Mario and Zelda Get It

The last time I had a game console in my house (that wasn’t in a box in the attic), it was in my dorm room – a shiny new Super Nintendo that provided many hours of “nothing-better-to-do” fun often accompanied by a blasting soundtrack of Rush and 90’s grunge. I’ve always been a fan of video games but have resisted the urge to own a console since, for two reasons: (1) on subsequent systems the games seemed to go in the direction of becoming so complicated and needlessly complex that it just became unappealing, and (2) I felt like there were much more productive things to do with my time.

While the latter may still be true, it was the former that was the kicker. Sure, there have been a lot of studies showing the benefits of gaming such as building hand-eye coordination and enhancing problem-solving and relational skills (personally, I recently had a near-miss in the car that would have proven devastating had I not reacted the way I did – and I know without a doubt that the somewhat unconventional action I took was due to my video-gaming past) – not to mention the relationship building that is possible with more than 1 player – so it’s easy to make the argument that it isn’t completely “wasted” time.

But what DOES feel like wasted time, for me anyway, is thumbing through a two inch thick book of complicated button combinations to be prepared for everything a game will throw at you and all of its possible permutations, before even turning the darn thing on. It’s the same reason that complicated board games can be such a drag the first few times you play them.

So, you guessed it, for Christmas this year my wife suggested that we get a Wii. But where I’m going with this isn’t to talk about the more advanced and physical method of interacting (not that it isn’t the coolest EVER – we’ve got Wii Fit and the dancing game and the whole nine, and LOVE it) – but is instead to talk about how the better titles use the elaboration theory to teach while the user (learner) is immersed in the game rather than the “read first, then play” approach.

It isn’t an entirely new concept in video games (or software tutorials, for that matter), and I’ve seen it done with varying levels of success in the past. But being a fan of the classic franchises (Legend of Zelda, Mario Brothers) I of course had to pick up the latest installments – and they really, REALLY get it.

Both games are actually deceptively complicated – and they do indeed have a ton of different button combinations (with the added complexities of various hand movements on the Wii) for the numerous settings and levels. If it were all presented at once in a manual, it would be a daunting volume. Instead, when you begin the games, you can only perform the most basic maneuvers. As you encounter new enemies and problems, there are characters and signs and things that give you information and elaborate on techniques you’ve learned previously, teaching you the new twist you need to know to get past the present obstacle and ones like it in the future. It’s all presented in small chunks, just-in-time for the task at hand, with immediate practice and feedback, and before you know it your wife is yelling at you that “you have to use the Z button and wave the nunchuk back and forth to build things on this level! C’mon!”

But think about it – that last paragraph? Replace the game-speak with dance terms and the progression in a beginner’s dance class is identical. This is one reason why the Wii and these titles in particular are a breath of fresh air – they harken back to a simpler and more effective way of ramping people up to complex behaviors that existed before this type of technology (and technical writers) existed. They’re breaking the trend toward heavier cognitive loads being thrust upon users that some of that technology spawned.

In one of the classes I teach I always harp on applying Keller’s ARCS model to your (instructional) designs – and in particular I’m impressed at how well the techniques discussed above get at the Confidence and Satisfaction pieces of that model; concepts that can sometimes be a little esoteric.

There are certainly many more ideas we can take from games. It’s not a bad idea to look there for inspiration since the percentage of people that play them is growing at a huge rate – even moreso now that platforms like the Wii have blown the doors off of the traditional gaming demographic. Conventions that began with video games are slowly infiltrating other types of media if you know where to look. I recently pitched the idea of “unlocking” additional content in a video game style to encourage medical professionals to voluntarily progress through a system, and it went over like gangbusters. So “wasting” a little time here and there can actually add some additional ideas to your design toolbox.

Also, it’s just fun.

Refresh Philly Recap

Earlier this week, Russ and I presented at Refresh Philly. The best way to describe Refresh is to quote from their site:

Refresh is a community of designers and developers working to refresh the creative, technical, and professional culture of New Media endeavors in their areas. Promoting design, technology, usability, and standards.

The Refresh Manifesto:

Let’s Gather Great Minds

Let’s Share All Of Our Knowledge

Let’s All Grow And Learn

Let’s Promote Local Talent

Let’s Be More Than We Think Can Be

Let’s Make Our Cities Better

We were preceded by two great presentations: Shaun Gering showing off Chirp – (a new tool for online communities for TV viewers from CIM) and Tom Boutell from P’unk Ave walking us through Symfony, a technology solution that employs a full-stack framework and a library of cohesive classes written in PHP5. Our presentation was titled Experience Design Step 1: Starting on the Right Foot and focused on the first step of any design project: Problem Statements and SMART Goals.

One of the great things about Refresh is that it’s wide open – the members get to define what their intentions are and how they will execute the Refresh Manifesto in Philadelphia. Our interpretation was that this is a unique opportunity in the design & development community to use our skills in an altruistic way to improve the city – however we, as a group, decide where we can have the most impact. Russ’s analogy of us all being like the “Superfriends congregating at the Hall of Justice” focused on the fact that some of the brightest designers and developers in the Philly area were overlooking our city on the 45th floor of the Comcast Center looking for ways to improve it. We opened the floor to a discussion of the types of things that could “Make Our City Better” – trying to be open-ended and idealistic about it in order to eventually come up with some goals and then figure out what skills and technology could be used to achieve them rather than the other way around.

What was even more exciting to me were the conversations that occurred after the sessions. As the crowd dissipated, everyone was buzzing over what Refresh would/could become. The Think Brownstone crew retired to a local watering hole with some friends to talk about where we fit into the Philly design community. The next day, Tom posted an entry on the P’unk Ave blog that began a discussion over the difference between front-end, back-end and design – and what the most productive relationships between those in each camp might look like. Jonny Goldstein posted a napkin sketch of our presentation.

I hope Russ’s superhero metaphor continues to prove itself: by day we could be mild-mannered competitors, vendors and clients, but by night we could band together to use our talents to refresh our communities. It will be interesting to see how this one pans out.

Building Stakeholder Engagement

We had a spectacular conversation recently with a visitor to the Think Space. Among the topics:

What to do when you lose stakeholder engagement?

There are many elements that contribute to a successful project, and when any one of them gets derailed it can wreak havoc. One of the most frustrating things that can happen to a project team is to lose stakeholder engagement. The reverse is true as well: one of the most frustrating things that can happen to a project’s stakeholders is to lose team engagement.

So what causes people to lose interest in a project?

We’ve had the privilege to work with a client team recently that is not only engaged in the project, but has stakeholders that drive the initiative. They don’t just ask for status updates, they contribute new ideas and ask for everyone else’s ideas. They are continually looking for ways to get a relatively large and diverse project team to continue to innovate. They don’t look at the project as something with an end; they see it as something that will continue to evolve. Everyone on the team shares this mind set.

How can you get everyone on the same page?

One of the major contributors to the drive and success of this project is that the leaders of it are active learners. Not only do they maintain expertise in their own field, they watch the world of technology and user experience that continues to change around them. When they sit down with us, they speak our language and they expect us to speak theirs. Conversations often cause us to ask questions outside of our expertise and before we know it we’ve become active learners in their fields as well. Neither group would ever be able to claim expertise in the other’s specialty, but this culture of learning keeps everyone on the project engaged.

The key to this relationship?

Put simply, it’s give and take: our stakeholders acknowledge our expertise while demonstrating genuine interest in what we are doing. They defer to us when necessary and challenge us when it is critical to their goals. In exchange, they expect exactly the same from us.

So, back to our visitor’s dilemma: how do you re-engage stakeholders, and how do you stimulate their thirst for learning?

You can’t just turn the switch back on again – you need to find out why they’ve disengaged and then patiently rebuild the connections. We’re all adults here – you can’t lock someone in a room and force them to learn.

How do you make them want to learn? Maybe more importantly, how do you make them care?

This is probably one of those questions that has a different answer every time it comes up – but there are likely to be some recurring themes. When you encounter disengaged stakeholders, consider ways to pique their curiosity and entice them to contribute. I’m not talking about superficial stuff like being mysterious about things or employing riddles that sidetrack and waste time (this isn’t Dead Poets Society – we’ve got work to do here, people) – I’m talking real curiosity that stems from seeing that potential to innovate and THINK in ways that maybe haven’t been explored in that particular organization before. Combine that with a true collegial environment like the one I described above, where everyone feels valued for their expertise and not hamstrung by antiquated and unproductive hierarchies, and you just may see some real results – we certainly have.

Daniel Pink’s “A Whole New Mind” Gets It

Happy 2009, everyone!

In the spirit of kicking off the New Year on a positive note, I am just going to scrap the follow-up missive I was writing to my previous post about US Airways and their ongoing frequent flier miles swindle (based on further experience over the holiday break, it continues to get more bizarre, and their underestimation of the intelligence of their passengers/customers is mind-boggling).

Instead, I am going to focus on something that was inspiring and uplifting – Daniel Pink’s book “A Whole New Mind”. The book was recently recommended to me by our friend Todd Marrone, who said, “hey, this book seems to really parallel what Think Brownstone is all about” – and after finishing it on the plane coming back from New Orleans a few days ago, I take that as a very high compliment indeed. I’m glad others (particularly accomplished right-brainers such as Todd) see these qualities in our work.

Checking out the listing on Amazon will give you the basic gist of the book, so I won’t reiterate here – but this was a fun, quick, and exciting read that made me more pumped than ever to hit the ground running in 2009 and add some of these new tips and techniques to our arsenal for crafting the best user experiences. I’m hereby suggesting that this book be added to the Think Brownstone bible (along with MUST reads like this) – and to quote the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: “If its likely that someone in China or India can do your work more cheaply than you can, of if a computer can do your work faster than you can, READ THIS BOOK.”

A few nuggets that I dog-eared because they struck a nerve with me and echoed the way I talk about what we do:

“…because of abundance, businesses are realizing that the only way to differentiate their goods and services in today’s overstocked marketplace is to make their offerings physically beautiful and emotionally compelling.”

“As (overseas outsourcing) takes over the routine work of software fabrication, maintenance, testing, and upgrading, Conceptual Age software types will concentrate on novelty and nuance. After all, before the Indian programmers have something to fabricate, maintain, test, or upgrade, that something must first be imagined or invented. And these creations must then be explained and tailored to customers and entered into the swirl of commerce, all of which require aptitudes that can’t be reduced to a set of rules on a spec sheet – ingenuity, personal rapport, and gut instinct.”

“Design is a classic whole-minded aptitude. It is, to borrow (John) Heskett’s terms, a combination of utility and significance. Design has become an essential aptitude for personal fulfillment and professional success for at least three reasons. First, thanks to rising prosperity and advancing technology, good design is now more accessible than ever, which allows more people to partake in its pleasures and become connoisseurs of what was once specialized knowledge. Second, in an age of material abundance, design has become crucial for most modern businesses – as a means of differentiation and as a way to create new markets. Third, as more people develop a design sensibility, we’ll increasingly be able to deploy design for its ultimate purpose: changing the world.”

Changing the world. I’m in. How about you? Let’s hit it!

P.S. To have your mind completely blown, follow up this read with Kurt Vonnegut’s “Player Piano” (as I did, completely by chance) – written in 1952 and, amazingly, the embodiment of so many of Pink’s observations in fictional prose. I become more of a fan of KV with each passing year…