In a recent edition of Interactions Magazine, Don Norman writes about what he argued at last years UX Week conference put on by Adaptive Path:

We should not be devoting all of our time providing a perfect experience. Why not? Well, perfection is seldom possible. More important, perfection is seldom worth the effort. So what if people have some problems with an application, a website, a product or service? What maters is the total experience. Furthermore, the actual experience is not as important as the way in which it is remembered.

Think about the last productive customer service call you had with a corporation like Bell, Rogers, or AT&T. My memory of every call to such multi-billion dollar corporations has always been = FAIL!

The resulting memory of such experiences has literally put me in a mind set where I’ll need to dedicate up to 30 minutes or more pushing buttons and getting transferred to several different people to eventually get transferred back to the first person I was talking to.

But what if the experience could be remembered differently? What if the next time I called I was immediately connected with a real person! And within that brief interaction if they didn’t have immediate access to the answer, they would take my contact information and get back to me within one business day? Now the memory of that experience has changed from FAIL to SUCCESS!

I agree with Don on this point; I don’t think we need to be striving to make everything perfect. I believe in order to create a great memory of any experience we need to focus more on understanding the people for whom we are designing so we can create a positive memory the first time, and every time thereafter.

Co-founder at IDEO, renowned world-wide for its innovative and user-centered approach to design, David Kelly gives a fascinating talk at the TED conference in May 2007 entitled, “The Future of Design is Human Centered”.

Something’s happened in the last 18 years since Richard has started TED…we’ve kind of…climbed Maslow’s hierarchy a little bit so we’re now focused more and more on Human Centered Design. That really involves designing behaviors and personality into products, and I think you’re starting to see that and it’s making our job even more enjoyable.

David shares several examples of the designs IDEO has created using this philosophy, and how ubiquitous technology has become in our everyday lives. My favorite project shown is how the team at IDEO attempted to make the cubicle “more human”.

If you’re interested in learning more about ubiquitous computing, Adam Greenfields’ book Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing is an excellent resource on the subject.

While attending the 2009 IA Summit in Memphis, TN I had the pleasure of gathering some of the leading minds in the fields of IA, UX, and IxD to talk about the subject of Ubiquitous Computing and related ideas.

Be sure to check out the work and initiatives being taken on by of all my guests for today’s podcast; remarkable work gentlemen!

Steve Baty is working hard to put together a tremendous line up of presenters for the upcoming conference, UX Australia. Steve also formed the UX Book Club; is a contributing author at Johnny Holland Magazine; and is the Principal at Meld in Sydney, Australia.

Will Evans runs Semantic Foundry in Washington D.C. and is currently part of the group helping to promote and put together the IDEA conference being held in Toronto this September. Looking forward to helping you with Idea and Interactions ‘10 in February, Will.

Joe Lamantia is speaking at the upcoming Enterprise Search Summit in NYC in May. Joe is also writing a column on designing for ubiquitous computing for the magazine UXmatters.com and he’ll publish another one in May.

(I actually had the pleasure of interviewing Joe on a two part series on Ethics and the Web in June of last year.)

Matthew Milan and Jon Tirmandi run Normative Design out of Toronto. Matt gave a great talk at the IA Summit entitled, Leading with Insight

Joe Sokohl is the User Experience Lead at PracticeWorks. Joe gave a great presentation at the IA Summit entitled, A Real Nowhere Man: Managing Remote Teams Remotely. Joe is currently in Shanghai on business; hope the journey has been a great success, Joe!

Todd Zaki Warfel is the founder and President at Messagefirst. Todd is speaking at several events around the world, including:

July 1st and 2nd Université du SI Paris, France Geeks and Bosses
July 14th UPenn Philadelphia, PA. Higher Education Web Symposium
August 24-28 Agile2009 Chicago, IL. UX Design Studio Experience
October 8-11 UX Challenge Longyearbyen, Norway. UX Challenge

Many thanks to all for taking time out at the Summit to share your ideas and insights. I hope to be able to have more discussions like this one with others within and outside of the IA / UX / IxD / Design disciplines later this year.

Thanks to Chris Greenfield who spoke the Ottawa Social Media Breakfast. I first met Chris at the VizThink conference last year.

Chris gave a great presentation that spoke the truth regarding social media, called “Social Media Bullshit”. In essence he spoke out about how all social mediums are simply a means of connecting people with one another.

The value of such tools is the ability to bring people together to share ideas. If you’re a New Media Douchebag, you’re not contributing to the conversation – you’re impeding it!

Special thanks to the volunteers for their time and energies in helping to capture the audio from the 2009 IA Summit for the Boxes and Arrows Podcast.

We ran into many technical issues at the Summit this year, including most rooms that were not mic’d for questions. As a result I had to remove the questions b/c without that audio, the answers provided no context.

Thanks to Gene Smith and nForm out in Edmonton for chatting with me about doing some video for their upcoming Web Strategy Summit. Although this time can’t work, I look forward to helping share experiences in the form of audio and video at future events.

Several years ago I had the pleasure of working for an e-learning and publishing company where I managed the creation of a Microsoft Certified Training (MCT) program.

Along with managing the creation of the 5-day work shop, I authored the section on Adult Learning Theory. While researching several concepts, I came across the Experiential Learning Theory proposed by David Kolb:

Experiential learning theory defines learning as “the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience.”

In an essay from the book Managing as Designing entitled “Designing Learning”, co-author of the article Paul Eickmann notes:

“You know, for art students learning is not text driven.” This stood in dramatic contrast with management education, which is almost entirely organized around texts that deliver an authoritative scientific discourse. The scientific basis of the management curriculum was established in 1959 by an influential Carnegie Foundation report that sought to improve the intellectual respectability of management education by grounding it in three scientific disciplines: economics, mathematics, and behavioral science.

Education in the Arts focuses on approaches to learning as: Aesthetic, Demo-practice-production-critique, Recursive, Theory and Practice, Showing, Expression, Individualized, with a Diverse Faculty.

By comparison, Management Education focuses on the polar opposite elements: Scientific, Test driven, Discursive, Theory, Telling, Impression, Batched, with an Abstract Faculty.

Instead of holding stead-fast to our own perceptions, which have been formed largely through post-secondary and post-graudate curricula; perhaps we need to see the world through the eyes of those whose strengths have been shaped by the very educational institutions we hold in such high esteem.

The fields of Information Architecture, Interaction Design, and User Experience are disciplines that have created brilliant tools that allow people to share ideas; experiences; and content in meaningful ways.

The argument over definitions and which tools are still relevant or valuable are a colossal waste of energy and time.

To argue for or against a tool within any of these disciplines is to assume that each person for whom we’re creating solutions thinks; behaves; and organizes the world (real and virtual) in precisely the same way. (You don’t need a PhD in Neurology to know this is simply not true!)

In short, you’re all a bunch of tools! All you Information Architects, Usability Experts, Interaction Designers – you all have tremendous value; the secret is in taking the time to learn from one another; including those outside of our own field of study.

I don’t get caught up in my title as an Information Architect. I didn’t use any IA tools or techniques when building a Microsoft Certified Training program for an e-learning company a few years back. Nor did I use any IA tools or techniques when building a National training strategy for a Federal Government client. And I certainly didn’t use any IA tools or techniques when facilitating a two-day seminar with Directors from across Canada.

And yet when people ask me what I do for a living, I tell them:

“I’m an Information Architect. I help people think about how to structure things so they can find everything they need, whenever they need it.”

I label myself as an IA because the tools that make up the discipline have been the most effective in allowing me to help people create a clear picture for what they or their clients require.

Podcasting isn’t a defined “tool” for any of these disciplines yet through the generosity of organizations such as Boxes and Arrows, and Adaptive Path, I’ve had the pleasure over the past two years of learning from and sharing ideas with subject matter experts in multiple disciplines from around the world!

In an effort to lead by example, along with both the i.a. podcast and the boxes and arrows podcast, I’m helping build The UX Workhsop. I would encourage you to share your initial thoughts on the concept with us; even if you don’t label yourself an IA, IxD, or UX professional.

A collaborative video from friends and colleagues in the United States, South Africa, Germany, India, Australia, and yours truly in Canada, will be published in the next couple of weeks. If you’re interested in sharing your ideas, experiences, or even tools that you’ve found success with, we’d love to hear from you!