always project positive confidence and strength

Your portfolio is your sales brochure.  At this stage of the sales process the last thing you want to do is introduce any seeds of doubt in your buyer’s mind.  Never bring up phrases that say things like “weakness” or “what I learned” even in jest.  Mentally those words, regardless of context, are still linked to negative emotions, and though they may be subtle or humorous, they still take your visitors down those emotional roads.

3. Get people to what they came for right up front

People coming to your portfolio want to see your work: your wireframes, flow charts, personas, labs and prototypes.  If those aren’t the biggest thing on your homepage, front and center, then you’re failing to help your users reach their goals on your site.

4. If your work is company confidential, do a “snap” like dribbble.com or forrst.com

A “snap” is simply an ambiguous corner of one of your drawings.  A “snap” fails to give context, so you aren’t giving away any company secrets, but you are still showing your design work.  Hiring managers will still see what they came for, because they have the knowledge needed to assess your skill even without full context for your wireframe, flow chart or prototype.  You can save the nitty gritty details for the interview.

Having studied film in college and having made a few short films, the thought has crossed my mind once or twice, what if development shops made software the same way they make movies?  Imagine this scenario:

1. Assign a director, find the right writer

Today’s software has so many owners that the end result is often a muddled mess.  A product owner is the closest thing the software industry has to a director, but the product owner is often not intimately involved with every aspect of the process nor given the same kind of ownership as the director of a movie.

After the software director is chosen, they would then find the right writer, which in the software world would be the right interaction designer.

2. Pre-production, 3-6 months

After hiring the right Interaction Designer, begin the following tasks:

• Requirements gathering
• Conceptualizing
• Wireframing
• Site maps and flow charts
• Prototypes
• Usability Labs

2. Production, 2-4 months

This would be the development phase.  Notice the development phase is much less than the pre-production phase.  What would a product be like that spent more time nailing down the particulars of the design than time spent developing?

3. Post-Production, 6-8 months

This is the QA phase, the loop of finding bugs and polishing them.  Notice this is the longest of the phases.  And appropriately so, because this is where the software would be polished as close to perfection as time and money would allow.

Summary

The software industry can stand to learn a thing or two from the movie industry.  Unless you’re a Microsoft or an Apple, software today is often very messy, made by messy processes.  What would it be like if the software industry followed a similar process to the the process of making a movie?  I’d be willing to bet that the end product would be much more well conceived and executed, just as the majority of movies are today.

For the longest time I’ve been under the assumption that as the senior interaction designer I would eventually be able to define my company’s product.  Come to find out, I’ll never be able to define the product because it’s not mine, it belongs to our marketing team and ultimately our C.E.O.  The real problem is that there are things about the design of the product that the true owners and I will always disagree about.  I love what I do, I’m not complaining at all, I’m just acknowledging the fact that I realize I want to own my own product one day and that that’ll never happen as the designer.

I’m sure a lot of designers have that ownership itch.  You know you’ve got it when you spend a lot of time trying to influence the product, using every means you know, even branching into that scary world we call politics.  But at the end of the day you realize the nagging feeling is true, it’s just simply not your ship to steer and it never will be.  That’s what Product Owners, V.P.s and C.E.O.s do.

If you’re a designer and you constantly find yourself wanting to own a product’s definition and direction, I hate to tell you, but you went into the wrong profession.  Designers are still just tools for the business people, heavy influencers at best, but never owners and original creators.  If someday you want to own the product, stop what you are doing and go get an MBA or start your own business.

I’ve developed a design method I call showing the wrong thing as soon as possible.  The idea is this:  When I start a new project for a client, I have an initial meeting with them where I hear their idea.  I then go off and design the first thing that comes to my mind that fits their need.  It’s often not polished and not the right solution, but it represents a complete and concrete idea in higher fidelity.  I then hurry to get the design in front of the client.  What happens next is always the same, the client rips it to shreds.  And that’s exactly what I want them to do.

Humans are very skilled at noticing differences, it’s how our brain is engineered.  So when I’m showing a client something wrong, what happens is their brain freaks out about all the differences between what they are seeing in my design with what they are seeing in their head.  So the client’s feedback starts flowing like a river as they describe all the problems they see with the design.  I quietly write down everything I hear, encouraging them to talk as long and as harshly as they need to.  I take none of it personally.

This is how I am able to read my client’s mind faster than any other methods I’ve tried, by forcing their brain to point out all the flaws.  With all those flaws verbalized I can now easily go back and design the right picture based on the negative space left behind by the wrong picture.

Recently I was given a small budget to hire some freelancers to help with the large backlog of design tasks we have.  Below are some of the steps I used to find the right people.

1. Posted on a design specific job board

I ignored the general job boards like workforce services, craigslist, hotjobs or monster.  I went straight to authenticjobs.com, a very well known job board in the design community.  My second and third choices would have been jobs.37signals.com and krop.com.

2. 30 seconds and three folders: Yes, No, Maybe

I didn’t read the emails I received.  Instead I scanned them for a link to a portfolio.  Obviously if there wasn’t a link to a portfolio I threw the email in the No folder.  If there was a portfolio link I clicked through and could tell within 30 seconds of looking at their work samples if this was a Yes, No or Maybe.

3. First paid task is a test

You really don’t know what someone is going to be like and what their skill is until they actually do a job for you.  So I would hand the freelancer I was considering their first task, paid of course, and the result would tell me what I was getting into.  If the result was so-so I might ask for a second task and decide from there whether to keep them or move on.