Re: [IxDA Discuss] SEO and Usability
There are fundamental reasons that search of publicly-available specific information works better than pre-built structure. Setting up site navigation involves choices: - Which items to make visible and when - What to call the items Search cuts across both of these: - If the searcher gives priority to a lower-level category, the search will match when step-by-step navigation would hit a hiccup - If the searcher chooses a different name from the architect, the content may match anyway The times when search does not win are: - When privileges are required to make items visible, and the search engine isn't granted the same privileges as the user - When multiple distinct items are called by the same name This first factor explains why search within an e-mail archive is a killer app. The search engine in your e-mail has your privileges, so anything you can get e-mailed to yourself is searchable. If you are able to distinguish among the items in your e-mail, then they become findable too. Regarding serendipity, there are three phases to search: - Specifying criteria (and later broadening them based on actual or anticipated search results) - Narrowing the criteria (based on actual search results) - Selecting an item from among the search results Perhaps what you are looking for is there, but in a different way than you expect. Is there not serendipity even in filtering? That combined with idiosyncratic links within content can give us the appropriate surprises that we crave. Best wishes, Bruce Esrig On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 5:58 PM, stephanie . [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sorry for joining in on this late but I'm wondering what you folks think of eliminating browsable navigation on Web sites all together and just forcing users to use a search interface to locate what they are looking for. Songza (http://www.songza.com) is an example of this that does not allow users to browse, for example, a category such as Rock music. I've always been of the mindset that we should provide for different user habits but if the majority of users are moving towards search only, then perhaps my assumption should be re-evaluated. It makes me a bit sad to think that serendipity may be eventually lost. Any thoughts? Stephanie Walker Information Architect Austin, TX, USA Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
The UK also has a lot of vacancies for designers which I believe is demand outstripping supply, and we are starting to see a big increase in the number of UI/IxD jobs on the market too. However, we have a lot of the same laws regarding immigration as the US. For example, I would love to go to California for a year or 2 to work, but this is very unlikely as I am a British citizen and work visas are nearly impossible to come by. The same works in reverse for US citizens wanting to work here. I know many other designers who would love the opportunity to work in SV for a couple of years, who can't due to immigration laws. The value of going and working abroad, where different markets apply and the experience of seeing first hand the difference in cultures, can be huge in many ways... both in personal and professional terms. We have freedom of movement for workers in Europe and that means there are many multi-cultural design studios, personally I think this is great. It helps expand ideas and pull cultural diversity into design. So instead of going to work in SV, we go to work in Paris, Barcelona, London, Rome, etc. -Original Message- 3) Given the current state of the US economy/currency, fewer experienced professionals may be willing to move to the US from other countries. Here in Canada, the trend has actually reversed itself - the homecoming of expats previously living in the US is now on the rise. Add in the insanity of the US immigration system, and the cost-benefit analysis for prospective immigrants is much less compelling than it once was. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] hover based writing for touch surfaces
I am working on the thread, 'hover based writing for touch surfaces'. Any initiation in terms of pointers to great (hopefully conclusive) research, experiments, and articles will be great. Sincerely, Kunal Kapoor. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Mind controller?
This reminds me of the God's Law - Bill Buxton :) Are we ever going to break that threshold of our limited human capabilities? -sajid On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 9:15 PM, Nick Iozzo [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: These ideas I always find interesting, but will humans ever be ready for something like this? After all, we have the capacity to not hit that button... we do not have the capacity to Not think that action. Nick Iozzo Principal User Experience Architect tandemseven 847.452.7442 mobile [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.tandemseven.com/ From: David Malouf Sent: Wed 2/20/2008 7:10 AM To: IxDA Discuss Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Mind controller? A company called Emotiv has a mind controller device. Think something and that something becomes correlated to an action. it isn't as easy as say the movie Firefox (think in Russian!), but it is a start of calibrating brain waves to then say whenever this pattern occurs do this action. I doubt it is ready for firing missiles, yet. :) http://www.news.com/8301-13772_3-9874515-52.html?tag=nefd.top -- dave -- David Malouf http://synapticburn.com/ http://ixda.org/ http://motorola.com/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Help with navigation levels on website
Hello All, What do you do when you have four levels of navigation on your website? Some people told me to: * reduce the number of levels to three and put them like that at the top of the page (using tabs), others told me to * put the top level (or even the two top levels) at the top of the page (using tabs) and the other levels on the left hand side, and a third group suggested to * put the four levels on the left. What are your suggestions and where can I find tests/reports on this? Thanks in advance. Johan DISCLAIMER http://www.belgacom.be/maildisclaimer Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Help with navigation levels on website
On Feb 21, 2008, at 7:31 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What do you do when you have four levels of navigation on your website? Why do you have four levels? Perhaps the original approach that suggests four levels is incorrect and you should revisit the model you're using. Caveat: we've done some intranet work where we actually did have to have four levels—Intranet home/business unit/sub-unit/sub-unit second level. In this case, we created a primary level at the very top of the header to get up to the business unit and intranet home. The other two levels, those that applied to the sub-unit itself, were treated as normal navigation below the header. In most cases, however, if you've got four levels deep, you're probably using the wrong model and should look into more contextual based navigation and navigation models in the context of the body rather than traditional header/sidebar models. Cheers! Todd Zaki Warfel President, Design Researcher Messagefirst | Designing Information. Beautifully. -- Contact Info Voice: (215) 825-7423 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] AIM:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Blog: http://toddwarfel.com -- In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Help with navigation levels on website
On Feb 21, 2008, at 8:28 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thanks for the quick answer. Here is the explanation why we ended up with four levels: First level: type of customers Second level: type of products Third level: products Fourth level: details of products I think we can probably drop the last level but the other three we really need. Without seeing an example it's hard to provide an accurate recommendation. However, have you considered parametric navigation models like you'll find at the left on many ecommerce sites or eBay? Cheers! Todd Zaki Warfel President, Design Researcher Messagefirst | Designing Information. Beautifully. -- Contact Info Voice: (215) 825-7423 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] AIM:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Blog: http://toddwarfel.com -- In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Help with navigation levels on website
Thanks for the quick answer. Here is the explanation why we ended up with four levels: First level: type of customers Second level: type of products Third level: products Fourth level: details of products Johan, You should be able to remove the 'customers' from the navigation straight away. Presumably that information is a once-only choice...? If you have a customer at a particular computer (a work computer, say) you can set their type in a cookie / site DB once, and then you've removed the need to have the first level entirely. Someone ordering business products is probably always going to be ordering business parts (unless you're working on a site like amazon), in which case the user will WANT to put the effort in to change accounts - I don't want to order personal things on my corporate card vice versa... Is that sort of situation applicable to you? Cheers, Alex. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Help with navigation levels on website
Hi Todd, Thanks for the quick answer. Here is the explanation why we ended up with four levels: First level: type of customers Second level: type of products Third level: products Fourth level: details of products I think we can probably drop the last level but the other three we really need. Johan From: Todd Zaki Warfel [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 21 February 2008 13:57 To: DERMAUT Johan (ITN/ASI) Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Help with navigation levels on website On Feb 21, 2008, at 7:31 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What do you do when you have four levels of navigation on your website? Why do you have four levels? Perhaps the original approach that suggests four levels is incorrect and you should revisit the model you're using. Caveat: we've done some intranet work where we actually did have to have four levels-Intranet home/business unit/sub-unit/sub-unit second level. In this case, we created a primary level at the very top of the header to get up to the business unit and intranet home. The other two levels, those that applied to the sub-unit itself, were treated as normal navigation below the header. In most cases, however, if you've got four levels deep, you're probably using the wrong model and should look into more contextual based navigation and navigation models in the context of the body rather than traditional header/sidebar models. Cheers! Todd Zaki Warfel President, Design Researcher Messagefirst | Designing Information. Beautifully. -- Contact Info Voice: (215) 825-7423 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] AIM: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Blog: http://toddwarfel http://toddwarfel/ .com -- In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not. DISCLAIMER http://www.belgacom.be/maildisclaimer Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] SEO and Usability
YAY! I was hoping that I would be able to catch up to this conversation. For me, it is about control. In navigating to desired information, the IA or whomever constructed the site, controls the experience with the customer making step-by-step choices based on what the site chooses to make available. With search, the user control the experience, plugging their oftentimes ambiguous terms into a box and getting a list of seemingly appropriate results right back. Google further simplified this process by taking away a lot of the programmatic arcana (Boolean bugaboo that few were able to use effectively) and now the Google experience drive search UX. All of that typed, Jared Spool will tell us (fingers crossed at my end) that customers are more successful if they navigate through the information space than if they trust the information seeking equivalent of crack cocaine usually found in the upper right corner of a site's masthead. I believe that this is because customers don't know what they don't know at the outset of their search. As the customer navigates through an information space, their information need become contextualized within that space and clearer enabling them to make more effective choices and ultimately resolve their need. That's the Disney ending at least. Web search used to work that way when Northern Lights and Alta Vista presented their cornucopias and folks would click around and make discoveries and figure out that maybe they were looking for the wrong thing or they gave up on expecting a machine to understand their need and asked a fellow thought processing biped (hopefully a reference librarian because they totally ROCK!). For me, serendipity is getting lucky with the I Feel Lucky button, using search engines to help me find something that I know is there (i.e. the IxDA website) and will include the search engine that takes my flailing around and makes sense of it by presenting results that it thinks I will be interested in based on what I've told it so far. I believe that this is closer than we might think. As far as I'm concerned, the only time search doesn't work is when we, the thought processing bipeds, do not avail ourselves of every opportunity presented to describe our content to the machine. Search is far from perfect. It is however extremely complex and robust and a terrific tool, not thoughtful and terrific nonetheless. As for its flaws? I believe that they lie...Not in our stars but in ourselves. marianne [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bruce Esrig Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 2:04 AM To: stephanie .; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] SEO and Usability There are fundamental reasons that search of publicly-available specific information works better than pre-built structure. Setting up site navigation involves choices: - Which items to make visible and when - What to call the items Search cuts across both of these: - If the searcher gives priority to a lower-level category, the search will match when step-by-step navigation would hit a hiccup - If the searcher chooses a different name from the architect, the content may match anyway The times when search does not win are: - When privileges are required to make items visible, and the search engine isn't granted the same privileges as the user - When multiple distinct items are called by the same name This first factor explains why search within an e-mail archive is a killer app. The search engine in your e-mail has your privileges, so anything you can get e-mailed to yourself is searchable. If you are able to distinguish among the items in your e-mail, then they become findable too. Regarding serendipity, there are three phases to search: - Specifying criteria (and later broadening them based on actual or anticipated search results) - Narrowing the criteria (based on actual search results) - Selecting an item from among the search results Perhaps what you are looking for is there, but in a different way than you expect. Is there not serendipity even in filtering? That combined with idiosyncratic links within content can give us the appropriate surprises that we crave. Best wishes, Bruce Esrig On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 5:58 PM, stephanie . [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sorry for joining in on this late but I'm wondering what you folks think of eliminating browsable navigation on Web sites all together and just forcing users to use a search interface to locate what they are looking for. Songza (http://www.songza.com) is an example of this that does not allow users to browse, for example, a category such as Rock music. I've always been of the mindset that we should provide for different user habits but if the majority of users are moving towards search only, then perhaps my assumption should be re-evaluated. It makes me a bit sad to think that serendipity may be eventually lost. Any thoughts?
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
I'm wonder, too, what kind of opportunities are out there for consultant designers like me? There are lots of jobs out there, but how difficult is it to do interaction design when you're not part of the organization? I know we've got plenty of consultants on this list, so I guess my question is for them, but also for the people who are hiring. -- Kim + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Kim Bieler Graphic Design www.kbgd.com c. 240-476-3129 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Interaction Design and Theatre
Might also see if Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel might be useful for you... http://www.tauzero.com/Brenda_Laurel/DesignResearch/DesignResearch.html ariel ~ -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jeff Howard Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 9:36 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Interaction Design and Theatre Here's another example that connects Interaction Design and Theatre. The London premiere of Peter Pan in 1904. Captian Hook has poisoned Tinkerbell and she's near death. Peter Pan turns to the audience and implores them to clap if they believe in fairies in order to save her life. Today that sort of interaction isn't uncommon (American Idol) but it took a lot of guts to pull it off in 1904. // jeff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26112 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Help with navigation levels on website
I agree with Alexander. You should be able to take the customer category out of the navigation entirely. A few suggestions: - Color code the banner to indicate which customer area user is in - Or simply include the customer type as a running head at the very top (small, discreet) - You'll presumably have a search feature, so users can still find products that aren't categorized under their customer type. - Detail of product may not require fixed navigation. As an example, check out www.bestbuy.com. They've got two levels of navigation across the top, but after that, everything is handled in breadcrumbs. -- Kim + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Kim Bieler Graphic Design www.kbgd.com www.stargazertees.com c. 240-476-3129 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Help with navigation levels on website
Whatever you do, don't create tabs within tabs within tabs... On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 9:05 AM, Kim Bieler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I agree with Alexander. You should be able to take the customer category out of the navigation entirely. A few suggestions: - Color code the banner to indicate which customer area user is in - Or simply include the customer type as a running head at the very top (small, discreet) - You'll presumably have a search feature, so users can still find products that aren't categorized under their customer type. - Detail of product may not require fixed navigation. As an example, check out www.bestbuy.com. They've got two levels of navigation across the top, but after that, everything is handled in breadcrumbs. -- Kim + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Kim Bieler Graphic Design www.kbgd.com www.stargazertees.com c. 240-476-3129 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Russell Wilson Vice President of Product Design, NetQoS Blog: http://www.dexodesign.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
What I worry about is what we saw in boom 1.0, which was a ton of unqualified people taking on the title, creating a bad reputation, then returning to cab driving when the crash comes. OTOH, I was one of those under qualified people in the first wave, so maybe I should be more generous. hee. [Shameless plug] The job postings on jobs.boxesandarrows.com are extremely accurate. Less of them, but they are all aimed at the right demographic and thus have high relevancy. W Evans wrote: And I would love to blame the quality of the job posting sites. There search engines are terrible. Just now, I search in Washington DC Information Architect (86 results - only 3 were for IA) Interaction Designer (41 results, only 1 for IxD) Interface Designer (10 results, only one for ID) Some of the things that come back in results are amazing. Search for IA and get senior java architect as a high ranked result? On Feb 20, 2008 2:26 PM, David Shaw [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Andrei, I think you are looking at a number of different factors that are causing this. From my point of view, I would love to move not only to the Bay area, but NY or Boston where there are tons of openings. However, the cost of living there is so outrageously expensive, it doesn't pay for me to relocate (I've got a house with a reasonable mortgage, as well as a family to consider). It might be that many of the more experienced designers (like myself) see the same issues. I would take a huge loss of quality of life if I went. Just my 2 cents. David On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 11:06 AM, Andrei Herasimchuk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Just a quick question: Where are all the interface and software designers in Silicon Valley? Has everyone just packed up and left or what? I see more job listings, postings and calls for resumes and yet there seem to be even fewer people to fill the jobs than ever before. I used to have trouble hiring at Adobe back in the late 1990s mostly due to the high experience and training requirements needed to work on software at that level, but that was before there was an influx of people and talent into software related products, especially from the web. And yet, now it seems that there's an even bigger gap in the designer to available job ratio than every before. Everyone I know is having trouble filling hiring requirements. Is it that the job requirements needed to get hired are too high? Not enough trained designers? Or is it something only happening in Silicon Valley? Browse the job listings and postings everywhere from companies in Silicon Valley and it seems we have a distinct lack of designers ready to fill all the openings. Opinions? -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Art provokes thinking, design solves problems w: http://www.davidshaw.info Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Christina Wodtke Principal Instigator 415-577-2550 Business :: http://www.cucinamedia.com Magazine :: http://www.boxesandarrows.com Product :: http://www.publicsquarehq.com Personal :: http://www.eleganthack.com Book :: http://www.blueprintsfortheweb.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
On Feb 20, 2008, at 12:05 PM, dave malouf wrote: 2) Like what David Shaw said. You've gotta be nutz, coocoo, and just insane to leave anyplace including NYC and move to SF unless you were guaranteed something between $150k-$200k, and HUGE relocation package upwards of $20-$30k. Having done relocates to both coasts I'm pretty familiar with what it takes at this point. Wow. I want to work where you work! Most interaction designers I know in the Bay Area don't make anywhere close to this amount. I'd say about half of this ($75-100k) is about average. I moved to SF in my mid-30s (with a family I should add) and yes, I won't be buying a house anytime soon, but if what's important to you is doing really interesting work surrounded by a high calibre interaction design community, the Bay Area is hard to beat. The access you get to some amazing people and companies (startups and giants alike) is almost unreal. In a few block radius from my office there is frog, Twitter, Yahoo labs, Cooper, Hot, IDEO, Six Apart, Technorati, Adobe, Nokia...the list goes on and on. Location still matters. Dan Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] hover based writing for touch surfaces
I can't speak to any research on the topic, but this is one of the main reasons I never bought a tablet computer (even though I really like the concept). I found it very unintuitive to have the pen start drawing before it touched the screen. I've seen the same behavior on drawing tablets. I never figured out if this is an artifact of the technology being used or a purposeful design decision. -Jeff On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 9:16 PM, Kunal Kapoor [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am working on the thread, 'hover based writing for touch surfaces'. Any initiation in terms of pointers to great (hopefully conclusive) research, experiments, and articles will be great. Sincerely, Kunal Kapoor. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Thanks, Jeff Jeff Axup, Ph.D. Principal Consultant, Mobile Community Design Consulting, San Diego Research: Mobile Group Research Methods, Social Networks, Group Usability E-mail: axup at userdesign.com Blog: http://mobilecommunitydesign.com Moblog: http://memeaddict.blogspot.com Designers mine the raw bits of tomorrow. They shape them for the present day. - Bruce Sterling Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
1. BA is THE place for people like us to hang, so it would be fan-fricken-tastic if the job board also allowed anon or not so anon postings of resumes just for people in our field - then charge through the nose for recruiters etc to come in and take a peak knowing it was a closed community. Hell - I would pay a premium to list my resume etc on BA knowing that only recruiters actually looking for me and not a java engineer were likely to contact me. I *Hate* their spam! On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:21 AM, Christina Wodtke [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What I worry about is what we saw in boom 1.0, which was a ton of unqualified people taking on the title, creating a bad reputation, then returning to cab driving when the crash comes. OTOH, I was one of those under qualified people in the first wave, so maybe I should be more generous. hee. [Shameless plug] The job postings on jobs.boxesandarrows.com are extremely accurate. Less of them, but they are all aimed at the right demographic and thus have high relevancy. W Evans wrote: And I would love to blame the quality of the job posting sites. There search engines are terrible. Just now, I search in Washington DC Information Architect (86 results - only 3 were for IA) Interaction Designer (41 results, only 1 for IxD) Interface Designer (10 results, only one for ID) Some of the things that come back in results are amazing. Search for IA and get senior java architect as a high ranked result? On Feb 20, 2008 2:26 PM, David Shaw [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Andrei, I think you are looking at a number of different factors that are causing this. From my point of view, I would love to move not only to the Bay area, but NY or Boston where there are tons of openings. However, the cost of living there is so outrageously expensive, it doesn't pay for me to relocate (I've got a house with a reasonable mortgage, as well as a family to consider). It might be that many of the more experienced designers (like myself) see the same issues. I would take a huge loss of quality of life if I went. Just my 2 cents. David On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 11:06 AM, Andrei Herasimchuk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Just a quick question: Where are all the interface and software designers in Silicon Valley? Has everyone just packed up and left or what? I see more job listings, postings and calls for resumes and yet there seem to be even fewer people to fill the jobs than ever before. I used to have trouble hiring at Adobe back in the late 1990s mostly due to the high experience and training requirements needed to work on software at that level, but that was before there was an influx of people and talent into software related products, especially from the web. And yet, now it seems that there's an even bigger gap in the designer to available job ratio than every before. Everyone I know is having trouble filling hiring requirements. Is it that the job requirements needed to get hired are too high? Not enough trained designers? Or is it something only happening in Silicon Valley? Browse the job listings and postings everywhere from companies in Silicon Valley and it seems we have a distinct lack of designers ready to fill all the openings. Opinions? -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Art provokes thinking, design solves problems w: http://www.davidshaw.info Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Christina Wodtke Principal Instigator 415-577-2550 Business :: http://www.cucinamedia.com Magazine :: http://www.boxesandarrows.com Product :: http://www.publicsquarehq.com Personal :: http://www.eleganthack.com Book :: http://www.blueprintsfortheweb.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- ~ will No matter how beautiful,
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
Wow. I want to work where you work! Most interaction designers I know in the Bay Area don't make anywhere close to this amount. I'd say about half of this ($75-100k) is about average. Therein lies the problem in the Bay Area Dan. How much is proximity to all those great places/people/companies worth? Assume you live in a city with a base cost of living index of 100, pay 1800 per month for rent or mortgage, and make $100K -- and the same job in SV/SF pays $100K, but the cost of living index is 132, you can naturally see why it would cause huge shortages. Of course - in good times like these - SF grows in our sector faster than most other regions b/c of all the access to capital to fund new ideas. I would seriously consider moving someday, but not for an effective pay cut. On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:26 AM, Dan Saffer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Feb 20, 2008, at 12:05 PM, dave malouf wrote: 2) Like what David Shaw said. You've gotta be nutz, coocoo, and just insane to leave anyplace including NYC and move to SF unless you were guaranteed something between $150k-$200k, and HUGE relocation package upwards of $20-$30k. Having done relocates to both coasts I'm pretty familiar with what it takes at this point. Wow. I want to work where you work! Most interaction designers I know in the Bay Area don't make anywhere close to this amount. I'd say about half of this ($75-100k) is about average. I moved to SF in my mid-30s (with a family I should add) and yes, I won't be buying a house anytime soon, but if what's important to you is doing really interesting work surrounded by a high calibre interaction design community, the Bay Area is hard to beat. The access you get to some amazing people and companies (startups and giants alike) is almost unreal. In a few block radius from my office there is frog, Twitter, Yahoo labs, Cooper, Hot, IDEO, Six Apart, Technorati, Adobe, Nokia...the list goes on and on. Location still matters. Dan Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- ~ will No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it. Alan Cooper - Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems --- will evans user experience architect [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
That seems to be the crux of the need, doesn't it? The right people who at least know how the skills fit together for particular roles (or even how roles can be ambiguous and amorphous*) for the sake of the companies, appropriate recruiters and most importantly to the craftspeople seeking and being sought. Are there recruiters, search engines, job banks, etc. with people who are specific enough to the industry? Where do the IA needed with 10 years Illustrator and J2EE hands-on experience posts come from? Do the UX-related people not have any oversight or even input into these job postings if it's their HR people making them? Scott *triple word score On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:33 AM, W Evans [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 1. BA is THE place for people like us to hang, so it would be fan-fricken-tastic if the job board also allowed anon or not so anon postings of resumes just for people in our field - then charge through the nose for recruiters etc to come in and take a peak knowing it was a closed community. Hell - I would pay a premium to list my resume etc on BA knowing that only recruiters actually looking for me and not a java engineer were likely to contact me. I *Hate* their spam! -- 'Life' plus 'significance' = magic. ~ Grant Morrison Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
On Feb 21, 2008, at 7:26 AM, Dan Saffer wrote: Location still matters. Just to follow up on my own comment (hee), here's an excerpt from Richard Creative Class Florida's new book, Who's Your City? How the Creative Economy Is Making Where You Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life. http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/123/in-praise-of-spikes.html It's a mantra of the age of globalization that place doesn't matter. Technology has leveled the global playing field--the world is flat. When the world is flat, says New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, you can innovate without having to emigrate. It's a compelling notion--but it's wrong. Today's global economy is spiky. What's more, the tallest spikes, the cities and regions that drive the world economy, are growing ever higher while the valleys, with little economic activity, recede still further. ... Geographic concentration encourages innovation because ideas flow more freely, are honed more sharply, and can be put into practice more quickly when innovators, implementers, and financial backers are in constant contact. Creative people cluster not simply because they like to be around one another or prefer cosmopolitan centers with lots of amenities (though both things tend to be true). They cluster because density brings such powerful productivity advantages, economies of scale, and knowledge spillovers. ... The main difference between now and a couple of decades ago is that the economic and social distance between the peaks has gotten smaller. People in spiky places are often more connected to one another, even from half a world away, than they are to people in their own backyards. This peak-to-peak connectivity is accelerated by the highly mobile, global creative class, about 150 million people, who migrate freely among the world's leading cities--places such as London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Meanwhile, second-tier cities from Detroit to Nagoya to Bangalore are locked in potentially devastating competition for jobs, people, and investment. And in the so-called developing world, millions upon millions of people whose culture and traditions are being ripped apart by globalization lack the education, skills, or mobility to connect to the world economy. They are stuck in places that are falling further and further behind. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
Dan, when I read this: Geographic concentration encourages innovation because ideas flow more freely, are honed more sharply, and can be put into practice more quickly when innovators, implementers, and financial backers are in constant contact. Creative people cluster not simply because they like to be around one another or prefer cosmopolitan centers with lots of amenities (though both things tend to be true). They cluster because density brings such powerful productivity advantages, economies of scale, and knowledge spillovers. I couldn't help think how many IxDers found Espresso Gallery in Savannah last week (2 weeks ago? Sad!)... On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:49 AM, Dan Saffer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Feb 21, 2008, at 7:26 AM, Dan Saffer wrote: Location still matters. Just to follow up on my own comment (hee), here's an excerpt from Richard Creative Class Florida's new book, Who's Your City? How the Creative Economy Is Making Where You Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life. http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/123/in-praise-of-spikes.html It's a mantra of the age of globalization that place doesn't matter. Technology has leveled the global playing field--the world is flat. When the world is flat, says New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, you can innovate without having to emigrate. It's a compelling notion--but it's wrong. Today's global economy is spiky. What's more, the tallest spikes, the cities and regions that drive the world economy, are growing ever higher while the valleys, with little economic activity, recede still further. ... Geographic concentration encourages innovation because ideas flow more freely, are honed more sharply, and can be put into practice more quickly when innovators, implementers, and financial backers are in constant contact. Creative people cluster not simply because they like to be around one another or prefer cosmopolitan centers with lots of amenities (though both things tend to be true). They cluster because density brings such powerful productivity advantages, economies of scale, and knowledge spillovers. ... The main difference between now and a couple of decades ago is that the economic and social distance between the peaks has gotten smaller. People in spiky places are often more connected to one another, even from half a world away, than they are to people in their own backyards. This peak-to-peak connectivity is accelerated by the highly mobile, global creative class, about 150 million people, who migrate freely among the world's leading cities--places such as London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Meanwhile, second-tier cities from Detroit to Nagoya to Bangalore are locked in potentially devastating competition for jobs, people, and investment. And in the so-called developing world, millions upon millions of people whose culture and traditions are being ripped apart by globalization lack the education, skills, or mobility to connect to the world economy. They are stuck in places that are falling further and further behind. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- ~ will No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it. Alan Cooper - Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems --- will evans user experience architect [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
On Feb 21, 2008, at 7:42 AM, W Evans wrote: Therein lies the problem in the Bay Area Dan. How much is proximity to all those great places/people/companies worth? Assume you live in a city with a base cost of living index of 100, pay 1800 per month for rent or mortgage, and make $100K -- and the same job in SV/SF pays $100K, but the cost of living index is 132, you can naturally see why it would cause huge shortages. Of course - in good times like these - SF grows in our sector faster than most other regions b/ c of all the access to capital to fund new ideas. I would seriously consider moving someday, but not for an effective pay cut. I think you have to think about it as an investment in your career. It's always better in the long run to be a big fish in a big pond than a big fish in a small pond. In an area with limited mobility between good jobs, you are likely to eventually hit a ceiling and its accompanying salary cap. In places like SF/SV, Tokyo, London, New York, etc. the ceiling is much higher. So yes, initially, you are screwed by the cost of living, but eventually, because of the connections you make and the mobility you have, you will likely do better in the long run. That's the hope, at least. :) Dan Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
I get to see a lot of good interaction design shops in the US. Smaller shops, 5 to 30 people. Today, it simply doesn't matter where you are if you are good. In fact, if you are good (and can run a small business and develop a pipeline) it's an almost universal truth that you're going to be better off running your own shop. All that great work that folks get by being in SV? The shops in Oklahoma City, Austin and even Omaha get those calls too. I see it every day and I see companies try to BUY those shops in whole because they are having such a hard time hiring design talent. This is a hard thing to see in a world of NDAs and projects that never see the light of day but I'm probably in a unique position in my role in that I get to see this so I thought it might be helpful to share. The good news is that IxD is incredibly valuable right now. The bad news is it won't stay that way if we can't find a way to grow the capacity of the discipline. Inherently I think a lot of good designers know this and if you're in the enterprise and/or a corporate environment it can sometimes be hard to procure IxD talent. Please note I'm not I'm not saying that there aren't great opportunities in the enterprise or corporate environments (it's where I am too), just that it's a harder and more nuanced sell and even I'm drawn to allure of the small agency these days. A few years ago I too considered a relocation to SV and when I did the math it just didn't make sense. As a more mature designer with a family of three children and wife that just stopped working I just couldn't make the math work (I also live in an inner ring suburb of Chicago which has crazy prices too so I'm already coming at this from a warped perspective, NYC, LA and SV might be the only places more expensive). The challenge with places like the Bay Area and (increasingly) NYC and Seattle is not getting started there, it's settling there. Once you want to buy a house, have kids, etc. things spiral out of control quickly. In fact if you want to buy a modest house in Silicon Valley (and by modest I mean standards the rest of the US would apply--a few thousand square feet for the house and modest lot size like 50 feet by 150 feet) you're going to be looking to spend from 750k for what I would consider a complete dump and upwards of 1 million for something that would afford a nice quality of life. That house where you'd WANT to live? We'll the sky's the limit. (These are based on my own experience in looking around the Valley. A 1400 square foot Eichler for a million bucks in Sunnyvale was not getting my family too excited about a move to California. I think David M is being a bit kind too, I'm not sure the salary ranges he's quoted would even get you a middle-class lifestyle in SV these days if you've got a family. But let's not sell this short. Places like New York, SV and (increasingly) Austin, Seattle, Ann Arbor are expensive because these ecosystems and that proximity IS important and VALUABLE. If you're a young designer getting started I think it's a GREAT idea to spend a few years in one of these places to get your skills pulled together. Although today I would argue that doing a turn in Asia for a few years is equally if not more valuable. Chris Bernard Microsoft User Experience Evangelist [EMAIL PROTECTED] 630.530.4208 Office 312.925.4095 Mobile Blog: www.designthinkingdigest.com Design: www.microsoft.com/design Tools: www.microsoft.com/expression Community: http://www.visitmix.com The future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed. William Gibson -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Hoekman, Jr. Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 7:24 PM To: Andrei Herasimchuk Cc: IxDA Discuss Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers? Not to take away from the very real issue of what the cost of living here is and how it puts a strain on people, but it certainly doesn't require earning $150K to $200K a year. Depends on your lifestyle. For example, $100k can do significantly more for you in Arizona than $150k can in Silicon Valley or SFO. When I explored positions in SV, I realized very quickly that I would be paying twice as much money to live in an apartment half the size of my house-and that was just the beginning. In the end, it just wasn't worth it. The other factor, though, was the thought of becoming a sort of cog in the machine in SV. Working for a big company like Apple or Google, you can lose your whole identity. At Apple, for example, they wholly condemn the idea of going out and speaking at conferences unless your name is Steve, and I was told outright that my speaking schedule would have to come to an untimely end. I couldn't see sacrificing all the great things I get to do as a consultant to work at one of the bigs. Again, not worth it. And as far as opportunities go, well, let's just say I'm doing just dandy living
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
Regarding the comment on living in NYC: The same goes for us in NYC! Rents in Manhattan for a 250 sq ft studio are easily $1900 or more. A two bedroom apt in a good neighborhood (with good schools) easily costs $850K or more. My younger brother lives in Scottsdale, AZ. He owns a nice, two level house for what our 1 bdrm apt costs! New York City does NOT have to be an expensive place to live, and can be VERY reasonable! You can pay $ 8,000.00 per month for an average 2 bedroom in the West Village Manhattan, or you could pay $ 1500.00 for a nice 2 bedroom in Bay Ridge Brooklyn, (20 mins to Manhattan). And if $1500 is too much for you, you could buy a 2 bedroom Coop in Flatbush Brooklyn for around $220 k. Note both Brooklyn neighbourhoods have great food, great subways, lots of amenities, and Bay Ridge is right on the water, with great public schools. NYC can be very affordable and fantastic to live in, it's called move to Brooklyn, (which is way cooler then Manhattan now anyways). And if Brooklyn is too expensive move to Queens, a little more boring, but you can knock another 25% off the rent. Keep in mind these places are within a 20 min subway ride to Manhattan, safe, better food then Manhattan, often better clubs and bars and parks. In the 5 Burroughs of New York only 1 is really expensive, and that's Manhattan, (unless of course you want to move to Harlem in Manhattan, very cool at $2 + k for a 2 bdrm, or by Columbia University around the same price). Give me a shout if you want to find a mega deal great neighbourhood in NYC. -- Joseph Rich Rogan President UX/UI Inc. http://www.jrrogan.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] SEO and Usability
I just visited Songza and was completely stymied. After clicking around bit, I had that sinking sensation of Oh. I get it, that's what they're trying to do here. And the only reason I even got that far was because I was in Investigation Mode. Had I stumbled across this site on my own, I never would have guessed that all the functionality offered by Songza actually existed. They're borrowing a bunch from Google, which is fine, but they may have actually gone overboard with the whole simplification thing. Also, several of the interactive controls are so cutesy/clever that I'm way too conscious of the hand of the designer, something that was rampant with the Flashturbation sites of the 90's. As a result, I'm left wondering who the site is for. Is this one of those if they're not smart enough to *get* it, they shouldn't *be* here sites? Overall, the sense I get from Songza is that a refreshingly forward-thinking businessperson got together with a really talented designer and they went for it. Great! Unfortunately it also feels like a seasoned info architect was missing from the mix...someone who would have pointed out that however uncool and irritating it may be, there are still some very real principals about users that need to be accounted for...such as non-directed search. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] JOB: User Experience Specialist: Philadelphia area: Recruiter: Long term contract
The User Experience Specialist is responsible for designing optimized user experience strategies and solutions for websites and other digital products such as: email, online advertising, etc. On various projects or during different project phases, the User Experience Specialist will act as a business analyst, researcher, usability test coordinator, information architect and/or interaction designer. Responsibilities: * Participate in client meetings and review of business requirements and digital strategy documentation in order to garner and document user needs and appropriate site functionality * Work with digital strategists and Account Services to help in definition of target audiences * Review and analyze client and competitor Web sites - and other digital products, such as e-mails, online advertising, etc. - to report expert findings on user experience effectiveness and provide recommendations * Create a user experience vision for Web sites and other digital products based on business requirements, user needs and site strategy * Create conception diagrams, content outlines, interaction design flows, site maps, wireframes, functional requirements and other functional design documents * Work with creative teams to ensure user experience vision has been translated into site design and content * Work with development teams to ensure that site functions according to the specifications and follows the user experience vision * Work with digital strategists, account services and/or partners, organization of and/or participation in usability testing sessions, online testing or other forms of user research * Document user research results and/or strategic recommendations based on this research * Create user personas and scenarios * Work with team members on implementation of online media tactics * Work with other team members to create online media plans and strategies * Work with team members to optimize campaigns over all media Qualifications: * Bachelor's degree and significant professional experience in Web strategy and user-centered design * Minimum of 3-5 years of relevant experience, ideally as an information architect, interaction designer, user experience architect and/or user interface designer (or similar role) * Significant experience with user-centered design processes and techniques; knowledge of user experience and human computer interaction theories and methodologies * Experience with user experience design of diverse Web application types, ideally including Web 2.0; preference for experience with other digital product types, such as e-mail, RSS feeds, etc. * Knowledge of and experience with user research methodologies and techniques * Strong interest in and capacity to do research and keep abreast of changing UX and IA trends * Familiarity with accessibility and Section 508 standards * Thorough knowledge of current Web and user interface standards * Strong working knowledge of design software needed for information architecture and interaction design (e.g., Visio) * Preference for basic technical understanding of Internet-related technologies * Ability to work on multiple projects simultaneously and very detail-oriented * Ability to communicate effectively with diverse internal and external constituents, many of which have no knowledge of user experience or information architecture * Strong writing and presentation skills and must be a self-starter, team player, and client-focused * Past agency experience a plus For more information, contact: Meg Metz | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | (215) 545-1600 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
I second the vote for Brooklyn! I've lived there on two separate occasions, the first time in Brooklyn Heights (just one subway stop away from downtown) and the next in Cobble Hill. In both cases I was mere minutes from work, mere steps to the supermarket and great shops restaurants (in one case one of the top 5 in the whole city - the Grocery) and decent parking (well, in Cobble Hill). They were both family neighborhoods, much quieter than anything you'd find in Manhattan, and both were very reasonable. In Cobble Hill my wife and I rented a 4-room railroad apartment that was on the parlor floor of a turn-of-the-century brownstone (read: great plaster moldings, parquet floors, pocket doors, etc.). In general, we loved our neighborhood so much that when we do return to the city (fairly frequently) we spend the vast majority of our time in Brooklyn. - Doug :-) .. ... Doug Brashear Director, Information Architecture NavigationArts 7901 Jones Branch Drive, Suite 400 McLean, VA 22102 Tel: 703.584.8933 Mob: 703.725.8031 Fax: 703.584.8921 http://www.navigationarts.com Architects of the User Experience Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
I live in Park Slope (need the green) and even though I love Brooklyn, I've fantasized about what it would be like to live in the Carolinas or Seattle (if certain salary issues got resolved). Just curious, why did you hate NC? Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
I'd argue that the Bay area is affordable and one can buy a home (given the current real estate market here), though your comfort level will not be as good as other areas in the country and you're going to make sacrifices about areas where you'd like to live versus areas where you can afford to live. I moved out of state for a year to North Carolina and hated it. The Bay area offers designers amazing career opportunities, rich cultural institutions, great weather, great education, etc. At this point I would not consider moving anywhere else just because I'm enjoying life here too much. - Original Message From: Dan Saffer [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: IxDA Discuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 7:26:08 AM Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers? On Feb 20, 2008, at 12:05 PM, dave malouf wrote: 2) Like what David Shaw said. You've gotta be nutz, coocoo, and just insane to leave anyplace including NYC and move to SF unless you were guaranteed something between $150k-$200k, and HUGE relocation package upwards of $20-$30k. Having done relocates to both coasts I'm pretty familiar with what it takes at this point. Wow. I want to work where you work! Most interaction designers I know in the Bay Area don't make anywhere close to this amount. I'd say about half of this ($75-100k) is about average. I moved to SF in my mid-30s (with a family I should add) and yes, I won't be buying a house anytime soon, but if what's important to you is doing really interesting work surrounded by a high calibre interaction design community, the Bay Area is hard to beat. The access you get to some amazing people and companies (startups and giants alike) is almost unreal. In a few block radius from my office there is frog, Twitter, Yahoo labs, Cooper, Hot, IDEO, Six Apart, Technorati, Adobe, Nokia...the list goes on and on. Location still matters. Dan Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
Dan said: Today's global economy is spiky. What's more, the tallest spikes, the cities and regions that drive the world economy, are growing ever higher while the valleys, with little economic activity, recede still further. Very true. A few years ago, much was made of the fact that Verizon had established the first statewide fiber optic network here in West Virginia. It was the backbone of a network, not a full-fledged neural network, of course. The same economies of scale that historically prevented travel through some of this state's rugged terrain, and the same factors Dan enumerates, have prevented the further evolution of this network and the arrival of technology leaders we hoped it might attract. Innovation is only a spark. To fan the flames of any new idea or industry requires very personal, very human connections that always have happened, and always will happen, in the places where innovative people congregate in relatively large numbers. That presents eager young hotshots with a choice, but it's by no means the whole picture. Yes, I sacrifice something by not living in such a place; and so do those who uproot themselves to travel to whatever pseudo-Mecca they seek. If we learned nothing else from the IBM (I've Been Moved) era of post-industrial America, we should have learned that in the long term our peace of mind is integrally connected to our sense of place and our social connectedness, or cohesiveness. Is this obvious only to those of us who've studied social anthropology and psychology? I don't mean to be a naysayer. I just want to affirm the importance of blooming where you're planted. Sometimes we're better off creating opportunity than seeking it -- especially if we're dragging a young family around with us! If employers hold on to the notion/expectation of a global and infinitely mobile workforce, I think in the long run they'll be terribly disappointed. Community and society cannot sustain that or be sustained by it, and anarchy is never a good climate for any human enterprise -- including business. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26170 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
I'm right with you Jeff. This conversation has only reaffirmed my beliefs that I am much happier here in Pittsburgh than I could be in any of the big cities. What it really comes down to is that my personal life is much more important to me than my professional life. While I would love the opportunity to work for a company like Adaptive Path, IDEO, Cooper, etc., my desire to do so has never exceeded my desire to remain close to my family. Of course, it is a matter of degrees. I did move to Pittsburgh from West Virginia because of career-oriented opportunities (and thought at the time I was moving to the big city! ;) Dan, I know you don't miss Pittsburgh, and I admit I envied you as I followed your blog posts covering your graduation from CMU (as I had done a few years earlier) and hire at Adaptive Path, but the comforts of owning a sizable house, a yard to play with my kids in, gardens to get dirty in, and a view looking down on the Ohio River valley far outweigh the professional benefits you have cited. I should add that I'm currently quite satisfied with my own career choices. My work isn't as sexy as a lot of what's going on in Silicon Valley, but I still have the opportunity to work for big-name companies doing interesting and challenging work. And thanks to this community, I have the opportunity to participate in the field at large. Jack Jack L. Moffett Interaction Designer inmedius 412.459.0310 x219 http://www.inmedius.com Charles Eames was asked the question, What are the boundaries of design? He answered, What are the boundaries of problems? - Charles Eames Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] IxDA and recruiters
As a very senior recruiter who has been lurking on the IxDA List for quite a while I can sympathize with the complaints about spam from clueless recruiters, inquiries from HR people who have no idea about design, and the tremendous desire for a better system for all. I am paid by the hour for my work, often with production bonuses. But most recruiters work for agencies which require them to send out huge numbers of emails in the hope that some of their spam will stick, a hire made, and a commission paid. Where do 'IA needed with 10 years Illustrator and J2EE hands-on experience' posts come from? These are usually written up by HR without input from the Hiring Managers. I know, I taught recruiting at a University level for a while until I gave it up. The real issue here is that HR, Recruiting and the Hiring Managers have to work hand-in-hand ~ and all too often they don't. IF a company wants to follow Good Hiring Practices then there are set procedures to follow: 1) The Recruiter works with the Hiring Manager to determine the basic needs and requirements. 2) Post same on the company website or on a local board. At least this will meet the EEOC requirements and get the ball rolling. 3) The same information posted can then be turned into a series of questions which can be asked of EACH candidate, answers TRANSCRIBED and reviewed within 24 hours by the Hiring Manager with response given to the prospective candidate with all due speed. 4) Based on the the response of the Hiring Manager, the job description posting and the pre-screen can now be REWRITTEN to better reflect the real need and the market. Now you can go out and START to recruit the right people. 5)Those rewritten pre-screens often allow the prospective candidates to address the issues. What was a twenty to forty-five minute pre-screen can now be reviewed in transcription and appropriate individuals selected for interview... There are, of course, more steps to follow, but these first few are TRULY critical if the company wants to avoid hiring the someone who is not a solid fit in terms of personality, skills, interests, drive and a host of intangibles that can make the difference between a fun place to work and utter misery. Just my 2 cents. Best Regards, Jon Rosner Senior Recruiter [EMAIL PROTECTED] Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
I think you're spot on with what those of us who'll step back and view it in that way, but it also may explain the natural flow of talent for those who consider that direct salary-cost of living thing to be priority one. That's sad in some ways (opportunities missed, the field loses some people who place more emphasis on salary), and I don't say that in a judgmental fashion - people can consider a particular lifestyle, means of supporting family/themselves, proximity to family and friends, etc. all primary concerns, and more power to them. None of this has to necessarily relate to exactly where one lives (although learning more about SV, Brooklyn and other areas has been cool~), but are we seeking out what can help us learn, grow and strengthen our craft across companies, industries and regions. Scott On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 11:00 AM, Dan Saffer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think you have to think about it as an investment in your career. It's always better in the long run to be a big fish in a big pond than a big fish in a small pond. In an area with limited mobility between good jobs, you are likely to eventually hit a ceiling and its accompanying salary cap. In places like SF/SV, Tokyo, London, New York, etc. the ceiling is much higher. So yes, initially, you are screwed by the cost of living, but eventually, because of the connections you make and the mobility you have, you will likely do better in the long run. That's the hope, at least. :) -- 'Life' plus 'significance' = magic. ~ Grant Morrison Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Reductionism
I was reading this paper by Philip Galanter on What is Generative Art? and came across this (http://www.philipgalanter.com/downloads/ga2003_what_is_genart.pdf): Science generally proceeds in a reductive manner, the thinking being that by breaking down complicated phenomena into its figurative (or literal) atomic parts one gains predictive and explanatory power. The problem with reductionism, however, is that it is often difficult to put the pieces back together again. I was trying to relate this to what we do with complex information. We also follow the scientists way by breaking down the information into parts (reductionism) and then build correlations of these parts to each other and (try to) present the user a organized system. I feel the systems (or application in our context) fail when we can not put these pieces together. So I would like to know, have you experienced the problem of putting these pieces back together again? or Has anyone found a good solution to this problem? or an alternative? I would like to know various viewpoints on this. -sajid Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
Very well said, Jack, I couldn't agree more. I've been a little swamped lately, but have followed what I could of this thread the past week, with some interest. I consider myself pretty well qualified in the will move for work domain. My dad was a marine, so when asked where I'm from, I say everywhere, but specifically CA, NC, AZ, OH, VA and DC. In 1995, I moved from NC to Oakland to work in the corporate office for The Nature Company (RIP), then moved to Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) and spent 4 years there. There's a special place in my heart for both southern and northern CA. I was born there, and part of me will always stay there. On the other hand, after 4 years, and twice yearly flights home (for 8 state east-coast family-trip sprees), plus the INSANE cost of housing (I could deal with the rest, having lived in VA, but I couldn't afford a house anywhere), I decided to move back to the east coast. I worked in Bethesda and lived on Capitol hill, for a few years, then we (my wife's from Boston) moved back down to NC so I could finish my degree. That was 2001, for some perspective on where jobs went - nowhere, really. We're still in the RTP area after 6 years now, and I'm with a startup whose CEO believes in the area and has really been trying to drive the technology culture higher. I always used to wonder why people in dire straits don't just get up and move to where the work is. For a long time, that was my outlook. Nowadays, though, I get job offers from SV and NYC about 3 times a week, and don't think we could do it. My greatest drive right now (besides my work) is finding the last house we're going to live in, preferably on Cape Cod, if the market plays nice (it's about the beach, and we're 2 hrs away, unfortunately). As for why there aren't enough interaction designers (specifically), I actually think it's because we're somewhat rare. As others have mentioned, formal degrees for our specific work are hard to come by, and (maybe it's just me), I think our discipline takes a certain blend of technical savvy, creative juices and observational skills in the same person to be successful. I've had a really hard time applying for agency positions who want to put me in only one of three buckets: usability, visual design, or development. I've been turned down for a few of these because they didn't know where to put me. Frankly, I don't know which of those I like more, anyway. After moving 7 times in the last 15 years, all I can say is that I've never run out of work, anywhere. Only once have I actually disliked the work I was doing (that was my last job). Bryan http://www.bryanminihan.com -Original Message- Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers? I should add that I'm currently quite satisfied with my own career choices. My work isn't as sexy as a lot of what's going on in Silicon Valley, but I still have the opportunity to work for big-name companies doing interesting and challenging work. And thanks to this community, I have the opportunity to participate in the field at large. Jack Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
Absolutely... so wish I had a second language! On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 11:41 AM, Chris Bernard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Although today I would argue that doing a turn in Asia for a few years is equally if not more valuable. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
On Feb 21, 2008, at 12:16 PM, dave malouf wrote: 1) The market is just harshin' right now. Tell me about it. 2) Your specific criteria of combining (I'm not arguing the merits) code design skills in a single person/role is even harder to find. The bulk of this generation of designers is just not trained as such. I understand my design and skill requirements tend be harder than others, but I was actually asking more in general. All my friends at places like Apple, Google, Adobe, various startups, etc... all of them are saying the same thing about the designer supply/demand problem. If I were you I would recruit heavily from the interactive design programs at art/design/technical schools and build the specifics of IxD talent you need through mentorship. Yup. Agreed. Oh! and if I found it, I wouldn't tell you b/c I'm hiring This is also part of the problem. I know you meant this in jest, but at the same time, I think so many folks in the management side of the equation aren't talking to each other, so it kind of exacerbates the problem. No one is talking to each other due to trying to hire and such and it creates a larger vacuum of information to recruit within. I'm not sure if anything could be done about this, but just noting it out loud. 4) People have keyed in on some good issues about the way we talk about ourselves and the issues around HR/IxD relationships that as an org and as a community of practice we have to do a better job with. BTW, I have been trying to settle on a definition and create firm labels for half a decade now and well, you and I just disagree. ;) I'm going to try and be clear as possible for the last time on this issue: If you (and I mean you, the IxDA board and the IxDA community in the plural sense) want to collectively settle on the definition that an IxD practitioner is: * Someone who designs interaction * Someone who is technology agnostic * Someone who is paired with a visual or graphic designer to create the aesthetic of the product * Does not code or program, even at a lightweight prototyping level Then by all means, please do so! If this is the definition, then call those people Interaction Designers. Be my guest! I know many companies and design team in Silicon Valley are already doing so. That's not what I am and that's not what I'm looking for. I define myself as someone who: * Designs interaction and workflow * Creates and design aesthetics and visual components * Codes front-end development as a light-weight prototyping exercise, in order to contribute to building what I design * Designs digital technology, specifically interfaces and software; be it desktop applications, web sites, web applications, mobile interfaces, or software enabled appliances, like an internet enabled refrigerator or a digital drawing tablet with a screen interace I have called this person an Interface Designer or Software Designer in the past, as that what I call myself. If the IxDA wants people who do the above to be called Interaction Designers, then by all means, be my guest! As long as they do it inclusively with that list of things, and exclude any aspect of it. The software industry has been literally BEGGING some group to lay ownership to this design position for more tan a decade now. I don't have a problem with labels and job titles. As near as I can tell... the IxDA does, or at least people who practice the job. I only say this because the variance in the resumes I see are literally all over the map, along with the job titles, etc. I'm more than happy to call myself an Interaction Designer if it includes aesthetics as core, assumes technology and software, and encourages building via coding since what we design at the end of the day are digital technology products. However, if the IxDA wants Interaction to be exclusive from aesthetics and building along with not being tied exclusively to code, then basically in the domain of technology products an IxD type of designer will always need to be paired with a team to cover the entire needs f product design. And then, if this is indeed the case, then we simply need to communicate to HR folks the distinction between an Interaction Designer, Graphic Designer, and Interface Designer. I'll let the Usability and Information Architects work out their own job descriptions. I personally have no problem with that. It's just I think its dangerous for designers to silo themselves like that in the technology sector, because as technology flattens even more while becoming even easier to implement, the need to have multiple people do the job of the design and the economics of building digital products will simply not be viable. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 Welcome to
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
Andrei: This issue of how to define comes up over and over and, IMO, is a can of worms. Rather than trying for one size fits all, I would suggest that we think about a competency model in which Joe can be a basic designer and Sue has added a specialty or competence in lightweight prototyping and Sally also has an IA competence. Then all the designer's skills would be clear upfront. This is how MD's do it. Every doctor has a set of basic skills and then they specialize. Psychologists do that as well (e.g. you can get a specialization in forensic psychology, family psych etc.). None of this will ever be easy or free from emotion but I think we need to be very careful about what sort of box we place ourselves in. Charlie Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 3:59 PM, Andrei Herasimchuk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is also part of the problem. I know you meant this in jest, but at the same time, I think so many folks in the management side of the equation aren't talking to each other, so it kind of exacerbates the problem. No one is talking to each other due to trying to hire and such and it creates a larger vacuum of information to recruit within. I'm not sure if anything could be done about this, but just noting it out loud. I really wish there was a place or discussion with even a small percentage of the energy here, where design management was the topic. If it is out there, I haven't found it. * Designs interaction and workflow * Creates and design aesthetics and visual components * Codes front-end development as a light-weight prototyping exercise, in order to contribute to building what I design * Designs digital technology, specifically interfaces and software; be it desktop applications, web sites, web applications, mobile interfaces, or software enabled appliances, like an internet enabled refrigerator or a digital drawing tablet with a screen interface 5 or 7 years ago I would have agreed that this is a solid job description. Now I think it is a dream. Fragmentation in the these responsibilities has not only begun, it has started to harden. And it will only continue in that direction. The current direction in design is for collaborative teams. As such, those teams need more specific and deeper skill sets. I am not saying it is right or desirable, but it certainly seems the trend. Mark Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
To that point - those of us who *have* been hiring managers in the past - if we want things to change - we have to take responsibility for partnering with HR/Recruiter people. I have spent many an hour on the phone just talking about the issues, skills, mindset, background of people that might be a match - and educating about IxD and IA along the way. BTW: Has anyone noticed the BIG shift in the last 7 years of a whole crop of new recruiters following a new business model. In essence - they have taken the call center business model, extended it to recruiting and outsourced it to India. All the initial job board search/keyword matching and initial screening is done there (with US phone#, business address), and once the initial screening is done - candidates are passed along to client facing recruiters in based in the US. I have no idea if this is a long term trend, but with growth in real wages in call center places like Bangalore - I can't see this as sustainable, and it may move again to the Philippines. Just find it interesting - no point to this I guess. On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:16:09, dave malouf [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Andrei, To get back to your question, if you are still listening. 1) The market is just harshin' right now. 2) Your specific criteria of combining (I'm not arguing the merits) code design skills in a single person/role is even harder to find. The bulk of this generation of designers is just not trained as such. If I were you I would recruit heavily from the interactive design programs at art/design/technical schools and build the specifics of IxD talent you need through mentorship. There is no program concentrating on IxD or even a segment of IxD that will create the type of designer you are looking for. Basically, you're going to have to breed your own. I know you are connected with SJState, and I'm sure that you can try to hook into Art Institute and CCA as well to find the junior talent. There are more visual aestheticists technologists than there are behavioral aestheticists technologists out there. And finding all 3 in 1 person I haven't seen in a resume in a long time and I would love to have it! Oh! and if I found it, I wouldn't tell you b/c I'm hiring 3) I don't think there is anything going on in SV that isn't going on in the other hubs around the world. It might feel worse, but everyone is struggling. Join the pity party! 4) People have keyed in on some good issues about the way we talk about ourselves and the issues around HR/IxD relationships that as an org and as a community of practice we have to do a better job with. BTW, I have been trying to settle on a definition and create firm labels for half a decade now and well, you and I just disagree. ;) -- dave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26170 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- ~ will No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it. Alan Cooper - Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems --- will evans user experience architect [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
In the many discussions (arguments?) about defining IxD this is by far the most reasonable answer I've ever hears. In reality, we're all going to have different specialties anyway, and there's nothing wrong with looking for employees with specific specialized skills, like coding, or IA, or whatever. But in the end, to call yourself an IxD there are certain base skills you should have. Makes sense to me. It's not just doctors that work like this.. lawyers, pilots, artists, .. well, basically every profession has different subsets of specialized skills. Why should we be any different? On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 4:06 PM, Charles B. Kreitzberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Andrei: This issue of how to define comes up over and over and, IMO, is a can of worms. Rather than trying for one size fits all, I would suggest that we think about a competency model in which Joe can be a basic designer and Sue has added a specialty or competence in lightweight prototyping and Sally also has an IA competence. Then all the designer's skills would be clear upfront. This is how MD's do it. Every doctor has a set of basic skills and then they specialize. Psychologists do that as well (e.g. you can get a specialization in forensic psychology, family psych etc.). None of this will ever be easy or free from emotion but I think we need to be very careful about what sort of box we place ourselves in. Charlie Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Matt Nish-Lapidus work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] / www.bibliocommons.com -- personal: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
On Feb 21, 2008, at 1:06 PM, Charles B. Kreitzberg wrote: This issue of how to define comes up over and over and, IMO, is a can of worms. Rather than trying for one size fits all, I would suggest that we think about a competency model in which Joe can be a basic designer and Sue has added a specialty or competence in lightweight prototyping and Sally also has an IA competence. You can do that. But it will not solve the problem that people in this discussion have noted, that being the problem of Job Boards, how HR people recruit, and generally how design is factored inside the corporate org chart. It's not difficult to define the thing. It really isn't. And while those in the trenches may not care for the discussion, it's like politics. You can ignore the machinations of what the GOP and Democrats are doing on a daily basis, but you do so at your own peril when one day you wake and can't recognize your own government or understand how it's possible your country is involved in a war halfway across the world that has lasted longer than World War II and that kills obscene numbers of people on a monthly basis. There are three job title candidates: Visual Designer / Graphic Designer: I think we can all agree this is the easiest one and is not controversial. Interaction Designer: The only points of contention here, if there is one, is whether IxD does aesthetics, is tied to software type of products and need to learn how to code at a prototype level. I know most of that contention is my own point of view, but it cuts both ways. IxD has muddied the job descriptions in Silicon Valley to the degree that I feel it's the responsibility of those whose practice it to make sure everyone knows what the job is, clearly and without confusion. Once that clarity is brought back, there's no point of contention. Interface Designer: This is someone who designs interfaces. I think that's pretty clear and I have stated so year over year for far too long now. And since interfaces include aesthetics, and necessarily require code to exist, I don't think there's any question that Interface Designers work on software or software aspects of products, and should train themselves to code enough to help build what they design. The main issue is people swapping these titles around, which lends confusion on job boards and creates a sense of not being able to map designers to people looking to hire them. this is further exacerbated when you toss in Usability and IA stuff into the mix, but that's a pretty easy problem to solve in my opinion, as those folks clearly do something far different than what designers on digital products do. This is how MD's do it. Every doctor has a set of basic skills and then they specialize. Psychologists do that as well (e.g. you can get a specialization in forensic psychology, family psych etc.). But it's well understood that Doctor's practice *medicine.* Since a certain part of IxDA folks are pushing the technology agnostic aspect of the field, you lose that baseline like Doctor's have. Imagine a doctor giving you advice on the health of your home, instead of your body. It's like that. imho. So I think you could take the MD approach, if you agree that IxDA is tied to technology or software. Otherwise, good luck trying to make it work. I obviously don't have a lot of confidence in that approach. None of this will ever be easy or free from emotion but I think we need to be very careful about what sort of box we place ourselves in. Agreed. But the problem is that if you want the HR, recruiting, and ability to find or hire people into jobs to go way, you *have* to pick some box. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
In my previous post, I should have added I completely agree with this statement that Andrei made: ...it's dangerous for designers to silo themselves like that in the technology sector, because as technology flattens even more while becoming even easier to implement, the need to have multiple people do the job of the design and the economics of building digital products will simply not be viable. You bet! I believe that is what will happen if we are not careful and the undesired result will be that we reduce our earning potential. Charlie Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] GMails New Contact Manager
I am a long time fan of GMAIL and Google's keep it simple and clean UI philosophy. Unfortunately the new contact manager seems to have not been designed by Google. I have had a really frustrating experience in creating a contact group with 20 emails of my students, none of which are existing contacts. With the old UI I just create a new group and past all the addresses into the entry field and voila- new group created. With the new UI I have the choice of creating a contact for each of the 20 emails (no way!) and then add them to the group, or I can create a CVS file and import it. I tried the second option but the contact manager would not eat it and gave me an error on it each time. Even if it had accepted it- it wouldn't have mattered since gmail needs to cater to normal users, not users who can create CVS files by hand. So my solution was simple but annoying: I switched back to the OLD UI, created the contact group and then switched back to the NEW UI, praying that all the new features that I love (i.e. label coloring etc) would not get ruined in the process- luckilly the process succeeded. So- the point- the new Gmail contact manager suffers from a badly executed UI design- apart from the problem I described it has additional UI problems which I will not add to this already too long post. I hope the GMAIL team which has done such a wonderful job in creating the best web based email today (in my opinion) gets back to basics and fixes this as soon as possible. If anyone here knows anyone from the team I would appreciate it if they could forward this email to them. Looking through the Gmail forum I see that I am not the first one frustrated with this and hope they fix it. -- :::...::..:::...::: Amnon Dekel Cell: +972 54 813-8160 :::...::..:::...::: Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
And... the word seems to have gotten out that this position is ill defined and pays rather well. Like Andrei, I am getting resumes that are all over the mat and hardly qualified. Lots of people with a tech background and absolutely no design foundation. Mark On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 3:52 PM, W Evans [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BTW: Has anyone noticed the BIG shift in the last 7 years of a whole crop of new recruiters following a new business model. In essence - they have taken the call center business model, extended it to recruiting and outsourced it to India. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] GMails New Contact Manager
Amnon - At least you can try to use it -- * I can't! * None of my contacts show up in the list. I can mouse over what I guess might be the rows where the names exist - but the names don't appear. When you can't even read the names of your contacts because they don't exist, there is a real problem with the UI. Can't tell who did the UI, but it must have been someone at Google. I doubt they outsource any of their UI designs. On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 4:35 PM, Amnon Dekel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am a long time fan of GMAIL and Google's keep it simple and clean UI philosophy. Unfortunately the new contact manager seems to have not been designed by Google. I have had a really frustrating experience in creating a contact group with 20 emails of my students, none of which are existing contacts. With the old UI I just create a new group and past all the addresses into the entry field and voila- new group created. With the new UI I have the choice of creating a contact for each of the 20 emails (no way!) and then add them to the group, or I can create a CVS file and import it. I tried the second option but the contact manager would not eat it and gave me an error on it each time. Even if it had accepted it- it wouldn't have mattered since gmail needs to cater to normal users, not users who can create CVS files by hand. So my solution was simple but annoying: I switched back to the OLD UI, created the contact group and then switched back to the NEW UI, praying that all the new features that I love (i.e. label coloring etc) would not get ruined in the process- luckilly the process succeeded. So- the point- the new Gmail contact manager suffers from a badly executed UI design- apart from the problem I described it has additional UI problems which I will not add to this already too long post. I hope the GMAIL team which has done such a wonderful job in creating the best web based email today (in my opinion) gets back to basics and fixes this as soon as possible. If anyone here knows anyone from the team I would appreciate it if they could forward this email to them. Looking through the Gmail forum I see that I am not the first one frustrated with this and hope they fix it. -- :::...::..:::...::: Amnon Dekel Cell: +972 54 813-8160 :::...::..:::...::: Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- ~ will No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it. Alan Cooper - Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems --- will evans user experience architect [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
Perhaps it's just my ignorance but I don't understand the difference between an Interaction Designer and an Interface Designer. I don't understand intuitively how to design interaction without designing interfaces. I don;t understand how to do either without considering the way that the information I present is organized. And I doubt that most people outside our community will either. As MD's practice medicine, in my view I practice the human-centered design of the presentation layer. I realize that not everyone will see it that way. But I do believe that we must present a simple, seamless face to the outside world. Andrei, you said I think its dangerous for designers to silo themselves like that in the technology sector, because as technology flattens even more while becoming even easier to implement, the need to have multiple people do the job of the design and the economics of building digital products will simply not be viable. I completely agree with you and that is the danger I am trying to avoid. It's hard enough explaining to the CEO or CIO why they need help with the users let alone trying to explain the nuances of Ux,Ix, UI, IA, and the other elements in this alphabet soup. One title will also help with HR and the Job Boards, IMO. Charlie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26170 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Reductionism
So I would like to know, have you experienced the problem of putting these pieces back together again? or Has anyone found a good solution to this problem? or an alternative? Card sorting exercise from Information Architecture. Several techniques described in David Straker's 'Rapid problem solving with Post-It notes': Post-Up; Swap-sort; Bottom-up tree. Oleh On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 12:56 PM, sajid saiyed [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was reading this paper by Philip Galanter on What is Generative Art? and came across this (http://www.philipgalanter.com/downloads/ga2003_what_is_genart.pdf): Science generally proceeds in a reductive manner, the thinking being that by breaking down complicated phenomena into its figurative (or literal) atomic parts one gains predictive and explanatory power. The problem with reductionism, however, is that it is often difficult to put the pieces back together again. I was trying to relate this to what we do with complex information. We also follow the scientists way by breaking down the information into parts (reductionism) and then build correlations of these parts to each other and (try to) present the user a organized system. I feel the systems (or application in our context) fail when we can not put these pieces together. So I would like to know, have you experienced the problem of putting these pieces back together again? or Has anyone found a good solution to this problem? or an alternative? I would like to know various viewpoints on this. -sajid Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Oleh Kovalchuke Interaction Design is the Design of Time http://www.tangospring.com/IxDtopicWhatIsInteractionDesign.htm Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] JOB: Senior Interactive Designer UI Designer, San Francisco, Recruiter, Full Time
Title: Senior Interactive Designer / UI Designer Location: San Francisco A new, interactive-media startup is searching for an experienced Senior Interactive Designer to help develop its product for a launch in the second quarter of this year. This well-financed startup, with Web-based software that also carries a client-side application, is backed by veterans of the technology and entertainment industries. This role reports to a Product Manager; some telecommuting is possible. The Senior Interactive Designer will define and develop of all consumer/business-facing aspects of its product, working closely with product marketing and the technical team to create and layout the user interface (UI). In addition, the Senior Interactive Designer will collaborate with team members on the UI; will design and build UI solutions that are cohesive and aesthetically pleasing; and will stay on top of current implementation technologies and best-practice solutions. Ideal candidates will have consumer-facing experience; expertise in UI design, Web 2.0, HTML and Flash; agency experience; a background in visual design; and a strong understanding of the process of human interface design. Candidates should be well versed in Web analytics and client-side application design and should come from the entertainment, film, music and visual industries. Responsibilities: * Create UI design concepts and solutions that support the company's goals * Collaborate with multidisciplinary teams to conceive and improve the user experience * Work collaboratively with other designers, product managers and engineers * Design interactive navigation, controls and icons * Own the entire design for the consumer-facing Web portal * Create wire frames, mockups and interactive prototypes * Communicate and partner with teams to iterate the design vision * Create innovative new solutions and present multiple design ideas * Contribute to the culture of communication, collaboration and inspiration Requirements: * More than five years of experience in Web design and a solid understanding of the relationship between content, visual design, user interface and technology * Excellent UI design skills and an outstanding portfolio of interactive projects * Experience and participation in the complete product lifecycle of launched Web sites, software applications or games (TV interface experience is a plus) * Core competency in graphic design with emphasis on consistency, attention to detail, simplicity and innovation * Expert-level skills in Adobe Creative Suite, Flash, ActionScript, HTML and CSS * Maya experience is a definite plus * Consumer Internet experience preferred * Strong communication skills with the ability to listen and articulate a design and advocate best-practice solutions * Strong understanding of implementation technologies and how to design within limitations * An organized approach and an ability to work effectively under deadlines and manage multiple concurrent projects * Ability to take direction to meet creative and business needs * A risk-taker with a can-do attitude, flexibility, good initiative and proven attention to detail * Ability to work well within a diverse, challenging and rewarding environment If you feel that you are qualified for this position, please email me a Word doc or PDF version of your resume and link to your portfolio. Candidates must provide a portfolio, including examples of interactive and application work and must be authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis for any employer. Please note: *Resumes submitted without a portfolio will not be reviewed. *Not all resumes will receive a response. Jessie Stehle Creative Recruiter Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Site: http://www.cm-recruiting.com LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jstehle *If you know of someone who you would like to refer for this position, please have him or her email me directly and mention your name. If you would like to refer someone confidentially, please mention this in your email. I can pay a $1,000 - 3,000 referral fee for each hired candidate.* Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
As I said earlier about BA to Christina, we need something where designers can anon post resumes -- either BA, or maybe here on IxDA someday. I know we have gatekeepers on our list - but all the recruiters that actually post here have positions that are completely relevant to the community -- I would say over 95% relavant. We may not all like the job descriptions, but they are a lot more relevant than a junior systems analyst posting - or a life insurance posting. On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 4:32 PM, mark schraad [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And... the word seems to have gotten out that this position is ill defined and pays rather well. Like Andrei, I am getting resumes that are all over the mat and hardly qualified. Lots of people with a tech background and absolutely no design foundation. Mark On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 3:52 PM, W Evans [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BTW: Has anyone noticed the BIG shift in the last 7 years of a whole crop of new recruiters following a new business model. In essence - they have taken the call center business model, extended it to recruiting and outsourced it to India. -- ~ will No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it. Alan Cooper - Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems --- will evans user experience architect [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
The biggest consequence I have noticed with this shift is the complete lack of tact and personal connection that comes from a recruiter who is tied to the process, and not merely following one. That is, half of all the offers I receive start with: URGENT, SEND ME YOUR UPDATED (rewritten) RESUME, 3 REFS PORTFOLIO THIS AFTERNOON! And end with a copy/pasted job description without any context for how or why I was pre-selected for the role. They are almost always very short-term contracts in places I am nowhere near, and for positions I am unqualified for, with no rate information. I know *why* I get these, but it's not necessarily true that every candidate can and will drop everything at a moment's notice for a 3 month contract IA project in Debuque, Iowa. I hesitate to complain, because people are just doing their jobs, and I might need to move to Iowa some day. But still, it's a little annoying. Bryan http://www.bryanminihan.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of W Evans Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 3:53 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers? BTW: Has anyone noticed the BIG shift in the last 7 years of a whole crop of new recruiters following a new business model. In essence - they have taken the call center business model, extended it to recruiting and outsourced it to India. All the initial job board search/keyword matching and initial screening is done there (with US phone#, business address), and once the initial screening is done - candidates are passed along to client facing recruiters in based in the US. I have no idea if this is a long term trend, but with growth in real wages in call center places like Bangalore - I can't see this as sustainable, and it may move again to the Philippines. Just find it interesting - no point to this I guess. On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:16:09, dave malouf [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
That is, half of all the offers I receive start with: URGENT, SEND ME YOUR UPDATED (rewritten) RESUME, 3 REFS PORTFOLIO THIS AFTERNOON! And end with a copy/pasted job description without any context for how or why I was pre-selected for the role. They are almost always very short-term contracts in places I am nowhere near, and for positions I am unqualified for, with no rate information. I know *why* I get these, but it's not necessarily true that every candidate can and will drop everything at a moment's notice for a 3 month contract IA project in Debuque, Iowa. Bryan, I think you have every right to complain. I have received the same type of emails - and receive them frequently. I don't think it is too much to ask to have some context, and for it to be worded a little less... impersonally. I also think recruiters are shooting themselves in the foot when they send this kind of email. For the most part, I now ignore emails from recruiters who have sent this kind of email in the past. Of course, I'm not looking for a job right now either. Which brings me to the original question in this discussion thread. What I haven't really seen anyone write is that the reason it is hard to find designers might be because we are happily employed and not in the market for a job. I live in the Bay Area and really like where I am working. If there truly are so many great companies for interaction designers in the Bay Area (or anywhere), the question becomes one of motivation. How do you get someone who is happily employed to leave his or her job, or even pay attention when someone contacts them about a job? It seems to me that the original question implied that there should be a bunch of people just waiting around for a great position, and I just don't buy that supposition. Brett Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Means to an IxDA message? WAS: Re: Where are all the designers?
There are simply more jobs than IxDs right now. We're all engaged in solving interesting problems, and the world is exploding with yet more possibilities. The fear I share with others is that we all face a serious professional issue if unqualified folks fill IxD shoes and cause industry to sour on our discipline. I'm thinking that facing outward and being more direct with industry is crucial for IxDA. Leaving aside the somehow too-touchy definitional question...which I believe is not as out of whack as some contend... I do believe that IxDA has to help us maintain standards and build out the fields of our shared expertise. As a member of the board, I want to make this happen. So, what are some of the best means we (IxDA) could employ to communicate the IxD message self-definition with recruiters, HR departments, education, business leaders, etc.? Cheers, Liz On Feb 21, 2008, at 2:43 PM, Brett Ingram wrote: Which brings me to the original question in this discussion thread. What I haven't really seen anyone write is that the reason it is hard to find designers might be because we are happily employed and not in the market for a job. Director, IxDA / www.ixda.org CDO, Devise / www.devise.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Mental Models is enough?
I've reading Mental Models by Indi Young. It's very interesting. Mental modeling is certainly effective and useful for designing products , softwares and web applications. But I think it's not enough for some kind of websites which the main business purpose is like getting a request for brochure or subscribing. For desighing the website, we have to figure out not only user behaviors, but also their needs and insights behind user behaviors to know how to capture their attentions and break their psychological barriers. I think we should make user psychological scenario, not user behavior scenario. What do you think ? + toshiyuki maeda Usability Consultant Tokyo, Japan Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Means to an IxDA message? WAS: Re: Where are all the designers?
The only profession I see in a more unbalanced demand/supply position is the SEO specialist. On Feb 21, 2008, at 8:15 PM, Elizabeth Bacon wrote: There are simply more jobs than IxDs right now. We're all engaged in solving interesting problems, and the world is exploding with yet more possibilities. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Means to an IxDA message? WAS: Re: Where are all the designers?
Have people considered that the current lack of good developers in the market place has meant that graduates upwards have been focusing on the development end of the process and not the design end. I'm often coming across fellow freelance IxDs that basically are retraining as developers as they can't find work in the design field but are seeing developers in great demand and often earning up to twice the pay packet. This also comes to the issue of availability of good professional training for for IxDs. In many places its just not available at all. IxD is also often seen as the anyone can do that end of the developmental cycle. -- Gary Barber Freelance User Interaction Designer / Information Architect web: radharc.com.au blog: manwithnoblog.com Elizabeth Bacon wrote: There are simply more jobs than IxDs right now. We're all engaged in solving interesting problems, and the world is exploding with yet more possibilities. The fear I share with others is that we all face a serious professional issue if unqualified folks fill IxD shoes and cause industry to sour on our discipline. I'm thinking that facing outward and being more direct with industry is crucial for IxDA. Leaving aside the somehow too-touchy definitional question...which I believe is not as out of whack as some contend... I do believe that IxDA has to help us maintain standards and build out the fields of our shared expertise. As a member of the board, I want to make this happen. So, what are some of the best means we (IxDA) could employ to communicate the IxD message self-definition with recruiters, HR departments, education, business leaders, etc.? Cheers, Liz On Feb 21, 2008, at 2:43 PM, Brett Ingram wrote: Which brings me to the original question in this discussion thread. What I haven't really seen anyone write is that the reason it is hard to find designers might be because we are happily employed and not in the market for a job. Director, IxDA / www.ixda.org CDO, Devise / www.devise.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
I'd like to reiterate Dave's earlier point of a distinct lack in career path. Fresh out of college, the only two companies in California I found that were willing to hire junior IxD's were Google and Intuit. Most other job postings had steep requirements in terms of experience and degrees. It's a shame that so few are willing to train younger designers from the start. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26170 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Means to an IxDA message? WAS: Where are all the designers?
Liz wrote: So, what are some of the best means we (IxDA) could employ to communicate the IxD message self-definition with recruiters, HR departments, education, business leaders, etc.? We could start by vetting the IxDA job postings. We already screen them for format; start screening them for content. I can't imagine anyone on the board has the time to handle that responsibility singlehandedly but perhaps some sort of group screening or flagging. Make that part of the value proposition for designers searching for jobs. We screen out the cruft. In support of that, start teaching accepted vocabulary to recruiters. Do it through the job board interface (first, create a job board.) Many boards already make recruiters choose between distinctions like fulltime/freelance and design/development. Add a few more distinctions, explain what we say they mean, and penalize recruiters who get it wrong in the same way we penalize recruiters who can't be bothered to learn how to format their subject lines. Then, based on those trials, reach out to other recruiting entities. Create a Guide to Hiring Interaction Designers and Interface Designers. Tell them what to avoid and what to try. Teach them how to speak our language. In many ways, it's the recruiters' job to figure out how to entice the kind of candidates they want but that doesn't mean we shouldn't help them. Use them as a bridge to the thousands of companies out there trying to hire designers. // jeff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26265 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Mental Models is enough?
I've reading Mental Models by Indi Young. It's very interesting. Mental modeling is certainly effective and useful for designing products , softwares and web applications. But I think it's not enough for some kind of websites which the main business purpose is like getting a request for brochure or subscribing. For desighing the website, we have to figure out not only user behaviors, but also their needs and insights behind user behaviors to know how to capture their attentions and break their psychological barriers. I think we should make user psychological scenario, not user behavior scenario. What do you think ? + toshiyuki maeda Usability Consultant Tokyo, Japan Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
Perhaps there's a role for IxDA here and a way to fund its (and our professions) future growth. Something like the 'the deck' but for IxDA jobs? Perhaps this is a tender first step towards tackling broader issues and developing the institutional definitions and broadly accepted standards for what an IxDA designer is. I'll apologize in advance for re-opening that can of worms too. :) http://www.coudal.com/deck/ Chris Bernard Microsoft User Experience Evangelist [EMAIL PROTECTED] 630.530.4208 Office 312.925.4095 Mobile Blog: www.designthinkingdigest.com Design: www.microsoft.com/design Tools: www.microsoft.com/expression Community: http://www.visitmix.com The future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed. William Gibson -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Loren Baxter Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 1:00 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers? I'd like to reiterate Dave's earlier point of a distinct lack in career path. Fresh out of college, the only two companies in California I found that were willing to hire junior IxD's were Google and Intuit. Most other job postings had steep requirements in terms of experience and degrees. It's a shame that so few are willing to train younger designers from the start. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26170 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Means to an IxDA message? WAS: Where are all the designers?
IxDA could also try something similar to UPA - they have a find a consultant section where members can list their names, specific skills, etc. Recruiters being able to see firsthand what skills experience we have should help to establish what it is we actually do as well as help them be more targeted when sending out job openings. Having the member profiles adhere to the same vocabulary Jeff mentioned might really drive it home. I think Will Evans was mentioning this idea in Andrei's original thread. Jeff On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:59:51, Jeff Howard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Liz wrote: So, what are some of the best means we (IxDA) could employ to communicate the IxD message self-definition with recruiters, HR departments, education, business leaders, etc.? We could start by vetting the IxDA job postings. We already screen them for format; start screening them for content. I can't imagine anyone on the board has the time to handle that responsibility singlehandedly but perhaps some sort of group screening or flagging. Make that part of the value proposition for designers searching for jobs. We screen out the cruft. In support of that, start teaching accepted vocabulary to recruiters. Do it through the job board interface (first, create a job board.) Many boards already make recruiters choose between distinctions like fulltime/freelance and design/development. Add a few more distinctions, explain what we say they mean, and penalize recruiters who get it wrong in the same way we penalize recruiters who can't be bothered to learn how to format their subject lines. Then, based on those trials, reach out to other recruiting entities. Create a Guide to Hiring Interaction Designers and Interface Designers. Tell them what to avoid and what to try. Teach them how to speak our language. In many ways, it's the recruiters' job to figure out how to entice the kind of candidates they want but that doesn't mean we shouldn't help them. Use them as a bridge to the thousands of companies out there trying to hire designers. // jeff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26265 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Mental Models is enough?
Toshiyuki: Mental models are extremely important in understanding how people approach a product, what their expectations are, and in predicting how they are likely to behave. For me, they are a key part of the design process. There is far more to say about mental models then we can address here. Mental models are a loosely defined term. They can encompass concepts, feelings, intentions, beliefs, a person's perception of how things will flow. I really understood the value of mental models when I encountered the idea of a script. Let's say you decide to go to a restaurant. You will (depending upon the type of restaurant) be greeted at the door, be placed at a table, be shown a menu of choices, order food, be served food, eat the food, pay and leave. When we enter a restaurant, we already have this mental model and it organizes our behavior. By understanding the mental model, we can build products that fit it, or we can alert the user to the fact that his or her mental model may not be accurate. You could say to customers on entering -- this restaurant is a fixed price no matter what you eat or how much and that would cause their mental models to shift. But I believe it is better to think of both behavioral and cognitive scenarios as being equally important; not in competition with the other. Both need to be understood because behavior is the only thing we can observe. Behavior allows us to validate the mental models we hypothesize because if people do not behave as our models predict, then the models need to be corrected. I don't think the choice is between mental models and behavioral scenarios but in the alignment and synthesis of both. Best, Charlie Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Means to an IxDA message? WAS: Where are all the designers?
Jeff H., as the architect of the web site, you and I have discussed a bit about what it would take to make a true job board. We did some polling and while the concept wasn't overwhelming, there is definitely interest in having a separate area for job postings. If we can do that and maintain it, I think it would be awesome! Jeff W. I also found it interesting for an org with so many non-consultants to concentrate on consulting. As an innie for now close to 10 years, I feel the problem solving needs to solve both sides of the aisle on this one. Focusing on consultants doesn't feel helpful to the vast population (significant) that love their corporate jobs. :) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26265 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
What a great thread! This is one of the best definitional threads of the last year. Andrei, I think your articulation of the situation is both brilliant and off. It is brilliant in that it is open for answers, and tries to give clear choices. It is off in that it assumes that these are the only two choices, and that they are somehow in contradiction with each other. It is hard to know where to begin, b/c as we all know this is a very complex problem. There are so many insertion points (some outlined in this thread). I'd like to take on a piece of what Andrei keys in on with our conversations and it is the notion of being technology agnostic. ... I believe that as interaction designers who are interested in the design of behaviors we can apply our skills to many different arenas where the behaviors and interactions between humans and products and humans and systems and well products/systems with other products/systems and humans with other humans take place. That being said, our bread and butter, our roots, our strength, our nexus ... blah blah blah, is in the realm of the digital. However, I do not believe that digital is equal to software. If there is silicon in the system creating further complexity through algorithms then we have an important role. So I'm not sure this is agnostic or not. I like to think of all designers as technology agnostic in so far as we design without thought of technology to start, and then design towards technology, not as a skill, but as a constraint in the design environment (this is probably true of all designers). Separation of presentation from behavior is the other big issue (and Charlie jumps in on the band wagon here). ... How many people are just builders? There are some people of Bob Vila's classification (sorry for the US-centric reference) that do it all--plumbing, electrical, dry-wall, carpentry, painting, foundations, roofs, flooring, windows, appliances, interior design, architecture, engineering, etc.? I think you all see where I'm going here. While there are a few Bob the Builders out there, it is not our expectation that we work this way. I mean I can't really think of a house with doors and windows and flooring, but does every builder/contractor have to be able to do their own flooring? Of course not. They hire our many skills (technical and aesthetic) as they require them. I see my role as an interaction designer, to design behaviors. To Charlie's point, can I do that w/o visual design skills? I think the Interaction08 conference had amazing examples of people who do the behaviors, the story, the interactions and do it well for their clients and product owners every day, with success. I'm not referring to wireframe jockeys, but rather behavioral designers, who understand the aesthetic frameworks that come from designing aesthetics, calling out a message, and guiding the presentation of products and systems. Does this mean that everyone is an interaction designer. Hell NO!!! Just b/c you practice interaction design doesn't mean that you ARE an interaction designer. Well, you can if you want. but you could also be a user experience designer, interface designer, interactive designer, industrial designer, architect, business analyst, etc. Or you can be an interaction designer. From the very beginning of this organization--I think it was Josh Seiden who strongly encouraged this direction--we said that IxDA was going to be about a discipline that its members practice, and not about the people themselves. In this way we can have interface designers, IAs, product designers and heck even a few interaction designers and be inclusive. (It is so funny that you think I'm trying to be exclusive in my conversations.) BUT ... and this is the clincher. Doing this is all well and good, but if you can't galvanize a clear message (Thanx Liz) around it, you might have to re-think the strategy and the associated tactics. I think that IxDA has done well for itself. With nearly 6000+ subscribed! on THIS list, and who knows how many more using the web site. AND 2000+ folks who are on the announcement list, It is clear that we are messaging something out that is resonating with people. What exactly that nuggets is? To be honest, I don't really know. Andrei, I think of you as a surgeon, who is looking for the surgeons organization among the doctors' organization. You practice surgery, which means you practice medicine, but you only practice a small part of medicine and you want your part to define all of medicine. Ok, it is nearly midnight and I know i didn't pull together a coherent or cogent point in all this, but I actually don't think i can any more. And our website doesn't have a save as draft functionality. So I'm going to send now. :) Nighty night folks! -- dave Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers?
What a great thread! This is one of the best definitional threads of the last year. Andrei, I think your articulation of the situation is both brilliant and off. It is brilliant in that it is open for answers, and tries to give clear choices. It is off in that it assumes that these are the only two choices, and that they are somehow in contradiction with each other. It is hard to know where to begin, b/c as we all know this is a very complex problem. There are so many insertion points (some outlined in this thread). I'd like to take on a piece of what Andrei keys in on with our conversations and it is the notion of being technology agnostic. ... I believe that as interaction designers who are interested in the design of behaviors we can apply our skills to many different arenas where the behaviors and interactions between humans and products and humans and systems and well products/systems with other products/systems and humans with other humans take place. That being said, our bread and butter, our roots, our strength, our nexus ... blah blah blah, is in the realm of the digital. However, I do not believe that digital is equal to software. If there is silicon in the system creating further complexity through algorithms then we have an important role. So I'm not sure this is agnostic or not. I like to think of all designers as technology agnostic in so far as we design without thought of technology to start, and then design towards technology, not as a skill, but as a constraint in the design environment (this is probably true of all designers). Separation of presentation from behavior is the other big issue (and Charlie jumps in on the band wagon here). ... How many people are just builders? There are some people of Bob Vila's classification (sorry for the US-centric reference) that do it all--plumbing, electrical, dry-wall, carpentry, painting, foundations, roofs, flooring, windows, appliances, interior design, architecture, engineering, etc.? I think you all see where I'm going here. While there are a few Bob the Builders out there, it is not our expectation that we work this way. I mean I can't really think of a house with doors and windows and flooring, but does every builder/contractor have to be able to do their own flooring? Of course not. They hire our many skills (technical and aesthetic) as they require them. I see my role as an interaction designer, to design behaviors. To Charlie's point, can I do that w/o visual design skills? I think the Interaction08 conference had amazing examples of people who do the behaviors, the story, the interactions and do it well for their clients and product owners every day, with success. I'm not referring to wireframe jockeys, but rather behavioral designers, who understand the aesthetic frameworks that come from designing aesthetics, calling out a message, and guiding the presentation of products and systems. Does this mean that everyone is an interaction designer. Hell NO!!! Just b/c you practice interaction design doesn't mean that you ARE an interaction designer. Well, you can if you want. but you could also be a user experience designer, interface designer, interactive designer, industrial designer, architect, business analyst, etc. Or you can be an interaction designer. From the very beginning of this organization--I think it was Josh Seiden who strongly encouraged this direction--we said that IxDA was going to be about a discipline that its members practice, and not about the people themselves. In this way we can have interface designers, IAs, product designers and heck even a few interaction designers and be inclusive. (It is so funny that you think I'm trying to be exclusive in my conversations.) BUT ... and this is the clincher. Doing this is all well and good, but if you can't galvanize a clear message (Thanx Liz) around it, you might have to re-think the strategy and the associated tactics. I think that IxDA has done well for itself. With nearly 6000 subscribed! on THIS list, and who knows how many more using the web site. AND 2000 folks who are on the announcement list, It is clear that we are messaging something out that is resonating with people. What exactly that nuggets is? To be honest, I don't really know. Andrei, I think of you as a surgeon, who is looking for the surgeons organization among the doctors' organization. You practice surgery, which means you practice medicine, but you only practice a small part of medicine and you want your part to define all of medicine. Ok, it is nearly midnight and I know i didn't pull together a coherent or cogent point in all this, but I actually don't think i can any more. And our website doesn't have a save as draft functionality. So I'm going to send now. :) Nighty night folks! -- dave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26170
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Means to an IxDA message? WAS: Re: Where are all thedesigners?
What about a recruiting workshop or panel at the next Interaction conference? I think it could be very interesting to see a group of internal recruiters, headhunters, hiring managers, freelancers, and job seekers talk through these issues face-to-face in a moderated format. It would also be a good networking opportunity for many of those types of folks. OK, maybe not as sexy as one of Chris Conley's sessions, but still worth the price of admission, I think. From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Elizabeth Bacon Sent: Thu 2/21/2008 8:15 PM To: IxDA Discuss So, what are some of the best means we (IxDA) could employ to communicate the IxD message self-definition with recruiters, HR departments, education, business leaders, etc.? Cheers, Liz Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] link from email to web in IxDA discussion
Hi, I usually read the list on my e-mail client, but every now and then I want to tag or mark as favorite a message/discussion that I'm really interested in. In those moments, I could really use a link from the e-mail message to the same message/thread on the web. I was wondering if there are many others who could use this kind of functionality and if it would be doable. Thanks! Sebi -- Sergiu Sebastian Tauciuc http://www.sergiutauciuc.ro/en/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] link from email to web in IxDA discussion
Hi Sebi, There should be a link back to the precise thread in the footer of any message that was posted from the web. (See this message, below.) When comments originate from e-mail there's no chance to append the specific link before the messages get sent out, so those are limited to a generic link to the website. If anyone can figure out how to get around this limitation, get in touch with volunteer at ixda.org. // jeff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26277 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] link from email to web in IxDA discussion
Sebi wrote: Minor observation though: none of the generic links in the footer are to the discussion list itself That's a good point. It might be worthwhile to rethink the generic links in the footer. I haven't subscribed to e-mail in about a year and I guess out of sight, out of mind... Now that I think about it, there is one way to embed the precise link from e-mail. Conscientious members can visit the website, copy the link from the thread and paste it into their comment when composing in e-mail. Problem solved! :-) An better solution might be to subscribe to one of the IxDA RSS feeds in Apple Mail. All the RSS items--regardless of origin--have a link to the precise thread built in. http://www.ixda.org/rss.php // jeff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26277 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
