Adaptive Path Blog

Last Friday, a group from Adaptive Path went to see The Art of Participation exhibition at the SFMOMA. The show, which closed on Feb. 9th, was a collection of participatory art works, art that requires audience contribution in some form, created from 1950 to the present. It included work by Alan Kaprow (a painter associated strongly with Happenings), Yoko Ono (her Cut Piece), Fluxus, John Cage (4’33”), and Janet Cardiff. Unlike 99% of art museum exhibitions, visitors could and did interact directly with the work.

On one hand, I arranged the field trip to the SFMOMA for fun. But my not-so-hidden agenda was to challenge my understanding of “experience,” and gain some insight from my colleagues’ experience of the show.

I hear the words “interaction,” “participation,” and “experience” fifty times a day. I probably say them or type them or think them that many times, too. Don’t know about you, but when I use the same word that many times, their meaning becomes fuzzy. Worse, I start to believe I really know what the words mean. I start making assumptions. I need to check in with myself occasionally and push the reset button. Sometimes, this activity confirms my understanding. Sometimes it shifts subtly.

I’ve pulled together a couple of thoughts from the trip and subsequent discussions.

Experiences with a Big E

Teresa and I, at Peter Samis’ urging, did Janet Cardiff’s 2001 video piece “The Telephone Call.” Janet Cardiff is a sound artist who completed a video piece for the SFMOMA several years ago. You check out a video camera and stereo headphones from the main desk. Cardiff has pre-recorded a walk through the MOMA, recording all the sounds and sights there at the time. When you experience the piece, you follow her path through the museum. You literally see and hear what she did, while you see and hear what’s there now. It was the closest thing to a time machine I’ve ever seen. It was also an Experience with a Big “E.” The experience engaged me physically (heart racing, all senses firing), cognitively (trying to process two realities at the same time), emotionally (becoming invested in the story Cardiff was telling), and socially (Teresa and I interacting with each other, feeling some social awkwardness).

For me, other Experiences with a Big E include good theater, roller coasters, concerts, motorcycle riding, fun houses, playing in a band. I experience it with all my senses, in my body, in my mind, in my heart.

The Person and the Thing Behind the Glass

The show also had online pieces and installed kiosks throughout. I have rarely seen an installed kiosk in a museum that really works and engages people in the same way physically interactive exhibits, do. When you having Experiences with a Big E, the dull click of the mouse echoes through the hall with its dullness. Click… Sigh.

Yesterday, at our company meeting, I brought this up. I wondered out loud, when we say we are “designing experiences” that occur online or in a mobile device, what do we mean? Especially, when we are “designing experiences” for, as one colleague called it, the Thing Behind the Glass— mobile devices, screens, PCs, TVs, iPods or anything with a piece of plastic or glass between you and the thing you are interacting with. It was a passionate discussion. I was reminded that sometimes I have experiences online or with a Thing Behind the Glass that are, in fact, transformative. They do fire on multiple levels; sometimes my heart even races or I might exclaim loudly that something is awesome. But a lot of times, this experience happens with a lower case e – it’s subtle, it’s internal, it’s slowly transformative. It’s more of a cerebral experience.

Designing Opportunities for Experience

Recently, one of my colleagues pointed out a debate going on in the design community about the semantics of “experience design” and “designing experiences.” One designer goes so far to call the idea of “experience design,” as he says so eloquently puts it, horseshit. While I admit I love saying that word loudly over and over, I don’t get much else from black and white characterizations. Maybe I get a little over-stimulated, like a kid on fruit loops and apple juice, but not necessarily meaningfully engaged.

Human experience is messy. A layer of skin separates us from each other. I will never know what truly goes on in your head and you will never know what truly goes on in mine. With that in mind, of course the idea of “designing experiences” seems ludicrous. I do believe, though, that the value of these semantic debates is that they encourage us to think deeply and specify our meaning.

I use research tools to illuminate the human experience as it relates to a specific problem. Then, I design something with respect and attention to that experience. The outcome will support, assist, or facilitate a conversation with between human beings in a positive way. While I am not literally designing that person’s experience, I am designing opportunities for that person to have an experience.

Right now, most of the opportunities for experience I design are quieter experiemce, Things Behind the Glass. Someday I hope to design opportunities for Experiences with a Big E or some other hybrid experience that combines both.

What’s your experience with “experience?”

Recently, there was a conference on Net Promoter Scores here in San Francisco. Bruce Temkin, VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research (and upcoming speaker at MX 2009) put together two nice “state of the NPS” posts.

(Net Promoter Scores are a customer-loyalty metric, developed by Fred Reichheld. Essentially, you get your NPS by asking your customers whether or not they would recommend your product or service to a friend.)

My Closing Thoughts On Net Promoter
“Q: Where is Net Promoter Score (NPS) at in its lifecycle?
I’d say NPS is entering early adolescence. The excitement and exuberance of a single measure for customer loyalty is giving way to some second guessing and rethinking. Companies are learning that it’s not as easy as just using NPS, it takes hard work to figure out how to best use NPS to improve customer experience. The NPS conference, though, was at the right level. Rather than promote the greatness of the NPS metric, Recihheld led the charge around figuring out how to use it as a catalyst for change.”

Fred Reichheld Gives A Net Promoter Update
“The score, NPS, maybe was a mistake. It’s not the score, it’s what you do with the score to make promoters.”

Recently, I’ve been involved in some inspiring conversations about the merits and applications of different content curation models (community curation, an editorial hand, or algorithmic). Those conversations came just in time, it seems, for a raging debate about curation involving Google.

First, read the originating TechCrunch article where Marissa Mayer discusses the future potential impact of community curation on Google search results. She suggests that Google may blend algorithmic results with those suggested by large numbers of human actions.

Then, read Andrew Orlowski’s article in The Register. My favorite quote:

“That Google was impartial was one of the articles of faith. For if Google was ever to be found to be applying subjective human judgment directly on the process, it would be akin to the voting machines being rigged.”

Well, humans write algorithms. Google’s is written by humans, made wonderful by collective human behaviors. Like linking.

Then, read Tim O’Reilly’s response:

“The idea that Google’s algorithms are somehow magically neutral to human values misses their point entirely. What distinguished Google from its peers in 1998 was precisely that it exploited an additional layer of implicit human values as expressed by link behavior, rather than relying on purely mechanistic analysis of the text contained on pages.”

The human hand, revealed.

And finally, check out the pile-on: Censorship! Big Brother! Pragmatism not Idealism! The End of the Free World!

I love a good controversy. Gets my blood pumping so I can stay warm here in the office.

Ever wondered where your paycheck comes from? I mean, actually comes from? How it’s calculated and tracked? Printed? Deposited? How taxes are paid on it? Chances are, there’s a hardworking soul in your organization who tangles with payroll software on a regular basis — just to pay you!

Last year, we had the privilege of working with a team from PayCycle to re-design the set up process of their award-winning payroll management product. We are thrilled to see the first stage of this work released to the public and pleased to announce our involvement.

Setting up payroll is a difficult process – think taxes on steroids. There is a lot of data to keep track of and tax laws to comply with. PayCycle wanted to support people through this process. To accomplish this, we designed a research initiative to better understand how people think about payroll, perform payroll activities, and how they experienced PayCycle’s existing set up system. Armed with a rich data set, we re-structured the information architecture, significantly changed the interaction model, and developed a new visual language. We also worked with the team to further develop user experience practices that would support their work on an ongoing basis.

Some areas we focused on:

• Expectations – Customers were unable to accurately predict the amount of time it would take to complete the set up process. Almost universally, they imagined it would take them an hour – even if they were 3 hours into the process. To support these customers, we focused on ways to set expectations, help them gather materials, and break the work up into more manageable chunks

• Interruptions – Small business owners are constantly interrupted. They also need information for the payroll set up that is sometimes not readily accessible. We made it easy for folks to tackle smaller pieces at a time and easily pick up where they left off.

• Efficiencies – With the PayCycle team, we got busy asking ourselves hard questions. What trade-offs could we make to shorten the process? Did we really need every piece of information up front or could we ask for some pieces later? If we didn’t gather all the information up front, what might be some unintended consequences on, say, the call center?

While it’s hard to deliver “easy” in the context of payroll set up, the new process provides insight into how much further customers have to go, and rewards them with encouragement at important points along the way. In addition to having a great new set up process for the PayCycle service, the PayCycle team now more deeply understands their customers’ experience and can use this knowledge in ongoing design work. Finally, because PayCycle operates in a space where technology is not the primary competitive driver, PayCycle’s ability to bring design innovation to their customer experience supports their position as the market leader.

We worked with a lot of great people at PayCycle including our core team of Lynn McLeod, Eric Schenk, Karen White, and Martin Gates. Further excellent work was done by Ariege Mishergi, Scott Hatcher, Desiree McCrorey, Yogesh Bhumralkar, and Erich Zeigler, and Garret Seevers. Finally, the management team of Jim Heeger, Leo Redmond, Kathleen Echeverria, Tanya Roberts, Susie Helfrey, and Dan Hing offered us invaluable support.

I’d also like to thank the excellent Adaptive Path team which included Henning Fischer, Chiara Fox, Brian Cronin, Julie Hamwood, Kumi Akiyoshi, Julia Houck-Whitaker, and Emily Chang and Max Kiesler of Ideacodes.

If you are interested in learning more about the work, we recently posted a case study on the project.

I pulled together a slidecast, with audio, of “10 Tips for Managing a Creative Environment.” Bryan Mason and I gave this talk at SXSW 2008 Interactive. I’ve already described the talk here (we gave a version of it at Web 2.0 Expo SF in April) but the SXSW folks recently made the audio available.

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Bryan Mason and I gave a talk last Thursday at Web 2.0 Expo ’08 San Francisco called “10 Tips for Managing a Creative Environment.” As we promised attendees of that talk, we have posted the slides here. We will soon be posting a slidecast of the same talk with audio from SXSW.

For the talk, Bryan and I talked with several creative groups, including the Neo-Futurists, the writers of Avenue Q, a writing collective called The Job Factory, and Ryan Freitas about his experiences working at Aqua, a San Francisco restaurant. We also drew on our own experiences in stage management and classical music. We chose these groups primarily because they, like design teams, create as groups, are schedule-focused, and are trying to do something different with the creative process.

From the research, we looked for common problems and techniques the groups used to deal with those problems. During the presentation, we share the stories and techniques we found.

I’ve been trying to explain to my new zen meditation advisor what exactly I do. And today he got it:

“Ok. Here’s something for you and your people to work on. I just want one device. Wireless is critical so I can take it everywhere with me. And there has to be just one login for everything. All those passwords are the bane of my existence. And everything should just work together. It would be great if you guys could do that.”

Consider it done. Happy holidays.

At Adaptive Path, many of us speak regularly at conferences. I’ve found that it is critical to understand the conference’s context, the organizer’s expectations, and any other constraints. Arming ourselves in advance with this information helps me prepare, tailor my message for the audience, and feel confident in my presentation.

When I first started speaking, I was just happy to be accepted. I didn’t ask too many questions. However, I’ve learned through experience (been burned once or twice) to ask some important questions of conference organizers before I agree to speak. Both the conference organizer and I need to make sure that my presentation will be interesting and useful to the audience.

Initially, I ask probing questions to determine if the conference is a good fit. Then, if I decide that I would like to speak there (and the conference organizer is still interested), I move on to more detailed questions.

I have compiled a checklist of questions I typically ask below. I hope this will be a useful reference to you. If you think of others I should add, please let me know.

The Basics

Some conference organizers are super busy or, for a variety of reasons, unable to share a lot of information. So, at the least, make sure you get these questions answered:

• Where, what, and when is the conference?
• What is my session about, how long is it, when is it?
• Who is the audience?
• How are you compensating me? (not necessarily $$$)

The Details

If you can have a full conversation with a program chair, you can ask a lot more:

First things first:

• Where is the conference? When?
• What is the conference about (generally)? Tech, design, something else?
• Who is putting it on? An academic group, professional org, or private group?
  This affects both what they expect of you and what you can expect compensation-wise.
• What is the topic you would like me to speak on?
• What is the topic *I* would like to speak on?
• Am I interested and available?

Then…

Audience

• Who is the audience?
  demographics, experience, interests, skills, level in organization, work context
• What are their motivations for attending?
• What is their experience level with my material? Familiarity with my topic?
• Are they the type to ask questions or sit back and listen?

Conference

• How many people will attend the conference?
• What are the themes of the conference?
• What other kinds of speakers will there be?
• Is this inspirational, academic or a hands-on conference?
• How long is the conference?

My session

• How long is my session?
• How many sessions will compete with mine?
• How many people do you anticipate in my session?
• When in the day will my session be?
• What sessions will happen before and after mine?
• What will the AV set up be like?
  they may not be able to tell you, so allow time to scout it out when you arrive
• What kind of room? How will it be set?
  they may not be able to tell you, so allow time to scout it out when you arrive

Logistics

• How will I be compensated (travel, hotel, meals, per diems, honorarium)?
• Who will book my hotel and flight?
• How many nights at the hotel will you cover?
  Most won’t cover more than two nights. Many will try to just cover one but you should definitely push for two nights – get rest before and recovery after.
• Will I receive a pass to the conference?
• When will you need my materials (abstract, bio, photos, etc)?

Good luck! Speak well!

Before our first MX event, I spoke with Scott Berkun on what was then his upcoming book, The Myths of Innovation. We didn’t publish the interview before the conference, so it didn’t make the impact it should have. Well, Scott’s speaking at MX East (Oct 21-23, Philadelphia), the book is published (and excellent), and the interview is as relevant as ever, so we’re sharing it here.

Sarah Nelson: I have Scott Berkun here with me today, and we’re going to talk about his upcoming book. But first: Scott, could you give us a little bit of a background and tell us about yourself?

Scott Berkun: Sure. So, my background’s in computer science and design. I went to Carnegie Mellon University. I was a computer science major there, but I also learned very quickly that I was not going to be a great programmer, so I studied user interface design before I left. I got hired at Microsoft in ‘94, and I worked as a usability engineer and as a program manager on Internet Explorer. I did that for maybe five or six years. I did all kinds of management stuff: Led software development, wrote specs, made decisions, treated all its bugs. I left Microsoft in about 2003 to write books, and my first book was called The Art of Project Management, which was published by O’Reilly in 2005. That book did really well, so well that they were willing to let me write another book, called The Myths of Innovation, which is what I’m talking to you about today.

SN: So, what would you say is the biggest myth about innovation?

SB: Well, there are so many to choose from. The first chapter of the book is all about one of the biggest ones: The myth of epiphany, which is the idea that when all the great thinkers and all the great creative minds get new ideas, they just come from beyond with no explanation as to why that happens or who it’s going to happen to. If I had to pick the biggest of the innovation myths, that’d be it: The myth of epiphany.

SN: So, why do you think that this myth is so pervasive?

SB: It’s nice to think that we can just say, “Maybe I’ll be creative today and maybe I won’t; it just depends on what the gods decide. And I’ll be okay if I’m not creative, but if it happens, it’s not in my control.” I think that’s a big part of many of the myths, that they distance us from having to take responsibility for whether we are creative or not.

SN: Creativity and the processes of business sometimes seem like strange bedfellows. Creativity often involves a lot of risk and ambiguity, whereas business seems to value efficiency and guarantees. In your experience, how can you bridge the gap between those two different approaches?

SB: Well, even if you are doing something that you’ve done before, something that you think is super predictable and reliable, it’s still not guaranteed. There are always uncertainties that factor into any decisions you make or any processes you put in place. So it’s an illusion that managers have complete control over their businesses, or complete control over how things are done. Someone has to stand up and say, “We don’t have that much control over the simple things. There’s always uncertainty. There’s always some kind of risk. There’s always some kind of chaos.” And once you get people to acknowledge that they don’t have as much control as they think they do, then the conversation starts to be about how do you introduce new ideas? How do you have processes that support change? How do you have processes that allow us to see what the process is missing? All those questions start to come up, and then you can reach a point where people recognize, “Okay, in order for us to grow as much as we want to grow, we have to change, and change demands risk, so we have to be okay with taking a risk on this project.” I think it always starts with someone having the guts to reflect back on the illusion of control. We always think we have control over everything, yet if you look at what’s really going on, we don’t.

SN: One of the things I’ve been wondering about is the idea of “source of innovation” within a company. Do you think it’s actually possible to create an environment in which innovation occurs?

SB: Oh, that’s a really good question. I think that you can create an environment, and it’s very simple. I think that whoever has power over a budget, and whoever has power over what features are included in a product or go up on the website, they enable innovation by saying “yes.” That’s really the fundamental thing that they have to be willing to do. When someone shows up with an idea — “Hey, why don’t we change the navigation system from this older design to this new design I’ve been thinking of? Can I get some money to go and prototype this?”— all that has to happen is the person with power says, “Yes, I will give you a week to go and prototype that and we will review it when you have the prototype, and then we’ll consider actually making those changes.” And once everyone witnesses the person in power saying “yes” to a new idea, then they’ll be comfortable bringing another idea, or a third idea. And then all of a sudden, you have an environment that is very receptive to new ideas and innovations, as opposed to the more common complaints about environments, where new ideas are like wanted men: They’re shot down pretty quickly.
(more…)

For many people, brainstorming seems to be a largely useless pursuit—meandering sessions, filled with bad ideas, rammed down your throat by a loud mouth who should have stayed in his cubicle. Brainstorming also seemed to be used during times of panic: the “what the heck are we going to do, the deadline is tomorrow” kind of brainstorming. Painful.

I, too, used to be in the anti-brainstorming camp. I now know that those frustrating, unproductive sessions were just poorly conceived and poorly run. Unfortunately, this is the experience some people have with brainstorming. This makes me sad.

Marc Andreeson, in his post Why brainstorming is a bad idea posted a nice quote from the Medici Effect demonstrating that teams using brainstorming techniques were often less effective at generating ideas than people working on the same problem in different rooms. The quoted study looked at both quality and quantity of ideas.

I’m with Scott Berkun (In defense of brainstorming) on this, though. While it may be true that many times—even the vast majority of times—group brainstorming sessions fail to produce useful results, poor facilitation, lack of focus, inappropriate choice of method, and poor team dynamics lead to most of those failures. (This is why we have sessions at UX Week on facilitation, team building, and collective creativity…)

At Adaptive Path, we use a variety of idea generation methods. From loose and fast brainstorming to highly structured idea generation sessions with clients to impromptu problem solving sessions, we sometimes get great ideas out of the group and sometimes not. The key, though, is that we regularly use these techniques — we practice, we learn, we fail, we try it again.