Category: General Stuff

As I look back upon 2011, all I can really say is WOW. It’s truly been quite a blessing, a very fortunate year with all the valuable projects, fabulous people, delightful travels, and other activities that transpired this past year. Here are a few highlights listed below, in no particular order:

• Planned, coordinated, and led a 2-day innovation workshop with Citrix Labs at our new Product Design Collaboration Studio.
• Co-planned and led discussions for a couple internal Mobile Summits, with a deeper analysis of what exactly is "mobile UX" and how to fold that thinking into our practice.
• Concepted, designed, and delivered the visual and interaction designs for a new feature of Citrix Receiver / XenApp that allows you to interact directly with Windows 7 as a re-skinned iOS "app" using iOS UI conventions to feel more native, natural for iPad users.
• Contributed to the beautiful evolution of Citrix Receiver achieving greater levels of multi-device and cross-platform cohesiveness. More on this will be discussed at my SxSW 2012…stay tuned! ;-)
• Participated in various "design thinking" workshops, from Stanford d.school, Luma Institute, Kaiser Innovation, and Lime Design. I described some of the common shared qualities here.
• Lots of UX Community outreach: Spoke at Citrix Online in Santa Barbara on "beauty as a quality of UX", submitted a paper to HCI International on "design + engineering relationships", presented at Hacker Dojo on "how to work with a designer", also spoke at Silicon Valley Codecamp on a couple topics (UI design fundamentals, partnering with a designer).
• Tons of travel as usual… Boulder for IxDA’11, beaches at Maui, urban dining in WashDC/NYC, finally toured Hollywood/SoCal, office visit in Bangalore (re-visit), Las Vegas (back after 4 yrs), and Barcelona + Zurich for Thanksgiving. Whew!

I’ve been very fortunate this year to have experienced several different “design thinking” workshops, variously sponsored by Stanford d.school, Kaiser Innovation, Luma Institute, and Lime Design. Looking back, it’s fun to identify some of the trademark characteristics, which suggest it truly is a “design thinking” workshop…

• Sticky notes and sharpies galore! With LOTS of different colors…plastered everywhere: walls, whiteboards, even on yourself!
• Lots and lots of sketching by everyone (not just designers) on the teams. Lots of different styles, from stick-man to “artistic” renderings.
• Rough, quick and dirty prototyping is FUN! Roll-up your sleeves and jump right into it. Having many bins of stuff: pipe cleaners, colored paper, styrofoam, play-doh, etc. Playing with materials sparks creativity like you wouldn’t believe!
• Improv activities to wake everyone up! There’s always something fun and quick to get the adrenaline flowing, especially after lunch. Rochambeau (paper/rock/scissors) is a particular fave.
• Optimistic and speedy approaches. Keeping a positive spirit, amid the craziness, and keep moving forward. A strong “bias to action”, rather than snoozy tedious slideshows and spreadsheets. Just try it!
• Thrown into situations: The problem is not fully presented or vetted beforehand; instead, you’re expected to dive in and react with awareness, team rapport, etc.
• Adapt on the fly! As a natural outcome of changing design problems and shifting teams throughout the workshop, you gotta be nimble and flexible. Keeping an open mind is vital to enjoy the workshop learning…
• Folks are exhausted at the end, but super charged up! At every single workshop I participated in, everyone was energized and ready to seize the bull of innovation by the horns. And participants always surprised themselves with how creative they can be. Always a fun sight to behold. Just gotta bring that spirit back to the office…

Again thanks to my awesome fans in Denmark, Mads Soegaard of the interaction-design.org site has offered the readers of this blog a pre-release preview of a book chapter which shows how to use philosophical theories concretely when designing interactive products.

The chapter text and related HD videos are completely free and available here:
http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/philosophy_of_interaction.html?p=3a39

If you want to be the designer of the next iPhone, the chapter advises you to carefully design the product’s “feel”. The “feel” of a product requires an understanding of what we mean by “action” as meaning and action are interwoven concepts. This may sound abstract and theoretical but Dag Svanaes of interaction-design.org makes it concrete and easy to understand…

On our last day of the Citrix Product Design Summit this fall we were treated to a lively conversation with Citrix CEO and design champion Mark Templeton who spoke with typical passion and humanity. (He is a wonderfully gregarious and approachable CEO, truly a gem! Never hesitant to say Hi or ask about your family). Mark rhapsodized about design culture, strategic goals, his heroes, even his shoes!

But of particular note was Mark’s brief statement: “If I were to substitute one word for ‘design’ it would be ‘care’…you have to care about the details and why you are doing it.” It made me reflect further. Indeed, when you consider it, “caring” is really at the heart of striving for good design. Thoughtful consideration, due diligence, judicious forethought and anticipation, simplifying and removing unnecessary features, shaping the purpose, all in the service of helping someone (a human being, not just a mere “user”, that is) achieve their goals with satisfaction and joy. You’ve got to care about that. Can’t be grimly apathetic. The minute you stop caring is when you stop designing.

Care is also the path towards empathy, to be fully deeply embracing and living the pains and pleasures of someone, to create a positive experience overall, beginning-to-end. Care is about the macro level of shaping the humanistic journey of discovery and reward…and the micro level details of craftsmanship, pixel by pixel, word by word, click by click. Caring is what makes design a deeply human activity, directed towards improving people’s lives, creating sustainable businesses, and inventing technologies of noble value. You gotta care in order to design well.

Want to learn more about what makes this young amazing team of illustrators, musicians, photographers, chefs, and fashionistas (AKA designers, researchers, editors, prototypers, managers) tick at Citrix? Check out the following set of links to articles and videos that summarize the spirit that animates a special vibe at Citrix dedicated to delivering world-class, exceptional products and services with humanity… and delight!

Citrix Product Design Facebook page: See what we’re doing in real-time! Shoes, cupcakes, burritos, even a friendly hawk (possible mascot?)…

Citrix Design Principles video: A short, whimsical yet informative video highlighting the core design principles to enable a culture of design thinking and doing. Nice references to Mad Men, Eames, and even Darth Vader ;-) Hey, we’re Star Wars fans too!

HBR blog post on our new collaborative studio space: A well-articulated interview with Citrix Product Design VP Catherine Courage on why and how we achieved this unique studio space for multi-disciplinary collaboration. Some cool photos too!

Citrix Brand Story video: Created by The Fabulous Citrix Marketing Team, a evocative, richly photographed statement of who we are as a company, making “work and play anywhere” a reality, in tune with the vibrancy of ordinary human lives, both in the design studio and out in the wild.

Catherine Courage 40/40 award: Read Citrix Product Design VP Catherine Courage explain what makes her tick as our extraordinary, fearless leader shaping a culture of design thinking and action.

Designers as Next Gen CEOs: Short article featuring our very own Citrix CEO Mark Templeton, who has an undergraduate degree in industrial design, as a great example of “designer-turned-CEO”, leading a cultural design revolution for employees and customers alike.

From Wow to How: Check out this short video with Chief Demo Officer Extraordinaire Brad Peterson explaining quite simply how Citrix technology enables a world where anybody can work or play from anywhere, on any device.