The reality of getting things done has resulted in a professional environment where the information architect is less important than the practitioner of information architecture (IA).
Framing the Practice of Information Architecture [UX Matters]
La usabilidad es importante en simplificar procesos, pero la experiencia de uso está ligada a la emotividad y deseabilidad de un buen diseño, a la capacidad de comunicar simpleza, confianza. Adjetivos que en ambientes digitales no pueden ser tangibles o "palpables" pero si evocativos e implícitos en un diseño orientado al uso, a la persona.
Este artículo también abre una ventana al marketing y como se abordan los procesos mentales en la toma de decisiones. Muestra la brecha con lo que vemos día a día, el bombardeo insesante de publicidad invasiva, de imposiciones. La persuabilidad es el centro de toda estrategia de marketing pero rara vez utilizada. En cambio el Diseño de Experiencias aprovecha, con una fomula distinta pero con un fin similar, apropiarse de las ideas y sensaciones del usuario. Es parte de la efectividad, alta o baja, de este el hecho de concretar el propósito del sitio, aplicación o dispositivo.
UX is 90% Desirability
By on March 10, 2011
In 1928 Edward Bernays wrote a book called Propaganda. He is considered by many to be the father of public relations. For him, good PR was not as much about selling stuff, but rather setting up circumstances where things would sell themselves. Instead of selling a piano by putting ads in the newspaper, Bernays convinced the reporters at the time to write about a hot new trend.
The most interesting part is this trend had been completely manufactured by him: “Sophisticated people were putting aside a special room in the home for playing music. Once a person had a music room, Bernays believed, he would naturally think of buying a piano. As Bernays wrote, “It will come to him as his own idea.””1
This is essentially what we do. We are part of creating an experience. We are manufacturing something that wasn’t there before. Sure usability is important. Yes, it needs to be designed well. Of course, it should function without a glitch. But, are those really what sell the experience? There’s something more intangible that drives people to products: The desire to use it.
Charlie and the Apple Factory
There’s a spoof animation going around about Apple that portrays Apple’s Steve Jobs as the Willy Wonka character from the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (with Gene Wilder). The spoof actually offers some interesting insight about desirability in products.
In the animation everyone wants to know what makes Apple’s products so special. Finally, the boy (Charlie), is led to a room that holds the secret of why people love Apple products. The room is completely empty. The Steve Jobs character divulges that it there isn’t anything special about their products except that they convinced people to believe they come from a “magical place.”
“It [Zune] plays music just like an iPod! Why don’t people get this? I don’t know why people want this one chunk of plastic over the chunk of plastic that I make?!” – Bill Gates character in Charlie and the Apple Factory
Why will people stand in line for hours for the newer version of the iPad, tomorrow when the original only came out around this time last year? Is it because it has cameras now? Is it because it is a little faster? No, and no. It’s easy to compare tablets on specifications like speed and resolution. It’s very difficult to compare on something intangible, like desirability.
Creating Desirability
It is hard to say what truly makes something desirable because the answer is: It depends. Some companies have gone as far as to hire ethnographers to study and observe customers for months (even years) to help them understand what their desires are by understanding their lives and motivations: “[...] closely observing people where they live and work allows companies to zero in on their customers’ unarticulated desires.”2
Angry Birds became a smash hit, where other similar games had not seen anything close to that success. Some claim this explosive popularity of Angry Birds can be explained, but if someone was to follow this formula they’d miss out on that magic of the original. There are other factors like timing/trends and the getting the attention of your audience. You can follow the rules and build a great product, but it might miss out on something else.
As designers we aim to orchestrate the right environment for that desirability to happen. If it’s usable and beautifully designed there will be at least a good foundation to help in allowing that seed of emotion to grow. In most cases people don’t want to be told (from the company) an app, service or product is great. They want to be the ones to discover it and share that with their friends. Like Edward Bernays knew many years ago, create the right environment for desire and the products will sell themselves.
Creating a desirable application or product can only happen when it is — at it’s core — something meaningful. It has to be something that improves people’s lives or just makes them happy for much longer than the five minute high after their purchase. Meaning also comes through telling a compelling story or building a brand over years that resonates with us on a much deeper level.
When the level of technology in a product becomes enough for users and saturated within competitive products, the experience becomes the differentiator and continues to add value. Image Credit
There’s always something or someone that does it a little better. This is especially true with technology. The technology will get to a point where it’s enough for the user, and anything else is excess. Focusing on the customer experience with a goal of desirability is the difference between creating fans and true fans (fanatics).
1. How to brand a disease — and sell a cure – Carl Elliott on CNN
2. The Science of Desire – Bloomberg Businessweek
Hi Oliver, many thanks for being the first person to take the leap of faith into in:focus. It was a bit of a personal goal for me to get you on board, I’ve been following you and iA’s work since as long as I can remember now. For the tiny minority that might not know fully who you are, how would you describe yourself/your work in one sentence?
I studied philosophy, then I started designing websites for a big brand agency, now my goal is to save the world by making it easier for people to read and write.
As one of the biggest international agencies, where do iA’s roots lie and what have been the determining factors of getting to where you are now?
We are not big. Just ten people. The determining factor is determination as such: A strong vision, and to not let anyone scare you from working towards it.
So, to most, you are iA. You’re the well known face of the company, but what of your staff? How big is your team, what skills do they have, and how do you go about ensuring you have the best?
- 1 Loud Mouth (me)
- 1 Strategist
- 2 Project Managers
- 1 Information Architect
- 2 Information Designers
- 2 Front End Coders
- 2 Cocoa Hackers
I get applications almost on a daily basis. Most people at the iA office in Tokyo have applied several times. Applicants (and clients) usually come to us, not the other way around. If someone just keeps on sending his CV and he gets better over time I know that they really want to work with us and no one else.
The first three months are a test period. I take this very seriously. Lots of people don’t make it through that period. Some catch up because they feel the pressure and they notice how talented everybody is at iA.
Sometimes I need to fire people when they lose the energy. That’s always horrible. But it’s always for the best of both parties. Fortunately, in Japan firing people is not such a big deal as in Germany or France.
Chris in Zurich is as strict as I am.
I am incredibly proud of our team and how much they identify with iA.
I’m sure that when you were a kid you probably didn’t think you wanted to be the CEO of an international digital agency, what did you want to do? If you weren’t in the web right now, what would you be doing?
Well, my first dream job was ‘boss-and-painter’ then astronaut. Now I’m CEO of iA in Japan, sort of a boss and painter on another planet.
You must be pretty busy between meetings, speaking and running the business, but what kind of stuff do you do around the office; coding, wireframes, design, all of the above? Anything else?
Answering emails. Observing client and iA traffic (I’m completely addicted to that). Drinking coffee (addicted as well). And answering more emails.
You have a lot of clients in the news sector, is this a type of client that you actively seek out, or do they come to you based on your reputation?
That happened out of two reasons:
- Because of our focus on readability, I guess.
- Journalists are tough clients, but they have the advantage that they hate sales talk and prefer to hear the truth (and mostly they can deal with it). Our ideal clients. I can’t deal with clients that expect me to lie to them.
When was the last time you bought a printed newspaper?
Before we got the ZEIT job (August 2008) I bought a printed copy at the airport to study the typography on the airplane from Zurich to Hamburg.
So, you launched Writer in the latter half of last year; what an app! I absolutely love it. How did it come about? Was it a solution to a problem that you had personally, or was it to solve the problems you knew others were having?
That project is almost 20 years old. Since I used Word for the first time. (And in some ways those first versions were considerably better than the actual one). At that time—in spite of teaching MSOffice—I used a mechanical type writer to write my own texts. I started believing in the project when after buying a D-80 I understood that tools you use for your work really can change the quality of your output (I sort of doubted that because of German skiers that, in spite of always having the best gear, sucked at skiing—some of my beliefs are really that subjective and random, so watch out).
Writer has, from what I can see, taken off pretty well. It’s even been endorsed by Stephen Fry! How has Writer performed in your eyes? In terms of both sales and reception, has it done better or worse than you imagined?
We sold 40,000 apps in four months. I am very happy about that. I expect the Writer for OSX to sell as many if not more. Writer for OSX is what I had envisioned when starting the project. I am very very excited about that. I use it (the beta) for myself and I love it.
Any more iA-built apps round the corner?
I try to not talk too much about things that are not built yet. But yes, we have at least ‘one more thing’ this year.
You authored one of my all-time favourite articles in 100E2R which has permanently altered the way I work. As a writer of articles myself I’d be interested to know: your writing has a great confidence about it; is this something that is inherent in the way you write or is it something you’ve worked at over time?
I just try to be clear. I could put more ‘mostly’, ‘in general’, ‘considerably’ in my texts as others do, but I’d rather be amusing and enraging. I feel bad when I don’t get critical comments. However, before I attack, I make sure that I stand on solid ground. The more people know iA the more I have to make sure that I stand on solid ground before landing a punch.
I enjoyed all your type articles, and I’ve learned a lot from them; where did you learn the intricacies of type on the web?
Books. Copying good design. Talking to people. Blog comments on the iA website (before I switched them off).
iPhone or iPad?
95% ;-) iPhone. 5% iPad—for writing ;-)
Which apps, software, and tools etc make your day to day life easier? What can’t you live without?
Fireworks. Browser. Writer.
I think I may have gathered that you’re a Reddit reader (are you?), what other sites do you visit daily?
Reddit FTW. Techmeme. TPUTH link galore backend.
What do you do when you’re not doing all things web? Do you enjoy disconnecting?
If I disconnect it’s a sign of exhaustion. Online or offline, I am constantly relating experiences to what I do or plan to do. I don’t do that out of professional duty, moral discipline or for business profit but because this is how I have fun. And having fun is how I relax. Having fun is being present.
I use Twitter as my notebook, so sooner or later most of my activities leave a trace on Twitter. Some tweets take hours to write, some are just side notes for myself.
Some claim they can not think. By meditating. By exercising. Or just by doing nothing. By just sitting in the park. Maybe I don’t really understand what they mean by ‘not thinking’, but I certainly cannot not think. I cannot not think unless I am asleep or stressed out. I like sleeping as much as I like thinking (in a ying and yang way), but I don’t like sports. I know that it’s supposed to be healthy, but I just don’t like it. I don’t like stress for the sake of exercise, and I don’t like activity for the sake of health. Sports give me a head ache.
I know that it’s not a popular opinion, but look at them: Most people that are actively doing some sports are not really healthy. Their knees hurt from jogging, their back hurts from snow boarding, their arms are fucked because of the tennis craziness… Since I’m competitive by nature, I’d probably like wrestling, but I’m too lazy to start wrestling at 40.
And I don’t like looking at nature or just sitting in the park doing nothing either. I only feel happy unless there is something to experience, to think and talk about. I like non-verbal communication. That’s why I love playing Chess. For me, talking about ABC-books, the Wikileaks and Schopenhauer after a good game of chess with Johno is like playing a good game of squash and 300 push-ups for other people.
Since we have a two year old son, playing Lego, wooden trains, reading books and talking to him is how I relax best when I am not working. There is so much to experience from, think about and say to a toddler, that no park, chess game or design problem could ever compete with. And there is plenty of exercise carrying him around and running after him. All real, and most of it pretty healthy.
What is your process for a new project? Once the client has signed the dotted line where do you start, what is the journey from concept to reality?
Research, wireframes, information design iterations, templates, prototype, optimization, launch, optimization.
The Japanese are known as being pioneers of technology, where do you feel Japan lies on the web front?
Falling behind. Brutally.
Are there any interesting cultural differences between the Swiss and Japanese iA offices? Ways of working, attitudes, anything?
Zurich is the bank with its infrastructure, financial and strategical know how, Tokyo is the treasure room with the overall communication, brand strategy and some quite unique design talents. The people in the two offices are like that as well: We’re like Ying and Yang, day and night, sleep and awakeness.
Are there any technologies or industry shifts that are getting you and the iA team particularly excited at the moment?
Mobile. Video. The Future of News.
What, in your opinion, is the single most important rule to remember when building websites?
Observe. Test. Observe. Test.
Is there anything in your career that you regret or think others should learn from?
There are many things I learned in those last 15 years, and/but without making mistakes iA would not be where it is; since I like the current state of things I don’t have much to regret.
However, I sometimes wish that I had paid more attention during math classes in school. It sounds silly, but I just recently discovered how important numbers are. No matter what you do, whether you run a business, draw wireframes, code an app, design a button, write a tweet or compose a symphony, metrics count. Knowing the number side of things helps you seeing through them.
The more you understand how to decipher the numbers in your work, the better you understand what you are doing. Numbers are the soul of things. You think numbers are uncool? Well, Steve Jobs spits numbers like a fire dragon in every presentation. Numbers are fun, once they start making sense.
I can’t think of a single intellectual activity, where numbers play a side role. Reading with numbers in business plans, sales numbers, traffic stats, grids, I have most things that I know with a certain degree of certainty. Dealing with numbers helps you to keeping oversight and not losing your calm.
If you could give an aspiring agency owner one piece of advice, what would it be?
Don’t do it for the money. Don’t do it for no money.
Who do you look up to in the industry?
Apple. Google. Twitter.
What really pisses you off most about our industry at the moment?
There is too much talk about design and not enough good work. So, complaining is easy. It’s aways easy. Because in every field there are always more people talking than making. Of course, it’s fun to complain. Complaining is the cheapest way to put yourself above those you complain about. By complaining you divide the world in the comfortable black and white, good and bad armies that makes you stop doubting yourself. I love complaining.
Unfortunately, the feeling that by complaining you put yourself above everybody else is an illusion. In the eyes of other people the complainer is just a whiner. From outside all negativity will make you look small. Look at the giants Google and Microsoft dissing each other over those search results. Suddenly they both look like school boys.
On the other hand, making things is hard. People will complain and criticize. Some will make good points, some will just express their jealousy, some will just complain to complain. What’s nice about making things is that the more you do the less you need to complain and the more you are curious what other people have to complain about your work. The more you listen, the better your work gets and the less time you have to complain. Since we started doing our own projects like Web Trend Map, TPUTH and lately Writer, I complained less and less. Making your own things unlocked iA’s self dynamic:
- Our own projects give us enough room to do exactly what we want; so we don’t feel the need to find self-fulfillment in client work anymore, which is both good for iA and for the client.
- The constant income from our own projects flattens the cash flow sinus curve that agencies usual have to struggle with (big budgets are dangerous, especially for a small enterprise); all this puts us in a much better position for contract negotiations.
- Our insecurities with our own projects make us understand (and deal with) the client’s insecurities much better.
In short: Since I’m happy with the state of things, I don’t have so much to complain about anymore–and the trick is: Make (and sell!) your own stuff.
In an ideal world, where will you be in ten years time?
Short term: Within this year, iA will move towards 50% client work 50% own projects. I really like that combination.
In between: I still need to write that interface philosophy or interface cook book.
Long term: Still trying to improve reading and writing. And I sometimes dream of having a newspaper. Maybe I can somehow bring all this together one day.
That’s it! Thank you very much for your time and for being the first person in:focus!
All the best,
Harry
Vía Harry Roberts
¿Cómo debe organizarse la información? ¿Cómo debe visualizarse? ¿Cómo debe interactuar con el usuario y con el sitio/aplicación? Son preguntas cuya respuesta esta en el triunvirato: Investiga - Prueba - Corrige.
Eso es sabido y está más o menos claro y es en su mayoría responsabilidad del Arquitecto de Información. La pregunta es qué perfil profesional es el que puede, de manera más idónea, liderar ese proceso.
Hay diseñadores y periodistas ligados a la Ai. Para mi, diseñador, siempre fue un proceso natural el desenvolverme en la Arquitectura de la información porque forma parte de la comunicación visual y experiencia de uso de un servicio, producto o comunidad. Pero desconozco la motivación de un periodista por un desarrollo, que en su finalidad tiene un lenguaje visual.
Quiero dejar en claro que no lo digo con un afán despectivo ni crítico, sino más bien de ignorancia. Entiendo perfectamente y es lógico hasta cierto punto cómo se involucra un periodista con la información y el tratamiento que le da, de acuerdo al perfil de su usuario (o lector?). Pero me intriga cómo llega al proceso de prototipado y visualización. El diseñador por formación tiene presceptos claros de como visualizar, un órden, un lenguaje, si se quiere, que pone al servicio de la información. Mi pregunta es cómo un periodista adopta estos conocimientos para visualizar el órden que le dio a su esquema de información. ¿Reglas de usabilidad de Nielsen?, ¿lectura en Z? ¿la forma en "F" que entregan los eyetracking?. Lamentablemente no he tenido la suerte de poder intercambiar conocimientos con ningun periodista al respecto.
No quiero ser ingenuo, en el sentido de que entiendo que esta es una actividad multidisciplinaria, y que finalmente una persona nunca es la responsable única de ningún tipo de desarrollo. Pero aun asi, me gustaría saber como es la aproximación al lenguaje gráfico o visual del prototipo (Wireframe), desde el punto de vista de un periodista digital.
El manejo de la información en medios digitales nos regala esa duplicidad. Porque la información es lenguaje, es contexto, es un mensaje que debe estar al servicio del receptor, y este fin depende directamente de como se realza, se destaca u organiza visualmente. Dos frentes de ataque donde cada uno, diseñador y periodista, tienen experiencia en la materia.
¿Algún periodista, o diseñador que pueda dar su visión al respecto?
"Information architecture is the recipe for cooking good user experience"
Suelo encontrar en Twitter a mucha gente que habla sobre la Arquitectura de la Información, he ido a los seminarios de AI Chile, dos o 3 años seguidos (donde me topo con distintos profesionales unos muy buenos, otros no tanto). Conozco y he trabajado con gente dedicada al orden, estrategia y diseño de la información y nunca había encontrado una definición que se acercara a lo que, en el fondo, me gusta de esta actividad.
Siempre pensé que había cierta deformación en la interpretación del concepto. Casi toda la información, al menos en español, terminaba en wireframes, card sorting, mapas de navegación. O sea, en técnicas.
Pero ¿Qué diablos es la Arquitectura de la Información? ¿Un conjunto de técnicas para ordenar la información? ¿Un proceso matemático, lógico, con sólo un resultado correcto? ¿Reglas?
En los mismos espacios que comenté antes, me he encontrado con gente que siente adoración por los Wireframes, muchas galerías de Flickr con fotos de Cardsorting, de Mapas de Navegación. De nuevo, técnicas. Cientos de papeles pegados en la pared, de reglas, lápices, post-it, incluso de stencils. Pero poco se habla del proceso. Bajo que sustento se construyen esos mapas o wireframes.
Tiempo atrás me encontré con una presentación de Oliver Reichenstein, llamada 'Can Information be Architected'. donde hablaba básicamente del porqué eligió dedicarse a la Ai. Hablando de qué es lo que encontró en la actividad que lo motivó a crear Information Architects.
Fue la primera vez en que comulgaba realmente con la visión de alguien al respecto: "El arte y ciencia de elegir las palabras correctas y ponerlas en el orden correcto"
Es la interpretación contextual, sicológica, incluso filosófica de la información, del cual como resultado se desprende un orden, un ecosistema, que como tal, debe cambiar, adaptarse o evolucionar de acuerdo al uso que le dan sus usuarios. Es el aire que transita entre las distintas áreas que conforman la experiencia de uso. La arquitectura, como bien dice, es una metáfora, de lo que hacemos, del deber que tenemos todos (diseñadores, programadores, periodistas, etc)
El resto, wireframes, cardsorting, mapas mentales, además de palabras inentendibles para los clientes y justificar entregables, son herramientas, como Photoshop, TextEdit, Omnigraffle, buenas herramientas, útiles, pero herramientas.
"Information Architecture is the substance that holds all aspect of a product together."
Descargar (PDF): 'Can Information be Architected'
Pensando en escribir sobre una experiencia personal muy puntual que me sucedió con Amazon, decidí adentrarme un poco más sobre todo lo que significa comprar online, hablando desde mi experiencia como consumidor y como (ex) Arquitecto de la Información de una empresa de retail chilena.
Para mi las bases en cuales concentrarse son 3. Hoy escribiré sobre la primera.
1.- La decisión.
La decisión de comprar por Internet está sujeta a muchos factores: ventajas o desventajas del proceso: (no tienes que ir a la tienda, no poder revisar el producto antes de comprar, etc.), inherentes al producto (si es de gran tamaño, ofertas especiales al comprar online, etc.), a la persona (comodidad al comprar desde tu casa, evitar filas para pagar, inexperiencia en el uso de las formas de pago, etc.), a la tecnología (problemas de conexión, caídas de servidor, etc.). Sin embargo se pueden dividir en dos tipos de decisión:
Racional y/o Irracional.
Ambas están sujetas a las variables comentadas en el párrafo anterior; sin embargo cada una se ve más o menos influenciada por ellas según el estado de ánimo, carácter de la persona, medio ambiente y presión social entre otras. Y nosotros, como diseñadores, debemos estar atentos a reaccionar y preveer este tipo de situaciones teniendo conciencia de cómo funciona la toma de decisiones en el consumidor.
Estoy hablando de sicología.
Un muy buen libro (Neuro Web Design, de la Dra Susan Weinschenk) habla de las consideraciones, gráficas y lingüísticas a tomar en cuenta; más importante aún, a qué parte del cerebro le estamos hablando al utilizar estos recursos.
Sobre lo racional
Comprar por Internet supone (desde la concepción de la idea) superar ciertas barreras que tienen que ver con dogmas: ver, tocar, probar el producto antes de comprar parece ser lo obvio. Esto en Internet se transforma en una necesidad (casi) imposible de cubrir (por ahora).
Es cierto también que la tasa de compras por Internet va en aumento(*) y la gente a su vez está más abierta a la experiencia de realizar este tipo de actividades a través de la web o aplicaciones. Sin embargo hay “resguardos” o aprehensiones inherentes al proceso.
Ayudarse de la experiencia de otros.
fuente:
Neuro Web Design, de la Dra Susan Weinschenk
(*)Soy Digital 2010 - Ayerviernes Research
Gracias a Jorge Epuñan por la ayuda para ordenar las ideas
Esto de tener un blog, a pesar de ser alguien que trabaja en web, siempre me pareció de lo más complejo. Básica y simplemente porque no tenía idea de que carajo hablar. Se que me gusta hablar de la profesión en la que me desarrollo. se que me gusta hablar de las tonteras que a veces (repetidas veces) me pasan. Se que me gusta hablar de la música que escucho. Se que me gusta hablar de cervezas. Hablar de fútbol...
Pero, compatibilizan todos estos temas?
Independiente de que se puedan asociar, lo complejo era asociar un blog con una temática en particular. Será mi portafolio? Será mi diario de vida (cof cof)? No tenía idea.
Pero ahora tomando en cuenta la instancia que me encuentro, creo que es válido dedicarle un espacio a lo que más me gusta hacer, que es lo primero que puse en la bio, de esta guarifaifa.
Y como en el día a día se me ocurren cosas, y los 140 caracteres de twitter no alcanzan a redondear una idea (no soy bueno con los haiku), y como el trabajo que desarrollo ahora si bien inspira y cuestiona hartas variables al respecto pero a la vez coarta la libertad (de tiempo) para explayarse, decidí mantener un repositorio de las cosas que se me ocurren.
Había escuchado a Jorge Barahona, en una charla sobre las bondades de postereous, asi que decidí darle una oportunidad. Y la manera en como el sitio se presenta y te orienta a crear una cuenta y postear ya me parece en si fantástico como para un segundo post :P
