Yesterday I attended a webinar put together by VizThink regarding a concept called Idea Mapping. The speaker, Jamie Nast, brought the group through several exercises and stories about Idea Mapping, what it is, and how to use it. The webinar was really great and I’m so glad that I attended!
A quick background. Idea mapping is an exercise that deals with a well defined goal (one example might be “document to do list”) from which a person stems different ideas or topics and from them subtopics, etc. Jamie can, of course, explain this much better, but the idea is to go where your brain is going, document your ideas in the order they come to you (not just chronological order), and come up with as many relative ideas as possible. When are you done? You’ll know when you are done. A side note is that I created a quick idea map for this post .
I started to think about how useful an idea map is to visualize ideas. Think about when you are brainstorming and requirements gathering. How great would it be to put this in a map of some sorts so that you can easily learn and remember the details, and also visually show people a “map” of what is required or what is wanted.
I also started to think about how this map could lead into further user experience documentation. I got further insight into this when I saw a colleague present an experience map which basically took all the ideas the team had and flushed them out into experiences that a user would take, and documented these experiences in a swim lane like format.
Alot of thoughts and information, and I am excited to dive into them further and explore them more. What are your thoughts/ideas around this topic? What other insights might I be overlooking?
Oh and if you get a chance look up VizThink as well as Jamie. You won’t be sorry you did!

UX User Experience VizThink Idea Mapping

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While at one of the IA Meetups this spring I got some great info on a virtual conference put together for marketing professionals. Will, check out his site at www.augustwilliams.com, let me know that Marketing Profs puts together an interesting conference online a couple times of year. I made a point to tune in to what I could today. Check out the conference info here. There are a few really cool aspects but some that stand out are 1) this is FREE 2) the entire set up of the site is pretty cool. You can “walk” around and check out different “buildings” 3) you can access the information even now that the conference is over. Just go back the site and register and you have access.
A good deal of the information is something that we’ve all heard about as UX professionals. I like to listen in for several reasons. First, I don’t really see myself as a marketing professional, however we are in the business of marketing. It’s interesting to hear the talks given by actual business/marketing counterparts. Second, because a different type of role is presenting, topics/issues that we don’t hear about too much in the UX field come to life. Third, listening in helps to create empathy for my marketing/business counterparts. I can better see where they are coming from and better see how I can help them so that together we can create a better experience over all.
So… Does anyone have other virtual conferences they can share? AND I’d love to hear further thoughts and comments.

UX User Experience Marketing Conferences

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I’ve found myself from time to time thinking about this pairing. In my UX career, I’ve found myself playing both roles, and love them each at times. To clarify, I’m using wireframers to mean IAs/IxDs that solve tactical, detailed problems and strategist those that deal with the overarching, conceptual issues. In smaller shops, or one woman shows it is easy enough to say that these two roles are one and the same. However, in larger companies this is often not true. These two roles are usually split, and I always think back to why. I’ve worked on the strategy side of things for big corporations and so I have a understanding from my point of view of why there is a split, but I would be interested in hearing more opinions from you. Please feel free to comment below, I think it may be interesting what different people say. Also feel free to note your current side of the fence so to speak. Thanks!

UX User Experience IA

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On Thursday I began my usual trip home to visit my family. The first leg of said trip is taking the train to my cousin’s house in Westchester County where my car is parked. Then I proceed to drive the rest of the way. This is a trip I’ve made a ton of times, and it’s always gone pretty smoothly. This time however there was a glitch in the system.
While sitting and waiting for my train out of the city, I noticed that during rush hour there are a LOT of trains moving through (no big surprise). I also noticed that there were a lot of last minute changes and announcements (again not surprising). What happened next is also not a big surprise, however, it proves my point. A train approached the track I was waiting by at the exact time that my train was supposed to arrive. I waited for the announcement telling us what train had arrived, but nothing came. I saw the train and it was definitely not the train that I usually take so I sat back to continue waiting. However the sign that announces the train’s arrival said that this was my train. Still no overhead announcement. So I got on and the doors closed behind me. I asked which train I was on, and it was not the right one. Now the kind conductor and fellow riders helped get back on track, and come to find out I was only 30mins off track of my original departure but I couldn’t help but reflect on the situation as one involving user experience. I should also mention that a fellow rider did the exact same thing that I did while rushing to make the train.
The point that I came to was that no matter how well we work to define experiences both physical and virtual, there will always always always be human error. It is humans that are responsible for announcing the trains, and in this case it was confusion with what train to announce, but it could be human error in code or some other virtual error. We are all probably very aware of this, but the reason I’m pointing this out is that now I will try to think more about where those potential human errors can take place, help decrease them, but also help to create experiences around them (to make their effects less). This incident helped me to have one other approach to my work in experience design. I hope that it gets you thinking as well .

UX User Experience

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For the past few days, I’ve been having an extra hard time staying focused. I’m on one of the best projects that a UX Designer could ask for: blue sky work, involving a great amount of information design, with no hard deadline, and a dedicated content strategist/copywriter to help bring the ideas full circle. And yet, for some reason I am unable to focus on the task at hand. So yesterday, I really tried to reflect on what the block was for me… where was I losing the connection with my work. I’ve also found that I’m not the only one that this happens to, which piqued my interest and awareness even more.
I sat down to talk with my good friend about the problem. His thoughts “You know Lis, when you have a lot of things going on, each one of them gets a voice. Even if you don’t consciously listen, those items are always talking at you, and cause you to be distracted.” Me: “but I don’t really have that much going on right now actually”. Friend: “That is what you think, but in reality there are a million anxieties and worries that you are putting on yourself.”
Of course, my friend is correct. So my goal today, is to stay focused. I’m going to give it my very best! This post will be the last non-project item that I work on until mid day. Then, I’ll take a short break and head back to the drawing board. The best part? The project work is fun and challenging! Today, I’m going to give it the respect it deserves.

Freelancing Focus

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