Category: General Stuff

SxSW 2012 recap & notes

This year I was fortunate to be selected as a speaker presenting at the SxSW Interactive Festival on behalf of the Citrix Product Design team. An awesome honor, I took the opportunity to its fullest to experience SxSW This was actually my second visit, having previously attended about 5+ years ago when it was a much smaller event–I recall the halls being half empty!

Given the current “bubbly” hi-tech economic climate, the Interactive Festival this year was truly a massive, overwhelming phenomenal event featuring literally hundreds of activities, sessions, panels, keynotes, and all-day exhibits by sponsors, both inside and outside the main convention center hall. The Festival also encompassed over 15 different “campuses” (hotels) with shuttles transporting folks among sessions. And did I mention the all-night parties with lines out the door?? Yep, a high-octane spectacle!

Also, my festival photos are now online.

And my talk slides (Multitouch Delight for Enterprise Apps) are posted on Dropbox as a PDF.

Below are my highlights…

 

Maximum Overload: At last count, there were 2600 SPEAKERS just for the Interactive Festival alone! So you can imagine the total number of attendees, guests, visitors, etc. Just mind-blowing, with constant activities from AM til PM. Very much a carnival-esque vibe outside the convention center too, with so many hawkers of free stuff, giveaway demos, etc. Just endless lines and lines and lines… And SO much “business networking” going on too. If I had a quarter every time I heard “so my product’s value prop is…”

Trucks and BBQ: Yep, it’s all about Food Trucks when you have 10,000 folks descend upon downtown Austin. Beating the lines, I was able to sample a few including bacon-waffle chicken tenders (made with Cap’n Crunch cereal), kimchee tacos, and chipotle tacos (no, not that one…real chipotle ;-) And the BBQ joints, truly delish! Stubbs’, Ironworks, and Franklin’s where Anthony Bourdain was filming a tv show. I sampled rabbit, wild boar, and good ol’ smoked brisket. Nice beers too, Shiner Pale Ale was good.

Celeb Spotting: Being a cross-cultural spectacle, expect lots of celebrities for geeks too. The founders of Instagram, Foursquare, Twitter, etc. Al Gore spoke. Shawn Parker of Spotify. TechCrunch reporters on the scene. Fast Company and CNN rented out foodie grill stations. Nokia had a “party lab” with super loud “booth babes”. You name it! Reminiscent of CES…Also Robert Brunner was on my flight to Austin, sitting just behind me! :-) woo.

Talks…Oh yes, I did attend a few good talks too! :-) It’s really quite hit or miss just given the mass assortment of talks/panels geo-distributed around Austin downtown, covering a wide range of “UX” topics. Here’s my faves  and major points/notes I got out of each one. Enjoy!

The Connected Company
– Modern companies are like cities: complex systems with control mechanisms
– Spectrum of problem complexity: simple > complex > complicated > chaos
– Borrowing concepts from Arch/Urban planning and Service Design: pods, platforms, layers, stages
– A dysfunctional company is like “having a conversation with a fractured mind”
– “[social] Networks are representations of our interactions”, varying orders of complexity & scale / impact
– Key challenge is how technology enables autonomy, communication, collaboration networks but keeping the company together with ever-growing connections (complexity like fractals? Hmm.)
– Community managers might help; they are not “project managers” but facilitators, enablers, doers, with employees as “citizens” and content creators fostering knowledge

Mother Goose Got Punk’d: Next Gen Visual Storytelling
– We are all essentially trying to find ourselves in the stories we hear/see (“empathize with our inner self”)
– In crafting stories, consider GOAL: Genuine, Outgoing, Articulate, Lively characters we resonate with
– Every story is really 3 stories: the story we want to tell, the story we capture and sketch, and the story we edit/publish for consumption by others (possibly a 4th story: the story the viewer interprets for themselves)

Don’t Build a Power Glove
– Remember the Nintendo Power Glove device with tons of buttons and “coolness”? Yeah, don’t do that. Total flop for Nintendo focused on trendy 80’s technology buzz but not really playable by kids
– Speaker did a fun “reverse design” case study: what if we could redesign Power Glove using modern UCD methods, applying what we know now
– Raised issues of gorilla arm, gestural fatigue, body-scale interaction for micro-tasks : none of which is “natural” although we think it is (and movies make them seem “cool”)
– Don’t be a fool and just do what’s cool, do what makes sense by understanding real situations and people

Busting the Myth of NUI
– By lead UX’ers of MS Surface and Win 8 Touch, discussed Touch design principles, early prototypes, research studies, and how they iterated and referenced older touch models (Palm Graffii, Newton, etc.)
– Concepts of “Just-in-time” visual tips, shadow guides following your gestures, constraining gestures for “whole objects” versus “content inside object”, progressive reveal using “touch thresholds” and motion physics
– Win8 Touch Principles: SImple & consistent, No modes, Limited gesture set, Direct manipulation, Reversible interactions, Limited use of “timed gestures” (like touch and hold for 5 sec)
– Win 8 Touch Considerations: Precision, Finger/hand movements, reach/size of finger, occlusion of finger/hand over screen objects, total Arm/Hand/Finger relationship
– Win 8 Lessons: Coaching marks/animations must hint at touch outcome, Secondary actions shouldn’t interfere with primary action, It’s OK to be slow when learning something (shallow learn curve)

UX in the Could: Amazing Enterprise Apps
-Done by Salesforce UX leads, story of Chatter and Do, for social productivity in enterprise
– Theme: “Satisfy choosers, delight users” (buyers vs users)
– CEO Challenge: “Why isn’t Salesforce software like Facebook?” > Facebook has trained users but need to verify how/why use in the enterprise
– Conversations / feedback loops with user via iterative testing (RITE usability method)
– Embracing disruption: need the time and space, need a channel for validation with real users, and need to disrupt from within (Ex: Do, a start-up from within SalesForce)
– Ultimately about facilitating communication, enabling people and work productivity, reducing friction, and keeping it simple all the way with limited feature set
– Emphasized “Future friendly” posture, we can’t predict the future but we can prepare for it

Keynote by Amber Case, “Cyborg Anthropologist”
– Rather provocative talk filled with fascinating phrases worthy of deeper meditation
– Claims we are all currently cyborgs with our iDevices
– Spoke of “Liquid screens”, “infinite purpose devices”, raised the idea of a “post-liquid UI”
– Ambient intimacy, Hyperlinked memories, persistent paleontology (always looking for our files and emails), Information Jet-lag (where diff devices aren’t updating), Panic architecture (when you’ve been hacked)
– “Cellphones are the new cigarettes” for excusing ourselves, taking digital bio-breaks to keep online connectedness Hmm!
– Described Flipboard as the Superhuman UI :-) She absolutely hates “skeuomorphism”, visceral angry reaction to iBooks, faux textures, etc.
– Also discussed emergence of “Calm technologies” (via Marc Weiser of PARC) and “Annotated Realities” where the phone becomes our mediator of life

 

 

Starter questions on “personal data”

In light of recent controversies with personal data unknowingly being uploaded and/or shared, it’s good to take a moment to revisit some basics, which may make or break your relationship with a user, beyond the “pretty pixels” and “smooth usability”. At the end of the day, trust is the foundation for a healthy customer relationship and user experience. Once that goodwill has been earned, you don’t want to break it…

** First ask yourself if you really need such personal data in order to deliver your value prop to the user. Is it a “make or break” issue, really?

** What data are you planning to upload from the user’s device, and WHY? How will having that data lead to positive benefits for the user, thus amplifying your value prop? You want to make sure you’re building a strong customer relationship that lasts a long time!

** If you are uploading the user’s data: What types of data? How much? At what frequency? Is it encrypted? Where is it being stored? Is it being backed up? Can law enforcement agencies access it, and under what conditions? Is there a time limit? Will data be expunged sometime? What happens when the user dies (not just account deleted)? Is personal data being sold for profit? (sorry, gotta ask and just be honest with yourself…you’ll thank me in the morning!)

All of this must be captured like typical business requirements, with full unanimous agreement among product leads, and presumably reviewed by your company’s legal counsel. (I’m not a lawyer, but that’s my hunch, to protect everyone)

** Always err on the side of “Opt-in” first, not “Opt-out”. Make the user decides to opt-in; don’t assume the user is comfortable having their data silently uploaded without consent. Users don’t want an unpleasant surprise that their data was sent without their consent. A great way to break a relationship and lose trust, guaranteed!

** And most critically: Is this all explained up front, in clear language to the user so they can read it, understand it, and take action against it, easily, if they so desire?

Finally, just because you can detect and store certain personal data (due to the way iOS or Android technologies work, and their App Store policies), doesn’t mean you should. And please, don’t use “the other kids are doing it” excuse or “it’s been like this for years”. What are you, a 3 year old? No, you’re (hopefully) a legit business with an amazing vision, and a responsibility to your users and stakeholders.

Always ask yourself what’s your true motive, goal, and benefit to the user regarding data policies. Be honest with yourself. Be transparent and let users know.

Is there another way to deliver value to customers without accessing their personal data? If not, consider making those features that require personal data “premium features” at a micro-payment scale or subscription service. Again, be very clear about your intentions with the data even if the user is paying for that level of use.

Hopefully these starter questions around data-sharing policies will put your team and company on the “happy path” of positive relationships and good user experience overall with your user base!

Intimacy and arrogance in UX

Think for a second. What’s the most private, intimate information on your phone? Well, ok you got your photos from last night’s wild ragin’ party (I won’t go there ;-) but other than that? For me, it’s my address book, a compilation of phone numbers and email addresses of cherished loved ones (parents, family, close friends) and folks who have information of a deeply intimate nature (my primary care doctor, tax accountant, insurance agent for starters…). That is, people with whom I have a veritable trust-worthy relationship of varying degrees of familiarity, including valued co-workers and maybe a few acquaintances via conferences. That’s the key word here: trust. There is a presumptive 2-way street of confidence, reliability, assurance, and social agreement that we “trust each other” with our information and the relationship that info suggests and implies, from a fun Sunday 9 am chat in our pajamas, to that urgent midnight call about a health or financial emergency.

Now imagine a social networking company, with a beautiful slick whimsical interface that breathes a sigh of relief from the confusions of Facebook, but it’s snarfing up that very trust-based information without your knowledge. Without your consent. You don’t have to imagine, because it’s real and was accidentally discovered by a curious developer as reported on The Verge here. The culprit is Path. A startup whose v1 garnered lots of inside-the-Valley interest but didn’t really explode onto the scene until v2 with a nicely redone interface and modified focus, becoming a personal diary for sharing with your “real friends” (as a presumably nice subset of the hundreds via other networks…ok, THE network, aka Facebook :-). Now it seems the wonderful user experience and brand affiliation of Path have been utterly tarnished, with a supreme violation of trust of the very intimate information on my personal device, by uploading the ENTIRE address book of my iPhone to their servers. Why? For what purpose? Who knows. They clearly don’t need to do so, as the app can simply “view” into my contacts list (aka Address Book) to identify “friends” that I can add to my Path for sharing. But why copy that info it to their servers? Seems unnecessary and…frankly arrogant, or perhaps just flat out stupid.

Ultimately, it just makes me wonder who was the fucking douchebag(s) that decided that copying this kind of sensitive information was a) necessary b) justifiable and c) unimportant to let users know it was even happening. I don’t mean the actual names of the people, but the roles and positions. What was the nature of the conversation tucked away in some conference room? Or maybe there was no discussion–even scarier! Yikes. Just a set of silent consensual assumptions that this was all permissible …This is the glaring arrogance of young eager feisty start-ups driven to impress and “get to the market”. To believe that whatever they think (or not-think) and decide is somehow good for everyone…oh, and by the way, it’s not an issue anyway, so just keep using our app, right?

Trust is an absolutely fundamental element of a user’s experience and core to the creation of a viable customer relationship, even the business model itself, embedded in the value proposition. Yes, trust is a cornerstone of the business. It ensures a healthy customer – provider connection with positive multiplier and viral effects. Trust is infectious as “good word of mouth” spreads, and transactions increase, usage grows, value is augmented. It’s a virtuous cycle.

But just as infectious is distrust. A violation of the customer’s sense of identify, privacy, and of their own dignity. But especially their sense of pride in a brand they enjoyed and believed in and defended, trying to persuade friends to participate and join in. All of that gets eradicated in a few seconds. The “path” from success to disaster is a quick and easy route. And this saddens everyone, including it’s fan base of faithful users.

It’s high time such hungry young firms pause for a minute, take a breath from their “barbarians at the gate” mentality rushing out the door, and carefully reflect upon the principles and values that enable a good design, product, and experience: trust, dignity, respect, and pride. Recall Dieter Rams, the pursuit of what is ethical and aesthetic. What’s the balance between using a customer’s data versus preserving a sense of caution and judiciousness. Where’s the line between rushing to do bold things and wariness of the risks against people’s privacy and security. Because once you go over that edge, there’s no coming back, period. That’s when the company’s true values are exposed for what they really are. That’s when users know who you are, and trust me, it won’t be forgotten.

Living the Cloud (talk notes)

I recently attended a couple of events in SF pertaining to “cloud computing” and “designing business models”. Below are my notes…

Smart Salon: Living in the Cloud

This panel discussion (featuring folks from Sugar Sync, Autodesk, and Smart Design) was held as part of Smart’s regular salon series in their SF studio. Interesting thoughts and questions around the ambiguous buzzword of the moment, “cloud”. No real answers per se, but as a fellow Citrix attendee said, it’s good to know we’re all at the same starting point of lacking clarity and concrete solutions and answers. Yep, many issues and questions…

* Quite simply, “the cloud” is just “the internet”, from a typical consumer POV
* From IT admin/back-end POV it’s a server farm with constant high availability and stability and (ahem) security
* Going deeper, it’s a connected set of services, structures, processes that should (ideally) be a pervasive enabler of working/playing/studying/doing anything with your data at anytime, from anywhere, on any device, as a fluid seamless experience. The key concept is being “connected” to the data servers via wireless internet or cellular or whatever transmission tech.
* The “cloud” metaphor should hide the complexity of systems and transactions, being something “grokkable” by ordinary masses (but do they really need to know about it at all…beyond the advertising buzz?)
* Security and Privacy are major issues for consumers to trust their data “in the cloud”, without feeling taken for a ride. How to convey this in clear, easy language? How to balance the data storage, with data efficiency, processing speed/power, user accessibility, etc.
* Also challenges of “where is my data” when it’s “out there”…layers of place, locality, navigation, positional knowledge. Leads to trust impacts too.
* How can we support graceful degradation of cloud abilities across legacy devices and platforms? Reduced feature sets and abilities, etc.
* Some discussion around “hybrid experiences”: a combination of local storage and content stored elsewhere, to help transition folks not used to cloud or provide local confidence in cloud-based data

Mobile UX Primer: Principles

Mobile UX Principles

Below are a set of user experience principles based upon writings and presentations by various mobile design experts, trying to define some core bedrock of ideas to guide tactical decision-making.

When in Rome… Leverage platform OS models, metaphors, and elements to achieve an experience consistent with user expectations for that device. For example, Android users expect “touch and hold” to call up a contextual menu of options, while “touch and hold” on iOS causes the object to “wiggle,” ready for deletion. And avoid desktop idioms such as floating windows, hover states, resizable panels, scrollbars, etc.

Balanced coherence: As appropriate for your app, balance functional and visual coherence across mobile, web, and desktop channels. Yes the functionality, capability, and visuals may vary per OS (see When in Rome…), but the experience should be intuitive and familiar when switching from one platform to another. Every pixel of the interface should add value to the user experience. Make it beautiful, and make it feel like a family.

Speak its power: Create clear, explicit, and discoverable UI controls that convey exactly what they do, like a light switch. Mobile users are often “on the go” and prefer obvious clear actions to complete tasks.

Animate to delight and orient: Leverage mobile OS animations and transitions to show the placement of hidden controls, suggest orientation/navigation/location, and add delight. For example, upon first launch, gently animate a hidden search field to visually cue the user to its placement.

Pivot, snack, bursts: Support “snacking” by enabling users to pivot through tasks and information in quick bursts. Remember, the user is not chained to a desk for hours. They are often in a state of “constant partial attention,” multitasking across physical and virtual contexts, sometimes one-handed while doing something else.

Edit ruthlessly: Don’t cram an entire desktop app into a phone or tablet. Focus, prioritize, and simplify to what matters most. This includes verbiage, imagery, features, buttons, icons, and especially menu commands, which should be exposed in clear visual ways.

Beware “fat finger”: Provide easy recovery from accidental taps and keep critical controls separated. Ask yourself: How can a mobile user still make use of this app with one hand while holding a coffee cup?

Minimize typing, maximize defaults: Despite auto-suggest, typing on a phone is difficult. Use defaults if possible, or carry-over from previous saved sessions/states, etc.

Think about the ecosystem, not just this device: Don’t design a mobile app in isolation. Keep in mind the ecosystem of functionality; your app should express a unified look and feel across multiple channels and devices. This is especially true if designing for multiple mobile OS platforms.

Focus on being useful, straight-forward…and fun! Don’t forget the cool factor of using mobile devices and apps. It counts towards your product’s brand perception, especially in over-crowded app stores. Users will reject your app brutally and quickly!

For your mobile UI, always ask…
– Can users make sense of it…quickly?
– Does each screen speak its power?
– Can I simplify this?
– Is this intuitive?

Mobile Design Slides & Articles

Rachel Hinman on Mobile UX

Design Experts on Designing Mobile UX

Mobile UX Archetypes

The Lifecycle of a Mobile App

5 Trends for Tablet Usage

6 Strategies for Multi-screen UX

* Mobile Intro >
* Mobile Considerations >