No Minced Words & a Few Sniffles Were Detected at UX Speakeasy

Some people were feeling emotional at last night's UX Speakeasy.  If the amazing artwork didn't get you, the starry sky would have done it for sure. It was a lovely outdoor venue at SILO in Maker's Quarter in the heart of downtown San Diego. Perfect setting for this particular event. Last night was primarily a going away celebration for Aaron Irizarry who is one of the founding members of the group.

About 3 years ago, Aaron was one of 13 women and men who decided that San Diego really needed to build community for  UX (User Experience) professionals. I've been told there was a feeling that

something was missing - people worked in UX in San Diego but didn't know each other, didn't hang out together, didn't realize there were quite a few jobs in UX, didn't recognize the opportunities to build a career here in UX.

Clearly they were on to something because in no time the group was maxing out space in larger and larger venues. These days we have to regularly put limits on monthly meetings in the range of 80-100 people because it's hard to find space to fit everyone interested in attending. The original group of 13 put themselves out in pursuit of a vision, and according to a tribute last night, Aaron was in the thick of all the early activities, taking leadership positions sometimes on short notice. In those days, there weren't the teams of volunteers and enthusiastic members there are today.

So when Aaron spoke about his experiences here, and said to the crowd "Be grateful you have a community of people you can connect with on a regular basis" I wasn't surprised to see some people looking almost teary eyed.

A secondary, and related reason for the meetup last night was the coincidentally timed release of Aaron's Book "Discussing Design". An overarching theme of his conversation about it was the importance of learning to have the "right" conversations. By way of example, Aaron explained how community contributed to the appearance of this book. He said that a casual conversation led to a blog post, which led to a conference proposal, which led to the book being written. Things happen when we share and explore ideas, pursue opportunities and do it with others in community.

Sometimes it wasn't clear to me when Aaron was speaking about the book or on a wider scale, but it doesn't really matter because the point is the same: it's critically important that technical professionals learn how to communicate better about our work. When people speak in buzz words or stock phrases no one knows what is really going on.

Aaron said he wanted to vomit - or something to that effect - when someone says "Can you make that pop more?".  Rather...find out: What is working, not working exactly? What is it that makes you feel it isn't going to work for our persona?

Never one to mince words, Aaron continued,

 "We need to set the ground work for those conversations. We need to learn how to talk about our work. It doesn't matter how skilled you are, you'll just be another talented asshole".

Although he was focused on Design, I was thinking more broadly. Conversations are hard; confrontations suck (that's Aaron again being direct about what we all know). I'd like to read Aaron's book because it appears to be about the topic of setting the ground for those hard conversations. I'd like to read Aaron's perspective on the matter. I'd like to see how it is similar and different from other writings on technical and science communication.

Bringing the conversation back around to why all 80+ of us were there last night, Aaron wrapped up his farewell remarks by reminding everyone that they need to understand the value of this community; it's not just a monthly party. It's an opportunity for support and finding new ways to frame important conversations.

UX Speakeasy Confessions

I just have five grand

Make me an iPhone UI? 

Who am I, Steve Jobs?!

Ponder it.

Deeply. 

It should resonate at a sub-cellular level.

Not yet? Were you there last night? No matter. It will come to you. 

This motivational Haiku (5 - 7 - 5) was the product of the Black group's UX Confession at last night's

San Diego UX Speakeasy meetup. Their task was to discuss and divulge about experiences when "The person who hired you wanted to design it them-self" and report back out to the larger group.

No more needs to be said. It should all be as clear and satiating as the ever present snow melt flowing from the Sierra Nevada range.

Get back to me with your revelations. This team took the Silver (2nd Place) award so you know their creation was profound. 

One of the other groups contained a recruiter who was no doubt the inspiration for that team's Bronze (3rd Place) win. Unfortunately I can't report what they said because it was so deep I was awash in the avalanche of buzz word nouns liberally dusted with high powered adjectives and superlatives. Superbly done team Bronze!

 I can only presume (hope) this was the Purple group whose discussion and presentation task was around "Your new client or boss insisted that UX and UI were the same". 

AKA: A statement leading to The Resume Kiss of Death. 

Oh... Bronze winning Purple's job descriptions were an April Fool's Joke. They were, right?

Then there was the  Gold (1st Place) winning confessional entry. Most appropriately it went to a team

that tightly and with laser focus captured the essence of the Crazed Boss. That person we all know who doesn't understand ... well you decide:

The essence of this group's meme was captured shorthand in a chirpy UX Speakeasy twitter feed post: 5 pm Friday Product Manager says: Design it Enterprise social mobile sexy it has to pop design it and code it by Monday. No Sweat

Poetic in its own right isn't it? I think their prompt was "Your boss wanted the UI to be as intuitive as their iPhone". Oh wait... that sounds like the iPhone Haiku. Perhaps it was "The person who hired you wanted to design it them-self". No wait... We used that on already. Should we have? With only a little imagination it could apply to "When you got negative user feedback and a manager said "the user opted in, they asked for it!". But maybe closer to "Your product team insists that epics and user stories are the same".

Incredible how so many of last night's confessional prompts apply to so many situations with so little cognitive effort. 

Having thought at great and complex length about the matter, I suspect that the actual cue was: "When the product manager wanted mockups before any requirements were defined". 

Keep pondering the meaning of this profound instructional creation and get back to me with your revelations. Especially if your memory of the evening is somewhat altered from mine. After all, it isn't often we get such an educational and deeply stimulating experience wrapped up in the guise of something as innocently innocuous as hanging out at an Irish Pub.

But don't sweat the little stuff: If you don't see all the pieces falling into place - ask around the meetup attendees. They all seemed to get it. By the way: last night was our 400th meetup. Something to be very proud of. We've grown in a few short years from 13 starry eyed visionaries to some 4 digit and growing kick butt professionals. Cheers!

UX Speakeasy Enlists Big Data & Qualitative Research to Explore its Growth

Data Data Data

San Diego UX Speakeasy has a problem. We are popular. Yes, that is a problem. Sort of. We find ourselves in a growth spurt reminiscent of adolescence when things ache because they are being stretched beyond the current physical boundaries.

Such it is with us. Last night's Meetup about "Big Data & Qualitative Research" hosted by Mitchell International maxed out at close to 90 attendees and we had a wait list almost as long. Our seemingly unstoppable growth in popularity is a topic we have been discussing in Board meetings for a while. In a mere three years we have grown from a dozen crazy UXers who knew, just knew, that there were others like them in San Diego and wanted to do some community building to prove it, to hundreds of diverse and crazy UXers who just love to hang out, socialize and learn.  We have built a community. How do we manage our growth without taking ourselves far too seriously?

This all sounds suspiciously like a Startup Problem. However, no IPOs will ever be involved, no stock shall be issued. (We incorporated as a Non Profit at the beginning of this year in case you wanted to know. Primarily to make our lives easier at tax time).

Last night was perhaps one of the best of our meetups I have attended in the past three years. We decided to harness the enthusiasm and commitment of attendees in an analysis of The Problem. After all, we are all about inclusion, and we don't like having to say No to people. Yet, we want to keep the informal, interactive get-to-know-you mission that clearly works so well.

It just so happens we have some awesome members who have accumulated oodles of statistics about attendance at events. We also have some awesome members well versed in how to look beyond the numbers. Hence, the attendees were divided into groups and tasked with taking either a quantitative or qualitative look at The Question.

Somehow I missed hearing just exactly what The Question was. No one I randomly asked seemed to know exactly what it was either.  But it was not a representative sampling. Perhaps like me they spent critical moments during the Introduction drooling over the melted Brie with jam stuffed into it and fresh raspberries placed on top. I thought this absence excusable because I work in qualitative research almost daily; besides I wanted to check out the cheese. Qualitatively. With random sampling to ensure self-selection bias was not overly present.

No matter. Everyone set to work exploring the data about UX Speakeasy. For example, we have 405 members who have never (ever!) attended a Meetup. These are Lurkers and they have no clue what they are missing. But stats can be misleading. Because we don't know why they didn't attend do we? Is it because they wanted to but couldn't get in? Is it because they gave up in despair - if so, those people do have an inkling what they are missing.

We also could see from the brightly colored graphs that attending a Medium Sized event is more likely to result in someone becoming a Regular Attendee. Regular attendees are those who have attended 3 meetups. Being Wait Listed for a Medium Sized event decreases the chances of a person becoming an Active Member more than being Wait Listed for a Large Event, although any sort of Wait List decreases persistence. And then there are those Dabblers - those who have attended 1-3 meetups.

Why might that be? What can you conclude? Theories were flying. For example:

"More engaged people come to smaller events" 

or perhaps 

"Smaller events lead to more engaged people" ?

The quantitative groups were playing madly with the data and making insightful discoveries.

Oh *that* meetup [Name Withheld To Protect the Innocent] produced all sorts of Dabblers and a high overall attrition rate. But *that* meetup [Name Withheld For Equity Purposes] clearly blew the socks off the local community because attendees came back and back and back and back. 

The qualitative groups delved into things such as how they feel about coming to a meetup before, during and afterwards. What factors affect last minute changes of mind? Long day at the office? Tired....grumpy.... Commuting through traffic? Seriously depressed.... Awesome food and beverages? Happy Happy So Happy to have braved the traffic! When they reported back to the larger group they used words such as "guilt" "regret" "happy" "anxiety" "pumped!"

Experience Mapping

The really interesting thing was that in the greater group sharing it became quite apparent to everyone why both qualitative and quantitative data have something to offer. One group would spur a question that the other group was able to answer. Back and forth. So it went.

People were so engaged last night - everyone had the opportunity to contribute to the UX Speakeasy community. Lots of new people were there mingling with long time attendees. For 80+ people it felt like a much smaller crowd.

At the end of the evening they had to practically throw everyone out of the building. People wanted to keep talking and discussing the future of UX Speakeasy. People wanted to know what more they could do. A member of the Board explained that we are in the process of instituting several measures to accommodate more members while keeping the warm and fuzzy feeling we have all grown to deeply appreciate.

These initiatives include adding additional activities each month  (UX Karaoke? someone did suggest that really). We have another conference in the works (save the date November 8) and more. For all of which Volunteers will be needed!

Seriously, at least as seriously as we ever get, the networking and job announcements and socializing and Random Acts of Education will continue. As we grow.

A Newbie's Introduction to UX Speakeasy

Someone reminded me this evening that we created UX Speakeasy almost 3 years ago. I didn't realize so much time had gone by. We started with a dozen people and suddenly we have more people than we can fit in a good sized auditorium. Not that we ever meet in auditoriums. This month we met at Societe Brewing Company, hidden back off a busy street. Very pleasant atmosphere, lots of wood, and a very nice bartender.

As luck would have it, my friend Reynaldo was hanging out with me this week and expressed curiosity about UX Speakeasy. I asked him if he'd like to come along and give his perspective on things. He was all for it so I snuck him in. Board membership has its privileges. Reynaldo is on the small side and was feeling a bit shy

so he clung pretty close to my shoulder all evening. I didn't mind, because as long as he stuck with me it was easier to show him around and explain this eclectic group of people. Even better, I was able to hear what his experience was like as it happened.

Prior to the official Meetup we held a short Board meeting. Reynaldo was impressed by the fact that this group of people, meeting in a local brewery, were actually incorporated as a non-profit and concerned about making sure there was a structure, designated roles, goals and Vision. He was curious about what UX meant, and I whispered to him that this was sometimes a contentious question. I told him he'd be ok this evening as long as he didn't randomly swap out "UX" for "UI", or worse yet, "web design" in casual conversation . He understood, pointing out that sometimes people confused him with an ocean crab. (This would make sense if you met Reynaldo in person)

Out in the parking lot we had custom oven fired pizza by Red Oven Artisanal Pizza. One of the reasons Reynaldo and I hit it off when we first met is that I'm a vegetarian. So there was no chance I was going to get

us a seafood pizza. We both agreed the pizza was outstanding; it was custom made and fired in the stove as we watched. Somehow they managed to bring in an entire pizza making operation and kiln-like stove just for the evening. Reynaldo tried to pinch more pizza than he was entitled to.

Once the Meetup officially began I walked around saying hi to people and introducing Reynaldo. The guy's a bit of an introvert and didn't say much. But he wore a silly grin and enjoyed watching the 70+ happy attendees playing the card game UX Against Humanity.*

UX vocabulary can be confusing if you are new to the scene. So are the rules to this card game. I was having trouble trying to explain, mostly because I was taking the detailed instruction sheet too literally. It was Reynaldo who pointed out that the small groups of people hunched laughing around the barrel tables were ignoring most of the rules. At that point I decided he was doing just fine, so I begged off to wander around and take photographs.

When I got back from my photo shoot, Reynaldo explained his new understanding of the game. I share his

explanation with you in case you weren't there:

It's reminiscent of Mad Libs, if you are old enough to remember that game. There is a sentence with blanks you have to fill in and the funniest one wins each round. But in this case, the sentences were UX based and the fill in answers had to be chosen from phrases on cards in your hand - UX based as well. So you might end up with totally meaningless sentences like this:

"The future of UX depends upon a hipster's beard dandruff" 

or

"I'm no designer but have you thought about adding a double rainbow?"

Reynaldo thought this one was particularly funny:

"The worst UX superpower is sniffing your research participants" 

I should explain that Reynaldo comes from a sheltered background and tends to retreat into his shell when things get dicey.** So he felt a bit crabby with some phrases people created that used four letter words and anatomical references. Out of respect for his sensitivities I won't repeat them here.

More to his liking were these phrases:

"The future of UX hinges on one thing: a hair on the rim of your Starbucks cup"

"When I am wire framing I first like to sketch out relieving the cognitive load"

"When I am wire framing I first like to sketch out James Tiberius Kirk" 

"When I am wire framing I first like to sketch out cat memes"

It was a long evening; things got quite silly. Reynaldo and I had a good time, as did a lot of other attendees, judging by all the laughter and enthusiastic game play. He asked me how the group is going to top this event next month but I had to demur.

Instead, I left him to ponder:

"Life imitates: ________________"

Hint: Starbucks is not part of the answer.

*I have Reynaldo's approval to write about him. He read my post, and had the opportunity to edit it.

**His Latin-sounding name not withstanding, Reynaldo spent his formative years in China. 

San Diego UX Speakeasy Report aka Dealing with Issues

Today's post will be of most interest to those of you who are part of the San Diego UX Speakeasy/IxDA group. To the rest of the world, perhaps less interesting. With that said and out of the way:

Ready to go to work

Last night the Speakeasy Committee (i.e. Board) held one of its periodic planning and plotting meetings. A cohort of our enthusiastic Volunteers joined the meeting as well. We had serious business to discuss that required the energies and creative input of many. We met at Intuit in a building that assaults you at the entrance with the sound of happily chirping frogs. I think the frog sounds are pre-recorded, but nonetheless it is pretty cool to come out at night and be serenaded with happy croaking.

Our big task of the evening was to tackle the list of Issues that you all (meetup members) assembled at the April meetup. A few additional Issues were added. Here is that list:

Issue: With the size of the group it is hard to find large enough venues

Issue: People have a hard time coming to events from farther away (N. County)

Issue: The group is so large that it is difficult to navigate and initiate meaningful connections

Issue: Some people want more learning opportunities

Issue: We have a hard time retaining new members

Issue: We should have more conferences

Issue: We should have a yearly conference with big names

Issue: There is a lack of perceived value to the groups activities (conferences are too expensive)

Issue: We need to promote UX more externally (to businesses)

Issue: We need to find better ways to involve Colleges and Students

Issue: Planning Monthly Meetups is hard/time consuming  

Issue: We need more variety in our Meetups

Issue: We need a way to find out more about members (either member-to-member or managing)

Issue: We need more focused topics (e.g. Remote  Research, Wireframing) rather than one-size-fits-all

Issue: We need more engagement and interaction at our meetups

Issue: We cannot cover our current costs

Issue: We need ways to cover beer and food for meetups

Issue: We are not getting enough national exposure to attract big name speakers

Issue: Waiting Lists for Meetups are keeping people away

Issue: It is too easy to NoShow and they are keeping Active or New Members from attending

Issue: There are some many varied backgrounds (or non UXers) that we are losing focus

Issue: Many people who join are looking for mentors

Issue: There is an overall lack of involvement (helping) in the group (present company excepted)

Issue: We need to have a way to promote design/UX in San Diego

Issue: We do not want to lose the culture that made the group successful but the larger it gets the harder it is to maintain

Issue: There may be people who want to help but don't know how

Issue: We need a way to prove our value to sponsors

Issue: We need a website and branding to help promote ourselves, are people, and our sponsors

Our Fearless Leader Means Business

Fearless leader Bennett led us in a modified KJ Technique, which was most interesting because

Serious Business

this activity requires periods in which no talking is allowed. None. Imagine this group being told they couldn't talk? Yeah, sometimes it was a

challenge. Nonetheless, Ben cracked the whip and waved the Sharpie and yelled as needed to keep things in order and moving right along.

Several steps later we had arranged, condensed and organized the above list into

the following

Categories (ranked highest to lowest):

Mission of the Organization 

(sticking to what has made us so successful while we grow)

Keeping the Lights On 

(aka Finances. It costs money to run our meetups)

(this also subsumed Waitlist Problems)

People Interaction Issues
(this also subsumed Volunteer Opportunities &  Beginning UXers)

Name in Lights 

(our larger local, regional, national, international & extra-terrestrial branding)

Planning Meetings/Finding Suitable Venues 

(easier said than done)

We formed teams to cogitate on each of these categories and come up with recommendations for the organization's Board to consider.

Sound good? We think so. We're working hard, even on a Friday night, to keep UX Speakeasy fun and responsive to evolving times.

We also spent time plotting and planning great meetups and events for the remainder of the calendar year. Stay tuned. Also, we always need people to help out. Contact any of the Committee members if you can lend a hand, even if you have no idea how. You can do so through the Meetup site. We'll find something for you and we are a fun bunch to hang with.

Speed Rounds on What's Going 'Round in San Diego UX

It was Show & Tell for the San Diego UX Speakeasy crowd last night at our host Qualcomm. In our ongoing mission to build community, have fun, and demonstrate there is a lot of interesting UX work going on down here in Southern California we held speed rounds. Five energetic souls had 5 minutes each to wow the 100+ people (all the room could hold) with something UX-ish and interesting. Truly, only 5 minutes as the guy with the timer was on the job. There was a bit more breathing room during the following Q&A and for the most part the audience complied nicely with questions, comments and suggestions. All while noshing on some really good food.

First out of the gate was Erin Porringer making a report on World IA Day and the exciting ride up to Los Angeles on the Magic Bus. Apparently the bus ride was as wild and colorful as last year when I reported on it (sadly, I was unable to attend this year). But the best part of course was the event itself, which, according to Erin, involved, among other things, breaking up into groups and proposing solutions to some of LA's worst problems. Such as traffic.

If you have never experienced 14 lanes  (7 in each direction) going 85 mph then you haven't lived. Conversely, if you have never experienced those same 14 lanes (7 in each direction) crawling along at 5 mph for mile... upon... mile... then you haven't lived. (Now that I think on it, that particular stretch might be in Irvine.) A user experience in need of help for sure. It seemed only fitting to hear that one of the proposed solutions was to create a version of Google Maps with ratings - love that freeway? 5 stars. Hate that freeway? 1 star. I wonder if comments were going to be included for highlighting such things as really cool billboards and entertaining driver antics.

Second out of the gate was JC Nesci from Soso Limited. Soso hosted one of our meetups last year and thus we know they are always doing something creative. Last night we learned about a proposed redesign of the UI for Google Fiber network setup and configuration. As JC pointed out and we all know, it can be exceedingly painful to deal with a the likes of a Linksys router interface. (The audience groaned right on cue.) Most interesting, JC shared the thought process they went through testing out various interactive visualization prototypes for Google Fiber configuration. These got more fun as they progressed. Yes, fun - did you ever think online network configuration could be fun? I wanted to reach out and drag and drop those nodes, drag around those connections, plop those overlays on one another. Will Google use their ideas? TBD!

Third in the lineup was UX Speakeasy committee member Elina Ollila who in her day job works at Vigor Systems. Elina brought up a well known sticky challenge for large and small companies alike: where should UX be placed in a company and why? After describing what Vigor does, her job as the one and only UX employee (a temporary state of affairs she assured the audience), and the growing pains this small company is experiencing, Elina asked the audience for suggestions. Elina's presentation produced some of the most enthusiastic Q&A&S of the evening. Audience members made all sorts of helpful suggestions (hence the "S") about the role of UX within a corporate structure and why it might best be placed in one divisision or another - or ideally, integrated throughout all divisions. It was nice to see so many people voicing their ideas and the rationale for them.

Fourth, we heard from Kristine Angell, a UX Researcher, about a project called "The Domestication of the Internet".  Project management investigation for Supermoms on the Internet. Conceptions of time, time & task management. A bunch of data whizzed by in 5 minutes, as we  heard about study participants, mode of data collection and analysis. I was glued to this one because I just love research. 2010: 25 participants, 10 days online, 32 self reports, 5,600 data points. 2012: 12 returning participants, 6 days online, 10 self reports, 624 data points. Several interesting results including this one:  most family members delegate many of their tasks to the mother in the family. Supermom indeed. Lots of audience chuckles on that one. They already knew this particular result.

Last but not least, Paul Lafata from our host Qualcomm telling us all about their foray into wearable technology. In the form of a smart watch. There was also mention of a wireless dog collar to track down canine escapees. Managing to sneak past the allotted 5 minutes, Paul told us about all sorts of features and the tech underlying the smart watch. There was something about their mirasol technology based in some way on butterflies, but I missed the details because I was messing around with my camera. However, the entire audience was invited to a local pub afterwards to continue the conversation and ask Paul questions. I am sure they did so, because this crowd loves a good pub.

Strategic Portfolio Planning UX Speakeasy Style

The rest of the United States may be getting buried in snow *again* but this evening in San Diego the UX Speakeasy crowd was warming up to each other  in another one of our invigorating monthly meetups.

We have our version of seasons - at tonight's venue, if you went outside on the 7th floor patio and looked out over the darkened city sky, the wind blowing in your face might have caused you to feel it was Winter. If you then walked back inside with a reddened face and someone asked you where you got the sunburn you might have felt it was Spring. In the toasty room where we heard our presentation, you might have believed it was Summer. Looking at the leafless plant in the corner (see picture above) you could be convinced it was Fall.

Our marvelous patio view, and begging to be explored set of funky office suites at this evening's gathering were brought to the meetup crowd of 114 people by Vaco San Diego and their enthusiastic recruiting professionals. Our host, Mark Richards, gave the group a nice presentation about what to put (or not put) in your UX portfolio. In: specifics. Out: your cat. Portfolio in the larger sense of the word, for Mark provided his perspective on what to do (or not do) with your LinkedIn page, resume, digital demos and a few other important odds and ends.

While Mark was showing the crowd some interesting examples of online UX portfolios in the packed room, his colleague (Eric?) held up a large fan that was determined to steal the show once in a while. There was a UI issue of sorts here for sure.

Some useful online portfolio resources shared by Mark (take note UX people!) included: Behance, Dribble, and Coroflot. Somewhere in the middle of all this, as I was standing near a glass door, someone jostled someone and the next thing I knew there was a large amount of liquid running down the other side of the door. Very artistic.

Vaco was a great host. Did I mention that Eric (?) brought me a personal hand made name tag shortly after I entered? This was before he put himself in charge of the treacherous fan for the benefit of all sentient beings. For those of you in the San Diego area, if you'd like to connect with Vaco, they are holding their annual March Mingle on March 26th at the Hard Rock 207 (the bar in the Hard Rock Hotel downtown) which will be, so Mark tells me, a great opportunity for technical people of all ilks to network.

Intuit appears to be on a serious UX hiring spree based upon what our second speaker told us. Rich Bessel from Intuit spent a few minutes telling us about some of the things he values in potential hires. In addition to supporting Mark's comments, Rich added: Craft. Demonstrate your craft everywhere. Show your passion and that you care about your work. It should ooze through all your materials (ok, he didn't use the word "ooze" but he could have) because you want to show that you care, really care, about your work. Oh, and by the way: Check Your Ego At the Door.

Happy New UX Year - So Much to Do!

Following up on last night's post which listed opportunities for professional development, education and training, now I get to share more generally about the UX Speakeasy meetup. Last night we held our Happy New UX Year. At this annual event we share ideas and inspiration about what is going on in the UX world in the upcoming 12 months.

Our most esteemed leader Bennett King deftly facilitated the evening and wielded his almighty power to

keeping things moving. Ben also talked about the zillions of conferences out there and why you might want to choose one or another. As he pointed out, conferences aren't cheap, but if you choose wisely, conferences can be very important for advancing your career. They are a great source of networking if you do more than collect Tshirts and hang out with your pals.

Indeed, one of the most important lessons I learned early on about conferences is that they are an unparalleled opportunity to meet new people who can help you grow professionally. In addition, you have the opportunity to help others grow professionally. It goes both ways.

Hey, if you are going to pay all that money and take the time out of your regular schedule, you should make the most of it. Be strategic. It's not just about picking up swag (cool as some of that swag can be). One of the clear messages of the evening: you should find a way to attend conferences.

With that in mind, I want to draw your attention to a few conferences in particular of all the ones Ben talked about last night. First of all, the Annual Conference of the IxDA is the biggie that UX Speakeasy is affiliated with. It probably has it all for the UX crowd: a combination of industry and academic people and themes, keynotes that go beyond UX, it's global (it's always good to get out of your own country's perspective for a while) and...there will be karaoke.

On the other hand, if Amsterdam in February is more than you can manage (brrrrrrrr), those of you in the US might find it easier to go to Midwest UX next October in Indianapolis. Indy, as it is affectionately known, actually has a lot going for it as a place to visit, and at that time of year you might very well get to see some outstanding Fall foliage - always a big draw and for good reason. 

For those of you in the local Southern California region, we have some good stuff coming up right here. So you have little excuse for not going to at least one of them. We have World IA Day, one of whose many global locations next month will be  in Los Angeles. I attended World IA Day last year, having no idea what to expect, and it was amazing. I'm not just talking about the Magic Bus that UX Speakeasy members had the opportunity to take either (and which may be available again this year).

Not only that, we have the AIGA Y Design Conference here in San Diego this March, ValioCon in June,  and the IA Summit will also be here in March! IA Summit is a biggie and we are very psyched to have it here this year. Aaron Irizarry, who is chairing the conference this year, gave us an enthusiastic intro to the conference last night.

Lest I neglect to mention it: OF COURSE we plan to hold another one of our famous sold out UX Speakeasy conferences next fall! Stay tuned for more info as things develop.

There were many more conference listings, but rather than itemize them all, I want to mention a few other things about last night's meetup. For one thing, it was held in a very cool place: Modern Times Beer,  which had several noteworthy things going for it. For one thing, the walls are worth a visit in themselves. One of the enormous three story high walls is plastered with pages from comic books. Another wall is a giant picture of (I think) Michael Jackson and a monkey made entirely out of post-it notes. Really, three stories high and all post-it notes.

There was some greasy munchy food and one of the choices was meatless enchiladas. I can't tell you how happy I was to have a tasty choice for non-carnivores. On top of that, at the bar they had the option of an itty bitty 4 ounce beer for those people (of whom there are more than you might think) who just want a little taste and not a big glass. Major kudos to Modern Times for both these items!

Finally, in the "you had to be there" category: I was talking to a friend, and standing not far from the sign-in table where people were picking up their name tags. Two guys walked up to us and introduced themselves as first time attendees. One of them said his name was Garron. They started asking us what the group was all about.

Talk about bad luck!  Clearly intuiting that this was the place to be last night, these two guys (who had been across the street practicing for a band) came in and borrowed [ahem] name tags. It just so happens that Garron is one of the Speakeasy committee members. Then these two guys walk up to two of the other committee members (yup, not just me but my friend as well) and introduce themselves as our colleague. Nice Try Guys!

After chatting for a few minutes, we tactfully blew their cover just as the real Garron came along (no doubt looking for his name tag) and everyone had a good laugh. The two guys left shortly thereafter and another nice evening was had by all.

UX (and related) Education Listings

As promised, this post contains a listing, with links, to the education options I presented at this evening's San Diego UX Speakeasy meetup. (More on the meetup itself in the next post)

There is an enormous selection of education and training options out there and this is only a small sampling; enough to give you some ideas and get you started. Not listed here for the most part are conferences, because although conferences often have educational activities and workshops, conferences were covered by my esteemed colleague Bennett King and a cohort of other enthusiastic people.

Minus the pithy commentary that was included in the live version, here are those links:

Interaction Design Foundation - Open Education Materials ; included here is the “Encyclopedia of Human Computer Interaction”, comprised of 40 “textbooks”. Lots of very interesting in depth reading here. Other good stuff as well on their site.

The UX Bookmark - UX books, videos. Awesome resources with in-depth info. Well maintained.

User Interface Engineering (UIE) - Virtual Seminars, Mobile Immersion, UI18 On Demand. Something for every level of engagement.

Cooper - A design and consulting firm. They have "Cooper U" offering in person courses, and also UX Boot Camp (this is the one I'd really like to attend! in my mind I'm already writing the blog post about it!)

Adaptive Path - another consultancy. Offerings include UX Week, an annual conference, and UX Intensive, a 4 day workshop held in various places around the globe.

Neilsen Norman Group - another consultancy. Offerings include Usability Weeks (one of which will be held here in San Diego next month) and a 3 day Usability Camp.

General Assembly -  A training organization with branches in several cities. Set up to resemble in some ways an academic environment. Offerings include one day events such as a hackathon, & several months long classes.Here is the Los Angeles branch.

Open2Study - Free online courses. Based out of Australia, profs are global. Wide offerings including some interesting UX courses and psychology (a hot topic in some UX circles).

Udacity - one of the famous MOOCs. Offerings across the spectrum of fields from the arts to engineering. Offerings include Computer Science, computing applications (such as web dev't and mobile and design)

Coursera - another of the famous MOOCs. Mission statement talks about providing equal access to education; they have the most demographically diverse team of technical people of all the education sites I surveyed for this presentation. Offerings include Computer Science, engineering, data/stats, programming, HCI, lots of business courses (entrepreneurship, management, marketing etc)

HackDesign - an interesting self described "experiment" for developers who want to learn design. Self-paced course that comes to your inbox.

Online User Experience Institute - lots of UX courses. Has been around quite a while compared to its competitors. 

The Stanford Design ("d") School. If you really want to go for it and get a degree. They also offer individual classes, and an interesting 90 minute crash course for pairs.

Did I miss one of your favorites? If you have a listing you'd like added, send it!

Marketing, UX, Consumer Tech Alert: Pink?

Perhaps there's a market for sea gulls

If you are caught up in the materialistic shopping frenzy you are not alone. The shopping malls can be scary places at this time of year. A few days ago I was trying to get to the grocery store in a nearby strip mall and the scene in the parking lots was closely reminiscent of sharks that had smelled blood circling a school of fish. Silly me. Silly me and silly about a hundred other sharks creeping our cars along looking for the tell tale sign of blood-red brake lights coming on, or keys swinging in someone's hand, salivating as we watched narrow eyed, wondering if the nearest ambulatory biped was going to stop at a car in this aisle or at the last moment cut across to another one, leaving us to resume the hunt all over again.

I had just decided that it wasn't worth throwing this much added pollution into the air and wasting this much time for the sake of a few edibles, and had headed for the exit, when, lo and behold, the very last parking spot in the very last aisle vacated a vehicle right in front of me. I pulled in, momentarily in shock that I wasn't still creeping along stalking pedestrians. Disembarking, I set my trajectory for the Kale.

As I navigated my way on foot through the ever circling cars, drivers clearly saddened that I was not heading in the correct direction, the over the top use of Pink in certain places that clearly targeted women was hard to ignore. Why do they think that if it is Pink women will dive right for it? I had a passing image of the pinky color of  frothy blood in the ocean. Ew. I paid more attention to where I was criss-crossing. Eventually, safe in the grocery aisle in front of my precious greens I wondered when some marketing genius would decide to create Pink Kale, Pink Broccoli, and Pink Spinach.

The Exit Strategy was more of the same in reverse. But I had the veggies firmly in hand.

[Fast Forward] Today, as I caught up with the online technology news and information, happy that I had no burning need to go anywhere near any retail establishment, I came across a wonderfully timed article about marketing technology to women. Not surprisingly, pink came up in the discussion.

This fast read is great for developers, UX people, marketing types, and oh, yeah, consumers. I have to share this just in case you are still out there contemplating gifts for your favorite technology nerd (male or female), or in the event you ever plan on buying another technology item, or if you are in the realm of designing technology and are thinking about those oh so talked about "demographics"...

Read On.

Happy Peaceful Quiet Calm Holidays 

that focus on something other than the frenzied accumulation of lots of stuff

Art, UX, Computer Science (happy campers)

Happy Indeed!

Feeling very pleased, and perhaps amazed, with their luck at finding easy parking in Little Italy, many of the San Diego UX Speakeasy crowd at first walked right past the entrance to Sosolimited, the host for this month's amazing blend of art, design and computer science. Snugly fit into a funky building that looked non descript on the outside but was full of interesting odds and ends on the inside, 70 or so of us gathered for our monthly meeting of food, beverage, and socializing. Oh, and for a really cool presentation.

I was stumbling around in a corner doing something or other when Justin Manor, our host, explained the origin of the company name, but I believe it had something to do with he and his friends originally being in a band. or DJs perhaps? Something musical anyway. Many years later, the expanded team has morphed into working with clients such as The Denver Public Library, the Museum of Science in Raleigh North Carolina, the Center For Strategic and International Studies (in DC) and oh, I almost forgot, the 2012 London Olympics.

The projects Justin showed us snippets of were eclectic and it's hard to succinctly say what they all had in common. Lots of data, interactivity, live processing, .... urg it's hard to describe (fortunately it is all on their web page in lovely visual form). There was genetic patterning and sequencing in there, patterns of natures that flowed and swooped, streaming bits that looked like something out of The Matrix, physical animations of various natural processes, linguistic analysis -

wait. When Justin showed us linguistic analysis of political speeches and pronouncements from the US and UK the crowd got a good laugh while being educated. We watched a clip from the US presidential debates, and various political speeches from both countries. Streamed live at the time, various word clouds formed and rearranged as the politicians spoke, zeroing in on buzzwards, or egotistical references to themselves and a variety of other interesting things. There was one politician who said almost nothing intelligible in a very long winded way and it was quite interesting to see the analytical structures forming around his blathering. So if you sometimes think that some of these guys aren't saying anything, now you could know for a fact when that was the case.

I would love to see some live analysis of the current morass going on in Washington DC over the government shutdown.

You see, it's pretty serious stuff as well as fun - if you think about all the ways that live data analysis, pattern identification and matching in nature, micro to macro, can help us learn new things and understand the world around us. It's research, it's user experience, it's art, it's science. It's dynamic and it's cooooooooooooool!

For those of you who want to get your hands a dirty you know what is equally cool? (Aside from the fact that Justin talked about code and algorithms on more than one occasion.) Sosolimited has put an open source project on GitHub that you can use to do some things with YouTube videos. Again I refer you to their web page for the full scoop.

I realize this has been a somewhat sedate post about a UX Speakeasy meetup compared to some of those in the past. Perhaps it was the contentment I felt with the presence of vegetarian spring rolls. Yummy and healthy. Or a general friendly blurring and purring of memories from the evening. I would be remiss however, if I did not mention one small oddity. The bathroom. I didn't manage to locate it myself, but I was told by several people that to get there one had to go outside (out of doors), take a left, go left again, then left again, up a ramp, perhaps another left I'm not sure, and then one would find the Facilities. These directions involve some interaction with a loading dock (?), and a parking lot (?).

I didn't think to ask the building owner, a very nice guy named Marc Hedges about the Facilities Location. I'm sure he would have had an interesting explanation.

ICER Day 1: An Unexpected Foray into Learning & Design

A Layout

Synchronicity can be a freaky and wonderful thing. Within the first two hours of the ICER conference today I realized that I had not left Design behind (see my last several posts), and that a book I am currently reading (and will eventually post about) on egotistical versus empathic people in the corporate world was directly relevant to pedagogy and computing education.

The keynote speaker today was Scott Klemmer, who, in spite of what that link says, has just moved here to UC San Diego, apparently split between the Cognitive Science and Computer Science departments. He was originally trained as a designer and it showed as he took us on an interesting adventure around UI design from the back end - code in other words. He started out with the statement "View Source is a great example of UI design". That got my attention - to spend the next hour talking about the UI (UX) aspects of something users never see (code) but computer scientists see day in and day out. How very very cool.

In contrast to the industry-oriented conference I reported on a few weeks ago, ICER is an academic conference. Thus, Scott's talk was loaded with wonderful theoretical backup, explanations, references and citations, thought provoking ideas and suggestions that researchers love to roll around in. It was great.

So when Scott said "intuition is a difficult thing to teach students" it was the opening volley into wide ranging but highly focused and well supported discussion about using examples to aid learning, to generate creative design, to generate effective design, to arrive at quality prototypes while building group (i.e. team) rapport. One theme: sharing and adapting examples is good technically and good for learning purposes. But in a much deeper way than you might think. The discussion then rolled on into the role of peer assessment in design and how it can be used in software tools. Drool.

One of the interesting areas Scott has worked on is researching single vs. parallel design development. We know (the "research We" for those not used to the lingo) that people become ego attached to their own ideas and are loath to let go of them, even sometimes to their own detriment. It is called Functional Fixation and was written about back in 1945 by a guy named Dunker. But, we are learning that this ego attachment is reduced significantly if people develop multiple ideas in parallel. It becomes much easier to hear critique and drop one idea for another if you have several ideas to compare and contrast. As opposed to if you have only one idea and you are completely invested in it's success or failure.

Lots of very practical application along with some wonderful theory - established theory and theory being built. Some of what Scott spoke about was targeted at formal pedagogy but I can easily see it adapted without too much effort to an industry setting. For example, he spent some time on how to incorporate self-assessment and peer assessment into the development of designs and prototypes in the computing classroom. One of the big challenges, as educators are all too painfully aware, is that novices aren't always very good at providing useful feedback. Even when the faculty supplies an assessment rubric as guide, all sorts of issues arise - if the rubric is too specific, it can stifle creativity and lead students to just check off the boxes without any deep thinking; yet if the rubric is too abstract it can lead students to have no idea what to do with it and either flail or provide random, not very helpful, feedback.

Here comes the useful research note that provides insight into not only the classroom, but the business world too (I refuse to say "the real world", because schooling is real; where ever you are at any moment in time is your real life).

Novices have a very hard time with abstract rubrics. The question becomes how to operationalize a rubric for the particular level of students you are working with? (CS1, CS2, an upper division course)? We have research about how novices become experts and how along the way they gradually become more able to deal with abstraction. Thus, the rubric that works for a sophomore level software engineering class is probably not the same one you'd use for a senior level software engineering class or for a newly hired software engineer or for a seasoned developer.

A technique, one that Scott is working with, is to create the rubric such that up to a certain point it is fairly concrete (i.e. you can get 90% of the possible points) and after that it is more abstract (you want an A, then you have to go above and beyond). What he didn't discuss, but where my thoughts were going, was that you could take the same (or similar) rubric and start shifting that abstraction point downwards as you work with more advanced students or professionals.

Fascinating idea to consider. Fascinating idea to strategize, design, prototype, implement.

The Question of a Universal Icon Leads to Bathroom Talk

(Warning: This post is Rated PG-13)

There is this thing called The Noun Project. I find it somewhat challenging to tell from their web pages just what they do. However, my sense, based upon an activity I took part in last night with the UX Speakeasy crowd, is that has to do with ... nouns. And icons? The idea that nouns can be represented with icons. And that there are many possible representations for any given noun - in icon form. (iconic? Icon is a noun; iconic is not ("Of, relating to, or having the character of an icon." )

It is fun to play with words; with nouns. To share icons about nouns. That seems to be what The Noun Project is about. Led, in part with operatic vocalizations, by Jeannel King a Graphic Facilitator and founder of Big Picture Solutions, about 100 of us went through an enthusiastic activity where Jeannel whipped off a series of nouns with only seconds between each one and we had to draw each one. No thinking - just draw it! A round of ten words coming almost as fast as those legalese voices at the end of commercials. Draw each one with large markers "Big Fat Lines for Big Fat Ideas".

There was a certain amount of squawking at first from those who really wanted to "think" - but Thinking Was Out, and Instinct Was In. Whatever you draw is good enough - tough for those who want to get it right. To realize there is no "right".

Which was part of the point. My gut level interpretation of "banana" is not necessarily your gut level interpretation of "banana"; nor the instinctive perception of "banana" held by someone who lives in the far reaches of the Arctic. And we know that much of human behavior comes from gut level rather than cognitive decision making.

The warm up round was comprised of relatively easy nouns: cloud, money, beer, banana, house, tree. Everyone put marker to sticky note and drew their 2 second bananas. And we put them up for all to see and discuss. Although one could justifiably claim that the following rounds of nouns were harder, e.g. "user; interaction; design; context; information; usable; innovation; perception; research; input" that would be too simplistic a conclusion.

At one point the guy next to me said "Are we being mono-culture?" - because so many people put up $ for "money" and no one made a peep about it. GOOD CALL! Yes, that indeed was part of the point, as, seconds later, Jeannel drew everyone's attention to the implicit and often unconscious assumptions we make. Even on the simple things. And if we want to talk to the world, how to guard against assumptions and inherent cultural perceptions?

All of which begs the question: Is there any such thing as a universal symbol? Pulling my investigative

journalist hat on snugly I set out to discover what the crowd thought about this.

The first two people definitively said "no". There can be no symbol which is universal. So I moved on.

The next person said "yes". They seemed surprised when I then asked for an example (you'd think someone would see that coming a mile away!). After the briefest of pauses: "The Play Button". I looked quizzical (so much for being the objective reporter) but they held their ground. Their conversation partner sensed where I was going and stepped in with "it depends upon your anthropological approach". I looked more quizzical, not wanting to let them off the hook just yet. So he said "It depends upon your ethnography".

The next person said "Yes" and "math is the same in every language". Someone else also played the math card and said "+ and - are the same in every language".

Really? Is that so? If one knows one's anthropology and has done some ethnography one might question the universality of math symbols. +, - or otherwise.

The next answer, one which I got from several people, was fun to think about: "Yes". "Guy and girl

bathroom pictures".  Are Universal.


Putting my quizzical expression back on (in the name of investigative journalism) an interesting introspective then took place in which the person started thinking aloud about pants, skirts, men with skirts, putting the same symbol on both doors, and transgender bathrooms with possible symbol (icon) complications. One then wonders: Would a sufficiently transgender icon lead to unisex bathrooms? Or to some people being able to choose either bathroom but others being restricted to one or the other? Would people spend so much time trying to decipher the icon that they would stand outside the bathroom doors puzzling until their bladder burst?

This, I believe, is really what our exercise last night was meant to encourage people to do - think about the meaning behind words, the symbols we choose to use for them, the context and the audience. Do so with some depth and question assumptions and the things we take for granted. If we want to be effective communicators that is.

But just in case you think the matter is settled, the last response I received may be one of the harder to parry. I popped the question about the possibility of a noun with a universal symbol and this person enthusiastically, hopped right over the "yes" part, and not waiting to be looked at quizzically, said "PENIS!".

I leave you to imagine the conversation that followed; and invite you to draw your own conclusion about the possible universality of a symbol for the "p" word.