The process of design: Gross to Subtle

Experience design is as complex as any other kind of design and follows to some degree the same processes. We look at problems that sometimes can be solved through logic and attention to detail, but the most interesting and far reaching challenges we take on cannot be solved in that way. They require highly divergent thinking, an excellent filter to narrow those possibilities down, and a fearless resolve. The work must be done, there are no epiphanies. 

We often begin with introducing ourselves to the challenge, understanding the breadth of it, seeking any foothold onto that colossal and perplexing wall of ice. Have others been here before, and what paths did they take? What tools will help? What is within reach? Have I climbed something similar before? 

You walk around this thing, playing through your head a million scenarios, remembering hundreds of things you've done before and pooling all your energy into understanding the problem. At some point, you'll exhaust yourself as you reach yet another dead end, yet another hurdle. Your solutions are not solutions at all, they're investigations that end in frustation. At some point you have to stop investigating and explore.

Exploration should be free of what has been, the knowledge you have accumulated and the things that you know. This is a new problem, and learning can only be experienced in the now, not in the past of your thoughts and ideas. You need to look at everything with beginner eyes, and have a sense of naive appreciation for the wild landscape around you. Stilling your mind from the noise of the inner monologue will allow you to experience all facets of the problem as it stands, not how you imagine that it is. You'll notice small things that look new to you now that see them, and you'll relax and stop to judge yourself and the situation. Where there is conflict there can be no freedom. Creativity can only exist in freedom. 

Finally you'll be still long enough to hear the solution. It has been there for longer than you know, just you needed to slow down and quieten down to hear it through the chaos that is a mind in agony over a problem. The first thing you will do is draw or jot down some words, lo-fi, easy and tactile. The more you try and think, the harder it is to hear it clearly, so experiencing is the only way forwards. By prototyping and playing with the thing, you craft something that makes you smile. Something that makes you feel that vibration of joy that only comes from reaching this point on this kind of journey. It's only just begun though.

You are at the gross end of the spectrum. You are moulding your solution from fresh discovery as you experience it. It has rough edges, it is ugly, it is incomplete and raw. Yet it is full of promise, and insight. It's likely that its hard for others to understand it, without you taking them on the journey you have been on, so they also can share in its awkward awesomeness. It is probably but a few lines of sharpie on the back of a napkin after all.

After many many rounds of refinement, it will be a sophisticated, mature and fully thought through, original solution. It is subtle. Those who use it as a final product will feel the intensity of it, although they may not understand that vibration they get from it. They will break into a smile, be filled with passion using your product, and never really know how far you had to go to retrieve it. You sweated the details down to the last one. That's part of the beauty. When the work is not done, when the journey from gross to subtle is not travelled, you can tell. You feel the shallowness of it, you feel the immaturity in the work.

Either they failed  reaching exploration because they pressured themselves to design a solution immediately, fearing the great unknown. Or they having never been on the journey, they never knew it was there, taking a bludgeon to the wall of ice instead of failing to se the possibilities. 

In the gross end of the spectrum live sketching, brainstorms, and mappings. How does it work and does it fulfil their need? At the subtlest end of the journey there is look and feel, colour, texture...does it delight and consume them? This is a long journey for products, with many iterations in between, on the spectrum. It requires everything you have: left and right hemispheres, all your time, all your energy and all your courage. 

This is the work of design. Although led by individuals, it is successful only in teams, for you will need the richness that different perspectives offer. For many, it is their first journey, and as the designer it is up to you to guide them through it to the other side and give them heart in the steep mountains.

Godspeed.

photo credit: marfis75 via photopin

Facilitating collaborative design workshops

Collaborative design workshops allow you to get decisions made in an inclusive, rapid and multidisciplinary way. They ensure that there is a shared understanding and ownership on a new project, and that it is set up for success right from the start. If you have never facilitated before, do not be fooled, it is much harder than it looks. Make sure you prepare yourself well, and before undertaking any critical workshops, give yourself a chance to get plenty of experience beforehand. Being a great designer does not qualify you to automatically be a great facilitator. There's a whole bunch of skills to develop and to fine tune before you can manage even the hardest of groups. In a collaborative design workshop, you:

• Define the MVP of the project so that everyone know what the requirements are and what the scope of the project is
• Map the customer journey so that everyone is aware of the user flow
• Sketch out the various screens that will be needed against the user flow
• Take notes of any changes to existing screens and how those will be done
• Make lots of decisions together
• Align as a team before you start building

Collaborative design is a ensures that design, dev and the business are working together and iterating quickly, so that we have a better result due to better alignment and shared information and knowledge. We also fail quickly and as a result we all learn a lot more. Collaborative design allows us to rapidly prototype things. Prototyping is is better than talking: it is thinking with your hands. It forces us to try things and learn from them rather than talking about them and trying to make to decisions based on assumptions.  We move past long-discussions in meetings into action fueled, effective workshops.

The wall is the new desk:

Get your group working together at the wall, whether it's displaying and discussing design, or creating a user journey, or brainstorming. Get them to make all work visible. Also working together at the wall means that they will be physically active, which keeps the energy up in the room.

Running these workshops is fun for the group, and also a lot of hard work. As a facilitator, there are a bunch of things that you need to do to ensure the session runs well, and that you get the most out of your time together.

Your role as a facilitator:

Think of yourself as a group nurturer and a process guide.

• Support everyone to do their best thinking
• Encourage full participation
• Promote mutual understanding
• Reach inclusive decisions
• Cultivate shared responsibility
• Reach the goals you set out to achieve
• Have breaks

How to run your session:

You need to prepare. It's really important to have a clear understanding of the goals you have for the workshop, and that you plan activities that will enable you to get to the outcomes that you need.

1. Pre-workshop

•  List your top 3 goals for the session (More than 3 in 2 hrs is usually difficult)
• Work out what you need to accomplish to get there
• Decide on activities that will allow your group to achieve these things
• Carve up your time into activities, time boxing each one meticulously (schedule breaks, introductions, ice breaker and a little spare time)

You will have a well prepared collaborative design workshop all ready to go. Making sure that you have time for each activities is really important. If you don't timebox well, your session will be rushed, out of focus, and ultimately won't allow you to succeed. If what you want to do won't fit into the time you have, then you need to be realistic and cut down on the number of things you;re trying to do in the session. It's always better for morale to have 2 shorter session than a whole afternoon in a workshop.

Supplies:

• A kitchen timer (nothing works better than a big red tomato...don't use your phone, people will ignore the ring)
• Lots of sharpies of different colours
• Sticky spots or stars
• Index cards
• Blutack
• Post-it notes
• Large roll of paper or butchers paper
• Whiteboard markers
• Water and snacks

2 - Workshop time

There are a few things that help when running these workshops, and starting with ensuring everyone understands the point of the session and knows how to behave during the workshop is really important. Never assume people will be ok to follow you blindly, you'll need to make them feel comfortable before they trust you to get them where they need to be.

• Spend 5mins introducing the session and its rules:

The parking lot (keep the team focused by writing all out of scope ideas on cards that are placed in the parking lot wall).

The timeboxes (Show then your timer, and explain why you are timeboxing and how its helpful to them).

Workshop conduct (No talking over others, no shouting, no closing down other people's ideas, no chatting during brainstorms...).

Write the activities you're going to run on the whiteboard, along with the goals of the session, and how much time is allocated to each one.

• Run an icebreaker

This is especially useful if you have a large group who don't know each other well. For groups who do, it's a great warm up. An ideal activity is giving them a sheet of paper with circles on them, and asking them to fill in each one to represent a different thing in 5mins. It gets them drawing and doesn't give them time to worry about it. Get everyone to share how many they managed to complete and show what they drew. It usually leads to some giggles and sets you off in a good atmosphere.

• Run your activities

This is where you all get to work hard. As a facilitator, it is your job to keep everyone within the allocated timebox, to keep the group energy up, to ensure everyone is heard, and that all of the ideas are on the table for consideration. You'll also need to deviate from the plan sometimes, yet still get the right outcome in the allocated time. Interrupt people when they are off topic and ask them to use the parking lot, which you will sort at the end of the session. Encourage the group to work together, support individuals who are struggling for whatever reason (shyness, intimidation, bad behaviour, etc...) and keep control of the session. If you allow the group or any individual to not play by the rules, your session will flounder very quickly.

Don't tell them what you think, help them get there themselves by asking a lot of the right questions. It will have a lot more impact and you won't have to explain everything. The best facilitators can keep it fun and focused at the same time. Practice makes perfect.

• Close the session

Make sure that you end the session on time. People will not want to come to your workshops if they have a reputation for running late. Remind everyone what the goals were and sum up what you achieved as a group today. Make sure any actions that have merged from the work have an owner who is responsible for following up or doing something. Ensure you group ideas in the parking lot, and ask the group whether a further session should take place to resolve those things. If there's no clear grouping, and lots of unrelated things, ask the group how they'd like to handle those.

3. Post-workshop

As your group scurries off to enjoy the rest of their day, you still have a little bit of work left to do:

• Photograph all the walls and whiteboards
• Throw away paper that has served its purpose
• Roll up and keep any that you need for further work
• Wipe whiteboards
• Tidy up
• Write up the workshop outcomes together with photos of the work on a collaborative space for everyone to refer to
• Have a well deserved cold drink and kick back

Resources:

Designing with Stakeholders? Accelerating the design process through co-creation (UX magazine)

Facilitating Collaborative Design Workshops – a step by step guide for rapidly creating a shared vision for execution (Jason Furnell)

Encouraging Participation and Fun During Collaborative Design Sessions (UX Matters)

Become a design leader in your organisation (Surface digital)

Design thinking and the facilitation process (Patrick Glinski)

Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making (Michael Doyle)

Make Space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration (Scott Doorley)

photo credit: boxman via photopin

An Experience Design Manifesto

 Thanks to Lizi Hamer for all the help and for letting me steal off her! I learnt lots along the way.

"I believe that all software should be designed, using a human-centered approach. Interactions will be obvious, seamless and pleasurable. I will not refer to you as an "end-user" but as a full person, a participant in the software's story. I will fashion experiences for you that do not degrade you, and that allow you to engage with our work in an appropriate manner. I will endeavour to measure the success of our software, not solely based on hard metrics, but also based on your own evaluation of it. I know that you do not necessarily perceive the world in the same way that we do, and I will do my utmost to be mindful of not inflicting our subjective experience of the world on you. I believe in sweating the details, so that you don't have to. I believe in setting a consistent design language, so that you can feel comfortable quickly. If I can do it with less, I will. I believe in ensuring that our software fits seamlessly into your day and life, by remembering that it is not the centre of your universe. Finally, I will ensure that everyone on my team is aware of you, and that they are mindful of your needs and respectful of your time and energy".

Marie-Claire Dean

SxSW workshop: Agile Experience Design

As some of you know, Cathie Hagan, Megan Cook and I recently ran a workshop at SxSW entitled: "AXD: Agile Experience Design". This was a good mix of skills, as Cathie is from the BA practice and Megan is a bit of a hybrid between BA and XD.

What we did:

We were allocated a 60min slot to run a workshop on Agile Experience design. There was a diverse audience of designers, developers, managers and company owners. Some were familiar with Agile, many were not. We wanted to teach some fundamental principles of design in Agile teams and to allow people to experience it for themselves.We designed the "Play Doh Zoo" game (inspired by the Lean Lego game).

We split people into teams as they came into the ballroom and then those teams were split into construction workers and designer/planners. An extra group represented the customers. We prepared packs for each team full of play doh, pipe cleaners, pop sticks, tape and more tools. We gave them foam boards to build their zoo on. We used whistles to signal the end of iterations, and we led them through a retro highlighting the learnings we wanted them to take away. We will post more information about how to run this game soon.

Roy closed our session with a stirring and inspiring speech and you can see his notes here. It definitely inspired the crowd, and helped people see that we are much more than just another software consultancy.

How it was received:

As the whole ballroom descended into chaos, I was quite sure that we had pulled it off. A client tapped me on the shoulder and told me with a wide grin, that this is exactly how it feels when we come into their workplaces. People were running around, fully engaged in the game, and shouting enthusiastically at each other.

Lots of people came up to us at the end and said that they really enjoyed themselves, and that they learned a lot. It's clear that it would have been great to be able to do an hour Q&A session after the game, as we spent at least that long answering questions. A couple of people felt that we didn't give time to answer their questions and some were disappointed because they thought this was a panel, although it was clearly listed as a workshop. You can't please everyone, and we take this on as feedback that next time it would be good to also run a panel at SxSW.

How we would do things in an ideal world (briefly):

Agile is about continuously evolving your product, this is BOTH delivery and design. You need to build what you can with what you know. That is, start with some of the known areas, use your design patterns. For instance, registration forms are a well know space use the best practice here, get the team working and spend your research time and energy in the truly innovative areas of your product (hint this should happen in parallel).The key is getting the product out as soon as possible so you can validate that what you are actually building (rather than conceiving) is the right direction.

The benefits of this approach are many. Firstly you can validate your direction. Secondly your client (product owner) is happy because they achieve ROI earlier, and they can really see the product evolving, rather than less engaging documents they can play with the real thing. Finally your team will be happy as they will be able to start making them feel more confident that they can reach their deadlines and more engaged.

The other important point is to be collaborative while design. Not just with the business stakeholders either, make sure you can include your team. The developers will invariably have a deeper product knowledge than you and their fresh perspective may uncover fresh opportunities that would have never been thought of without their inclusion. Also collaborating is the easiest way to to get buy in, as the design becomes communal property rather than seen as something imposed.

For a good impression of what we did, take a look at Adam Kleinberg's excellent write-up.

6 Easy things for a happier lifestyle

Like many of you, I spend most of my week at work and during the week, all the time between work days is spent trying to stay fit and healthy, and happy. It's all too easy to get caught up in the fast momentum of our work lives though. The web has sped things up for all of us. Decisions often need to be made within hours, and of course, somewhere in the world, it is business hours (even if it's after hours for you). For the technologists around us, staying on top of such a fast moving industry can be stressful as well as exciting, and it's really easy to stay glued to the information stream. We love our jobs (if you don't it's time to quit btw), and we love what we do (if you don't it is time to do something else) but we also need to find that very precious work-life balance. It is essential to your wellbeing, happiness and success at work.

It needs to be as easy as possible though. Most of us are "time poor", so instead of trying to make drastic changes that won't last or make unrealistic plans to ensure a healthy balance, you need to change a few small things that will make a huge difference. I've struggled with this problem too, and I actually did Tim Ferris's 4hr week for a little while when I was freelancing. It didn't work for me because I realised that my work is one of my passions and I naturally want to spend more than 4hrs a week with it. I want to share with you how I improved my life. I could do better, but it's the little things that have really helped.

1 - Never wait

When you are commuting, or in a waiting room, waiting for someone to turn up somewhere or waiting in endless traffic...just don't wait. The idea is to turn this time into quality time. Use it to do something you find enriching. I take photos with my phone of the spaces around me, I have a little notebook where I draw, I listen to music and simply enjoy it, I read a few lines of a book... you can do whatever you like. The only rule is that it must not be work related. See it as playtime. You'll end up feeling like you've had a more varied day, and if you're suffering from stress, you'll feel better.

You can also use your commute to stay fit. Try biking, walking, skateboarding or running into work a few times a week. It's fun and really energising. I promise that thinking about it is harder than doing it, as for most things.

2 - Eat healthy easily

Once I get home, and I've been for my run or swim or whatever, I really can't be bothered with the trip to the supermarket and I really am hungry by then. This is when I'm likely to get takeout or have something non-nutritious. Food is important, it keeps us running on good energy and helps us stay healthy.

My solution is to order an organic fruit and veg box every week. It gets delivered with a big selection of nice fresh produce and I have everything I need to make a good meal at my fingertips. I don't have to chose everything, and wander endless supermarket aisles, although I can order specific things when I want to. It just makes the whole thing easier.

Another good tip is to pack food and water in your work bag. A few pieces of fruit, a little plastic container of dried fruit and nuts, something easy and healthy...it will ensure that you never get hungry, and that when you do, you're not tempted to snack on bad stuff.

I recommend also chopping up half a lemon and adding it to your water bottle. Lemon water is tasty and cures most sugar cravings, it also is a natural disinfectant, so your body benefits. Having it on you means you don't go for sugary drinks (including fruit juices), and that you are always hydrated.

3 - Get up

It really pays off to get up an hour earlier than you really need to. Use that hour to do some exercise or use it for inspiration and meditation. The start to your day sets the tone for the rest of it. If you begin with nurturing yourself and doing something positive for yourself, you'll approach the day differently to when you wake up, grab breakfast and a coffee and run for the bus. If you like to exercise after work, spend the hour writing morning pages, meditating, or drawing, singing,...whatever works for you. Morning pages is a simple concept I was introduced to a few years ago: write 3 A4 pages. That's all. They're not about anything in particular, the idea is to just write whatever comes to mind. It's a concept from the very wonderful "Artists way" book.

4 - Take time out

Don't sit at your desk and eat lunch, don't have 11 o'clock coffee with colleagues talking about work...go outside for some air, talk about love, life, hobbies and everything else...stretch, walk, rest. It doesn't have to be long, just long enough that you feel like there's a break in the morning and afternoon. You should enjoy this time. If you feel like it's a chore and you're anxious to get back to your desk...maybe you need a holiday.

There's a few apps that you can install on your computer that will prompt you to take a rest, and you can also set alarms on your phone. I like Time Out for Mac and on my iPhone I have the Zen timer.

5 - Sleep

Sleeping helps you recover not just physically but also mentally. Go to bed at the same time each day (getting up an hour earlier will help you go to bed earlier), and take an hour to wind down before bed. Ban all electronic devices from your sleeping area. This includes your iPhone that you use as an alarm clock. Buy a real alarm clock. One that won't vibrate periodically every time an email arrives or someone likes your photo on Instagram! If you are over-tired, you won't be able to sleep, and your mood will really suffer. A lot of people don't realise that it takes energy to fall asleep. If you are exhausted, you won't have the energy necessary to drop off peacefully. An hour before bedtime, shut off any connections to the web and the tv. Have a bath, a shower, drink herbal tea, read a book, anything that relaxes you.

Check out the NIH guide to sleep

6 - Wear comfortable shoes (ladies especially)

It's amazing what a difference it makes to spend the day in shoes that don't rub, and that keep your body in good alignment. Wearing high heels causes the pelvis to tilt forwards. The feet are flexed and positioned downwards which puts pressure on the forefoot. This leads to "plantar fasciitis", which can lead to injury to the ankle and foot, not to mention fot deformities. It also means your hip flexors and knees have to work a lot harder and they end up pretty tight. Thigh muscles shorten and contract, which leads to the flattening of the lumbar spine. The upper body compensates by leaning back, and your lower back is under pressure. Because the knees tend to stay flexed and the tibia is turned inwards, there is pressure on the inside of the knee, leading to problems.

Many of my friends wear high heels and look really fabulous in them, there's no denying the aesthetic effect. Be aware that there is a cost beyond the price of the shoes.  Save them for special occasions and not racing around the office or the train station.

7 - bonus item: Your perfect day

Write down what your perfect day looks like to you. Not a special day or a holiday, just a normal working week day. Don't make it difficult or aim to make it hugely productive or strenuous. Try to make it sustainable and enjoyable. This is Nigel Marsh's advice, and I'll let you listen to his TED talk about work-life balance.