Adaptive Path Blog

We work hard to make UX Intensive not just a great learning experience, but full of practical techniques that you can take home and immediate apply to help make a difference in your work.

Our friends at PixelMEDIA did just that after attending our UX Intensive in Vancouver last November. Several of their staff came for the event an took home what they learned in a big way. They lead their own internal UX Intensive workshops, sharing the approaches they learned to approximately 30 of their staff members. Here’s a couple of photos of their sessions from Thomas Obrey, COO of PixelMEDIA.

We’re inspired by Thomas and the others at PixelMEDIA, and we’re really looking forward to sharing our best ideas at the upcoming UX Intensive in Minneapolis. Come join us, and use the promotional code BLOG to get an extra 10% off.

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Join us to celebrate the release of our book, Subject To Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World: Adaptive Path on Design. The party will be here at our offices:


363 Brannan St., San Francisco, CA
May 13th from 6-9pm


We’ll start off with some mingling, then the four authors will give a short talk followed by a book signing and more mingling. Adaptive Snacks will be providing light appetizers. Please join us! RSVP Here.


A little bit about the book:
To achieve success in today’s ever-changing and unpredictable markets, competitive businesses need to rethink and reframe their strategies across the board. Instead of approaching new product development from the inside out, companies have to begin by looking at the process from the outside in, beginning with the customer experience.


It’s a new way of thinking-and working-that can transform companies struggling to adapt to today’s environment into innovative, agile, and commercially successful organizations. Read more


Don Norman said he liked it:
“Short, but powerful. Easy to read, yet profound.
I’ve been searching for just this book: the one perfect book that summarizes the essence of modern product design. This is it. The lessons are as powerful as they are simple: The product is NOT the goal. Successful products are systems. Focus on the experience. This requires empathy, agile product management, real understanding of the target audience. This book practices what it preaches. I will use it in my courses for MBA students. You should use it for, well, for everyone. Short, simple, persuasive, and powerful.”


Don Norman
Co-Founder Nielsen Norman group
Author of “Emotional Design” and “Design of Future Things”


Buy the book on Amazon.

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 I’m heading to Europe for three weeks for 2 must-attend conferences! The first is MEX, Mobile User Experience conference, 27-28 May in London, UK hosted by PMN who shook up the mobile design industry last year with their fabulously astute and thought provoking 10 point Manifesto for enhancing the mobile user experience. Our host, Marek Pawlowski, has created a different kind of conference format, bringing together 100 of the leading thinkers in mobile and challenging us to define the cutting edge of user experience. At the heart of the event is the 10 point Manifesto, highlighting the major issues facing the mobile industry as it strives to become a more customer-focused, design-led business. Now in its 4th year, MEX is attended by pioneers from the carriers, handset manufacturers, platform providers, software developers and UI designers. 

I will be leading a MEX breakout group exploring the controversial notion that “Fashion is a stronger motivator than functionality”, in the mobile handset business. Conference attendees will work together in a number of small teams to look at this issue from all the angles before re-convening for an open debate. I love this format and cannot wait to dive into deeper discussions about the issues that we face everyday as designers. 

If you are looking for some inspiration and thought leadership in the mobile user experience arena, I highly recommend attending MEX this year. Marek has also kindly offered a discount for Friends of Adaptive Path (that’s YOU!), so please take advantage of the 15% discount on attendance by registering online with the referral code AP08 or by calling Marek Pawlowski on +44 (0)7767 622957.  

I head over to Malmö, Sweden the 2nd week of June for inUse’s conference From Business to Buttons hosted at Malmö University. The conference is a mixture of strategy, design and facilitated hands-on workshops offering insights and methods of how to bridge the gap between business goals and user needs. They have Don Norman as the keynote speaker as well as other top industry professionals in user experience design including Adaptive Path’s very own Ryan Freitas and Friend of AP Jonathan Grubb, CEO of Rubyred Labs and Co-founder of Get Satisfaction.  

I will be giving my workshop Process Reboot: Change your process to create experience-driven innovations, which I first presented at DUX07 in November last year and most recently at Adaptive Path’s MX conference. I’m always reworking and improving the content each time I present, so the attendees at From Business to Buttons will be experiencing the latest and greatest. 

As designers we are often brought in to simply design a product, but many times the business strategy needs attention before we can clearly define the product we’re designing. From Business to Buttons is a great conference for helping us all find better ways to bring business strategy into the conversation of designing products. I hope you’ll attend From Business to Buttons 12-13 June for insightful presentations, workshops and discussions around business strategy and design. The folks at inUse and Malmö University have extended a discount too, please use FBTB2008 in the “special requests” section of the registration to receive 15% off the regular price. 

Since I’m in Europe for 3 full weeks, I’ll be available for meetings and would love to connect with folks while I’m there. Email me at kim at adaptivepath dot com otherwise, see you at the conference(s)!

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It’s easy to forget when hearing someone give a presentation that the talk is a product too. And like products, the designer doesn’t always know what’s going to happen when the talk meets the users (the audience). Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. And like a product, good designers go back and revise the beta. Put out a better version.

This is a long preamble to saying that Kim Lenox and me have taught the interaction design day at UX Intensive four times now: in Chicago, Amsterdam, Vancouver, and San Francisco and each time was different. We’ve spent the last year tweaking the content until we (and the audience) were happy with it. As it turns out, it’s tricky to teach interaction design in a day. We went from a nearly all-lecture day to one that is mostly a hands-on, activity-centered workshop that tries to create a studio environment. It even requires having a first-aid kit on hand! I’m really happy how the day has evolved.

If you are interested in learning (or brushing up on your existing) IxD skillz, we hope you’ll join us at UX Intensive Minneapolis in June. Use the discount code BLOG and get 10% off admission!

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I recently sat down to talk with Scott Hirsch, principal of the Management Innovation Group and MX conference speaker, to talk about using UX and design sensibilities to solve the problems of business strategy. Scott shares his experiences on where UX outperforms and compliments typical business functions like financial analysis, and how UX can be used to tackle problems differently—from how much is Google worth to how telecoms respond to the iPhone.

Download the MP3 of our conversation, and come join Scott at the MX conference next week to learn more about “what’s wrong with strategy!”

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As per annual tradition, a number of us are headed to the IA Summit to speak or just soak in all the IA goodness that we can. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that this year’s Summit is Miami. This time around, Leah Buley will tell us How to be a user experience team of one while Brandon Schauer will be talking about the Long Wow of user experience. I’m honored to be on the stage with Mags Hanley of WTG and Karen Loasby of the BBC where we will be talking about developing junior programs for user experience teams. Stop by and say hi!

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This week I had the opportunity to talk with Adaptive Path’s old friend Matt Jones, Co-founder and Designer of Dopplr. He’s one of our featured speakers at next month’s MX conference. Some excerpts from our conversation over instant messenger follow, and the whole interview can be found over at my own blog, the Second Verse. Matt and I share a mutual love for some very particular (peculiar?) subjects, so the interview explores some unpredictable territory: the Situationists, Jack Kirby inventions, Grant Morrison, movement in hyperspace, and what the success of the iPhone means to the rest of the mobile device industry. Matt was kind enough to share a ton of information about his perspective and his influences - I hope you enjoy reading the interview.

Also, be sure to remember to register by March 31st for MX - On April 1st, the price goes up. MX is on April 20-22 in San Francisco, the price right now is $1,495. After March 31st, the price jumps to $1,595. (You also get a free iPod Shuffle when you register for MX by March 31st). So register today!

(more…)

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Like, well, every year, a gaggle of Adaptive Pathers are headed to SXSW Interactive. Find us at the parties, BBQ joints, and our sessions:

Friday:

Todd Wilkens reads from Adaptive Path’s new book Subject to Change from 4:00-5:00.

Ryan Freitas and AP Founder Lane Becker dole out the punishment in Battle Decks II from 5:00-6:00.

Monday:

Bryan Mason and Sarah Nelson offer up 10 Tips for Managing a Creative Environment from 3:30-4:30.

I’ll be Feeding the Creativity Beast in a core conversation from 5:00-6:00.

Tuesday:

Ryan Freitas provokes a core conversation by asking Do You Have to Disappear Completely to Get Things Done? from 5:00-6:00.

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Yesterday I had the pleasure of spending an hour chatting with Chip Conley, CEO of boutique hotel chain Joie de Vivre Hotels, and keynote speaker at our upcoming MX San Francisco conference (April 20-22).

You can listen to the interview (MP3). Be warned that it doesn’t have a formal introduction. It begins with us kind of mid-conversation, and just goes from there. In the interview, we talk about recession planning, service design, systematizing experience design (JDV uses a tool called “experience report cards”), team dynamics, succession planning, and all manner of things. It’s a bit free-wheeling, but I think you’ll enjoy it.

To provide some context for the interview:

Chip has just written PEAK: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo From Maslow, which you can see me reading on BART here:

I hate business books. They’re typically trite, self-serving, and poorly written. At best they have one good idea that takes 10-15 pages to explain, and then another 200 pages of filler so that it warrants being sold at Barnes and Noble.

PEAK, and I’m not just saying this because he’s a speaker, is actually worth reading. I’ve been a fan of Chip’s for a while, and one reason is his honesty, forthrightness, and, as a CEO of a $200 million company that employs over 2,300 people, his willingness to engage with the emotional, squishy, unmeasurable. Actually, not just willingness–he recognizes how essential such things are to achieve long-term success. His book gets at this by way of Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs, which Chip translates into serving employees, customers, and investors.

When Chip talks about engaging customers, he sounds very much like an experience designer — he discusses ethnography, and the importance of satisfying unmet needs. He also has fantastic ideas for maintaining not just employee satisfaction or loyalty, but deep engagement. Ideas that I could see working for our 35-person firm as well as larger enterprises.

If, after all this, you’re hooked, don’t hesitate to register for our MX Conference (and use the promotional code BLOG for 10% off). You’ll get a chance to meet Chip, and many other interesting folks as well!

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I’ve been invited to speak at the Live Web event today here in San Francisco. People like Om Malik, Jason Calacanis, Michael Arrington, others and me. Ought to be interesting. Hopefully they will be recording it for podcast release.

Among the topics the roundtable will be talking about are:

• As asynchronous social networks experience tremendous growth, what can we expect from synchronous applications?
• Will synchronous applications and the Live Web require different standards for advertising display and measurement?
• How can synchronous applications companies stimulate third-party developer innovation on our platforms?

I’ll be approaching any conversation from the perspective of designing for the user and the overall experience. Some of the blind assumptions I’m bringing to the table are:

Does asynchronous behavior create a richer environment for people to live in online?
Is context the most important thing to be aware of when advertising in an asynchronous environment?

Discuss.

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