Apr
17th
Fri
17th
Price of bandwidth, price of flattered self
Need that Salon article from Adam Kmiec which broke down YouTube’s costs and highlighted lack of sustainability. Key quote - “User-generated Content is proving to be a financial albatross.” http://slate.com/id/2216162
Apr
15th
Wed
15th
The "new normal" and the $100 trash can
Need to look up NPR All Things Considered and dig out the listener feedback. “higher quality products, fair price point, initial expense ok rather than repeating purchases, longevity from purchase,
Jan
18th
Sun
18th
taxo validation
High emphasis placed on initial researc, maybe better explained as “pre-effort” research. Various post-effort research techniques exist, but taxo validation is deprioritized in favor of usability testing or other techniques.
Taxo validation could be IA/UX equiv of traditional marketing analytics - could bring IA/UX cred to marketing folks who don’t get it
Dec
11th
Thu
11th
Leaks are the new market research
Gears 3 in 2010? 3D Desktop/Finder for OS XI? Preemptive, premature info disseminated to pools of highly interested audiences. Feedback is willfully provided in enough time to adjust.
On presenting work product, be it IA, Creative or Tech
Dec
9th
Tue
9th
search, social, and the user experience
Qual and Quan - bricks and mortar
Nov
19th
Wed
19th
For consumer-oriented companies on Twitter, why not put an uncensored stream from search.twitter on your homepage? Accentuate the positives from your customers and demonstrate attention and action towards mitigating the negatives.
Oct
2nd
Thu
2nd
DHL Commercial
Ugly wasteful American syndrome. Plates get shipped from Italy to America with instructions about fragille contents. DHL supports the brand’s value prop through commercial. American family gazes lovingly and amazingly at beautiful handcrafted plates - then proceeds to break one during the wedding ceremony.
Jun
3rd
Tue
3rd
Draft idea - helping companies who have either failed or not engaged in social find their way in
May
9th
Fri
9th
Convenience
Apr
29th
Tue
29th
draft: which-Centered Design?
Challenge is a shopping cart process, but for a rather specialized service in which the general public might not have the greatest of understandings. The business is seeing measurable dropoff across its web properties. UCD activities are being requested by the company to start stemming the tide.
So, is UCD the answer? Unless there’s a really compelling reason not to - and it’s difficult to think of any - yes, UCD will certainly get you farther with than without.
I’d like to consider an alternate approach for this, one which accelerates the UX process but doesn’t introduce their desired UCD activities until post-production. Regarding activity-centered design, Don Norman wote, “Understand the activity, and the device is understandable.” I’m replacing “device” with “process” for this exercise.
My sense from seeing the bail points and learnings from individual and group sessions last summer, is that the company isn’t doing enough to educate through the shopping cart process. They do use jargon, and apologize to me when I call them on it. They understand that their desired audience has a vastly different visceral sense of what their jargon is, and that it most certainly doesn’t relate back.
So the strategy is this:
- speak to the prospect, in the language of the prospect - the prospect already cares about the process in progress
- even though they’re of varying skills/life experiences/etc., strive to play up to their aspirations - make them feel smarter without them feeling that it’s been dumbed down.
- make it short.
Sometimes, it’s hard to always take the high road. Too much up-hill walking.
— Jared Spool, via Twitter
