San Francisco is an amazing place when compared to Los Angeles. Down south, they flaunt their wealth and influence; here, it’s almost an afterthought, something mentioned after the second beer. You never know who you’re going to run into, from the restaurants you eat at to the bars you drink at. I’ve spend many a conversation with someone that would have kind words (or not so kind words) for the elite of the digirati.
I’ve had Foursquare mayorship battles over bars with ex VC’s (I’m so hopelessly behind but someday it’s going to make a great story that I’ll be able to tell here), and drinking buddies have referred me to Engineering VP’s of startups to talk shop. I’ve debated privacy with experts from the Department of Homeland Security, and talked mobile with more people than you can list.
All while wearing jeans and a sweater.
Part of the experience of living in The City (and just outside of it) is meeting people you would never meet anywhere else. Jason Shen works next door to one of the clients. He has an amazing blog, and this is one of his post (and not even the best). He gets startups.
Some people don’t like living with people in the same industry – but I bet a lot of those folks just hate their jobs (ie: most lawyers & investment bankers). I love it. When I get home in the evenings, I get to geek out about interesting Hacker News posts, debate Facebook valuations (I’m a little bearish, Randy is quite bullish) and get recommendations cool web apps that make my life more awesome. Plus startup folks tend to know interesting people – I’ve met and made friends with some really cool people through my roommates.
This kind of sweet roommate situation doesn’t happen by accident. It takes some work and planning. My roommates and I have spent many many hours making sure that we really mesh with the people in our apartment. Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned from these experiences…
Full article here. Suggest more.
They are the most valuable UX person in the world.
“Design well, my friend.”
Immediately after I posted the previous entry, a good friend of mine mentioned a few more ways to be a respected member of the community. It really is a positive. People call you for your opinion, the number of twitter followers you have is a clear distinction that you’re working at your craft.
One recruiter called my “marketing” materials a clear indication that I “got” it. And employers love consultants and employees that “get” it.
Anyone can start a blog.
Not just anyone can get paid to write a blog post on someone else’s dime, and I’m not including content farms like Demand Media. That’s the difference between being a writer just promoting yourself and being a published author who’s respected for their opinion.
I’m not saying I’m getting rich selling articles to Freelance Switch, but there’s a big difference between user-generated content that a blog needs and being considered a respected voice in the community that is paid to write for a blog. For the amount of time I spent thinking of this article, I’m getting paid way below market rate for my services.
That doesn’t matter.
I’m getting paid, and that’s a clear line of distinction. Advertisers are paying for my services. Yadda yadda yadda.
There’s nothing more of an ego boost than someone contacting you to ask, “I’d like to interview you for this article I’m writing. Are you available?” Of course you are. When can we schedule the call?
This bit of promotion is amazing for Search Engine Optimization. If you’re being interviewed, citied as a source, and they’re linking to your site, that’s free publicity! When potential clients call and ask how important you are, all you have to do is send them links of people that have written proof that you’re a big wheel in your small corner of the World Wide Web.
Best of all, it’s not your mom that’s writing about that odd career you have inbetween art conservation postings. It’s someone else that’s claiming themselves as an expert in your field. Instant validation.
Think of it as a Foursquare badge that actually means something. Not only have you checked in with knowledge, the bartender vouches that you’re a nice guy and is offering to buy you a drink.
Scott Berkun, author of three best-selling books, has some great comments about writing a book. The reality is that anyone can do it:
Here’s the short honest truth: 20% of the people who ask me are hoping to hear this –Anyone can write a book. They want permission. Truth is you don’t need any. There is no license required. No test to take. Writing, as opposed to publishing, requires almost no financial or physical resources. A pen, a paper, and effort are all that has been required for hundreds of years. If Voltaire and Marquis de Sade could write in prison, then you can do it in suburbia, at lunch at work, or after your kids go to sleep.
Writing a book is much more time consuming that writing a blog.
I’m writing this entry from Caffe Greco in San Francisco, and it’s going to take me an hour. It’s special treat, pounding out about 800, er, 900 words, er 1,000 words. I enjoy writing the blog; because I worked in Journalism in my past, and it’s the only chance I get to use semi-colons.
Now imagine doing this for next 125 days over the next year. Writing when you’re happy. Writing when you’re bored. Writing when the words don’t come out anymore. Writing when your publisher is screaming at you because the book is three weeks late and you’re 500 pages away.
Dan Saffer has a great post about writing fiction (and why he won’t do it again). There were some core truths there, but I had the same conversation with J. Ambrose Little. You don’t write technology books to become rich, you write them so when you interview, the interviewer says, “So you wrote a book — when can you start?”
That sentence alone trumps a lot of things, like “I learned all my absolute statements from Jacob Nielsen” and “I have a masters in HCI.”
It doesn’t even have to sell — at all. It’s a great portfolio piece than speaks to your dedication to the field, even if the book sucks (and I’ve received a few books that have absolutely sucked).
Public speaking is hard. Real hard. I’ve done it a few times (I’m not great at it and tend to do better on panels versus sole presentations).
What’s the best way to learn?
Start small.
Pick topics that are different enough that no one’s repeated it but interesting enough not to bore 50 people. Call local User Experience event organizers, local Marketing organizations, anyone that would benefit from having a user experience professional speak at the event.
I would also have a blog or a Twitter feed, because a presenter that’s only presenting themselves at an event is Big Hat, No Cattle — nothing to back up their reputation. I spoke at an event and there was someone sitting next to me on a panel that had no experience in the topic they were speaking about. That’s just frustrating. I want to be surrounded by speakers than put in as much work in the field as I do.
Construct a PowerPoint that is entertaining but could be understood by your mom (seriously). Don’t use UX speak — use English. Short sentences that are easy to understand.
And practice, practice, practice.
It’s best to do a dry run in front of about five to seven people. Co-workers are perfect during a lunch you buy them, and then do it in front of the group. The first few times you do it, you’ll get two feelings: am I a good public speaker, and do I want to do this again?
I’ll speak occasionally, but there are much better public speakers than me. I enjoy my corner of the World Wide Web. Do you?
There are two truths about me: I travel a lot, and I lose a lot of things while I travel.
I don’t bother bringing liquids with me, and I’ve lost two iPhones on business trips. There’s nothing more frustrating than constantly losing things. If my head weren’t attached, I’m sure I would have left it in Portland.
This weekend, I arrived home at San Francisco International Airport, and my wallet was in Seattle-Tacoma International Airport at Gate A6. On the floor.
I was left with exactly one dollar more than I needed to get to my car by cab.
By Tuesday morning, I had my wallet, with cash and credit cards intact, thanks to Twitter and the wonderful customer service representatives at Virgin America.
Here’s what happened:
I boarded the fight. After a 10 minute search for my wallet through my luggage, and realized that I didn’t have it. I did have my drivers license, because I took it out at the gate. I ordered something at a snack bar, so I had change. I knew it was near the gate area and grabbed my computer out of my luggage.
I opened my laptop and logged in to Virgin America’s WiFi service (I think it’s GoGoFlight).
I had used it once before, so I was lucky enough to have my credit card information in their system. I don’t worry about them having my information, because it’s more secure than at a hotel bar. One click, and I was surfing to Twitter.
What went right: I could get on WiFi on the plane.
What could have been better: The free Facebook service was cool, but it would have been better if I could have reached Twitter or Virgin’s customer service for free.
Finding their customer service on Twitter was super, super easy. I typed in Virgin America, and it was evident their service was used for more than just pushing out fare sales. No wacky handles. No super cool messages. Just @VirginAmerica and “we can help you.”
Real humans with real thoughts (and not angry comments because they are getting paid horrible wages) correspond with customers in a way that makes you feel that they care about the service they provide.
Within two traded messages, Virgin America sent me the contact information of Seattle’s baggage service. Additionally, they gave my phone number to the customer service representatives in Seattle, and by the time I landed, I had voice mail that they had found the wallet. All I had to do was call back, and I would have the wallet the next day — not like some far off tale like my luggage being sent to Hong Kong.
What went right: Everything. It could have gone faster had I followed @VirginAmerica earlier, like two minutes faster. Shame on Twitter for making me wait.
What could have been better: Not much. The tone of the message made me feel that Virgin America cared about keeping me as a customer.
After a few phone calls, I got a hold of one of their customer service representative (I was impatient with the voicemail). They correctly identified my wallet and made a special effort to get the wallet back to me the next morning, this included driving off-site (get this — the FedEx airport pick up time had past, but their later location was a mile away) to deliver the wallet.
The only odd request is that I had to have a FedEx account number to have it sent back to me. This wasn’t so hard, because I have one. But if you didn’t have one, this would have required signing up at FedEx.com.
Within five minutes I had the number to Virgin America, and they FedEx’ed the wallet that evening in time to be delivered the next day.
What went right: They were fully aware how this interaction went, and knew how important this was.
What could have been better: Ironically, it was FedEx that failed here. I downloaded the FedEx application on the iTunes store, and low and behold, there’s no easy place to find the account number on the application. The user has to sign-in to FedEx.com to find the account number. FedEx FAIL, yo.
I love Virgin America and how they embrace technology to solve human interaction. I don’t have to threaten them within in an inch of a blog posting, and they don’t overcharge to certain destinations. They don’t leave cats in cargo holds to die, and offer $50 for the reimbursement (what would that tweet look like?).
I love the first class upgrades, the great service, the ambiance of the flights that makes it feel comfortable. But every time I’ve gone, they’ve made it a special event — from the time I met Stevie Wonder at their Los Angeles terminal to getting great service in a dire time of need.
This customer experience couldn’t have gone much better. They are fully aware that even in times when a customer could be angry (my flight was delayed by almost two hours because SFO is the gift that keeps giving), a customer can have a great experience, reinforcing the brand.
Read this again: their social media strategy reinforces the brand. How many brands can say that?
It always shocks me when someone says, “Hey, I read your blog.”
Three people read my blog (one is my mother), but there’s a substantial number of followers that recognize me from time to time — plus sporting a goatee and wearing a lime green sweater to events help too. Thing of beauty, baby! I love lime green.
The blog is self-defense. When things aren’t going so well, it’s free marketing and takes my mind off my ever-dwindling checking account. When things are going well, it can only make things better. People do value your opinions, good or bad, and the way they value it is with their feet.
I’ve gotten work through the blog, which only happens when you have a blog.
It’s also a great way to grow a career.
Most recruiters with the best jobs are looking for some kind of verification that you know what you are doing. Social recruiting platforms like Jobvite look at all kinds of things like your social profile on the web. All kinds of things come up during web search results, and recruiters aren’t looking just for your resume. They want to see where you are on the web. Social is now an important piece of the search.
(How do I know this? I work there. Duh. CareerBuilder has me as the number #2 search result for User Experience in the United States. How?)
This list isn’t all inclusive, but also doesn’t involve looking like an idiot on Quora.
Here’s a few things I would do if I wanted to increase my influence as a User Experience professional:
I run a feed on Twitter. I don’t get a ton of followers. I think it’s close to 1,700 or so. Most of them are here for my good looks and rather dry, but understood by people living north of Columbus Avenue, sense of humor.
Running a Twitter feed is much easier than writing really, really long blog posts, which I tend to do (read: this one).
Whenever you find an interesting article, tweet it. Whenever you see an interesting tweet, retweet. If you have something really funny to say, say it.
I’ve been running the gag of “Internet, definitely a fad” for the last twelve years or so. I’ve lost followers because they complained about my inane posts. I’m also the number one result on Google for it. That’s great SEO.
People will find you if you tweet interesting content. The best part: you don’t even write it. Other people will supply the content. It isn’t the amount of followers you have (geez, Ryan Seacrest has close to 3,900,000 followers, and how could he — or his producers — have anything interesting to say?), it’s the quality of followers.
Dan Saffer runs a really funny feed that occasionally has great content. He’s got a lot of UX followers.
Semantic Will is even funnier.
Jared Spool is funny in Europe. Kind of like the Hoff, except with less hair and wears glasses.
People love funny, especially when you’re talking about radio buttons and multi-select menus. It’s when they’re laughing you can stick some truth down their throat (who’s the comedian that said it?).
It’s easy. Go to Dreamhost, pay the hosting, and install. Smashing Magazine has a ton of great WordPress themes that will look great yet out of context for your opinions online.
You don’t have to post all the time (I post something of substance about once a week). But it’s out there because it’s great SEO. Post something. Post anything. It could be other content. It could be something you retweeted (Even better! Free content!). It might be a short note about your dog. But blog, blog, blog.
Why?
Being able to communicate in some kind of written form is an awesome skill to have.
Coding Horror has a great blog post about programmer communication skills. I think this applies to everyone in the technical field, because it’s hard communicating ideas concisely. Writing reinforces that. It you want to move your career ahead, write a lot and learn how to express your thoughts.
Need more examples?
One of the best writers I’ve ever read is Joel Spolsky. He writes Joel On Software. His is some of the best prose I’ve ever seen on software development. He’s influenced thousands of people. He’s sold a book, which is almost exact copy of his blog (smart man!).
I’m convinced good writing is easier that public speaking, so a great way to get your ideas out there is starting a blog. Sometimes, the blog is picked up by someone cool (I’m listed in Alltop under User Interface and Social Media). Sometimes I appear on other blogs.
I hate networking.
I really, really hate networking.
Did I mention I hate networking?
I was at an event the other day, and I remembered how much I hate it because I’m not extroverted. I’ve learned how to fake it (a friend of mine called it “turning it on”), so I could at least hand out a business card shamelessly and start a conversation with someone.
There’s a number of different conversations you could start at the events: “So do you follow the school of Cooper (‘personas rock!’) or Nielsen (‘Flash is 128 percent bad’)?” You can talk about travel or even talk about projects you’re working on. The more knowledge you pass on, the more people respect you.
The more things you do selflessly (I sponsor events like UX Eye for the Developer Guy and Barcamp LA), people will also respect you.
Eventually, it will lead to great employment and consulting opportunities.
For me, it’s lead to both getting work and finding work for people that needed it. For UX consultants now, I go to meetups in San Francisco and there will be four or five companies looking for professionals to help them out.
The need to invest in your career doesn’t end in college.
Very few of us get to work on ideas that involve technology outside of our core skill set without some client blindly trusting us to do it well. The best way to do something cool — ya know — do mobile, for example, do the unthinkable.
Come up with something and get it built.
If you manage the project correctly and do something simple, you can do some really, really cool stuff without going broke. My Pick An Excuse application is an example of something that was simple, didn’t cost me a lot (relatively), and got what I needed — experience in mobile.
The idea is kind of lame, but I’ve done something thousands of other user experience professionals haven’t done: released an application on the Apple iPhone Store. It brings chuckles at events, but it also brings something else:
More projects.
The application has already paid for itself.
What have you done for your career lately?
There are various reasons why usability problems exist in the first place—some simple and some complex. Identifying problems and recommending solutions is not always enough. Unfortunately, the same factors that cause problems in the first place also hinder their getting fixed. The following are some of the most common reasons why usability problems don’t get fixed.
“Identifying problems and recommending solutions is not always enough. Unfortunately, the same factors that cause problems in the first place also hinder their getting fixed.”
Seems that we software product managers and marketers are not so different. In fact, we are way worse. If a software company has shipped product for more than 5 years, the product/package/price list probably has 100+ lines, each with its own method of calculating price and with multiple dependencies between items.
And we are thereby annoying the heck our customers. The complexity of our product lines:
- Forces repeat customers to spend time they don’t have researching purchases for products that they already know quite well
- Increases customers’ workload, by preventing them from delegating the purchase
- Makes customers feel like they’re being taken advantage of
- Makes customers feel like they’re not being respected or understood.
Seems like common sense…here’s what Don Norman says:
I found the traditional “white goods” most interesting: Refrigerators and washing machines. The store obviously had the Korean companies LG and Samsung, but also GE, Braun, and Philips. The Korean products seemed more complex than the non-Korean ones, even though the specifications and prices were essentially identical. “Why?” I asked my two guides, both of whom were usability professionals. “Because Koreans like things to look complex,” they responded. It is a symbol: it shows their status.
…
Why is this? Why do we deliberately build things that confuse the people who use them?
Answer: Because the people want the features. Because simplicity is a myth whose time has past, if it ever existed.
There’s a certain audience that loves Apple’s pricing model for OS upgrades. And there’s another audience that wants to drive to the price that fits their needs (Microsoft). And they want to be told about every feature that’s in the product, whether they are going to use it or not (Check out BlackBerry’s site if you want a perfect example).
Users want a pleasurable experience, but they want things, as Don Norman points out:
Marketing rules – as it should, for a company that ignores marketing is a company soon out of business. Marketing experts know that purchase decisions are influenced by feature lists, even if the buyers realize they will probably never use most of the features. Even if the features confuse more than they help.
What’s your poison?
Or, Design Your Own Mobile Application With These Nine Easy Steps…
2011 is the year of mobile.
This year is the tipping point that’s really going to turn the World Wide Web into a “platform doesn’t matter” medium. If you’re doing User Experience and you don’t have a mobile app in your portfolio, you’d better get cracking.
We’ve been working on a few applications as prototypes (iPad, iPhone, and Android), and I’m at version 1.1 of Pick An Excuse (finally iOS 3 compatible). I’ve made a few mistakes along the way but have found that designing apps for mobile devices isn’t that difficult.
If you have even an inkling of an idea, you should work on your own application — just for the experience. Mobile applications are just that — applications — aren’t as hard to design as you would think.
I do all my best user research at the local bars here in San Francisco, California. It’s a fairly connected crowd, and there’s always someone that has a device out. They always have an opinion about their phone, because people identify with their devices more so than other technology. Think about it, when’s the last time anyone talked about what television brand they own?
Watching people use devices at Tony Nik’s is one of my favorite pastimes. They send instant messages, answer emails, and check on local restaurants, all while having a Dark and Stormy. Fascinating.
Why?
It’s because of the context. They aren’t sitting at home eating Bon Bon’s while using the phone, they’re at a bar, at a restaurant, at work, or somewhere else. The phone may not be the primary focus of their attention.
The fun thing about it is that all I have to do is ask a few questions, and they’ll tell me everything they love about their device — without having to buy them a drink.
There’s nothing worse than downloading an application that’s overly complicated. I was asked to download an application that did some really cool things, but it required quite a few clicks to get around. It was obvious the developers weren’t optimizing for the user experience and was stuffing as much functionality in the app as possible. Sometimes the best applications do one thing really well.
My advice: come up with something that’s silly or fun and that doesn’t have any profit potential whatsoever. My application is a wonderful conversation starter that compels me to grab people’s iPhones and download the application (and I’ll be doing the same for Android too!).
Additionally, set a budget for how much you want to spend. There’s nothing that makes you want to limit the feature set more than spending your own money.
It’s a phone!
It’s for talking (or texting) to people!
It’s a social device!
It’s connected to the Internet, dammit!
The Pick An Excuse application is extremely social. You can send excuses to friends, share on Facebook, tweet excuses, and send them as texts. Most of the best mobile applications have some kind of social component (Foursquare, Facebook) that allows for some kind of integration and/or mashup.
There’s also a ton of services out there that have almost open APIs that allow you to pull in interesting data. For example, Yelp! allows you to pull in reviews as long as you credit them. Foursquare has a bunch of APIs. There are many ways you can create an application that pulls data from different sources, make it fun, and have it seem complete and polished.
There’s nothing worse than pulling up a website, and you can’t read the small type on a mobile device.
You’re designing for a device that’s not much bigger than the size of a business card. Additionally, Most of the applications that should be designed for it need to be able to be used with one hand. There’s always the other hand holding the device, so designing for simple interactions is they key. Swiping is good, typing is not.
Surfing the web or using an application is a completely different experience. Certain things don’t work. For example, you can’t really hover over things, so you don’t have to design for those interactions. Lots and lots of typing is a pain in the neck on most devices too, so you have to simplify purchasing to the exact information you need. Large websites are a bad idea, because too many clicks mean pages that will never be visited.
The design has to be flexible too (Oh my god, we’re back to multiple browsers! At least most of them are using WebKit), but it’s mostly around the width of the device to make sure things line up.
One of the troubling things I find about a lot of mobile applications is the need to design a “different” user experience. Apple has provided this wonderful library of features, icons and user experience guidelines, and yet I see applications that have icons in a different location and custom actions that aren’t nearly as easy as they should be. Let’s be honest, Apple knows better.
Unless you’re designing a game that requires an immersive experience, using a paradigm that’s different from all other applications means the user is going to have to relearn your application.
That’s not necessarily a good thing.
Apple’s gone to the trouble of producing top notch guidelines that almost guarantee a good user experience. The closer you get to the standards, the better chance you have getting the application approved on the first try (I did). That’s very important in keeping the cost down.
Why reinvent the wheel (and piss off Steve Jobs in the process)?
One of the big assumptions about developing for mobile is that the applications have to be in the iPhone application store to gain traction. It helps, but it’s not true. As the mobile revolution takes place, you’ll see more and more websites that have a separate display for mobile devices.
Granted, most of them aren’t very good now (go to MSNBC now to see an example), but as time goes on, people will get better at designing for mobile.
One of the next applications I’ve been working on is actually a mix of web and native. We’re using the WebKit container to display the content and native functionality for some of the features. It creates this interesting hybrid where you have the flexibility of the web with some of the speed of a native applications. For example, we’re caching many of the images and the CSS.
Even though it’s technically a web page, it looks like a iPhone application.
And that’s cool.
The best thing about the device is that it can connect to the Internet. That means you can mock up the user experience with simple HTML pages, and test it on your phone. Apple has produced a kick-ass guide for developing for the iPhone, and you can replicate much of the experience as you would have with a native application in HTML. You can come up with the idea yourself in rough form, and then show it to a developer when done and say, “Hey, this is what I want built.” There’s nothing better than a visual example.
Mock it up.
Test it with friends.
Repeat.
Because it’s a mockup, it doesn’t have to be perfect, but you have a pretty good idea if it’s going to work or not. That way, you can work out some of the ideas before you get to development, and that will save you time and, most importantly, money.
Here’s my story:
The worst thing about new technology is there are all these small details you have to consider before implementation. I ran into that with the first application I designed, Pick An Excuse.
The implementation went well. I gave them pixel perfect mockups, and for the most part, the implementation went pretty smooth.
And then…
The application was designed for iOS 4, which cut out half of the market. There wasn’t a single iOS 4 feature. A bunch of my friends wanted to download the application, but couldn’t. The application didn’t have a single feature in it that required iOS 4, yet I had to pay my offshore firm to downgrade it.
This was because I didn’t discuss what I wanted exactly at the very beginning. It would have been nice if that was a question I was asked during development, but it wasn’t.
The solution: get a strong technical architect that you can discuss every detail with. Devil is in the details especially in the mobile world. I have one now, and we discuss everything about the experience. He’s great, because he fights for the user too.
Remember, it’s your passion project (and your money).
Have fun with it. Experiment and play, because there’s nothing better than pulling out your phone out at a bar.
Patrick Neeman is Director of User Experience at Jobvite, a social recruiting platform and runs both the UX Drinking Game and Startup Drinking Game | More | Contact
If you're a UX Designer in San Francisco, ping me at Twitter. I want to add you to a list I have there.
