The words inspiration and aspiration are often used interchangeably, and I think it’s important that we draw a clearer distinction.

Inspiration is defined as, “the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something.”

Aspiration is, “a hope or ambition of achieving something.”

Stimulation versus ambition. Excitement versus action. And most significantly, external versus internal.

Inspiration is something we seek to ingest from outside. Aspiration is something we cultivate within ourselves.

I’ve been inspired by an extraordinary number people over the course of my life — in high school when I thought I would be a computer scientist, in college as I learned about journalism and HCI, at my first job when I was beginning to understand the value of my hard work. Finding inspiration has never been a challenge for me. I’m a pretty emotional person; it doesn’t take much to get my juices flowing.

But I had never really aspired to be like anyone until I became an active member of the amazing User Experience community. It had never occurred to me before that I could shape the field and change the way people work in some small way, but I saw people doing it, and I wanted to be like them. Suddenly I was filled with aspirations to be heard, to be significant, to be remembered. I’m not sure I can pinpoint the exact moment, but I know that this blog played a large role in showing me that it was possible.

Inspiration is necessary in order for aspiration to grow. But only until we’re filled with aspiration, self-initiated and self-defined, do our careers, and lives, really begin to transform, allowing us to transform those around us in turn.

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I recently set up an account on Formspring, a site that lets people ask and answer questions about anything at all. I’ve been asked 17 questions so far, and I’ve answered every one.

So if you want to ask me something about user experience, consulting, writing, life in New York City, or whatever else is on your mind, just ask me on Formspring!

Keep in mind that my answers will probably be pretty short — one to three paragraphs — so if you’re looking for a super in-depth answer, you can always bring your question to Whit Hour, (almost) every Monday 10-11pm Eastern Time at http://justin.tv/whitneyhess.

Thanks for helping me get the contents of my brain down in writing :)

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• The first Whit Hour was a success
• Whit Hour starts August 2 at 9pm ET
• Whit Hour – Week 6
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• I’m running for the 2008 Information Architecture Institute board of directors

On Wednesday, UX Magazine published my article, When You Startup with UX — a look into how a few successful startups are integrating user experience practices.

I posed 5 questions to 5 people (4 folks at 3 different startups and 1 venture capitalist) to find out how they think about UX and what it means to their businesses.

The players:

• Paul Graham, VC and co-founder of Y Combinator, a seed-stage startup fund
• Nate Westheimer, Co-Founder and EVP of Product & Technology, and Gabi Moore, Senior Designer, AnyClip
• Andrew Kortina, Co-Founder, Venmo
• Mike Singleton, Developer, Foursquare

An excerpt from my article:

As a consultant living and working in NYC, I come into contact with a lot of entrepreneurs and the startups they’re trying to get off the ground. They have limited budgets, limited resources, and boundless aspirations. And not one of them has a full-time user experience designer.

Most startups never quite make it, while a choice few rise above to unpredictable heights. So what distinguishes the successes from the failures? Armed with my unwavering faith in the power of UX, I set out to prove that the trailblazers are engaging in user-centered design activities—even if it means doing it on their own terms.

I interviewed three well-regarded New York-based startups and a powerful Silicon Valley venture capitalist to get their definition of what user experience actually is, how to do it, and why it really matters.

Read the entire article over at UX Magazine.

Thanks so much to UX Magazine for publishing the piece, and to everyone who agreed to be interviewed. If you’re a startup integrating UX practices, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

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Receiving a request from someone who wants to translate your blog posts into other languages is thrilling and humbling. It’s such an honor to know that these pieces resonate with anyone at all — but to find out that they cross geographical and cultural barriers is truly amazing!

Here are some of the translations I know about. If I’ve missed any others, please let me know in the comments.

So You Wanna Be a User Experience Designer — Step 2: Guiding Principles

Original blog post

In Italian

Principi guida per il design dell’esperienza utente
By Cesare Lamanna, managing editor of HTML.it

In Portuguese

Princípios Orientadores para UX Designers
By Maicon Sobczak, freelance graphic designer in São Paulo, Brazil

In French

20 conseils pour concevoir une bonne expérience client
By Olivier Sauvage, independent usability consultant in Lille, France

10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design

Original article

In Portuguese

O que não é User Experience Design
By Fabricio Teixeira, Brazilian user experience designer

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• Improved “Freelance to Agency” podcast
• Pleasure and Pain now on UX Magazine
• I’ll be on Jeffrey Zeldman’s panel at SXSW 2009
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• Help me name my blog

A few months ago I wrote about my experience presenting at STC Summit in Dallas — my first time speaking at an event outside of UX and web design.

Yesterday I received the evaluations of my two talks — 10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design and Evangelizing Yourself — and I’m quite pleased with the results. Sharing them with you is my way of staying honest and holding myself accountable to make the presentations even better.

The comments are far more important to me than the scores, since they help me tweak the content and style for future gigs. My goal is to continually improve the clarity and effectiveness of my presentations to ensure I’m doing my best to help people learn, and scores alone just don’t give me enough information to go on.

Of course I would have liked to have received feedback from more of the attendees, but the way STC Summit conducts these surveys doesn’t really encourage it — evals are filled out at computer stations in the hallway, instead of on paper at the end of each session.

So if you attended either of these sessions at STC Summit and didn’t complete an evaluation, please feel free to post your feedback in the comments!

All feedback is worthwhile and I’m thrilled to have gotten such glowing reviews overall.

Just for a point of reference, the average score for all conference speakers who were evaluated:

Content: 3.96/5.00
Delivery: 3.94/5.00

10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design

According to room monitor counts, approximately 75 people attended your session. You received 23 evaluations and your scores are summarized below.

Content: 4.30/5.00
Delivery: 4.39/5.00

• Easy to follow, simplified explanations. Topic is well situated in the wider context.
• I really enjoyed this session. I learned a few things… and learned a couple of ways to deal with some misconceptions and objections
• Whitney did a great job and I really like her strong advocacy for making UX part of the process, not just a checkbox item on the project plan.
• I may have picked the wrong session. It seemed too focused on a small part of what our users run into – installation. Our product is not installed via a disc. We install it for our customers. But our product covers such a large part of their every day work, I wanted tips to help make it easier for them to do thier jobs.
• Concise and informative.
• Whitney rocks in spite of the rude people in the audience griping about her age.
• Great information about an area that many technical communicators are moving toward. It’s great to see some younger, non-tech comm presenters bringing in new ideas. Great job, Whitney!
• Ms Hess is an outstanding speaker and well-versed on the topic. The presentation seemed a bit “automatic,” but the Q&A session was fluid and that’s where she really shone. She handled the audience deftly, even the participants who were outright rude and questioned why she was there. She graciously and patiently answered questions that were clearly answered in her presentation, which showed much more maturity than other, older member presenters have shown. An absolute delight, and I’m thrilled STC invited her.
• I liked her use of references to books and quotes by experts in the field. The amount of information communicated from the one hour talk has grown exponentially.
• Brief, but useful. The Q&A was a good opportunity to elaborate on some of the themes and ideas presented previously.
• A speaker who delivers personal insight very well, making the whole thing interesting.
• Good UX, practicing what she preaches. I learnt new stuff, got links to look at, and enjoyed what I heard.
• Slides were very hard to read – white and red on black is not good for slides in a large room.
• presentation was short, but the speaker left time for some good Q&A afterward.
• A breath of fresh air for the Summit!
• I really like her speaking and presentation style. But it felt like she didn’t really understand or hasn’t really had much contact with technical writers. It seemed like there was a disconnect somewhere that led to a weird vibe in the room. I really hope she presents at future conferences.
• Whitney is a very articulate speaker and comes across as at ease on the podium. The session content was exactly as described, and I learned a lot. Thank you!
• Great session! Gave me lots of food for thought as well as thinking of user experience in other ways than just software.
• I learned a lot. This session was a very good value, and was presented well.

Evangelizing Yourself

According to room monitor counts, approximately 64 people attended your session. You received 17 evaluations and your scores are summarized below.

Content: 4.59/5.00
Delivery: 4.41/5.00

• Super presenter! By far, the best speaker, IMO.
• Whitney personally made an impact on me and hit home on many of her “issues” regarding confidence, speaking and overall desire to improve herself. She spoke honestly, candidly and was sincere and down to earth.
• She knew her material and knew herself and was confident in her delivery contrary to how she may have felt ;-)
• A true inspiration and look forward to watching seeing and hearing her speak in the future.
• Intriguing approach. Thank you for a thought-provoking session.
• I’m not sure the message was any different than what would have been offered by anybody in any other profession, but it certainly resonated with the audience.
• loved her presentation. at the end there was an opportunity for a group question and answer session, but she opted to do the Q&A on a personal one-on-one basis, which i think was a mistake. she should have addressed questions as a group. overall, whitney has an engaging voice with a perspective that many people at the summit definitely needed to hear. i loved that she was at the conference.
• Excellent session!
• This is clearly Whitney’s topic of passion – when a speaker can do a presentation without looking at her notebook or the screen and knows exactly when to click Next – and it’s still custom to the audience – wow. And she wasn’t on autopilot – this was an emotional, humorous, honest presentation, and everyone in that room left changed for the better. Maybe not immediately, but at some point, the lessons will begin to influence them.
• Even though I already knew a lot of this, it was a great reminder. Each point was right on! I didn’t find much to disagree with. Awesome job.
• Emphasised how give and take works in the world of ’self-promotion’ and highlighted how important social media are going to be (already are) in this field.
• Entertaining and well-presented.
• Great presentation and content; LOTS of content very well and persuasively presented; good reminder that folks need to be ‘reminded’ of the obvious stuff!
• a great pep talk and shot in the arm! her personal story made the familiar lines have impact. enjoyable way to end the day.
• I found the content useful, and Whitney’s delivery was refreshing. How often do you hear the word “fuck” in a professional presentation? I was not offended, but I can see how some might have been.
• Ms. Hess and her info were quite impressive for someone so young. She is fortunate to have figured it out so early! I’m just beginning to struggle with similar issues/concepts and I’m more than twice her age. But her courage spoke to me directly and I hope some of it will help push me forward. Good job.
• She might want to work on her voice quality – it seemed a bit monotone and hoarse-sounding sometimes.

Thanks to everyone who evaluated my sessions, and to the fine folks at STC Summit for inviting me to join in all the fun.

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• Rejected by EuroIA
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As my 28th birthday comes to a close, I can’t help but reflect on the past year. I experienced the deepest love, faced my greatest fears, and found accomplishments I never knew I could have.

Life feels like it’s happening to me, like I’m largely out of control. And perhaps I am, but I need to own it. My goal for age 28 is to truly be present in this life. To stop doubting my successes. To stop diminishing my worthiness. To just accept life as it is, as wholly my own, to revel in, to cherish, and to expand upon with each passing day.

I look around at my friends, my business, my possessions, and I ask, “Did I really create all this?” It doesn’t feel real, and it doesn’t feel like mine. But it is. This dream is really my reality.

What a gift. What a life. I am humbled by the greatness of it, and no longer in fear of what may be.

With love, to all of you who continually touch my soul,
Whitney

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• Darlin’ Do Not Fear
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Recently got this zinger in my inbox:

Sorry if I find your site overwhelming.

And I don’t want to be a UX designer.

And I am too busy to blog or tweet.

But I do software. So knowing about UX design is not an issue for me.

That was the beginning. The rest was asking me to help them find a user experience designer for their project.

Too funny not to post.

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• Whit Hour is back! Week 9
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In a previous life, I was a Professional Writing major and part-time journalist. I contributed to my school’s student newspaper, as well as the faculty and staff newspaper, and almost every week for two years, I wrote an arts column for the Pittsburgh City Paper — Western PA’s leading alternative newsweekly [read my old clips].

As a result of all that reporting, I became adept at interviewing people to get a good story. That skill has certainly served me well as a user experience designer, and now unsurprisingly, conducting user interviews is my absolute favorite part of this wonderful job.

I’m in the thick of user research on my current project for House Party, and along the way I’ve been reminding myself of all sorts of best practices to squeeze out the most evocative insights from my participants.

Perhaps the maxims that work so well for me will make you a more effective interviewer, too.

Set the schedule yourself

When scheduling interviews, suggest a date and time for each participant instead of making the meeting request open-ended. Giving something specific for people to respond to reduces the number of back-and-forths required to agree on a time, prevents you from double-booking, and will also give you greater control over your own schedule. I list out time slots across multiple days and pre-assign participants to them, send each one a meeting request for that time, and then wait for the acceptances to roll in.

Be cognizant of the time zone they’re located in so you don’t ask them to be available at an unreasonable time, and be sure to include the time zone on the meeting request!

Factor in breaks

Give yourself an hour between sessions — to digest what you heard, drink some water, use the bathroom, rest your hands, ears, and eyes. You don’t want to still be thinking about what the last person said when you’re listening to the next person, or you might miss something.

Interviews can be exhausting, mentally and emotionally taxing, and particularly overwhelming once they all start to bleed together. Just because you can speak to seven people in a day doesn’t mean you should, so take it easy to ensure you’re at your best.

Recruit more participants than you need

Participants will always drop out. Don’t feel bad, it isn’t you. But things come up, schedules shift, and people need to cancel. Or heck, something might even come up for you. A good rule of thumb that works for me: for every 4 participants you want, recruit 5. Even if people seem gung-ho to help during your initial conversations — and even confirm the meeting time! — they can still flake. Just be prepared to use up an unexpected hour or two with some housekeeping or administrata (my word) if someone is a no-show.

Record the sessions

While it might seem like recording your interviews is a hassle, the benefit far outweighs the cost. You’ll be able to take lighter notes, concentrate on what’s being said, and supply evidential proof if someone challenges your findings. You can use a digital voice recorder, a Skype recorder (like Vodburner) or screensharing recorder (like iShowU), or even a LiveScribe Pulse Pen (what I use!).

Whatever you choose, it’s crucial that you inform the participant ahead of time that you’ll be recording them, and give them the opportunity to opt-out if they feel uncomfortable. It’s better to have a conversation off the record than no conversation at all.

Be casual and conversational

A formal, mechanical Q&A session is not the way to get the goods. The questions you prepare should only be used as conversation starters, and as a checklist of topics you want to cover.

I have two great tips to help your participants feel more comfortable, and make them more willing to answer honestly and in-depth:

1. Memorize the questions. This will allow you to not keep referring back to the page, and makes conversation much more fluid.
2. Don’t number your questions. Putting numbers before each question implies, if only to you, that there’s a predetermined order in which you need to ask them. If you don’t number them, you won’t worry about going out of order, and you’ll be more likely to ask the question at the appropriate time in the conversation — when the participant naturally brings up the topic.

This helps to convey how much you actually care about what the person is saying, and that you’re not just trying to get through the interview.

Ask open-ended questions

When a cute guy asks me, “Do you workout?” my answer is always Yes. But if he asks me how often I work out, he’ll get a much clearer picture of reality.

Always start your questions with Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. Open-ended questions can’t be answered with a Yes or No. Never start a question with, “Do you…” and expect to get more than a three-word answer. A better way to phrase it would be, “To what extent do you…” or “Tell me more about…” That opens up the conversation, gets the ball rolling, and forces people to really think about their response. As the interviewer, you need to be an archeologist, digging for the truth at the very bottom of a pile of dirt. Open-ended questions will help you get there a lot faster.

Ask the question, then pause

This is one of the hardest things for me to do. I’m a New Yorker; I have a natural tendency to fill the gaps in a conversation. But even at the awkward moments when the participant doesn’t seem to understand your question or maybe doesn’t want to answer, that’s when something critical is going to come to light.

Ask your question, and then shhh. Let them answer, even if it takes a moment. Stop yourself from offering up answers for them to choose from, like “Where do you do most of your shopping? Sam’s Club, Walmart, Target?” They’ll grasp on to one of the options you’ve provided and never mention the Farmer’s Market down the road with the freshest herbs in town.

Ask about behaviors, not feelings

People have a really hard time talking about their feelings, especially to strangers. I conducted 39 user interviews for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum project, and not a single one of them got emotional. We were talking about one of the most traumatic, devastating periods in all of history, and even still feelings didn’t much enter the equation. Motivations, yes. Attitudes, of course. But I didn’t find those out by asking, “How did that make you feel?”

Asking, “How do you feel about XYZ?” is only going to reveal the smallest piece of the puzzle, just a momentary, fleeting emotion. Not what triggered it, and not what resulted from it. Instead ask, “What did you expect would happen when you…?” and, “What actually happened when you…?” and then most importantly, “What did you do next?” That tells the whole story of what the person actually experienced on both the inside and out.

Play dumb

In order to challenge your assumptions and uncover hidden truths, you’re going to have to check your ego at the door. While interviewing people, it is not your goal to demonstrate how much you know, but instead to find out what they know, how they think about it, what they call it, and how they think it all works.

On a recent call, a participant said, “I upload all my photos to Shutterfly, and then I email them to family members.” The easy assumption would be to imagine that she copies the album URL in Shutterfly and pastes it into an email. But I don’t make assumptions, so I asked, “How do you email photos?” A seemingly dumb question coming from a techie like me.

Her response: “Oh, I just attach the photos I like to the email.”

She’s uploading the photos to a photo-sharing site, but then she’s sending the photos as attachments via email. Isn’t that curious? Might there be something worth exploring there? YES YES YES!

“Help me understand…” and “I’ve never done…” puts the participant into the teacher role and you into the learner role. And everyone loves to teach what they know to people who seem to know less. That gives you a unique opportunity to discover their mental model, and an opportunity to help design a product that better adheres to it.

Don’t judge their answers

You might be shocked by what you hear, but try to do your very, very best to not show it. You are there to learn about real people and real situations, not to form opinions or evaluate their answers. That’s for later, in the privacy of your own office ;) While conducting the interview, be neutral, and even-toned, and accepting. If someone says something that really knocks you off your chair, you might even try showing some sympathy and compassion –– no matter what you really feel. Their next comment just might shock you even more, and completely change the face of your product.

Paraphrase what you heard

Trust me, the above cartoon is not as uncommon as you might think. Communication is hard, especially with someone you’re meeting for the first time. Things get lost in translation even when you’re both speaking the same language. So as you’re going along in your interview, take the time to summarize a key learning and repeat it back to the participant. This gives them the chance to confirm or clarify, and will keep you from going down the wrong path later on.

If you’re wondering, ask

In most cases you get one shot to spend some time picking this person’s brain. You’re already in the zone, building a rapport, so don’t keep your questions to yourself. If the participant uses a term you’ve never heard before, ask them to explain it. If you think you misheard something, ask them to repeat it. If one of their responses makes you think of something that isn’t on your list of questions, ask it anyway. This is where the gems are hiding. Let the conversation go where the participant is taking it, and don’t allow your shyness or preconceived notions to stand in the way of true discovery.

Be grateful

Say please, and thank you. More than once. Thank the person for their time before you begin, and when you end. Then thank them again soon after in an email. Whether or not you’re paying them an honorarium for their participation (which is not always necessary to do), they are still taking valuable time out of their day, by and large for your benefit. Sure, what you learn might end up benefitting them in the long-run, especially if they’re already an existing user of the product, but they’re not likely to recognize that or even care. Go out of your way to make the participant feel appreciated and valued. You’ll make them feel like a partner in the process rather than just a subject of study, and that will lead to more honest feedback, deeper answers, and just general good karma.

Good luck. And report back.

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• The value of personas
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Thank you so much to the 35 people who showed up for the tenth week of Whit Hour — my weekly one-hour video chat to answer any and all of your questions about user experience, consulting, and whatever else you throw at me.

Tune in every Monday night from 10-11pm Eastern Time at http://www.justin.tv/whitneyhess.

Whit Hour – Week 10

July 5, 2010, from 10-11pm ET

Watch live video from Whit Hour on Justin.tv

(I get going around 4:10)

This Week’s Beer

Harpoon IPA
Harpoon Brewery
Boston, MA

QUESTIONS ASKED AND (HOPEFULLY) ANSWERED

1. What’s a project you’ve done recently that was challenging for you and what did you come up with to solve the problem?
2. Is Foo Camp only for web dev?
3. I’ve been trying to include my iPad in my everyday work as an IxD. How have you been using yours the most?
4. New to UX here. Would you say most web businesses have developers, designers, and project managers? How do you describe to that team how ux designers fit into that structure?
5. How often do you continue your relationships so you can continue with an iterative process?
6. Can you share some thoughts about designing Apps / sites focusing the mobile market (IOS, Android devices, etc…)?
7. What’s the update on your work on the Holocaust Museum project?
8. Have you gotten Stephen Anderson’s Mental Notes card set yet?
9. Any advice on what tech writers in large software companies, particularly those that aren’t known for great design processes, can do to insert themselves into design conversations?
10. When you need to create a complicated user flow, how do you go about doing it efficiently? In terms of thought process and workflow process, do you have any time saving tips?
11. As a consultant, do you see the potential for IP conflict with companies you work for when applying similar solutions to problems?
12. Does it help to have programming knowledge for consulting work? Like Java, CSS, etc.
13. When are you hiring an assistant?
14. You tweeted the possibility of your own UX workshop a few days back, any updates on that?
15. Staying creative vs. keeping with technology: which do you find more difficult?
16. What about Learning Annex [for your UX workshops]?
17. How and when did you know that UX was for you?
18. How does your design practice differ in context where there is little current practice to refer to, e.g. in orgs where people work very independently and you want to create more collaboration?

Full Text Chat

Eesh, I lost it! Sorry, guys.

JOIN ME NEXT WEEK

Monday, July 12, 10-11pm Eastern Time at http://www.justin.tv/whitneyhess, and bring your questions!

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• Whit Hour – Week 6
• Whit Hour is back! Week 9
• The first Whit Hour was a success
• Whit Hour – Week 4
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Here are the most recent additions to my Delicious bookmarks. Hope you enjoy, and please share your thoughts in the comments.

• Is this thing on?
  Some genius insights on project management from @brettharned
• The power of the pause
  @bobulate says shhh
• new-featuritis
  Tom Fishburne, genius as always
• 50 Sketching Resources for User Experience Designers
• Growing Up Geek: Veronica Belmont — Engadget
  My childhood friend Veronica shows off her Little Tikes Party Kitchen (I had one, too!)

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• Recent Reads – 6/22/2010
• Links from 11/11/2008 to 11/18/2008
• Recent Reads – 1/30/2010
• Recent Reads – 2/21/2010
• Links from 11/21/2008 to 12/6/2008