The document summarizes research findings from a study on reading habits and preferences. It interviewed 6 avid readers, 3 who prefer print books and 3 who use Kindle e-readers. The study found that reading is a broader experience than just looking at words, and encompasses social and sensory aspects. It also found that while e-readers provide access, print books are richer experiences that support sharing, identity expression, and memories.
Portigal Consulting: Reading Ahead Research Findings reduxSteve Portigal
Presentation of research findings from our project on the evolution of reading and books. After we've lived with the results and been out sharing them with different audiences, the material starts to evolve, as well as incorporate changes that are happening around us.
How are young adults using electronic resources such as eText and eReaders? This presentation guides a discussion on how REAL students are using resources in and out of the classroom.
Mary Wilkins Jordan, Assistant Professor, Simmons College GSLIS (MA)
What is Q Method? Not widely known in the library field yet, this is a research method that lets you reach out to patrons in a new way to get their opinions on your services, materials, and/or programming. After developing a set of ideas you want to get feedback on from your community, you might be tempted to try sending out a survey and asking people to rate everything on a scale from one to five. But this is boring! And the results are ultimately not as useful as they could be in helping you to make decisions. Q Method is a forced-ranking process, where your patrons have to make decisions about things they like more and like less. Then you run everything through a statistical program, and end up with reams of interesting and useful data you can use to impress your stakeholders with all your evidence-based decision making!
http://youtu.be/9hiV_cAYCAk
http://nlcblogs.nebraska.gov/bigtalk/
Has your library discussed creating a Flickr account? A MySpace teen site? Creating a blog? David discusses the current social networking transformation taking place, and applies those changes to a library setting. Then David discusses the changes a library needs to make to meet and participate in our new online, participatory world.
Portigal Consulting: Reading Ahead Research Findings reduxSteve Portigal
Presentation of research findings from our project on the evolution of reading and books. After we've lived with the results and been out sharing them with different audiences, the material starts to evolve, as well as incorporate changes that are happening around us.
How are young adults using electronic resources such as eText and eReaders? This presentation guides a discussion on how REAL students are using resources in and out of the classroom.
Mary Wilkins Jordan, Assistant Professor, Simmons College GSLIS (MA)
What is Q Method? Not widely known in the library field yet, this is a research method that lets you reach out to patrons in a new way to get their opinions on your services, materials, and/or programming. After developing a set of ideas you want to get feedback on from your community, you might be tempted to try sending out a survey and asking people to rate everything on a scale from one to five. But this is boring! And the results are ultimately not as useful as they could be in helping you to make decisions. Q Method is a forced-ranking process, where your patrons have to make decisions about things they like more and like less. Then you run everything through a statistical program, and end up with reams of interesting and useful data you can use to impress your stakeholders with all your evidence-based decision making!
http://youtu.be/9hiV_cAYCAk
http://nlcblogs.nebraska.gov/bigtalk/
Has your library discussed creating a Flickr account? A MySpace teen site? Creating a blog? David discusses the current social networking transformation taking place, and applies those changes to a library setting. Then David discusses the changes a library needs to make to meet and participate in our new online, participatory world.
NCompass Live - http://nlc.nebraska.gov/ncompasslive/
July 16, 2014
Libraries are well positioned to encourage customers and community in fiction writing and content creation. The Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library's Community Novel Project is an opportunity for the Topeka community to work together to conceptualize, write, edit, narrate, and publish a complete novel. Each successive year we experiment and expand our annual project to model the evolving skill set necessary for writers wishing to self-publish their own work in digital, print on demand or audiobook formats. Engage with your community of writers and readers and establish the library as a trusted resource for 21st century writers!
Presenters: Lissa Staley and Miranda Ericsson, Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library.
NISO Virtual Conference: The Eternal To-Do List: Making Ebooks work in Libraries
eBooks and the future of libraries
Micah May, Director of Strategy & Business Development at New York Public Library
About the Webinar
In the six years from 2006 to 2012, the number of self-published books grew an astounding 270% to more than 235,000, almost as many as were published "traditionally." The easy access to publication tools and distribution mechanisms has ushered in a new era of how content is created and disseminated. No longer do authors need to work through a publisher to have their content accepted, processed, and distributed. The impacts of this revolution in publishing extend well beyond what used to be called "vanity publishing." A variety of best-selling books in recent years have come out from successful self-publishers sharing their tips on how others can follow in their footsteps.
How can publishers capitalize on this author independence? How do libraries incorporate self-published works into their acquisition processes? When there is no publisher reputation behind a title, how does a library or user separate the wheat from the chaff? This webinar will explore these issues and the impacts of the self-publishing movement on both publishers and libraries.
Agenda
Introduction
Todd Carpenter, Executive Director, NISO
When Authors Assume Their Own Risk
Laura Dawson, Product Manager for Identifiers, Bowker
Self-Publishing with Smashwords
Mark Coker, Founder, CEO and Chief Author Advocate, Smashwords
Helping Libraries Help Themselves: The Library Publishing Toolkit
Allison Brown, Editor & Production Manager, Milne Library, SUNY Geneseo
An overview of examples, frameworks, and techniques for using web standards to design a range of reading experiences for a variety of platforms and devices.
Presentation given at Internet Librarian International Conference, Olympia London, October 21st 2015 on Copenhagen Libraries' controversial new strategy and its implications
Reading notes for class March 30, 2015. Slides created as reading notes for this week's theme, "Your Brain on Books", in preparation for our documentaries/PSAs encouraging pleasure reading.
Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User Research War StoriesSteve Portigal
Stories make the world go round. As people who do user research, we love stories. At its simplest, our job is to gather stories and to retell them. War Stories are stories about contextual user research (research out in the field) and the inevitable mishaps that ensue. These stories are in turn bizarre, comic, tragic and generally astonishing.
Steve’s collection of stories fills a longstanding need for the design and research community; to share what can go wrong, because that’s the reality. For a practice that is not always well-understood or trusted, there’s pressure for us to only speak to the successes, but examining the human messiness of this work can help develop our skills and our community.
In this presentation, drawn from years of gathering war stories and his book “Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries”, Steve will share some of the best stories, examine the patterns revealed by the stories, and articulate the different lessons revealed by this large collection of stories.
NCompass Live - http://nlc.nebraska.gov/ncompasslive/
July 16, 2014
Libraries are well positioned to encourage customers and community in fiction writing and content creation. The Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library's Community Novel Project is an opportunity for the Topeka community to work together to conceptualize, write, edit, narrate, and publish a complete novel. Each successive year we experiment and expand our annual project to model the evolving skill set necessary for writers wishing to self-publish their own work in digital, print on demand or audiobook formats. Engage with your community of writers and readers and establish the library as a trusted resource for 21st century writers!
Presenters: Lissa Staley and Miranda Ericsson, Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library.
NISO Virtual Conference: The Eternal To-Do List: Making Ebooks work in Libraries
eBooks and the future of libraries
Micah May, Director of Strategy & Business Development at New York Public Library
About the Webinar
In the six years from 2006 to 2012, the number of self-published books grew an astounding 270% to more than 235,000, almost as many as were published "traditionally." The easy access to publication tools and distribution mechanisms has ushered in a new era of how content is created and disseminated. No longer do authors need to work through a publisher to have their content accepted, processed, and distributed. The impacts of this revolution in publishing extend well beyond what used to be called "vanity publishing." A variety of best-selling books in recent years have come out from successful self-publishers sharing their tips on how others can follow in their footsteps.
How can publishers capitalize on this author independence? How do libraries incorporate self-published works into their acquisition processes? When there is no publisher reputation behind a title, how does a library or user separate the wheat from the chaff? This webinar will explore these issues and the impacts of the self-publishing movement on both publishers and libraries.
Agenda
Introduction
Todd Carpenter, Executive Director, NISO
When Authors Assume Their Own Risk
Laura Dawson, Product Manager for Identifiers, Bowker
Self-Publishing with Smashwords
Mark Coker, Founder, CEO and Chief Author Advocate, Smashwords
Helping Libraries Help Themselves: The Library Publishing Toolkit
Allison Brown, Editor & Production Manager, Milne Library, SUNY Geneseo
An overview of examples, frameworks, and techniques for using web standards to design a range of reading experiences for a variety of platforms and devices.
Presentation given at Internet Librarian International Conference, Olympia London, October 21st 2015 on Copenhagen Libraries' controversial new strategy and its implications
Reading notes for class March 30, 2015. Slides created as reading notes for this week's theme, "Your Brain on Books", in preparation for our documentaries/PSAs encouraging pleasure reading.
Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User Research War StoriesSteve Portigal
Stories make the world go round. As people who do user research, we love stories. At its simplest, our job is to gather stories and to retell them. War Stories are stories about contextual user research (research out in the field) and the inevitable mishaps that ensue. These stories are in turn bizarre, comic, tragic and generally astonishing.
Steve’s collection of stories fills a longstanding need for the design and research community; to share what can go wrong, because that’s the reality. For a practice that is not always well-understood or trusted, there’s pressure for us to only speak to the successes, but examining the human messiness of this work can help develop our skills and our community.
In this presentation, drawn from years of gathering war stories and his book “Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries”, Steve will share some of the best stories, examine the patterns revealed by the stories, and articulate the different lessons revealed by this large collection of stories.
Interviewing users is undeniably one of the most valuable user research tools. Yet, sometimes we forget that it's a skill we need to learn, because:
* It's based on skills we think we have (talking or even listening)
* It's not taught or reflected on
People tend to 'wing it' rather than develop their skills. Without good interviewing skills, insights may be inaccurate or reveal nothing new, suggest the wrong design or business responses, or miss the crucial nuance that points to opportunities for breakthrough innovation.
This talk will cover:
* Framing the research problem to have the most impact on the business
* What type of participants to recruit and how to find them
* Different methods for learning from interviewees
* Asking questions
* Listening and building rapport
* Analysing data from the field
EuroIA14 - Well, We've Done All This Research, Now What?Steve Portigal
One of the most persistent factors limiting the impact of user research in business is that projects often stop with a cataloging findings and implications rather than generating opportunities that directly enable the findings. We’ve long heard the lament “Well, we got this report and it just sat there. We didn’t know what to do with it.” But design research (or ethnography, or user research, or whatever the term du jour may be) has also become standard practice, as opposed to something exceptional or innovative. That means that designers are increasingly involved in using contextual research to inform their design work.
Ongoing acceptance of design research has increased the ranks of designers and others who feel comfortable conducting user research. But analysis and synthesis is a more slippery skill set, and we see how easy it is for teams to ignore (more out of frustration than anything malicious) data that doesn’t immediately seem actionable. This workshop gives people the tools to take control over synthesis and ideation themselves by breaking it down into a manageable framework and process.
SXSW - Diving Deep: Best Practices For Interviewing UsersSteve Portigal
While we know, from a very young age, how to ask questions, the skill of getting the right information from users is surprisingly complex and nuanced. This session will focus on getting past the obvious shallow information into the deeper, more subtle, yet crucial, insights. If you are going to the effort to meet with users in order to improve your designs, it's essential that you know how to get the best information and not leave insights behind. Being great in "field work" involves understanding and accepting your interviewee's world view, and being open to what they need to tell you (in addition to what you already know you want to learn). We'll focus on the importance of rapport-building and listening and look at techniques for both. We will review different types of questions, and why you need to have a range of question types. This session will explore other contextual research methods that can be built on top of interviewing in a seamless way. We'll also suggest practice exercises for improving your own interviewing skills and how to engage others in your organization successfully in the interviewing experience.
IxDA and Thomson Reuters Student Challenge: Design the Future of News.
7 min pitch presented at the Interaction12 conference in Dublin, Feb 2. In this pitch, I proposed using physical space in different ways to access, share and understand news in a more intelligent way.
[Slides and the accompanying audio posted at http://www.portigal.com/blog/designing-for-unmet-needs-my-presentation-from-warm-gun]
Don’t be surprised if Steve Portigal, author of Interviewing Users, invites himself to your family breakfast or follows hotel maintenance staff to the boiler room. For more than 15 years, he’s led hundreds of interviews that help clients understand customers and turn insights into design opportunities.
Steve knows that our success depends on letting the unmet needs of our audience shape our designs. Okay—but how do we hit a target we can’t see? How do we design for people who aren’t us? How do we solve for the complexity of those people?
Dig into the details, ditch the guesswork, and join Steve to engage deliberately with the people we’re designing for. Look at ways to acknowledge the complexity of your users. Offer solutions rooted in the connections you make with people. Get unstuck and discover opportunities for design that adds value.
Yes, My Tuatara Loves to Cha-Cha Improv, Creativity and DesignSteve Portigal
From UX New Zealand 2015 - Improv is not ‘stand-up comedy’ but a series of games that offer huge degrees of freedom within a set of constraints. During improv, we bring out quickly-understood-and-communicated rules of culture that are implicit, not explicit.
Design and improv have important similarities. Both practices involve collaboration and brainstorming; an emphasis on breakthrough thinking; in-the-moment aspects and ‘Aha!’ moments; a balance of process, structure, and unfettered creativity; an enormous unspoken interaction; and the need to learn upon reflection.
Playing with improv can help us to be more mindful of the power of listening, to create a more collaborative work culture, to develop our own creativity, and to warm up teammates and clients in workshops and design sessions.
In this interactive presentation, you’ll learn about improv, listening, and creativity, and how each supports the others. No tuataras will be harmed.
Präsentation der Prüfungsgruppe für Hellofresh aus dem Kurs E-Business an der BiTS Iserlohn aus dem Sommersemester 2013. Veröffentlicht auf www.shopanprobe.de
[Slides and the accompanying audio posted at http://www.portigal.com/blog/designing-the-problem-my-keynote-from-isa14]
Too often we assume that doing research with users means checking in with them to get feedback on the solution we've already outlined. But the biggest value from research is in uncovering the crucial details of the problem that people have; the problem that we should be solving.
As the design practices mature within companies, they need to play an active role in driving the creation of new and innovative solutions to the real unmet needs that people have. In part, driving towards this maturity means looking at one's own culture and realizing the value of being open-minded and curious, not simply confident. This is a challenge to each of us personally and as leaders within our teams and communities.
I will speak about the importance of this evolution and offer some tips to help guide the changes.
Steve Portigal: Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha: Improv, Creativity and DesignSteve Portigal
Improv is not "stand-up comedy." It is often presented series of games with rules that offer huge degrees of freedom within a set of constraints. In these games we bring out quickly-understood-and-communicated rules of culture that are implicit, not explicit. The activities of design (collaboration, creativity, and design research, for starters) have interesting similarities with improv: All have in-the-moment aspects; we learn upon reflection; there’s enormous unspoken interaction and there is often an "aha" moment. Design and improv also have important similarities: the need to collaborate and brainstorm, the importance of breakthrough thinking, the balance between process, structure, and unfettered creativity. Playing with improv can make us more mindful of the power of listening, and can be harnessed to create a more collaborative work culture, as a way to develop one’s own creativity, or to help warm up teammates and clients in workshops and design sessions. In this interactive presentation you will learn more about improv, listening, creativity, and how they all connect together to support one another. No iguanas will be harmed.
This training, offered in person on November 6, 2014, is the launch of the Colorado State Library's Putting SPELL (Supporting Parents in Early Literacy through Libraries) into Action, a project funded with an IMLS National Leadership Grant.
In the last 10 years there has been much speculation about the role of e-books and e-book readers. This presentation looks at the impact of e-book readers on publishing and reading, the types of e-book readers, their advantages and disadvantages.
Research and the art of doing what you want !!Satyajeet Raje
This talk was given to students in the third year of their Computer Engineering degree program at the University of Pune, India. It was intended to instill ideas of basic research methodology and that research is not something other-worldly. The message was that they can perform "research" in what they do everyday. The talk was very interactive, encouraging students to clarify their misconceptions about research.
This session offers the results of a study that tests the assertion that the online dissemination of theses has a positive impact on the research profile of the institution. Based on a combination of primary and secondary research, with some fascinating statistical comparative information, the study outlines the types of metrics an institution may use to measure the impact of its corpus of digitised dissertations and examines how these metrics may be generated. It is the result of a year-long study undertaken with the London School of Economics which focuses on the outcomes achieved through its programme of theses digitisation, disseminated simultaneously through its institutional repository and through the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Database (PDTD). Results achieved by the LSE will be compared with metrics gathered globally by ProQuest via its PDTD. The session will be of interest to all librarians and academics involved in the use of digitised theses as a research resource, digitisation projects (retrospective or ongoing) and university rankings.
24 Students Capture Alcatraz in an iBook_PublicVersionPresentationekraska
This is a collaborative presentation with Christina Nosek regarding 24 Students Capturing Alcatraz in an iBook. We share our process and hope to inspire others to create student publishing projects too!
Therapists, as part of their education, must go through therapy themselves. They are expected to achieve a certain level of insight about themselves – their biases, their discomforts, and so on. While we are not therapists, we go out and study people without that level of self-insight! A lack of self-insight sometimes manifests itself as passion, commitment, or being driven by a mission. While those have their place, it’s easy to become blinded by what we can’t let ourselves see. Sometimes this shows up as discomfort at the micro level, when we react to something a user might tell us about themselves; sometimes it’s a macro issue, when we’re uncomfortable with people who hold different values, preferences, or beliefs than ourselves. And it crescendos as know-it-all douchebaggery, when we think our job is to tell other people what’s best for them – when phrases like “frictionless sharing” fall from our lips as naturally as “what time is dinner?”
In this interactive talk we will delve into the concepts of presence and mindfulness and develop an understanding of how this informs how you engage with the world around you, as a designer, a professional, and a person.
The old maxim says we should “Find a need and fill it;” while at a one level that is certainly true, even in this era of fetishized disruption, organizations seem to easily fall in love with the idea of being in the problem solving business. Steve will review a number of different mindsets for creating products and services, consider their benefits and risks, and challenge you to go beyond a fixing mentality.
One of the most persistent factors limiting the impact of user research in business is that projects often stop with a catalog of findings and implications rather than generating opportunities that directly enable the findings. We’ve long heard the lament, “Well, we got this report, and it just sat there. We didn’t know what to do with it.”
Ongoing acceptance of (and demand for) user research has increased the ranks of practitioners of all stripes who feel comfortable conducting research. But analysis and synthesis is a more slippery skill set, and we see how easy it is for teams to ignore (more out of frustration than anything malicious) data that doesn’t immediately seem actionable. This session describes a process to take control over synthesis and ideation by breaking it down into a manageable framework.
In this session, you'll:
Learn how to move from data to insights to opportunities.
Get techniques for generating ideas and strategies across a broad scope of business and design concerns.
Explore how to prioritize findings and create new opportunities.
User research: Uncovering compelling insights through interviewsSteve Portigal
Interviewing users is undeniably one of the most valuable and commonly used user research tools. Yet sometimes we forget that it’s a skill we need to learn, because it’s based on skills we think we have (talking or even listening) and it’s not taught or reflected on.
In this workshop, we’ll consider how to frame the problem, when to use research in the design process, and the tactics for setting up a successful study. We will focus in detail on the interview itself, reviewing detailed techniques for listening and asking questions, then conclude with an engaging exercise to bring these best practices to life.
This workshop will show you how to:
Integrate mixed methods of research into solving a problem.
Develop increased empathy, a critical facet to meaningful interviews.
Derive useful results from interviews once you get participants to open up.
Stories make the world go round. As researchers, we love stories, and essentially it's our job to gather stories and to retell them. War Stories are stories about contextual user research and the inevitable mishaps that ensue are in turn bizarre, comic, tragic, and generally astonishing.
Steve will share some of the best stories from his book Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries, examining the patterns and lessons they reveal. For a practice that isn’t always well understood or trusted, there’s pressure to only speak to the successes. But examining the human messiness of this work can help develop our skills and our community. Steve’s collection of stories fills a longstanding need for the design and research community—sharing what can go wrong in the real world.
Stories make the world go round. As people who do user research, we love stories. At its simplest, our job is to gather stories and to retell them. War Stories are stories about contextual user research (research out in the field) and the inevitable mishaps that ensue. These stories are in turn bizarre, comic, tragic and generally astonishing.
In this presentation, drawn from years of gathering war stories and his book “Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries”, Steve will share some of the best stories, examine the patterns revealed by the stories, and articulate the different lessons revealed by this large collection of stories. Steve’s collection of stories fills a longstanding need for the design and research community; to share what can go wrong, because that’s the reality. For a practice that is not always well-understood or trusted, there’s pressure for us to only speak to the successes, but examining the human messiness of this work can help develop our skills and our community.
One of the most persistent factors limiting the impact of user research in business is that projects often stop with a catalog of findings and implications rather than generating opportunities that directly enable the findings. We’ve long heard the lament, “Well, we got this report, and it just sat there. We didn’t know what to do with it.”
But design research (or ethnography, or user research, or whatever the term du jour may be) has also become standard practice, as opposed to something exceptional or innovative. That means that designers are increasingly involved in using contextual research to inform their design work.
Ongoing acceptance of user research has increased the ranks of designers and others who feel comfortable conducting research. But analysis and synthesis is a more slippery skill set, and we see how easy it is for teams to ignore (more out of frustration than anything malicious) data that doesn’t immediately seem actionable. This workshop gives people the tools to take control over synthesis and ideation themselves by breaking it down into a manageable framework and process.
In this session, you'll:
Collaborate in teams to experience an effective framework for synthesizing raw field data.
Gain perspective on the difference between surface observations and deeper, interpreted insights.
Learn how to move from data to insights to opportunities.
Get techniques for generating ideas and strategies across a broad scope of business and design concerns.
Focus on individual and group analysis to create a top-line report.
Brainstorm on patterns, cluster analysis, and diagrams to rethink problems.
Prioritize findings and create new opportunities.
Stories make the world go round. As people who do user research, we love stories. At its simplest, our job is to gather stories and to retell them. War stories about contextual user research and the inevitable mishaps that ensue are in turn bizarre, comic, tragic, and generally astonishing.
Drawing from years spent gathering war stories and his book Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries, Steve Portigal shares some of the best stories he’s collected, examining the patterns and lessons they reveal.
Steve’s collection of stories fills a longstanding need for the design and research community: sharing what can go wrong in the real world. For a practice that is not always well understood or trusted, there’s pressure to only speak to the successes, but examining the human messiness of this work can help develop our skills and our community.
Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries (Amuse 2016)Steve Portigal
Stories make the world go round. As user researchers, we love stories. At its simplest, our job is to gather stories and to retell them. War Stories are stories about contextual user research (research out in the field) and the inevitable mishaps that ensue. These stories are in turn bizarre, comic, tragic and generally astonishing.
Steve's collection of stories fills a longstanding need for the design and research community; to share what can go wrong, because that’s the reality. For a practice that is not always well-understood or trusted, there’s pressure for us to only speak to the successes, but examining the human messiness of this work can help develop our skills and our community.
In this presentation, Steve will share some of the best stories, examine the patterns revealed by the stories, and articulate the different lessons revealed by this large collection of stories.
Keynote from Interact 15, London.
Therapists, as part of their education, must go through therapy themselves. They are expected to achieve a certain level of insight about themselves – their biases, their discomforts, and so on. While we are not therapists, we go out and study people without that level of self-insight! A lack of self-insight sometimes manifests itself as passion, commitment, or being driven by a mission. While those have their place, it’s easy to become blinded by what we can’t let ourselves see. Sometimes this shows up as discomfort at the micro level, when we react to something a user might tell us about themselves; sometimes it’s a macro issue, when we’re uncomfortable with people who hold different values, preferences, or beliefs than ourselves. And it crescendos as know-it-all douchebaggery, when we think our job is to tell other people what’s best for them – when phrases like “frictionless sharing” fall from our lips as naturally as “what time is dinner?”
In this interactive talk we will delve into the concepts of presence and mindfulness and develop an understanding of how this informs how you engage with the world around you, as a designer, a professional, and a person.
(from an event at IxDA SF with Dan Szuc and Jo Wong) Driving change is not as easy it sounds. Change is about people and is thus inherently messy. Coping with the mess means we must relate to, engage with and encourage people's thinking, feeling and acting as well as their actions. We already spend a reasonable proportion of our time influencing people we call collaborators, clients, stakeholders, bosses, customers (to name a few), although we may not always be aware we are doing it.
Together we will look at influence in work, question the language used during change and reflect on the various elements of influence that we too often fail to consider in our own aspirations. We will also look at frustrations and barriers that get in the way of the work we would prefer to be doing. Steve, Jo and Dan will lead a small exercise to help make the principles of influence more personally actionable.
In this interactive session, we'll work together on identifying and developing the interpersonal, creative, and cognitive skill sets that are essential in innovative work cultures.
Therapists, as part of their education, must go through therapy themselves. They are expected to achieve a certain level of insight about themselves – their biases, their discomforts, and so on. While we are not therapists, we go out and study people without that level of self-insight! A lack of self-insight sometimes manifests itself as passion, commitment, or being driven by a mission. While those have their place, it’s easy to become blinded by what we can’t let ourselves see. Sometimes this shows up as discomfort at the micro level, when we react to something a user might tell us about themselves; sometimes it’s a macro issue, when we’re uncomfortable with people who hold different values, preferences, or beliefs than ourselves. And it crescendos as know-it-all douchebaggery, when we think our job is to tell other people what’s best for them – when phrases like “frictionless sharing” fall from our lips as naturally as “what time is dinner?”
In this workshop we will delve into the concepts of presence and mindfulness and develop an understanding of how this informs how you engage with the world around you, as a designer and a professional and as a person.
Soft Skills Are Hard: A Journey To Healthier WorkSteve Portigal
From IxDA Seattle, part of a series of presentations and workshops done in collaboration with Dan Szuc. Steve speaks about the interpersonal, creative, and cognitive skill sets that are essential in innovative work cultures. Moving beyond tactical skills and overarching processes, the UX community is increasingly focusing on the role of the whole person in design and innovation. Steve describes the "muscles of innovation" that are needed for growth and success.
The title of this workshop is a reference to The Artist Is Present, a performance art piece by Marina Abramovic. Marina spent months at MOMA sitting silently across from a nearly endless series of museum visitors, some of whom broke into tears.
The notion of presence is a critical idea for those of us in user experience. At the risk of sounding like Yoda, presence is tied to self-knowing. During ten years of writing, lecturing and coaching on “interviewing users”, many of the questions that Steve Portigal receives are about controlling or influencing another person’s behavior. Yet these interactions with others are really about ourselves, what’s inside us, who we are.
Therapists, as part of their education, must go through therapy themselves. They are expected to achieve a certain level of insight about themselves — their biases, their discomforts, and so on. While we are not therapists, we go out and study people without that level of self-insight!
A lack of self-insight sometimes manifests itself as passion, commitment, or being driven by a mission. While those have their place, it’s easy to become blinded by what we can’t let ourselves see. Sometimes this shows up as discomfort at the micro level, when we react to something a user might tell us about themselves; sometimes it’s a macro issue, when we’re uncomfortable with people who hold different values, preferences, or beliefs than ourselves. And it crescendos as know-it-all douchebaggery, when we think our job is to tell other people what’s best for them — when phrases like “frictionless sharing” fall from our lips as naturally as “what time is dinner?”
In this workshop, you’ll tap into a new level of personal authenticity to unlock a powerful boon. Together, we’ll explore this point of view and participate in a range of exercises to learn more about these ideas — and about ourselves.
In business and in life, we pursue the good stuff and champion people who are known for their good ideas. But when we place too strong an emphasis on just the good, we may neglect to consider the bad ones. In design and in brainstorming, deliberately seeking out bad ideas is a powerful way to unlock creativity. Generating bad ideas can reveal our assumptions about the difference between bad and good, and often seemingly bad ideas turn out to be good ones. Jotly and Cow Clicker were jokes or parodies—that is, not good ideas—that have been surprisingly successful. Neil Young and Crazy Horse have covered folk songs. An action blockbuster features a US president swinging a silver axe against vampires. In this talk, Steve will explore how opening up the bad idea valve can lead unexpectedly to the kind of success we aim for with our good ideas.
Interviewing users is undeniably one of the most valuable and commonly used user research tools. Yet sometimes we forget that it's a skill we need to learn, because:
● It's based on skills we think we have
● It's not taught or reflected on
People tend to 'wing it' rather than develop their skills. Without good interviewing skills, insights may be inaccurate or reveal nothing new, suggesting the wrong design or business responses, or they may miss the crucial nuance that points to innovative opportunities. Steve will share best practices for asking questions and listening and then lead a “safe” interviewing exercise.
In business and in life, we pursue the good stuff and champion people who are known for their good ideas. But when we place too strong an emphasis on just the good, we may neglect to consider the bad ones. In design and in brainstorming, deliberately seeking out bad ideas is a powerful way to unlock creativity. Generating bad ideas can reveal our assumptions about the difference between bad and good, and often seemingly bad ideas turn out to be good ones. Jotly and Cow Clicker were jokes/parodies (e.g., not good ideas) that have been surprisingly successful. Neil Young and Crazy Horse have covered folk songs. An action blockbuster features a US president swinging a silver axe against vampires. In this talk, I explore how opening up the bad idea valve can lead unexpectedly to the kind of success we aim for with our good ideas.
Between Filth and Fortune- Urban Cattle Foraging Realities by Devi S Nair, An...Mansi Shah
This study examines cattle rearing in urban and rural settings, focusing on milk production and consumption. By exploring a case in Ahmedabad, it highlights the challenges and processes in dairy farming across different environments, emphasising the need for sustainable practices and the essential role of milk in daily consumption.
White wonder, Work developed by Eva TschoppMansi Shah
White Wonder by Eva Tschopp
A tale about our culture around the use of fertilizers and pesticides visiting small farms around Ahmedabad in Matar and Shilaj.
Top 5 Indian Style Modular Kitchen DesignsFinzo Kitchens
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