Adaptive Path Blog

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?

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.

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.

Chiara Fox & I spent Monday and Tuesday getting our geek on at the She’s Geeky unconference in Mountain View. In addition to hanging out with smart, geeky gals and learning about a wide variety of tech+ topics, there were other things that made the experience notable, memorable and impactful.

What made it different:

• Use of the Open Space principles / Unconference structure
• Wide range of topics, diversity of skills, interests and life experiences
• Fully participatory - it was what you made of it
• All the participant were female, geeky and proud of it
• The participants created the conference contents

Highlights of the experience
The unconference format allowed for participation from anyone and everyone. If you wanted to connect with others about an idea, you were encouraged to add it to the lineup. There was a big sheet of paper where participants could post their sessions (aka: the grid.)

The grid changed and grew throughout the day. The principles of Open Space made it okay to have a big group, or just one person (yes, you can convene a group of 1!) Key to the process was the following:

• Whoever comes are the right people / is the right person.
• Whatever happens is the only thing that would have.
• Whenever it starts is the right time.
• Whenever it is over it is over.
• If you are not learning something or sharing something, you have the responsibility to respectfully move to somewhere you are.

Topics were wide and varied…Art + Craft + Geek; GIMP for open source image editing; Shameless Promotion; Guerrilla Tactics of a Diversity Evangelist; Cyber Bullying; What challenging questions should we be asking ourselves? and more.

The Computer History Museum is a fantastic location. One big room for lunch and discussion tables, and smaller rooms for breakout sessions. The espresso bar kept us jazzed for the 2 days.

What made it work? Every activity was grounded in participation:

• You make your own nametag with a nametagcloud
• Snap a poloaroid and write up your own profile
• Write your name on your coffee mug (and drink custom coffee drinks all day!)
• Open lunch table sessions on the first day

What I learned?

• If you want participants to make their own experience, use a format that includes them in the design of that experience.
• Invite interested, interesting people…and interesting things will happen.
• Be inclusive…create many ways to get involved and engaged.
• Make it consistently participative.

Many of the session notes are available on the She’s Geeky site, and lots of photos are on Flickr.

I’ll definitely go next year!

I have been following the story of Carol Gotbaum, the 45-year mother of three who died in a Phoenix airport holding cell two weeks ago and feel both sadness and anger.

Sadness for Carol’s family and their senseless loss.

Anger at the people we become inside airports.

Sure, we all complain the experience of air travel can really suck. However, Carol’s story indicates there is something more amiss and sinister happening to us and the experience inside airports than basic human frustration at long lines and poor service.

I think back to a recent trip to Europe and recognize my own culpability - my annoyance at fellow travelers who stood too close to me in line and kept hitting me with their rolling suitcase, passing judgement at people who had the audacity to try and bring a bottle of water through the security checkpoint, contempt for the security guard who confiscated my expensive face moisturizer because it exceeded the 3oz limit for carry on luggage.

What has happened to us?

How is it that the social rules and expectations around air travel have plummeted to a place where someone like Carol, who was so clearly in need of help and compassion is instead arrested, locked up and, within a matter of minutes, dead?

Why has our fear of terrorism turned airports into some strange alternate universe where are willing to check our dignity at the door? How is it that we tolerate being herded through security gates like cattle in stocking feet, and are more interested in making sure our hair gel and hand lotion are in a zip-lock bag than showing patience and empathy for our fellow passengers?

If experiences are a reflection of what we value, what does Carol Gotbaum’s story have to teach us about ourselves and the people we become inside airports?

Two years after it launched, the New York Times pulls the plug on TimesSelect. Their rationale?

“Since we launched TimesSelect in 2005, the online landscape has altered significantly. Readers increasingly find news through search, as well as through social networks, blogs and other online sources. In light of this shift, we believe offering unfettered access to New York Times reporting and analysis best serves the interest of our readers, our brand and the long-term vitality of our journalism.”

I’m happy to see the Times reconsider its poor decision making. It’s refreshing to see an older, more established organization begin to question fundamental assumptions about its business and brand. What continues to mystify me is that it took two years to see the writing on the wall.

Paul Arden, an ex-creative director from Saatchi, gave a talk at the Art Directors’ club in Iceland a few years back. I saved the text and pull it out from time to time. Much of his talk is advertising-centric. But here are some universal thoughts that I think we can all benefit from.

Aim beyond what you think you can achieve.
Most of us are content to compete locally, with our neighbors. Change your scale of thinking and compete with the world’s best.

Energy.
It’s 75% of the job. If you haven’t got it, be nice.

Don’t look at the next opportunity, the one you have in hand is the one.

It’s all my fault.
Blame no-one, but your self, if you have touched something accept total responsibility for that piece of work. If you accept responsibility you are in the position to do something about it. If you are involved don’t blame others.

Don’t seek praise, seek criticism.
When you show somebody a piece of work, ask them what is wrong, not what is right. It might help improve it. Note how most people simply want praise, what good is that to the job?

Know your clients aims.
We are trained to think advertising is all about selling products. That is often not the case. The motivation may be quite different. Always find out what a client wants to advertise for.

Do not covert your ideas.
Give away everything and more will come back to you. They are not your ideas anyway they are God’s.

Do it first, don’t ask and be prepared to take the consequences.
A new idea, is either silly, unfamiliar or both. It cannot be judged by description, it cannot even be judged as a storyboard. It needs to be done to exist. No one will sanction the cost, therefore you have no choice but to do it whatever the cost.

Draw with different pen.
Magic markers and Pentels are not the only ways to make marks on paper. Change your tools, it may free your thinking.

Compose your ad from the weakest point.
If you know a logo or a pack have to big don’t hope it will fit in the corner somewhere unobtrusively, it won’t. Start your layouts knowing that is a problem to be solved as an integrated part of the idea. Remember God is in the details.

Suppliers are only as good as you are.
Don’t hand work over to a suppliers hoping they will provide the magic. They won’t. You are the magic.

Storyboard in detail.
Every cut, every action, every angle, every word. Once you have a base you know works, you are free to make clear decisions on further input from directors.

Attend to every single detail of a commercial.
Every edit, every recording session, every dub. Trust no one. You are the only person who knows what you want or should know.

Do not ask people to like you. Earn their respect.

Find out what the client means by creativity

Okay, here’s the deal. You have one week to write a haiku about why you design. Submit the haiku via direct message on Twitter. Whichever one makes us cry (or laugh) the most receives a $10 iTunes gift card. (It’s really more for fun, but free music is nice, too.)

Submissions via comments to this post will not be accepted. It needs to be via Twitter. You can sign up at here. Follow “adaptivepath” or just Message us (d adaptivepath).

UPDATE: Some people are having trouble with sending Direct Messages. Alternatively, you can submit using “@adaptivepath” in the beginning of your message. To Twitter, that becomes a Reply. We’ll see them and add your submission to the collection.

Rules for Haiku are found here. We’re looking for the more modern version of Haiku in the 5-7-5 pattern.

You have until midnight on Friday, September 14, 2007.

UPDATE: Entry is closed. Thanks to all who submitted. We’ll announce the winner on Monday, 9/17.

If ever there was an organization behind the times in its philosophy, it is the Association of Computing Machines. The ACM has has a stranglehold on technical papers for years, preventing anyone outside of their organization access to these documents without payment. This even though the ACM hasn’t written or reviewed these documents — the authors and reviewers have done all that work for free. And the thanks they get? Their work doesn’t make it out to the general public; it’s trapped behind a walled garden, where typically only those in academia will ever see or use it because their universities have an account.

ASIS&T’s Digital Library is no better. Again, you get abstracts for free, but a single paper will cost you $25 — for only 24 hours of use! Seriously? For work that hasn’t cost ASIS&T a penny. It’s highway robbery.

And to make matters worse, these organizations will gladly charge you to come to their conferences to hear people present their papers and thus make more money off the work of others. Hell, you have to pay to present your own work! It’s a racket, and I’m not sure why scientists and academics stand for it. Isn’t the point of academic work the free and liberal exchange of ideas? I’d love to look at the latest academic research when working on projects, and I wouldn’t even mind paying for it if I knew the money was going to the authors, not to parasitic organizations whose sole purpose is to guard and charge for information, not share it.

Mr., umm, Someone, tear down these walls!

Dan Saffer spoke to the crowd at UX Week 2007 in his Keynote on Day 4. His talk, entitled “New Sources of Inspiration” invited us to look to sources of inspiration that we normally do not when we design.

Here are the notes from the talk. You can also download the slides here.

Where do our sources of inspiration come from?

When we think inspiration, we think WWAD? (What Would Apple Do?)

Or perhaps we look to Jennifer Tidwell, Designing Interfaces for Patterns or the Yahoo pattern library for sources of inspiration. But sometimes you need more than what’s out there in the digital space.

The world is our pattern library. We can look around us at the world with fresh eyes for inspiration.

Look to architecture and film and mechanical objects. These things can teach us about sources of inspiration that we can gleen things from them. For this presentations, we’ll look to the products and not the processes.

To design means forcing ourselves to unlearn what we believe we already know, patiently take apart the mechanisms behind our reflexes and to acknowledge the mystery and stupefying complexity of everyday gestures like switching off a light or turning on a tap.
Alain de Botton

Look at the world with beginner eyes.

ARCHITECTURE

Winchester Mystery House
Example of what you don’t want to be inspired by. It’s a mess, not thought out.

Houses
* Houses are the operating software for life.
* What is it about these that we can look at and learn from

A building must do two things: it must shelter us and it must speak to us of the things we find important and need to be reminded of.
John Ruskin

* Must be useful and usable and have a voice that speaks to us.
* Compared modern houses to old houses…space allocation tells us something about the importance placed on design

In essence, what works of design and architecture talk to us about is the kind of life that would most appropriately unfold within and around them…They speak of visions of happiness.
Alain de Botton

* Design of a building shows us the architect’s voice (different levels of happiness)

Best practices are a place to start, not a place to end.

Showed an image of Jakob Nielsen as an example of an architect that would put a bathroom in one place always. That architect would have to be insane or a control freak.

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
William Morris

The Gamble House
* The lighting for the stairs also has the house number. Seamlessly integrated and becomes multifunctional. Yahoo task bar is an example of using space well.
* The lines of the ceiling held to define zones or rooms
* The dishes are placed in built in cabinets. Not far away, easily accessble. InDesign CS3 has this dilberate panel with drawers of tools you need.
* The kitchen has a triangle of work space. So do some of our modern day desktop apps - Apple Mail
* Even the corners of your design can be made beautiful. The straps in the attic are not seen often. These are functional, yet beautiful.

FILM

* Lots of pieces of film (visual effects and transitions) that can inspire us.
* Showed an example of Indiana Jones airplane travel tracking. Jeff Veen had a dream about the movie and became inspired by this movement to design in Google Analytics
* We viewed an Apple commercial as an example of showing transitions of character of the iPhone.
* The movie Birds is an example of using sound to indicate something - it’s an effective tool.
* Props and sets - Blade Runner’s colors and and feel.
Minority Report inspired many touch screens and interaction in product design.
* Title Sequences - convey two pieces of information - mood and credits. Look for timing and movement
* Stamen Design did Digg Swarm in a very visual and different way - information design
* Movement can set the tone.

MECHANICAL OBJECTS

* Look to mechanical objects for inspiration as well.
* We’ve already stolen our buttons and sliders from mechanical objects.

As a caveat:

Don’t replicated Mechanical-Age artifacts in user interfaces without Information-Age enhancements.
Alan Cooper

Dashboards and Control Panels
* We’re always being asked to design them.
* Displays show the necessary information for users to make informed decisions, while controls allow you to manipulate the system. Labels expaine what the controls do.
* In order to control a system, you need to understand the state of the system, the display helps with this. You see this in “Executive Dashboards”
* Crane controls show an example of direct manipulation and feedback.
* Browsers also show controls and direct respose. No invisible state that needs to be exposed further.

Learning from Elements

* Vespa Scooter dashboard is an example of form and layout (so are toys)
* These are examples of possible digital device inspiration
* Typography shows how you can affect feel and labels should connect to controls.
* Icons are hard to do, but when done are very powerful.
* Anticipate how users are going to use your products and then design for it.

What not to do
Don’t label the labels - if you have to, to you’ve designed it wrong

When you’re stuck on your next design, get up, walk around, see what’s available for inspiration in the world.