After a long hiatus, reasons why your develop hates you is back! In case you didn’t get a chance to check out reasons 1 – 6 or if you need a reminder, here they are:

Reasons your developer hates you:
1. Your requirements are unclear and incomplete and yet you expect a concrete answer to your question.
2. You bring us to the playing field after the game is over.
3. You don’t really know what I do and don’t take the time to care.
4. We don’t like when you change your mind… especially when we don’t hear about it.
5. We don’t like when you make us do work.
6. You’re not learning anything about this technology.
7. And without further adieu reason number 7 (inspired by fellow UXer Shaun Rance): You don’t know digital.

For most of us, this may seem a pretty far reach. Many UXers work in digital after all. We create websites and mobile applications and immerse ourselves in technology. However, we might not fully realize the amount of work that goes into creating a digital product. “Digital”, as opposed to print or television, is a huge amount of work for most everyone involved. This is not to say that print or television do not include a great deal of work, but in this case it is different work. It is more than just mocking up a wireframe or a comp and passing it along to production. It involves familiarity with the system and with the users of the system. It includes providing detailed instructions on how the entire site or product should work including navigation and more detailed interactions. And not to forget imagery that can be easily consumed by the development team. Also, depending on your team structure UX digital hand off can include front end code (HTML, CSS< JavaScript) that is valid as well as reusable. The list goes on and on.

So, why does the fact that you don’t know digital frustrate your development team? Simply because it makes their job much harder by giving them much more work. This slows the entire process down, and is highly inefficient. Imagine that one hands off imagery that is not properly sized, is unusable and is in a non-web friendly format. Your developer now has to either contact you and get you to redo the work in a format that works, or has to figure out how to size images themselves, which could affect the quality of the images. In addition, some UXers might not think to map out all the interactions that could happen on their website in extreme detail (and I mean detail like saying “hovering over the link invokes this flyover which should disappear in 2 seconds”) but if you don’t, who do you think will? Your developer? Do you think they have time for that? If we want to see our design developed properly and work the way we have in our heads, we have to enable our developers to be successful by providing them the deliverables they need.

What does it all come down to? If you truly want to be a good interaction/user experience designer in the digital world, learn the process. Know your role from start to finish (and yes, you should be involved in the project from start to finish). Understand the deliverables that you are responsible for and the level of detail that you need to provide. This is invaluable, time saving work that not only makes your entire project team more successful, but also, in the end, makes your user’s experience more delightful.

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In my latest post on the New York Entrepreneur Week website, I talk a little bit about some more similarities that I’ve observed between UX Designers and Therapists. To find out how I think they relate, be sure to check out the newest post: How User Experience Designers are like Therapists. As always, any feedback is greatly appreciated!

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My latest post entitled “Should Entrepreneurs Hire a UX Designer” is up on the New York Entrepreneur Week site. In it, I talk to entrepreneurs about what a User Experience Designer is and if they should make the investment to hire one. Be sure to go check it out!

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There were several talks at Interaction 10 that really stood out to me. These talks spoke to me and began to change the views that I have on my profession as well as the views I have on the goals behind what we do as UX Designers. One such talk was the keynote speech from Ezio Manzini, Politecnico di Milano, DIS-Indaco/DESIS Network, on Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability. Before I began to write this morning, I took a moment to sit down and reflect on why and how this talk affected me so much.

I should note that there were many great points that Ezio touched on during his keynote that I won’t mention here. I simply wanted to talk about the ones that touched me the most. First, Ezio talked about designing for what’s “next”. Instead of thinking about and designing for what may be happening 5 years from now, his team thinks about designing for tomorrow. This is especially relevant when talking about social networks and sustainability, but I couldn’t help but reflect on bringing this into web practices. I’m usually hoping to get work on building the next great innovation or idea. This rarely happens. I also spend a lot of time trying to figure out the “end state” or “strategy” in order to design for a current project. However, after listening to Ezio, I realized that I don’t spend nearly enough time thinking about what’s next. Trust me, I’m a huge evangelist for strategy, but do we really ever see these strategies become reality? Perhaps having the strategy become reality was never the intention, and the strategy really is a compass that we can design for. I’m not sure about anyone else, but this was a mind shift for me. From here on out I’m going to be much more aware that the strategy or end state will 99% of the time never be fulfilled. Instead, I’m going to try to think about how I can design for the next state instead of the end state.

Second, Ezio mentioned that his goal was to design for two things: 1) Needs to be satisfied and 2) Capabilities to be enhanced. This blew me away! Designing for needs to be satisfied really means looking at what people need and designing to it. It doesn’t mean looking at the product/service you’ve been tasked to build then doing user research to see how people will use it or how they use similar things today, but it means first looking at and discover peoples‘ needs, what gaps they have, then creating and designing a product and service around those needs. Designing for capabilities to be enhanced means looking at capabilities that people already have (a good example is renting movies in a store) then thinking about how to enhance those capabilities (renting online with netflix). One can easily see how both of these ideas center around designing for what’s next. Ezio isn’t talking about thinking how people will communicate 10 years from now then designing a brand new product that may or may not work depending on user acceptance and behavior. He’s not talking about coming up with the next huge innovation or idea. He’s talking about looking at what the needs are today, what the capabilities are today, and filling and enhancing these for tomorrow. And tomorrow means literally tomorrow, not sometime in the distant future. Don’t get me wrong, I believe the future thinking work and development is very important, but I believe that we focus way to much on that in our field. That is the fun stuff after all. That is what makes us excited and makes us feel creative and innovative. But think about designing something that makes it easier for people to do what they already do. It might not be the most innovative thing, but it is definitely creative work.

Lastly, Ezio talked about designing enabling systems. Systems that enable people to do the things they can’t today or enable people to do things that they already do today better tomorrow.

I think that this talk effected me so much because of the simplicity of it. This message is one that we’ve heard a great deal, and I’m sure that some of us are already going by it in our day to day work. But, are we really embracing it as we do the newest, coolest technologies? Are we really thinking about these items each and every time we design and ensuring that we aren’t just designing for design’s sake? I know that I haven’t been. Maybe it’s just me, and maybe that’s why these ideas touched me so much. But I have a feeling I’m not alone. Next time you are designing, I challenge you to think about what Ezio is telling us about his work, and applying it to your own. Think about how to design for what’s next, and by what people need or how to enhance capabilities that people already have. Think about designing enabling systems.

To see the talk be sure to check IxDA.org for the event videos which should be posted this week!

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Great news all! I’ve started writing for New York Entrepreneur Week as a guest blogger. My topics are going to be focused around explaining and promoting User Experience to entrepreneurs of all kinds. My first post, Two Careers That Didn’t Exist 10 Years Ago, is already up. Be sure to take a read and let me know what you think. Also if you have any ideas regarding topics to write about I’d love to hear them. You can look for my postings on NYEW.org about every two weeks. Enjoy!

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As I mentioned in my last post, I had the opportunity to travel to Interaction 10 last week which took place in beautiful Savannah, Georgia. (PS you can sign up for Interaction 11 now and save $250 bucks! Interaction 11 site) This was my very first UX conference, and I loved it. The conference itself was extremely well put together. The talks were a perfect length, the spaces & locations that were used were fantastic and the food out of this world. The speakers and workshops were full of insightful ideas that had me really reflecting on my practice as an interaction designer, and how to make it better.

As I was listening and engaging, I couldn’t help but reflect on the concept of a conference overall. I kept thinking about how we were at a conference talking about interaction design and user experience, about creating meaning and facilitating delightful experiences, but yet we were all sitting in a room, listening to someone’s point of view on these topics… and hopefully providing feedback to them afterwards. I kept asking myself “Is this the best way to create meaning for us as UX practioners? Is this the best way to facilitate delight in our learning experience?”.

Please don’t get me wrong. Interaction 10 was one of the best experiences I’ve had and this post is in no way trying to convey anything negative about it (or else I wouldn’t be promoting Interaction 11). What this post is meant to do is to get us thinking about the concept of conferences overall and if they are the best or only way to increase the knowledge and talent of the UX community while at the same time providing meaning and facilitating delight.

During my time in Savannah I started thinking about how conferences started in the first place. I got some general thoughts on this, but to be honest I don’t have any written proof of the history of the events. I did do some research on Business Conferences vs. Academic Conferences which did help to frame the idea for me better, but I’m still hung up on the question… is this the best way for us to learn? Just because businesses and academia put on these events, should our community rely on them? We are different afterall… right? I’m not saying conferences should go away, but just asking what part of our growth as practioners do they facilitate? There are different ways that we learn and grow, and I’m sure conferences fill some need (or they wouldn’t exist).

In talking to my friend who is a professional counselor, he mentioned that counseling conferences are very different. Why? Because, as he put it, they have to focus on how they work with and predict behaviors of other people. That stopped me in my tracks because frankly, we do that too! He explained that counseling conferences were much more hands on and group oriented (probably similar to the workshops that we’ve seen), and focus on teaching methods for getting results. Perhaps this isn’t exactly what we’d want to do, however it does shed some light on a different way. Afterall, does it make sense to have a group of people who are conceptual and visually based to sit in a room and absorb information without interacting?

So I’m asking all of you your opinions on the topic. How do you think conferences help us in our practice? How are they structured to create meaning for us? And mostly do you think that there is potentially a different way to instruct and help the “different” kind of professionals that we are?

Can’t wait to hear what you’ve got!

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I’m extremely excited today, because tomorrow I’ll be getting on a plane to Savannah, Georgia for IxDA’s annual conference: Interaction 10. My excitement stems from several sources. First, as a local leader for the NYC chapter of IxDA, I’m fully committed to supporting and evangelizing IxDA’s mission and I’m pumped to be surrounded by others that feel the same. Second, this is my very first interaction design / user experience design conference and I’m completely curious as to what’s in store and can’t wait to learn all that I’m about to learn. Third, I’m so happy to be attending with some very great friends, and am looking forward to being introduced to and talking with more awesomely talented UXers.

Here are only some of the talks that I’m hoping to attend:
Scenarios for Design – Liz Bacon
Designing for Billions – Rapheal Grignani
10 Things I Learned About Being a Design Consultant While Living In the Hospital for a Year – Greg Vassallo
The Human Interface (Or: Why Products Are People, Too) – Christopher Fahey

I would love to hear any advice, suggestions, words of wisdom about what I should expect, what I should look for, etc. This is all new to me, and any and all guidance is welcome. I can’t wait to come back with a full report for everyone!

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This past week has been a “week off” for me. I’ve finished work with all of my clients, and have been interviewing and looking for new gigs. Being who I am, I’ve also been reflecting a great deal on my career and where it’s taking me. I have had a ton of anxiety around what the next gig/gigs should be, which ones are “right”, and how to make a decision between them. This is, of course, a great place to be for an independent, and I am grateful for the options. There has been some key advice given to me in the past and present that has helped me to calm my anxieties and think clearly, and I’d love to share this advice here. The main point? Know where your endzone is. More specifically, know where you want to end up, the steps you’ll need to take to get there, and what success looks like when you are done.

I’ve been lucky enough to have a ton of “mentors” in my life. One in particular has been with me since my days at UCONN and is the person I always turn to for career advice. One exercise he suggested I go through was a career mapping exercise. The idea is to write down in one column the core competencies for career growth overall as well as specific to my field (examples of these core competencies include: UX knowledge, Leadership ability, Financial knowledge, etc). Then, create a time line across the top that moves out every 3 years. For each time period, I would rate on a scale from 1 to 5 my knowledge of each capability (either where my knowledge is present day or where I wanted it to be 3, 6, 9 years from now). I would also dictate, by year, the stage of my career I wanted to be in (i.e consultant with steady client list), and the steps I took to get there (i.e. networking in nyc). Some years I would grow in certain areas, some I would remain consistent. I tried to project out every 3 years until I retired which was harder than it sounds. This is a document that I look at often and try to keep up to date as my interests and abilities change.

What this exercise helped me to do was create an endzone. Every step I take in my career should somehow contribute to this endzone. Having a clear end point enables me to make decisions about career confidently. I can ask myself, does this strengthen me in the ways I’m looking to grow? Does this gig enable me to do the things I’m looking to do or at least set me up for them? Looking at the document I set up for myself and asking these questions has removed 99% of the anxiety in decision making that I’ve been facing. I know I am better prepared to drive my career and take the decision making time to focus on more important things, like concentrating on my next basketball game .

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Over the past couple of days, I’ve been helping to write user stories. For those that don’t know, user stories are the form that requirements take in some agile development methodologies. These requirements are usually (at least from what I’ve seen) a combination of business and user requirements. As myself and my coworker were going through the process of writing these stories I found myself asking the same question over and over again when validating if the story was written correctly. That question: Can someone test this story?

When we write user requirements/stories we are writing them for several different audiences. The two most important are developers and QA testers. Sometimes, however, I think that we tend to forget the testers. We want to be sure that developers can code our ideas and designs to spec, however that means nothing if they are tested improperly and are released into production in an incorrect state.

The idea behind user stories is to break down the requirements, features and intended functionality into the smallest bits possible. When you are done, someone should be able to take a story and turn it into a test case in order to test just that one piece of the pie. Writing these stories becomes an art (in a weird sense) because you want to be sure you include all the factors needed to write a test case properly. For example there is a huge different between “the user should be able to purchase the product in order to be happy” and “the logged in user should be able to purchase the product in order to be happy”. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t want a bug in your system that allows non-logged in users to do logged-in type functionality. However, according to the one user story, the tester wouldn’t need to be logged in to test the functionality.

The moral of the story is when you are writing user requirements ensure that from them the developers cannot only code your designs, but that they can be tested successfully. This is a huge part of how you as the UX Designer can ensure a quality experience for users.

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I have just gotten through my first full week of UX consulting flying solo (without an agency or other a full fledge team to direct my work), and all I can say is: wow. I’ve had several revelations and reflections that I wanted to share with all of you.

First off, I say wow because, put quite simply, I LOVE this work. This type of environment is a huge part of what I’ve been missing in my career. I’ve never been so happy to go to work! There are several reasons. One, no one is responsible for me but me. I determine what I’ll be working on, and I’m the one to say whether or not it’s good enough to hand off. I feel in control of my outputs as well as my inputs. Two, the work is fun, and my team is awesome. I couldn’t ask for a better first solo gig to work on. I’m totally into the product being developed, and the team that I’m working with is super talented. Three, I get to teach people about what I do… and they listen. People are paying you to speak, to teach and to help their product and brand. Knowing that there is a timeline when you’ll be available and that you are an expert outside source completely changes people’s perspectives… well at least for now. Four, I get to use what I’ve learned and use it creatively. Because I’m calling the shots on the UX work (based on business objectives of course) I can be flexible in solving problems. This is refreshing and makes me feel like all of my hard work outside of “work” is put to good use.

Secondly, I’ve really begun to see that it’s not that serious. That any help and hard work is better than no help. Being on my own I have to realize that I’m fully responsible. For someone like me this can be overwhelming in an attempt to reach perfection. Well Lis, perfection is never going to happen. However quality, hard, informed work is better than no work at all. After each project I work on, my goal is to write what went well, what didn’t, and what I would have changed or done better. This will help me develop even more in my solo role.

I’m looking forward to working on these types of projects more and more. I feel like I’m contributing and that I’m making a difference and that is what fuels me to succeed. I can do this!

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