My Curious Life

I have a confession to make. My son, Caleb, is from Mars. Or maybe Pluto. He doesn’t have antennae or a glowing finger, nor does he live in an egg-shaped bed. He does, however, live in a world all his own and only occasionally in this one. It’s those rare moments when he’s here with us, though, that make it all worthwhile. You see, Caleb has autism.

Not only that, he also has pervasive developmental disorder — a form of mental retardation.

A couple of months ago my wife and I went to see the latest John (and Joan) Cusack movie, Martian Child. The simple story is about a boy who’s different. Very different. A boy who believes he is from Mars. A boy whose needs and differences challenge and inspire his widower foster father (John Cusack) to come to grips with his own differences. A boy who exposes how cruel the world at large can be to those who are truly different from the norm.

Shortly thereafter, I heard a story on NPR about a film being released that tells one child’s story of special needs and inclusion.

As an interaction designer, I’ve found it particularly meaningful to have a child with special needs. I think it makes you even more sensitive to the world around you and how those of us who fit the norm so unknowingly take simple things for granted. I find it amazing to watch my almost 8-year-old son work through problems that my “normal” 3-year-old breezes through with ease.

Small buttons that require excellent fine motor control (remotes/telephones), handles and knobs that operate counter to their purpose (car doors and 3-way switches), and frustrating tools that expose rather than hide their underlying complexity (AV systems). These are just a few of the many things that confound my son day-to-day.

It’s an adventure that is constantly changing the way that I interpret the world.

So, as we start 2008, what (or who) has caused a change in the way you think/act/perceive over the course of the past year?

Oh, to have been at Ben’s talk at the Applied Green conference last week. Aside from all of the interesting facts and ideas about “going green”, he wrapped it up with a statement that I think gets to the essence of my frustration with both my current work environment and various industries in general:

I’m a designer. Use me better.

So many issues facing companies these days are due to a lack of design thinking … it’s too easy to either squeeze more profit (or fewer losses) from an existing process or make small, iterative changes to an existing product in order to make more money or grow an organization. The problem is, the increase in profits or growth is insanely small. You don’t get big benefits without stepping back and re-evaluating all that you do and why you do it. More often than not the answers are surprising. I’d bet that at least half of the time, the answer is, “Well, we’ve always done it that way.” A close second might be, “It’s too difficult (or costly, or bothersome, or risky, or … ?) to change that.”

The sad reality is that the costs up front to remake your process, service or product would most likely be recouped tenfold by re-envisioning the whole thing with good design in mind.

Anyone know a story of a company that’s done this well, especially if they’ve had to take apart the prior structure to do so? I’d love to have a couple of little-known, real world examples to delve into here.

For those of us in the design field, this should be a call to arms. I’m going to start finding more ways to tell others, “I’m a designer. Use me better.”

If you’re one of my kids, you’ve heard this phrase a million times: “Are you going to react or respond?”

While the question is a useful way of instructing an older child on decision-making and self-control, it’s also applicable to the world of business, as Clayton Christensen and Scott D. Anthony note in an article Forbes ran in early August.

Christensen and Anthony focus specifically on Sony’s crisis with the Playstation 3 and its lackluster sales as compared with Nintendo’s Wii and Microsoft’s XBox 360. Pushing the technology envelope just for the sake of staying ahead seems to be more of a knee-jerk reaction to the ever escalating war in the game console space, while Nintendo’s Wii is more of a response, opting out of the war and venturing in an altogether different direction. Nintendo made a conscious decision to take this path.

The question now is what Sony will do next … react or respond? The battle now has become a duel with Microsoft, and so far Sony has taken some serious hits. It would be interesting to see if Sony can find new ways to make the PS3 the centerpiece of a home entertainment system and serve multiple needs, thereby justifying its bigger-than-average price tag. Or perhaps Sony can be creative and find ways to let PS3 owners interact directly with Xbox360 owners via some sort of online network? Or build-out online services that meet the needs of various members of a family, again trying to make the PS3 a central home device?

Here’s hoping that Sony takes some time to reflect on what it’s learned and makes a conscious decision to respond.

I’m beating my head against the wall again, being forced to design a web application for an ethereal “customer” that I’ve never met and only heard of in terms that would make a sociologist cringe. The attitude I seem to be running into is this:

“We, product management, already know our customers and we are building our requirements based on that fact. Design to the requirements.”

This, of course, puts the designer in an awkward position and sets the whole project up for, if not failure, a mediocre success at best. It’s a lot like drawing blindfolded. Even if you have a clear vision in your head of what you want to draw, with a blindfold on, you lose visual references and relationships that help hold the whole thing together. You will typically get some well-drawn elements, which individually look wonderful, but which don’t work in conjunction with the other elements in the drawing to convey a clear, concise image. Even talented artists have difficulty rendering familiar drawings while blindfolded.

Unfortunately, I’m not in a position to demand access to customers or get direct interaction with them. So, to try and peek under the blindfold, I’ve interviewed the product manager(s) in order to gather what I can of their direct customer interactions (if they have any). What I’m finding is that, while they can tell me a lot about what the customer said, they can rarely tell me much about what the customer did and what the context of the customer’s existence is like.

Another idea has been to review competitors’ sites to see what they’re doing and to try to learn more about the industry and its customers in that way. Again, most of what you get is anecdotal evidence that, while helpful, is far from completely accurate.

The irony to me is that the company won’t spend the money up front on customer research and interviews because it’s “too time consuming and expensive”, yet they are willing to absorb the additional development, support, training and advertising costs associated with vague requirements and a mediocre product.

Anyone out there have suggestions on how to convince a very complacent and secure client that a bit of money up front on good design research will save them a bunch of money in the long run? Any ideas on how to build a better picture of a customer without direct interaction/observation?

Dan Saffer of Adaptive Path led off the day with a great keynote on new sources of inspiration for interaction designers. He pointed to three specific sources of inspiration:

1. Architecture
2. Film
3. Mechanical devices

He did a great job of covering a ton of potential material in a very tight timeframe … lots of things to consider as inspiration in each of those areas. I was especially impressed by his insights in the realm of film … I’m not a big movie buff, nor do I get the chance to watch many movies. As a result, I’ve never really gotten a chance to study much about film, other than some basics about transitions and sound effects. Dan brought to light some interesting techniques and information about various classic and modern films that I had noticed but never understood their significance.

I highly recommend looking through his slides (PDF) … the visuals alone are inspiring.

Bill DeRouchey of Ziba followed Dan Saffer with an excellent presentation of his own on learning interaction design from everyday objects. Bill brought some humor and open-ended questioning to his presentation that was refreshing, and it was nice to see how his examples complemented the prior presentation. His site, No Ideas But In Things, is a collection of interesting and intriguing things that inspire.

Rather than ramble, catch Bill’s slides (PDF) and grab the audio, too.

Just after Bill’s session finished, I had a chance to speak to him and introduce myself. In typical fashion, I introduced myself, mentioned that I was impressed with his presentation and noted the local connection (Ziba is located in my hometown, Portland, Oregon) and then promptly ran out of things to say. Ugh! So much for good impressions.

The conference wrapped up with a presentation by Cybelle Jones of Gallagher & Associates and Robert Freeland of Quatrefoil Associates, both of whom teamed up to design the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.

While their presentation was interesting, the “field trip” to the museum was fantastic. My guess is that just about every adult male in the building reverted to a 10 year old boy, geeking out on spy gear, stories and gadgets from around the world. The museum itself is well organized and covers a lot of ground (physically and informationally). The format is such that it caters to both kids and adults, with interactive exhibits and lots of background information on all of the objects in the collection. Any subsequent trips I make to D.C. will likely include a brief stop at the museum, just for fun.

All in all, UX Week was well worth the time and money. I’ve got a notebook of ideas, sketches and trivia that will inform the work I do in the near term, as well as some longer term material to learn from. I’m looking forward to next year.

Jan Chipchase of Nokia really impressed me with some of his thoughts on research and user human centered design. Starting with the simple questions, like “Who are you?” and “How do you prove it?”, really reframes your thinking about things and our sense of identity. He posed an interesting question, too — “What do our signs say about us?” There’s so much more to our motivations and cultural clues than meets the eye … there is so much beneath the surface. It’s something we know in a way, but so often forget to ask the right questions to get to the deeper meaning. He had three things that work (in contextual research):

1. Make your colleagues smarter
2. Know who you are (and your boundaries)
3. Let go (of your assumptions and control)

There was a lot more, too, that I’ll be mulling over for a while and trying to implement in my work, though it wouldn’t hurt to have his research and travel budget!

Emily Ulrich of Steelcase presented an interesting tool called “elito” that helps capture and frame research, insights and design concepts for a team. The tool documents metaphor, observation, insight, value and concept.

Todd Wilkens of Adaptive Path was entertaining and informative once again with his presentation on Making Research Effective. I’m liking Wilkens’ Law and “research martyrdom” as highlights … not to mention the Lego Knight on the slides. Most importantly, though, he made it clear that research results need three things to be successful: value, relevance and to be actionable.

Adaptive Path exposed their weaknesses at an interesting session hosted by Bryan Mason. They have, in their own words, a “cultural tolerance for error” that is admirable and necessary in order to grow as an organization. They also have a lot of fun and learn to laugh at their own mistakes. It’s always nice to see heroes show a bit of weakness and humility … it only further proves their strength and endears them to us even more. Way to go, AP folks!

Josh Porter, formerly of UIE and now running his own shop, Bokardo Design, made a good presentation of social design influences and social psychology research. Nicely summarized and very useful. I’ve followed his blog for some time now and will continue to do so.

Kathleen Hoski and Paris Patton, of Best Buy and Sachs Insights respectively, made a great presentation of some of their joint research into multi-channel purchases. They had select video clips of customers from focus groups, video diaries and interviews. As would be expected, the video footage was very “real” and enlightening. You can’t help but chuckle when listening to customers’ “parking lot confessionals” and making comments like taking into account “the W.A.F. – Wife Approval Factor.” My only complaint, please slow down Kathleen, I really wanted to hear all that you had to say.

The day wrapped up with a discussion panel by Lori Adams and Dermont Waters of CNN.com. Humorous, entertaining and honest, it was another great presentation of the ups and downs of what good design is all about. For how large CNN is as an organization, they seemed to be fairly nimble in their redesign project. I have some fun quotes, like “teetering pile of data” and “Relaunch Protection Program” that added a special flavor to their session.

If I hadn’t jetted out the door right afterward to take a very pleasant evening trolley tour of D.C. with my wife, I would have had a chance to meet Bill DeRouchey of Ziba at the closing night party. Ziba’s the big dog of design in my own backyard, and Bill’s presentation is on my schedule for tomorrow, so I’ll just have to see if I can catch him after his presentation and say hi.

Interesting opening by Deborah Adler of ClearRx fame, much more soft spoken and hesitant than I would have guessed. Great ideas, nice to see her prototypes and hear about the process she used to arrive at such great results.

Kevin Brooks of Motorola Labs was very engaging and entertaining, as would be expected of someone with his background as a professional oral storyteller. In fact, he’s produced a CD of stories, called Kiss of Summer, that sounds very interesting. It’s definitely on my buy list now.

Kate Rutter, “Sticky Ninja” and member of Adaptive Path, did a great job turning the humble Post-It note into a weapon of mass instruction. Were Kate left on a deserted desert island with nothing but a few packs of stickies, she’d surely be found weeks later having build a vacation resort there out of nothing but determination and stickies. I sincerely hope she has stock in 3M.

Hey, MightyGirl, was that you in the elevator? What a cutie you’ve got in the stroller! Nice to see that UX Week is a family affair.

Ryan Freitas, also of Adaptive Path, did a great presentation on the parallels between working in a professional kitchen and working as an interaction designer. His published article on the same topic in Ambidextrous magazine is a good summary of his presentation.

Jess McMullin of nForm spoke to a topic that I can relate to — The Designer as Facilitator — and had some solid suggestions about how to “grease the wheels” so to speak, and increase influence and work through business roadblocks to make good design (and implementation) happen.

Liz Sanders of MakeTools really wowed me, though, and capped the day with two sessions back-to-back — a presentation and a workshop — that explored the history of the design research landscape and where she sees things going in the future: generative tools. I have a ton of notes from her presentation, with a bunch of brain sparks in the margins. Nothing compares to seeing how she’s using these simple, but incredibly powerful toolkits to empower people (not just designers) to make meaning and create the future. Liz is tops on my list for the day … what a great way to wrap up the day and finish energized and motivated.

I’m looking forward to seeing what tomorrow brings …

Capping the whirlwind that has been the past couple of weeks, I’m in Washington, D.C. now for UX Week, which promises to be a pretty exciting and inspiring event. Adaptive Path has a great series of speakers lined up and the locale is quite nice.

I’ve followed a number of these folks’ blogs for some time now, but there’s a whole depth of communication that comes with in-person, live public speaking that you just don’t get in the written word. I’m always been amazed at how the personality of a speaker adds so much more to what they have to say … and once you’ve heard their voice in the real world, it’s easier to pick up the subtleties in their writing that you might have otherwise missed.

Come on people, let us hear your voices!

That’s about 15.5 miles for those of us snobbish Americans. And it’s a heckuva long way to run.

Saturday (July 14th) was another benchmark run for the running group I joined back in March. They had aid stations set up along the way, and while the run was, I admit, quite scenic, about two-thirds of the way into it I lost any track of the scenery and just kept praying that they wouldn’t find me collapsed near the river and show pictures on the 10 o’clock news.

It’s funny, but my own mental motivation is picturing the “good angel and little devil” perched on either shoulder, either driving me onward or trying to convince me to give it up. Ironically, the angel is a ruthless taskmaster who reminds me that 40 pounds ago this would have been easy (at least, so he says) and to suck it up and keep moving. The devil is a sympathetic tempter who constantly reminds me that I’ve gone further than ever before so why shouldn’t I deserve a break (and perhaps an Umpqua ice cream cone)?

Through it all, though, I’m learning a lot. I’ve learned that my body is capable of a lot more than I’d ever believed possible. And that the biggest hurdle to overcome is just showing up. And that those little round band-aids that I never had a need for before fit nicely over your nipples to prevent chafing. And that some products that sound silly can actually be pretty tasty.

I took some time off the week of July 4th, which is why there were no posts for over a week.

It was time to spend with my family, away from things like the web, my cell phone, and the wired (even wireless) world in general. It was a much needed and well spent break.

It’s amazing how quickly our daily lives fill with things that don’t really matter that much in the bigger scheme of life. Sometimes time away from all of that does wonders for the body, mind and soul.

Life lesson learned: Don’t put off that vacation time until “someday” … there is no someday.