As I write this, I am currently the Mayor of Roundarch on foursquare. What does that mean? Does anyone care? These are fair questions.

For those who aren’t familiar,

“foursquare is a cross between a friend-finder, a social city-guide and a game that rewards you for doing interesting things. We aim to build things to not only help you keep up with the places your friends go, but that encourage you to discover new places and challenge you to explore your neighborhood in new ways.”

One way to think about it is like a location-aware version of Twitter. foursquare works on mobile phones such as the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Droid. The general idea is that anytime you go somewhere, you “check in” with the foursquare application on your phone. First, foursquare will provide a list of nearby points of interest where it thinks you might be. If your location is already in its database, you can simply choose it from a search results list and check in. If not, you can manually enter the venue and it becomes part of the database. You earn points and “Badges” for various activities, such as your first time at a new location, a certain number of stops at a given location or in one day, etc.

foursquare on the iPhone

While checking in, you can choose to add a “Shout,” which is just a short line of text about what you’re doing (thus the comparison to Twitter). foursquare also encourages you to leave “tips” about the location. Your foursquare “Friends” can be alerted of your check-ins if they so choose, and the program can be configured to automatically update your Twitter and Facebook pages as well. Doing so posts a link back to a page on the foursquare website for that location, as well as any milestone the user has attained with that check-in.

foursquare Update on Twitter

foursquare Wall post on Facebook

So what’s this “Mayor” nonsense? Whoever has checked in the most times at a specific location becomes the Mayor. At Roundarch, my co-worker Rachelle Bowden (who contributed to this post) and I have traded the Mayor title back and forth for the past couple of months. It makes for some pretend water cooler contentiousness, but it doesn’t get either of us anything. The Mayor doesn’t get to take the day off or fire one person of his or her choice. There are a few others at Roundarch who play – not too surprising since we’re a Web design and development company. But at the other places where I’m Mayor – my gym, a local bar – there’s a good chance that I’m the only person who’s ever checked in, or even heard of foursquare for that matter. So I’m essentially the Mayor of nothing.

Badges and Mayorship on foursquare.com

To quote my father, “Why would anyone do that?” Good question. While foursquare is mostly just for fun now, businesses are starting to take note and rewarding users’ behavior. For example, a bar or coffee shop might recognize the current Mayor with free drinks. Wow Bao and Berry Chill offer such incentives here in Chicago.

Wow Bao Promotion

Chicago’s Office of Tourism has recently started a partnership with foursquare, where users can earn special Chicago “badges” by checking in at a number of citywide locations relevant to one of three iconic Chicago themes: Chicago blues, Chicago-style hot dogs, and Chicago film locations. A partnership has also been announced with Bravo TV, integrating show personalities and their city tips, as well as a Bravo badges, into the game experience.

More recently, the “Special Nearby” tag started appearing on the application alongside certain locations. Clicking it serves up a local advertisement, tied into foursquare. So in that way, foursquare can drive foot traffic to a business.

Special Nearby

Behind the scenes, foursquare is building a database of user behavior. This information can be valuable to businesses, as they will be able to gain access to analytics about their customers and make decisions accordingly.

Of course, these business applications require a critical mass of users. A sample size of one foursquare member won’t do much good for my gym if they’re trying to gain some meaningful intelligence about their customers. With estimates of around 300,000 users now, foursquare may be on their way, but only time will tell about its long-term success. They’re not alone either – a number of competitors such as Gowalla and MyTown offer similar services, and who knows what Twitter and Facebook will ultimately do in the location-aware space.

This critical mass is also key if one of the goals of the site truly is to be a “friend finder.” While early adopters make up the foursquare user base now, it will need to reach the general public to become a useful social tool.

Not to end on a bummer, but there has also been quite a bit of chatter about privacy and security concerns with these kinds of location-aware applications. The cleverly-named PleaseRobMe.com is trying to raise awareness of the “telling everyone you’re not at home issue,” while others have expressed concern over the potential for “stalking” behavior. There’s enough to talk about on this subject for an entirely different blog post, so we won’t get into it here. Suffice it to say, checking in at 2:00am from a dark street corner in a shady part of town might not be the best idea. Although, you’d have a pretty good chance of becoming the Mayor.

For over 50 years, the Society for Technical Communication (STC) has been bringing people together. The 14,000-member organization began as a group of technical writers and editors, but their focus has evolved along with technology. To that end, the STC’s annual Summit now includes a User Experience Institute, which is a set of five user experience-focused sessions.

This year, the STC leadership invited me to organize the User Experience Institute, and I gladly accepted. I planned a session to present myself, and invited four other respected friends and colleagues. The sessions are summarized below.

The STC Summit takes place May 3-6 in Atlanta. Find more information at conference.stc.org.

Rich User Experience Documentation
John Yesko, Roundarch

As websites are moving further away from the “page” metaphor and toward more interactive “2.0” experiences, designers are faced with moving beyond the site map and static wireframe. We need to be able to communicate more fluid interfaces and interactions. Sometimes this means documenting very detailed functionality and almost infinite “states” in a rich Internet application, or representing motion in a static medium. But it can also mean stepping back to paint a broader picture—establishing and communicating the fundamental approach for a site’s interactions—to build consensus before the detailed work begins. This presentation will cover several highly-visual documentation techniques, which attempt to communicate the exact right amount of information, to the right stakeholders, at the right points in the project. From presenting a high-level concept map to an executive, to producing a usable functional spec for visual designers and developers, we will cover a wide range of deliverables.

Designing for the Conversation—Social Media and User Experience Design
Eric J. Grandeo, Roundarch

Social Media and Web 2.0 represents the evolution of the conversation and digital user experience. This presentation will cover the user experience design considerations when planning for a social media implementation. It will review social behavioral analysis and profiles, common goals, tools, and techniques that facilitate social interaction and maximize content exposure. We will review a proven methodology that augments the user centered design process to include the best practices of social media. Attendees will walk away with a thorough understanding of the social media space, and how it integrates with user experience design.

Information Architecture and Interaction Design in Museum Environments
Julian Jackson, Adler Planetarium

Physical environments are rich opportunities for conveying meaning and information in unique ways. Nowhere is this as evident as in the design of museums and their individual exhibits. Who didn’t have some deeply affecting experience in a museum as a child which still shapes their perception or understanding? But the information is growing more complex and the expectations of audiences are rapidly changing, while the opportunities and tools at our disposal are growing. This presentation will explore how modern museums are responding to the challenges and opportunities of transforming the entire visitor experience and highlights individual examples of excellence and innovation.

From Sketching to Code: Jump-Starting the Interaction Design Process
Christopher Fahey, Behavior Design

It’s the start of a new project. You’ve got requirements, guidelines, research. Now what? Like an artist staring at a blank canvas, when designing interactive products we often don’t know where to start. Instead of just waiting for perfect ideas to appear out of the blue, how can we plan for and execute a process of synthesizing specific design concepts and approaches that meet the different needs of diverse stakeholders and users, while ensuring that we’re producing innovative and high-quality products? The answer is through collaborative exercises, design research, and controlled explorative processes, from sketching to mood boards to user scenario modeling. This session will share a broad range of tools and techniques for systematically coming up with the best ideas for your site or product’s design, and for bridging the gaps between the interests of the design, technology, business, and marketing disciplines.

Deconstructing the Magic:
Communicating What We Do, How We Do It, and Why it Takes Time and Money
Barbra Wells and Carol Righi, Perficient

A topic of intense interest in our community centers on the “Magic” of design. This session discusses practical techniques for practitioners, business developers, UX managers, and others involved in IT design and development for “deconstructing the Magic” – that is, for explaining in a meaningful, clear, tactful, cogent, and impactful way what we do, how we do it, and why it takes time and costs money. We discuss messaging aimed at a variety of audiences, talk about actual experiences (both good and bad) delivering this message, and, with the audience’s help, brainstorm additional techniques. The goal of this session is to send all participants back to the workplace with practical, actionable techniques for justifying what we do in a way that gets buy-in from our audience and hence, makes our job easier, our relationships more collaborative, and ultimately, our deliverables more useful, usable, and engaging.

First, a disclaimer. I’m by no means a political junkie. While I’ve been as captivated by this recent election as anyone, I don’t intend to spark any political debates. When challenged with a political argument, my most likely response is something like “Yeah, maybe, but isn’t Desperate Housewives about to start?”

Photo courtesy of Scout J

That said, there are a few lessons from Barack Obama’s campaign that apply to our world of user experience consulting.

Those of us on Obama’s email list were barraged with messages. One thing every email had in common was a specific mission: get you to do something. It was often to make a donation, but not always. There were invitations to local gatherings, encouragement to contact voters in neighboring swing states, etc. Regardless, it was always obvious and easy to take the next step.

It’s a good strategy to keep in mind in our design work. In any given Web page, email, advertisement, whatever—make it clear what the user is supposed to do next.  If there are too many competing messages, or the call-to-action is somehow camouflaged, we’re making the user work too hard.

There’s no substitute for good graphic design. All of the Obama materials were consistently beautiful throughout the campaign. From the website, to the signage, to the downloadable desktop wallpapers—it all looked great and portrayed a distinctive brand.

I would argue that if you took the names off of almost any other candidate’s collateral, they would be very hard to tell apart. Not so with Obama. They managed to make it feel fresh and contemporary, but still retain the expected “patriotic” color palette. The attention to detail was impressive, down to the electronic tickets emailed to attendees of the Grant Park rally.

The lesson here is clear: work with smart, talented creatives. Involve them from the beginning, and encourage them to be the stewards of the brand throughout the process. This is our approach at Roundarch.

As interesting as the ubiquity of Obama branding was throughout the campaign, was its absence at the election night rally. While Obama supporters had plenty of swag on hand, the stage was devoid of it. The only decoration was a row of American flags. The message to me was, “The sales job is over. Now it’s time to do some work.”

Back to the emails for a minute. When I received an email, it was from “Barack Obama.” The same thing was true with campaign posts on Twitter–they had his name on them. I even got a couple emails from “Michelle Obama.” Now, I’m not naïve enough to think that she sat down and

tapped out an email to me while Malia and Sasha’s chicken nuggets were cooking. However, a communication from a “person” always feels better than one from a vague entity, such as, say “RNC email subscription service.” (OK, I made that up.)

Similar efforts to connect personally with constituents can be found on the Obama website. One of the main navigation items is “People,” which features dedicated content sections for specific audiences, e.g., “Small Business” and “African Americans.” Each group even gets its own clever version of the Obama logo.

In addition, there’s a prominent banner addressing “Hillary Supporters”–clearly reaching out to an audience that needed to be embraced.

How can we emulate this approach? Remember that’s it’s all about people. Be sure to know your audience. It’s impossible to develop a good solution if you don’t know the motivations and context of your site’s users. But it also means that you should get to know your clients. Communication will be smoother and more productive if you understand each others’ perspectives.

Finally, back up your work by “signing” it. Put your name on your documentation. Here’s a free tip–maybe a custom footer that says something like “I’m (insert name) and I approve of this wireframe.”

Throughout the campaign, I was impressed by Barack Obama’s composure. When personal attacks or outlandish statements came his way, he never seemed to get off track. He took a breath, smiled, and responded in a thoughtful manner. It left me with a feeling of trust.

At Roundarch, we value “soft skills” in our consultants as much as hands-on design skills. That means strategizing with a client, building consensus within a group, communicating the pros and cons of multiple options, and in general making smart, confident recommendations. Being able to explain and defend your thought process is critical. You may not always win over the audience, but if you demonstrate preparedness and passion, at the very least you will win respect.

Did you see the election night rally? Chicago is a great city. It has all the big city attractions–business, culture, recreation, physical beauty–and as a bonus the people are generally pretty nice and normal. I’m somewhat biased because I’ve lived here for 35 years, but visitors and transplants I speak with echo the same opinion. Sure, some people complain about the weather. But hey, it was 72 degrees on November 4.

The instructions for this are a little more complicated, so I’ll save it for a future blog post. Oh, make sure your family is awesome too, just in case someone starts poking around.

I recently had the chance to present at two different user experience conferences. While the venues were different, the subject matter was the same—user experience documentation for rich interfaces.

First was the Web 2.0 Expo in New York, back in September. I had a packed house for a three-hour workshop. Then just a few weeks ago, I covered the same topic for a smaller crowd, in a one-hour presentation at Web Builder 2.0 in Las Vegas.

Why this topic? As the work we do at Roundarch moves away from the “page” metaphor and toward richer, more interactive experiences, we designers are faced with moving beyond the site map and static wireframe. We need to be able to communicate more fluid interfaces and interactions.

Sometimes this means documenting very detailed functionality and almost infinite “states,” or representing motion in a static medium. But it can also mean stepping back to paint a broader picture—establishing and communicating the fundamental approach for a site’s interactions – to build consensus before the detailed work begins.

My presentation covered several highly-visual documentation techniques, which attempt to communicate the exact right amount of information—to the right stakeholders—at the right points in the project. From presenting a high-level concept map or user experience brief to an executive, to producing a usable functional spec for visual designers and developers, to building a proof-of-concept prototype, we touched on a wide range of deliverables. Supporting each example were tips on when and why to use a particular documentation method, best practices for design, limitations and challenges, and special considerations for rich Internet applications.

Links:
Web 2.0 Expo
Web Builder 2.0

For an outside perspective on the New York workshop, take a look at this attendee’s blog entry.

In June, I had the chance to speak at the annual meeting of the Usability Professionals’ Association in Baltimore. The topic was “The Brand vs. Usability Face-off.”

The premise of the presentation was that as companies extend their brands to the Web, they want to leverage brand elements that help make them successful in the offline world—and rightly so. But when we attempt to force traditional brand elements onto the structure, navigation, and function of a website, the user experience may suffer.

Conversely, brand can take a backseat to usability issues, and become diluted or even ignored.

Some of the tough questions that site owners have to tackle are:

·  Which traditional brand elements translate to the Web, and which do not?

·  Can a brand architecture work as an information architecture?

·  How do established brand elements and business practices need to adapt to work in this medium?

·  How do we distinguish ourselves from our competitors, even if we’re all trying to accomplish essentially the same thing online?

 The good news is that a site’s user experience design can be used strategically to enforce the brand—not just sit alongside it. Through the use of real-world examples (successful and not) my highly visual presentation looked at how companies can best communicate brand to the online audience.

The presentation was well-received by an audience of about 100 conference attendees. Included in that audience was Steve Krug, author of the landmark user experience book Don’t Make Me Think. Mr. Krug was even kind enough to come up after the presentation and offer some kind words.

Next up on my “world tour” will be a workshop on “Rich UX Documentation” at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York (www.web2expo.com).