I was recently contacted by Australia’s Toby Biddle at Loop11. Toby has kindly offered a free Loop11 credit for a single online testing session ($350 US value) to all participants who sign up for any one of the workshops offered at Follow the UX Leader.

Loop11 is a self-serve, hosted solution for usability consultants, web managers and web designers to get the metrics you need to optimize website usability.

To experience a Loop11 testing session, you can participate in the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel survey.

Kristina Mausser and I had the pleasure of being invited to dinner at the Jamaica Pegasus by the owner and managers of the hotel while putting on workshops in Kingston Jamaica last year; a relationship formed by connecting and sharing ideas via Twitter.

A quick overview of the benefits of Loop11 include:

1. Test early, test often…affordably: Now you can conduct user testing faster, at a lower cost and more frequently than ever before.
2. No coding. No downloading: There’s no need for your participants to download software. No code to install. No need for training. And no lengthy subscriptions.
3. Real-time results: Track task completion rates, number of clicks, time on task, satisfaction…and more.
4. Test in over 40 languages: Run your user test in up to 40 foreign languages. And if we don’t have yours, let us know and we’ll get it!
5. Test on any HTML interface: Conduct testing on any interface that can be displayed in html. And not just your own website, benchmark against your competitors.

Many thanks to Toby and the entire Loop11 team for your generosity in sponsoring Follow the UX Leader Workshops.

* Perpetually evaluating our understanding of the tools and processes that make up our respective (and very similar) industries. (UX, IA, IxD, HCI, etc.)
* Move the conversation away from the merits of a specific set of tools or processes
* Ask better questions of users and the answers we capture beyond the data points
* Come together and recognize, as Jesse James Garrett pointed out at last years’ IA Summit, that engagement is our collective objective or end state.

Evolving the UX Conversation from Jeff Parks on Vimeo.

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.

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.

* 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.

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.