Toledo UXnet

I am doing some prep for this year's Internet User Experience conference. (6th year? This "regional" conference has stood the test of time and only gets better.) I plan on being there Monday-Wednesday, July 26-28. Exactly which sessions I will attend, when I arrive/drive home, and which sessions I skip to do some IBM work while I am there is TBD, but there are 2 things I am doing for sure (panels that I am on):

• What's Next for You in UX? Paths and Detours to Explore as Your Career Matures
• Research and Practice Interaction

The research-practice interaction panel is good because it is forcing me to go back to the CHI and IAS work from this spring, and add in newer things like Don Norman's interactions article (that just arrived in paper form).

I will also try hard to get to these sessions:

• Search Patterns: Design for Discovery by Peter Morville. I have probably heard parts of this already, still worth it.
• Rethinking User Experience. Who doesn't like talking about the changing landscape of the UX profession?
• The Top Ten Attributes of a Usable and Persuasive Web Site. I missed most of Susan Weinschenk's talk last year at IUE, want to make this one.
• How do we know when its good? A language of criticism for Information Architecture. Might be able to apply this right away to my IBM work.
• The Nature of Information Architecture. And who does not enjoy drawing lines between IA and its neighboring fields? Dan Klyn will be great here.

The content strategy and agile UX sessions look good. I do not know a lot about eye-tracking, so I might hit one of those sessions. Many other sessions are interesting, but it will depend on my work schedule, or if I am in the middle of a good conversation in the hallway, etc. (One more: UPA's Usability Body of Knowledge (BoK) project, if I can stay that late on Wednesday.)

I hope you can make it to the conference as well! If you are a user experience professional in the Toledo/Detroit/Ann Arbor area, there is no excuse for missing this great event.

I am organizing a local get-together where you can hang out with others who are interested in user experience. We chose a truly-Toledo location: a Mud Hens ball game.

What: User Experience Day with the Mud Hens
When: Saturday, July 11 (first game of the double header starts at 5:30pm)
Where: Fifth Third Field, downtown Toledo, Ohio

Would you like to enjoy the company of fellow interaction designers, information architects, usability engineers, developers and others interested in enabling quality user experiences for their customers? And enjoy the world-famous Toledo Mud Hens in a double-header, with fireworks after the games? Bring your family, too, if they are willing to put up with us talking about user experience in between pitches.

40 tickets have been reserved for this group outing. Tickets will cost $9. The ticket order will be placed in mid June, so if you are interested, please contact me.

Tickets are still available! If you are interested, you can send me an email (keith2009 at this site) or leave a comment below. Help spread the word: I am hoping I can meet new people from Refresh Toledo and re-connect with colleagues from AIGA Toledo who I have not seen recently. And I will be happy to welcome anyone else who is crazy enough to come to a baseball game to share their passion about user experience.

We already have families coming from out of town (Detroit, Cleveland and Columbus areas) so we may also meet at the Toledo Zoo in the morning. Join the fun!

I do not have final details, but wanted to get the word out as soon as possible so you can start planning. Subject to change.

Who: Scott McCloud, Cartoonist and Theorist
What: Comics: A Medium in Transition
When: Friday, October 24, 2008, 6:30 pm
Where: 206 Bowen-Thompson Student Union, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio

One of the sponsoring organizations appears to be the BGSU student chapter of SIGGRAPH / Computer Arts Club. The School of Art may also be funding part of this (Todd Childers is the one who gave me the basic info - thanks Todd!).

Poking around some more, I found "The Comic Book in Popular Culture" scheduled in many rooms in the same building at the same time. Which led me to this call for participation from the Popular Culture Department. So I assume Scott's visit is part of the conference.

And checking out "Comics: A Medium in Transition" by Scott, I see these other performances:

• Dartmouth in 2006
• SIGGRAPH last year
• FlashForward in a few weeks

Stay tuned for more info...

It just keeps getting bigger and better - Internet User Experience, the "local" conference with "national" quality. It will be in nearby Ann Arbor, Michigan, March 31 - April 3.

IUE, in its 4th year, has expanded to 4 days. The first day has 2 all-day tutorials to choose from. The second day is the beginning of the main conference with 7 presentations and a night out-on-the-town. The third day has 2 morning panels, a presentation and 2 half-day afternoon tutorials. The last day is an interactive workshop.

You will see how web sites have been effectively designed for many different markets and target groups, ranging from 3-year olds to adult consumers to specialized professionals. You will see dramatic before-and-after improvements to established web sites. You will learn from experts in fields such as search engine optimization, online communities, and user experience management as they explain and debate the current state, future destiny, and current opportunities that exist for businesses with these evolving technologies and professions.

We are blessed to have such a high quality program for a locally-organized event. Dave Mitropoulos-Rundus, a Michigan UPA officer, is the main force behind this, but he gets volunteers from other local groups like MOCHI, STC/SM and Refresh Detroit, to help. It is a great example of how local User Experience Network collaboration can help pull off something "local" that is comparable to the other UX conferences.

Check out the schedule and register if you are interested. I have gone every year and it has been great. I will be there for at least part of the 4 days - see you there.

I just discovered that we now have an AIGA local chapter in the area, AIGA Toledo. Yeah! Amy Fidler and Jenn Stucker issued a call for participation in July and had the first organizational meeting in April. Since becoming an official chapter, the group has hosted Marian Bantjes in September and a social gathering in October (with Flickr photos from both events). Amy and Jenn have collaborated on other things, too.

Before the Toledo chapter was formed, local AIGA members had the option of driving to Detroit or Cleveland for meetings. There is also an AIGA chapter in Cincinnati.

I was an AIGA member years ago, when it had an active Experience design community of practice. I am no longer an AIGA member, but one of the hi-lites of DUX was meeting AIGA members (the "dressed in black" crowd): as we talked about user experience, the differences in our backgrounds did not really matter.

AIGA Toledo represents the first truly local chapter related to user experience. As a UXnet Local Ambassador, I hope I will be able to help them incorporate the right mix of user experience topics into their programs so they can help serve the broader UX community in Northwest Ohio.

I will still be hanging out in the Ann Arbor/Detroit, Cleveland, Dayton and Columbus areas to connect with UX professionals in the region, but it will be nice to also have a connection with colleagues closer to home through our new AIGA chapter.

Thanks to Amy and Jenn and everyone else who helped form AIGA Toledo. This is great news for the area.

Many of the user experience groups in the area kicked off the "season" with meetings in September. Here is what is in store within a 3+ hour radius of Toledo for October.

• 2: Ann Arbor, The Future Direction of Google Apps
• 7: Ann Arbor, From Indie Games To Big Games
• 10: Columbus, ASIS&T - Alphabet Soup: A Metadata Overview
• 12: Cleveland, STC regional conference
• 16: Ann Arbor, AIGA - Michael Jakab
• 16: Grand Rapids (MI), UPA - Live Web Site Evaluations
• 17: Cleveland, Web Association - Building Better Landing Pages [date changed to avoid the Indians game]
• 17: Lebanon (between Dayton and Cincinnati), STC - When Did Google Become a Verb?
• 18: Columbus, CSCA - Tony Spaeth
• 18: Indianapolis, AIGA - [ shift + option + drink ]
• 18: Toledo, ACM social gathering
• 19: Cincinnati, Developing Online Brand Communities
• 24: Cleveland, UPA - Panel
• 24: Dearborn, IGDA - Education round table [added 10/4]
• 25: Cleveland, AIGA - Cocktails with Creatives
• 26: Portsmouth (east of Cincinnati), Shawnee 5.0 conference

Let me know what else I am missing from this list. Also, MOCHI is gearing up again and a UPA chapter is forming in Columbus.

On November 8th, there will be quite a few regional events for World Usability Day.

The Entrepreneurial Thinking conference was well worth it. I look forward to the next one on April 18th, 2008.

Alan Webber (adding to my quick notes)

• He did not have slides, so this is what stayed up on screen as he talked: Expert on change and innovation in the knowledge economy.
• Two things matter for business success: Innovation and Leadership. That is where you stand out. (The rest are important but taken for granted.) They are two sides of the same coin. Innovation: upset status quo to create new value. Leadership: guide/create positive change, master the art of change. That means the coin is called Change.
• Three brutal facts of business life: Globalization, Technology, Human capital. My favorite quote (paraphrased): "Web 2.0 is a buzzword that means: If the work is not moving to India or China, then it will move to the web." Human capital - it really means "hire the best people." Interesting stat: The top programmers are 10,000 times more productive than average ones.
• In the TINA questions, I of course liked the fact that "customer's skin" and "design" are next to each other. Good quotes: "Know your customers better than they know themselves," "Your web site instantly communicates your brand values" and "Design is a signal of intention."
• The best question for Alan was about open systems. The old model of a great business was that you controlled everything within your corporate boundaries.

Guy Kawasaki

• Worth the price of admission. Very inspiring. And funny. Great presenter. (Guy is one of the judges in SlideShare's World Best Presentation Contest.)
• His talk was titled "The art of innovation" and it was very similar to his "art of the start" talks. There are several copies of his Art of the Start floating around - here is one on SlideShare and another.
• Since some of his points were different, I will list them here., with short notes. (Update: PDF attached below.)

1. Make meaning (the money comes from the meaning but you cannot make meaning just from money)
2. Make mantra (not mission statements)
3. Jump to the next curve (10 times better, not 10% better)
4. Roll the DICEE (Deep, Intelligent, Complete, Elegant, Emotive)
5. Don't worry, be crappy (ship and then test, but only revolutionary products can get away with this)
6. Polarize people (if you design for everyone, it works for no one)
7. Let 100 flowers blossom (spread it widely because you will get unanticipated customers)
8. Churn, baby, churn (hardest part is shifting from "do not listen to the people who tell you it is impossible" before shipping to evolutionary mode - "listen to your users" - after shipping)
9. Niche thyself (high value + unique product - high and to the right on the charts)
10. Follow the 10/20/30 rule (for pitching ideas - 10 slides, 20 minutes of talking and then discussion, 30 point font)
11. Don't let the bozos grind you down (innovation is about seeing the next curve, those stuck in the current curve will get in your way)

Other things

• I hung out a lot with the great folks at Hanson. Very nice to have them involved. Shared a lot of great ideas for nurturing the user experience community in the area.
• BGSU is doing other good things. I did not take notes on this part, since I was eating, but from what I remember: A new program where a cohort of students go thru the business program with a cohort of multi-disciplinary teachers. A way for alumni to come back for "lifelong learning." A new WBGU-TV program of interviews with entrepreneurs, starring Martha Rogers. (I will blog this more as I learn more - or someone who knows the details can add a comment here.)
• There are other events happening at BGSU this weekend, none of which I can attend. The one I really will miss is Oprah's dress (not).
• Keith Trowbridge, Executive Quest, is quite the character - I attended the break-out session where he spoke. Stories ranging from how he got the curling rink built to the "BGSU mafia" to his innovative timeshare business.

Technorati tag: entrepreneurial-thinking

Most people were scribbling down Alan's 12 TINA (There is No Alternative) questions, so I will blog them first and do other notes from the Entrepreneurial Thinking conference later.

1. Do you have the right kind of leadership for your organization?
2. Are you playing a bigger game?
3. Are you getting more than your fair share of truly great people?
4. Is your culture about teamwork or "all for yourself"?
5. Is your corporate DNA diverse enough?
6. Are you living inside your customers' skins?
7. Do you know what your company's design is saying about you?
8. Do you know what your company stands for?
9. Is technology a cost or a way of doing business?
10. Is your company a talk show?
11. Are you a fast company or a slow company?

Update: Were there 12 questions or 11? I think I may have missed one. Also: Technorati tag: entrepreneurial-thinking.

Registration is now open for the 4th Annual Sebo Series in Entrepreneurship, April 13, 2007 - Entrepreneurial Thinking - the catalyst for business growth at BGSU.

Speakers:

• Alan Webber, Fast Company
• Guy Kawasaki

Other sessions:

• Supply Chain Entrepreneurial Thinking
• Entrepreneurial Thinking from the Start
• Innovation in Corporate Strategy
• Innovative Business Models

Update: Technorati tag: entrepreneurial-thinking

Raw notes taken during the IUE 2007 conference - day 2.

Development process, Dean Barker, HFI: Missed most of it. Saw some charts on methodology and Agile that I liked.

CSS and graphics

• CSS's ability to implement web designs in layers is changing the way you export work from Photoshop, blurring lines between "design" and "code"
• Interesting technique to put all page images into 1 graphic and use CSS positioning to show the right (sub-)image at the right time

Writing, web style, Ron Rundus

• Content syndication means "Death of the home page". User generated content. Keep it Simple, Senator. Progressive disclosure.
• Web style = Technical + Writing + Design
• Semantic web, microformat, Web patterns.
• Elements of web style: How to talk about web pages
• Warehouse model: Cases, units, tags.
• Analysis of 8 cases (ID, legal, impact, feature, navigation, ...). Decompose page into these content elements. Similar to Navigation stress test.

Lunch mini-workshop on Usability Labs: Good overview of lab technical details but I mostly attended to catch up with Scott from Ovo Studios.

Tuning up site search, Chris Farnum/Grant. Did not take good notes (since I am pretty familiar with this stuff). They did use ibm.com search results as an example of filtering (and Chris F. did check in with me on it to make sure he got the details correct).

Web metrics and user testing, Jarret Knyal (user guy) and Jacque Smith (metrics gal) of Quicken Loans

• Usability (qualitative, "why people do things") and analytics (quantitative, "what people are doing") is a good marriage
• Their biggest business / user experience debate is where / how to do the "contact us for more information" form - their lead generation device
• Landing page abandonment (from analytics) - do user testing to understand why
• Single user feedback (from user research) - do analytics to see if common behavior, find data to back it up
• Do A/B testing and use analytics to see which page works better
• More complicated multi-variable testing where the system has several versions of a zone on the page. Gather metrics on which combinations work. Example: Try 4 different blurbs to say "fill out this form and we will contact you". They use some vendor to do this but I did not catch the name - Optimos?
• Question: How many pages? Thousands but not a huge site like IBM.

State of web site user experience panel: I attached my presentation to my earlier announcement. Folks liked my Web 2.0 stuff. And my "call to actions" like volunteering your usability skills to an open source project. We did not argue too much but I did try to stir the pot by challenging the panel moderator Tim Kiernan of Design Critique on his furniture ordering problems.

[Technorati tags: IUE2007, InternetUserExperience]