Notes: "Beautiful Users" by Ellen Lupton
kelleyP
Great to see everyone who made it out last night. We talked a little about the book and a lot about product design in general and products we love. Hope to see you next month. - kkp
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Up Next:
April 22nd: STUDIO SESSION // Designing for wearable products: tips and team sketching
May 28th: BOOK // “Practical Empathy” by Indie Young (Rosenfeld discount: uxbcd30off)
June 24th: BOOK // “Just Enough Research” by Erika Hall
Other events:
The GoCode Hackathon kicks off April 8th and officially starts April 10th. They’re always in need of UX and UI talent. It’s a great way to boost and/or show off your skills.
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“Beautiful Users” by Ellen Lupton - 3/15/2015
- Came across the word “affordances” and started noticing different affordances (affordance = when something naturally happens - i.e. a rock is the right height to be a seat) - the object gives you information about how to use them (which is what makes them feel nice or usable)
- Good glossary of design terms in the back
- Evolution of the phone design
- Quick read
- Loved the design for the bathroom handles
- Liked the projects around making people’s prosthetics beautiful. Interesting that the prosthetics that don’t try to look like real body parts.
- Love the cardboard bike
General Discussion
- Travis highly recommends going to the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum if you’re in NY.
- Mixed reviews on the Nest
- The August door lock is the only tech device Dan’s wife likes b/c it makes life easier. It does things you wouldn’t be able to do otherwise (i.e. Dan can unlock the door from the car and let the kids run it). it makes a nice sound when someone comes in
- Kelley’s Lumo Lift posture trainer did not have good affordances (https://www.lumobodytech.com/)
- Check out the video by Adaptive Path on the device they designed for diabetes patient - it’s designed to be non-intrusive (http://bit.ly/1BsSFs7)
- Dan just launched an app that helps people understand the value of their time. The original concept relied on people entering a lot of data every day. During beta testing we focused on what we could do with a fluid hand motion, that’s quick and fun to do. It makes it more pleasurable and fun than time-keeping. Next is to figure out how to get it on the watch (it’s called Moment). Had to create a new concept called the “value hour”.
- People often say they’d use things, but aren’t really that motivated when it comes to paying.
- The Kano method has been great for helping people determine what features people really care about. Can also be used to deprecate features.
- For things like enterprise software, there’s a lot of legacy code. One team does a stack ranking of observed needs.
- Frameworks are helpful as a boost. Hopefully our jobs will be more like product design and have more creativity so we’re not all following the same models.
- Hottest trends: customizable dashboards, syncing devices
- For smart watches: You should measure the engagement with a product in seconds and try to provide value in a moment’s time (i.e. 10 seconds).
- People who have smart watches, check their phones less often.
- How must the police feel about being monitored 24/7? How about hospital usage?
- Google Glass - terrible hardware
- There’s a tension with being too connected.
- A lot of people who work in technology, limit technology for their kids.
- Creativity requires boredom to find connections between things. It’s hard to get in flow when we’re always connected.
- Being connected to technology also connects you to community. If you’re not connected, you can feel rejected.
- Flow is so critical to what we do. In the office, it’s a real challenge to show where you provide value - it’s not in responding to email quickly. It’s my job to think things through.
- People like Pomodoro for keeping on task (cute video here: http://pomodorotechnique.com/)
- The amount of time wasted at work is astounding. Do you do more or less?
- Hackathon’s give great flow (3 days to focus on one project).
- Jonathan just got his HCI degree.
- 2009 doing visual design. Reading all UX books. Had trouble making the transition to UX. Ran across an article about UPA that recommended academic achievement. It’s not going to turn you into a UX designer in 2 weeks. Searched for programs online. Took classes in Iowa States remote program. The vast majority of the program was more on cognitive psychology (how we perceive information). Chunking to aid memory. See it as a huge opportunity to bring more credibility to this field. Took the courses over 4 years. It can be done in 2 years. Took one course each semester. Total cost $18k.
- Main benefit = credibility
- Certification took 2 weeks
- Assembly.com is a site that allows you to contribute to projects an earn equity in small companies.
Attendees // What did you love doing when you were 3-5 years old?
Aiko - obsessed with an orange helicopter. Wanted to fly helicopter, mom was a pacisfict could not join military, got into designing
Jonathan - As a kid, drew and built things turned into a career
Lys -
Liz - loved art memory of at a Day Camp and wanting to do things in the ceramics studio.
Dan - Cant remember 3-5 but I know I was really into airplanes and aviation, would fly to boarding school in a little plane. Aviation is related to adventures in UX design
Mary - I always loved animals, thought I would be a vet, got to chemistry and couldn’t do it. Now I have a tribe of animals.
_____ - wanted to drive a trash truck
Kevin - loved to draw
Miguel - building, painting, sculpting
Travis - designing Halloween costumes, adapting existing designs
Katie - loved drawing and coloring
Kelley - camping, designing trails / forts
Tish - took things apart (such as the laser disc player), early morning puzzles
Sui - fighting with her older brother, playing with Legos
Lars - making snow and pillow forts
Brian - setting the time on his grandparents’ VCR, video games