Paper prototyping the smart way

I just finished a project that turned out very well for everyone. Backslaps and high-fives all. Looking back now I see one major lesson that demands to be heard. Organization of the paper prototyping creation processes no less. How can I have over looked this exciting chapter?

When you’re ready for the paper prototyping phase of your InContextual project, you have to keep your facts in ordered. You’re going have feedback data in 100’d of directions, some of it inconsistent with hidden details. It’s your job to balance the customer data, the client’s input, your teammate and other design shareholders into unifying interface that can be used to continue you’re testing. Sounds easy right? Ready set go!

Ha ha ha I’m kidding.

Really you need to stop, sit down and draw out what your about to make here. Take your teammates and together scan the data (interp notes, client emails, co-workers reviews) to create a detailed sketch of the prototype as you would like it. Correct word spellings, layout, sections, groupings, EVERYTHING! This will be your blueprint and you will be lucky to have it later.

It may seem I’m being redundant. Of course good designers would do this, how could I imply they wouldn’t? Yeah whatever, in the heat of any moment you can forget the details. The benefits our boundless:

• Consolidation of all data into one unifying vision of work for team
• Easy to get collaborative review from stakeholders
• Easy to break up for shared creation
• Less time spent on review


Use pencil, use pen, just do it. Everyone will thank you later.

Walking the Affinity Wall

Currently I am resting between projects and doing everything I can to look busy. This, of course, involves updating my Contextual Design blog. Plus now I know for sure at least one person who cares is reading it.

So today’s topic is about Walking the Affinity Wall.

Once you have finished organizing your bazillion of random notes into a completely organized and totally logical layout, you are finally ready to actually start brainstorming designs. We do this by having all the data laid out for the whole team to review, study and think about privately. When an idea hits you, write it on a post it and put it on the wall near the data that made you think of it. Then we come together and talk about the ideas the data has given us.

Walking the wall after putting all the data up has never been that easy for me. I’ve been wrapping my brain around inductive reasoning for the past week and now I’m expected to flip it around to deductive again? Ouch. It’s like finally getting the car speed to kick in uphill, only to reach the top and slam it in reverse. It’s why I’m paid the big designer bucks, so I grab a few caffeine drinks, flat shoes and get ready for the good times.

There is no wrong way to walk an affinity wall, just as there are no bad ideas. In fact there will be many bad ideas, but together they can then make the one good idea shine through clearly.

At this point I have walked a wall 7 times and there are only 5 cardinal rules I advise you follow.

1. Wear very comfortable shoes. You will be standing all day. Make sure your feet won’t quite early.
2. On a separate post-it, take notes on all the design ideas or questions you put on the wall. You’ll need to remember them later and after a few hours of walking, you might not remember them all.
3. Read other peoples notes. A quick glance just to get an idea of what other people are thinking and how you can build on that.
4. Do several turns around the room with short breaks in-between. Let your brain rest after data dumps and be fresh to start again.
5. Make no assumptions. Yes you have been living with this data for the past month, but that doesn’t mean something new won’t click at the last minute.


Breathe and relax, this is the one time you’re expected to write first and think later. Enjoy the freedom.

New project, new discovers, same nerd girl

I can't believe I neglected my Contextual Design blog for so long.

Almost a year later and I am right back to where I started in the design process, but I am several projects later. I went back to read some old posts, only to find my words were as true then as they are now when it comes to interviewing, interpin & sequencing.

Luckily for me, this project is giving me of a chance to work with Flow Models as well. Not only will I be mining data & documenting workflow steps, but also recording the give and take interactions between coworkers. WOO HOO!!

Personally I love flow models. Watching information flow and discern the responsibilities each person has to keep the on going movement of a task going is quite beautiful actually. Ok I need a life, but once you see that spark in a CEO's eyes from seeing the whole organizations complex existence explained to them as a coordinated & understandable pattern you'd get a bit chocked up too.

Tomorrow I'll go into further depth about the rationalises of flow models, and tonight I shall have happy dreams of getting hired by the federal government to flow chart their org and ushering a new age of cordination!

Lessons & Clients

I am almost done with my current project. All that is left is for me to do is tidy all the retrieved data and put it in a presentable fashion for the client. This presentation if the heart & soul of my work in this design firm. It’s the vision that our clients have paid for us to give them.

The only issue here is that we are now in the impossible business of trying to teach a client a lesson.

1. We tell them what is wrong.
2. We vaguely tell them how we would fix it.
3. We tell them we can show them exactly how to fix it if they give us more money.

I am looking forward to seeing how this is done with grace.

An Engineer by any other name is just as scary

Today I feel like justifying my career choice. I started the journey into interaction design over ten years ago when there wasn’t even a word for the job. We had intellectual developers building crappy systems that no one else could figure out and we had really pretty people who worked in the media lab and made really pretty things that no one used. My goal was to combine the two together.

My dream is based on the main theory that we can build tools that are easy to use & look good. Not just for me, the person who designs it, but for everyone who comes in contact with it.

Technically there should never have been a distinction from the start. Now it has become a bastardized child of a step software should have taken years ago. By skipping it at the beginning we are now scaring people off because they think it’s some newfound step that takes only a certain overly educated person to be a Usability Engineer.

It’s like saying an Architect is a Livable Engineer. Honestly it just sounds stupid.

Checking out Wesabe

I’ve been reading a lot about the new release of Wesabe, so I just had to give it a look.

At first glance I had no idea what these people do other then design with large font. It was only after I putz around a bit did I find anything that resembled an answer to me.

“Wesabe is a community of people who share our experiences with our money so we can help each other make better financial decisions. We do this by aggregating and analyzing our community members' personal financial data, and showing tips — recommendations to get the most from our money. These tips and recommendations come from the collective wisdom of our entire community. When one of us figures out how to make a great decision, we all learn.”

This can’t be just me. How can you launch a new product and not put a basic “What is it” answer on the main page? Does not basic good design tell us to put the critical information on the top of our websites? Wouldn’t you want new people to know exactly what they can do when they come to your site? I know I would.

On the Road with Context

Ok I have been on the road gathering more and more data to bring back to my already growing affinity note wall. This is a crazy time of running around the world and then coming back to make sense of it all.

I ended up getting stuck in Atlanta, GA this week during some freak storm. The best part of all the travel is getting to see new cities, but the ability to do this is highly diminished when you can’t see more then 5 feet in front of you.

And yet I persevered for the data! I had notebook in hand, vague agreements for interviews & an address in a strange town. I was going to make this happen dag nabbit!

The enthusiastic behavior will get you anywhere though. Magically the administrator from heaven had found me not one, but two!

It was 5 of transit, 15min of food snarfing, 30min of standing politely with random friendly banter & I was finally in interview mode. 3 ½ hours later and I had pure contextual gold to share with my team. Worth every penny & discomfort.