What’s Your Process?

If you’re involved in the design industry, or any consulting type of work, eventually you will be asked, “What’s your process?” This question is so common that any agency worth their salt will have a statement about their process on their site and will have a boilerplate presentation in their bag of tricks to pull out whenever the question is asked.

Asking any consulting agency about their process is akin to asking someone in an interview, “What is your biggest weakness?” We will always be prepared to answer the question and most clients know the standard responses. So, why do they ask? Here are just a few of the reasons you may be asked this question:

Education: They genuinely want to learn how you do what you do in order to build a strong partnership. These are some of the best business relationships to build. Approach them with an open mind, and learn from them as much as they learn from you. If you handle it well they should, eventually, become one of your most trusted clients.

Comparison: They may want to compare your process to a competitor, or they may want to discuss how their scenario doesn’t necessarily fit into your process. In this case, stress flexibility and collaboration and they can still be a great partner.

Sadism: They are looking for ways to argue your process because they get off on watching vendors squirm. If you discover this is the case, I’d recommend either turning down the work or charging a premium and putting your thickest skins on the project. If they’re willing to pay you to challenge your expertise regularly, it’s their dime, and you may learn something new along the way.

Process? Yeah, We've Got That.

Let’s Be Brutal Here

Regardless of the reason the question is asked, I’m always tempted to respond, “Our process is that we’re really smart.” I never do for fear that I’d be regarded as a smartass and ruin the relationship, but there is some truth to that answer.

One of the hardest things to get across is that any project process should be treated as a guideline. It needs to be flexible, not a checklist.

Years ago I worked with a project management consultant named Dr. Bob Graham. I have written about Dr. Bob before. I learned more about project work from him than I ever did in school. When asked to define project work, he often used this analogy:

Building an automobile factory is a project, right up to the point of the first car rolling off of the assembly line. After that, every other car is the result of process work, not project work.

To Dr. Bob, project work was about producing a unique solution for a unique challenge. Process work is about producing identical results from predictable circumstances. This makes sense: factories need to produce consistent results for every unit that rolls off the assembly line. Projects are about meeting the goals set out by the folks initiating the effort. Even though you just finished creating the best online banking site possible for Investments-R-Us, chances are Pixelpushers Federal Credit Union will have a completely different set of business goals when they ask you to do the same thing.

So, what is the right answer to “What is your process?” At Think Brownstone, we outline a broad process that applies not only to user experience projects, but to any business-oriented project. The phases (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation) are set in stone. Some tasks along the way are non-negotiable – like articulating your business goals or describing who your users are. Other tasks, such as when and how to conduct user research, are dependent on the client, project, budget and environment.

Is our process the “secret sauce” to our work? The opinions here may differ, but I would say no. Following a structure for the work you do is just good business. Having rules around what is flexible and what you’re not willing to compromise is important to protecting your brand. Being smart enough to know when and how to veer from your process – that’s what differentiates smart designers from factory workers. That and talent are the secret sauce of any good design agency.

This Is How We Do It. How About You?

Last week we kicked off our latest web application redesign project. As we sat together on the Think Couches and reviewed the reasons why our new client chose to initiate the project, they told us a now-familiar story about how their prospective customers are too often choosing their competitors’ products – because these products are much easier to use and way more beautiful. In some cases, they shared, it didn’t even matter that the competitor’s product was far less robust than theirs, because “the sexy UI had already made the sale.”

Smart companies (like our new client) understand that good usability is table stakes for a modern product. But we also know that good design doesn’t end with good usability. In his classic 2002 essay “Emotion & Design: Attractive Things Work Better” Don Norman purports that “good design means that beauty and usability are in balance.” Stephen P. Anderson takes this line of thinking another step further in his 2009 article “In Defense of Eye Candy” where he points out that “if we shift the conversation away from graphical elements and instead focus on aesthetics, or ‘the science of how things are known via the senses,’ we learn that [the] distinction between how something looks and how it works is somewhat artificial.”

This Is How We Do It

At Think Brownstone we won’t “put a new coat of paint” on an interface that is poorly designed and isn’t working well. Our UX designers don’t hand off their wireframes to our visual designers to be “skinned.” Rather, our interdisciplinary design team works together throughout every project to ensure that function and form are working together in harmony. As a result our solutions are logical, beautiful, and they just work.

If you’re a visual designer in Philly or Denver and this is also how you roll, take a look at the job description below and get in touch!

Position: User Experience Designer (Visual)

Responsibilities:

• Create beautiful user interface and visual designs for web, mobile, and touchscreen applications
• Come up with solutions to clients’ problems via design and usability recommendations
• Work collaboratively as part of a creative team that includes both clients and internal colleagues
• Build and maintain positive relationships with clients
• Facilitate creative brainstorming sessions with clients and internal project teams
• Stay up-to-date on the current and best UI and visual design practices and trends; stay up-to-date on current web technologies and innovations

Requirements:

• Bachelors degree or equivalent
• Fantastic presentation, verbal and writing skills
• Advanced skill in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator or equivalents
• Solid understanding of how front-end code (HTML, CSS, Javascript, AJAX, etc) is employed to translate visual designs into interactive digital interfaces

Bonus Points:

• Previous professional interaction, user interface, and visual design experience
• Skill in Web Standards compliant HTML and CSS development
• Experience designing interfaces for iOS applications (iPhone, iPad)
• Obsessive attention to detail
• Project management experience or willingness to take on some project management responsibilities

Job Perks:

• Competitive salary
• Excellent benefits: health, life, disability, IRA, PTO, etc
• Awesome creative workspace in downtown Conshohocken: walking distance to great local restaurants, easy access to Philadelphia via regional rail
• New similar workspace opening soon in Denver!

Apply: If you’re a talented Experience Designer with a focus on the visual/aesthetic and a stunning portfolio that highlights your interactive experience, send an email with a cover letter, resume and link to your online portfolio to work@thinkbrownstone.com with the subject line, “I Think I’m a Brownstoner”. We look forward to hearing from you.

Time for Apple to Become Spider-Man

On January 25th, the New York Times published a lengthy piece focusing on the “human costs” of Apple’s manufacturing process. The piece is structured around the May 19, 2011 explosion at a Foxconn factory in Chengdu, China. The explosion was determined to be caused by the combustion of aluminum dust that resulted from the polishing of iPads that the site assembles. Authors Charles Duhigg and David Barboza do a nice job illustrating the human side of the amazing manufacturing feats that are achieved to help Apple and other electronics manufacturers turn out new products at a breakneck pace. It clearly hit a nerve, as Tim Cook issued a company-wide email soon thereafter in response.

I’m writing this post on my MBP that is currently charging my iPhone. It’s a challenge for me to simply watch a TV show without referencing my iPad at least once to look something up or wait out a commercial break. As a lover of Apple products, I couldn’t help but feel some level of guilt as I read about this incident (not to mention the day-to-day situation at these factories). I like to think that I make a lot of conscious decisions about how I can live my first-world life in a way that reduces my impact on others. Winter aside, I buy the majority of my produce from a local farmer. I drive a car that gets over 40mpg. My household recycles far more than we throw out. You get the point. So again, my concern: was my Apple habit supporting the exploitation and endangerment of others? Yes and no.

If you simply read Duhigg and Barboza’s piece, you’d be right in thinking that Apple is taking advantage of developing countries like China, squeezing them to work an inhuman pace to satiate our need for new iStuff. Pull back a bit, though, and you get a more measured view. Forbes had a nice reaction piece, citing a lot of economic theory that is still making my head spin. Thankfully, they reduced it into a bite-sized infographic (which Forbes is mysteriously no longer hosting). Also, dig deeper and read Apple’s Supplier Responsibility Progress Report from 2012. You’ll find that many of the numbers in the Times piece were reported by Apple. Dell and Samsung, the first two comparable electronics manufacturers that popped into my mind publish no such detailed reports that I can find. Dell makes something of an effort. Samsung…sends letters?

"C'mon, Apple."

Look, in comparison to their peers, Apple’s report is pretty impressive. If it’s an attempt to greenwash the issue, then it’s a damn good one. Having said that, as (retconned) Uncle Ben told us, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Apple just had the second most-profitable quarter for any company…ever (the most-profitable quarter on record is held by ExxonMobil). I think that comparison is worth pondering a bit.

Oil companies are frequently pilloried for raking in huge profits while their customers, employees, and others are forced to pay either through their wallets, lives, or environments. If Apple is now reaping similar rewards, why not hold them to this same standard? They’re talking a good game, let’s see if we can make them follow through. Nike, for all the flak they took in the 90’s, is now showing some positive examples of how to improve working conditions in the developing world. I have to think that was achieved through a combination of public outcry and dedicated corporate leadership. Today’s Apple seems to be in a similar position to 90’s Nike. Their leadership appears to be saying the right things and taking the right steps. Now it’s up to us as their customers (and contributors to that record-setting quarter) to ensure they know what’s important to us.