Post by Caroline Jarrett [1 favorite]

I've just come back from HCI2008 at Liverpool, where Beryl Plimmer presented a paper on exactly this topic: Louise Yeung, Beryl Plimmer, Brenda Lobb & Douglas Elliffe: Effect of Fidelity in Diagram Presentation

The paper should be in the ACM library at some point, possibly even already, but here's a quick summary meantime.

They were interested in this conundrum: - people comment more usefully on prototypes that look 'sketchy' and unfinished, e.g. on paper - they react most positively to prototypes that look tidy and finished on computer.

The challenge: is there a 'sweet spot' of that combines a level of scrappiness, to promote useful comments, and a level of 'finished'-ness, to create something that people like to look at?

The answer: no, there is no sweet spot. They tested a series of five versions of the same stuff (a form, as it happens) ranging from actual paper, a paper-like version on a tablet PC, and then three further levels of polish. All contained a range of introduced defects. The changes included moving from handwritten, through a handwriting-type font, an informal font, and 'polished' fonts such as Arial.

The responses were about as straight-line as you can get. Paper: most defects. Most polished on computer: most preferred.

The only mild difference from the straight line was that paper was slightly preferred over the paper-like representation on a tablet PC.

Bottom line: if you want users to give you substantive comments on a prototype, things like whether it has the right functionality, then use as sketchy a design as you possibly can. If you want then to report of things like whether they like it and the colours you have used, then use as polished a design as you possibly can.

Further bottom line (before I get the prototyping police frothing at the mouth): a clear limitation of this research is that participants were reacting to static prototypes not interactive (as can be seen from the title i.e. 'diagram'). I suspect, but don't know, that the paper might lose its slight advantage over a paper-like presentation on tablet PC if the prototype was more than a single page and there was an element of interaction.

Anyone up for doing some further research?

Best Caroline Jarrett

Post by David Malouf [1 favorite]

Are there Starker IxD's? Who are they?

My guess is that due to our youth we aren't there yet. BTW, this brings up an interesting comparison if we want to stick w/ the music metaphor (I usually go to dance), but I often ask the question ... Are we the Bernstein or are we the Pearlman?

While Bernstein is an accomplished musician, his role and fame is around composition & orchestration which are very different skills (noted in an earlier thread). I think I said in that thread that people like Mozart and Chopin were masters of many instruments but seldom the best of their time and might not even chair in many of the instruments they took up, but they did take them up and to a level that would be far superior than the "wedding" musicians of their time (I love that as a metric level). But what they did even better, was compose and orchestrate and direct true masters towards performances that could bring you to weep.

Are we Bernstien (in our highest aspiration of composer/orchestrator) or are we Yo-Yo Ma (musician and master crafts person)?

Any American Idol fans out there? For the last 2 years (the time frame that I've been following) I realized that I am attracted to those people that can do both well. David Cook, this year's idol in the US took a Lionel Richie song and catapulted from the 80's into this milennium. He reconceived it expressing his creativity and and sang it beautifully expressing his craft of manipulating his voice and other aspects of his performance.

So moving away from Bernstein & Yo-Yo Ma for a moment, are the best of us Prince? An amazing master of many instruments who can conceive of musical narratives, melodies, and poetics (arguably according to your taste).

This speaks to what I think is at the crux here. We argue this point all the time ... Do you have to be an expert in the craft of the media we work in (web, desktop, embedded, voice, NUI, spatial, etc.) or is just having an understanding of its intricacies and how those who are expert/masters need to work leading to a requirement of partnerships like Rogers & Hammerstein or Elton & Bernie.

Maybe there is no answer here, but it provokes a lot in me personally when I think about my future and the types of people I want to surround myself with as mentors, students, and peers.

-- dave

On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 11:23 AM, Michael Micheletti <michael.micheletti at gmail.com
> wrote:
> I've been thinking about this conversation quite a bit overnight. My
> perspective as a life-long musician:
>
> Many musicians learn Bach pieces on their instruments. At any one moment,
> there may be thousands of musicians practicing Bach pieces on our planet.
> For all I know, you're reading this on your iPhone in an elevator where Bach
> is playing over the speaker. The music is well-known, playable, practically
> a commodity. So how was I to know that Janos Starker in recital, playing
> Bach unaccompanied on a cello, would carve a permanent wound in my soul? I
> had no idea that anyone could push through the resistance in that familiar
> material to reach such a place.
>
> We, as interaction designers, don't often push through our material
> resistance. Our performances are more like musicians at weddings: show up on
> time, wear nice clothes, don't play too loud, play what the bride requests.
> The wedding party isn't looking for any more emotion - they've got plenty.
> They want Wedding Bach, not Starker Bach. Or perhaps we're more like the
> road-builders of our design world: not too many potholes? nice and smooth?
> good clear signage? won't wear out too soon? Ship It! That's a usable road!
>
> Right now, at this stage of our evolution, our materials resist us
> powerfully. Think quickly of how many rich web applications work well in all
> different browsers and mobile devices, are powerful enough to grow into but
> instinctive enough to grasp without reading instructions, and are accessible
> to disabled users? I'm sorry, but somewhere there will be a compromise to
> technical capabilities, schedule, finance, usability, beauty.
>
> There are levels that we can aspire to, but we will need to build our craft
> and advance our materials. Because right now our materials are crude,
> brittle, and frustrating compared to what musicians have to work with. Or
> even road-builders, who every so often create a bridge of such great beauty
> that you want to do a U-turn and cross it again a couple more times.
>
> I for one am very pleased that we have this community that celebrates the
> good roads and pushes through the materials, little by little, as we can. It
> may be a while before we reach that happy place on the far side. But I
> follow these conversations, hoping for glimpses, and am happy to celebrate
> small steps in the right direction.
>
> Michael Micheletti
>
> On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 12:25 PM, David Malouf <dave at ixda.org
> wrote:
>
>
>
> ...
>
> But back to "resistance".
>
>
>
> I think people have been speaking of great examples in other areas,
>
> but I think at the crux of the issue (as Matt sorta alludes to) is
>
> what is our Craft? Are we even craft people, or are we simply the
>
> directors of craft people? (oh and not we in the sense of "my job",
>
> but as interaction design -- ers in the pure sense. Many of us wear
>
> multiple hats and do a ton of craft.
>
>

-- David Malouf http://synapticburn.com/ http://ixda.org/ http://motorola.com/

Post by Andrei Herasimchuk [1 favorite]

Interesting back story... While I have no idea where the current spec/ documentation formats or standards are for PayPal today, they got their starting documents from me even if the folks there didn't realize it. My wife was one of the first designers on the team when PayPal got started and she came home one day and asked for help on documenting a new feature they were building. I basically gave her a trimmed down version of the design spec formats we used at Abode to document the common interface for the early versions of the Creative Suite.

That original format was developed by David Valiulis when he joined the design team at Adobe back in the mid-90s. He is one of the best tech writers I ever had the pleasure to work with in this industry.

I've always had to deal with the design specification in my career, as much as I have hated to do so. It's a necessary task though. I'd be happy to contribute to a standard open-source format that any design team could use if someone was interested in leading such a project. I don't currently have the time to lead one, but can easily help such an effort and share what I know works and what doesn't based on the numerous specs I've been involved with at a variety of levels.

I've always felt interface designers lack a good means to spec their work. A "blessed" format that comes from the industry would go a long ways towards bringing even more creditability to the profession as a whole.

-- Andrei Herasimchuk

Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world

e. andrei at involutionstudios.com c. +1 408 306 6422

On Aug 27, 2008, at 9:30 AM, Jamie McAtee wrote:

> Right now our small team is communicating UI changes and enhancements
> with developers using PowerPoint mock ups with notes. I am concerned
> this will eventually backfire and would like to bring a little more
> formality to the process.
>
> Is anyone willing to share their UI spec document and/or
> recommendations for putting together a spec? I have used the PayPal
> format before but it has been a while and I don't remember everything
> that was in it.
>
> Since our team is very small I don't want to bring about a lot of
> paperwork just something to make sure we have all of our bases
> covered.
>
> Thanks,
> Jamie
>
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ... discuss at ixda.org
> Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
> List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
> List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help

Post by Chauncey Wilson [1 favorite]

There is some early research in the software engineering literature that discusses the effect of designing based on a prototype or on a formal UI spec.

Boehm et al, 1984]. B.W. Boehm, T.L. Gray, and T. Seewaldt, "Prototyping Versus Specifying: A Multiproject Experiment," IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Vol. SE-10, No. 3, May 1984, pp. 290 - 302.

It might be worth digging this old, but classic article up.

Chauncey

On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 10:10 PM, Jamie McAtee <jamcatee at indiana.edu
> wrote:
> Right now our small team is communicating UI changes and enhancements
> with developers using PowerPoint mock ups with notes. I am concerned
> this will eventually backfire and would like to bring a little more
> formality to the process. Is anyone willing to share their UI spec
> document and/or recommendations for putting together a spec. I have
> used the PayPal format before but it has been a while and I don't
> remember everything that was in it.
>
> Since our team is very small I don't want to bring about a lot of
> paperwork just something to make sure we have all of our bases
> covered.
>
> Thanks,
> Jamie
>
>
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ... discuss at ixda.org
> Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
> List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
> List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
>

Post by David Malouf [1 favorite]

Pauric, I really agree w/ you about the importance of sketching as more of an associative ideation action than meerly one of proxy models.

Now that I think I understand this idea of resistance embedded in materials. It sounds like understanding what I have alluded to in the past as "your canvas". Some of these are physical properties in "the medium" and others are quite human in quality.

What I see in interaction design are similar resistances that come out of the contexts of use, but also just human limitations, no? It's what Bill Buxton called "G-d's Law" ("-" is mine). This is why cog psyc and HF are so important to what we do.

But I also wonder if there isn't resistance in culture. I.e. the differences between Japanese uses of NFC and other Industrialized nations has been spoken about in terms of cultural acceptance around privacy "fears". Would this also be a material resistance? A cultural one?

Am I generalizing resistance too much beyond the intention?

-- dave

Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss? post=32320

Post by pauric [1 favorite]

I would argue that to arrive at a working prototype from 'material neutral IxD concepts' one needs to apply and reflect upon increasing degrees of resolution.

Jumping from concept to implementation without checks &amp; balances is a leap of faith a carries significant risk of failure

Applying Resistance, slowing the design process down, allows the brain to digest problems, leading to associative thinking...

"What scientists have only recently begun to realize is that people may do their best thinking when they are not concentrating on work at all. If you've ever had a great idea pop into your head while you were washing your car, walking your dog, or even napping, you already know what a team of Dutch psychologists revealed last month in the journal Science: The unconscious mind is a terrific solver of complex problems when the conscious mind is busy elsewhere or, perhaps better yet, not overtaxed at all.

This brings us back to Archimedes, whose "Eureka!" moment in the bath -- or, to cite another example, Isaac Newton's discovery of gravity while loafing around under an apple tree -- was a classic example of a kind of creativity known as remote association, or associative thinking. As the name implies, it's a knack for seeing connections among things that appear on the surface to be unrelated to each other."

I'd argue that sketching and creating throw away work is far, far more than merely proxies. They're mind hacks. Taking your time with a design, applying Resistance, enables the subconscious deep cogs of the mind to make connections &amp; solutions not otherwise obvious to the filtered conscious perspective.

thanks /pauric

Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss? post=32320

Post by Chauncey Wilson [1 favorite]

Hello Alfonso,

I would highly recommend that you get the following two books as part of your research.

Osborn, A. F. (1963). Applied imagination: Principles and procedures of creative problem-solving (Third Revised Edition). New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons. This is considered a classic book on modern brainstorming. Alex Osborn, who began his writings on brainstorming in the 1940s, wanted a meeting process that would reduce the inhibitions that block the generation of creative ideas. Many of the classic rules for modern brainstorming originated with Osborn. This book is out of print, but a worthwhile read if you can locate it. There are a number of versions of this book, each incorporating new ideas from Osborn. The 1963 version is the most-often cited. Used copies are generally available and reprints can be found at http://www.creativeeducationfoundation.org/press.shtml#imagination.

Paulus, P. B., &amp; Nijstad, B. A. (Eds.), Group creativity: Innovation through collaboration. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Paulus and Nijstad have edited a book that captures a wide range of research into group creativity. Much of the book deals with brainstorming and related methods for generating ideas and solutions to problems. While the book is loaded with research and theory, most chapters have a set of practical implications for group creativity methods like brainstorming and brainwriting. The book discusses both face-to-face and electronic methods and their respective strengths and weaknesses. The book highlights how social inhibitors can affect creative productivity and provides some research-based tips on how to overcome these inhibitors.

I've been doing talks on brainstorming and ideation techniques based on research for a book that I'm working on. Brainstorming is often touted as easy, but it is actually a very complex social psychological process with many factors influening the number of ideas generated. I did a talk titled, "A Portfolio of Brainstorming Techniques" at the last UPA with my colleague from Mad*Pow, Amy Cueva, that was well received. If you like, I could send you a copy. It list best practices for planning and conducting brainstorming sessions and also highlights the method called brainwriting which generall yields more ideas than the class group brainstorming.

There are several important concepts in brainstorming that need to be considered:

1. Production blocking - any behavior or influence that blocks ideas by others. For example, I ask that no one bring a computer or iPhone, or Blackberry to brainstorming meetings because glancing at one of those devices means that you aren't focused on the task of generating as many ideas as possibly. A major ground rule is that people do not tell "war stories" since the time spent tell stories blocks the production of ideas. 2. Evaluation apprehension - things that make people worry about being evaluated - for example, managers should generally not be a part of brainstorming groups because they may "rate" their employees on their ideas will lead to evaluation apprehension and then production blocking (fear will limit what people are open to express). 3. Social loafing - large groups allow some people to loaf through the session while other take up the load. Some of the research on brainstorming notes that smaller groups are more effective (2-5) and having two people sit and brainstorming like crazy with each other (dyadic brainstorming) is quite efficient.

Here is a list of common blunders from our UPA talk:

Not being clear on the goal of the brainstorming Evaluating people on their brainstorming performance Thinking that anyone can facilitate Having too many people for a single group or having only "experts" Too much or too little diversity (strangers in our midst) No explicit ground rules Not addressing violations of the ground rules Having managers and employees in the same session Not understanding the culture Not warming up

Here are some additional references that you might find useful:

Berkun, S. (2004, July). How to run a brainstorming meeting. Retrieved June 1, 2008 from http://www.scottberkun.com/essays/34-how-to-run-a-brainstorming-meeting/

Camacho, M. L., &amp; Paulus, P. B. (1995). The role of social anxiousness in group brainstorming. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 68(6), 1071-1080.

Kelley, T. (2001). The art of innovation: Lessons in creativity from IDEO, America's leading design firm. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Spreng, K. P. (2007, November). Enhancing creativity in brainstroming for successful problem solving. HOT Topics, 6 (11), Retrieved on June 1, 2008 from http://hot.carleton.ca/hot-topics/articles/brainstorming

Chauncey

On Sun, Aug 24, 2008 at 11:12 PM, alfonso comitini <alfonsocomitini at hotmail.com
> wrote:
>
>
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm putting together an article on 'best practice'
> brainstorming practical usage and trying to get some feedback through various
> mailing lists. One of these lists is
> IXDA, I already read most of the interesting posts on brainstorming, and got
> some ideas but I would like to get some more feedback. Please, refer to old
> posts because I might have missed some of them.
>
> I'm referring to brainstorming in agencies and design
> studios but not over the phone or solo brainstorming. Below are some questions
> that would really help me get finished with the article. Everyone that answers
> will be cited at the end and I'll also provide a link to the website. Feel free
> to answer as many questions as you like and give as much feedback as you like.
>
>
>
> What is your personal definition of brainstorming?
>
> When and in what kind of projects do you use it ? (generating
> new products, new ideas, business)
>
> Who should sit in the brainstorming session and why? is it
> just for creative people or does including non-creatives (managers or admin)
> help find the balance between creativity and practicality? Or do you include
> everyone in the search of a balanced input?
>
> Do you include third parties (client)? Why?
>
> What would you say it's the optimum balance in number of
> people? 2,4,5,10? Why?
>
> What information do you provide before and/or at the
> beginning of the session (sketches of target audience, summaries of researches identifying attitudes and behavior,
> other resources or nothing at all)?
>
> How much time do you give to review the brief and prepare
> for the brainstorming session?
>
> What's the best time of the day to hold a brainstorming
> session?
>
> Where do you conduct the brainstorming session (out-of-house
> or in-house)?
>
> Who the facilitator should be and what characteristics should
> have? Do you bring someone from the outside? is it a manager? does it need to
> be little known to the group? How many facilitators?
>
> What is the role of the facilitator? Does it keep things
> moving, capture notes, identify key ideas?
>
> How long should the session be? Different lights for
> different sessions?
>
> Do brainstorming sessions need to be structured or do you
> brainstorm in an informal place without planning? For example, on a Friday with
> colleagues in a pub, or in a plane heading to conferences.
>
> Do you just send out email and ask people to brainstorm? A kind
> of e-mail brainstorm and possibly use these information in the actual
> brainstorming session?
>
> What tools do you use? Paper, whiteboard, software?
>
>
>
>
>
> Win a voice over part with Kung Fu Panda &amp; Live Search and 100's of Kung Fu Panda prizes to win with Live Search
> http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/107571439/direct/01/
>
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ... discuss at ixda.org
> Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
> List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
> List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help

Post by Alexandra O'Neal [1 favorite]

I've provided creativity consultation and participated in or moderated quite a few brainstorm sessions since 1992. Here's what I've discovered:

- Just as a good karaoke bar has a host, a moderator/facilitator helps tremendously in brainstorming by making it okay to speak up, offering questions that ideas might answer, and capturing ideas. - Set the rules out early, and make it clear that nothing is censored. Because you don't see how the idea will work with current infrastructure/whatever, does not mean someone else won't think of a workaround. Even if the idea is not used, it may provide a springboard for another idea. - Anyone can be present as long as they are not repressive of creativity. You should avoid having "watchers" who are obvious observers. If someone wants to come in and observe, fine, but they must also participate in some way, or they might have a repressive effect on the team members, which may feel as if they are being graded in some way. - Capture items live, but *not* as a bullet list on a white board. My favorite method is to work with a projector and have the moderator/facilitator capture everything on the fly in Visio's brainstorming template (or any application you find meets the need, Visio has simply been most convenient, most frequently in the workplace for me). This allows you to move items around, draw connections between disparate ideas, make notes regarding different concepts, etc. You immediately get away from the linear.

Tracking in Visio worked in a phone/web meeting context once, too, gluing together departments in Toronto, Dallas, and Plano. Everyone could see and hear what was happening, and we were used to that kind of meeting. - Paper and whiteboard will work if they are large enough, and if you start off not writing a bulleted list. - If you already know what you're working with, a large table and a lot of index cards can be invaluable. For example, to brainstorm a flexible taxonomy that engineering, marketing, sales, and various product depts. could all agree on for a personalized site, I printed several sets of "business cards" that each had one of the possible values/attributes printed on it (plus a few blank ones). Then I got the business owners and SMEs into one room with a very big table. By the end of the afternoon we had the rough outline of an excellent faceted taxonomy. - I try to work with not more than a dozen, not less than five. Too few and people get shy; too many and people think they won't be heard. But with the right group of creative souls, these limits can be broken :-) - Someone within the dept. is fine if they know what they're doing -- otherwise turn to an outside facilitator. Sometimes both a facilitator and a scribe are useful - one person moderating, and another capturing data. All depends on what your options are. - I don't think brainstorming should be less than an hour or more than three. A couple of hours is usually enough to explain the situation, get things started. snowball ideas off of other ideas, and possibly prioritize/determine next steps. All day can result in burnout - unless you are working on a large project and chunk out the brainstorming sessions into targeted areas.

Hope this is helpful!

Alex O'Neal UX manager

-- The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The next best time is now.

Post by Larry King [1 favorite]

Anybody out there ever built a interface that helps users build an advanced search query? I am currently working on a site that has over 5 million articles, and search is the primary way users find this information. A lot of these users are librarians and they know how to do complex Boolean searches on various meta data fields. Currently, the search engine is optimized for this type of user, which is completely ignoring the user who does not know how to construct these complex queries. They have built a "query builder" interface that allows non-librarian users to construct complex Boolean searches on multiple meta data fields, but nobody uses it because it is terrible.

It is an interesting situation because users actually do use the advanced search on this site, which is unusual. I know we need to optimize for how users use simple search as well, and this is also being addressed. But creating a query builder that allowed non-librarians to do complex meta data field searches would be really beneficial to this user base.

Any body designed something like this, or could point me to some examples of such an interface?

Thanks.

-- Larry King lerble at gmail.com http://extrafancy.net

Post by k lenox [1 favorite]

IxDA-SF is pleased to have Punchcut this month sharing their insights on mobile interface design.

Motion design is a key component in emerging device user interfaces. Designers must go beyond the gloss and use motion and animation to guide users through an experience. We will discuss and demonstrate motion design principles that balance utility and dramatic impact to create memorable, playful and usable branded experiences.

Christian Robertson will discuss the practical benefits of ways motion can provide meaning. He will discuss and show ways motion helps users create a mental model of a UI, enabling users to better anticipate UI behavior. While motion design has its own practice and considerations, emerging touch UIs have a dependence on motion design to be successful as gestural UIs demand natural motion to reinforce input behaviors like taps, flicks and pinches.

Wednesday August 27, 2008 at 6:30pm Cooper 100 First Street, 26th Floor San Francisco, California 94105

SCHEDULE 6:30 pm &#8211; Socializing with light refreshments and Hiring Salon (employers/recruiters, bring job descriptions to share) 7:00 pm &#8211; Presentation

SPACE IS LIMITED! Please RSVP on Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1019635/? ps=5

See you there!

-IxDA-SF

Post by IxDA Education [1 favorite]

Dear IxDA community,

Do you want to make a difference with the next generation of Interaction Designers? IxDA is about to start a number of interesting education-related initiatives, including a mentoring program and round-up of IxD schools... We need *your* help to define and execute these and future projects.

We're looking for educators, students and practicing designers to build a team of volunteers focused on how IxDA can bring value to the experience of IxD education around the world. If you're interested in how IxD is taught and learned, or how practice and education can interface, we want to hear from you!

To get involved, please contact:

education [at] ixda.org

Please include some information about yourself, and especially what issues you're passionate about in the education &amp; learning space. We'll include you in our new working group, and look for your participation in education-related initiatives.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Cheers, Jeremy Yuille

Post by Meredith Noble [1 favorite]

Hi folks,

Does anyone know where I could find a list of best practices around login security? I'm looking for an overview of the most common techniques and how they relate to both security and user experience -- pros and cons.

For instance, I'd like information on:

- CAPTCHAs - Site Keys (photographs uploaded by users and shown when they visit the site so they know they are on the genuine site and haven't been phished) - Enforcing strong passwords (vs. showing a password strength indicator but not enforcing it) - Hint questions and when they're useful vs. not useful (though the thread http://www.ixda.org/discuss.php? post=31190 had a great discussion about this) - Emailing lost passwords to users

My current client is trying to address some security issues but the particular approaches they've chosen seem somewhat flawed to me. It would be great to find a balanced analysis of the options and plus a list of recent innovations in this field.

Thanks very much!

Meredith

Post by Fahd Arshad [1 favorite]

Please apply at http://careers.bloomberg.com/hire/jobs/job22208.html.

*The Company*

Bloomberg is the leading global provider of data, news and analytics. The BLOOMBERG TERMINAL and Bloomberg's media services provide real-time and archived financial and market data, pricing, trading, news and communications tools in a single, integrated package to corporations, news organizations, financial and legal professionals and individuals around the world.

*The Role* Bloomberg's User Experience group is expanding and looking for an experienced, innovative Visual Design Lead. We are looking for a multi-disciplinary team player who can take a leadership role in both granular design work and the strategic visual design direction for current and future Bloomberg products.

The candidate should have a proven track record in producing exciting, innovative visuals for modern software applications. Work done on OS-level projects will be a huge plus. The candidate will collaborate closely with a multi-disciplinary team of interaction designers, prototypers, business analysts, and engineers to iterate on out-of-the-box solutions to tough design problems in the financial arena that involve large data sets, complicated workflows, and time-sensitive, mistake-averse decision-making. An ideal candidate would have excellent problem-solving skills, be able to understand constraints quickly and be able to both produce and communicate creative design solutions at all levels: colleagues, clients, and senior executives. We need a thinker, a "do-er", and a communicator all in one.

In addition to visual design principles, the candidate must be familiar in UCD methodologies and design cycles.

*Required Experience* *5+ years of experience in desinging and prototyping for desktop applications, rich Web-based applications, and platform-level tools. *B.S./M.S. in Graphic Design, Interaction Design, Product Design, Interactive or Multimedia Design, or related field. *Demonstrable understanding of user-centered design principles *Demonstrated fluency with design tools such as Photoshop, etc. *Familiarity with wireframing and prototyping tools such as Visio/OmniGraffle, Flash/Flex, Blend/WPF, Director, HTML/CSS/JavaScript, etc.

* Please do not apply if you are primarily a web designer. We do understand the extent of overlap between Web apps and desktop apps, but we are looking for someone who understands the nuances of the latter. *

*Please provide a link to your online portfolio showcasing your work experience. Your application will not be considered without a portfolio.

Please apply at http://careers.bloomberg.com/hire/jobs/job22208.html.

Post by Robert Hoekman Jr [1 favorite]

Thought I'd crowdsource this via the giant brains on this list: I'm working on some conversion point design and analysis for a new app and would like to stick it in front of some users to see how it does. But all the usability testing I've been involved with has been focused on task completion, so I'm not exactly sure how to tweak the strategy to test the persuasiveness of a design. I'm less concerned with the usability of the design than how compelling it is. Instead of asking how well it works, I want to know how well it convinces.

If possible, I'd like to avoid asking subjective questions (such as with surveys about how convincing the design is) and focus more on users' self-guided behaviors (do they see the upgrade options? do they click them? do they care? ), but the realism of freeform exploration in a usability testing environment is going to be questionable at best.

Any suggestions? Is there a good way to do this?

Cheers!

-r-

Post by Todd Zaki Warfel [1 favorite]

We've completely removed Morea from our testing environment for a number of reasons: * Doesn't work on Mac (we test both Mac/Windows and need a solution that will work on both) * Proprietary video format that can only be edited in their video editor * Video editor &#8212; have you tried to use this thing? It's like trying to pull a jet ski w/a semi. Way too complicated for what you need for editing video. Hey Morea, take some clues from iMovie. * While the note taking and marking capabilities are nice, we never used them. We took notes in our own research framework that allows us to tag each observation and do much better analysis. Additionally, the facilitator takes notes on their script. * Reliability issues. We've had too many cases where Morea video got corrupted. Client's weren't too happy. * Can't record video of sites that have streaming video. It kills the recording. * Setting up Morea required giving ourselves a 2 hour window each time just to make sure patches were up to date, Windows was working well, video cameras were working, etc.

So, how do we do it now? Well, our lab consists of * Two (2) Intel based Macs. This lets us test both Windows and Mac. * We use OS X's built in screen sharing to view the test participant's machine. We open an iChat session to get the picture-in-picture and have audio. * Recording is done via SnapZPro.

Disadvantages: * We have to use two pieces of software (iChat, SnapZ), instead of one integrated solution. * Video rendering takes longer than Morea

Advantages: * We can test both Mac/Win * Stability &#8212; it's never crashed, never corrupted a video file * Setup literally takes 10-15 minutes compared to 1.5-2 hours * Videos are in a standard .mov/.mpg format that we can edit with pretty much any video editor * We can edit videos with something simple like iMove w/o having to edit them * Total cost of two Intel iMacs ($1200 ea) and SnapZ ($69) = <$2500. For Morea, we'd need two equivalent PCs ($800-1200 ea), plus a Mac ($1200), plus Morea ($1200), plus SnapZ ($69) = $3700-4900 depending on whether or not you buy on PC and one Mac (run Parallels), or two PCs and one Mac.

We're going to be looking at Silverback for some future tests and give it a try. I like the highlighting effect for clicks. I'm not sure how the note taking capabilities will work when the participant is using the machine. Perhaps you can take notes using a remote machine? I'll have to see.

Cheers!

Todd Zaki Warfel President, Design Researcher Messagefirst | Designing Information. Beautifully.

Contact Info Voice: (215) 825-7423 Email: todd at messagefirst.com AIM: twarfel at mac.com Blog: http://toddwarfel.com Twitter: zakiwarfel

In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.

Post by Jessica Enders [1 favorite]

I've been involved in a few debates about this question lately and would like to write an article summarising the different positions. It would be great if you could spend a few minutes emailing me or posting your personal position on the following query:

"As a matter of best practice, should forms on the web be designed to look like their paper equivalents? Why/why not? "

I recognise that this is a fairly "open" question but there are lots of different ways that one could come at this issue and I'm keen to hear about them all! Will send around a link to the article when done, for future reference.

Thanks in anticipation,

Jessica Enders Principal Formulate Information Design

http://formulate.com.au

Phone: (02) 6116 8765 Fax: (02) 8456 5916 PO Box 5108 Braddon ACT 2612

[Apologies if you get this email more than once - I'm casting a wide net]

Post by Christopher Fahey [1 favorite]

And he's got a great web site, too!

http://www.seantevis.com/

I hope nobody feels obliged to discuss his policies or platform. I'm just noting that politics appears to be a new career path option for us.

-Cf

Christopher Fahey

Behavior biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com me: http://www.graphpaper.com

Post by Alain D. M. G. Vaillancourt [1 favorite]

I have the exact same emotion. My documents go where I want them to go, not in a place decided by some programmers.

Ideally, I'd never put any of my text documents in any folder because I know from experience in the records management and archives field that it's the best place to lose stuff for visual types like me.

Ideally, I'd keep all my text files on my desktop with a different 48 pixel icon for each file. but Microsoft won't let me do that. Only Apple will, but everything else about the Mac interface is much worse than Windows, so I go on soldiering with Redmond.

Alain Vaillancourt

--- Jerome Ryckborst <JRyckborst at Gemcomsoftware.com
> a &#233;crit&#160;:

> One of the reasons I don't like to use My Documents is that many
> applications put their crap in the My Documents folder without my
> agreement. This is equivalent to rearranging my desk drawers for me,
> unasked.
>
> Maybe my mental model of MY Documents simply doesn't match what
> Microsoft's intention was, or what the software developers at Adobe
> Captivate think, but in my world, "My" means "mine, so get your
> fingers out of my stuff".
>
> (Who's designing for my emotions? )
>
> -=- Jerome
>

Obtenez l&amp;#39;adresse de courriel parfaite: @ymail.com or @rocketmail.com. Obtenez votre nouvelle adresse maintenant &#224; http://cf.new.mail.yahoo.com/addresses.

Post by Rajesh Sundaram [1 favorite]

In my work system, I use to create a folder called "Work" and then store all my work related files in it, categorized by product names. Also I use dates or strings like "v1" "v2" etc as sub-folder names to make them easier to access. I too used a desktop wallpaper for some time which had sections for 'work', 'music', 'funstuff' etc. But it required minimizing all open windows to acces the short cuts. And that style did not help me much. So I dropped that style . On Mac, I still use my windows style folder organization rather than Macs' default Documents, Pictures and Music style.

Interestingly, I don't use My Documents in windows. May be thats because in my early Windows 9X days, I had a faulty desktop for some months that crashed often. So to escape from data loss in C: drive, I always stored the documents in D: drive! And still, the same habit follows. :-)

Rajesh Sundaram Zoho CRM

On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 1:33 PM, Anders Ljung < anders.ljung at propellerheads.se
> wrote:

> I've noticed it in friends of mine who use these platforms, and even
> in me as well!! I'm a quite recent Mac user (been using Windows for
> ages) and I'm strangely finding it logical to put stuff there. Never
> did on Windows though, I always had to create "work", photos,
> downloads, directories (or even drives) like most of you seem to do.
>
> Slightly off topic: there is also the difference between using
> WinAmp, having your audio files in manually defined folders, or
> iTunes, where the app creates its own folder structure (which the
> user don't have to see). When I switched from Windows to Mac I
> thought the iTunes way was quite intrusive and claustrophobic, but I
> soon changed my mind when I realized I don't HAVE to have total
> control over every little file. Switching OS seems to change our
> behavior?
>
>
>
> Posted from the new ixda.org
> http://www.ixda.org/discuss? post=31335
>
>
>
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ... discuss at ixda.org
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>

Post by Anders Ljung [1 favorite]

I've noticed it in friends of mine who use these platforms, and even in me as well!! I'm a quite recent Mac user (been using Windows for ages) and I'm strangely finding it logical to put stuff there. Never did on Windows though, I always had to create "work", photos, downloads, directories (or even drives) like most of you seem to do.

Slightly off topic: there is also the difference between using WinAmp, having your audio files in manually defined folders, or iTunes, where the app creates its own folder structure (which the user don't have to see). When I switched from Windows to Mac I thought the iTunes way was quite intrusive and claustrophobic, but I soon changed my mind when I realized I don't HAVE to have total control over every little file. Switching OS seems to change our behavior?

Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss? post=31335