How can you broaden your sphere of influence within the field of human-computer interaction? You can start by building your muscles! Steve will take a look at some fundamental skills that underlie the creation and launch of innovative goods and services. He will discuss the personal skills that he considers to be “the muscles of innovators” and the ways you can build these important muscles, including noticing, understanding cultural context, maintaining exposure to pop culture, synthesizing, drawing, wordsmithing, listening, and prototyping. Along the way, he will demonstrate how improving these powerful skills will equip you to lead positive change.

1. Skill Building For Design Innovators @steveportigal

2. Portigal Consulting is a bite-sized California firm that helps companies discover and act on new insights about their customers and themselves

3. The Promise of Mastery

4. Methods vs. Muscles

5. Today’s Session I’ll review some of the muscles I think are important Noticing Listening Understanding cultural context Synthesizing Wordsmithing Drawing Embracing pop culture These muscles drive how we understand users, collaborate with each other, and create design solutions For each, at varying levels of detail What are we talking about Why does it matter How to build these muscles I’ll talk steadily for the first 40 min. or so, then we’ll have Q & A at the end

6. 1. Noticing Noticing the noticing sensation Things that make you go “Hmm” Your attention is grabbed You stop what you are doing Laugh/point/cringe Furrow brow in confusion Whuttha…?

7. Noticing Our Users Gaps between self-reported and actual behavior Workarounds, hacks and kludges Process breakdowns Artifacts or details to ask about Not only what people say, but how they say it

8. Noticing helps you to notice later

9. Noticing helps you to notice later

10. Noticing helps you to notice later

11. Noticing helps you to notice later

12. Noticing helps you to notice later

13. Building Noticing Muscles Carry a camera/notepad and use it Thinkaloud protocol – say what you’re seeing To a friend To your device Get out of your regular/comfort zone

14. Building Noticing Muscles

15. 2. Listening Interpersonally, we’re trained to hear the breath signals that it’s our turn to talk. This is not really listening. FI NISHED

16. Listening Body Language Yes! Not so much.

18. “Earlier, you told us that…”

20. Building Listening Muscles Use serendipitous encounters with loquacious taxi drivers, airplane neighbors, or social-cue-missing party chatters Even if we can’t repair society’s listening inequity, we can use it to provide endless practice space Are you talking to me?

21. 3. Understanding Cultural Context

22. What is Culture?

23. Culture Defined How a group of people make sense of the world Common Experiences Beliefs Knowledge Values Attitudes Behaviors Meanings Patterns Symbols

24. But First: Cultural Norms Articulates what is normal Seen in artifacts Media Products Advertisements Street culture Trends and fads Normal isn’t “right or wrong” – it’s the set of background rules that define much of what people choose or ignore

25. What is Normal?

28. Cultural Context Experiences With these examples, think about your own experiences with culture Is this outside your norm? Is this something you have an analog for in your own culture? Is it your own culture? Have you observed this? Or something similar?

35. Cultural Context Muscles: Collect Your Stories

36. Cultural Context Muscles: Collect Your Stories

37. Cultural Context Muscles: Collect Your Stories

38. Cultural Context Muscles: Observe Observers

39. 4. Synthesizing Synthesis is essential if we want to use customer information to do more than solve “point needs”, i.e., to innovate

40. Idealized Synthesis Process 4 5 2 3 1 6 Objectives Findings User Experience Brief IdeationQuestions Possible Strategies Possible Solutions DetailedSolutions 7

41. Building Synthesis Muscles

42. Expert Synthesis Process 4 5 2 3 1 6 Objectives Findings User Experience Brief IdeationQuestions Possible Strategies Possible Solutions DetailedSolutions 7

43. 5. Wordsmithing Different than writing prose We draw on this when Writing PowerPoint Creating effective hyperlink labels Naming UI or product functionality Articulate findings about customer mental models (i.e., difference between automatic and smart)

44. Building Wordsmithing Muscles

45. 6. Drawing

46. Drawing

47. Drawing

48. Why Drawing? The more ways you have to work out ideas (alone or with others), the more impactful you will be Moving a pen on paper will to engage your brain (and your audience’s brain) in a different way than moving a mouse or typing on a keyboard

49. Sketching and Beyond

50. Sketching and Beyond

51. Sketching and Beyond

52. 1,000,000 Giraffes

53. 1,000,000 Giraffes

54. Building Drawing Muscles Draw It doesn’t matter that you “can’t draw” Kate Rutter calls it putting marks on paper to take the fear out of it Get other people to draw

55. 7. Pop Culture “Pop culture is a rich source of information that can often be crucial for our work. When the public begins to compare and contrast the voting for American Idol with voting for the American president, that’s something we want to pay attention to. Dismissing this cultural data by sniffing ‘I don’t watch American Idol’isn’t a relevant response.” Steve Portigal Living In the Overlap interactions, Sep+Oct 2008

56. Pop Quiz

57. Pop Quiz

58. Pop Quiz

59. Pop Quiz

60. Pop Quiz

61. Pop Quiz

62. To Know (About) Him Is Not To Love Him

63. Building Pop Culture Muscles Read/watch broadly yet shallowly Go outside your interests Not about being complete, but about expanding your base Skim, surf, flip – TV, RSS, headlines, publications, etc.

64. Building Pop Culture Muscles Consume the meatConsume the meta

65. Muscles and Where We’ll Use ‘Em

66. Another muscle to consider might be… Yeah, I’ve got a question for ya… One new thing I learned today is…

67. Thank You! @steveportigal steve@portigal.com 415-894-2001 Portigal Consulting www.portigal.com