My latest interactions column, Ships in the Night (Part II): Research Without Design? has just been published.

Our client had the right idea—get feedback on something unfinished in order to improve the finished product. Unfortunately, aspects of the object were so unfinished that people were unable to make the leap from the prototype (excuse me, appearance model) to the real thing, and the outcomes shifted away from usability and aesthetics toward high-level concept validation. Given that, there’s always the opportunity to create something specifically to provoke people around the deeper issues we want to explore.

To receive a copy of the article, send an email to steve AT portigal DOT com and (if you haven’t given us this info before) tell us your name, organization, and title. We’ll send you a PDF.

If you haven’t read Ships in the Night (Part I): Design Without Research?, let us know and we’ll send them both.

Related: Steve Portigal speaks at User Research Friday - Design and Research, Ships in the Night?

Also available

• Persona Non Grata
• Everybody’s Talkin’ At Me
• The Journey Is The Reward
• Hold Your Horses
• Living In The Overlap
• Some Different Approaches to Making Stuff
• Poets, Priests, and Politicians
• Interacting with Advertising

Tags: customers, design, feedback, prototyping, research, user research, users

• Lou Rosenfeld revisits an old engagement where the client sought to dissuade usage - What they told me was that they didn't really want to make it easy for veterans—those people risking their lives for their country—to learn about the health benefits that they were entitled to. And that taxpayers had committed to funding. All to save money—and for what??

  IT issue? Not. It was an issue of business model design, and this particular business model was shrouded in a sick morality emanating from the top levels of the VA's management structure. Absolutely immorally, shamefully, and horribly sick.

  [With the theme of persuasion, manipulation, and user-centeredness floating around lately, good to consider an example where the organization goals are 180 degrees from the user's supposed goals]

• Citations for California drivers not using hands-free are on the rise - Seems like there was good compliance when the law was first passed but the numbers are climbing back up. One might think the best way to drive adoption of a product/service/behavior is to make it legally mandated but people are citing the poor user experience with Bluetooth headsets as a reason/rationalization for ignoring the law. "Sometimes, it can be more dangerous to figure out your Bluetooth than just to pick up the phone."

Tags: architecture, bluetooth, California, car, chp, citation, design, drivers, driving, enforcement, headset, ia, influence, information, interaction, interface, law, legal, manipulation, navigation, persuasion, reliability, rosenfeld, site, ticket, usability

A fun read at Metropolis on the ‘good old days’ at Nelson & Company.

Irving Harper tells a story about developing his iconic Marshmallow sofa:

How did the Marshmallow sofa come about? One weekend, I thought about doing an upholstery unit, and wondered, Is there any way to do a sofa out of reproducible parts that could be done as if fitted out to a frame? I cooked up this model out of a checkers set, and I stuck the checkers disks on a metal frame, and it looked good to me. So I drew it up, brought it in, and that was the birth of it.

Harper’s story is testimony to the power of mocking up an idea. So when you or your team are in an idea-generating mode, go for it. Make ideas visible. Try things out. You never know where the exploration might lead…

Prototyping a body-mounted interface device using coat hanger, rubber bands, and Logitech mouse

Tags: body mounted interface, creativity, design, designers, George Nelson, innovation, interface, Irving Harper, Metropolis magazine, modernism, Nelson & Company, prototype, prototyping

• Denny's is trying to restake its claim as a nocturnal hot spot for young adults. - The restaurant chain has been trying to set a different scene for night owls. Between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. it pipes in rock and country music and it is scheduling after-concert parties for up-and-coming bands. It has added late-night menu items fashioned by well-known musicians including Rascal Flatts and Good Charlotte. On Tuesday, singer Jewel is slated to concoct a new Denny's menu item at a New York test kitchen.

  Denny's last year created the "Allnighter" program, which includes adopting emerging musicians and offering a "rockstar" menu for night patrons. It gives adoptees $1,000 in Denny's gift cards so they can eat while touring. Then, Denny's uses Twitter and MySpace to inform its target market of 18- to 24-year-olds when and where the adopted bands' after-parties will be held and when new menu items are added.

  The program itself hasn't been as big of a hit, though. The chain of more than 1,500 restaurants said late-night traffic has increased just 5%.

Tags: appeal, demographic, denny's, diner, eating, food, jewel, menu, music, nightspot, repositioning, restaurant, young

My EPIC 2009 workshop Moving from Data to Insights to Opportunities is now open for registration. It takes place September 1 in Chicago.

One of the most persistent factors limiting the impact of ethnography in business is that research projects often stop with a cataloging findings and implications rather than generating opportunities that directly enable the findings. How can designers and researchers work with ethnographic data to create new things for business to do?

Participants in this workshop will learn an effective framework for synthesizing raw data into insights, and then creatively using those insights to develop a range of business concepts that respond to those insights. While the framework includes a step to identify key filters that will ultimately prioritize across all generated concepts, the emphasis in this workshop will be to think as broadly as possible during ideation, truly strengthening the creative link between “data” and “action.” By the end of the workshop, participants will have developed a range of high-level concepts that respond to a business problem and integrate a fresh, contextual understanding of that problem.

This workshop is a lot of fun to lead and, as we’ve heard, fun and informative to participate in. Earlier this year it sold out at Interaction 09, and was enthusiastically received in its abbreviated format at San Francisco’s Interaction09 Redux and Steve recently presented BayCHI.

Hope to see you there!

Tags: Chicago, conference, epic, epic2009, ethnography, insights, research, synthesis, workshop

• Robert Fabricant of frogdesign considers whether understanding users means that design is or isn't persuasive/manipulative - How do we decide what the user really 'wants to achieve'? The fact is that there are a host of different influences that come to bear in any experience. And a host of different needs that drive user behavior. Designers are constantly making judgment calls about which 'needs' we choose to privilege in our designs. In fact, you could argue that this is the central function of design: to sort through the mess of user needs and prioritize the 'right' ones, the most valuable, meaningful…and profitable.

  But according to what criteria? These decisions, necessarily, value judgments, no matter how much design research you do. And few designers want to be accountable for these decisions. From that perspective, UCD, starts to seem a bit naive, possibly even a way to avoid accountability for these value judgments.

  [Obviously no easy answers here; even defining the terms for the discussion is challenging, but the dialog between Robert and others is provocative]

• Dave Blum, treasure hunt designer, offers 100 treasure hunts around the world - I was always a puzzle and a game kid. I had a friend when I was growing up in Millbrae, Mike Savasta, and he and I were just board game and card game fanatics. Monopoly, Life, Sorry, Stratego.

  In college, I played thousands of games of cribbage. I like the intellectual challenge, the analytical challenge. I'm very much a "play-it-by-ear" kind of guy, so I like a game where you have to think on your feet.

  After college, I lived in Japan for 3 1/2 years and taught English. Then I spent 11 months traveling through Asia and Europe, and when I came back to San Francisco, I worked in tourism for a while. I said, "I need to find a career that I really love." I thought if I could combine group work, travel, games and puzzles - that would be the ultimate job. I started Dr. Clue in 1995.

Tags: adventure, behavior, clue, collaboration, corporate, design, ethics, event, experience, game, influence, manipulation, persuasion, puzzle, research, training, ucd, users, writing

In Jimmyjane’s Sex Change Operation I described how Jimmyjane had used design to normalize and shift the meaning of sex and sexuality away from dirty. Although Jimmyjane isn’t mentioned specifically, this article further illuminates this cultural moment:

“What this tells us is we’ve reached a tipping point,” said Debby Herbenick, an author of the studies along with her Indiana University colleague Michael Reece. “Something once regarded as exotic has become commonplace.”

The surveys, conducted in April 2008 and paid for by Church & Dwight, which makes Trojan condoms and a line of vibrators, document vibrator use and the related sexual practices of 2,056 women and 1,047 men; 93 percent of those surveyed said they are heterosexual.

The researchers attribute the widespread use to easier availability and a cultural shift away from the bad ol’ boy, Triple-X-rated sex toy industry. Vibrators are now sold at Wal-Mart, 7-Eleven and CVS; new Internet sites for sex products feature middle-aged models and aim at mainstream couples. Several companies market sex toys to women as young as sorority sisters and as old as postmenopausal golden girls through Tupperware-style home parties.

“You can now buy your toothpaste, shampoo and vibrator at the local convenience store,” Dr. Herbenick said. “They’re not hidden in a dark corner of some adult store.”

This is the first vibrator research based on a sampling reflective of the nation’s demographic mix, so there is no means of authoritatively measuring changing use over time.

Tags: jimmyjane, sexuality, survey, vibrator

• Mini places last in J.D. Power quality study - but mfr. thinks this is a good thing? So what is "quality"? - Mini says it deliberately engineers quirks into its cars, like oddly placed dashboard controls or unusual interior lighting, that drag down its ratings in such studies. But Jim McDowell, vice president of Mini's U.S. operations, said those design features are central to the brand's personality.

  "Mini has some idiosyncrasies that we engineer into our cars. We want to make our cars remarkable little cars." McDowell attributed Mini's poor performance in J.D. Power's most recent study to design quirks like the windshield wiper control. In the Mini, it's a button that presses rather than a knob that turns. Its cars feature adjustable ambient light colors ­ not an option you're likely to find in your standard Dodge Ram pickup.

  J.D. Power says the top five problems reported in the overall study were wind noise, air conditioner or heater control problems, interior scuffing, audio control problems and brake noise.

Tags: auto, automobile, automotive, car, experience, interface, mini, problems, quality, vehicle

• Margo Jefferson's book On Michael Jackson - A thoughtful cultural criticism cum biography of the Gloved One, from 2006. I bought it after hearing her interviewed on NPR, and listening to her pull together so many cultural threads in looking at what Jackson did or didn't do and how he did or didn't do it was fascinating. Considering the "freak" that Jackson became in context with the history of black entertainment, minstrel shows, Mr. Bojangles dancing with Shirley Temple, etc. What it all has meant for so long and how to look at Jackson in that light, pretty interesting stuff. Admittedly, the book didn't live up to the excitement and thought provocation that the interview (which I sadly can not track down) on the radio had, but still a worthy read when you want to be topical but keep away from the tabloid-level discussions.

Tags: biography, black, celebrity, culture, entertainment, history, jacko, jackson, mj

Most companies would like their products and services to be something consumers have a relationship with; more than just a consumable good. Emotional relationships between people and things are one of the holy grails of product development.

Yet, in our research, we hear over and over from people that they simply don’t think this way about many of the products in their lives (particularly electronic goods).

Cars, however, are different. Cars get discussed fondly, wistfully, and passionately. They get named. They have histories.

As testament to cars’ tremendous resonance, look at the popularity of the Fast and Furious movies. And of the new Transformers film, which features vehicles as both heroes and villains, and which just bagged the highest weekday opening gross in movie history–despite being described (before the opening) by many in the media as a bad movie.

A number of factors about cars–perhaps the way they contribute to our personal histories, the level of complexity that lends them “personality,” the patina they acquire over time–transform them for many of us from mere objects into relationship material.

Camaro t-shirt, official licensed GM product, bought for $7.50 at Crossroads Trading used clothes

But products that are more towards the consumable end of the spectrum can also evoke emotions and create a sense of relationship. I think about Topps Bazooka bubble gum from my childhood–one of the most literally consumable products–and how evocative it remains, many years after I’ve ceased being a “user.”

Topps Bazooka Gum, photo by Sarah Lillian on Flickr

What’s it like for you? What are the ingredients that differentiate between just using something, and having a richer type of experience?

Related posts:

Object Love, Object Lust…
Packaging Surprise
Rage With The Machine
Miata Farewell

Tags: auto, automobile, Bazooka, cars, consumable goods, consumers, design, design research, emotional design, experience, Fast and Furious, movies, product development, relationships, research, Topps, Transformers

• AD BOY: Vintage Advertising with Character by Warren Dotz and Masud Husain - Their newest book; I haven't seen it yet!
• Meet Mr. Product: The Art of the Advertising Character by Warren Dotz and Masud Husain - Link to Google Books where you can browse most of the content. I've got a copy at home that I always wish I had time to dive into.

Tags: advertising, art, cartoons, character, characters, mascots, vintage

I’ve got a short article in the latest issue of Photo Reporter (a trade journal for the imaging industry)

These problems should be obvious, yet manufacturers consistently fail to take them into account in their product development efforts. “Ease of use” has become a buzz phrase commonly uttered in consumer electronics circles, but technology manufacturers have a different mindset than their customers. They seem to think people want an endless array of features, and they continue to market products based on that.

We’re finding consumers would trade a lot of the excess functionality built into their digital cameras, cell phones and other devices for a less complicated and ultimately more rewarding user experience. Perhaps now is the time to listen to consumers a little more closely. There’s a significant opportunity for companies to embrace the consumer’s burning desire for simplicity.

Tags: design, ease of use, feature bloat, interaction, photo, photography, usability, users

• My pictures from Amsterdam 2009 (377 of 'em!) - Here's the whole set on Flickr. I'll continue to blog highlights from the trip. Next up, Belgium.

Tags: amsterdam, dutch, Europe, holland, netherlands, noticing, observation, photography, photos

• In Recession, Strategy Shifts for Retail - It's hard to parse this piece; it's about a lot of cost-cutting stuff that is happening in retail but the tone suggests that these are innovative ways for companies to be more responsive (better customer service? better localization of products?) and integrated (linking the in-store and online experiences?). I'm skeptical and don't believe the concluding statement that this is happening because we're not spending in stores like we used to, it's too close to the whole "innovate your way out of a recession" talk and I don't think retail is an adaptable industry to take on a frame shift like that.
• An evolutionary perspective on what we display to others with our consumption (not clear how there's anything new here, though) - Instead of running focus groups and spinning theories,marketers could learn more by administering scientifically calibrated tests of intelligence and personality traits. If marketers understood biologists’ new calculations about animals’ “costly signaling,” they’d see that Harvard diplomas and iPhones send the same kind of signal as the ornate tail of a peacock.

  Sometimes the message is as simple as “I’ve got resources to burn,” the classic conspicuous waste demonstrated by the energy expended to lift a peacock’s tail or the fuel guzzled by a Hummer. But brand-name products aren’t just about flaunting transient wealth. The audience for our signals care more about the permanent traits measured in tests of intelligence and personality, as Dr. Miller explains in his new book, “Spent: Sex, Evolution and Consumer Behavior.”

Tags: biology, change, choice, consumption, display, economics, evolution, experience, innovation, marketing, message, presentation, recession, retail, self, shopping, signaling, store

• 'Magic Fingers Vibrating Bed' inventor dies at 92 - The inventor of the "Magic Fingers Vibrating Bed," which brought weary travelers 15 minutes of "tingling relaxation and ease" for a quarter in hotel rooms across America during its heyday as a pop culture icon in the 1960s and '70s, has died.
• Vending machines for Gold? - While it's just a plan at this point, it seems that the idea is more about disruption and promotion than simply "vending."
• Let’s Embrace Open-Mindedness - My article published at Johnny Holland, considering the challenges in living up to the standard we set for ourselves. And there's a story about cheese, too!
• Why some cultural products and styles die out faster than others - To investigate how cultural tastes change over time, Berger and Le Mens analyzed thousands of baby names from the past 100 years in France and the US. (Because there is less of an influence of technology or advertising on name choice, baby names provide a way to study how adoption depends on primarily internal factors.) The researchers found a consistent symmetry in the rise and fall of individual names; in other words, the longer it took for a name to become popular, the longer it took for the name to fade out of popularity, and thus the more staying power it had compared to names that quickly rose and fell. The effect was robust, occurring in both countries and across various time windows.

  According to the results, the quicker a cultural item rockets to popularity, the quicker it dies. This pattern occurs because people believe that items that are adopted quickly will become fads, leading them to avoid these items, thus causing these items to die out.

  (via Lone Gunman)

Tags: adoption, article, backlash, banking, bed, branding, business, comfort, commodity, consumerism, culture, design, economics, fad, gold, hotel, ideas, inventor, johnnyholland, learning, magic, marketing, massage, metal, motel, names, obituary, popularity, psychology, rejection, research, researcher, society, trading, trend, trends, user, value, vending, vibrate