I recently returned from the 2010 IA Summit in Phoenix, AZ and wanted to capture some of what I learned and thoughts I came away with. Trying to summarize the summit turned out to be harder than I expected. What I’ve posted below seems more like several tips of the largest ice bergs rather than a thorough recap. My notes don’t do justice to all that went on but they’re a start at least.
1. Designing for social is about designing the “negative space”.
This is an overarching concept from a pre-conference workshop I took called “Social Architecture: From Strategy to Success Metrics” taught by Christina Wodtke and Jennifer Granito Ruffner. Unlike designing, say, a product marketing page where you control everything, when designing a social environment, you’re really designing a space where people can interact. You can’t control those interactions or the resulting content, but the environment you design will impact what goes on in the space just as a physical environment impacts the people that live and work in that space.
I think I could have a “Top 100 Takeaways” post to summarize all this workshop covered but this will have to do for now. See slide 29 for a great summarizing diagram.
http://www.slideshare.net/cwodtke/designing-social-iasummit
Thanks to Christina and Jenn and all those who attended for a great workshop!
Credit: Christina Wodtke and Jennifer Granito Ruffner
More details: Workshop slides
2. A strong kickoff meeting is crucial when starting a new project with a client or internal stakeholders.
Why?
- First impressions are powerful and lasting
- Roles can be hidden and unclear
- Time and money is wasted
Tip: Interview all stakeholders before the kickoff meeting.
Credit: Kevin M Hoffman
More details: Slides from IA Summit, Web Site: goodkickoffmeetings.com
3. Simple “back of the napkin” diagrams can be a powerful way to think through ideas and communicate those ideas to others.
- From Keynote by Dan Roam, author of “Back of the Napkin”
- Dan talked about the power of even a simple sketch. A sketch can communicate an idea like no amount of words ever could. (A picture is worth more than a thousand words I guess.)
- He also emphasized that you don’t need to be Leonardo DaVinci to create effective and impactful drawings. Just simple lines, shapes, and text are usually all that’s needed to clearly communicate an idea.
- Dan and a friend sat down to try and visually describe the healthcare bill. He posted slides showing their diagrams which have had over 215,000 views. The networks asked him to present his diagrams. Then the White House called asking for advice. The power of a sketch indeed.
Credit: Dan Roam
More Details: Healthcare slides, Overview slides, “Back of the Napkin” book
4. Many IAs and designers are migrating toward creating interactive prototypes instead of static wireframes.
As usual, there was good discussion/debate about the merits of prototypes vs wireframes. Prototyping tools have a ways to go until they easily do all that we’d ideally want them to do but some of them could now be considered viable for real project work. At this point Axure seems to be the leader and one of the presentations at the conference described one firm’s transition from wireframes to prototypes using Axure. The transition seems to have been a success with no plans to go back.
Given the increasing levels of interactivity we’re creating in web applications, social sites, etc., a good interactive prototype seems to be the only way to communicate how something will work. Wireframes will probably still have their place in the tool box but prototyping is and will be invaluable.
Credit: Kevin Wick
More details: Axure, UIE article: “Prototyping: Picking the Right Tool”
5. Design of multi-touchpoint interactions
Designing the experience across all of an organization’s touchpoints has been high on my interest list for quite a while. It was great to see the topic surface at the IA Summit in a pre-conference workshop (wish I’d taken that one too), a presentation by Samantha Starmer, and a general topic of discussion. As IAs we obviously focus on the web touchpoint but the web is only one way that customers interact with a company. Advertising, call centers, physical brick and mortar environments, processes, catalogs, packaging, products, and the web all contribute to a person’s perceptions of a brand. IAs and UX designers have an opportunity to apply our knowledge and methods outside the web to improve the larger over-arching customer experience. There is opportunity to not only align the touchpoints but also to create something more impactful than just the sum of the parts. It’s an area I definitely want to dig into more.
Credit: Samantha Starmer, Jess McMullin
More details: Workshop slides: “Leaving Flatland…”,
6. Understand and use social design patterns.
The importance of knowing and using design patterns was reiterated through several different conversations and presentations. Patterns are not a specific implementation with specific look and feel, copy, positioning, etc. Instead they’re a general description of the basic interaction(s) users have come to expect. And they’re not plug and play. Depending on the specific situation the pattern may have to be adjusted so it fits the context.
Building on their book, “Designing Social Interfaces”, Christian Crumlish and Erin Malone created a poster with a new concept model that attempts to capture the world of social interface patterns and I think they did a pretty good job. Also included on the poster were several concept models generated over the years showing the change and refinement in thinking and capabilities. Pretty cool.
Credit: Christian Crumlish and Erin Malone
More Details: About the poster, the poster (pdf)
7. There is a gap between people’s offline and online social networks.
Paul Adams from Google presented some of his research comparing online and offline social networks. he had several interesting findings but a couple that stick out in my mind are:
- In real-life, people tend to have about 4-6 different social networks/circles that, for the most part, do not overlap. However, in online networks, Facebook in particular, all those separate networks get thrown into one big pool. This can often cause problems for users. They might want to share something with only one specific group of people but don’t have an easy way to specify who will see it and who won’t. (See slide 15.) We need to design to support the fact that we have different types of relationships.
- Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point” talked about “Influentials” who have extra levels of influence on a large number of people. The idea is that if a corporation can get the attention and “love” of an Influential, they’ll influence an inordinate number of others. Paul’s research is showing that’s not entirely true. Friends tend to also have a lot of influence. If an Influential says “buy Nikes” but two of a person’s friends say, “Pumas are the best”, the person is more likely to buy the Pumas. (See slide 138.)
Credit: Paul Adams
More Details: Slides, Paul’s blog
8. Being a good influencer is crucial for creating successful projects and businesses but being a good influencer is more about listening and empathy than talking and power.
Note: Listening and empathy are core attributes of a good IA/designer. Approach in influence opportunity as a design project.
Note (2): Jess’s talk was great but what I remember most is that when I asked a question at the end, he called on me by name after we only briefly met the day before. Talk about listening.
Credit: Jess McMullin
More Details: Slides from IA Summit, a good summary by LukeW
9. The IA Summit is a fantastic event made so by a community of smart, curious, helpful, friendly, passionate people (who also happen to be information architects).
The presentations are great brainfood but the conversations and relationships are what make it special.
Whitney Hess’s Plenary presentation, “Transending Our Tribe”, is a great example of some of the challenging and inspiring presentations and discussions. Definitely worth a look/listen.
A great group of people. A worthwhile experience. I’ll be back.
Credit: Jennifer Bombach and the whole planning team. Whitney Hess
More Details: IA Summit web site
More resources:
- Twitter stream from IA Summit 2010
- Slides from all the presenters. (Those that are posted at least.) (Thanks to Adelle Frank.)
- IA Summit Podcasts on Boxes and Arrows (I’m hearing that Whitney Hess’s keynote was outstanding but I haven’t had a chance to listen yet.)
