Intelleto

EPIC workshop on See>Sort>Sketch

admin — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:00:29 +0000

I just got back from the beautiful city of Copenhagen, where my colleague Leah Buley and I presented a workshop at EPIC 2008. We worked with 25 people on the topic of See>Sort>Sketch : pen & paper techniques for getting from research to design. The EPIC conference was wonderful…many interesting people doing cool projects in ethographic research.

You can see some of my photos from the workshop on Flickr.

You can also download the presentation deck and workbook here.
I’m looking forward to seeing the EPIC community again in 2009 in Chicago. Fun!

Hang in there, I’m coming

admin — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 06:15:42 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. There are a lot of “postings in waiting” and I’ve got a short stack of Fave Ideas of the Week to catch up on.

It’s busy. I’ll be back soon. Thanks for being patient.

In the meantime, this is really funny.

Fave Idea of the week : August 8th, 2008

flickr — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:11:09 +0000

All last week, folks at Adaptive Path were prepping to speak at either Agile 2008, or UX Week 2008, or both. Leah, Dan and I all were heads-down on presentations for both.

When Leah and Dan did a brown-bag run-through of their talk, there still some holes in their slide deck that needed to be filled in. That’s pretty par for the course…it’s best to get feedback from a brown bag before you’re totally done with the whole shebang.

Then when I saw the label in the placeholder for this slide, I giggled. Who doesn’t need a Diagram of Awesomeness in their talk?

Fave idea of the week : August 1st, 2008

flickr — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:46:34 +0000

You know how sometimes you want to do something and it sounds kinda fun but maybe not really, like it wouldn’t be the best use of your time or skills or effort, but you kinda sorta want to do it anyways despite something in your gut saying maybe it’s not a good idea but you think you’ll probably say yes anyway?

When you hear yourself doing that, call Laura. Slicing through indecisive bullshit is her specialty. One example of which was the source of this week’s fave idea.

Do you want to spend your time and expertise working on something that’s one step away from a failwhale?

Fave idea of the week : July 25th, 2008

flickr — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:19:11 +0000

What do you do near the end of a design project? I often find myself digging into the crevices and finding last-minute ways to make the design really sing. I try to clarify the communications (wireframe annotations, consistency, make sure everything is updated) and take a step back to make sure that the designs I’m finishing really do fit the goals of the work.

Sometimes the edge cases are the hardest to focus on, because they aren’t central to the core ideas. So when I overheard Dan S. say that he was at the point in a project where they were polishing the edge cases, I smiled.

Edge cases are an abstract thing, but when described in this way, they remind me of furniture…cases that hold things that you don’t use very often. You don’t want rough edges on your furniture, and you don’t want rough edges on your designs. So take Dan’s advice…give yourself time to polish them. Do they make Pledge for edge cases?

Fave idea of the week : July 17th, 2008

flickr — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:18:51 +0000

I was in a meeting with a bunch of folks, talking about consulting projects. Dan H. was giving an update, and he mentioned that he had a meeting where they just spitballed ideas around. The phrase caught my fancy for a few reasons:

spitballs are small, damp and meant to be thrown
you use them to communicate with people
you can make them quickly
when you toss one and it hits the mark, you feel proud

Turns out that rough, fast, early ideas have a lot in common with spitballs. Spitball ideas FTW!

Fave idea of the week : July 11th, 2008

flickr — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:07:42 +0000

I was having lunch with Julia, and while we were wrapping up and paying the bill, she did a great job recapping the topics we covered, summarized my concerns/ideas, and reiterated the list of things that we had decided to do based on what we talked about.

Now Julia is a productivity maven, which in no way undermines her incredible sly sweetness. She’s really on the ball. But this was over-the-top on-the-ball. I told her I was impressed. She said “I’m reading this great book on facilitation. I don’t have issues, I have action items.”

The last part cracked me up. But actually, when I thought about it more, I was quite moved and inspired.

I’m sick of business-speak that euphemizes “issue” or “challenge” when what people really mean is “problem.” There is a difference, folks. I checked out the dictionary and pulled the definitions to see what nuance each word had:

Problem : Any question or matter involving doubt, uncertainty, or difficulty.
Issue : A point, matter, or dispute, the decision of which is of special or public importance: ie: the business issue.
Challenge : Difficulty in a job or undertaking that is stimulating to one engaged in it.

Sometimes the matter at hand isn’t of special importance. It’s not an issue, it’s a problem.

And often, there’s no stimulation or engagement for the person responsible for solving it. It’s not a challenge, it’s a problem.

But one thing they all have in common is that some action, decision or solution needs to happen. Julia hit the nail on the head. They all have action items. Or at least they should. Awesome.

Fave idea of the week : July 4th, 2008

flickr — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 08:07:19 +0000

Happy birthday, America. No better way to truly celebrate success then by firing off a big burst of fire and light!

Fave idea of the week : June 27th, 2008

flickr — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 06:45:06 +0000

This quote comes from Brandon. He presented at an IxDA-SF meeting, speaking on a panel about What is Design Worth? He came out with this zinger when talking about metrics, management and the balance of design as inspiration and design as business.

I’ve worked in passion-driven environments, and they can be wonderful. But sometimes the higher ideals and the passion becomes a proxy for good decision-making. Just because you’re aiming at a higher goal doesn’t mean that an idea will work. It’s a careful balance, and one that is important to maintain. I hereby vow to try to be as right as I am passionate, heh.

Fave idea of the week : June 20th, 2008

flickr — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 06:44:44 +0000

I don’t read Oprah magazine, and I’m not a big fan of Suzy Welch. That said, when my sister Casady told me about the 10:10:10:10 question, it struck a chord. Shifting scope and asking these questions is a great way to frame your priorities. Where to spend your time? Just ask yourself “what’s the impact and when?” and it helps. Thanks, Casady.