Agile 2010

Sunday 15 Aug 2010 by Jeff Gothelf | View Comments
Filed under: Conferences, Productivity, Uncategorized, agile, ux team, work ethic Tags: , , , , ,

I just returned from a week in hot, sweaty and rainy Orlando, FL where I spent the bulk of my time at the Agile 2010 conference. It was my first time at such a specialized, non-design conference and I was doubly excited since I also presented. I went down with many questions -- how are other organizations dealing with transitions into Agile? Is Design and User Experience even a consideration? What challenges and ultimately what solutions are people finding that work well for their teams?

I came down to Florida with those questions. I went home with them too. To be fair, I did get a slew of new tactics to try but the general vibe is that many folks are struggling with Agile -- especially when trying to incorporate a design team (of any size, skillset or configuration). I focused my attention on sessions that dealt with the core problems with this integration as I see them -- personalities and planning.

I found Lisamarie Babik's session on Coaching Introverts interesting and useful as it focused on pulling the quieter members of the team into the process more. I also spent time in Jean Tabaka's Visioning session. While it was a bit fluffy for my tastes it did give me some good ideas on how to focus the team on the things they want to achieve and not on the negative perceptions of an Agile design environment.

Jeff Patton and Desiree Sy -- both UX/Agile legends at this point -- provided strong tactical sessions on how to plan product design activities into the sprint timeframes. I found those sessions valuable and both individuals extremely friendly and forthcoming for conversation and differing opinions (Jeff I'd met once before but this is my first time meeting Desiree in person).

My presentation on integrating UX and Agile is embedded below. I feel like it struck a nerve with the folks who attended as it dealt directly with the failures we experienced at TheLadders as we've been integrating UX into Agile. But, more interestingly than that, it showed that even when good ideas fail, you can iterate, tweak and try them again -- which is the essence of being agile.

Beyond Staggered Sprints: Integrating User Experience and Agile

View more presentations from Jeff Gothelf.
Ultimately, I enjoyed networking and meeting new people and those familiar to me from the Twitter but first time in meatspace (as my friend Will Evans likes to say). The entire crew from Atomic Object in Grand Rapids, MI made for engaged conversations during meals and after sessions -- seems like they're working on some interesting things.
One final note on the production of the conference -- top notch. Amazing production, facilities, equipment, food, parties, vendor space -- you name it. Kudos for an event well planned.
I enjoyed my time at Agile 2010 very much and, based on the reactions and connections I've made, I think I'll be back in 2011.
[Jeff]


The 3 Secrets to Getting Hired

Saturday 31 Jul 2010 by Jeff Gothelf | View Comments
Filed under: Uncategorized

I've been lucky enough over the years to be able to hire many people to the various teams I've led. Over the course of all of these interviews I've discovered that there are three core components that make a candidate a desirable addition to my team. While these three traits have emerged over the course of interviews focused on User Experience and Design teams, I believe they are applicable across all disciplines, industries and positions.

And so, without further ado, the three secrets to getting hired are:

  1. Have kick-ass chops -- in other words, be the best you can be at whatever it is you're trying to getting hired to do. This means knowing the discipline, the tools and the outputs. Unless you're applying for an entry-level position, there will be an expectation that you will know how to perform the job. The onus is on you to be the best you can be at that job. Also, your new team and manager don't want to train you in the craft - perhaps they'll train you in the specifics of how to perform the craft at that specific workplace but they'll expect that you know what you're doing.
  2. Have an opinion -- when asked at an interview how you feel about a particular subject, technique, outcome, etc have an opinion on the subject -- even if that opinion differs from your interviewer. Also, use the opportunity to showcase that you have opinions about your industry and discipline. On my team, I seek out new ideas, thoughts and reactions -- most managers do. Your point of view matters -- even if it's different than the commonly-held opinion.
  3. Have the initiative and passion to pursue that opinion (the one in #2) -- You're good at what you do. You have definitive opinions on how things should be done and why certain techniques work and others don't. The last ingredient is initiative. Having initiative means finding your own motivations and energies to push those opinions and drive the direction of the work you're responsible for.  Without this last piece, your opinion is just an idea in your head. Growth companies look for team members who can move the company forward. Initiative moves your ideas forward which in turn moves the company.

I believe so firmly in these three traits that I actually tried to push through a job description (for every job on my team) with just those three things on it recently. Perhaps it's a bit short but, to me, it says it all. Now, granted there will be corporations that may frown on some of these traits. It's at that point where you have to ask yourself, if you have and value these traits, if that's the place you really want to work.

Share these 3 secrets to getting hired with your networks. The more folks we get out there working in these ways, the better the output of the world's best companies will ultimately be.

[Jeff]


How to Lose A Customer

Sunday 25 Jul 2010 by Jeff Gothelf | View Comments
Filed under: Uncategorized, brand, service design, user feedback, work ethic Tags: ,

I recently bought a car. It's a 2007 Mustang GT. It's metallic gray with custom wheels and I loved it the minute that I saw it on the Paramus Chevrolet dealership lot. Not too long after that serendipitous sighting I was the new owner of that car. The Mustang was perfect inside and out with three exceptions:

  1. The custom after-market stereo seemed to work but did not emit any sound
  2. It only came with one key
  3. The manual (hey, I love manuals) was missing
Hotness from the right

Hotness from the right

My salesman at Paramus Chevrolet promised that all three of these things would be taken care of after I purchased the car. We even wrote a "we owe you" slip to ensure that no one at the dealership "forgot" what was agreed on at point of sale.

I returned a week later to have an amplifier installed in the Mustang to make the radio work. Turns out that the radio was also a CD player (nice) and a navigation system (even nicer) but, although now making sound, the face plate would not retract fully making it impossible to place a CD in the player nor was it possible to switch out the West Coast navigation DVD for an East Coast one. This rendered the navigation system unusable.

Hotness from the left

Hotness from the left

So, to recap -- I am now the proud owner of a beautiful sports car (the kind I dreamed of as a teenager) and yet the three things that were agreed upon for post-sale disposition have gone unresolved and have left me with an unsettling feeling about the dealership's motivations and legitimacy. After many unresponsive email attempts and phone calls, I tracked down the sales manager. He told me that I should go to Best Buy and find out what a new version of the car stereo would cost and that they would split the cost with me -- $300. Installation was another $200. So, at this point the dealership is squabbling with me over $500, a key and a manual -- ALL of which was promised to be taken care after I purchased the car. I spent over $20k at their establishment only to have my purchase experience and ANY word-of-mouth praising I might do eliminated in an instant -- over $500, a key and a manual.

I continued to send emails, voicemails and the occasional drive-by to see if I can get them to move on any of these items but the result is always no response or no budging on any item. So, Paramus Chevrolet, you've lost me as a customer. I will not tell my friends to purchase cars in your lot. Here's why:

  • In an information-at-the-ready world where anyone can provide any product or service to anyone else the CORE differentiation is customer service. That service can only be delivered by humans and it's those interactions with those humans that drives the perception of the experience with your dealership.
  • The best type of transaction is one that instills trust. As a used car dealer you are starting in the red. You must work extra hard to earn a level of trust from your customers that make them feel good about dropping tens of thousands of dollars in your establishment.
  • Hassle-free experience. That is your goal. That's what you should strive for. Making it nearly impossible for me to get a hold of my salesman, his manager or anyone else to resolve this only exacerbates the issue.
  • Any sales or influence book will tell you that word-of-mouth referrals are THE MOST valuable thing you can gain from your customers. Why would you risk so much future revenue over $500? In retrospect, it makes even less sense than before.

Case in point -- recently at my workplace, TheLadders.com, we reworked our refund policy so that getting your money back from us was hassle free and painless. We want to provide good service but in the event it doesn't meet your needs or expectations we want you to leave happy as well. As soon as the changes for this policy went into effect, our customer satisfaction ratings jumped over 30%. Even customers who were not happy with our product, left happy with our service.
Losing a customer is easy. Gaining and keeping a customer is hard work but the payoff is exponential if done right. Customer service is for the long term. Thinking about the short-term gain/loss ensures that you'll continue to work even harder to gain new customers. For me, it's too late. Paramus Chevrolet has lost me as a future customer but perhaps the next time this happens, $500 won't be too much to spend to keep that customer and earn their trust.
[Jeff]


11 Ways to Get Better User Feedback

Wednesday 30 Jun 2010 by Jeff Gothelf | View Comments
Filed under: Productivity, user feedback, ux team Tags: , , , , , , ,

This one goes to 11So, as all classic list-type posts must do -- this one goes to 11. Understanding what your customers are saying is critical to the success of your product's evolution. Here are 11 ways that individually provide varying perspectives on the customer's opinion. Combined, they become powerful in providing a 360 degree view of the voice of that customer.

  1. Bring customers in to your office -- this one may go without saying but it's important to bring customers in. Show them the office and where the sausage is made and solicit their feedback via one-on-one interviews and usability testing. The insight gained here may be a bit contrived but you'll start to get a feel for where the big boulders are in the road and what you should focus on next.
  2. Go where your customers are -- classic field research techniques will provide you with the qualitative insight gained in #1 above with the addition of context. This is the customer in their natural habitat interacting with your product. In a lot of cases all you'll need to do is observe. Don't say a word. Just watch, take notes and pay attention to the nuances.
  3. Reach out and touch your customers -- assuming you've forgiven the antiquated marketing slogan, the core of it is absolutely true. Call your customers - especially those that have quit your service. Typically, they've left for a specific reason or perception. While that perception may not actually be true it WAS true for them and defined their experience to the point of making them quit.  Call them up. They're dying to tell you about it. Guaranteed.
  4. Ask them why they're leaving -- inevitably customers will quit your service (see #3 above). On their way out, ask them, via survey, why they left your service or product. People love to vent and if your product frustrated them they won't hesitate to share their thoughts. This is the perfect time to solicit this information since it's fresh in their minds and caustic enough to drive abandonment.
  5. Survey the landscape -- for general, high-level, directional understanding of what your audience is feeling about or doing with your product/service nothing beats a survey. They're easy to set up on services like Surveymonkey.com and provide solid analysis into the general segmentation trends of your audience. Pick a large sample size since completion percentages will likely be low.
  6. Look at the numbers -- do you have an analytics tool on your site? No? Google Analytics is free and does some pretty amazing things for a free product. Need more power, dig into something like Omniture or Webtrends to get the deeper insight you need. Use this data directionally to get a sense of how your audience is using your site. Where are they spending time? Is something engaging them there or are they getting stuck? Are they bailing out at some point? Dig in and find out why. Did I mention this was totally FREE data available to you right now?
  7. A/B Test -- think something works well? What if you tweaked the wording or changed the call-to-action? Red vs. blue? Your audience will vote with their mouse when you show them two separate options. Make sure your results are statistically significant before declaring a winner but this is an easy option for gaining quick optimization wins and understanding what type of triggers work best with your audience.
  8. Talk to your customer service folks -- your CS reps are the front lines of the customer feedback loop. When something's wrong, they hear about it -- a lot. Buy them a couple of pizzas and spend your next lunch hour with them discussing their top 10 complaints for the month. Then, do that next month and the month after that. Rinse, repeat. You'll be amazed how much knowledge of your audience is available within your organization.
  9. Talk to your sales people -- on a similar note, your sales people are the leading edge of where your customers are headed. Sales people hear about current pain points, how your current offering addresses those pain points and what benefits the competition is offering. In addition, listen in on several sales calls a month. You'll be amazed at the way your product is being sold. Your perception of the product will be forever changed.
  10. Guerillas in the mist -- got a hot new idea? think it will crush the competition and reinvent your industry? Before you spend the next 4 iterations building it, get a prototype together and head to your nearest coffee shop, library, public park, wherever and show it to people. Offer them something in return for their time -- movie tickets, gift cards, etc -- and get their immediate feedback. Bonus: you'll start acquiring new customers and solid word of mouth if your prototype is a hit. Even if it's not, you've learned something and spent minimal dollars and time doing so.
  11. Get personal -- if you're offering a lifestyle product or a service that attempts to manage or automate a complex process that takes place over a longer period of time, consider getting some users to agree to a diary study. In essence you get a handful of customers to write down their daily activities over the course of a week or so and detail how your product/service fits into those regular activities. It's a little bit expensive -- $500/person/week is a fair price and you'll have to call your participants daily to ensure they're completing their diaries regularly. At the end of the process you'll have 5 books' worth (literally) of raw material to comb through, analyze and build patterns of use.

These 11 ways will bring you closer to customer and help you understand, quickly and cheaply, why they do the crazy things they do. Use them, love them and make them part of your regular routine. The insight they yield can help shape the future of your work.

Like these suggestions? What's missing? Let me know in the comments.

[Jeff]


Informing or Influencing?

Tuesday 22 Jun 2010 by Jeff Gothelf | View Comments
Filed under: Productivity, ROI, ux team Tags: , , ,

Recently, a point of view was brought to my attention that the vast majority of the contributions of user experience generally inform the product development process but don't necessarily influence it. The differentiation was stark - informing the UX meant that the product was being shaped by others while we (UX Design) helped mold it into a more refined version of that original shape (i.e., vision). The conception, vision and ultimate rasion d'être for the product was being determined by others.

Why, then, were we not influencing the origins and motivations of that product vision?

To influence the product vision the UX team has to take a position of leadership, examine the current product vision and strategy, analyze existing usage patterns and customer pain points and then determine how an improved product experience could address the needs that arise from that analysis. When that effort is complete the team has a direction to push product strategy, take the lead and drive towards greater customer satisfaction. The serendipitous by-product of this is that this UX-led effort is now explicitly measurable. The ROI of UX, something that has long been treated as a unicorn (perhaps a unicorn ridden by Patrick Swayze?), can actually be quantified. The up-front analysis work that was done to determine where to push the product strategy yielded valuable insight into how the current product was performing - clickthroughs, revenue, task completion, time on site, page views, whatever, can all now be used to measure the newly proposed (influenced?) product direction.

Many of you will say things like "Well, the UX team doesn't have that kind of power where I work" and "I'm lucky if I can get a product in front of a user" and to those that do, I say this, start small. Pick one aspect of your product and study it, figure out what can push its performance and influence that piece. Showcase your succes with quantifiable ROI metrics ($ works best :-) and move on to bigger pieces. Initially, the victories will be small but as you gain momentum you'll find that your UX efforts will bear fruit in bigger and more meaningful ways.

So which will it be for you? Continue informing or start pushing forward and influence the experiences you design?

[Jeff]


Constraints: your new best friends

Thursday 3 Jun 2010 by Jeff Gothelf | View Comments
Filed under: Uncategorized

Guard railEvery day I hear or read about designers lamenting the creativity-depriving horrors of constraints.

“I had to follow the style guide.”

“The client’s color palette consisted of orange, burnt orange and clementine.”

“We don’t use acronyms.”

These unholy edicts create such a chokehold on our designs that it takes every last fiber of our being to admit to actually having been involved with said work. The constraints “forced” me to do it a certain way – with which, of course, I wholeheartedly disagreed!

This is a stale argument. Constraints are everywhere – in every project. There is no project that exists, not even your own personal art projects, that don’t conform to some level of constraint. These constraints don’t, in fact, act as creativity blinders but instead should help us focus our efforts into creating the greatest experience possible within those constraints.

In effect, these “guard rails” keep your ideas grounded in brand-based reality, user expectations and the consistency that the bit of work you’re contributing requires in order to fit with a greater whole experience. In most cases we are not undertaking full site teardowns and redesigns. We’re adding to or modifying a piece of an existing site or application. The pieces we’re contributing to these broader experiences are made that much more successful by conforming to the constraints defined by the existing product. Screen widths, color palettes, behavior rules, copy style guides all work in context to ensure the application conforms to its current legal, business and experience rules. It’s these constraints that keep us on that track. Carte blanche would mean a Frankenstein-like experience made up of the unique, unconstrained fingerprints of each designer to ever touch it.

By narrowing down the options available to the designer, constraints also bring us to the most viable design faster. Many design explorations are removed as options simply based on the framework of the existing experience. This laser-like focus on only the viable design patterns and options perhaps gives us a more limited toolkit but, like McGyver, we can pretty much make magic happen even with these limitations.

Next time you’re faced with a new project built within existing guidelines, remember that these constraints will ultimately make your work more successful, efficient and cohesive. Constraints are you new best friends.

[Jeff]


Lean IA: Getting out of the deliverables business

Tuesday 18 May 2010 by Jeff Gothelf | View Comments
Filed under: Productivity, Uncategorized, agile, startups, ux team, work ethic Tags: , , , , ,

Traditionally Information Architecture (and its siblings Interaction Design, UX Design, et al) has been a deliverables practice. Wireframes, sitemaps, flow diagrams, content inventories, taxonomies etc defined the practice. While this work has helped define what an IA does and the value the discipline brings to an organization, it has also put IA’s in the deliverables business – measured and compensated for the depth and breadth of their deliverables (instead of the quality and success of the experiences they design). In addition this has forced niche specialization into our practice that has limited the success and growth of IA’s outside of the large organizations that can support these niches. People have become documentation subject matter experts focusing on (and being rewarded for) the quality of the document they’re creating as opposed to the end-state experience that document describes.

Enter Lean IA.

Read the rest of this entry »


GEL 2010

Monday 3 May 2010 by Jeff Gothelf | View Comments
Filed under: Conferences, Uncategorized Tags: , , ,

Last week I attended the GEL 2010 conference here in NYC. It's put on every year (8 years now) by entrepreneur, customer experience specialist, author and all around nice guy Mark Hurst. GEL stands for Good Experience Live and that's exactly what it was. I left the two day event refreshed and inspired. It was my second time at GEL. I went in 2009 and the experience was, as it was this year, breathtaking. The community that attends spans everyone from the arts to interactive designers and leaders, medical professionals, marketers and entrepreneurs. The topics discussed this year ranged from the religious, to the political; from creating amazing dining experiences to understanding the mentality behind the TOPGUN naval warfare program.

It would seem from afar that such a disparate array of topics would create a confused conference track with unclear purposes and yet, amazingly, everything seemed related and relevant. The story of a young man who challenged his own perceived stereotypes to dive into the belly of the beast and learn how to listen, create dialog and understand those different than him melded perfectly with 3 amazing stories of social entrepreneurship chronicling successes in fields like education and microfinance where it seemed no further innovation was possible or would be tolerated.

GEL is occasionally referred to as "a mini East coast TED." I've not been to TED but based on the videos I'd say the comparison is warranted. As a designer GEL breaks the mold of the traditional design conference by offering such varied topics and attendees. The focus of the presentations is not so much (as it sometimes is at the design conferences) about how much the presenter has accomplished and how we should shower them with accolades. Rather, the presenters at GEL provide views into worlds and activities one didn't know existed and that provide insight into how we, as designers, can rethink the way we try to create good experiences every day.

Also - Mark Hurst, the host and brains behind the operation - does an amazing job of making each of the 350+ attendees feel like he knows them personally. There's something nice about that experience.

[Jeff]


Gut Instincts

Tuesday 20 Apr 2010 by Jeff Gothelf | View Comments
Filed under: Productivity, career path Tags: , ,

Much is said about education, experience and domain knowledge when discussing the potential quality of a design.  If the designer has the right degrees, a solid cross-section of experience and deep industry knowledge the assumption is that the design will be great. There's a fourth component though: gut.

What is gut? It's talent, emotion, intuition, a feeling, a belief that a design direction is the right one to go in. It can't be quantified and it can't be rationalized and this scares us designers. It makes us perceive gut as the black sheep of design tactics.

"Why did you put the form fields in this order and then place the button left-aligned?"

"What makes this flow better than the one we currently have on our site?"

To a certain extent you can answer these questions (and others like them) with quantified insights gleaned from proper research, your experience and the domain expertise that comes from working in a particular industry. At a certain point though, these rationalizations run out leaving some skeptics in the room and you, the designer, with only one answer left -- it was a gut decision.

We fear defending our work with this tactic because it's "fuzzy" and nebulous. In a sense we're asking our clients to trust us at this point. And I say, that's ok. You are being hired because you possess these gut instincts. Because, in the past, they've propelled your designs to success and because they are an innate part of your design process.

Embrace your gut instincts. Be proud that you have this tool at your disposal and use it to defend your work. Let confidence in your design drive the public outing of your gut instincts. Ultimately, you will build trust and confidence in your work that quantifiable tactics could never earn.

[Jeff]


Building the UX Dream Team

Monday 12 Apr 2010 by Jeff Gothelf | View Comments
Filed under: career path, ux team Tags: , ,

More than a few have written on how to build the ideal User Experience design team. Those articles have typically focused on the titles, skillsets and passions of the folks you put on that team. However, one key piece is typically missing from consideration when setting out to put that team together – what are you designing?

It goes without saying that you need passionate people on your team – curious, tenacious people who rally around the customer and dig into their deepest motivations and pain points. You need to hire specialists who complement each other’s skillsets and can collaborate together to reach elegant solutions to tough interaction problems. All of this, however, could end up in vain if the “thing” that you are building is not taken into consideration.

Are you building marketing experiences that focus on driving acquisition and conversion? Or are you building heavily interactive web-based applications that take the user through a complex workflow? The best UX team focused on project work that is outside of their comfort zone will not realize the maximum benefits of their collective knowledge. That is not to say that teams shouldn’t stretch their capabilities in an effort to grow, learn and expand beyond their current domain expertise. But if you’re looking to build a dream team of UX talent, it is imperative that this team be well versed in the type of work your business requires of them.

This philosophy works especially well for online businesses. Typically there is a singular focus for that business allowing the UX team to specialize and hone its skills in a particular arena. In agency land however, there is usually a need to diversify. Agency work spans the gamut of experience design work and in these situations the best UX team may be a set of smaller, tactically focused UX teams.

Nowhere is this realization more acute than during the hiring process. Just because a candidate has impeccable credentials, a sterling portfolio and the right chemistry to fit the team doesn’t necessarily make them the right designer for your dream team. Have they ever built a web application? Can they logically and elegantly design solutions to multi-tiered workflow problems? If that’s the core business you’re in, the answer better be yes or that designer doesn’t make your roster.

The context of the work you do is the ultimate decider.

[Jeff]


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