I was recently part of a great panel here in Hollywood 🎬 discussing the UX of Play: Designing Entertainment Experiences
Excited to be taking on an Advisor role with Apex Leaders to provide their clients with tech industry insights.
A fun gathering of talented creatives working in AR, VR, and MR at Engadget’s Alternate Realities event here in Los Angeles.
As the leader of our Mindfulness Community of Practice here at Riot Games, I was honored to have Chade-Meng Tan, the author of Search Inside Yourself 📘, give us a talk.
I had a great time giving a guest lecture at Brown University recently about UX and UI.
Brown University’s Computer Science program has a great, longstanding relationship with RISD (Rhode Island School of Design).
I had a fantastic time speaking with graduating students and the incoming class at a recent UC Irvine MHCID career event.
As a board member for their graduate program, I discussed with faculty the challenges and opportunities of preparing industry-ready UX designers in an ever-evolving field. I'm excited for the year ahead working with such talented individuals!
A big — and, ahem! — quite-belated thank you to our awesome panel from earlier this summer that took part in a conversation about UX Design Leadership: Trends, Challenges, and Perspectives:
Nida Zada, Design Collective at Google
Benjamin Matthews, Director of Design at Adobe
Jod Kaftan, Group Design Director, Fjord
Alan Shen, Experience Design Lead at Riot Games
And, yours truly :)
Special shout out to the local IxDA chapter, who helped organize the event. Great to see some old friends and new faces on the scene here in LA.
Marc
It's been about a month of living with Amazon's new Echo Show. The device has quickly been adopted by my family and now plays a key role in our daily, kitchen-centric rituals.
I was honestly a bit skeptical initially, but have since been impressed with the core technology and its interactions – especially in how voice eliminates so much of the input/output friction that we've gotten accustomed to with mobile device usage.
The experience initially felt pretty utilitarian (e.g., "Hey Alexa, add XYZ to our shopping list.") but is slowly evolving into a more playful, digital companion alongside some of our more mundane, daily chores. More of a conversational interface.
All of this, of course, got me thinking more about designing for these types of voice interactions, so I checked out Amazon's Voice Design Guide.
What struck me is how much overlap there is with good interaction design in general; from establishing a product purpose, to understanding intent and fleshing out user scripts and flows.
With this product in particular, I think the screen actually does a nice job of addressing some key challenges inherent in voice interactions, like 'invisible' content and/or feature-set discoverability, system feedback, and presence-reinforcement (which drives repeat usage and sustained engagement.)
William Gibson once said: "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed." Word.
Marc
Damn.
Not sure how I missed this.
Jules Ehrhardt's essay, entitled The State of the Digital Nation 2016, is smart, colorful, punchy, inspirational, witty, and well-written.
It does a fantastic job of capturing the reality of digital product creation and capital investment angles - both the good, the bad, as well as the badass.
Grab a doppio and strap-in. Well worth the read.
Marc
Great conversations at a Google-organized event entitled Design is [Simulation] here in LA last week. A talented panel of both technology and content creators addressed some pretty philosophical topics about the future of VR and AR.
Some snippets of wisdom - in no particular order - include:
VR as the ultimate "empathy machine"
Designers of these types of experiences need to consider time, space, realism vs. stylistic interpretations of the worlds that they're creating
VR as a platform to 'take you places' and the notion of AR bringing things to you
VR is a bit of a leapfrog technology; like mobile phones in third-world countries
Using VR when soliciting donations to a cause caused a significant uptick in conversion
g.co/expeditions is doing some pretty wonderful - and much needed - work to innovate in the education space. Studies have shown that VR means more attention and engagement from students.
For all the hype, these are still tools to create experiences with
Sound design and its intimacy with these two technologies is critically important
What about introducing the sense of smell, too? :)
It's especially important to both onboard and offboard VR users elegantly for intense experiences. You can much more easily affect human beings than with lots of other platforms (e.g., cause blood pressure to rise significantly; make people cry). Can't help but think that with great power comes great responsibility to use the tech wisely.
The lexicon of the tech is still in its infancy
An unanswered question that was floated: what makes a VR experience something user/players/consumers would want to come back to? It's like a vacation spot: Would you go back after you've ticked it off? If so, why?
Lastly, can VR/AR actually make the real world a better place?
Not to mention that Neuehouse is a pretty inspirational creative and collaborative workspace/ venue here in LA.
Marc
Steve Vassallo is an incredibly capable designer/ leader with a head for business and tech.
His recent book, The Way to Design, takes a hard look at what it takes for designers to get to the next level in terms of founding and scaling their companies.
I won't attempt to summarize key points here. Definitely read it.
I will however leave you with this quote, which is probably my favorite:
"Realize that if you want to build something greater than yourself, you need to first get over yourself and learn to scale your design through hiring, storytelling, and building culture and processes."
Marc
Recently finished the book Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon MacKenzie. What a great read on how to be creative, fulfilled professionally, AND get shit done in larger organizations. A truly unique combination!
My favorite chapter has to be "Orville Wright." It is one sentence long:
Orville Wright did not have a pilot's license.
Gotta love it.
Overall, it's a quick read. Do yourself a favor and get the hardcover format. It's a lovely little book with clever, supporting illustrations and sketches, both within and (appropriately) outside the margins!
Marc
O'Reilly Media recently published Irene Au's excellent summary on the current state of Design in Venture Capital: How Design Drives Investment and Company Success.
She does a wonderful job breaking down the role, its challenges, and then supports it all with insightful interviews from some of the design field's heavy-hitters.
I imagine that this is only the beginning of us (designers) having a more prominent role in VC firms as the success of products hinges more and more on the quality of their overall design.
Basically essential reading for anyone interested in this type of opportunity (and it's a free eBook!)
Marc
I always enjoy Jeff Bezos' annual letter to investors. This year's letter is no exception and the company is certainly pushing the envelope in lots of innovative areas that still align with its core business(es).
In the past, Amazon has been dinged on being overly-fixated on hyper-optimization that only moves the overall product experience needle incrementally. Lots of data-driven decision-making, A/B testing, etc.
That actually seems to be shifting a bit within the org and the following paragraphs definitely stood out:
"Another example: market research and customer surveys can become proxies for customers – something that’s especially dangerous when you’re inventing and designing products. “Fifty-five percent of beta testers report being satisfied with this feature. That is up from 47% in the first survey.” That’s hard to interpret and could unintentionally mislead.
Good inventors and designers deeply understand their customer. They spend tremendous energy developing that intuition. They study and understand many anecdotes rather than only the averages you’ll find on surveys. They live with the design.
I’m not against beta testing or surveys. But you, the product or service owner, must understand the customer, have a vision, and love the offering. Then, beta testing and research can help you find your blind spots. A remarkable customer experience starts with heart, intuition, curiosity, play, guts, taste. You won’t find any of it in a survey."
Great stuff.
Marc
It's an exciting time. New platforms and technologies (i.e., Silicon Valley) are quickly emerging to allow for much more immersive narratives and storytelling experiences (i.e., Hollywood).
As with any good relationship, that means a period of courting one another, the proverbial honeymoon phase, followed by some awkward arguments, cultural clashes, and the questioning of core values! ;)
All of that is generally followed by talk of compromise, fostering better communication, and the promise of change.
In other words, it's all going to work itself out.
As someone with a background working with product development companies who is now working in the entertainment space, it's been interesting to observe that blend of cultures to make a thing awesome.
Getting to know one another takes time, as does establishing a common vocabulary (i.e., See "product definition/discovery" and "user experience journey mapping" vs. "pre-production" and a "series of sequence shots" just to scratch the surface.)
I had some great conversations recently here in LA at an Idean event entitled the Art of Storytelling in Design. It included a mix of content creators, publishers, and tech companies talking about the state of the industry, especially the promise of virtual reality.
There are a few, primary reasons why VR isn't mainstream just yet. They include the fact that the underlying tech is close, but not quite ready for primetime; a lack of cohesive standards; the argument that anything 'around a million VR units sold' really isn't a viable market for content creators in terms of reach just yet; and, the hardware itself isn't terribly accessible, nor comfortable.
There is however, a lot of capital being poured into the space and good examples of the technology being used properly are certainly emerging. The general consensus from the event was that it should be used wisely; and not just because you can. (Check out this Mr. Robot piece that's a nice, discoverable experience complement for fans of the show.)
As with anything else, story and narrative need to come first. And as a content creator, ask yourself if you absolutely need to tell the tale using that particular medium. If the answer isn't a resounding hell yes!, then please rethink it.
Maybe we have more in common than we first thought :)
Marc
Over the course of the last few years, top-tier design firms - like frog - have begun educating companies on how to build their own in-house design organizations.
That was essentially a response to companies realizing that design is fundamentally tied to their business strategies, which isn't something that makes sense to 'outsource'.
This recent piece from Fast Company about how frog is investing in early-stage start-ups nicely describes the natural progression from that agency's perspective as the paradigm continues to evolve.
Marc
To kick off the new year, I just finished reading the 10th anniversary edition of Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Choiuinard, which I started reading late last year while in South Africa.
It's an important book on many levels (e.g., Our planet's environmental crisis and the culture of consumerism driving it). I won't attempt to try and summarize or pontificate about its importance here. Let's just say that I highly recommend it and it's changed my world view on several dimensions.
What I did want to address however, is how Patagonia's philosophy and deep understanding of their customer base impacted every aspect of their business. The chapters on philosophy - from product design and distribution, to marketing and management - in particular are both inspiring and should be recommended reading for any start-up, regardless of their product space.
I'll leave you with perhaps my favorite paragraph in the book that describes their core values:
"The basic tenets of that philosophy are a deep appreciation for the environment and a strong motivation to help solve the environmental crisis; a passionate love for the natural world; a healthy skepticism toward authority; a love for difficult, human-powered sports that require practice and mastery; a disdain for motorized sports like snowmobiling or jet skiing; a bias for whacko, often self-deprecating humor; a respect and taste for real adventure (defined best as a journey from which you may not come back alive - and certainly not as the same person); and a belief that less is more (in design and consumption)."
Happy 2017!
Best,
Marc
