Boxes and Arrows: Stories by Russ Unger

IDEA 2008: An Interview with Bill DeRouchey

Russ Unger — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 07:52:53 GMT

As IDEA 2008 draws closer, the IA Institute is conducting a series of interviews with the speakers for the conference. As Event Coordinator for IDEA, I fill a variety of roles, including the Interviewer of IDEA Presenters (which I proudly share with Liz Danzico).

For this interview, I was fortunate to draw Bill DeRouchey's name. If his name is not familiar to you, some of his work should be. Bill's blog is Push. Click. Touch. and his Conversations with Everyday Objects presentation is one that is well worth your time.

RU: How did you get your start in Interaction/Information Design?

BD: Like most people working in interaction design, I arrived from a lateral discipline. I had been an information architect working strictly on web projects from 2000-2004, either within an agency or as a consultant, respectively before and after the tech collapse. Prior to that, I had experience in writing, coding, product marketing, web producing, and then all the way back to my early days doing layout of computer science textbooks. So I had many angles on "tech."
In 2004, I was hired as an IA by Ziba Design, a product design company, not an obvious match. But they had a few website projects and asked me to come aboard. I quickly began working on physical products and learned interaction design along the way. Yes, I got lucky. I still take an architecture / flow / structure / behavior / systems approach to IxD, as opposed to the visual design side of it.

RU: It sounds like you're relatively "young" to the field, but you're well-known and well-respected in a short amount of time. How did you get your start as a presenter?

BD: I blame/thank Christina Wodtke for starting me as a presenter. A few months after I started at Ziba, I signed up for a Future of IA retreat in Asilomar, by Monterrey, CA. During registration, Christina asked me "what are you going to present?" Uhhh... So I pitched a talk called the IA of Things discussing my transition from digital to physical products, and the challenges of documenting physical interaction. Later after gentle prodding from Dave Malouf, I finally realized I was talking about interaction design. But that weekend seriously changed my career because I got to meet 40 incredible people, many of which I now consider friends. I discovered I enjoyed pitching weird questions and wrapping presentations around them, such as, what is the history of the button?

RU: I think a lot of us put some of the blame on Christina--and she's a self-proclaimed talent scout. I'd say she's on the mark!
What should the audience take away from your talk?

BD: Besides their empty coffee cups? If people took only one thing away from my talk, I'd love it if people saw that they can find UI inspiration almost anywhere and expand their design eye from pure onscreen experiences to any interface out there. Gas pumps, thermostats, crosswalk, elevators, mall signage, anything. Every one of these interfaces affects how someone thinks about technology or information, so there's always a lesson to be discovered within them. If just five people went home and really looked at their alarm clock for the first time to figure out the design decisions that were made when building it, I'd be happy. We're going to need a lot more product UI designers in the coming years, and they're going to come from onscreen UI designers. The job opportunities aren't all there yet, but the opportunity to learn always is.

RU: Who do you look to for inspiration?

It may be cliche, but my parents. My dad was always the king of the many projects, but he saw most of them through and has done some really amazing things. He started programming somewhere around 1970 on DECs and VAXs and eventually started his own company whose flagship product (UAP-LINK) transferred files across different systems, DEC to VAX, VAX to IBM, etc. A few years ahead of his time. He taught me to program in C when I was still in high school and I did some coding for his company. So my first computer experience was learning CP/M on a DEC PDP-11 and playing Adventure, thanks to him. Then about 20 years later, he built his own plane. He built an RV-10 kit, riveting pieces together for three years during the day while he coded his own instrument panel at night. It's a gorgeous piece of work and flies perfectly. And my mom will remodel her place in her spare time. Reconfigure the kitchen, build new dressers, sew up quilts, re-mud the ceiling, whatever. Incredible to see. So I get my Get Stuff Done inspiration from my parents.

RU: Your dad sounds pretty amazing, and it's interesting to see what other fathers in this space are starting to do with their own kids (Matt Milan and I seem to be teaching the best of the worst IA traits to ours) and how something that used to be considered pretty nerdy/geeky is starting to be viewed a bit differently.
This is a set-up question: What's your favorite way to communicate with people who aren't in the same room with you?

Do I have only 140 characters to say it in? Yeah, it'd have to be Twitter. It's been an amazing tool to stay connected with people that I've met at various events and friends here in town. It's really damn hard to stay connected with all the people we know, so Twitter does a fine job at maintaining that connection by hearing about their lives.

As David Weinberger said, "intimacy is in the details."

RU: Last question, and this is a doozy: Over the course of 2008, you and I have become "friends"--at least I'd say that, and I believe you've said that. We most likely will not meet face-to-face until October at IDEA in Chicago, yet I'd say we have built a level of trust and respect for each other--we've even worked "virtually" on putting together a panel presentation for SXSW together. How do you think that happened, and who should we blame?

This fascinates me too. It's true. We've never met face to face and we've only talked on the phone once, but we've had enough online interaction to build both trust and friendship. How the hell is that possible? Tracing it back is an interesting case study. On Twitter, I noticed a few friends (people I have met f2f and trust) keep talking to @russu. Okay, I'll see what this guy is up to. Seems harmless enough, okay, follow. Then we made some connection on music, and the conversation developed from there. But is this really different at all from meeting people in the "real world"? You meet through mutual friends, connect on something simple, and then just keep talking. That's the beauty of Twitter. People are giving you many opportunities to connect in some way. Sometimes it clicks and you make a new friend. If you never actually meet, so what? Yes, it'd be a shame, but geography should never be a barrier to connecting with other people.

About Bill DeRouchey

Bill has over fifteen years experience as a writer, information architect, product manager and now senior interaction designer with Ziba Design in Portland, Oregon. With Ziba, he frames and details the experience, flow, and interaction on consumer and medical products. Bill also writes about the variety and history of interaction design in everyday experiences on his blog, Push Click Touch, and is a frequent speaker at industry events. He is determined to stretch how people think about interaction design, from beyond the pure digital to any interaction between humans and the artifacts they create. Bill is on the Board of Directors of IxDA, the Interaction Design Association, and serves as Treasurer.

About IDEA (Information Design Experience Access)

This conference addresses issues of design for an always-on, always-connected world. Where "cyberspace" is a meaningless term because the online and offline worlds cannot be made distinct. Where physical spaces are so complex that detailed wayfinding is necessary to navigate them. Where work processes have become so involved, and so digitized, that we need new processes to manage those processes.

This conference brings together people who are addressing these challenges head on. Speakers from a variety of backgrounds will discuss designing complex information spaces in the physical and virtual worlds.

IDEA 2008: An Interview with Andrew Hinton

Russ Unger — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:03:18 GMT

This is the second interview in the series, and this time I pulled the name of Andrew Hinton, Lead Information Architect at Vanguard, from the virtual hat. You may recognize Andrew as the presenter of the closing plenary for the IA Summit in Miami this year. Andrew's blog is Inkblurt and don't be surprised if you end up engrossed in it and feel as if you are getting a free education!

RU: How did you get your start in Interaction/Information Design?

AH: As far as technology-based work, I did some very rudimentary interface work when I was learning a bit of Apple BASIC & Pascal back in high school. But I'd say my first real challenge was when I had a job at a small medical office as their office manager, and all they had was a typewriter and a telephone. I talked them into getting a computer (a Mac Plus), and buying a database package (something called Double Helix), and letting me build a client accounts system for them.
Trouble was, I had to design it so that my exceedingly tech-phobic co- workers could use it, which forced me to think hard about interface design.
Of course, that was just a part-time job when I was in graduate school. My academic background (Philosophy, Literature & Creative Writing) taught me a lot about making difficult ideas understandable with language -- and I think that's at the core of any information- design challenge. That background continues to be a help for me.

RU: How did you get your start as a presenter?

AH: I've been doing stuff in front of crowds since I was a kid. Everything from playing music in a bluegrass band when I was about ten to oratory and debate in high school. Plus drama & choir and the band I had in college. Then there's the teaching I did while in grad school, and I won't even go into the preaching I did as a teenager in a big suburban Southern Baptist church.
As far as speaking at conferences, I started sending in proposals to the IA Summit and got one accepted, and sort of got on a roll.

RU: What should the audience take away from your talk?

AH: Well, I suppose details are still emerging. The topic is context, and what technology is doing to upset our deeply ingrained assumptions about context -- socially and otherwise. But in general, I'd say I'm more interested in asking questions than answering them. That is, I hope it gets people talking.

RU: Who do you look to for inspiration?

AH: That's tough. I'd have to say my major inspiration is my kid. She's the future I'm designing for, in more ways than one.
In terms of people I read or look up to, for me it's all over the place. I grab inspiration from wherever I can find it. Lately I've been really into watching presentations from the Long Now Foundation, for instance. The one by Will Wright & Brian Eno is especially amazing. But I also find my imagination-head needs input from things like movies, fiction, biographies, documentaries about almost anything.

RU: You've mentioned your daughter before--both in presentations and at least a couple of times in some of the post-IA Summit Y! Live sessions that we were both in. She seems like a really great kid, and as a daughter-daddy myself, I think it's great when I hear others in our community really getting in to "the future as our children". As crazy as our worlds can be with work and other obligations, the IA / IxD / UX world seems to be ripe with really great parents.
What’s your favorite way to communicate with people who aren’t in the same room with you?

AH: I like a lot of different methods -- and one thing I love about this age we live in is the great variety we now have for communicating. There seems to be a whole new species of communication cropping up every few years, and they all seem to emerge from the nuanced needs we have for how we connect. So, really it's very contextual for me. I like whatever tool feels most suited for the kind of communicating I'm trying to do at the moment.
It's easier to say my least favorite -- that's the garden-variety conference call. So little context, so little sense of physical reaction. Plus the awful noise-reduction circuitry on most speaker phones makes it even harder to pick up on subtle verbal cues. I always come out of conference calls feeling anxious & exhausted.

RU: And now, a 2-parter. A lot of people know your name, have heard you speak in the past, quote your blog, and you’re thought highly of (this interviewer is included in that group). How has being a presenter and conference-attendee helped you improve upon your career?

AH: Presenting has been a big help, mainly in my own head. By that I mean ... First, the pressure of presenting on a topic forces me to grapple with it in a rigorous way I'm too lazy to do otherwise, which results in having my ideas sorted out in my work a lot better as well.
Second, it's a decent confidence boost that helps me stick up for the user with more authority than I might otherwise be able to in the daily grind.
Even just going to conferences has been very helpful though. The User Experience Design world is so distributed and virtual -- we're all in each other's heads, mediated through electronics and words.
Periodically being able to look each other in the eye is incredibly important to keeping all that grounded.
And I don't know how this "thought highly of" business got going, obviously you've never seen me after a conference call!

RU: Part 2. What would you recommend to people who are just getting started in the field and who are interested in becoming more active in the industry—or who just want to follow in your footsteps.

AH: It means a lot to get involved in your community of practice. You don't realize what an impact it makes on people around you, but it's huge. Find some problem that needs solving that tickles your fancy, some skill or service that the community could benefit from that you get a kick out of working on, and dive in. Lurking is fine at times, but if you want to be "active in the industry" you have to engage. You can engage the conversation at any level, as long as you have a sense of humor & perspective about it. And read all kinds of stuff -- don't just read "design" crap all the time. We all breathe each other's air way too much, and it's important to get ideas from outside the UX bubble.
As for my footsteps, I don't recommend them -- mainly because I don't know that I could've walked those steps on purpose if I'd tried. Which is to say, follow what obsesses and excites you, whatever crazy path that might take you down, and there's probably somebody somewhere willing to pay you for doing it well.

RU: I've said to many people that a lot of us have not come by our current roles honestly. That is, almost everything that you stated above. I'm trying to say that I think your footsteps are fairly common for the more "seasoned" folks in the industry. Do you have an opinion on where the User Experience Designer of tomorrow will evolve from?

AH:There are already formal curricula out there that are bringing older practitioner skills and learning into the User Experience space, and from what I can tell they're doing a great job. If I hadn't burned out on graduate education long ago, I'd consider going to a program myself. That said, I think UX is inherently a hands-on practice, and has to be done to be understood. Doing the work is the only way to get better at it. So whether newer folks get a head start on that from internships or studio work in school, it'll be necessary eventually anyway. The other thing is that, this field is evolving so quickly, I wouldn't be surprised if we continue to see people from many other fields coming into the fold and showing us new, amazing things they know how to do that we hadn't thought of. For example, I keep running across news items from the neuroscience world (which is exploding lately with amazing new knowledge) and finding it incredibly applicable to UX work. UX design will always need cross-disciplinary input, and practitioners who adapt and evolve with the work itself.

About Andrew Hinton

Since 1990, Andrew Hinton has worked as a designer, instructor, writer and consultant of various stripes in the healthcare, financial, consumer and manufacturing industries. Clients have been small and large, including Fortune 500s such as American Express, Shaw, Wachovia and Kimberly-Clark. Andrew is now a Lead Information Architect in mutual-fund giant Vanguard's User Experience Group.

From his pre-Web education, Andrew holds a BA in Philosophy, an MA in Literature and an MFA in Writing. He's a regular speaker at conferences like the IA Summit, and sometimes writes for publications like Boxes & Arrows. His current obsessions include Communities of Practice, social design factors, what games teach us about design, and the meaning of context in digital spaces.

A co-founder of the IA Institute, he serves on its Board of Advisors. He also keeps a home on the web at inkblurt.com.

About IDEA (Information Design Experience Access)

IDEA 2008: An Interview with David Armano

Russ Unger — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:37:33 GMT

This is the third interview in the series, and I got to spend time with David Armano, VP Experience Design at Critical Mass. David has been seen at many conferences this year, and has quite possibly been seen cruising through Chicagoland on his motorcycle in his down time. He also blogs about experience design at Logic + Emotion.

RU: How did you get your start in the design industry?

DA: At birth. I was born with two eyes and a brain and I’ve been a “visual person” since I can remember. I was always the person in class doodling, or drawing something. Or just daydreaming. I would say that the formal training I received didn’t really happen until I enrolled into design school (Pratt), and that’s where I learned the basics of design as well as how it intersected with technology. Like many, my first job out of school was in graphic design—I then moved into broadcast and in 1997 I made the jump to Web and I haven’t looked back. While I appreciated all sorts of design and the strategies that drive it, I’m really jazzed about the things I see happening in the digital space. The funny thing is that while I whiteboard quite a bit, I hardly ever draw anymore yet I’m known as a “visual thinker”. I still consider what I do (design strategy) to be part if the discipline. At one point in my career, I aspired to be an illustrator. Now I illustrate concepts which help people take action.

RU: How did you get your start as a presenter?

DA: In my previous life as a creative director which is one of the hardest presenting gigs anyone can ever have. No audience ever fired you for a bad presentation—but a client might. So that’s how I started (sort of). But I really started talking about industry perspectives around 3 years ago and things rapidly picked up in the past year or two and I’m sure the blog and writing has had a lot to do with it. I don’t consider myself an experienced speaker. Mostly, I use whatever skills I have to make the most of a presentation. My visuals help, and it REALLY helps that I believe in what I talk about. I’ve never taken a class in public speaking and the rules I give myself are simple. 1. Be myself 2. Do my best 3. Tell a story. The highlight of my speaking career was getting invited to speak at Google. I would have love to have participated in, but it conflicted with a family trip I had scheduled. Though it seems like I speak a lot, I’m actually a poor self-promoter and have been lucky to get invited to some great venues recently. People like Jared Spool have given me some big breaks, and I’ve been fortunate for it. I enjoy speaking and consider it a privilege. Anytime someone is willing to give you their time to hear you out, you have to take it seriously.

RU: What should the audience take away from your talk?

DA: I can’t answer this question really. People will take away what they want and that’s a good thing. I can tell you what I hope they will. I hope they will be excited about the future which I believe presents huge opportunities for people who understand how to create great experiences one interaction at a time. This could be through interface, through content or even through personal interactions such as responding to comments, etc. I can’t help but see a strong link developing between social networking and experience design. We are living in an age where we can design prototypes and get real time feedback. People can tell us what they want and we’ll have to be confident in ourselves to read between the lines. But at the end of the day, I believe that it’s more important than ever to deliver a great experience vs. building a myth around one.

RU: Who do you look to for inspiration?

DA: People. I’m a people watcher. When I have any free time, I’ll often try to watch people wherever they are. I watch how they speak to each other, what cars they drive, if they have a difficult or easy time opening up a door. I do this a lot online as well—through networks, and the digital destinations that people frequent. I’m also inspired by public places and how people interact with them. Millennium Park for example is a great example of a space that’s changed the face of Chicago. I love watching people play in the fountain and delight in it’s design. I’m also inspired my many of the new Web applications out there. Slideshare came out of nowhere and it’s treasure trove if inspiration. Both the platform and the content are inspirational and I love to see that somethng like this can seemingly appear out of nowhere and evolve into an incredibly useful resource.

RU: You really try to balance your work and presentation life with family time—in fact, you recently backed-out of a trip to Google in order to spend time with one of your boys at a summer camp. This is the type of move that many of us applauded you for, and it really sends a good message to people about maintaining that balance.
What advice would you give to people about maintaining work/personal balance as they’re trying to establish themselves?

DA: Funny, I just mentioned that earlier. For me it wasn’t even a choice. Fact is I already work hard enough and don’t have time for “regular hobbies” like sports or TV, so the least I can do is recognize when I’m given a gift. I’d say the best thing to do is realize when we have a few hours or a few days to re-connect with the people who are important to us, we need to take a step back and do so. My little guy would never remember that I spoke at Google, but he’ll always remember fishing in that canoe.

RU: In my opinion, no matter what any of us achieve, our kids will always think of us as “mommy” or “daddy” and our parents will pretty much always know us as the kid they raised more so than the adults we become.
Do your parents know you’re “David Armano” like the rest of us do? And, of course, how do they feel about it all?

DA: True story. I’m in NY visiting family and my mom says “David, we’re so proud of you. Want some chick peas?”. I think that about sums it up.

RU: This is a set-up question: What’s your favorite way to communicate with people who aren’t in the same room with you?

DA: Of course you know the answer to this—it’s writing and visual thinking. :-) I don’t do a lot of video or audio because it takes more time and I like to get ideas out quickly in a medium I feel comfortable in. Words and pictures are as basic as you get, they are universal and can be shared easily. While the power of other mediums cannot be underestimated, for me words and pictures can communicate a lot with a certain purity as there is not a lot of production associated.

RU: Last question and it’s a 2-parter. Let’s be honest, you’re “internet famous” and people get some online cred just by getting public messages from you or mentions in anything you write and/or say. How has being a presenter and conference-attendee helped you improve upon your career?

DA: Oh, it’s re-defined what I do—absolutely. People are only now realizing how HARD it is to build a brand (whether personal or real) online and so, I am sought after for my experience in this area. Only two years ago I was plugging away as a billable employee with strange internet hobby and now I work a lot more on the strategy and evangelist side of things. Through it all, I still believe that positive interactions build brands and so in whatever I do, I try to either demonstrate this or get people inspired about it. I’m not in the weeds as much as I used to be—but since I talk about “being in beta”—I have to be open to where this is all taking me. I don’t know the end story. I don’t think any of us does.

RU: Part 2. Besides finding a hat, boots and motorcycle that best fit your own personal mojo, what would you recommend to people who are just getting started in the field and who are interested in becoming more active in the industry—or who just want to follow in your footsteps?

DA: This is easy in instruction and difficult to pull off. I started online with zero awareness and few connections. What I did was simply to provide value through my thinking and artifacts. Because I was willing to share this freely and do my best to be myself, it resonated with some (not all) people and that’s OK. You have to do something that sets you apart. Seth Godin says it best in his “Purple Cow” theory. You need to do something “remarkable”. This could mean being an uber-connector, a great communicator, or simply having a really unique perspective on something. The most amazing thing to me is that the Web is fundamentally a level playing field in which the niches can thrive on. People can simply come out of nowhere and build something with reach. It’s a huge opportunity for not just people but businesses. I can’t stress this enough. But the bottom line is that you need to be doing something that someone sees VALUE in.

About David Armano

David has over 14 years of experience in the communications industry, having spent the majority of his time in digital marketing and experience design. An active thought leader in the industry, David authors the popular Logic + Emotion blog currently ranked in the top 25 of the “Power 150,” as listed by Advertising Age. David’s writing and visual thinking has been cited by respected sources, such as Forrester and Crain’s, and has landed him in BusinessWeek on several occasions including their “Best of 2006”. David leads an interdisciplinary group of designers, writers and content strategists for the Chicago office of Critical Mass. Aside from his presence on the Web, David is known as an evangelist for customer-centric strategies and acts as an advocate for the creation of meaningful interactions, which influence behavior. In his spare time he contributes articles to various professional publications and spends as much quality time with his family as possible.

David still has not shaved his bear and enjoys calling me up in the middle of the afternoon to see if I’d like to hang out with him while he eats lunch.

About IDEA (Information Design Experience Access)

This conference addresses issues of design for an always-on, always-connected world. Where “cyberspace” is a meaningless term because the online and offline worlds cannot be made distinct. Where physical spaces are so complex that detailed wayfinding is necessary to navigate them. Where work processes have become so involved, and so digitized, that we need new processes to manage those processes.