Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at the Edge of the Web conference in Perth on UX Architecture for the Small Guy.   I will do a brief write up on the conference shortly, so standby on that one, but for now on with the talk.

Why this Topic

Too often I have been to various conferences and I have heard from some very experienced UX people discussing numerous case studies of projects.   All of them have one thing in common – large budgets or large teams.   Frankly these are not the projects that happen from day to day in Perth.  But they appear to be the mainstay of the UX designer, one gets the impression they are the general bread and butter in some parts of the world.

It is from this frustration and the lack of direct application of IA or UX in general for smaller business projects that made me rethink my design approach a number of years ago.   Why couldn’t we apply UX principles to SME projects or was it just for the larger projects?

I asked around the UX community, no one seemed to be willing to discuss applying UX to smaller projects.    I did have one amusing conversation in which the other party considered a small project being our gross income for the year.

Hence talk was born from this lack of a reality check and the need for information that could be applied on day to day basis in the real world.

So what was Covered

This presentation is aimed at people not familiar with UX Design and UX practitioners who have not considered using User Experience Design tools and techniques on smaller projects.  In a way this talk was also a lead-in for the other UX based talks that where on throughout the conference.

The talk itself dealt with the way we are still using a simple waterfall based process for SME projects, and why we are doing it – suggesting that maybe an Agile UX approach would be a better way to work.

Based on my years of experience of designing user experiences for small business I presented a dramatically shortened list of tools and techniques, for a UXD process focused on smaller projects, down from the 50 odd usually available.    Some of the tools I have discounted you maybe surprised as to why I have cut them from the process

I also discuss what happens when we go with our “gut instinct” and ignore any user research, the outcome is very interesting indeed.  Finally I look at selling user experience, be it to your boss, a boardroom or just a SME business owner.   Without knowing how to sell UX any change in the way we do things is just going to be a waste of time.   So in a way this aspect is the critical element of this presentation.

I touch on a fair number of different topics in this talk.  To really do each topic justice I’m going to present then here over the next few weeks in a lot more detail than I presented at the Edge of the Web.

Also if you were fortunate enough to be in the audience of my presentation any feedback is most welcome.

Last few weeks have been a little busy here, returning from conferences, dealing with the project backlog, and preparing for my Edge of the Web talk.

Moving on now with my fifth and final interview in the 5×5 series with speakers from the Edge of the Web conference (that’s just over a week away) , this time I’m talking with James McCutcheon. James is presenting on Why the web doesn’t have an edge anymore, he is a self confessed leader in Microsoft development community with a passion for windows mobile and a serial entrepreneur .

MWNB:

At the Edge of the Web you will be talking about the blurring of the traditional boundaries. On the web we have seen the development of all sorts of dynamic user interfaces over the years; some revolutionary and some that are better of being left to history.  Still there has been a distinct increase in usability online. With SaaS we are seeing a rapid response to our user requests and increased functionality delivery. Given this, do you think that the web has had a large influence on people’s lack of tolerance for bad desktop software, resulting in an increased pressure in the desktop software development arena?

James:

I believe both platforms have influenced each other, the rise of ajax & javascript is a response to the need to give desktop user experiences on the web. Of course a html browser is flawed application platform so we are now starting to see products like Silverlight and Flex address this need. The designers have made their mark on the web world and now customers expecting that influence to be on the desktop world, no longer is grey and blue UI acceptable.

MWNB:

With the increased focus of late on gestural interfaces, and now with even a mouse with a tactile interface, do you see these as becoming common place in the future or are they just going to remain on the fringe of the tech community like say the PC graphics tablet.

James:

The home PC is morphing and no doubt with it will be the interaction interface will change, the simplicity is the killer application feature. I am sure we will see better interaction methods than keyboards.

MWNB:

Still on the theme of gestural interfaces, there has been a lot of debate over the lack of any tactile feedback of the current crop of flat panel interface devices. I have heard there is some development going on with the use of soft touch surface devices that can provide tactile feedback. What’s your take on this?

James:

I personally never miss tactile feedback, but a lot of people do so I am sure when it works there will be a lot of rejoicing but I don’t really believe that its there or not influences heavily on peoples buying decisions.

MWNB:

Just when we have got out heads around the desktop, the web and the mobile platforms, we are now facing the prospect of a fourth player in the form of Augmented Reality (AR) entering the interface arena. I’ve always wanted one of those 3D holo-keyboards, so tell me am I going to get my dream, or am I going to be disappointed?

James:

The addition of a digital compass in devices has seen this space grow rapidly, it is a useful interface for a particular style of application … I don’t think you will be disappointed I think the next 12-24 months will see some great advances in this space.

MWNB:

With the market segment for smart phones still only being in the hands of the tech geeks, the under 30’s and the early adopters is there really a point in developing mobile web sites for a mainstream  audience, beyond the usual simple site? Particularly if you consider that the bulk of mobile phones used within Australia don’t support a reasonable user experience for web browsing. In that they are aging WAP handsets, with a screen resolution of around 128px x 128px.

James:

Yes the mobile web world is only for a small vocal part of the community, but its a growing one and yes it will become mainstream. It then of course becomes a business decision of being early and stake your turf or try and catchup at a later date. I think with the right architecture and design this doesn’t add a massive overhead and worth staking that early spot on the mobile web world.

MWNB:

Thanks James, See you at the Edge of the Web

Now that two big conferences are out of the way,  it’s back to the 5 x 5 interview series of presenters speaking at the Edge of the Web conference.  This time in my fourth interview I’m talking with Simon Pascal Klein, Pascal is presenting on Beautiful Web Typography at the Edge of the Web conference in Perth, Western Australia next month – eeep! is it that close, less that 4 weeks away!

He is a self confessed standardista front end and graphic designer, who is equally at home in the world of print.  He is currently based in Canberra.

MWNB:

It’s nothing new to most web designers that typography on the web just sucks.  With the cripplingly limited number of cross platform typefaces available and the different ways font render on the browsers, it’s enough to just make a designer give up in frustration.   Discounting the use of the CSS property “font-face” that only leaves the hacks from Cufón  and  sIFR to allow some alternative relief .   Would you recommend these as solutions to overcome this problem or do you have some secret designer “Foo” hidden up your sleave?

Pascal:

With no intention of being controversial right off the bat, I guess I would have to say I reject the premise of the question. I don’t really accept that web typography sucks; sure, it could certainly be a lot better, and I have good hopes for the future, however a lot can be done with what is available to us currently, even as a web standards-devoted designer. We have a number CSS Fonts options available to us, e.g. font-weight, font-style, font-variant, which combined with line-height, sizing, widths, and the actual font declared offer a lot of variety. Remember Jeff Croft’s words: “[t]ypography is not picking a ‘cool’ font”, or any font for that matter.

MWNB:

Personally I’m not a fan of the pre-rolled CSS grids that are now all the rage in some circles.   Sure I know that they help people layout a web page, and they assist with getting the rhythm on a page right.  But still I suspect that they maybe allowing some designers to be lazy and not think outside the square of the CSS grid.   What’s your view on the use of CSS grids especially from a typography slant?

Pascal:

A grid exists to help provide structure and rhythm, and so directly relates to typography. Figuring out a good grid and then turning it into versatile, good CSS is effort, and in that regard I like the pre-rolled grids — they are great for those of us who want a grid but have time constraints, or just don’t want to worry too much about them. I personally don’t use them — I use my own grids. This comes down to my enjoyment in actual coming up with one and building it (yes, I probably ought to be clinical tested for some sort of mental ailment) and finding that the pre-rolled ones don’t do things the way I want them to (usually they are over-kills for the projects I’ve worked on).

MWNB:

The debate on property font-face and the resultant licensing issues over EOT and OTF  has divided the typography community, especially the Type Foundries.   Recent upgrades of FireFox has allow for the use of @font-face, and with a few CSS tweak’s its has now effectively remove the browser incompatibility.   Personally I wasn’t a fan of the use of @font-face but I have learned to love it.  As a typeface guru how do you see this state of play?

Pascal:

Good generally. I see it as a step forward that we’ll have access to a larger range of fonts, but I am worried about their usage — again this reflects off Jeff’s earlier quote I noted. Many of the typefaces currently available for licensing from foundries are designed for print use, and differ from fonts that are designed and optimised for screen usage. There are a lot of fonts out there, and in relation only a small number of really good ones, and of that an even smaller number that have been optimised for screen use. Screen-optimised fonts need to cater for the lower resolutions of screens (apposed to printed material) and as such may feature thicker strokes and serifs (e.g. see Georgia) and good hinting tables to ensure readability at small sizes.

I am aware that Typotheque are investing in creating screen-optimised versions of some of their typefaces. I believe this may be less of a problem in fonts available for web font licensing from foundries as they will be aware of this issue and more of freely-licensed or unlicensed, lower-quality fonts that are used directly via @font-face.

MWNB:

Are the days of Type Foundries numbered for web industry (I’m excluding Print, here, ok)?  Do we really have to put up with the same old tired, font centralised ordering-distribution system?   What do you think of typographers that are shaking of shackles of the Type Foundries and marketing their works directly with designers via the likes of Typekit and League of Moveable Type?

Pascal:

I wrote on this topic in November last year and echoed my belief in the rise of hosting and licensing service. I think non-foundry controlled services like Typekit and Fontdeck who sub-license web fonts for foundries may distribute some of the centralised control that foundries historically possess. That said, I think the best way to give the foundries a run for their money and up the quality of type design all-round is for more high quality open source, freely-licensed typefaces to become available which may be freely distributed and hosted. Some in the type community see this venture as futile or even misguided but I believe it’s the best way to ‘democratise’ type and typography and educate folks about it — ‘Hey, have you heard about typography? Check out this awesome example website of good typography that features a really well-done font’ is a saying amongst non-designers I can’t imagine if ‘well-done font’ is preceded by a dollar sign and figures ranging in three digits before the decimal point (if not more).

MWNB:

Moving on further with groups like the League of Moveable Type popping up all over the place, what’s your take on the matter?   Are they providing for the service that designers need?  Do you see their product as a general benefit to fellow designers or are they simply ripping the bread and butter from the mouths of the typographers.

Pascal:

Yes, absolutely. Time to get a bit progressive and perhaps transgressive. Continuing on from the topics and organisations raised in the last question, I hold organisations, communities, and single type designers who provide considerable and usable parts of their work at no cost (gratis) and under licensing terms (libre) that make distribution and improvements viable in high regard. I think a simple comparison may be drawn here to the personal computer. The personal computer is largely responsible for many technological and general societal advancements due arguably to its increasing affordability. Likewise, the more affordable, or rather the more accessible typefaces and good typography becomes the better the state of typography will be — the more accessible something is the more attainable are the positives (and negatives) that that something provides. People, either individually, in commercial corporations or as self-structured communities who provide fonts, the means of making them, and educational material on the first two and their use for free will better the state of type, type design, and typography.

There is a common argument by critics who suggest that there is a lack of people to do this task or to do it well. I disagree; where there is a will there is a way — look at the many successful free and open source software (FOSS) projects that have bettered the world in one way or another. I think to suggest that type designers are in some fundamental economic way different to programmers, web developers or other smart people who render their time and knowledge in some form to create or better free software to be false. For proof look at organisations like the League of Movable Type and the type designers behind it or working individually: Linux Libertine by Philipp H. Poll, Gentium by Victor Gaultney, and a lot more. It is true that the number of skilled type designers who release freely-licensed works is limited; there are less FOSS type designers than FOSS programmers or web developers, yet compared to software development or web development, type design is a relative niche industry.

Continuing and concluding with economics, of course free typefaces, freely-licensed written material, and type design software will compete in quality and price with commercially available equivalents. The better the quality and variety of these free things, the cheaper and/or higher in quality the equivalent or related commercial products will be need to be. Who benefits? ‘Consumers’ — we do.

MWNB:

Thanks Pascal, see you in few weeks.

This is part three of the 5 x 5 interview series of the speakers presenting at the Edge of the Web conference in Perth next month. This time I’m interviewing Ruth Ellison, she will be presenting on Guerrilla user & design research: undertaking research on a shoestring at the Edge of the Web.

Ruth is a user experience practitioner originally from Perth, who has been lured over to the not so bright lights of Canberra, she has a wealth of experience in Information Architecture with a passion for accessibility and usability. Ruth also has this thing for Robots.

MWNB:

Ruth you have a bit of an eclectic background, you aren’t traditional trained in design. How do you think your background has contributed to moulding your unique skill set into what it is today?

Ruth:

Having an eclectic background has certainly made life interesting! Although my background did not involve the ‘traditional’ design professions, design is essentially about solving a problem. As designers, we have to identify the problem, strive to come up with the optimum solution and communicate the plan for solving the problem. I come from a formal background in information technology, information systems and human factors and I’m particularly interested in sustainable and inclusive design. I’ve found that having an eclectic and diverse background helps to provide alternate perspectives and approaches to solving the design problem. Being a designer is about having a curious mindset and approach to how we view the world and the way we go about solving design problems.

MWNB:

You have been working in the user experience area for a while now. What advice would you give to someone that isn’t that familiar with the user experience field and its various techniques but they would to learn more and maybe more into this area?

Ruth:

As cliché as it sounds, it’s really important to be passionate, have an overly curious mind (preferably your own) and a penchant for coffee meetings. Working in the user experience field may be a challenge but it is extremely rewarding. People seem a bit surprised that our work crosses over such a large number of domains, from traditional design professions, cognitive science, psychology, project management, usability engineering, understanding of technology…the list goes on. It’s this meld of knowledge that makes our UX work really exciting.

One of the best ways to learn more about the field is to get involved with your user experience community through events such as the UX Bookclub, UPA meetings, IA Cocktail Hours (we have a fantastic group in Canberra) and attend conferences. These types of events provide great opportunity to find out what’s happening in the field, learn from personal experiences and find out what blogs, books and twitter streams to follow.  What I find most valuable is the personal relationships and friendships that you establish at these gatherings. I love the satisfying and often mind-blowing discussions we always seem to have every time we get together.

MWNB:

There has been a lot of discussion of late indicating that maybe the field of information architecture (IA) is in fact a dying art. And that generalist user experience practitioner is slowly making the role of an IA especially redundant. As an IA specialist in this area what is your ground level take on this?

Ruth:

I don’t believe that information architecture (IA) is a dying art. IA is  about the “organisation and construction of shared information spaces” - Information Architecture Institute . While IA has been ‘traditionally’ undertaken by information architects, the actual process of organising, structuring and labelling information still needs to be carried out no matter what label you’ve given to yourself while undertaking this process. Ultimately, we’re solving a design problem, whether it’s at the screen level, a business flow or designing for a specific experience. This doesn’t mean that the IA speciality is redundant but that IA is a specific set of skills that we use at the appropriate point in time.

I like Eric Reiss’s recent comment on twitter about UX and IA: “Pitting UX against IA is like having your toolbox pick a fight with your wrench. UX is a cognitive container for a variety of skills”.

MWNB:

Accessibility is bit of the hobby-horse of yours, do you see the slow adoption of WCAG 2 within Australia as a major stumbling block to its general community acceptance and the elimination of the WCAG1 checkbox tickers.

Ruth:

The problem with WCAG 1 or 2 isn’t the slow adoption and acceptance by the general community. Rather, it’s our general perception and understanding of accessibility. I frequently come across people who have some level of  awareness of accessibility but there’s often this slightly-negative attitude of “doing accessibility because you have to”. There are still many project teams who focus on the perceived negative aspects of accessibility. I rather see the Australian community adopt a more holistic and inclusive approach to design, instead of treating accessibility as a series of checkboxes.

MWNB:

User research in web design is one of my passions; I know it is yours too. All too often we have to deal with projects, particularly in Perth where there is no budget at all for any user research. As a UX practitioner what methods and techniques would you use to overcome this major stumbling block?

Ruth:

It still amazes me to this day to see the number of web projects where no budget and time has been allocated to the user and design research of the product. There are misconceptions that undertaking user and design research will significantly slow down the project or cause it to go over budget. What people forget is the ongoing costs of having to redevelop the product or the costs associated with cross channel support of the product (such as increased contact points with the organisation) when our designs don’t meet the user and business needs.

To overcome this ‘no budget’ stumbling block, we may have to resort to guerrilla user and design research. The key principle is grasp any opportunity to do some design research! This often involve informal methods and techniques such as very quick iterative usability testing (I love testing in cafes, lunch rooms etc), short sharp interviews with key stakeholders and users, surveys and heuristic reviews.

The idea of investing more money into research is a big leap for many of the decision makers. We need to make the business case for user and design research by doing and showing – doing the research and showing the results to help influence the decision makers.

MWNB:

Thanks Ruth I’ll see you on the Edge

It’s time for part two of the 5 x 5 interview series, covering a range of speakers from the upcoming Perth web conference the Edge of the Web. Next I caught up with Ash Donaldson.

Ash Donaldson is one of those old school User Experience Designers that are the main stay of our industry. He’s the type of person that just extrudes knowledge and a passion for his craft . It’s well worth having a chat over a beer or two with Ash, you’ll come away with your head spinning, and not from the beer.

Ash is presenting on Designing to persuade: Shaping the User Experience at the Edge of the Web.

MWNB:

You have an extensive background in Human Centred Design, and not just from a theoretical viewpoint, but also from a practical standpoint as well. In this digital age of computerisation; we as designers often forget the base human element of design. How do you believe we can reinforce the “human” element of the design process.

Ash:

Pick up a pen and paper, walk out the door, and involve your users.

Contrary to popular belief, they enjoy being involved. People like that someone is willing to listen to them. At the end of the day, not only do they think you, as a designer, are the best thing since sliced bread for actually involving them, they also feel a bit of ownership for what they contributed to the end product. If you did your work right, that end product is also a joy for them to use. It’s a win-win when you make humans the centre of your design strategy.

MWNB:

I know you have been a little busy of late with various volunteer and human interaction design projects. You are the representative Australian expert for the human-centred design International standards; also you’re involved in OZCHI and CHISIG. For people that aren’t in the know, what do all these groups entail and why are they so relevant?

Ash:

The International Organisation for Standards (ISO) recruits the services of experts from all over the world to develop thousands of standards that ensure products, systems, machinery and devices work well and safely. Most people in Australia don’t realise that there are quite a number of ISO standards in human-centred design, human factors, usability, and software engineering.

Since 2004 I’ve been working with a range of amazing experts on standards for software quality, usability reporting, and the human-centred design process. These experts generally come from large organisations (Microsoft, Sun, IBM, etc), national standards bodies, or Universities. For me, it’s important to provide a voice representative of the smaller operator – people who don’t have the luxury of expansive time and budgets on their projects – to help make the ISO standards more pragmatic and accessible for everyone.

The Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group (CHISIG) provides a forum for people working on all aspects of interactive technology to bounce ideas off each other and seek guidance. In the past, I’ve acted as the Queensland and ACT representative, and helped out in NSW because, with the explosion of the user experience industry came a bevy of new faces with no idea where to turn for training, mentoring, and advice. Back then, it felt like there were only a precious few of us trying to help everyone by giving presentations, answering questions, and pointing people in the right direction when they were first starting out. These days, it’s great to see many more groups springing up to help fill those niche support roles for the industry, like: the Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA), Interaction Designers’ Assocation (IxDA), and more recently (and rampantly), UX Bookclubs – all over the world!

OZCHI is the Australian conference for Computer-Human Interaction. There’s always been a bit of a disconnect between academics and practitioners in our industry. Many practitioners don’t have the benefit of a formal education in Computer-Human Interaction or Human Factors. This lack of theoretical underpinnings of our techniques can lead to the development of bad habits. On the other side of the fence, academics without access to industry tend to research esoteric topics – missing opportunities to make real advances for our industry. As someone who wore both academic and practitioner hats, I whinged about this quite loudly to the OZCHI committee in 2004 (OZCHI was purely an academic conference back then). They simply put it back on me and told me to fix it. The next year, I was the Chair of OZCHI and we had an industry track alongside the academic track. Despite many speed bumps, more and more industry practitioners are coming along to OZCHI these days. The cross-over between academics and practitioners is rewarding for everyone. (Pssst. For anyone who’s interested, OZCHI is in Melbourne this year: 23 – 27 November www.ozchi.org – Bill Moggridge (co-founder of IDEO) is one of the keynotes!)

MWNB:

The application of user research, iterative design and usability testing play a big role in your design process. These techniques could be seen to be only relevant to larger projects with endless budgets. Do you see a place for them across the entire design project spectrum, regardless of budget?

Ash:

Designing a product, service, or environment without involving the people that are going to end up using it is a bit like driving with your eyes closed: You might know how to drive and the general direction you need to go when you start, but you’ll probably veer off, cause untold damage to your car, and get lost along the way – then have to just put up with where you end up when you run out of fuel.

Involving users is not and should not be expensive. I say “is not” because most of the time, if you’re designing something for someone, they LOVE being involved and it doesn’t take much time or effort to get some great insights. I say “should not” because unless I’m making tiny refinements to a mature product, or really need to convince managers/developers of the need to fix something, I’m not a big fan of lab studies. It’s an artificial environment, the users are stressed, and the things you can reliably discover are quite narrow compared to if you did a little ‘guerilla research and testing’ in the field.

When gathering requirements, people are notoriously bad at telling you how they do stuff (due to a whole list of cognitive and perceptual biases). Managers or user representatives are even worse. Observing people as they work in their own environment provides much richer and more accurate insights. Not only do you get to see the constraints they actually work under, there’s also a whole heap of value-added opportunities you can discover when you watch them work: From something as simple as adding a quick lookup calendar for users who constantly refer to their desktop calendars; to something as complex as combining parts of multiple applications into a common workflow with a new interface. This can be the difference between a functional application, and one that’s a joy to use.

The same goes for testing your product. If you’re designing something from scratch, it’s more the high-level stuff you want to concentrate on (like how well someone understands a label or how a process matches the way the users think of it) than the nitty-gritty (like how many fractions of a second will moving a button 12 pixels closer to the final form field save users?). You can get more realistic feedback by spending 5 minutes walking through a paper prototype at a few people’s desks, or loading up a functional prototype on their screens to see how they would actually use it ‘in context’. No matter how many times I do this, I always discover a number of the assumptions I made while designing the screens and workflows were wrong. This is why it’s essential to keep testing small, focussed, and iterative. Your users will keep steering you in the right direction.

MWNB:

Is there any truth to your 300,000+ km that you have travelled in recent years? It seems that you are constantly on the go, be it attending or speaking at international conferences. Come on you are among friends here, what’s your secret?

Ash:

Recent years? That’s just since last May, isn’t it?

Some great conferences are overseas, so yes, I spend a good part of my year in the US and Europe. Also, working with ISO means going to a new city for every meeting. I tend to work a few months on, then take some time off for conferences and meetings. To let you in on a little secret: I’ve only ever been overseas four times in my whole life for pleasure. All the hundreds of other trips have been industry-related. Jet-lag sucks too much to waste a holiday suffering it.

MWNB:

Ash you must be one of the most physically active geeks that I know. With our occupations often requiring extremely long hours at the keyboard, do you have any suggestions for how people can get out from behind the computer, and improve their physical well-being. Also what’s with these crazy frog shoes?

Ash:

If I didn’t exercise, I wouldn’t get half the things that I wanted to do, done. I learned years ago is that if you’re not physically active, you’re not mentally active. If you start your day with 30 minutes to an hour of exercise, you’ll more than compensate for it by knocking over much more work in less time than if you just grabbed a coffee and sat and stared at your computer all day. It’s amazing what a good kick of endorphins can do to help you whistle through the piles of work.

I find the best time for me to exercise is early in the morning. I used to be a late-night worker, but that was because I couldn’t concentrate earlier in the day, and I’d end up making little progress until the sun went down – then work late into the night. These days I’m up at 5:30am and I’m working efficiently by 8am. What used to take 14 hours to do now takes only 7 and I have the evening to read, research, and relax.

The crazy shoes are my Vibram Fivefingers. It’s kind of an anti-shoe. Wearing them is like being barefoot, but with thick skin on the soles of your feet. I run in them because, well, against what people tend to believe, running shoes cause injuries. Don’t take my word for it though, search the medical literature of running barefoot versus shod (with shoes). If you’re interested, I even wrote a blog post about it recently.

MWNB:

Thank you Ash, looking forward to chatting some more at the Edge of the Web.

Last year the Perth Web community celebrated with the highly successful inaugural Edge of the Web conference. Well that conference is on again, with workshops and ending in the massive geek black tie party that is the Australia Web Awards Dinner. You wanted it over two days – you got it, you wanted more locals – you got it, you wanted more workshops – you got it.

To help celebrate this year, I’m putting together this five part interview series with speakers from the Edge of the Web conference, this is part one.

One of the speakers presenting at the Edge of the Web you may not know of is Matt Balara. Matt hails currently from Sydney, he recently spoke, in Canberra, at the highly successful UX Australia.

At the Edge of the Web Matt will be presenting on Flogging Design – Daily Disasters & Best Practice in Online Shop Design.

MWNB:

Of late there seems to be a need to justify ones job title in the Web Design field.  You are a visual designer by training.  However times have changed a great deal since your formal training.   What would you classify yourself as now in the new fields of Web Design and why?

Matt:

Firstly, I’d like to suggest that we all stop using the term “visual designer”. It seems to be a label invented by UX designers and IAs (and maybe devs) to mean “the poor bastards at the end of the food chain who get to try and beautify what we thought up.”

What I studied is called graphic design, which is a lot more than designing visuals, or decorating someone else’s thoughts. It’s first and foremost about solving communication problems, not aesthetics. Being a thinking graphic designer who has always been fascinated by what technology makes possible, I started a long time ago to try and influence web and app projects above and beyond what they look like. Since I studied, I’ve been drifting more and more into the territory traditionally owned by Information Architects and User Experience Designers (although neither term was much used back then) – I make sitemaps and wireframes and do user research and testing, and so on – but I also obsess over elegant typography, colour palettes and just the right shading on buttons.

I’d be deeply indebted to you if you’d give me a job title that covers all of that and is comprehensible to clients, but doesn’t put me in a box so small I can’t enjoy what I do any more. I doubt you can, so for now it just says “Designer” on my card.

MWNB:

Your background in the field of design, you have had an very extensive career, having designed with some big names in the Europe. Can you tell me a little about your journey in the design field from the US, Europe and now Australia and the differences you encountered?

Matt:

I studied in the US 15 years ago, but I’ve hardly worked there at all, so I can’t say much about it. And I’ve only been back in Australia since October last year and haven’t worked with anyone in Australia yet, so I can’t say too much there either. The last ten years I’ve worked in Germany, but other than the language and the weather, I don’t really think it’s that different.

One thing maybe: when I look at the web in Australia, I get the feeling there’s a lack of sensible graphic design. I don’t know if the designers aren’t there, or if the people commissioning sites don’t value design enough. There is lots of useless, beautiful advertising wankery out there, and lots of ugly, confusing sites which should be elegant and usable. It reminds me of Europe 3 years ago or the US 5 or 6 years ago.

MWNB:

It’s no secret you are a photography nut.  It is amazing the number of web people that have a passion for photography. Do you have any theories on this, is it a lost desire to satisfy the repressed designer or just to document ones life story?

Matt:

Before I studied design I was a painter, so for me photography is a low commitment way of making something visual and creative for myself, like painting without the weeks in the studio. But I rarely make an image I’m happy with.

In general I’d say digital photography is extremely democratic – everyone can make not-so-bad images with a camera with almost no effort. Combine that with the internet enabled superpower we all have, that we can share anything we want with potentially millions of people, and I’m sure the bosses at Nikon and Canon are happy men.

MWNB:

Augmented Reality (AR) seems to be the buzzword on everyone’s lips this season.  I know personally I see it as just an alpha pipedream. Do you ever think that AR will be ready for the big stage of the general public main stream of social communications and informational management?

Matt:

Back in 1993 I helped found the Virtual Reality lab at my university. That was an alpha pipedream. What we’re seeing AR now is much of the stuff we dreamed about back then, which was impossible at the time due to missing tech and a lack of interested users, becoming suddenly possible now that an iPhone is more powerful than the Silicon Graphics refrigerator that we had in the VR lab. Read “Artificial Reality 2″, written by Myron Krueger in 1991, and you’ll see that none of the ideas are new, they’re just finally possible.

Personally I’m pretty excited about AR – not the marketing gimmicks, and not the thought of holding my iPhone in front of my face while walking around the city, but the excitement and energy that’s going into figuring it out, experimenting, playing, and the magical results. There’s plenty of “wow!” out there right now, and when was the last time you thought that about the 2D web in a browser box?

Do I think your gardener is going to use AR to plan what to plant where this spring – will it be that mainstream that soon? No. And if iPhone based AR really takes off, it’ll mostly just fill our hospitals with people who’ve been hit by buses while staring at their hands. Until AR becomes a constant layer over what we’re seeing – and that’s a hardware issue – it’ll stay pretty gimmicky, but I think it’s starting to make a move towards useful.

MWNB:

You recently very bravely stood up at a major Australian UX conference and declared – “ I know nothing about Agile development”. You went on to detail your experiences with Agile methodologies and their implementation in the web design field.  Given this background do you see Agile as having a place for designers or is it best left just for the developers over the fence?

Matt:

Crap! I said that? Why didn’t you stop me?!

Okay, yes, I did say that. Because it’s true. Agile has almost become a religion, and I’m not officially indoctrinated. I’m excited by the ideas, and I’ve tried some of them out as much as I could in a big agency, but I’d definitely like to get my hands dirtier and participate in a process that’s agile from start to finish.

Agile is about making things, and let’s face it, we designers (UX, interaction, interface and web designers that is) don’t make things. We talk, plan and agonise about making things, but we’re not the actual makers. If you work in Photoshop, you’re painting pretty pictures of something someone else will make. If you’re wireframing you’re even further from the action.

I’m personally getting  sick of being so far from the things that are being made, so I’ve been brushing up on my HTML & CSS again, to be as useful as possible in the process of making – to contribute more than just my thoughts to a project. I think as long as designers are willing to drop some of the virtuoso attitude, and get their hands dirty making functional prototypes, they can absolutely enrich and profit from agile processes.

MWNB:

Thanks Matt, see you at the edge.

Last week I was at an inaugural user experience conference in Canberra, UX Australia.  Despite some personal issues, over all this was one kick arse conference.   It really showed that in Australia we have lots of highly educated  and very intelligent UX professionals in terms of speakers and attendees.

You know it is a good conference when you glance over the program and you can see that you have conflicts all over the shop as to what you want to see.  Even when you apply the old rule to go see the sessions that are  outside your comfort zone.

UX in Australia Comes of Age

There was an essence of distinct maturity of the Australian UX community with this conference, that other attendees pointed out as being world class.  We seem, over the years to have stepped up and can now play in the big boys ring.  Not that frankly I can see anyone in Australian UX community really giving a damn about what others think, we do just tend to get out there and just do it, instead of the navel gazing of other overseas UX communities.

It was the small things at UX Australia that transformed it from a good conference to a great conference.   Things like the lolly and fruit bowls on the registration desk, the lightweight but functional recyclable conference bag, excellent food that even I could eat, the useful sponsor bag inserts,  usable program on the lanyard (with social networking stuff) , the use of crowdvine, and a paper notebook with a grid layout in it for note taking.

As usually the conference wasn’t just about the sessions, it’s about the discussions in the corridors and the social events afterwards.  UX Australia was no different, usually in Australia when I attend one of these conferences I know about half the attendees, UX Australia was unique for me this time as a didn’t know most of the people there.   Which was a great opportunity.

The Take Away

Still the core of any good conference is its speakers,  you can live or die on these.  Get it wrong and it can have a major impact on attendees for years to come.   Get it right and it will have the opposite ripple effect.   Now for every session there is usually a few key messages that you can take away, you know those important statements that should echo around it your head for weeks later.    Now I’m not covering every session, just those that resonated with me:

Meet Your Ancestors

Alex Wright

I must have been the only person present, not to have read Alex’s book, Glut.  The talk was interesting, travelling through the heritage of information, from the folk taxonomies of pre written language cultures.  Which for a Celtic history and sociology buff like me wasn’t that new, but it was interesting to see Alex’s take on the topic.   Alex fast tracked through the inventions and theories of the times from the Art of Memory, the Memory Place and the Theatre of Memory through H.G. Wells, Teilhard de Chardin, Paul Otlet and finally Ted Nelson with the introduction of the term “Hypertext”.   Proving that what is new is really just old and maybe we do just work in cycles of rediscovery.   Personally it did re-enforce a lot of material I already knew about, overall it was a good opening keynote  for the conference.   Did make me think twice about bothering with Glut however.

Visualising the User Experience

Darren Menachemson

Darren told us about design visualisations that can be used to show the future solution in operation, and scope out the idea with a visual narrative.  However their use will need the strong support of a internal mentor to maintain the serious nature of the visualisations.  Interestingly comic book style visualisations work well with senior executives.  Still very lo-fi methods can be used like sticky notes, play actors just to get the message across – there are no rules for this method, just the presentation of the content.

More, Better, Faster! Agile design for fun and profile

Matt Balara

Matt discussed very bravely about agile UX, a hot topic at best.  He pointed out that the one big thing with this is that planning on a micro level  doesn’t work with a agile implementation.  Planning is for waterfalls.  How can you plan and give details on something you have not build.  The importance is lots of rapid iterations, sketch, rapid prototype,  fast test (2-3 people) and refine.  Try and use the same group of testers.  Sketch more,  document less, no one reads the documentation tomes. He talked about selling Agile –  Waterfall – bad, it’s very costly, only 32% are on time and budget.  Washing Machine (agile) is good.  Reduces cost – but ensure not too much is at stake with first agile project.

Improving dashboards with open-content sharing

Lachlan Hardy

I enjoyed this session, Lachlan walked us through his experiences, motivations and methodology for redesigning and improving the dashboards for the Atlassian product suites. Now I’m not that familiar with these products, but it was interesting to see his approach and the final results.  One major take away was that one person doing cool work can inspire others  to greatness, as Lachlan proved.

Emerging a user experience strategy

Penny Hagen and Michelle Gilmore

I loved this presentation too, it was just a case study of their work with UNSW and process involved.  But it was the process and their take that was refreshing in that they took hundreds of user stories from various user workshops conducted with their clients.   They grouped and modelled the stories slowly into the high-level activities and finally they prioritising and condensed them down into the final requirements.  In effect the user stories become the requirements, this was UCD at its heart, becoming the business requirements.  Wish I had discussed this more with Penny and Michelle at the time.

101 things (I should have) Learned in interaction design school

Shane Morris and Matt Morphett

This was a nice end to day one, Shane and Matt walked us through the comparisons of Architecture and Interactive design with the help of Matthew Frederick’s book “101 Things I Learned in Architecture School”, this was highly entertaining and amusing -  well I’m never going to look at some calendars the same again.   Also Shane and Matt launched this cool interactive design blog in the session as well.

Being an experience-led organisation

Steve Baty

Steve discussed his work with the YHA, the use of the UxD approach to the selection of IT systems.   I dearly wish I had discussed Steve’s process with him 6 months before as I could have saved a few of my clients some very costly mistakes.   The key was that people had to get inside their customers shoes and extend the experience beyond the single transaction into a welcoming experience, especially if they where a repeat customer.   Nothing really new here, it was just the approach of changing the focus from the business and the staff to the customer as the primary focus that was  so simple but rarely done in practice (well in Perth anyway).

Making Light work of Data

Stephen Hall

Stephen discussed that data rich interfaces don’t have to be that heavy. He reminded us that data is a series of discrete pieces of information.   Data in it self is not information with form.  Discussing that knowledge management  is required for creating data rich interfaces.  Don’t know if I full agree on this one.  He looked at Comprehensible Data and Actionable Data.  Noting that  we do not change the data, we contextualise it.   You have to understand the data enough to be able to expose themes and patterns.  You have to take the time to study and muse over the date.  Waiting for the patterns to appear.

Itsme: Beyond the Desktop metaphor

Guido Parlato

Guido presented a demonstration of itsme, this is different approach to the old boring desktop model. Guido walked us through the design process and logic. He highlighted  the use of the metaphors of “venue” and “story” which was extremely left of field.   This is was a very refreshing approach, best bit is it seems to be working according to the user testing.   Just goes to show that the previous user experience can be shaken off and refocused on new ideas at times.

Cargoo – Interaction Design for a double decker car carrier wagon

Jürgen Spangl

Jürgen’s presentation really made me stop and think.   We really are just sometimes just over engineering you UX solutions.   His team’s simple approach to the problems of the  double-decker cargo train electromechanical systems was amazing.  Just using simple things to prototype was again sketching in it’s rawest form.   It was great to see that it was possible to be involved in such a interactive project. Still one year for the train engineers to build the prototype would drive one batty!

Social Interaction design of social media and RIA case studies

William Evans

Will looked at social experience design, touching on  Identity, Presence, Relationships, Reputation, Groups, Conversations and Sharing (in a Morville’s damn honeycomb).   Was a very good presentation, I could see a number of people’s minds going pop in the session.  Better ways to  consider social experience design, helping with the development of deeper, boarder targeted strategies that focus on the aspects of planning, design and deployment of the relevant social media community platforms and general social networking platforms.  Going to have to think on this one a bit more.

Selling UX

Daniel Szuc

Again another great way to end the day.  For me this was a very important session, as selling UX is the biggest issue I have with the local market.  Daniel spelt it out very plainly, we are just too damn techy, we have to get back to business speak, we have to get back with the people we are working with and understand them as people and business owners.   Sure we have our UX lingo, but that is only good for communicating with other UX professionals.  This is just like the old IT industry.  Sad we have got like this!

UX Australia 2010

I can say I’m looking forward to UX Australia 2010 in Melbourne, which is a city I love!  I have  already pencilled in the week for next year.   How was UX Australia for you.   Did you get the same impression, particularly if it was your first conference.

It’s been a while, but you crazy folks in the Canberra have been hammering on for a Port80 of your own, so in conjunction with the  UX Australia conference the Australian Web Industry Association (AWIA) is going to be holding one of its famous Port80’s with Free Pizza and maybe Free Beer on Tuesday 25 August.

That’s right go mark it on the calendar right now.

So you have no excuse this time to get out and about and come down for a drink, or just pop around after work. I  have been told there is a large web community in Canberra, so I  expect to see all the Canberra AWIA members (and non members too) come on down and enjoy a beer and chat about all things web.  Also you don’t have to be going to  the conference to attend this FREE event.   Just don’t forget to RSVP, as we need to know the number for the venue.

Where: Tongue and Groove (Corner Bunda and Genge St) Map for outta towners (like me)
Time: 6pm
When: Tuesday 25 August 2009
Cost: FREE
RSVP: Go over to FaceBook and RSVP (need to know the numbers for the venue)

I’m told there is lots of room at the Tongue and Groove, and that  Tuesday night is 2-for-1 pizza night at the Tongue and Groove, which is really cool as that means more Pizza for you and me.

Donna Spencer, a Canberrian,  has mentioned that Canberra has some crazy liquor licensing laws.  Seems that the entire establishment including the restaurant area is under one license such that minors are not allowed.   Just remember that one.

I know I’m going to be there, I hope you can join me.

Did I mention that next week I’m jetting off to Canberra for the first time.  For some reason I have never been to Canberra before.   Hopefuly the weather will behave and not be too cold, I hate the cold weather.   As is the normal for me, I have no idea about the  places of interest and the like in Canberra, suppose I can just wing it.

You  would expect with the economy in the toilet and the outlook in some quarters looking a little bleak, that there wouldn’t be a lot of education events like conferences going on around the country.   Usually one of the first things to go on the old corporate (and freelancers) budget is those expensive junkets *cough* conferences.   With people falling back on the more traditional media such as books and free online resources for their professional education requirements.

Interesting thing with conferences is the cost.  For me it’s regularly a plane flight plus accommodation on top of the conference ticket.   This can top out at around $2000 – $3000 per conference, even with early bird or prebooked discount airfares.  That’s also not taking into account lost productivity time, which can be up to week with some conferences.  So as you can see unless I had a very large budget a conference can be an expensive affair. Still I try and get to at least 2 conferences a year.

Just to buck the trend in Australia, there seems to be a stack of conferences, some old, some new that are running this year.   So many that sadly as a conference junky I just can’t get to them all.  If we discount the ones that have already been and gone (like Webstock and WebDU, awesome as they are ) that leaves us with:

• WE Believe in Community

  Sydney, 20 & 21 August 2009

  This is a local government web conference, mainly focusing on the eastern seaboard.  However it one I have been interested in, but it’s always been at the wrong time of the year for me personally. Oh yeah it’s next week too.

• UX Australia

  Canberra, 26 to 28 August 2009

  UX Australia is a new comer on the scene.   This Australian UX conference has had almost all of its major decision made by the UX community themselves, from the speakers on the program, session types, to the location of the social events and the even the lanyards design.   It should be an interesting conference  - Donna and Steve the main organisational protagonists deserve a hat tip for the effort so far.  The Australian Web Industry Association is  holding a free event on the Tuesday before the conference,  more details about that soon,

• OZ-IA

  Sydney, 2 & 3 October 2009

  I was surprised this year that OZ-IA got up, I was under the impression that it wasn’t to be this year.   However Eric has pulled it all together and now has a call for presenters running that closes on Friday 21st August.   So if you have a cool idea for a UX/IA type presentation, drop Eric an email.  If it repeats the performance of previous years it’ll be the Information Architecture conference in Australia to go to.

• Web Directions South

  Sydney, 6 to 9 October 2009

  This conference is now considered  the main stay of the Australian conference circuit.   This year  John and Maxine have put together a very relevant list of kick arse speakers, all on the top of their game; cementing Web Directions as the generalist Australian web conference not to be missed.  Okay I’m a little  bias as I am a regular attendee.

• Edge of the Web

  Perth, 4 to 6 November 2009

  In its second year, this web conference from Perth believes in the total conference experience for it’s delegates.   It always seems to surprise with its keynote speakers and range of speakers from around Australia. Also what I love about Edge of the Web, for once I don’t have to fly or find accommodation. Disclaimer – I am on the committee for the Australian Web Industry Association who organise the Edge of the Web.

• OZCHI

  Melbourne, 23 to 27 November 2009

  This conference is another one of those that I want to go to, but it just seems I can’t make the budget dollar for the conferences go that far, and OZCHI regularly gets the chop.  OZCHI is the baby of Australian Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group. I have been told its a little bit more academically focused from a usability, UX, IA view than most UX conferences of this ilk in Australia.  I have also heard it can be very dry in content, but then others have said that it is very enlightening.   I suppose only getting along to it will really allow me to cement my opinion.

So that’s it, the ones in my radar,  I’m bound to have left some off,  if so let me know, can’t remember them all, they are so many.

I love getting parcels in the post,  you know they rock up with the postal courier, often weeks to months after you have ordered them, sometimes after they have slipped your mind.  So it’s a bit of a nice surprise when they do arrive.

Well the other day a free book, Dan Saffer’s Designing Gestural Interfaces arrived from  the Web Directions crew, John and Maxine.   Seems they are giving away books for a limited time until March 13th.  All you have to do is go register for the Web Directions Roadshow.   Easy, eh.

So what’s so special about this series of workshops. Well for me it’s that there are  some leading edge UX and design practitioners, Andy Clarke, Lisa Herrod and Indi Young giving a series of one day workshops, best bit they are moving around the east coast, three cities over a week.

I’ll be rocking into Melbourne on Monday 20th April for the first day of workshops, so don’t be shy come up and say hello.

A big thank you John and Maxine, the arrive of this book, made my day. Sometimes it’s just the little things that make these moments so special.