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Design Studio and Agile UX : Process and Pitfalls

Nov 10, ’11 10:51 AM

We are often asked how and when Design Studio should be used in a startup or enterprise whose product team embraces agile. We hope this article answers some questions about how to effectively use Design Studio (as well as variations on it), and to avoid potential pitfalls so those practicing some flavor of agile UX will be better armed to solve difficult problems in their work.

The description of Design Studio in The Design of Design Studio was meant to serve as the canonical example, and is best suited for the beginning of a significant series of projects focused around one theme, or a set of themes. The output of such a design studio session may span many iterations. There are, however, many variations of Design Studio that can be employed to good effect for the smaller problem spaces within agile processes. For example, a Scrum team may need to explore a more targeted problem space that they identify during iteration planning prior to a sprint.

This should not imply, however, that we use Design Studio during what is sometimes called “Iteration 0,” although there is no reason why it couldn’t be used then. We don’t happen to follow the “staggered sprints” model popularized by Desiree Sy and Lynn Miller at Autodesk. Instead, we solve problems as whole Scrum teams and bring the ideation, design, and development phases as close as possible to the same kickoff point so the concepts can inform story-gathering and estimation sessions.

Read the article on UXMagazine

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Minimalist History Pictograms

Nov 4, ’11 10:06 AM

This collection of pictogram history posters was designed by H-57creative agency as a part of their collaborative project with the website First Floor Under. The posters are designers’ take on famous biographies, real and fictional, expressed in not more than three or four steps. Thus, the lives of Michael Jackson, Hitler, Darth Vader, Jesus, Marie Antoinette, Napoleon, Bruce Lee and Caesar were summarized in a pictographic and humorous way. And, according to H-57, more similar works are coming:

We want to create many of them to give our point of view on the most famous world stories. Unfortunately, the ones with tragic ending are the funniest and most interesting.

With the popularity of typography and infographics on the rise, we see a lot of movie and music posters, art and literary works getting beautiful minimalist makeovers. These H-57 historic strips are a noteworthy addition to the array of inspiring designs.

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Miss Lighting

Nov 4, ’11 9:31 AM

 

Miss is an LED suspension lighting fixture, designed by Davide Groppistudio. Its slim and simple form (the item is only 1.25 inches in diameter) is able to deliver dramatic effect. Balancing between light and shadow, this poetic piece gives targeted concentrated illumination to objects and surfaces. Used in groupings, Miss is able to create an even stronger impact.

I like how the beam of light is stretched out of a slender tubular shape, becoming part and expansion of it. An understated piece, purposely reduced to a single line, gives depth to the space it occupies. The lamp comes in matte black and white.

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Philosophy Posters

Sep 5, ’11 12:05 PM

Poster series explaining complex philosophical theories through basic shapes.

London based graphic designer Genis Carreras (or ‘gex’ as he likes to call himself) has created a series of minimal and witty Philosophy Posters. The project is an attempt to explain complex philosophical theories through basic shapes. Carreras offers his take on such ideas as solipsism, humanism, determinism, absolutism, relativism, nihilism and many others.

These aesthetically pleasing pieces are also aiming for an educational value, which is why each poster includes a brief summery of the philosophical notion. There is also a book in the works, called Philographics, in which all these posters are compiled for one very short read. Who knows, maybe minimalism is all we need to make other ‘isms’ easier to grasp…

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Where Angels Fear To Tread

Jun 19, ’11 12:54 PM
Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope

“An Essay on Criticism“

“An Essay on Criticism” goes beyond the writer/critic relationship – it is chock full of life observations and tips on navigating the waters of interpersonal relationships . . . timelessly relevant. What is perhaps most fascinating as you read through this essay is how much wit and wisdom has become part of the English vernacular.

As I reviewed my Klout score yesterday, I was reminded of this particular stanza in Pope’s essay/poem:

But you who seek to give and merit Fame,
And justly bear a Critick’s noble Name,
Be sure your self and your own Reach to know.
How far your Genius, Taste, and Learning go;
Launch not beyond your Depth, but be discreet,
And mark that Point where Sense and Dulness meet.

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Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective

Jun 14, ’11 6:57 PM

Richard Serra

I went to New York’s Metropolitan Museum first retrospective of drawings by contemporary North-American artist Richard Serra, presenting a comprehensive overview of forty years of his drawing activity. It was absolutely mind-blowing, and a completely different experience from the Alexander McQueen exhibit (blog post to come).

The exhibition presents the evolution of Serra’s drawings throughout the 1970’s (when he turned to black paintstick, a crayon comprised of a mixture of pigment, oil, and wax, creating heavily textured works, frequently very large in scale) to recent times.

From the Met website:

This first retrospective of drawings by the contemporary American artist Richard Serra (b. 1939) presents a comprehensive overview of some forty years of his drawing activity. It traces the development of drawing as an art form independent from yet linked to his sculptural practice. Drawing for Serra has always played a crucial role in the investigation of new concepts and new creative methods. It has been a means of exploration of formal and perceptual relationships between the artwork and the viewer. His innovative ideas have radically transformed the traditional understanding of drawing as a form outlined against a background of the paper support, and exponentially expanded the definition of modern drawing through novel techniques, unusual media, monumental scale, and carefully conceived relationships to surrounding spaces.

The show culminates in site-specific, large-scale works that, despite not yet reaching the monumental size of his maxisculptures, still produces a spatial effect that is equally disorienting to the senses.

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The Hyper-Social Design Studio

May 26, ’11 8:47 AM

Hyper-Social Design Studio

Hyper-Social Design Studio Overview

A thoroughly new remix technique: combining a focused UX Book Club idea with Design Studio Methodology. Starting with the book “The Hyper-Social Organization“, participants including designers (service, experience, interaction, organization), creative technologist, strategists and product managers will read the book. On the day of the studio, each partipant will present key concepts to one chapter, having only 5 minutes to do so, with no more than 5 slides in power point. After a quick break, participants will break into teams and explore concepts introduced in the book to a specific business case study and have a limited amount of time to explore, ideate, sketch and deliver innovative solutions to the problem space which is broken into seven separate functions within an organization.

Saturday, Fall 2011 1PM – 530PM

Location: SoHo, New York City

Price: Free, but a commitment is required.

Interested? Contact me

Schedule

100 – 115      Introductions

115 – 230      Lightening Presentations: 5 Minutes, no more than 5 slides (template to be provided) All slides due 1 week before Saturday

230 – 245      Break

245 – 300      Game Storming – Intro to 3 techniques

300 – 400     Design Studio

One case study will be presented – a company with background information on their structure, management, customers, and suppliers. Additional information about the company’s brand and product lines, as well existing customer touch points will be presented as background material. All teams of 2 will break off to take that shared problem space and use design studio to explore potential solutions enframed by their topic area, i.e. PR, Product, Innovation, Leadership, Customer Service, Sales, etc. Each team will, at the end of the time, present designed artifacts of processes, concepts, and strategies to the problem space using the book as the framework.

415 – 5PM     Team Presentations

Post Mortem and Lessons Learned.

Goals

  • Gain a solid understanding of the book, especially the SEAMS Framework
  • A collaborative exploration of the problem space
  • Explore a framework for organizational change addressing multiple vectors
  • Design compelling and differentiated product solutions

Considerations

All Slides from Lightening Round will be combined into 1 Power Point deck and socialized on Slideshare.

All Designed Artifacts from Design Studio will be captured and posted online.

Session will be photographed.

Still Interested? Contact me


Background on The Hyper-Social Organization


The book starts with a simple explanation: “Human 1.0″ is the way that people have interacted and worked together for thousands of years. Only recently (the last few decades) information technology has forced people into working in much more constrained ways. Mass media brought the rise of companies that communicated with the masses through a corporate voice, which has had the advantage in telling people what they want and what they can have. Social media flips the mode, and brings us back to communicating one-on-one. This is not a new way of working, it is actually the original way that people worked, it is just that social media allows this to happen on a scale never before contemplated. A Hyper-Social organization is a return to the natural way of interacting, which is why the authors make a compelling argument that it is inevitable.

After the introduction, the first half provides four pillars of hyper-social society:

  • Forget market segments. These were just constructs to allow corporations to coordinate their approach, offerings and message to the market. Instead, you need to think about tribes and humans. A tribe is a group that identifies in some way with each other, and will be the most important way of influencing purchasing patterns. Identifying tribes is the secret to success.
  • Forget company centricity, and think human centricity. Hyper-social organization can be more personal at all levels, and engage customers to focus on and satisfy their needs directly.
  • Forget information channels, and think about knowledge networks. Companies could prepare mass market messages to push through well known channels such as media and events. This communication was the only option that the consumer had, and corporations could control what the public knows. But in a social world the customer already has contacts to other members of the tribe, already is finding out accurate information about your products from others online. Pushing a company line will not work. Instead, share knowledge well, and work to gain trust.
  • Forget process and hierarchies, and embrace social messiness. They recommend something they call SEAMS: sensing, engaging, activating, measuring, and storytelling. The processes will be less and less pre-defined, but embrace that, and allow people in the organization to interact as humans.
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Memes

May 26, ’11 6:04 AM

Memes

The concept of a reproducible element of culture has deep roots, and the transliteration of a word for it from a Greek root seems to have occurred on multiple independent occasions. Donald Campbell introduced the term “mnemone” for such an element in 1960. Still, the word “meme” entered common usage only recently, with Richard Dawkins’ treatment of the word, and did not appear in the 1989 Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. The online OED defines a meme as “A cultural element or behavioural trait whose transmission and consequent persistence in a population, although occurring by non-genetic means (esp. imitation), is considered as analogous to the inheritance of a gene.” This entry tracks the word only as far back as Dawkins and The Selfish Gene in 1976. In this book, Dawkins himself claims to invent the word and dictate its use and pronunciation. His etymology of the word comes not from the same Greek root as Mnemosyne, the embodiment of memory and mother of the muses, but from “mimeme,” or something that is imitated.

Of the work, Memes, Anna Schwartz Gallery says:

A Meme is a cultural analogue to a gene. Forms that are transmitted in thought or behaviour from one body to another, responding to conditional environments, self-replicating and capable of mutation.

The miniature or the model allows the totality of a body to be seen at once. These small solid iron works use the formal language of architecture to replace anatomy and construct volumes to articulate a range of 32 body postures. The ambition is to make intelligible forms that form an abstract lexicon of body-posture but which nevertheless carry the invitation of empathy and the transmission of states of mind.

Displayed widely spaced within the architecture of Anna Schwartz Gallery in Melbourne, the works interface with the architecture of the gallery. Placed directly on the floor they become acupuncture points within the volume of the space, allowing the viewer to become conscious, through the disparity of scale, of his/her own mass and spatial displacement as s/he moves around and amongst the works.

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