Adaptive Path Blog

At UX Week 2007 and UXI Vancouver 2007, I did a presentation on where to look for ideas when designing. I finally got around to posting the slides. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to see the video clips here, but I urge you to track them down if you can.

| View | Upload your own

Microsoft is holding MIX, its annual “future of the web” conference in Las Vegas next month. Kim Lenox and I are excited to be bringing our message to this venue as part of the user experience track debuting this year. On March 6th we will lead four intensive sessions over the course of the day. Each session includes hands-on activities where you get a chance to really learn something new. We are focusing on design strategy, interaction design, information architecture and design methods. Participate in the entire day with us and you will take away all the techniques needed to be successful in defining and designing your next product.

If spending a day with Kim and I in Vegas is enticing enough by itself, then maybe you’ll want to come check out a sneak peek of new IE8 features or compete against your peers in Rock Band.

If you are going to attend, then please drop me a line at <danh at adaptive path dot com>. We hope to see you there!!

Microsoft’s acquisition of Danger received scant notice compared to its attempts to acquire Yahoo! But I find the news more interesting. Microsoft, intentionally or not, is moving to establish itself across a range of platforms and form factors… They’re moving more strongly into the “ubiquitous computing” space than any other major company.

They are active in:

• desktop PCs
• laptop PCs
• tablet PCs
• mobile phones (Windows Mobile before, and now the hardware, too)
• portable media devices (Zune)
• wall/table computers (Microsoft Surface)

And Microsoft has a big pile of cash it’s sitting on, which will give it plenty of opportunity to figure out how to make these pieces work together. And allows for plenty of mistakes (SPOT watches, etc….)

It’s so easy to dismiss Microsoft as the lumbering has-been of technology, but no one else is engaging in such a range of connected technologies…

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Indi Young about her new book: “Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with User Behavior” which is now available.

It was a particular pleasure as I’ve worked with Indi on Mental Model projects, and used her Mental Model brilliance in working with other Adaptive Path clients.

If you’re hip on empathy, user needs and visual models, this book is a touchstone for creating great user experiences. I have a feeling this will be a common sight on designer’s bookshelves…right next to the Polar Bear book.

 You can learn all about Indi, her ideas and the book here:

• Read my interview with Indi [an Adaptive Path essay]
• Visit the book site at Rosenfeld Media (use discount code “402084″ for 10% off of the cover price)
• Attend Indi’s virtual seminar on February 20th (Sign up with promotion code “RMYOUNG1″ and receive a copy of Indi’s new book all for the discounted price of $129)
• Meet Indi at the IxDA-SF’s free event at CNET on February 28, where she’ll discuss “Mental Models: Sparking Creativity Through Empathy”

Big congrats to Indi for her new book! 

David Pogue smacks down obviously bad product design.

Creating a firm culture that supports innovative design

We loved watching the interaction toys of all the election coverage this past week.

The most awesome industrial design you’ll see this week.

CMU’s podcast of Dick Buchanan’s closing keynote speech at Emergence.

Next week will see all of the big players (and most of the small ones) in Barcelona. They are gathering for the Mobile World Congress conference. You can expect to see all kinds of interesting announcements from device manufacturers and carriers. It’s already rumored that a prototype running Google’s Android will be on display.

This week two early announcements caught my eye. Funambol will be showing off new push email and sync services. I really like this company because they bring what are traditionally enterprise-only services to the masses via open source development. For example, they recently announced over-the-air sync services for the iPhone via both a web-app and a native app for “jailbroken” devices. Instead of relying on Apple to give its users this service, Funambol rallied the open source community to solve the problem. Similarly, Windows Mobile users (like me) who don’t have access to Microsoft’s Exchange Server can use their sync app/service in place of the native ActiveSync. Funambol is partnering with ISP’s and carriers to bring products to users as well as developing Android apps for the next generation of devices. Like Google, they are embracing open source in order to change the marketplace of mobile and this change will only help users who are clamoring for better and more usable apps on their smartphones.

Yesterday, Opera Mobile 9.5 was previewed and all I can say is WOW. Read Write Web has a good breakdown of the new features and below is a video showing off the soon-to-be-released browser. Just like mobile Safari, this version of Opera Mobile displays real web pages and allows the user to zoom in for reading detail. Unlike the iPhone, this browser supports Flash Lite. I am also intrigued by the opportunities that offline browsing and the widget support offers. If you subscribe to the notion that a web browser will be the center of a great mobile experience, then you have see Opera as a strong player here. The feature set of this browser offers a framework to replace most every function of a mobile operating system. Additionally, they are beating the latest mobile IE (Deepfish) to the market and Firefox mobile is just getting started. Opera Mobile is a mature product now and is leading the pack for user- and developer-focused features.

What could possibly make words slicker than a politician on primary night? Adobe’s new online word processor Buzzword. It’s built on Flash and is amazing to look at and use. When you’re in it, you can almost forget it’s a web app. Still in preview, but worth checking out.

I’d love to see this run on AIR with direct ties to the online version. Giving you the option to work on and offline with auto syncing once you connect. Add blog editing capabilities and I’d be in love.

For the back story, read this article from Virtual Ubiquity CEO Rick Treitman.

For those of you still on the fence about attending UX Intensive later this month, now is a good time to choose sides because seats are going fast.

Single day registration for Design Strategy with Brandon Schauer has sold out. There are 22 seats left and they are available only when you register for all four days of UX Intensive. If you’re only interested in Design Research, Interaction Design, or Information Architecture, good news — single day registration is still open for those days.

Use code BLOG for 10% off registration.

A podcast from our own Todd Wilkens from the 2007 Emergence Conference at Carnegie Mellon, discussing the end of products. Listen and enjoy!

P.S. Lots of other great podcasts there too, including the closing keynote from Dick Buchanan.

By the end of this month, you should be able to get your hands on Subject to Change, a book co-written by four of us here at Adaptive Path: Brandon Schauer, Todd Wilkens, David Verba, and me. The book addresses our philosophy in creating products and services, the importance of the right kinds of research, of making design an organizational competency, of thinking of your offerings as part of a larger system, and of approaching your technological solutions in an agile way.

“Customers don’t care about how innovative you are. They just want to be happy and satisfied. Learn from Adaptive Path a passion for finding and solving the problems that will matter to customers no matter what the future brings.”
— Scott Berkun, Author, The Myths of Innovation

“Subject to Change presents complex, challenging ideas in simple, compelling language, with illuminating examples and no shortage of memorable phrases. At once authoritative and nimble, the book itself is an example of the kind of experience the authors admire. No matter who you are, it will change the way you think about design.”
— Michael Bierut, Partner, Pentagram and Author, 79 Short Essays on Design

And here’s the chapter lineup:

CHAPTER 1
THE EXPERIENCE IS THE PRODUCT
“How do we deliver great products and services in an uncertain world? The thing to keep in mind, not just in the abstract, but truly and viscerally, are your customers and their abilities, needs, and desires.”

CHAPTER 2
EXPERIENCE AS STRATEGY
“All that matters to customers is their experience.” Therefore firms need a plan for the experiences they will offer, a plan so strong that it will guide decisions on how the experiences are marketed, maintained, and managed.

CHAPTER 3
NEW WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING PEOPLE
“We must understand people as they are rather than as market segments or demographics.” A new model for understanding your customers more completely and more realistically—the basis of an experience strategy.

CHAPTER 4
CAPTURING COMPLEXITY, BUILDING EMPATHY
“The success of experience-focused products is contingent on everyone sharing an understanding of users and a vision for the experience, because so many people play a role in delivering that experience.”

CHAPTER 5
STOP DESIGNING “PRODUCTS”
“The true success of experience design isn’t how well it works when everything is operating as planned, but how well it works when things start going wrong.” Products are simply interfaces to every service a firm provides.

CHAPTER 6
THE DESIGN COMPETENCY
“The act of design gives form to a powerful idea that many can rally around.” One design prototype can embody strategy, showcase an entire system, and immediately reveal the shortfalls of your business plan.

CHAPTER 7
THE AGILE APPROACH
“In an environment where exploration leading to a dead end is viewed as an expense to be reduced, true innovation is difficult.” New developments in the marketplace both allow and require new approaches.

CHAPTER 8
AN UNCERTAIN WORLD
“We should adapt to and embrace the uncertainty around us.” A new set of organizational competencies—-customer research, design, and agile technological implementation-—will shape the firms lead in these uncertain times.

We’re excited about the release of our book, and we hope you enjoy it. Actually, we suspect that the people savvy enough to read this blog probably already “get” what we have to say… But that you might have colleagues, clients, managers, or executives who could benefit from its clear presentation of issues around design, research, and the need for flexibility. Pre-order today!