Interactive SketchNotes: “Leveraging Seductive Interaction Design”

Not long ago, a few of us Thinkers gathered around the Polycom and projector for one of UIE’s famed Virtual Seminars: Leveraging Seductive Interaction Design with Stephen Anderson. I’ve been practicing Interaction Design for the better part of 5 years now, and when a deck of Stephen’s Mental Notes cards recently started floating around the ThinkSpace, it sparked some great new debate and thought – so we jumped on the opportunity to attend and kick some of these ideas around further with the man himself.

Rather than do the complete play-by-play here on our blog, I encourage you to flip through the interactive sketch notes that I captured during the event which include highlights and links to related information. You can also view a very similar presentation to what was covered in the seminar from Stephen on SlideShare. Enjoy!

Mike's Sketchnotes from UIE Virtual Seminar: Seductive Interaction Design

TEDxPhilly Recap

A contingent of Think Brownstone descended upon the stunning Kimmel Center in downtown Philadelphia yesterday to attend the TEDxPhilly event. TEDx events are independently operated versions of the TED event held in California every year.

Brian's Sketchnotes from TEDxPhilly

The official theme of the event was “Right Here, Right Now” but my unofficial theme was one of the universal truths we all know, yet few of us practice: “If you let people own the solution to a problem, they can do amazing things.”

I’m not going to go into a deep recap of every speaker – there were 16 of them and each had a unique story to tell. Some were better than others and some were downright inspiring. The event was recorded and streamed and I’m sure if you follow @TEDxPhilly on Twitter or Facebook or keep an eye on TEDx in general, you’ll be able to see recordings of some of the better talks.

At the end of the event, someone said to me, “This was great, but what are we supposed to do with all of this?” I thought hard about it and that’s what made me get out of bed at 4AM and start typing. It’s a good question. TED events aren’t like a typical conference where we hope we can learn something new to make us better at our job or someone gives us marching orders to fix a problem. For me TED exists to highlight the extraordinary work of the people around us – hopefully to get us off our asses to do something extraordinary ourselves.

For instance, Chris Lehman from the Science Leadership Academy started his talk with something we already knew: High School Stinks. Why? Because today’s education system focuses more on making sure we “don’t suck so much at the stuff we’re bad at” than embracing the stuff that makes us passionate. To demonstrate his solution, all of the video and photography at the show was run by SLA students – they wanted to be there and make a difference.

There were many talks with that same theme in different contexts.

Nic Esposito showed us how Urban Farmers are more successful when they not only plant the food, but they sell it.

Stanford Thompson didn’t just tell us how kids need longer-term goals to deal with the pressures of life, he brought out thirteen kids from Tune Up Philly who hadn’t held an instrument before September to show how they are already achieving those goals.

Simon Hauger's High School kids built a Bad-ass Hybrid

Simon Hauger asked his students, “What’s missing for you with hybrid cars?” His kids decided they weren’t fast enough or cool enough, so they built a hybrid Ferrari that beat MIT in national competitions.

Zoe Strauss started her I95 Photography project ten years ago knowing she needed to do it even before she had fully figured out what it was.

Michael Solomonov explained how a terribly tragic moment in his life led him take a risk and open his own restaurant. (you should see what his baklava does to Bmac)

I’m skipping some of the other inspired speakers to keep this brief. I will say that throughout the day, Steve Krug‘s voice echoed through my head: “This isn’t rocket surgery.” We all know that owning the solution makes us better at solving a problem. The bigger problem is that very few of us do anything about it.

At least once in your life I’m sure you have experienced a teacher/boss/client/parent/person of authority who looks at a work-in-progress and says:

“Mmm hmmm, that’s great. But I want it green, add a picture of a fish with a hat smoking a cigar and make it more like Facebook.”

You can tell these moments – they are delivered in a tone that screams, “Because I said so.” These are the things that take the wind out of your sails. Your authority figure may even know what he/she’s talking about – but it’s being directive in a collaborative process. The wisest among us get them to participate in the process rather than direct the solution, but that’s a hard job to do.

This is why we get excited at Think Brownstone when one of our clients walks up to the whiteboard, grabs a marker and starts sketching on top of our work. They’re not telling us to make it green, they’re showing us their process. At that point, the Brownstoners make eye contact, someone grabs their phone and tweets something like: “Another client just grabbed the marker #thinkbrownstone” To us, it’s not ego. It’s a beacon to anyone who wasn’t in the room that a client is starting to own the solution with us. That’s what we do.

Finally, I want to give a shout out to Roz Duffy, the TEDxPhilly organizer, and her team of talented volunteers. They worked on this project for nearly a year. Putting something together like this is an incredibly complex undertaking and not for the faint-of-heart. While Think Brownstone was thrilled to be a sponsor the event, we know that writing a check was the easy part.

King Crimson or U2?

You may have noticed that from time to time we tweet interesting quotes via @thinkbrownstone. A while back I came across this quote:

“A mistake is always forgivable, rarely excusable, and always unacceptable.” - Robert Fripp

It’s easy for someone with Type A tendencies such as myself to identify with a statement like that and think it’s a great mantra, but I was really surprised by the reaction of Brian & Carl when I shared it – they immediately disagreed with the sentiment. Their reaction might have been influenced by things we had recently heard from Jared Spool at the Web App Masters Tour and consistently read in places like Fast Company about the power of celebrating failure, though I also think those guys more innately internalize some of the conclusions I came to after thinking about it for a while.

Do you know who Robert Fripp is? Chances are that if you do, you’re a bit of a music snob (or a recovering one, like me). He’s the cerebral leader of the art rock group King Crimson, which he has lorded over in its various incarnations since the late 60’s. King Crimson has some curious characteristics:

1. They are technically mind-blowing, but that level of perfection and complexity tends not to connect with the general populace
2. They are worshipped by a niche, but have never experienced widespread adoption
3. They are essentially “faceless” – you can’t really discern a personality from their output, and they are famously reclusive and non-interactive

We could go deeper – but let’s stop there. As a designer, are those things you’d want people saying about your work? Even if you did (sure, there could be a “coolness” factor there), can you imagine your clients asking for work with those characteristics? It’s hard to, right?

Who Are You? Who You Do Want To Be?

So what’s the opposite end of the spectrum? What about, say…U2?

1. Frankly, they make a lot of mistakes, but they always seem to learn from them and turn them into ammunition – and when things align they generate an emotional response that is inarguable
2. Hardcore technicians will take digs at the underlying simplicity of their work, but the crowds they attract and the amount of merchandise they’ve moved is one of the all-time biggest success stories
3. They are anything but faceless – there’s tangible personality in everything they do, and the human element to their story and their desire to connect with people is a large component of their success

Can you imagine your clients asking for work with those characteristics? Yeah, me too. So, what kinds of mantras have Bono and the gang offered us then?

“My heroes are the ones who survived doing it wrong, who made mistakes, but recovered from them.”

“It’s stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition.”

“The world is more malleable than you think. We can bend it into a better shape. Ask big questions, demand big answers.”

Love them or hate them, I think I’ll go with U2’s mantras over King Crimson’s the next time I’m staring at a blank design canvas. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll emulate their success as well…

Vote the “Attack Ad” Out of Office

It’s that scary time of year again…but I’m not referring to the ghouls and goblins that came knocking over the weekend. I’m talking about the time of year when our airwaves are overrun with negative political ads telling us how awful the “other” guy (or gal) is. Research has shown that negative ads are only viewed positively by those who already supported the ad’s sponsor, so they’re essentially preaching to the choir. The corollary to this is that it’s ruining the political experience for the vast majority of us who disagree with the use of these negative ads.

We’ve seen a lot of brands duke it out before our eyes over the years: Coke vs. Pepsi, Windows vs. Mac, Ford vs. Chevy, Adidas vs. Puma, and I’m sure you could name dozens more. These companies have billions of dollars tied up in their brands, yet look at the type of ads they’ve been producing; they’re tongue-in-cheek at worst and downright celebratory of their rivalries at best. Granted, they aren’t in a winner-take-all competition like politicians, but the argument could be made that their overall market share has more of a direct and obvious impact on the general population once you consider their employees, shareholders, and consumers.

So why aren’t these corporate behemoths saturating our airwaves with their own attack ads telling us how athletes wearing Pumas saw their incidence of twisted ankles increase by 21% or how Pepsi is environmentally irresponsible because their cola is more belch-inducing, thus generating more greenhouse gases? The easy answer is because it’s illegal. The Federal Trade Commission polices all advertising and requires ads to be truthful, non-deceptive, and fair. They also require producers to back up their claims with data. However, I think the more complex answer (and this applies especially to the big brands I referenced earlier) is that companies learned a long time ago that negative advertising is a turnoff. Buying a car is painful enough as it is. The last thing an auto company wants is you to even remotely associate their brand with grainy pics of their rival’s “unsafe” cars accompanied by ominous music. They want you thinking about their car ripping up a scenic drive or playing happy with the flowers. Big brands know the experience they want to create for their customers. They know their likes, dislikes, turn-ons, and turn-offs. They know how many buttons you have, what they do, and when to press each one.

If the corporations and ad agencies have got this button-pushing down to a science, why haven’t the politicians? The simple answer is they don’t have to. There is no “truth in advertising” law for political ads (quite the opposite, in fact) and there’s really no incentive for them to change their behavior. In a winner-take-all competition where the populace is so evenly split, you don’t have to win anybody over, just fire up your existing supporters enough so they bother to vote.

I don’t know about you, but my client list would likely shrink pretty rapidly if they heard my plan was to infuriate 49% of their audience so that we satisfy the other 51%. From the Experience Designer’s perspective, the modern political ad is a massive fail. Obviously this isn’t a new complaint, but considering the alternative (acceptance, apathy) let’s discuss a few potential improvements.

Restricted/Regulated Ads

Designate an agreed independent arbiter/coordinator (like Philadelphia’s Committee of Seventy) for each race and air only ads approved by this coordinator. This group may dictate the topics for discussion or just vet the ads. Alternatively, the coordinator may select three to five key questions pertinent to the race and ads could take the form of each candidate responding to the questions with candidates submitting their own questions as well. This takes the form of an asynchronous debate in short form.

• Pros: Reduces the number of eye-gougingly annoying attack ads, provides some measure of assurance that remaining ads contain reasonable content
• Cons: Several steps down the slippery slope of curtailing free speech, consolidates power within one governing body, will likely push attack ads to other channels

Improved Disclaimers

Currently, all candidates must declare their support for the ads they sponsor. This is a good first step, but could be enhanced. Again, make use of an approved independent arbiter to review all claims and briefly address their validity. Scores/results could be presented quickly at the end of each ad or posted to a website advertised throughout the ad. There are numerous “fact checking” organizations (with varying allegiances) already doing this to some extent, we just need to tie them more directly to the ads themselves.

• Pros: Adds a layer of oversight/validation to the existing ad model, leverages fact checking efforts that are already well-established
• Cons: Increases length of ads, doesn’t guarantee a change in tone

Organize and Vote

For good or for ill, Americans tend to chafe at regulation. Also, because of the cyclical nature of elections, there’s little down side in candidates annoying their constituents for short periods of time. Both of these issues make it difficult to legislate the negative ad into history and mostly guarantee that politicians will keep using negative ads as long as they’re not being hurt by them. Because of the nature of our electoral system, withholding your vote is not only ineffective, it’s antithetical to the idea of a representative democracy. But what if all frustrated voters banded together and vowed to vote for the least-negative politician, regardless of party? (Let’s assume a certain level of competence for this hypothetical situation – Big Bird probably wouldn’t run any negative ads, but I’m not sure I’d trust him running the country.)

Voter turnout for Presidential elections in the past 30 years has hovered around 50% (and around 30% for “off year” elections). One would imagine a sizable portion of the non-voting public is checking out due to apathy. Mobilizing these people (even 1% would be over 2 million votes) would result in a powerful voting bloc to incentivize candidates. One tight election swung by this bloc of “honor” voters could easily be the catalyst to make future elections a contest to one-up the other guy and run the more civilized campaign.

• Pros: Doesn’t require any legislation/regulation, returns meaning to an individual’s vote, encourages positive behavior instead of punishing negative (walks the positive walk)
• Cons: Requires voters to temporarily suppress their party/issue affiliations, highly dependent on organization and leadership (essentially a campaign unto itself), may take multiple election cycles to produce results

History certainly shows that negative campaigning has been with us for a long time. I would imagine folks have been complaining about it for  about equally as long. I certainly don’t expect one blog post to solve the issue, but as Experience Designers, we are practitioners in a fairly new field that could have far-reaching impacts. Let’s apply our unique skill sets to more non-traditional settings and see what happens. You don’t know until you try.