Adaptive Path Blog

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…

“Is there such a thing as sustainable experience design?” In our internal discussions of The Designers Accord, Jesse posed this question. Not being industrial designers, we generally aren’t qualified to address product life-cycle issues such as materials & processes or transportation logistics in any meaningful way. But, as Jesse suggested, perhaps we can bring a new perspective to the sustainability conversation that other disciplines haven’t yet considered.

Experience is closely tied to sustainable behavior: People act un-sustainably because it’s often much easier or results in a better experience than doing otherwise. (It’s much more convenient and pleasant to drive my car wherever I want.) Thus, experience designers are uniquely-poised to encourage sustainability by capitalizing on what we know about human behavior as well as business strategy. We have the capacity to:

Make sustainable experiences more compelling than the alternatives. How can we make doing what’s best in the long run more attractive in the short run? (e.g., Make transit a better experience than driving.)

Understand and appeal to people’s motivations, values and aspirations. As ethnographers, we know how to tap into the subconscious motivations that unwittingly shape behavior. How can we appeal to these tendencies at points of decision so that right choices become the most natural choices?

Harness the power of information to help people make better decisions. As information designers, we know how to make the abstract concrete and make hidden costs visible, visualize the future, and tell stories. The right information can not only influence decisions when presented at critical moments, it can also shape underlying attitudes and values — a necessary component of lasting change.

Promote a service-mindset vs. a product-mindset. As Liya Zheng put it in her post on Service Design and Sustainability: “Think about how to appeal to consumers and businesses with a complete solution that goes beyond the product itself, and where possible, minimize the use of products by delivering great services.”

Communicate the business value of sustainability. Green sells! Businesses for whom green is central to their identity, value proposition or business strategy are more successful than businesses that adopt a cause just because they ought to. As design strategists, we can help companies find ways to turn sustainability into profitability.

But while it’s easy to identify how we COULD contribute, the tricky part, especially for us as consultants, is finding real opportunities to exercise these skills. While design educators can shape future generations of designers and business-people, and in-house designers can shape their company’s culture and product/service strategy, we’re often brought in for specific, often screen-based projects that seemingly have nothing to do with sustainability.

Does it really make sense, as the Accord calls for, to have a sustainability conversation with every client? How can we avoid coming across as pretentious do-gooders?

What best practices can we promote in our interaction design work (e.g., strive to reduce computer use by promoting more energy-efficient means of information access such as mobile)?

How can we identify clients and projects where the skills outlined above can be applied?

These are the questions we’re left wondering about and debating. If anyone has any thoughts or perspectives, we’d love to hear them.

A couple weeks ago, I spoke with car-sharing service Zipcar’s CEO Scott Griffith. Scott is presenting at UX Week 2008 in August. You can listen to our conversation (40 minute MP3), or read excerpts.

Zipcar is definitely a services firm whose star is ascending, and a key element to their success is the experience design of their service. It’s right there in their mission statement: “Our user experience strives to elegantly combine the promise of the Internet with wireless communication and online communities.”

What most interested me in talking to Scott was how a CEO considers user experience in relationship to other concerns. Scott mentions that Zipcar is the first services firm that he’s aware of that follows kaizen engineering principles, which were originally developed to ensure quality management and continuous improvement for Toyota in their car manufacturing. We also discussed the balance between user experience and his primary business metric, utilization, and the importance of cars not being utilized more than 40% of the time, or it would upset customers, who wouldn’t be able to find a car.

I’d also love to *see* the customer lifecycle diagram that he talks about, where they’ve mapped a customer’s entire experience with Zipcar, from awareness of the service, through joining, to leaving (which, on average, happens at about 5 years).

I hope you enjoy listening to our conversation as much as I had having it, and please use the comments section here for any further thoughts or ideas you’d like to see Scott raise at UX Week 2008. (And register using the promotional code BLOG to get 10% off!)

Just before the holiday break, I was driving on the 24 freeway right at the Caldecott tunnel when I saw that someone had put up one strand of Christmas lights in the dirty window of the little office that sits at the base of the tunnel. When I thought about it, I realized that someone did that intentionally to create a little holiday spirit in an otherwise bleak location.

When we talk about experience design, we discuss it in terms of intentional efforts to create an experience for a product or service. There are meetings, decisions, consultants, plans and well-made executions – all of this with an eye towards producing a purposeful, desired experience for an individual or group of people.

But, the person that put those Christmas lights did all those things, too. Maybe not in a conscious or thought-out manner, but there was an intention to create an experience.

So, my question is, do human beings always intentionally design experiences – even unknowningly?

Outside of acts of God or nature (things that we cannot control), we create experiences for ourselves every day. We organize our closets in a certain way to make dressing in the morning efficient, we walk certain streets because we find them pleasant, we cook our food for taste, we decorate at holidays to create a mood and tradition.

What causes us to do this? Do we simply like it? Or is there a deeper need?

As experience designers, are there ways to build upon this trait? Can we somehow expand on this assumed, basic human behavior? Are there ways to recognize these natural tendencies and leverage them when we design experiences?

We recently had an opportunity to visit the Current TV studios here in San Francisco. They were gracious enough to give us a guided tour of their operations.

Current TV started in 2005 and bills itself as the world’s leading peer-to-peer news and information network. They are the only 24/7 television network and site produced and programmed in collaboration of its audience.

I’ve been watching them off and on over the past couple of years and have always liked how much emphasis is placed on covering stories that young adults care about. It reminds me of what MTV could’ve done had they not gone batshit crazy.

The first thing I noticed when we arrived at their studio was the amount of people they have in the building. From the outside, it seems like a small space, but once inside, it goes on and on. They have about 300 employees in the SF location with more in Los Angeles and abroad. Their offices are as unique as their programming – everywhere you look there was an individual personality to the place.

We were shown rooms where the teams edit, produce, film and write. It was also amazing to see one room dedicated to managing and collecting all the feeds that come to the network.

What really struck me though, was the vibe of the place. It truly felt like people were there to make a difference – that they were dedicated to their jobs beyond just a paycheck. Current talks about “democratizing” TV and internet content. I get the feeling that it’s more than a marketing ploy.

It’s interesting that their site is so intrinsically tied to the content on television. They strive for a 2-screen experience and they tell us that everything featured on the TV network is available on their site. I imagine that most of their audience watches TV with their computer on their lap, so why not build an experience that caters to this displayed need?

I’m really curious to see how far this goes. There are plenty of examples of user-submitted content successes in the business world today. You only need to look to the many video sites and even CNN’s I-Report project to witness how media has already been changed. Current’s dedicated network and content-rich site provides a much more focused implementation of this trend. I hope they succeed and teach us all a thing or two in the process.

Find what channel they’re on in your city here.

The big news for our 2008 events is that we’re coming home. We’ll have three major events in San Francisco, starting with our UX Intensive, a 4-day hands-on workshop addressing the essential disciplines of user experience: Design Strategy, Design Research. Interaction Design, and Information Architecture. The event takes place February 19-22 at the Hotel Kabuki, in the heart of Japantown (great parking for locals!).

We’ve got an end-of-the-year sale going on with our events, with heavily discounted pricing through December 31. (For example, all four days of UX Intensive SF are currently priced at $1,695, compared to the full registration rate of $2,495. Use promotional code BLOG for an additional 10% off.) Don’t let your 2007 training budget go to waste!

Last month, I traveled to Vancouver for our most recent UX Intensive (and even taught the Information Architecture day, as Chiara couldn’t make it). I took photos of the event, which featured a remarkable number of activities that ensure you just don’t learn about these UX methods — you practice them.

Some of my favorite pics:

Brandon sketches, and a video camera shows what he’s talking about…

There was lots of writing on walls…

Though some groups preferred the floor…

And lots, and lots of stickies…

The shopping experience at clothing stores is much better than it used to be. The layout of the store tends to provide more open space for shoppers than it did just five years ago. Even in department stores, gone are the days of being squeezed in between the sale rack and some soulless sweater display with a half dressed mannequin. It seems there are more boutiques focused on one style or catering to a well thought out target audience than ever before. There are places for people to sit, often with those nice little tables with magazines. I’ve noticed this in nearly every U.S. city I’ve visited this year from Chicago, to DC, to Santa Fe.

Where most of these stores still sadly continue to fail is the real point of sale: the dressing room. It’s a terrible experience. The lighting is enough to compromise anyone’s self esteem. The fluorescent lighting not only makes me look bad, but the shirt or sweater that looked great on the shelf or rack, now looks different. And all too often, there isn’t anyone to help me decide if I’m about to buy something that will make me look like an idiot, stylish, savvy, or smart.

I recently learned that Anthropologie has a service where you can work with a stylist for free. (Sorry guys, no men’s clothes yet.) Having been less than inspired by my wardrobe lately, I signed up for an hour with Maria. First she sat me down and asked me several question: what did I like, what was I looking for, what colors did I hate? Then we walked through the store and she helped pick things out. We picked out probably 20 things — half of which I would never pick out on my own, but I was there to try new things.

The dressing room at Anthropologie isn’t amazing, but it’s better than most. The lighting isn’t enough to make me run, and it’s always well-staffed. This is the experience differentiator that Anthropologie offers: the support of someone that knows my likes and dislikes and how I want to improve my wardrobe. I tried everything on, ventured out and modeled it to her. Maria gave me her opinion and ideas for different things that I could do with the pants, shirts, or dresses, or as Maria referred to them ‘pieces’. While I didn’t quite feel like I was buying art, it was a lovely experience. I felt supported, confident, and even inspired.

Without the time with Maria, I wouldn’t have spent a dime at Anthropologie, but after an hour, I gladly walked up to the counter and spent a couple hundred dollars. I hope to go back a few times a year to meet with Maria. She even said I could bring old clothes from home and she’d help me work them into new outfits.

This experience struck me as an opportunity for a retail clothing store to transform how they think about their business, and specifically, how the business defines the job of the sales people. If a store made everyone that walked in the door feel like they had a stylist, I imagine that point of sale in the dressing room (hopefully with better lighting) would be a whole new opportunity.

Throughout 2007, Jesse and I have been giving what we call The Stump Speech. In it, we put forth the importance of taking an experienced-based approach to product strategy, with examples including the original Kodak camera, Nintendo Wii, Palm Pilot, Google Calendar, and, of course, iPod. Readers of this blog will be familiar with elements of it already, particularly in the essay written Core77.

I gave the stump speech at d.construct last September, and it went quite well. They’ve made the audio available, so I decided to sync it with the presentation and create a slidecast, embedded below. Just hit the play button, and it’s like I’m there, inside your computer, talking at you and advancing slides. Spooky!

(You’ll note they call it “Experience Strategies,” which was the original title, but was changed for the talk. Also, some of the end slides don’t quite sync up right — I had to recreate the deck after a hard drive crash.)

Some of the images have a fair bit of detail, so you might want to watch it full screen.

Sneaking in last week was Brandon’s essay on The Long Wow. An excerpt:

Deep customer insights and empathetic design pave the pathway to wow moments. By diving deep into a customer’s life and closely observing their behaviors, you can wow your customer by addressing needs that they’d never be able to articulate. By immersing yourself in the customer’s wider world of emotion and culture, you can wow them by attuning the offering to practical needs and dimensions of delight that normally go unfulfilled.

When a company uses empathetic design methods to create moments of wow over and over again, it bonds with customers at a level far beyond the realm of gold-colored plastic cards. OXO introduced over 50 products every year, wowing customers with purposeful improvements through the re-imagination of common culinary tools.

Few companies consistently translate rich insights from their customers’ lives into new and better offerings. The few that do can achieve a Long Wow, continuously delivering wow moments and building a true, deep loyalty that transcends traditional loyalty programs.

Read the essay.