[This post is part of a series on Mentors and Heroes]

Brandon Schauer is an experience design director for Adaptive Path, a user experience design and consulting firm. He is also the co-author of Subject To Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World. Follow him on Twitter @brandonschauer.

Brandon Schauer’s heroes are…

Charles & Ray Eames, Designers

How long have you known of your heroes and have you ever met?
I first saw their IBM Mathematica exhibit about 21 years ago. It was the first interactive museum exhibit that I ever felt I learned something from. No, never met them.

How have your heroes had such a profound impact on your life?
I’m still regularly surprised and energized by their work. They somehow address the very practical aspects of a design challenge while not forgetting to cater to the very human and emotion potential of an object or an experience. They inspire me to reinvest in design again and again.

How do you gain knowledge and inspiration from your heroes?
Luckily they left behind a treasure trove of films, photography, and work. The films are especially influential for thinking about experiences. For instance, see their film introducing the first Polaroid camera:

What is one piece of wisdom your heroes have been quoted as saying that has stuck with you the most?
From the film Design Q&A: Question: “What is design?” Answer from Charles Eames: “A plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose.”

Thank you Brandon for sharing your heroes with us!

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• Who is Todd Zaki Warfel’s hero?
• Who is Gabby Hon’s hero?
• Who is Meg Fowler’s hero?
• Who is Chris Baum’s hero?
• Who is Fred Beecher’s hero?

[This post is part of a series on Mentors and Heroes]

Josh Damon Williams is the director of product strategy at Hot Studio, a people-centered design studio, where previously he served as a senior user experience designer. He is also a part-time DJ. Follow him on Twitter @joshdamon.

Josh Damon Williams’s mentor is…

Ryan P. Sims, User Experience Designer

How long have you known each other and how did you first meet?
I met Ryan in 2003 when he made the highly questionable decision to interview me for a UX Designer role at Hotwire.com.

How would you describe how you relate to your mentor?
Ryan allowed for a lot of autonomy, while at the same time managed to provide thoughtful guidance. He wasn’t pedantic, didn’t give tactical instructions about what to/not to do. Instead he had a more Socratic approach to critiques, and this approach encouraged better, broader, and deeper thinking.

How formal or structured is the mentorship? Does Ryan know you consider him a mentor?
Ryan was my boss, but he didn’t foster a particularly hierarchical team structure; instead he kept things as a two-way street. He reviewed my work, but he also solicited my feedback on his work. But yes, he knew that he was helping provide structure to my approach to design.

What is one piece of advice your mentor gave you that has stuck with you the most?
When in doubt about a design solution, review your objectives. If you’re still in doubt, maybe you have the wrong objectives.

What else do you want the world to know about your mentor?
1) He’s been doing great work at TripIt for the last year or so. 2) When wearing a beard, Ryan bares an uncanny resemblance to the character Dr. Daniel Faraday on Lost. 3) More info can be found at http://tumblr.ryanpsims.com

Thank you Josh for sharing your mentor with us!

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• Who is Peter Kim’s mentor?
• Who is Mike Pratt’s mentor?
• Who is Michael Leis’s mentor?
• Who is Lou Rosenfeld’s mentor?
• Who is Andrew Hinton’s mentor?

I’m completely in love with this new commercial by Freschetta that demonstrates what “faceted filtering” would look like in the physical world.

Pattern Definition

Faceted filtering is a mechanism that allows the user to progressively reduce a large group of items by selecting the desired attributes from various dimensions (or facets) of those items

Note: faceting filtering is different from faceted navigation or browsing — while navigation is simply multiple entry points into viewing a large set of data, filtering is specifically the ability to pair down that list.

Resources to learn more about faceted filtering

• Best Practices for Designing Faceted Search Filters by Greg Nudelman – UXmatters
• User Interface Implementations of Faceted Browsing – Digital Web Magazine
• OfficeMax search results by Konigi

Examples of faceted filtering (within faceted navigation patterns)

• Welie.com pattern library
• Quince by Infragistics pattern library

Got more?

If you have any other examples of faceted filtering in the real world, please share them in the comments!

[This is the beginning of what I hope will be an occasional series on my blog titled ...in the Real World, in which I explain various design patterns and user interactions by illustrating how they would be implemented off the web]

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• IA Summit 2008: “Designing with Patterns in the Real World: Lessons from Yahoo! and Comcast”
• IA Summit 2008: Gene Smith’s “Tagging: Five emerging trends”
• Onboarding: A Sidebar in “Designing Social Interfaces”
• Web 2.0 Expo NY: Joshua Porter’s “Designing for Community”
• Get a 15% discount to DelveUI in NYC

My new friend Dave Dawson recently graduated college and moved from Cambridge to NYC. While I was timid and intimidated when I first entered the working world, Dave is quite the opposite –– he is eager to put himself out there, meet lots of new people, and see what the city has to offer.

Over lunch last week he asked me what events he should be attending; like many people I know, he’s had a hard time finding NYC-specific mailing lists for design and UX organizations, and isn’t really sure where to look.

When I first got the spark to start socializing in the field (much later than Dave, might I add), I had a tough time distinguishing the worthwhile events from the worthless ones — and unfortunately wasted my time at a few duds along the way.

It only just occurred to me that I’ve never collected a list of the events my close friends and I regularly attend. So here it is finally, for Dave and for all the folks new to New York (or ready to try something new). May you find pleasure, inspiration, and camaraderie.

And of course if you see me across the room, come over and say hi!

UX & Design

UX Book Club NYC

• Facebook group

Interaction Design Association (IxDA) – NYC Chapter

• Official website (national only)
• Twitter @ixda_NYC
• To join the NY chapter mailing list, email nyc-local@ixda.org

VizThinkNYC

• Official website
• Twitter @vizthinkNYC

School of Visual Arts – MFA in Interaction Design

• Events website
• Mailing list sign-up (bottom right of page)
• Twitter @svaixd

Content Strategy NYC

• Meetup page

Usability Professionals Association – NY Chapter

• Official website
• Twitter @nycupa

Agile Experience Design NYC

• Meetup page
• Twitter @agile_ux (national)

AIGA/NY

• Official website
• Twitter @AIGANY

Art Directors Club

• Official website
• Twitter @Adcglobal

Creative Mornings

• Official website
• Twitter @creativemorning

General Tech

NY Tech Meetup

• Official website
• Meetup page
• Twitter @nytm

TechDrinks

• Meetup page

DigitalDUMBO

• Facebook page
• Twitter @DigitalDUMBO

Ignite NYC

• Official website
• Twitter @ignitenyc

nextNY

• Google group

Brooklyn Future Meetup

• Meetup page
• Twitter @Y30

Entrepreneurship & Self-Employment

Ultralight Startups

• Official website
• Mailing list sign-up

Entrepreneurs Roundtable

• About page
• Google group

Clickable’s Interesting Café

• Official website
• Twitter @clickable

Jelly NYC (Friday coworking)

• Official website
• Twitter @JellyNYC

Niche Interests

Arts, Culture and Technology Meetup

• Meetup page

Fashion 2.0 Meetup

• Meetup page

New York Web Standards Meetup

• Meetup page

TONS of other tech events are listed on Gary’s Guide and nextNY.

Thanks so everyone who contributed to this list! You know who you are.

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• Whitney and Internet Week New York
• Where’s Whit
• Meetup
• Video of Dan Saffer’s talk “Tap is the New Click” at IxDA NYC
• Internet Week NY Wrap-Up (in photos)

I’m on the Amtrak down to Washington, D.C. as I write this. Tomorrow (Monday) I start a new project that will likely be the biggest professional challenge I’ve ever faced and will carry profound personal significance as well.

Happy Cog East in Philadelphia was recently awarded the website redesign project for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and a couple weeks ago they asked me to join the team. All day tomorrow and Tuesday we will be kicking off the project at the museum with our partners Ralph Appelbaum Associates (designers of the museum) and core museum staff.

A large part of the tremendous privilege I feel is because I am a Jewish American and thus have an indelible sensitivity to both the effects of the Holocaust on my ancestry and to the crucial role the U.S. played in ending the genocide.

I visited the museum for the first time when I was in the 7th grade and it had an intense effect on me. It’s impossible for me to dissociate the Holocaust itself from the Holocaust Museum, and almost any mention of the Holocaust immediately evokes visions of the shoe room. I have been back twice more and each time I learn so much more about and feel more connected to my history.

Another main reason for my excitement is that I am incredibly proud of strategic contribution I get to make to this prestigious organization by helping to better understand and better serve its wide-ranging constituencies.

And lastly, I’m thrilled to have the chance to collaborate with the folks at Happy Cog East, among the leading practitioners in the industry today. My deepest thanks go to Kevin Hoffman, Robert Jolly and Greg Hoy for involving me, and to Jeffrey Zeldman for his ongoing support.

I am so humbled by this opportunity and can’t wait to do the best work of my life. But I doubt it will feel like work at all — it will be a mitzvah.

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• Happy Cog and Happy Whitney
• I was asked to join the IAI Board of Advisors
• I did the UX design for Brighter Planet
• Photo of the day: Please don’t touch, lick, stroke or mount the exhibits
• boxee now in public alpha

Sometimes the perfect song just finds you.

When I arrived in my own set of clothes
I was half a world away from my home
And I was hunted by the wolves and I was heckled by the crows
Darlin’ do not fear what you don’t really know

Alongside my innocence I laid in bed awake
Conflicted in these chains with the impetus of age
But like a phantom she crept across the floor and out the window
Darlin’ do not fear what you don’t really know

From its place on the mantle my heart was taken down
Scattered in a thousand little pieces on the ground
And out below the street lamp like an orphan with a halo
Darlin’ do not fear what you don’t really know

‘Cause it won’t last – the worries will pass

All your troubles they don’t stand a chance
And sometimes it takes more than a lifetime to know
Darlin’ do not fear what you don’t really know

The confidence is full as your faith etched in stone
And neither could comfort you from the wild unknown
So bury your burning hatred like a hatchet in the snow
Darlin’ do not fear what you don’t really know

If you have a broken heart or a battered soul
Find something to hold on to or to let go
To help you through the hard nights like a flask filled with hope
Darlin’ do not fear what you don’t really know

‘Cause it won’t last – your worries will pass

All your troubles they don’t stand a chance
And it always hurts the worst when it’s the ones we love the most
Darlin’ do not fear what you don’t really know

Sometimes your path is marked in the sky
Sometimes you’re forced to fit in between the lines
Sometimes all that you can do is say no
Darlin’ do not fear what you don’t really know

I said, when I arrived in my own set of clothes
I was half a world away from my home
And I was hunted by the wolves and I was heckled by the crows
Darlin’ do not fear what you don’t really know

I said, darlin’ do not fear what you don’t really know
We said, darlin’ do not fear…

– Darlin’ Do Not Fear, Brett Dennen
[Listen on Lala.com]

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• Finding Myself in You
• I Scare Myself
• Today is my 1 year anniversary of going solo
• In 2008, You Changed Me
• The Experience of Giving

Earlier this week, I went into detail about my experience as a speaker at An Event Apart Boston and Chicago 2009.

Here are my Twitter notes from last week’s Chicago event. I had amazing time getting to hear design and development tips and inspiration from some of the most prominent speakers in the field. I couldn’t entirely keep up with the code stuff so apologies in advance for thin coverage of those talks. Hope you enjoy!

Jeffrey Zeldman, A Site Redesign

• An Event Apart Chicago starts now! @zeldman is up first talking about A Site Redesign (both for a client and for yourself)
• When starting any redesign you first must ask, “What problem are we trying to solve?” Is it just that you’re bored? Goals not met?
• @zeldman says the first thing to do is research (yay, that’s my job!). Research produces *achievable* goals
• Don’t promise a client that you’re going to make them the most popular X. You can’t guarantee that. You can lower barriers to X tho
• “Research makes you a credible partner” — @zeldman. It’s not about arguing about what font you’re using. So much deeper than that
• Designers & developers both face not being taken seriously by other team members. You want to be seen as a business partner
• Build a relationship before you show design. Earn the client’s trust before you ever get to the solution &they’ll more likely buy it
• Find the happy medium between business goals and user needs. How? Interview stakeholders and prospective users, find overlap
• @zeldman is creating a beautiful set up for my presentation later today! :)
• @zeldman says “Make what the people need…your users are the most important people on your site.” So obvious yet people forget!
• I see my deliverables on the screen! Working with Happy Cog rules :-D
• Have a content strategy and do it early. Don’t try to shoehorn content into a fully baked design because it just won’t work.
• “Alzheimer’s Method” – constantly remind the client of what you’re doing. Always clarify to ensure there’s no miscommunication
• Learn to translate what the client is actually saying. They might be trying to be polite and therefore indirect. Or…
• …they might be talking about a symptom not the cause. Paraphrase back to them and ask probing questions
• Designers: sell ideas, not pixels. The concepts should be what you focus on, not the shades of colors & font sizes. What’s the feel?
• @zeldman showing 3 variations for Contini redesign: 1) nostalgia, 2) application, 3) sexy time! All used same color palette & font
• How to respond to client who looks at design and says, “That color is ugly!” — “Well so are you.” “Where did you go to art school?”
• Instead just tease out what bothers them about it. Go back to the user, the research, the problem.
• @zeldman asks the room, “Who has a blog?” Not many raise their hands. “Come on, we’re among friends. It’s like asking who’s from NJ”
• So what do you do when the client is you? Redesigning your personal site or business site. Use a grid! Visually organizes content
• @zeldman showing the various iterations of his blog, The Daily Report, since 1995. Constantly redesigning to where he is now
• “Design from the content out.” Content is a key feature of the site. Make sure the grid works for the content first
• Design for CSS, not Photoshop. You need to make sure it’s going to work on a live site, not just a beautiful comp
• “Limit the number of fonts you use, limit the number of sizes you use, limit the number of colors you use, & it will look designed”
• “If your rounded corners don’t show up in IE, it’s not critical. This isn’t Picasso. It doesn’t change the experience” — @zeldman
• “There is no fold” on websites. Assume the user will scroll down. Amen!
• When @zeldman & @meyerweb started An Event Apart, they made website look just like A List Apart so people would know they’re related
• But honestly the content needed for the conference didn’t fit well into the layout for the magazine. It wasn’t selling the conf well
• @steyblind and @nicksergeant’s #afeedapart just got a plug from @zeldman! http://afeedapart.com to follow all the tweets

Jason Santa Maria, Thinking Small

• @jasonsantamaria is up now talking about Thinking Small. Choose Your Own Adventure books up on the screen!
• @jasonsantamaria showing a Choose Your Own Adventure analysis of paths and outcomes diagram: http://bit.ly/WAt1V Looks like a site map!
• @jasonsantamaria’s 7 things that are helpful in affecting the outcome of a web design project
• 1) Be a thinker. Don’t jump right to the design. Keep a sketchbook. Only once you get through the obvious does the creativity come out
• Sketching is an exercise to get acquainted with the problem and the content you’re working with — @jasonsantamaria
• “The computer is not a tool of design; your mind is the tool of design.” — @jasonsantamaria
• Instead of saying “but” say “yes, and…” Continue the story, keep it going, no matter what is thrown at you.
• RT @ritzkat: grids allow us “To blindly go where
  everyone has gone before.”
• I’ve missed all of @jasonsantamaria’s numbered points, trying to capture the meat. Will post the list later
• A grid can be very limiting or liberating down the road. It’s not a decision that one should make lightly
• 5) Think horizontally then vertically. Like a delicious parfait. Tiers lying on top of one another — @jasonsantamaria
• @jasonsantamaria’s blog is so gorgeous, it makes the rest of us look like assholes
• 6) Step modulate and listen. Making modular layout systems to accommodate varying content and imagery
• @jasonsantamaria showing off his clean markup and CSS. Simplistic, plain speak in code, a clear system that’s easy to learn
• 7) Be a matchmaker. Use the right font to match your content. Use it sparingly. Don’t use 2 scripts, 2 sans serifs. 1 of each
• Your serif and sans serif fonts should complement each other. Consider using fonts from same type foundry, meant to go together
• @jasonsantamaria telling us to read How Buildings Learn (great book!) http://bit.ly/36FSFX
• @jasonsantamaria points us to his amazing recommended reading lists: http://jasonsantamaria.com/reading/category/design/
• Gasolina!

Kristina Halvorson, Content First

• @halvorson is up now talking about Content First
• @halvorson was the only person in Minneapolis calling herself a “web writer” when she first started
• Time for copywriting is usually a tiny part of the project schedule, and it’s after the design process. This is completely backwards
• Copywriting is very different than content strategy. Not just sentence structure, but organizing, categorizing, planning, structuring
• “Word of advice: Don’t ever meet your heroes.” — @halvorson
• @halvorson just asked if there are any IAs in the audience and I raised my hand. Ew. What’s wrong with me?
• “The web is a visual medium & the ppl called upon to make websites are visual designers” — @halvorson This ignores overall experience
• Content development has been marginalized in our consideration of experience design — @halvorson
• “Content is not a feature.” — @halvorson
• Strategy is “a plan for obtaining a specific goal or result.” Content strategy not just what to put out there, but why, how, for whom..
• ..by whom, with what, when, where, how often, what next? All of these things need to be considered and captured in the content strategy
• Marketers’ performance is measured by conversions and sales. It’s not their fault. — @halvorson. As a result, content marginalized
• Content needs to be useful, usable and enjoyable. — @halvorson Think of Quicken vs. Mint.com. Content better presented on Mint.com
• @halvorson’s Four Phases of Content Strategy: Plan. Create. Deliver. Govern.
• Governing: consider what’s going to happen to your content overtime. User generated content may peter out. How to stay fresh?
• Content audit. Quantitative: What do you have? How much is there? Where does it live? Who owns it? (on site, user generated, PDFs, etc)
• Content research and analysis: brand and messaging, user research, competitor site audits, gov or regulatory reqs, qualitative audit
• Subject matter expert should do qualitative audit, need to know subjectively if content is of high quality and meets the site’s purpose
• @halvorson says one of Brain Traffic’s clients went through 5 stages of grief upon seeing their qualitative audit: denial, anger, etc
• Content plan: provides clarity, makes informed recs, facilitates smart decision making, doc’ts action plan, troubleshoot implementation
• Content process: Strategy -> Creation -> Review -> Approve -> Publish
• “I sell content strategy with fear and shame.” — @halvorson
• In usability testing, content is very rarely what’s tested. It’s usually the IxD. Ask participant to make a decision using content

Eric Meyer, JavaScript Will Save Us All

• Day 2 starts now! @meyerweb talking about JavaScript. I’m still eating breakfast so no live-Twittering for me

Aaron Gustafson, Using CSS3 Today with eCSStender

• @aarongustafson is wearing a kilt. I didn’t see that coming!
• @jonasdowney More like progressive reveal
• Despite 4 years of HS computer science & 3 semesters of being a CS major at CMU, I still cannot possibly live-Twitter this presentation

Simon Willison, Building Stuff Fast–And Getting It Approved

• @simonw is up now talking about Building Stuff Fast ‚Äì And Getting it Approved. My kinda topic
• “It’s cheaper to build something than have a meeting to discuss the thing you might build.” — @simonw Amen!
• “My code’s compiling” is no longer an excuse for slacking off. @simonw says to use interactive shells to develop faster
• Client-side prototyping is where it’s at. Server-side causes too many headaches.
• http://afeedapart.com is getting props from @simonw. Talking through how elegantly it was coded. Nice work, @steyblind & @nicksergeant!
• The elegant JSON code that @simonw is showing on the screen still looks overly complex to me
• “You can build the A Feed Apart page in essentially 45 lines of JavaScript” because of JQuery. @steyblind, true?
• Yahoo’s YQL lets you run sql queries against existing web APIs. @orian, do you know about this?
• @simonw is using his British humour well ;)
• @simonw & friends spent a week in a fort (they rented it) with no internet, lots of network cables, and HDs “filled with the internet”
• They wanted to see what they could build together in a week. http://wildlifenearyou.com is the result. Crowdsources zoo and animal info
• Pair Programming = “Every bit of code being reviewed as it’s written…no temptation to go check email cuz someone is sitting there”
• @simonw is giving props to the K-J method for establishing priorities. Read more about it: http://bit.ly/130gZz
• Similar to CIM’s Engineering Lab Week, @simonw is talking about Hack Days that push teams to drop constraints and build stuff quickly
• “Open source isn’t about communism; it’s an ecosystem.” — @simonw. Sad how few people seem to grasp this
• Code-hosting sites like Github lets you “file and forget” your source code and not have to deal with answering questions forever more

Luke Wroblewski, Web Form Design in Action

• How @lukewdesign can tell stories about everyday web forms is truly admirable. Heard this talk before & already on the edge of my seat
• Poor Boingo gets ripped on every time. Hire @lukewdesign already!
• “A form, by definition, is in your way.” — @lukewdesign Consider the path to completion and make it as clear as possible
• Paypal’s path to completion sucks all around, really poor scan line down the form. @lukewdesign recommends a straight line down
• “Have you heard about the ‘bomb’ tag in HTML5? It scatters your UI all over the page. SmartUSA is already using it.” — @lukewdesign
• Path to completion using straight line is beneficial even for complex forms, like buying a house online. Makes whole form feel lighter
• Use clear progress indicators to let people know where they are…& don’t lie. Fidelity.com requires signin midway, not in progress bar
• @lukewdesign uses eye-tracking data to show how people tend to look at a page, where their eyes go, what the cues are
• Use top aligned labels to minimize time to completion. Uses a bit more vertical space, but really helps people move through the form
• Right aligned forms also quick, but the rag on the left can be disruptive. Left aligned good for quick scanning, but slower to complete
• Top-aligned labels 10x faster than left-aligned. People can capture label and field in one glance.
• Labels *within* fields are stupid because once user clicks into the field, the label is gone. Also, like on LinkedIn, submits as text
• Make any labels inside of input fields NOT look like data. Use dashes or another indicator for user to see when quickly scanning
• Help text is useful to explain “Why am I being asked this?” and “What’s the right format for my answer?” — @lukewdesign
• Right sidebar w/ contextual help that you can toggle on or off is a nice way of handling it. Minimize the amount of help tips displayed
• Too much help text is indicative of some bigger problem is your design. — @lukewdesign
• Inline validation is a great way to provide real-time feedback to help ppl choose a username for instance, or getting to a “strong” pw
• @lukewdesign just pronounced a CAPTCHA. It sounded like Polish. No surprise
• @lukewdesign has the audience cracking up with his inner monologue as he’s filling out a form. It’s funny because it’s so true.
• There are subtleties in how you do matching (confirm email address) that you must pay attention to. Don’t leave users in error states
• @lukewdesign showing his study with 27 participants to test 3 models of inline validation to see which is fastest to complete
• Kayak uses inline validation to allow people to not fill in the rest of the form, pre-populating data and allowing them to edit it
• I’m love @lukewdesign’s Yahoo! Answers example using inline validation to find questions that have already been answered. Nice work!
• Also elegant is surface formatting right up front as the user clicks in the field. Don’t gradually reveal formatting as user is typing
• “Not all form actions are equal” Submit = good button. Reset = evil button. Don’t make them look exactly the same & beside each other
• “When you’re dropping your friend off at the airport, you don’t do it at the Reset terminal. You drop him right in front of the gate”
• @lukewdesign showing the GROWTH of a form from UX to sales to engineering to marketing to legal based on each group’s considerations
• Forms should be conversational. Not “Preferred Content” but “I prefer content from”. Calls to action should be clear, not just “Submit”
• About Boingo: “I argue it would increase conversions considerably, but maybe they don’t care about money.” — @lukewdesign
• Minimize barriers to entry by subsuming any information you already have about the person. E.g., if they were invited to the service
• Genie.com and Jumpcut are being used as examples of GOOD forms. They’re really pretty and work elegantly
• PatientsLikeMe’s form is long, and consider the mental state the user is in (probably not great). Gradual engagement is kinder
• Like in games, make the person successful within the first 5 minutes of playing — @lukewdesign
• Path to completion. Label alignment. Help & tips. Inline validation. Primary & secondary actions. Form organization. Gradual engagement
• @lukewdesign always kills it. That’s skillz. With a z

• Munchkin sundaes FTW! http://pic.gd/d2c90d
• Dearest @steyblind and @nicksergeant of http://bit.ly/yHJjD — sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!

Dan Rubin, Designing Virtual Realism

• Excited to be hearing @danrubin present for the first time! Topic: Designing Virtual Realism. Mirroring the context in which its used
• If we think about our websites as products, and what we’re doing as product design, then even the developers are designers — @danrubin
• I like how @danrubin is taking my message of “we are all user experience designers” & stepping it up to “we are all product designers”
• Affordance is the cue that tells people how to use the thing. Most products don’t have it, and that’s why we fumble around like idiots
• @danrubin showing a hotel tub faucet with poor affordance for how to redirect water to shower head. Instructions were actually posted
• “Shower heads don’t need instructions. This design needed instructions.” — @danrubin YES! Only shitty design needs to be explained
• Aesthetic-usability effect: attractive things work better. — Don Norman. Because we think it’s easier to use, it actually is. So cool
• “People think well designed things work better” — @markboulton Hi, Mark!
• I’m experiencing rate limits with the Twitter API for the very first time in 1 year and 8 months of live-Twittering
• For more on the topic: check @stephenanderson’s Seductive Interactions http://bit.ly/gI0dK & read Emotional Design: http://bit.ly/u8wji
• More surreal than having people approach you to tell you they liked your presentation is having other speakers mention stuff you said.

Dan Cederholm, Progressive Enrichment With CSS3

• Last presentation of An Event Apart Chicago 2009! @simplebits talking about Progressive Enrichment With CSS3
• @simplebits likens limiting the user experience based on the capabilities of the tech to the difference b/w black & white and color TV
• @KuraFire’s rollovers in the Elsewhere sidebar of http://farukat.es are hot shit. I want! Gimme!

After the show

• If you’re sticking around Chicago tonight, come grab a couple beers with me in the hotel bar after 6:30, dinner nearby around 8
• Quite a who’s who @ tonight’s dinner @ Giordano’s. One of those moments: what the hell am I doing sitting @ this table? Life is strange
• Pizza! @simplebits @danrubin @germanmartinez @danieltott @simonw @chris_oh @malarkey @moneylady @hansv @bdielman @julesrey @gotadepoder
• Me: “Now that I’ve tweeted, I can eat.” @malarkey: “It’s like saying grace.” Dammit he’s got me pegged!

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• Web 2.0 Expo NY: “Content Matters” panel moderated by Liz Danzico
• I’ll be on Jeffrey Zeldman’s panel at SXSW 2009
• I’ll be speaking at An Event Apart 2009
• IA Summit 2008: LukeW’s “Content Page Design Best Practices”
• SxSW: Our panel “From Freelance to Agency: Start Small, Stay Small”

Last Monday, October 12, 2009, I presented DIY UX: Give Your Users an Upgrade (without calling in a pro) to a sold out 500-person crowd at An Event Apart Chicago.

I gave this talk for the first time (minus a couple test rounds) at An Event Apart Boston in June, and shall we say, it was certainly not the crowd favorite. While some people really enjoyed it and one person even said it alone was worth the price of admission, the majority of attendees were underwhelmed. They didn’t like how case study heavy it was, they didn’t like how it didn’t seem to apply to their situation, they didn’t like my style. Quite frankly I was over-rehearsed, and it ended up sounding like a product pitch. Worse, I misunderstood the audience and didn’t really know how to engage them.

When the evaluations came back and I saw how poorly I ranked, I was completely devastated. An Event Apart is a five-star conference and I just couldn’t hack it. I was already slated to speak in Chicago, but to be perfectly honest, I desperately wanted to back out. I thought I’d just come up with some excuse — a family obligation, an intense project — anything that would get me out of having to relive the humiliation.

Then I regained consciousness. An Event Apart is the opportunity of a lifetime and I’ll be damned if I’m going to give it up. What’s the worst that could happen? I’d bomb? Well I already did that and the world didn’t end, so I didn’t have much to lose.

I did a crazy thing. I listened to the feedback. I mean I really listened. I went over and over my slides and tried to figure out where I had gone wrong. I had heart-to-hearts with AEA co-founder Jeffrey Zeldman and my mentor Jared Spool. I asked for the cold, hard facts and they gave them to me. It suddenly became objective — this isn’t about me as a person, it’s about my ability to grab the audience’s attention with material that will change the way they work. It’s about good, honest, clear communication. It’s about eating my own dog food, practicing what I preach: getting feedback and improving based on that feedback. If I gave up I would be a total fraud, and that’s one thing I refuse to be.

I changed about 1/4 of the slides and moved around a bunch so that it would flow better. I put in more concrete examples, extrapolating from my case studies so that they would be more easily relatable in other scenarios. I trimmed the fat, tightened it up, and filled it out. Then once it was done, I put it to bed. I didn’t memorize what I would say on each slide or rehearse it 15 times. I told myself that I knew it, and I would just give it away when the time came.

An hour before the presentation my stomach started turning and I started doubting myself again. Poor Luke Wroblewski had the unfortunate circumstance of sitting next to me in the back of the room as my anxieties rose. He kept saying I’d do fine, and I kept seething more and more.

Finally 15 minutes before I was about to go on, I called my boyfriend Orian from inside a bathroom stall. I was in panic mode. “I don’t want to do this. This is insane. I’m completely out of my league.” He told me to take a deep breath and splash some water on my face. Then he said something that I’ll never forget: “Go do this for yourself. Not for anyone else. You have something to say. Remember why it’s important to you.”

In all my preparation, it had never occurred to me that this was an opportunity to further my own professional agenda. I had convinced myself that this was about impressing people — the audience, the speakers, the conference organizers — and had forgotten why the content mattered to me in the first place. It was like the seas parted and I could finally move forward. Orian gave me the clarity to do what I did next.

I won over the crowd.

Oddly enough I wasn’t trying to wow them. I wasn’t trying to do anything other than be myself, tell my story, and stay within the alloted time. But my passion for this material shone through. It became obvious that I absolutely love what I do, and that I want others to love it, too. I think they did.

There was a bright light shining in my eyes the whole hour so I couldn’t really tell if I had held the audience’s attention. It was certainly quiet out there, but I didn’t know if I still had them. I didn’t know if they were buying it. But I tried not to care. I just kept delivering my message.

When I finally got off stage, I exhaled. I had gotten through it. I didn’t remember anything that I had actually said, but I knew that I had stood there and had gone through the whole slide deck, and had answered some questions, and now I was done.

Jeffrey came right over to hug me and shared some private words of praise. All that I was trying to gauge was if it was better than my Boston performance. He made it clear that it was, and I was beaming.

As I walked towards the doors in the back of the room, several people stopped me to say how much they had enjoyed the talk. I was really taken aback by their kind words and lit up faces. After shaking more hands than I can remember and answering some people’s questions, I made it out of the room and made a beeline for the leftover brownies. I needed sugar. A guy whose name I didn’t catch came over to tell me that he had just gotten off the phone with his boss. He was so energized by my talk, he called him immediately to announce that they needed to set up usability tests the day he gets back to the office. Even writing this now I am stunned that something I said encouraged someone to take an action they hadn’t considered possible before. If even just with a select few, I had encouraged positive change. Really, what more could I possibly ask for?

I took my brownie to a private corner and pulled up Twitter to see what folks had been saying during my talk. Everything I had wanted them to take away from the presentation, everything I had sunk my heart into, was right there staring back at me in 140-character soundbytes. They got it! They really got it! I was and, a week later, am still overjoyed. More like euphoric honestly.

The lovely Kevin Hoffman, Director of User Experience at Happy Cog Philadelphia, live-Twittered my talk because I couldn’t possibly live-Twitter myself :) I am honored to be able to include his play-by-play below.

At the bottom of this post, I have pasted all of the tweets I could find about my talk — not in an effort to brag about a job well done, but because I simply never want to lose the feeling of satisfaction that I had reading them for the first time. By capturing them all here, I’ll be able to come back and remember what felt like the most triumphant moment of my career. I know that may sound like an overstatement, but to me, it’s certitude. I overcame a tremendous fear, and I was rewarded for it. I hope that in the future, when I really need it, I’ll be able to recall the moment, and it will push me further than I ever thought I could go.

Kevin Hoffman’s Tweets

• Every time I see @whitneyhess present she’s wearing argyle. http://bit.ly/18S6m0
• Taking a poll: should I live tweet Whitney Hess’ presentation? @ me with a vote.
• As I’m prepping to live tweet @whitneyhess‘ presentation… fail whale!!! #isthatirony?
• DIY UX Giver Your Users an Upgrade Without Calling In a Pro (@whitneyhess)
• UX is fighting for what people really truly need. (@whitneyhess)
• Making good is more impt. than making an impact is more impt. than making money. (@whitneyhess)
• ALL of use are UX designers. (Front end, visual design, etc.) (@whitneyhess)
• @Harvest as an example for time tracking app, and a product that people truly love. (@whitneyhess)
• @Harvest does four activities: design research, analytics, usability testing and experimentation & iteration. (@whitneyhess)
• Design research: what do our users actually need? (@whitneyhess)
• Get Satisfaction LOWERED @Harvest user feedback. Breaks the brand experience of the @Harvest product. (@whitneyhess)
• It’s better to make an easy user feedback experience than to make it easier for the company. (@whitneyhess)
• @Harvest uses an internal only app entitled Kaizen, japanese for continuous improvement, for ticket tracking. (@whitneyhess)
• Kaizen uses digg like functionality for ticket tracking. (@whitneyhess)
• @Harvest also uses survey methods at key points in the customer conversion processes for additional feedback. (@whitneyhess)
• Design research is asking questions to identify the underlying problem. Doesn’t require a UX expert. (@whitneyhess)
• Iridesco-”We don’t just want to patch; we want to address the core problem. Customers love to tell you their workflow” (@whitneyhess)
• Design research – make it easy for customers to reach you, log their requests and prioritize. (@whitneyhess)
• Recommends Mike Kuniavsky, Observing the User Experience. (@whitneyhess)
• Web Analytics – what are users actually doing? (@whitneyhess)
• What you learn from data shouldn’t be governed by data alone. (@whitneyhess)
• Crazyeff.com is an great tool for adding a heatmaps overlay for click paths. (@whitneyhess)
• Make that crazy egg. Crazy eff is an entirely different tool. (me)
• Also, Google Website Optimizer, another great tool for doing AB testing, or multivariate testing. (@whitneyhess)
• Providing an example from gov’t bureaucracy – House.gov (@whitneyhess)
• Web solutions dept. in the House of Reps, in house web service for House of Reps. (@whitneyhess)
• House.gov used mos. of srch analytics to better align popular srches with useful content and identify huge problems. (@whitneyhess)
• Due to placement on the front page of the NYT, house.gov crashes. (@whitneyhess)
• House.gov staff able to use search metrics to refute bad ideas with real numbers to show how people are behaving. (@whitneyhess)
• Web Analytics and Hour a Day by Kaushik, recommended reading. (@whitneyhess)
• Analytics-understand traffic cycles, uncover usage pttrns, test variations, and explore search logs for usr behavior. (@whitneyhess)
• Usability testing – does our stuff actually work? (@whitneyhess)
• As a ux designer, I don’t always use formal methodologies, sometimes pursue more “lite” methodology. (@whitneyhess)
• Usability lite: use whatever version is available, don’t tell participate what to do, then probe in interest areas. (@whitneyhess)
• Users aren’t always right, but you need to hear them. Don’t let the user be the designer, but… (@whitneyhess)
• …have the humility to get to the core of the problem. (@whitneyhess)
• I love using HR for informal usability testing participants. (@whitneyhess)
• Friends and family, craigslist, starbucks twitter – all potential recruiting methods for user testing. (@whitneyhess)
• Tools for recording usability feedback – silverback (mac), morae, quicktime, and windows media player. (@whitneyhess)
• What about testing online? – Don’t be a wimp – you need to suffer with your users IN PERSON, in the room. But… (@whitneyhess)
• For remote user testing, open hallway (open ended), usabilla, fivesecondtest. (@whitneyhess)
• Re: user testing.com – don’t like that the facilitator is out of the loop for recruiting. (@whitneyhess)
• I don’t recommend user testing.com (@whitneyhess)
• Limits of remote testing. No expressions, body language, no follow up, harder to internalize, and … (@whitneyhess)
• Cowardly, because it’s good to feel the embarassment of a sucky design. (@whitneyhess)
• User testing – test early and often, informal or formal, use ppl in your environment, mix bgs, do it yourself! (@whitneyhess)
• Handbook of Usability Testing – Rubin and Chisnell, recommended reading. (@whitneyhess)
• (@whitneyhess)
• Heh. Livetweeting is hard! Whoops. (me)
• Roz Duffy, leads Comcast Interactive front end development for Comcast. (@whitneyhess)
• CIM front end team doesn’t feel that they have as much involvement in the design process. (@whitneyhess)
• Roz D. brought Refresh Philly into the CIM lobby, and the more these events happened, the more the staff attends. (@whitneyhess)
• After CIM workshop for learning how to draw well, drawing is part of the front end dev. practice and dialogue. (@whitneyhess)
• CIM developers work out ideas with pen and paper, and keep a healthy library of books to share. (@whitneyhess)
• CIM/Roz Duffy: “We aren’t always working on interesting stuff, but we always want to work smarter.” (@whitneyhess)
• Because of this presentation at AEA Boston, a relationship between UX and dev now exists at Comcast. (@whitneyhess)
• Comcast Engineering Lab Week – teams approached their passion projects for one week – what did they come up with? (@whitneyhess)
• UX lead at Comcast @livlab joined devs for Engineer.Lab week, went to coworking space @indyhall to spend a day tgthr. (@whitneyhess)
• Engineering Lab Week completely renergized the CIM dev team, changed their work processes. (@whitneyhess)
• Experimentation & iteration – never stop improving, build a creative environment, work across depts, find inspiration. (@whitneyhess)
• Sketching User Experiences by Bill Buxton – recommended reading. (@whitneyhess)
• Always listen to users. Ask questions to get at underlying problems. (@whitneyhess)
• Use both data form metrics and anecdotes for design decisions. (@whitneyhess)
• Test designs with humility, complete the feedback loop, and never stop trying to make things better. (@whitneyhess)

All tweets during my talk

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• See you at An Event Apart Chicago
• My DIY UX talk is featured in InformationWeek
• UI13: Dana Chisnell’s “Usability Testing in the Wild”
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• An Event Apart Boston was wicked good

[This post is part of a series on Mentors and Heroes]

Andrew Hinton is a Lead Information Architect at Vanguard, an investment management company. He co-founded the Information Architecture Institute in 2002 is now serves as the Director of Professional Practice on its Board of Directors. Follow him on Twitter @inkblurt.

Andrew Hinton’s mentor is…

Jeffrey Skinner, Poet

How long have you known each other and how did you first meet?
Jeff was my teacher & mentor from around 1992-1995 at the University of Louisville, before I went on to get an MFA at UNC-Greensboro. We haven’t stayed very much in touch since then (mainly my fault). First met when I took a creative writing class from him (on the advice of another fine writer, Leon Driskell).

How would you describe how you relate to your mentor?
Mentor/protégé, with a good deal of regular friendship and general hanging out mixed in.

How formal or structured is the mentorship? Does Jeffrey know you consider him a mentor?
It wasn’t formalized through the university — it was more of a ‘taking under a wing’ sort of thing. But yes, the crux of the relationship was explicitly that of mentor-student.

What is one piece of advice your mentor gave you that has stuck with you the most?
The main influence was an attitude, a stance, toward art and creativity. As an insecure 20-something, his independence and irascible edge were what I needed to prod & encourage me to jump in and make my ideas happen. Best verbal advice was, in essence, “stop talking about it — get off your ass and do it.” I still find that very hard to follow most days.

What else do you want the world to know about your mentor?
He’s a talented poet, writer & teacher. Seriously beautiful poems. The best ones give you splinters.

Thank you Andrew for sharing your mentor with us!

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I’m speaking at An Event Apart Chicago on October 12, 2009

On Sunday I’m off to one of my favorite cities to attend and speak at An Event Apart Chicago, being held on October 12-13. I’ll be presenting my talk titled DIY UX: Give Your Users an Upgrade (without calling in a pro), which I gave for the first time at An Event Apart in Boston in June.

Based on a ton of great feedback that I received — both positive and negative — I’ve made some much-needed tweaks to the slides and even have a follow-up story that happened as a result of my presentation in Boston. VERY exciting stuff and I can’t wait to share it.

I’m a lot less nervous than I was the few days before AEA in Boston because I had no idea what to expect, but I still have to admit that I get a pit in my stomach every time I think about standing up in front of all the amazingly talented and intelligent designers and developers in attendance. I really hope that the stories I have to tell will resonate with people and inspire them to become do-it-yourself user experience designers, no matter what their title.

If you’re at An Event Apart Chicago and you see me from afar, please come over and introduce yourself! The best thing about conferences is all the great new people you get to meet.

And make sure you follow me @whitneyhess for golden nuggets from all of the sessions.

Many thanks to the An Event Apart crew for allowing me to participate in their illustrious conference. It’s a true honor to be a part of it.

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• Here at An Event Apart Boston
• An Event Apart Boston was wicked good
• An Event Apart Boston Schedule Now Online
• I’ll be speaking at An Event Apart 2009
• My DIY UX talk is featured in InformationWeek