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Design like Thomas Keller cooks:

“Cooking is not about convenience, and it’s not about shortcuts. Take your time. Move slowly and deliberately, and with great attention,”

Designers have all had the mantra of user-centeredness beaten into them. But how many apply that same understanding to their business and engineering partners? I’m beginning to suspect too few.

I hear startling amounts of complaints about product managers:

“They told me to rip out the best part of the design!”
“They said ‘just copy x’!”
“They want to ruin the experience with ads/upsells/etc!”

When I ask these designers what motivated the product manager to say that, I get shrugs or “They clearly don’t understand design” — which is not an answer to what motivated them to say what they said. It’s a judgement. And an opt out of responsibility for the situation.

When I ask how the product manager is compensated or what will happen if the product fails, I often get a blank stare. I have chatted with designers who understand every emotional nuance a consumer expresses while selecting a vacuum cleaner, but not a clue what their product manger does all day. Let me help; understanding is the beginning of compassion.

Product managers can be fired or demoted if a project fails, even if they did a “good job”. They are responsible for product success, which is different than being responsible for doing good work. Product folks are not promoted for keeping schedules on track, writing great specs, having a team that works well together… they are promoted for their numbers going up. If numbers go down, even if it’s because a competitor launched something that cannibalizes their product, they are still responsible.

Businesses are like people; they have to work their way up maslow’s hierarchy. Many are still at the survive and grow phase. Imagine a business is a lion pride struggling for subsistence on the savannas of Africa. The product managers are the lionesses of the company; they feed the pride and ensure that the company makes payroll. Would you want to explain to your cubs that there is no dinner because another lion got the antelope first?

The “best” part of your design may distract from the core goal.
Copying X may reduce risk that users won’t perform a key goal.
The ads may be the only way they can make money.

If the design is beautiful and innovative but the audience doesn’t take to it, product managers have trouble feeding their family. If product managers miss deadlines and then miss a market window, they may find themselves demoted or job hunting. Is it surprising they might prefer to launch a poor design on time to a welcoming market rather than an amazing delightful design delivered to a reluctant market? You may disagree with this approach, but that doesn’t make it invalid thinking.

Knowing you are responsible for your company and your family is stressful. It’s the kind of stress that leads to phrases like “Just copy Google,” and ” Let’s just put in a Facebook like button here.” Once, back when I was a young practitioner, I was arguing for a design I was certain was the better one. The product manger looked at me almost in tears with sheer frustration and said “Why won’t you just try the button on the right?” At that moment, I knew I was a jerk.

Imagine yourself filled with compassion and curiosity. Listen to what your partner (call them your partner!) is saying. When they say something you find outrageous instead of arguing, pause. Breathe. Ask “Tell me more.” Be them with all their fear and desires. Focus on what will make the product succeed, and your partner succeed. Help feed the pride.

It is a practice, like yoga. In yoga, when you are mediating and you find yourself wondering if you should get a pedicure after and what to eat for lunch. The instructor then says “Don’t get angry at your mind for wandering. Just gently let the errant thought go and return to your practice.”

You will slip and hear yourself saying

“My client’s an idiot”
“Product just trashed the design.”
“Those pinheads have no clue.”

Gently forgive yourself and, like in yoga, return yourself to considering their needs and pressures and finding ways to help. We are just humans, trying our best to make our way in this world. I’m sure you would love it if your product partner would consider your goals; but someone must go first.

You will be a better designer. You will work with happier people. Your designs will pwn the marketplace.

Also read The fallacy of “They Don’t Get It”

Often, when critiquing a design, I ask how a designer came to make a certain decisions. Too often they reply “it’s consistant.”

Consistency is a tactic, not a goal. I know many many lists of heuristics like to canonize it as a desirable quality like beautiful and usable, but really it’s just a way to achieve a particular end result; in this case a learnable interface.

If you place interface objects in the same place, and have them always look the same across all screens, you can teach users what their purpose is. If you use the same visual indicators other interfaces use, the learning can be brought down to near nothing. For example, nearly all eCommerce sites use the shopping cart to represent everything which you have chosen to buy but for which you have not yet paid. When you sit down to design your eCommerce site, you could use a shopping bag and hope for the best, or try out a milk crate and cross your fingers, but being consistent with other sites is the quickest way to make sure users can give you money.

Being consistent in an interface also speeds up task completion. The first time you send a email you might have to hunt around for the send button, but by the third or fourth time it’s easy and soon after it’s automatic. In fact, if the buttons are always in the same location in your mail programs you can send email, delete trash and mark spam far more quickly, allowing you to focus on the art of insulting your boss without him realizing it. Move the buttons around and your users may accidently cc someone who can explain the insult to him. Inconsistancy can be trouble for a user in this scenario.

So: consistency! Obviously a great good! Why do anything else?

When your goal is not a learnable interface. When your goal is garnering attention.

For example, if every item in your navigation bar is white on black, and you want people to see a new section just added, you might make it red. Or let’s imagine you have situation where saving a file doesn’t just save it, it saves and replaces all previous drafts. Perhaps then you might want to make it yellow instead of blue and call it “save and overwrite.”

There are times when you want the user to not have to think, but there are also times when you very much want the user to sit up and pay attention. Consistency lulls us, inconsistency wakes up up.

Now you have two tools in your tool belt, instead of one virtue and one vice.

The next time you are having a big argument about design with fellow team members, and decide to make it a setting so “the user can decide”, STOP!

Any interactive system has a minimum amount of complexity. Either the designer can deal with that complexity, or the user can.

If the designer passes the complexity on to the user in the form of customization and/or settings, the total amount of complexity in the system goes up.

Let’s walk through this:

Let’s say you are a designer arguing with your product manager about a background. You want a gleaming white background, like Apple would do (or Josef Müller-Brockmann, if you went to art school) and the product guy wants the corporate blue or something that would give the page a unique look. After days of fighting you sigh, and say “let’s just let the user customize it right? Let them decide? Users love that, think of mail!” and the product manager, in a moment of weakness, agrees.

Here’s why it’s a moment of weakness
1. The PM now gets to spec out the background changer.
2. The designer now gets to design it.
3. The designer now gets to figure out what all the colors/backgrounds will be, and make them.
4. An engineer now has to code the tool. And eventually s/he goes to the PM and says “What is the default background” and the choice still has to be made.

Now you have a feature set that needs to be maintained, updated, potentially looked at by legal, explained by customer service all because you got tired of arguing. And there is a good chance only 2% of the users will actually use it, because most users don’t want to deal with unnecessary decisions, and will just hang with the default.

But if you end up removing this feature that came to life in a moment of weakness, the few that do use it will all write to customer service (and the press) to tell you that you are evil and don’t care about your most valuable customers.

When you hit a point in a conversation where you consider passing on a decision to the end user (for that is what you are really doing) STOP:

Ask yourself:

1. Is this a decision the user really wants to be making?
2. Is there a good enough default the team can agree on (I can live with?)
3. Is the value of making this a user choice worth the development and support time?
4. Can I live with myself if I make the poor, worn out user who just spend an exhausting day reading tweets and playing farmville figure something out that was my job to figure out in the first place?

Design is deciding. The complexity never goes away. It is your job to deal with it.

References: Tesler’s Law, Tog on The Complexity Paradox

At conferences and meet-ups, I spend a lot of time with young practitioners. And every time I chat with them, I try to talk them into speaking at a conference and/or writing an article.

But why? They have a millions excuse why not…

Excuse #1. I’m just starting to figure this out

If you are just starting to figure this out, how many others are also? How many haven’t even started figuring it out?

I bet when you sat down to work on a problem, you did what we all do– ran a search to see if anyone else had already solved it. And if it was solved, you did what the expert to did and moved on with your life.

But more likely is you found some articles that held a few clues, then you tracked down a couple people to ask them what they thought, and then you experimented.

Now you have unique information on what works (or what doesn’t) that is worth getting out in the world. Maybe you don’t have all the answers, but you have some. And if you share what you know, others can take it and grow it into something even better that you can build upon further.

Isaac Newton may have stood on the shoulders of giants, but most of us just take turns standing on each other’s shoulders.

Excuse #2. I’m not famous.

Silly! How do you think famous people get famous? Sitting in the corner? No, you have to have the courage to go out and look dumb in public. Trust me I know.

“I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her. (Although when I mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said that you can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.)”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Besides, aren’t we all tired of seeing them same talking heads, and isn’t it nice to hear a new perspective? Perhaps yours?

Excuse #3. I’m not ready.

So often people want to have all the answers before they go in public. But (see #1) it can be just as useful to you and the community to get what you know out into the world where others can help make you smarter.

When I was in grad school, I took a class on teaching. The most useful thing I learned was what to do when someone asks you a question to which you don’t know the answer. As humans, we often feel we need to have all the answers, and may make something dumb up rather than admit we are stumped. The teacher told us all his secret: ask the student what they thought the answer was. If they don’t know, you can suggest they research it and come back tomorrow. He explained to us that as well as it being a more more effective pedagogy, it allows you, the teacher, to research the question and come back tomorrow able to judge the correctness of the answer.

I’ve adapted this approach for when I talk. I also ask what the questioner thinks the answer is. Then either they tell me (they were just waiting to do so, often enough) or they share what they suspect might be the answer. Then I share what I think, if I have a theory, and suggest we both explore this question and share back on our blogs/twitter when we get answers. This approach of collaboration and humility has never backfired on me. Better to admit you don’t know than pretend and fool no one.

You could keep researching your subject until you had every single answer and were ready for every challenge. Unless you died of old age first. Or you could get your ideas into the world where they can do some good.

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Excuse #4. What if I flop?

It is a real if unlikely possibility. Think of the worst talks you’ve seen. How many of then ended up with the audience rising up against the speaker and throwing tomatoes? I think the worst thing I ever saw was the brilliant and charming Danah Boyd getting undone by the twitter backchannel. But she soldiers on, having received no bodily injury from the twittersphere.

Scott Berkun, whose book Confessions of a Public Speaker
you really must purchase before you step on stage wrote:

“In hundreds of lectures around the world, I’ve done most of the scary, tragic, embarrassing things that terrify people. I’ve been heckled by drunken crowds in a Boston bar. I’ve lectured to empty seats, and a bored janitor, in New York City. I’ve had a laptop crash in a Moscow auditorium; a microphone die at a keynote speech in San Jose; and I’ve watched helplessly as the Parisian executives who hired me fell asleep in the conference room while I was speaking.

The secret to coping with these events is to realize that everyone forgets about them after they happen– except one person: me. No one else really cares that much.”

Flopping is typically not memorable, but being inspiring is. The odds are in your favor.

Get Scott’s book, as it will help you far more than the book on pretty slides to prepare to not flop, as well as helping you to prepare– if bad things do happen– to survive it.

What if you flop? You will have tried, you will have learned, and you will be able to tell really funny stories at the bar about it.

Excuse #5. I’m scared.

We are all scared. Everyone of us. But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. There is an intoxicating exhilaration of having done something hard, and painful and ultimately worthy when you stand in front of your peers and share knowledge. It’s like skydiving, only with more meaning and less actual death.

Finally, a story.

I gave a talk at a conference a while back. It was a talk where I studied up on something I knew nothing about– Architecture– then got up and talked about how it had everything to do with what the audience did for a living: web design. And I was scared, afraid I’d flop, afraid someone would point out I was not an architect and should never play on on TV. I didn’t sleep the night before. Yet it went ok, and a couple of my friends came up after and said they liked it, and I went on to the after party to get smashed on relief and red wine.

Flash forward a few years later; I’m enroute to a party after another conference at which I did not speak (how relaxing! How easy!)

I’m sitting in the dark intimacy of a tour bus at night next to a young but well known designer, talking about architecture’s influence on how I design for the web. Suddenly she turns to me and says “That talk changed my life. It made my work finally make sense, and partly why I started my company” And I was gobsmacked.

And that is really why you should speak (and write.) If you can make just one person feel they are not alone in this struggle we are all engaged in, you have done something truly worthwhile with your life.

So go. Speak.

Also, buy these books. They are really awesome.

I suppose if you are one of those folks who keeps getting effective and affective mixed up, the title of this post will annoy you (I’m not one of those! heck no, not me!), but let’s just say emotions are important. If we are designing and not considering the emotional effect we have over our users, we are probably painting in gray scale.

There is a new intriguing collection of resources for those of you who would like to be working in full color. I suggest you swing by and take a look– articles, videos, and a ton of reference makes this a juicy collection I’ll be noodling over for some time.

http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/affective_computing.html?p=2c76

One of the most flumoxing issues I encounter when reviewing design work is misplaced interface objects.

When you craft a sentence, you’d never think to write something like “Fluorescent, she picked a red.” Somewhere or another you learned that — unless the lady in question was glowing faintly — “fluorescent” should be placed next to “red” to modify it.

Yet over and over I’ll see a design where a filter or an undo button is off in a corner, far from the thing it is supposed to filtering or undoing. I’ll hear a designer say, “well users can be trained.”

But think about that sentence again… you were able to guess the red was fluorescent, but it stopped you in your tracks, didn’t it? Design’s job is to disappear into the pleasure of use.

Next time you review a design, consider treating interface objects as if they were verbs (or adverbs) and figure out what word they affect. Then read your sentence out loud and see if it makes sense!

Read the rest of this entry »

I signed up for the 30 day RWE writing challenge, but have been remiss on acting on the daily prompts. Today’s resonated with me however.

I was listening to a great book on my drive in to work again, Nonviolent Communication. I have taken to listening it it any time I suspect I’m going to have a difficult conversation. The book describes a technique that was developed to deal with conflict situations, such as those we see too often in the middle east. It engenders conversation focused on expressing needs without demands or blaming, which can lead to defensiveness. That morning, I ended up hearing a section in which he describes how to make yourself miserable. He recommends comparing yourself to supermodels in looks, and in accomplishments to people like Mozart who composed symphonies at age 5.

To imitate is to see something and decide you would rather model that you see than value your own self. It is born out of a painful uncertainty and lack of trust in yourself. It is self-immolating. It is you telling yourself “I have seen better than you can ever create, don’t bother.”

When I studied painting so many years ago, we were instructed to go to museums, select a great work and make a copy. It is part of an artist’s formal education. As you follow each stroke of the master, are you destroying your self? Not at all, you are learning to see as they see, move as they move. It is a path to mastery. If at the end you look at your copy, note the differences and sigh, I’ll never be that good, then you have missed the purpose: to be taught, not to imitate.

You cannot be Renoir or Picasso. You could be the greatest forger in the world, but that has a unique notoriety. You have your pride in deception, not the pain of living in the shadow of greatness.

If imitation is suicide, then comparison is the razor.

Harry is one of the smartest people I know, and gets a ton done. When he agreed to share his morning ritual with me, I was grateful. And when I mentioned it to some folks at SXSW, they asked me to write it up. It’s a simple way to collect what you need to do, and determine what priority they hold.

First, do not open you email. This must be done before anything else.

1. Role Based Scan.
To do this each morning, first you’ll need to create a mental map of all the roles you play in your life: wife/husband, father/mother, friend, colleague, partner, boss, employee. Then each day you go over that to see if there is something you should be doing in that role.

2. Collecting Yesterday’s Bits and Pieces
We all have ways that we keep notes on things we want to remember, be they to do’s, books or ideas. Harry keeps on them on his 3×5 pad, so he goes through them. You can go through whatever you do. I have a notebook, and I write sentences and put a little checkbox next to each, so I would collect those.

3. Review Calendar
Look back three days, look forward three days. Was there a big meeting that requires follow up? Will there be one that needs preparation?

4. Yesterday’s emails
Finally you can open email, but switch to the sent folder. Now look through yesterday’s emails quickly, and see who you owe followups, and who owes you one.

5. Process into actionable list
Harry uses Remember the Milk, but there are many tools here. He categorizes all that he has collected. His categories are not “work” and “home” but “next” “attention” “ping” i.e. what needs to be done with each item.

6. Batteries
What is the one physical thing you need to make your day go smoothly. For Harry, it’s making sure his recording devices has batteries. Could be a laptop cable, your phone… in my case it’s a red notebook I’ve been using for my brain lately. I leave that at home, I’m in trouble.

7. 3 avoidances
What are three things I’m avoiding. Prioritize them against the rest of the day.

Now you can open email, and start work on your priorities.

I just read a lovely article on how to critique design, and it was insightful and all that, but I can’t remember a single thing it said now, ten minutes later (could be my worsening ADHD. Shiny! Shiny!).

Here is a simple simple way to critique a design, so when people say “what do you think?” you can say something actionable and useful.

How to Critique a Design in TWO steps

1. Look at the design.

Ask yourself, “What is the single thing the business wants people to do, according to this design.”

For example, look at Amazon, a fairly successful business, I think we can agree. And look at their page. Amazon wants you to buy things. Usually one thing; today for me it’s the kindle. And although I’m sure wishlists and saved items, and recommendations are important, today they want me to buy a kindle, and aren’t going to distract me from that.

Here’s another one to try to decode: Google. Can you guess what Google wants you to do?

2. Ask the person who is asking your advice “what is the single thing the business wants people to do?” If they can’t answer, you can say about the design, “Looks nice to me.”

Because your advice is just as valuable as when your wife asks, “Do I look good in this dress?”

Be polite, back away slowly. They are doomed.

But if they do know what they need their users to do, well voila! You can now match that against your impression of the site, and say either,

“It’s working for me”

or

“I think it’s needs a little work. I’m not getting that message.”

Advice without context is like wine without a corkscrew: not only useless but frustrating.