archive.Joe Lamantia.com

Boxes and Arrows just published Enhancing Dashboard Value and User Experience, part 5 of the building blocks series that’s been running since last year. This installment covers how to include high-value social and conversational capabilities into portal experiences built on top of architectures managed with the building blocks. Enhancing Dashboard Value and User Experience also provides an explicit user experience vision for portals, metadata and user interface recommendations, and as tips on making portals easier to use and manage / administrate.

Thanks again to all the good people who volunteer their time to make Boxes and Arrows such a high quality publication!

My slides from Blogtalk 2008 are available online now: I went through a lot of ideas quickly, so this is a good way to follow along at your own pace…

FYI: This version of the deck includes presenters notes – I’ll upload a (larger!) view-only version once I’m back from holiday in lovely Eire.

UXMatters just published part 1 of a two part series I’m writing on ethics and design titled, Designing Ethical Experiences: Social Media and the Conflicted Future.

Here’s an excerpt, to whet your appetites for a practical take on what’s often seen as a philosophical subject.

Questions of ethics and conflict can seem far removed from the daily work of user experience (UX) designers who are trying to develop insight into people’s needs, understand their outlooks, and design with empathy for their concerns. In fact, the converse is true: When conflicts between businesses and customers–or any groups of stakeholders–remain unresolved, UX practitioners frequently find themselves facing ethical dilemmas, searching for design compromises that satisfy competing camps. This dynamic is the essential pattern by which conflicts in goals and perspectives become ethical concerns for UX designers. Unchecked, it can lead to the creation of unethical experiences that are hostile to users–the very people most designers work hard to benefit–and damaging to the reputations and brand identities of the businesses responsible.

Stay tuned for part two, which will share a set of suggestions for how design can manage conflict and work toward the creation of ethical integrated experiences. Meanwhile, let us know what you think of the ideas here, or at the UXMatters site.

In a world that’s moving so fast it’s hard to keep track of when you are, let alone where, there’s a need for experiences that move at more relaxed paces. This basic need for deliberately moderated and human-speed experiences better tuned to the way that people make and understand meaning is the origin of the Slow Food movement.

Naturally, there’s room for a virtual analog of slow food. I’m calling this kind of mediated experience that flows at a kinder, gentler pace “slow media”. Dawdlr, “a global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: what are you doing, you know, more generally?” is a good example.

Assembled one postcard at a time, Dawdlr exemplifies the collective form of Slow Media, one you can contribute to by creating some content using a standard interface and then submitting it for publication, as long as it carried the proper postage. The paper blog – now updated and known as papercast – might be a precursor.

What are some other examples of Slow Media? Back in January of 2007, AdBusters asked, “Isn’t it time to slow down?” during their national slowdown week.

Slow food has a website, annual gatherings, publications, a manifesto, even a mascot / icon – the snail of course. What’s next for slow media? Maybe a slow wiki, made up of image-mapped screen shots of chalkboards with writing?

I’m post­ing the abstract for my clos­ing talk at the Ital­ian IA Sum­mit, as well as the slides, below.

Hope you enjoy!

Abstract:

Broad cul­tural, tech­no­log­i­cal, and eco­nomic shifts are rapidly eras­ing the dis­tinc­tions between those who cre­ate and those who use, con­sume, or par­tic­i­pate. This is true in dig­i­tal expe­ri­ences and infor­ma­tion envi­ron­ments of all types, as well as in the phys­i­cal and con­cep­tual realms. In all of these con­texts, sub­stan­tial exper­tise, costly tools, spe­cial­ized mate­ri­als, and large-scale chan­nels for dis­tri­b­u­tion are no longer required to exe­cute design.

The ero­sion of tra­di­tional bar­ri­ers to cre­ation marks the onset of the DIY Future, when every­one is a poten­tial designer (or archi­tect, or engi­neer, or author) of inte­grated expe­ri­ences — the hybrid con­structs that com­bine prod­ucts, ser­vices, con­cepts, net­works, and infor­ma­tion in sup­port of evolv­ing func­tional and emo­tional pur­suits.

The cul­tural and tech­no­log­i­cal shifts that com­prise the oncom­ing DIY Future promise sub­stan­tial changes to the envi­ron­ments and audi­ences that design pro­fes­sion­als cre­ate for, as well as the role of design­ers, and the ways that pro­fes­sion­als and ama­teurs alike will design. One inevitable aspect con­se­quence will be greater com­plex­ity for all involved in the design of inte­grated expe­ri­ences.

The poten­tial rise of new eco­nomic and pro­duc­tion mod­els is another.

The time is right to begin explor­ing aspects of the DIY Future, espe­cially its pro­found impli­ca­tions for infor­ma­tion archi­tec­ture and user expe­ri­ence design. Using the designer’s pow­er­ful fusion of ana­lyt­i­cal per­spec­tive and cre­ative vision, we can bal­ance spec­u­la­tive futur­ism with an under­stand­ing of con­crete prob­lems — such as grow­ing eth­i­cal chal­lenges and how to resolve them — from the present day.

Here’s the slides, avail­able from SlideShare:

Boxes and Arrows just published Part 4 of the Building Blocks series, Connectors for Dashboards and Portals.

We’re into the home stretch of the series – just two more to go!
Stay tuned for a downloadable toolkit to support easy use of the building blocks during design efforts.

Ongoing demographic shifts (in the Western world) have massive numbers of Baby Boomers, with large amounts of disposable income – “Projections from Met Life Market Institute show that by the time the last boomer turns 65 in 2030, the generation will control more than 40 percent of disposable income in the United States.” (from Some Like It Hot) – aging rapidly. I think we’re just beginning to see what happens when business and Design respond to the implications of these demographic and economic shifts by creating both new businesses, and new designs.

To some extent Design has a frame of reference for the changes on the way: accessibility is a concern we already know, that will become a jumping off point to deeper, more contextual and more powerful design drivers. I expect these will challenge designers to employ increasingly holistic approaches to creating integrated products / services / experiences. The Jitterbug cell phone from GreatCall is a good example of design that initially addressed the changing sensory and physical needs of Boomers, but then goes further into considering the entire mobile phone experience, from activation to configuration and daily use from the point of view of seniors and their expectations for relating to technology. The end result was a new business.

Baby boomers and their parents haven’t been quick to adopt mobile phones, even for use in emergencies. The technology is too complicated for many to learn quickly, and the screens and controls too diminutive for aging or infirm hands. …The Jitterbug offers big buttons, easy-to-read text, and simplified, easy-to-use functions, an ear cushion, and an ergonomic shape. Personalized services make it easy for users to retrieve messages, and offers live operators for call-related support.

The Jitterbug clearly shows accessibility as a modifier of already well-defined user experiences, and how design can adapt these experiences to meet different needs. But Boomer needs exceed the point where simply adapting an existing product experience with minor changes (not at the level of the mental model) is a solution. And so the demographic shift of Boomer aging inspired the creation of a new company, GreatCall, that designs integrated products, services, and experiences, like the Jitterbug Onetouch:

…The JitterBug Onetouch sports three oversized buttons for users who primarily want a cell phone for emergency purposes, such as elderly or disabled users who need to be able to summon assistance with the push of a single button. One button dials 911, one summons live-operator call assistance, and the third can be programmed for any service the user wants, such as an emergency number, a towing service reception at an assisted living facility, or a loved one.

Three buttons that connect to predefined emergency services is not what I think of as a mobile phone, but it makes perfect sense for this set of design needs.

More important, the Jitterbug makes apparent that traditional scenarios for understanding mobile phone use do not adequately apply to seniors and aging Boomer populations. As design professionals, we know these scenarios, personas, and other design models serve as the basis for entire business processes, including manufacturing, marketing, sales, and service, as well as whole businesses.

In terms of design and business responses to large cultural shifts, the Jitterbug shows that integrated experiences require integrated design approaches, which in turn require close integration and systems-based thinking from all the entities contributing to the overall experience in some way, from hardware through the Web based phone management software.

For two years, Jitterbug and Samsung’s industrial designers collaborated before bringing the new phones to market. Samsung understood immediately that there was a potentially large market for this new concept in mobile phones, but they had to be sold on doing more than creating a novel handset: they had to be willing to design the product in tandem with Jitterbug’s service system.

Harris: “For them (Samsung) it was a handset. For us, it was a system. The handset was just one element.”

Result: The Jitterbug phone design is simplified due to the fact it is managed remotely through a Web-based interface. “It’s not just the design of the handset, or what the call centers do, it’s all about the entire experience,”

From Jitterbug Phone Designed for Seniors, and Selling Technology to Baby Boomers & Seniors.

My presentation slides from the Ethics Panel at EuroIA 2007 – titled Designing Ethically – Communicating Conflict: Design For the Integrated Experiences of the Future – are available from Slideshare at http://www.slideshare.net/moJoe. Ethics was a challenging and fascinating subject to take on, and it prompted some great discussion with the audience (even at 7pm, after a full day of sessions…)

Many thanks to fellow panelists Olly Wright and Thom Froehlich, and all who planned, organized, attended, spoke, volunteered, or otherwise contributed to EuroIA 2007. As you can see from the flickr photostream, it was worth the trip to Barcelona! I’m already looking forward to next year’s event in Amsterdam.

Here’s a quick description of the presentation:

“What does the future of design hold? Greater ethical challenges. In the coming world of integrated experiences, design will face increasing ethical dilemmas born of the conflicts between broader, diverse groups of users in social media; new hybrids such as the SPIME which bridges the physical and virtual environments simultaneously, and the DIY shift that changes the role of designers from creators of elegant point solutions, to the authors of elegant systems and frameworks used by others for their own expressive and functional purposes. To better prepare designers for the increased complexity, connectedness, and awareness included in the coming future, here are some practical suggestions for easily addressing conflict during the design of integrated experiences, by using known and familiar experience design methods and techniques.”

Boxes and Arrows has published part 3 of the Building Blocks series, describing the Container blocks in detail. Next in the series is part 4, which describes the Connectors in the building block system in detail.

If you’re working on a portal, dashboard, or tile based design effort of any kind, the building blocks readily serve as a common language and structural reference point that allows effective project communication across traditional discipline boundaries. These two articles in tandem (parts 3 and 4) provide details on how the Building Blocks can provide a strong, flexible, and scalable usr experience and information architecture framework for the long term.

My current plan is to release a toolkit at approximately the same time as part 4 of the series. Part 4 is in the editing stage now, so this a good time to ask readers for suggestions on what should be part of the toolkit, and what form it should take. Suggestions?

In The next frontiers for Design and User Experience Jess McMullin offers:

I believe that the opportunity for design and user experience to increase our influence is not about finding better methods for working with users, but in better methods for working with business. Not that new methods for generating insight, prototyping, and defining solutions aren’t useful. But that’s not where the real barriers are in my practice. The real barriers are about building consensus, buy-in, bridging competing viewpoints, and actually executing. In that environment, we need to cultivate business fluency, and use our design toolkit to work with stakeholders, not just customers.

This a solid assessment of the obstacles design and user experience face, and sound advice on how to increase the influence our discipline commands. Thinking pragmatically, the business has power and money, making it essential for design to “cultivate business fluency”.

It’s important to build on this sound advice, and understand that to be well-positioned for the long term, design and user experience must recognize that new economic and cultural production models – commons-based, open source, networked / collaborative, and likely others yet to be seen – blur the formerly sharp distinctions between businesses and users / customers, and consequently open new roles and channels of influence for design.

This blurring is most visible in sectors of the economy such as software and media, but is also happening in other sectors as well, and even for services traditionally seen as the responsibility of the producer. The balance of power is changing. Though far from outright demolition, the old high ramparts dividing production processes from consumption are showing some wear.

This blurring (convergence might be a better (albeit overused…) word) means business also has clear and increasing incentive to cultivate design fluency. User experience, and other disciplines oriented toward understanding and working with – even working for – users and customers are essential for survival and success in these new economic and cultural production models.

One outcome of this convergence of methods, frames, and approaches might be, as Janko Roettgers suggests, using a combination of business and design perspectives to prototype a business, instead of just the products and experiences that are traditionally seen as the touch points or interfaces connecting businesses with customers.

To close the loop, design and user experience should indeed cultivate business fluency, but also keep in mind that those things which make design different from business – such as core approaches, frames, and methods – will remain critical to insuring the value of user experience in the future. Good examples of these differences, as Peter Morville recently suggested, are the holistic perspectives and techniques that help design and user experience imagine and describe the future.

What could be more influential than defining the future?

Finally, what does this future look like? Open design may be an early example of a new model and approach to economic and cultural production, one that was both conceived with the aid of, and also structured to rely upon, design and user experience perspectives.