I’ve been doing a bunch of tablet prototyping lately so I thought I’d share with you! Feel free to print, share and use as you wish. Happy creating and look for more prototyping downloads coming soon.
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My one treat I give myself when I travel is a trip the magazine rack. I stock up on Fast Company (my personal fav), Inc., The Harvard Business Review and when I’m really spoiling myself a Dwell. The October Inc. looked promising, ‘The Lean Start-up’, with Mr. Lean himself, Eric Ries on the cover. And his start-up story has the painfully familiar melody that most of us can relate to. I didn’t have the misfortune of tanking my own venture, but I woefully bared witness to two Titanics destined for the ocean floor. And my work in design and user experience during those times only strengthened my belief in generating value by delivering a great product experience to the customer, the same work I’d spent years reading about. Anyone sharing that message is a friend of mine.
Yet, it didn’t take long for my enthusiasm to wane. As the article slowly starts to define this genius new way to innovate product development, a method that seems an awful lot like what I do, what I’ve been doing for years; user experience. And I’m not the only one, nor am I the first, far far from it. Those radicals at IDEO, the outlier Bill Buxton, the godfather of all things process and experience Alan Cooper, I could do this all day… Was Ries cryogenically frozen for 20 years and missed all this UX talk? I didn’t care, I was ticked.
Andy’s perspective nailed it, so at first, I thought, Sweet, I’ll just retweet that…but there was one rather looming issue. Something I think erodes the fabric of the craft of experience design. Now, you can brand something, write a book, make some dough on it, shout it from the mountain-tops, but I CANNOT swallow is re-naming something that already has a name, a history, practitioners and craftsmen who make a living at it and teach it to others. What’s worse is design has always had a problem defining itself, explaining the value; the 2003 Clement Mok article, ‘Time for Change’ is likely the most powerful depiction of the problem and a solution. When I read it, I made a promise to better the design conversation.
From the Inc. article:
I’m fine with someone calling their, WIP prototype a MVP, but it’s still a prototype. And prototyping IS and always has been the business plan, the journey AND the path. So unlike the MVP Eric described, the prototype solves for the technical and design (the ‘what’s possible’) as well as the customer/user and business value. That’s right, the prototype when used effectively is the whole enchilada.
Another quote:
User experience is and has always been described and utilized to address and focus on customer/user meaning and benefit. It seems by renaming UX to ‘lean thinking’ for no other reason than personal gain, is categorically wrong. We really, desperately need to use the same language, consistently to communicate the value of what we do. If we dilute it, complicate it and re-mystify our work, everyone loses. Clement illustrates this with a comparison, “If every physician made up his own set of definitions and beliefs about anatomy and disease on an improvised basis, the medical profession would still be in the Dark Ages.”
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This will be my last post at Design Thinking Digest. For those that remember the more fruitful days of this blog this should come as no surprise--but it felt like a bookend was appropriate. DTD has been an experiment and online journey for me; it's had a relatively modest amount of posting—around 250 posts over the past five years and around 120,000 page views.
Around 500 folks read this blog on a regular basis--certainly breaking no social media records but nonetheless an audience that I knew well and that was very important to me. Over the last 16 months my role in Microsoft had changed from a public role to one that was a more private and inward looking one. There were simply more things I was working on that I couldn't talk about than I could and the forums of Facebook and Twitter became a more personal way to keep up with folks. The ‘long’ format of a blog simply wasn’t a medium I could take advantage of over the past year.
But things have changed. I now have a new role that has a much more public component to it and an audience that while not unfamiliar or new to me, certainly has a new pivot.
Now seems like the time to start something new and that's exactly what's going to happen over at my new blog entitled 21st Century Storytelling.
DTD won't go away right away. I'll be migrating most of my stories over to my new blog and eventually when you come to www.designthinkingdigest.com it will take you to my new blog. I hope you'll join me there and drop in to say hello again. I promise that I'll do my best to tell share new things with a fresh perspective and make sure the time you spend there is worth it. Thank you. Please join me on my next journey at 21st Century Storytelling.
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This will be my last post at Design Thinking Digest. For those that remember the more fruitful days of this blog this should come as no surprise--but it felt like a bookend was appropriate. DTD has been an experiment and online journey for me; it's had a relatively modest amount of posting—around 250 posts over the past five years and around 120,000 page views.
Around 500 folks read this blog on a regular basis--certainly breaking no social media records but nonetheless an audience that I knew well and that was very important to me. Over the last 16 months my role in Microsoft had changed from a public role to one that was a more private and inward looking one. There were simply more things I was working on that I couldn't talk about than I could and the forums of Facebook and Twitter became a more personal way to keep up with folks. The ‘long’ format of a blog simply wasn’t a medium I could take advantage of over the past year.
But things have changed. I now have a new role that has a much more public component to it and an audience that while not unfamiliar or new to me, certainly has a new pivot.
Now seems like the time to start something new and that's exactly what's going to happen over at my new blog entitled 21st Century Storytelling.
DTD won't go away right away. I'll be migrating most of my stories over to my new blog and eventually when you come to www.designthinkingdigest.com it will take you to my new blog. I hope you'll join me there and drop in to say hello again. I promise that I'll do my best to tell share new things with a fresh perspective and make sure the time you spend there is worth it. Thank you. Please join me on my next journey at 21st Century Storytelling.
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I played the kerning game a few days ago and then I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The game wasn’t just good, it wasn’t just cool because it was done in HTML5 (ok, fine, that made me giddy) and, sure, it was touch enabled…but that wasn’t it. This game was about kerning, KERNING. Type nerds, print designers adore analyzing every possible flaw, the tiniest spaces between symbols, but I would never dare admit my love for it in mixed company. My dev buddies might just laugh and tell me to go make them a t-shirt, right?
I needed to know who the hell made this game, someone with clear dev chops and enough design geek to love this sacred art as old as the printing press. The Method Action blog, held the answer and his name is Mark MacKay, Twitter handle @duopixel. But let’s go back to that blog…
Most of my time is spent, split between speaking to devs and designers, usually at separate conferences (that’s a different problem). The topics are always similar; ux, mobile design, user research, prototyping, but how I format the content for each audience is markedly different. MacKay’s writing, his raison d’etre, is something that I’ve been working on for years; bridging the gap between design and dev. This piece in particular, brilliantly tackles the issue.
Especially, how design is written and talked about, how we frame design in an effort to explain it to more right brained folks is flawed. Mark’s points are similar to the message I give to dev’s: you already have the skills. Design, in its most simple form, is a problem with a set of constraints. Problem solving skills, attention to detail, a scientific approach and a solution based eye are the critical shared DNA that devs already possess.
What Method of Action is building, games for participatory learning, is not only genius, it bridges the divide in understanding and communicating in and with technology. No small thing. Addressing this huge problem deserves some props, in fact, I’ll be bragging about this in future talks. Thanks Mark and Maria, keep it up!
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A few days ago I got a notice over my phone that an update was ready to be installed and I should connect it to my computer. Mango had arrived for my Dell Venue Pro on T-Mobile’s network. I connected my phone to my computer and proceeded to update the phone. A few minutes later it was ready. Now after using it for a few days, I am really happy with so many of the new features. I’d like to share my favorites with you:
What are your favorite Windows Phone 7 Mango features?
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So in moving from Microsoft to tech startup buuteeq there was a press release and some coverage in various trade journals and websites. I knew one of the Microsoft-focused journalists might pick up on it related to the fate of Silverlight which would be understandable with the Build conference happening. What I didn't expect was this:
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Today, six years to the day that I started at Microsoft, I'm leaving. I wanted to take a moment to thank all of my friends from my time at Microsoft for the things that they've taught me and the assistance that they granted. I sent an internal email already but many key people are no longer at Microsoft so I'm putting this out there for those of you that left ahead of me. In fact, those who know me and know the strategic shifts Microsoft announced earlier this year shouldn't be surprised to see me leave now. But it was actually over a year ago that I decided I was ready for the next thing. It just took me this long to figure out what that should be.
Most at Microsoft have only ever known me as a business/marketing guy but the rest of my last 20+ years have been as a developer, a product designer, and even a long run as a professional musician. (Attached is a picture of my band playing at red rocks--I'm on the left). I've never stopped writing and recording and I actually even considered cashing out from the corporate world and going back to my roots as a songwriter; moving to LA or Nashville. I may yet, but right now there are some opportunities in the tech startup space that were too good for me to pass up.
Starting next week, I'm going to join buuteeq as chief experience officer. This gets me back to my product design/user experience roots and throws me into the middle of the rapid innovation that is the modern startup experience. There's a lot to do, but I'?ll be able to simply and directly impact the customers and the business. Being a startup focused on the global travel industry, it also encourages me to take my family to see the world a bit. I'll be managing a design team in Santiago so we'll be moving there for a few months in January. Luckily that's summer in Chile (we'll be thinking of you seattlites then). buuteeq also has a policy called Trotamundo where you get a personal budget for travel to exotic locations to check out the hotels there. I plan to hit my numbers on that. And of course, it will be my third time working with Forest Key, now the CEO at buuteeq. They've assembled a good team there and I'm looking forward to the work at hand.
Reflecting now, it feels a little as if everything I accomplished at Microsoft is sand in the desert and has been wiped clean already. It's almost as if I was never there. It's a great lesson on permanence. Ultimately, the lasting results are the things I learned and the relationships I made while at Microsoft. With that in mind, I want to thank all the folks I worked with over the years there again, and wish you all the best of luck in your endeavors. Special thanks to Brian Goldfarb, the Silverlight/.NET/Expression product teams, and the folks on my team (John, Pete, Chris, Chris, David, David, Mik, Tara)--if it wasn't for the pleasure of working with you all, I wouldn't have stayed two years too long at Microsoft. :)
My about.me page has links to my social media and you can find my email address on my site here.
-b
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Steven Sinofsky, President of Windows Division at Microsoft, has started a new blog, Building 8. Like Engineering 7 (the blog that told the story of the development of Windows 7), there’s an enormous amount of information on what’s coming in Windows 8 (with a lot more to come week after next at Build).
One topic that’s gotten a lot of attention recently is the evolution of Windows Explorer, the file manager we all know. As part of a reimagining of Windows, the team has integrated the Ribbon into the experience as a way to better surface functionality.
It’s always dangerous to look at any internet commentary (and particularly commenters on TechCrunch), but I think it’s worth coming back to where the Ribbon came from. For that, let’s go back to Jensen Harris’ excellent presentation at MIX08.
Some key highlights from the design process of the Ribbon:
All this led to the most critically acclaimed, best selling version of Office, and then the same with Office 2010 (an evolution and refinement of the Ribbon in 2007).
As a designer / design strategist, it’s really exciting to see the same process and rigor that gave us the Ribbon brought to the next version of Windows. I can’t wait to see all of Windows 8!
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I clearly remember being a visual/ux designer the summer of 2007, the dawn of the very first iPhone. I had been making shiny, glowing buttons and interfaces for a while but as soon as the iPhone came out, I was instructed to mimic the high gloss gel style of those fabulous little buttons. Everyone was enchanted, everyone wanted that aesthetic. But just like architecture and art, digital design morphs and evolves.
The rather heady but amazing article on the death of Postmodernism in the Prospect, connects the causalities of the movement. It’s also a window into the changes in technology, design and the modern psychology of user experience. Too much coffee, you say? Allow me to illustrate.
Keep in mind, postmodern was a response to the perfection of modern design, people felt lied to, things weren’t perfect, it was the 70’s and 80’s for heaven’s sake. Exaggerated classical accents, the obnoxious ornamentation; things we see today and cringe. Digital design is bending in a very similar way; we don’t want to be lied to, ‘If this isn’t a real book, then don’t make it look real, just give me the real touch conventions’. Granted, I think a fantastical children’s book app can play with the Victorian text on weathered parchment paper, but if I have to look at that for long, I’m going to be weary. My favorite purveyor of this thinking, Josh Clark, describes this point to perfection in his talk ‘Buttons are a Hack’. Clark asks us to strive for more natural, contextual ways of interacting with and designing interfaces.
This bravado to call out the silliest of bravado carried us fondly through much of 80’s music; I dare you to question the awesomeness of Prince or Madonna. They were the perfect escape. But all this fantasy has worn us down and the ‘Calgon, take me away’ dream state has ended in design as well. People want real, genuine, tangible things made by people…real people with a story. Sketching, craft, the push to solve problems with design, I don’t have to make bling anymore, I can help people. This single change saved me from abandoning this career all together. If I had to hear, ‘You know, just make it look designer-ee’ or any variation therein. Curtains baby, curtains.
The net worth of what you make and who you are as a designer rests right here. Authenticity. We still create magic, but this time we get to do it the right way.
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