I have been receiving wonderful feedback from my recent talk at Ottawa’s Human Factors group, CapCHI, entitled Being Human is NOT Quantifiable.

This feedback has come from business leaders in fortune 100 companies; senior directors in the public sector; developers; and designers from around the world.

The common theme of my talk was summarized quite well by User Experience Designer Alla Zollers on Twitter:

It’s about communication, not deliverables. It’s about understanding, not compromise!

This lead me to thinking about one of the most common practices in the development of any product or service, the meeting!

The idea is simple enough – get everyone together in a room to talk about the project and work together towards a specific end state.

And even though there are few who manage productive meetings, it is still one of the most common practices in both business and government.

The larger impact this has on any organization, beyond the delivery of a lesser product or service, is the impact it has on the corporate culture. In one of the funniest quotes from the movie Office Space, Peter quips:

It’s not that I’m lazy…it’s that I just don’t care!

Having worked in, and consulted to, “Office Space” like environments I wanted to share a “Meeting Manifesto” that I use to run productive meetings.

The purpose is to ensure the interdisciplinary teams that make up every sector today, are able to convey their ideas while respecting the experiences and ideas of others:

How we need to work together to effectively accomplish our purpose…

* Since everyone here has a valid perspective, say what you think. We need your open and honest inputs.

* Since it is difficult to tell how others see things, if something does not make sense to you, ask about it.

* Since being judgmental can impair the openness necessary for teamwork and understanding, try not to attack others’ ideas. Questioning for clarity is OK.

* Since it is easy to get off on tangents in a meeting, work to ensure that issues discussed relate to the topic at hand.

* Since developing our best thinking about the designated task is our primary goal, work to upgrade thoughts not words.

* Work together towards consensus.

* Expect from others professionalism through your demonstration of it.

This Manifesto is especially useful in corporate cultures where people are afraid to share ideas / experiences for fear of being ridiculed.

The rules apply to everyone at every level in the corporate hierarchy, very much including the leader of the meeting.

Context. Engagement. Wayfinding. Trust. These terms speak to the largest challenges on the web today. How we are communicating with others online is changing the way we interact with one another in the real world; making those key terms essential for the success of both business and government.

In an effort to help both private and public sectors communicate more effectively, I am holding workshops on User Experience Design, Information Architecture, and Writing for the Web, entitled Follow the UX Leader.

Thanks to the generous sponsorship of the Optimal Workshop, I’ve been able to leverage their online card sorting tool Optimal Sort.

If you would like to share your insights, select any of the links below and try your hand at an open card sort!

How would you organize information for a Car Dealership?
How would you organize information for a Grocery Store?
How would you organize information for a Hardware Store?
How would you organize information for a Mobile Service Provider?

The more data I can collect for the Follow the UX Leader Workshops, the greater context I can provide participants about the importance of creating engaging experiences that speak to the needs of those for whom we are designing.

When attending the third annual Interaction Design conference in Savannah, Georgia I managed to bring together colleagues from around the world for a discussion on design research including:

* Steve Baty Principal at Meld Studios in Sydney Australia;
* Eric Reiss Partner and Founder of FatDUX in Copenhagen Denmark;
* (yours truly),
* Daniel Szuc from Apogee Ltd in Hong Kong;
* Chris Avore UX Consultant and Principal for Erova LLC. in New York; and
* Indi Young who is one of the founders of Adaptive Path and author of Rosenfeld Media’s Mental Models.

Thank you to Chris Palle at The UX Workshop for shooting and editing this video!

In addition I’d like to add my heart felt thanks to Amy Cueva, Josh Corringham, and Megan Grocki from Mad*Pow who generously sponsored this video as well as three other podcast discussions that are now live on their site.

Thanks to the incredible generosity of Mad*Pow I had the opportunity to attend the third annual Interaction Design Conference and interview thought leaders and students from around the world!

Audio Podcasts from discussions described in this post are now available on Mad*Pow Podcast page.

My first discussion was an interview with Amy Cueva, Chief Experience Officer at Mad*Pow and Will Evans, Principal of Semantic Foundary. We talked about the many issues facing the American Health Care system and how technology and the sharing of data could aid in the recovery of patients.

Thanks to the efforts of my colleague and founder of The UX Workshop Chris Palle, we were able to record a video conversation on Research Design with a world renowned group of UX professionals I gathered on short notice; all of whom I’m honored to call friends.

From left to right in the photo above:

* Steve Baty Principal at Meld Studios in Sydney Australia;
* Eric Reiss Partner and Founder of FatDUX in Copenhagen Denmark;
* (yours truly),
* Daniel Szuc from Apogee Ltd in Hong Kong;
* Chris Avore UX Consultant and Principal for Erova LLC. in New York; and
* Indi Young who is one of the founders of Adaptive Path and author of Rosenfeld Media’s Mental Models.

This was a wonderful, unscripted dialogue that shared experiences and ideas from different cultures, projects, and conversations with both users and professionals alike.

The future, as the picture below would indicate as we stare into the sun, looks very bright for the design community. I wanted to focus on those who will be leading the way for our communities, regardless of title or process.

I was very fortunate to find four students attending the conference who took time to share their ideas and insights with me. In the photo above, from left to right:

* Anahi Bagu Msc Design for Interaction at Delft University of Technology.
* (yours truly)
* Vincent Steurs Masters in Interaction Design at Delft University of Technology.
* Katie McCurdy University of Michigan HCI grad student, user experience designer
* Laura Rodrian Interaction Designer and M.S.I. student studying Human Computer Interaction and Incentive Centered Design at the University of Michigan.

In an impressive demonstration of the brilliance that exists outside the speakers at any conference, these young designers shared ideas including:

* Designing to support the largest generation in North American history while simultaneously helping the Environment.
* Embracing the diversity of experiences outside traditional mediums to innovate like never before.
* Taking a leadership role to mentor high school students about what they are learning at college.
* Unimpressed by the “rock star” mentality of some and the hope that the biggest names in the design community will eventually reach out to students before they enter the field.

Then to wrap up the conference I had the pleasure of interviewing Greg Vassallo from Moment in New York City.

Greg gave an emotionally powerful talk entitled “10 Things I Learned About Being a Design Consultant While Living in the Hospital for a Year“.

In a true demonstration of courage, Greg shared the story of his newborn son Luca who was diagnosed with a rare form of Leukemia, AML. He went on to describe how these experiences impacted his life personally, and his subsequent outlook as a designer, professionally.

I’m thrilled to let the community know that Luca has recovered and is a healthy, active little man, enjoying life in the Big Apple!

Thank you again to Mad*Pow for allowing me the opportunity to share with others and to Morgan Kaufmann who has generously agreed to sponsor the podcasts.

I have had the pleasure of attending conferences to interview and learn from the most creative minds in the User Experience discipline from around the world. (This includes the sharing of such wisdom through the i.a. podcast, boxes and arrows, and most recently the new series over on Johnny Holland, Radio Johnny.)

Today I’m proud to announce the launch of a series of workshops I’ll be leading entitled, Follow the UX Leader; teaching the fundamentals of User Experience Design, Information Architecture, and Writing for the Web.

At Follow The UX Leader we believe in learning by doing. That’s why we’ve created a series of workshops on advanced web practices that throw out the PowerPoint paradigm and shift the learning back to the way it was when we were kids: hands on …lively …interactive …and fun! Follow The UX Leader isn’t just about learning from experts in the fields of user experience, interaction design, information architecture and writing for the web. It’s about learning from others, sharing experiences and ideas, and connecting “the old fashioned way” – face-to-face. Because what we learn offline – holds the greatest value in defining and achieving success online.

In addition I have received generous sponsorships from world renowned leaders in the field of User Experience, including:

FatDUX (Denmark)
ClickTale Web Analytics (Israel)
Optimal Workshop (New Zealand)
Morgan Kauffman (USA)
Rosenfeld Media (USA)
MarsWorks (Canada)

Prizes will be given away at random to participants in each workshop from several of our sponsors. My heart felt thanks for their incredible generosity!

The first workshops on User Experience Design, People before Pixels, will be held May 11th and May 12th with only 20 seats per session, so sign up quickly to ensure your seat at the table!

I designed these workshops because I believe passionately that if we can learn to communicate more effectively within the varied teams that make up all organizations today, we can accomplish any goals we set for ourselves.

I look forward to the opportunity to provide you with the experiences and tools that will help your company achieve great success!

Eyes Wide Shut. The title of this twisted, dark film by Stanley Kurbrick is symbolic of the rapid transition that has been unfolding over the past few years. Our eyes are “wide shut” (we see it but are largely in denial) about the massive change that’s taking place every second of every day within business and government.

In short, both leaders and so-called “thought leaders” of the past and present are failing to realize the true power isn’t in your HR defined title, but in the capacity to create an environment where ideas can be born and grow over time.

Before the dot-com explosion we were better than we are today at communicating ideas with others in real-time. We had the patience, or perhaps without the tools we have at our disposal today, the expectation that creating great products and services involved trial and error and took time to evolve.

Even the ability to sit up and debate, sometimes passionately disagree, with colleagues and peers has been dwindled down to 140 characters on Twitter. A skill set that with every passing day is becoming absolutely critical to the success of both business and government.

Think I’m wrong? Fair enough. Check out this ad by HTC. My guess is after watching it you’re going to be able to relate to both the situations shown and the feelings of the actors within the commercial.

I know I’ve found myself in nearly every single one of these situations; demonstrating to me how tightly I’m bound not only to the technology but also the people with whom I’m connected.

It’s no longer about controlling the ideas or the conversation. Success will be achieved by those who see the value of differing opinions and work to communicate those experiences into everything they design.

Jeroen Van Geel, Chief Kauhna at Johnny Holland approached me late in 2009 to start producing a new Podcast series.

After sharing a few conceptual ideas, I’m pleased to announce the launch of Radio Johnny. We’re kicking off this new series by discussing the concept of leadership, with Joe Sokohl:

IxDA Board Member and Principal of Regular Joe Consulting, Joe Sokohl shares his insights with Jeff Parks about one of the most important topics in advancing any discipline, that of leadership. Joe discusses the importance of differentiating between a “Manager” and “Leader” recalling past experiences in both the U.S. Military and Music Industry. He also talks about the necessity as leader to not only provide clear direction for all projects but also to understand how each member of the team responds to specific leadership styles.

Fans of Radio Johnny can subscribe to shows in iTunes or you can download specific .M4A files (geek speak for iTunes audio) from each show notes page. This will allow you to see art in the album window of iTunes and click on links to provide greater context to points discussed.

One of my goals for 2010 is to learn more from the International community in every User Experience discipline. To that end I have been in discussions with Daniel Szuc, Principal Consultant at a Apogee Usability Asia Ltd. Daniel will be joining me in facilitating discussions with UX professionals in and around Asia.

It is my hope that others around the world will join me in future conversations for Radio Johnny. Whether you work for an Internationally renowned design firm or are an independent with ideas to share, please drop me a note!

I have, over the past few months started to think about what experiences can we learn from other professionals that draw parallels to our current work in the field of UX as it pertains to the web?

I began brainstorming: professional athletes, nurses, fire fighters, rock climbers, teachers, professors, religious leaders, etc. The list filled a giant whiteboard in the office. Sitting back I started to focus on one of the terms: construction. For some reason that one word sparked a memory from University.

The professor was teaching a class on Sociology and brought up a fascinating observation about the evolution of the architecture of homes in North America from the early 1900’s compared to today.

Take for example this ad run in 1911 by Sears Roebuck and Co. for a home in Chicago, Illinois. Click on the picture for a larger image

A few key differences from homes built today, similar observations were made by my classmates at the time, include:

* 12 foot walls from floor to ceiling; much higher than many model homes built today.
* Price. A model home in 1911 went for just under $1,250. A comparable home today would sell for at least $200 000.
* Sears is no longer in the business of selling homes; only the material objects to furnish and decorate the houses we purchase.

However, the professor noted that while all of those things were true, the most prominent feature of the home in the early 1900’s was the front porch.

Large front porch, 40 feet by 9 feet 6 inches, with massive Colonial columns; also large rear porch.

People spent many hours on their porch interacting with family and neighbors. If a mother of three needed to walk down to the grocery store for a few things there was no concern in asking a neighbor to keep an eye on the kids playing in the front yard.

When comparing the blueprints of a home built today with that of those constructed in 1911, there is a dramatic shift in the focus of the home from the porch to that of the garage. Click on the picture for a larger image.

Without taking the time to observe such changes we never think twice about their impact on our interactions and relationships with other people; yet the change is logical. In North America we depend on our vehicles to get us to work, take the kids to soccer (football) practice, and attend social functions.

In other instances, the car is a status symbol and presumes professional success, or the values an individual holds highest such as the importance of family (mini-van), speed (sports car), recreation (SUV), and the like.

If we leave for work in the morning by getting into our cars, pushing a button to open the garage door and come home following the same process to enter the garage – what are the social implications? We don’t have a need to interact with our neighbors; nor rely on them for assistance. In many ways this has drawn a greater divide in the communities where we live, play, and work.

By the same token, how are the advent of tools like Twitter, and Facebook changing the way we learn and share experiences? How will technology shape the lives of future generations growing up in a world that will never know what it’s like to not have access to any form of information by simply tapping the screen of their favorite mobile device?

If something as simple as moving the focus of the architecture of homes from the front porch to the garage can impact our experiences with others, how will this lack of interaction with people in the real world impact our ability to effectively communicate on the web?

There has been a lot of discussion over the past few years about the value of Eyetracking. For those unfamiliar with the theory behind this technology, UXmatters author Jim Ross provides an overview of the process:

Eyetracking detects where a person’s fovea fixate and the movements in between fixations. The fovea is a small spot on the retina that is responsible for our fine, detailed vision. Outside the fovea, visual acuity decreases greatly. Our eyes constantly move in rapid bursts called saccades, with brief stops called fixations, during which we take in visual information through our fovea. We use our parafovea—the area just outside the fovea—and peripheral vision to determine where to fixate next.

Several thought leaders in the field of User Experience (UX) have shared findings and methodologies about Eyetracking in the past few years.

Most recently Kara Pernice and Jakob Nielsen shared their experiences and recommendations in the white paper, Eyetracking Methodology.

Luke Wroblewski, Senior Director of Product Design at Yahoo! and author of Rosenfeld Media’s Web Form Design – Filling the Blanks makes several references to the value Eyetracking and Heat Maps in creating more useful online forms.

However there have been a couple of key issues facing organizations wanting to incorporate Eyetracking as part of their User Experience process. The first being the technology itself, and the second being financial.

As Robert Stevens from Think Eyetracking noted in a recent blog post, the technology in and of itself can be a distraction to those engaging in Eyetracking sessions:

…users are often enamoured by the eye tracking technology and the results it produces. This takes the focus away from the user’s experience of the website and focuses it on the eye tracking technology.

The other issue is the sheer cost of both purchasing the technology and running the sessions. Testing even a small group of users can cost thousands of dollars, which in the current global economy, is simply unrealistic for most organizations. (Unless of course you have a budget like Google who use Eyetracking extensively.)

Dr. Tal Schwartz and his team at ClickTale Web Analytics have created an ingenious solution that resolves these barriers, providing greater insight and context into visitor behavior:

Independent research shows that there is an 84% to 88% correlation between mouse and eye movements*, allowing us to create high-precision heatmaps based on just the users’ mouse movements. In addition, our heatmaps don’t require the subjects to wear a special headset or use special equipment. Indeed, most visitors aren’t even aware they’re being recorded, allowing for a completely transparent and anonymous usability testing process.

It is this kind of innovation and creative thinking that makes ClickTale, in my professional opinion, the best web analytics solution on the market today.

Many web analytic tools overwhelm people with statistics that at best provide glimpses into possible changes, or at worst, steer organizations in the wrong direction based on assumptions of what the raw data actually means.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this solution could well be worth thousands of dollars to organizations, regardless of company size and/or budget.

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My experience guiding teams in every sector (private, public, non-profit) has lead me to conclude that the titles we give others actually create more harm than good. As a counter-argument I’ve had several senior leaders in every sector challenge this notion with vigor and passion.

They argue that titles and their implied structure provide clarity of thought and ideas for others. That they ensure a common vision and accountability for the business, government, or community of practice. As well, titles ensure people know to whom they are accountable and how in turn they will work with members on various teams.

While I agree with this idea in principle, I can’t shake the fact that such an argument assumes many things to be true about people with specific titles, including:

1. They are considered by their team to be excellent leaders.
2. They have the capacity to listen without bias to new ideas.
3. They have the ability to say “I don’t know” in front of the team.
4. They believe that their staff are the foundation of their future success.
5. They are able to recognize skills of their staff beyond their job description.

To illustrate the dangers of titles and how much they can actually hinder innovation and team building, I’m going to review two classic social psychology experiments, the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram Experiment.

In the summer of 1971 volunteers answered an ad in the newspaper requesting people to participate in an experiment at Stanford University.

Those selected for the study were arrested on a Sunday afternoon by actual police officers in front of neighbors, put into a squad car handcuffed, and driven to a “prison” (offices at Stanford University) where they were treated just like any other prisoner with other volunteers who were given the role and title of “prison guard”.

But by the start of just the second day, things took a turn for the worse:

Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress.

Quickly adopting the roles of the characters they were portraying, guards and prisoners assimilated to these personas and began behaving as either authoritative (guards) or rebellious (prisoners). Little to no guidelines were given to Guards in their treatment of prisoners to better understand how they interpreted their roles.

The guards were given no specific training on how to be guards. Instead they were free, within limits, to do whatever they thought was necessary to maintain law and order in the prison and to command the respect of the prisoners. The guards made up their own set of rules, which they then carried into effect under the supervision of Warden David Jaffe, an undergraduate from Stanford University. They were warned, however, of the potential seriousness of their mission and of the possible dangers in the situation they were about to enter, as, of course, are real guards who voluntarily take such a dangerous job.

This particular study illustrates an extreme example of human behavior under specific, isolated conditions. However, it also shows how strongly we cling to titles when asked to take on a specific role, within a specific context.

In another famous study The Milgram Experiment the experimenter (E) orders the teacher (T), the subject of the experiment, to give what the latter believes are painful electric shocks to a learner (L), who is actually an actor and confidant.

The subject believes that for each wrong answer, the learner receives actual electric shocks, though in reality none are given. Being separated from the subject, the experimenter sets up a tape recorder integrated with the electro-shock generator, which plays pre-recorded sounds for each shock level.

The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects’ [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects’ [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.

Although these two studies reveal some frightening aspects of human behavior I think they provide important lessons for us in the information age:

1. We assume far too much without truly understanding the experiences and capacities of others.
2. We assume our title gives us the authority to command and control others.
3. We assume an individuals’ capacity within seconds of learning about their chosen career (based on their title).
4. We assume that if the community at large agrees an individual in a given field to be an “expert” that we shouldn’t challenge such ideas.

Whenever I’ve been given a title such as “Project Manager” or “Director” my number one priority is to meet with staff and have them paint a clear picture of all projects and their specific goals.

I then move quickly to ensure the team understands the value of everyone in the room and the subsequent success of each initiative. (In several instances traditional responsibilities were swapped because others were stronger in specific areas resulting in people taking on work of value to them and the ultimate success of the project.)

In short, the team defines their own value and decides how, when, where, and what will be done in order for both the individuals and the team to succeed. I work very hard to remove any preconceived ideas of someone with a specific title as: having the best ideas, as being unapproachable or unavailable, etc.

I have had far too many experiences with people who, based on their title, somehow didn’t see the need to be approachable or available to their team, and believed they should be able to do whatever they wanted because – after all – the end product was all that mattered!

By removing, or at the very least putting less emphasis on the importance of titles, we remove the psychological barriers that prevent us from learning from the most unlikely sources of inspiration.