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Taking more time to listen

by Bella on December 13, 2010

I’ve always loved the Mark Twain quote:

“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

Short letters require editing. They require actively choosing what pieces of information to leave in, and what to leave out. There is something just a little bit contrived about them. These days, I find I don’t have time for short letters, or for short sound bites either. Both leave me questioning everything; especially the news sound bites. I want citations for every statistic, I wonder what has been omitted by the de riguer editing process that so many “news” stories undergo. I honestly mean it when I say that I would rather listen to Bernie Sanders’ eight-hour filibuster than listen to the talking heads on the news networks as they condense it down for me. I want to listen to more.

So today, I wanted to share a few podcasts that take the time to tell beautiful, long stories about people and their lives. I find that listening to these podcasts on a regular basis helps me to hone and stretch my listening skills, and challenge me to think deeply about someone else’s point of view, their challenges, and their values (all which may be different than my own). What I love about the people in these stories is that through their voices, you can hear their worries, their happiness, their frustrations…their truth. As a user researcher, this is gold to me. Cadence, inflection, tone, all of these things carry so much meaning. Identifying them is critical to what we do. Suspending judgement, setting aside our personal opinions, and developing empathy are also critical, and I believe require practice.

I am always surprised by something in the stories, which serves as an important remind me that I neither have all the answers, nor am I supposed to. Just like when I do user research: the more I do it, the more I realize there are no shortcuts to understanding what really motivates people. It all comes down to listening.

Podcasts

Book

So during your commute, or while folding laundry, or while snowblowing, listen to these beautiful stories. I realize these too have been “produced,” but each does a really thoughtful job at communicating context, and each has a lot of heart. I’d love to hear your thoughts on these podcasts, and if I’ve missed any that you enjoy, feel free to post a comment.

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Mixed Signals

by Bella on December 9, 2010

Occasionally, something will happen that is just “off” enough that it will simultaneously catch me off-guard and force me out of my comfort zone. The feeling is sometimes very subtle, and usually a little comical, so much so that it may be hard to articulate exactly what about the situation is making me uneasy. When this happens, I have learned to identify that squirmy sentiment as one of “Cognitive Dissonance.”

Cognitive Dissonance is the “state of mental discomfort that occurs when a person’s attitudes, thoughts, or beliefs (or, cognitions) conflict.”1 As humans, we have a tendency to constantly seek consistency among our many presumptions about how the world works. When the world around us doesn’t map to our understandings, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that we have mechanisms that quickly help us back to the state of mental comfort, or consonance. Consonance occurs when two cognitions are in agreement, and a state of comfort is achieved.

So yesterday morning, when Will Evans (@semanticwill) shared this picture of Cognitive Dissonance, I thought it was perfect example to write a post about.

An example of Cognitive Dissonance at the corner of Varick Street and Broom Street in SoHo, New York. Photo courtesy of Will Evans.

In this situation, clearly, there is something awry. Should we stop, or should we go? Well, luckily for us, any one of three mechanisms will immediately kick in to quickly get us back to a state of consonance to resolve (literally) this mixed signal.

  1. The first option is to reduce the importance of the conflict. In this case, thinking “I don’t need the signal, there are no cars coming anyway” could be a way to minimize any reliance on the signal.
  2. The second option is to add consonant cognitions. By adding another element, I can chose to delay the decision, and think “Oh, whatever, I’ll just turn the corner and cross at the next light,” or as Will did, think “Look at this example of Cognitive Dissonance; I am going to take a picture of it.” By virtue of adding another element of our own choosing, we regain control of the situation through other means.
  3. Finally, the third option is to remove or change the dissonant cognition. An example of this third option would be, “I’ll use the traffic light to make a decision of whether to cross or not.”

Any of these three mechanisms will get us back (or at least closer) to our happy place.

Further Reading on Cognitive Dissonance

1. A Theory Cognitive Dissonance by Leon Festinger, Row, Peterson and Company, 1957.

2. Universal Principles of Design by William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, Jill Butler, Rockport Publishers, 2010, p. 46-47.

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It’s only funny because it’s true

by Bella on November 29, 2010

Over this past Thanksgiving weekend, this comic made the rounds among some of CMU’s current graduate students and alumni. For those of us who know these words to be true—that we are trained only to sleep on national holidays—I hope this brings a little comic relief!
(Also, I should probably mention the obvious…not sleeping for a few years forever changes what you think is funny.)

 


(hat tip: Miso Kim and Kelly Nash)

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Showing up & getting involved

by Bella on November 18, 2010

A few times over the past month, I’ve been lucky enough to find myself in the company of Atlanta’s incredibly intelligent and welcoming UX community. I can honestly say that after a few years of not having access to a community like this, I see no reason why not to get immediately involved…so I am jumping right in because the koolaid water is just right. Here’s a quick recap of some recent local events:

Atlanta IxDA :: local leaders meeting

I’ve been a mentor for the IxDA for awhile, but I’ve not had the luxury of living in a city with a local chapter until now. So when I was invited to attend the Atlanta IxDA Local Leaders 2011 planning meeting, I jumped at the opportunity to get involved.

The local leaders that I met (Danny Muller, Jamie McAtee, Alisan Atvur, Josh Cothran and David Demembrum) are fantastic. They gave me the rundown on the general pulse of the Atlanta UX community, recapped some of their best events from the past year, and discussed learnings from organizing and moderating those events. From there, we brainstormed on the 2011 calendar. Although it isn’t public yet, at some point it will be made available on the Atlanta IxDA site. The events I signed up to help organize are scheduled for the summer months (after I’ve delivered my book manuscript), and suffice it to say that I am incredibly excited about playing a small part in shaping what happens next year.

CHI*Atlanta :: Karen Holtzblatt and Eric Peterson

Last month, CHI*Atlanta hosted Karen Holtzblatt, the co-author of the incredible book Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems. In her talk “Practical Innovation,” she deconstructs the product development journeys of both the iPhone and of the technology behind Cameron’s Avatar, and spells out how both of these “game-changers” really are just a set of already well-understood and well-distributed technologies, recombined in a new way with a surprising and experiential “twist” that together catapulted both products into history. Karen is an absolute force of nature, and if you ever get a chance to see her speak, GO. In case you didn’t already know, Karen also happens to be the brains behind the Contextual Inquiry method…really, must I say more?

Tonight (11/18), CHI*Atlanta will host Eric Peterson at the Georgia Tech Research Institute. Eric is the author of Web Analytics Demystified and The Big Book of Key Performance Indicators. I look forward to hearing what he has to say regarding the merging and synthesis of the constant qualitative and quantitative data sets generated by Web Analytics, and also, hear a little about how he helps organizations see beyond data sources to actually helping them articulate the questions they really want to have answered. If he throws in some insight I haven’t heard yet regarding A/B tests, I’ll be a happy girl. (Props to Colleen Jones and Toni Pashley for organizing these great events.)

(I am also very appreciative of the fact that this month, I have met two experts (Hotzblatt, Peterson) for three of the methods that I will cover in my book (Contextual Inquiry, Web Analytics, and Key Performance Indicators). It is not lost on me that pieces of the puzzle for the book continue to show up at my doorstep at every turn.)

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A curriculum for young designers (or, perhaps, just a misprint)

November 17, 2010

My daughter’s school recently sent home a “Curriculum for Kindergartners” pamphlet. In it, the usual curricular suspects were presented…Language Arts, Mathematics, Science. However, a few “Creative Thinking,” “Communication,” and “Research skills” learning objectives were also spelled out. Here are a few: Creative Thinking Incorporate brainstorming and other idea-generating techniques to solve problems or create new [...]

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Guest Post by Todd Toler: Don’t be Such a Scientist

November 2, 2010

Today’s piece is a guest post by Todd Toler, Director of User Experience at John Wiley & Sons. The book has been making the rounds at Wiley… so here Todd reviews the book I wrote about in June, Don’t Be Such A Scientist by Randy Olson. You can read more of Todd’s insights on user [...]

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The book contract is signed, sealed, delivered!

October 19, 2010

Well, it is official…after years of refining an idea that I’ve had in my head and in my heart, and after months of investigating the publishing landscape, I finally have a signed book contract with Rockport Publishers! I am now officially a co-author of a book on user-centered design research methods, along with CMU School [...]

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New horizons, big changes

October 13, 2010

I admit, things have been a little quiet for me on the blogging front. There have been a lot of changes happening in my world, and instead of boring you with the minutiae of the past few weeks I decided that I would write an update once the dust settled. So, with that, I hope [...]

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Ethnography and the moving family

June 18, 2010

When I was a kid, to say I moved around a lot is an understatement. Before the age of ten, I had lived on three continents, and had already attended five schools. With a constantly changing framework, I learned pretty quickly that customs, values, and even accents carried a lot of social capital within a [...]

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Don’t Be Such A Designer…er, I mean Scientist

June 10, 2010

As a divergent thinker, I often rely on unfamiliar models to help me identify parallels and patterns that I may not see in models with which I am deeply familiar. One of the ways I do this is by reading anything I can get my hands on, and usually I learn something new and find [...]

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