Participatory Design

My area of deepest interest in design research combines hands on techniques with the interview process. This was the topic of the guest lecture at the University of Oregon last week.

Participatory design elicits deep insights, beyond the question/answer scenario of an interview. During an interview, a participant largely engages the left side of the brain - the thinking, reasoning, verbal, logical portion. When external stimuli are added - clay, collage materials, items to sort or items you can use to "build," the right brain engages. The creative side that works from fantasy and art and intuition begins to emerge and maybe even take over. Things that may have been difficult to articulate come out in form and participants relax into a different space.

As an exercise to understand how it feels to be a research participant (people watching you, answering numerous personal questions, feeling self-conscious) as well as a way to really walk through this process, I posed this question: "How can mobile technology support your health care?" They could respond with a particular solution or how they would like to feel when supported. They were given a worksheet and a can of Play-Doh.

After about 20 minutes, each student or group presented their thoughts. Some common topics rose quickly to the surface. For this group, generally healthy without known chronic conditions, the concept of an app or device that encourages them to live a healthy lifestyle was popular. In the photo above are 3 designs by one student, all created to be very low profile and add ons to things you already carry or use. A mile meter for your bike built into your bike light, a smart card that fits into your wallet and a thumb drive that captures your heart rate on a bike commute. Whether or not these are feasible, the inspiration or paint point for this participant was not having to carry around another thing. He wanted to add features to an existing device.

A female student created a scale out of the Play-Doh (blue) and talked a lot about the need for balance in her life. She wanted a visual - maybe an iPhone app - that showed a scale to see how she was balancing her spiritual, physical and emotional health on any given day.

Another student was interested in just seeing his food intake for any given day, hoping that would motivate him to eat healthier. (red Play-Doh)

Given more time and a more intimate setting, the exercise could have been pushed to a more personal, emotional conversation. Participants might be asked to model something that represents how they feel about their health or something that represents their biggest health worry.

However, even on this higher level topic, the information may not have played itself out as explicitly in an interview as it did here with the help of a few lumps of Play-Doh. The female may have talked about feeling overwhelmed and needing less stress, but the visual of the scales, her driving need becomes obvious. Balance. The Play-doh not only helps to trigger the right brain, but also allows the participant some time for introspection, time to think about what is really important. The "make" part of the exercise took only 20 minutes, but there was no requirement to talk, just to think and create.

Participatory Design or Engaged Design is a process I strongly believe in. It was great to be able to share its benefits with the next generation of designers.

Remote Education - part II

This morning, I had the opportunity to talk about design research, particularly Participatory Design, with a class at the University of Oregon. The class is being taught by Dawn Nafus.

What a great lesson in all that technology can do right to bring disparate groups together. It was also a great lesson in how difficult it is to really engage people who are not in the room with you. (classroom image posted here with TV screen and camera in the back corner)

The technology:

• A desktop device on the lectern allowing you to share your projected laptop both in the room and at a remote site.
• A document viewer which allowed me to share papers and pictures that were not part of the official presentation, but which were great examples of written diaries, collages, photo diaries and subject feedback.
• Two wide screen TV sets which allow me to see the remote class room, and them to see both me and each other (one in the back and one in the front).
• Two video cameras - again one faced front on the speaker and one facing towards the back to catch all the students.

A tech is assigned to each class and does the behind the scenes work: turning mics on and off, zooming in, etc. Technically, it was great. Everything I needed to do was fully supported. The students mentioned that the class is taught live on each site once a week. Monday, Dawn is in Portland and Weds. in Eugene. This model is preferred over always dialing in to a remote professor. The students said this way they are more engaged.

Our local room had a lively conversation and we got some great design ideas from the group in Eugene. The reality is, however, that no matter what the technology, there is no substitute for being in the same room with another person.

Remote Education

This week has been full of interesting food for thought around remote collaboration. Wednesday evening started with Sara Bly's talk at CHIFOO about her early work at Xerox Parc and their Media Space. This space attempted to bring two remote worksites together by allowing desktop video and open space video where co-workers could have non-scheduled interactions. Fascinating stuff, especially for 1985! ( a few references here and here)

Since then, I have been planning a guest lecture for a design research class at the University of Oregon. So far, I'm impressed with their forethought in this distributed teaching model. A few students attend class here in Portland and the majority sit in Eugene. There will be a tech on hand here in Portland, and I can share Powerpoint, paper samples and video through their network.

However, being a hands-on researcher, I wanted to engage the students in a hands-on activity so they might experience participatory design first hand. Now, the issue is getting clay and other "make" tools down to Eugene where 3/4 of the class will sit for the lecture.

Computers have made data transfer so simple and easy, that we forget, well I do anyway, how much more work it is to get 3-d elements from one place to another. When will that transporter be ready??

Columbia's Gotta Brand New Bag

Today, guest speaker Chris Araujo came to speak at my Advanced Studio focused on soft-goods design at the Portland Art Institute. Chris is a Senior Designer of Bags and Accessories at Columbia here in Portland.

Chris shared the very cool bag you see above. The target market is adventure cyclists. Apparently they go on marathon treks (up to 36 hours). The bag has been seen at trade shows and set for market in 2010.

This pack is unique since it is incredibly lightweight, uses triple rip stop nylon and relies on the tension of an infinity-like loop to help the pack keep its shape. It is strong enough to hold fast, but soft enough to absorb the shocks it will likely meet on the trail.

The entire bag is thoughtfully designed with the athlete in mind, allowing easy access during the race to key equipment including their bike repair kit. A "cargo hold" type of net sits inside the flap to keep the items from falling out when the pack is unzipped, but it allow you to reach in and grab items or simply get a quick visual inventory.

The pack has room for a hydration bag and tons of nooks and crannies for assorted items. Personally, I can't wait for the laptop version of this bag. My laptop bag seems to weigh as much as my laptop itself!

Curry-ing Favor of Local Artists

Michael Curry - noted for his work on costumes for the Lion King, several Olympic ceremonies, theaters and operas - was invited to speak tonight by the staff at the Portland Art Institute in a talk open to the public. Curry is an engaging and inspiring speaker for both students and professionals.

Curry started out with a 5 minute video of his work which definitely sucks you in. He shared larger than life "puppets", sculptures, and art that moves physically as well as art that moves you emotionally. He then proceeded to talk for about an hour without the aid of slides or other hocus pocus. He just talked - about art, creativity, craft, and a bit about business.

"Theater," Curry stated, "won't die, due to our desire to be with other people." Despite the popularity of computer graphics, his 3D business continues to thrive and his belief is that it is a backlash against CG. People still want to touch and feel and look at "real" things.

Curry talked about expertise, inspiration, business and innovation. Below are a few salient points from this talk.

On becoming an expert:

Curry quoted world renowned cellist YoYo Ma on expertise. Ma stated that 10,000 hours of practice outside of an academic setting pushes you from practitioner to expert. That breaks down to about 5 years at 40 hours a week. Sounds about right. Where I disagreed was when he talked about not needing talent or special skills, but that practice will always get you there. Being one who spent years drawing and making things and being artsy, I have still fallen back to the verbal world where I just have a keener knack and am more comfortable. Maybe I never got the 10,000 hours of drawing time in, but I became convinced at around 2,000 that though I can get a point across as needed, and sketch out concepts for clients, my sketch art alone would not keep me in kibble no matter how long I practiced. [Since writing this, I've started reading Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. He has a whole chapter on the 10,000 hour theory if you are interested in reading more on the phenomenon.]

On inspiration:

The new economy continues to inspire Curry's work in new ways. The need to continually reduce shipping costs has created a new challenge and the studio is doing a lot of work around inflatables and origami to meet these needs.

Curry reported a story about a choreographer for Momix who does his best thinking while riding his bike, listening to the music for the next show.

Curry himself uses 10.30 at night in his barn with a cup of tea to sit down with a new script and grab the "golden minute" that time you enter into something new and trust your intuition to see where it will take you.

On business and success:

Be the coach. Be sure your team feels like they get to the end together.

Say yes to the right projects.

Have a post-mortem, discuss why things worked and why they didn't.

On innovators:

Curry favors scientists. Tesla, Galileo, Nostradamus. These men inspire his work.

I encourage you to explore his site from the link above. His work is beautiful, fanciful, mystical and most of all it sure looks like they are all having fun. The audiences enjoy it too.

User Testing Software - no good news

In preparing for a new round of user research testing, I decided to take another look at what the offerings are to capture the testing, since the technologies change so quickly. Unfortunately, the changes are not quick enough and the solutions are still woefully unsatisfying.

For round 1, we used Camtasia which was fairly easy and captured the information as expected. The downfalls are that it captures data on only one computer (no remote view) and exporting the video for use in Final Cut Pro was a bit of a nightmare - though we are smarter about how to do that now (several hair pulling days later.)

My testing goal is to do synchronous, moderated, in person testing. There will be a test computer and a remote computer where one or more people may view from another room. It would be great if the set up allows notes to coordinate with the video. We need to see the screen and the user and capture audio. This all needs to be done real time, not remotely.

Morae - The Hercules of the bunch. Allows viewing from a second computer, note taking real time in conjunction with tasks, video recording of the users face as well as recording the screen. The downsides are cost (particularly for small businesses) and the fact that their proprietary movie software makes it incredibly difficult to export and manipulate in Final Cut Pro.

Wondering about using User Vue and Morae Manager to accomplish what Morae Recorder and Observer accomplish. I may look into that further, but am guessing there is a good reason not to.

Silverback - Fun, easy software, but it lacks robustness. You can capture images from one computer screen and video of your user during testing. There is no way to view your testing from another room or take notes in line with your testing. It also only works on a Mac. However, for less than the cost of a Morae bundle, you can buy a Mac and a copy of Silverback.

My favorite, though convoluted solution of the moment is courtesy of Todd Zaki Warfel on the IxDA site. For all of the information, visit this thread. The basic solution consists of:

• Two (2) Intel based Macs allowing testing on both Windows and Mac
• OS X's built in screen sharing to view the test participant's machine and opening an iChat session to get the picture-in-picture and have audio
• Recording with SnapZPro

Do you have a favorite User Testing set up? If so, please share! The jury is still out.

As this seems to be a constant topic of conversation in the interaction design community, I plan to continue sharing my findings for research round 2!

CHIfoo - Gretchen Anderson on Collaborative Spaces

On Wednesday, September 2, Gretchen Anderson from Lunar Design in San Francisco, CA came up to Portland to talk about collaborative spaces and how design teams work. She talked about the need to generate ideas and how important it is for "idea people" to have a space to post, comment on and contemplate their work.

She gave a few great examples of how a space or experience is defined how you arrive in it (citing Ziba's new HQ here in Portland as a great example). Other important reminders included getting out of your computer/2D space in your cube and adding some ritual to your worklife to help bound work time/brainstorm time and even break time.

To hear her full talk and see the notes I took (by clicking on a word, you can start the recording from any place in the talk.) Please see: The LiveScribe Website for this recording.

More on the Live Scribe soon!

The Researcher's Nightmare

When I was in theater, there was the concept and indeed a play, called the Actor's Nightmare. In short, it is a concept that an actor in a role gets ill or injured and you, the understudy, are completely unprepared, yet you are asked to go on stage in his/her place. For years, I have had that dream on and off in stressful times and at other random times. I would be working backstage for a show, and suddenly, it was my job to fill in for a missing actor. I didn't know my lines, I didn't fit in the costume and was generally unprepared.

Last night, I had my first reasearcher's nightmare! Getting ready for a big study over the next few weeks, lots of pieces to keep track of and homes to visit. Three types of scripts, a new assistant researcher and working with a new firm. All of those pieces added up to stress which resulted in the ultimate researchers nightmare! I got lost on the way to the home visit, wasn't prepared. I woke up very stressed and glad it was all just a dream!

On Hiring Theater People

I was recently alerted to this great interview where Peter Menholz of Adaptive Path interviewed Jared Spool - user experience guru.

This excerpt thrilled me since I am a born and bred theater person turned business gal. Curtain up!

Hiring Theater People

PM: You mentioned that when you see a resume with a theater background, you find that encouraging. What is the perspective of theater people that you find illuminating in doing this kind of work?

JS: Theater people have an interesting viewpoint of the world and it changes our viewpoint towards them.

Theater, particularly live theater, as opposed to film for example, is a process where you iterate, you see what works, you try it in rehearsal, and then you make changes, and then you try it again. So theater people inherently understand vast iterations, and moving toward an objective. Theater is also very much about an experience, so quality theater people understand the experience design in that regard, and they understand elements of the user design, such as the illusion, and subtlety, and the back-channel communication sort of stuff. Theater people all know how to work on a deadline because the curtain goes up at eight, and so you either have everything in place when the curtain goes up or you just make stuff up, but the curtain is going to go up. Theater people also understand the difference between on stage and backstage, which in a consulting practice or a research business is actually very important.

See the full article at: http://www.adaptivepath.com/ideas/essays/archives/000516.php

Social Media and Health Insurance

At the gym this morning, I was working to maintain my health. I began to contemplate insurance as I hoped that my insurance application would go through - Cobra runs out July 31. I'm not a person who should be without health insurance!

Here is my concern. Even in writing the previous sentence, only half-jokingly, I wonder if/how health insurers can/will infiltrate social media. It's only a matter of time. High school seniors are well aware that colleges now may Google them only to find photos of their junior prom drunkenness or a crazy escapade one night. The information is out there and its free. Be careful what you share.

What, then, about health insurance? If you fill out an application stating you have no prior conditions, but the insurance company looks at your Twitter feed and sees that you had 2 migraines in the last month, what then? What if they look at your Facebook page and see you have a penchant for skydiving and bungee jumping? Will they still insure you? It's not on your application, but the information is out there.

If you have any stories about this, pro or con, I'd love to hear them!

Concept and Usability Testing

This post comes from a conversation I had with a colleague today about outcomes of usability and concept testing. As consultants or employees, we are hired/asked to test a particular product or service and report on the outcomes.

Many times, we can certainly report on the outcomes, but the real issues lie well beyond usability testing. Case in point, medication compliance. For the last 4 years, I have been looking at medication compliance. Many companies want to create better packaging, reminders or systems that will remind patients to take their medication. So often, there are extenuating circumstances at play. No reminder, no matter how large, loud or persistent can make a patient take his/her medication.

What pharmaceutical companies don't usually want to hear is that there are larger issues at play. Side effects: What about all those medications that make you dizzy, nauseous, cause anal leakage, loss of libido and perhaps a rash. Great! At least your depression will go away and you won't care about these side effects!

Finances: It's no surprise, more and more people are without health insurance. Yes, you can juggle your finances to a point, but the cost of medication is often not seen as a critical expense (though it very well may be.) However, without food for sustenance and a roof over your head, the medication can be rendered useless anyway.

Medical literacy: A patient decides s/he can handle the side-effects and has money for the medication. The patient nods and smiles as the doctor and then the pharmacist explain the best way to take the medication. At home, later that day, those memories are gone and the patient is faced with a pill bottle or jar with limited instructions. The patient then begins taking the medication to the best of his/her memory, but forgets or doesn't understand the small print labels on the bottle. Patients often take their medications out of the pharmacy bottle so the directions are nowhere in sight. Meanwhile, the patient has decided on a routine that is not optimal for medication delivery.

These are just a few of the larger issues which significantly effect medication compliance. But medication compliance is just a sample problem to illustrate a point. We need to talk with our co-workers and clients, people who design and sell products and services and be sure we are all spending our time and money asking the right questions, not just the questions in the budget line. Usability testing can be "lipstick on a pig" providing changes to an already broken product or service, or it can provide significant insights to adaptation and acceptance of the right product or service.

Networking Tip #2

This week I've spent umpteen (too many to count) hours volunteering, learning and shmoozing at the Usability Professionals Association conference. Conferences are always great places to hone your networking skills. On Wednesday, I accidentally discovered a new one.

I was looking for a woman who did a great presentation. While at one of the breaks, I thought I spotted her (dark square glasses, cute haircut) and called her name out and went up to her. Well, nope, it turns out that person was Carissa and I was looking for Christina. However, Carissa, as eager to meet a new friendly face as I was. She and her partner Manos stopped, and we talked for about 10 minutes. They own Circle D Design in Ann Arbor, she does usability work...etc. Voila! One more stranger is now a frient/colleague/someone I can smile and nod at during the conference and perhaps have a business relationship beyond that with them one day. It's almost too easy.

After this encounter I was joking with friends about how funny and easy it was. We compared it to a guy trying to pick up a gal in a bar, "Haven't I met you somewhere before?" Apparently, it works at conferences too. Try it!

Networking Tips - Listen First

Although the focus of this blog is largely research based, as a small business owner, I reserve the right to share business tips as well! This post falls into both categories. 

Several people have asked me in the last few weeks, "How do you network?" It's not an easy question to answer. It's someting learned over time and almost 20 years of on and off consulting *gulp*. 

However, the one suggestion that gets the biggest AHA moment for my fellow researchers is this: Be the first one to ask questions. Put on your researcher hat and just listen. Do you hear the collective sigh of relief? Ah, I get to listen! I'm good at that, you say, that's what I'm paid to do! Ask the questions that you want answers to, whether personal or professional, but it's much easier for most researchers to be in drivers seat to start with. 

Within a few minutes, you'll have a good sense of the person you are talking to. Then, either they will turn the conversation towards you, or you can gently interject a similarity, something you have in common, or some work you have done that they may find interesting. Voila. You  have networked and also connected as two human beings. (More on this at another time.)

iPod to eyePod

Last week, I was walking around with my iPod firmly placed in my ears. Downtown Portland is not exactly a screechy, noisy place, but I noticed how nice it was to have my music in my ears. And then, I noticed how odd it was to have music in my ears and not hear the diesel of the bus, the honking of the cars, the whir of the streetcar. 

Like many, I find it comforting to tune out the world sometimes, or tune in to my tunes. However, I couldn't help but wonder, what would it be like to have an eyePod? With the iPod, we create our own environment for our ears, what if we were able to create a custom environment for our eyes? Some days, I'd like to feel like I'm walking on a beach, some days it would be fun to be in downtown Tokyo and sometimes an orchard would be a lovely place to be. Given the unlimited options of video, we could also have the moon, Mars, outerspace or any fantasy land as our virtual wallpaper. Lord of the Rings fan? The eyePod can make all of the buildings look like huts for short, furry creatures. 

What would it look like? Would we wear super special spectacles? Put in specially coded contact lenses? Walk around with a special hat and a pull out screen? 

Obviously, this would be difficult, we need to see the ground, the cars, the trees and the dogs we might walk or drive in to. But, since we are dreaming, let's dream that the existing structures are magically turned into the environment of our choice, while still getting the basic objects in space we need to walk around, to or over. 

A few quick ideas above. Likely not Apple-worthy. Wow, I definitely miss concepting! 

Oh, and apparently, not surprisingly, I'm not the first one to think about other versions of an "Eye-Pod". 

Steampunk "Eye-pod"

EyePod cinema glasses

Remote control earphones?!

The One Button Lie

As a gesture of kindness, apparently I've been very nice lately, my boyfriend gave me a new iPod shuffle last week. I was so excited! Being one to actively buck trends, when MP3s originally gained popularity, I turned away from Apple and towards the Creative Zen. It was reasonably priced and I couldn't imagine what could make such a large difference on essentially the same device. 

Yes, Grasshopper, I learned my lesson. From day one, it was difficult to upload songs and the Yahoo! interface it required was really lousy. I'm no great audiophile, I have maybe 40-50 CD's among which (much to my boyfriend's dismay) are showtunes and Billy Joel. As I said, no great audiophile. But like anyone, I enjoy having my music with me. 

Since acquiring that MP3, I have begun to work out at the gym more and I also bought a computer with Windows Vista last summer. It is now April. I've been trying for months to figure out how to get more music onto my MP3 with Vista and through many a google search have found that it's not an easy task. I've also become a big fan of Podcasts. The NPR science shows, This American Life and others that I assumed would make commuting and working out much more pleasurable. But the Creative Zen doesn't play well with the normal podcast files and I never did figure out how to get them on my player.

Enter the Shuffle. It's sweet. Tiny. My first fear is "oh my gosh, I'm going to lose this." I haven't yet. Without much difficulty, I sign up to receive many wonderful Podcasts and start loading Billy Joel and the soundtrack from Chess onto my Shuffle. 

The trouble arises at playback. The instruction book that comes with the Shuffle is incredibly limited and I admit I'd rather talk to a human than read a manual. I fussed around with it a bit then hit the Apple store this weekend. I explained my desire to create playlists, as it promised, and was trying with all my might to understand the mental model behind the organization. The problem with one button/no interface devices, I find, is that the entire workings of the device need to be in a map in your head - or you need to print something out on paper. The paper option is annoying and the map in my head is not always reliable. 

After talking to two equally surly 20 somethings I did get confirmation that yes, you can indeed create playlists, like file folders and group your music accordingly (workout, meditation, etc.). Wonderful! That's what I hoped for and I went away happy, not exchanging it for a Nano with an actual screen. I found I've become quite attached to it, even in my frustration. It is both a lovely gesture of kindness as well as something so compact and portable that I take it with me everywhere. The emotion evoked by the design is not lost on this designer. 

And yet, the usability issues prevailed. I tried to switch between playlists with little success. Click, hold, release, click. One click forward, two clicks pause, three clicks does something, too, but I can't remember that much. I searched for a printed list, I watched the video and "followed along at home" as the nice young lady took me through the clicking process. Once or twice I was able to switch lists, but never reliably. 

Today, success, me thinks. A very nice young man at the downtown Portland Apple store was patient and worked with me. He got it to work, handed it to me and, again, I failed. He watched, we talked, "what is your hand position?" "click here, not there" (millimeters apart). Finally, 15 minutes later, we discovered that I was so frustrated, I was actually just clicking too hard. The one button is actually 3 buttons, apparently all in a line. If you click too hard, you confuse it. It thinks you are pressing +/- and playback and it just goes back to playing music. 

So, is the Shuffle successful with it's "one button"? It's a great idea in theory, there is a trade-off to having this wonderful, lightweight device full of music and no big buttons to push. The trade-off for me was two trips to the store to understand how to really use the device. The computer interface is leaps and bounds above Yahoo!, but I'm still not sold on the mono-button. Don't throw away those scroll wheels. They may come in handy when dementia sets in - which feels like it could be any day now.