New City wrap up: Jared Spool – Journey to the Center of Design
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Dave Perks' summary of Jared Spool's SXSW address about the way in which companies approach their work from dogma to techniques and tricks.
Jared's talk focused on the effectiveness (or not) of designing strictly with the customer in mind, an argument he illustrated by posing Apple's success against Microsoft's. Apple has all but shut down their usability labs while Microsoft performs over 15,000 user tests per year. His question: Is Microsoft 15,000x more successful than Apple? (No response necessary)
Exploring both sides of the continuum
With his usual mix of lively stories and illustrations, Jared went on to talk about the continuum of how most companies work through a project. At the center is process, which he pointed out doesn't have to be a repeatable thing; it's simply whatever steps you take to get through a project.
Formalizing your process so that it becomes repeatable creates a methodology, which moves you to the right on the continuum. But drink too much of the methodological kool-aid and you risk operating in a dogmatic way that leaves very little room for logic.
Fortunately, we're talking about a continuum and you can slide to the left of process. This is where techniques come in to play. Techniques are the skills you employ throughout the course of a project, and as is often the case, when you thoroughly understand a technique you start to learn tricks (the farthest point on the left side of the continuum) to get the most out of your tools.
So which side breeds success?
As Jared describes it, he expected to find the most successful companies on the right. He didn't. It seems that the companies focused on a culture of experimentation in which failure is not just accepted, but celebrated are much more successful.
What's important is making sure every team member has the resources and tools they need to do their jobs well. Not defining for them the specific ways in which they are to be used.
What now?
In his mind, it's time to ditch the dogma of UCD. It's just not possible to assume success because you get the user's outlook. It's time to focus on measuring the right things. Doing this means thinking beyond what the experience is like now to what it will be like years from now. It means keeping tabs on how people use your design, as well as your competitors. And it means rewarding failure.
So here's to the screwups. Me included.
Read more on Jared's site at uie.com
I’ve encountered similar woes by trying to formalize and structure my creative process too much. I tried to set-up a uniform way of how I would tackle a project. Good intentions I thought.
This didn’t work because every project is different and if you try to approach every project the same, your projects will 1. all become alike and 2.you likely won’t reach the best solution.
I will definitely start trying to look outside the user a bit too, even though it seems like a sin!
Posted by Michael Shelton on 03/15/09 at 11:37AM
Its taken Jared this long to figure this out?????!?? Where has he been?
There is also a big difference in my mind in how those two companies respond to user feedback.
Microsoft takes all these users’ feedback and takes it all in and says well here is what everyone wants so lets give it to them.
Where Apple in my experience, has been almost snooty daring to go out on a limb and say to the user, “you don’t know what you want”. And the reason they can say that is not because they don’t care, its because they care more about the user experience than you do. They want to prove you wrong. They are not happy with the status quo. If they aren’t failing they aren’t pushing hard enough.
That passion turns into innovation and hopefully when you use their products or services their passion generates emotion and then … you are hooked.
Nick
Posted by Nick Morgan on 03/15/09 at 12:48PM
Being dogmatic stifles innovation. You can’t design something innovative or new with strict process. There has to be some room to try and fail. Failure is important. Risk-taking is important. Apple seems to get that.
Ask yourself this: When’s the last time to saw ANYTHING innovative come out of a bureaucracy?
Posted by Steven on 03/16/09 at 3:36AM
I think this talk was an updated version of the one that got people stirred up at IASummit08:
http://bit.ly/Qtpgn
Posted by Jacob on 03/16/09 at 5:48AM
I saw the same talk at UI13 last October. My takeaway was that following a UX methodology does not predict success. Having a clear experience vision + a culture where failure is celebrated not punished + regular listening to users and watching them using your product or competitors products DOES predict success.
So get a good team, equip them with lots of ux techniques and tricks, and imagine what your customer’s experience will be in the future. Then do whatever you think will move you towards that goal.
Posted by David Poteet on 03/16/09 at 7:58AM
I think that Jared was also taking a poke at the traditional methodologies of HCI. Things like formal heuristic evaluations, cognitive walkthroughs, etc. They have been what usability experts have used in the past to evaluate interfaces. So while those methodologies can be useful at times to evaluate an interface, they really don’t tell you much about how to design an actual interface.
Designing an interface is an entirely different process that doesn’t really lend itself to scientific-like or formulaic methods. It takes study, reflection and iteration (aka failures)
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Posted by JD on 07/01/09 at 3:58PM