Hot-Spots, Robots, and 3D Printers:
Libraries’ Role in Bridging the Knowledge Divide
Andrea Sáenz, Chicago Public Library
@chipublib
@andreakalinka
  • Libraries are used and valued more than ever
    • 95% believe important role in person’s chance of success
    • 95% believe promote literacy
  • Libraries have a hard-earned public trust that allows them to work with communities to work on issues like economic issues, cultural awareness, etc.
  • Chicago library system
    • 80 public libraries across Chicago
    • a million unique web visitors every month
    • 3,000 public access computers. for many people, the library is the only place they can get online. about 3 million users a year.
    • about 10 million visitors a year
  • 0-5 population
    • the way kids learn and prepare for school is when adults talk, sing, read, write, and play with them.
  • STEAM for all. Science, Technology, Electronics, Arts, and Math
    • It’s really about creativity and problem solving.
  • If this kind of learning is what’s important, then it needs to be accessible to every single person in our community.
  • Lots of libraries do the summer reading challenges. We’ve now expanded on that to make a summer STEAM challenge.
    • hydroponic garden
    • 300 minutes of reading
    • science projects
  • No one has to come to the library. No one is taking attendance. So we have to make it fun.
    • reptile workshops, explosion workshops
  • The Finch: a robot designed for computer science education
    • make it so you can check out the robot for 3 weeks, just like a library book.
  • For teenagers, want to make interesting and accessible to thm.
    • 3d printers
    • littlebits.cc
  • For grownups too
    • want to make accessible
    • finch robots: get through obstacle course.
    • make learning playful for all people, including adults
  • Supporting teens and college students
    • we let them hangout.
    • we let them bring food into the library — turns out this is a really big deal.
    • we bring mentors in
  • Digital Inclusion
    • innovation lab
      • a place for us to test new technology, services, etc.
      • first project we put was meant to be a six month project.
      • a maker space: milling machines, 3d printers, etc.
      • we started off with two classes a day.
      • we’ve served 10,000 people since we started.
      • 70% are women. focus is on access for all. if everyone is not participating, then we’re missing out on a lot of brilliant people and their ideas.
      • we wanted a balance between digital crafting and making: one class on designing something digitally, and the next on making origami. blending learning has opened the door to much more diverse participation.
      • open shop: whenever class is not in session.
      • usually have 3 staff/volunteers in the room.
      • people come in: I’ve never used a computer before, but I want to make these earrings for my girlfriend.
      • we have wonderfully patient, nonjudgmental helpers.
      • as result of six month experiment, demand is so high.
      • local company donated the funds to keep it open for another year.
  • Broadband use:
    • some communities have 80% or more broadband at home, but many others are 24% to 54%
    • many neighborhoods are well below the national averages
    • broadband access map is often a proxy for so many other things: crime, poverty, etc.
    • imagine all the things you do in a day that require internet access, and how would you function without that? how would you be aware of anything?
    • many people who come in to use public access computers have never used a computer before. they’re left out of everything: online commerce, social functions, jobs, news.
    • so we really want to help these people make a connection. the first step was teaching people how to use a computer at the most basic level.
    • you can’t even apply for a job at mcdonalds or walmart without filling out an online form.
    • cyber navigators…help people get online.
    • imagine if you’ve never used a mouse, or a keyboard, or a computer in any way, and now you’re unemployed for the first time in ten years, and the only way you apply for a job is with a computer. obamacare, social security benefits. it’s all online.
    • 15% of americans have never used a computer.
    • at first, cyber navigators were totally ad-hoc.
    • got some of the best cyber navigators together.
    • was there a curriculum that could help?
    • we tested many
    • we’re trying to refine and create now.
    • we want to find a blended approach: some human intervention with some computer curriculum. because one cyber navigation to one person doesn’t quite scale to the number of people that need help.
  • Decided to dip toe into providing internet access to people.
    • We decided to lend out wifi hotspots to people. checkout a hotspot for 3 weeks. you get to be online for 3 weeks, and then you bring it back, and the next person gets to use it.
    • we’ll also loan out a limited number of chrome books and microsoft slates.
    • but we also know that people have smartphones, but no plan to use them.
  • Peer learning circles
    • not a new idea
    • often require too much facilitation and expense to make work
    • we’re trying a new system out…trying to bring it into the library.
    • try first to build a human bond between those taking the class.
    • peers that hold them accountable.
    • Two GED math classes.
    • facilitation will help them complete at a higher rate, and get more out of the class.
    • Two python programming classes.

Wow, that was a more futuristic talk than I was expecting. And that’s saying a lot. Bring on my neural implant!
The Future of Omnichannel Immersion
Stephanie Sansoucie
@jolisouci
Experience Strategy & Design Research
Kohl’s
  • Multichannel: online, kiosk, in-store, etc.
  • Omnichannel: engagement across all the touchpoint to create one experience
  • Advances in technology are outpacing our ability to craft experiences for them.
  • The biggest challenge for retail experiences or any omnichannel experience, it’s Moore’s Law.
  • Asking how many people familiar with, using, designing for…
    • 3D printing: many
    • virtual reality: less
    • beacons: even less
  • 3D Printing
    • $8.6B by 2020
    • Amazon: 3D printing store
    • Makerbot’s Thingiverse
    • Adoption < 10 years
    • Manufacture burden shift
    • More manufacturers selling schematics, rather than parts.
    • More materials
    • connected devices
  • Wearables
    • Apple Watch: great, focus on aesthetics.
    • Google Glass: failed based on aesthetics
    • Aesthetics
    • Adhesives
    • Biotech / embeddables
    • Kinetic, solar powered
    • internal engines
      • current wearables use an external device, like your phone, to drive them. in the future, that can be embedded in the wearable.
      • and limited power budget for wearables.
      • in the future, with kinetic and solar power, far more power available. so the wearable can be smart, independent from any external devices.
    • CuteCircuit
      • Clothing with built-in lights, LEDs, so that they can change color, make different designs.
      • You can use tablet to make different designs, to customize clothing.
      • You can let your friends control your clothing.
  • Micro-location
    • Wearable integration
    • Monitoring
    • Connected homes
    • Connected ecosystems
    • Beyond digital marketing
    • Retailers playing in this space. Walk into the store, get an offer.
    • Insurance companies investigating connected homes. Philips investigating micro-location embedded in every light bulb.
    • Expected about 60 million iBeacons sold by 2019.
    • Smart Reactive Environments
      • You are a mesh node, walking around…in your home, the store.
      • The lighting or the temperature will change.
      • The information displayed will change.
      • If you’re a store, and all the customers are in the men’s department, do you move your employees there.
  • Virtual Reality
    • The players are huge: Sony, Facebook, Samsung, Microsoft, Google.
    • Primary focus is gaming. But not for long…
    • Beyond audiovisual. into the realm of tactile experiences: you can feel it.
    • Social shopping: Go shopping together with my sister in NJ.
    • Travel: Experience places as if I was really there.
    • Interactive product views: How about buying a house, by walking through it virtually?
    • Virtual collaboration: be able to really feel like we’re in the same room.
    • Immersive, interactive education
    • Biomedical, surgical
  • Big Data
    • Big Data + Data Mining + Human Reasoning = Insight Generation
      • At the end of the day, we need humans to reason about the data.
      • Data scientists in so much demand.
      • But this won’t last for long.
    • Big Data + Artificial Intelligence & Algorithm Sophistication = Insight Generation
      • This is what’s coming.
      • This is like IBM’s Watson.
  • Artificial Intelligence
    • Semantic Models vs Deep learning
      • Deep learning is more powerful long term, but semantic models are what’s working now.
  • BMBI: Brain-machine-Brain interfaces
    • You can get a thought from one person to another person via a machine intermediation.
    • This could be use to fix neuro-degenerative diseases. Or to create a zombie army.
  • What do it mean to design for a total ecosystem that encompasses everything?
    • How do you draw wireframes when you have beacons, and multichannel experiences?
  • Experience Design: Top 5
    • 1) Ready adoption of digital fabrication by studios for rapid prototyping.
    • 2) Experience design of complete ecosystems.
      • Still some specialization, like her friend who designs haptic feedback systems.
    • 3) Active consideration of service, ethics, safety, wellbeing, privacy, legal implications.
      • If you go to Disney with a child, and ask the princess where the bathroom is, they bend down low and interact directly with the child. Because they know the experience means a lot to the kid. It’s not just a request for information, it’s an entire experience.
      • Google Occulas Rift roller coaster funny videos — it’s funny, but it’s a safety issue. People are falling over while trying to ride a roller coaster, because it’s so realistic.
    • 4) Evolve design practice approach, influence, business partner relationships
    • 5) Evaluate emerging technology yourself.
      • Go try VR, if you haven’t used it. Get familiar with it before its mainstream.
  • Design Research: Top 5
    • 1) Extensive field studies to identify moments that matter, evaluate triggers, unique customer journeys.
    • 2) Evolve usability testing practice to support novel interfaces and complete ecosystems.
      • A lot of times we test a website, or mobile.
      • But how do we test VR? How do we test an ambient system – we walk up, and something happens.
    • 3) Identify data collection approach for organizational learning – explicit, implicit.
    • 4) Validate big data findings and insights through design research and testing.
    • 5) Refine approaches for data presentation, business case creation and related strategic design approaches.

The Future of Storytelling
Donna Lichaw, Gabe Paez (WILD), Krystal South (Oregon Story Board)
  • There is a sense of competition for our attention to tell those stories. YouTube mixes ads with story. TiVo lets us fast-forward through things we don’t want to see. What does competition do to storytelling in general?
    • Donna: Lots of media organizations looking to other channels. NY radio: they have terrestrial radio, tweeting, website. The power of storytelling is that we create stories in our head, and our brains are wired to create stories. Is it hot or cold. Are people dumb and just passively consuming stories, or are they actively creating the story in their head? Science tells us actively creating. If we’re spanning multiple channels, watching TV and surfing the web, we’re still the same people, creating stories in our head.
    • Gabe: We’re not so much competing for attention. But the consumer has more choice of what they want to give their attention to. The storyteller has to captivate the attention in every moment, so that the audience wants to know what’s going to happen next. We present a question, they want to know the answer. We give a choice, they make a decision. Online game: Candy Box 2, starts with a very simple question: You have a box with 3 candies in it. And then you begin to interact. It doesn’t capture my attention with a flashing screen, it captures my imagination.
  • Is story telling changing, because of the internet? Becoming more visual?
    • Krystal: Of course. It’s still about finding an emotional connection between content and audience, but what creates it is changing all the time. As Donna said, there’s the opportunity to tell stories across all the platforms. But then there are stories that are specific to each platform. What you can tell in a game is different than what you can tell in a TV show or webisodes.
    • You can create a large audience with just a couple of minutes of video. Short form episodic communication is so hot right now.
  • How has technology started to enable storytelling?
    • Gabe: It’s enabled interactive storytelling. It’s a whole new medium, and it’s being actively explored and innovated on. How do you take a traditional story arc and turn splice that up into an interactive story? Everyone is taking different approaches. No one has an answer yet.
    • Krystal: So much potential. Even in the way people produce content on the web, it’s changed journalism. When I was researching this panel, I gathered a lot of information. Where to put? I put it all on medium, where it is well-received.
    • Donna: Another model that’s fun to think about: How do people consume stories at different times? Michael Lease, a social media guy, talks about stories — he has a chart that shows soap opera viewership declining, intersecting with the rise of Facebook. Social media feels the same role as soap operas. It turned out to be designed just like soap operas: you can tune in all the time, or just sometimes, and it works either way. We’re all the stars of our own soap operas, and we’re just consuming soap operas all day long.
  • Is there a confusion between stories and media and news? Once upon a time, in the fifties, the news was completely different than stories. Now there is a mix.
    • Gabe: It doesn’t matter anymore. It doesn’t matter if it’s real or fake. It’s just about being entertaining.
    • Donna: Newscasters are master storytellers, and are meticulous about how they craft narratives. It’s always been there.
    • Krystal: Reality TV nailed that coffin shut.
  • Who are the storytellers of the future?
    • Krystal: Storytelling is a real buzzword right now, but story has always been part of our lives, of being human. There’s a better chance to tell your stories now. Story has a real power, because people relate to it on a really deep level. your Facebook friends are your audience. People engaged in what they say in public now. People are aware of what they say in public much more now.
    • Gabe: it’s no different. Some people make a life and a career out of refining the skill of telling a story. There’s so many more mediums now, and you can pick and choose the medium that’s best for a story. A tweet? A youtube video? The side of a building? The storyteller has tools that previously we have not had.
    • Donna: The storytellers of the future are you.
    • Krystal: Robots are the storyteller of the future.
    • Gabe: Algorithmically generated stories are the future. AI will write stories in the future.
  • Q: Traditional story arc, beginning and end get subverted. Is there a role of non-linear storytelling in our products and services?
    • Donna: When I arrived in my program, the faculty were all done with traditional narrative and film. They were all about interactive narrative. I got bored with doing films too, did an interactive narrative for her thesis project. What I found with my own artsy work with interactive narrative and with other projects….when we work with what we consider to be interactive narrative, we get a systems view of it: it branches, it’s a web. But when we look at experience, experience is always narrative. We don’t get to travel back through time, and even if we did, we still have our memories. Experiences have to design for linearity. On the other hand, there are so many possibilities, each person experiences differently. But each person experiences one linear narrative.
    • Gabe: When I think about non-linear storytelling, I give the user a choice. You’re either designing a huge decision tree, or you’re doing behavioral based storytelling. The huge decision tree becomes something the storyteller has to develop the whole thing. It’s huge. If you program in behaviors, then you might have a super-complex algorithm behind each behavior, but you don’t have to pre-map the entire decision tree. The viewer is more truly crafting their own experience. <— Wow. Future storytellers could design characters like AI personalities, define the setting, inciting incident. Then the reader chooses the plot in essence by interacting with the AI characters.
  • Q: Is storytelling more important than marketing? Is there a backlash to story? Do you have a favorite story you can share with us?
    • Donna: On the one hand: “You’re a roller coaster designer, not a story teller.” but then if you look at the roaster coaster experience: it starts slow, then rises slowly, then gets crazy, then there’s a big loop, and then you come back down, and then it ends slowly and you come back home. Everything is a story. But that doesn’t mean that everything is storytelling.

A great talk on women in tech at Webvisions. Very fast-paced panel conversation. Some gaps in notes. Please feel free to put corrections in comments.
Women in Tech
Sce Pike* (Citizen), Emily Long (The LAMP), Janice Levenhagen-Seely (Chicktech), Carrie Bisazza (Ebay Mobile)
  • Do you feel at all conflicted about the conversation about women in tech?
    • Emily: I feel conflicted that we have to have the conversation. I also feel conflicted about celebrating tiny wins. I feel conflicted about having to drum up support.
    • Carrie: I feel a little conflicted. I’m only recently aware of this issue. It’s hard to have conversations when I look at everyone as individuals. It’s hard to make sweeping generalizations, but the statistics do back it up. The problem may be somewhat less in design.
    • Janice: Not conflicted about conversation. I’m angry that it still has to happen. But it’s absolutely necessary. I have to hear stories every single day from women about shitty experiences they have in the industry. There are small gains in some small places. Then you hear “We don’t have to worry anymore. The problem is fixed.” But those small wins are not a win. You still have local colleges that are only 8% woman in tech degrees. That’s 92% men.
  • What do you think about the current state of ownership? (Data, wealth, power.)
    • Emily: Ownership reminds me of the state of New York, it’s a tale of two cities: the income inequality. We’ve got the south Bronx, which is the poorest Congressional district in the US, and then we’ve got Fifth Avenue. Media is the filter through which we see and understand the world. The owners of that filter matter so much. On the surface, the ownership of media seems extremely dull, but it’s so important. It’s nobody’s fault if they’re an older white male. They didn’t choose that. But the result is still the same. What we get now is not what we would get with greater diversity of ownership of media.
    • Janice: Focus is on women in tech. I get a lot of meetings with men in power in their companies. At the end of the conversation, it almost always ends with “Wow, I have a high school daughter. I would love to get her involved in your program. Or, I have a stay-at-home wife, she should get involved.” It’s almost never “Oh, your program is amazing. I want to get involved. I want my company to be involved. I want to help you push this forward. I want to support this financially.” <— super powerful story.
    • Carrie: When I came into Ebay seven years ago, we had Meg Whitman at the CEO, and a woman design leader, and more women in influence and power. But that’s definitely changed. As you start to go up the leadership chain, there’s a point at suddenly there aren’t any or just a few women in the room.
      • But we have had (someone – CEO?) who has been very supportive, who has stepped forward and said “What can I do?”
  • Intel recently said they wanted to make sure they had 30% of their employees should be women. But is that merit based? Is that enough?
    • Janice: Companies say “we want more women in tech”. But they aren’t willing to change anything. And I say “Well, what about doing X?” And they say “we don’t have the money for that.” And I look around their office, and they have free beer, and designer light fixtures, and crazy amounts of money spent on stuff, but they aren’t willing to spend that money on making their culture and offices more appealing to women. I all the time see women who are so frustrated, and want to leave tech. And all the time see companies who say they want women but don’t want to do anything. How are they going to do that?
    • Emily: If you are a women, or a minority, or an “other”, then it’s like you’re on the stairs, and everyone else is on the escalator. It’s not that you can’t get to the top, but that you have to work so much harder to do it. i think it’s fine to have some affirmative action to help compensate for that. The system has been supportive of white men for so long. Affirmative action is just trying to bring balance.
    • Janice: A big concern that bothers me is companies who aren’t willing to share their diversity data. Because if a company isn’t willing to share their data, it must be worse than the numbers coming from big companies, like 15%. And it says that you are not willing to make a change either. Because a company can have bad numbers, but put a plan in place to change. Not sharing the numbers says they don’t have a plan to change. And employees who are considering the company aren’t making an informed decision about how bad it is.
  • What is the right driving strategy that would make change happen? How do you get men involved in this conversation?
    • Emily: I don’t know how to get men involved. I don’t know what would motivate them.
    • Carrie: The men are hugely important in driving this. The encouragement of husbands, the voices of fathers, the CEOs of companies. It’s got to be a whole effort.
    • Janice: A lot of times that men step up, it’s because they have daughters, and they’re worried about their daughters not having the same opportunities as their sons. But it also has to happen in the schools. I didn’t know there was a problem with women’s equality until I got to college. Why? That should be taught younger. This isn’t just a tech issue. It’s an issue everywhere. Women have never been equal: we’ve been slaves, property, a means to have sons. If we don’t educate our kids about this…then the problem keeps going. Women are hearing and internalizing the “I’m not good enough” message by the time they are in high school or college. So it’s too late to intervene then. If we don’t change the messages our women are getting (as kids, high schoolers, college age), they will never gain the confidence.
    • Emily: Women’s history is not being taught. Students at Stanford didn’t know the pivotal role that women played in computers. [Will: specifically, computer software. The men did all the hardware work, the women did all the software program. See history of ENIAC.]
  • Advice to men and women?
    • Janice: Women, you are 50% more awesome than you think. Men: the women around you are 50% more awesome than you realize. Treat them like that.
    • Emily: Men, nobody is saying that you are a sexist, or you personally are at fault. Don’t internalize it too much, but do take collective responsibility and have compassion for the other side. Women: Echo the awesome comment by Janice.
* Pike’s first name has a diacritic above the e, and without an internet connection, I don’t know how to generate on my keyboard. Sorry! Will fix up after conference.
1) Note to self: Share story about gender equality at DevOps conference.

I’m at WebVisions in Portland for the next two weeks, so there will be a bunch of notes on media, technology, design, and happiness. This was the first talk, a really interesting discussion about media and how kids perceive it, use it, and respond to it. The LAMP is a NYC project to teach kids how to critique and respond to media and its messages.

Reinventing Mass Media with 10,000 Little Jon Stewards
Emily Long, The LAMP
  • The LAMP focuses on teaching young people to be critical thinkers, makers, and especially media makers.
    • Be thoughtful about what’s coming at you from the other side.
    • Jon Stewart is someone who can be thoughtful about, create responses to media. Create his own media.
    • Work with 600-700 kids every year.
  • PEW study of teens:
    • 24% on almost constantly.
    • 56% Several times per day.
    • 12% About once a day
    • —–
    • 92% on every day or more.
  • Media exposure of 8-18 year olds
    • 8-10: 8 hours/day
    • 11-14: 12 hours/day
    • 15-18: 11.5 hours/day
    • Increases for minorities
  • Who makes the media our kids consume?
    • 7 older white men control 90% of all the media that is created.
    • CBS, iHeartMedia(Clearchannel), Comcast, Disney, News Corp, Time, Viacom
    • these are the companies: “the media” “mainstream media”
  • Everyone else:
    • Of top 120 films, women represent just 30% of speaking roles
    • Of top 100 films, black, hispanic speaking roles were less than 10% of all roles
    • 11% of IT leaders at American-based tech firms were women.
    • minorities make up 13% of total newsroom staff.
  • So it’s not just the men at the top, it’s everyone who works for them too.
    • The people who create the media are not representative of all people.
    • So the stories that are told in media can’t be representative of all people.
  • Dove evolution video
    •  Woman wakes up, looks normal.
    • Then they do hear makeup, hair, etc.
    • And then do a bunch of photoshop on her.
    • It show how much media manipulates what we see.
    • When we show it to kids, they are blown away, but how much it was changed.
    • Then they showed the Axe body spray video that shows a bunch of bikini-clad women chasing after a guy because he’s wearing Axe body spray.
      • And then you tell the kids that the same people who make the Dove video also make the Axe commercial.
  • “So you want people to stop using media?”
    • No, we want people to use media better.
    • A food critic doesn’t tell you not to eat. They give you guidance on how to eat better.
    • A media critic doesn’t tell you not to watch media. They want you to use media better.
    • You should be aware of who makes the media, why they make them, who they make them for.
  • Jon Stewart and other folks who parody and challenge media have a long, celebrated role.
    • Creative, non-violent, powerful.
  • MEDIA BREAKER
    • Online, crowdsourced remix platform.
    • Students can take other copyrighted content, and make critical comments on it: remix it, criticize it, challenge it, add their messages to it.
  • While you’re watching something and enjoy something, you can also think critically about it. It doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it, but that you don’t take in the whole message as gospel without thinking about.
  • Asking questions…
    • Why is there only one woman in every action movie?
    • If Boyhood was filmed in Texas, where are all the hispanics?
  • Fair Use
    • allows the use of copyrighted media for fair use.
    • It’s important for people to know when it’s okay to reuse, versus when it’s just stealing.

This was a highly visual presentation (as you’d expect), and so there’s only so much I could capture in notes. I suggest you check out Des Traynor’s blog: http://blog.intercom.io

Data Visualization
Des Traynor
  • hard to make visualizations better than text
  • especially hard to make them work good on mobile, desktop, etc.
  • Be clear first and clever second. If you have to throw one of those out, throw out clever. — Jason Fried
  • Lots of examples of bad graphics:
    • unemployment rate: sloping lines in the reverse direction of the data
    • gas prices: different units of time (year vs week)
    • gulf oil spill: 
  • Who’s the level?
    • CEO level: high level
    • Analysts: trends
    • Operations/logistics: Is anything going wrong? traffic going in the right direction?
  • What department?
    • Sales: leads, conversions
    • Marketing: impressions
    • Customer support: satisfaction rating, number of issues
  • These two (level and domain) together tell you what needs to be presented
  • Six Things to Communicate
    • A single figure: a bank balance, server status
    • Single figure with context: number plus sparkline
    • Analysis of a period: a good line chart
      • Never imply precision you don’t have. e.g. for four months of data, use a bar chart, not a line chart. 
    • A common error in visualization: to force the processing on the user. If we want to look at the delta between sales and target, don’t show the numbers for each, show the delta.
      • awesome example of using cycle charts to display user retention over time by cohort analysis
    • Breakdown Over Time
  • Lying with grouping
  • Lying with rotation
  • Bar charts aren’t sexy, but they rely on an innate skill: following a line
  • When picking visualizations, use innate skills
    • determining height
  • Tufte principles:
    • Chart junk: minimize anything that does change when the data changes
    • Data Ink ratio: how much of your ink is showing something useful?
    • Smallest effective difference: the least you can do to highlight
  • Ryan Singer: HTML has a strong tag, but no weak tag. As a result, we forget to think about what we need less of.
    • Remember to quiet down your less important parts
  • Visuals should say something: some narrative or point.
  • Visuals should all be created in HTML
    • Highcharts is a Javascript library is excellent and worth the money
    • Flotr2 is new, but popular
    • D3 is immense
    • Rickshaw
  • References:

Crystal Beasley (@skinny)
#wvpdx webvisions 2012
  • “I’ve got this really great idea for a site.”
    • sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t.
    • The Post-It note: the innovation is the glue. But then design comes in and plays with it.
    • Observation of behavior: if we cut them smaller, they can be page flags. people won’t write on them, they’ll just place them in.
      • That’s not a technological innovation. it’s a design innovation.
  • “I’ve got this really great idea for a feature.”
    • For every feature you add, the UI complexity goes up (exponentially).
    • A simple cooking web site: shows one recipe, refresh to get a different recipe.
      • Very successful. Got a book out of the the deal.
  • “Let’s put a sentence under the button to explain.”
    • When you get to the point where you are trying to explain your way through a user interface, it’s time to back up.
  • “What we’re doing here is so novel.”
    • Not usually true.
    • Even when it is true, you want to make use of existing design patterns.
    • e.g. see the yahoo user experience guidelines for pagination.
  • I think the button should be on the right.”
    • Too many decisions are made on gut decisions.
    • “I think” is the least effective way to make that decision.
    • Don’t be a slave to your data either… Use data to inform decisions.
  • “I don’t want the user to do the thing they want to do.”
    • It doesn’t usually sound as simple as this, but this is what it boils down to.
    • maybe it is because it is counter to what your business wants, maybe it is because it is technically challenging. but you can solve it.
    • Maybe it is contacting support. (because it costs money)
    • But you have to help your customer. you have to help them do what they want to do, or you are alienating them.
  • “Maybe we need a FAQ”
    • better: give them bite-size bits of content where they need it, instead of a huge data-dump.
  • “Can’t we just pop up a confirm dialog?”
    • They interrupt too much. They are too harsh.
    • Instead, just support “undo” for whatever the action is.
  • “Let’s split this up into different steps so it seems smaller.”
    • The better approach: cut everything that isn’t absolutely essential out of the forms so there is less information to complex.
    • Recommended book: Web Form Design
  • “Make it red so it will really stand out.”
    • Then it becomes impossible to delineate what really needs to be paid attention to.
    • If you really must use red on your site, then you can use yellow for errors.
  • Navigation
    • Information Architecture
      • really important, takes time, taking learning vocabulary
    • Structural navigation: what does on what pages and how do we get there?
      • decisions are often made before a UX person gets involved.
      • Every single page should answer the questions: who are we? what are we about? where you are on the site.
  • Copy
    • Please don’t talk to users like they are a robot.
    • Error copy is particularly bad.
    • Read your copy out loud to a friend.
    • Does this sound like a sentence that one human being would say to another human being?
    • If you must have the dry robot speak, bury it under an a “more info” link.
    • Data
      • Plugins vs Extensions: Users don’t know the difference, and by dividing them into those two terms, if just confuses users.
      • Research technique: “card sorting”.
        • Put topics on cards, ask users to sort into categories and name those categories.
      • If your website organization mirrors your organization chart, then your navigation is definitely not working.
    • Jakob Nielsen Eye tracking chart: http://www.useit.com/eyetracking/
      • it’s an F pattern normally.
      • So keywords must be toward the top and to the left.
      • If the first few words of every page are the same or not useful, then you are forcing the user to have to read further, and they will miss the keywords.
  • Login
    • Did survey of top 100 sites: 
      • 90 out of top 100 sites: you can use all of the meaningful content and features of site without login
    • Make everything you can open on your site.
    • Login only when it is essential.
    • Otherwise, they will bounce away.
    • Don’t be greedy.
    • Gradual engagement is the term for this. http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1128
    • “Remember me” checkbox
      • Login is not about security, it is about recognizing the face of your friend.
      • Do everything you can to remember your users.
      • Are you going to be like a bank and timeout after 20 minutes?
        • a 15 minute cookie does help protect the user against internet cafe type intrusions.
      • Are you going to have a 24 hour timeout?
      • Having a 24-hour session cookie vs. a 4 week session cookie doesn’t really buy you any security.
      • So either do a 15 minute timeout (if you are bank level security), or do a 4 week or forever cookie.
      • Amazon remembers you forever. But for the critical stuff (e.g. to change shipping address), you have to re-auth.
      • Facebook remembers forever. Google remembers for many weeks.
      • Best practice:
        • Remember forever/long time
        • Re-authenticate for anything critical.
    • Question:
      • Q: Does using Facebook authentication reduce friction?
        • Yes, reducing friction.
        • But, huge variability in user populations.
          • Some people love it, use it for everything.
          • Some aren’t crazy about it, would rather have their own login.
          • Then there’s the tin-foil hat crowd.
      • Q: Example of a perfect site?
        • Mint.com is really good.
        • BankSimple is doing some good UI stuff
        • OKCupid: gets the subtles of the UI right. Really good polish. The way they engineer interacts on the site so get value on both sites: the user gets value and the site gets value.
  • Q: Are carousels useful?
    • Not really
  • Q: Favorite UX/design trend?
    • Save as you go. e.g. No need to submit, no worry about losing a page of stuff.
    • Save as draft.
    • e.g. shoebox (receipt tracking, OCRs photos of receipts), evernote, 
  • Q: How do you convince a boss who says a lot of these things?
    • Data, data, data.
    • That boss will love spreadsheets.
  • Q: Information architecture / card sorting. Are there documented best practices? e.g. “For industry A, these are the results…”
    • Don’t know of anything existing. Because it is as unique as your content. If your content is different, then your information architecture is different. utility navigation may be pretty much the same.

    Discussing Design:
    The Art of Critique
    #wvpdx webvisions 2012


    Slides: http://t.co/u9mMXXBl 
    • What is critique?
      • critique and feedback are not the same thing.
      • feedback: gut response. instance reaction to something.
      • critique is an ongoing process: built on refining to create a better product.
      • it needs to be presented in such a way that it is actionable.
    • critique is about critical thinking
    • there are two facets to critique
      • giving and receiving
      • at their foundation is intent. the “why?”
      • why am i asking for feedback? why am i giving feedback?
    • giving critique with the wrong intent is selfish.
      • “I’m smart, this is wrong, I want to be validated that I’m smart.”
    • it’s about approach as well: “hey, congratulations on your launch. that’s awesome. i love the product. when you get a chance, i want to give you some feedback. can i buy you lunch or a beer or send you an email?”
    • Tips for giving critique
      • Use a filter: Gather initial thoughts and reactions. Revisit them in the right context.
      • Don’t assume: Find out the reason behind thinking, constraints or other variables.
        • Odds are, they had many constraints.
      • Don’t invite yourself: Get in touch and ask to chat about the design.
      • Lead with questions: Show an interest in their process?
        • What were your goals?
        • What were you trying to do with that?
      • Talk about strengths. Critiques are not just about things that aren’t working. It’s also about understanding what is working well: to maintain or to build on.
    • Receiving critique with the right intent takes humility and meekness
      • Remove yourself from the setting. It’s about the product.
      • Don’t ask for feedback if you aren’t ready to receive and act on and think about.
      • Remember the purpose: critique is about understanding and improvement, not judgement.
      • Listen and think before you talk back. Do you understand what the critics are saying?
        • Don’t be thinking about your rebuttal while they are talking.
      • Refer to the goals. Is what you’re hearing pertinent to the goals you’re trying to achieve?
      • Participate. Analyze your proposed solution along with everyone else.
    • Critique is a life skill, it is not a design skill.
      • It applies to sports, cooking, anything that you can do.
    • Making critique part of your process
    • Design Reviews
      • This is not part of design review. You can have 30 people in a design review. Half the people there don’t care.
      • design review is not a critique
      • critique is impromptu, or scheduled, but it comes before design review.
    • Critique is a skill. You only get better with practice.
    • Start small.
    • Think before you speak.
    • Choose who you critique with carefully.
    • Rules of Critique
      • Avoid problem solving and design decisions.
      • The designer is responsible for follow up and decisions.
      • Everyone is equal.
      • Everyone is a critic.
        • Don’t let people be silent…because they’ll come back two months later with feedback, and it’ll be too late to address it then.
    • Goals are critical for successful critique
      • Scope the critique session: “today i want to talk about flow”, “today i want to talk about this one UI component”.
    • Who should you invite?
      • 4-6 people.
    • Tools and techniques
      • Active Listening, question for clarity
      • Round robin
      • direct inquiry
      • quotas
      • six thinking hats: emotional perspective, behavioral perspective, etc. 
      • Facilitators
        • Helpful in the beginning, but as you get more experienced, you will want to take control of your conversation yourself.
    • Handling difficult people
      • Set expectations at the beginning. “We’re not here to talk about the color. We’re here to discuss this UI component.”
      • Make sure everyone understand critique.
      • Ask quiet people for feedback directly.
      • Refer back to personas, goals and principles.
      • Use laddering (the 5 whys).
      • Critique with people individually ahead of time.
        • Get them out of a group session. It’ll be more civil. They won’t flare their peacock feathers.

      Notes from Thor Muller’s talk at Webvisions 2012 (#wvpdx)

      Get Lucky: The Business of Planned Serendipity
      Thor Muller
      • A lot of success is luck.
      • But how can we manufacture luck? Can we create chance encounters?
      • There’s nothing random about luck.
      • GetSatisfaction
        • Started with a joke. (So many great scientific breakthroughs came from play.)
        • We could start a shwag of the month club. And we did, and within two months had 2,000 subscribers. But fulfillment is hard, and customer service is even harder. Hundreds of emails every day.
        • But we discovered that customers would repost our answers to them, and would ask questions on the web.
        • So founded GetSatisfaction. Now have 65,000 paid customers.
      • Serendipity = chance + creativity
      • Recent research shows that we can do more/different to enable creativity in ourselves. We can read the owner’s manual for our minds.
      • But… we’re wired to avoid risk and change. We want predictibility.
      • So how do we let in unpredictability and predictability at the same time?
      • The answer is planned serendipity
      • http://bit.ly/liHRUy
      • Jane’s Story
      • Preparation
        • “Chance favors the prepared mind.”
        • Obsessive curiosity. Going deep. Following curiosity further than is normal.
        • Jane’s first obsession was sculpture
        • Notice the anomalies. The things that don’t fit. (Most business people look for the similarities.) Arresting the exception
        • Forget what you know to be true. This is important to be able to make big leaps. Otherwise beliefs limit you. 
        • Jane went to school
          • played with materials. made something out of silicon and wood chips. it amused her that it was a bouncing wooden ball. 
          • When we think concretely, it’s about things very near to us in time, space, relationships.
          • When we think abstractly, we’re able to connect things beyond categories, because we’re seeing things from a much higher level perspective.
          • when Jane went into her materials workshop, she came in with a sculptor’s mentality. 
        • Structures you can use to create this: 20% time
      • Motion
        • To stir the pot. Run into new ideas and new people. Open space.
        • taking the materials workshop helped jane run into new ideas and new people.
        • computer models show that diversity helps solve complex problems.
          • when people are the same, and they tackle the problem, they all get stuck in the same place.
          • when people are very different, and they tackle a problem, they get stuck in different places.
          • the problem with the workplace is that we stick everyone into cubicles, so they can’t talk.
        • Structures to create: pot-stirring events and open space
      • Commitment
        • To have an overriding purpose. To stick to that purpose. 
          • Which implies: knowing what to say ‘no’ to.
        • Overly broad mission statements don’t help us unless they tell us what to say ‘no’ to.
        • Decision fatigue: the more decisions we make, the worse decisions we make. the decisions become arbitrary.
        • By knowing what to say no to automatically, we have more willpower left for the decisions that do matter.
        • Structure to create: The automatic No-list
      • Attraction
        • Jane talked to everyone about: scientists, media people, fellow students. 
        • Project your sense of purpose out into the world.
        • It changes what the world sees as possible.
        • And it gives people a place to come if they care.
        • For Jane, it brought people in who could contribute their skills.
        • Will to Meaning
        • Interviewed a group of people to assess first the sense of purpose of the people. then asked the people to do a 10 minute introduction of themselves. Then showed the videos to other people and asked viewers to rate the attractiveness of the speakers. Those people who had a higher sense of purpose were rated as vaster more attractive across the board.
      • Divergence
        • Branching strategy
        • Jane got a 35,000 pound grant. but the material was imperfect. that wasn’t enough money to do the necessary rounds of testing. the only way she could do it was to do the research and testing herself. she spent two years and taught herself materials science on the fly to perfect the material.
      • The Hidden Bias Against Creativity
        • Inserting uncertainty into a situation caused people to rank creative ideas in a negative way or with negative connotations. (the example given was a study in which some participations were told they would be entered into a lottery to win a prize. this uncertainty caused negative responses.)
      • Permeability:
        • Customer Community

      content specialist on the UX team at AKQA
      (Sorry, again came 15 minutes late to session, so notes are incomplete.)
      • Dolphins use ecolocation to form a 3D projection of the world
        • Can also transmit the 3D representation to other dolphins
        • There’s no word for “tuna”. There’s a compressed 3D representation of a tuna.
        • Two dolphins from different parts of the world can come together and communicate a plan using 3D representations of the world, without having to use vocabulary or symbolism.
      • Scale of Context Dependency
        • an in-joke is an example of a highly context dependent communication
        • other end
      • Resolution
        • Project high, design low
        • We don’t know what resolution things will be consumed at. So we want to project at high fidelity, but design for low.
      • Speed
        • We don’t know what kind of frame rate an alien would receive.
        • So we again want to project for highest possible, but design for slowest.
          • e.g. we don’t design a website that requires the transfer of 3 mb of video data before getting to the point, for a user on a smartphone. 
        • Play at several speeds at once.
      • Strength
        • Build up the signal from a very low strength and give it a stop button.
        • Don’t send anything that, if returned, could kill you.
      • Channel
        • The frequency of visual spectrum, audio range. For humans, we know we can smell roses, hear certain range of sounds. With alien users, we can’t know. All of the animals we know can receive more than one channel.
        • So we want to use many parallel channels
      • Devices
        • Devices we’re born with: native devices. eyes, ears. signals being experiences as raw, direct.
        • Non-native devices: picks up channels we can’t physically receive and translates them into channels we can. We can’t receive radio waves, but we can translate it into audio signals that we can listen to. We can’t receive IP packets, but we can render a twitter stream visually in the shapes of letters.
        • Design for the native device:
          • The best way to represent a water bottle is with a video or a photo of it.
      • Assume the user has the ability to project a tool as an extension of itself
      • If you know nothing about your user, you have to do a lot of work. The more you know, the less work you have to do.
      • Don’t let the what ifs stop you.