The problems we set out to solve aren’t always the ones that need solving. Adam Polansky will talk about some different ways that you can get under the hood with problems and investigate ways to help real problems present themselves and the criteria you can use to go after them.
Disruption Summit 2018 - Three keys to futureproof your businessMinter Dial
The three key mindsets to futureproof your business. This is a concise version of my presentation made at Disruption Summit EMEA 2018.
All about: #Meaningfulness, #Responsibility and #Collaboration
Leeds University Business School MBA Marketing Cohort Excursion 2003-2004. The group included Dongjae Lee, Arun Tyagi, Michael Zhihao Cai, Duke Tanson, and Lisa Wu.
Disruption Summit 2018 - Three keys to futureproof your businessMinter Dial
The three key mindsets to futureproof your business. This is a concise version of my presentation made at Disruption Summit EMEA 2018.
All about: #Meaningfulness, #Responsibility and #Collaboration
Leeds University Business School MBA Marketing Cohort Excursion 2003-2004. The group included Dongjae Lee, Arun Tyagi, Michael Zhihao Cai, Duke Tanson, and Lisa Wu.
IAS18 Fit and Finish: The Importance of Presentation Value to Your DeliverablesAdam Polansky
Revised for IAS18. Discussion about gauging your audience and your deliverables in terms of fidelity. Working lo-fi to hi-fi and doing it publicly. Breaking free from the standard canon of UX deliverables and the best tools you can use.
Speaking to Small Rooms - UX Australia 2017Adam Polansky
Workshop slides from UX Australia - 7 August 2017
Public speaking isn’t just for big rooms with a podium and microphone.
Sometimes it’s just you and 5,10 maybe 20 people. They might be your clients or stakeholders or your project team. Any time you address a group, you need to get your message across and know you’ll be understood. Prep and practice are always important but when you’re speaking close-up there are different things to think about and opportunities you don’t have in a conference hall.
In this half-day workshop, Adam Polansky will cover:
Preparation with long or short notice
Delivery and room dynamics
What to consider when you speak to executives
Keeping the conversation alive after the meeting
We’ll even talk about giving a pitch.
This session will set you up to own the room the next time you have to present.
Fit & Finish: The Importance of Presentation Value in UX DeliverablesAdam Polansky
The most important UX deliverables are your thoughts and observations. Wireframes, Journey Maps, Personae, and slide decks are just the vehicles we use to communicate our ideas. Your content is critical but style plays a role in getting to express your thoughts. Style adds to the context.
- Let’s talk about:
- Deliverables from low-fi to high-fi
- Tools and technique
- Non-traditional deliverables
- How to gauge what’s appropriate for different circumstances
We’ll add some good stuff to your toolbox and give you options the next time you deliver your great ideas.
CanUX16 - Blurred Lines - Considering Physicality in Digital DesignAdam Polansky
Long gone are the days when digital design meant creating apps for someone sitting upright, 18-24 inches away from a screen. Our phones are our computers. We wear our notification systems. We move through a world that plots our position and responds in different ways depending on whether we’re in a restaurant, at a bus stop, near a retailer or at home.
Join Adam as he talks about conceptualizing applications that not only take-in a screen presence but must extend to the unique ways we use technologies and the physical environments that go beyond the screen.
BDLA16 Unpacking UX - Understanding how your skill sets fit togetherAdam Polansky
Big Design Latin America 2016 was held in Quito, Ecuador. This workshop was designed to help different practitioners understand how their work rolls-up into the broader UX umbrella and to help foster an ongoing UX Community in the region.
Presented at the Enterprise UX Meet-Up in Austin 2.24.16
Discusses ways UX professionals to build and gain trust in organizations that aren't immediately disposed to support them. Examine the different roles that can help you along with understanding their concerns and pressures. Use the tools you already have to shed light on the value UX brings to an organization.
I got my first Design job in 1983 with a small ad agency working for a remarkable man. 30 years later, I talk about the lessons I learned and tell stories about how I learned them.
Ideas & Innovation: Simple Premise - Small StartsAdam Polansky
Ideas & Innovation: Simple Premise - Small Starts Innovation is a word that is commonly used and seldom defined.
Ideas occur all the time but do they all deserve the time and effort necessary to realize them?
There is a startlingly simple definition for innovation because innovation, by itself, is simple. It’s also a form of the creative process and can’t be obtained on demand. But when you do come upon something innovative, the real work begins: You have to examine and justify a new idea. You have to convince others that your idea is worthwhile.
Adam Polansky will give you that simple definition and show you how to gauge the merit of an idea along with a short case study about a grass-roots idea that didn’t turn out as planned – it turned out better! He’ll also show you how to frame the discussions you’ll need to have in order to get your ideas off the ground and suggest some other avenues available to move from concept to concrete.
Presentations - It Ain't All About The PowerPointAdam Polansky
This presentation was given at the Big (D)esign Conference in Dallas. Someone titled the session "Presenting in Politically Charged Environments" I don't know who did that but it sounded kind of dangerous so I didn't complain to anyone.
Travelocity staged an infomration and training week for the employees in the Curtomer Experience Group. This presentation is a high-level primer about IA, its origins and its practice
A Process By Any Other Name...: Applying Information Architecture with bridge...Adam Polansky
This is my presentation from the 2006 IA Summit in Vancouver, BC. The summary is that the practice of IA is not about artifacts but the thinking that goes into them and the way you assess which artifacts to use.
Information Architecture & Why you care about it as a designerAdam Polansky
The Art Institute of Dallas recently added IA courses to their design and multimedia degree plans. I worked with the instructors to revise the curriculum to make it more relevant to actual practice. I also give the introduction lecture.
This presentation is not intended to make converts but rather to expose designers to the role of IA, help them understand the value and be able to identify them in the wild.
Faceted Feature Analysis: Increasing Integrity Through Needs AnalysisAdam Polansky
This article will explain a process called “Faceted Feature Analysis”. The facets refer to the three characterizing facets within any project those being; User Value, Business Value and Ease of Implementation. It also refers to the three constraints that govern every project, those being; Quality, Cost and Time. The process involves characterizing facets and crossing them with the constraints.
IA and RIA: You know more than you think you doAdam Polansky
I’ve been working as an Information Architect for nearly ten years but it wasn’t until recently that I had the opportunity to work on the development of a rich internet application or RIA. While I had made some effort to get an understanding of what an effort like that might involve, like many things, you can’t really get a clear idea what it’s like to do something until you actually do it.
This presentation describes my recent involvement in the development of an enterprise-level rich Internet application. It outlines the things I think are the same, different as well as a few pitfalls to avoid.
7 Alternatives to Bullet Points in PowerPointAlvis Oh
So you tried all the ways to beautify your bullet points on your pitch deck but it just got way uglier. These points are supposed to be memorable and leave a lasting impression on your audience. With these tips, you'll no longer have to spend so much time thinking how you should present your pointers.
IAS18 Fit and Finish: The Importance of Presentation Value to Your DeliverablesAdam Polansky
Revised for IAS18. Discussion about gauging your audience and your deliverables in terms of fidelity. Working lo-fi to hi-fi and doing it publicly. Breaking free from the standard canon of UX deliverables and the best tools you can use.
Speaking to Small Rooms - UX Australia 2017Adam Polansky
Workshop slides from UX Australia - 7 August 2017
Public speaking isn’t just for big rooms with a podium and microphone.
Sometimes it’s just you and 5,10 maybe 20 people. They might be your clients or stakeholders or your project team. Any time you address a group, you need to get your message across and know you’ll be understood. Prep and practice are always important but when you’re speaking close-up there are different things to think about and opportunities you don’t have in a conference hall.
In this half-day workshop, Adam Polansky will cover:
Preparation with long or short notice
Delivery and room dynamics
What to consider when you speak to executives
Keeping the conversation alive after the meeting
We’ll even talk about giving a pitch.
This session will set you up to own the room the next time you have to present.
Fit & Finish: The Importance of Presentation Value in UX DeliverablesAdam Polansky
The most important UX deliverables are your thoughts and observations. Wireframes, Journey Maps, Personae, and slide decks are just the vehicles we use to communicate our ideas. Your content is critical but style plays a role in getting to express your thoughts. Style adds to the context.
- Let’s talk about:
- Deliverables from low-fi to high-fi
- Tools and technique
- Non-traditional deliverables
- How to gauge what’s appropriate for different circumstances
We’ll add some good stuff to your toolbox and give you options the next time you deliver your great ideas.
CanUX16 - Blurred Lines - Considering Physicality in Digital DesignAdam Polansky
Long gone are the days when digital design meant creating apps for someone sitting upright, 18-24 inches away from a screen. Our phones are our computers. We wear our notification systems. We move through a world that plots our position and responds in different ways depending on whether we’re in a restaurant, at a bus stop, near a retailer or at home.
Join Adam as he talks about conceptualizing applications that not only take-in a screen presence but must extend to the unique ways we use technologies and the physical environments that go beyond the screen.
BDLA16 Unpacking UX - Understanding how your skill sets fit togetherAdam Polansky
Big Design Latin America 2016 was held in Quito, Ecuador. This workshop was designed to help different practitioners understand how their work rolls-up into the broader UX umbrella and to help foster an ongoing UX Community in the region.
Presented at the Enterprise UX Meet-Up in Austin 2.24.16
Discusses ways UX professionals to build and gain trust in organizations that aren't immediately disposed to support them. Examine the different roles that can help you along with understanding their concerns and pressures. Use the tools you already have to shed light on the value UX brings to an organization.
I got my first Design job in 1983 with a small ad agency working for a remarkable man. 30 years later, I talk about the lessons I learned and tell stories about how I learned them.
Ideas & Innovation: Simple Premise - Small StartsAdam Polansky
Ideas & Innovation: Simple Premise - Small Starts Innovation is a word that is commonly used and seldom defined.
Ideas occur all the time but do they all deserve the time and effort necessary to realize them?
There is a startlingly simple definition for innovation because innovation, by itself, is simple. It’s also a form of the creative process and can’t be obtained on demand. But when you do come upon something innovative, the real work begins: You have to examine and justify a new idea. You have to convince others that your idea is worthwhile.
Adam Polansky will give you that simple definition and show you how to gauge the merit of an idea along with a short case study about a grass-roots idea that didn’t turn out as planned – it turned out better! He’ll also show you how to frame the discussions you’ll need to have in order to get your ideas off the ground and suggest some other avenues available to move from concept to concrete.
Presentations - It Ain't All About The PowerPointAdam Polansky
This presentation was given at the Big (D)esign Conference in Dallas. Someone titled the session "Presenting in Politically Charged Environments" I don't know who did that but it sounded kind of dangerous so I didn't complain to anyone.
Travelocity staged an infomration and training week for the employees in the Curtomer Experience Group. This presentation is a high-level primer about IA, its origins and its practice
A Process By Any Other Name...: Applying Information Architecture with bridge...Adam Polansky
This is my presentation from the 2006 IA Summit in Vancouver, BC. The summary is that the practice of IA is not about artifacts but the thinking that goes into them and the way you assess which artifacts to use.
Information Architecture & Why you care about it as a designerAdam Polansky
The Art Institute of Dallas recently added IA courses to their design and multimedia degree plans. I worked with the instructors to revise the curriculum to make it more relevant to actual practice. I also give the introduction lecture.
This presentation is not intended to make converts but rather to expose designers to the role of IA, help them understand the value and be able to identify them in the wild.
Faceted Feature Analysis: Increasing Integrity Through Needs AnalysisAdam Polansky
This article will explain a process called “Faceted Feature Analysis”. The facets refer to the three characterizing facets within any project those being; User Value, Business Value and Ease of Implementation. It also refers to the three constraints that govern every project, those being; Quality, Cost and Time. The process involves characterizing facets and crossing them with the constraints.
IA and RIA: You know more than you think you doAdam Polansky
I’ve been working as an Information Architect for nearly ten years but it wasn’t until recently that I had the opportunity to work on the development of a rich internet application or RIA. While I had made some effort to get an understanding of what an effort like that might involve, like many things, you can’t really get a clear idea what it’s like to do something until you actually do it.
This presentation describes my recent involvement in the development of an enterprise-level rich Internet application. It outlines the things I think are the same, different as well as a few pitfalls to avoid.
7 Alternatives to Bullet Points in PowerPointAlvis Oh
So you tried all the ways to beautify your bullet points on your pitch deck but it just got way uglier. These points are supposed to be memorable and leave a lasting impression on your audience. With these tips, you'll no longer have to spend so much time thinking how you should present your pointers.
Transforming Brand Perception and Boosting Profitabilityaaryangarg12
In today's digital era, the dynamics of brand perception, consumer behavior, and profitability have been profoundly reshaped by the synergy of branding, social media, and website design. This research paper investigates the transformative power of these elements in influencing how individuals perceive brands and products and how this transformation can be harnessed to drive sales and profitability for businesses.
Through an exploration of brand psychology and consumer behavior, this study sheds light on the intricate ways in which effective branding strategies, strategic social media engagement, and user-centric website design contribute to altering consumers' perceptions. We delve into the principles that underlie successful brand transformations, examining how visual identity, messaging, and storytelling can captivate and resonate with target audiences.
Methodologically, this research employs a comprehensive approach, combining qualitative and quantitative analyses. Real-world case studies illustrate the impact of branding, social media campaigns, and website redesigns on consumer perception, sales figures, and profitability. We assess the various metrics, including brand awareness, customer engagement, conversion rates, and revenue growth, to measure the effectiveness of these strategies.
The results underscore the pivotal role of cohesive branding, social media influence, and website usability in shaping positive brand perceptions, influencing consumer decisions, and ultimately bolstering sales and profitability. This paper provides actionable insights and strategic recommendations for businesses seeking to leverage branding, social media, and website design as potent tools to enhance their market position and financial success.
Can AI do good? at 'offtheCanvas' India HCI preludeAlan Dix
Invited talk at 'offtheCanvas' IndiaHCI prelude, 29th June 2024.
https://www.alandix.com/academic/talks/offtheCanvas-IndiaHCI2024/
The world is being changed fundamentally by AI and we are constantly faced with newspaper headlines about its harmful effects. However, there is also the potential to both ameliorate theses harms and use the new abilities of AI to transform society for the good. Can you make the difference?
Unleash Your Inner Demon with the "Let's Summon Demons" T-Shirt. Calling all fans of dark humor and edgy fashion! The "Let's Summon Demons" t-shirt is a unique way to express yourself and turn heads.
https://dribbble.com/shots/24253051-Let-s-Summon-Demons-Shirt
13. The best experiences align with what
you desire in your world.
@AdamtheIA
#BIGD18
14. Begin by looking at the world where the problems live
@AdamtheIA
#BIGD18
15. What to look at
What are people doing?
Where are they doing it?
Why are they doing it?
How do they feel about it?
THIS is where you find opportunities
How are they doing it?
What result are they getting?
@AdamtheIA
#BIGD18
25. Having a seat at the table…
means knowing when to refuse it.
@AdamtheIA
#BIGD18
Design Ethics. Mike Monteiro. Mule Design
26. Look at the world for real problems in need of real solutions.
Expectations already exist. Exceed them!
Commit to the value of Quality.
Be accountable for the work you do.
@AdamtheIA
#BIGD2018
About forty years ago, a guy named Ray Ruby figured out that if you put a drop of liquid in one end of a tube of a specific diameter, you could predict exactly how much force or surface tension it would take to move that liquid to the other side of the tube.
Surface tension is what holds a drop of water on the end of your finger before it falls. What could Ray and his friends do with this knowledge Well,
They embedded 4 of these tubes in a round plate that would show the tubes turning red if they were shaken or dropped.
The plates were used in Disk-Packs, the industrial grand-daddy to the floppy disc. Disk Packs where about the size of a Tupperware cake carrier and sat inside a disk drive about the size of a dish washer. Problem was, if you dropped or mishandled a disk-pack you wouldn't know if it was damaged until you put it in the drive and it crashed. But…If you looked at the 4 little tubes in the top of the pack and any of them were red, that could tell you the pack had been dropped or something. Everyone thought this was great! Honeywell, the manufacturer of the disk-packs and drives became their first customer. Now they just needed more customers like that. So they hired a guy to find them. His name was Dick
Over the next two years, Dick learned that there weren’t any other clients like Honeywell but he did make an observation: All over the world, people were putting things in boxes and shipping them without any idea what was happening to them in transit. What if there was a way to monitor your shipment?
Dick recommended putting the tubes in stickers on boxes. If you received a box with a red indicator on it, you didn’t accept it. That’s what they did. But you might not guess what happened. “Instead of people buying “clips” and slapping them (gently) on their packages, the shipping companies bought them. They created awareness programs for their employees and promoted the fact that they were proactively looking-out for the condition of your stuff. Companies saved money by not accepting potentially damaged packages, they saved money in replacement parts, shippers where more careful when handling goods. The Shockwatch changed the way people behaved because observing their behavior in the first place led to a solution with an outcome different from the one they set-out to solve.
Dick’s last name was Polansky and he was my father. His idea would grow into ways of preventing damage to forklifts, warehouses, rail cars, autos and paper rolls. I grew up around smart people who solved problems by understanding the nature of the environments their products occupied….and by asking ”Why?”
How often does a conversation like this occur. The C-somebody EO, MO, TO … says “We need a program, a mobile app, a web site, an Internet of things because…reasons; It’s going to be big, we need some of that, we need to be in that channel. When that happens, does anyone ask “Why” because those reasons aren’t reasons. Someone needs to ask “Why?” and keep asking until the problem can be clearly stated and the weight of need (if there truly is any) can be understood.
How to you recognize that need?
In the book Gamestorming, by Dave Gray & Co., there’s an exercise called the “ 5 Whys” We use it where I work to get to the root of a problem. If we take the example of the Shockwatch, the conversation might have gone something like this:
Our equipment costs are so high. Why is that?
Equipment is often damaged when we receive it. You can’t tell when it’s delivered so we accept it. Why so much damage?
The shippers are mishandling our equipment in transit. Why do they do that?
There’s no accountability Why is that?
No one can prove exactly when the damage took place. There’s no monitoring
This conclusion would have shown the team where the real problem was and where to focus their solution.
What’s broken that needs fixing? …WHY
What works but could work better? …WHY
Who benefits? …WHY
Who loses? …WHY
When it’s all said and done what will be the result?...and WHY?
WHY uncovers reality.
WHY can force honesty.
WHY can get you to root of a problem that really DOES need to be solved
WHY can generate an outcome that really DOES need to be realized
That outcome is the context you’ll be working within
You can’t build an abstraction
You can’t estimate the value of an abstraction
You can’t predict what an abstraction will do
You’ve heard about solutions in search of a problem? Begin with the problem.
Herbert Simon gave the best definition of design: “To design is to devise courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.“. Recently in an interview the designer Milton Glaser one of the greatest designers of our time gave an interview where he said. “Design is the process of going from an existing condition to a preferred one.” Whether he knew it at the time or not, he was paraphrasing Simon, but did you notice that neither of them made any reference to art in their statements? ” Glaser went on to talk about how things can be rendered many ways; not just by an artist. He used to say that Design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or master.” Still not a direct reference to art. Yeah, art directors are responsible for design but so are engineers, IAs, strategists, product owners even quality assurance because they all inform the end product toward a purpose – a desired state. Great design doesn’t just look good. It works well and it’s a vehicle for great experiences for the people who use it. We can equate quality with good design.
For the longest time, we designed for roughly the same environment. I’m talking specifically about digital now. A person sitting 18-20” from a screen with a keyboard and mouse; desktop, laptop. Now, technologies have raised the bar for what people expect from it because devices like personal digital assistants, PDAs and Blackberry’s moved tasks from the desk to our hands 10 years ago. We got an app store and a limited environment opened-up even more to the point that a mobile phone serves as the only computer many people need or own. New considerations come with that. Luke Wroblewski described the need for phone applications to be manageable with one eye and one thumb.
Back In the mid-nineties people were talking about WANs, Wide Area Networks, LANs Local Area networks but they were just whispering about PANs personal area networks. That term may have died but look at what we have! We’re personally connected to our homes, our cars, our music, our families and our care-givers. We maintain relationships of a sort with people around the world. I know what beer my friend in New Zealand drank with dinner before the appetizers were finished. Expectations. We’re designing for more than one generation that grew-up on games with rich interaction and responsive controls. These folks don’t just hope the tech they use professionally and personally will be similar, they expect it. They expect it to surpass…routinely. The best experiences align with what you desire in your world.
When it comes to designing solutions, you don’t have to look far for the problems. Usually no further than the people who use your products or services. There is almost always something that can stand to be improved. It may not be your product but it may be the support. A solution might be operational but it may also be solved on-line, or with a mobile device or wearable. Somewhere you can find a way to ease a process by removing or even adding a few steps. Maybe the problem is that the solution is too far from where the problem occurs and maybe you can find a way to close that gap.
Observe what are people doing and where are they doing it? Home, Office, The park, the train, the bathroom? Don’t laugh! How many of you have done this? (Walk away, stop, turn around and grab phone, walk away)
How and why are they doing it? Is it a direct result of what and where? What are the connections.?
What results are they experiencing? How do they feel about it? Are they happy, pissed-off, indifferent?
These are the elements of a journey map - one of several tools used to characterize the context around an activity.
What else will give you insight? You may have participated in one or all of these data gathering methods. Interviews to hear what people are thinking,
Field Observation while you’re in Discovery to see what people are actually doing,
Usability testing of early prototypes and completed apps to hedge your bet that people can actually use them.
Analytics after launch to extract what’s really happening with your products. Rinse and repeat. No single method will give you all the insight you need. It’s the combination and repetition of methods that gives you a more complete picture; faceted. In 3 dimensions. We talk about them all the time! The thing is, you have to DO THEM! Find a way, you can sneak this stuff in.
Another place you can look is off-screen. Most of you know what a 2D graph looks like; two planes – X & Y axes. But…
add a Z plane and you are working in 3D now. Why is this important? Because all the things that happen in the world you’re observing happen in the Z space. Whatever we’re doing on a screen is often connected to something we’re doing off the screen. What do you think is so attractive about Virtual Reality …Augmented Reality? It offers an environment like the one we live in with physics we can readily understand. That said, if you think a VR project is necessary, you have to observe the world you want to create. What is the physicality of that world? Will it mimic the physics we know or will it go beyond giving people extraordinary powers. Also be deliberate when you determine its value not just to your enterprise but to the people who’ll us it. Has anyone not seen a sci-fi movie that shows someone interacting with a virtual environment? Does it ever occur to you that if you did that all the time, your arms would get tired? American Sign Language interpreters work in teams of two for that exact reason. Cool might have a short life-span if it isn’t sustainable.
Why is the Z Space so important?
Innovation is measured by comparing the effort to produce something to the value it brings. Do you want to teach with it? Inspire? Entertain? Be productive? Challenge?
This is called the Hype Cycle – it’s a story that shows the journey of ideas. This one charts the path of emerging technologies and I just want to point-out that well over 50% of these techs exist beyond the app. They operate in the Z space. They face different challenges; the supporting tech may be too immature, infrastructures may not be in place, economies of scale still hard to realize or predict or maybe people’s arms just get tired. These are problems and people’s expectations are building around people like us solving them because, more specifically, they are design problems.
I remember our first microwave oven in the 70s. We’d put a piece of cheese on a Dorito and watch it sit there. Suddenly the cheese would bubble-up and melt across the chip. This was like time-lapse photography in real-life. That’s all we had to compare it to. We watched it like TV for weeks. Now, my dad also was with Amana when they developed the first radar range so he understood the principles involved and he explained basic microwave science to us. Our response? “Yeah, that’s cool dad. Gimme another piece of cheese.
Just about any application has room for improvement. Can you make it simpler by removing friction points to streamline a process. Maybe you need to add friction points to make a complex process manageable.
Can you find a way to improve convenience. Face it. We’re lazy and love anything that can save us a tap or a click.
Look at your favorite apps, look between the screens at what really happens when you tap or click on something. Does the screen just become a new screen or are there truly cinematic transitions. Does one image evolve into another? Do they set a tone? A box or image that glides-in says something different than one that bounces. They aren’t quite subliminal but the aggregate effect of these transitions can create an experience that is calm, energetic, practical, frantic or...magical.
Magic is what we call somthing that can’t be explained. An experience can be so good the device disappears and you forget you’re holding a little computer or sitting in your living room or at your desk. Yes logically, we know there are real explanations like mocrowaves but we like to suspend that knowledge because frankly, it’s more fun to believe in magic...even if it’s just for a little while. We get to make magical things. All these elements speak to Quality. Quality is the province of UX; not exclusively but quality is where our influence can be seen
Quality is in the UX details that speak to finesse, completion, fit and finish. All these things roll-up to Quality. Quality needs protection because it can’t speak for itself on spreadsheet tomorrow. What do I mean by protection?
Every project is acted-upon by three factors. We know this. Time, Cost and Quality or Good, Fast & Cheap. There is a general belief that a product owner gets to control two of these dynamics at the expense of the other. That’s a lie. You get one. I say this because if you decide that time and cost are going to be controlled, you WILL have to break that tie at some point downstream and it will cost you. You can help yourself by determining which of the three has the least flexibility when compared to the other two.. Which has the most and what’s in the middle. Here’s the problem: People in charge like predictions. They want to know when they’ll go to market because they are coordinating other efforts. They want to know what the expense will be so they can predict what the ROI will be. People can and do make those numbers up arbitrarily. How do you estimate the ROI of Quality. How much time does quality take? Quality isn't a direct cause/effect dynamic. There are phases in between before it's realized. Some people don't have the patience for that.
Here’s another fact. People will do the most nonsensical things to avoid pain. When a project get’s going it doesn’t take long before time or money is causing pain. When we are are in pain, we get tunnel vision. We want the pain to stop. We lose trust in others especially if we think the pain is their fault so we’re less likely to take advice. We also want pain to stop RIGHT NOW so we lose sight of longer term benefits like those that come with Quality. Since we want the pain from time or money to go away, we cut scope, that scope usually includes the refinement that gives a product quality. Quality ends-up on the curb because the pain from bad quality can be deferred – remember we want the pain to stop NOW. Quality needs protection because it can’t be dissected into pieces on a spreadsheet and put back together again in any way that works. If you begin by understanding the real needs to real people and using that as your context, you make that inflexible, it will be worth the time and money. How much? I don’t know but I do know it will be more than if you don’t keep it in the picture.
It's impossible to recover because recovery means more of the time and cost you thought you were saving. By the time you realize it, It may be too late. You put a piece of crap out there and now you have to win-back lost credibility with stakeholders and the people using the product who got shorted on the first go-round.
People won’t care what it cost. People won’t care how long it took unless they’ve been led to expect it which only raises anticipation and magnifies the disappointment if the quality is poor.
That, after all is what they do care about.
In the long-run, quality abandoned will always cost you more than quality implemented.
You can do the most elegant work but bad intent erases that.
I grew up with marketing and advertising. I got really good at convincing myself of the reasons for doing work for people with bad intent. Strictly speaking, what they’re doing was legal. A pawn shop is a legal business. Cash-on-hand home buyers are perfectly legal but the truth is they both engage in predatory business practices. They take advantage of people in a bind. I could tell myself that they provide a service to the un-banked or unbankable or that they free people from paying for a property they can’t afford. I could rationalize with the best of them. I would compartmentalize. I would put the truth in a little box and close the lid. I wouldn’t open it because I knew if I examined it closely enough, I wouldn't like what I saw.
Everyone has their reasons
”I’m not paid to make the decisions about our clients.”
“I have a mortgage.”
“I have kids”
“I like and want to keep my job.”
“Somebody is going to get this job. It might as well be us.”
Those are good arguments. Everyone has their own scale for what’s acceptable. That’s your moral compass. Ethics are not morals. They are empirical. One day you may find yourself at a fork in the road where you know your moral compass and the ethical approach are diverging. What if you learn that your company just landed an account for a big utility firm. That’s big news and probably big money. But what if that company is nationalized in a country where the leadership uses it to locate and imprison “enemies” who eventually disappear; a capability made easier by the design work you’re being asked to do? Morally, you might be able to distance yourself from the outcome; you put it in that little box and shut the lid and later you feel bad when you hear about the events on the news. You might even connect those events to your work but it’s just business right? You have all those good arguments remember? Morality might be debatable but Ethically, you’re accountable.
In his Designer’s Code of Ethics, Mike Monteiro says Designers are human beings first and that we are responsible for the work we put out into the world. That means we own the outcomes even when they are unpredictable but especially when they are.
If you keep asking “Why” you might uncover the fact that people have bad intent for the work you do. You can rationalize away your accountability or accept it. Refuse the work if you can. Try to convince decision makers to refuse the work. If you’re unsuccessful, quit. Easy to say but I can tell you with absolute certainty, if you have an ounce of empathy, you’ll regret some of the compromises you made in life. It’s going to happen. Which will you regret more, quitting or enabling bad intent that may cause people harm which could include murder. That’s an outcome.
Recently, when I learned that we were pursuing a prospect with questionable ties, I challenged the execs at my company. I began by outlining a connection that they hadn’t considered and provided information sources to back-up my claims. I left a copy of Mike’s book for my CEO to read. He did. I followed-up and we discussed the prospect in question and our policy at length. I was told the steering committee would revisit this pursuit. I never heard anything about that prospect again. Was I prepared to quit if we accepted this client? Before I raised my concerns, I convinced myself that I was. I’ll never truly know since the decision was never pressed. In doing this, I learned two things. First, that my company has a policy that exempts anyone from working for a client they have a conflict with whether it’s a social stance or a personal issue. No repercussions. I learned that people in the company had exercised that option in the past and I knew their advancement had not suffered. Second, I learned that anyone with a point of view regarding a client's intent is welcome to share it. Again, no repercussions.
With great power comes great responsibility. I would add If you want the responsibility, you have to accept accountability. If you can’t or won’t, don't accept the work. I don't really expect this to stick with you right now but a few of you are going to be in a situation where you have to make a choice and I hope you remember it then.
So…while that’s ringing in your ears, let me wrap this up with a few reminders. The best solutions fill needs. Ask “Why“ to uncover the real needs. They need the best minds to tackle them not just MBAs but designers of all definitions.
People have expectations. Meeting them is great. Exceeding them is better.
Commit to the value of quality. Artificial Intelligence is burning-up the headlines but I’ll say it. There is no piece of software in the world that can replace creativity in the moment. That’s where the kind of quality we see as magic emerges. Everybody wants it but it needs protection in the form of championship and enterprise commitment.
Most importantly deliberately decide what your principles are and stick to them. That‘s what makes them principles and not just guidelines. Have the vision to see the longer horizon and the outcomes that can’t be achieved any other way. There are no short-cuts.
Without being deliberate about your design and quality, people will have SOME kind of experience by default. Why wouldn’t you want to move that in the right direction?
Deliberately
Ethically
Magically