{"id":210,"date":"2009-03-15T10:17:43","date_gmt":"2009-03-15T16:17:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techory.com\/sxsw\/?p=210"},"modified":"2009-03-15T10:17:43","modified_gmt":"2009-03-15T16:17:43","slug":"journey-to-the-center-of-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/techory.com\/sxsw\/?p=210","title":{"rendered":"Journey to the Center of Design"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday, March 15th at 11:30 AM
Presenter: Jared Spool<\/a> – User Interface Engineering<\/p>\n

The talk started with the single ladies dance from Beyonce – good start!<\/p>\n

Celebrity Death-Match:<\/strong> 37 Signals vs. Don Norman<\/p>\n

Wired magazine – Keep It Simple, Stupid! Talking about 37 signals and their approach. "We’re not designing for others… we’re designing for ourselves."<\/p>\n

Don Norman on 37 signals: They design for how they want to use it – self design. I’ve tried their products and although they have admirable qualities they have never quite met my needs: Close is not good enough. I understand why: the developers are arrogant and completely unsympathetic to the people who use their products."<\/p>\n

Where did user-centered design come from?
<\/strong>IBM 360 mainframe – released in 1962. This thing was THE computer. It is the size of a room. The big red button shut it down. Computing at this time was developed for engineers by engineers. The people using\/building were highly skilled and highly trained. They didn’t care what was running, they just kept it running. It only ran the tool.<\/p>\n

80’s brought in IBM Displaywriter – a computer for office workers. They weren’t skilled in the tool, and might not have been trained with the tool. They only cared about the data, and didn’t care about the operation of the device.<\/p>\n

There was a large shift from one to the other.
User-centered design was born from this shift – putting users at the center of the design process.<\/p>\n

There is no evidence that user-centered design has never worked. There is NO documentation proving it works.<\/p>\n

Apple does very little usability. Microsoft does 15,000 usability tests a year. Is MS more usable?<\/p>\n

How do the best teams create great designs?
<\/strong>How does work get done? The middle of the spectrum is process – the steps you use to get things done (the steps followed). Process isn’t necessarily a repeated thing. It can be different every time. Methodology is the formalization of process to make them repeatable.<\/p>\n

Example: TSA – entire organization runs on dogma. 3-1-1 = 3oz bottles in 1 plastic bag. Without the plastic bag, it is NOT safe. Dogma. When you have an unquestioned faith in something. It’s against the rules to even test the logic behind it.<\/p>\n

Techniques – the building blocks of the process (how you get something done). You master the technique by constant practice.<\/p>\n

Tricks – what you do when the right technique is hard to do. Improperly used techniques that get the job done anyway.<\/p>\n

What did the research find?
<\/strong>The best teams didn’t have methodology or dogma they followed. (tricks and techniques)
The struggling companies often followed methodology, without success.<\/p>\n

It’s time to replace he user-centered design dogma.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is not about process or dogma, it is about working as teams. You could make a recipe with the important steps. If everyone works towards the same goal, it’s better if everyone complains. You must do better than the placebo (60%).<\/p>\n

The goal of user research: To Inform Design
<\/strong>Usability problems happen when someone doesn’t know something they’re supposed to know. Inform the process.<\/p>\n

What gets measured gets done.
What gets rewarded gets done well.<\/p>\n

Measuring Brand Engagement
<\/strong>Loyalty, Confidence, Integrity, Pride, Passion<\/p>\n

Measuring Engagement While Buying Electronics (start to finish buying experience)
Amazon: 6.2 to 5.5
Circuit City: 4.5 to 4.3
Dell: 3.0 to 1.4
HP: 1.4 to -1
Wal-mart: 0.5 to 1.1 (exceeding expectations by lowering standards)<\/p>\n

We need to be careful of the techniques<\/p>\n