Big D Design Conference: Dallas Texas May 30, 2009

Registration was off to a slow start this morning. After finally getting registered met up with some friends. I have some pictures, this post will be updated through out the day with things I find interesting, exciting, revolutionary, or all around RAD.

The keynote is about to start and looks to be good ” True Confessions of a Design Therapist” – NORM COX.

True Confessions of A Design Therapist

Bio: 30 years in the UI field.

The love of titles the title generator: There is a great image of a slot machine breaking up the titles into a random assortment.
I love the fact he talked about the birth of interaction design. The initial creation of typewriter displays here in Dallas Texas for XEROX.

Right now he is going over some details about Markup(1976 Alto) application.

9:32 – There are a lot of god pictures on the screen right now of ICONs from the 1978 – 1979. There is no change with the crazy arguments you have. Norm is referring to the lengthy (Monthly) discussions about the arrow directions on windows…

9:37 – IBM’s recognizatin that user experience was a major part and portion of brand idea and maintenance, Norm becomes consultant in UI design, and they become preachers of UI.

9:39 – he work on the Atlanta Olympics campaign,

9:44 – New project working on some pizza instructional materials. – for a large comapny (pizza hut? perhaps)
“Youre building your pizza upside down” – There is an aesome slide of the worst document for making pizza’s ever.
What’s the real problem with this crazy interface (think of the worst poster you can possibly think of that instructs you to do something and is all messe dup).

My Summary:

Does a title mean you know how to do your job? Or is a title simply a way to pigeon hole someone into a position and silo them off into an area. Then again if you have a title that is not seen to be helpfull or directed to a job in today’s market you just aren’t going to be hired. You can have skill sets outside of the main but without some indicator how does someone get recognized and eventually hired? Food for thought!

I want pizza!

 

10:07 -  Welcome to the New World: When Creative Meets UX

The presntation is as one person put it “pretty lite” I missed blogging becauseI was up on the stage representing one of the users in the “space of user expereince” Basically a visual illustration of your users expertise grouped by product / task experience.

10:36 – 2nd speaker for this session is up here.   Talking about brand and experience with Starbucks example.

How do you measure brand and the perecption of branding,  because I have a giant speedometer my car goes super fast!

10:42 -  http://www.socialmention.com -    It was an example of changine a user experience by delivering excity perceptions. 

SHowing Word with every option showing – vs notepad -  “Comment – Reminder that microsoft is a sponser:) – That was funny thing to point out. Personally I’ll use whatever brand is going to help me get the job done quick and with the least amount of bullshit.

10:48 – My space brand is a mess – I agree, but then again people like living in that mess.   So who’s right and who’s wrong?

 

11:04 :  MOved to Usability or Strategc User Experience – Communication Value to Executives:

Usability testing is good – but it is not the end all be all.

Designing the enitre user experience – On a side note: This is one thing that I am a big advocate of. I attempt to design from a systematic approach. Of course this is going to depend  upon the system and so I sometimes end up designing from outside in. Sometimes you just cant do that.

Pictures up on ascreen of Peach Tree Accounting,  redesigning the UI.  Peach tree is still a crazy complicated piece of software. Heck quickbooks has some of the same problems.

11:18 -  Peachtree case study, particpartory design,

Why would peach tree fail – Registration process was limiting the product, web registration only during off hours (WOW) 18 screens to register online.  No wonder no body wanted to use the product, hi prices, 

This was actually a pretty interesting and engaging conversation so far……

11:23  – Turning more to the topic at hand.

“Changing organization structures and incentives to refocus on the customer is hard work.”

11:27 -  Switching to Kaare Hanson

Experience design creator at Intuit,  changing an organization from the inside out:

Leading, Directing,

11:35 – Brand attributes to tackle, 

Complainers > Problem Idenitifier > Problem Solver
Primadonna > Preacher  > transparent driver
Narrwoly Focuse d- To connected to the business.

 

Customer experience map – with starbucks example watching a person inside of starbucks to watch the journey of the person. Tis was kind a neat thing. Speaking of which I must find caffiene!

 

1:35 -

There was a great sketching session that happened earlier during lunch. It’s now 1:35 but there is one drastic problem there are no PLUGINs!. My laptop is at critical mass, the battery is about die. So what comes next!

1:40 Most people dont know what users experiece design is – Teresah (speaker)

3:02 – I have found a power connector just in time to get into the 

Erica O’Grady

Write that down! Van Wilder’s Guide to Social Media

While were waiting for this to start.

Social media consultant do you know that social media pay ranges are from $250-$500 an hour.  Wait till the market starts to settle out.

<h2> Van Wilder’s 8 Life Lessons </h2>

Companies Worry About

  – Loosing Control
  – Time Constraints
 -  Trade Secrets
 - Buzz words (social Capital)
 - Personal Brands

Handle overwhelm with day tight compartments -  YOU & Your Company LIfe (picture of phones with past , present, future)

Search A monitor – Chartbeat, Anlaytics, Twellow, Twitter Search, Tynt,   

AUTO POSTING:  Tweetlater, Blog Posts, Link Posts,

GTD: 4 hour work week

FOCUS: Simple messages, meaningful, realtionships.

3:25 -

Stop Focusing on Influences, focus on the people that have the passion.

Treat everyone like a VIP, Be Remarkable,  Become genuinely interested in your clients and customers, promote and support the thigns you clients care about too,

<h2>Social Media Failures </h2>

House M.D., Quiznos, Motrin Moms, Skittles, Burger King,

CUT IT OUT

Singing up for every social meda site, being inconsistent, focusing too muhc on buzz, too much on the virtual world, Bankrupting social cpaital, too much monetizaton

WUFFEE – Factor (BOOK)

3:45:  Social MEdia experiement the Presenter is experimenting with how man people can we really get to know and call friends.

 

4:04 -  What is social medial – LARGER CORPORATIONS

Social media should be a conversation……a GREAT GREAT big one…

Over 41% of Internet users visist socail networks,  And a lot more statistics …, Twitter-Jacked it’s a cute name just like the hey day of cybersquatting…

4:08

Same motrin media campaign was shown up above but it was funny because they showed the FAKE video involving what else but boobs!

4:14 – Why should I do the Social Media Thing? -  What is the point?
Four-step approach to social strategy (people, objectives, strategy, technology) - FORESTER’s

 

CUSTOM SEGEMENTATION FOR SOCIAL MEDIA

Creators, critcis, collectors, joiners, spectators, inactives,

4:18 – How Do you do it right?

Engaging, education, introductions, humanizing, brand monitor, early intervention, intelligence gathering, trend watching.

Use For Evil:

astroturfing (fake posts) shouting, preaching,

 

DELL has down a good job of this:  IDEA STORM -  I saw this and heard the community manager speaker at SXSW it was a really good idea and shows how social media can expand and be used in your business.

4:27 -

How do I integrate:

start from the inside out, bottom up works better than top down, listen, converse collect knowledge, be committed, be willing to risk,, (this is a key factor risking is a natural issue with social media growth and building.

 

CLosing DOWN – i’ll have closing remarks about the conference later…

 

CONCLUSION

Wow, so I just saw the stats about 500 people were in attendance at the 1st annual BigD Design conference. I would consider that a success. There were a few panels that were good and I can imagine that if they choose to do this next year it could only get better.   To those that I met today please look me up online I would love to continue our conversation. Also you can follow me on twitter!  @uidesignguide.

Related articles:

1. SXSW 2010: Live Stream From SXSW 2010
2. Design Conferences: Big D Design Conference Dallas Texas
3. SXSW Interactive 2009 – Pre-attendance Plans – and Survival Tips
4. UI Design Dissection: Google Reader What Makes an Application Great?