For the next several months, I have the amazing opportunity to design the UX for one of the biggest names in sports and entertainment, and even more amazing, it’s for the iPad. I was intimidated when I started this project because I’ve never designed anything for the iPad before. I’ve owned one, used one, didn’t particularly love it or hate it, but had never designed for it. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m of the school of thought that design is design. Whether I’m designing a chair, a website, or a mobile app, I’ll use the same principles and processes that are at the root of our design framework. But still… I was scared to screw it up… am I the only one?

Along my journey designing for this new device I wanted to share with you some things that I’ve learned so far. First and most important, design IS still design. Research, personas, scenarios, etc are all still highly relative and necessary, probably even more so. Your personas and scenarios are shaped much differently considering the environment your user will be in as well as the different ways they’ll use the device (think entertainment and content consumption vs. work).

Second, the biggest difference that I have seen is that we are designing something completely new. It’s designing for discovery and awesomeness as opposed to efficiency and usability (of course the type of app makes a HUGE difference for this point. My app is sports and entertainment thus I can make this claim). What does this mean? It means that making it easy for someone to experience a piece of content doesn’t always equal a great user experience. The iPad is still very, very new. The majority of people won’t own a tablet for many years, and those that do have one are usually more tech savvy and want to be wowed. They got it for that cool, sexy, what can this do differently factor. People want to discover new interactions and be delighted at new ways to do the same old things. Users are much more patient in this aspect.

Third, similar to other mobile devices, there is a lot more that you can consider when designing for the iPad. Inputs are different. It’s not just a keyboard and mouse. One has to consider the movement of the iPad in space (tilt for example), different touch scenarios and metaphors (tap vs. swiping vs. turning a virtual dial). Also, sound inputs might be considered. All of these things add up to a completely different, more enriching set of environment and behavioral experiences. The user can feel like they are INSIDE the screen.

Fourth, although we’ve had a lot of this knowledge for sometime when we’ve designed mobile phone apps, we now have a pretty big easel in which to create our experience. The screen is much, much bigger and thus the experience can be much more intense, as opposed to that of a mobile phone. This doesn’t mean you should fill the screen up with more junk, but it does mean that your user has more space to play and interact, which gives us designers more wiggle room to user our creative spark.

Last but not least, make your design fun. It should be fun to use this new device. Think outside the box and try to make it even more delightful. With these new user point of views, inputs, metaphors there are so many different experiences that we can cultivate. How much more fun is our job now?? Thanks again Apple.

A couple of months ago I wrote a post entitled Reason #3 Why UX Designers are like Therapists. As usual, I shared the post through Twitter and Facebook. One of my best friends, whom I lived with while in Texas, commented… half joking, mostly serious with this quote “because you’re always trying to analyse those around you! ‘why do you like this site?’ ‘why do the security questions/pictures make you feel secure?’ ‘where’s the place you would look for X? how about Y?’ the list goes on and on… the trials and tribulations of being your roommate and trying to use websites!”

Of course, her comments inspired reason number 4. As a UX Designer, I’m constantly studying those around me. Whether they are using something I designed or not (mostly not), I’m always looking to see how they are using it and always questioning how their experience can be better.

Having been friends with a therapist for a long time, I realized that we have the same methods of informal discovery. He wants to learn about people and thus is constantly asking about their thinking and feeling patterns. I, in comparison, want to learn about the experience of using a product, website, application and thus am constantly asking about those thought and feeling patterns.

Maybe, as designers, we take it too far some times, but, we just can’t help it right?! I just NEED to know why something invoked a response in the user. It’s important for me to understand how everything is connected just like therapists and their needs to know about how we think and feel. Perhaps though I could calm down a little… after all I think I drove my friend over the edge when she said “hi. my name’s cristina and i’ve lived with a design-aholic”… I can’t deny that I have a problem, but if you’re a UXer I’m sure you have the same disease .

A couple of years ago (when we still called ourselves IA’s vs UX Designers) I wrote a post entitled, IA and QA. In it I began to talk about testing and how I felt like I was spending so much time doing it, etc. Looking back I realize how often I’m NOT invited to QA as a consultant and almost long for those days of finding issues and errors. Now, I’m not even sure that the designs I’ve helped with will ever see the light of day.

Anywho, the other day I came across an article by Catriona Cornett, Quality Assurance as Applied to User Experience Design. The article immediately caught my eye because it’s a topic that was hot and heavy during my time as a fulltime employee, and nowadays it has fallen out of popularity. However, now more than ever I think that the topic has huge importance.

Working as a consultant, I have found that I really enjoy the discovery phase of things as well as some high level design. Of course I do more wireframes than I’d like to (who doesn’t?) but the parts of the projects that I love are understanding user, business, tech needs and helping to define and solve the problem. Reading Catriona’s article jolted me back into reality. I could do all the discovery I want, however, if the information and work that I’ve done is not tested or designed with, then it seems that it was not really helpful to the user at all.

The article was a great way for me to begin thinking about Quality Assurance again, especially how I could incorporate it into my work flow as an indie. I hope that QA is something that we begin talking about more… to ensure that the experiences we design go into production both as we intended but more importantly as functioning scenarios. Do you have thoughts about UX and QA? I’d love to hear them!

It seems that my time to take it easy and reflect on life, work, etc is coming to an end. Yesterday I signed a deal with one of my favorite clients, working on a very exciting project for the next few months. Because I had set some goals that I hoped to achieve in my time off and also because I’ve learned a great deal in the past 6 weeks, I’ve decided to share some of my learnings here. I hope they help you to think differently about your path through life!

The first thing I did before writing this post, was check the Taking It Easy post that I wrote before I started my time off. Looking through, I see that I attained quite a few of my goals. First, I got a whole bunch more sleep… and that has been awesome. Second, I did do a whole ‘lotta nothing, but I also did a whole lot of stuff. The stuff I did do were things I enjoyed such as the Circleline trip, and my trip to Oregon (read more about the Oregon Beer Trail at Wuz On Tap). Third, I took the time to enjoy both the city and the country. I did things in NYC that I normally don’t take the time to do. For example, sit on a park bench or have impromptu coffee/drinks with friends. I made sure that I reflected on those moments and appreciated them. Also, I got the chance to go back to Sullivan County for a week and enjoy the fresh country air. I saw friends from my youth and spent time with my family. I even went golfing!

So those were the goals that I accomplished, but more importantly I wanted to reflect on what I learned during this time. The first thing I learned is that I learn more when I’m trying not to learn. Meaning when I try to keep up with every new bit of information that is coming out, I actually retain less. I also learned that getting outside of the UX Community to meet others makes me better at the UX end of things. The UX side of me is never going to disappear, I’ll always have the passion and background for it. But learning about Tech and Business and other industries stretches how my mind thinks about UX. I learned, or reaffirmed, that UX is everywhere. From my ride on the Circleline to sitting on a park bench, every great experience has been thought through, designed, and iterated based on what worked and what didn’t.

Probably my most important learning was how to just be. I use to spend every second of my free time thinking about and working on my career, my website, my blog, my contacts, etc. And this is good, in the sense that I was devoting myself to my work. But the one thing I wasn’t doing was enjoying and being a part of my work, and more importantly my own life. By letting go and having faith in myself and the hardwork that I’ve done, I’m now better able to love the work that I do and the life that I live. I can appreciate the park bench moments and use them to refuel instead of thinking about all the things I have to get done that day. In reality there is nothing that I “have” to do, and the key is to turn those things into I “wants” instead of I “haves”.

So, this is a new chapter for me. My goal is to go forth with these learnings and continue to maintain, at least in some way, some balance in my life. By doing so I can love the chaos even more! Let’s see if I can keep up the good work.

Many of you may not know this, but I get anxiety walking into a restaurant. I mean, it’s nothing major or debilitating, but I will, for instance, almost never walk in first (those of you that have gone to a restaurant with me before, stop and think about it, have I ever not opened the door to let you in first instead of going in myself?). I think that the anxiety stems from several things. One, I’ve worked in restaurants for a good portion of my life and I know how hard it is, and I don’t want to do anything “wrong” to disrupt the server’s day or process. I just do not want to be the person that they are swearing about in the back for the rest of their shift. Yeah, I know, I’m WAY to sensitive about this, but knowing that I have these weird hang ups, I’m willing to bet that tons of other restaurant goers have hang ups of their own.

Anyway, the reason that I divulge this secret to you today is not just to get it off my chest (even though I do kinda feel better) but instead to talk about how a small cafe in Portland, Oregon put my anxieties and those of all their customers at ease. Detour Cafe was a spot that I visited in my time on the Oregon Beer Trail (to read more about my adventures visit www.wuzontap.com). I had been looking forward to going there for breakfast ever since my cousin and I planned our trip because they were featured in a food magazine and their breakfast sandwich looked amazing! (And it was amazing.) I was not, however, expecting to be hit with one of the best instances of user experience I’ve ever been through.

Upon entering the cafe, there is a sign… it is put squarely in your way and it reads “Welcome! Please take a menu and have a seat at any clean table.” Yes! Mystery 1 solved… I can seat myself and begin to look at the menu while I wait for my server. Perfect!

When our server came over he mentioned that if we wanted house coffee we could just help ourselves. Then he pointed us in the direction of this sign which reads “Coffee. Help yourself” with an arrow showing us where the coffee was. Woohoo another mystery solved. Better yet when going up to get your coffee there is this sign “Coffee cups. If you would like some house coffee, feel free to take a cup and help yourself. We serve Stumptown Holler Mountain Organic”. Perfect again! By now you are getting my point.

When I first started my career in UX and we were writing content for our designs, I always wondered why we didn’t just say what we needed to say in plain language. For instance “this page takes a long time to load because we are looking through thousands of customer records to find your’s. please be patient”. Obviously that was before AJAX and the like, but still… is it so wrong to just be completely honest? What I loved about Detour Cafe, was honesty was their brand. They put it on you to seat yourself and get your own coffee and walked you through how to do so WITHOUT human intervention. I was in UX heaven! Upon leaving I couldn’t help but reflect on how they had gotten it all right. From the content of the signs, to the placement, all the way down to the friendly font.

I would like to thank Detour Cafe, not only for the wonderful and nourishing breakfast, but proving to me that being upfront and honest about how things work does put a user (like myself) at ease and makes me want to visit again and again… one day I’ll be back!