Katy Perry’s songs are produced to sound like Pop Rocks and taste like Orange Crush. While her songs messages lack intellectual merit, the production quality of her videos have actually been beyond impressive, though always candy sweet. Until now, the fiercest thing she’s done in a video is whipped cream and flames from her breasts.
In her latest video, Part of Me, Perry cuts her hair, tapes down her breasts, paints her face and joins the Marines. In an interview with MTV she says:
It’s an affirmation of strength, so I wanted to go the strongest route I ever could. Literally, I was like, ‘I’m gonna join the service. I’m gonna join the Marines.’
I wanted to celebrate this video, I really did. Besides it being a blatant PR piece for pro-war America, I wanted to be happy about a visual message showing a strong, hardworking women supporting a cause they believe is just but the whole message is rooted in 2nd wave feminism. And she was so close with this video, so close.
Did she hit or miss? But the narrative completely falls apart in the first scene. Perry only joins the Marines because a dude breaks her heart. She trades her pink cotton dresses for commando boots as a way to overcome pain of a a cheating boyfriend. To prove her strength she pursues something that’s a predominantly male activity and outside of something the main character’s desire.
Second wave feminism looks at sex and gender norms asking for equal parts of the same pie, essentially protesting stereotypes about women imposed by men. Whereas third wave, in this case, ought to seek a different pie all together and motivate actions outside of the gendered ideals from the beginning.
Does all the power she think she holds actually still belong to her ex-man? Challenge me on this one. How would the video’s message be different if she had chosen to join the Marines she believed in serving her country not her broken heart? So close, Katy. So close.
But she got some things right. Perry three days of intense training at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base in Oceanside, California to get her flips, jabs and underwater wrestling right. Minus the b-roll of her prancing under the flag like a country star (which is actually quite fitting), the color schemes, the angles and shots, the costuming are done quite artistically and thoughtfully.
What Katy Perry’s does well It’s not popular in my community to like Katy Perry. Which means we don’t spend much time queuing up her videos on youtube. But they execute the philosophies of artistic (versus technological) remedation exceedingly well [Bolter & Grusin, MIT Press, and an excellent read].
In her videos we see cultural icons and old media imagery better than anything I’ve seen from pop media in the last decade and the production value is sky high compared to a Bieber video. Let’s look at her production team’s work:
California Gurls brings Candyland and, Willy Wonka, Alice in Wonderland and the Wizard of Oz new life.
ET is like a morphing of Erasure’s Always video with etherial creatures crawling around a futuristic snowy, Japan, Bjork’s All is Full of Love video with robot romance and costuming inspired by the children’s dystopian movie, Wall-E and the psychological thriller The Cell. The female pop icons of my childhood could have never dressed, artistically in full, space cadet uniform in a beautiful way. The closest we got was Britney Spears in a red pleather jump suit.
Teenage Girl, maybe the best video of them all, is no question a homage to the part of the 80s era that her fans are just a few years too young to actually remember the epic teenager tale 16 Candles or the social makeover Cher gave Ty in Clueless.
So, dear Katy, while I hope to never hear any of your songs while I’m out dancing, I do love muting your videos and queuing up a Brahms sonata and while Snoop Dog pimps out ice cream cone buffets.
It sometimes seems feels like we can have anything we want, especially as it comes to information, shopping and now even tasks. Google it, get it on Amazon prime, send it to Taskrabbit. And there are mountains of ways to touch base with people we love (and also the people we just kinda like). I’m writing this to introduce an open topic and conversation.
We’re spending more time heads down than ever before. Hands to keyboard, finger to swipe, eyes to screen. It’s a remarkable tradeoff because we get to feel like we can have whatever we want, whenever we want at the cost of becoming screen zombies.
The New York Times posted an article today about the new slew of apps that help us find and discover people we know and people we could meet. Have we become so lonely that we need computers to help us do something as primal as sharing presence with other people? Why these apps now? Are the apps easier to build, are people needier for people, has it become more difficult to find people we love being with?
Finding friends online
Facebook, Twitter, Email and Instagram have specifically helped me stay tethered to people I care or want to care about. Sure. But they just as well create friction and false senses of closeness that do not replace natural interactions among people. I’m not sure we’ll ever create a technology that an replicate the experience of being physically near a person. But I do believe travel and city design will make it easier, faster and cheaper to be near people.
If long distance communication continues to be this difficult & lacking intimacy, think we’ll shift focus making travel faster and cheaper?
Finding love online Online dating has become the second most common way to start a relationship, second to meeting through friends. I’m debating whether or not dating has become more difficult and how that’s related to technology because it also is inclusive of cultural and gender norms. I’m in the throws of reading Marriage, a History that so far suggests in the last half decade our communities have put more pressure on our partners and marriage than ever before in history.
What next? I’m not sure we’re lonelier than before? Studies have shown that people do retreat to their computers and social communities when they’re most sad (and I think lonely). So whether or not we’re net lonelier, looking back, it will sure seem like we were and we’ll say, what changed, what was the variable? More screens, less skin and bones.
Design always has perspective and voice. It is always saying something and a good design’s message is intentional and thoughtful.
Three white canvases hang on a white wall aligned side by side at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. This installation could be making commentary on negative and additive space, on shadows, on meditation or virginity, or sound or color. The artists could be saying something about potential, beginnings and opportunity or the intimidation of working with huge spaces or the fear of having nothing to say. Though some would say say, these are just 3 pretentious white canvases in a famous museum and nothing more.
I visited the Pompidou twice during this trip in 2007 and neither time gathered the name of the piece. So if you know the artist or if this is actually an unfinished piece, please share.
Minimal design is not a shortcut Minimalsts celebrate critical editing and their ability to sensitively the balance between form and function. Design should not be sparse or naked just for the sake of attempting a minimalist aesthetic. Blog themes are the worst offenders.
Minimalist designers edit for voice We celebrate minimal design in product, layout, architecture, photography, music, dance, writing and fashion. The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams exhibit at the San Francisco MoMA did exactly that. Minimalists pride themselves on their ability detatch themselves from their work to critique and edit. Omitting what is superflous, removing what is not required and stripping down the design is intended to result in a final product that is an exquisite sum of its best parts.
The b side of design editing is about maintaining voice. Design should still say something. Both commercial and artistic design is still about communication: what it is, where it lives, who it is for, how it can be used or and what it may be. The voice can easily be muted when essential factors are over edited.
We have more access to design software and likely more designers. Minimalist design looks easy to a novice: give it extra white space, switch the font to Helvetica and draw a thin hairline. These designs lack form, structures and constraints and therefore structure, a perspective, a voice, shape, color and membership to a system.
Minimal design executes details Let’s analyze the Diynamic Music label art from Hamburg, Germany that does an excellent job executing a minimal design.
The records are all designed within a system; each sleeve is precisely and exactly the same as those in its family. The typography, shape, language style and material are consistent. Only the color of the sticker label and artist and track listing changes.
It’s designed with solid color blocks and matching typography. The design system is linear and predictable and its form factors are intentionally basic shapes. Minimalism gives more by challenging to the design to work with less.
So with all of these constraints, the sleeve design still has a very distinct perspective. It speaks with a voice and attends to a message. The reel in motion would move forward voicing process and progress, the dissected shapes speak to the technical sounds of the label, the analog imagery is in conflict with synthetic electronic sounds on the record and the large black blocky image is softened with the gray background. But then all of this is disrupted with a vivid round block of bright color. This design is making an explicit statement with a unwavering perspective about what kind of music is within.
The designer here has also fantastically played with numbers:
There a single main image, the audio or video reel. One.
The audio reel requires a second circle to serve as its border, so the singular main image is comprised of a circle pair. Two.
The rounded rectangles and punched out medium sized circles are intentionally only in tryptich. Three
The reel is cut into 4 slices at shifted on the y-axis at half and fourth heights. Four.
The last detail works in a partnership of 5. Three bullets run vertically down the lower spine of the reel and two stack next to each other like a set of eyes on the top right section. Three and two: Five.
These are subtle, intentional decisions designed in a rhythm. It is beautiful because it is edited and thoughtful. Minimal design especially in art and music does not usually command bold attention. The consumer can easily disregard and let the design go unnoticed or be be very cerebral and studious about its form and function. But to do the latter, you the participant has to bring something to the design conversation. Without a voice, there is no dialouge.
[Afterword] I am aware this blog does not have an applied theme.
I’m working on my editing skills. I’m quite aware this post’s length.
I must share the first minimal tech house track I fell in love with. From the Mobilee Back to Back Volume 2 Compilation on the second disc, produced in Berlin, enjoy Pan Pot – What is What Remixed by Gummihz.
I questioned the power of algorithms, namely Facebook’s, in this post. I wrote this soon after Malcom Gladwell’s notable piece that argued the revolution was tweeted. This was around the time when people on social media were changing their profile pictures or posting statuses as a form of protest.
Lets come back to Gladwell’s argument that these networks are both empowered and diluted by their size. Activists and those expressing themselves can do with much more ease. But, they cannot rally the attention that the Greensboro lunch counter could because the Facebook system is designed to quiet noise. It would take many friends posting and discussing a particular topic in a variety of mediums to draw any kind of social stir that the Greensboro counters saw.
Citing the two-step flow in media we can argue that the internet has given us a power and voice we’ve never had before. But last January, I asked:
We can’t help but keep asking if participating in social media is activism. Does changing a Facebook Status or Twitter profile picture make a difference? Some argue it brings awareness to an issue. But it’s passive activism, it’s enough to get points for “caring” about an issue for a fleeting trend.
Let’s revisit this topic in the context of SOPA and PIPA rather than bringing awareness to a cause not tied to a bill. I changed my profile pictures because I link as a link to action and a specific bill. This is an internet related topic that is specifically associated with names, dates and times unlike other ’causes’ that got a lot of buzz last year.
But I’m still not sure. Is there tangible value in changing a profile picture beyond social clout? Does it depend on whether or not the bill passes? If SOPA and PIPA are stopped am I allowed to take any responsibility as a constituent for that? In the posts from last year I talk about action meaning getting up and actually doing something more than swapping a photo or posting a status.
Can someone challenge me or move this conversation forward? What is the value, if any, in changing profile pictures to motivate action?
Calling your senator is a breeze with protestopa.org. Tell your senator you are a constituent and ask them to vote no. I called from http://www.stopthewall.us.
There are moutains of services out there targeted at women and the ones that I hear about most are selling a losing weight dream or discounted Dooney and Burke handbags. . I think the services below have some integrity and put a women’s needs, not her credit card, first. Here are some great tools to help women, specifically women, lead happier, healthier, savvier lives.
Luxemi – The best way to wear Indian clothes Shopping for sarees should be a delight and a pleasure. But Indian high fashion changes faster than the songs in a Bollywood film, the garments are expensive and unless you’re traveling to India every few months it’s too hard to keep the wardrobe updated. That’s why I love renting from Luxemi, so much they invited me to write a guest post. I no longer have to go to an Indian wedding wearing a salwar 2-years out of style.
Unlike Gilt or Rent-the-Runway, Luxemi lives outside of the ‘fashion/lipgloss’ category. Their service solves a massive and cultural pain point for hundreds of Indian women (and any Indian bride-to-be’s friends) by making a hot, sweaty, crowded, difficult, expensive, overwhelming shopping experience possible and pleasant for busy women. http://luxemi.com is founded by Swapna Chandamuri and Swathi Narra in Chicago.
YourTrueFit.com – Personal online bra fittings Unhappy breasts make for an unhappy women. Our bodies change and undergarments wear thin. One morning you wake up tired of tugging straps and hooks but maybe you just don’t feel like spending hours in a store fitting room–again. I attended a trunk show for YourTrueFit afew months ago and learned a lot about what I should be shopping for. Stay tuned, they’ll help you find the bra styles and sizes that fit you best and match your style, then they’ll deliver those bras to your door. http://yourtruefit.com is founded by Michelle Lam in San Francisco.
Bedsider Reminders – never forget your birth control again A handful of my girlfriends swear by this reminder app. Choose the ring, the pill, the patch or the shot and get email or text to take your dose, get your refill or meet your gynecologist. http://bedsider.org is operated by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
Everyblock -Stay safe in your ‘hood This crowd-sourced reporting site tells you what’s happening where you are (or where you’re going). Get real-time updates everything from crime reports to claims of suspicious behavior based on police calls, reviews, photos and other reports. http://everyblock.com is founded by Adrian Holovaty. He lives in Chicago.
Threadflip – Enjoy the never-ending closet Not everyone can have a bedroom-size-closet with touch-screen personal fashionista like Cher in Clueless. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have an infinite wardrobe. Renew clothes that still have places to go and people to see. Keep your closet clean, your life minimal, your pocketbook happy and still walk out the door every morning feeling great about how you look. Think of it like a ‘naked lady party’ online. Stay tuned for their launch. http://threadlfip.com is co founded by Jess Brown in San Francisco.
Period Tracker - Stats for when you’ll be cranky P-Tracker for iPhone tracks your cycle, fertility and your moods. Hello one-stop period data shop! I could do without the rainbows and flowers though.
Iridescent – Learning lab for young women in science This great program keeps popping up up on my radar. I worked with a sharp high school intern who attended Iridescent. Before I knew it she was prototyping Andorid apps, wow. Iridescent’s goal is to inspire, empower and motivate young women to be curious and knowledge-seeking especially in science and engineering. If you have time for outreach they need local and offsite volunteers. http://iridescentlearning.org is in New York, LA and the the Northern California Bay Area
I’d love to hear about the services you love or if you think this list is a stack of bologna. Oh but if you want lipgloss sent to you in the mail, Birchbox is really nice.
I VJed at my first party last night! I’ve been playing at home for friends for a few months until last night when I took the first step out into the wild and exercised my digits.
“VJing is a broad designation for realtime visual performance. VJing is the manipulation or selection of visuals, the same way DJing is a selection and manipulation of audio. This results in a live multimedia performance that can include music, actors and dancers. The subject of VJ-DJ collaboration also started to become a subject of interest for those studying in the field of academic human-computer interaction (HCI).
-Wikipedia
I’ve been working in Modul8 to control the live, real-time look, feel, actions, motion and mixing of projected images. My friend Sarah composes her visuals in Resolume. Curious to commit to a weapon of choice, she and I booked a design jam to trade vj notes. She then invited me to get my feet wet and tag with her for the SF Haçeteria party at Deco Lounge. Having only used Resolume twice, worked with a midi controller once, being newborn fresh to Sarah’s compositions and having never VJed with video clips, there was a high probability I would produce visuals that look like they were Winamp visualizers circa 1998. Mostly excited, slightly hesitant, I said yes.
So here’s the thing. If you want to do something, you just have to do it. That’s what the people who get things done, say. It’s a Twilio mantra and is heartfelt advice from Ira Glass‘ talk on good taste.
Glass says, quite simply:
You love doing this kind of creative work, so you do it.
Because you have good taste, you can see what you’re producing. But, especially in the beginning, is not very good. In fact, it’s pretty crappy.
There is only one way to get better. Do work. Do a huge volume of work.
I’m thankful I was reminded of this again by Public Works’ resident VJ, Howard Wong. He advised,
I think you should lock down a gig playing out. You’re going to run into a bunch of hardware/production issues. The best way to learn is to simply dive right in.
When Sarah very graciously invited me to join her I had no choice but to say yes, even with all the Winamp fears in hand. The night went great, the vibe was killer and the DJs spun everything from Acid House to 90s Technotronic tracks. Sarah set the stage and invited me to jump in soon after and start mixing some clips. She carried the set through the main singing act. After I hopped back in and then really got into a groove. Then we tagged back and forth before Sarah closed down the night. Party-goers were taking photos in the lights and grooving until close well beyond last-call. I recorded 6 seconds of my compositions for you:
Though I missed beat drops and confused a few layers from one another, I did it–and that was the big win. I did eventually get my bearings enough to find my rhythm and make compositions that felt like my work. I composed somethings I liked and got to say something to the world. We made that tiny little spot in the Tenderloin a better space for people to meditate and move their bodies to music.
A handful of our friends came out to see Sarah play and discovered me behind the proverbial curtain. Keep good people in your life, good things will happen. I heard words ringing in my head that I had been sprouting off to my peers launching creative endeavors. I’ve been saying, “We, we your friends, we want you to be successful. Our reflex behavior will be to support you, encourage you to grow and pursue happiness. Go do the thing that you cannot not do. We’re cheering you on. “What is more joyful than seeing people you care about find fruits and joy from their labor? And those friends did just that.
I’m humbled by the invitation to design for motion, color, sound, lights and the immediate, immersive experience for people. It’s more than I could ask for and is really really fun.
I thank the suffragists and founding fathers who worked to the death so I have a voice today. These people worked to empower states the power to protect us from the State. The protected us from a monarchy and gave us the right to assemble. Because of their labors I have a right to speak for or against my government, I can enjoy a free press.
I am a woman. I am a minority. I am of immigrant parents. I am a newly registered voice in California. For me, voting is a gift, a right and a responsibility.
In journalism school, we were taught to think of the news profession as the fourth branch of government. The The Executive, Judicial and Legislative check on each other and the media, the news, the people, that is, checks on the government.
The government was supposed to be for the people, by the people. The press is supposed to be that too. But as the little guys get swallowed up, major media does not feel like us, the people. Then there is civic journalism, which has maybe evolved into our blogosphere. But now, unlike ever before, each individual (with an internet connection) has a media platform, a voice–an opportunity to exercise their first amendment right to speak, which I discuss in my conversation about David Nord’s book Communities of Journalism.
A free and prospering press shall offer multiple voices and perspectives, thereby checking on each other. We can debate whether or not that is still happening, but that conversation is tied up in discourse about ad revenue and reader apathy.
This conversation is about empowerment. I want to celebrate the democratized internet and the power to empower. I have the luxury and honor to work on a product that empowers people to build, make, enterprise, innovate and design the world in which we want to live.
When I turned 18 registered to vote and signed up to work at my local polling place. I took classes on foreign policy , journalism writing and newspaper layout. I worked on election day again, but this time from the newsroom and I had the honor to be the voice of my community. Thankfully, I still get to make something that empowers a community. Today I celebrate my voice as a designer, a writer and civic participant.
Thank you to all the candidates running today who also believe a better society starts at home. Today it is my right and my honor to celebrate a most American holiday: Election Day!
Today I join Twilio in San Francisco as their newest designer. Twilio makes powerful tools that empower people to build communication apps on voice and SMS. Joining Twilio’s outstanding team is humbling and massively exciting. I’m inspired to work with a group that helps people to realize great ideas, build a better society and of course, improve communication.
Improving how we share information has been a thread throughout my career. From my days in narrative as a news designer, to working on the chat app at RockMelt to disrupting the translation industry at myGengo to the core of my design thesis, I’ve been thinking about this space. I’ve nestled up with big questions to understand how humans share information and communicate. Plus, I just love developers. Twilio could not have been a more perfect next step.
I’ll be working closely with Andres Krogh, Rourke McNamara, Danielle Morrill and many more stellar Twilions blending my interaction design and marketing chops. There’s a lot to learn and a lot to teach. Please join me in celebrating this exciting new chapter on my path.
Where’s Nina? This year took me through 12 cities in 4 continents. Between the time of someone asking “where are you?” and me being able to answer, I was somewhere new. So here’s how 2011 played out.
I celebrated the commencement of the year Cape Town on a life-changing trip to Southern Africa with the perfect travel mate. I saw a dear childhood friend and did research to inform my graduate school thesis. In the flutter of a tweet, I earned my Master’s and started packing boxes to pick up nearly a decade of my life spent in beautiful Bloomington, Indiana.
En route to San Francisco, I worked in Tokyo with myGengo, like Twilio, in the 500 Startup powerhouse. I learned from their brilliant team and earned intense design empathy and mountains of personal growth. Call it Manifest Destiny if you will, but I started working my way West. I skipped through Detroit and Chicago and did projects for with SigFig, Milewise and Posterous while planting my feet in San Francisco.
I spent a week under extreme conditions in the dessert that taught me important lessons about design and experience. It yanked everything human about me to the surface of my being and I truly went through a Rite of Passage.
I went to St. Louis to see old friends from my journalism world at the Society for News Design’s conference. I talked on a panel about careers as a 5 year reunion from SND’s first intern competition and got to thank so many mentors who raised me as a professional.
It’s taken me years of patience and an unreal amount of work to build the life I now have in San Francisco. I couldn’t have predicted most of what happened this year and I can’t say what the future holds. But 2011 is not over yet and I’m having the time of my life on this ride.
Nina Mehta is a designer and writer living in San Francisco, working at Twilio.
Upon departure to a week of dancing, meditating, bike riding, art project exploring and big dreaming in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, I wrote a cheeky little e-mail to my office.
They all knew I was taking my first trip to the Playa, but still, I sent out this courtesy note. “Team, I’ll be out of the office next week without access to the internet,” I wrote. I gave myself the permission to divorce from communication mediated by technology. I spent the week having collocated interactions with people. I had human-to-human conversations that over flowed with emergent ideas and were loaded with implications from body language.
“I’ll be in Black Rock City, Nevada” I said, which for a week is actually Nevada’s 4th largest city and otherwise non-existent. For 7 days, 50,000 people gave gifts of music, food, teachings, photos and so much more.
I was given so much in Black Rock City. My bike pedal broke twice while on the Playa. The city is too big and the weather is too extreme to commute by foot. I found a bike-expert in our village of 170 people. He found a piece of wood and told me to search neighboring camps for a saw. I kid you not, he prototyped a peg-leg wooden bike pedal for me. And within and hour, my new friend, with his big heart, gave me the city back.
I’m “doing participatory, ethnographic research” I continued to my teammates. I immersed myself in an environment that was beyond foreign to me. I was living in a sci-fi novel. Yet, people repeatedly said, “wow, you’re really in your element here.” Socially, geographically, culturally, economically, I had a new lifestyle. As someone who studies people, their desires, their wants, the emotions, their motivations, there was so much to learn here. In my life of international travel, I have consistently found humans to be relatively the same all over the world, in the most beautiful way. Stripped down we share our qualities that make us human, our desires, our challenges, our drives. So here, at Burning Man, were people any different? What do we do when the societal rules change?
Take away money, take away time, take away digital devices, are we the same? Pretty much.
I cooked for my camp each night. I started cooking dinner when the sun was a few inches from the peaks of the mountains. The camp knew when the sun goes down, dinner is ready. There was no 15 minutes late, time was about light.
We had some friends who camped about a mile away. In the afternoon we asked if they wanted to hang out at night.
‘Sure. just come by later. I don’t know what we’ll be up to.’ So sure enough we suited up with headlamps and coats. It was like an after-dinner ritual. We tricked out our bikes with El-wire trimmed wheels and loops of glowsticks on our handlebars. There are no streetlamps in the dessert, so we, ourselves need to be illuminated. There are thousands of commuters and yet not many bike crashes. People take care. Culturally, it’s understood to keep yourself lit as a method of identity and expression but also as a way to be visible and safe.
So, we rode over to our friends’ camp and, after all that, they weren’t there. We kept riding, it was no big deal. It was like the 90s. There was no follow up game of sms ping-pong or trying form a tweet-up. We just kept riding. We found something new to do and you know what? It was so fine.
So I told my colleagues, I’m doing research on “urban development.” Before campers arrive and after they leave, Black Rock City it’s an empty desert. Everything there is intentional, something that is there is because someone has brought there, it’s designed. Nothing remains from last year except the dust.
How would people build a functioning city in a week? What does a new city look like? It has bike repair pros, spas and brunch spots and a census. I worked in the post office and our neighborhood bar. If we could build a city and roads and culture and economy, just for a week, what’s a better way to do it than the way it is where we live? And every year Burning Man must be different because every year, the people change.
“User experience,” is something I listed I was researching. I thought a lot about what I read in grad school by Plato, by Dewey, by McCarthy & Wright, by Russon and their philosophies of experience. Burning Man helped me meditate on the Sensual, Emotional, Compositional and Spatio-Temporal 4 threads of experience. These are the same threads that weave into our every day lives but are center but at Burning Man are imposed front and centered. We’re faced with manufactured, designed art projects juxtaposed against the backdrop of the sun as our clock and the desert as the canvas. We have only one objective measure of time, then sun, and half way through the daily cycle, the sinks behind the mountains and without our anchor, the night is infinite.
If you were so lucky to dance all night in the dark, cold desert, you might have heard Lee Burridge play a siren songs to beckon the sun. And with the last drags of our tired feet, we turn our backs to the DJ, gaze to the horizon and see the edges of light peak above the Earth and the next day begins. There is no alarm clock.
“and human-computer interaction design.” was the last point I said I’d be researching. There we are, 50,000 people, doing whatever we love to do most, for a week, with our friends, some new, divorced from communication technology. And yet, in this natural, beautiful place we are still immersed in a space with impressive light design, massive sound systems and volts of power thumping through generators to power the art and music projects.
I got to see how else humans and computers can interact with each other. That being, humans and humans, computers and computers and humans with computers. We do it all with dust in boots and sweat on our brow. We have a lot left to learn about what we as people want and need and how we’re going to get it, if we ever do.
But having dropped myself in some places that are beyond other-worldly, I’ve learned how delicate our fleshy, vulnerable, skin and bones and hearts are. If we’re going to design chairs and phones and streets and clocks and code whatever else it is that we design, let’s give our work voice and human touch. Someone, some person, will be using it.
User testing is a seemingly giant mystery. Having formerly worked as a journalist, asking mountains of questions to someone I’ve never met before is like second nature for me. I moved to ‘Silicon Valley’, land of the startups, a couple of months ago and have since been getting asked a lot about user testing from engineering friends. It’s possible to start putting your product in front of people without having a UX homie in the house.
Below are 11 practices I follow that help inform better product design. I learned and did these things at myGengo, RockMelt and in graduate school. The list below is not holistic and may not work for your team or product. Use your best judgement, it’s qualitative research. And designers, I invite you to critique these points.
Test the product, not the person. “Thanks so much for coming in, we really really appreciate it and value your feedback. Our product is still in the early stages and we want to find out what is confusing and what doesn’t work. You can quit any time and the more things you can find wrong with it, the better. It’s also helpful if you talk outloud while you’re using [product]. It helps us know what you’re thinking and when you’re stuck.”
Be an excellent listener. Be humble. If you disgaree with an opinion, keep it to yourself and make a note of it on paper.
Think of the guest coming in as a person, not a user. I avoid the word ‘user’ as much as I can but sometimes it creeps in. Get to know them, discover who they are as people. Just hang out for a few minutes until you’re both comfortable.
Take notes on paper, not on your laptop or phone; it makes you the ‘magical computer person’ more accessible and human. It’s ok if you need a computer open to chat with people in another room or do some recording. Digitizing notes afterwards is a good idea.
Avoid leading questions that impose a value. Avoid: “Do you think this is a good color?” Instead ask “What do you think about this color?”
Know what you want out of the session. What features are you testing? There’s a fine balance between keeping the session open ended and getting what you want out of it. But in the end, you are leading the session. If you are going down a path where you are learning something interesting, follow it and probe with questions. If you find yourself in a time suck, take back the lead. Make note of body language and facial expressions.
Ask about expectations: “It seems like that button was hard for you to find, where did you expect to see it?”
Don’t be scared of the people coming in. They’re just people. But, like sharks, they’ll sense your fear.
Aim for a half an hour session padded with questions at the front and the end. Eventually,both of you will get tired. Pad a little time in between sessions for you to recenter.
Debrief after the session with your guest and the team. Thank them graciously for their time. Ask if you can send follow up questions later. I like to organize my findings as follows (and props to Matt Beebe for this structure)
a. engineering bugs (broken button)
b. design bugs (misaligned pixels)
c. backburner (possible problems, feature requests, things that need deeper thinking or data analysis)
My post about user-centered versus user-led design. Just because users demand sparkly kittens on your submit buttons doesn’t mean it’s the right decision.
