The Image Lab » evoljennifer

In Defense Of The Specialists

evoljennifer — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:04:42 +0000

I’ve been practicing the work I do for almost 18 years. I consider myself an Information Architect. Many of the people that do the kind of work I do identify with other titles. At the highest level, I’m a designer. I solve problems through experimentation, research, experience and observation. I do this with flexibility, an open mind and a willingness to continuously evolve my tactics. We’ve only just begun.

Here is the list of titles I’ve held:

Information Designer
Information Architect
Chief Information Architect
Experience Design Practice Director
User Experience Manager
Content Architect
Information Architecture and Social Media Director
Web Designer
Senior User Experience Designer
Senior User Experience Architect
GUI Goddess
(and in one job, I got to just choose a word for my business card) Evolution

Over the years I have seen several waves of practitioners coming into this space where I work – for simplicity, I’ll call it communicating and interacting on the internet. Many of these practitioners have had similar titles to the list above (and many more) - The titles of all the people that help make the innertubes go is a MUCH LONGER LIST.

These people have come from varied backgrounds and they have come to understand how to practice what they do and HOW THEY ADD VALUE through their real world experience. Each of them face similar but different challenges. They are connected to each other because when they come together they make the discovery that they are not alone. I have personally experienced four waves of this-each wave came with specific and in person gatherings. I first saw it with the AIGA in the lates 1990′s. The topic was Experience Design and we came together and we were passionate. I saw it again in Boston when I attended the first (and many subsequent) IA Summits. Several years later the strong and independent group of Interaction Designers started a conference and it thrives. I saw the same occurrence at the Content Strategy Consortium at the 2009 IA Summit and then again this spring at Confab the Content Strategy conference. For each of these communities these were very important gatherings. But none of them are more important in my mind than any of the others. Nor are they more important than similar communities I have not been part of who have discovered this same community in their practice. We all build the web.

The very notion that we have defined these things and solved it is inherently human but it is also incredibly arrogant. This work requires continuous evolution in our approaches, practices and tools. We have this ongoing need to do it better because we haven’t figured it out yet and even if you do – for a moment – feel like you’ve figured it out, it will change. Disruption and confusion are everywhere – we are desperately in need of some clarity.

The specialists are important, especially right now, to make these distinctions. If you were to ask someone ‘how do you make a web site?’ you would get six million answers. This is still a grand experiment. Because of this – we should not be closing off people that can help – we should be embracing them. There is too much work to do now and it’s too important. Leave the specialists alone and get back to doing the thing you love doing, making the web WORK BETTER FOR PEOPLE!

Year In Review

evoljennifer — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 23:50:43 +0000

The Google Zeitgeist is a good end of year touch stone. 2011 has ended. 2012 has begun. I’m fully in the new year now. Sometimes it takes a couple of days to make the change. Happy New Year!

Who Owns Your Profile?

evoljennifer — Wed, 11 May 2011 15:19:53 +0000

People are excited to participate and connect. Many companies and services want to make this easy for us. Services such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and so many more are giving us the ability to be publishers. But you have to remember these companies are not doing this out of good will. They have motivations and they need to make money. Think how profitable it must be to own all of your information to a company. That ownership gives them the ability to sell very targeted and profitable ads because they know all about you and can serve relevancy. That is the main business model right now, but more business models around owning this information will come to fruition. The question we need to ask ourselves as individuals is do you want to own your data or do you want someone else to own it?

The point is there are implications to where and how you share. The EFF published an article about federated profiles in March. The federated profile gives you more power over the information you share with the world, your online activities, your location and many other things that could matter to you. It is better to have your own power over this data. The issue is that the notion of a Federated Social network is not the easiest to understand. When I read the article, I found the information pretty vital. I wanted to make the information shared more clear by visualizing the main points. The visualization compares a Federated social network to a company owned social network in order to make the implications easier to understand. My hope is that this visualization starts to make these very murky waters a tiny bit more clear.

Knowledge is power. Make an informed decision when you post online.

True Meaning Of Transparency

evoljennifer — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 14:09:37 +0000

Morgan Spurlock is officially one of my heroes. Just so you know my bias as you read this entry.

His latest creation, “POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold“, examines the process of advertising and marketing in America. To be fair, the meat-making in any industry is usually not a pretty site, especially to the untrained eye. Advertising permeates our culture and even more so our entertainment options. His TED talk explains the real goal of the movie, transparency. He uses the documentary format to shed light on the process of advertising by taking the movie through the process itself. This act of transparency illuminates the process for us. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. If people are watching how you do it, you might just do it better. It’s motivating.

Embrace Transparency! Turns out that is the true meaning of it.

An entertaining and inspiring talk from one of the most intelligent, humorous and seering documentarians of our time.

Morgan Spurlock in [Sony Pictures Classics]

Adapting To The Customer

evoljennifer — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:19:48 +0000

Adapting to the customer sounds hard. It doesn’t have to be. Small changes can make a big difference. I recently noticed this detail in an experience I had ordering Five Guys take out and using the web site to do it.

The order experience includes a question for me. The kind of question that builds customer confidence and rapport with the brand. The experience achieves this with the device of a cleverly written preference question. “Are you an expert user?” If you think you are – skip the suggestions for future online take out ordering.

They followed 3 simple rules to make my interaction better with them and show me they are willing to adapt to me throughout the process to make me happy as a customer.

1) Rule One: Ask me a question.

In this case, it was actually an upsell ‘ “May we suggest…” but it provides an option to remove suggestions in the future.

2) Rule Two: Listen to my response

It makes you feel good about opting out. You can opt out because YOU are an expert user and don’t need to be reminded to add fries to your order.

3) Rule Three: Retain. Keep the information for later, when I come back – don’t show me the upgrade to a beverage option.

Follow these steps 1) Listen 2) Rule 3) Retain and continue to collect and build on that customer information. That’s the future of any business that wants to remain relevant.

Well done Five Guys! Quality food coupled with quality experiences will keep the customers coming back every time. It’s really no surprise that a company with such great product would extend its ‘awesomeness’ by making this effort to adapt to customer needs.

Baseball And Coming Full Circle

evoljennifer — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 05:45:21 +0000

One year ago on the opening day of the home season at Target Field, we began our remodeling construction adventure. We had already been planning for over a year. The flood that started the whole thing happened in Jan. 2009. In reality, the house was unbeknownst to us, a fixer upper. So this was it. We embarked on it.

We attended opening day 2011 at Target Field and were giddy at the reminder that we were going to get to go home after the game. Most of last season we went to our temporary home after the game, the Lofts at the 710. This was a very nice place to stay temporarily, but it was a sign of disruption and an incomplete home.

So in the end, we did not go home to this building. It was a truly joyous day as it signified closure to a huge phase in our life. We are now happily enjoying the fruits of everyone’s labor on project Winterview.

Recovering Gracefully

evoljennifer — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 13:08:05 +0000

We all make mistakes. Every retail web site team should have come to that conclusion by now and spent a few resources on the message and information they show a customer when this happens. 404 pages have been notoriously machine friendly but confusing and scary to humans. I ran across two nice examples of companies that were thougtful about the information provided to someone browsing their web content. These are valiant attempts to recover gracefully and admit what is true. We all make mistakes.

Using an on brand and eco approach, Gaiam addresses the 404 page with light hearted humor. They then immeditaely present the customer with 2 contact options to resolve the issue. This reinforces the trust with the company. It also turns what could have be negative into a positive interaction and chance to surprise and delight the customer when it could have taken a turn for the worse.

Columbia uses their brand in the 404 error page as well. It shows that a bit of thought and some empathy for the customer were part of the process at the company.

The 404 page is a great example of an opportunity to do something small and make a large impact. When you think about the customer experience across many parts of your company, many of these types of opportunities present themselves. That is why it needs to be part of the company culture to seek out those opportunities and excel at customer delight. Understand all parts of the flow and tune each step along the way.

WoW Is In The House

evoljennifer — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 22:22:08 +0000

I am participating in a LAN party today. I’m not actually playing but since it’s happening at my house, I get to check out the real life gaming experience. All things considered, even though I don’t play, I totally get it. WoW is pretty wow!

Tagging Explained

evoljennifer — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 09:23:29 +0000

This one was fun to be part of – I just found it again and thought I’d repost. Tagging and taxonomy are more a part of everyone’s life then they were when this video was made. I love the fact that my cell phone dates it quite clearly as a pre iPhone kind of world.

In the box

evoljennifer — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 08:00:17 +0000

Sketching is useful for so many things. Mostly, it opens our minds in tactile ways that our very computer laden activities don’t. Sometimes your sketch reveals something about your mood. I didn’t realize I was stuck on a problem until I started to sketch and ended up with this.