Petrol Station
Jan Chipchase's presentation at UXWeek 2007 still has me thinking. So I wrote this comment on his blog about one of the images he discussed.
Your image of a petrol bottle atop a brick in Vietnam and your comments have stuck with me. You asked the audience about what it was and you stated a gasoline station. You pondered if the brick could have been removed.
My perspective is that the brick was essential to making it commerce. The brick removed it from just being someone's jar on the street to a purposeful display of petrol for sale.
And the more I thought about this image, the larger the metaphor grew for me. The brick is marketing stripped to its simplest form. The user experiences the marketing and the product as one.
Labels: simplicity, uxweek2007
UXWeek2007: One Laptop Per Child
Upon reflection and conversation, two concerns about
One Laptop Per Child. First, Sugar - the operating/network system - is an interface. I believe that "interface is content" and therefore it requires critical review. Sugar will "teach" as much as the content. And because the MIT Media Lab, home of One Laptop Per Child, has a dogmatic approach to teaching, I'm concerned about the flexibility of teaching styles that Sugar offers.
Second, the product is aimed at the poor in developing countries. What about the poor in this country? The primary group that does not graduate from high school. Sure the product is new, the design is new, the concept is new. More work needs to be done.
Labels: uxweek2007
Charmr
An Adaptive Path team just showed their research and design for a Diabetic Management device called
Charmr. Their research was good and there may be more problems that it could solve. For example, the problem of getting people onto the pump. Not a gripe, but an unintended consequence.
Labels: uxweek2007
UXWeek2007: One Laptop Per Child
Saw first UI demo of one laptop per child which introduces a different OS/network to developing world which produces new way of learning.
More...Labels: uxweek2007
50 Ways to Become a Better Designer
I don’t take this list as a set of rules but rather as a checklist to see “have I thought of that yet.” Sorta like solo brainstorming. So enjoy
50 Ways to Become a Better Designer, best advice from 17 print, video and web designers published by computerarts.co.uk
Presentation Handouts
At UX Week every printed handout with one exception was a copy of the slides. So I now have this folder of 8 1/2 x 11 papers with two pictures or maybe some words on each page. Is this really helpful to me when I go back to the office? Maybe when I listen to the blogcast. Or maybe when I review my blog entries from the week.
Next year I hope the designers take on the challenge to design handouts. I’ll take on that challenge for the upcoming year.
UX: National Air and Space Museum talk
Tour later today is at Suitland, Maryland, site. This is where there are no longer public tours of this facility.
Same principles apply that were talked about earlier this week: know your audience (may not know English very well), know your assets (we have the real planes), “focus on the user experience and the brand will take care of itself” (what is our brand worth?).
American By Air Exhibit at Smithsonian
50 to 100 people will have worked on the project – opens in Fall 2007 into 1500 sq. ft. We have no sequence – people can wonder where they want. [Note: asset of web is that designer controls links though not address or back button.] Will have AirBus and Boeing 747.
Who are the stakeholders of the exhibit? Visitors, Congressmen, Donors, peers of curator, museum director and others. Been fundraising for 10 years, usually three years. Curator did a book on the involvement of government to establish air transportation. Computer interactive in the exhibit. Break it down into eras (eg 1927–1941). Took series of headshots of pioneers and moved them into a kiosk – computer display.
Design Process
Creation: Script writing (curator, educators, editor), review (by entire team - establish standards), graphic panel layout (graphic designer), panel review (by entire team). We have to take every word and put it someplace. Need to find graphics when we have too many words. We make every effort to allow wheelchair but not all air
Testing and prototype: We test all exhibits, even very rough. Would bring in about 20 visitors and let them try it. Also larger crowds in the Museum. How do you measure success? We got half the people to read the labels! Failure: we expected people to learn three things before trying – so we broke it out into three steps.
Computer Interactive. Our interface is touchscreen because most others break easily. Other option is Mechanical Interactive. MI offers direct, immersive experience but they must be simple. You have to be willing to kill something.”Keep your focus on the big idea.”
In-house or by Contact. Must be content driven. Pro-bono has not always worked.
Questions
How do you research what audience wants? And age ranges? Lots of surveys: every 5th both coming and going to get demographic. Did surveys during project and ask about engines. But people don’t always know what they want to know. Monterey Bay Aquarium jellyfish exhibit – in the surveys no one wanted it until it was actually done. Need to explain
Favorite exhibits? Vicious Fishes – carpet with sting ray patterns. Aquarium where you can get underneath it. Totally immersive.
Do you have a business strategy? What is your target market? This is a big issue for the web site where we’ve just finished a survey. Most of current are WWII generation. How do we engage new generation? They are using the internet.
UX: Introduction: Total Experience Design
Jesse James Garrett introduced the day saying how presenters have talked about Total User Experience. Today’s first talk is about designing an exhibit for a museum. This is what museum designers have been grappling with for some time.
