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Last words on UX and Startups in Australia

Last week I attended Tech23 again, third year in a row and as usual there were some great ideas at varying levels of maturity. Each year I’ve gone I have watched through the lens of user experience design and you will find the impressions and observations in my blogs from each year. This year I was pleased to notice the evolution of UX within Australian startups, But I can’t quite work out if its me or them thats changed.

Its likely that over the last year my perceptions have altered and become somewhat better honed due to my own maturity in the field. I’ve learned to better understand the faces of UX, become less dogmatic and prescriptive and really supported the democratisation of the work.

So here’s what I found myself thinking. Startups are deep inside the experiences they are building. They are in a tight feedback loop with their customers, they are deep domain experts, and the very nature of their goal is to reframe existing problems in new ways to find new markets.

And if there has been an educational shift from the startup world in Australia, it is that they are listening and learning from their customers and a vocabulary is developing now to reference this activity. I felt for the first time this year at Tech23 this came through quite clearly. There were the usual contextual ranges: health always has good customer engagement but they were clearer about why those customers were the market; industry was a lot clearer this year about the users they were considering and also including more in their investigations for market.

The panels had better questions about audiences and customers this year too, and again in the language used rather than the content – where “users” were referenced more by their type instead eg patients, architects or van drivers and more empathy was displayed about the customers or audiences who are no longer a faceless market segment providing a source of income.

So this leads me to a relieving insight. I think I have been jousting at windmills in an attempt to design a better design process (a nasty habit designers can have) for startups when really they are just fine now.

One the final slides in my presentation about working with startups for two years is a point about business and design maturity. It really struck me last week that these are inseparable.

UX maturity is directly related to business maturity. Startups are embryonic and very organic. Small teams easily facilitate good communication and contact with customers or audiences. The founders or early stage team over time grow in distance from their beloved customer or audiences, and of course loose touch. To support this further to this we see evidence of ux being taken on board at various stages as the business and its offerings grows to unpick and redesign the services based. Workloads increase design solutions become more complex so specialists are brought in, same as hiring a financial manager or a technical lead to head up a team. This may also contribute to the startup model being adopted by large organisations for dedicated internal teams.

keikendo-maturity-model

So I think the best way to work with startups is teaching them how to fish:

  • How to listen to and manage customer feedback so development isn’t reactive
  • Help them understand how to triangulate passive and active user feedback (eg direct feedback + analytics + user or A/B testing) so they will have better clarity and less bias from noisy customers.

Because there is no denying that the larger a business gets, the more that direct exposure to the users is diluted or distanced and at some point specialists are needed to come in an unpick and align all the complexities. I don’t think it can happen any other way. Organic, nimble activities come naturally to small teams. I don’t think we can strategically UX design an Australian startup. I think we can be boggy and get in their way unless we ease their work by being a frictionless cross discipline member of the team working on deliverables as well (eg front end or visual design) When engaging with a business that may have started as a startup I reckon it might be worthwhile to check in from time to time with the founders about their original passion and vision, where they succeeded and failed and keep that as some kind of proposition pole star.

This all matches my own work and results with NICTA startups/spinouts too. It falls roughly into categories:

  • Where startups want help with their build we:
    • deep dive into the domain with them
    • investigate their knowledge of the customer
    • do a bit of desk research
    • provide workflows for interaction design
    • easily bootstrapped UI guidance
    • provide guidance or assistance on testing.
  • When we do work supplying a new technology solution for large industry players or government:
    • there is more insight development work
    • workflow and service impact mapping
    • concepts and rapid prototyping in iterations
    • negotiating with stakeholders and established business needs
    • eventually leading to UI and testing activities.

I’ve also cultural questions particular to Australia (all hands pitch in, not good with authority) and I think there would be personality types (eg highly motivated, keenly smart) that would also contribute to this, but that I don’t have enough insight on either of these.

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About the creative process within user experience design

I have always struggled with the discord between creative design and user centred design.

I went to design school and learned colour, form, typography, layout, flow and how use visuals to capture the imagination of the audience. Over the years working in tech it got hammered out of me because software was built by engineers, then after a while it was designed by researchers. My problem is that empirical always trumped creativity and there is room for both, not one hiding behind the other. Yes, UCD is creative in the problem solving side of things and this is extremely important but the creative is devalued unless it’s championed by a visionary. That so many UXers have a creative and visual design background is important to note, a dirty secret that I think needs to be aired. We do, and we are good at what we do and we can make up well considered stuff in the absence of research and its ok.

Until now I couldn’t quite articulate the creative value of design in technology, usually falling back on feeling left behind, misunderstood or just some hand wavy “some of us have intuitive skills” (intuition being highly refined skills crafted after years of experience).

This was really causing me a serious amount of professional and then also, personal depression. I kept upping my workload, hoping I’d find that missing spark in the next job – that moment when you hear the brief and get really excited about the potential – but of course, with even less time to do anything, it just got worse and worse. Also, working in a scientific research company, it’s really hard to communicate any kind of user research unless it’s published or attached to PhD. My attempts at talking their language fell on hard ground and I found that leveraging creativity got me way more traction.

So I dropped a whole bunch of projects to focus on one large one (as well as manage and grow a design team).

Meanwhile…

A weird series of events occurred. Sitting in my department director’s office, where I have sat many days each week, in the same chair, I spotted for the first time “Design Driven Innovation” by Roberto Verganti, and asked to borrow it. “Yes!” he said, “Tell me what you think, I dunno about it.”

I started reading it, and after just the first chapter it all clicked totally into place. I finally felt permission to be the creative leaning UX designer I am, using UCD activities as well. I felt validated that I deep think, work immersively and reframe, and because there is precedent for it. I only have to adjust my skills slightly, not re-learn extensively and can now refer to an established document to back up my approaches.

A few days later, the head of the Machine Learning research group who is very encouraging of UX and who graciously shares his ideas with me sent me an email suggesting I read a book, which he had found an electronic copy of and attached for me. Same book.

Late that week, I was involved in an experimental workshop, hosted at our lab which challenged (successfully, I’ll add) the traditional way Government will develop a particular digital solution. After the first day I went home and decided to step away from the entire days work and think about the “meaning” of the work we were doing. How humans as community and messy creatures might handle the issue in an non-technical way. How geographical information and community updates are linked, and how to get away from bureaucratic procedure and the feeling of surveillance by “big brother” governmental mindsets. (Unfortunately I can’t share the details in full.)

I pitched the idea to the organisers and the next day we created a splinter group to examine and create a pitch for the new idea. The reframing and alignment of human meaning to an incredibly boring and laborious task was immediately taken up with excitement when I presented it to the senior executives in the room and created quite a buzz around the potential. The preceding two solutions also pitched which we had all worked on and while they were extremely well considered and quite achievable, they were met with challenging questions and a bit less enthusiasm.

I’ve used this approach many times, not knowing there was a name for it in most of my work and the times it’s failed is when I am unfamiliar with the domain, when I’ve relied too much on asking user’s what they want/need and when I am unclear of the meaningfulness and hoped someone could provide this for me (either as their vision or from research). When I redesigned iView, in 2010, I used this approached. It tested well and had incredible uptake. (Since then it has been redesigned).

Approaching digital solutions with mindset of an artist is really freeing. It is why in my hiring and building out the UX team at NICTA that I look for people who have non-performance type creative and artistic pursuits outside of work. Ego can get in the way of performance artists, while solo creative pursuits are more suited to deep thinking and exploration.

In deep research driven tech, I find the best starting point is examining and structuring a proposed workflow that makes sense using the tech and data; then observe the actual operators and beneficiaries of the current tech workflow practices and tool chains. From there we can “imagineer” potential solutions to then test against. Because it’s really hard to interview users about what they want and/or need in emerging, deliberately disruptive tech. They respond with conventional mindsets and speak in conventional solutions. I think this can “dumb down” the final results which as we all know suffer enough compromises as it is. Using a design driven approach frees up the the limitations and steps back to behavioural observations.

This now leads back to software no longer being a tool but an ecosystem. Read more here: Software Isn’t A Tool

 

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Software isn’t a tool

many kinds of hammer
many kinds of hammer
We know tools by their affordances.

There is an interesting yet uneasy agreement, a deal that was struck between humans and technology, where at some point technology promised ease and comfort. And yes, the tools we started making provided this. We know tools – they are obvious by their affordances. You can pick up a tool and pretty much use it straight away. There are of course experts that wield tools like magicians (like a sushi chef, fine artist or a chainsaw sculptor) but we understand that it takes a lot of practise, experience and mistakes to get that good.

With the evolution of technology (and proliferation) to the digital, this notion of tools and the contract of making life easier has become a bit unstuck. From the simple ones like phones that dial themselves to software that doesn’t take the right data format and environmental sensors that require coding experience to enable, its all gotten a bit hard and complicated.

I propose the notion of a tool is no longer appropriate for software (including applications and websites) and therefore, the idea that it is “easy” to use digital technology is no longer valid.

Software is a ecosystem and a transient micro-community that connects humans to other humans either directly or via artefacts created by humans (usually data and images).

CIty street
Stepping out into an unfamiliar street, in a new city

When we think about these relationships and how software is a facilitating conduit then perhaps other metaphors are more useful, like a city or a market, or a machinery shed or a plane cockpit.

You can’t step into any of these environments and immediately interact with them unless you have a frame of reference and time to explore or training and experience. Like a city or a market, we reach for similar patterns in our memories and use these as initial templates for navigation, adjusting as we go and understand the differences in the new environment. In the case of a machinery shed or cockpit, expertise is expected. If we take the metaphor further, we can say some of these systems house sub-systems therefore adding complexity.

But when we watch users interacting with digital technology they are usually quick to anger or frustration when things don’t work because they expect it to. And we keep reinforcing this.

Is this evidence of an unspoken agreement between a human and machine? Why are we so mean to these selfless creations?! How did this happen? Answer me Steve Jobs!

So yes, there is some beautiful work in digital tech that eases the pain and delivers on the promise of an elegant, frictionless user experience. Until you get locked into a walled garden and start getting cranky again because each time you start iTunes it asks you to download a new version that has removed that feature you relied on all so often.

Communities, if we think about them have unwritten contracts. They are healthy when there is:

  • mutual respect: eg we provide a means to post your photos, and I won’t own your image
  • a notion of benevolent hierachy: eg Information architecture, reduction of clutter to ease decision making
  • respect for personal space: eg fork this code and run wild
  • assistance when needed: eg responsive help desk
  • reliablilty: eg reasonable performance
Busy farmers market
A new market – feels familiar but where to start!

When this contract is out of balance, people feel trapped, angry, unsupported and resentful. Then they leave or rebel, depending on age and wisdom.

The UX designer is tasked with assisting humans working with digital technology and I wonder if we as the creators of digital technology stop thinking about software as tools and reframe the work as creating communities and ecosystems where technology is the glue, rather than the goal.

If, when we refer to the systems we are building, we speak more about the connections not as abstractions but find appropriate metaphors to flesh out this weird magic box that fixes, finds or connects us.

If we speak about the community we are creating, not in a social media way but a genuine arrangement that benefits the contributors and consumers of the software.

If we think of the software or system as a conduit to allow people to move freely through, to explore without punishment, with gentle leadership or wayfinding so they can fulfill their tasks like they do in the physical world.

If you’re a designer, then I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know but hopefully this metaphor will help you to convince the others who don’t quite get it.

Who wants to go to a market where the apples advertised are missing, or the light is poor, the ground is uneven, all the deliveries are late, or the people can’t hear because there is too much noise? When you turn around you can’t find the way out or you get hassled to buy stuff you don’t want? Your purse gets pinched or your followed around by someone and you know it’s not your imagination?

The physical world makes no promises to be easy so maybe software shouldn’t either. We can keep striving to bring good manners and respect into these systems as its so easy to just overlook them. But this does require a shift from the concept of a tool to something else that accommodates more variables.

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User Experience Storytelling – Grab their imaginations!

Problem: Effectively communicating NICTA productisation work fitting with real people in their real situations to researchers and software engineers  

Solution: Highly visual, short and entertaining comics

I attended Webstock earlier this year, intending to find inspiration for more creative approaches to my work.

Now, I have a creative background, UX is something I learned on the job over the years and I worked hard to conform to the data driven (and somewhat dry) approaches used to communicate the work we do.

I always felt I failed to deliver the impact UX documentation is supposed to. We all know no-one reads it.

After a great deal of consideration, I figured it was time to reignite my creative skills – stop being ashamed of my visual design background and start using those particular skills in my own way to solve this design problem.

What I came home from Webstock with was a great rush of excitement and a galvanised idea that gave me some direction on how to capture the imaginations of my colleagues. Stop creating heavy boring UX documents and create comics that told a story instead!

Its not a ground breaking idea, story telling, but the results at NICTA have been spectacular.

Because I am surrounded by researchers and scientists, I had been trying extensively to court their interest and educate using user research and scientific language (eg “hypothesis”, “experiments”, “validation”) and still do, and it works to a point.

So the idea of creating comics, was a great left turn – they all got it right away, it created buzz and excitement about the industry focussed work we are doing beyond the want for a pretty presentation layer.

So I spent a few weeks translating some more developed projects into a highly visual story, it breaks down pretty neatly in this:

  • Primary use case = story line
  • Context = story line
  • Personas = characters
  • Environment = panel illustrations
  • Pain points = drama or the villain
  • Solution = the hero or hero super power
  • Collaborative methods = team and production credits

…and then chucked in a bunch of stupid stuff that I found personally amusing (eg aliens, egg timers…).

Then I posted them up on the walls in the kitchen at NICTA…..

Comics on display in the main kitchen entrance
Comics on display in the main kitchen entrance

The CEO specifically found me out to tell me how much he loved them, then requested one for his pet project (he got the above mentioned alien character in his)

Feel free to download them and check them out, these are all real projects that I have worked on providing a full range of UX and UI work for.

These are hard work, no software will write a story for you, but as a uxer, that part shouldn’t be too difficult. I looked at a few programs to short cut the illustration work – I can draw but I don’t have the time – and decided on Comic Life 3

It takes me about 10 hours to produce each one (on the train commute each day) and they require image sourcing and go through many layouts to find the right flow. Some flowed really well and others I needed to write a script and even scrap earlier completed versions.

I found being a comic book fan, it was quite easy to use a traditional comic book style with a “villain” (usually a situation, not a persona) and a “hero” (main persona) using a “superpower” (the software) who saves the day. Also, I am highly visual so the layouts weren’t hard so much, more I had too many ideas in my head and ended up not using a lot of stuff.

To help with the internal communications issue, I created an overarching idea of a “NICTA Jam” (participatory or collaborative design) to hold together the series I was creating, which explained that all this is only achievable when good people work together understanding and including the audience.

The last point, which I anticipated having to be clear about and said “no” to a couple of requests, is these are NOT external product marketing brochures. They need to be approached as internal communications designed to illustrate the work. This was hard as the interest in them is  high and its easy to see the application to a market. The difference is subtle but it’s important.

To be honest a couple do work in a marketing communication sense but when the work is directed specifically for an external audience with a marketing voice, the original purpose is lost because internal teams feel they are being sold and idea, and not included in it.

Wanna learn more? It was Erika Hall‘s workshop at Webstock that really dropped the penny for me, her blog and books are good reading. And there is a workshop at UX Australia by Dave Malouf this year on storytelling, I highly recommend attending if you want to sharpen these skills.

 

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UX Maturity

I have been reflecting on the level of UX maturity within NICTA over the last couple of months. From inside it, it can be a bit hard and the unusual culture of NICTA makes it a bit hard to lock down, but the evidence is all around.

We now have 2 part time designers taking up the ever rising number of projects passing across my desk requiring help. Some are deep engagement and some are more small start-up style short bursts to help get a prototype out for validation.

At the ETD retreat last month, I proposed a separate design stream to run in parallel to the coding exercises… and we had a 13 engineers jump ship to join us!

Screen Shot 2014-05-12 at 3.05.16 pm
Meena displays from her ideation workshop at the ETD Retreat

Projects are engaging me at much earlier points so there is time for considerations of the workflows, organisation cultures within the industry, exposure to the raw data, platform explorations and efforts dedicated to problem definition rather than requesting help when a presentation layer is needed to help sell an idea.

At CeBIT several of projects that I was involved in were on display (see previous post) and such a highly public place with a high turn over of interested people is a great way to catch instant feedback.

We regularly host VIP visits from government, especially at the moment with the funding conversations happening. Each visit has a stop by the design space for a quick presentation of user experience work going into our work and how that makes impact into industry. Each guest, which over time has included both federal and state senior ministers and advisors has been deeply interested in the work we do in consideration with customers, audiences and clients. They ask a lot of great questions and really appreciate the information we have presented.

Image
Bill Simpson-Young and I present how user experience design assists technology making impact in industry to Angus Armour DDG Industry, Innovation, Hospitality & the Arts

In project meetings, I not only hear engineers and academics discuss “users” but also challenge each other on which “users” in particular. And I don’t even bother posting up persona’s anymore to help them!

And today, our CEO mentioned UX specifically in the all hands, with an example of how it has contributed to the Air Quality Prediction Service project, currently going out to market for validation and interest. When the CEO singles it out for special mention, it’s is clear that UX is understood as tool for strategic engagement.

Image
Hugh Durrant-White makes particular mention of my work and UX at NICTA

 

So where we sit on any maturity measure is difficult really say, but it’s most likely midway between superficial and reactive to fully integrated and strategic. Unlike most other companies, NICTA isn’t in the business of creating a suite of products and services which benefit from a unified approach. But we definitely work towards a level of quality and have the very real potential of creating change at an industry level through well considered user experience product design. And this is most definitely achieved by a shared mindset which is clearly emerging within the company.

I am really pleased about the efforts I have worked hard at for the two or so years. Building credibility by providing what teams think they need while gently adding in what I have identified as needs for users; education and skills workshops, regular presentations of successes and well placed, highly visual communication devices (posters and the like) have all produced a shift that I am really proud of.

Maturity refs:

http://uxmag.com/articles/how-mature-is-your-organization-when-it-comes-to-ux

http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2013/12/applied-ux-strategy-part-1-maturity-models.php

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CeBIT 2014

CeBIT is always a great reality check and well worth getting along to for a day.

I remember the first time I went I was at the ABC, and having worked in online media for quite a while it really struck there was so much more out there for ux designers to work with. And thus my goal to get back to software was born.

I’ve attended as a NICTAreen 3 years running, and use the opportunity to gauge interest in the work we do, specifically anything I am working on in context with whomever is checking it out (competitors, potential customers or just interested scientists).

The NICTA stand was well placed this year, right near the entrance and we had some great demo’s and MVP’s on display. While there  I also found time to interview more Start Ups for my upcoming talk at UX Australia about my adventures with Start Ups.

This year I was also full time presenting one of my projects, the EPA Air Quality Prediction System which had a lot positive feedback and clear use cases for much further development including from the senior NSW Government ministers who stopped by to see our work.

A few of other more matured projects were part of the disply, some pics and my contributions in brief below.

Image
Structural Health Monitoring (RMS)
– Iterative UX and product design, IA, GUI, testing, style guide
Image
Air Quality Prediction Service (EPA)
– Initial UX, IA, running the trial release, project management
Image
ePASA Performance Assurance, Jon Gray the project lead is demonstrating the visualisaton of networks and their performances under load.
– Initial UX, GUI, IxD, Data Viz, style guide
Image
Start up alley – Space Tech!!
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Lovely Laryngitis Land

I am really loving having laryngitis. I get it pretty often, always accompanying a bad cold or a flu. I used to also get it spontaneously around my birthday, I think in some way to avoid talking to family.

Here’s why I love it, and what I’ve discovered and embraced and learned this time around.

I though everyone knew common sign language alphabet. Not so!

When you mime, the concept of past and future tense disappears. The actions are interpreted as in the now. Does sign language handle this?

Communication is a lot harder when you have to communicate with alternatives like whistling, scribbling notes or miming so there is a quick evaluation about what to say and how. And suddenly a whole lot of spoken responses just drop away.

I feel freer and happier because I don’t have a head full of dialogue constantly running and then feeling like I must feed back into every comment. For example, Al likes to natter away and normally I feel constantly like I have to respond which I find exhausting and distracting. Not so! A simple whistle or a wink and he’s just pottering along like normal!

I often feel unheard which causes me great frustration. So when verbal communication is no longer in use it changes the dynamic completely as the listener’s attention needs to be more focussed AND I’m using less words.

And when you don’t talk, they come to you!

I feel more at peace because you hear more when you don’t speak so much. There is space in the conversation. I’m just hearing and seeing so many conversations in the world (mainly on tv) that overlap and try to outdo each other. I am SO guilty of doing this, and it’s just awful!

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Comment to blog by Dan Turner

Boxes and Arrows wont’ let me post (I get stuck in a duplicate post error message loop) Here’s the article:http://boxesandarrows.com/we-dont-research-we-build. Really good to read and I would like to contribute to the conversation, so my response is below 🙂

I’ve written a few blogs on this topic also, so won’t reiterate those same ideas here:

http://hilarycinis.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/ux-advice-for-start-ups-especially-in-emerging-technology/

http://hilarycinis.wordpress.com/2013/10/10/171/

http://hilarycinis.wordpress.com/2013/10/30/ux-activities-in-australian-startups-tech23/

I have many strong feelings on this topic, and the startups themselves are only a part of the machine.

VC’s aren’t asking for ux evidence (in Australia, anyway) and so are making assumptions it’s included in the business and marketing plans.

The startups are often very confused about how to talk to customers and don’t understand they will have a range of needs from multiple user types. Blank and Ries are great reads but I also feel they have repackaged user experience work where it could sound like we are nagging about stuff the start ups feel they are already doing. I often go to great lengths to unpack the segments in the BCM where UX fits, and how these activities are extensive in order to get a clear picture.

I have quite strong feelings about marketing strategies having too large an influence in this conversation. Marketing comes later when the business knows it’s product or service and how it fits in with people’s lives. It’s totally arse-about.

I also suggest that business school educators start to look at user/customer experience seriously as part of the curriculum. I find it very difficult to get traction in conversations with business mentors about how early ux activities can assist in selecting a direction with more confidence, rather than setting up a business around a feature or a product and hoping for the best. The jargon used obscures the pain that startups can experience – pivoting and the culture of failure are nice terms for very difficult periods of time.

I see many similarities between StartUps VC activities and the entertainment industry funding machine.

We know that ux isn’t a magic wand to ensure success but when added to domain expertise and customer/user feedback it can add structure and assist with decision making when there are too many unknowns.

Maybe incubators need a ux on staff full time to assist across the teams. I work with Incubate doing this in Sydney, although not full time but I do run a workshop and follow up each round they do and I have found it really educational and I get some good feedback. I guess the proof is in the success of each business.

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NICTA year 2 in review

I have experienced several moments of career death and rebirth. Those feelings that get mistaken for dead ends, where the frustration feels overwhelming or something happens that deeply disappoints and you start looking for a new job.

At the close of my second year at NICTA I have felt these moments a few times.

The first was a frustration of “not being listened” to. On complaining to my husband (my only true confidente)  he reminded me that perhaps this was only a perception (which was true, I was focussing on the ones who didn’t, not the many who did)  but that also I have a habit of throwing too much at people and expecting them to just grasp it. I needed to be realistic and patient and do things in smaller slower pieces. He, as usual, was wise and right.

Second was a severe feeling of redundancy because my projects seemed to drag on for ages, while other project of just a single developer and no designer got built and out into the light in what felt like less time. I wondered if I was adding bloat or secretly disliked for complicating things? Again I complained to my husband and he was gentle but also asked me if maybe I was being egocentric. He most likely offered a lot of suggestions but that was the one I heard. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to examine this realistically and recognised this was indeed true. I was remembered that its not unusual for projects to take years and then lucky if they get built anything like they have been designed. I had come from 10years in media where everything I did got built, fast and to an enormous audience. I had also worked on some very high profile products that launched with a lot of publicity and now that was no longer normal I was struggling with feeling valid.

Third, NICTA had a funding scare after the change of federal government. I panicked and started looking for new roles. I discovered the idea of leaving NICTA was immensely depressing. So I withdrew from the two applications I had started on and found a space of faith and would stay with NICTA and trust that faith, and regardless of the outcome I would be ok.  This was extremely freeing and very clearing. And, it turns out to be ok as the funding is secure and NICTA is moving in very exciting directions as a result.

Fourth, was my delve into, and subsequent distancing from the start up community. I truly believe UX is really important for startups but found no-one wanted to know. Eric Ries was preaching pieces of ux practises in his BCM methodology so “entrepreneurs” figured they either didn’t need it or know it all. UX as a frame of mind for these folks seems the most appropriate to their needs and good luck to them. Besides its mainly all luck anyway and while some quality UX would benefit them, its not a magical formula and they are really gambling again very high odds.

Late last year I was in an offsite were the researchers as well as developers were not only talking about the users but were challenging each other about what kinds of users, and presented information drawn from their interactions with them! I barely had to speak all day. For a moment I felt robbed of my job… but then what better evidence of two years of explaining, reframing, coaching, guiding, presenting and creating can you asked for?

Regularly overhear researchers discussing interaction design or user needs. It comes up without prompting in meetings and talking to our customers is now understood as neccessary.

UX as a frame of mind is emerging holistically within the NICTA culture and this a wonderfully new kind of validation I hadn’t expected.

I have also successfully lobbied for a second designer and we have a great collaboration space now. Our department director is extremely progressive and supportive. Working with researchers who genuinely love to learn and share what they know and are so unaffected by how smart they are has been a rare gift.

My husband has been and continues to be a great listener, has insight into me I don’t have and is an amazing grounding force. Once my ego and fear was removed (and maintained to continually) I am now having a great time and look forward to the next 12 months.

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Hackdays.

I’ve been a “participant” at hackathons since my Yahoo! days. Back then I would help out with the very occasional interaction design solution or a bit a fancying up an otherwise average looking dev built UI.

Sadly, this hasn’t really changed despite best efforts, so I’m really thinking UX has no place in hackathons… actually neither does a UI specialist.

Hackathons, or hack days, as far as I can see are one or both of these:

  1. Get a quick and dirty build going to test a product idea
  2. Get a quick and dirty build going to experiment with data

Now, it’s realistic not to expect customer interviews or testing. But you’d think some kind of UX would fit into each of these but in reality no-one wants to include any kind of UX activities despite the obvious ones of proposition, task fulfilment or just basic heuristics in the UI.

Actually, the only thing I get asked for to help out with hack days is a quick and dirty logo design.

It’s not that UX isn’t done, its just that a specialist isn’t needed.

User Experience at hack days is automatically within the team. They are the user group, because they are generally solving a problem they are familiar with as subject matter experts. When it comes to validation, its a great way to knock up that solution as an early prototype to get folks playing with it. Just like with startups, a UX practitioner isn’t considered necessary because everyone is holding UX as a frame of mind. As they should 🙂

In the case of the data experiment, any conversations of the “who is going to use this” type are just going to get in the way. It’s entirely inappropriate to set customer/audience needs down during these kinds of hacks. If a user type or scenario is presented it seems to be reverse engineered for the end-of-day-pitch.

I know at times it doesn’t feel like it but we’ve all such done a brilliant job of evangelising UX, that hack day participants automatically consider, at the very least, the basic ideas of another person using their thing.

So from what I’ve experienced and observed, the best we can do to help out is:

  • At a hack day any UX work needs to be done prior in preparation and presented as an optional inclusion because the main obstacle for UXers at hack days is of course is lack of time.
  • Designers can also supply recommendations for development libraries or frameworks that have solutions in place for interactions and front end assets.
  • Take time to examine the data and the hack days goals. If there is a competition, consider the criteria for qualifying. In some cases the audience isn’t someone unknown group of customers but the judges.