Mental Models

Recruiting Across Behaviors

2013-02-06T23:03:37Z

I received an enthusiastic, but bewildered cry for help from a UX designer in South Africa, Jeanne Marias. She wrote, "I am pioneering a service design project, part of which I'm wanting to do a Mental Model of 'The New Member Journey.' I've charged ahead and gotten the whole team excited about mental models, but after reading the section of your book about defining task-based audience segments, I'm feeling quite daunted and out of my depth! Especially when you speak about the Story, Craft and Companionship continuum."

(Never mind that we don't know what industry this is for--"new members" appear in lots of difference scenarios, like insurance or teachers unions or book clubs. So don't worry about which industry she's talking about.)

She wanted to know if there was an easier, friendlier way of creating the audience segments, similar to the comic strip explaining mental models. There is a cartoon about personas, but personas are things that you derive after you've done all the interviews. For the hypothetical audience segments before you recruit, you only need to keep in mind one thing: we traditionally recruit by demographic (like age or experience or frequency). This time we want to be sure we also cover all the possible behavior types that are important to us for this round of interviews. Behavior types are things like decision-making style, goals, motivations, attitude, etc. (Furthermore, remember that you don't need to make up hypothetical segments you already have them from prior research. Use those as a basis for recruiting, or expand to additional groups if your business demands it at this point.)

The example in my book is pretty complex. Your situation might be simpler. Let's explore an example. Pretend your industry is weight-loss, and new members are folks signing up for your program.

Photo credit: puuikibeach, "Scale-A-Week: 5 July 2010, via Flickr, CC-BY

Set aside demographics like age, gender, physical fitness, number of times they've tried to lose weight before, income level, etc. Instead concentrate on behaviors you observe in new members. They may fall into only two categories: "I Need to Lose 20 Pounds for My Wedding, So I Am Not Thinking Beyond That" and "I Need A New Perspective So I Can Easily Get to and Stay at The Weight That Is Healthy For Me." There might be another category of behavior, like "My Doctor Told Me I Have to Lose Weight, But I've Never Succeeded Before." Throw out everything that I wrote in the book and just look at your New Members from a behavior and attitude point of view. You might need to talk to some of the people at various outlets who get new members going, to see if they talk about any specific personality types.

Remember, the only reason you do these hypothetical audience segments is to make sure to recruit from each group. They are not personas, and they don't matter later. You delete them, in fact, after you've collected all the stories. Don't get too caught up in all the details of these hypothetical groups.

Journeys, Experiences, & Mental Spaces

2012-11-19T22:59:43Z

The other day a university student named Maria Hernando wrote to ask me my opinion about the relationship between User Journey Maps, Customer Journey Maps, and User Experience Maps ... and how a mental model diagram might relate to any one of them.

I told Maria that I think of the maps as the same, or similar enough. The maps try to represent an actual example of how a person (or persona) went through and did something they wanted to do. The maps are generally chronological, moving forward through the hours of the persona's actions one stage at a time. I told her that I think the phrase "experience map" came about because we want to be agnostic of whether the persona was using digital tools or not, or a combination to tools. The map represents the journey a person takes from the idea of accomplishing something to having accomplished that thing in the end. We want to see how it all hangs together from the persona's perspective.

There can be as many experience/journey maps for a particular persona as there are deviations in the way they do that thing. For example, if a persona was taking a commercial flight, there might be different maps for a business-related flight than a leisure-oriented flight. There might be different maps based on whether it's a last-minute or urgent flight. There might be different maps for long versus short flights, flights where the persona has to get work done before landing, flights where the persona is scared of flying, etc.

The mental model represents a set of states of mind (mental spaces) that a person might pop into and out of during this journey toward accomplishing a goal. The states of mind might proceed in a nice linear fashion. Or they might represent a more cyclical approach, where the person revisits a previous state of mind again to re-evaluate something, to continue something, or to address something new that has come up. When I combine experience maps with the mental model, what I do is add little bubbles labeled with a mental space along the journey. Sometimes the bubbles repeat themselves in this fashion.

I wish I could share some actual diagrams, but here's a quick sketch as an example. The experience is laid out left to right in brown, and the mental space bubbles appear in pink above, with red arrows showing the way this persona, Susan, popped into and out of Get Work Done several times during her trip. Apparently her boss had asked her to finish a report before she arrived at the meeting in Chicago the next day. (Feel free to tweak the concepts that are represented in the combined diagram of an experience map plus mental spaces. Feel free to make it prettier.)

Picking Out Guiding Principles

2012-02-08T20:44:53Z

Picking out an actual "guiding principle" (something that guides how I make a decision) from a transcript is difficult. There is so much "brush" we need to clear away before we can see the "specimen trees" for what they are. Here is a perfect example. It's a page from an architecture firm's web brochure. The page is titled "Our philosophy." http://www.philippetimmerman.com/ (You have to click "Philosophy" in the navigation to get to this page.)

I'll take it apart line by line.

"Philippe Timmerman Architectural Designs [the company] is as much about an aesthetic attitude as it is about architecture and design. It is about defining and creating a ..." This is an explanation/description of the company's position in the market.

"... personal lifeworld that bears the watermark of an individual style." This is a philosophy, "Watermark every person's lifeworld with their individual
style." I'm not entirely sure I understood that right--I don't know what a lifeworld is. Nevertheless, it is how they make decisions about watermarking their designs.

"Which is why in every design, every concept, every search for an object or
work of art, we strive to recreate that original sense of harmony that resonates
through everything we are accustomed to calling 'beautiful'." This is an
explanation of their process, but you could pull a behavior out of it thus:
"Recreate a sense of beauty, harmony in each design, concept, and search." It describes each employee's intent they create their designs.

"This relentless commitment to purity of design implies a similarly
meticulous attention to detail." This is a paragraph joiner--something that
references the first paragraph and introduces the new subject.

"We believe that details are more than mere parts but reflections of the
whole: the majesty and splendor of an entire palace is contained within a single
door handle." This is a philosophy, "Believe details (door handle) are
reflections of the whole (palace)."

"A concept that permeates every corner and every layer of the design and
finishing is not a superficial luxury but the natural outcome of a constancy to
purpose and a consistency of perspective." This is also an explanation of
their process and a reassurance that the company is constant and consistent. You
might be tempted to pull "be constant and consistent" out as a guiding
principle, but that's not how this is written. The intent it to reassure the
potential client that the company is serious.

"At [the company], everything begins with the notion of craftsmanship." This is also an explanation of method.

"We believe in craftsmanship simple because it stands the test of time."
This is a statement of fact: craftsmanship stands the test of time. We [the company] agree with this fact.

"Knowledge and knowhow, of materials and techniques, form an unconditional
but limitless source of inspiration for our designs." Here is another behavior, "Find inspiration for designs in my knowledge of materials and
techniques." It explains the method an employee of the company follows when looking for inspiration.

"... designs that encapsulate a personal vision of the here and now, but
which also embody an orientation towards the future." This is a statement of
fact that their designs encapsulate this orientation.

"For over time, beautiful objects gain in beauty; houses develop character;
furniture a certain patina; and works of art can but strengthen their force of
presence." These are several statements of fact. They may say they "believe
in" these SOFs, but what do they do about them? We can't include this set of phrases in a mental model because there is nothing here that guides a decision. (Note: Often the two words "believe in" are a red flag for something that is not really a guiding
principle.)

"[The company]'s international design office comprises a team of specialized
architects, interior decorators, designers and art historians resulting in a
dynamic exchange of ideas and perspectives." This describes their method,
that they exchange ideas among the staff. See the next bit for the real guiding
principle.

"... synergies which form the basis of our unique vision on architecture and
design." Well, this is not grammatically correct, but let's go with the
flow. They are stating another behavior here, "Exchange perspectives with our
varied staff to gain unique vision." This should definitely be included in the mental model.

"With an extensive portfolio of creations in countries such as France, Great
Britain, Monaco, Italy and the United States, [the company] continues to stamp
its mark on interior architecture in ways that are as diverse as our discerning
clientele." This is another reassurance to potential customers, stating that
they have an extensive portfolio and discerning clients.

Tally: Two Guiding Principles

"Watermark every person's lifeworld with their individual style."

"Believe details (door handle) are reflections of the whole (palace)."

Tally: Three Behaviors

"Recreate a sense of beauty, harmony in each design, concept, and search."

"Find inspiration for designs in my knowledge of materials and techniques."

"Exchange perspectives with our varied staff to gain unique vision."

Put the pronoun "I" in front of each of those sentences and try them on for size. This statements run through the minds of the employees or partners at this architecture company as they execute design work.

Also note: I use the term "guiding principle" here, but also use the words "belief" and "philosophy" in other places. I mean the same thing by them: something that guides decision-making.

How to Wield Empathy

2011-11-17T02:36:50Z

At at recent workshop, I conducted a spontaneous interview as a demonstration of what I mean by "create a scope perimeter within which any conversation can happen." I asked for a volunteer and for a topic. The volunteer was Daren. The topic was air travel. I scoped the topic down to "planning and booking air travel" just to have a good place to start, and also added "handling the day of travel."

So, with both of us standing at the front of the room, I asked Daren about his thought process as he planned and booked his last flight. He said, "Well, it was a multi-leg flight, and so I knew it would be hard to set up online. So I called. I like to call, anyway. I fly Southwest mostly, and they have really nice reps." I asked him what he meant by "nice reps." The conversation flowed. He was great at describing how he thought. Then he said, "But actually, the customer service at Southwest has changed. It has gotten worse." "How so?" I asked. "Well, recently I flew with my wife and our toddler. As we were walking down the aisle boarding, I was holding my son's hand. Somehow he fell and cut his lip. Luckily we were right near a flight attendant, so I asked her for some gauze or a Band-aid or something. She told me there wasn't any on board, turned away, and just started talking with another passenger. She totally saw my boy's bloody lip! I was so angry!" I wondered out loud, "What did you do?" "I searched my pockets and found a tissue--a dirty tissue--and used it to clean up my son's lip. And my wife was kind of upset at me for letting it happen, so I was also feeling guilty about the whole thing. But I did get up and find the flight attendant and write down her name. I was SO going to complain to management about her!" "And ...?" I prompted. "Well, I cooled off during the flight. She actually came up to us later and was really friendly and helpful. So I decided it would be too much effort to write up a complaint--it wasn't worth it. But I have switched airlines. I used JetBlue on my last business flight." "Why them?" "Oh, I pass their billboard on the highway every morning. I heard they have seatback screens, and I'd like that. I don't like craning my neck to see the screen all the time." The conversation continued in this vein ...

... then I switched topics to "handling the day of travel" just to demonstrate a different type of topic. Daren started out describing his latest business trip on JetBlue. He said, "I like to get to the airport early, like really early, to avoid stress. Maybe I'll sit there and read or work or something." I asked him about his reasons for avoiding stress. He told me, then gave me this example. "On this last trip I spent an hour looking for food. You don't get food on the plane anymore, so you have to buy it ahead of time. Well, I have special dietary needs. Actually, my son has the allergies, but my wife and I eat the same as him just to make things easy. He's allergic to wheat, dairy, nuts, and eggs. So I had to run around looking for something that I could eat. I told myself that morning that I wasn't going to cheat. Sure, it would be easier to just grab something and go, because I'm not the one who's allergic, and my son wasn't with me. But, I wanted to not cheat. So I looked for an Asian place first. Those are usually good--rice is good. But the one I found had teriyaki, which has soy sauce in it. Soy sauce is made with wheat. So I finally ended up at a place that had hamburgers. I bought a hamburger and fries and threw out the buns. I ordered a half pounder because I thought I would need the extra calories if I was going to throw out the buns. I told them no cheese and no mayo. I actually bought two: one to eat then for breakfast and one to eat later on the plane." He continued on with his description. "When I arrived in New York, it was late, but I was hungry again. The only place open was a Jamba Juice, so I thought I could get a smoothie. I spent 20 minutes looking at their menu and realized that all their drinks either had dairy in them or gluten in them." "What did you decide to do?" I asked. "I was hungry, but I just convinced myself to walk away and go get a cab to the hotel. I stood there 20 minutes first."

That's a lot of emotion!

His determination to not cheat on the dietary restrictions of his son stuck with me 30 minutes later, when I went to lunch. I walked into my favorite quick lunch spot: Specialties Cafe & Bakery. It was a relatively new store, and they had these tethered iPads for placing orders. As I browsed through the sandwiches, I tried thinking like Daren did. What sandwich could I buy without wheat, dairy, nuts, or eggs?

Immediately I adopted his approach of throwing out the bread. (Waah! The bread they bake is lovely, and it's pure and simple!) And it looked like I would have to throw out the cheese as well. Wait! There was a peanut butter and banana sandwich--no cheese! Oh, but nuts. Okay, not peanut butter. If I threw out the bread, and the cheese, and asked for no mayo, I would be left with deli meat, lettuce, tomato, onion, and pickle. Wait, could I eat the pickle? Was it pickled using any wheat, like soy sauce contains wheat? I wasn't sure, so I left off the pickle, too. What I was left with was pretty meager, and I knew I couldn't order my favorite cookie to make up for it because of the wheat and eggs and butter. I paused. And sighed. And decided that I had pretended to be Daren for long enough and ordered the peanut butter and banana sandwich with a cookie. I cheated. I felt bad about it.

This is what I mean by empathy. I felt bad about it.

Empathy sounds all wonderful, but it's powerless unless you try out the life of the person you're trying to empathize with. You won't experience the remorse of cheating on dietary restrictions if you don't try to apply those dietary restrictions honestly. I tell people it's similar to what an actor must go through when studying a character. It's the act of leaving yourself behind and stepping into the thought-processes of another person.

When you are designing, how much time do you spend in your own head, applying your own perspective, and how much time do you spend in someone else's mindset? Next time you're designing, try to spend more of the time outside of your own perspective. Make this into a practice. Say things about how you would encounter the design with an "I," but this "I" is the "I" of another human being. "I am starving. I am tired from that long flight from San Francisco, and I'm slightly peeved that all the food places in the airport are closed this late at night. So I'm thrilled to see that Jamba Juice is open--I anticipate gulping down some fruity smoothie within a few minutes. But first I must adhere to my practice--what ingredients are in each drink available? I must read each description very carefully for wheat or wheat by-products. I must scan for dairy. I assume there are no nuts or eggs in these drinks, but I keep that in mind, too, as I study each drink, one by one. I have to set my backpack down beside my suitcase because it is so heavy and this is taking so long ..."

Make empathy a bigger part of your design process.

Just Diving In: Hypothetical Audiences Segments and Interview Skills

2011-05-19T17:51:32Z

BK: I was just re-reading some of the book and I was wondering how important it is to define the task-based segments. I'm not sure anyone here knows what users do well enough to make those guesses. I'm thinking of starting to talk to a few people who look promising and see what they say, but will this be usable later for a mental model?

Indi: Yes, anyone you can get to tell stories about their motivations will be usable in a mental model diagram. It will be a random or a homogeneous collection of stories, though. As far as defining some hypothetical audience segments up front, it's an exercise to define and broaden your understanding of who you are supporting. Most people answer "everyone" when I ask, "Who will use this offering?" It's not a good answer and keeps many organizations in chaos. It's sometimes very difficult to undertake this exercise, but it is so helpful. I'm cajoling a client through the process this week in fact. Even if the groups you define now change completely once you have collected real stories from them, it's important to try. If you don't try to define some groups, then a) the scope of your research will be too broad, and b) you will miss talking to some people you might not have had in mind at first.

BK: Could I just ask how you honed your non-directive interviewing skills? Did you just start and then improve over time or did you study books, take courses or similar?

Indi: I started doing interviews in 1993 as a part of understanding the "lay of the land" for customer service reps at a call center in Baltimore. I considered myself a software engineer at the time, having graduated with a degree in Computer Science in 1987. So I think it was a skill I took from the deconstructive approach for writing code. They never taught us to interview people, but they did teach us to come at problems as neutrally as possible. So in the end, I guess my answer to your question is that I just dove into it. I try always to improve. I practice whenever I'm near people like at the checkout line or at community meetings. It's far easier to be curious and neutral with "familiar strangers" like these situations than with people you know. Use every opportunity you can to practice.

BK: I'm gradually cajoling my colleagues into letting me loose on the customers. I have to introduce the idea of user-experience-based user research. I'm still at the stage of trying to convince them of the value (compared to analytics / market research), since you know the non-directive interviewing can raise a few eyebrows. I'll be putting a case together. This will definitely be a 'dive into it' approach for sure.

Indi: Good! Dive into it! Employing a pop-up on a site with a few questions is a great way to collect leads. List these names and get back to each of them for a five minute chat (which needs to be by voice, but only 5 minutes) to find out who they are (in terms of your behavioral audience segments plus in terms of whatever demographics are interesting to your organization) and if they can talk story. This is really the reason why you need to call them. You can't find out if a person can talk story by email.

Once you find some people you really want to talk to, set up a time to have a conversation for 30 or 60 minutes. This is the fun part! This is where you start by introducing the scope of what you're doing and then simply ask, "So, what are your thought processes and reactions during this?" Then you let the stories flow for a while. No interview questions are needed. Simply be curious and ask for lots of explanations of thoughts, beliefs, and feelings. This is the information from which you will make your mental model.

Alternately, you've read about the lightning quick short-cut, right?

Who Can Believe the U.S. Unemployment Figures?

2010-12-14T21:40:18Z

The letter begins, "You may have read in the newspaper--or heard on the radio or television--the official government figures on total employment and unemployment issued each month." (The writer of the letter added to em-dashes to make sure we notice they are using new-fangled media channels. I assume the template for this letter was written in 1992 or something, since the Internet isn't mentioned. There is no actual date on the letter.) The letter goes on to say, "We have selected your address and about 55,000 others throughout the United States for this survey ... your participation in this voluntary survey is extremely important to ensure the completeness and accuracy of the final results. Although there are no penalties for failure to answer any question, each unanswered question lessens the accuracy of the final data. Your cooperation will be a distinct service to our country." There is no explanation how to opt out, just an address to send comments. I didn't want to opt out, though. I figured this opportunity is just like the time I was a Nielsen TV ratings household where I didn't own a TV. This opportunity is similar because I don't work for a company. I could be another statistical outlier that the analysts would have to contemplate ... and probably throw out.

But what gets me is those adjectives (or noun-ified adjectives) in the letter. "Official," "important," "completeness," "accuracy" (twice), "final" (twice), "distinct." These are the adjectives that we have been fed for decades about surveys. Sure, I took my statistics courses in university--even worked as a teacher's aide for one of the classes--so I respect the math and the statisticians. I don't respect the people who write the survey. Their use of English is imprecise, which leads to crazy results. In addition, the Bureau insists on conducting the surveys in person, by voice. Your answers or side-chat with the human carrying the survey don't influence how the answers are worded, and nothing matches up with reality. They ask for details you don't know about other household members. Nothing is actually accurate, because they are using a survey to capture the information.

So, these two very normal 60-year-old ladies turn up at my front gate this morning. I was in the middle of my bike workout in the garage, so they weren't interrupting my work, at least. They showed me their ID's, handed me another copy of the letter, and introduced themselves as the Field Rep and her Supervisor. I got the feeling the Field Rep was on her first week of this survey-thing. I chatted with them cordially about where in the Bay Area they live while changing out of my bike shoes and invited them in the house, offered a cup of tea--everyone was smiles. They told me how not all the survey participants are so cheery and cooperative. They only accepted water. (I bet there's a rule about what they can accept. I know there's a rule to observe when I ask government employees to participate in an interview: I can't give them any individual compensation. Group compensation is okay in some places, like a basket of muffins or something. A coffee cup, a check, a baseball cap--those are forbidden. No bribery implied.) Then the little gray laptop came out, and thus began three things: the circus of trying to get the laptop to behave the way the Field Rep intended, the defining and re-defining of the English used in the survey, and the hand-waving about what answer to put down, all resulting in the increasing unease of the Field Rep herself. I didn't mean to, but I think I ruined her day.

1. The Circus of the Laptop

The survey began with all the traditional questions: is this your primary place of residence? What is your name? Who else lives here? What is his name? When I answered, "Philip" for that last question, at least the Field Rep had the presence of mind to say, "So I assume his gender is male." That's the only time she "slipped up" and allowed normal human discourse to dictate one of her answers. I asked about the rules of conducting the survey, and her Supervisor said they are required to read each survey question exactly as it is printed. And they have to read the answers out loud, too. Except the household income question. That struck me as humorous, because the Field Rep swung her laptop around to show me a list of radio buttons, each with an income range next to it for the household. I grinned and said, "We're number sixteen on that list," playing along with her. I guess it's taboo to say income figures out loud.

But when we got to the question of race/ethnicity (I forget the actual wording on this one), that's where we ran into trouble. Ever since participating in my first census as an adult in 1990, I have filled in the circle next to "Other" and hand-written "human" on the blank line next to that. I have a personal philosophy that paying attention to non-affective differences only perpetuates discord. I've not read anything yet that clearly correlates someone's ability with their family tree. There's a lot that goes into ability: nature, nurture, being in the right place at the right time, even love of doing something, as Malcolm Gladwell espouses. I remember taking an aptitude test in high school. Sitting in the chair next to me was my best friend, whose last name also happened to be Young. We called ourselves twins, even though we weren't related. I remember feeling mortified that, when I looked over at the front cover of her test booklet, I had one bubble filled out differently than hers. Race. She's descended from people who came from China six generations ago. I'm descended from people who came to California six generations ago from Canada and Europe. My best friend and I were twins to the core, so why did this stupid test booklet cover declare that we weren't? I remember trembling I was so upset, right there in the classroom where they gave the high school aptitude test. So, my personal philosophy about this is pretty strong. And when the poor Field Rep asked, I instructed her to just choose the "Other" radio button. She read the possible answers out loud, and the only place the word "other" appeared was as "Other Pacific Islander." She tried to skip it, but the survey software defaulted to "Latino." The Supervisor stood up and came to bend over the laptop with the Field Rep. They took a few moments to figure out what they could do. The Field Rep looked up. "Is it okay if I just mark down "Caucasian" for you? Nope. It's not okay. I make eye contact with the Supervisor and smile. She keeps a straight face, trying to hide that I've made her feel uncomfortable. The Supervisor pointed to something and they clicked, relief flooding their faces. I have no idea what they did, or how my answer was recorded. I smiled and chatted about how software sure isn't designed well.

Imprecise English

The next part of the survey asked about my type of work. The first question was, "Do you run a business or a farm?" I laughed, because of all the possible things a person could do for a living, why pick just those two to begin with? I have a veggie garden but I don't sell the produce, so I figured "farm" meant "selling produce" and I opted out of that one. But "business?" To me, that means I run an agency or a shop or a firm--something with employees and a location. I don't have any employees, and I do my work in my living room, or on the ferry, or at the airport, or in client conference rooms. I didn't think I was a "business" either, so I explained this to the Field Rep. She asked, "Do you work for someone else?" "Yes," I said, "for my clients." She shook her head, "No, you run your own business." Okay. There is is. "Running a business" equals "not a W4 employee."

"So, describe what work you do," the Field Rep asks next. I pause, for a long time. You know why--how do we explain this field? How do we put it into a couple of words that have meaning in the traditional sense of "what do you do for work?" If I'm a mechanic, I say, "I fix cars." If I'm an ex-software engineer trying to encourage big corporations, governments, universities, and start-ups to go talk to real people before investing in a product or service that might flop, I say, "Um. Uh." The Supervisor, having heard my chatter about what I do before the survey started, tries to help, "You do software?" I try to un-fumble myself, saying, "I actually do research, and analysis, and ..." The Field Rep starts typing in my response. She says out loud, "Researching, Analyzing ... what? Analyzing what? They like 'ing' words." Ech! My eyes roll up for half a second, as she has pressed another soapbox button on silly old me. It peeves me when people make verbs into gerunds by adding "ing" to them. It weakens the verb, makes it into a noun that can be boxed up and kept at a distance rather than tasted and experienced as an action. "I research and I analyze the data I collect." I hear myself saying, "I hate gerunds." Eek! Sorry ladies--am I turning into one of the uncooperative survey participants? Anyway, I finally concoct a sentence in my head that I'm willing to have recorded on the survey. "I understand people in real life situations so we can design products and services to support them." The Field Rep types it in slowly. "Whoops," she says toward the end. "We're out of room." I wonder how much of my explanation fit in the box.

"For the week of December 5th, a Sunday, through December 11th, a Saturday, how many people did you do work for, including part-time and evening?" I immediately wonder if having two clients last week counts as two jobs. I ask about this. The Field Rep tells me, "No, you count all your clients as one job." Good to know.

Then the special just-for-this-week section of the survey begins. It's a sub-survey by the Department of Agriculture wondering whether I have had enough food to eat since last December. I'm still not clear on what their scope of research was. They wanted to talk to the person who does the shopping and cooking for the household. I was stumped on that one, because Philip does most of the shopping, and I do most of the cooking. "The person most knowledgeable about food," they amended. Well, we had just finished outlining how Philip got his Masters degree in Plant Science. "He's technically more knowledgeable about food, but maybe I could answer for us both?" The ladies laughed politely, and I wondered why the survey writer assumed that a person shopping also does the cooking--that those two chores are always only done by one person. The survey writer must not have any idea of the mathematical properties of the word AND. Alas. (It means if shopping is true and cooking is false (in Philip's case), then the answer is false. If shopping is false and cooking is true (in my case), then the answer is still false. It's only a true answer if both shopping and cooking are true, which is not necessarily the case for anyone in our household.)

Another of the questions was about whether I or another household member (meaning Philip) had shopped at a grocery store or supermarket last week. "Does Trader Joe's count?" I ask jokingly. "Philip does the shopping there. I do that shopping at the farmers market." The ladies do not smile. "How much did you spend there last week?" I don't know, maybe around $40, and I explain he has a bowl full of receipts that I can rummage through if they want me to. Yes, they want me to. To simplify things, I just grab the top receipt from Trader Joe's. Later, I remember he went to Target last week for his monthly stock-up on his favorite cereal. I didn't feel like really looking for all the Trader Joe's receipts from last week, and I didn't want to paw through his stuff and find other receipts from Carl's Junior or Burger King that I really didn't want to know about. That's his business, not mine. So I brought the receipt back to the table. "Fifty dollars." I hold out the receipt. The Field Rep looks doubtful. The Supervisor says, "Hey, you were pretty close!" I read the total at the bottom, "It actually says $49.59, but I think you want to round up for these surveys, right?" The Field Rep continues frowning. She asks, "Have you bought food elsewhere ..." And I interrupt, repeating, "I shop at the farmers market. Every Thursday." "... at a butcher, a bakery, a produce stand, or a convenience store? A convenience store is like a 7-11." I look at her. She suggests, "Maybe a farmers market is like a produce stand?" The Supervisor says, "They have produce stands in Fresno," (or was it Modesto?) from which comment I deduce that's where the survey writers work. "Let's put down 'yes' to this one." I look at the Supervisor and muse out loud why they don't have farmers market in the answer set, and was this survey written 15 years ago? The Supervisor laughs and says, "It's because the programmers are antiquated." I think she means the survey writers. In Fresno. Or Modesto. I begin to wonder if she has hung out with them, to begin to know that they're "antiquated" in their thinking patterns. I agree with her thinking, then realize she said that just to agree with my musings, which are growing darker because this line of thinking only illustrates how much the world view of the survey writer influences the results coming out of the survey.

The final Department of Agriculture question makes me laugh, because the wording is so cunning. I actually feel impressed by the writer. "Have you had enough money to buy the foods that you have wanted to eat in the past year?" Yes, that's what you read: "Wanted to eat." It just works on so many levels! The writer adroitly steps around the guilt and (resulting prevarication) a participant might feel if the question asked about basic food groups or foods you needed for basic nutrition. If a participant lives on coffee and hamburgers, this question works just fine. There were five answers, varying from getting all the food you wanted to eat to getting very little food you wanted to eat. I could have said I was not getting enough chocolate cookies or brownies to eat, but I decided to go with the first answer. I get enough food, yes.

Fooling with the Answers

The third thing that really left me with a need to write this essay is that none of the answers I gave were precise. Quite a few of them were guesses or "close-enoughs." If the statisticians are using the data from 55,000 U.S. households to calculate the official, important, complete, and accurate final results, and 55,000 real-live, human, unique participants are approximating numbers and shrugging their shoulders about which radio button to select, then how helpful is that information?

Here are some examples. One question about work asked how many hours I and the other household members worked last week. "Do you mean billable hours, in which I profited, or just all the hours I spent working on the computer? I also write and create workshop materials for various conferences I attend." They are silent, pondering this. I walk across the room and grab my laptop from my desk, set it between the Field Rep and the Supervisor, and show them my spreadsheet. For the past two decades, I have recorded data in 15-minute increments about what projects and articles I'm working on, or if I'm "networking" or "reading" materials germane to my industry, or having "sales" calls, etc. I have twenty spreadsheets with this data, one per year since 1991. I am a bit of a data junkie. In last week's column my spreadsheet shows I worked 10.5 billable hours, 0 sales hours, 12.75 hours doing stuff like maintaining my computer, touching base with people, reading articles, and commuting to a holiday party, 2.25 hours on this blog, and 2.5 hours making arrangements for speaking and teaching workshops. That's a total of 28 hour last week. "Since this is less than 35 hours, is there a reason you did not work full time last week?" the Field Rep asks. I cannot resist musing out loud that there is a judgement in that phrase "did not work full time" and a strange cut off where something like 34.5 hours does not qualify as full time. I was surely at my computer doing work every day. I just don't count the 15 minutes every hour that I spent writing to a friend or looking for a Christmas gift for my nephew. People who are employees also write to their friends and buy gifts for their nephews, surreptitiously, but it gets counted as "full time." I admit I shouldn't have reacted emotionally to the fact that my careful accounting cast aspersions unto me, but I did react. I think the ladies realized it, too.

If the statisticians could get their hands on my spreadsheets, they'd probably be thrilled. If they could just get information from payroll data, they'd be happy. Instead, they have to coax imprecise data from participants through the gauzy medium of a spoken survey.

(Note that the data is incomplete for the years 1991, 1992, 1996, 1997 and 1998. 2006 is the year I wrote my book.)

"And how many hours did other members of this household work last week?" Um, how should I know what hours Philip put in? He works as a biochemist in a lab testing samples and reporting results. He's at work a lot, so I guessed 45 hours for last week. They were doing fewer experiments because they had just moved the lab to a new room and were still setting up equipment. I have no idea how he logs his hours. We never talk about it. I guess we will now. (Note: I asked last night, and Philip says he recorded 37.5 hours last week on his company time sheet, which is 40 hours minus his 30 minute lunch each day.)

Another example was the question, "How much could you save a month on food items?" I explained that I don't look at food prices, I just buy what is locally grown and fresh and in season. I don't know what the other version of this would cost at the grocery store. I never look. So I guessed $15. Shrug. Who would know how much they could save, anyway? What an odd question. What were they after?

Then the Field Rep read a question about household members buying food from a list of places that included vending machines. I never buy from vending machines, but I have no idea whether Philip does. The subject has never come up in the 11 years we've been together. So I had to guess about the answer to that question, too. Sorry, Department of Agriculture.

Oh, and I forgot. After the ladies left, I realized last week I had placed a $100 order for 65% chocolate chips from my favorite vendor, Sweet Earth in San Luis Obispo. I buy in bulk, 10 pounds at a time. Mint says I've bought these chocolate chips in bulk every other month. I forgot to mention it because the Department of Agriculture sub-survey never asked about online food purchases. I had totaled about $116 in food spending last week for the survey, which would average to around $550 a month, $1100 every two months. (Mint says this is about average for the U.S. participants that have signed up for their service.) The Department of Agriculture is missing almost 10% of my food spending by omitting online food purchases.

What Are the Numbers About?

In the end, all this effort that participants, field reps, supervisors, statisticians, and everyone at the U.S. Census Bureau put in adds up to ... what? The letter says, "total employment and unemployment issued each month ... estimates of the number of people working ... help direct programs ... and ... provide ... summary information about ... participation in various government programs." The letter says they include retirees as participants, and obviously they include the self-employed, since they are asking me to participate. I wonder how this particular collection of guesses and approximations got started. Who needed to know what, exactly? Is this question still valid today, or is the process/program self-perpetuating? I know one thing for certain: when I hear that monthly unemployment figures are up or down, I won't pay any attention. It's a statement based on 55,000 people waving their hands and rolling their eyes.

I have another seven months to look forward to participating in this survey. Giving my important and accurate guesses to the individuals at the Census Bureau (who are not bold enough to improve this data-collection project) is my distinct honor.

(I ought to state here that by the end of their visit, the supervisor thanked me and gave me some very nice compliments while the Field Rep turned gray-faced and made an abrupt dash for the front door. I was not sure how to react. I started apologizing, as if my musings had been too much for her, but perhaps she was only hungry. After all, they showed up at 11:45am and left an hour later. I did hear the Field Rep's stomach grumble. I don't think they had expected me to be at home, available to participate immediately. Hopefully she was just hungry, and wasn't worried sick about the next time she has to talk to me.)

The Future of eReaders: What Goes On in Your Mind While You Are Reading?

2010-12-07T22:21:42Z

What Can Research Help Us Discover?

Like you, I've been experimenting with eReaders. Google's announcement of its software for several platforms helped me consolidate my thoughts on the subject. My conclusion is that they're not where I want them to be, functionally. Couple that with the fact the number of titles in my favorite genre available from the state-wide library can be counted on four hands, and you can guess that I'm not ready to invest money yet in this first generation of eReaders. Title availability aside, I believe this first few years worth of effort behind eReaders represents a transparent reach by companies for my pocketbook. There's no heart behind their products yet, no deep attempt on their part to support my reading in a better way. They merely allow me to read in an obvious, flat, linear way. I am convinced that they need to understand the things people currently do in the real world in reaction to their reading, which will open up many options for functionality that will truly bring a step change to the experience of reading.

What do I mean? I don't mean evaluating how people use eReaders today. All the companies have practices in place already to conduct evaluative research into the experience with their existing products. They need to turn to generative research to obtain the insights that I mean. They need an understanding of people's intentions and thought-processes while reading, regardless of tools, medium, or services. From this understanding they can generate truly new support for readers. For example:

Shujie puts her book down to ask her husband, there on the couch with her, whether he agrees with a particular viewpoint she just read.
Adam folds a corner of a page to look at later when he's in front of the computer and can Google the concept he read about there.
Gerardo reads the three chapters of the textbook assigned, knowing there will be a quiz tomorrow. He highlights the sentences he wants to remember.
Johan wonders while reading a famous passage how it might have influenced Winston Churchill during World War II, which he just watched a program about.
Jocelyn reads something and smiles, thinking briefly of her friend Karen who would laugh at that sentence. She then reads on.

What are all the real-life thoughts, actions, and emotional reactions that go through people's minds and sometimes get translated to immediate or delayed action? Can these activities and philosophies be compared and grouped into a model that might illuminate our path forward? If we can understand these behaviors, then we can discover the strongest threads that will pull readers toward a smoothly supportive digital reading experience. Generative research like this have the side benefit of producing stable results that shift only over decades and human generations. Therefore research needed now can serve designers for a decade to come.

How Can eReader Software Improve?

Currently, all eReader software features are pretty similar. People can highlight text and write notes, and of course change the fonts and background colors and sizes. They can flow text differently to different devices, and they can synchronize across those devices. They can skip around and bookmark pages. But none of this is a completely compelling reason to switch from an analog to digital reading medium. People making the jump to digital right now are true pioneers, putting up with very limited functionality in their digital readers. Not everyone sees benefits to switching from analog to digital. To be compelling, a digital reading experience must support the little things that flit through people's heads as they read. Without having completed any research yet myself, here are three imagined examples of how a digital experience can be made more powerful:

Katrin reads a beautiful passage in a book by her favorite author. She re-reads it several times, savoring it like fine wine. She wishes to "re-enjoy" that passage later, perhaps six months from now, without actually reaching out to the book itself, which remains "on her shelf." She also wants to mention it to her friend Marisa, whom she thinks will enjoy it, too. Using the eReader software, she emails the passage to herself in six months, and to Marisa today. Katrin can enjoy the passage with her friend today.Then, six months later, she finds an email in her inbox from her eReader software with this passage, and she smiles, enjoying it once more.
Paul finds a meaningful passage in a book on philosophy. He wants to incorporate it in his life--make it a part of his daily practice. Using the eReader software, he sets up a daily afternoon text to his smart phone with the passage, accompanied by a message to himself saying, "Paul, my friend, have you followed this today?" Each day he sees this text from his eReader software and evaluates whether he has done well with regard to the philosophy.
AeSook pulls all the highlighted phrases from the chapters she has been studying into a separate study list. She finds most of the phrases in the list understandable, but one of them puzzles her. Wanting to remember the context of that phrase, she looks up the original paragraph and reads backward and forward a bit to recall the point the text is trying to make. With this enhanced understanding, she feels ready for the quiz tomorrow.

We are on the cusp of the digital reading age. There are hundreds of possibilities that will become "the norm" for humanity with regard to reading. The potential is massive. Many companies are jostling for position to guide the design of the new digital experience. Using a deep understanding of the things people think and do the way they read now, regardless of the analog or digital medium, will have a strong impact on the future direction of eReader software.

I sure wish I was on a team doing this research instead of dreaming about it!

Get Better at Interviewing: Look At How You Did

2010-12-01T20:40:09Z

One of my clients, who has spent her career getting to know customers, is in the midst of conducting a series of generative interviews. Under time pressure to finish (and analyze) these interviews in a less-than-ideal length of time, she is setting up all sorts of tools to help her get great results quickly. She says, "I want to improve my skills and generate more tasks-per-million--a denser, richer interview--if you will. I need to whittle down the five minutes of my stumbling and stuttering to just two minutes."

I pull my own questions from the transcript--just the questions--and critique them. This way I can see where I should have asked him to tell me a story or get more detail.
I've decided I can't use adjectives because when I use them, I am leading the participant.
I have a bad habit: I'm programmed to take notes. I find myself writing instead of listening intently to the participant. I need to get better at just remembering key words they say, so I can get back to them in the conversation, instead of writing lots of notes.

I am impressed with the power of her approaches.

If you're going to the IxDA 2011 conference in Boulder, Colorado in February but haven't signed up for a workshop, I'm teaching about interviewing styles.

Audience Segments As Characters

2010-10-13T23:39:30Z

I was recently helping a few people create audience segments for their projects. It's so hard to get outside the normal way of thinking about people by title or role or demographic. As a way of getting past that, and additionally as a way of emphasizing that audience segments are merely a way to help you talk to a wider swath of people than you might get simply by selecting by role, I suggested thinking of each segment as a character. Like, you know, "Oh, Mike--he's a character!" Someone who is larger than life will help you look around the edges of the role-defined world. (One of the people I was helping works in an industry where some of the workforce they are studying is referred to as "roughnecks," which just begs for the creation of characters!) Furthermore, thinking of these segments as characters in a movie will help you slip away from generalizations and focus on a particular set of extraordinary fictional personalities.

I suggested writing character descriptions to help the audience segments come alive and clearly differentiate themselves from one another. Commonly two characters that seem different in your mind turn out sounding similar in writing. This exercise helps you either outline the differences more specifically or merge the characters into one. Look for an important difference in philosophy or behavior. Think of a few real-live people who might represent tendencies of this character. If it is difficult to decide which character a real-live person falls into, then merge the characters.

When writing character descriptions, write them in the first person. For example, "I like to make a plan, and it really makes me happy when everyone on my team follows that plan without argument." Writing this way allows you to write what the character would really say about themselves. You want to avoid writing descriptions that would embarrass the person you are describing. Not that it will happen, but if that person ever read the description, you want her to be comfortable with what is said.

Check that the characteristics you describe apply across several roles and demographics. The "reliable" character who is sure and steady could show up as an engineer or a policeman or a bar tender. The "cutting edge" character who thinks the latest thing is always better could show up as an architect or a fashion designer or a concrete dispatcher.

These manufactured audience segments are just your way of reaching out beyond the "usual suspects." Hearing stories from a wider group of people helps you look beyond the business goals that have already been stated, allowing uninfluenced external input from the people you hope to support. (Note that you can adjust these characters into personas once you have collected and analyzed all their stories.)

Try the "Lightning Quick" Mental Model Method

2010-03-09T02:51:45Z

When I was making a lot of mental models in the get-it-to-market-yesterday dot com boom of the late 1990's, I used a technique that resulted in a mental model plus gap analysis brainstorm in the course of one day. Now that it's the not-in-this-economy post economic slump, I think it's time to put this technique to use again. Today, in fact, I got together with a group of nine talented design agency folks and we spent 2.75 hours putting together a set of towers based on 24 individual stories, and then spent rest of the day brainstorming ideas to support those towers. Here's how we did it.

Solicit Some Stories Ahead of Time

A week in advance, solicit stories from people. If your proposed audience segments happen to be online, ask for stories via email, tweets, Facebook, etc. If these folks aren't online, then ask as many people as you can to solicit stories from friends & family in their daily life and write you a summary, using that person's voice. (Use the personal pronoun "I" when recapping the stories.) When you ask for a story, be very explicit about what you want to hear, and give examples. As the stories come in, sort them roughly into piles of similarity.

[Note: Someone wrote in asking for more detail about this part of the Lightning Quick Session. Here are step-by-step directions that you might send out, say, in an email blast to folks who are members of the audience segment you wish to study.]

Use a heading like "Bring Me Stories."
Ask the one question that represents/summarizes the scope. For example, "Tell me a recent story of how you discovered & contacted a local business."
Add a few specific "why" questions, such as, "Why did you think of this business or type of business? What did you want to ask the business? What else were you thinking in this vein?"
Add some example stories as short paragraphs that can be read quickly. These examples help to show the level of detail you need. "My new house that my wife and I bought last August flooded in this huge rainstorm this January. Well, the basement flooded, where I keep my office, and all my computer power cords and router wires got wet! I pulled them all upstairs and set them to dry out, but what about the wires *inside* the walls of the house? Were those wet, too? Was it safe to just plug stuff back in? I decided I didn't know enough to safely answer the question, so I wanted to hire an electrician to check things out and make sure they were safe. It's an old house, so maybe the wiring will need replacing. I emailed a friend who also owns a house in the area and asked her if she could recommend an electrician. I tried Googling for a kind of rate sheet thing, to see what kind of expense range I was looking at, but couldn't find anything. So I asked my neighbor, whose father is a contractor, what the costs might be like. My friend also got back to me with the name and number of her favorite electrician, so I called and explained my fear and need for an appointment asap. I didn't want my new house to burn down, especially not in all that rain. Oh, and then one of my sump pumps went out, and I started to suspect an electrical problem. OMG, please come help! And what will this cost? I know it's got to be done."

Read & Write Labels

On the day of the workshop, gather everyone together either in a room with lots of sticky notes, or online with a shared Google spreadsheet. Assign one person to read and comb out verb+noun labels, and two or three people to scribble these labels down, either on sticky notes or in the Google spreadsheet. Assign the rest of the folks (at least one) to organize the labels as they are created. So, yeah, that's four people minimum for this exercise. You probably want to cut off the number of people participating at 10 or so. Alternately, you can split up a larger group into two sub-groups, each combing a different set of stories.

The person who reads and combs needs to have some experience combing and labeling, needs to know the rules that make it easy, and needs to know what to skip and when to toss out stories completely because they are not detailed enough. (I tossed three out of 24 stories on the floor, with a memorable flourish.) The reader has the option to read the stories out loud or to herself. Reading the stories out loud is more of a learning opportunity for the whole team, but takes a lot of time. Reading them to herself saves time, but makes the day less interesting to the other folks in the room. No matter which option she picks, the reader will announce verb+noun labels out loud, indicating which of the folks scribbling is supposed to write it down. With multiple folks scribbling, the reader can call out labels in quick succession, without having to wait for each of them to be completely written down. In today's session we managed to produce about 100 labels in 2 hours.

As each label is generated, another person (or set of people) accepts each label and puts it with other "like" labels, grouping by affinity of behavior. Encourage these folks to group into small groups of 5 or so labels. That's not a hard-and-fast rule--some of our groups had 10 and 20 labels, but most groups had 5 or 6 labels.

Again, it helps to have someone with experience lead this group, as making affinity groups by intent is takes practice. Often beginners will end up grouping by the nouns on the sticky notes, like "these are all the labels having to do with using the phone book" and "those are all the labels having to do with comparing the service features." Neither of those are intents. Instead, you might group by "read through a list of names hoping to remember the business I used four years ago" or "figure out why the bids I got are so different."

Another problem beginners run into while grouping is panic to make groups in a short period of time. Usually this surfaces as making up a structure in their heads such as "here's the pre-purchase phase, this over here is the purchase phase, and that's the post-purchase evaluation phase." These are structured labels coming from internal work being done by the team, not labels coming from the stories and intentions captured in the labels.

Re-Organize the Set & Make Headers

Once all the stories are read and the labels are written and in rough groups, as a final pass go through these groups and make adjustments. The team I worked with today had a really good grasp of grouping, yet we still spent 40 minutes re-jiggering things and putting the stray emotional label with the behavior that engendered it. As we adjusted things, we made up headings (again using verb+nouns) for each tower of things. We were careful not to make up a heading based on just one label. Instead, we made a solid tower of labels, stared at it for a second, and then made up a heading for it.

Brainstorm by Tower

As the final step of the day--the one that should take at least half the alloted time, visit each tower and brainstorm ideas for it. Write these ideas up with little notes and align them underneath the tower you are studying. We used red font on sticky notes to easily distinguish an idea from the original set of labels. Start with a tower that seems interesting. Keep brainstorming and building on ideas for that tower until you hit a lull, then move your focus to another tower. You don't have to go in any order. To keep the creative juices flowing, it's better to follow the path of interest. Maybe you will find towers that just aren't exciting, and that's okay. Skip them for now. Come back to them next quarter, because I guarantee your team will come up with enough other ideas to keep you busy for a while.

This lightning quick approach gets your team going in a day. You still get to work with real outside stories from real people. And you move to brainstorming and gap analysis quickly, giving folks in upper management (for whom the word "research" induces queasiness) a sense of confidence and progress.

Wish You Could Have Help?

If you don't feel experienced enough to do the combing on the fly or the grouping and adjustment of the labels, I'm happy to get you going with a bit of personal assistance. I've helped teams produce a perfectly-worded call for stories to send out to their audience segments. A week later, the team will send me the stories they solicited, organized roughly into themes. I will either get on the phone or show up in person to read through the stories and comb out labels, which is where a lot of teams feel unsure of themselves the first time through. Just a few hours of my time helps you feel sure you've got a solid beginning to your mental model. I'm happy to help!

Examples of Tough Combing Labels

2010-01-28T00:56:32Z

Hey, you wanted to test your combing/labeling skills, right? You wanted to hone your ability to grab the most descriptive verb possible, and pull out the implications of what the person is really trying to say? Here is a set of examples with a little discourse about why I suggest the label I suggest. The original labels have been suggested by people I am mentoring through the combing process.

original label: Compare Other (Higher Paying but Fewer Benefits) Jobs w/Mine - "I put a pencil to it. I mean, I know exactly what my benefits are, and I've looked at other jobs ... if I was to give up my benefits and retirement ... that I get now, because the first five years you went somewhere, you're not vested, so you're basically giving that up, and that's ten percent of my salary, so you put a pencil to it, and then a lot of people don't pay all your health insurance ..."
my change: Since his emphasis is "putting a pencil to it," I assumed that meant that he calculated the value of his benefits, and I changed the label to start with the verb "calculate."
question: He calculates the value of his benefits because he is comparing his low-pay/good-benefits job with a high-pay/poor-benefits one. Should there be 2 tasks: 'compare my job...' w/a subtask of 'calculate value...'? or one: 'calculate value of benefits to compare my low-pay job w/a high-pay one'?
my answer: Good point. I actually used the label "Calculate How Much My Benefits Add to My Income Here" so that it emphasizes that he is calculating to come to a decision point. In conversation with him, the gist of this bit was that he was deciding if the benefits were still high enough to compensate for going out and looking for another job. Instead, I can change this label to "Decide If Benefits Here Add Up to Compensate Low Wage." There are several other tasks around "Consider Leaving Low Paying Job if Good Benefits Cut" and "Value Benefits Equally w/Career Interest" that I don't think we need to break it into sub-tasks. The answer about sub-tasks is always in the context of what other tasks you've pulled, and if they basically cover what the guy is intending to communicate to us.

original label: Feel Stripping Out Benefits Hurts Company in Long Run - "Now, that's been changed, and a lot of new people coming in ... aren't gonna get that, so... I actually think they've hurt their selves. A lot of benefits are being stripped ... as new people come in, and I think ... in the long run it's gonna hurt them."

my change: This is his opinion. We can skip opinions.

question: What if his philosophy is: "good benefits are needed to retain talented people?" He is only staying at this job for the excellent benefits.

my answer: Since he is not in a position to hire people, and he is not talking about hiring policies or changing the benefits, it's just him griping. He hasn't even made a move to recommend changing the benefits policy yet. If he had formally recommended changes instead of just complaining, then we could use this. But his beliefs about good benefits to retain talent were not put into practice at all. He was complaining because we gave him an opportunity to complain. He might not have anyone who solicits complaints in his normal day-to-day life, so it may not be his normal behavior and should not be captured in the mental model.

original label: Think Lower Quality Employees Result From Stingier Benefits - "... and the new people coming in ... you get less quality people, I think."

my change: This is the same opinion, basically. I was trying really hard to steer him away from "like this/hate this" discussions, but he definitely started out thinking this was a conversation about what his opinions were. Usually these things are the fault of the interviewer, and you get to read it with a grain of salt and say to yourself, "Wait just a minute here. This doesn't explain anything. It starts to get at a philosophy but falls way short." So skip this one. Delete it.

original label: Serve on Committee to Write 5 Yr Tech Plan - "I'm on the committee to write the technology plan, you know, the five-year plan we've got to get
rewritten."

my change: If he was talking about writing a 5-year plan, then the verb "write" is the key here.

original label: Work w/Internal & External Groups - "I also had to work with not only our people here, but I went to ... meet with the contractors and do follow-ups and then meet with contractors individually."

my change: "Work" is a pretty non-descriptive verb. I changed this to "Follow Up with External Contractors."

original label: Keep in Touch w/Local & State Employees via Meetings, Calls, & Emails to Determine Needs - "The state, the meetings, yes, there were meetings with the local employees to see what they needed, because they have a supervisor on
site, and then the rest of it was basically phone calls, emails with the people from the state with their organization."

my change: I clarified the label to "Solicit Network Requirements from State Employees."

question: His behavior is "meet w/people" but the underlying reason is to "determine requirements." Hence your label, right?

my answer: Yeah. "Meet" is a really vague verb, as is "Keep In Touch." When I see those, it's an indication to dig deeper into the reason for the meetings and the keeping in touch. "What is going on here? Oh, it's to solicit the requirements from people, over time, via a bunch of channels, but my main goal is to solicit requirements."

original label: Consider Future Needs when Making Recommendations - "a cheap one that you could get with ... 50 licenses, or you could spend another 100
bucks and get an unlimited number of licenses ... and she's like, 'Well, we don't need that. We'll never have more than 25,' ... I'm like, 'You don't know this.'"

my change: The label is a little too high level. I changed it to "Argue That $100 Is Cheap Compared to Risk of Needing More Than 25 Licenses."

question: Does the specificity of "$100" complicate the grouping?

my answer: Nope. I will ignore the specifics as I group. At this point when you are labeling quotes, I want you to be specific so that sometimes I can just group the label without even reading the quote. I want the label to cut to the chase so I can use it quickly, since grouping takes so much mental capacity. I will probably put this with other tasks that are specific about other things, but general about persuading someone about spending or future costs or upgrade decisions.

original label Get Called for Help b/c My Extensive Working Knowledge of the System - "There's probably nobody else here that really understands it from A to Z... if something goes wrong, they call me, because ... I have such a working knowledge of every intricate bit and piece ... I normally do have the answer."

my change: "Get Called" is a passive verb--he's not doing anything. I labeled it "Answer Questions About The Systems I Know So Well."

original label: Express Frustration w/Inability to Reach Vendor - "I brought up the fact ... that I couldn't get hold of them, and the guy that's in charge ... he's on there, too, and he goes, "Well, you can always call the center. They always know how to get hold of the guy.".. And so I told him ... "I couldn't even get through your center ... even they weren't answering," and he, you could tell, is silent, you know."

my change: This label is in the middle. Either it's an emotion (Feel Frustrated) or it's a behavior (Express My Frustration to Vendor). I think it's the latter.
And I would label it more clearly as "Point Out Vendor is Not Always Available,
Despite Claims."

Forecast Confusion

2010-01-20T21:06:57Z

So it has been raining in the San Francisco Bay Area. You may have heard. When a brief ray of sun broke out this afternoon, my associate Eric Fain wrote, "Weather channel says 90% of rain ALL DAY. I'm so happy it's sunny." I interpreted that to mean he expected it to rain all day, and so this sunshine had beat the weatherman's* odds. The weatherman had said 90%, right? Hang on -- 90% what? Is the weatherman 90% certain it will rain today? Is he saying 90% of the day will be filled with rain? Is he saying it might only rain for two minutes, but he's 90% sure some sort of precipitation will happen? Or is he saying something crazy like "We will be receiving 90% of the storm front's precipitation today?" I think the first explanation is what he means ... and that's when I realized I had been reading it as 90% of the day will be filled with rain. Yeah, those percentages are confusing.

Okay, maybe this needs some design love. I figured it was time for some conversations with people. Why do people look at weather forecasts? What are they figuring out inside their heads? A quick canvass resulted in these intentions:

"Whether or not I should bring a coat or hat for rain ..."
"I want figure out what to wear, whether to bring a jacket, sweater, raincoat, or umbrella."
"... to see if i need to bring an umbrella."
"I try to plan for what to wear and what accessories I need. (umbrella, etc.)"
"It's usually for my commute purposes."
"If it's supposed to snow, I'll leave for work earlier and plan to leave for home earlier."
"... deciding when to head to the gym--try to beat the rain and ensuing traffic."
"I want to know if there will be a dry spell when I can go for a run today."
"I want to decide whether I should bike to work or not today."
"I look at the current temperature to figure out how many layers to wear when going for a run or a bike ride."
"If an upcoming activity will be rained upon, I want to see if I should change my plans accordingly."
"I might decide if I really want to go on that hike in the rain."
"I'm checking to see if it's going to be dry so I can go on a ride."
"I want to know if I should plan to prune the roses today, or if I should do one of my inside projects instead."
"It's to guess at if it's safe to go grocery shopping, or will that be a miserable experience. I look at the hourly forecast."
"I want to see how hot it is expected to get the next day, so I can plan when to rack off wine."
"If it's going to rain this weekend at the Pinnacles, we won't go climbing."
"If I'm going on vacation, I'll look up the weather there to know how to pack."
"When I am getting on a plane, what to bring ..."
"I need to figure out what to pack for a business trip."
"Our basement flooded. Did I tell you how close we are to the canal?"
"I'm interested in how much rain has fallen in the past 24 hours."
"If we are going paragliding, we look for which way the wind would blow."
"... to see how close the next storm is on the radar map."
"I'm a weather junkie. I want to see if there's something exciting to look forward to."
"I have weather on my iPhone in four parts of the world just to see what my friends are experiencing, for fun, to contrast with the weather in California."

You can see that the audience segment I contacted skews toward people who commute and go outside for exercise. If I asked people who deliver packages or paramedics or strawberry farmers, I would get some different responses in addition to those above. So let's agree that we're designing only for people who commute and go outside for exercise, not for the others at the moment.

From this quick set of conversations, I can see that people are looking to see whether they will be affected by the weather during certain activities, and they may adjust the time of those activities or the things they wear to make the activity more comfortable. And they want to know how much more rain is coming, adding to the mess in their basement.

So an icon like on the NOAA site above saying "This Afternoon 100% Rain" understandably makes people believe that they will get wet during their commute, trip to the gym, or run/hike/ride. It's 100% certain. Imagine their consternation when they get outside and all the rain gear is unnecessary because it has finished raining. No wonder the weatherman gets a lot of complaints.

There are a few things about the icons above that I'm not sure about. There was no easily-identifiable legend to explain things, and I didn't contact NOAA to find out.

Why are the percentages part of the first read? Why are they so catchy and important-looking?
What is the difference between rain and showers? (Today it said rain, but it came in little 20-minute sets, and it was dry in between. I would have defined that as a shower.)
What does this scale of likelihood mean, exactly: Likely, Chance, Slight Chance.
If the percentage is the certainty of the forecast, how does it relate to the likelihood? If it is the same thing, why is it represented twice?

It looks like the weatherman is trying to represent the data he has: how much rain we might get, and how sure he is we'll get it. (I'm not actually sure about the former; maybe it's just the latter, in general.) Juxtaposed to that, people I interviewed want to know how much of the day will be wet, and when those periods of wetness will occur. We all realize that the weatherman probably can't tell us that, exactly, so we forgive them and accept less specific predictions. So, if the data we need does not exist, then let us at least clean up those confusing percentages. What if the forecast icons had a little rain gauge next to each icon that predicted how much water is expected? We can then see a little chart over the next few days of what to expect, so we can put off pruning or hiking until a more suitable day. What if we make the word placement consistent, so the type of weather expected ("Rain," "Showers") is always the first line under the icon, and the likelihood ("Chance," "Slight Chance") is the second line under the icon? It would make the set of icons easier to scan.

Note that the rain gauge allows the weatherman to show how the intensity of precipitation may change, even though the likelihood decreases or stays the same. Notice, too, that I moved the date over to the right, just above the first icon, so that we can associate them easily. (I have to confess that a couple of years ago NOAA changed the URL for my point forecast, so my bookmark was old. For a few weeks I kept staring at the same nine icons of fog wondering when the weather would ever change. I didn't see the "Last Update" or "Forecast Valid" lines in among all the text above the heading.)

In the interest of clean space, and taking advantage of our super-associative brains, I thought one more design change might work. We already know that if our loved one writes us a note and double-underlines the word "important," we had better pay attention to what the note says. We can telegraph the importance of the weather type in the same way, indicating likelihood with a double underline, or "slight chance" with a couple of question marks. I'm not sure I understand the scale the weatherman is using for likelihood, so my attempt to put it into a four-part scale may be incorrect.

This consolidation leaves us room to layer in something else that may be important and happening at the same time, like wind or thunderstorms or tornadoes, instead of shoving it further down the page.

I admit that these redesigns are not pretty, nor do they address one of the concerns people I talked to had, "Which hours of the day will be rainy?" I did address the concerns, "How much more rain is coming?" and "Should I put this off until a better day?" If "Showers" and "Rain" get more clearly differentiated by the weatherman, I can also address "Will there be a break in the rain for me to go for a run?" Otherwise, I tried to work within my imagined data limitations, and I tried to offer a very slight change to the format which may have a chance of getting through bureaucracy. At least it gets rid of the confusing percentages.

* "The weatherman" is my euphemism for all the people who team up with satellites and reams of data to bring us these weather predictions. I am using the word tongue-in-cheek. There was a time in my early 20's when I desperately wanted to work for NOAA Earth System Research Lab in Boulder, Colorado, so I got an invitation there to see what it was like there. Impressive! They have my respect.

Discount for IxDA 2010 Conference

2009-12-18T19:39:18Z

Now's the time to ask your boss if there's any budget left for education that needs using this year. The IxDA 2010 Conference in February in Savannah is the place to go! I am teaching a workshop there the morning of 04-Feb-10, and I have this discount code for $50 off the conference registration. IxD10Special

Support Intentions, Not Existing Workflows

2009-12-10T00:12:25Z

This week I was chatting with someone who works at an organization that does not yet recognize the value of generative research before defining products. She said to me, with exasperation in her voice, "The product managers here still go around collecting needs from our customers and giving us lists of features to implement." She had some money left over from a budget (that doesn't happen often!) and wanted to spend it on a small research project that would get to the root of what people were trying to do--people who were not yet customers. Her dream is to be able to show the product managers and executives at her company results from the generative research illuminating several new, previously uncharted activities that her company can support.

Her situation got me thinking about how most organizations go about product design, and how short-sighted their method is. Usually the focus is on existing practices of customers using existing products. If you're lucky, maybe the focus is on existing practices, but of people using other companies' products. People spend lots of effort to capture the step-by-step procedure customers use to achieve something. They produce a lot of boxes-and-arrows diagrams that portray all the nuances of the customer process. A lot of time and sweat is invested in making those boxes-and-arrows precise, which is unnecessary, in my opinion. If the precise diagram only traces the workaround someone developed to make things go how he wants them to go, then you are only perpetuating a flaw. Sure, people buy flawed services and products, but not because they want to. It's because it's all the choice they have.

It's time to go past the existing workflow and get into peoples' intentions.

In each of these examples, you can imagine different ways to support the actor. Take the hungry person who just wants to spend time with her husband after their very busy days. Cooking and shopping are just two things she can eliminate from her schedule. She could also eliminate picking up the dry cleaning or writing checks to pay bills. But let's say your organization is an organic produce farmers market. You have a basic philosophy of helping people eat healthy foods. You offer a weekly home-delivery service of a box of local, in-season fruit and vegetables. Along with that service, you have a selection of recipes online to help people cook vegetables they are unfamiliar with. For years you and your peers have been discussing how to convince people to stop doing the fast food thing, but the ease of getting quick, cheap (usually sweet and fatty and produced somewhere far, far away--but I digress) food seems like too much to overcome. Examine her underlying motive: spend more time with her husband. Let's say that you've already captured the market that happily cooks and have convinced their spouses to cook together. That leaves the couple that doesn't like cooking. What if you get a professional kitchen license and create some simple, wholesome, organic "TV dinners," packaged in recyclable paper take-out boxes, that you offer for weekly delivery. True, this is a business risk and probably costs almost as much to produce as you could charge for it, but it is worth exploring since you already have the delivery infrastructure in place. If the hungry person is motivated more by quality time than by cost, then you might have a great idea here.

When you spend time with people who might become someone you produce a service or a product for, concentrate on finding these underlying intentions. Deliberately jump past the details of how they execute something currently and spend time instead asking them what's behind this step. What are they trying to accomplish besides the step itself? Frequently, people haven't really thought past the steps, and your conversation turns into more of a psychotherapy session, helping the person work through the underlying issues and describe them for you. When this happens, you know you're on the right track. With the results of several conversations like this, you can guide your organization into areas you hadn't previously considered or been consciously aware of. This direction leads to services and products that support what a person really intends to do and makes their life smoother. And that is a very attractive proposition to most of us.

"Aloof" Wasn't What You Meant

2009-11-19T23:02:30Z

The operational difference between an organization with happy customers and an organization with disgruntled customers is easy to define. The latter understands customers only at their highest level. They reach out to see how customers interact only with the options they already have in place. These organizations set in place processes and business rules that keep their employees from wasting time or offering the wrong service. Subsequently, employees only feel confident about these line items. Any other situation gets met with the phrase, "That's not part of my job description."

Sound familiar? Check out this example from an after-hours customer service chat session. The customer, a father who works full time and like many parents, must conduct his business after his toddler is in bed, is trying to find where to enter a code on his bank website to verify a connection he set up between his account and his joint account with his wife at another bank:

Trevor: Hello, my name is Trevor. Thank you for being a valued Bank of America customer. I hope that you are having a great day.
Nick: thank you
Trevor: Hi, how are you doing today?
Nick: fine
Trevor: You are most welcome.
Nick: i keep getting emails about verifying an external pay from account
Nick: i can see the deposit in my external pay from account, but see no way on the BOA site to verify it
Nick: please advise
Trevor: I understand you are concerned about the e-mails you are receiving.
Nick: nope, not at all, the emails seem legit, i checked them out
Nick: i just want to verify this account
Trevor: Please note that the e-mail you received is from Bank of America for verification.
Nick: yes i realize that
Nick: but there is no instruction and the bankofamerica.com site is a labyrinth
Nick: anyway, i cannot figure out how to verify this accont
Nick: please help me verify this account
Trevor: However, if you feel that the e-mail you received is suspicious, I request you to send the e-mail to abuse@bankofamerica.com.
Nick: i am not suspiciuis
Trevor: If the e-mail is not legitimate, we will work with the authorities to prosecute the creators of this e-mail.
Nick: it IS NOT MY CONCERN
Nick: i cannot be more explicit
Trevor: I am sorry for the miscommunication.
Trevor: Okay!
Nick: please inform me how a pay from account is verified once i have received the verification deposit
Trevor: Please note, I request you to click on the following link and see the demo where you need to enter the Verification code.
Trevor: Please click on the following link and watch the demo, how it works:
Trevor: http://infocenter.bankofamerica.com/uploads/20090731-53434501-1008673/MakeaTransfer.pdf
Nick: excellent
Trevor: Thank you for your co-operation and understanding.
.
.
.
Nick: it's not what i'm trying to do
Nick: bank of america deposited 18 cents into my account
Nick: and i need to use that number somewhere to verify the external account
Nick: i just cannot discern where I would do this on the bank of america site
Trevor: I understand that.
Nick: i am trying to set up electronic payment
Trevor: However, I request you to contact my colleagues at 1.800.622.8731. They are available Monday through Friday between 7.00 a.m. and 10.00 p.m. Pacific Time, or Saturday and Sunday between 8.00 a.m. and 5.00 p.m. Pacific Time.
Trevor: I assure you that they are able to assist you in this regard.
Trevor: Is there anything else I can assist you with?
Nick: never mind. this is more frustrating than the site

In this example, Trevor is probably at a desktop running several chats at once. His software has pre-defined phrases that he can click into the chat window quickly, so he can appear to be responsive while also looking at other chats. His first three entries are all pre-defined phrases. The entry where he begins "I understand that you are concerned about" is also pre-defined, and then he selects "emails you are receiving" from another pre-defined list. He has only read one of Nick's entries, the one begining, "I keep getting emails." Trevor's eyes see that phrase and he connects it to the "emails you are receiving" phrase in his choice list. He is only equipped to deal with emails that are phishing for account into. He does not realize it was the wrong topic until Nick types in CAPITAL LETTERS, and then he clicks the "I am sorry for the miscommunication" phrase. So he sends Nick a link to a demo. (Oddly, his "Okay!" and his "I request you to click" phrases--which also appear in other parts of the chat dialog which I didn't include above--read as angry and commanding in our culture. Let's let cultural mis-alignment slide for now.) It does seem like Trevor understands that Nick needs to enter a Verification Code, but sadly the Verification Code he thinks of is for transfering funds not establishing a conduit to an external account. Nick follows the link and reports that "Make a Transfer" is not what he's trying to do. Trevor signals that he is watching the chat by clicking the "I understand that" phrase. He sees Nick's key phrase "set up electronic payment" and knows that is not a service he is able to provide. So he hits the button that directs Nick off to the daytime customer service number, followed by two more pre-defined pleasantries. Trevor thinks he has helped the customer and will get good marks from his supervisor. Nick is about to kick the computer in frustration because he doesn't have time in his schedule for the next couple of days to call Bank of America during the daytime, and he's scared that his electronic mortgage payment won't go in on time.

What went wrong? Bank of America had done its homework and had policies in place for when customers call complaining about suspicious email. Trevor followed his process perfectly. He did pick up on the idea of entering a Verification code, but he didn't have the right answer for Nick. If Trevor had been trained to spend time understanding the situation Nick was in more deeply, he would have understood the fear Nick had of a mortgage payment not going through and blemishing his brand new record as a home owner. Knowing this emotional state, Trevor could have put a higher priority on finding an answer for Nick about Verification codes for external accounts. He could have searched an internal Bank of America database for "verify external account" or something similar. He could have asked his co-workers or his supervisor. He could have even logged in to the Bank of America site as a customer himself and helped Nick search page by page for the right form to enter the Verification code. Instead, he stayed within the boundaries defined for him inside the chat application, limiting his answers to pre-defined phrases he could click. The company inadvertently shuttered his humanity and made him behave no better than a poorly-programmed machine. (Or, as I suspected at first, Trevor is really a keyword-recognition 'bot.)

What made that happen? Someone at the company was responsible for setting up the pre-defined phrases in the chat application. There was probably a fair amount of research that went into the possibilities, based on customer call center logs. The person in charge probably tore their hair out trying to make sure they covered all the branches that might occur. But call center logs only showed this person the places customers were tripping over existing glitches or obsfucating terminology. There was nothing about emotional states like fear of pending changes in a credit score based on not being able to perform a transaction. There was no way in the branching structure to show employees how to prioritize or how to keep trying to define what the problem is and find the right answer. Despite the fact the person who set up the system studied actual call data, they were still detached from the real life of the customers who called.

Detachment is the critical failing of many organizations. Having open-ended conversations with customers (and people who might be potential customers) is difficult and scary. It's much easier to analyze data and run numbers. It sounds more scientific and reliable. Talking to strangers takes social skills. Deriving meaning from a set of transcripts is tricky. It's hard to see where real decisions can be made based on this squishy, qualitative way of "grokking" things. But honestly, at this point it's the best tool out there for getting beyond the branching, pre-defined phrases that prevent company representatives from creating a happy customer. Is the efficiency savings really that much higher than the cost of letting horror stories circulate and prevent new customers from signing up? Can organizations afford to remain separated this way from the people they serve?

I have been working with a symphony recently, trying to learn what cultural-arts attendees want from an evening out. It has been a learning experience for me to work with an arts organization mainly because the human emotional element--the passion to achieve something--is very much present and embraced. In most other organizations I work with, humanity is given a back seat to effectiveness and calculations, if it is acknowledged at all. I have learned that a music director is not as aloof, let's say, as his business counterparts. A music director understands where the owners/contributors want the symphony to go for the season, he knows what attracts ticket-buyers, and he also knows the skills and challenges of each and every musician working with him. He doesn't choose what to perform based on statistics from iTunes or based on popularity on the world classical circuit. A good music director talks to audience members to understand not only reactions to performances but what a symphony-goer is trying to fulfill in an evening at the music hall. Moreover, it's not about figuring everything out in advance, planning and training people, and just putting it on autopilot the night of the performance. A symphony conductor is constantly watching and listening--the musicians and the audience--and making minute adjustments as he goes so that the oboe player has time to catch a breath after her extra-passionate solo, or so that the guy coughing during the pause between movements has a chance to clear his throat in order to comfortably enjoy the next emotional passage. I have a lot of admiration for a director who knows the passions that make his audience, his contributors, his co-workers, and his board members tick. I wish businesses weren't adverse to knowing this kind of information. (Positive examples do exist! Zappos has received quite a bit of press about their warm-hearted practices.)

Aloof means remote, separate, detached, and uninvolved. Antonyms for aloof are concerned, friendly, and sociable. Notice anything that looks like current technology trends?