Presentation Transcript

1. Designing from Data

   Intermountain Chapter of the STC 22 Oct 2009 Grant Skousen gskousen@gmail.com skousengn@ldschurch.org

2. design

3. Requirements User Experience Design Interaction Design Human Factors Usability Graphic Design Icon Design Documentation Instructional Design Prototyping
4. Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it's really how it works. The design of the Mac wasn't what it looked like, although that was part of it. Primarily, it was how it worked. To design something really well, you have to get it. You have to really grok what it's all about. It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. Most people don't take the time to do that. – Steve Jobs

5. grok

6. Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they've had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. – Steve Jobs
7. Unfortunately, that's too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven't had very diverse experiences. So they don't have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one's understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have. – Steve Jobs

8. connect the dots

9. At great cost, companies have finally learned that quality must be designed into products rather than tacked on at the end. Now tech companies need to understand that human-centered development must likewise be designed in from the outset rather than amounting to a couple of special buttons and a hope that the authors of the help screens can explain them. – Stephen Manes
10. Design works if it's authentic, inspired, and has a clear point of view. It can't be a collection of input. – Ron Johnson
11. …the real power of rapid prototyping comes less from the technical momentum it generates than from the human interactions it facilitates. It isn’t “show and tell,” it’s “show and ask.” It creates conversations between people that would not otherwise take place. Innovation is shifting from spec-driven prototypes to prototype-driven specs. The result is prototypes and products that customers have actually codesigned rather than merely described. Prototypes ... are far less ambiguous than words. –Michael Schrage
12. [A prototype] creates conver-sations between people that would not otherwise take place. Prototypes ... are far less ambiguous than words. – Michael Schrage
13. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them. – Steve Jobs
14. What’s the most ignored paradox in software development? Every time you add something you take something away. Screen real estate. Interface clarity. Simplified testing. Shorter development time. Certainty. Agility. Manageability. Adding anything dilutes everything else. That’s not always a bad thing, just be aware of it. Be aware of the trade-offs. The dilution effect is why maintaining a clear vision for your product is so important. Without a clear understanding of the limits and boundaries of your product, the product will morph into something you no longer recognize. Or worse, something you can no longer manage or control. — Jason Fried
15. To innovate does not necessarily mean to expand; very often it means to simplify. – M. Russell Ballard
16. Simplicity is a prerequisite for reliability. – Edsger W. Dijkstra
17. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the 100 other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. — Steve Jobs
18. The best products aren’t the ones with the most features. The best products are those whose features are tightly integrated with the solutions they provide, making them the most usable. — Apple Human Interface Guidelines

19. Thanks!

    Grant Skousen gskousen@gmail.com skousengn@ldschurch.org

20. Backup

21. Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt, Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems, San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann, 1998. Stephen Manes, "The tyranny of the computer," Forbes, October 19, 1998, www.forbes.com/forbes/98/1019/6209154a.htm. Michael Schrage, "Faster Innovation? Try Rapid Prototyping," Harvard Management Update, December 1999, Vol. 4, #12, www.hbsp.harvard.edu/ideasatwork/schrage2.html. Gary Wolf, "Steve Jobs: The Next Insanely Great Thing," Wired, February 1996, p. 163.
22. [Innovation] comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don't get on the wrong track or try to do too much. – Steve Jobs
23. When you are asked to solve a problem, look beyond it. Ask why that particular problem arose in the first place. Search beyond the technical: Question the business model, the organizational structure, and the culture. The path to a solution seldom lies in the question as posed: the path appears only when we are able to pose the right question. – Don Norman
24. All of us on the UI team think the value of Google is in not being cluttered, in offering a great user experience. I like to say that Google should be “what you want, when you want it.” As opposed to “everything you could ever want, even when you don’t.” – Marissa Mayer