Category Archives: Design Strategy

Chocolate, Interaction and Design

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User experience and interaction designers need to understand how users think as well as be aware of business goals and needs described by managers and colleagues from other departments. Chocolate… delicious chocolate… can help you get the information you need to do a great job.


Candy in real life

My grandfather used to be famous in our neighborhood. Why? Was he rich or handsome, or a music star? No, he carried candy in his pockets and he gave candy to every kid he could find; soon he became the girls and boys local super hero.

Ritter Sport Quadrate

Actually, in some countries, it’s common that old men give candy to children. The uncommon behavior was that my grandfather would also give candy to adults. Hence, he became the local super hero of children and adults as he surprised neighbors and got many smiles in return. I’m sure many adults thought that it was ridiculous to get candy from an old man and be treated like a child, but they did, in any case, smile.


Why chocolate?

Chocolate, the food produced from cacao (as described on Wikipedia,) is one of the top gifts, worldwide. It’s also one of the most popular ways of saying thank you, I love you, I appreciate you, and make someone smile. Most of us love chocolate.


Chocolate for users

I always take two small chocolates with me when I go to user tests. I give the first one to the user at the beginning of the meeting and I leave the second chocolate on the table next to me. I say that the first one is a small present for joining the test; users usually smile and know that there is more to come.

The goal is to create a funny situation, a reason to smile and relax. It is also a way to thank the user, just one more detail (aside from the monetary incentive). I am convinced that tests run better when we use chocolate because it makes users happier and more open to talk and share information.


Chocolate in meetings

Use chocolate in brainstorming sessions as a reward every time a colleague adds something interesting to the discussed topic. Rewards provide initiative, and could result in a courageous colleague who shares something crazy that paves the path to a cutting edge solution.

Again, the goal is to create a playful environment, to brake the ice, make people smile and, above everything, to reward participation.

Ritter Sport Schokowürfel Box

I use small pieces of chocolates that are easy to throw in the air and that people can eat immediately. My favorite brand is Ritter Sport: Small colorful pieces of delicious chocolate.


Communicate the benefits

We don’t want people to think that they are being rewarded the same way dolphins at SeaWorld are. So, make sure that everybody gets the idea that it is a game and make it clear that this technique is used to make the test or brainstorming session a success. With chocolate it will probably be!

Chocolate pictures from Ritter Sport

Applying Social Design Principles, a Brainstorming Session

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Last May I participated at Christian Crumlish’s workshop about the design of social interfaces. The workshop was great, exposing several design principals, and I felt I had to somehow apply that at work in an interactive way. Based on some tips from Christian and on past experience I organized the following session.

The Principles

Christian’s book Designing Social Interfaces is a collection of design principles and patterns.

  • Prepare the meeting choosing 1 or 2 of the concepts proposed in the book.

For example, you could use the Pave the Cowpaths and Use Game Mechanics principles. Read carefully about them.

  • Prepare a few slides to explain the principles to your colleagues.

 

 

Participants

Depending on the principles you want to discuss about, you might like to invite colleagues from your own design team, product managers, programmers or marketing people. Do not underestimate your colleagues, different ideas encourage discussion.

  • Invite people from different groups.

 

The Meeting

  • Explain the principles, give examples.
  • Make sure you leave on the screen a slide with the principles (so the participants can read them during the exercise.)

You have to ask participants to imagine how to apply those principles on the current website. For example, you could ask to look for those “cowpaths” from current user behavior that could be “paved” to improve the user experience.



  • Ask participants to write short ideas on post-its.
  • After a few minutes, ask them to tell out loud what they wrote down, to explain a little bit and to paste the post-its on the whiteboard.


You will find that some ideas are similar.

  • Group ideas and ask participants to help you name those groups.



Round Up

This kind of meeting might not give you a definite answer to your design problems, but for sure it could help you start playing with new ideas, based on stablished principles.

Even more, these meetings are a lot of fun and trigger discussion and conversation through different departments.

Give it a try!

 

Pictures from vancouverfilmschool and VFS

Is Privacy Protection a Good Business?

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Facebook has been recently under fire for changing privacy settings. What started as complaints in a few blogs is starting to reach the big media and several parliament buildings around the globe. Facebook needs user data to make advertisement deals, if those users start mistrusting Facebook the business will be over.

On one side, sharing information has many clear advantages and a lot of money can be done with that. On the other side, there are already good examples on how protecting information or giving users clear control about what they share could be beneficial for users and businesses. As interaction designers we could and should improve those experiences.

A Venetian mask, symbol of privacy.

Anonymity and privacy also means freedom. On the contrary, being forced to be 100% public might, in many cases, prevent people to create new things and to share what they really think. There are many things one should not say in public; consequences could be hard if those messages have to be attached by default to the speakers real name. The magic of message boards and chats on the internet beginnings was their anonymity, without that many topics would have never been discussed in a truly sincere way.

It is clear that one benefits from others´ information. Is it possible to share information, keep the user secure and make money with it? Yes, it is; I have two good examples.

Genius, the Apple iTunes recommendation service, is getting tons of information from users, like favorite artists, most listened songs, playlists, movies and TV shows. In order to convince people to share all that, Genius proposes sharing in an anonymous way: no, with Genius you can not see what music your friends are listening. But that´s all right, the best recommendations are done through the analysis of the data coming from thousands of users, not just your friends. Is Apple making money with Genius? I bet they do!

Delicious is another good example of user protection. The public bookmarking service stores users´favorite websites; people allow that because in principle their data is kept private. Delicious reinforces that feeling of privacy through its interface design:

“If you do not want personal information to be displayed for other users to see, do not check any of these boxes”, a setting on Delicious profile creation page. This is a key feature of the Delicious service, without that many people would not share many of their bookmarks, like the ones related to politics or to adult content. Delicious is clearly profiting from sharing and being protecting at the same time.

The future

I predict people will share even more in the future but websites like Facebook will get more pressure to offer better privacy and the design of interfaces and services that offer more intelligent ways of sharing information without compromising privacy will become a big business.

Venetian mask picture by Misteraitch