A topic that floats to the surface on a regular basis in my work is the relationship between brand and UX; an interesting, evolving and somewhat contested territory.

One way to think about brand and experience is as representing  two different perspectives: the perspective of the business and the perspective of the people that use the service or product of that business or organisation. In the past they didn’t overlap as much as they do in the case of online service delivery (or service design generally), but as technologies and practices change some interesting tensions are coming into play [*]. There are two in particular that are recurrent for me at the present time.

The first is at the global organisation or company level, the territory of vision where things are strategic and frankly, largely abstract. The other is at local level, where you have the actual implementation of a specific, concrete project/touchpoint/service (it might be the implementation of one the strategies from the global above).

The battle at the top seems to centre around defining, or redefining a companies approach to business. Arguments laid out in books like Adaptive Path’s subject to change argue that companies need to move beyond brand, which is driven from an internal perspective, and instead think about experience. An experience strategy takes as its start point the perspective of the user. It understands and presents value from the outside in, not the inside out.

I completely agree with this argument, the bit I’m not sure about it how are people expecting the brand platform to integrate with the UX vision and strategy? Based on the conversations with peers from both branding and UX  people seem to think of one as a sub group of the other, depending on what their background is.

Well articulated brand strategies are important reference points for UX, they tells us important things about who the company wants to be and how they want to be portrayed.

Many of the things that @docbaty argues as central to an Experience Strategy such as vision and differentiation are already part of brand. The difference, he argues is perspective.  So do we throw out the brand platform? Or do we look to integrate them? Where is the overlap?  Is it just a matter of changing the brand vision from a company perspective to reflect a user experience perspective? There is no doubt that brand as we knew it before had its limitations in the landscape of interactive design. It wasn’t developed to account for the kinds of things its being asked to now. But does it die, evolve or become absorbed into UX, or something else?

In one of the presentations from IDEO there was a phrase about brand (and moving with the times) that captures some of this nicely “enable your brand through participation” (I’ll need to find the link), this kind of evolutionary approach sums it up well – I’m still interested in what that actually means for the documents and reference points we work with/develop on  daily project basis though…”guidelines” etc.

I’ve developed a few scenario based techniques to explore how brand and UX intersect – i.e how do you embody brand values in the service (I mean of course brand way beyond colour and logo etc) which I’ll write up and share as a follow up post.

[*]

Why is this (more of an) an issue now?

I’ll explain what I mean by this comment through a necessary over-simplification of the issues. In the olden days of communications design from where many interactive agencies stem, design was about communicating a message. The materials we designed were predominately marketing, promotion, information or advertising material. For example it might be advertising the services of a bank, of your local council, a suicide hotline or of a charity. That could come in the form of print, tv or website etc. What we were designing was largely controlled and static. Even though you might be able to click on the website, the content was informational. We could apply the brand guidelines to these various implementations, (to be honest brand never really caught up to the web but…).Matters of design were (mostly) matters of communicating and promoting the service, not matters of delivering the service. The majority of the actual core services of those organisations on the other hand were delivered face to face or over the phone by humans. The people that worried about the delivery of the services and the people who governed the form and nature of how information about those services was shaped and communicated (brand & marketing) potentially had little to do with each other.

This has changed as the channels through which we deliver core services have started to merge with the platforms through which we used to use to communicate about that service. (i.e core services  are being delivered through web services and web applications). Suddenly branding people are involved (or more deeply involved) in conversations about how the service will look and operate.  The user experience and UI and so need to be “on  brand”.  This is not so bad for organisations like banks, or task orientated software were there are few variables for interaction and no user generated content. But when the service relies on participation and engagement by users (like peer support services or community consultation) more often than not there are clashes about control. Specifically people worry about looking bad from the comments of others, or that some form of brand abuse will result from relinquishing control.

People who have worked in community service delivery and consultation completely get that you need to give ownership to participants in order for such things to be successful, for many (though absolutely not all) brand and marketing this a relatively new lesson. I have often had clients come and say we want to be more participatory, but then have brand representatives really struggle with letting go control. It is relatively recent that brand and core service delivery have played so closely together (for service organisations).

You simply can’t apply brand rules, or control brand in the same way to core service delivery (where participation is a central factor) as you could when it being used to shape information and communication collateral. These relationships are being further disrupted by shifts towards co-creation, open innovation and service design.

q. 1 How do our methods need to be extended or adapted to support design in the wild?

q. 2 How do we position our own practice in relation to this dynamic and changing design space?

These are two questions I posed at the end of a recent presentation I was invited to give at UTS to Masters students from the School of Design, Architecture and Building (edited slidedeck above). While the focus was an introduction to Personas and Scenarios (new to many of the students from outside the field of Interaction Design) the presentation also highlighted new trends or “strong currents” currently influencing design.

The aim of the presentation was to introduce some of the methods or “tools” we already have that support us in thinking about design in relation to use, as well as point to ways in which the relations between design and use are becoming more dynamic and intertwined.

This is an opportunity for us as practitioners to reflect on our practice, and think through how our existing tools are being, or may need to be, extended or augmented as we shift into new areas.

In particular we discussed a (conceptual and literal) shift from designing products to designing services and the impact trends such as crowdsourcing, DIY design and social media are having on professional design practice. Traditional boundaries between design and use are blurring as design activities become more public and relate to a larger more complex ‘eco systems’: design (and designing!) is escaping into the wild.

The closing questions above are also the subject of a paper I’ll be presenting at Ozchi in Melbourne later in the year, and I hope to be facilitating a discussion on the topic of Design in the Wild: The practitioners new playground next year at IXD10 (submission currently being reviewed).

UX Australia was a fantastic conference, thanks again to the organisers!

Last week @michellegilmore and I got our first article up on Johnny Holland: User Stories: a strategic design tool. It was slightly chaotic trying to co-ordinate from Olso’s various internet cafes (and some loitering around unprotected wifi at apartment blocks) but we got there!  Big thanks to all those that helped shape and edit the article  :especially @semanticwill @docbaty @deskimo and Chris Gaul on the graphics!

Recently I sat down with the marvelous chris gaul for a co-sketching session, the aim was to work through visually some of the key concepts in my research into participatory methods and social technologies. I’d worked closely with cg before and knew he had a great talent for taking ideas, concepts and my random scribbles and translating in them into a visual language. In doing so he would identify key aspects that had been missing from the existing representations, but were central to the telling of the story.

In under two hours and in less than 2 beers, we had developed 3 draft concept sketches that conveyed the main points of my thesis well beyond my initial sketches. The catalyst to the breakthrough was Chris immediately introducing the concept of time, exactly the type of shift I hoped to make through a collaborative sketching session.

All of these sketches are start points, their role was to make available, capture and reveal key aspects of the concepts being discussed. I’ll be drawing on these to develop the concepts as well as guide how they are articulated in my thesis. (Thanks Chris!). I share here some our  cafe sketches and very briefly outline the points they were capturing.

Designing a design research method

This image denotes the steps we go through in designing a design research study. My empirical research focus has been on the design and evaluation of digital self-reporting studies, and this sketch provided a background and context to the indepth investigation in my thesis on the  “devise a methodology” step (longer post to come). Importantly it put my work in a bigger context/process and showed how I would need to break out certain bits and support some aspects with more detail.

Seeding social technologies early in design

Figuratively, to seed something is to cause something to begin to develop or grow.  This image captured the important aspect of time in the seeding process, the connection between the tools we use early in the design process,  where they are located (real world/abstract design space) and their connection to the ‘final design’.  Early design methods like interviews and observation are generic.  Social technologies as early design tools (e.g through digital self-reporting) create a different and potentially more continuous connection between the activities of design research, design and use. Our design research methods (social technologies) have a contextual relationship the subject of your design (social technologies). We were trying to work out how to convey that greater connection between the initial seed and later use, as well as indicate that the ‘in context’ nature of self-reporting as a method importantly locates the “design research” in the real world.

Oscillating transitions of “ownership”

The metaphor of a ‘seed’ or seeding gives us a way to describe and strategise about engaging and moving between the abstract space of design and the concrete places where people live (Lee 2008). Seeding in the context of designing social technologies can describe a strategy for transitioning the project state from “abstract” to “concrete”; to transferring ownership from the designer to user community; to ingratiating the project with potential users; and to creating conditions and hooks for participation. This sketch was just trying to capture the way in which the transition of “ownership” doesn’t occur at one point in time, but rather oscillates back and forth at different times; though the ultimate goal in social and community projects is usually a complete handover eventually. You can see we had a few goes at this to get the emphasis right, and in one of them I’m going over chris’s big arrow with lots more little ones to emphasis that “handover” is never clean and continuous, rather there can be lots of stops and starts.

1.    Lee, Y.: Design participation tactics: the challenges and new roles for designers in the co-design process. CoDesign 4 (2008) 31 – 50

Methods can be a bit like a black box. Embedded within them are particular assumptions about design and participation that can be unwittingly projected into our design process and outcomes. If we hope to privilege sociability, flexibility and openness in our designs, these values can be better supported through some tools and techniques more than others. In my thesis I have drawn attention to particular qualities and concepts relevant to design in the context of social technologies. I’m in the process of making these available to others in different ways such as maps, vocabularies and considerations.

mapping goals, experiences, enablers and qualities in early design research

Design tools like concept maps and sketches  allow us to analyse and visualise things in different ways. In this context they can make visible important, though often implicit, aspects of methods. The (draft) map above describes the use of social technologies as a self-reporting/live prototyping tool in early design research. It takes into account goals of the design method, experiences that are of value in this context and qualities of the tools and technique that become enablers for these experiences. By mapping a relationship between design goals, qualities and enablers (methods) the intention is to make more visible connections between the tools, techniques and the values they embody.

The first two goals, immersion and intervention, take into account the perspective and experiences of the designer and participant. The third goal, seeding, represents the relationship between them, and between design and use. The qualities of digital self-reporting e.g over-time, in situ, visually rich, personal, mobile and so on enable the kinds of experiences (e.g reflection, inspiration) that support these desired goals.

The map is not meant to be prescriptive or exhaustive. Rather it is meant as a tool for encouraging discussion, reflection and decision-making. The map and its explanation are still very much works in progress.

Immersion, intervention and seeding are three key concepts that have emerged out of my work on participatory and designerly design methods that name things important (but at times implicit) to our practice^.

^ Designerly methods embody the creative, visual and exploratory nature of design, while participatory methods embody a commitment to active participation by users in design.

References: (A full literature review a reference list can be provided, in the mean time here are some selected key texts that have been instrumental in my work).
1.    Robertson, T.: Ethical Issues in Interaction Design. Ethics and Information Technology 8 (2006)
2.    Visser, F.S., Stappers, P.J., Lugt, R.V.D., Sanders, E.B.-N.: Contextmapping: experiences from practice. CoDesign 1 (2005) 119-140
3.    Visser, F.S., Lugt, R.v.d., Stappers, P.J.: Sharing User Experiences in the Product Innovation Process: Participatory Design Needs Participatory Communication. Creativity and Innovation Management 16 (2007) 35-45
4.    Botero, A., Kommonen, K.-H., Oilinki, I., Koskijoki, M.: Codesigning Visions, Uses, and Applications. TechnE Design Wisdom” 5th European Academy of Design Conference, Barcelona (2003)
5.    Botero, A., Saad-Sulonen, J.: Co-designing for new city-citizen interaction possibilities: weaving prototypes and interventions in the design and development of Urban Mediator. PDC’09. ACM, Bloomington, USA (2008)
6.    Hulkko., S., Mattelmäki, T., Virtanen, K., Keinonen, T.: Mobile Probes. NORDICHI 04, Tampere, Finland (2004)
7.    Gaver, B., Boucher, A., Pennington, S., Walker, B.: Subjective Design for Everyday Life. CHI 2003 (2003)
8.    Merkel, C.B., Xiao, L., Farooq, U., Ganoe, C.H., Lee, R., Carroll, J.M., Rosson, M.B.: Participatory Design in Community Computing Contexts: Tales from the Field PDC’04. ACM, Toronto, Canada (2004)
9.    Kensing, F., Blomberg, J.: Participatory Design: Issues and Concerns. Computer Supported Cooperative Work 7 (1998) 167-185
10.    Näkki, P., Antikainen, M., Virtanen, T.: Participatory Design in an Open Web Laboratory Owela CHI08. ACM, Florence, Italy (2008)
11.    Stolterman, E.: The Nature of Design Practice and Implications for Interaction Design Research. International Journal of Design 2 (2008)
12.    Dourish, P.: Where the Action Is. MIT Press (2001)

Emerging a User Experience Strategy: people, pencils and post-its is the title of the presentation @michellegilmore and I will be giving at UX Australia at the end of August. The conference is happening for the first time this year and there is an excellent range of speakers. The event will be a much appreciated addition to Australia’s calendar of UX and HCI events. A brief outline of our presentation is provided below based on our submission.

Michelle and I will be talking about the process of emerging a User Experience Strategy (or getting from fluffy to something). The approach we’ll be sharing emphasises collaborative and light-weight design methods (people, pencils and post-its). Drawing on a recent case study we’ll highlight experiences and techniques evolved over a number of projects and influenced by IxD and agile development methods.

The motivation for the presentation is a desire to capture, describe and make available for discussion aspects of the re-framing and translating that takes place as part of the process of developing a project-level User Experience Strategy.  Early project information and documentation often takes an organisational or technical perspective in describing the future system. A UX strategy on the other hand takes as its start point the perspective of those who will use the system. For the purposes of this presentation we define the development of a UX strategy as the process through which project information (e.g scope, project objectives, business requirements, user research, content analysis, comparative analysis, brand information) are critically translated and interpreted into a description of the future system from the perspective of the user experience.

The outcome is an agreement in principle to the objectives, the opportunities, the constraints, the scope (scale) and key principles of the design. It privileges the intended user experience whilst appropriately taking into account the various interests of the project such as business, brand, content and technology.

In the approach we’ll be sharing, the process starts by taking existing project information and translating it into relevant user stories. User stories are valuable for a number of reasons. They are versatile and accessible to all stakeholders. They become a common form of language across the design and client team and they can be prioritised as a way of making design decisions in relation to the user experience.

In our process groups of user stories are used to expose themes and activities that provide an initial (loose) structure. Prioritised user stories are then formed into key scenarios and  mapped out to expose the core user pathways, which are then iteratively refined. The structure of the system is allowed to emerge through this process of mapping the user experience and priorities for content and functionality fall out along the way. This can be challenging for members of the design team otherwise used to defining such aspects upfront (or top-down). Similarly various methods are needed to promote collaboration, trust and visibility of project process to the client throughout the process.

In our presentation we’ll be highlighting:

• How user stories are generated and then themed
• The process of prioritising user stories with clients to identify key complex scenarios
• How we collaboratively map the priority scenarios out and expose the core user pathways
• How these processes inform information architecture and user interface designs and
• Our choice of rapid and collaborative tools (e.g post – its, and pencils)
• Communicating the process to the client

The work upon which this presentation draws was completed on behalf of Digital Eskimo, a social design agency in Sydney whose Considered Design methodology makes embracing these methods and approaches possible. Our wonderful client was UNSW and we worked with other great team members from Zumio and Redrollers. Our presentation wouldn’t be possible without their generous committment to sharing the design experience and process, a big thank you to them and to the generous participants that gave their time to this project  (still in production).

‘Seeding’ refers to activities which enable or encourage the transfer of ownership from the designer to the user, and points to the moments in which which abstract design space engages with or shifts into concrete use space (for more info on these terms see references in this post)

Social technologies for prototyping

The term ’seeding’ can be used to refer to a range of activities but the approach that I am most interested in currently makes use of existing social technologies such as blogs and mobile phones as prototyping tools.  Social technologies are rapidly being adapted into the repertoire of design researchers, Mobile Diaries (Digital Eskimo), Digital Etho (Cheskin, News Digital Media) and Digital Diaries (Frog) are all examples of  designers exploiting the mobile, digital and connected nature of these tools for early design research. However, it’s possible to move beyond the boundaries implied by “research”, and get straight into design. An example of this is the patchwork prototyping being done by Jones et al. [1]. In these projects existing technologies are configured as prototypes and deployed into the community. The tools themselves become the material through which early design exploration and research occurs, and potential uses emerge. A snip from Jones et al. in Handbook of Research on Open Source Software on Patchwork Prototyping:

the combining of open source software applications to rapidly create a rudimentary but fully functional prototype that can be used and hence evaluated in real life situations. The use of a working prototype enables the capture of more realistic and informed requirements than traditional methods that rely on users trying to imagine how they might use the envisaged system in their work, and even more problematic, how that system in use may change how they work. [1]

While this particular quote perhaps doesn’t capture the openness, flexibility and participatory nature of the process, the potential is there. Other researchers also using these kinds of online tools for early, participatory co-design are Owela (at VTT in Finland see also [2-5]) and Arki (Media Lab in Finland see also [6, 7]).

Design ‘in the wild’

There is a growing sense that some of our traditional UCD methods – that rely in large part testing during the “design phase” – prior to release – fall short in the context of social technologies that require participation and contribution by people to take their form e.g .[8].  Many development companies have been adopting a beta approach (or even perpetual beta) in part in response to this issue where the emphasis is ‘getting stuff out there’ in order to gain feedback (discussed in [9-11]). As part of this (and other changes to traditional design practices) design practitioners, UX in particular, are  finding ways to integrate with agile development processes. While I think there are a heap of positives about this, I see prototyping “in the wild” [12] as another exciting, design driven approach where seeding becomes a central design activity.

This was a very quick and oversimplified overview of some pretty complex shifts in practice, and I hope to provide a fuller account of these emerging  approaches and their relationship to our concepts of design and use in a different forum, for further references that tackle the issue of co-design and PD ‘in the wild’ see also [13-18]:[19, 20]

Reading/References

1.    Jones, M.C., Floyd, I.R., Twidale, M.B.: Patchwork Prototyping with Open Source Software. In: St.Amant, K., Still, B. (eds.): Handbook of Research on Open Source Software: Technological, Economic, and Social Perspectives. Information Science Reference, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA (2007) 126-140
2.    Näkki, P., Antikainen, M., Virtanen, T.: Participatory Design in an Open Web Laboratory Owela CHI08. ACM, Florence, Italy (2008)
3.    Näkki, P.: Owela: Open Web Laboratory for Innovation and Design. ERCIM News Vol. 2009 (2008)
4.    Owela. Vol. 2009
5.    Näkki, P., Antikainen, M.: Online Tools for Co-design: User Involvement through the Innovation Process. In: Karahasanović, A., Følstad, A. (eds.): NordiCHI 2008 workshops: Requirements Elicitation & HCI and Social Media Development Lund, Sweden (2008)
6.    Botero, A., Kommonen, K.-H., Oilinki, I., Koskijoki, M.: Codesigning Visions, Uses, and Applications. TechnE Design Wisdom” 5th European Academy of Design Conference, Barcelona (2003)
7.    Botero, A., Saad-Sulonen, J.: Co-designing for new city-citizen interaction possibilities: weaving prototypes and interventions in the design and development of Urban Mediator. PDC’09. ACM, Bloomington, USA (2008)
8.    Isbister, K., Höök, K.: On being supple: in search of rigor without rigidity in meeting new design and evaluation challenges for HCI practitioners. Proceedings of the 27th international conference on Human factors in computing systems. ACM, Boston, MA, USA (2009)
9.    Merholz, P.: Embrace the chaos – designers and systems with emergent behavior. Vol. 2008 (2006) <http://www.peterme.com/archives/000793.html
http://www.peterme.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/499>
10.    Porter, J.: The Freedom of Fast Iterations: How Netflix Designs a Winning Web Site. Vol. 2008 (2006) <http://www.uie.com/articles/fast_iterations/>.
11.    Holzapfel, N.: An unsuitable match: social media and User-Centred design. Johnny Holland (2008) http://johnnyholland.org/magazine/2008/11/an-unsuitable-match-social-media-and-user-centred-design/
12.    Hutchins, E.: Cognition in the Wild. MIT (1995)
13.    Battarbee, K., Cabrera, A.B., Mattelmäki, T., Rizzo, F.: Designed for Co-designers: Workshop Call for Participation. PDC 2008 (2008)
14.    Brereton, M., Buur, J.: New challenges for design participation in the era of ubiquitous computing. CoDesign 4 (2008) 101 – 113
15.    Rehead, F., Brereton, M.: Getting to the Nub of Neighbourhood Interaction. PDC’08. ACM, Bloomington, USA (2008)
16.    Cabrera, A.B.: Emerging Digital Practices of Communities In: käytännot, A.A.d. (ed.):  (2006)
17.    Karasti, H., Syrjänen, A.-L.: Artful Infrastructuring in Two Cases of Community PD Participatory Design Conference. ACM, Toronto, Canada (2004)
18.    Dittrich, Y., EriksénII, S., HanssonI, C.: PD in the Wild; Evolving Practices of Design in Use Participatory Design. CPSR, Malmö, Sweden, (2002)
19.    Merkel, C.B., Xiao, L., Farooq, U., Ganoe, C.H., Lee, R., Carroll, J.M., Rosson, M.B.: Participatory Design in Community Computing Contexts: Tales from the Field
. Participatory Design Conference. ACM, Toronto, Canada (2004)
20.    Merkel, C., Farooq, U., Xiao, L., Ganoe, C., Rosson, M.B., Carroll, J.M.: Managing technology use and learning in nonprofit community organizations: methodological challenges and opportunities. Proceedings of the 2007 symposium on Computer human interaction for the management of information technology. ACM, Cambridge, Massachusetts (2007)

I had the pleasure of attending Ozchi earlier this month presenting at Ozchi. It was a great conference, perhaps more relaxed than some years which I attribute to the temperature in Cairns.

My presentation focused on a reflection into changes in our role as designers, in light of social technologies. In particular I focused on the role of seeding as a design activity in forging a connection between a design project or concept, and the possible “user community” that it might target [[download pdf]]. Seeding describes an aspect of our design process or responsibility that exists in addition to (or perhaps instead of) the actions of constructing and crafting that we might have emphasised in earlier design mediums. The presentation seemed to be well received, though was of rather a different focus than the heavy heuristics analysis that went before it (good, but a very different tangent on design reflections).

Closer to my field was the talk that follow me by Mads Bødker who explored how the different generative design tools that we might provide our user’s in workshop sessions influences how they are able to articulate their thoughts and ideas. Of course the materials and objects we use impact the way people communicate, and it will be great to have some research that goes some way to indicating how some approaches and materials in this area of methods privilege or enable certain aspects over others.

It was a privilege to keynote at last weeks Making Links (or was it the week before already).

As a natural born cynic I need to regularly surround myself in people who do amazing things for humanity to keep my spirit charged (sorry to be such taker on that front , and it was indeed an inspirational couple of days seeing the great projects presented there. I also really benefited from the questions and feedback from those in the audience, many of whom are dealing with complex issues such as supporting transgender teens, protecting sex workers from abuse, and outreach to those at risk of HIV.

The crux of my own presentation was about plotting a presence in the now very distributed digital ecology in which we now can exist, that is appropriate to those whom you are trying to reach. So, rather than thinking in terms of the one stop shop corporate or organisational website, focusing on connecting with communities at their level, in ways meaningful for them. For many organisations then there are opportunities in facebook and myspace, or twitter and other public forums for intersecting and connecting with members of their community around shared interests. However organisations that focus on issues such as those mentioned above, have a very real need to engage in private and anonymous communications with their audiences. So while much of the conversation about social media currently about the place (including my own) is focused on getting your message out their and leveraging these networks to position, dissmenate and amplify your message, we should also take note of other ways in which social technologies can support social change.

For example young people dont necessarily want to friend the Freedom Centre and broadcast to their friends (and possibly family) that they are gay or transgender. Similarly people who are at risk of HIV are sensitive to being identified. But (as was seen through the presentations) technologies such as MSN, and anonymous comments and messaging on websites opens up the possibilities of communicating with these audiences in ways not possible in traditional outreach campaigns. Similarly the enormous opportunity to connect with, and provide support for a remote or iterinant communities through mobile phones was also made visible. For example the Youth Connected presentation talked about the dramatic increase in positive relationships and success stories made possible throught their programm of giving troubled youth and street kids their mobile phones. A lunchtime conversation with another attendee focused on the possibilities for keeping in touch with sex workers via mobile phones, and in particular enabling them to report and register abuses more easily.

It was great to have the opportunity to share such thoughts and experiences with people doing important but often uncelebrated work well outside the mainstream marketing and business focused conversations on social media use.