This past weekend, I came across this video from the PBS special about Steve Jobs after he passed away that resonated with me a lot:

“When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and you’re life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money.

That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”

Rail Europe experience map

For smaller projects, however, we could simplify this map into a flowchart with intended outcomes (ie. what you want the user to think and feel at each point).  Then we could do some focus testing to compare the actual results against the intended outcomes.

There’s also a great reference to Tufte. All the data and information is out there. Its a matter of organizing it in context to each other and presenting it visually to allow it to communicate exactly what the goal is.

• When the user is focused on their objective and not on the actual interface itself
• Invisible (user only pay attention to something intuitive when it’s actually not intuitive. What makes something intuitive is actually something personal. We have to know something about the people we are building for
• When Current Knowledge and Target Knowledge are at the same place. There are two ways to accomplish this: Raise Current Knowledge to meet Target Knowledge (Training), or reduce Target Knowledge to meet Current Knowledge (Simplifying)
• Is all about focuses on experience. Trend/ Pattern we see over and over again: Technology > Features > Experience
• Is a result of constant team critique, and critiques are essential to creating intuitive designs.

The way we pay has changed from coins, to paper money, to plastic cards. Now we’re on the brink of the next big shift.

I am definitely looking forward to not having to carry around my wallet :)

Inforgraph on the future of mobile payments

Do you want to find out what those words are? Start by asking them. Visiting your users in their natural environments is probably the best way to start.

Jarred’s team found that personas are a great way to communicate trigger words to everyone on the design team. A persona is a detailed description of a user the team wants to ensure is successful on the site. Listing, within the persona, the trigger words that person would use helps us, the designers, understand how the users’ own language will impact the final design.

According to Jarred, his team never conducted a usability test that didn’t yield tremendous insight into how users react to the links the team is using. It becomes obvious immediately when links are missing the clues the users need to go forward.

This powerful trio — field studies, personas, and usability testing — are a great way to start identifying the trigger words that work for your users.

Dieter Rams, who was featured in critically acclaimed documentary Objectified is one of the most influential design gurus in the world. He has created countless products for Braun, the German white goods company. And he is a man who has influenced Apple’s head of design, Jonathan Ive. Here’s a piece of what he wrote exclusively for the The Daily Telegraph about what makes Apple special:

“Without doubt there are few companies in the world that genuinely understand and practise the power of good design in their products and their businesses. Probably the first example was Peter Behrens and his work for the German company AEG, in the early part of the 20th century. He might be considered to be the founder of corporate identity. Adriano Olivetti was close behind as he transformed his father’s Italian company, Olivetti. Having become aware of this scarcity at the start of my career in the 1950s, I am sorry to report that the situation does not seem to have improved to this day.

I have always observed that good design can normally only emerge if there is a strong relationship between an entrepreneur and the head of design. At Apple this situation exists – between Steve Jobs and Jony Ive.

I am always fascinated when I see the latest Apple products. Apple has managed to achieve what I never achieved: using the power of their products to persuade people to queue to buy them. For me, I had to queue to receive food at the end of World War II. That’s quite a change.

They understand that design is not simply an adjective to place in front of a product’s name to somehow artificially enhance its value. Ever fewer people appear to understand that design is a serious profession; and for our future welfare we need more companies to take that profession seriously.”

Apple is probably the only tech company with a head of design. This makes them both a tech and an industrial design firm… And actually marketing can be added to the mix…

How often do you come across a t-shirt with nothing but words on it and yet everyone wants one? How important of a role does design play versus the actual message being delivered?

So many designers spend so much time trying to prettify everything without realizing why they are actually doing it? Are you really enhancing the message or are you simply putting lipstick on a pig?

Design encompasses a lot of individual components brought together to solve a problem. The message is simply one of those components, but without it the solution that the design is trying to offer can get lost.

Does the earthquake came at the “worst time” as Japan struggles to reduce its massive debt?

Japan might well benefit from any shakeup that encourages entrepreneurship from the ground up, increases competitiveness and imposes change on the decidedly change-resistant bureaucrats who really run the nation. For years, pundits said only a major crisis will bring about change in Japan. March 11 provided the shock; leaders just need to act accordingly.

Yet in this time of devastation and uncertainty, Japan has shown it runs well on many levels in spite of its government. This is a moment for sorrow and reflection, yes. It’s also a time to look ahead to brighter days. They could indeed be on the way.

My thoughts and prayers for the Japanese people.