by The Adaptive Path Partners
January 7, 2004
Nobody likes to open impersonal documents, because documentation isn’t how people communicate most effectively. Documentation is how people record communication that has already happened. It’s a useful artifact of corporate life, but no substitute for collaboration, conversation, or meaningful input.
So in 2004, instead of sharing files, I resolve to share ideas. I’ll collaborate more often with my team, get input from individuals throughout my organization, communicate personally with the people that matter about the ideas that matter. When we’ve come to an agreement—and only then—I’ll document it.
I spent most of 2003 exploring the question, “How can we quantify the value of user experience?” As an emerging professional discipline, UX departments will increasingly be called upon to justify our cost and be held accountable for results - just as every established profession is required to do. As practitioners of the craft, we instinctively believe that our work has value, and some wise executives share this view.
But the honeymoon won’t last. If we hope to prove that our work drives business success, and if we want our departments to thrive even during down economic cycles, we must demonstrate that money spent on user experience is an investment that will provide a return, not merely a cost to be minimized. To do that, we need to start quantifying value.
My resolution for 2004 is to find quantitative measures of value for every one of my projects.
There’s a reason content and technology are on opposite sides of the Nine Pillars. Although those of us in the center of the Pillars diagram must deal with both content and technology, we rarely do so at the same time. As a result, content people and technologists don’t often hear problems from the other side’s point of view. So each side feels the complexity of its own challenges, but those constraints go underappreciated by the other side.
I’m resolving to make sure both sides are involved throughout the process. Getting content and technology people in the same room to hash out a problem isn’t just politically savvy—it will also make my design solutions stronger.
At some point, every group whose work touches the user experience—information architects, interaction designers, marketers, and so on—seems to think that they own the user experience, that their focus is the most integral. But user experience never depends on any one discipline. Everything comes together to create the whole.
My resolution is to recognize when any one group is making a land grab (whether it’s mine or someone else’s), and then remind myself to step back and see how it all fits together.
This year I resolve to rekindle my passion for user experience.
To reread seminal texts that originally sparked my interest—Designing for People, Understanding Comics, Envisioning Information, and The Sciences of the Artificial.
To pursue new subjects such as relational database design and ontologies, both of which are increasingly essential for information architects. To critically engage with user experience.
To laud efforts that perform well, whether it’s the straightforward effectiveness of TrendMicro.com, or the innovative content architecture of Harpers.org, or “real world” examples, such as the National Park Service’s brochure design.
In those inevitable moments when my enthusiasm wanes, I’ll remember how much I love this field of work—that it’s important, and meaningful, and fun.
On so many projects, I feel hamstrung by seemingly surmountable technological constraints. “Well, that content is in a database, and we can’t just go changing the database.” or “Oh, you can’t show all that on the page, it would tax the servers too much.”
I understand that engineers and programmers have difficult jobs, but it’s time for IT departments to let go of the culture of scarcity. Computers are cheap now. Scripting languages are easy enough for designers to pick up. Rather than better communication with techies, I resolve to move technology into the design process, to make it subservient to the user experience of any Web project on which I work. And I will no longer take no for an answer.
Looking back over the past year, I realize that the lion’s share of my work was talking to people, whether instructing, or listening, or guiding someone through a process. I talked to people on the phone from the couch with my broken leg. I drove to different towns and talked to people in person. I talked to people all over Asia, Europe, Canada, and the U.S.
While email is a wonderful tool, real-time voice communication is more meaningful. Sure, conversations take longer than email, but they explore topics in more detail, giving room for deeper mutual agreement. My New Year’s resolution is to spend more time talking, and less time typing.
The Adaptive Path Partners combine an industry-leading understanding of user behavior with a commitment to meeting the business goals of their clients.
Published by Adaptive Path | 363 Brannan St. | San Francisco, CA 94107 | 1-415-495-8270 | http://adaptivepath.com/