A few months ago the wonderful Giles Colborne and I were given an interesting challenge by Sjors Timmer and Matthew Solle who were organising the UXDO event for August. Would we run a session on Workshop Facilitation.

Of course we would, but the question was… could we run a workshop about workshop facilitation?

Well, it was certainly worth a shot.

And so it was that twenty something very meta workshop participants bravely joined us last week for a workshop on workshop facilitation. It went a little something like this….

Having been a vocal critic of the UK UPA in the past (by which I mean the organisation and it’s activities over the past five years not the current or recently past committee), I was really pleased to be invited to facilitate a workshop or two at their March event ‘Crowdsourcing the future of the UK UPA’.

There were a wide range of workshops held that evening, the one I was facilitating was focused on gathering and prioritising concepts that the UK UPA could act on which would make it feel like a professional organisation that we felt more aligned with and wanted more to be a part of. There were two workshops and the participants included UPA stalwarts and newbies, UXers and ergonomists, people from London and beyond.

The workshop used an incredibly rapid fire KJ Technique formed of individually listing items relating to how engaging the UK UPA was/was not for us and why that was so, followed by a quick post up and affinity sort, dot vote for issues we felt most strongly about.

Both workshops were characterised by a mixture of frustration and an energetic desire to be more involved and for the UK UPA to continue to grow and be an influential voice and resource for people who are currently active or interested in usability.

Once we aggregated the issues that most resonated across the two groups, the following priorities emerged:

1. Let us contribute: It was noted that the activity that the UK UPA is able to achieve is limited by the time that the committed yet otherwise busy committee members are able to contribute. There was an almost universal desire for members to be able to contribute meaningfully – whether by contributing content, updating the website, setting up Special Interest Groups that could hold their own events, and many other ways.

This requires the UPA giving up a little control – the current model of ‘tell us you want to help and we’ll delegate something to you’ sucks the enthusiasm and motivation out of even the most committed UPA fan. The net benefit would be a much more active association achieving a lot more for and with it’s membership, and a greater sense of involvement and community amongst the membership.

2. Teaching people who are new to usability: there was a general perception that the UPA could play a big role in educating people about what usability is, what usability work entails and why this might be a rewarding career option for young people and career changers. There was a particular passion for outreach into schools but also for providing tools to help educate colleagues with other specialties.

3. Have an opinion: participants also expressed the desire the the UPA have an authoritative voice on matters relating to usability, particularly high profile and particularly contentious issues. People wanted to be able to turn to the UPA to see what they thought about things.

4. Different event formats: participants also expressed the desire to mix up the event formats a little so there was less ‘lecturing’ and  more participation – debates, design jams, social events were suggested as options. Special Interest Groups were also mentioned in both workshops.

5. Learning more by sharing our experience: The ability to talk to each other, as members of the UPA and attendees at the events was something that participants would value – both online and offline. People wanted to be able to ‘find each other’ online after an event and continue conversations. An emphasis of events and content that showed real practice was also valued.

6. More friendly: Some participants noted that attending the events could be quite scary and intimidating and that more could be done to help alleviate this, also to help facilitate networking between participants. Some participants noted that they had attended several UPA events but not actually made any more connections with usability professionals as a result. (Related to points 4 and 5 above)

7. Who is the UPA? Participants wanted the UPA to more clearly articulate the position it wanted to occupy with our profession and the role it wanted to play and consequently, what our expectations should be. Development of a clear ‘value proposition’ or mission statement for the association.

8. More than just UX As a part of her introduction to the evening Chandra Harrison, current president of the UKUPA went to some lengths to make it clear to us that the UPA is about more than just usability. She may actually have gone so far as to provide the value proposition that people were looking for (ref: point 7 above) when she talked about the UPA being the organisation that brings together people from across all kinds of industries and professions who have an interest in making all kinds of things easier and better to use.

As it happens, participants (particularly in one group) found this a very appealing proposition and wished that they actually saw more content from across these various professions/practices as a part of the events program, more participation from people outside of UX at the events and more content helping us to understand the similarities and differences that are experienced across these audiences.

What’s next?

Another thing that Chandra made very clear in her introduction was that the committee are very time poor and already working very hard on projects for the UPA and that – although they were pleased to be holding this event and inviting ideas – they were not able to commit in any way to moving forward on any of the points that came out of the event. I understand from talking to members of the committee that many of the issues raised above are in the process of being tackled right now and, as it happens, by addressing the first one on this list, this problem actually starts to go away a little (although, no doubt, it also introduces a few more challenges).

Attending another UPA meeting confirmed for me though that actually achieving these objectives is going to require more than just a series of committee led initiatives, it’s going to require significant cultural change.

I’m optimistic that the very fact that events like this can take place under the auspices of the UPA is reason for us to have hope.

Why bother? Why do I care?

You may not identify as a usability professional. I don’t either. But we’re not the only ones who get a say in this. As long as other people look at what you do and call it usability (and you know a lot of people do), then this is our professional association.

Call yourself what you will, the way the UPA conducts it self is a reflection on anyone who rightfully or wrongfully gets lumped under the usability banner.

As long as this is the case, I want an association that I can be proud of. That demonstrates good usability practice in the way it presents itself online, that doesn’t feel completely out of touch with contemporary practice – UX, Ergonomics, whatever else you do that is affiliated with usability. I have enough on my plate trying to fight the good fight with people who don’t know any better, I should be able to count on the UPA to support me in this, not to undermine me.

So, this means that I’ll be critical. Constructively so wherever I can.

But it also means that if you want me to help out – and not just as someone you can delegate some tasks to, but on something that can actually properly make use of my experience, passion and abilities – then the UPA is welcome to call on me. As they did last week.

I hope you care too. And I hope the UPA can do exactly what it apparently wants to do – bring together people from all different professional circumstances who care about usability so we can learn more and do better and make this a better world to live in.

And on that evangelical note… why not go check out some more photos from the crowdsourcing night.

Having been a relatively vocal critic of the UK-UPA and some of their current activities, I would hate for it to be said that all I do is snipe from the sidelines. I do have some suggestions as to how the UPA can address this issue, but it will take significantly more than 140 characters.

I think that focussing on the lack of members voting in these committee elections might be totally missing the point. Here is a classis situation where we’re focussing on tactical problems when, actually the issue is strategic.

What does the UKUPA do? A quick scan of their current website tells you this

‘UKUPA brings together UK professionals from the design, technology and research communities who share a vision of creating compelling technology that meets users’ needs and abilities.’

Blah blah blah – what on earth does that actually mean? According to the predominant content on their current website it seems to mean they do job listings. And very little design.

But wait – the UKUPA are in the process of (very slowly) launching a new website. Perhaps it will give us more information about what they do?

Why, yes it does – it tells us that they have a committee, and they vote.

And, yes they certainly do vote. A lot.

A quick scan of the discussion on twitter involving UKUPA will show you that pretty much all they’ve been talking about for the past few months is voting for committee positions.

Now, clearly *some* people are interested in the committee and who is on it but I think the (surprisingly small) membership may be sending a big message – shut up about your committee already. For every one person that’s on the committee there are dozens who are not. Making such a big deal of your committee is not really a particularly inclusive strategy. It certainly doesn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy about the UPA. It makes me feel like Not A Committee Member.

The very fact that it *has* a committee, to my mind at least, makes the UKUPA seem dated – many of the great things happening on the UX scene at the moment are grass roots initiatives that are so busy getting stuff done that the idea of a committee is ludicrous. Let alone a committee of 8 people!

That, combined with the fact that the name of the organisation centres on the term ‘usability’ I think is indicative of the problem you’re facing – relevance. What are you offering the UX profession that is worth handing over a membership fee? Do you really need a committee? If so, what are they actually doing?

You may well have good answers to all of these questions but these are not being well communicated. Spend time answering these questions and less time dreaming up prizes to coerce people to vote for a committee they probably don’t really want.

As I write this I am conscious of four things:

1. the committee is very much a part of the UPA’s culture
2. The UK UPA is part of a global UPA machine
3. the UK UPA does provide valuable services to the UX community in the UK – in particular, the events they run each month are generally very relevant and well attended and provide a great service to the community.
4. the UK UPA currently has 300+ members.

If we were running the UKUPA, what could we do with this information?

Here’s what I’d be doing.

Firstly, look at your member data, talk to your members. Find out from people:

• how long have they been members? Are lots of new people joining up or are most people long term members?
• why are people joining? are they looking to validate themselves in the profession by showing they are ‘members of the Usability Professionals Association’ or do they want discounts at events?
• why are people not leaving? Can they not be bothered cancelling the standing order or do they feel that they are getting value from their membership? if so, what do they value?
• why are people leaving? what are you not delivering that they want?
• what do the members think the UPA could be doing better? What do they want the UPA to do for them?

Do NOT do this in a survey.

Secondly, look at your value proposition, branding and positioning

• find out what image the UK UPA is projecting and ask whether it’s the right one. Talk to people who aren’t in the UPA, let them be critical (stop being so defensive)
• think seriously about changing your name. ‘Usability’ isn’t helping you now and it’s not going to get any better as time goes on. (Yes, of course I know you’re part of the global UPA – that’s a whole other issue)
• think about what value you’re providing to the UX profession and communicate that clearly. Talk much more about that on your website/twitter etc. and much less about the committee
• re-think the whole committee thing – why do you have so many committee positions? really – why? who is it really serving?
• spend less time organising elections and more time organising mentoring (not that I want to pre-suppose what you might find out when you’re doing your customer research)

Finally, deliver content and communications that match with an updated value proposition and update the website design so that it communicates those values effectively- both in content and quality of design.

As a general rule, the events that the UKUPA runs are excellent examples of content that is desired by the UX profession – that’s why the people vote with their feet and attend these events. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels the disconnect between the success and relevance of these events and the rest of the UK UPA machine?

As friends and colleagues of mine have put themselves up for committee positions in the UPA I’ve been tempted to become a member and support them with a vote but every time I consider it, I opt out.

From where I’m sitting, there’s no value to me professionally to align myself with an organisation that feels generally out of touch with the UX profession as a whole.

As a fellow event organiser, I know that UXers are crying out for more opportunities to come together and learn from each other – there are UX events every other week and every event seems to go to a waiting list – the need is there and the community is there.

I hope the UPA is willing to firstly admit there’s a problem and then be brave enough to UXify themselves. Then perhaps we ‘ll all become proud and active members. And then, when appropriate, respond to your calls to vote.

Until then, I’m out.

The challenge for today was:

What is the ideal interface to keep track of previously viewed online content, across multiple devices and locations?

You can see what the teams came up with by checking out each of the team wiki pages.

It was a lot of fun running around from one team to the next seeing what they were working on and, hopefully, helping to guide them towards a solution to present at the end of the day. It was really interesting to be able to observe  nine teams approaching the same design question, and to see where the common challenges emerged. Some observations and advice:

• Spend less time choosing your idea and more time defining it. Specifically, what problem are you solving?
  
  Peter Drucker, a business management guru said ‘Ideas are cheap and abundant; what is of value is the effective placement of those ideas into situations that develop into action.’ Nowhere is this truer than at DesignJam. If you want to have something interesting to present at the end of the day, you need to quickly identify a specific problem that you can solve, and then you need to be able to describe that problem in a concrete story. ‘ Keeping track of previously viewed online content, across multiple devices and locations‘ is so broad as to be meaningless from a designer’s perspective. But, being able to re-find a hotel website I saw a week ago when considering a holiday, or the location of the event I’m going to tomorrow, or finding the link to that funny website my friend emailed me about the other day – those a real, concrete, solvable problems.

  It doesn’t really matter which one of these you choose, what matters is that you quickly identify a relatively small, concrete problem that you can solve and that you can describe the problem clearly and believe that the problem is real, and describe how life will be better for people with this problem resolved.

  The elevator pitch technique is one method you might want to consider to help get yourself to a stage where you *really* *clearly* understand what you’re working on and why.

  I really can’t stress how important this part of the project is – this is the foundation on which all the rest of your work is built on, and the most important thing is not *which* idea you choose, it’s about how clearly you’ve defined the problem you’re going to solve and the value you’re going to deliver – your value proposition.

• Define your audience by understanding the important behavioural characteristics.
  
  Ah, the vexed issue of personas.I saw a lot of personas at DesignJam today and very little evidence of them being used as part of either the problem or solution definition. Personas *can* be very valuable but only if they’re used in the right way and that is as a tool to help you understand what are the behavioural differences that are significant to your design problem, preferably informed by real data points (your mum, husband, grandfather do count as data points in a DesignJam scenario!).

  Time is precious in a DesignJam environment (as it is on all the project we work on, right?) – we need to make sure our time is being spent in the best possible way. I witnessed too much time being spent making personas because it felt like the next logical step in the design process. In most cases, I would have preferred to have seen groups spend time defining usage stories or tasks and then, if it became clear that there were divergent behaviours and we needed to choose to support one kind of behaviour or another, then capture that somehow – and perhaps a persona is a good way to make that behaviour more understandable.

  Having said that, one of my favourite designs today emerged in response to an ‘extreme’/edge case persona – so persona’s can be a starting point – but what drove this design was not the persona as such but the behaviours we were able to identify that were specific to that persona (and very different from our own) – in this instance, the use of links in email as a primary trigger point for viewing websites, also getting relatively few emails from relatively few senders.

  If you must do personas, then do as few as possible. If you’ve got more than three personas, I want to know why.
  If you’re going to spend time making personas, then I want to see you actually using them in your design process.

• Get sketching! Generate and evaluate lots of design solutions before you start wireframing
  
  So, all that time you probably spent trying to come up with A Good Idea, spend it here instead. Quickly generate as many ideas as you possibly can. I reckon it was at least 2pm before I saw people starting to sketch out ideas at DesignJam today (teams started tackling the design problem at 10am and were supposed to present at 4pm).

  A really popular approach to generating lots of ideas at the moment is to do 6-up wireframes another technique I quite like is Design Consequences. However you do it, the key is to get as many ideas as you can onto paper. And then – once you’re out of ideas – to use your clearly defined design problem and whatever user behaviours or personas you have defined to evaluate which aspects of which ideas are strongest.

  Once you’ve evaluated the first round of ideas and you’ve got fresh ideas in your head – do another round of visual brainstorming. Rinse, repeat until the answer becomes obvious. Eventually, it will. Then everything will start falling into place.

• A group is a resource and a liability (user your numbers, appoint a facilitator)
  
  When you’re designing with a bunch of other designers (or actually, with any group at all), there are two key things to remembers – firstly – use all the people in your team, get them all actively designing, make sure everyone is sketching and contributing ideas, remember to do things quietly and individually sometimes and to do things collaboratively and together at other times.

  Secondly – make sure that someone is driving the team – keeping you on a schedule, working out how you’re going to get from here to the end of the project, making sure that you’re staying true to the project problem you’ve defined, making use of the personas you’ve defined, keeping everyone focussed, on track, and working productively. Have this discussion at the beginning of the project rather than waiting for a ‘natural leader’ to emerge (especially if you’re working somewhere where politeness is at a premium and potential leaders might be nervous of treading on other team members toes)

• Pitch clearly and persuasivelyThe day wraps up with each team presenting their design to the larger group –  for me, this is as important as all the design work you’ve done throughout the day. A clear, focussed and compelling presentation enables you to convey to the group what you’ve been working on, what problem you’re solving, who you’re solving it for, and finally, to show the design solution you’ve come up with.That clear value proposition and the user stories or tasks that you’ve defined come in handy yet again and show be key to framing your work in a way that is understandable and compelling to your audience.

  Don’t think of this as ‘just the presentation’ – as much as any of the design work you’ve done throughout the day is great experience and practice for your day to day design work, the same couldn’t be truer for this part of the process. As designers, we’re only ever as good as the design we can convince our client/team to implement and this means that we’re constantly presenting our work – explaining what the problem is, why we’ve done what we’ve done. This is something that, as designers, we should be able to do at the drop of a hat because of the preparatory work we’ve done earlier in the design process.

While these thoughts are specifically in response to the DesignJam day, I think they’re pretty much universally true to any design project and very common issues that come up on projects I’m involved with. The hothouse environment of DesignJam brought it home, yet again, how difficult it can be to facilitate a team around designing a solution – it’s tough work but very rewarding.

Well done to Johanna Kollmann, Joe Lanman, Franco Papeschi and Desigan Chinniah for organising the day and to everyone who participated for putting in such a great effort. See you next time!

When contemplating the event there were a few things I was concerned about:

1. equipment – what gear to bring and what to leave behind
2. noise and disruption – how bad would it be, how can I minimise it
3. effort v return – would the hassle and hard work of taking a baby to a conference allow participation make it worthwhile
4. is it appropriate to bring your baby to a professional conference?

With the benefit of hindsight, here are my thoughts.

Travel light but invest in the right gear

Having as little gear as possible but the right gear is, I think, key to giving you as much flexibility as you can possibly have with a babe in arms. Personally, I find a buggy to be high risk for hassle – it makes it difficult to do public transport in peak hour (which you’ll no doubt have to do) and it makes getting from place to place, often up and down stairs, more difficult. I used a Moby Wrap sling most of the time I was at UX London and found it fantastic for moving around, for hands-free holding while attending talks (allowing me to tweet through the sessions when my baby slept or was sufficiently settled), and for relatively discreet feeding.

The other essential piece of kit was the Samsonite Pop-Up Travel Bassinette which gave me somewhere to lay him down when he was settled in for a good sleep (and when I wanted to participate in the workshop activities). The bassinette fits in my small backpack and weighs less than a kilo (more than can be said for my MacBook which I had to swap for my husband’s tiny netbook on this occasion!). It was quick and easy to put up and take down and gave us both a bit of a break from each other!

Don’t forget to bring your own decent changing mat – the chances of finding a changing table in the bathrooms at a conference centre are pretty remote so you’ll probably find yourself doing rapid changes in the field (often at the back of conference rooms in my experience!). You can get those great clutch style mats that are sufficiently robust but small –  Isoki is my clutch changing mat of choice.

Minimising noise & disruption

The younger your baby, the more likely they are to sleep all day and make hardly a peep, thus nearly-newborns make ideal conference companions. I tried to sit close to an exit point so I could get out the door really quickly if we were going to be making a disruptive amount of noise, but found that the close cuddly sling meant that he did sleep quite a lot and when he woke, giving him a quick feed (yes, in my seat at the conference, apologies to the squeamish) worked most of the time. We did miss bits and pieces of a few talks throughout the days, but saw the majority of proceedings.

The biggest tip I have is to get to the conference room early to stake out and secure the ideal seat in the house for you (usually closest to the door!) You *really* want to get this seat and, although it’s far from the best vantage point in the house, you’ll be surprised how quickly it seems to get snapped up.

Effort vs Return: was it worth it?

It was really very hard work taking a 5wk old baby to a 3 day conference and, I confess, we did sneak away early on the afternoon of the second day for an afternoon nap. (Having said that, we were at the conference from 9am until 9pm the previous day attending the UX Bookclub in the evening).

Personally, I found that I was able to attend many of the sessions and actually pay attention to most of them, I was able to meet with lots of people who I haven’t seen for a while and to meet some new people as well, and – most importantly – I was able to escape from the relative isolation of maternity leave, to keep in touch, to feel active and engaged in my community and profession, all of which are very rewarding. So, on balance, I did find that it was worth the effort and, if needs be, I’d do it again and encourage others to do likewise.

It’s certainly very different from doing your conference solo, and you’re not allowed in the bar for drinks because you’ve got an underage drinker with you (yes, even at 5wks they’re still apparently worried they might accidently be served alcohol). I think it’s important to keep your expectations pretty low – I was prepared to turn around and head home without seeing a thing if it came to it – then hopefully you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Is it appropriate to bring your baby to a professional conference?

I have to say, this is actually the issue that plagued me most of all. I don’t bring my baby to my meetings, but I do take on work while I’m still at home with him and often do phone conferences with him on my shoulder and many of my clients are aware that my working schedule is sometimes impacted by his sleeping (or not) schedule.

I didn’t experience any negative feedback whilst at the conference or since then, and I had several people approach me to tell me they thought it was great to see a baby at the conference and that they’ll do it themselves or tell someone they know etc. I’m very aware that I’m probably the last person to hear any negative feedback though… so I’m not assuming it didn’t exist.

Ultimately – tiny babies are very portable and very sleepy and much less noisy (mostly) than you’d imagine. They’re also far to young to be separated from their mothers. If said mother particularly wants to attend a conference and has a very small baby, I think there’s no reason why she should feel that it was inappropriate for her to attend. So, it is appropriate and perhaps even necessary. I look forward to helping other mum’s at conferences in the same way that others were able to help me at UX London.

Meanwhile, interested in your thoughts, experiences & tips…

I had the pleasure of speaking at Reboot11 recently and one of the best things about it was seeing this inspiring talk from Matt Webb which you should watch immediately and share with any other designers you know.

• sitting up the back of @jmspool‘s workshop – Why Good Content Must Suck: Designing For The Scent of Information
• Jared is talking about the Scent of Information and why it is more effective than designing for navigation
• humans = informavours
• Jared says: the best websites have a lot of content
• conten sucks the user towards it (this is why your content has to suck… like a vaccuum cleaner)
• every link gives off ‘scent’ that users follow. As scent gets stronger, people are more confident they’re headed the right way
• we can only tell from users behaviour whether the scent is working or not. If you’re not watching users, you won’t know.
• “trigger words” are the words that cause users to act
• our eyes go straight to trigger words.
• @Suw no videos from #uxlondon as far as I know
• Jared says the 3 click rule is ‘complete bullshit’. Tell your boss.
• the only time users complain about clicks is when the information scent has gone
• good design is like air conditioning. You don’t notice it unless there’s something wrong.
• @Suw I’m in the process of posting dumps of my tweets session by session to my blog right now :) www.disambiguity.com
• when the user comes to the page they scan for trigger words, if they find one, they click on it. If they don’t, they go to search
• the search box is users creating their own links by inputting the trigger words they’re looking for
• most of the time BYOL (bring your own link) via search doesn’t work
• users don’t like to scroll ‘that’s complete bullshit too’ @jmspool
• iceberg syndrome: people assume the most important stuff is at the top. If ‘marketing fluff’ is at the top, don’t bother scrolling
• nobody goes to a website without a purpose. except web designers.
• information masking:when users look at a page they focus on only the portion of the page that has consistently given them good use
• navigation panels are often scentless. Scent is specific, navigation is often not.
• short links don’t emit scent
• the best links are 7-12 words in length
• @atownley 12 words is too long :)
• short pages reduce scent. The best pages are *really* long. ref: CNN, Yahoo, Amazon, NYT
• things that stop ppl from scrolling 2. Design elements that *look* like the bottom- white space, text that looks like a disclaimer
• cute/brand/marketing type links don’t work (mystery meat)
• homepages should look more like sitemaps in @jmspool‘s opinion. It’s not clutter. Link rich homepages do better than sparse pages
• @jmspool on baseball – it’s 15mins of excitement jammed into 2.5hrs
• the only people who care about what ‘section’ of a site something is in is people who manage the site. Users couldn’t care less.
• graphics for information = v useful. decorative graphics are less easy to correlate to good user outcomes
• the no.1 thing that users base the quality of their experience on is whether or not they complete their task
• Navigation Graphics communicate scent. Content Graphics convey information. Ornamental Graphics do something else #uxlondon PRT @Wandster
• yes, in case you’re wondering, I’m tweeting a @jmspool workshop at
• designing for scent – make sure every click makes the user more confident
• what makes users confident – ‘i know where this link is going to take me’
• on click show desired content OR even stronger scent = happy user
• if you’re not spending time watching people use your site there is no way you’re designing a good site #uxlondon ( )
• you need to know – why are users coming to your site? what are their trigger words?
• users look for blue & underlines. yes, it’s ugly and hard to see but we’ve trained users to look for that.
• Target Content Page = the page the user is looking for to solve their objective. The most important page on the site for that user
• you only have to worry about information scent if you have more than one page on your website
• Gallery Page = a list of links to content pages. Scent comes from the content page thru the links on the gallery page to the user
• @jmspool does research on ecommerce sites because they’re easy – easy to measure if users have achieved their goal.
• 3 scent failure predictors: use of the back button, pogo-sticking, use of search
• wireframing 2.0 #uxlondon goodies http://tr.im/uxlondongoodies (via @solle)
• the back button is the button of doom (repeat after @jmspool)
• pogosticking = when the user bounces between levels of the information hierarchy seeking their target content page
• when people pogo-stick we see a huge reduction in users achieving success on a site
• the more users pogo-stick the less likely they are to find the target content. When you see it it, tells you there’s a problem.
• you are *much* more likely to find what you’re looking for if you DON’T use search
• only if you have Uniquely Identified Content (like Amazon) do you get an exception to the searching = predictor of problems rule
• people type very generic terms into search – this is the main reason search fails (behaviour not technology)
• your users are telling you every day what trigger words they’re looking for and on what pages. Look at your search logs.
• users are telling you every day what is wrong with your site and what you need to do to fix it. Are you paying attention? @jmspool
• to stop people pogosticking, you need to put as much information on the gallery page as possible
• “Changes in the web don‚Äôt change the fundamentals of human behaviour” (@jmspool) #uxlondon (via @Paulseys)
• alphabetical order is the same as random order in 99% of cases @jmspool
• Department Pages = collections of gallery pages. Separates gallery pages into logical groups.
• Department pages are for winnowing, gallery pages are for selecting. Users get this.
• More on “pogosticking” on UIE: http://bit.ly/NuY6W #uxlondon (via @bashford)
• You can always have that much space for your gallery page because you have an infinite page length @jmspool
• people do NOT learn the structure of your site by using it. They have no sense of the organisation of your site, nor do they care
• When users comparison-shopped using pogosticking techniques:purchase = 11% . Compare to 55% when product lists used. #uxlondon PRT @Wandster
• seducible moments – at the end, once users have *achieved* their goal say ‘by the way, would you like to do this?’
• Store pages = groups of department pages. Helps users tell the system what they *don’t* want to see (eg. business or sports)
• people who choose a ‘Store’ page tend to never choose another ‘Store’ page in the same session.
• Do you need store pages? Look to your competitors. If they have them, you probably do. Use the same terms as they are (generic)
• Homepage purpose – to get people to other pages, usually to a category page. Divide real estate accordingly
• anyone who tells you that your homepage is for brand, to learn about your products/your business etc. They’re wrong @jmspool
• the best way to solve arguments is to have everyone watching users actually using the site @jmspool

• wondering about the easiest way to export my tweets from yesterday and get them into chronological order
• sketching workshop kicking off, hooray! ‘and we’re going to get kind of sweaty’
• ‘how many of you guys are IxDs? And how many are UX Designers?’ Cue chaos
• showing people your sucky drawings is part of the growing process
• squeak squeak squeak, explain explain, squeak squeak (how many of you use a whiteboard?)
• why are we here (in this sketching workshop)? to become better communicators
• design drawing is useful in the planning process, can help to see the world differently, heightened awareness of how things work
• drawing can help you tell your story to others, its honesty can be v compelling
• why draw by hand when we have computers? Mice suck.
• why draw by hand – direct with the pencil is more direct, more expressive than via mouse
• thinking is a fast paced activity, the pencil is simple & immediate, a good, fast tool for capturing thought
• ‘Pencils Before Pixels’ – Mark Baskinger
• we’re going to start off with really simple things like straight lines …
• ‘i’d love to sit down and draw cubes with you after the workshop’
• we’re grabbing pencils and paper…
• starting with pencil holding technique. @ashdonaldson & @cennydd are getting some remedial tips
• if you can’t see the tip of your pencil you can’t draw. You need a v loose grip to avoid fatigue
• your bellybutton is very important for vertical lines. It’s like a visual landmark. Pull the lines toward it #uxlondon (seriously!)
• (feels like sketch pilates)
• @keeran of course I’m participating! my vertical lines are much better than my horizontal!
• correct each others squares. what do you see? either ‘my squares suck’ or ‘the person next to me is blind’
• you have to warm up before you can sketch properly.
• techniques for better hand drawn wireframes: use non-repro blue for underlay drawing (it disappears when copied)
• carry a sketchbook all the time. practice sketching all the time. practice straight lines, squares, using hatching for tone
• ‘it’s all about pulling some lines’
• use lines in various intervals, not scribble, for adding tone.
• being purposefully rough, like overlapping corners, makes sketching look more sketchy
• sketchiness = this is not a finished idea, I’m still thinking about this. Sketching holds the conversation back to the big picture
• avoid crosshatching in wireframes, starts to ‘pop’ too much. Use various weight of diagonal or vertical lines instead
• build your sketches up sequentially, add weight and tone onto the skeleton
• uh oh. perspective! (moving shapes in space)
• perspective – make sure your back vertical is a little shorter than your front vertical
• try to finish your line with the same weight as you start it
• if you can do curved planes, you can do arrows. (v pretty arrows, that is)
• @alexjamesmorris you might think all UX people draw, but unfortunately not true, and many of us would love to draw better!
• move the point of your arrow back just a tiny bit off centre and it will look better
• i can recommend Trio Scribli pens #uxlondon (via @solle)
• ‘these are all ‘ungood’ ways of drawing a circle’
• the only useful thing your pinky does is stablise your hand when you want to ‘drop in’ a pencil
• the trick to drawing a good circle is to do a few practice circles before you ‘drop in’ your circle (it works!)
• @freecloud agree that blog posts are like word sketches, but there’s nothing like drawn sketches to communicate some ideas
• @alexjamesmorris i agree. you can’t copy and paste sketched wireframes. I think that’s incredibly important.
• I’m realising that my biggest problem with sketching before is not visualising what I am trying to sketch before starting to draw
• realising sketching is a lot more deliberate than I thought. Resolving to *really* do the sketchbook thing from now on
• ‘sketching becomes a magic trick. I can draw this and you can’t. That’s a powerful thing’
• @alexjamesmorris absolutely – pencil before pixels as Mark said at the beginning :)
• ok. drawing people. If I can leave this workshop with people drawing skills I will be stoked.
• if you have an element in your sketch that is weak or less deliberate, it attracts attention & detracts from your entire sketch.
• notational sketching = the act of recording things that you see in the world. Mostly for your sketchbook, less so for sharing
• analysing visual input (what you see) and deciding what to record is a particular kind of drawing skill
• @leisa sketching is physical thought in my book #uxlondon (via @Snowbadger) > i agree :)
• notational sketching tips: fast & loose, use icons, images & symbols, portability is important (in context), date your pages
• more notational sketching tips: respect the borders (esp. the gutter), print neatly (annotations), white space is ok
• moving onto visualising functional relationships – communicating how things interact together so it makes sense to others
• Bill: I like using watercolour because it is less controlled, it forces you to work with mistakes
• if notation is aimed at recording, diagramming is aimed at explaining
• tips for explanatory mapping & diagramming: balance style and substance, think about how to direct attention where you want it
• The Don: ‘How do you draw a blur?’ Mark: ‘You lick your page’
• @jonbho this is an unusual glut of tweets due to #uxlondon. I can assure you I’m usually much quieter! Apologies for the noise.
• getting to the end of the sketching workshop. My sketching is still rubbish, but I have a v good idea of why and what to do
• sketching workshop wrapped up with a gentle critiquing session. Great workshop, recommend it.

• Don Norman on the stage. Last speaker of the day at UX London
• the Don opens with ‘Thank you, it is now time for questions’
• whenever anyone says they want something, I oppose it. I question it. #uxlondon #TheDon
• Rules of complexity: Life is complex, The tools we build have to match life, the problem is understanding not simplicity #uxlondon #TheDon
• Complexity is not bad. Complicated is bad. #uxlondon #TheDon
• If you want to make something simple you compensate by making other things complex #uxlondon #TheDon
• When @lukewdesign says ‘no one’ customises Yahoo.com he means ‘only 60million people’ #uxlondon #TheDon
• Complex can be enjoyable. Some simple things can be horrible. #uxlondon #TheDon
• Don Normal talking about the doors. What a treat. #uxlondon #TheDon
• ‘I highly recommend walking around with sticky green dots to remind yourself which way things should turn’ #uxlondon #TheDon
• As a generalisation, Asian cultures prefer more complex interfaces #uxlondon #TheDon (123india.com vs google.com)
• he even sounds a bit like a messiah, don’t you think?
  </starstruck>#uxlondon #TheDon
• Magpies are the only bird that can pass the mirror test, can lie, they’re extremely intelligent #uxlondon #TheDon #WhoKnew
• reading music is incredibly complex but it produces amazing things, we don’t complain about that complexity. #uxlondon #TheDon
• People whose offices look messy often know where their stuff is & are better able to find things than ‘neat’ people. #uxlondon #TheDon Amen
• Too simple is boring. To complex is frustrating. There’s an ideal amount. Experience moves the preferred complexity up. #uxlondon #TheDon
• Being distracted is sometimes a good thing, it can be how we learn things. #uxlondon #TheDon
• some ‘simple’ tools take time to use well. eg. a silversmith’s hammer #uxlondon #TheDon
• there’s a sweet spot for complexity & engaging things are found in that sweetspot, but it keeps shifting! #uxlondon #TheDon
• As I get better at something, I need increased complexity to maintain interest, otherwise I get bored. #uxlondon #TheDon
• Complexity is good. It’s good to feel the world disappear as you engage in what you’re doing. It’s enjoyable & productive #uxlondon #TheDon
• I think Don is proving his point re: complexity & understanding (unconvinced by his suggestion to redesign musical scales) #uxlondon #TheDon
• @fred_beecher yes, he mentioned games re: complexity & shifting sweetspot #uxlondon #TheDon
• we are sending seriously mixed messages – we say we want simplicity but we buy things because they’ve got more features #uxlondon #TheDon
• we can’t resist features. Even when incredibly simple mobile phones are produced, we don’t buy them. We want features. #uxlondon #TheDon
• quoting The Paradox of Choice, Schwartz – we have more choices than ever but less satisfaction. More is Less #uxlondon #TheDon
• You can contain complexity by putting things in modular clumps so you only see options when you need them #uxlondon #TheDon
• Google’s advanced search interfaces helps me do something complex in a supported way and starts to teach me Boolean search #uxlondon #TheDon
• the solution: conceptual model #uxlondon #TheDon
• eg file system interface is a fake. It doesn’t really exist but it helps me understand where to find things on my computer #uxlondon #TheDon
• But the Graphical User Interface does not scale. #uxlondon #TheDon
• Another solution: Systems Thinking #uxlondon #TheDon
• The reason the ipod is such a success is that it is a complete system. License music iTunes iPod #uxlondon #TheDon
• Lots of the visiting US speakers are talking up the Kindle. And saying it’s increasing their reading volume. Jealous. #uxlondon #TheDon
• Complexity can be fun – for example this very complicated coffee maker. I don’t know if it makes good coffee or not #uxlondon #TheDon
• and that’s the end of Don Norman’s ‘In Favour of Complexity’ – what a treat! #uxlondon #TheDon
• from the Q&A – if I can’t get my pictures out of my camera, it’s hopeless. The whole system has to work #uxlondon #TheDon
• in the old days we suffered through technology, but now we are selling to everyday people. Things have to work. It really matters.

• warming up my twitter fingers in a vain attempt to keep up with @jmspool, who is up next at
• ‘ …and they thought that was just a senseless waste of asterisks’ @jmspool is on form
• designs can’t intuit anything, people intuit things, calling design ‘intuitive’ is a shortcut.
• people become frustrated because they are no longer focussing on what they are doing, they are focussing on the design itself
• novelty isn’t always responsible for unintuitive design, sometimes it is simplicity
• intuitive design is a personal thing – it is based on what you currently know (your previous experiences)
• intuitive design is evolutionary – as the technology matures, our expectation for intuitive design increases.
• Current Knowledge (what the user brings with them to the design) & Target Knowledge (what they need to have to complete their task)
• In between ‘Current’ and ‘Target’ knowledge = ‘The Gap’. Design happens in The Gap.
• is anyone at #uxlondon heading over to tonight’s UX London bookclub? (via @Wandster) > I am! :)
• Lots of excellent (but not so tweetable) comparisons of IM setup pages and their relative ‘intuitiveness’
• wizards reduce Target Knowledge, which is great… as long as they work. If they don’t work, the user is screwed.
• a design is intuitive if target and current knowledge are the same, or the knowledge gap imperceptibly small.
• ethnography/field research: users in the mist @jmspool
• Techniques for creating intuitive designs: Field Studies (Current Knowledge), Usability Studies (Target Knowledge)
• use robust personas to store and communicate what you learn from your user studies
• can’t believe @jmspool hasn’t cracked a ‘mind the gap’ joke yet