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Let us know what you think. All shades of opinion welcome.

We are busy editing some other recently recorded stuff: another interview and a roving reporter thingy from this month’s IASummit in New Orleans. Look out for it.

Thanks for listening

//@solle
//London

(View full size on Flickr)

(View full size on Flickr)

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More details of LDNIA March 2012

Crafted from an old collection of cut out ‘heads’ both famous and non-famous then given a bit of a paper bending treatment.

(View/download full size on Flickr)

Initially the main driving forces were that the Sense Loft just gets a little ‘hot and clammy’ during the summer months, I felt the need for a little recharging, and that I wanted to spend a couple of months concentrating efforts (with Andrew Travers) on the newly launched London IA Podcast and spend some time on a series of investigative walkshops (instructions, photos) with Andrew Travers, Ben Bashford, Claire Rowland, Nic Price and Dan Lockton.

However, this “summer break” has become a tad more enforced by the fact that I’ve broken my ankle. So those stairs at Sense Loft are centainly out of the question for a while, any walkshops will certainly only be on paper, but podcasting will continue – and go from strength-to-strength (we are about to record London IA Podcast 2). And my recharging will go ahead.

In the meantime, I’m hoping to hop along to Interesting and mix up some odd music stuff with Jason Mesut and Ed Chocolate and plan for a busy September running a EuroIA Predux, attending the Do Lectures, running a workshop at EuroIA and welcoming back London IA on 28 September (pencil in the date at this point) with Jonty Sharples and Ben Bashford. There may also be a special one off London IA event earlier in the month if I can secure a certain person’s time.

There you go. Enjoy the summer.

//@solle
//London

Think about all *the internets* you frequent on a regular basis on desktops, laptops, smart phones, mobile phones, tablets, games consoles, TVs, projected on the wall. All the contexts you are used to. Then take away all these contexts and think of all those websites and web services again. Think of them with no *limited* context, no limits. Think of them anywhere, everywhere, everything. No obvious seams, beginningend.

What would you do if the work you usually did was only a minuscule part of the potential of your skills?

Are you thinking beyond your understanding of what actually constitutes interaction design/user experience/information architecture work? Are you creating constraints where none should exist?

For a minute, just think what would you do if there was no more website work? No more mobile applications to design. Have you started thinking about the interconnected city and services around you, your interface with the city, town around you? The one you work in, the one you live in, the ones you pass through. Do you care? Or is it someone else’s problem? Who is this someone else? Some of us need to be that someone else.

The ‘internet’ as we understand it is just … a small island in an ocean. And the tip of the rock on that island … A vastness beyond present human comprehension. There are ideas and notions attempting to gain comprehension – every grain of sand with its own IP address? – but really smart people have only tasked themselves with indicating to others that we really have no idea except that things will just get exponentially weird and every part of your life is going to be strange. I think Moore’s Law may just become a lot less of a law.

So interaction designer/user experience designer/information architect…

We all need to think more in terms of networks and less in terms of DESKtops, LAPtops, MOBILEphones, SMARTphones. Limited differentiation is dead, we need to start thinking in terms of input and output, the city as interface and network in front of you, as part of you, operating alongside you. A balanced approach is vital though to ensure “the interface doesn’t become our experience of the city, but helps to enhance it”

What are you doing about it two dimensional interaction designer, information architect? Are you sitting forward, alert listening or are you slumped in your seat, eyes glazed over “someone else’s problem”? You might just be the person that is needed. This might just be your calling. Take an interest, this affects us all.

We are limiting ourselves by only thinking in current terms. The way we approach things/problems now will be ineffective for future problems. In fact there is no way we can comprehend the scope of future design problems, begin to comprehend solution paths from our current approach to problem solving. We shouldn’t necessarily try believing that we have to know now how to solve them. We just have to be prepared that it is all going to get very different and not a little bit weird.

Expect nothing. Be prepared for anything and everything.

In the next post we will begin discussing some specifics.

Please do consider joining us on one of our #walkshops around London. Keep an eye on #londonia and @london_ia

Thank you to @agpublic @byekick @bashford @clurr @nicprice and of course @pixeldiva

//@solle
//London

Martin Belam & Claire Rowland at The Sense Loft

Martin will be presenting a version of his “Come as you are” talk that he successfully presented at the Polish IA Summit. If you would like to check out the presentation in advance it is available here. In person in the intimacy of Sense Loft Martin will no doubt greatly entertain us with his story of becoming a successful and renowned information architect.

Claire will be joined by Chris Browne to present a version of their Design beyond the Glowing Rectangle talk (also recently presented at the Polish IA Summit). They will discuss how the digital world is breaking out of ‘glowing rectangles’ to imbue everyday objects and environments with connectivity and the ability to process data. This heralds a whole new level of complexity in user experience research and design. Moving beyond the screen means not just usability, but interusability: creating intuitable and meaningful interactions with multiple devices that span many interconnecting services.

In this presentation, they will introduce a view of the core user experience design and research challenges with which creators of ‘internet of things’/’smart object’ systems and services face, and will propose approaches by which some of these challenges may be tackled.

(You can preview the presentation here.)

With our favourite sponsors: Zebra People

And of course our wonderful hosts Sense Worldwide and The Sense Network

TICKETS (details of availability)

Michael Blastland

How do you design for doubt? When we think of data, we think of hard facts. But what if they’re soft? Michael will suggest that they are usually a lot softer than we think, but that it’s easy to be misled – and to create graphical designs that mislead. He will talk about the data in data presentation and invite the design world to change the way people see uncertainty.

Chris Heathcote – Urbicomp and the new new media

Ubiquitous computing and physical computing mean that every action in the real world is potentially an interaction design problem. Chris will explore the new media we have to play with and show some examples of how urban computing is changing the way we live.

All ticket details here / Poster on Flickr

Round up of main points

1. Signing up to multiple networks and attending multiple events – does this make you a participant of the UX community? Being present is not enough
2. Not necessarily starting from the beginning but starting from anywhere, anytime, anyhow
3. Importance of never stop trying to do something different and to expand interest base. Never settle for the status quo. Do the unexpected (or at least find out if it is unexpected).
4. Functionality doesn’t make a network.
5. Would ‘community principles’ help in the way agile principles have helped software development?
6. There is no need to actively try to create a network for your community. Your community will invariably exist utilising functions and tools already in use.
7. Community members are invariably more active in the areas they use day to day – Twitter, Facebook. Don’t force them to use more functionality.
8. People really want to do things in the physical world – using the digital to get to the physical (meet people, attend things).
9. The real community is everywhere, not stuck on a single server.
10. Any attempt, in any form, to control a community is deemed to fail.
11. Communities don’t necessarily med a home. They just need people. People will self organise using the most accessible tools available.
12. A crowd will congregate when there’s something to discuss.
13. Membership is loose and doesn’t require any control. Community is based on activity.
14. Do away with messaging service built on messaging service built on messaging service.
15. Our communities and networks should become part of and integrate into the cities we live in.
16. Doing stuff will build a community.
17. Within London there is a progressive and non-centralised community of mentoring going on. They happily complement existing more formal programmes like those offered by organisations like IAI).
18. Sold out events. Don’t complain, do. Get out there and start organising your own stuff. The UX community needs variety.
19. Don’t be scared to take events out into the city.
20. The peer-to-peer UX job network. Get out there, get networked, do some decent work – get involved. When this is strong in your town, you know the community is doing ok.
21. Fewer rules. No barriers to entry, no hierarchy, no committee, no permissions
22. Activities, groups, meet ups can all co-exist quite happily and don’t necessarily have to co-operate or synchronise.

All the blog posts by myself and Martin

UX Communities: Starting from the beginning #1
UX Communities: Starting from the beginning #2
UX Communities: Starting from the beginning #3
UX Communities: Starting from the beginning #4
UX Communities: Starting from the beginning #5
UX Communities: Starting from the beginning #6
UX Communities: Starting from the beginning #7

Take away

Can we build a set of agreed guidelines for those looking to establish, build, expand a UX design-related community in their home town?

Ramble on UX job networks

There are many recruitment companies providing services to the burgeoning UX community both for permanent and contract opportunities. However, many of the more established people in the UX community prefer to steer clear of recruiters (some are as less impressed with them as they are with estate agents) even though a few of them provide a decent service and are trustworthy and honourable. Many prefer the “peer-to-peer” UX job network. Here there are no rules of engagement or membership hoops to jump through. There is just getting out there, getting networked, being liked and doing some decent work. From that point people will offer you work directly and word will filter through that you are trustworthy and can actually do what you say you can do. The satisfaction of gaining work (and also passing on work to others) by word of mouth with no motive of financial gain is extremely rewarding. There really is no bullshit. Far fewer “email me your CV in Word 97″ requests and far more concentration on actually providing UX services that produce results. Caution should be observed whenever discussing job or contract disgruntlement as word travels quickly across such a well connected community. This isn’t always a bad thing as bad employers/contracts should be outed but involvement in criticism can become complicated.

When this word-of-mouth-UX-job-network is strong in your town, you know your UX community is doing ok.

These job networks also highlight that even when membership numbers burgeon in your UX Community (London IA is fast approaching 1,600 signed up members on the Ning-hosted pages), there is the sense that the community is physically smaller than you think (especially when you keep bumping into the same people even in a metropolis the size of London). The laws of community state a strong active centre with many smaller groups of less active and interchangeable people orbiting. The people in the centre you keep seeing are the ones that keep things going. Without them your UX community would be far less active (and strong). But the orbiters keep the breadth of interest and tend to draw new people in regularly.

No rules

Ultimately, I think your UX community should have no rules, no guiding principles, no committee, no permissions, no hierarchy, no best UX community. No one has the right to say they are in charge – if they were elected then maybe the election was a waste of precious energy better spent doing. A community should have no walls or barriers to entry. A community is ultimately just a group of groups and activities.

There is just doing. Like sticking posts in the ground and congregating around them. Activities, groups and meet ups should spring up and state their claim whenever and wherever they want. They can all co-exist quite happily and don’t necessarily have to co-operate or synchronise. Overlapping is fine. There is a huge audience and many different interests. The more touchpoints the better. The UX community doesn’t need organising or a committee to decide what is best for it.

So my advice to you – just start doing.

Andrew Travers: Wireframing the city

Andrew will be reporting back from Berlin’s Cognitive Cities, a conference exploring the future of cities and an ideas exchange between designers, architects, planners, geeks and activists – the people who use our cities and are shaping their experience.

He’ll be reflecting on the conference’s themes and talking about how ideas manifest themselves in the public space; how the design of cities might inform our work; and the contribution we as designers and information architects might be able to make in the future.

@byekick | byekick.com

Leisa Reichelt: Strategic User Experience

Familiar with the expression ‘lipstick on a pig?’

There’s only so much IA or interaction design can rescue – the foundations of good user experience are found in the value proposition, the business model, the definition of a target audience – things that may seem beyond the reach and responsibility of a humble UXer.

Leisa will share a framework for strategic user experience that will show how we can help facilitate good user experience from its birthplace in business strategy right through to the way we design an interface.

@leisa | disambiguity.com

You can view or download all three of the posters on Flickr:

Main poster
Andrew poster
Leisa poster

View who’s coming

Any comments towards @london_ia