ChangeOrder

People Don't Pay Much for Umbrellas

Working in New York City more than a decade ago, I was always charmed by how the cost of umbrellas would magically increase during a downpour. Those umbrellas never lasted. They just worked until you reached where you needed to go.

Riding the subway, watching people struggle with their half-broken umbrellas—aren't all umbrellas half-broken?—was an object lesson for me in the value of selective innovation. There's a reason GORE-TEX jackets cost so flipping much: a guarantee of staying 100% dry is almost impossible to deliver. This is a valuable problem, with a valued solution for products that last.

But there are so many short-term solutions, it's almost overwhelming. Mr. Wikipedia says that there are four people at the patent office employed to sift through patent proposals for umbrella-related inventions, and a fellow at Totes was quoted saying that "it’s difficult to come up with an umbrella idea that hasn’t already been done."

That's some market for innovation for the problem of "staying dry." It's a valuable problem that people keep solving over and over again, seeking new niches to monetize.

Now, let's think about web pages. Proper placement of where the search box should go, and how it should behave: pennies or millions, depending on the scale of traffic flowing through a web property. The impact of poorly considered design decisions can be like accidentally nicking an artery while shaving. At times, this is the value we provide to our clients, often in the context of seemingly small yet critical decisions in creating an existing product. But such decisions map back to a much larger context, grounded in customer and business considerations. People will always be searching for content on web pages. Do they need an umbrella or something more durable?

Back away from solving small problems at key points in each of your projects and consider: How valuable is the larger-scale problem I'm trying to solve? With regard to human need? From a business standpoint? Where do I need umbrellas, and where do I need to invent something that will durably last? That can't be easily copied?

This kind of thinking is useful when clients come in crowing about their new umbrella idea, when really they need a waterproof jacket. When discussing a potential new project, ask your client about what problem(s) they're trying to solve. Then, ask them how that problem came about. Usually, that points to a much larger, more valuable problem—where the rain is currently pouring. Gauge the value of the largest problems you can help your client solve, then consider the effort (and decisions) that will be necessary in your current project to move you towards influencing them. It takes more effort to make that waterproof jacket, but it'll last them longer and retain its value better.

How does that change your conversation with the client? Is that a problem they're willing to let you discuss openly? Look at it from a few different angles or higher-order perspectives? Change the nature of what kinds of projects you'd like to retain?

Once you start seeing what you do as a designer in this way, you'll have greater clarity regarding exactly what kind of value you're providing as a designer. Solve valuable problems, charge your customer what the market will reasonably bear. And remember that people won't pay much for umbrellas. At any price point, they always vanish into the closet.

Now, please excuse me... this was one of the few sunny days we've had in Seattle all year, and I'm going to go get my yearly Vitamin D allotment.

This post was inspired by recent discussions with David Conrad, studio director of Design Commission and the co-presenter with me for an AIGA Seattle Design Business for Breakfast next week about how to structure a design studio for success.

"The Creativity Killer: Group Discussions" in TheAtlantic.com

Traditional meetings are often more about socializing decisions than making them. A case for rethinking how we generate ideas.

Perhaps this situation hasn't happened to you yet at work. But it probably will.

Your entire team has been corralled into a conference room and told by your boss to become more creative as a unit. To collaborate more efficiently. To generate breakthrough ideas that will transform your business, your industry, the world at large. To hone your group's collective creativity in ways that makes a team of three or four people more effective than dozens. No pressure—only your career is riding on it.

With the emerging dialogue in the popular press and blogosphere about fostering creativity in business, there is no lack of desire for collective creativity. Take this recent quote by Bruce Nussbaum about looking beyond fostering "design thinking" and instead encouraging "creative Intelligence":

I am defining Creative Intelligence as the ability to frame problems in new ways and to make original solutions. You can have a low or high ability to frame and solve problems, but these two capacities are key and they can be learned.... It is a sociological approach in which creativity emerges from group activity, not a psychological approach of development stages and individual genius.

Yes, group activity can provide the impetus for better framing of problems, which can lead to original solutions. But creativity is the "end result of many forms of intelligence coming together, and intelligence born out of collaboration and out of networks," to quote one of my co-workers, Robert Fabricant. When we collaborate with different kinds of thinkers, sometimes from different cultures and backgrounds, we individually struggle with ingrained behaviors that reduce our likelihood of manifesting creativity.

One of the joys of working in teams is the cadence and flow of dialogue between people, and seeing how ideas grow and change through discussion. We often become lost in these exchanges, and delightfully so.

They seem to be core to the notion of design and creativity, but they aren't.

Continue reading my article on TheAtlantic.com.

How Should a Design Leader Behave?

Here's a question for you: How should a design leader behave?

My hypothesis is that any effective design leader must know how to coax, push, cajole, and conjure awesome work out of their team (and themselves).

Leaders coax stellar work out of their teams by creating space for creativity to flourish. This space is protected from harm, so incursions such as rogue client feedback or organizational politics will not derail ongoing effort.

Leaders push their teams towards a vision, no matter who suggested or informed that vision. It can come from anyone on the team, then be harnessed collectively. However, the leader must motivate the team to realize that vision. The best leaders know how suss out internal motivations and encourage them, rather than enforce a motivation from an external pressure, such as deadline, quality bar, fear of failure, and so forth. The leader can also choose to allow others to lead, trusting their direction and encouraging ownership in the process.

Leaders cajole through critique, by asking the right open-ended questions—at the correct time—to encourage the flourishing of great ideas. To quote Pelle Sjonell, Executive Creative Director of BBH LA: "If creative direction is done right, you should never have to select. You never need to resort to the role of a bouncer. Or simply giving things thumbs up or thumbs down."

Leaders must also conjure compelling design work in their own right, when pressed into service. Otherwise, they may just be serving in a managerial capacity.

Design leaders that employ these modes effectively, in concert with design teams jamming on well-considered design work for engaged clients, is what can make working at a design business transcend being mere work and become delightful.

What do you think? What would you add, remove, or change? I'd love to share your perspectives at next week's Design Business for Breakfast on Design Leadership.

Slides from "The Language of Interaction"

I was recently invited to deliver a talk at Emily Carr University of Art and Design about what interaction designers do and how interaction design factors into the worlds of design and art.

My talk "The Language of Interaction" (slides above) was my attempt to summarize the critical role that language plays in our efforts as designers and artists. In doing so, I touched upon the three challenges that all designers and artists face in trying to craft interactions:

• Establishing a vocabulary, which allows you to articulate what discrete points of a systemic problem you may influence
• Considering what metaphors may aid you in the modelling of an interactive product or service
• Understanding how we weave together what we've experienced from our interaction with lateral disciplines to become better at practicing interaction design

To illustrate the last point, I created a timeline of my lifelong explorations as a designer and artist, and discussed how I couldn't have been an effective interaction designer without traveling through a range of related (and seemingly unrelated) disciplines. Over time, all of them were threaded together.

Many thanks to Haig Armen and Laura Kozak of Emily Carr, who invited me up to Vancouver, BC for this talk.

Slides from "Creative Workshop" Author's Talk at SxSWi

This afternoon I spent half an hour with a few hundred South by Southwest attendees, sharing how my book Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills came about. I presented the above deck, and answered a ton of diverse questions from the audience. I've tried to capture some of the questions and my responses below.

What do you do when you get stuck? I mean, you'll always reach a wall on any design project.

Yes, there are always moments on design projects where it seems like the well has run dry. I've found that in those situations, it helps to construct situations where you have to dig even deeper in the well to find more water.

One trick that seems to help is to set a goal to come up with 100 ideas on paper in one hour. Sure, you may not reach 100, but you'll have a moment (or two) where you'll stop thinking about making good ideas and draw on your intuition and subconscious. Sure, crap happens during those moments, but so do moments of gold. The point is not to decide whether it's crap or gold until you've had a chance to get a distance from the material, and let it speak for itself.

Do different personalities or dispositions gravitate towards specific types of brainstorming methods and design processes?

I find this a fascinating question, for a number of reasons. First, designers always gravitate towards more rational or more intuitive processes, just as a matter of how they incubate and execute ideas. So if you give a fairly intuitive designer a highly rational brainstorming method, it's likely that there will be some friction and potential fireworks.

However, rote repetition rarely leads to deep design intuition. The point of exploring different brainstorming methods—especially those that oppose your everyday tendencies—is to step outside what you know and explore what you don't. Sure, failure will happen, but taking risks requires such an effort. There's nothing to be afraid of except throwing away what didn't work… so if you're deeply attached to what you create, it's going to hurt.

I'm a developer and want to become a designer. What should I do?

Be tactical, observing how the designers around you work through a design problem, from initial research to conceiving ideas. Try out activities that utilize those processes. See which ones feel natural, and generate ideas in similar manners. Take on design problems and try to solve them only on paper. Stay out of code and technical architecture, examining how things could be made if there were no reality constraints. Then, when you've started to fall into a rhythm, see what happens when you bring implementation technologies into that process.

How should designers work with project managers?

As partners, with an appropriate level of give and take. I don't mind project managers drawing wireframes on the whiteboard when the team is grappling with a tough problem. However, they should also feel comfortable if the team begins negotiating dates on the GANT chart. Essentially, a collaboration with open communication and trust, as well as some fluidity involving roles.

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If you're seeking more design challenges, I've posted on Scribd 10 bonus challenges that I couldn't fit into the printed book. Enjoy!

What's Your Bus Number?

In the shower, the best idea of your career hits you like a runaway bus. Years of hard-fought labor melt away, as the details clarify themselves in your brain like pristine, hand-rendered architectural blueprints. You pump your fists in the air, giddy with triumph. This idea will define your career. It will leave your clients awestruck. It will make your company rich.

Sadly, no one will ever know your idea. Because in this hypothetical situation, on your way into work you are hit by a bus.

Contingency planning—being prepared for the worst that could happen, even though it's likely that it won't—is a necessary part of running any business meant to outlast yourself. Business owners need to understand where critical information and actions happen across their company, while individual employees must stay aware of who does (and doesn't) have access to the results of their labor.

This is no laughing matter, but we bring it up every time we say: "If you were hit by a bus tomorrow, who would know what you know? Who could do what you do?" It happens more often than we'd like, especially when working in a freelance capacity. Your bosses worry about it. If you're in charge of a business, you have probably experienced times where such lapses in institutional knowledge have hobbled projects.

Matt Conway, an Associate Creative Director at frog design, has a great turn of phrase for identifying what project details are shared amongst employees. When a project contributor tells him something important, he asks: "What's your bus number?"

His turn of phrase is shorthand for, "If you were to be hit by a bus at this very moment, how many other people besides you and me know what we just discussed?" If your bus number is low, then you will need to capture and share your knowledge before you progress further. If your bus number is high, then you're in a good place to keep your project moving.

So, take a look at your current projects and ask yourself: What's my bus number? Who needs to know what I've been doing? Are there any new ideas that need to be socialized, and quickly? And how can I share these ideas with my cohorts most effectively? Then, take action.

"Creative Workshop" Author's Talk at SxSWi on Friday

If you'll be at South by Southwest, join me on Friday, March 11th at 5:30 PM for an author's talk about Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills. The talk will be in Ballroom G at the Austin Convention Center, 500 E Cesar Chavez Street, and the hash tag will be #CWBook.

Over 20 minutes, I'll share the thinking behind the book and some of the interactive challenges, then take part in a Q&A. Books will be for sale, and I'll be happy to sign a copy for you.

You can add the event to your schedule at the official event listing here.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

P.S. I'll also be releasing at the conference one last bonus PDF of free material associated with the book...

This Week's Challenge: The Grand Finale

The heavy red curtain comes down with a crash, and the applause is deafening. Walking back to their dressing rooms, the actors and actresses give each other high fives and smiles, proud of their three hours walking the boards. After wiping away the stage makeup, they will slip out the back door of the theatre, unrecognized by the bustling crowd on a busy Saturday night.

Such is another successful show, winding down to make room for the next production of the season. Whether Shakespeare or Tom Stoppard, the spirit of a stage production can't be easily captured on film, or experienced through a live simulcast from halfway around the world. Stage performers feed off the energy of their audiences, transforming that electricity into more powerful performances.

So, what would happen if this conversation between the audience and the actors were even more explicit?

You've been tapped by an Off-Broadway theater in New York City to partner with a playwright in creating an interactive stage production. Instead of the actors breaking the "fourth wall" and asking the audience to vote on a series of possible outcomes, like "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," the audience will be encouraged to send feedback via their mobile devices to the show's director in real time. The director will then use that feedback to shape the show in real time, in constant communication with the actors. Every night, the show could end in a radically different fashion—there would be no set number of outcomes. Additionally, the director could send out prompts to the audience to solicit input on particular story beats.

In 90 minutes, design how to facilitate this stage production, from the necessary user flows to describe how mobile devices will be used by the audience, to how the director will communicate narrative changes to the actors. Feel free to identify stage stories that would be best suited for the system you're creating.

If you want to take this further, write a brief treatment for the play and what crucial moments will likely attract a sellout crowd, enhanced by the technology you're leveraging.

Keep in mind that the more complex your communication system becomes, the more people are distracted from the play they're watching. How can you balance interactivity with the intimacy the actors require from their audience?

This is the last creative challenge I'll be posting on ChangeOrder for the next few months. If you want more, snag a copy of my book Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills.

The above photo is by Kevin Dooley on Flickr, shared via a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

When Sparks Won't Fly

I'm proud to welcome our very first guest columnist. She is a writer, teacher, and public speaking coach, and has been a collaborator for much of the thinking on this blog since its inception. She was also my co-author for the e-book Creative Workshop: Teacher's Guide. Welcome to ChangeOrder the first full post by Mary Paynter Sherwin.

A group of us have a Wednesday night ritual. We sit around at our local burger place and kvetch about work and life and design. Every burger comes with fries, no questions asked. No extra effort. But you can get onion rings, and there’s a Mafia-like dialogue that occurs when orders come around. Onion rings are powerful, because you can get lots of fries for a single ring. We have to make sure that sides of rings and fries are equally distributed. If three of us get onion rings, everyone else has to get fries, or the whole thing goes off kilter. There’s probably a decision tree on some humor website about how this all works.

I’d been obsessing over these onion rings all day long. I hadn’t had them in weeks, and come hell or high water, they were going to be on my plate that night. Our favorite waitress came around to serve drinks, and I ordered first. And ten minutes later, my plate showed up with French fries. Because that’s what I ordered.

Why, after all of that planning and drooling, did I suddenly change my mind? If I really, really wanted onion rings, why didn’t I order them? Everyone else had to pick their fries or onion rings accordingly, based on my preference. A preference that wasn’t really my preference.

I ate an order of French fries because I couldn’t speak the words, “onion rings.”

My brain has electrical problems. From time to time, my ability to speak what’s in my head escapes me. I can see the word “cat,” can look at a cat in a book, and out of my mouth comes “Christmas.” More often than not, nothing comes out at all, and I just sit and wait. Eventually, the right word makes it through the synapses to my mouth. Or it doesn’t, and people think I’m really tired. Or on drugs, a popular theory in high school. Last night, though I was frantically thinking “onion rings,” that was as far as it got.

I’ve had a lot of years to deal with this glitch. And yes, I’ve had a full medical workup and, though it’s pretty clear what’s happening on an EEG, I’m fine. But it wasn’t until last night that I realized how much my inability to communicate about simple and familiar things could influence other people around me. Because I wanted something that I couldn’t articulate, and because I had no way of communicating that failure, everything else changed.

Interaction 11 Recap: Thinking on the Outside

In early February, a number of frogs attended this year's Interaction 11 conference, sponsored by the Interaction Design Association (IxDA). Our time in Boulder began with a fresh blanket of snow and ended with all-you-could-drink absinthe at the closing night party. In my contribution for the conference, I taught a three-hour workshop called "Better Ideas Faster: Effective Brainstorming for Interaction," which focused on the unique tools and techniques that interaction designers bring to bear in translating research findings into actionable design concepts that cohere into large-scale systems.

This year's conference has been hard for me to summarize—not because of the absinthe, mind you—and in combing through my notes and reflecting on the experience, more questions have emerged than coherent themes.

This Week's Challenge: Chatty Baby Bib

While wandering through the Gap, you notice a hat that can broadcast your latest Facebook status. Or a scarf that displays @replies to your Twitter account, writ large in sparkling letters. Or a belt buckle that warns you when traffic becomes busy on your usual route home.

Mobile phones and tablets are only the first wave of connected devices—and our notion of what a "device" looks like is going to radically change. I find my designerly eye drawn most to wearable technology: clothing that can gather and display information, provide control to other devices or services, or otherwise remove our notion of the screen-based interface from human-computer interaction. If the current Arduino craze is any indication, our clothing can be enhanced with embedded processors, sensors, and lightweight software that communicates with cloud computers via Wi-Fi or cellular data networks.

How do designers create concepts that describe how to exploit these novel uses of technology? In this challenge, you're going to try and envision how a piece of wearable tech can be used by our most demanding technology users: babies.

You've been hired by a technology firm that wants your help in devising a line of baby clothing that is able to monitor body heat, pulse rate, blood pressure, and other biometric information. The clothing can then change color or display information regarding what data has been collected over time.

In 60 minutes, create a 6-panel storyboard that describes a critical usage scenario for this baby clothing, being sure to clearly show the context of its use.

If you want to take it further, move from a drawn storyboard to creating a photo-real video scenario that shows a faked prototype. Or, if you have the skills, a real prototype!

The above photo is by Pedro Klein on Flickr, shared via a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license on Flickr.

Slides from "My Top 10 Design Business Failures"

This Thursday and Friday, I provided two lectures for SCAD's Entreprenurial Forum 2011 in Savannah, Georgia. This event was presented by SCAD's Office for Career and Alumni Success, and was designed for students across all majors to gain perspectives on how they can become successful as businesspeople in today's economic climate.

The above slide deck is from my second lecture, called "My Top 10 Design Business Failures." You could call this my greatest hits album of major business mistakes I've made over my career, both as a freelancer and while working within agencies of all shapes and sizes.

My first lecture, "Being an Agency of One," kicked off the event on Thursday night. I talked about the four primary areas that any designer or artist must master in order to create the foundation for a successful business practice and be responsible while doing what they love:

• Understanding your business model and what sources of revenue can support it
• Designing the appropriate touchpoints required for well-considered client service
• Discovering how effective project management creates sustainable studio success
• Crafting the philosophy and plan that drives both your personal practice and your business practice, via a framework that David Conrad and I created called "The Elements of Design Studio Experience"

You can see an 11-minute clip of me answering student questions after the first lecture on the SCAD eLearning site. Some of these student questions I will be readdressing on this blog in the coming weeks.

If you live in Seattle and want to dig deeper into this material, please join me for the Design Business for Breakfast Series in Seattle, which is going on right now. Registration is still open for the last three talks. The next one is this Wednesday, February 23rd.

All of this material is drawn from my current work-in-progress for HOW Books, Design Business from A to Z, which will be out in the Fall of 2012. Both presentations were deeply informed by the following collaborators, who deserve great thanks: Erica Goldsmith, Fiona Robertson-Remley, and David Conrad.

The Metaphor of the System, Part 3

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, I identified the elements that comprise an interaction model: UX patterns, feature clusters, system behavior over time, and UX principles. What sews those elements together is what I had been calling an "interaction metaphor," or the metaphor of the system.

So, how is an interaction metaphor different from the parti, as described in the previous post—the central idea or concept of a system? I'll venture a guess, though this is still rough thinking and confined just to interaction design.

"Design Business for Breakfast" Series Returns for 2011

If you missed last year's "Design Business for Breakfast" series, this is your chance to catch it again—with a few new surprises! Here's the copy from the AIGA Seattle's site:

Many firms offer stellar creative work. The ones that survive and thrive understand how to successfully operate their business. To help you master that second skill, AIGA Seattle is proud to offer an encore presentation of Seattle designer and author David Sherwin's design business series.

Whether you work on the creative team, the account team, or are a one-person firm, this series has enough valuable content to fill books. [Like my next one coming out in 2012... details coming soon.] Covering key aspects of design practice—from project and account management to creative leadership—this 4-part series represents years of hard-won wisdom, yours to be had over a comfortable, light breakfast. And as a special bonus, the series will be kicked off with an exclusive presentation and Q&A with Ted Leonhardt on January 26th.

Here's the lineup:

Weds, Jan 26 / Ted Leonhardt: Identifying Opportunities in Your Time
Weds, Feb 23 / Erica Goldsmith: Connect with Your Clients
Weds, March 23 / Fiona Remley: Structure Your Projects and Process
Weds, April 20 / David Sherwin: Design Leadership

Tickets can be purchased individually, or for the entire series via AIGASeattle.org.

All talks start at 7:30 AM at Il Fornaio, located in Pacific Place. Parking is available in the underground ramp. Take the elevator to concourse and escalator to the first floor. If you're on foot, street access is from Olive Way and up the escalator. Doors will open at 7:15.

Your questions are welcome and invited. Send them to programming@seattle.aiga.org or use the Twitter hashtag #DB4B.

The Metaphor of the System, Part 2

Whenever I think of interaction models, I visualize in my mind an imaginary modern art gallery designed by a famous architect. Let's walk inside, pay our admission fee, and enter the first gallery from the grand foyer.

At first, what we notice are the other people milling about the space. There must be hundreds of visitors from around the world, listening to their self-guided audio tours and quietly shuffling to and fro.

To your left, there's a security guard perched on a high chair. He's supposed to make sure we don't deface the art with our No. 2 pencils. When you glance at him sideways out of the corner of your eye, he looks a bit hung over. In a few minutes, another security guard will come in to replace him, so he can grab a quick smoke outside.

There are benches, plants, and other cues that let us know we can rest and linger if we wish. Right now, schoolchildren are perched in the room's centre, either texting their friends or doodling in their notebooks.

And, lest we not forget, there are works of art. Some are on the walls, winking from baroque gilt gold frames. Others are non-traditional, like video installations and sculptures that rest like melted wrecking balls on the scarred hardwood floors. You'll have to wait a minute or two until you can make your way to what seems to be the most popular works. Most of the people are bunched around two specific paintings, perhaps by Picasso.

Much of this experience is "designed." I put that word in quotes, as there is no designer holding us by the elbow, shepherding us through the room. The designer has considered the various points of contact that a person may have with the items and people within the space: the picture frames, the benches, the pots for the plants, the uniform of the security guard. (Though the guard may not like that polka-dot tie.)

Along with the curator, the designer may have determined the containers around content—the specific framing and placement of each work—and how those containers relate to communicate a particular story. The designer may be aware of the narrative flow of the exhibit, and how visitors can create different stories from the content based on when they encounter it. The designer may have worked alongside the curator to selectively manage what content may appear on the gallery walls beside the art, such as placards, infographics, and other wayfinding moments.

However, separate of what we see within the space, there is more to examine from above. Looking upwards, we notice that light shines down through a diamond-shaped skylight. Why didn't we notice it before?

With the permission, we hike up the stairs and climb up a ladder, pushing ourselves out onto the building's roof. Standing above this room and gazing down into this gallery space, we realize that it was designed structurally to encourage a specific kind of motion, from door to door. In fact, as we walk across the roof to examine other rooms, we realize that each room winds into the other like a nautilus shell. Visitors begin each exhibit from the center of the shell—the main foyer—spinning their way outward into deeper explorations of specific subjects. The skeleton of the building's space, when abstracted from its drywall and plumbing, its specific artworks and security guards, would resemble the elegant interior form of some crustacean sea life.

 

Interaction Design, Late to the Parti

When considering the structure of a building, architects often define its central, organizing idea as part of their ideation and design process. This unifying idea is known as the parti. The overall expression and movement of people through the space, the actual flow that happens through daily use, emanates from and returns to this fundamental idea.

In the case of our imagined art gallery, I've noted that there is a parti that organizes its space. We could summarize it in the idea, "Nautilus shell."

The central idea or concept implicitly encourages flow and movement from room to room, via a metaphor that manifests itself implicitly in how the space is used.

When designing for interaction, well-constructed systems can have a similar unifying idea. (See Luke Wroblewski's great talk on the parti and the design sandwich, which this piece is building upon and evolving.)

But in the realm of interaction, we're not just focusing on the elements within the system—the people, the potted plants, the artwork, the security guards. We're also not solely constructing the overall architecture of the system independent of the individual actors: the blueprints, the drywall, the plumbing. We are grappling with how the whole system functions as a living, breathing organism, meant to live symbiotically with humans.

So an interaction model, when well-defined, describes how a system is intended to function over time. It is comprised of the following elements:

• UX patterns: Repetitive structures and pathways that people will encounter and move through over and over again. Example: A news feed in Facebook would always scroll downward, containing endless objects that a user could act upon. This is important: A UX pattern describes where actions will take place, rarely a range of specific actions. That is reserved for…
• Feature clusters: The specific functionality that a system contains. The features should be organized in a manner that makes logical sense to the people who use it, and have a dynamic relationship with the UX patterns. Example: When using my Facebook news feed, I am able to act upon an object by commenting on it, liking it, sharing it, etc.
• System behaviour over time: The animation, transitions, and other ways that the system behaves in response to (or anticipating) user input. Example: I click on a field that says, "Write a comment..." in my news feed. It dynamically exposes a larger box with my photos, encouraging text input. If I click away, it snaps shut automatically.
• UX principles: A set of guidelines tailored by the designer that governs the elements above. Violating the UX principles can causes all the other elements to suffer in both usability and desirability for end users. Example: I'd imagine that Facebook wants the minimum number of interactions or clicks possible from scrolling a news feed to interacting with content—one or two at most. Any new functionality must try to preserve this principle.

All of these elements are required for a system to feel unified during use. To quote Mr. Dan Saffer,

"A device without an interaction model will likely seem disjointed and made up of pieces, instead of as a whole. Pieces of functionality will work differently and the overall concept will be hard to grasp. Many mobile phones, appliances, and consumer electronics suffer from this problem. A solid interaction model is the basis for any great device."

Beyond devices, a solid interaction model can help organize practically any kind of designed experience: an art exhibit, an in-store sales experience, a board game. Any kind of product, service, or system that requires repetitive input and output would benefit. The material outputs may look different—i.e. you're not creating user flows and wireframes in all cases—but there may be a similar process in structuring the desired design outcome.

In describing the imaginary building above, I was outlining patterns of how people should enter and exit each room. There were principles that governed how those patterns are employed, and what specific features map to those patterns and principles. Specific features and content map to those patterns and principles.

But what differentiates an interaction model—at least in the process of brainstorming and crafting an interactive experience—is in what central idea or concept helps to cohere what would otherwise be "disjointed and made of pieces." I like to call these central ideas "interaction metaphors," or the metaphor of the system.

In my next post, I'll outline what makes an interaction metaphor distinct from a parti, and how these metaphors are created through the brainstorming process.

The Metaphor of the System

Recently, I've been meditating on what makes brainstorming for interaction design so challenging. (Not just because I'm leading a workshop about it at Interaction 11.)

After spending a few years in the trenches of product and service design, I've discovered that ideation for interaction doesn't operate quite the same as other design disciplines—especially when compared to visual communication, branding, marketing, and so forth.

Why? Because interaction designers are creating multifarious, complex systems comprised of repeating elements that must cohere into a recognizable and usable whole. And more likely than not, what you're attempting to modify or construct wholesale over the life of a project is an interaction model.

Never heard of an interaction model? To explain, let's take a trip to your local art gallery... in my next post.

This Week's Challenge: Through the Looking Glass

Mail = A6 envelope. Chat = speech balloon. Search = magnifying glass.

When creating icon systems, designers exploit our familiarity with commonplace physical and lingual metaphors. They are universal, pervasive within our culture.

However, by tying ourselves so closely to such analogies—both when considering individual icons and icons that may represent a corporate brand as part of a logotype—we contend with the wide range of meanings that others have already exploited in the world.

With this challenge, you'll explore what happens when you mold three of these everyday icons to a uniquely tailored use.

Your alma mater has hired you to redesign their campus-wide email, chat, and bulletin board systems. As part of this redesign, they would like you to create unique icons that represent Mail, Chat, and Search.

In 30 minutes, create these icons. They must immediately convey to any student, faculty, or staff member that the functionality is affiliated with the school—but without directly integrating any existing official crest, seal, or logo within the icon.

If you want to take it further, design the key screens for Mail, Chat, and Search as part of a school-provided mobile application.

Want more challenges? The first 24 pages of Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills are available free on Scribd.

"Creative Workshop: Teacher's Guide" Is Now Out

Today, I released a free e-book called Creative Workshop: Teacher's Guide. It serves as an accompaniment to Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills, published in Nov. 2010 by HOW Design Press.

This 72-page e-book with co-written with my wife Mary Paynter Sherwin, who was a substantial contributor to the Creative Workshop book and class. The Teacher's Guide describes the pedagogical methods behind the challenges, how to create your own Creative Workshop class or workshop series, as well as how to use challenges from the book most effectively in a classroom setting. This text is intended for teachers of design and creative thinking, but it may also be helpful for designers and creative managers.

This Week's Challenge: Please Sign Here

I worked with an excellent proofreader whose cubicle you would never approach until she had flipped a little sign from “No Coffee” to “Had Coffee.”

At that same job, one of the designers kept a mini-whiteboard up to date with her ongoing projects, what’s on her plate, and when she was planning to take lunch—so she wouldn’t be surprised by rogue project managers while she was running out the door.

And, of course, there was the ever-ubiquitous promotion by Veer, which was a flip book that consisted of various tongue-in-cheek phrases: "Where am I? Letting someone else do the creative."

These designed moments become part of our studio environment and culture. So for this challenge, show us how you share your status to your co-workers—
like only a designer can.

In 30 minutes, create an interactive piece of signage you can place on your design studio door, desk, or other clearly visible place. The signage must be easily modifiable to note your current project status, overall mental state, and any other data points that are critical to the health and wellbeing of yourself and your co-workers.

If you want to take it further, how would your sign translate into an iPad or screensaver application?

Shown above is one of the beautiful monthly desktops created by graphic designer Miss Vu, which are posted regularly to Flickr.

Want more challenges? The first 24 pages of Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills are available free on Scribd.

The Fundamentals of Effective Design Critique

In my previous few posts, I've explored some of the root issues that stand in the way of well-considered critique habits. This post is focusing on the process of delivering design critique, and what specific areas we can improve.

The above chart describes the overall flow of high-level actions that comprise a successful critique situation. Let's explore each of them in further detail.

Initiate: The designer initiates a critique session, either through actively requesting it or by attending a meeting that has been formally set up. Having a standing critique meeting encourages designers to work towards critique, rather than having it sprung upon them—though sometimes it's best to put the designers in control of when critique occurs, so they don't feel rushed.

I've purposely not included the "drive-by critique," where the boss happens to wander by the desk and can't help but comment. That should not happen without the permission of the designer. So ask before you open your mouth.

Reflect: Participants in the critique should actively solicit the intent of the designer if they aren't familiar with the project (and its creative brief), explore the detail of the design, and gauge the level of fidelity based on where the designer is in the project flow. This all happens before verbalizing any immediate thoughts or impressions. Those participating in critique should also consider any previous experiences they've had with similar material. As we'll see later, this may not immediately impact the critique.

This phase can last anywhere from a few seconds to a dozen minutes, depending on how much design work is on the wall and the level of its fidelity.

Assess: There are three questions that I find critical to ask myself before offering comment. If I skip over any one of them, I almost always say something that really doesn't contribute to the critique and causes problems both in the critique session and later on in the project.

"How does the designer's intent match the brief?" Knowing that a design is on strategy, or at least tracing the boundary of it, is a litmus test for measuring creative quality. This question may become less important if you're working from an intentionally unbounded brief. (Ulp.) In those cases, a better question to answer may be, "How does the designer's intent shape the strategy?"

"What tangible design decisions contribute to their intent?" If we start critiquing the aesthetic details too quickly, hammering on technical deficiencies such as poor kerning or lines that don't meet up in an illustration, we may be missing opportunities to align around what specific art direction or interaction decisions may strengthen the work.

There's always time to fix typos and adjust leading. There is rarely enough time to clarify an overall information architecture or art direction too late in the game. Besides, if you spend too much time hammering on the details—forcing designers to become better craftspeople, fostering a detail orientation, etc.—they may not have the space to be more aware of how those details fit into a coherent sequence of designed moments. Bouncing between the big picture and the details is one of the few ways to make sure you don't slide into a habit of thinking small first.

"What do they still need to solve for?" In critique, we're often asked to verbalize or sketch out unexplored paths that a designer could follow from where their work currently stands. Providing effective design critique emerges from in measuring what ideas and specific notes will aid the designer in fulfilling their intent—and personal goals too! From your own experience, and in observing others grappling with similar problems, you may know what is required to help them reach that intent.

Critique: Now that all of this information has worked its way through your brain, you can vocalize, sketch, and otherwise contribute as part of the critique. However, you have a range of actions at your disposal.

You can help to calibrate and otherwise re-align the designer's intent, if you feel it is either off brief or requires a more articulate strategy. These kinds of conversations should be happening early in the process, but sometimes you don't understand the implications of a design direction until it reaches high fidelity. So a designer shouldn't be fearful to scrap everything at the eleventh hour in critique—they should only be fearful that the conversation hadn't been evolving that deep rework may be necessary late in the process.

You can provide notes on craft, either to bring the craft in line with their desired art direction or to help identify and improve any technical deficiencies. Clarifying art direction should always trump fixing tiny details—the latter can be worked out via notes written on paper rather than out-loud conversation.

You can praise what is working in the design, choosing to illuminate what intent- and craft-based decisions resonate most powerfully in the work at hand. This should really be happening first and foremost in the design process, and usually follows a formula known as the "shit sandwich" in writing workshop circles: identifying a powerful detail or feature and praising it, pointing out an area that may require more work regarding craft or intent, then closing with further praise. Even if you work in a corporate culture that offers criticism before praise, you should measure where praise fits into the process and be prepared to offer it in every critique.

You can choose to defer to comment, delaying critique until the work has had more time and energy invested in it. Designers should never interpret this option as potentially harming their work later down the road. Selecting this option should mean that those in the critique trust the designers to further their work, based on their vocalized current intent and art direction. This is any design manager's secret weapon, and I know I don't exercise it often enough. Providing no feedback, or solely positive feedback regarding what's working best, will create the necessary space for creative leaps to happen.

Don't allow delaying critique to turn into a passive-aggressive method of control. And keep in mind that you should also offer your designers the choice of what kind of critique they may want to receive. They may just want you to see where they're at, but no detailed feedback whatsoever. Don't feel like you're required to lob a nuclear bomb at design work that often needs just a gentle nudge down an alternate path.

Again: Let the work be good!

 

What Good Design Critique Tastes Like

Unlike other types of wines and spirits, there is a unique method of properly discerning the many distinct notes in a glass of quality sake. Compare this to the tasting of red wine, where a person may hold the liquid on their tongue for fifteen to thirty seconds before the full complexity and body of a decanted wine yields full bloom.

When trying a new sake for the first time, take a drink from the glass, then hold the liquid on your tongue and soft palate. Breathe slowly inward and outward for one breath. The sake will open up, revealing secondary characteristics that would have remained otherwise unobserved. The drinker can then swallow the sake, discerning the difference between the first taste, the second taste upon the palate, and then the wine's overall finish.

In a similar manner, reflection must precede analysis if you aren't going to solely "shoot" at creative work. When dealing with complex subject matter, the end product may feel simple, but there is always enough detail layered underneath that requires deep consideration to properly vocalize how it may be improved.

So in this New Year, consider how to create these moments where you can hold creative work on your tongue, savour it, and let it be good in its own right. It is these moments that we will enjoy most and will most nourish us as designers, as leaders, and as members of collaborative teams.

Otherwise, that bitter taste in your mouth at the end of every project won't be the bite of strong, celebratory champagne.

Many thanks to Mary Paynter Sherwin, who helped create the central theme of this series.