Boxes and Arrows: Stories by Jeff Parks

Transitioning from User Experience to Product Management

Jeff Parks — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 07:00:00 GMT

iTunes Download Del.icio.us Pod-safe music generously provided by Sonic Blue I had the pleasure of talking with Jeff Lash and Chris Baum on their two part article, Transitioning from User Experience to Product Manager. We talk about how more and more UX professionals are looking at taking on the role of a product manager. This is a valuable conversation for those looking to make a change in careers; an honest discussion about the pros and cons of each profession. We discuss: *Product Vision - The importance of creating a vision and educating others about it.* We discuss the Product Management Vision framework discussed in their article and how creating and educating others about the vision for a product is a key aspect of the Product Manager's role. *UX vs. Product Management: Responsibility, Focus, and Reliance* Jeff and Chris discuss the following elements that outline the three central differences between the UX professional and Product Manager: a. Responsibility b. Focus c. Reliance *Coach vs. Tyrant* We also discuss the importance of conflict management and how the product manager acts more like a coach in getting the team to move towards the same goal. Understanding both the market and the user are key aspects of the product manager. In essence, the Product manager has to not only "make the Kool-Aid", they have to drink it as well. *All Responsibility, No Power, So Listen!* Jeff and Chris provide a realistic definition of a Product Manager as someone who has all of the responsibility and none of the power. They go onto to discuss the need of the product manager to listen carefully to not only their team, but also how to lead without authority. As well, the importance of knowing where your product can fit with all other products offered by the company. *Let Go of the Details* Chris talks about the importance of realizing that as a Product Manager your role shouldn't be focusing on the UI in creating Wire Frames and Site Maps. As a Product Manager your role is to see the bigger picture and provide the vision and clear direction for your team. *IA Summit Presentation Recap* Jeff and Chris discuss the presentation they gave at the 2007 IA Summit in Las Vegas. *Other notes:* Check out these great blogs on Product Management: Pragmatic Marketing SVPG Blog The Product Management View Tyner Blain Michael on Product Management & Marketing

Blasting the Myth of the Fold

Jeff Parks — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 07:16:09 GMT

iTunes Download Del.icio.us Pod-safe music generously provided by Sonic Blue Jeff Parks had the opportunity to speak with Milissa Tarquini on her article, "Blasting the Myth of the Fold":http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/blasting-the-myth-of. They talk about how this long held rule in web design is being de-bunked by web analytics and user testing, as well as how this will impact design and development processes based on screen resolution and browser compatibility. We discuss... *Defining the Fold* Milissa outlines the different terms that people use for the fold. Anything that falls below that point in the screen where the user has to scroll is the fold *Back in the day* In the early 90's at AOL scrolling was prohibited. Milissa talks about the need for balance in designing for the fold while being creative. *A moving target* She goes on to talk about the challenge of designing for the fold with different screen resolutions and browsers and how in her opinion no one should be designing for the fold. *Content is still king* According to Milissa it all comes down to the quality of the content. If content is engaging and the user is interested in the information, they will follow the path to what they are seeking, regardless of the medium. *Interaction Design is everywhere* As Derek Featherstone pointed out in his discussion with Christina about Accessibility, IXDA plays an important role when designing with how users will find content on a page. *Not the last, but a new frontier* Milissa addresses social media tools such as Blogs, Facebook, and MySpace and how these new web services reinforce the notion that users do scroll. As Eric Reiss commented, "...perhaps the new frontier is the bottom of the page."

Foundations of Interaction Design

Jeff Parks — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 05:49:50 GMT

iTunes Download Del.icio.us Pod-safe music generously provided by Sonic Blue The other day I had the opportunity to speak with David Malouf on his article, Foundations of Interaction Design. We discuss several foundations of Interaction design including time, metaphor, abstraction, and negative space. David also provides greater detail to comments posted on his article from readers from around the world. We Discuss... *What is Interaction Design?* Interaction Design is about interaction and behavior within a specific context. *Foundations of Interaction Design* Dave talks about how these foundations were developed from his work at Pratt Industrial Design including elements such as line, space, color, and texture. Taking these elements into account creates a better design. *What do you get when you cross a fax machine with a modem?* Another aspect of Interaction Design is how machines interact with each other. Dave uses the iPod and Blue Tooth technologies to describe how Interaction Design plays a key role in making better products. *Four on the floor* Dave goes on to discuss four aspects of the following Foundational elements in Interaction Design: 1. Time 2. Metaphors 3. Abstraction 4. Negative Space

Using Design Visuals To Communicate Ideas

Jeff Parks — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 02:52:50 GMT

iTunes Download Del.icio.us Pod-safe music generously provided by Sonic Blue In late January I had the pleasure of attending the VizThink conference in San Francisco. As an Information Architect I wanted to learn how to use different ideas around design to assist me with "big IA" and "little IA" projects. The folks kind enough to join me in this conversation include: Christopher Fuller Griot's Eye Daniel Rose Bell Canada Ken and Rebecca Hope Motive8 Infographics Noah Iliinsky Complex Diagrams We discuss: *Thinking outside the box* Daniel Rose talks about why the process of "thinking outside the box" isn't possible unless you surround yourself with people of different experiences. The following framework is what Daniel sketched during our conversation that describes his idea. *Graphics empowering people* Ken Hope from Motive8 Infographics points out that a lot of the visualization tools empowers people to communicate ideas more clearly, without having to use words. *Global Perspective* Noah Iliinsky and Rebecca Hope talk about the diversity of professionals, both within and outside of the design disciplines in attendance, and how the sharing of different perspectives added even more to the conference itself; backing up Daniel's perspective of thinking outside the box. (In fact, 21% of the participants were from outside North America.) *Common Craft* One of the many presenters at VizThink were the founders of Common Craft, Sachi LeFever and Lee LeFever. Rebecca points out that the end result is brilliant, but not knowing the work that goes into creating these simple, yet elegant videos, is common amongst clients. *To Write or not to Write, that is not the question* Daniel points out the genius behind Common Craft is the writing or scripting of the videos that make Common Craft remarkable. Writing and illustration go hand in hand. *KISS* Taking the time to reduce the noise will help your users understand the core message - whether it's in design or writing to help guide the vision. *Want to see more of VizThink '08?* There were several photographs taken by professional and amature photographers while at the conference. For most of the photos, check out Flickr and search on the key word "vizthink08". *Examples of Design* The following are images were created by Christopher Fuller; Ken and Rebecca Hope; and Noah Iliinsky. For a full size version of this art work, simply click on the image. *Christopher Fuller* This is a recent live illustration record I did of a dialogue on branding (The original is 12.5' X 6.5') that was given to a European banking client by Scott Bedbury - a former Nike and Starbucks marketing executive. Just a little note of clarification on why I drew Lech Walesa in the bottom left corner. Mr Bedbury told a story about Lech Walesa coming to the United States to give a talk at a conference. One of the employees at the hotel saw Lech's name in the register as a featured speaker and decided to google him. They discovered that his birthday fell on the same night as his speech, and so they arranged for the hotel wait staff to learn how to wish him happy birthday in Polish. According to Scott, it brought Lech to tears. It was a great story and one I knew I had to capture. I do have the ability to do a reasonable caricature of Lech Walesa on the fly being a child of the 80s, history buff, and someone who gobbled up pop culture (um, there's a prominent nose, moustache, etc.). But I don't know how to write "happy birthday" in Polish. So while scribing the conservation I whispered to a colleague to google how to write the phrase and slip it to me on a post-it (I took my cue from Scott Bedbury's story and copied the initiative of the hotel worker). By the time the conversation was over I had written "Wsystkiego najlepszego Lech Walesa" on the graphic. Of course, this went over well (though I think it's not 100% right) since the meeting was in Europe and there were a few Polish participants in the audience. *Ken and Rebecca Hope* This infographic is a classic example of a "before" and "after" and shows why we love what we do! The client, Ifor Ffowcs-Williams, CEO, Cluster Navigators Ltd, is an international cluster development consultant. In his workshops Ifor's verbal communication is eager and interesting. However, his key presentation tool detailing the underlying process just didn't do him justice as a typical Powerpoint slide. Although he is a visual thinker and speaks using lots of imagery and analogies, his presentation slides were all plain written text (even though occasionally highlighted for effect!) and didn't capture the excitement or essence of what the process involved and offered. Also, when used with audiences with limited English, the text-based slides were not always understood. Essentially we brought the Cluster Navigators process to life. We visualised the process as a fun and dynamic journey, using simple imagery for each key stage to help audiences quickly understand the concepts and engage in the process. The impact of the the infographic is probably best described by Ifor himself in this feedback he provided, “Why didn’t you show us this before?' was the question from one of their Scandinavian clients on seeing our new infographic. "We've now used it in workshops and conferences on five continents. It's brought out the smiles, made the learning more interactive and led to repeat business." *Noha Iliinsky* This diagram has been arranged to show not only the hierarchy, but also the intended use pattern of a typical, linear, non-fiction book. * Continuity in the book is indicated by contact of the circles. * The gray line, progressing in small and large clockwise arcs from section to section and chapter to chapter, demonstrates the linear progression of the content. * The dashed black arrows show some possible non-linear paths that may be traveled by the reader to view content that is not part of the main linear flow of the book. The goal of displaying the use of the book, and not merely the hierarchy, has led to an atypical diagram that conveys more knowledge than the typical counterpart. I created this diagram in the fall of 2003. It appears in my thesis, and was selected to be supporting material for the book The Practical Guide to Information Design, by Ronnie Lipton.

IA Summit 2008, Day 3

Chris Baum, Jeff Parks — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 04:06:25 GMT

The IA Summit was held in Miami, FL from April 10-14. Boxes and Arrows captured many of the main conference sessions ("see schedule":http://iasummit.org/2008/sessioncal.html) starting on April 12. "Day 1, April 12":http://boxesandarrows.com/view/ia-summit-2008-day-1 | "Day 2, April 13":http://boxesandarrows.com/view/ia-summit-2008-day-2 | Day 3, April 14 Podcasts will appear on this page as we produce them from the audio files so please check back regularly or subscribe to the iTunes feed below. iTunes Del.icio.us IA Summit theme music created and provided by BumperTunes™
Audiences & artifacts - Nathan Curtis Nathan Curtis explores both the articles we produce and the audience we produce them for, revealing what works and what doesn't. (published 04/25/08)

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Data driven design research personas - Todd Zaki Warfel Todd Zaki Warfel engages his audience sharing new visualization techniques he has been using that have personas even more effective and valuable to the design process. (published 04/25/08)

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Re-experiencing information: dealing with user-submitted data - Lucas Pettinati In this session, Lucas Pettinati, senior interaction designer at Yahoo! draws from his personal experiences in redesigning the Yahoo! registration and account recovery systems. (published 04/27/08)

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Information Horizons: Proposing an alternate approach to assessing website architecture - Anindita Paul, Sanda Erdelez (Kyungsun Park unable to attend) Anindita and Sanda report the use of Sonnenwald's Information Horizon's (IH) framework for assessing a website architecture based on Morville and Rosenfeld's components of website architecture - organization, labeling, navigation and searching information (published 04/30/08)

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Good News on your Cell Phone: Optimizing the UX - Jorgen Dalen and Tone Terum Jorgen Dalen and Tone Terum talk about the challenges involved when transferring content from one media to another; how to create good user experinces in different media within mobile UI; and the diverse user behavior of cellular phones in Europe, the US, and Asia.(published 04/30/08)

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IA for Tiny Stuff: Exploring Widgets and Gadgets - Martin Belam Martin Belam examines what makes a successful widget from an information delivery point of view. As well Martin looks at how informations professionals can help develop more playful ways of representing and structuring the information presented. (published 05/07/08)

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Designing with Patterns in the Real World - Christian Crumlish and Austin Govella Yahoo!s' Christian Crumlish and Comcasts' Austin Govella share case studies that illustrate ways pattern libraries can both aid and stifle innovation, how they help solve real-world web design problems, and how they support rapid production of common IA Deliverables. (published 04/80/08)

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Checking the feel of your UI with an interaction audit - Peter Stahl and Josh Damon Williams Peter Stahl and Josh Damon Williams show how to evaluate consistency of your site's "feel". Using a recent audit of the interaction design of a major web site as an example they discuss how to collect and catalog the variety of interactions users encounter.(published 06/07/08)

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Embodying IA: Incorporating library 2.0 and experience integration concepts in a small public library renovation - Michael Magoolaghan Michael Magoolaghan describes one IA's volunteer efforts to revitalize a small public library's website and bring a user-centered focus to its building renovation efforts through working with blueprints, photos and architectural renderings and others within and outside of the library. (published 06/07/08)

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Thanks to Jeff Parks, Jackie Wu, and Kit Seeborg of the B&A/V Podcast team for working their hearts out, as well as ASIS&T and the IA Summit organizers for their support.
More big thanks to "Mark Blevis":http://www.markblevis.com/ and "Bob Goyetche":http://www.bobgoyetche.com/ for their assistance while at the Summit; taking phone calls and FTP files from Miami to Ottawa and back again, and lessons in Audacity for decreasing the bit rates, stereo sound, etc.

IA Summit 2008, Day 2

Chris Baum, Jeff Parks — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 04:06:29 GMT

The IA Summit was held in Miami, FL from April 10-14. Boxes and Arrows captured many of the main conference sessions ("see schedule":http://iasummit.org/2008/sessioncal.html) starting on April 12. "Day 1, April 12":http://boxesandarrows.com/view/ia-summit-2008-day-1 | Day 2, April 13 | "Day 3, April 14":http://boxesandarrows.com/view/ia-summit-2008-day-3
Podcasts will appear on this page as we produce them from the audio files so please check back regularly or subscribe to the iTunes feed below. iTunes Del.icio.us IA Summit theme music created and provided by BumperTunes™
Search patterns - Peter Morville Peter describes a pattern language for search that explains user psychology and information seeking behavior, highlights emerging technologies and interaction models, illustrates repeatable solutions to common problems, and positions us all to design better search interfaces and applications. (published 04/25/08)

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The information Architect and the Fighter Pilot - Matthew Milan Matthew argues that fighter pilot and military strategist John Boyd can teach us a great deal about how to understand, interpret and design for human decision making. (published 04/25/08)

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E-service: What we can learn from the customer-service gurus - Eric Reiss In this passionate and entertaining presentation, Eric Reiss talks about the design and execution of a system of activities - people, processes, and technology - that ultimately build brand, revenues, and customer satisfaction. (published 04/25/08)

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Practical Prototyping - Todd Zaki Warfel, Chris Conley, Anders Ramsay, and Jed Wood The panel discuss various methods for prototyping with a focus on why we don't prototype in software as much as we should and why we should be doing it more. (published 04/25/08)

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The Impact of Social Ethics on IA and Interactive Design - Karl Johan Saeth and Ingrid Tofte Karl Johan Saeth, and Ingrid Tofte illustrate four cases showing that interactive design in one way or another is always based on interpretation of ethical rules, expressed or latent. IA and design are bound by cultural imperatives and this, Karl and Ingrid argue, is a fact we cannot ignore. (published 04/28/08)

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What do Innovative Intranets Look Like? - James Robertson James' presentation provides highlights into the winning entries from the 2007 Intranet Innovation Awards and provides "lessons learnt" for organizations looking to drive innovation via their intranet. (published 04/28/08)

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Panel: Presence, identity, and attention in social web architecutre - Christian Crumlish, Christina Wodtke, Andrew Hinton, and Gene Smith In this discussion about presence, identity, and attention in social web architecture the panel talks about core IA related issues including: Structure of social sites, tagging and folksonomies, data models for people and their relationships, and navigating in a community site(published 04/28/08)

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UX in the Wind: Finding Experience on a Motorcycle - Joe Sokohl Keane's director of user experience, Joe Sokohl, brings together his passions for motorcycling and user experience design in this talk about the intersection of industrial and interaction design in motorcycling.(published 04/29/08)

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Placemaking and Information Architecture - Dennis Schleicher Dennis Schieicher explores how we as IAs can learn from placemaking in the physical world and investigates markets and public places around the use of mobile technologies and how they add another layer of communication and sense-making on top of physical public places.(published 05/08/08)

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Code blue: How service design can revolutionize patient care in hospitals - Aaron Martlage In this presentation, Aaron Martlage explores techniques for leveraging the varied skill sets of those in the UX design field to provide service design in a complex environment. Aaron argues that experts must balance the social dynamics between different personas; capture and sift vast amounts of data in an attempt to distill pertinent information; and visualize their findings with precision to ensure that the experience is improved.(published 06/07/08)

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Taxonomy is User Experience - Dave Cooksey It appears that taxonomies are becoming more important to the work we do as metadata and ontologies extend their reach further into user experience. Dave Cooksey demonstrates the virtues of thinking of taxonomy in terms of the user experience, ways of talking about taxonomies that communicate it's value, and how to craft a user-centric taxonomy by examining several e-commerce redesign case studies.(published 06/07/08)

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Hotel Yeoville - Jason Hobbs In this presentation entitled, "Hotel Yeoville" South Africa's Jason Hobbs talks about how ethnographic research methods and an empathetic approach to users can form the basis for information architecture solutions that attempt to directly address and improve the lives of people in developing countries.(published 06/07/08)

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Extending the gaming experience to conventional UI’s - John Ferrara The video game industry produces an enormous volume of highly innovative user interface experiences, but this rich source of creative thinking is largely unseen by communities dedicated to conventional software or Web design. Vanguards' John Ferrara argues that as gaming becomes a ubiquitous activity among a vast worldwide customer base, its direction and conventions will become not merely relevant to HCI design, but indeed impossible to ignore.(published 06/08/08)

IA Summit 2008, Day 1

Chris Baum, Jeff Parks — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 04:06:32 GMT

The IA Summit was held in Miami, FL from April 10-14. Boxes and Arrows captured many of the main conference sessions ("see schedule":http://iasummit.org/2008/sessioncal.html) starting on April 12. Day 1, April 12 | "Day 2, April 13":http://boxesandarrows.com/view/ia-summit-2008-day-2 | "Day 3, April 14":http://boxesandarrows.com/view/ia-summit-2008-day-3 Podcasts will appear on this page as we produce them from the audio files so please check back regularly or subscribe to the iTunes feed below. iTunes Del.icio.us IA Summit theme music created and provided by BumperTunes™

Journey to the Center of Design - Jared Spool There’s a growing sentiment that spending limited resources on user research takes away from essential design activities. Is it time for user- centered design to evolve into something else? Or is there something else happening in our world of experience design that makes UCD obsolete? Jared Spool gives and entertaining and enlightening key note address at the 2008 IA Summit.(published 05/01/08)(published 04/25/08)

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Tagging: Five Emerging Trends - Gene Smith Tagging has been the subject of much discussion over the last several years. But recent trends show that tagging is evolving quickly, and that today’s conventional wisdom might not be accurate for long. nForms’ Gene Smith explores five counterintuitive tagging trends that provide a glimpse into the next generation of user-generated classification.(published 05/01/08)

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The Business of Experience: The Experience Impact Framework - Jess McMullin nForm's Jess McMullin outlines three dimensions of The Experience Impact Framework including: the elements of business, the fundamentals of user experience practice and the kinds of impact we can have.(published 05/02/08)

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The Long Wow - Brandon Schauer Brandon Schauer lays out an experience centric approach to fostering and creating loyalty by systematically impressing your customers again and again.(published 05/05/08)

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Content Page Design Best Practices - Luke Wroblewski Luke Wroblewski discusses a set of best practices for Web content page design that focuses on appropriate presentation of content, context, and calls to action. (published 05/05/08)

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Blind Ambition: How the Accessibility Movement Overlooks Sensory Experiences - Claude Steinberg In this presentation Claude Steinberg argues that you'll have a better grasp of user experience when you can translate it into something even a blind person would recognize. (published 05/05/08)

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Inspiration from the Edge: New Patterns for Interaction Design - Stephen Anderson To increase our own field of vision, Stephen Anderson takes a macro view of interface design, focusing on alternative UIs - and emphasizing patterns that can be leveraged in a business context.(published 05/05/08)

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How to be a User Experience Team of One - Leah Buley Leah teaches techniques that any individual can use to generate and refine ideas, outlining flexible, simple activities that can be used quickly, wherever they're needed.(published 05/06/08)

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A management fable: The little UX that went a long way - Dan Willis UX Management often feels like a mystic art. It can entail moving people and processes within an organization without the enchantment of an official mandate. This presentation by Dan Willis deconstructs an illustrated fable about an intrepid creature who introduces user goals to a development process that would have otherwise been dominated by royal business owners and technological black magic. (published 06/07/08)

Leading Designers to New Frontiers

Jeff Parks — Wed, 21 May 2008 08:03:57 GMT

Adaptive Path's "MX San Francisco":http://www.adaptivepath.com/events/2008/apr/: Managing Experience through Creative Leadership took place in San Francisco between April 20-22. The conference focused on helping managers and designers deal with the complexity, challenges, and opportunities that make every day so entertaining. Jeff Parks and Chris Baum sat down with several of the conference speakers and organizers to further examine the issues that the sessions revealed. You can also follow the Boxes and Arrows podcasts on: iTunes Del.icio.us B&A MX podcast theme music created and provided by BumperTunes™
Creating the Next iPod - Cordell Ratzlaff I had the pleasure of speaking with Cordell Ratzlaff about his presentation "Creating the next iPod". Cordell is leading product design for Cisco's voice, video, and web collaboration products. We discuss the necessity of creating a great corporate culture in order to create great products.

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Interactions and Relationships - Richard Anderson Chris Baum, editor-in-chief for Boxes and Arrows sits down with editor-in-chief for Interactions Magazine, Richard Anderson at MX San Francisco to discuss the different techniques, and skill sets it takes to develop and publish to the IA and UX communities.

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New Interactions: Enlightened Trial and Error - Björn Hartmann Björn Hartmann and I discuss his presentation entitled New Interactions: Enlightened Trial And Error. and how he is leading work in design tools for pervasive computing, sensor based interactions, and design by modifications. Björn is a PhD candidate in Human Computer Interaction at Stanford University and Editor-in-Chief of Ambidextrous magazine, Stanford's Journal of Design.

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Chocolate and User Experience - Michael Recchiuti Michael Recchiuti talks about the experience of making chocolate and how different flavors inspire new creations for the business and his customers. Looking at different professions outside of the web world in which most UX practitioners work can inspire innovation and creativity.

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Round Table Discussion with Adaptive Path and Boxes and Arrows - Chris Baum, Brandon Schauer, Sarah Nelson, Henning Fischer, and Ryan Freitas We start with a mash-up of these brief interviews followed by a round table discussion with editor-in-cheif at Boxes and Arrows Chris Baum, and four members of the Adaptive Path team including Brandon Schauer, Henning Fischer, Sarah Nelson, and Ryan Freitas about these comments and their own impressions of MX.

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Thanks to "Adaptive Path":http://www.adaptivepath.com/ for sponsoring these podcasts.