Archives / June 2005

I'm happy to announce that the Gel 2005 recap page is finally UP: http://www.goodexperience.com/gel/05/recap.html

Find attendee comments, photos, speaker transcripts, a list of attendee organizations, and blog posts.

Be sure to read some (if not all) of the attendee comments, further down on the page. These are reflections on Gel, and more broadly about the idea of "good experience," from dozens of attendees. As always, I find it helpful to get other perspectives when I try to understand such a rich topic.

For now, in this space, I'd like to share the comments of one attendee, Anne D., which neatly encapsulate most of the feedback I received after the event. She gives answers to questions I posed to all the attendees.

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Q - Does good experience originate in careful planning, or can it come from random chance... or even from mistakes?

A resounding yes. Like evolution, the random chance is essential, it opens the path to an unplanned experience - the young man who lived in your former house and happened upon your note leading to a series of events you could not have predicted when you planted the note there all those years ago. At the same time, directed experimentation and planning forms the basis of much good experience from the evolution of beach creatures to the scripted pranks of Improv Everywhere.

Q - Are creators inspired by the events of their time, or by the timeless?

I think creators are inspired by the context of their time but often by timeless ideas and aspirations. For example, the creation of the beach creatures responds the wide availability of the plastic tubing components (contemporary context) but is motivated by the timeless desire to animate, to give life, create and direct evolution.

Q - Are experiences better with one creator or many?

I think the question is really about vision. I think that many creators working on one creative vision can create experiences as good or better than a single creator but many creators working on different visions don't create as powerful an experience as one creator focussed on one goal.

Q - Is this awareness of experience, and desire to create, chiefly and intellectual or spiritual endeavor?

I would say it is chiefly spiritual (in the sense of connecting with the human spirit). In some cases the intellect is the methodology by which the spiritual connection is pursued. For example, Dee Breger's exploration of the microscopic world is undeniably spiritual for her even though she pursues it through an intellectual/scientific methodology.

Q - When you got home, how did you describe your Gel experience to your friends and family who weren't there? Were there particular details or anecdotes that stood out?

Ironically I described it as a unique and valuable experience. I emphasized to many people the diverse perspective and the fact that the structure of the conference encouraged the sharing of inspiration and ideas both from the speakers and within the attendees. I spoke with many people about Theo Jansen's beach creatures and described Charlie Todd's Dancing in the Windows and Tower Records pranks to several acquaintances.

Q - What will you do (or think about) differently, at work or in life, based on your Gel 2005 experience?

Here are some tangible changes. I signed up for online banking. I started to notice retail and public space environments and what they said about the kind of experience I was supposed to be having. I have started to consider more seriously the environments for the performing arts and what they say about the kind of experience we expect people to have. I have thought about choice a lot more - both personally and as it relates to the work that I do. I am looking out for the simple ideas that evolve. I keep my eyes open for pranksters everywhere I go....

Thanks for the opportunity and the good experience.

- Anne D.

I've been thinking recently about the holistic "good experience" worldview espoused by this newsletter.

Despite last week's column about irritating tactical mistakes, I'm not a fan of describing design rules to be followed rigidly. To be sure, there are some user experience experts who assert "the 205 rules of proper design," as though being a good practitioner merely means memorizing the tactical rules and methods. Call these the "gurus"; there are plenty of followers who want, and demand, what they're offering.

I can't offer anything of the sort. Sure, occasionally there are tactical dos and don'ts that are so obvious that they bear pointing out; but just memorizing these would get one nowhere. So for all intents and purposes, I have a grand total of zero "rigid rules of proper design" to offer.

Even so, I do offer something - just one thing - that I advocate. It's a single idea, one that I call "customer experience" and can be described in any number of ways. Focus on the other person's needs. Listen to customers. Be open to data that comes from the outside. Create a good experience for someone other than yourself. See the pattern? It takes a certain mindset - that of empathy - to do this work.

What's essential here is the ability to seek the best interests of someone other than yourself. It happens to make good business sense; in fact I believe that this is the mindset that will define the winners throughout the next several decades of business.

But keep in mind that customer experience at its heart is a posture, an attitude, a single core belief - and not a long set of rules, methods, tactics, or pseudo-academic frameworks. This core belief - that the customers' needs should drive the company's direction - is the "hook" on which everything else hangs: the methods you use, the tactics you learn and apply.

Note the pronoun there: it's up to you. I can share my experience as a customer experience practitioner, but yours will be different. I can tell you some tactics that I've seen work, but they may not be immediately applicable to the work you do. The disadvantage of this method is that it's harder to learn; the advantage is that you can make it your own and apply it anywhere.

This advantage outweighs anything else and, in my opinion, recommends this method above all others. If you accept this attitude and apply the principles to your work, you can improve any business; you can improve any customer experience; you can work on any site, any business model, any tool, any technology, any design, and make a difference in the lives of the users and in the measurable business results of the company. You might even find that you "create good" for yourself, and the people around you, in ways that you never expected.

Isn't that the kind of invitation you'd like to accept?

The New York Times covers the history of the joystick.

"I would say that it was the 20th century's distinctive contribution to the interface between people and machines," said Mr. Tenner, who is author of "Our Own Devices: How Technology Remakes Humanity."

Are Google's links broken?

Over at This Is Broken, another example of light gray text on a white background.