Interaction-design.org is a Denmark-based foundation that explores research on all human-centered aspects of technology. In an effort to create world-class educational materials for free, they have just launched an open-access, peer-reviewed encyclopedia. The first seven chapters were released today, with many more to be published in the coming months.

I was invited by editor-in-chief Mads Soegaard to write a commentary on Marc Hassenzahl’s encyclopedia entry on User Experience and Experience Design. The other commentaries were written by Don Norman and Eric Reiss.

A dictionary attempts to define the words of a language. An encyclopedia contains informational articles that explore a variety of subjects. Interaction-design.org’s encyclopedia does not purport to define the terms our practice, but rather to examine its purpose.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on Marc’s article and the accompanying commentaries. Thank you.

• Follow-up to “You’re not a user experience designer if…”
• 10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design
• I was asked to join the IAI Board of Advisors
• Introducing StartUXs
• Class Schedule for MFA in Interaction Design at SVA

My dear friend and “girl developer” Sara Chipps has been making waves in the tech community with her new initiative Girl Develop IT.

Recently featured on ReadWriteWeb, Girl Develop IT strives to narrow the gender divide in tech by offering an extremely low-cost series of classes on programming to women who want to build their own software, launch their own companies, or just become well-versed in the capabilities of various languages in order to be a better collaborator.

Today, Girl Develop IT announced a new series called Foundations for Founders, and I’m honored to be among the teachers. Foundations for Founders is a series of master classes on Saturday afternoons, aiming to provide people with the basic skills that are needed to get their tech businesses off the ground.

So far the schedule is as follows:

October 09, 2pm: Lauren Leto “Getting Funded” Lauren founded the popular site Texts from Last Night and just got her second startup Bnter funded as well. She knows what it takes to be a successful woman in this field and get what you need to get your idea going. Finding people with resources is a huge step, Lauren will share her experience and pass on this wisdom to students.

October 16, 2pm: Spencer Fry “Hiring and Communicating with Developers” One of the largest frustrations I have seen with various founders I have met with is that they don’t know how to get their site actually built. It’s rough understanding what is needed when technology is a big black box. Spencer was not a developer when he started his site Carbonmade, however, he has learned how to sustain a great working relationship with a team while they create his vision.

October 23, 2pm: Campbell McKellar “Writing a Business Plan” This most basic part of starting a business is getting your ideas on paper. The founder of Loose Cubes has lots of practice. For those of us without our MBAs in business this can be a daunting task.

November 13, 2pm: Whitney Hess “Wireframing” A close friend of the Girl Develop IT! and a well recognized UX expert. She is going to walk our ladies through the process of becoming aware of the user experience. She is going to be showing them tooling that will help them do so and giving them a peek at her process.

I’ll let you know when registration opens up! Huge thanks to Sara for asking me to participate in this awesome initiative. I can’t wait to get started.

• Who is Spencer Fry’s mentor?
• I’m Speaking at Pittsburgh Web Design Day
• Developing a Website
• Web 2.0 Expo NY: Wednesday Keynotes
• I did the UX design for Brighter Planet

User Interface Engineering (UIE) hosts wonderful virtual seminars every month on a variety of UX-related topics. This month was no exception. Tamara Adlin, a user experience consultant based in Seattle, WA, put together a smart and practical presentation titled, The Power of Ad Hoc Personas: Truly Practical Methods to Get Your Organization On the Same Page.

The essence of Tamara’s 90-minute virtual seminar is that an inability to do user research should not prevent you from focusing key stakeholders on who their users really are. Some techniques that she discusses are ad-hoc (or non-data driven) personas, user stories, and feature prioritization.

Read my Twitter notes on the presentation and follow along with the slides below. Enjoy!

Slides

Tweets

• So excited! RT @UIE: Tamara Adlin’s virtual seminar on Ad Hoc Personas starts [at 1:30 ET]. Follow along at #uievs http://j.mp/bUPmsA
• Get a 20% discount on @tamaraadlin‘s new book: http://www.elsevierdirect.com/product.jsp?isbn=9780123814180 Use code: 98704
• “Swoop and poop” or “Seagull Management” = when executives fly over the project and crap all over it, then fly away
• Cute! @tamaraadlin‘s dad does the illustrations for her book covers
• Personas are a valuable part of the process whether you’re working on the inside or the outside of an organization, big or small
• “Myth: If you don’t have data, personas are worthless.” @tamaraadlin intends to debunk that myth today
• Persona rules – Rule 1: If you don’t have clear goals, don’t bother. Rule 2: The execs *must* be involved from the start.
• Ad-hoc personas are the same as data-driven personas except they’re created in direct collaboration with high-level stakeholders…
• Rule 3: You *must* align personas with goals. Rule 4: Use @tamaraadlin‘s magical persona template.
• Ad-hoc personas can (and should) be created before you collect any more data about your users or customers…
• @tamaraadlin believes that companies are suffering from a lack of data, but rather from a lack of *focus*
• Unlike data-drive personas, ad-hoc personas are a focus and communication tool first, and a product design tool second.
• Why care? Personas are already floating around your org, and they’re probably wrong. Personas can solve unclear business objectives
• Collecting more data is expensive and often not very helpful. Ad-hoc personas can be created quickly and inexpensively
• And chances are you’re not sending people to the moon. Not everything has to be super-complex. Ad-hoc personas solve basic problems
• “Most companies are so confused, the last thing they need is more data.” — @tamaraadlin Too much data can be paralyzing for an org
• “Disorganized assumptions are like ghosts; they will haunt your project.” Use ad-hoc personas to bring clarity and focus to your org
• When developing rich experiences across multiple channels w a large team, few ppl have the same users in mind when making decisions
• Hidden personas wreak havoc on products. People are making small compromises that end up becoming huge problems for lots of people
• “Barnacle-based” design happens. Over the years, you add more features and clog up the works of something that was once well designed
• “Corporate underpants” = when your site or product IA mimics your organizations internal structure. HA!
• Shared, prioritized, well-communicated personas align the whole team — inside and out. Even without data, the picture is much better
• Marketing vs. design personas: marketing drives eyeballs to your product, product design moves those eyeballs around once they arrive
• Rule 1: If you don’t have clear goals, the persona effort won’t work. Dirty little secret: no one knows what the company’s goals are
• Identify top three measurable biz objectives for company/project. “What does success look like from a business perspective?”
• Write down your guesses for the goals and make sure you get them approved by the execs before you move forward with the project
• “Increase revenue” and “decrease costs” are not clear, measurable goals. “Increase revenue by X% through online tools” is however
• Woah, this is going a bit fast. Hard for me to keep up. @tamaraadlin is giving great advice for how to set up these meetings w/ execs
• “Never do anything without sticky notes”- @tamaraadlin Get everyone in the room to write all their goals on post-its, then categorize
• Let execs use their own language, then help them adapt it to “I want/I need” statements. This is hard, but will be a major sea change
• Find patterns across the user goals. (You’re doing all this together in a room) Put like items together, and there are your personas
• Ad-hoc personas = testable hypotheses. Now you have a place to start gathering more data. That’s pretty smart, actually.
• Ad-hoc personas are less about getting to the write answers, and more about getting the biz execs sharing how they’re thinking
• “You’ve gotta get the scribbles out before you can draw.” — @tamaraadlin‘s dad. Get the old ways of thinking out first to get to new
• As business goals change, previously developed personas can still hang around but you might need to re-prioritize them accordingly
• @tamaraadlin refers to your boss’s boss and your boss’s boss’s boss as “grand boss” and “great grand boss”. Too funny
• @tamaraadlin is answering my question about why we should call these ad-hoc “personas” instead of “target audiences”…
• She says if you’re planning data-driven personas, it’s good not to give ad-hoc personas names/titles in case you need to revise them
• But calling them “target audiences” might create a turf war with marketing, so instead consider calling them “sketch personas”
• @tamaraadlin talking about the technique she uses for getting execs to prioritize ad-hoc personas using a points system
• Fill in the blank: “If we don’t make ________ ridiculously happy, we’ve failed.” That really gets people talking
• @tamaraadlin persona template elements: alliterative, descriptive name; photo; weighted score/priority; category-admin, end user, etc
• …key quote; meet the persona (2-3 paragraphs); persona’s main questions (in their terms); how we’ll answer (in org’s terms)…
• …lastly, “Oh, by the way” what we (the org) can do for her that she wouldn’t even think to ask for. This loose structure is helpful
• @tamaraadlin just hit on the salient point from Paola Antonelli’s Interaction10 talk: UX is about the stories people tell themselves
• Persona-weighted feature matrix: weight=priority. Score: 2 = persona will love this feature, 1 = sure, it’s fine, expected…
• 0 = doesn’t affect the persona. -1 persona will hate this. Take each feature and plot it against each persona, then score & add up
• @tamaraadlin‘s Persona-weighted feature matrix: http://img.skitch.com/20100218-rmr7hu556bhj9ca6mxhhs1w6d8.jpg
• A great example of plotting personas on a grid to clarify & get buy-in: http://bit.ly/czgtnV
• Last link is particularly useful for communicating with development
• You have the feature priorities, based on persona priorities, based on business or brand goals, which were approved by the executives
• “Personas are the characters. Now tell the stories.” This is similar to scenarios and use cases, but focus on end-to-end stories…
• Not just little snippets of the experience. Users see it as one experience and you need to understand it and plan for it that way too
• This webinar is about way more than ad-hoc personas. It’s really a project definition work session tutorial
• Data is great, but it’s not the only tool in the toolbox. Ad-hoc personas get execs on same page, & help us design a story of the exp
• This story crosses functional areas, product descriptions, politics, etc. Personas get you out of yr own heads, talking to each other
• Your execs aren’t hiding their goals from you…they don’t even really know them! They’re your #1 user — guide them thru the process
• Rule 5: Use tools that *force* people to use the personas. Rule 6: Create stories, not solutions. (missed those two before)
• @tamaraadlin‘s new book is available for pre-order now. Essential Personal Lifecycle: Your Guide to Building & Using Personas
• Again, you can get a 20% discount off of the book at http://www.elsevierdirect.com/product.jsp?isbn=9780123814180 use code: 98704
• I wasn’t able to capture this before. Check out how persona prioritization works using point system: http://bit.ly/9lAK5J
• Personas tend to be evergreen because users’ goals don’t change that much over time – @tamaraadlin. But their behaviors do, no?
• If exec team can’t agree on the priority of the personas, how are you ever going to design a product they believe in?
• “If any of these steps feels terribly difficult, something went wrong in the step before it.” — @tamaraadlin I love that!
• Haha, @tamaraadlin says that many of us listening think the idea of not bringing in users to talk to is heresy. She’s right, I do :)
• Add the upcoming @uie virtual seminars to your calendar! 3/10 Folksonomies with Stephanie Lemieux. 3/31 Prototyping with @zakiwarfel
• 4/22 Web Form Design with @lukewdesign. Learn more about them all at http://www.uie.com/virtual_seminars
• Check out @UIE‘s Web App Masters Tour! http://uietour.com San Diego, Minneapolis, Philly, Seattle. So many great names on the lineup
• That’s all folks, hope you enjoyed the tweets! :)

• IA Summit 2008: Todd Zaki Warfel’s “Data Driven Design Research Personas”
• Silver Winner of the Inaugural User Experience Awards
• “Using Mental Models for Tactics and Strategy” webinar with Indi Young
• Scientific American redesign by Happy Cog has launched
• Whit Hour – Week 18

Last night from 9-10pm Eastern Time I hosted my first Whit Hour — a new weekly video chat in which I answer people’s questions about user experience, consulting, and anything else they ask.

I had an absolute blast and surprisingly talked non-stop — not something I’m particularly comfortable with, but there were just so many great questions! Thank you so so much to everyone who participated. I hope you got as much out of it as I did.

My weekly chats will be hosted at http://tinychat.com/whitney password: whithour. TinyChat is an awesome service, but we discovered last night that having several people broadcasting video at once really slows everything down. Sadly I wasn’t able to record the session, and it was 20 minutes into the hour before my stream looked and sounded great. Hey, you live and you learn.

Next week I’ll be the only one broadcasting (eesh!) and I’ll be sure to record the hour so I can post it here on the blog.

Check out what folks had to say about Whit Hour:

Join me next week, Sunday, August 9, 9-10pm Eastern Time, and bring your questions!

• Whit Hour starts August 2 at 9pm ET
• Whit Hour – Week 6
• Whit Hour – Week 10
• Whit Hour – Week 15
• Whit Hour – Week 16

A few days ago I got an email from the lovely Liz Danzico asking if I’d participate in a video project she was putting together for the Galapagos Art Space’s Career Camp, “a low-cost, high-value, five-part lecture and networking series for professionals (employed or otherwise!) living in New York City.”

On Tuesday Liz participated in Career Camp’s first session: Digital Design. She wanted to share advice from people who have inspired or influenced her work, and I am beyond honored that she though to include me. I really look up to Liz. She is one of the foremost practitioners in information architecture and user experience, and in many ways I hope to follow in her footsteps.

Liz asked each of us to create a 30-second video responding to the following:

So you’re thinking about becoming a digital designer? If I could tell you only *one thing* about going into the field, my advice would be ___________ .

Watch my response below, and see all the videos that Liz collected. It’s truly remarkable to be included among these incredible people:

• Jennifer Bove (Twitter)
• Kevin Cheng (Twitter)
• Jim Coudal (Twitter)
• Robert Hoekman, Jr. (Twitter)
• Jon Kolko (Twitter)
• Michael Mandiberg (Twitter)
• Melissa Pierce (Twitter)
• Joshua Porter (Twitter)
• Steve Portigal (Twitter)
• Ryan Sims (Twitter)
• Jared Spool (Twitter)
• Michael Surtees (Twitter)
• Alissa Walker (Twitter)

Whitney Hess from MFA Interaction Design on Vimeo.

• MFA in Interaction Design at the School of Visual Arts in NYC
• I have joined the UXnet board of directors
• Designing for Startups in Smashing Magazine
• Facebook Privacy Settings Redesign on Fortune.com
• Whit Hour – Week 18

The results are in. Receiving 27% of the 116 total votes, the most preferred time for Whit Hour, my new weekly “office hour” via video chat, is Sundays from 9-10pm Eastern Time.

I’ll be using TinyChat, at least for now. You can join the video conference at http://tinychat.com/whitney with the password whithour.

Come one, come all. Bring your questions about user experience, consulting, entrepreneurship, etc. — things you might normally e-mail me or Twitter to me about.

If you can’t make the time slot, don’t fret. I’ll be posting a recording of each week’s Whit Hour here on the blog.

Looking forward to chatting with you all soon!

• The first Whit Hour was a success
• Finding a day and time for Whit Hour
• Whit Hour – Week 6
• Whit Hour – Week 10
• Whit Hour – Week 4

A couple weeks ago I told you about the super awesome new MFA in Interaction Design program launching at the School of Visual Arts in New York City next fall.

The first-year schedule is now public!

Take a look…

SEMESTER ONE, FALL 2009

Monday
2:00-4:50PM
Strategic Innovation in Product/Service Design

Monday
6:00-8:50PM
Interaction Design Fundamentals

Tuesday
6:00-8:50PM
Seminars and Workshops- 5 week courses

Wednesday
2:00-4:50PM
Fundamentals of Physical Computing

Wednesday
6:00-8:00PM
Lecture Series (Required for students, but open to the public)

Thursday
6:00-8:50PM
Communicating Design

SEMESTER TWO, SPRING 2010

Monday
2:00-4:50PM
Designing for Good (5 week course)

Monday
6:00-8:50PM
Prototyping User Experiences

Tuesday
6:00-8:50PM
Seminars and Workshops (5 week courses)

Wednesday
2:00-4:50PM
Research Methods

Wednesday
6:00-8:50PM
Information Visualization

Thursday
6:00-8:50PM
Entrepreneurial Design

At the Happy Cog holiday party last night, I had the pleasure of spending a good chunk of time talking to Chris Fahey. He told me about all of the work he’s putting into preparing for the Interaction Design Fundamentals class he’ll be teaching. The course description from the program website is:

Through a series of themes, this course explores diverse disciplines, both historical and theoretical, to demonstrate how these themes shape contemporary practices in interaction design. Beginning with the core interactions of the body manifested in dance, language, music, art and architecture, continuing to the psychological and sociological ideas that have shaped how we interact with one another, through the inventions and technologies that transform the human condition, this course provides context and inspiration for the practicing designer. Students learn fundamental interaction and communication design concepts, influential people and movements, and iconic projects and designs. Students come away with a vocabulary and toolkit for future design challenges.

Tell me that doesn’t make you quiver with excitement! I’m going to needle my way into that class no matter what it takes. And so many of the other courses sound amazing, too. Read up on the first year and second year curricula.

So what do you think of the schedule? Which courses do you want to know more about? I’ll collect as much info as I can from the program chair Liz Danzico and post it here.

Stay tuned to the MFA in Interaction Design blog for continued updates.

• MFA in Interaction Design at the School of Visual Arts in NYC
• So you wanna be a user experience designer — Step 1: Resources
• Get a 15% discount to DelveUI in NYC
• Hanging out at IxDA’s Interaction09
• Design Principles: The Philosophy of UX

Starting in the Fall of 2009, the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in NYC will offer a Master of Fine Arts in Interaction Design.

As the program website states, “the MFA in Interaction Design program trains students to research, analyze, prototype, and design concepts in their business, social, and cultural contexts.”

The full-time two-year program is a dream. The chair is the ubiquitous Liz Danzico, the brains behind the operation. She has put together the most impressive faculty list I’ve ever seen. Jennifer Bove, Chris Fahey, Paul Ford, Jason Santa Maria, Khoi Vinh, Jeffrey Zeldman, and many more exceptionally talented practitioners.

Only 15 students will be accepted to the program each year, and classes will mostly be offered in the evenings to accommodate people’s full-time jobs. If I didn’t already have a Master’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction, I would jump at the chance to experience this. What an honor to learn from the best of the best of the best practicing in the field today.

Kudos to Liz for the incredible amount of work she must have put into organizing the MFA in Interaction Design. I’m not alone in being really impressed.

Master of Design in Interaction Design at Carnegie Mellon (my alma mater) is a phenomenal two-year program, and has produced some top people in the field — most notably Dan Saffer, principal of Kicker Studio, and author of Designing for Interaction and Designing Gestural Interfaces.

University of Washington offers an interaction design concentration in its MFA in Visual Communication Design and MFA in Industrial Design programs. The University of Baltimore’s school of Information Arts & Technologies offers a M.S. Interaction Design and Information Architecture (5 semesters), and the University of Kansas’s School of Fine Arts offers a M.A. Interaction Design (31 credit hours, not sure how much time that takes).

I think it’s safe to say that in the United States, there is no other program quite like the MFA Interaction Design that will be offered at the School of Visual Arts.

SVA is a special place. In 1970, my dad was in the very first graduating class of their photography program. At the time it wasn’t a degree-granting program; they only offered a certificate. Today it is one of the most treasured photography schools in the world. Imagine what it will be like in 2011 for a student to say that he or she was in the first ever graduating class of the MFA Interaction Design at SVA. Imagine how much SVA can do to change the way the world sees the practice of interaction design. I get teary just thinking about it.

Applications can be submitted until January 15, 2009, with rolling admissions to follow based on availability. Read the Interaction Blog to keep up with the developments.

[Read the press release about the new MFA Interaction Design program at SVA]

• Class Schedule for MFA in Interaction Design at SVA
• So you wanna be a user experience designer — Step 1: Resources
• Join me at IDEA2009 on Sept 15-16
• Fulfilling My Dreams, and Saying No Along the Way
• Video of Dan Saffer’s talk “Tap is the New Click” at IxDA NYC