Toledoan Instone

Posts about the Toledo, Ohio (USA) user experience community from Keith Instone's blog.

Tickets still available: July 11, UX with Mud Hens

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

I am organizing a local get-together where you can hang out with others who are interested in user experience. We chose a truly-Toledo location: a Mud Hens ball game.

What: User Experience Day with the Mud Hens
When: Saturday, July 11 (first game of the double header starts at 5:30pm)
Where: Fifth Third Field, downtown Toledo, Ohio

Would you like to enjoy the company of fellow interaction designers, information architects, usability engineers, developers and others interested in enabling quality user experiences for their customers? And enjoy the world-famous Toledo Mud Hens in a double-header, with fireworks after the games? Bring your family, too, if they are willing to put up with us talking about user experience in between pitches.

40 tickets have been reserved for this group outing. Tickets will cost $9. The ticket order will be placed in mid June, so if you are interested, please contact me.

Tickets are still available! If you are interested, you can send me an email (keith2009 at this site) or leave a comment below. Help spread the word: I am hoping I can meet new people from Refresh Toledo and re-connect with colleagues from AIGA Toledo who I have not seen recently. And I will be happy to welcome anyone else who is crazy enough to come to a baseball game to share their passion about user experience.

We already have families coming from out of town (Detroit, Cleveland and Columbus areas) so we may also meet at the Toledo Zoo in the morning. Join the fun!

Posted in Toledo, OH, USA
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Save the date: Scott McCloud at BGSU, October 24

Sunday, August 3rd, 2008

I do not have final details, but wanted to get the word out as soon as possible so you can start planning. Subject to change.

Who: Scott McCloud, Cartoonist and Theorist
What: Comics: A Medium in Transition
When: Friday, October 24, 2008, 6:30 pm
Where: 206 Bowen-Thompson Student Union, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio

One of the sponsoring organizations appears to be the BGSU student chapter of SIGGRAPH / Computer Arts Club. The School of Art may also be funding part of this (Todd Childers is the one who gave me the basic info - thanks Todd!).

Poking around some more, I found "The Comic Book in Popular Culture" scheduled in many rooms in the same building at the same time. Which led me to this call for participation from the Popular Culture Department. So I assume Scott's visit is part of the conference.

And checking out "Comics: A Medium in Transition" by Scott, I see these other performances:

Stay tuned for more info...

Posted in Toledo, OH, USA
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Internet User Experience 2008: March 31 - April 3, Ann Arbor

Wednesday, February 20th, 2008

It just keeps getting bigger and better - Internet User Experience, the "local" conference with "national" quality. It will be in nearby Ann Arbor, Michigan, March 31 - April 3.

IUE, in its 4th year, has expanded to 4 days. The first day has 2 all-day tutorials to choose from. The second day is the beginning of the main conference with 7 presentations and a night out-on-the-town. The third day has 2 morning panels, a presentation and 2 half-day afternoon tutorials. The last day is an interactive workshop.

You will see how web sites have been effectively designed for many different markets and target groups, ranging from 3-year olds to adult consumers to specialized professionals. You will see dramatic before-and-after improvements to established web sites. You will learn from experts in fields such as search engine optimization, online communities, and user experience management as they explain and debate the current state, future destiny, and current opportunities that exist for businesses with these evolving technologies and professions.

We are blessed to have such a high quality program for a locally-organized event. Dave Mitropoulos-Rundus, a Michigan UPA officer, is the main force behind this, but he gets volunteers from other local groups like MOCHI, STC/SM and Refresh Detroit, to help. It is a great example of how local User Experience Network collaboration can help pull off something "local" that is comparable to the other UX conferences.

Check out the schedule and register if you are interested. I have gone every year and it has been great. I will be there for at least part of the 4 days - see you there.

Posted in Toledo, OH, USA
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AIGA Toledo chapter

Friday, December 7th, 2007

I just discovered that we now have an AIGA local chapter in the area, AIGA Toledo. Yeah! Amy Fidler and Jenn Stucker issued a call for participation in July and had the first organizational meeting in April. Since becoming an official chapter, the group has hosted Marian Bantjes in September and a social gathering in October (with Flickr photos from both events). Amy and Jenn have collaborated on other things, too.

Before the Toledo chapter was formed, local AIGA members had the option of driving to Detroit or Cleveland for meetings. There is also an AIGA chapter in Cincinnati.

I was an AIGA member years ago, when it had an active Experience design community of practice. I am no longer an AIGA member, but one of the hi-lites of DUX was meeting AIGA members (the "dressed in black" crowd): as we talked about user experience, the differences in our backgrounds did not really matter.

AIGA Toledo represents the first truly local chapter related to user experience. As a UXnet Local Ambassador, I hope I will be able to help them incorporate the right mix of user experience topics into their programs so they can help serve the broader UX community in Northwest Ohio.

I will still be hanging out in the Ann Arbor/Detroit, Cleveland, Dayton and Columbus areas to connect with UX professionals in the region, but it will be nice to also have a connection with colleagues closer to home through our new AIGA chapter.

Thanks to Amy and Jenn and everyone else who helped form AIGA Toledo. This is great news for the area.

Posted in Toledo, OH, USA
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October regional user experience events

Friday, September 28th, 2007

Many of the user experience groups in the area kicked off the "season" with meetings in September. Here is what is in store within a 3+ hour radius of Toledo for October.

Let me know what else I am missing from this list. Also, MOCHI is gearing up again and a UPA chapter is forming in Columbus.

On November 8th, there will be quite a few regional events for World Usability Day.

Posted in Toledo, OH, USA
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More notes from Entrepreneurial Thinking conference

Saturday, April 14th, 2007

The Entrepreneurial Thinking conference was well worth it. I look forward to the next one on April 18th, 2008.

Alan Webber (adding to my quick notes)

  • He did not have slides, so this is what stayed up on screen as he talked: Expert on change and innovation in the knowledge economy.
  • Two things matter for business success: Innovation and Leadership. That is where you stand out. (The rest are important but taken for granted.) They are two sides of the same coin. Innovation: upset status quo to create new value. Leadership: guide/create positive change, master the art of change. That means the coin is called Change.
  • Three brutal facts of business life: Globalization, Technology, Human capital. My favorite quote (paraphrased): "Web 2.0 is a buzzword that means: If the work is not moving to India or China, then it will move to the web." Human capital - it really means "hire the best people." Interesting stat: The top programmers are 10,000 times more productive than average ones.
  • In the TINA questions, I of course liked the fact that "customer's skin" and "design" are next to each other. Good quotes: "Know your customers better than they know themselves," "Your web site instantly communicates your brand values" and "Design is a signal of intention."
  • The best question for Alan was about open systems. The old model of a great business was that you controlled everything within your corporate boundaries.

Guy Kawasaki

  • Worth the price of admission. Very inspiring. And funny. Great presenter. (Guy is one of the judges in SlideShare's World Best Presentation Contest.)
  • His talk was titled "The art of innovation" and it was very similar to his "art of the start" talks. There are several copies of his Art of the Start floating around - here is one on SlideShare and another.
  • Since some of his points were different, I will list them here., with short notes. (Update: PDF attached below.)
    1. Make meaning (the money comes from the meaning but you cannot make meaning just from money)
    2. Make mantra (not mission statements)
    3. Jump to the next curve (10 times better, not 10% better)
    4. Roll the DICEE (Deep, Intelligent, Complete, Elegant, Emotive)
    5. Don't worry, be crappy (ship and then test, but only revolutionary products can get away with this)
    6. Polarize people (if you design for everyone, it works for no one)
    7. Let 100 flowers blossom (spread it widely because you will get unanticipated customers)
    8. Churn, baby, churn (hardest part is shifting from "do not listen to the people who tell you it is impossible" before shipping to evolutionary mode - "listen to your users" - after shipping)
    9. Niche thyself (high value + unique product - high and to the right on the charts)
    10. Follow the 10/20/30 rule (for pitching ideas - 10 slides, 20 minutes of talking and then discussion, 30 point font)
    11. Don't let the bozos grind you down (innovation is about seeing the next curve, those stuck in the current curve will get in your way)
  • I now get the last quote in Guy's presentation, where he calls himself a bozo. "It's too far to drive, and I don't see how it can be a business." He interviewed for the job as CEO of Yahoo! when it was first starting, when it was only a hierarchy of links. He figures it was a 2 billion dollar "no thanks." Correction: I originally wrote "was offered" the CEO job - thanks Guy for clarifying that point.
  • One of the questions stumped Guy and set him off on a trail that mentioned his near-divorce and ended up with him buying his way into heaven, on a first class airline seat. I could not hear the original question, but it was something like "How has your coolness factor affected the impact that you have had?" Guy gave an Orel Hershiser answer ("aw, shucks, I am just a regular guy"). Not sure if he was referencing Orel since he went to BGSU or if Orel is some standard for humility.
  • I did not realize Guy was a hockey fan (seems obvious now from this cartoon). He was given a BGSU hockey jersey - I need a copy of the photograph of him and coach Scott Paluch for my office wall. Too bad we could not arrange for Guy to play some hockey during his visit (like he did in Minnesota in January). The guys I play with at BGSU had ice time Friday morning. The next time Guy visits, we will definitely have to get him on the ice and see if his hockey skills are as awesome as his keynote presentation skills.

Other things

  • I hung out a lot with the great folks at Hanson. Very nice to have them involved. Shared a lot of great ideas for nurturing the user experience community in the area.
  • BGSU is doing other good things. I did not take notes on this part, since I was eating, but from what I remember: A new program where a cohort of students go thru the business program with a cohort of multi-disciplinary teachers. A way for alumni to come back for "lifelong learning." A new WBGU-TV program of interviews with entrepreneurs, starring Martha Rogers. (I will blog this more as I learn more - or someone who knows the details can add a comment here.)
  • There are other events happening at BGSU this weekend, none of which I can attend. The one I really will miss is Oprah's dress (not).
  • Keith Trowbridge, Executive Quest, is quite the character - I attended the break-out session where he spoke. Stories ranging from how he got the curling rink built to the "BGSU mafia" to his innovative timeshare business.

Posted in Toledo, OH, USA
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Quick notes from Alan Webber talk

Friday, April 13th, 2007

Most people were scribbling down Alan's 12 TINA (There is No Alternative) questions, so I will blog them first and do other notes from the Entrepreneurial Thinking conference later.

  1. Do you have the right kind of leadership for your organization?
  2. Are you playing a bigger game?
  3. Are you getting more than your fair share of truly great people?
  4. Is your culture about teamwork or "all for yourself"?
  5. Is your corporate DNA diverse enough?
  6. Are you living inside your customers' skins?
  7. Do you know what your company's design is saying about you?
  8. Do you know what your company stands for?
  9. Is technology a cost or a way of doing business?
  10. Is your company a talk show?
  11. Are you a fast company or a slow company?

Update: Were there 12 questions or 11? I think I may have missed one. Also: Technorati tag: entrepreneurial-thinking.

Posted in Toledo, OH, USA
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Entrepreneurial thinking

Friday, March 9th, 2007

Registration is now open for the 4th Annual Sebo Series in Entrepreneurship, April 13, 2007 - Entrepreneurial Thinking - the catalyst for business growth at BGSU.

Speakers:

Other sessions:

  • Supply Chain Entrepreneurial Thinking
  • Entrepreneurial Thinking from the Start
  • Innovation in Corporate Strategy
  • Innovative Business Models

Update:

Posted in Toledo, OH, USA
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IUE day 2

Thursday, February 22nd, 2007

Raw notes taken during the IUE 2007 conference - day 2.

Development process, Dean Barker, HFI: Missed most of it. Saw some charts on methodology and Agile that I liked.

CSS and graphics

  • CSS's ability to implement web designs in layers is changing the way you export work from Photoshop, blurring lines between "design" and "code"
  • Interesting technique to put all page images into 1 graphic and use CSS positioning to show the right (sub-)image at the right time

Writing, web style, Ron Rundus

  • Content syndication means "Death of the home page". User generated content. Keep it Simple, Senator. Progressive disclosure.
  • Web style = Technical + Writing + Design
  • Semantic web, microformat, Web patterns.
  • Elements of web style: How to talk about web pages
  • Warehouse model: Cases, units, tags.
  • Analysis of 8 cases (ID, legal, impact, feature, navigation, ...). Decompose page into these content elements. Similar to Navigation stress test.

Lunch mini-workshop on Usability Labs: Good overview of lab technical details but I mostly attended to catch up with Scott from Ovo Studios.

Tuning up site search, Chris Farnum/Grant. Did not take good notes (since I am pretty familiar with this stuff). They did use ibm.com search results as an example of filtering (and Chris F. did check in with me on it to make sure he got the details correct).

Web metrics and user testing, Jarret Knyal (user guy) and Jacque Smith (metrics gal) of Quicken Loans

  • Usability (qualitative, "why people do things") and analytics (quantitative, "what people are doing") is a good marriage
  • Their biggest business / user experience debate is where / how to do the "contact us for more information" form - their lead generation device
  • Landing page abandonment (from analytics) - do user testing to understand why
  • Single user feedback (from user research) - do analytics to see if common behavior, find data to back it up
  • Do A/B testing and use analytics to see which page works better
  • More complicated multi-variable testing where the system has several versions of a zone on the page. Gather metrics on which combinations work. Example: Try 4 different blurbs to say "fill out this form and we will contact you". They use some vendor to do this but I did not catch the name - Optimos?
  • Question: How many pages? Thousands but not a huge site like IBM.

State of web site user experience panel: I attached my presentation to my earlier announcement. Folks liked my Web 2.0 stuff. And my "call to actions" like volunteering your usability skills to an open source project. We did not argue too much but I did try to stir the pot by challenging the panel moderator Tim Kiernan of Design Critique on his furniture ordering problems.

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Posted in Toledo, OH, USA
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Internet User Experience 2007 - Day 1

Tuesday, February 20th, 2007

Day 1 from Internet User Experience 2007 conference. Rough notes taken during the conference - I missed a few sessions because of work.

Techstreet.com redesign (with Enlighten)

  • Not like e-commerce since engineers are different and doing very specific things on this site
  • Increase browse/buy from 2% to 2.5%
  • Advice to presenters: Put the screen shots up front, instead of having talking points and saying "you will see the screen shots later"
  • Lawrence is the generalist and loved working with the Enlighten specialists ("wow, you get to be an IA all of the time?")
  • Old home page design - very functional but indicative of adding to and never removing, 11 years grew organically, never said "no" to stakeholders
  • New home page design: Branding focus ("who are we as a company?"), less navigation at the top of the page, shop by task (more than by publisher), pushed the customer service telephone number front and center, browse + search equally prominent
  • Search results: Most used page on the site. Correct document in correct format (52 choices). Example: Search for "usability" on Techstreet.
  • Publisher information page: Heavily indexed by search engines (thus often first page users see - designed like the home page). Example: NSF. Added branding element ("serious real estate"). Elevated the services (on the left) - global nav, not contextual to this publisher.
  • "The agency said no." (would not listen to Lawrence when he said the same thing)
  • Launched on Friday (so no data yet - will take months to measure this)
  • Questions: Rollout process? Flipped the switch to completely new site. Did you add new functions? No, moved things around, focused what was there. Better experience just by cleaning up. Re-did the code (to CSS).

Tec-Ed redesign

  • "The cobbler tries to make shoes for his children"
  • DIY challenges: Politics, content, customers, committees
  • Iteration from the internal designers: Heuristic evaluation and then user testing (to move forward, beyond internal struggles) and treat it as a "real project"
  • Usability testing: painful but useful (bad labels, dense content, images not appealing. Result: hire outside firm.
  • Like Techstreet, shocked at the state of proposals they received
  • More testing: "Why Tec-Ed?" is a good label. And so on.
  • End result: Very happy, outside design firm had great suggestions. Pictures of people and technology. Summary info at 3rd level (less dense text).
  • Lessons learned: Expertise does not mean you will have the time. Internal debates. Priorities. Bandwidth. What is OK to outsource? Fresh eyes.
  • Questions: Early struggles? Usability testing uncovered hidden requirements. Recruiting? Easy this time, colleagues and customers. Feedback so far? Very positive, reaching out to audiences they were aiming for. Budget crisis? Realized what you need to commit to a project like this.

Mini-workshop on "Positioning user experience in your organization" - Good wide-ranging discussion, from standardized, boring deliverables, to initiating organizational change, to usability vs. UX as a name, to being in IT vs. on the business side, to management prioritization.

Brand on web sites, John Yesko (now at Roundarch)

  • Graphic design: White/negative space = luxury; pack in the information for "nothing over $20" market (cramped is not lower quality design, just more appropriate design for the brand)
  • Navigation/IA: Separating totally different ideas into separate navigation, Users browse by category vs. Business pushing their marketing categories, Org-chart navigation (cannot find mobile phone products - left nav is their org chart). "Phones & consumer products" cf. "Business products". Want dish vs. Got dish? (nice try).
  • Bringing off-line brands online. Clear product categories (instead of being an adventure). Convention: Sales link in upper right for retail sites. "Gear bag" instead of "shopping cart" (trying to be branded/cute vs. web conventions)
  • Voice / copy writing. Serious vs. whimsical.
  • Questions. Profit vs. non-profit branding? Non-profits tend to be more territorial. Defining vs. communicating the brand?

Building an online community (Inner Circle Media): I missed the talk but Drupal was mentioned during the Q&A.

Guerilla Personas (not personas of gorillas), Matt Rehkopf, Fry

  • Why not more personas? They seem to get axed from projects often (the user research piece appears to be the killer expense)
  • Better personas: Downplay the personality, demographics; explain the behavior more. Connect to design decisions.
  • Difficulty mapping personas to business goals
  • Primary research not needed. "Buyer", "Shopper", "Browser" (with 3 versions of each) - 5 of them stick out from analytics.
  • Design decisions: 60 day shopping cart. By room, by topic. Easier to explore, big paging buttons. Iconic navigation. Quick order. Catalog badge.
  • Can you reverse engineer assumed personas?
  • Questions: How to leverage web analytics? What if starting from scratch - no data to start with? Do primary research.

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Posted in Toledo, OH, USA
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