eri on the interweb

In 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People (New Riders Voices That Matter 2011) Susan Weinschenk, PH.D. quotes an interesting study that investigated if honesty varied according to the communication medium.

Charles Naquin (2010) from DePaul University … conducted research on honesty in people when using email versus pen and paper.

In one study, forty-eight graduate business students were each given $89 (imaginary money) to divide with their partner; they had to decide whether to tell their partner how much money was in the kitty, as well as how much of the money to share with their partner. One group communicated by email and the other group by a handwritten note. The group that wrote emails lied about the amount of money (92%) more than the group that was writing by hand (63%). The e-mail group was also less fair about sharing the money, and felt justified in not being honest or fair.

Marc Stickdorn is an academic and author of This is Service Design Thinking so we were more than lucky to have him address the group. Stickdorn teaches to both design and business students. A theme of the night was working and communicating across disciplines, with these two important requirements:

1. That the design community, specifically the UX design community generate a shared language to represent and promote itself consistently
2. That service designers learn the terminology of the other disciplines they are working with

Stickdorn quizzed us on product versus service, touchpoint versus channel, introduced us to service dominant logic and the experience economy but he really wanted to abandon the slide deck and just open up the conversation. Which he did. I think he actually found us to be a little shy as a bunch.

The group questions canvassed the following topics:

The NSW department of Fair Trade is launching their new Scam Buster app today. Flyers and sunscreen were being handed out at Town Hall station this morning. The app enables people to report scams by channel and type and offers info and tips for what to look out for.

Good to see a government department engage in a relevant medium.

Ethnography for Marketers -- A guide to consumer immersion

Ethnography for Marketers was recommended to me in 2007, I finally got round to reading it in 2010 and the other day I revisited the copious notes I took. This is a book about ethnography, research, projects and design. But why write a blog post that is a book review? Particular when the subject is essentially a text book?

As the title suggests this is a book targeted at marketers not designers but don’t let that put you off. This is a text book for user centred design that anyone who describes themselves in anyway “UX” should read. This is also a text that anyone managing UX projects should read.

Not only does the book provide a framework to conducting observational qualitative research – it goes into the detail of how to conduct that research:

• Recruiting for respondents

Fetch - Curated whats on for the business and digital communities in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and London

Friends from out of town have often remarked to me that Sydney has a thriving digital scene. All the events I’ve attended, big and small, are organised by passionate people with a spirit of openness and sharing. Considering most meet-ups are free or under 10 bucks it’s pretty cheap compared to a conference ticket.

But what’s on? Where to go? Where to look? There’s twitter, eventbrite, meetup - the information is out there but its all over the place. Kindly solving this problem for all of us is Fetch by Kate Kendall (founder) and her curators including Hannah DeMilta. So far there’s Fetch lists for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and London covering events, news, articles and more for the business, digital and creative communities. Thanks so much guys — this is a great idea and a great service.

I love a good critique so I left the October Insight talk featuring Dutch design duo Toko well sated. They reflected on their career; taking risks, both professional and personal (they moved their lives to Australia almost on a whim) and the state of the design industry.

Toko at the Apple Store presenting for the Infront Insight series

Reference is not concept

Theirs was a rally cry against derivative design. They talked about “empty aesthetics”, and the problem of relying on design blogs and the “reference folder”. Uh oh! The reference folder! I still maintain reference collections from my graphic design days, and a visual bookmark collection – and I love them! But I also understand the critique. Who needs a concept when you can just see what’s “now” by scanning design blogs? Who needs a solution when you can just copy a pattern? Interestingly Toko did not encounter the use of the reference folder in their native Holland, but found its use widespread elsewhere, particularly in Australia. Is this a result of the Antipodean condition – being so far and feeling so far behind?

The brief for the night from Australian Infront to Vince Frost was not to present a portfolio but to talk about something broader, deeper. Specifically, how has he stayed in business for such a long time?  How has he stayed creatively relevant? How does he do this with a large team (30-35)?

The result was a presentation on: designing your life, your business and your happiness. How do you achieve a balance between an enriched life, business and achieving your dreams? Frost had 25 mantras, part design wishes part life coach, part business coach. In fact he attributed a few of the points to his naturopath and CEO. So here they are:

1. Every day is an opp to shine.
   Have a positive outlook, choose a career you love. (With an interesting question posed to the audience – do you  separate work and life, is lack of separation a weakness? Do you embrace the fact that your life and work is enmeshed?)