Being a designer is more of a way of life and not just my profession. To be innovative and creative, you have to always look at the humor and the ordinary details that no one else pays attention to. “Life is too important to be taken seriously.” For me, Oscar Wilde’s quote reflects the humor I always see in life and about myself.
I remember when I was first out of college; I put a bullet on my resume stating, “Ability to inspire creativity in others.” It’s funny how some things sound so good when they are in your head, but no one understood this and I couldn’t explain it back then. The older I get, I realize that Woody Allen’s quote “90% of life is just showing up” is also pretty true.
I have been a User Experience Professional for twenty years in Seattle, WA. I knew I always wanted to be a designer since I was a kid because I would redesign everything and it was very satisfying to take ideas and change them into something usable.
Making things usable is what I want to talk about. When you interact with very ordinary things say a door handle, a light switch, a subway ticket machine, an elevator or a cell phone you are developing a seemingly surface level relationship with these things but, in reality, it is your interaction with these things that shape your attitude or behavior on a sub-conscience level. These interactions fuel your motivation to use or to buy them. If a door handle or a light switch doesn’t behave like you think it should, then you get frustrated and try another alternative, maybe a window or a candle. But when it comes to a product, you have a choice and you would choose not to buy something that doesn’t work. This is what real people experience all the time with software, hardware or mobile devices and development teams are so perplexed why something fails. The concept is pretty basic and this is why UX professionals test with real users. Depending on the audience, they can have extreme feelings of failure with these tools, especially when they are forced to use them for their jobs, for example. We have to look at the details that no one else pays attention to about failed experiences and hopefully prevent them from happening for the users of our products.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Wire Rings
Little did I know or ever realize how much I would need “Boy Scout Survival Training” while I was spending all those wasted hours in Campfire Girls. We spent, long and tedious hours making bookmarks endorsed with our names made out of alphabet soup letters and those useless wire rings! I have spent a lot of time pondering what wire rings ever had to do with fostering a sisterhood of play, work, and healthy values to shape us into active, modern women. My wire ring collection includes just about every size and color a person would want. The closest I came to learning “real” survival techniques were weaving together strips of newspaper to make a forest mat which we neatly enclosed in a garbage bag tapering the excess edges to fit the size of the mat by taping or stapling the edges. But, with the newspaper industry virtually disappearing into online formats, it is highly unlikely we will carry our personal stacks with us deep into the forest ever again.
From these early experiences, survival never had a personal meaning. As an adult, my husband always compensates for me wherever we go to make sure we never forget anything because he was a boy scout. I have often teased him about bringing the kitchen sink but just last weekend we were out on an unexpectedly long hike at Cougar Mountain because we became lost on one of the 67 acres of trails. As the brief dusk abruptly went to dark, it quickly overshadowed all the fun we were having. Several moments of fear and panic overtook me as I realized I had absolutely nothing except the house key and one tissue – not water, not an ounce of food and certainly not a light. As bats started diving over me, I threw on my hood and quickly ran frantically up the trail looking for any familiar trail names which may tie back into the ones we knew. I was imagining all that could go wrong and all of the animals lurking in the shadows waiting to attack us. This fear all comes from a part from our most recent experiences in the jungle. I can see survival is becoming a reoccurring theme for us. After a while I settled into knowing there were no any deadly snakes or wild animals ready to pounce on us, rather just the woods we grew up in and know well. Our very own Northwest woods became the marked turning point in my personal survival responsibilities. Here is where I want to pass down my lessons to you. Learn to be prepared even if it doesn’t seem natural. You could be out on a hike like us, expecting only to be out for a half hour which could turn into much more than you bargained for. Heed the Boy Scouts’ motto: Be prepared!
While most people probably follow some of the suggested basics, this could be new territory for others who may have shared similar experiences as me. It’s not even that I haven’t been aware of them, it comes from a belief like, “We are only going for a short hike -- I really don’t need to bring anything” until you find yourself in unexpected circumstances. REI suggest the following 10 essentials for day hiking for safety, survival and basic comfort.
1. Navigation like a compass and map
2. Sun screen protection: lotion, glasses, hat
3. Insulated clothing and shoes
4. Illumination: flashlight or headlamp
5. First aid supplies
6. Fire: matches in a waterproof case or a fire starter
7. Repair kit and tools: knife, tape
8. Nutrition: energy bars, trail mix
9. Hydration
10. Emergency shelter or blanket
Going beyond just day hiking into thinking about emergencies or natural disasters, I have found some great advice from the Survival Center:
Planning is important, but rehearsal is when you will test your plan and identify flaws. Rehearsal is simply pretending you are in a survival situation and acting accordingly. Here are some survival examples to try:
1. Try living for a weekend without electricity. You can do this the real way by shutting of the breaker (to prevent cheating) or the easy way by just "pretending." If you do the latter, you should fine each other for violating the rules. The exercise will teach you that boiling water over a camp stove or a fire in the back yard just to make you're morning coffee can really wreck your normal morning routine. But hopefully the experience will also help you identify missing supplies, bad ideas and develop a new, stronger plan.
2. Try to evacuate your family to another location (anywhere from a friend or relatives to a motel 100 miles away). Give yourselves 20 minutes to pack. Once you've reached your destination make a list of everything you forgot and then add it to your bag. Once you've settled in at your destination, take a minute to think how you would feel if everything you left behind was destroyed by a fire or if everything below the second floor was damaged or destroyed by a flood. Revise your storage and survival plans accordingly.
3. Go for a drive one Saturday in the fall. Pull over in a remote area (if it's safe) and spend the night there with only the supplies on hand in your car.
4. Try eating only your survival foods for a weekend or even a week. This is a good one if you're ready to rotate out some of your food. It also has the added benefit of letting you identify any dishes you can't stand or to realize you need to add some spices and a cook book to your stash.
Lastly, to develop a survivalist mentality, you must think through scenarios. Play scenarios through your head and rehearse your options and actions. For example:
• If you are stuck in traffic, imagine what you would do if a large earthquake struck. Where would you go? What would you do?
• If you're traveling out of town or in any unfamiliar area, think about what you would do if you were stranded due to a breakdown or if the area was suddenly hit by a flash flood. What would you do to increase your chance of survival?
Perhaps through my survival exploration, I will eventually find a purpose for all of those useless wire rings, but at least they hold a strong reminder of what to keep in my head next time we are out on another hike or deep in a jungle in another country. Don’t get rid of those perceived useless relics you may have, they may hold a key to helping you change your behavior and become a survivalist.
From these early experiences, survival never had a personal meaning. As an adult, my husband always compensates for me wherever we go to make sure we never forget anything because he was a boy scout. I have often teased him about bringing the kitchen sink but just last weekend we were out on an unexpectedly long hike at Cougar Mountain because we became lost on one of the 67 acres of trails. As the brief dusk abruptly went to dark, it quickly overshadowed all the fun we were having. Several moments of fear and panic overtook me as I realized I had absolutely nothing except the house key and one tissue – not water, not an ounce of food and certainly not a light. As bats started diving over me, I threw on my hood and quickly ran frantically up the trail looking for any familiar trail names which may tie back into the ones we knew. I was imagining all that could go wrong and all of the animals lurking in the shadows waiting to attack us. This fear all comes from a part from our most recent experiences in the jungle. I can see survival is becoming a reoccurring theme for us. After a while I settled into knowing there were no any deadly snakes or wild animals ready to pounce on us, rather just the woods we grew up in and know well. Our very own Northwest woods became the marked turning point in my personal survival responsibilities. Here is where I want to pass down my lessons to you. Learn to be prepared even if it doesn’t seem natural. You could be out on a hike like us, expecting only to be out for a half hour which could turn into much more than you bargained for. Heed the Boy Scouts’ motto: Be prepared!
While most people probably follow some of the suggested basics, this could be new territory for others who may have shared similar experiences as me. It’s not even that I haven’t been aware of them, it comes from a belief like, “We are only going for a short hike -- I really don’t need to bring anything” until you find yourself in unexpected circumstances. REI suggest the following 10 essentials for day hiking for safety, survival and basic comfort.
1. Navigation like a compass and map
2. Sun screen protection: lotion, glasses, hat
3. Insulated clothing and shoes
4. Illumination: flashlight or headlamp
5. First aid supplies
6. Fire: matches in a waterproof case or a fire starter
7. Repair kit and tools: knife, tape
8. Nutrition: energy bars, trail mix
9. Hydration
10. Emergency shelter or blanket
Going beyond just day hiking into thinking about emergencies or natural disasters, I have found some great advice from the Survival Center:
Planning is important, but rehearsal is when you will test your plan and identify flaws. Rehearsal is simply pretending you are in a survival situation and acting accordingly. Here are some survival examples to try:
1. Try living for a weekend without electricity. You can do this the real way by shutting of the breaker (to prevent cheating) or the easy way by just "pretending." If you do the latter, you should fine each other for violating the rules. The exercise will teach you that boiling water over a camp stove or a fire in the back yard just to make you're morning coffee can really wreck your normal morning routine. But hopefully the experience will also help you identify missing supplies, bad ideas and develop a new, stronger plan.
2. Try to evacuate your family to another location (anywhere from a friend or relatives to a motel 100 miles away). Give yourselves 20 minutes to pack. Once you've reached your destination make a list of everything you forgot and then add it to your bag. Once you've settled in at your destination, take a minute to think how you would feel if everything you left behind was destroyed by a fire or if everything below the second floor was damaged or destroyed by a flood. Revise your storage and survival plans accordingly.
3. Go for a drive one Saturday in the fall. Pull over in a remote area (if it's safe) and spend the night there with only the supplies on hand in your car.
4. Try eating only your survival foods for a weekend or even a week. This is a good one if you're ready to rotate out some of your food. It also has the added benefit of letting you identify any dishes you can't stand or to realize you need to add some spices and a cook book to your stash.
Lastly, to develop a survivalist mentality, you must think through scenarios. Play scenarios through your head and rehearse your options and actions. For example:
• If you are stuck in traffic, imagine what you would do if a large earthquake struck. Where would you go? What would you do?
• If you're traveling out of town or in any unfamiliar area, think about what you would do if you were stranded due to a breakdown or if the area was suddenly hit by a flash flood. What would you do to increase your chance of survival?
Perhaps through my survival exploration, I will eventually find a purpose for all of those useless wire rings, but at least they hold a strong reminder of what to keep in my head next time we are out on another hike or deep in a jungle in another country. Don’t get rid of those perceived useless relics you may have, they may hold a key to helping you change your behavior and become a survivalist.
Breaking Codes
My favorite “meaning of life” answer was given by Curly in “City Slickers” when he held up his index finger and Billy Crystal said “Your finger?
It would be convenient if everything packaged up nicely to explain the meaning of things. It is, after all human nature. There are more answers, however, in studying the complex and messy details of everyday life. Right now there is a growing interest in the marketing industry to get to that “one thing”, the essence of what will motivate to users to buy. The answers are in the details of life.
For user experience professionals, like myself, to understand users can help predict the human behaviors in almost anything. We study users to understand their emotion, context and meaning of their motivations because motivations shape behaviors. Motivations can lead to the triggers that lead to desirable user behaviors which help drive what is really important.
Recently, I was told about a researcher, Dr. Rapaille who has brought science to the business world through his work in archetypes. He has been profiled in many national media outlets, including 60 Minutes II and on the front page of the New York Times Sunday Styles section and works for fifty Fortune 100 companies.
An Archetype can be thought of as a path that is imprinted in our unconscious and guides our actions. The emotional energy created during your first experience with a given product/concept determines the pattern of behavior to be used throughout your entire life in relation to this product/concept. These experiences, which are the essence of all our behaviors, vary from culture to culture. The permanent underlying structure of these experiences, deeply rooted in our unconscious, is the key to understanding fully what people do and why. This structure is the Archetype.
Dr. Rapaille began as a child a former child psychologist specializing in Autism. Imprinting is a rapid learning process that takes place early in life and establishes unconscious behavior during a critical time of life after it is next to impossible to imprint.
He believes individuals with common cultural backgrounds will share reasonably convergent mental models, ideologies and institutions. People with different learning experiences will have different theories to interpret their environment.
He moved science into the business market by breaking “codes” like that of culture, luxury, leadership, globalization, etc. His work has proven successful into providing guidance into meeting the unanticipated needs of users; this is a powerful way to differentiate products. These codes reveal which elements can be used successfully by companies to trigger a “premium” perception in consumers’ minds in the case of luxury.
For me, this research is fascinating and can be applied across disciplines. In user experience, archetypes, or personas, are also models of behavior which are strongly rooted in cultural codes. If there is a shift in these mental models, it is “Curly’s index finger to the meaning of life” response. Cultural forces are powerful and are a strong platform for identifying change, improvement, new product design and innovation.
The logic of emotion derived from Dr. Rapaille’s “Cultural Code” Study breaks down the following cultural descriptions that drive consumer choices:
Chinese: Symbol – womb, verb: Entitlement
French: Ideas
British: Class Structure
American: Autonomy, verb: Just do it!
From a user experience perspective, using these codes will enable us to deal with strong uncertainty at the individual level and will help to us to understand user motivations and behaviors on an even deeper level.
It would be convenient if everything packaged up nicely to explain the meaning of things. It is, after all human nature. There are more answers, however, in studying the complex and messy details of everyday life. Right now there is a growing interest in the marketing industry to get to that “one thing”, the essence of what will motivate to users to buy. The answers are in the details of life.
For user experience professionals, like myself, to understand users can help predict the human behaviors in almost anything. We study users to understand their emotion, context and meaning of their motivations because motivations shape behaviors. Motivations can lead to the triggers that lead to desirable user behaviors which help drive what is really important.
Recently, I was told about a researcher, Dr. Rapaille who has brought science to the business world through his work in archetypes. He has been profiled in many national media outlets, including 60 Minutes II and on the front page of the New York Times Sunday Styles section and works for fifty Fortune 100 companies.
An Archetype can be thought of as a path that is imprinted in our unconscious and guides our actions. The emotional energy created during your first experience with a given product/concept determines the pattern of behavior to be used throughout your entire life in relation to this product/concept. These experiences, which are the essence of all our behaviors, vary from culture to culture. The permanent underlying structure of these experiences, deeply rooted in our unconscious, is the key to understanding fully what people do and why. This structure is the Archetype.
Dr. Rapaille began as a child a former child psychologist specializing in Autism. Imprinting is a rapid learning process that takes place early in life and establishes unconscious behavior during a critical time of life after it is next to impossible to imprint.
He believes individuals with common cultural backgrounds will share reasonably convergent mental models, ideologies and institutions. People with different learning experiences will have different theories to interpret their environment.
He moved science into the business market by breaking “codes” like that of culture, luxury, leadership, globalization, etc. His work has proven successful into providing guidance into meeting the unanticipated needs of users; this is a powerful way to differentiate products. These codes reveal which elements can be used successfully by companies to trigger a “premium” perception in consumers’ minds in the case of luxury.
For me, this research is fascinating and can be applied across disciplines. In user experience, archetypes, or personas, are also models of behavior which are strongly rooted in cultural codes. If there is a shift in these mental models, it is “Curly’s index finger to the meaning of life” response. Cultural forces are powerful and are a strong platform for identifying change, improvement, new product design and innovation.
The logic of emotion derived from Dr. Rapaille’s “Cultural Code” Study breaks down the following cultural descriptions that drive consumer choices:
Chinese: Symbol – womb, verb: Entitlement
French: Ideas
British: Class Structure
American: Autonomy, verb: Just do it!
From a user experience perspective, using these codes will enable us to deal with strong uncertainty at the individual level and will help to us to understand user motivations and behaviors on an even deeper level.
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