Normal Modes at Interaction12

Angela, Normal Modes founder and chief eXperience officer, spoke at the IxDA Interaction12conference in Dublin this morning.  Angela’s conference was on what she calls the “forgotten platforms” such as IVR (i.e. interactive voice systems), kiosks, and alternative displays (e.g. in-store displays, gate displays, etc.).

So many times Interaction Designers forget about all the other technology that we interact with on a daily basis and focus solely on the web design.

Angela started by telling her story of a flight cancellation on Southwest airlines last summer during which she interacted with over half a dozen systems including 2 separate IVR systems, outbound text messaging, inbound mailboxes, website, customer service, the airport kiosks, and mapping out all of these experiences. She explained how the failures of the systems, though not terribly expensive on a customer-by-customer basis, can add up to millions of dollars in costs and lost revenues in the event of large-scale cancellations due to weather, mechanical issues, etc.

She then drilled down on each of the systems IVR, kiosks, and alternative displays to give examples of what works and what doesn’t work, and provide tips for improving the customer experience on these platforms that all the participants could use and apply to their daily work weither designing for the web or for other platforms.

Check back soon for more details and the slideshow presentation that Angela gave at the conference.

 

 

Right Frequency: Week of Dec. 5 – 9

How does the song go? “The weather outside is frightful…” Winter has rolled into Texas this week with some temperature readings that have scared a few, but the Christmas season is in full swing and it’s a great time of year.

Here at Normal Modes we are finally settled in at our new offices on Kirby Drive with everything up and running (including us).  We are looking forward to our next usability study coming up in a week – stay tuned for more details.

Here’s some good reading to keep you busy this holiday season:

• Puzzled about what to get the geek in your life?  Try our 8 Holiday Gift Ideas for UX (and related) Geeks.
• Here’s a cool idea that lets everyone comment on your web designs – right on the screen.
• As we know, the customer is king – here are 5 tips to help you this Christmas.
• Was Sears.com trying to pull a fast one by upselling appliance warranties seamlessly in the website UX, or was their balance of business objectives and user goals too heavily tilted to the former over the latter?  (We can think of a few better methods for accomplishing the same goal without alienating users.  Can you?)
• We all hate to remember them, but they are a necessary evil in our lives, here are some tips to setting easy to remember passwords.

8 Holiday Gift Ideas for UX (and related) Geeks

Experience design and development is one of those professions that really bleeds over into real life interests and pursuits, which can make buying holiday gifts either really easy – or INCREDIBLY difficult.  What luck that there are so many geek-related gifts at affordable price-points this year! We humbly submit a few of our favorites:

 

Farm Anatomy: The Curious Parts & Pieces of Country Life

($11.45 at amazon.com)

Such a sweet story to accompany artist Julia Rothman’s celebration of rural life in Iowa.  While Rothman’s a New York City gal, she wanted to understand the intricacies of farm living that framed her husband’s childhood.  She set about doing so by illustrating every aspect of farm life, grouped by subject (must have been some card sorting activity to figure out the information architecture) and detailed in gorgeous and informative infographics and process flows.

As a former Iowa farm girl, a tear came to my eye as I compared her Longacre Farm in Tabor, Iowa with the Jessup, Iowa farm of my early childhood.  (My first pet was a cow, and I fondly remember sitting in the dirt rows of our garden to eat fresh vegetables right off the vine.) Honestly, this is a delightful read for just about anyone, but in particular UX geeks, designers, architects, foodies, children and former Iowa farm kids.

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“I fight for the users” T-shirt

($16.99-$18-99 at ThinkGeek.com)

I’m a huge fan of political propaganda, so this shirt sings to my heart on multiple levels.  The iron fist is very communist-era propaganda, while the slogan is classic modern-technology; a perfect blend of past and future.  Guaranteed to be a huge hit.

If it’s irony you’re going for, might I suggest the gifting this shirt to your favorite Sharepoint expert?  (With any luck, they’ll get the joke.)

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Money: A chart of almost all of it, where it is, and what it can do
yenoM

($15.00 for 36″x34″ poster / $95.00 for 72″x48″ Huge Poster)

A feat of both research and design, Money  ”started as a project to understand taxes and government spending, and turned into a rather extensive research project. With upwards of 200 sources and 150,000 tiny boxes, it’s best appreciated in poster form.”

True that.  I spent upwards of 45 minutes reading every section, but fear I wasn’t able to appreciate the full effort because I wasn’t able to view everything in context.  There’s just so much data.

In addition to your UX geeks, also a great gift for your economist, mathematics and Republican/Libertarian friends.

 

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Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock T-Shirt

($16.99-$18.99 at ThinkGeek.com)

As popularized by The Big Bang Theory, rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock is a twist on the traditional roshambo game meant to reduce the chances of a tie – but only if everyone doesn’t choose Spock.

For reference, the rules are:

• Scissors cut paper
• Paper covers rock
• Rock crushes lizard
• Lizard poisons Spock
• Spock smashes scissors
• Scissors decapitate lizard
• Lizard eats paper
• Paper disproves Spock
• Spock vaporizes rock
• Rock crushes scissors

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Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock Paper Garland Banner

 ($14.00 at RitaVanTassel/Etsy)

Maybe the T-shirt isn’t enough.  There’s always a the rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock garland – perfect for adding a certain decorative charm to any geek desk.

Handmade with brilliant graphic design, any design-oriented geek will appreciate the both the craftsmanship and the theory.

 

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Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock Counted Cross Stitch Pattern

($5.00 at Robin’s Design/Etsy)

Perhaps the t-shirt and garland lack a certain je ne sais pas for gifting.  What about a convenient rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock cross stitch explanation of the rules? At only $5.00, you’ll have plenty of coin leftover for the thread and 14 count Aida fabric.

Worried that cross stitching is just for Grandmas?  Never fear – cross stitch is the new knitting for the design geek set.

 

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Goodnight iPad: a Parody for the next generation

($10.17 at amazon.com)

For those of us who get too much screentime, we need a gentle transitional object.  Goodnight iPad reminds us that our fully charged gadgets await us in the morning, but for now we can settle in for a good night’s rest.  Printed on old skool paper, for a bit of a retro feel.

 

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Rewined Candles

($27.00 at Rewined.com)

And finally, this isn’t so much related to UX as it is related to two of my other favorite things: wine and relaxation.

Cleverly branded and designed “Rewined” candles use recycled wine bottles as the container for soy candles that come in a variety of fragrances.  Choose Cabernet for your deep red loving friends, Champagne for the fun time folks, Pinor Noir for the wine geek.  (Pinot Noir’s still cool, right?  Of course it is.)

 

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Right Frequency: Nov. 21-25 (Thanksgiving Edition)

Experience Gurus-

Our favorite holiday is Thanksgiving.  Remarkably unencumbered by commercialism, Thanksgiving is all about the experience:  of giving thanks and of lovingly prepared seasonal dishes.

Are you ready for Turkey day?

While you prepare, here are a couple of things we thought you might enjoy:

• Super awesome and just in time for overeating:  edit your food with iPlates
• Why would someone forge fine art just to give it to museums?

 

Happy Thanksgiving. We hope you enjoy the experience!

Right Frequency: Week of Nov. 14-18

Hello Experience Advocates-

How are you?  We’ve been busy bees this week conducting user interviews on a business-to-consumer signup process.  Lots of great findings and a quick reminder for everyone:  don’t forget that roughly 50% of internet users don’t know the website logo will take them back to the homepage.  On websites where “Home” is missing in the primary navigation, it leaves people terribly confused.

Have you made plans for Thanksgiving yet?  We’ll be going full-force until late Wednesday, followed by some time off for everyone to enjoy the holiday weekend with family.

While we have visions of turkey dancing in our heads, here are a few things you might enjoy:

• This hit home:  ”One of the biggest challenges in the transition from designer to director is the reality that your job is to often assign work to others that you really wish you could assign to yourself.” Seriously, everyone – not just agency folks – should read Assuming Leadership in Your Design Agency
• Patagonia’s new campaign to have you buy less, while they make more.
• Feeling overloaded? You’re not alone… how can we better design experiences for smart, but busy, people? (Clean, simple, elegant!)
• An interesting perspective on brainstorming.
• And finally, we love how make-up artist Derrick Rutledge works with his clients:

Winfrey never sits still in the chair. Rutledge moves with her as she bends, talks, laughs. He’ll stop, inhale deeply and continue. Also challenging: If Winfrey has eaten the wrong thing (salt) or has been traveling, her face will be bloated or worn. “I just sit in this chair and watch Derrick do his reconstructive surgery with the brushes, and I get my face back,” she says.

The right makeup is critical for these women. It “immediately creates a level of assurance,” Winfrey says.

 

Here’s wishing you a wonderful pre-holiday weekend.  Next week’s a short week – woot!

Right Frequency: Week of Nov. 5 – 11

This week at Normal Modes

Another busy week at Normal Modes with the How to Think Like (and Design for) Your Customer: User Experience Workshop kicking off on Thursday and then celebrating World Usability Day with a happy hour at T’afia Restaurant and the inspiring words from owner and celebrity chef Monica Pope. Thanks, Monica!

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Notable and Newsworthy: Interesting stories from this week:

The death of flash (we are keeping our fingers crossed), and another story on this from CNET.

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More on responsive design, this is the future people – check out the Boston Globe website for a great example (make sure to play with all the browser sizes you can think of).

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Call of Duty: Modern Warefare 3 was released today and turns out that there were a lot of sick days and vacation time called in.

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A thumbs up from Consumer Reports for the new iPhone 4s, see it was not that bad.

Just for fun:

It’s all about using the right tools to get the job done.