Earlier this week, I had to go to the hospital to have the sort of test you can only have at a hospital because it is specialized and expensive.  I arrived on time and promptly saw someone who got all of my paperwork ready.  Once checked-in, I sat for about 20 minutes waiting for a technician to call my name.

When my name was called, we walked to my room and by some mix-up, there was someone already there.  I was sent to another waiting room and told it would be 10 more minutes.

I felt a little frustrated, but in a cattle herding bottleneck sort of way — What’s to be done? This is just the way it is.  I respect that hospitals are places with clear priorities.  When I have to wait a very long time for attention, there is a karmic logic that assures me that if ever I am in need of priority No. 1 status, I’ve earned it through prior patience.

When a different and quite apologetic technician came to get me 40 minutes later, I was surprised by the fact that she validated my inconvenience.  And when the departmental manager stopped by to apologize personally and ask me if there was anything she could do to right the situation, I didn’t even know what to say or what my options were.  (A $5 cafeteria voucher was handed over as consolation.)

This experience has changed my mind about the rights I have as a user in a hospital, or at least this one (Durham Regional).  The next time I go, I will have higher expectations of the staff.  In exchange for those expectations, Durham Regional will enjoy my recommendation as a hospital with staff who really care.

Some takeaways:

1. This positive observation would not have occurred without the negative situation (the room mix-up).  How you respond to something negative can be more significant (in terms of loyalty and the impression you make) than preventing the bad thing from occurring in the first place.
2. In what situations do your users feel powerless (a.k.a. “That’s just the way it is.”) and how might you surprise them by actually caring?  What is there to lose in a situation like that?  What is there to gain?

In November I created The Smartwool Experiment, which is a online brand/science experiment using social- and multi-media tools to chart the wear and tear of four pairs of Smartwool socks.  Every morning I would click a little bookmarklet (see above) entitled “add sock,” which took me to my Smartwool dataset on Swivel.  I would add the date (by way of a keyboard shortcut so that I do not have to look it up), the sock color and shoes I was wearing and then hit enter.  It took 20 seconds.

Things were chugging along swimmingly until one day in mid-December when I logged into Swivel as the museum* to determine if there was a correlation between actual museum visits and museum web visits (there was an 87% correlation, btw).   And as I would expect it to, Swivel saved my login information as the museum, not the Smartwool Experiment.  The next time I logged into the site, I got a 404 error (as evidence by the screenshot above).

In this scenario, which is easier?

• Logout and login again.
• Do it tomorrow.

Do it tomorrow won.  Why?  First, browsers do not consistently remember passwords. Some are remembered through sessions, some through cookies, some through browser data, some never not at all.  I didn’t trust the situation to not inconvenience me and in that moment, I only wanted to devote 20 seconds to the task. Second, I overestimated my ability to remember what socks and shoes I wore on what date.

Which is easier?

• Logout, login, remember what sock/shoe/date combo I neglected to enter, enter today’s.
• Do it tomorrow.

Without any effort at all (literally!), I created a snowball of reasons to do it later.  Over a month has passed and I haven’t entered any data about my sock/shoe combos.

The point is this: When you are in a position to encourage people (inc. yourself) to contribute something (opinion, media, money, etc.), be hyper vigilant about lowering the threshold for contribution.

Something else to be considered: When we make it super easy to contribute – go look at any YouTube video with more than 1,000 views – online community management becomes increasingly important.

* ’sbeen awhile, huh? My current job is at a science museum.

As a homeowner in the midst of several home-improvement projects I’m THE CLIENT an awful lot lately.  Seeing how it feels to trust someone to do things I can’t (or don’t want to) do has been an enlightening experience – especially given that my role as a practitioner puts me in the position of selling and delivering on exactly that… for someone else.

“Well, it just so happens that I’d love to organize your 40,000 pages of content! Rock on!”

“How many gigs of log files do need parsed? Half a terabyte?  Perfect!”

To some, the problems I help solve are as overwhelming as building a new deck or laying a new garden path is for me.  

Take, for example, the landscaper I’ve hired for our garden.  Her positive attitude has completely changed the way I view the space that she’s creating.  A space, it should be mentioned, that I’ve never been happy about or proud of because it’s represented something insurmountable and problematic since I purchased the home.  She’s redesigning my yard for all intents and purposes.  I redesign things all the time! How can I generate that sort of positivity with my creations?  How can I convey my excitement and positive attitude to my client during the redesign process?  Most especially, how can I transfer that excitement and positivity so that my client feels it about what I’ve created?

In the last two years I’ve had a deck built from scratch; a broken water heater replaced; trees that were too close to the house trimmed back; and a 70-foot-tall oak tree that fell in a spring storm triaged.  In my own recent experience I’ve been THE CLIENT from a host of perspectives and that reality extends itself into web-related work.

Clients are coming to us for new ideas, improvements on old ideas, fixes for broken systems, maintenance needs and disaster relief. We practitioners need to recognize why our clients need us beyond the fact that they can’t (or don’t want to) do it themselves.  Someone with a idea for a new website is of a very different mindset from a client with an outdated one.  Someone whose website is broken is going to approach fixing it in a very different manner from someone whose site has just been hacked. From a practitioner’s perspective, the garden (or website) might end up looking the same no matter where the starting point, but from a client-relationship viewpoint we’ve got an opportunity on our hands. If we can understand where the client is emotionally and why they need us, we can approach the solution with an unexpected sensitivity and deliver a truly fulfilling experience.

Inspire your client.

For all there is to know about carpentry, I don’t know much. I have ideas about what’s important: “measure twice, cut once” for example. I am familiar with the tools involved: wood, nails, hammers, saws. I’ve even had a little experience myself building a Blue Bird house for my dad last Christmas. But building a deck, even knowing where to start, is beyond me.

When Howard encouraged me to create sketches, I didn’t know enough about decks or carpentry to even know what was possible. I went to Google to search for pictures of decks and I stumbled across an article that said the most beautiful decks are the ones that are an organic extension of a house. For me, that’s when inspiration struck. My house is the treehaus, my deck needs to be the deck of a treehouse.

From a client stand point, I need to provide my clients with information that inspires them. They don’t need to bury themselves in material that explains IA or UX and why it’s important, they need stories of what success is on the web (caveat: for sites like their own)… and when and why websites aren’t successful.

Give your client the freedom to create.

So what does the deck of a treehouse look like? In my mind there are trees, and rope, and ladders and bridges. I started to sketch these things on graph paper and when Howard came to discuss them, I was full of ideas.

Considering a scenario where a client comes to me inspired with their own IA and layouts seems like the recipe for a nightmare project. My first thought is that I’ll have to talk them down off the cliff of ill-informed organization and design. But Howard sat confidently at my kitchen table and listened to all my ideas. He had me explain things that he didn’t understand and he contributed ideas as he thought of them.

As a client, I didn’t expect him to build exactly what I sketched. I wanted him to take my ideas and use his expertise to improve and build upon them.

Escape flatland, somehow.

My favorite thing about the new deck is a 15′ rope suspension bridge that extends from the deck to a fire pit in the woods. The fire pit end of the bridge is secured by two cedar trees that have been cut and concreted into the ground.

Coming home after the first day of construction, those posts were already up because the concrete holding them needed to set before anything else could be done. As a client, seeing the transformation of an inspired idea evolve from sketch to reality (in the form of cedar tree and concrete) was beautifully cathartic and fulfilling.

For my clients, I should aim to give life to the site or application in a way that let’s them experience the maturity of their idea.

Establish trust.

This whole process has been exceptional because I trust Howard to do the job well. I trusted him before he rebuilt my deck because the work I’ve seen of his is remarkable and his company has an excellent reputation. But I trust him even more now because he handled my project with respect and confidence and wisdom.

With my own clients, my reputation and portfolio will precede me, but my composure and attitude during the project will be what follows me. I should make it a priority to instill trust into my clients by listening to their ideas and when appropriate, contributing wisdom in a gentle, but confident way.

1. Breathe. 

There are two parts of your brain that compete for response in a stressful situation: one part is cave (wo)manly, the other is the thoughtful and intelligent you.  Cave (wo)manly brain is there for a reason and can get you flown or fought out of very bad situations.  Problem is, though, clients and/or co-workers don’t respond kindly to fleeing or fighting in a board room… usually.  So, do yourself a favor and make it a point to breathe in stressful presentation situations. Oxygen is great.

2. Reserve the comedic routine. 

The first thing you should do in a presentation, unless you are a comedian and/or you know your audience exceptionally well, is prove that you aren’t an idiot.  Reserve your jokes until after an audience has a reason to respect and listen to you, then if it feels right, deliver the joke.  

3. Be honest. 

Sometimes you will be asked questions that you don’t know how to answer.  Instead of making something up, just respond honestly.  ”I don’t know, but I can tell that’s important to you and I’ll find out and send you the answer,” is measurably better than fumbling through or dancing around an answer you aren’t prepared to defend when you aren’t in the hot seat.  

Yesterday was World Usability Day, and the TriUPA held an event and an interactionary at GSK.

First up was the keynote by Dr. Anthony D. Hall from IBM. He talked about collecting and visualizing user data for web design, in particular ibm.com. It’s too bad we couldn’t sign NDAs before entering the room because he got into some real interesting stuff that he couldn’t really elaborate on. (Specifically his work with swarm theory and dive patterns of seals.) I also really liked what he had to say about amusement park and airport layouts as analogs to high traffic websites. I love that kind of stuff and it was gratifying to see someone looking at nature and external industries for design inspiration.

Following Dr. Hall’s talk, the interactionary began. Three teams, assigned randomly, were given a design problem to solve in 10 minutes… in front of an audience. The design problem for this year’s competition was to design a voting system for the 2008 election that allowed users to research candidates and also allowed them to recast their vote if the candidate they voted for wasn’t in the lead.

I’m not sure what the other teams designed (we were sequestered), but my team’s approach was to spend a couple minutes brainstorming requirements and then to poll the audience on critical function/design decisions. Some of the questions we came up with were: Do users want to vote at home or onsite? Do they want to research candidates before or during voting? Do they want electronic or paper ballots?

Two members of the team polled the audience and reported their findings to the other two (of which I was one), who stayed up at the white board brainstorming more questions and designs. About two-thirds the way through we regrouped to discuss the actual design and started sketching out the prototype.

Our design allowed users to research candidates at home and choose their top three candidates for any given office. This selection resulted in a bar-coded printout with their top three picks. They can then bring that printout to the voting facility to be scanned in. If their top pick isn’t in the lead, they can recast their vote by scanning in their second or third choice.

So what did I learn? I’ve been struggling with this since last night after the competition. The experience was great for stressing me out beforehand and excellent at pumping adrenaline through my body during, but I’m still sort of waiting for the benefits of a 10 minute team-based design competition to dawn on me. One thing’s for sure, the folks I teamed up with have graduated from the mingle-shake-hands-see-you-next-time sort to something more intimate and genuine. That alone made the experience worthwhile.

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The Read/Write Web

Today began with a keynote talk from Apple, Inc.’s George Cook. George is a National Consulting Engineer for the K-20 customers in Apple’s Edu Division. His talk was a mix of showcasing Apple offerings alongside some pretty basic information about rich media and social interactivity on the web these days.

George divided content on a site into four web trends and four corresponding outcomes. Websites these days foster sharing, offer rich media, are interactive and produce live content (pretty basic stuff). What this means for the user is that they are social (sharing), they have context (rich media), they’re engaging (interactivity) and they keep you connected (live content). Again, these connections aren’t hard to make.

However, there’s a nice takeaway here that you can leverage for some eye candy and possible case-making. If you assign a number (one through ten) to the site’s trendiness (sharing, media, interactivity, live) and do the same for the personal outcome (There’s user stuff here, I like.), you can get a nice graph that will show gestalt in certain areas, sometimes. That difference (you’re wanting a higher score for personal outcome than trendiness, obviously) can indicate a successful and useful site.

There’s a lot of room for bias here, but it could be a nice metric and I plan to try it out.

These Kids Today

Lori Packer, a Web Editor for University of Rochester, gave a nice overview of usability (in the context of observance of the user trying to use something, anything) and then spent the majority of her presentation talking about things she learned when studying parents and brand new freshman as they tried to navigate U of R’s websites to find information.

Lori and I have a similar approach to usability and I found myself nodding my head a lot during her talk. She’s got the right ideas and it was nice to see a higher ed execution of that. The two things that I’ll definitely take home with me are as follows:

1. Lori had a very consistent (she might call this a “duh” moment) observation with what she phrased “Yada Yada Yada” text on websites. She said that both parents and students recognize it and skip it. Her focus on this made me realize, for the first time, that this fluffy content can impede the usability of my websites. It’s not only something that’s ineffectual in and of itself, it’s perhaps detrimental to the user experience as a whole. This was an very important lesson to learn for me.
2. Lori also described her method for snagging users and I thought it was a great one. She attends tabling events (like orientation week or alumni week) and asks people to schedule some time while they’ll be on campus to stop by to test the site. She also offers a free gift. This was a “duh” moment for me. I haven’t ever even thought of that. Another nice place to find prospectives: the admissions tour. Good stuff.

Universal Design, the Web and You

Daniel Frommelt from the University of Wisconsin – Platteville was one of my “takeaways” from last year’s conference. In fact, his presentation was the inspiration for how I do (and now preach about) web-surveys. So when I heard he was presenting again this year, I made it a point to attend.

His presentation touched on a lot of material, from definitions of UD to the inception of the web to demos of products that are likely to innovate the way people with disabilities interact and thrive in the world. It was eye-opening to read text as if I had a disability and to watch a video of a boy with Spinal Muscular Atrophy use a host of assistive devices to browse the web. We watched demos of products like Photosynth and Microsoft’s Surface, neither of which I’d seen before and both of which were absolutely revolutionary (especially the former).

His talk was educational and inspirational and a good intro into some things we should be considering when designing anything from door handles to social web interactions. As my interests veer in and out of non-screen-based information spaces, this is a particularly interesting focus to consider.

Time for more networking.

As the day wraps up, we’ll be going out for more “nightly networking” and vendor-hosted parties on various high floors of the Hyatt. I’m glad to hear the rumor that there were no parties this year was only such. However, that won’t stop me from more conference griping, I mean feedback: Instead of two parties on the same night, how about one on each? And pastries for breakfast is so not cool. Let’s get some protein up in that ball room!

HighEdWebDev 2007 began today with a late start and a fair amount of swag. Each participant gets a HEWD branded white polo shirt, bag, water bottle, notepad and pen. In addition there are shoestring badge holders. After registration, there was a pizza and salad lunch for the folks going to pre-conferences (and also for folks that are presenting). After lunch, the pre-cons commenced.

I went to PRE-5, which was a three hour workshop on User-Centered Design: A Hands-On Exploration of Collaborative Techniques. Julie Strothman, our presenter, covered a lot more than I’ll be able to in my one-hour session, but I was surprised at the overlap of techniques mentioned. I encouraged her, and several folks in the class, to attend my session for a nice contrast. Julie and I approach things from completely different angles and I found it really interesting to learn about her methods and reasonings because of that.

Julie’s methods seem to be a natural fit if you need to generate analytical results that can be then used to provide documentation and case-making for improving/redesigning or otherwise convincing the powers that be that your site is unusable. My approach totally assumes that the folks you’re dealing have some understanding and/or respect (perhaps, too, neglect, which can result in a lot of design freedom) for the user. I am so sure that the things you’ll learn in these processes will improve the usability and design of your sites, that I’m less worried about actual numbers. I assume the work will speak for itself. At some places, this sort of approach wouldn’t fly. And I admit, I’m awfully romantic about these sorts of things.

When all’s said and and done, there’s clearly a place for both and it’s good to have both methodologies in my back pocket.

After pre-conference workshops, conference orientation began and following that a very long line to get “dinner” on very small plates. The food was good, but it wasn’t dinner. Another beef: no 25th floor party suite this time around. I hope HEWD committee folks recognize the possibility that the parties on the 25th floor last year made choosing HEWD ‘07 a lot easier for some and it’s a disappointment to hear (admittedly, through the grapevine) that the space isn’t available to us again this year.

Post-”dinner,” a dozen or more conference goers haphazardly made our way to Nathaniel’s for libations, pool and/or popcorn. A good time was seemingly had by most, several of whom are still there.

As for me, I’m already back at the hotel, barely past midnight and downright sober. See (some of) you at tomorrow’s keynote.

The view from the hotel is nice (I’m up high on the 24th floor) and you can see the green trees already peppered with yellow. So far the sky has remained a solid grey and the temps are firmly situated in the high 40s-50s.

Tam and I ventured out last night to The Olive Tree, which I give a 2.5 out of 5 for food and a 4 for ambiance. RocWiki’s claim that it boasts the best Greek in Rochester was surely a disappointment. (Though I can see how the ambiance might make for a glowy review.) I spent the rest of the night making tweaks to my presentation and trying to stay awake until the end of the Red Socks/Indians game. (I didn’t make it.)

My idea for a nice walk + healthy breakfast this morning was thwarted by cold rain and the ease of room service. After breakfast, I’ll head on down to registration and the festivities of the conference will officially begin. Slated for today: Registration, Speaker’s Lunch, Pre-Conference workshop on User-Centered Design: A Hands-On Exploration of Collaborative Techniques by Julie Strothman of Landmark College, and then food and drink with a few hundred web geeks in higher ed.

I’m totally looking forward to it.