Boagworld @ SXSW

Leaving SXSW 2010

Now SXSW is over it's worth looking back at what it was and how it has impacted me and, indeed, Headscape as a whole. I will be following up with thoughts on some of the individual sessions but I thought it worth offering a brief overview of what's gone on.

Personally for me I have found it really useful to dip in and out of the various different streams at SXSW. Last time I was in Austin for the conference I was Tech Lead and really only involved in the sessions related to that role. This time around, coming here as a Project Manager, I have tried to attend as broader range of sessions as possible. Taking in talks with a bias on Sales and Marketing, Design, as well as the Psychology of it all, while dipping into the technical development side of things, has open my eyes a little more in how pivotal the role of a project manager is in holding it all together.  I do feel quite inspired and I have learnt a lot.

Looking at Headscape as a whole I feel like we are starting to really find our place in the world. Early in Paul's talk (@boagworld); Pain free design sign off, he uttered an almost throw-away line; "Headscape specialise in sh*t projects!". Obviously he didn't mean the quality of the work, or our clients, but simply refereed to the fact that we do normal work, for normal clients. We are involved in complex projects which often require us to manage multiple stakeholders to reach a successful conclusion. And we do it well.  We do it creatively, inventively and are taking a lead, in these normal, everyday projects, in setting expectations and standards of how things should be done.

When Paul said this there was an audible expression of understanding; almost relief in the audience. Because, of course, most freelancers and agencies don't do the cool, whizz bang projects that you often hear about from the front. They do everyday client work; just like us. It was great to hear a session which was grounded in the everyday, real world life of an ordinary agency. 

For me, this understanding is significant and will have an impact on company as a whole. 

All in all, SXSW has been a blast. I've had a great time. It's been a party, there is no denying that. But I think I head home with new inspiration and I am looking forward to seeing that worked out in the coming months.

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How to seduce your users

CURIOSITY IS POWERFUL

  • You can tease people with a little bit of information. They have to take action to learn more.

PLAYING HARD TO GET

  • For example people like to be apart of private betas. 
  • Scarcity is a way to get people's interest.
  • A lot of websites make you earn the ability to access new features. They make it harder to get to features.

LIGHTEN UP

  • Humor is a great way of motivating and getting attention.
  • Add some humour to your microcopy.

TAKING A CHANCE

  • Sometimes it is a good idea to provide defaults to get people going even if it is wrong.
  • Make it easy to change the default
  • The reason this works is people feel motivated to correct mistakes

FRISKINESS, GIFTS AND PLEASANT SURPRISES

  • People respond to surprise, novelty and the unexpected.
  • People like fun and delightful things. - easter eggs
  • People take delight when they find a hidden pattern (for example the arrow in the Fedex logo)

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The power of seduction

Usability reduces friction while phycology motivates our actions

This is a nice point. Often we focus so much on reducing friction but we also need to motivate users to move though the site.

In fact a user will overcome usability hurdles if they are motivated enough.

For example if you give a good prize, people will jump through a lot of hops.

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Persuasive Design

Encouraging users to do what you want them to
Andy Budd

Analogies with slot machines and drawing information from gambling talk. Psychology of gaming machines. Pinnacle of interaction design. Slot machines use a cherry dribbler to provide constant small rewards and chirpy little reactions to give positive feel. . Gaming psychology is very interesting and there are some great papers and videos around the web.

Design of seats hard so as to disuade people from waiting around too long. Architects persuade and tempt people with different view and experiences from different angles. .

Advertising men persuade us all the time Persuasive design in advertising. 5000 branding messages a day. Supermarkets 99% conversion rate very good persuaders bread and milk always at back forcing through shop. Chocolates at checkout end of aisle promotions. We know the techniques, but we all still fall for them.

Sound level at bars. Drinking increases at higher volumes. Probably because you can't do anything but drink in those situations. Scents used in shops etc to attract people subliminally. We are all susceptible. Coke branding entire shows as part of the narrative.

Marketing helps to overcome the paradox of choice and can actually make our lives easier.

Design with intent. Choice architecture. Design is about decisions.

Understand cognitive biases. Loss aversion operant conditioning. Functional design. Primary, secondary, tertiary activites. Factored into the fundametal design stage with look and feel.

Determine the target behaviour and design for it. Authority and Trust. Easily persuadable with power dress. Zeldman for example is trusted in web etc

Sites command authority. If looks good ad healthy we assume it is. What is beautiful is good. Attractive looking people getting lighter sentences etc. The Halo effect. Which bleeds over into other apple products.

Contact info, people pictures, etc. Don't fake it or people will lose your trust. Wine positioning in stores. Guide prices. Restaurant Menu designers put expensive item on menu to set comparative expectations.

Urinal fly. To reducer spillage :)) 80 percent incrase in accuracy.

We need help choosing best option. 37 signals example. Windows browser option in recent update.

Need to be careful of duping people with default options or to trick people.

Strongly influenced by behaviour of others. Not going into empty bars. Look to others for social norms. Cash machine example.

Social proof often used to get people in to affect behaviour. Trip advisor, Amazon is teeming with social proofing. Linked in the same.

Power of testimonials. Badges of logos to proove their success and give 'proofing'

People often follow suit on social feedback on sites. Initial reactions van affect how the whole site grows

Top ten lists, badges of honour, profiles so people can see how other people behave.

Limited supply can drive demand. Limited print rubs in art. Airlines with tiered purchase prices. Tv shopping shows providing competiition which drives people to buy buy buy.

People think they have won things on eBay. No. Hey only bid. Early ownership on early bidders.

Spotify allowed only 5 invites to limit people to think about who to ask. Threadlines. Limited t-shirt runs. People aren't being tricked but motivated to NOT procrastinate.

Woot.com. One item a day. People keep coming back to see the one day deal. Game like behaviour. Likability and gifting. Sweets given at the beginning to convince us to like him.

How to win friends and influence people. One of biggest selling books of all times. Why? Because of likability. CIA use this to make them liked whilst interrogating. Innocent smoothies so likeable.
madebyelephant.com

We like google because thy give us stuff. Moo.com fun company, likeable. Etsy.com. Gifting on Facebook or comments on your wall - gifting to people in public. Indebtedness in repricocity.

Value of free. Amazons free shipping traps us into buyig more.

Nudge, buyology, influence, why we buy, buy-ology, predictably irrational. Books worth looking at. Will provide full bibliography details later.


Leigh Howells

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Marcus is playing his Mandolin on the balcony

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Web Fonts : The Time Has Come

Web Fonts : The Time Has Come
Roger Black

Attractive fonts used for Roger's slideshow, one up on the talk yesterday. 15 lean years stuck with system fonts. Lack of branding differntiation with core set fonts.

Slow start by Bert Bos (W3C), overly focused on the history of web fonts and the technicalities of stylesheet implementation. @font-face has been around since CSS level 2 (1998). Image replacement techniques became popular in 2006 with a step backwards for the semantic, accessible web. Various problems with EOT particularly with licensing.

Jeff Veen (Typekit) wakes us up. @font-face now has strong browser support, but foundries concerned about licensing abuse, this is where Typekit comes in. Font designers never considered font performance in browsers as they weren't designed to be used in this way. A standardised file format looks a long way off.

Stephen Coles (FontShop) producing series of FF fonts specifically for the web. Only Georgia, Verdana and Lucida designed to work at small sizes on the web. Nice examples shown.

URLs:
fontsquirrel.com
yourfonts.com
frankchimero.com
getuproot.com

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The lego play pit

   

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Get Stoked on Web Typography

By Samantha Warren

I wasn't really making proper notes on this presentation, but I wrote the following... on my phone.

When is typography lettering or caligraphy?
Do we use this term a bit too often?
Archer font, comfortable. Could be used for anything.
Converse boots, comfortable. Could be worn for anything.
Finds Influences from surf typography
Legibility... Many of these examples actually aren't legible!
Type Squirrel site
Font deck, Type Kit options
@fontface
Beer camp site creative css3 use
Get 'Stoked'
CSS 3 Columns graceful degading into 1 column
Hell MAKE YOUR OWN FONT!
Youfonts.com -cheap option
Fontlab.com -more pro version
Mod open source fonts and release
Her presentation font looks yucky to me but as she is a typography expert it must be great :)

Leigh Howells

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Jack of all trades, master of one #jacksofalltrades

So this is a subject close to my heart. Is it better to be a generalist or a specialist. I could find myself shouting at people if they don't agree with me :)

There are three focuses on the web...

  • Design
  • Technology
  • Business

A specialist works in one. A generalist works in two or three of these areas.

For example 'web designer with markup experience' - technology and design. 'Web designer visual only' is design only.

They are quoting Elliot Jay Stocks and his comments about designers who can't code. They are also quoting loads of other sources. Its obviously a very wide debate.

They are also talking about T shaped people - Specialist in one area and a broad knowledge of other areas. This is something Andy Budd talks about a lot.

They have just said that Leonardo Divinci is a generalist. As a generalist I like being compared to him :)

This is a good talk. They have loads of humour in it. That always works well.

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Specialists are the perfect tool for the specific job.

A Generalist take care of whatever you need.

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Specialists thinkings are constrained by external constraints

Generalists can see the bigger picture.

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Specialists can take advantage of specific market opportunities

Generalists can easily pivot their careers

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Making choices in your career...

  • Do you feel the need to be the absolute best at something? (Yes - Specialist | No - Generalist)
  • Do you like handing things from start to finish? (Yes - Generalist | No - Specialist)
  • Do you like working alone on projects? (Yes - Generalist | No - Specialist)
  • Do you learn and understand foreign concepts quickly? (Yes - Generalist | No - Specialist)
  • Are you competitive and or a perfectionist ( Yes - Specialist | No - Generalist)
  • Do you want to work on the new, hip, sexy projects? (Yes - Generalist | No - Specialist)
  • Do you need much variety in your career? (Yes - Generalist | No - Specialist)
  • Are you good at knowing when you're over your head?  (Yes - Generalist | No - Specialist)
  • Is job security a priority for you?  (Yes - Generalist | No - Specialist)

Making choice for your team...

  • Are you small?  (Yes - Generalist | No - Specialist)
  • Do you have a decent process in place?  (No - Generalist | Yes - Specialist)
  • Is that process more agile than waterfall?  (Yes - Generalist | No - Specialist)
  • Is amazing execution your top priority?  (No - Generalist | Yes - Specialist)
  • Can you keep a specialist busy for the length of the job?  (No - Generalist | Yes - Specialist)
  • Do you need someone who can pitch in in various ways?  (Yes - Generalist | No - Specialist)
  • Are you hiring a manager, exec or a very senior role?  (Yes - Generalist | No - Specialist) - Does that mean that in your career path you are limited by being a specialist?

Asked the above question and the answer was: it depends. You can be a high flying specialist but if you want to be a CEO for example you need to be a generalist. Sounds right to me. That is why I am a generalist ;-)

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