I happened across this twitter exchange this morning. This is a not surprising response to personas, I’ve shared this response at times and have empathy for both points of view.

Here’s the thing… You don’t really want to use personas, do you? They are really a pretty cumbersome way of maintaining your customer’s active presence in the design & product management process.

What you really want is a small, tight team who get who your users are, what they value about your product/service and what is behaviourally significant about them. And you want regular access to them (if you or your boss are representative of your target audience this helps enormously).

Enter reality – the majority of us are not working in this kind of environment. We are working for large organisations who are focussing more on themselves than their users, with people who may not have seen or heard from a customer for years (if ever), whose attention is constantly being focussed on internal KPIs focussed on quantity not quality. Who resist making and decisions in preference to making a sub- optimal decision that can be traced back to them.

Sure, the likelihood of incredible design flourishing in this environment is significantly reduced, but what do we do? Give up?

We can’t all do that, can we? And neither we should.

Many of us have experienced that moment when a team transforms – when they realise what it is like to be their customer and how easy it would be to make that experience better. This most often happens during usability testing. (around the 3rd or 4th participant when the team acknowledges that perhaps we haven’t recruited a bunch of stupid users and maybe we do need to change the design a little).

Well made and well used personas are less able to create this transformation (watching real users will always trump personas) but they can help maintain that transformation and act as a tool to evangelise a customer focus through out the organisation and to create a common language around our users and – possibly my favourite thing – to allow us to reduce usage of the term ‘user’ (so abstract, inhuman and elastic) and replace it with our personas names.

Yes, this does make you feel like a bit of a hippy. I agree. But it helps, a lot, to transform focus from internal processes and priorities to what people actually do, need, want.

You don’t *have* to use personas to do good design. If you make bad personas (made up not researched, focused on demographics not relevant behaviours and attitudes), and if you use then poorly (make them and forget about them, or keep them hidden within the UX team) then you might as well not use them.

But well made personas in day to day use through out the organisation are incredibly useful when you need to gain and maintain focus on the (potential) customer.

Here’s the test:

• do you have personas for your project/product?
• are they made of data from real (potential) customers?
• do they have real names not segment names?
• do you have fewer than five personas?
• can you remember all the names of your personas and describe them?
• do you use them to guide, evaluate and/or explain design decisions?
• can your boss name your personas?
• can the developers on your team name your personas?

If you’re not answering yes to the majority of these, there are probably good reasons why personas aren’t really working out for you.

Don’t fret if you didn’t do so well here – most people don’t (out of a room of dozens of UXers last night only one lonely hand remained in the air at the end of this line of questioning last night).

I reckon personas are the best known but most misunderstood and misused tool in the UX toolkit. Don’t throw your personas out necessarily but see how you can incrementally improve how they’re made and communicated.

And if your fortunate enough to work in a project team who doesn’t need personas, well, lucky you – just don’t be too successful or you may find yourself large enough that you’ll windup needing personas after all! ;)

(For help on making good personas, two excellent resources are Designing for the Digital Age or About Face 3)

A really useful exercise to help understand how people organise, understand and label/name information is to do a card sort. (Ref: A definitive guide to card sorting)

As we’re scattered all over the globe, we’ll have to settle for an online version. I’ve actually set up two versions of the card sort because I particularly want to understand differences between the way that ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ deal with drupal.org information.

If you identify as an ‘insider‘ (which might reflect either your expertise and/or closeness to the drupal community) and you want to participate, please go to this link and participate in the cardsorting exercise.

If you identify as an ‘outsider’ (particularly if you’re new to Drupal, but also if you don’t feel close to the community) and you’d like to paticipate, then your cardsorting exercise can be found here.

It should take you about 15-20 minutes to complete the exercise, so be sure to get yourself a nice cup of tea before you get started!

This is just an information gathering exercise – it’s not going to define the Information Architecture, just help give us the understanding we need to help shape it correctly. Don’t worry too much if there is information missing (we’re just using a sample of the entire site(s)) and don’t worry if you don’t understand what a card means, and feel free to leave copious comments as you go through the exercise – there is a space for you to do so.

As ever, I’ll let you know what interesting things we learn as they come to hand.

(Remember, you can also participate by submitting some wireframes!)

We recently wanted to invite people to participate in user research for the drupal.org redesign project – as a part of this we had a short screener we wanted to run people through so that we can target research appropriately in the coming months (and also get some interesting stats – more on that soon!).

Initially I was planning to use Ethnio, as it is purpose built for this, looks pretty and has a kind of nice DHTML ‘not-popup’. I couldn’t get it working though, so then turned to the ever trusty Survey Monkey, but… eh, so ugly! At the last minute I thought of Google Docs and that’s where we stayed.

Super easy to set up, and a nice clean looking interface out of the box, plus no worries being charged for having too many responses. Easy peasy.

We have since almost 900 responses in a just few days and it seems to have held up nicely.

So, if you are looking for a nice tool to use as a screener or a questionnaire and you’re not too fussed about customising the look and feel, I’d heartily recommend Google Docs.

Disclaimer, disclaimer etc. I’m sure Ethnio works beautifully for lots of people. I tried to get it working for several days without luck and by the time support got back to me, we had hundreds of survey responses to the Google version. I’m also sure you can make Survey Monkey look grand, but I don’t know how and didn’t want to spend the time finding out.

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This weekend I went to BarCamp and it was great. Always good to catch up with fellow campers and hear what’s on their minds.

What was on my mind this weekend was DIY User Research – you can see my slides above. This took me a little out of my comfort zone as I resolved not to say ‘it depends’ but to make some overall recommendations as to how almost anyone can afford the time and budget to do a little research, and the best ways to spend that time or budget.

This has been based on the experiences I’ve had recently doing User Research for start up companies who have very small amounts of time and money, but who desperately need the kind of research that I’ve recommended. The techniques I’ve suggested here have worked very well so far, although I hasten to add that I’ve undertaken the research work myself.

This is not to say that you can’t *really* do it yourself… if you use the right techniques you will get a LOT of value from DIY research… but an experienced researcher is, of course, worth their weight in gold :)

I imagine there’s some pretty interesting stuff going on out there, what with all the new and often free web based tools that we have available that should make observational research more and more accessible to all of us.

More and more of us are using a combination of camera phones and sites like Flickr in place of traditional ‘diary studies’, and some of us have investigated using tools like Twitter for this purpose as well (has anyone actually done a contextual research study using Twitter yet? I’d love to hear about it).

I also hear great stories of more and more people getting out into Starbucks and other public places (although, for some reason, it often seems to be Starbucks – wifi I guess) and doing some usability testing with unsuspecting members of the public.

Do you have strategies for inexpensive and rapid recruitment techniques that actually allow you to recruit to a profile? (Or multiple profiles). Could social networking tools like FaceBook or Twitter (again) play a role here perhaps? (Insert concerns re: bias in audience sample)

Has anyone come up with a video set up that allows for both screen capture and a video of the user without needing two computers? (I have a webcam built into my MacBook… surely it’s feasible!)

What other wild and wacky – but most of all inexpensive and accessible – techniques and tools are you using to find out more about the people who use (or might use) whatever it is you’re designing?

Are we getting to the point where, perhaps, we can do better research outside of the lab than inside it?

That’s a whole lotta questions. What say you?

For my recent BarCamp session I shared a design technique that a colleague and I developed quite recently that we’ve found to be quite successful in both generating great design ideas and developing consensus about the design approach for projects within a multi-disciplinary team.

We call this technique Design Consequences, due to the similarity it has with the similarly named childrens games. We tend to use it in the earlier stages of the design process, although it can be used for more detailed interface design problems.

So, how does it work? It’s pretty simple really.

What you need:

1. a clearly articulated design problem and design goal(s) - for the BarCamp exercise our design problem was to design an electronic version of the BarCamp session wall where people could add their own session and choose which sessions they were going to attend. 
2. some design ideas or components – when I do this in a client context, we do this by spending time beforehand looking at our specific challenges and seeing how other people have approached them, and trying to understand design techniques or principles that work (as well as those that don’t). This gives people access to a much greater repoirtore of ideas to draw in the Design Consequences exercise.
3. a multi-disciplinary team - try to get the entire team if you can. The exercise works best with no more than 8 people involved, but it can be done with more if required. Get management to the table, bring all kinds of designers, bring the product managers and marketers, bring your developers. Bring everyone you can, as long as they’re familiar with the project and the design problem.
4. lots of paper and markers and post its – make them as colourful and fun as possible. Make it look like a crafting session. A sense of play and enjoyment is key to this exercise.
5. some examples of the type of output you’re expecting – anything that starts with the word ‘design’ can be very intimidating and scary. Lots of people ahve been told throughout their lives that they can’t draw, or that they aren’t creative. I have some *very* scratchy samples that have been created by people who design for a living. I show these before we get started so that people realise quickly that pretty drawings are not part of the equation.
6. A bundle of energy – you need to be just a little bit hyper to run this exercise :)

What you do:

1. Round One – everyone has seven minutes to design, individually, the the first page that users would see when confronting the ‘design problem’. So, a typical example would be a website homepage, but it could be any part of an application or website or even, say, an email. The faciliator(s) should participate, but keep an eye on the clock and give some warnings with a few minutes to go, and again at about 30 seconds.
2. Round Two – here’s the consequences twist. Everyone picks up the page they’ve designed, then passes it on to the person on their right (or left, it doesn’t really matter). Everyone then has to review the page they’ve received (ask for clarification from the original designer if it’s a little sketchy in places), then decide – if you were the user, what would *you* interact with, and what would happen next. You have seven minutes to draw ‘what happens next’. (Don’t tell people about Round Two before Round One, it’s much more fun when it’s a bit of a surprise).
3. Show and Tell – we then go around in a circle and each person describes the page they received, what aspect they chose to interact with and why, and then describes what they designed next. Discussion is encouraged.

What do you get? Lots of great data, and lots of great conversation fodder.

It’s a good idea to capture as much of this as possible as you go around the group. Of course, the best way to do this is to write up ideas onto post it notes as you go and stick them on the wall. There should be an ‘in’ section of the wall and an ‘out’ section of the wall. (‘In’ means that the idea has legs for this particular design problem). Affinity sorting on the run also helps to draw out the key themes or ideas that have emerged from the exercise. You should be leading the group discussion, helping the group to gain consesus and make decisions as to the design approach to be taken in solving the design problem, and trying to document these decisions as you go.

This process can be quite time consuming and intense, but more often than not there will be a few key ideas that the group is particularly enthusiastic about and that really propels the decision making.

By the end of the session you should be in a position where everyone is in agreement about *what* will be included in the wireframes that comprise the next phase of the design process.

Why would you use this approach?

• It makes a great change from the talk-fest of meetings
• It generates lots of ideas – and often some really great ones 
• It stops people getting to attached to their design ideas and makes evaluation and critiquing more effective
• It helps get all the team feedback and ideas into the pot (in particular, it’s great to get management and technical input at this stage)
• It drives buy-in, involvement and consensus
• It pulls in cross-discipline scills (for example, developers are often really great at quickly identifying great ID approaches for Rich Internet Applications)
• You’d be amazed what you learn earlier rather than later by involving the entire team at this early stage
• Getting lots of brains involved in the design process can uncover some really creative gems
• It makes the design process faster
• It’s fun!

So, there you have it. Some quick notes on a technique that’s been quite useful for me lately. I’d be interested to hear what you think of it and if you try it, to see if you too find it useful.

At CeBIT when I was talking to the Open Source people, they gave me a copy of the Unbuntu CD which has Open Office included on it. I’ve used Writer and Calc so far… and so far they’re proving just as good as Word and Excel.
At this rate, I’m going to be quite happy to ditch Office for ever and switch to Open Office. Do you know of any reason why I shouldn’t?

Does your gmail inbox look like this one? Mine does.

Does having a never-ending, never-empty inbox stress you out? Yeah, me too.

Did you know *you* can have a beautifully clean, empty gmail inbox with all your emails beautifully filed away, out of sight where they’re not going to make you feel anxious? No, me either.

In fact, I just got half way through a ranting post about how unproductive the Gmail inbox was and how it made me feel stressed that I was forgetting or losing something and then I discovered…

…the ‘Archive‘ button doesn’t mean *really* mean archive. It actually means ‘don’t show in the inbox anymore‘.

I had to do a Google search, then read a whitepaper on using Gmail for GTD (Getting Things Done), then test it out in Gmail myself, before I actually discovered this. But, the good news is – it’s true. So now I have a few thousand emails to label and archive and a stress free, productivity enhancing inbox will once again be mine. Hoorah.

ok. Now for the vent…

Who was the crazy person who thought that ‘Archive’ was the right word for that button? And then who approved it? Did this get tested with users? How many? Who are they?

When you think of Archive, what associations does it carry for you?

For me, when I think of archive, I’m thinking of documents that have gone to a ‘special place’ often in a special format (where else do we still use tape, i ask you), that have gone there because we either don’t think we’ll need them anymore OR because we might need them in the future so we have a backup.

They’re typically hard to find, hard to access, hard to restore. They’re for the future… preferably future generations. They’re not intended for next week.

You sure as hell don’t get to my idea of archive using a simple keyword search!

What is the right word for this button?

Like I said before, what it actually means is ‘don’t show in my inbox anymore’. I’m thinking ‘File’ might be an alternative, but it’s got all those ‘file, edit, view’ assocations, so probably not a good option. Maybe ‘File Away’?
The folder metaphor doesn’t exist in Gmail, so we can’t use something like Outlook’s ‘Move to Folder’. Maybe it is something like ‘Remove from Inbox’ or ‘Don’t Show’ – maybe not… it would be preferable to have a positive label rather than negative here. This is nice functionality!

Hrm… so off the top of my head, I’m not sure. Anyone feel like workshopping it here and we’ll email Google and ask them to change it.

I’m not sure if I’m more relieved to have found it, or angry at how it’s been labelled… but one thing is obvious. Labels matter. Let’s spend some time making sure we’ve got them right and that our audience understands it.

OK. So tell me:

- Am I the only one who didn’t get the archive thing?

- How would you label that button?

Image credit: Ario @ Flickr (who is also interested in Information Anxiety)

The more I use Google Calendar, the more I love it.

Yesteday I realised that I could pretty much use it to replace Microsoft Project (if only I could create dependencies between items and spit out a gant chart…. perhaps I’ll just have to train clients to not like gant charts quite so much. What’s with that, hey?)

Google Calendar is SOOOO much better at managing multiple projects + life that MS Project will ever be. (Ever experienced a Project Central implementation? You’ll know what I’m talking about).

When I take on a new project, I create a new Google Calendar and name it after the project. I can then assign tasks to that calendar that appear, beautifully colour coded, in amongst all my other projects and personal activities on one calendar. At a glance I can see when I’m going to be super busy and when I’ll be able to go have lunch out of the office.

It’s easy to move from a high level (monthly) view to a detailed daily view. The agenda view is also great. You can switch other projects/calendars on and off easily, and you can *share* your calendar with others (project team members, your client etc).

If only everyone used Google Calendar. For those who don’t they can keep up to speed with XML feeds or an iCal feed into another web based calendar that supports iCal (and most of the good ones do).

You can share your calendar only with a chosen few, or you can share it with the world. Many thanks to the great people who have created the Australian Cricket Schedule in a shared Google Calendar so that I’ll never need to miss another match (albeit via an online broadcast). The Sydney Web Standards Group also have a public Google Calendar that I’ve added to my calendar at the click of a button. Dead easy and so helpful. (Of course, public & school holidays can be imported exactly this way as well).

Of course, Google Calendar doesn’t do *everything* that MS Project does. It does do a *lot* of the things that Outlook does though. (Although, it doesn’t seem to cope so well with meeting requests and the like that come to Google Cal from Outlook).
If you’re like me and you mostly use Project to create a list of tasks, work out a schedule, then try to stay on schedule (or, watch how the project schedule slips out as people (not me, of course!) don’t deliver on time), then I think you’ll find this a great tool for managing your time. And, I *know* you’ll be happy to see the back of Project!

PS. Know what else I’ve finally gotten into using? 37 Signals’ BackPack. It’s taken me a bit of time to work out whether I actually *like* this product and how I might use it to help me be better organised, especially now that I have quite a few things going on that require organising and lots of working! So, I’ve taken a little time to try a few different structures and I thnk I’m settling into it. (Well, I have settled in enough to justify upgrading to the Basic service from the free one… I guess that speaks volumes). I particularly like the integration of the Writeboard functionality (basically a v. simple collaborative word processor). I do wish it was Writely tho’. Writely is mucho sexy.

V. long rambly sentences today. Sorry about that! :)
Image Credit: rossMania @ Flickr

Technorati Tags: Google+Calendar, Project+Management

I don’t know how many people I’ve asked about ways that you can create a Table of Contents in Visio. It seems like it should be sooooo easy, but no one has ever been able to help me out.

So I had a bit of ‘R&D time’ this afternoon and was playing with the Annotation Hiding Macro that Donna posted yesterday, then poked around a few of her other Visio pages, and there, in amongst some comments, I found it! A Macro that creates a Table of Contents in Visio for you.

Hoorah! Celebrations all round!

(Or did you all already know how to do this and I’ve been living under a Visio rock?!)

Now… it’s not all that pretty. But, for now, it does the trick.

Without any further ado, here it is (with many thanks to Bram!):

//

Sub TableOfContents()

‘ creates a shape for each page in the drawing on the first page of the drawing
‘ then add a dbl-clk GoTo to each shape so you can double click and go to that Page

Dim PageObj As Visio.Page
Dim TOCEntry As Visio.Shape
Dim CellOjb As Visio.Cell
Dim PosY As Double
Dim PageCnt As Double
Dim PageNr As Double
‘ ActiveDocument.Pages.Count will give the number of pages, but we are interested
‘ the number of foreground pages
PageCnt = 0
For Each PageObj In ActiveDocument.Pages
If PageObj.Background = False Then PageCnt = PageCnt + 1
Next

‘ loop through all the pages
For Each PageObj In ActiveDocument.Pages
If PageObj.Background = False Then ‘ Only foreground pages

PageNr = PageNr + 1
‘ where to put the entry on the page?
PosY = (PageCnt – PageObj.Index) / 4 + 1
‘ draw a rectangle for each page to hold the text
Set TOCEntry = ActiveDocument.Pages(1).DrawRectangle(1, PosY, 5, PosY + 0.25)

‘ write the page name in the rectangle
TOCEntry.Text = PageObj.Name & vbTab & PageNr

‘ add a link to point to the page to you can just go there with a Double Click
Set CellObj = TOCEntry.CellsSRC(visSectionObject, visRowEvent, visEvtCellDblClick) ‘Start
CellObj.Formula = “GOTOPAGE(“”" + PageObj.Name + “”")”

End If
Next

End Sub

//

Isn’t it beautiful!

Is it just me, or are those interaction designers in The Netherlands particularly clever with Visio?