Agile- Lean UX

Wednesday night i had the opportunity to attend my second event through the CIDD (the Chicago Interactive Design & Development NOT the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics) meetup group, and just like expected, it was a great presentation.

Brad Gernstein, from the newly formed ThoughtMatrix Chicago office, was there to speak about What's Next for UX. The talk gave a good overview on the Lean UX approach which consists of the Lean Start-Up movement and Lean Agile development theories (everyone is on diet these days).

My simple understanding on this somewhat newly adopted process is that it essentially requires keeping teams engaged by having them work in a more collaborative environment, which usually means being able to generate faster working prototypes and results, and isn't that everyone's ultimate goal?

Other topics covered included the pros and cons on native apps versus mobile web apps and html5's role.
Gernstein also noted some sweet resources for prototyping like Axure and Protoshare.

You can check out the full presentation here.

Merchandise Mart thoughts.

The Merchandise Mart will never cease to amaze me. I am lucky enough to walk through its halls everyday, these of which take up two city blocks, and due to its size- used to carry its own zip code!
All through out the year the building holds art exhibitions with some of their biggest being Art Chicago and Artropolis which are part of an even bigger event called Next.
And just the other day i stumbled across a new installation by local Chicago artist Bernard Williams. After doing some research i came to find out this exhibition space was granted as part of his controversial win for 2010 Art Loop Open. 

I immediately loved the graphics and symbols mixed with type. And even though they are wood cut-outs they remind me of stenciling and street art to some extent. 

I will leave you with some close ups of the work, and the creepy picture that sits right across from it.
So weird.

 love glasses guy

creepy picture that never changes

Good Taste, and the Creative Gap

This past Friday i dragged myself out of the house to attend a Merge party, and i'm glad i did!
Besides learning a few new things, almost being hit by a stack of Field Notes journals, and meeting a few new people an amazing quote and video was brought to my attention.

I doubt any of you have gone the past couple of years without hearing the name Ira Glass, but if you haven't you should. This American Life makes me happy.

Here is a snipped of a storytelling interview he did for PRI a year ago. He's mostly talking to people in the TV industry, but it really applies to anyone who does creative work.

 On good taste, and the creative gap:





"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through."
— Ira Glass

Career Identity Crisis

I really believe I'm going through a career identity crisis.
Being done with school is at arm's length, almost palpable, my little fingertips can touch it.
I can taste my free-week night dinners. I can see into future episodes of Modern Family.
 

It's.
all.
so.
close.









Along with this new-found freedom/happiness comes the realization of needing to come up with some kind of identity. And this is where my trouble begins.

Ultimately, being in the Interactive Arts & Media program morphs you into this category-less "creative"(if that's even the right word).
A degree that touches on so many ever-changing technologies and theories, it's even difficult to keep up while in school, but in an attempt at not sounding like a broken i will stop there.

I guess i am terrified of labeling myself one way or the other. Process of elimination doesn't even seem to help!
Am i an industrial designer that makes actual products? No.
Am i a graphic designer that makes logos? No.
Am i a UX designer that makes interfaces? hmm not really. Yet.
Am i a even a "designer"?

Should i throw in animation, programmer, developer, photographer, information architect to confuse myself even more? Yes! Because i like all of those!

I feel like a mish-mosh of everything and nothing all at once. Knowing enough to do something your friends consider "cool" but not enough to sell myself in a interview- is a problem.

Saying that i am questioning just about everything and anything is an understatement.
But i have to trust that things will work out the way they are supposed to. If am not happy with my professional life a couple years from now, i will have to take on the task of making room for awesomeness into my own hands.

Gamers

I've unexpectedly been thrown into a gamers world.
This semester's IAM Team Class has been given the task to take this years 3G Summit's winning game "to the next level". Whatever that may mean.
So with a group where none of the majors are Game Design and none of our specializations are specific to game development, animation, programming or sound design. This is bound to be an interesting semester. (Or should i say hellish?)
From one day to another we've had to dive into the ever expanding world of game-culture. We've had to come up with narrative, character development, system platforms, audio requirements, target audience, and general game mechanics just to get started. 

What? (yea, that's how i feel)

But I guess the hardest part for me has been coming to terms with the stereotype of girl gamers, or gamers in general. It also doesn’t help that as a team we were given a clichéd game topic (environment, and corporation responsibility) – even though it’s still a very relevant subject in the real world, it hasn't made adjusting to the idea of developing a game any easier.

This was the 3G Summit's first year, the 3 G's stand for girls, gaming and gender. It included 50 high school girls from around the Chicago area, and five women game designers from around the country. Names like Mary Flanagan, Tracy Fullerton, Bill Viola were all foreign to me a couple weeks back, and now I'm coming across all kinds of projects  either by them or influenced by them.  

But all in all, i should also mention the original concept comes from a good place, and it carries a good message. Seeing and being part of girls getting involved in technology is very exciting for obvious reasons. The fact that there is just one other girl in a senior class-team of eight should tell you something about how unbalanced the technology industry is as a whole. So to have the first ever conference of its kind hosted by my college and to be able to part of it, is beyond amazing.

So! to fight the negative nancy demons in me, I've gone on a quest to look for info on this whole gaming-for-awareness idea. And not surprisingly i came across this (Ted never fails me) which led me to this and back to one of the 3G panelist. Needless to say, there's a big movement behind games that show some kind of positive aspect. Now, I'm just left with the hope that women are not the majority behind developing these type of games. But i have realized you CAN bring awareness to specific issues, and hopefully involve people in the process.

And who's to say i shouldn't consider myself a gamer? I'm pretty sure i was the only one on my block with a Nintendo Mario Brothers, battling it out with my sister to get to World 8!

Painstakingly Kayaking

IMG_1224, originally uploaded by thesesoreribs.

So i finally got to go Kayaking.

Yes, i will never again wonder what those colorful little dots on the river are experiencing.
I have undergone the wakes from bigger boats on a busy Saturday afternoon, i have the sore arms, the burnt nose, and the pictures to prove it.

It had started off great. We even got there early! (not usually the case when you're with me)
My fears of flipping the plastic thing over subsided when i was told "It was all in the hips".
I thought "pssh. i got this". They even did a little hip-test before letting you go in the water.
How cute. I obviously passed this with flying colors.

Up to this point i was golden. I had listened and participated in all our little pre-kayak exercises.

The problem didn't become clear until we actually started going places (in a 3 hour!!! architecture kayak tour)
I paddled and paddled but somehow always ended up in last place with the 60-something year old wearing black business suit pants and a baby-pink long sleeve shirt.Whatever. I wasn't going to judge.
Maybe she liked her business casual attire a bit too much, maybe she had a meeting after this shindig, maybe she had a sun skin allergy. Poor thing.

Thoughts of my paddle being broken in some obscure way repeatedly came to mind.
I was following the rules! I had paid attention! Why was i not moving?
So.
Genius little me, started doing exactly what they told us NOT to do.I started canoe rowing right then and there! (digging your paddle instead of effortlessly doing outward strokes)

By the time we got downtown, wannabe Jersey Shore boats wouldn't stop creating a whole lot of beeping and bopping and bobbing and weaving for our little kayaks, ultimately bringing my arms to total exhaustion.

It went from a fun must-do experience to "I wanna get the hell OFF! Maybe if i get next to that wall I can climb out this thing and walk the rest."
At times i would concentrate so much in my paddling and getting somewhere, huge buoys would appear in my way.
I ultimately accepted an offer to be towed from one of the tour guides who had to stay with the last person as a safety precaution. The shame of being towed quickly wore off when i realized i was actually moving and not doing a thing. At times i would pretend  i was still rowing by splashing water with my paddles. Awful i know.
(But then i would feel bad and not have him tow me at all. So there. )
The affirmation that this was indeed a smart, but lazy move came when we pulled to the side of the dock and the girl next to me tiredly exhaled "ugh. that is such a good idea".
Yes it was. Yessss it was.

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