People First Design

Personal vs. Personable Experience

Design, Design Philosophy, Human-Centered, Industry, Opinion No Responses »

Feb 142012

Per the norm – the following thoughts are just those – thoughts. I don’t claim the following to have perfect rationale or even be well-written.

INTRO – NOW IT’S PERSONAL
The new (or maybe not so new) hot phrase in design – especially for consumer design is providing a “personal experience.” Lots and lots and LOTS of data is collected and used to provide a unique experience for consumers. The goal is to provide relevant information and options when someone encounters a website or application. But it also has crept into customer service on the phone, ordering food in a restaurant, or checking out at the local store. Employees at McDonald’s ask for your name so they can directly thank you later, and cashiers at KMart are required to ask for email addresses, zip codes, and phone numbers so you can be targeted for personalized messaging.

And sure, using all this information surely will make it possible to deliver service and experiences that are tailored to the individual.

PERSONAL VS. PERSONABLE
There is a lot of market and consumer research that quotes consumers as saying that they want “more personal experiences”. But I believe this is misinterpreted. I believe that what people truly crave isn’t a website, customer service system, or checkout process that knows who they are and responds accordingly. I think what people really mean when they say they want personal experiences is that they want to be treated like a person – with respect for their time, their culture, their opinions, and their beliefs. They want their consumer experiences to be “personable” – not personal.
Continue reading »

Information: Windows Is Always Present-To-Hand

Critique, Design, Opinion, Uncategorized No Responses »

Apr 282011

Fair warning: Light-hearted sarcasm and Heidegger ahead

I recently purchased a desktop PC and opted for Windows 7 – and after only 2 system crashes, 2 reinstalls, and a BIOS change to the boot order so the computer wouldn’t try to boot from the USB wireless adapter – I have been merrily chugging along on my new Windows 7 adventure.

And apparently Windows wants to make sure that I don’t ever make any kind of mistake on my adventure, EVER. On this adventure they will monitor every single thing I do, and give me constant feedback about every tiny change that happens to the system while I use the computer. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing the first time I unplugged my earphones:

Co-Creation and Designing With Others

Design, Design Philosophy, Industry, Opinion No Responses »

Apr 162011

As I have said many times before, I don’t subscribe to the notion that design within an organization should be something that the one “creative person” or group of “creative people” should solely be responsible for. Ever since my final semester of graduate school and into my professional career in User Experience design, I have been driven by a desire to remove the “mystery” of design and make the process more transparent. Continue reading »

UX Beacons

Design, Design Philosophy, Industry, Opinion No Responses »

Mar 262011

Previously I posted a link to my colleague Matt Snyder’s blog post about Design Thinkers vs. Design Keepers. Since then there has been a lively and lengthy discussion in the comments section regarding how designers are viewed in the industry by non-designers, how designers view themselves, and the role of a designer and whether or not the designer is ultimately responsible for the outcome of a product. My two cents to the conversation are as follows:

In an organization responsible for building and selling a digital/software product, there are hundreds of people who affect the final outcome. Continue reading »

People are not to blame for bad privacy decisions

Critique, Design, Human-Centered, Opinion 4 Responses »

May 152010

We are at a point in history where technology is forcing us to re-evaluate our understanding of privacy. However, too often the conversation looks like this, which was taken from the comments section of an article about Facebook:

“If you really don’t want to share….DONT PUT IT ON THE NET!”

I am not a technological determinist, but we are crazy if we don’t realize that there is a lot of pressure to put things on the Internet. And we can’t just blame people for being uninformed. People do it because they don’t feel like they have much of a choice due to the impending social pressures of being “on Facebook.” Of course they do have a choice, just like how we have a choice not to fill out every single field when we create one of our hundreds of profiles in the digital sphere. But there are a lot of people who happily fill out every single field, unknowingly giving away lots of information that they don’t have to, because that is what the interface is telling them that it wants. Of course we should try to inform ourselves about these things, but we can’t really expect every person to become “Facebook literate.” Continue reading »

"Play Money" and RMT is why I will never play MMORPGs again.

Critique, Games, Opinion, Readings No Responses »

May 142010

I just got finished reading Play Money: Or, How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot by Julian Dibbell, and I must say that no book in recent memory has riled me up so much.

Don’t get me wrong – I am not angry because I am naive about virtual worlds and their economies. As matter of fact I am fascinated by real money trade in virtual worlds, and I understand economics well enough to see that real money trade is not only an inevitable facet of virtual worlds, but is in some ways a beneficial one. Having attended Indiana University, I have even had the pleasure of sitting down with Edward Castronova, author of Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games, and who was mentioned several times in Dibbell’s book. And I agree with both of those guys that the production and trade of virtual goods should be viewed more seriously as a legitimate economy. However, because of this I also think that people who hack and exploit code in order to make money should face harsher consequences that just having an account banned. Continue reading »

Facebook needs human-centered design

Advice, Critique, Design, Human-Centered, Opinion No Responses »

May 132010

The most recent user uproar against Facebook and its increasingly cryptic privacy settings spurred the New York Times to collect questions from concerned users and posed them to Elliot Schrage, vice president for public policy at Facebook. He responded quite eloquently in this recent article, but unsurprisingly his words have done little to calm the masses.

It has taken me a long time to figure out what I think about Facebook, and I have read enough articles to make me yearn for a nice 20-page End User License Agreement. In this post I will respond to the Schrage article from my perspective as a human-centered designer, in the hopes of shining a light on why Facebook never seems to get it right.

For many people, Facebook represents the way they define their lives, and I mean that to be as profound as it sounds. Because of this, Facebook should seek to cultivate a better understanding of society and culture – Facebook as a social space in 2010 is a far cry from its origins in 2003′s Facemash. I may be wrong, but it seems that Facebook understands people and culture with all the nuance of a 19 year-old Mark Zuckerberg illegally accessing student information and photos in order to evaluate students based on if they were “good-looking.” Continue reading »

Capstone Presentation Video

Capstone, Design, Games, Projects No Responses »

May 132010

I recently finished my Master’s Capstone presentation and will be adding it to my portfolio when I get the chance. In the meantime I have made a video of the final presentation available. There is an introduction by Marty Siegel followed by my presentation and some follow up questions.

Also, here is the poster for my final design:

WoW Capture: HCI/d Master's Capstone

Random stuff I found on Sticky Notes

Design, Human-Centered, Opinion, Reflection No Responses »

Apr 212010

I recently went through a bunch of notes I found on my computer. All of them look to be the beginnings of blog posts, but I thought it would might be fun to throw them all together in one blog post and expand up on them later. (And then I can delete them from my computer!) Anyway here they go in no particular order: Continue reading »

How do you improve or update your knowledge on user experience design?

Advice, Design, Design Philosophy, Opinion No Responses »

Apr 212010

Someone asked that question on LinkedIn in the User Experience group. The author of the question also went on to say:

“Some people read books, some write or share their experience or thoughts on blogs or by simply reading some famous author’s blogs to upgrade their knowledge. Share your most preferred blogs or books to improve and update latest trends on User experience.”

This is a common question to find on LinkedIn or on forums like IXDA. However, I typically find that these are the wrong kind of questions to ask, especially since the question is concerned with “the latest trends.” Also, responders almost always view user experience or interaction design as web design, software usability, or graphic design (a dilemma that isn’t likely to go away anytime soon). Indeed it does include these things, but I feel to do it well one must take a broader perspective of what it means to design technology. In any case, I thought my response to this question was decent, so I decided to re-work it here. Continue reading »

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