by The Adaptive Path Team
January 4, 2007
We polled the staff about the resolutions they’ve made for 2007, and we’re proud to announce that not one person bothered with routine promises to “eat better” or “exercise more.” Here’s what Adaptive Path has planned for upcoming year:
My New Year’s Resolutions:
1. Get my digital life organized. I have photos and music on multiple hard drives, bookmarks in Safari that don’t match Firefox or Ma.gnolia, and email accounts everywhere. I think it’s time to simplify and consolidate so I can be more effective.
2. Build Community. The design community is diverse and widespread. And even though many of us know each other or share our thoughts through our blogs, there isn’t a lot of in-person discussion about ideas or new concepts. I’d love to find a way to bring us all together in some kind of organized fashion, something more regular than just the yearly conferences or events.
3. Learn more through play. Watching my kids grow and learn through interaction with games and toys has got me wondering: Where are the educational toys for adults? The only thing I learn from Gears of War is how to frag and dodge faster; I’d like to find a way for grown-ups to learn while having fun but without feeling as though they’re being taught.
4. Expand and refine technology integration. We are surrounded by digital data and gadgets that do not work together. My mobile phone can’t talk to the ATM, my computer won’t recognize my credit card unless I manually type in the numbers. The idea of tightening integration through standards or open development, or just plain thinking for people versus thinking for business needs, is going to be a great source of interest for me in 2007.
I’ve been in the consulting industry for 15 years now and I’ve worked with four different consulting firms; Adaptive Path is unlike any other place I’ve been before. We approach new project requests quite differently than the typical agency or interactive studio. We take great care to partner with prospective clients from the very start to ensure that the project will be a true win-win for both of us. This means working together to figure out how our mutual strengths can be leveraged and how a project should be structured to make sure both sides thrive. Of course with this level of attention to detail, the process usually ends up taking longer than it would if we simply responded blindly to an RFP. By the end of 2007, I resolve to reassess our approach and identify new ways to tighten up our process to shorten its duration without forgoing the careful planning aspects that set Adaptive Path apart and ensure our projects are primed for success.
Brian Cronin
Having worked in technology and user experience for ten years now, I feel like the cobbler who doesn’t have shoes to wear. I don’t take full advantage of the systems and technology I have at my disposal to inform my decisions and make things easier in my personal life. Maybe this is the year I will finally get a smartphone that truly integrates with the desktop applications I use for email and calendaring. Or configure the collaboration application I set up for the arts non-profit where I sit on the board of directors. Possibly I will finally reconcile the Quicken accounts that I have been downloading faithfully for the last six years and create an actual budget. Or set up the wiki I’ve been planning for my friends to share lists of books and music recommendations. And I could finally finish the three websites I’ve been planning on building. Or I could…wait a minute, this sounds like a lot of work! Argh! Well, maybe next year.
I resolve to go deeper with my projects this year, to look twice at any solution — no matter how small or how “solved” it appears — to make sure that there is no better way of accomplishing the task. I’m going to sketch out more possibilities and variations before deciding on one. And I’m going to improve my explanations and justifications for any decision. “It’s a convention” or “It’s the standard” just aren’t good enough excuses anymore.
The best book I read in 2006 was Barry Schwartz’s The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. People are overwhelmed by choice, especially online, and as they try to maximize the benefit of their choices, they find themselves losing out. We’re seeing more and more requests to tackle this issue in our work. What’s the solution? I’m not exactly sure. But in 2007, I hope to find some answers.
Our work is about designing effective experiences, and a huge part of this is designing behaviors and features for the Web and networked devices. But there’s so much more. Signals that proactively reach out and communicate are changing and evolving. From email to RSS to SMS, from alerts on computers, phones and other networked devices, there is a need to better integrate signals into service and application design.
In the next year, I want to be more thoughtful about leveraging signals and and more aggressive about designing for them. Let’s make the most of our messages, no matter what device they end up on or what channel they use to get there.
I’ve resolved to set aside regular time for active solitude. I’m most engaged with life when I walk through the city with a camera in my hand and just look hard at the world. That deliberate alone-time helps me clarify my ideas, get inspired, maintain focus and be a better friend.
Advertising isn’t going anywhere and, in fact, is the main form of revenue for most websites. Marketers truly get the importance of meaning and narrative in people’s lives, and they’ve spent years learning the importance of research and communication design. When done well, both can make significant contributions to a quality user experience. When done poorly, they can kill a great product or service. User experience professionals should work in concert with marketers and advertisers to tap into this experience. Instead, most of us wage a cold war against them. In 2007, I’m going to extend the olive branch.
More often than not, New Year’s Resolutions set up a person for emotional, physical and psychological failures by creating unrealistic goals, expectations and stress. Instead of trying to better ourselves with big resolutions once a year, people should try to better themselves on a daily basis. For example, it is much easier to make and keep the resolution “I will do my best not to swear today” as opposed to “I will not swear this year or ever again.”
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