It was 7:19pm. There I was, standing outside of Tarzian Hardware, its gate down and locked, the lights turned off. The store hours sign read Monday – Friday 8:30am – 7pm. I knocked on the window. I rattled the gate. I called the store from my cell phone with 8% battery remaining and could hear the ringing inside. No answer. I planned to leave a message in desperation in the hopes that someone would check voicemail overnight, but the mailbox was full. I was screwed.

The only copy of my apartment keys were inside.

I had brought them in an hour earlier to get dupes made, then left to run other errands. In my attempt to be efficient, I had made a fatal mistake: I never checked to see when the store closed. I’m accustomed to stores being open 24/7, certainly not closing at 7pm. Toto, we’re not in Manahttan anymore.

As I stood there hopeless, planning to ride the subway 45 minutes to stay overnight in my parents’ empty apartment (yeah, I had those keys!), I gave it one last ditch effort by Googling the store owner’s name in an attempt to find a home phone number. The store had only been closed for 20 minutes; the closing manager couldn’t be too far away, right?

Google turned up dry. I was out of options.

Just when I turned around to leave, I saw a man with a dog approaching the apartment building above the store. I had a game-time decision to make, and I went for it: “Excuse me,” I asked to his back as he put his keys in the front door.

“Yes?”

“I’m so sorry to bother you, but I was just wondering if you know the owners of this store.”

“I do.” Wow, Park Slopers are tight, I thought.

“Well do you happen to have their phone number? I didn’t know what time they closed and the only copy of my house keys are inside.” I was embarrassed to say it out loud.

“I have the keys to the store,” he said, and blood started coursing through my veins again.

“I can’t believe you have the keys to the store,” I exclaimed. “What luck!” He tied up his dog to a hydrant and got down on the ground to unlock the gate and the door.

As he undid the last lock, he looked up at me. “I’m the owner.”

Dumbfounded. Seriously?! THIS is Brooklyn.

Once inside, he found the copies of my keys under the counter along with the several screwdrivers I had put aside earlier to buy when I came back. When he was ringing me up and the cost was rising, he generously asked, “Did you mean to buy this brand? These are professional grade tools.” I thanked him for his honesty and told him that I was replacing some of my old and broken stuff, and a salesperson had helped me find these. “And these are the ones he told you to get?” He almost seemed upset that the guy had upsold me.

“I’m fine with these. I’ll never have to replace them again,” I said, grateful that he had been there to save me and eager not to shortchange him now.

As he finished up, I asked him his name (John) and his story (family business since 1921 that he now runs). I told him my name, said I was new to the neighborhood, and assured him that he’d be seeing a lot of me.

As we walked out and he closed up, I was struck by something: in 29 years, I’ve never introduced myself to a shop owner before. I’ve never cared to. I have greatly treasured my anonymity in the big city and have rarely engaged in small talk anywhere I’ve shopped. I’ve valued getting in and out quickly, silently, and mechanically. I truly don’t know why.

But I chose to move, chose to leave my native Manhattan with its deadly consumerist march and its Disneyfication and its hordes of tourists and multiplying big box chains. I wanted to live in a cozy neighborhood, to support its small businesses, to know its history and to become a part of it.

I’ve always wanted to go where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came. Where customer service is a moral obligation, not a business tactic.

I am home.

• Apple Customer Support Fiasco
• Photo of the day: LLUP to open
• Photo of the day: Whirlpool dishwasher utensil tray
• My high school computer science homework
• Photo of the day: Do Not Disturb

I arrived into Newark Airport from Tel Aviv at 4:45am ET, having been awake for 30 hours straight. U.S. Customs was rather empty so early in the morning. I approached the agent, handed him my passport, and waited for the inevitable inquisition:

“Were you in Israel for business or pleasure?” Never has the question struck me so hard as when arriving home from Israel, each of the three times I’ve been so blessed to travel there.

It is asked as an “or,” as though business and pleasure are mutually exclusive. It’s an outdated and unfitting question especially in the United States where national ethos dictates that we be fulfilled by our careers, follow our dreams, and strive for personal achievement in all that we do.

Being self-employed, this is particularly true. I have complete freedom over the course of my career, with money, skills and time being my only limitations. When business and pleasure are two distinct entities for an independent, you’re doing it wrong. I’ve fallen into this trap time and time again.

Despite the promise that our expansive country offers to immigrants from across the globe, there remains an undercurrent of professional dissatisfaction among many Americans. Work is associated with dread, business with selfishness and exploitation and dehumanization of even its most talented employees. We have constructed a society (or have allowed it to deconstruct as the case may be) in which it has become increasingly difficult to break out of this mold, where “work-life balance” is a business initiative designed to further inculcate the 150-year-old industrial construct of work-leisure dichotomy while pretending to make us feel good. The ideals of few have become the handcuffs of many.

I am determined to make business my pleasure and pleasure my business. For the last three years I have been consumed with achieving success, status and financial gain, foolishly equating ambition with breadth of achievement rather than depth of happiness. In the last couple months, all of that has changed. I’m no longer trying to climb the ladder that persisted in my mind even after leaving the corporate world. Instead I’m taking on a much more challenging pursuit of pleasure infused in all that I do.

Pleasure in business doesn’t require the same amount of activity as success in business does. This can be daunting at first; we’ve been trained to believe that momentum and velocity are signs of progress. But there’s progress in rest, too. In deep contemplation and 360-degree delight. It often means doing less, more slowly, for a longer period of time. It takes dedication and concentration and resilience, similar qualities of character applied in whole new ways. I’m enjoying the process of learning how to be still and still be me. After all, it’s the journey, not the destination, right? The only path in life I feel compelled to follow is one of wholeness, goodness and peace.

• Where is Whitney in 2011?
• Leaving for Israel
• Maimonides’ Eight Levels of Charity Applied to Building Your Personal Brand
• May you be inscribed in the book of life
• Help me celebrate my 1st year of self-employment

You might have realized I haven’t been here in a while. That’s because I’ve been everywhere else.

I spent my summer doing deeply meaningful client projects and traveling the world sharing my passion for making people’s lives better. I met a ton of interesting new people along the way — people who inspired me to keep going, to consider new perspectives, and to enjoy the best that life has to offer.

Despite it being the densest period of travel, speaking engagements, and deadlines I’ve ever had, it was also one of the most relaxing. How can that be possible? Because I eliminated a lot of the miscellaneous obligations that had been dragging me down for a long time. I’m more focused than I’ve ever been. I’m doing only what’s important to me personally and to my business, and nothing superfluous. I’m enjoying my weekends, spending more time with friends, taking time to smell the proverbial roses, and taking much better care of myself.

I had a string of recurring sinus infections in the spring that seemed incurable, and I knew I needed to give myself a break. I was on the brink of burning out. While I didn’t reduce my travel or my workload, I gave myself the permission to ignore everything else: emails, meeting requests, writing gigs, volunteering, and most of all, this blog.

Not writing for the last three months has been incredibly difficult. Writing is how I express myself best and has been such a powerful tool of growth over the course of my life. But it also takes a lot out of me, mentally and emotionally. “If you love something, let it go.” That became my mantra this summer, and I’m happy to say with absolute confidence that I am now back and better than ever.

This summer brought several important milestones: the 6th anniversary of my LLC (August 3), the 3rd anniversary of my self-employement (August 22), and the last year of my 20s (July 11).

I spent my birthday in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island on a solo weeklong tech-free vacation that I had been dreaming about for years. I ate the most delicious mussels, oysters, lobster and scallops I’d ever eaten, three meals a day for seven days and I still wanted more. I walked around the Fortress of Louisbourg where the French tried (unsuccessfully) to fight off the British. I rode the muddy waters of the world’s largest tidal bore in a three-propeller raft along the Shubenacadie River with six strangers (four were there for a bachelor party adventure). I celebrated the end of lobster season at the annual Pictou Lobster Carnival (population 2000, one of whom told me that this is the *only* thing that happens in the town all year). I saw the area that inspired Anne of Green Gables (a series I’ve never actually read) whose rolling hills really are remarkably green enough to be named after. I learned how whiskey is made (and drank some!) at Nova Scotia’s only single malt distillery, designed to the exact specifications of namesake Scotland. I spent an hour watching local kids jump off a bridge into the inlet below, then swim up to the rocks, climb back up to the bridge, and do it all over again (I wanted to join them, but couldn’t work up the courage). I swayed to the Preservation Hall Jazz Band who came all the way from New Orleans to play at the Halifax Jazz Festival under a large tent on the waterfront. I went to a tweetup with the web designers of Halifax who explained Nova Scotian customs and insisted I eat a donair (I did). I spent my birthday morning on the boulders of Peggy’s Cove (red lighthouse behind me, Atlantic waves crashing in front of me, hopping from rock to rock in my flip flops, trying not to fall), my birthday afternoon walking through the storybook town of Lunenberg (a UNESCO World Heritage site preserved from the late 1700s), and my birthday evening eating an unforgettable farm-to-table five-course meal in an old converted home owned by a local couple. When it was all said and done, I had driven more than 2500 kilometers (1500 miles), exceeded all my expectations, and didn’t miss my laptop, my iPad or even my phone one eensy teensy bit.

I had a few very important revelations while I was on vacation and I’m in the process of making the necessary changes to my life in order to be closer to the person I want to be. Among them is taking much better care of my health (I always thought I had been, but I was ignoring one major part). If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably noticed by now that I’ve been tweeting what I eat along with the #4HB hashtag (which stands for 4 Hour Body, a book by Tim Ferriss). Call it a diet, call it an eating plan, whatever you want to call it, I’m in control of my body for the first time in my life and I feel amazing. I’ll go into all that in another post soon.

As for where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing, here’s the full itinerary starting June 1:

Vancouver, Canada

Interlink Conference
Design Principles: The Philosophy of UX

Sebastopol, CA

Foo Camp

Florence, Italy

Frontiers of Interaction ’11
When I Speak My Mind

Atlanta, GA

UPA International
Design Principles: The Philosophy of UX
Evangelizing Yourself

Atlanta Web Design Group
Design Principles: The Philosophy of UX

Nova Scotia, Canada

Vacation!

Philadelphia, PA

Wharton Web Conference
Design Principles: The Philosophy of UX

Miami, FL

Client work

Atlanta, GA

Client work

Burlington, VT

Client work

Tel Aviv, Israel

UX Israel Live 2011
Design Principles: The Philosophy of UX
Creating a Culture of UX

(Of course this doesn’t count 2011 prior to June when I was in Boulder, San Francisco, Austin, LA, San Diego, Denver, Portland, Boston, and Burlington)

I feel so blessed to be invited to speak around the world — it really blows my mind — and to have such wonderful and widespread clients. It’s an honor and a privilege. I’ll go into more detail on each of these in subsequent posts. I AM BACK! And I’m so happy to be here. I can’t wait to share more about what I’ve been doing and what big changes are just around the bend.

Won’t you come along with me?

• A Brief Recap on Year 4
• Design Principles: The Philosophy of UX
• From the Archive: Interview with The Baltimore Sun
• Where is Whitney in 2011?
• Awesome Email of the Day: Evangelizing Myself

It’s no secret that I’m completely obsessed with Skitch — the handy screenshot, annotation and image sharing tool for Mac — since I tell pretty much anyone who’ll listen. I’ve probably stood over 100 shoulders waiting for folks to download and install it, then watch their eyes open wide when they realize what they now have at their fingertips.

Imagine my delight when my friend Brian Papa said that he saw me on the Skitch homepage! I’m one of their featured testimonials on the homepage and Buzz page.

Whitney Hess
Interaction Designer
whitneyhess.com
“Skitch opens up a small app that shows the screenshot and allows you to manipulate it in a variety of ways: resize, rotate, annotate, etc. It’s ridiculously easy and lightweight, yet incredibly robust (in terms of quality of functionality, not necessarily breadth of functionality — it’s no Photoshop). It might be the most fluid annotation software I’ve ever seen.”

Since I don’t go to their homepage often, I hadn’t seen it myself and have no idea how long it’s been there. But I’m so glad I could be helpful to them in some way, after all the help Skitch has given me over the years.

I first wrote about Skitch in January 2008, and almost 3-1/2 years later it remains my most used app, after my web browser and email client. After 3 years in beta, they finally released Skitch 1.0 in December, offering a ton more features in the desktop app and on the accompanying web app. Once you start using it, it’ll be no surprise to you that two of the cofounders, Cris Pearson and Keith Lang, are interaction designers. More designers should follow in their entrepreneur footsteps.

You can check out my public Skitches at http://skitch.com/whitney. Almost all of the images you see in my blog posts are captured, cropped, resized and hosted by Skitch.

If you use a Mac and you don’t use Skitch, go download it now. Then come back here and thank me :)

• Skitch!
• Skitch beta 8 now available
• Firefox 3 Beta 3 vs. Firefox 2.0
• Mozilla finally releases Firefox 3.0
• The boxee website redesign

Around this time three years ago, I started considering the possibilities of being independently-employed for the first time. Quite honestly it had never even really occurred to me before I met people who were doing it — and were happy, successful and encouraging. It wasn’t until August of that year that I actually took the plunge.

Being independent has always been something I’ve prided myself on, as an adjective. But the last three years living it, as a noun, has completely reshaped my identity.

I’m proud to release to the public a scrapbook I’ve been keeping of articles, facts, tips, guidance, did-you-knows, personal stories and general inspiration about going independent, staying independent, and growing independently — as a way to live, not just to work.

I call it Lifework because anyone who’s out on their own knows it’s about putting life first. It’s about finding your life’s work and following the numerous paths that are laid out before you. It’s not just a job and it’s more than a career.

Self-employment is of the self; it requires a tremendous amount of self-discipline, self-reflection, self-control, self-confidence, self-doubt, self-determination, self-sacrificing, and often, if we’re being honest here, self-indulgence.

These are topics I want to explore more fully and intend to dedicate a major part of my life to better understanding and sharing what I find with others. I hope you join me.

[Lifework -- The other way around]

• Whit Hour – Week 12
• Being a consultant is like being an actor
• Pleasure and Pain turns 2
• Independently employed? What’s your retirement plan?
• What are you worth?

This happened five months ago, and I was so stunned by the honor that I think I pushed it somewhere deep into my subconscious until now.

In Search Patterns: Design for Discovery by Peter Morville and Jeffrey Callender, there are these cute people icons that accompany various illustrations throughout the book. There was so much interest in these images that they decided to publish a collection of stencils for Omingraffle with both people and their Mr. Potato Head-like parts for use in personas and diagrams.

One of the sets Callender created is called UX Caricatures, and it contains some faces you might recognize.

Yep, that redhead is me! I’m kind of amazed at their attention to detail — I recognize that sweater, that necklace, those earrings. The dimples! Morville even held a contest to see who could name each person in the set, and gave away a copy of the book to those who guessed all correctly.

There have been more than 2,000 downloads of the UX Caricatures alone, and more than 15,000 downloads of all of Callender’s stencils combined.

I’ve been an admirer of Peter Morville since college, so you can imagine how it felt that he would think to include me with such an esteemed group of people. I cannot thank them both enough.

Now go put me in a wireframe or something!

• Sketching made easier by UI Stencils
• Hanging out at IxDA’s Interaction09
• I have joined the UXnet board of directors
• UX Bookshelf
• My BlackBerry Wishlist

The work I love is about helping companies who love their customers discover how to be better to them…not convincing them to care.

The work I love is about empowering customers to get the service they deserve…not trying to get them to buy into what they don’t really need.

The work I love is about understanding customers by listening to them…not implementing generic best practices based on my experiences with other companies.

The work I love is about identifying a company’s target audiences and optimizing the experience for them…not attempting to design a product meant for everyone that actually serves no one.

The work I love is about helping a company’s employees to thrive just as much as their customers…not improving the customer experience while ignoring organizational breakdowns.

The work I love is about conducting primary research and analyzing it to form a product strategy…not developing designs based on assumptions and predetermined business requirements.

The work I love is about equipping companies to do design thinking about produce great solutions over the long-term…not producing the work on my own for only short-term gain.

The work I love is about collaboration and iteration and shared learning…not documentation and deliverables for the appearance of formality.

The work I love is about having a process to give structure to a project when it’s needed and room for experimentation when it it’s needed…not just process for process sake.

The work I love is about the people I work with and the people we help…not the money I make for the company or the money I make for myself.

The work I love is about changing the world for the better…not trying to fit in, or appear glamorous, or taking down the competition just to win.

If this sounds like you or like the kind of person you want to work with, then I want to work with you. I’m always on the lookout for the right kind of projects. I only want to do the work I love.

Think you have something that would excite me? Please get in touch at whitney@whitneyhess.com.

“My heart is in the work.” — Andrew Carnegie

• Why I detest the term “Lean UX”
• Nationwide Insurance demonstrates user research with NationPam
• Loosecubes and the future of work
• Undercover Boss: Just How Badly is Your Company Screwing Itself
• The User Experience Relationship

Sure, the web has made communication more brief, more casual, and a lot more impersonal. But people haven’t ceased to have feelings, so etiquette shouldn’t fly out the window.

My friends at RedStamp, a modern stationery company based in Minneapolis, recently released an iPhone app that makes it a cinch to brighten someone’s day and add that personal touch to your correspondence. I’ve been using it every day since I downloaded it — sending thank yous, best wishes and condolences to friends and colleagues. Each note is customized and unique, setting itself apart from trite Facebook wall posts and inbox clutter.

Every card I’ve sent has gotten an emphatic response because it was unexpected and brightened someone’s day. In fact, because the app is so fun to use, I find myself sending these kinds of messages far more often than I used to. I’m reminded now just how important etiqeutte and common kindness are to the health of our relationships and community.

You can send via email, post to Facebook or Twitter, or even — get this — send it as a postcard via mail with the exact same design. The SVG image technology that RedStamp uses allows the cards to look great both digitally an in print.

This is only V1 of the app, and new features and bug fixes are being released every week. It’s such a powerful little app, I can’t stop myself from thinking of a whole slew of ideas to share with the RedStamp team. They’re a small, nimble and highly engaged company, so if you see anywhere they can improve, don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and I’ll be sure to pass them along.

Thank the people who’ve helped you today, or even those who’ve just tried. Congratulate someone on their win, or console someone on their loss. Go out of your way to show that you care, without much effort at all. Kindness travels far, so do it in style.

Start

For

Because

Add a Photo

View Cards

Swipe

Choose

Edit Text

Send

My Mailbox

[Read Gotham Gal Joanne Wilson's wonderful blog post on RedStamp's co-founder and CEO Erin Newkirk.]

• Proud to announce that I’m now a UX advisor for RedStamp
• The most accurate portrayal of User Experience Designers ever created
• Facebook Privacy Settings Redesign on Fortune.com
• Awesome Email of the Day: How Little You Really Know
• Hanging out at IxDA’s Interaction09

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

Pleasure and Pain is not my first blog. It’s probably my fifth, though it’s certainly the only one that ever took off.

From September 2004 – August 2006, I had a blog called self-preservation (self-hosted WordPress, natch). At the time, I was pretty damn proud of myself for that witty title — and I kinda still am. It wasn’t a blog about UX or tech specifically, it was just a random assortment of things I found interesting at the time.

I was recently compelled to browse through the old posts to see if there’s any content worth revisiting. And boy are there some gems! I’ll repost things here as I find them.

Here’s a great reminder of just how far consumer technology has come in six short years.

Written January 17, 2005:

On my way home, my cell phone battery pooped out. It’s been hanging on by a thread lately, and since I was overdue for an upgrade, I decided to renew my contract with Verizon and got a deep discount on a new phone: the Samsung SCH-a670. It’s a CDMA camera phone with speaker-independent voice dialing. That means that without programming my voice, I can dial anyone’s number just by saying their name. The phone also has a color screen, Multimedia Messaging Support, and voice memo recording.

I’m sure I’ll be reading the manual for the rest of the night to figure out the other cool features. I love new toys!

God, I loved that phone. A secondary display when the clamshell was closed…hotness!

• My Cell Phones: 2000 – Today
• Photo of the day: A 90-year-old’s cell phone
• Ten Best Things and Five Worst Things About the BlackBerry
• Tips and Tricks for BlackBerry Users
• Photo of the day: But if you teach me to organize…