We started off with some very simple sketches, one of which was the “Day 1 Self-Portrait” to give ourselves a baseline to compare to at the end of the week. In that first half of the first day, we drew as anyone normally would: in large part reproducing remembered “pictograms” (notice how the Alex drawing in the set below has features similar to my first self-portrait – totally untrue in real life) with very little actual observation. Thus, there was no experience of the drawing ever “coming together”, because there was no piecemeal recreation of the reality; it was as if I was stamping down on the page, as a whole symbol, what my brain had internalized as An Alex, or A Masha. This pretty much mimicked the experience of all the drawings that I’d ever done before.

By the third day, however, when we did the profile renderings of our classmates, and then especially when we got to the culminating self-portrait on the last day of the class, a common theme had emerged: between toning your paper, finding your base unit, and putting down those first pencil marks and filling in the details, teasing out the lights and shadows, and, finally, seeing someone or something come staring through, there existed an excruciatingly long, unsettling, even disturbing period of complete and utter uncertainty. I found myself quite often staring down at the sheet in disgust, doubting my eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills (not to mention, beating myself up for thinking I could do this course at all) and having to force myself to continue solely on faith. When even a glimmer of what I was trying to depict appeared on the paper, elation ensued. All the drawing I did after those moments of recognition was carefree, easy-peasy, forget-the-world-exists drawing that was simply natural and extremely enjoyable.

The point, then? I predict that there are likely to be times in your current project’s lifecycle that will make you doubt its feasibility (or your own existence). What the workshop taught me is that those times are not times to give up. Those times are the times to keep making decisions, often on faith, to keep adding detail, to keep putting pencil strokes down. One day, you will see it – and from there, it’s cake.

Oh, and to illustrate the aforementioned progress, here are all the drawings I did in the class in temporal order. The purists will have to pardon the quality (or lack of it) of the pics and lighting…

One of my biggest obstacles to being productive has always been an obsessive desire to read email the second it comes in. Business or personal, I had to know as soon as the indicator lit up just what was in that precious e-envelope – read, unhealthy compulsion, and a bit of “I’m so important, someone emails me every 5 minutes.” Oh yeah. So when I read Tim’s suggestions to turn off the pesky notification and limit e-mail checking to two timeslots a day, needless to say, I was sceptical (and fearful for my ego) – but decided to give it a shot last Monday.

Holy. Shit. What a difference! I was actually done something before lunch, thereby avoiding that crushing feeling of uselessness that used to come over me as I tried to convince myself that I still deserved to eat. I could totally substitute this solid accomplishment for the fleeting sense of importance!

Tim’s book wasn’t the first place I had come across the suggestion of making sure you’re getting something done before lunch – Steve Northover, the father of SWT and my first boss at IBM, used to call it “earning your margarita”, in reference to doing something useful before going out for lunch to Mexicali Rosa’s (where the aforementioned cocktails are quite delicious!). Well, Steve, I’m clearly a little slow on the uptake, but 4 years later I finally concur.

In summary, then:

1. Turn off your new email notification! This alone will reduce your anxiety immensely.
2. Check your email and deal with it in bulk at a maximum twice a day – I go from 11AM to noon, and 4PM until I’m done with it. Whatever you do, don’t check it first thing in the morning!
3. Earn your margarita! Before you check your email for the first time that day (or go to a stitch’n’bitch morning meeting), get something done. The good inertia will get you through the rest of the day faster than ever!

1)      “It’s easier, faster, and more likely to teach you the right way of doing things to be “formally” trained than to learn by blundering” – using “formally” loosely here, because what was really meant was along the lines of the Roosevelt quote above: finding and working for (or with) a well-versed pro will do you better than stumbling through stuff on your own.

2)      “There are three things that you cannot teach people: how to be smart, how to work hard, and how to get along with others. Everything else is learnable.” If you possess those characteristics (no need to be modest with yourself), never get discouraged by particulars of a job description. Reach out and “touch” a potential employer to understand whether they’re able to customize a niche for you to fit into.

3)      At the same time, “if you have those three things AND 5 years of experience in various parts of the business”, you’ll be it, not the “green” guy from #2.

4)      Furthermore, “[insert large corporation name here: IBM, Microsoft, etc.] is a great company to come from”, in the sense that there are vast opportunities to move around into a variety of established roles within those large organizations with solid training and mentorship available. At smaller companies, while there’s always opportunity to wear many hats, there is probably less of a chance that stars in any one specialization will be on hand (or that they’ll have any time to babysit you). Read into that quote also that there is no expectation of any individuals with ants in their pants (like myself) staying at the corporation for their whole professional lives, but rather “using it” as a training and learning ground that also pays you.

5)      Switching gears a little, if you are set on working for a smaller, start-up company, “ask them about their track record and why someone can’t take them out in three months”. While that last part should likely be rephrased so as not to come off as an arse, this is a very important point to understand, due to the volatility of start-ups and the whole “8 or 9 out of 10 will fail” edict. While large companies are large enough to endure a prolonged amount of sucking in the market, small companies do not have this luxury, so at least try to ensure that you’re putting your career into capable, experienced hands.

6)      “There are only a couple of reasons that the thing the start-up is doing cannot be reproduced: some proprietary super-genius magic technology that is just too complicated, some form of exclusive access to a juicy customer channel, or that the same team has already come at the problem 10 times before and has made all the mistakes that they could.”

7)      Slightly orthogonally, “if you go to a start-up, you’re almost guaranteed to work more and be paid less. You will get stock, but do your research to know what it’s really worth.”

8)      And, finally, “the economy is still pretty shaky. Those 30-40 employee companies you see now with ‘Mickey Mouse’ business plans may all fail before the year is out. [Insert large corporation again] will not. Spending another half-a-year to a year there in a new, more exciting role will get you more variety of experience and give the economy a chance to heal further. Either way, make sure you understand the risks to the fullest of your ability before making any sudden movements.”

Still riding my excitement, I naively satisficed when I saw the words “Health Card Renewal” on the page – click!

Hmm… I thought I’d be booking my appointment by now, but alright, there’s “Book an Appointment” among a sea of other text.

Uhm, I’m sorry, you want me to what? Go back to where I just came from and start again? Why would I want to do that?! I obviously came here thinking I’d picked the correct door… I just want to book a bloody appointment! OK, so, fine, I’ll go back.

Now, where did you come from, you naughty devil of a button? This wordage is really making me hesitant (you know what the Internet is for, right?), but I think this is actually what I need. I click, peeking cautiously through my fingers:

Though uncertain, I believe this is what success looks like. Actual interaction with the web app is a topic for another post.

Now, I’ve read Steve Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think”, apparently, unlike the folks that put this front end together. I’ve had to think at almost every step of the way! Forgive me – I’m no whiz-bang hot shot graphic designer – but I believe all this futile clicking could have been completely eliminated if I had just been presented with this:

The 80% task is front and center for me to access (worded in an immediately recognizable way); the rest of the information is retained for those who may require it but deemphasized. It’s interesting, since the main container is 980px wide, that the designers are taking into account the 1024px widths, but completely ignoring the 768px heights. If there is something above the fold that looks “good enough”, people are unlikely to scroll down looking for a better match (this is a statement based on n of 1, so, here, have a grain of salt).

P.S.: The argument that “1024×768 resolutions are now basically irrelevant” doesn’t stand either, since the tantalizing button is a full 962px down from the top of the page, so even at my rockin’ 1920×1200, I barely saw the top of it in FireFox.

Bottom line: figure out what the most common user task (maximum a couple) is at any state of your UI and make it extremely obvious how to start and finish it successfully. Easy-peasy!

1) Learning the Indispensable Skill of Sketching

1. “Sketching User Experiences” by Bill Buxton: having finally made my way through 60% of the book, I can say with conviction – this ain’t no easy readin’. Also, most of it isn’t actually techniques for doing the sketching; it’s mostly talking about doing the sketching. (Warning: tangent! In a way this book exemplifies Microsoft to me as an outsider observing the company –Buxton is so incredibly smart and chock-full of deep knowledge on the subject that, in an effort to good-naturedly share everything he possibly can, he loses the audience that cannot read diagonally. This is analogous to the large amount of features that are surfaced to the user immediately in most Microsoft products, because, obviously, they’re all extremely useful – neither “creator” really seems to care much for the 80/20 rule.) Still, this book does a fantastic job of level-setting and defining sketching and its importance, and provides good techniques for incorporating sketching into your workflow.
2. Get a good set of tools: a few good kits have already been proposed by folks like Jason Robb over at UX Booth and Leah Buley at Adaptive Path. The only thing I’d add is that I’ve found myself wanting to expand the colour choices, so I got a set of pastel Tombow dual brush-pens, like the ones Jason recommends in his article. Actually, one other thing: I’m noticing that I’m not appreciating the warm yellowish tint of the Moleskines as it tends to distort the colours I’m trying to put on, so I may need to find a different notebook with the same quality of paper and binding – recommendations welcome.
3. Take some classes: sometimes, I get really intimidated by that blank sheet staring back at me. Taking classes (in my case, Fashion Sketching and, currently, a 4-day “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” workshop) has really helped me overcome that barrier – if I’m instructed to draw, I feel much more encouraged and prolific than I would without any kind of guidance. Of course, the critique of a professional artist is also crucial to get you out of a corner you’ve drawn yourself into. I’ve often found myself giving up when an aspect of a sketch wasn’t working out and I couldn’t figure out why – that’s where the pro can help you get unstuck.

2) Learning the Indispensable Skill of Storytelling

1. “Jokes for All Occasions”: this free eBook has recently showed up on my radar, so I’ve downloaded it into iBooks on my iPhone and haven’t gotten a chance to read it yet. Allegedly, it’s a good guide to having a punch line and getting there properly. Which, coincidentally…
2. … is my only other piece of advice here: when telling a UX story, for Pete’s sake, have a point. It’s very easy for me to dissolve into details of a persona or get stuck on minutiae and completely forget where I was taking my stakeholders – so try to have at least a bullet point list of concrete points that you definitely have to make for your story to make any sense. This is also probably the best way to come back from a tangent (note to self: use it!).

3) Learning the Indispensable Skill of Critiquing

1. “Sketching User Experiences” (again): in the bits that I have finished reading, Buxton spends a bit of time talking about the Design Critique. His main points, paraphrased:
   1. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition: the critique is not a tribal council where the designer whose ideas aren’t chosen is voted off the island. The point is to skim off the cream, dump the rest and iterate.
   2. Do it often, with different people: make the design critique a weekly or bi-weekly practice, involving as many stakeholders as you can find. Don’t worry about fostering design by committee, but rather think of it as growing acceptance and shared ownership of the designs. Besides, if your stakeholders trust you to do your job, they are unlikely to make asinine requests just to make sure they had some say (but, if all signs point to that, do the duck).
   3. Make sure that everyone understands what this exercise is for: a lot of disciplines (software development, for one) simply don’t have a particularly widely-spread practice of such critiques – people tend to code-hero a lot of things, so level-set the review with expectations for participants.
   4. Lastly, it’s always “better to have your preliminary work critiqued by your colleagues [...] than to have the finished project torn apart by strangers in public” (“Sketching User Experiences” , p. 202). So, swallow that ego and do the crit!

4) Learning the Indispensable Skill of Presenting

1. Do a workshop: I had the pleasure of taking a 2-day course with Neil Grammer of Dialogue Strategies back in my Extreme Blue days, and, I must say, it’s made presenting a lot easier. The aforementioned “bulleted list of main points” was one of the key concepts I took away from this training, plus, of course, the ever-popular “tell’em what you’re gonna tell’em, tell’em, then tell’em what you told them” strategy (in slide titles, “Outline/Agenda”, content slides following the proposed outline, then “Summary”).
2. Practice: yeah, Jared’s got me there. There’s nothing that’s going to make you better at presenting than actually presenting. If you’re struggling to find opportunities at work, join a Toastmasters club in your area, practice in front of loved ones (don’t worry, they’ll still love you) or present to your own lovely reflection.
3. Go with it: the other thing to note is that the nervousness I (as well as some others that I’ve shared this observation with) feel before doing a presentation usually lasts a minute or two into the actual talking part. If you just ride out the “fight or flight” instinct, it gets much easier immediately after.

5) Learning the Indispensable Skill of Facilitating

1. Shut up and listen: as an extrovert, I have a lot of trouble leaving the air clear long enough for people to voice their opinions. Seriously, silence is golden – some folks just need a bit more time to process things that you’ve said, so let them get to it. Who knows, they may be the most insightful of the bunch since they’ve actually taken a bit of time to think.
2. Call’em out: if you know you have a few more timid or, worse, distracted stakeholders in a meeting, don’t hesitate to ask them for their opinions directly. Sometimes, it’s hard for people to get a word in edgewise when a stakeholder gathering is dominated by A-type personalities – take the time to make sure everyone’s opinion has been heard.
3. Stay impartial: it’s hard when you’re an internal UXer, since you clearly have your own opinions on particular designs, but it’s best when facilitating to try to remain objective. This removes the possibility of people feeling like their opinions are irrelevant and will be promptly ignored afterward.

As I already said, I think that these skills are spot-on and truly indispensable for UX professionals. I wonder only if Jared meant the numbers as a simple enumeration to convey that there were indeed five or as an order of some sort – for example, from most important to least. I would struggle to prioritize these skills one over another because it seems to me like each one would become important in specific phases of a project with UX involvement. Overall, all five are important, so all five need to be continuously improved on as we proceed towards mastery. I hope my list can help you do just that – and, of course, if you have other suggestions, they’re always welcome!

I also grabbed a non-permanent marker as prescribed in “The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” to do a pure contour drawing on the picture plane – I had already gone over to Home Hardware and gotten them to cut a roughly 8″x10″ piece of lucite for me and put the horizontal and vertical guides on with a Sharpie. I’ve also made the viewfinders out of random cardboard (in the book, the viewfinders are asked to be black, so I actually filled the whole thing in with Sharpie one night – it was strangely therapeutic). Anyway, without further ado:

It was kind of an interesting exercise – I had to draw with one eye closed to minimize 3D perception, with a comparatively fat-tipped marker while balancing the whole contraption on my left hand. I’ve been doing a couple more pure contour drawings and naturally, I was surprised that anything even resembling my hand came out of them at all. My next step is to do an actual 3D drawing based on one of these contours. This should prove even more exciting!

At the first checkpoint (it’s hopelessly past midnight by now), I am delighted – the stump is picturesque, the tree fully-grown, the bubbles a-floating. Beauty! Just a couple of minor corrections – “could the bubbles be a little more reflective and the arrow be centered, pretty please” – and this baby will be smokin’! Type, type, type…

Checkpoint #2: marvellous! Reflections are reflecting, the tree detail is looking within epsilon of photo-realism, but – what’s this? – the arrow isn’t centered! “It’s centered”, he says, “I used the auto-align”. OK, maybe once this is polished it’ll look centered. It’s bloody late.

Third and final checkpoint. The arrow doesn’t. Look. Centered. I don’t care what your auto-align says, there is a bunch of white space on the left near the stump, which is making it look like the arrow is much closer to the tree on the right with its abundant, seemingly rustling leaves (my eye begins to twitch). Please, move the arrow. “I don’t understand what you want”. Seriously? Here’s an MS Paint sketch (did I mention resources are scarce?). Obviously, it doesn’t help. A follow-on phone conversation does more damage than good at this point. This poster has to be out at 9AM, from which we are only a couple of hours away. Everyone’s pouting really hard, so, finally, I admit defeat and concede. Damn you, optical illusion.

The poster was printed and presented, along with the demo, in a semi-timely fashion. I’m pretty sure noone else noticed, but the arrow really bothered me (it’s also been kind of a running joke among my colleagues, when I insist something minuscule be changed, I get “Oh, what, you want me to center the arrow?”). Anyway, you probably think I’m crazy at this point, but do this quick little experiment for me: if you own an iPhone, and have installed iOS4 on it, go ahead and place a call to somebody – anybody. Now wait for the “End” button to appear. Look at it closely… do you see it? Clearly, the little phone icon and the text have been grouped and centered, leaving equal amounts of white space on each side. Doesn’t it look off? It seems to throw the entire otherwise perfectly symmetrical UI off-balance. This isn’t anal antics, people, this is polish!

The real moral of this story, though, is that the way your interface is received is entirely independent of how well you’ve lined your pixels up in a row. Of course, I’m not promoting approximate layouts – the grid had, has, and always will have its place. But the next time you’re putting something together – be it a web app UI or a poster – consider the people looking at it. Will the arrow fall too close to the tree? Only real user exposure can decide.
P.S.: The lesson for me out of this is that beauty (or perfection) is in the eye of the beholder. If I’m the only one bothered by a particular detail, which causes me (and others I involve) to waste time on it and no real user would ever notice it – I have got to learn to let it go. I swear I’ll try it… next time.