Adaptive Path Blog

Traveling abroad can be a challenge to the emotions, senses, patience and pocketbook. I’ve traveled a considerable amount over the years, but my current venture is probably the most complex to date. Three weeks, 4 countries, 5 cities and somehow a daunting 8 different hotels (long story). Before you start thinking Adaptive Path is cruel for making me do this, I’ll be very clear in saying this was all my own doing. Facilitating workshops at 2 conferences, visiting friends on weekends and arranging meetings with industry colleagues during the week - all my choice and I’m enjoying it all too! Well, actually, to be honest, what I’m not enjoying is the harrowing logistics of traveling and being away from familiar foods, surroundings, family and friends.

I will spare you my whining about the logistics (apologies to folks following me on Twitter, you get it instead!)

However, what has been going well on this trip is the vast amount of tools available to stay connected with the office, family and friends. I set up my travel plans before I left on Tripit and Dopplr and have shared with friends and colleagues. Tripit was critical in showing me I had somehow forgot to book a few days accommodation during part of this complex trip. Each night, at day’s end, I’ve been reading Twitter to catch up on friends and colleagues (I don’t receive Tweets on my phone because SMS’s are so expensive). I’m also viewing my contacts’ Flickr streams and uploading my own photos every few days. When I’m using the computer, I keep iChat on and get to see who’s online and what they might be up to based on their status. It’s familiar and brings me comfort to see their routines continue while I’m unable to have my own routine. Although the challenge has been coordinating the best time to call, my husband and I have been using Skype to have long conversations every few days - essentially for free. He sounds like he’s literally right next to me. I’ve been able to pay bills online through online banking as well as make sure I have enough funds in my ATM account and see the exchange rate and fees within a matter of minutes of a transaction. Of course there’s email for contact with the office, but I’m also using our internal wiki to share what I’m up to with colleagues back at the office too. For coordinating with folks in the local areas, I’ve been using email, SMS and saved maps on Google maps. There seems to be enough free wifi in London to also connect my iPhone for an occasional map  look up for a nearby restaurant or Tube stop.

All in all the software technology has been very supportive. I find it odd that the virtual world of the internet has been extremely helpful, but the real world, face-to-face interactions and logistics are still a huge and sometimes daunting challenge. Why is it that we can create these services to stay connected, but still cannot take care of the basic necessities of travel? Is there anyone out there willing to fix the logistics of travel?

I can also see more clearly why people are using the internet to interact and connect rather than endure face to face interactions. Somehow looking foolish in the virtual world is easier to take in the privacy of your own room than having the same thing happen to you while standing in front of total strangers at the street corner, unfamiliar restaurant, hotel lobby, public transit ticket counter, etc.

Share This

Yesterday at MEX, one of the speakers showed an industrial and interaction conceptual design from many years ago that was remarkably similar to confidential work I’ve seen created during the same timeframe. Two different companies, two continents, similar results. The only reason the speaker was able to show the work was because the client finally agreed to submit the concept into competitions, but that’s only because a big part of their concept looks a lot like something that is in the marketplace: Apple’s Coverflow (album & image interface invented by Andrew Coulter Enright).

Consumer electronics (CE) companies are trying so hard to keep everything confidential and proprietary and yet I continue to see design concepts from the same point in time, emerging from different teams, working for different companies and sometimes even in different cultures. How is that possible? How can designers who’ve never met design a similar product? My colleague, Dan Saffer, pointed me to an article by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker that speaks to this very thing. Ideas are “in the air. … The history of science is full of ideas that several people had at the same time.” 

From my perspective, I’ve seen that design teams, working in separate silos, look outward to color and form trends, natural behaviors, and historical and cultural context for inspiration (let alone consumer ethnographic research). Each team internalizes the information as inspiration to inform the product designs. Because the designs are influenced by outside forces of trends, culture and human need, they end up very similar across many separate teams. Essentially, if we are doing our jobs as designers, our work is going to be representative of our surroundings at a moment in time. This then begs the question: Why bother with the confidentiality agreements?

I’m so f*^#ing tired of not being able to share the work I’m most proud of with my peers. There are so many lessons to learn from past work and yet it’s all wasting away under piles of NDA’s. It’s even more frustrating when we extrapolate just how many other designers worldwide have concepts that will also never see the light of day.

What I find fascinating about this is CE companies think that somehow ideas can be contained within confidentiality agreements, but in actuality the ideas are coming from outside influences that reach beyond any contract. 

As design becomes a bigger part of product differentiation for CE companies, we designers, as the creators of these innovations, need to work harder to 1) keep ownership of our unused concepts and 2) to show the concepts to the design community in a timely manner. I believe that true design innovation will occur at a much faster pace if conceptual designs are shared. And if we’re designing products from a human-need perceptive, we can make improvements to the world at a faster pace too. Imagine that.

Share This

As I previously posted, I’ll be speaking in Europe soon, first in London at MEX 27-28 May and then in Malmö at From Business to Buttons 12-13 June.

In between I’m arranging meetings with some of our European partners/clients in London, Amsterdam and Copenhagen. I’m also hoping to meet up with folks in the local UX communities to geek-out on our mutual passion: experience design.

If you’d like to get together to talk about possible projects with Adaptive Path or simply to chat about the industry email me at kim at adaptivepath dot com.   

Share This

Alexa, Teresa and I recently finished a project that, from the beginning, had all the signs of trouble: a busy client team working weekends on other projects, an aggressive schedule, a tight budget and my own pre-planned vacation during the critical architecture phase. While this project had a lot of challenges, and was quite intense at times, we had fun and came up with some really well executed designs that we all love. The project ended with a very satisfied client team, too.

I was happily surprised when our client made a point of commending my team for our client management skills. At first I politely tried to diminish our part in making it such a great experience “Well you’re a great client!” and “That’s why you hire outside consultants!”, but he pursued his point by illustrating how his other vendors’ relationships hadn’t been handled the same way and more importantly, what we did right. His feedback seemed worth sharing; here’s a bit of a summary:

1. We rethought the design problem rather than simply executing their requirements. We took their ideas and vision into consideration and then took a step back and rethought the problem. The result was a refreshing and unexpected approach that they liked much better than their own initial ideas.
2. We scoped the project according to the budget and timeline allowed. The client needed a lot of work done in a short amount of time. So much work that there was no way it could all be done in the time allotted. The approach we took was to work closely with the client engineers and UX team to reveal only the essential design elements needed. We delivered only primary screens, a few key scenarios and prototyped interactions that needed more clarification. We also delivered design principles to enable the client team to stay focused on what’s important once we’re no longer there. What we didn’t do, which they appreciated, was deliver a big, fat document of every permutation possible. Instead we delivered high-level design guidelines.

The Team’s Approach — There were a number of client relations techniques we used in making the project a success. Here are just a few:

Trust — We kept our eye on building and maintaining trust with the client throughout the project. We did this initially with a full day hands-on workshop that included key members from the Product Management, Engineering and UX teams. This built rapport, inclusion and unified our vision of the product and our goals for the project. We maintained the trust through frequent review periods and showing our thinking along the way (even half-baked ideas were shared).

Listening — We listened to the client’s ideas and vision, but didn’t limit our designs to how they thought that vision should be executed. We took their vision and added in our understanding of user needs, consumer behavior and context of use as the launching point for our designs.

Setting Expectations — We had an extremely aggressive schedule for this project. We set a schedule with reviews and milestone deliverables, but we communicated heavily on the idea that “things may change” and we would “see what we can get done by x date”. This prepared the client for when we delivered sketches and rough ideas instead of polished designs.

Flexibility — When the client called and asked for a redesign a few days before our last big deliverable, I didn’t let it phase me. I welcomed his need to get the designs right. I didn’t even mention the impact to the schedule/scope, I focused on simply listening to his needs. What was missing in the current designs? We immediately set a face-to-face meeting with the client and his Director to better understand their concerns. It was a hands-on design session, where we sketched through ideas on the markerboard. After that meeting, we talked about schedule impact. The question I asked was if we could slip the schedule and if not, where would we need to cut scope?

Under-promise, Over-deliver — This is a technique I try to employ with all of my projects if I can. Of course my clients reading this will now know, but hopefully they won’t hold it against me! I try to scope a project that is realistic in what my team is capable of in the time allotted, but I pad in a little time for unplanned client meetings, idea gestation periods, wait time and general unknowns. In most cases, that padding time gets used up by unforeseen circumstances, but that’s OK because we don’t go over the budget or beyond the schedule. Sometimes there are extra hours to which I try to over deliver: more screens, more scenarios, more concepts, more interaction explorations, more annotations - what ever might be needed to wow the client.

Since the schedule was so aggressive with this project, I was honest with the client and explained that I wasn’t sure how much we could deliver, but I promised a minimum amount (which was safely low). Not surprisingly, he figured out this technique mid-project and luckily he saw the value in it and we had a good laugh about it. He appreciated how flexible we were throughout the project and the only reason we were able to be so flexible was because of the extra hours I had included.

Desire for Success — Philosophically we all have to remember that everyone involved in a project truly has the best interest of the project at hand. They may not be approaching the project in the way we’d like, or they may have bad ideas, but their intentions are for a successful project. Rarely do clients or colleagues knowingly and willfully undermine a project. We need to always remember that their intentions are good.

Last but certainly not least is in how to be a good client. Dan Saffer composed a great essay on how to be a good client, but I thought I’d share a few specific traits our client possessed that enabled us to take the approach we did. These traits allowed us to deliver the best possible designs:

1. We had a client who set a vision and was open to the possibilities of where that vision might be taken.
2. The client gave us access to all the right people. Their program manager did an astounding job of getting the right people in the room with us each and every time.
3. They also had a system for decisions by proxy. If a decision maker was unable to attend, they identified a proxy who would speak on the behalf of the decision maker.
4. The UX, Engineering, and Product Management teams all have a deep respect and regard for one another. Yes they disagreed (lots of heated debates!), but they did so respectfully and with humor.
5. They leveraged our time together as efficiently as possible. Issues that didn’t pertain directly to our design problem were tabled for later discussions (without us).

Share This

In addition to the 2 day conference in London at the end of May, MEX is also conducting a Mobile Design Competition. Entry into the competition is FREE and is intended to be a showcase for the cutting edge of user experience designs in mobile. So if you’re company has been focusing on mobile experience design, check out the competition details. The winners will be honored at an awards reception the first night of the conference. The deadline is this Friday, 2nd May, 23:00 GMT. Remember the timezone difference for those of you not in the UK!

Share This

 I’m heading to Europe for three weeks for 2 must-attend conferences! The first is MEX, Mobile User Experience conference, 27-28 May in London, UK hosted by PMN who shook up the mobile design industry last year with their fabulously astute and thought provoking 10 point Manifesto for enhancing the mobile user experience. Our host, Marek Pawlowski, has created a different kind of conference format, bringing together 100 of the leading thinkers in mobile and challenging us to define the cutting edge of user experience. At the heart of the event is the 10 point Manifesto, highlighting the major issues facing the mobile industry as it strives to become a more customer-focused, design-led business. Now in its 4th year, MEX is attended by pioneers from the carriers, handset manufacturers, platform providers, software developers and UI designers. 

I will be leading a MEX breakout group exploring the controversial notion that “Fashion is a stronger motivator than functionality”, in the mobile handset business. Conference attendees will work together in a number of small teams to look at this issue from all the angles before re-convening for an open debate. I love this format and cannot wait to dive into deeper discussions about the issues that we face everyday as designers. 

If you are looking for some inspiration and thought leadership in the mobile user experience arena, I highly recommend attending MEX this year. Marek has also kindly offered a discount for Friends of Adaptive Path (that’s YOU!), so please take advantage of the 15% discount on attendance by registering online with the referral code AP08 or by calling Marek Pawlowski on +44 (0)7767 622957.  

I head over to Malmö, Sweden the 2nd week of June for inUse’s conference From Business to Buttons hosted at Malmö University. The conference is a mixture of strategy, design and facilitated hands-on workshops offering insights and methods of how to bridge the gap between business goals and user needs. They have Don Norman as the keynote speaker as well as other top industry professionals in user experience design including Adaptive Path’s very own Ryan Freitas and Friend of AP Jonathan Grubb, CEO of Rubyred Labs and Co-founder of Get Satisfaction.  

I will be giving my workshop Process Reboot: Change your process to create experience-driven innovations, which I first presented at DUX07 in November last year and most recently at Adaptive Path’s MX conference. I’m always reworking and improving the content each time I present, so the attendees at From Business to Buttons will be experiencing the latest and greatest. 

As designers we are often brought in to simply design a product, but many times the business strategy needs attention before we can clearly define the product we’re designing. From Business to Buttons is a great conference for helping us all find better ways to bring business strategy into the conversation of designing products. I hope you’ll attend From Business to Buttons 12-13 June for insightful presentations, workshops and discussions around business strategy and design. The folks at inUse and Malmö University have extended a discount too, please use FBTB2008 in the “special requests” section of the registration to receive 15% off the regular price. 

Since I’m in Europe for 3 full weeks, I’ll be available for meetings and would love to connect with folks while I’m there. Email me at kim at adaptivepath dot com otherwise, see you at the conference(s)!

Share This

I’m excited to be presenting my Process Reboot workshop as a pre-con activity on Sunday April 20th for Adaptive Path’s MX San Francisco conference. I first taught the workshop to a sold-out crowd in November at DUX 2007. So if you were at DUX 2007 and were turned away at the door, now is your chance to experience this hands-on workshop! Sign up if you want to hear about different ways to approach your design process and/or if you’re in need of recharging and rethinking your team’s approach. Check out the details on what I’ll be covering in the workshop.

The speaker line up for MX San Francisco is quite enticing as well. The final schedule will be posted in a few weeks so check back here soon!

Register on or before February 3rd for a hefty discount too!

Share This

We knew you were all out there. Yep, we knew that the IxD community in SF was sizable and full of interesting, talented individuals and last night you proved us right!

Last night IxDA-SF and C|net hosted Intersection: Where Interaction Design and Industrial Design Meet with 4 speakers from Cooper, frog, Motorola (now at frog), and IDEO. No doubt you came to hear our amazing line up of speakers: Dave Cronin, Director of Interaction Design at Cooper; Jennifer Kilian, Creative Director at frog design; Gabriel White, former Interaction Design Lead for the Motorola Motofone, now Principal Designer at frog design; and Danny Stillion, Design Director at IDEO.

You arrived promptly at 6:30, mingling with our peers and enjoying the lavish spread of food and drink provided by C|net. Thank you for coming and for sticking around in an overly crowded room, sitting on the floor, standing in the back and spilling out the door. We only expected about 100 of you, and yet 150+ came! And most of you stuck around until the last slide was shown at a few minutes past 9pm. We knew a monthly IxD event is something you’re interested in. Thank you for coming!

A big thanks to our speakers for enticing you to come and to C|net for showing us how much they love the IxD community too!

The IxDA-SF local organizing committee is just a few folks including myself. We’d love to hear what types of events you’re interested in. What topics, who do you want to hear and what other interesting events would keep you coming out? We’re lining up the 2008 calendar at the moment and are very interested in hearing from you! We know you’re out there now, so please comment here or send us an email sf-local at ixda.org .

Our next event is November 14th (a week early with the holiday). So mark your calendars and look for the announcement on upcoming and gamma.ixda.org discussion board. See you next month!

Share This

I’m teaching a day-long workshop this year at DUX 2007 entitled Process Rebooting: Changing your Process to Create IxD-driven Innovations. I’ve been having a lot of fun putting the material together and crafting a day of hands-on activities and information to inspire design leaders to innovate their design processes.

I’ve had a look at the registered participants so far and am pleased to see a lot of creative directors, product and project managers from a variety of companies in web, software and device/product with a mix of strategists, designers and information architects as well. I can foresee a day full of lively discussion and sharing of ideas with this group!

With 3 weeks before the conference begins, the workshop is filling up fast! We have a few seats left, so if you’re attending DUX and have been pondering whether to attend this workshop, now is the time to sign up!

And if this topic isn’t exactly what you’re looking for, check out the other workshops scheduled on the same day given by Jeremy Alexis, Marc Rettig, John Zapolski, Kevin Brooks, Richard I. Anderson and Melody Roberts.

Share This

ICSID/IDSA Connecting 07 conference is in San Francisco next week. Even if you aren’t attending the conference, you should come to an evening event presented by IxDA SF and hosted by C|net.

INTERSECTION: Where Interaction and Industrial Design Meet featuring case studies from Cooper, frog design, Motorola and IDEO

Taking advantage of industrial design presence in San Francisco for the ICSID/IDSA Connecting 07 conference, IxDA San Francisco is delighted to host an evening of dialog between two closely related but often siloed fields: Industrial Design and Interaction Design. On October 18 at C|net, we will hear case studies from Cooper, frog design, Motorola and IDEO, highlighting the intersection point of the two disciplines and the ups and downs of collaboration.

Speakers:
Dave Cronin, Director of Interaction Design at Cooper
Jennifer Kilian, Creative Director at frog design
Gabriel White, former Interaction Design Lead for the Motorola Motofone, Principal Designer at frog design
Danny Stillion, Design Director at IDEO

Date: Thursday, October 18th, 2007
Location: C|net
CNET Networks Building
235 Second Street
Between Howard and Folsom

Time:
6:30 pm – Social Hour with light refreshments
7:00 pm – Presentation

Let us know you’re attending via upcoming. Hope to see you there!

Share This