tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56372795016016184482024-02-20T19:19:54.245-08:00Informational Geometryfitting all the pieces togetherStephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.comBlogger145125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-28809930239708184372020-01-08T09:53:00.000-08:002020-01-08T10:00:33.580-08:00Human / Nature<br />
<div>
About twelve years ago I didn’t really understand Climate Change but I was actually looking forward to it, sort-of like a good mystery I could become enthralled with. At the time all I knew was I wanted a different lifestyle, and I thought, maybe Climate Change might make that happen? Maybe my life will actually be better because of it? I had this fantasy about being a self sufficient bohemian gourmet, growing my own food harvested right in my yard. Mother Earth magazine seemed so bucolic. I wanted the opposite of my cramped apartment in San Francisco. In 2008 Climate Change was just an excuse to make changes, quit a job and move. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I moved East, close to my dad. I didn’t mention anything about Climate Change to my father, a total denier who was a meteorologist when he was in his 20s. There was no amount of practical data that would change his mind. He retired in ’93, with nothing to be stressed about so he simply didn’t care about anything but football, fishing and food. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
When I moved I was still looking forward to Climate Change because it turned into another kind of selfish excuse. It was suddenly cool to care about something other than work. I could brag about being passionate about sustainability. Although my concern for the environment was genuine I just didn’t like driving. I tried to turn Climate Change into into an excuse to work from home. But it’s hard to admit that to people that you hate driving. Especially your father who loves cars. When I complained about commuting my dad would say, “You know, it’s because of cars that the economy is so great. Imagine how many jobs would be lost if people stopped driving.” Completely missing my point.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
My dad didn’t want the changes that I wanted. I thought my dad was lucky, I thought his generation had it easy. I saw the whole world being much harder for me and my peers. Much much more expensive. I couldn’t talk to my dad about any of this, he wouldn’t appreciate my point of view because that would be disrespectful. I would be one of those “ungrateful” young people excoriated by Fox News. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Years went by, I settled into life on the East Coast and the world was good. Life carried along like normal, and I still fantasized about Climate Change, because by this point “normal” didn’t seem that great and “change” still seemed better. As I’d go for walks, seeing the reality of nature in contrast with my digital life, I knew that taking the high road on climate would be expensive. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Often, without warning, my dad would toss out a quote from some radio quack, and I would be damned if I didn’t argue back. “Dad, I just don’t want people to live in flood zones.” I’d try to make the practical argument. “Why not be smarter about how we do things? That would save money, right?” He wouldn’t have a good reply to something like that. My father was still in denial. “It’s normal for the climate to change.” He’d say, “There’s nothing anybody can do about it, and I do’t care.” Then he’d change the subject.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I have to admit that all they way up until 2017 Climate Change didn’t seem that bad. It seemed as if my father was right about that one, but I wasn’t going to admit defeat because I still cared. I cared even though nobody else did. But like a horse in a bridle my attention was turned to what other people wanted me to care about, not what I wanted myself. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And then he died. Just short of his beloved summertime and two months before Harvey drowned Texas in three feet of rain. He was gone but in my mind we were still arguing. “betcha didn’t think 3 feet of rain could drop at one time, dad.” I’d say to him in my head. He would reply, still in my head, “Do you remember that incredible barbecue place we went to in Austin?”</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Over my father’s lifetime the world became a better place and he prospered along the way. He would be 82 years old now. From my perspective it seems like everything is getting worse. When, if, I make it to 80, I don’t think I’ll do as good as he did even though I had such a better start than him. Twelve years ago I had this weird fantasy that Climate Change was going to fix all the annoying things about life, but nothing changed.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I used to look forward to Climate Change but now my optimism, like the Greenland ice sheet, has been dissipating at an accelerating pace. At work I am all about improving things. Being a user experience designer is sort of like having a curse because you start to look at <b>everything</b> and you want to improve it because improvement is in your DNA. But you can’t. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The only thing I can do is pose a question to you. If your future were a story which would you want it to be? The Hunger Games, where kids are made to kill each other? Or Star Trek, where intelligent life strives to better the universe? The Hunger Games was very entertaining but I don’t want to live in Panem. I’d rather be at Star Fleet Headquarters. </div>
Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-76121647406697571122019-10-15T10:24:00.000-07:002020-01-08T10:26:30.456-08:00The Unsatisfying Story of Vegan Penn Jillette<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every so often my husband will mention how he’s interested in becoming vegetarian. Yesterday he was telling me about Penn Jillette, the famous comedian from Penn & Teller. He had read how Jillette is now a vegan, saying with personal interest that Jillette said “he feels so much better now.” First I was perplexed, we are both Penn & Teller fans and as performers over the years Penn Jillette struck me as an unapologetic manly man, veganism seems totally at odds with his character. I also barked at my burger loving husband, “What would you eat if you became a vegan? What do you even like that’s vegetarian?” There was no reply because my husband leaves all the food decisions up to me and I am nowhere close to being a vegetarian myself. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<b id="docs-internal-guid-ffcde49b-7fff-6026-301a-9e227a5046e5" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wanted to know more about this so I go online and Google ‘Penn Jillette Vegan’ and found this </span><a href="https://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-penn-jillette-weight-loss-20190615-story.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">LA Times article</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">; </span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“At 6 feet, 6 inches and 330 pounds, he was hospitalized for his high blood pressure and a 90% heart blockage. Already taking six medications, he was warned that early death was assured unless he got serious about his health.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0c343d; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ahh the old loose-weight-or-die notice, I thought then kept reading. Penn lost 105 pounds by radically changing his diet saying that he wanted to challenge himself by going “hard-core vegan”. Good for him, but there was no real information, what was he eating precisely? You can be vegan and still be unhealthy, pasta is vegan. With hard-core pronouncements the whole article read like a bragging deflection of the unpopular-ness of being vegan. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unsatisfied, and frankly annoyed with Penn, I mean, how unfair to his wife was it for him to carry around 100 extra pounds through a decade of marriage? I needed to know what this “hard-core vegan” diet was. This </span><a href="https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/health/diet-nutrition/news/a39697/penn-jillette-weight-loss-potato-diet/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">article in Good Housekeeping</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> sheds a little more light, and I have underlined the top points that I think made Jillette’s diet successful;</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Under medical supervision</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Jillette embarked on the "potato diet," </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">eating only plain potatoes for two whole weeks</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">… This arbitrary but </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">restrictive method</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is what's known as a "mono diet." After subsisting on spuds alone</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for 14 days</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, he started phasing in vegetable stews and salads for added variety </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Despite the intense restrictions, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the performer stuck to it</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, losing 75 pounds in three months without exercising until he hit his target weight of 225 pounds. The 64-year-old says </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the boring menu helped him break bad eating habits he'd fallen into before</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This type of 14 day restrictive dieting is supposed to “flush” all the old foods out of your body, essentially resetting your body for a new way of eating. I’ve tried it and it’s extremely difficult to do. It can also be dangerous and medical supervision is advised. I thought it was interesting how Jillette was using his mind on this, trying to challenge himself and use boredom to his advantage. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I'm not good at moderation. I wanted to do hardcore stuff," Jillette told GMA in 2016. "I wanted to lose the sense of eating socially ... </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was just a way to lose all the habits I had gotten into.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That last statement, losing your habits, changing your habits, that really is what dieting is about. It’s worth more of a read, especially for anyone who wants to know more about dieting but what about the vegan? They didn’t use the V-word once in the Good Housekeeping article and I was still unsatisfied. Why vegan? Is he really not consuming any eggs? I Google further and the only websites that say “vegan” along with “Penn Jillette” are mainly vegan websites. But there’s a book! </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presto-Pounds-Disappear-Other-Magical/dp/1501139525" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Presto!: How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and Other Magical Tales</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. It’s $6.22 for the paperback and weirdly, $12.99 for the kindle edition. What the heck is going on??? </span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m not buying this book, I think, but I read the excerpt, a funny screed about him getting fat for a part and then all the bad health consequences of gaining all that weight. What’s nice about this is Penn is talking like a normal guy who like many men I know just did their thing not expecting any devastating health consequences. But on the Amazon page for this book, even after glancing at the reviews, I still can’t find any information about the vegan. I guess I have to read the book to know precisely what vegan diet he’s on and why? However I’m not going to buy his book because 10% of the reviews are 1 star. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After all this Googling all I know is Penn Jillette lost weight on some restrictive diet of potatoes, and is bragging about it to promote his book. Reluctantly I log into Twitter. He mentions being vegan in a bunch of tweets wearing it like a badge of honor. It’s like vegan is cool because he says so. I guess it’s politics? Maybe it’s too liberal or something to talk about veganism? I wish somebody would have a grownup conversation about vegans! </span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Farhad Manjoo must have had the same thought in </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/28/opinion/vegan-food.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stop Mocking Vegans</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in the NY Times he says, </span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I want to urge you to give vegans a chance — to love and to celebrate them instead of ridiculing them. We need more vegan voices, because on the big issues — the </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/25/industrial-farming-one-worst-crimes-history-ethical-question" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">criminal cruelty of industrial farming</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">; the </span><a href="https://animalstudiesrepository.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=mammal" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">sentience and emotional depth of food animals</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">; </span><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02409-7" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the environmental toll of meat</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #134f5c; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and the unsustainability of its global rise — vegans are irrefutably on the right side of history. They are the vanguard.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I agree, I am not a vegan myself but I respect them. I’m glad someone like Penn Jillette is now promoting it. His journey towards enlightened eating makes for a valuable story that I hope a lot of people can be inspired by. I don’t believe in judging anyone on what they eat, I know that diets confuse a lot of people. I don’t need to lose weight and like my husband implied,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> it’s about </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>feeling</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> good</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> — eating a lot of veggies makes everyone feel good. Now I am going to take the husband challenge. I’m going to experiment with more veggie packed recipes, throw them at him and find some new favorite meals. </span></div>
Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-21153614716043133352018-04-10T14:38:00.004-07:002018-04-11T07:55:50.357-07:00My Awesomely Surreal Experience at Facebook’s F8 c.a. 2007It was about this time 11 years ago that Facebook opened up to the world. It was Spring in San Francisco and I was working a little stint at prosper.com. The CTO and Product Manager were a couple of well connected Stanford guys, and one day we were driving down to Palo Alto to go to Facebook’s headquarters. I didn’t really get what was going on. Although some of my other colleagues were encouraging me to check out Facebook for it’s interface and interaction design, I had never gotten on the site. I didn’t possess a dot EDU email address, I was too old for that for RISD. So there I was cruising down to Palo Alto with two guys to go meet with Dave Morin not really knowing what the heck was going on.<br />
<br />
We breeze into Facebook’s office, greeted by Dave right away. It was a really cool office and people we met were young, and this was not the kind of start-up I was used to. Prosper's CTO had been my boss at a previous job. Facebook was effortlessly cool compared to that company my old boss started.<br />
<br />
Dave starts talking about some event. There will be a hackathon, it was a huge deal, it’s going to be Awesome. They kept saying “awesome”. And as the three of us headed back up to the city, the guys complained the entire trip, annoyed with the “awesomeness” of it all. They griped about twitter and they complained about Facebook. And I didn’t really get it but I guessed that they were jealous of those companies’ obvious success.<br />
<br />
In the spring of 2007 the iPhone did not yet exist. There had been a few internet companies that survived the early days, and a new crop of companies were emerging that were trying to avoid all the sins of the past. The old way was talentless hacks schmoozing their way to success in a Wolf of Wall Street-esque kind way. The new way was driven by smart programmers, people who wanted to cut to the chase so to speak and grow very quickly and smartly. People who didn’t want to end up as the “resource” for the talentless hacks. My old boss was about to get even more bitter.<br />
<br />
It was fate, F8. Back at Prosper I helped create a game called “Fantasy Banker” which was kind of not fun, but I had to work with what I was given. I got to attend F8 along with some others from Prosper and really I was just taking it all in. The event was in a small space, there were only maybe 200 people. I bet there are more like 20000 plus people at Facebook events today. Amid sounds of Daft Punk, a bunch of people got up on stage and spoke. Some exec from Amazon, some exec from Microsoft. Big money was flowing Facebook’s way. And then, Mark Zuckerberg came to the stage like a really nerdy rockstar. Around The World was pulsating over the sound system. And Zuck started relating growth stats. “We are the number one photo sharing site with some insanely large numbers of views, uploads, new accounts, people, babies and kittens transacting”. And on and on. Grow baby grow. If I was some privileged millionaire I would’ve been running to get on that rocket ship.<br />
<br />
I was impressed by the time the presentations ended. I continued to be impressed with Facebook as a user who is also an interaction designer. What Mark Zuckerberg had done was solve many enormous problems for technology. Problems that a litany of companies failed to solve despite a shit ton of investment. I was impressed with Facebook for several reasons, like I said I am an interaction designer so I live at the intersection of human psychology and user interfaces. I was impressed, until Donald Trump was elected president. Then I suspended my account utterly disgusted with the whole situation.<br />
<br />
Fast forward to 2018... While I write this Mark Zuckerberg is going before Congress to speak about the Cambridge Analytica debacle and maybe Congress will touch on Russian meddling but I doubt Republicans want to hear that they didn’t actually score an honest win. Like Obama did. Or Bill Clinton did. But I digress.<br />
<br />
Here is my advice to Mark. He did a really fantastic job at building a platform that DOESN’T CREATE ORIGINAL CONTENT. It was like pulling money out of thin air when you get all this FREE content to run personalized ads around. This is Facebook’s problem. Facebook was exploiting their own users for ad revenues, any topic was wide open for advertisers. Anything. Maybe the solution is to take some of the focus off of people’s personal lives and put more focus on real, authentic content. Which means, people who create content, all the writers of both fiction and fact, all the musicians who record songs that people share, and people like this - should be paid. Maybe if you invest in journalists and artists, actors and producers, people wont be so angrily bored and make stuff up like Jade Helm. Maybe it will become easier to police the political crap - if - most user's conversations and advertising are around true original content. I mean… look at Spotify’s IPO!!!!!<br />
<br />
So that’s my crazy Facebook story. I will always have the memories! And a T-shirt to prove it!Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-14342782454340849592017-10-12T10:39:00.000-07:002017-10-12T10:39:25.176-07:00How to Help Grandparents with Their Technology I'm sitting here writing this on my dad's old iMac realizing I could have done a better job helping him with technology over the past few years. I feel like a bad daughter, an interaction designer ought to do a lot better for their parents. My dad was very capable, and fiercely wanted his independence, so I didn't bother him. Still, I was already doing "tech support" for friends and strangers, and I'm realizing now that I could have saved myself a bit of work after he passed me on his gadgets. So here's my advice to people who have an older parent or friend, even if they are not a luddite!<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;">Make yourself the Admin.</span></h3>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<h4>
<span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;">Set up their gmail, give yourself access. </span></h4>
Give them their password, make sure it's super easy to remember but tell them not to reuse this password for any reason anywhere.<br />
<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;">Set up their iCloud, Amazon Prime, YouTube etc tethered to their new Gmail. </span></h4>
Yes, plug their credit card into these accounts, they're still independent! Give them their unique password and save it yourself. If you don't do this you will be sorry when you want to retrieve photos but you can't, because you don't know the password.<br />
<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;">Just get them the smartphone they want, put it on your family account. </span></h4>
Don't let them deal with any of the account ownership part. If you can set up partial auto-payments from their credit card. Same goes for tablets and smart watches.<br />
<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;">Get them sarted with apps. </span></h4>
The entire concept of shopping on an app store could be foreign to older folks. Get them started with some fun apps, use the camera, show them what they could do.<br />
<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;">Make sure their internet providers / cable TV accounts are set up correctly and you have access.</span></h4>
This would be something like their Comcast account. Are they paying tons of money on channels they never watch? OnDemand they don't know how to access? Wifi that never got setup? Yes that all happened with my dad, he probably overspent over a grand $$$$ on Comcast, it's annoying. I actually went out and bought a wifi device not knowing he already had it. Don't let it happen to you!<br />
<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;">Give them their privacy and sense of control.</span></h4>
If you can set them up in this way, you can sit back and give them their space and sense of privacy. Knowing they are going to be safe, and happier in the great playground of the internet.<br />
<br />Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-46987771164808010512017-10-09T11:39:00.000-07:002017-10-12T11:41:53.010-07:00Why Can't Columbus Day Just Be A Food Holiday?Today is Columbus Day. I never gave the day much thought really, except it's a Federal Holiday and in the past few years it's been a paid holiday I get to take. A few years ago a friend of mine posted to Facebook about Christopher Columbus, in doing so she enlightened me about what a shit the guy was.<br />
<br />
I was in my forties by the time I figured out what a giant douchebag Christopher Columbus was. Seems like a lot of people are just figuring it out because now, all of a sudden, people are defacing statues of him. There's a lot of questioning of patriarchy in 2017. To me, I have to say, Columbus symbolized America, the inception of this place I call home, more than he symbolized patriarchy. And, let's admit that pretty much every European explorer in the 1700s was a prostitute of patriarchal colonialism. So why can't we be realists about the past? Why can't we just celebrate America and how Italians have made America great? With food?<br />
<br />
My mother was Italian American. Her parents had emigrated with her family en mass and she was born here in the US, in West Virginia. Italian was her <b>first</b> language. The entire family was poor. They labored in coal mines. They were openly discriminated against by other "white" people all around them. I know this because my mother told me about it.<br />
<br />
In the US my mom had the opportunity to succeed in a way that she would never have been able to in Italy. She was the first college educated person in her family, including men. She went on to get a dual masters degree. She worked hard, had a good career and a nice home. When I came along in the 70s I didn't even know what discrimination was. I had to learn what it was. Both my parents said it was a very bad thing, because first it's OK to discriminate against one type of person, and the next thing it's OK to discriminate against you because you're Italian. I still hold this lesson in my heart. Italian Americans have some terrible stereotypes. While I enjoyed The Sopranos immensely I want to be associated with that stereotype as much as my African American friends want to be associated with The Wire.<br />
<br />
Some people have called for a renaming of Columbus Day to Indigenous People's Day. Sigh. Great. Everyone else gets their own day except us. If every Irishy person in the world can get religiously drunk on March 17th, then why is it so hard to celebrate Columbus day with Chianti and some pizza? I think most Italian Americans want people to see the positive. We can all complain about how much of a shit Chris Columbus was while appreciating the food, the fashion and culture of Italy, which has contributed a lot to the United States. And for the record, we should have an all new holiday for indigenous people. They deserve more than a recycled day.Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-85718884231802411202017-07-12T12:59:00.004-07:002017-07-12T13:00:55.831-07:00Steph's Advice to Fix Uber<h4>
<i>Dear Uber,</i></h4>
<br />
Here we are. You've finally canned Travis Kalanick, what took you so long? You used to be cool but that was like, four years ago. For the past couple of years it just feels like you've been coasting off of your success from the past. How much longer can that go on? I guess if I was being showered with VC gold I would be hanging onto those old victories too. But you're a tech company, you provide a service to consumers, haven't you learned anything from your neighbors at Apple and Google about delighting customers? I'm sorry but you need to try harder. Your vision needs to be much much bigger, and it needs to include people outside of the C suite or Uber won't last.<br />
<br />
If I may give some advice to your product, UX, and marketing teams it would be this:<br />
<br />
<h2>
Build up your brand</h2>
I know, I know, you think you did this already. But you didn't. I have never seen a single ad from Uber encouraging me to ride. No TV ads, no radio, no print ads, not even internet ads. Really? Not even a feel good ad like Apple puts out? Try harder.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Listen to your customer</h2>
I know you have ratings and reviews that's good. What are you doing with that data? Maybe to riders it feels like this information goes into a black hole. I bet if you ask people you'll uncover a landslide of great improvements. Try that.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Be a service, not an app</h2>
The simple act of pressing a button and getting a ride is a great start. But in order to grow, to get more customers using Uber more often you need to delight people. And human beings main point of contact with Uber is not the app, it's the cars, and the drivers. This is you're "Netflix Moment", Uber. Your challenge is to grow your business beyond the app. YOU need your own "Orange Is The New Black". Netflix started producing content, not just delivering content. Now, people are happy and not just subscribers, actors, producers, artists are making money too. It's a win-win that leads to even more profit. You need to start taking the ride experience to a whole other level and you're not going to achieve that with a load of contractors and some borrowed cars. YOU need to own your cars. YOU need to treat your good drivers as well as your corporate employees. You could do a lot right there.<br />
<br />
<h2>
You have great data on people, use it</h2>
I know you know this already but it seems like you're doing nothing with the data. With this information you can find patterns to expand ridership. With your data you know who your best drivers are and you can reward them. With this information you could have several drivers operating a single Uber owned vehicle equitably. You can turn efficiency gains into customer delight!<br />
<br />
Hopefully a change in leadership will shift the focus away from being a "hot tech company" to a service that people can't get enough of.... With growth and revenues to follow.<br />
<br />Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-75860886714397119932017-05-04T14:54:00.000-07:002017-05-04T14:54:49.125-07:00How to NOT Get Your Email HackedNever transmit STDs - Software Transmitted Diseases<br />
<br />
I came up with this saying over 10 years ago. And today it's more relevant than ever thanks to Google Docs. Fortunately there are some simple rules I'd like to share and please feel free to pass this along.<br />
<br />
The rule is simple - NEVER click on a link emailed to you unless you can absolutely verify it is legitimate.<br />
<br />
Sub rule 1: If the email with link is from a business like your bank or from any online account you might have - Go directly to that website instead of clicking on the link in your email.<br />
<br />
Sub rule 2: Tell friends, family and colleagues not to send you emails that look phishy. If they must share something over email ask them to at least write a sentence or two along with the link to show that the email is legitimate.<br />
<br />
Sub rule 3: DO share with everyone these rules.Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-90120552836464750062017-03-14T12:43:00.000-07:002017-03-14T12:49:35.193-07:00Comments UnchainedWhen I run for president, will people dredge up this blog? Will people even know to connect this, with me, and what will happen when that happens? Answer, probably a lot of crap I never expected to happen will happen.<br />
<br />
I used to think comments were the best thing to happen to the internet. Right around 2007, when Facebook opened up to the rest of the world I marveled at their interface. The interaction design was perfection. My photo sitting right there next to a little box practically making me reply to every little thing posted to Facebook. Compelling and sticky, the perfect User Experience really connecting people, with words. This type of interface had already been around, in the form of self publishing and "user generated content". I loved the disruption a decade ago, especially when in 2009 Gourmet magazine ceased and the editor, Christopher Kimball <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/opinion/08kimball.html" target="_blank">penned his gripes in the New York Times</a>.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;">"The shuttering of Gourmet reminds us that in a click-or-die advertising marketplace, one ruled by a million instant pundits, where an anonymous Twitter comment might be seen to pack more resonance and useful content than an article that reflects a lifetime of experience, experts are not created from the top down but from the bottom up. They can no longer be coronated; their voices have to be deemed essential to the lives of their customers. That leaves, I think, little room for the thoughtful, considered editorial with which Gourmet delighted its readers for almost seven decades."</span></span></h3>
<br />
The gall, I thought in 2009. I thought Kimball was speaking from a privileged perspective and didn't get it. Today in 2017 I am not so quick to criticize.<br />
<br />
As an interaction and interface designer of more than 20 years I have been constantly observing how people interact with this thing we are all staring at right now. The web. Lately I have been paying a lot of attention to comments. I've noticed how the Washington Post's comments are insanely bad, but funny, because they are pretty much unmoderated. While the NYTimes comments are much better in all around quality because they <b>are</b> moderated. I've also seen how some websites have communities that self-moderate comments, or how groups will learn over time to self police comments on their venue of choice. But there are still many structural flaws to commenting of which only human moderation can fix a few.<br />
<br />
A funny thing happened when I stopped using facebook. I got smarter, and a lot happier. Why did this happen? I think for a year leading up to the election, it wasn't the fake news or rude memes that frustrated me about what I was seeing online - it was people's responses to everything. Or even that everyone felt the need to respond to everything, no matter how stupid it was. Like stepping in dog poo and then strolling around the house ignorantly wondering what the weird smell is, that's how I felt a lot of users were reacting to the web. NO no no! Don't spread poo! I was trying to point out that some of these topics people were sharing were just "click bait". Stuff designed to make people react, usually angrily, and without thinking. I was fine with the cute animals but I was seeing less kittens and more mean and angry stupid shit. The more I tried to defend my idea of intelligent user interaction the more stupid shit I'd get stuck to my shoe.<br />
<br />
Here's the really dumb part. Facebook was already profitable in 2008. Twitter was insanely profitable. A bunch of Silicon Valley fat cats and their VC friends are getting even richer on the backs of YOUR POSTS AND COMMENTS. So while people like me and you sit around ranting online in a comments section (I am totally guilty of this still without Facebook) we are literally handing money over to a bunch of strangers who don't deserve it. People who will now get to pay less taxes on the wealth generated from our words. We The People have enabled the biggest advertising orgy in existence simply by the fact that we can't help ourselves from complaining and we can't look away from our screens. Is the real world so boring that we have nothing better to do? <br />
<br />Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-51927175080253764232016-11-16T10:08:00.000-08:002016-11-16T10:11:42.506-08:00Fake News Is Bad User Experience - Solutions for Combatting Fake NewsI was only a little surprised to read yesterday during my commute about fake news. About a month ago I saw an advertisement online titled "<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Bigger+Than+Snowden&oq=Bigger+Than+Snowden&aqs=chrome..69i57.481j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8" target="_blank">Bigger Than Snowden</a>" someone actually paid money towards an online ad campaign to purport that electromagnetic weapons are being used by the government to covertly target, monitor, and torture victims. Seriously. The link above goes to google search results and you can see how this nonsense has been smeared around the internet as if it's true. Which it's not.<br />
<br />
Did fake news catapult It (I'm not saying It's name) into the White House? <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/us/politics/debunk-fake-news-election-day.html" target="_blank">NYTimes seems to think so</a>. And you know what, I think so too. As a User Experience designer I know how to pull the same exact tricks that creators of fake news pulled. Any of us web professionals could easily fool a lot of people with fake stories.<br />
<br />
Then I was a little surprised to read today about a group of college students who already solved the fake news problem in a hackathon.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/It-only-took-36-hours-for-these-students-to-solve-10614549.php" target="_blank"><b>It took only 36 hours for these students to solve Facebook's fake-news problem</b></a><br />
<br />
Good for them.<br />
<br />
For months leading up to the election I was flagging content on Facebook. Content that was offensive but not technically abusive by Facebook's terms. There were a lot of mean, belittling, inaccurate posts that are designed to stoke people's anger (or fear) that are OK to post on Facebook. I saw people being really mean with an image composed of 2 photos, one of Michelle Obama and the other of Beyonce. This wasn't fake news. It's perfectly fine to put this on Facebook. A lot of meanness and vitriol was cultivated about the Obama's on social media, and I didn't see the point of cultivating all this anger, until November 9th.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Facebook Needs to Make an Effort</h3>
Frankly, it diminishes the User Experience of Facebook to visit the site and see a litany of angry memes. I like that Facebook let's me unfollow friends that are bothering me, but the flagging could be a lot more robust.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Bring the humans back. Just re-hire human moderators. You can afford it.</li>
<li>There should be an "inappropriate" flag that aligns with standard etiquette. Maybe "inappropriate" content should persist but with an overlay of a scarlet letter. like this:<span style="background-color: yellow;"> <span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b><i>I</i></b></span> .</span> So people can continue to share it but they know that they are sharing something that's deemed rude. </li>
<li>There should be a "false information" flag. </li>
<li>Would love it if originators of content are revealed. There should be origination information about a post including the publishing website, country of origin, and other meta data. </li>
<li>Display suspected fake content in front of people NOT tuned to like it. Let people vet news posts that they normally would not see because these posts live outside of their personalized experience. And then allow these users to apply the "false information" flag. </li>
<li>Remove the fake news content from Facebook. The only way to stop fake news from being circulated to begin with, is to discourage it entirely by making the effort to post it too tedious. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<h3>
Google Needs to Make an Effort Too</h3>
The problem I am seeing in Google Search is pretty simple but still bad. Some of the more outrageous lies are spread via Google, sortof like it's algorithms have run amok and nobody's paying any attention to what they're doing. Here's what I saw and I brushed it off at the time. I'm trying to search for a popular news story, and the top result is something completely different. The #1 result was coming back with some scandalous political YouTube post completely unrelated to my search.<br />
<br />
Google started including <b>comments</b> on YouTube videos in their search results. So this enabled people to game google's search and get a piece of content like a YouTube video to appear on an unrelated search term.<br />
<br />
It's against Google's terms of use to trick web pages into ranking higher in search. But it still works. Google is going to have a serious problem of scale on their hands if they allow this ecosystem of misinformation persist. I remember the ad-farms that used to pollute my search results in 2006, before Google tamped down on websites that were really only a collection of ads. My search results are becoming polluted now, and again, this is bad User Experience and makes me want to use Google less.<br />
<br />
I know Google has the capabilities to apply an extra layer of information to their search results to make it obviously clear that the content on that website is deemed fake. After all, here is the <a href="https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=denver+guardian" target="_blank">Denver Guardian</a>, A fake news site. The way this site is presented in Google's search results makes it appear as if it's completely legitimate. This screenshot was taken today, November 16th, a day after the NY Times article called it out as a fake site. Here is Google giving the impression that this "FBI agent..." story is legit.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNShNNxetrM4FprhkFA95KuT3n_C-3VbHeoLGL2OGJ-WUIPcPNFWyfQjQKZkruNa6d9FjMRNv1YxXZKerHIgAV4g3E4xXrnSpBt1VgC4w1XVYYgoK6iXR5Ot9TG1G78zHz0XU_nbLqaQ7X/s1600/DenverGuardianGoogleFail.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNShNNxetrM4FprhkFA95KuT3n_C-3VbHeoLGL2OGJ-WUIPcPNFWyfQjQKZkruNa6d9FjMRNv1YxXZKerHIgAV4g3E4xXrnSpBt1VgC4w1XVYYgoK6iXR5Ot9TG1G78zHz0XU_nbLqaQ7X/s320/DenverGuardianGoogleFail.png" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
If Google is "Organizing the World's Information" I would have to give it a D grade. Does Google expect newspapers to fight back with stories??? If these tech companies don't fix these loopholes of misinformation, then rational normal content creators with suffer and we will all be poorer as a result.Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-14412276716514518812016-01-03T19:22:00.001-08:002016-01-03T19:23:38.444-08:00A User Experience Designer And Her New PhoneHappy New Years! One of my resolutions this year is to be more creative. And since it is now officially the New Year I thought, why not get off to a good start and write a post on the blog? I know, right? It's been too long.<br />
<br />
Last year, 2015, my resolution was to save money. Nothing like buying a fixer upper to put that resolution at the top of your list every year! It came time for a phone upgrade but as I was in frugal-mode (still am, frankly) I waited, patiently for Black Friday to get me a deal. I used to have an iPhone 5c. A sleek little number with a candy like green plastic shell. It served me well on commutes to and from DC. I would see other 5cs on the commute and smile at complete strangers. Like, "yeah, I see you and your cool affordable iPhone. You know it. I know it. We're in the club." Mostly these people just ignored me.<br />
<br />
At last, Black Friday came, but the internet said there were no deals! How could that be? Maybe I had too much turkey? Saturday I get in my car and drive to the store, and in fact, there were deals. (By the way, bad UX Target.com). I waited a few hours, and asked myself, "Self, am I really ready for this commitment?" I replied, "email, tax deduction, you need it." So I did! But when I got up in the line to buy a new phone, all they had left were iPhone 6s PLUSes. The big one. Which I didn't really want. "Two hundred and fifty dollar credit" I thought. It's the only size left, so I bought a big ole 6 plus.<br />
<br />
This thing is so big I thought right away I could use it as a snowboard. I kept the plastic on it for over a week thinking I might exchange it, when they had more inventory. Every time I'd whip it out of my pocket, I thought about how big it is. I dared not to put a cover on it lest it look even larger than it already is. I hate phone covers anyway. It's so big. On Metro I felt like I was wagging around a wad of $900 cash. Come rob me! And then, after about a week, I used the camera the first time. And the clouds parted and the sun shown down. Or was that the gloriously large display shining my photos, just taken, right back in my face. Wow this camera is good, and this enormous screen is great for taking photos. I get it now. The plastic film was finally removed.<br />
<br />
It's still big, but I'm getting used to it. I wonder if I like it so large? When I glance around, I see that my phone is larger than most other people's phone. I wonder if this is how SUV drivers feel. I can always downsize. It's just a phone. It's not a marriage. Size isn't everything.Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-13868822800086359792015-05-05T07:48:00.000-07:002015-05-05T07:48:01.176-07:00An Array of Solar Powered Desalination Stills So in reading about the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/15/us/the-debate-over-californias-drought-crisis.html" target="_blank">drought in California</a> I was inspired to try to design some kind of solution. I guess I was frustrated after reading the plethora of news about the drought and seeing little to no solutions mentioned. Just NYTimes naggery and finger pointing and stuff about how California's agricultural industry simply does not manage water well. How California has never implemented drought measures that other parts of world has. And then, maybe it's because I'm a gardener and I recycle water that I actually see this drought problem easily solvable.<br />
<br />
So here's my little Temple Grandin moment! An "array" of solar stills floating like enormous doughnuts on the sea.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1rEGUSDrflWgPTrgsIyAPZwKY0XRB_xLr4yGRV78JKbWqy8Hgj7I2jhhJm2e98OzigrQtPXNYE-0rdAUJfGKakPpluGXPvIAcV4XQWZWN83DzKdUrU_XfjwaUdFOl3BtZxHOq3KOX0yvW/s1600/SolarDesalinationArray-01.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1rEGUSDrflWgPTrgsIyAPZwKY0XRB_xLr4yGRV78JKbWqy8Hgj7I2jhhJm2e98OzigrQtPXNYE-0rdAUJfGKakPpluGXPvIAcV4XQWZWN83DzKdUrU_XfjwaUdFOl3BtZxHOq3KOX0yvW/s1600/SolarDesalinationArray-01.png" height="414" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
It would make me really happy if some people in California would try this out. </div>
<br />Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-50584648074917885872015-02-11T07:50:00.003-08:002017-10-12T10:41:40.957-07:00Confliction and The Measels<br />
Confliction - A sickness of conflict between one political idea and another.<br />
<br />
<h2>
The Measles Outbreak of 2015</h2>
<br />
We can't tell parents what to do with their own kids<br />
<br />
But we want to tell parents what to do<br />
<br />
But the Government has NO RIGHT to tell parents what to do<br />
<br />
But we really really really just want to tell parents what to do<br />
<br />
But we can't. It's not cool<br />
<br />
OK but seriously, some other kids are at risk, and we should just make laws<br />
<br />
NO, we can't tell parents what to do with their own kids. THAT is already law!<br />
<br />
How about we trot out doctors and be really nice about telling parents what to do?<br />
<br />
Yeah, but a lot of people understandably don't trust pharmaceutical corporations<br />
<br />
OK let's use statistics, numbers! Let the data convince the parents!<br />
<br />
BUT, the LAW says, we can not tell parents what to do with their own kidsStephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-68527103322392171272014-11-04T14:27:00.003-08:002014-11-04T14:27:36.061-08:00Where is My Ultra High Definition Digital Sound?I keep reading about new technologies coming out and hearing about the wearbales innovation. Seems like Silicon Valley is trying very hard to break into some new markets, and they're pushing into some unfamiliar territory to get there. Yesterday I was reading about apps that will tell if the person you're speaking to on your smartphone, is lying. Yup. I suppose there's some benefits to technology like that but here's why it's being developed.... <i>to sell you more stuff</i>. It's more Big Brother advertising crap.<br /><br />What about just improving the good old stuff we know everybody loves and will buy? Where is my ultra high definition sound? Better than a CD, over the internet?<br />
<br />
This seems like a multi-billion dollar challenge, that is technically and commercially obtainable. The data storage is there, the marketplaces are there, god knows the cloud is there, and the consumers are there - what's missing is the high definition sound! All that takes is some more technology, which, is already there!!<br />
<br />
Better yet, this could revive artists and artistry. A group who have been dealt a bad hand in the internet revolution and don't make a dime from services like Spotify.<br />
<br />
So let this be a call to somebody! Apple, Sony, Google, hell... Amazon. Some crazy software sound engineer in college! Sound me up. <br />
<br />
I realize SACD exists, but I can't stream it on my laptop.Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-15428822351562368772014-06-12T16:12:00.000-07:002014-06-12T16:12:05.973-07:00Usability Part 2 - How To Do ItIn my last post, <a href="http://informationalgeometry.blogspot.com/2014/05/dont-fear-user-part-1-empowering.html">Don't Fear The User Part 1 - Empowering Software Development With Usability Techniques</a>, we talked about what usability is. The practice of making software easy to use. And that you accomplish this by listening to your target end user. Incidentally there is a great post on <a href="http://creativegood.com/blog/first-the-bad-news-why-customers-still-matter/" target="_blank">Good Experience</a> today where Mark Hurst mentions his tweet:<br />
<br />
<em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #252525; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; max-height: 1000000px; padding: 0px;">Before you get customers involved, first you should probably check if the boss can handle bad news.</em><br />
<br />
This is important because before you try to do usability work your boss needs to be on board. If you're boss is fearful and can't handle bad news then it might be a futile effort. Instead usability should be empowering. It will resolve problems and can help an organization meet its goals. Now I'm going to elaborate on how to do it.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Step 1: <b>Who</b> is The End User?</h3>
User Experience Designers when we go to work, we do this thing called "User Centered Design". And all this means is we try to focus on The End User when we're designing. Let's use Blogger - this blog - as an example. If I were to sit down and start creating this Google product we know as Blogger, the first question I would ask myself is, "Who is the end user for Blogger?" THAT is the person you design for, not your client or your boss. You want to target a persona that accurately represents your end users. If you do design for your client, boss, or self the problems are: a) you miss a lot of good ideas b) you miss all kinds of important details c) you might overcomplicate things for the person who needs to use that software d) your boss's wants are in conflict with the end user's etc.<br />
<br />
Common question: <b>But what if we want everybody to use our product?</b> There are techniques for that too. For large-scale high traffic websites & apps, there are best practices. And if this is your product, you really need to work with a professional UCD person and I'd love to speak with you more :^)<br />
<br />
<h3>
Step 2: Listen to The End User</h3>
Wow I know right? This is so common sense you're probably rolling your eyes. OK but LISTEN - there are <b><i>ways</i></b> to listen to your customers. You don't just want to fire off a bunch of surveys, that's sooooo marketing. Nor do you want to ask for a list of all the features the user wants (they'll ask for everything). The best thing to do is listen to users as they interact with something. You take notes and record your research. It's fun and easy. This is also known as <b>User Research</b>, and sometimes referred to as <b>Listening Labs</b>.<br />
<br />
Common question: <b>But we aren't even settled on a product idea?</b> Listening to your potential customers will help you figure this out. Watching them use a competitor's product will reveal all the ways you can succeed. If you work with an experienced product designer (ahem) they can help you glean this information from user research.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Step 3: Focus on The End User When Developing Your Product</h3>
There's always this temptation while developing something to look at your colleagues and say, "Wouldn't it be cool if it did this?!" It's fun to come up with cool ideas but it's better to postpone frosting the cake until after you bake it. Never forget who you're designing for. Don't let your bosses forget. Remind the developers so they don't forget and code a bunch of shortcuts and hacks.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Step 4: Usability Test</h3>
This is not QA testing. <i>You are not looking for bugs</i>. <b>What you are testing is weather or not the end user can perform a task using the product.</b> How long does it take that person to perform the task? How many clicks do they have to make to do what they need to do? Can they find the button? Do they know what feature lives in that dropdown menu? That is usability testing. <i> See how agnostic this is? </i><br />
<br />
<h3>
Step 5: Apply the Research and Testing To Your Product</h3>
Don't just report your research and testing, <u>apply it</u>. Make concrete recommendations for how to fix flaws in the UI that impede people from performing a task. Ideally this is all done as part of a larger development process and you have time allocated for usability testing <i>and</i> time to make changes to your interface.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Here is how to make this sound like bad news to the boss:</b><br />"When we did research, people complained that it was hard to sign-up. When we tested the sign-up process, only half the users were able to sign-up."<br />
<br />
<b>Instead it's better to discuss improvements you can make to remedy the problem:</b> "When we did research, people complained that it was hard to sign-up. When we tested the sign-up process we found that if we reword the title and make this button larger we can make sign-up easier." <br />
<br />
<br />
That is how you do it. Let me know if you have questions.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-21535501446544074202014-05-08T10:35:00.001-07:002014-05-08T10:43:06.860-07:00Don't Fear The User Part 1 - Empowering Software Development With Usability Techniques<h3>
<b>Usability is the practice of making things easy to use</b></h3>
Usability is the practice of making products, especially software, <u><b>easy to use</b></u>. If you can think of some frustrating website that just didn't work, or
even a bad customer service experience, you understand how important
usability is. <br />
<br />
The whole world needs usability. Here we are just talking about the intersection where humans and computers meet - software. Since software is exploding, the industry needs user centered design more than ever. As consumers we need our smart phones and apps to be easy to use. But professionals probably need more usability than consumers... just so they can do their jobs. And sadly, way too many B to B applications and enterprise software are unwieldy and difficult to use. <br />
<br />
There is a way to fix software so it's easy to use. Incorporating usability techniques into your development process accomplishes two things. #1 it allows you to focus on the goal of making your product work as best it can. #2 it keeps software projects honest, prevents money being wasted on endless, directionless development.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What Usability is NOT</h3>
Usability is not about design in that it has nothing to do with attractiveness. Usability is not about content, but it involves <i>how</i> people <b>find</b> and <b>interact</b> with content and information. Usability is not about marketing, it's not creative, but good usability leads people to like a particular app as opposed to hating it, and this grows user adoption. <br />
<br />
<h3>
Usability <i>IS</i> Business</h3>
It's funny that usability is entrusted to a design team on a project because it has more to do with business goals than design goals. Business people and executives should regard user research and testing as a means to gain more control over their business. At tech companies they will have researchers perform usability testing. But since designers dictate what the User Interface (UI) will be, designers are helpful in translating usability findings into the UI. Still usability needs business's buy-in in order for it to be effective.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Here are some scenarios where a little usability work could have a big impact on business:</h4>
<ul>
<li>An application used by your company is confusing, and people need to ask others for help in order to use it.</li>
<li>You have a massive amount of data, it's so huge you can't make heads or tails of all that information. You need to figure out how to display this data in a way that works for your clients.</li>
<li>You are customizing off-the-shelf software that comes with all these great "capabilities" and you need help deciding which functions would be best for your business.</li>
<li>Your company spends way too much money on customer service calls and your business could save a lot by just making your product easier to use. </li>
<li>It takes too long for people to do their job with the software you are currently using. You can increase revenues if people can do their jobs faster.</li>
</ul>
<br />
At it's core usability is about listening - to customers, to clients, to
the "end-user" and translating that research into a functional UI. It sounds simple, and it is, IF you know how to do it. In part 2 I'll discuss techniques for DIY usability testing and user research. But if you have a large-scale application that needs help then <a href="mailto:design@studioroom.com" target="_blank"><b>contact me for more in depth consultation</b></a>. After more than 10 years of analyzing usability in software, a short consultation may be all you need to fix your usability problems. Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-77202768540782707372013-05-08T16:52:00.001-07:002013-05-09T11:38:32.868-07:00Part 3 of Social Media Marketing - Do's & Don'tsThe funny thing about internet marketing is the people who would benefit from it the most probably are the same people with limited budgets - Artists, writers, and musicians. Independent creative people and students usually don't have an annual marketing budget. If you fall into the Artist category pay attention, this post is for you. I reveal how to simply use social media. If you DO have a marketing budget then <a href="mailto:ssawchenko@gmail.com" target="_blank">contact me</a> and let me show you how to ROCK your internet marketing. <br />
<br />
Writers have already blazed a trail on the internet and there are many <a href="http://www.bookpromotion.com/" target="_blank">websites dedicated to helping writers</a>. Since I have a Fine Art background and I think like a designer, I'll focus on artists & other kinds of small businesses like restaurants.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b>DO: Get yourself set-up with a website or blog</b></h3>
First you need a "hub". A command center where you can connect to all sorts of social media and networking sites. In case you didn't know a blog is actually just another kind of website, just with more 'self publishing' tools. Having your own site is important because this gives you the greatest control over the flow of information and most importantly you can measure - yes you can actually see - the results of your marketing efforts. And then your can fine tune everything, do more business and make more money. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/business/smallbusiness/three-keys-to-converting-web-visitors-into-buyers.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank">Great NY Times article covers this nicely</a>. <br />
<br />
<b>DON'T: </b>Put off launching your website or blog. Otherwise Google and people on Yelp will talk about you behind your back.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2RPHynnRUG4_1UWVgG92TiK5oYgNKFg6Ma3vLlXQpu5MXrJARYDb8mS1Qx9fwnT0Qg_mu4B8IPvwVZyd906s2pFsHxtCfopWofCpq5ej8zqikKjAR3lvi2zbM74mRAU9xTNaeFPdGceEk/s1600/SocialMediaEngagement2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2RPHynnRUG4_1UWVgG92TiK5oYgNKFg6Ma3vLlXQpu5MXrJARYDb8mS1Qx9fwnT0Qg_mu4B8IPvwVZyd906s2pFsHxtCfopWofCpq5ej8zqikKjAR3lvi2zbM74mRAU9xTNaeFPdGceEk/s1600/SocialMediaEngagement2.png" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Your goal is to get other people to help you promote your business on social media through their normal sharing activity. </span></b><br />
<br />
<h3>
<b>DO: Think like a Marketing Pro and set goals that you want to achieve</b></h3>
What is your goal? What do you want to achieve with the internet? You need to be able to answer this question. A good goal for a local bar would be, "To increase average nightly clientele by 25%"<br />
Some good goals for small biz people are:<br />
- Grow your fan base<br />
- Get people to discover you<br />
- Get new clients or customers<br />
- Sell more products<br />
- Rent your space<br />
- Find projects to work on<br />
<b><br />DON'T:</b> Assume that just having a blog and making a couple of random posts (like everyone else) suddenly makes you a marketing guru. :^|<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b>DO: Think like a Marketing Pro and make a plan</b></h3>
<b>It's critically important that you PLAN AHEAD</b> for all your marketing efforts. You need time to work for you. If you are throwing an event you need to start planning your marketing at least a month ahead of time. If you are a caterer who wants to get work catering weddings then you should be marketing yourself no later than February to get work on a June wedding.<br />
<br />
<b>DON'T:</b> Wait until the last minute to think about you marketing plan! Otherwise you completely miss opportunities to get your event announced in print media and email newsletters. <br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b>DO: Pay attention to the timing and frequency of your posts to social media. </b></h3>
People mostly cruise Facebook or twitter during their morning commute or during lunch at work. So <a href="http://mashable.com/2011/10/26/time-facebook-posts/" target="_blank">time your big announcement</a> to coincide with the mob of internet users that are likely to see your post. And reiterate your post a few extra times so it reaches as many people as possible. For <a href="http://pinterest.com/173sud/social-media-post-timing-is-everything/" target="_blank">more information</a> on timing of posts just do a search. <br />
<br />
<b>DON'T:</b> Wait to the 3pm on a Friday to do only one tweet about your bar's happy hour special. You should be tweeting that tantalizing announcement several times earlier in the week. <br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b>DO:</b> <b>Make good quality posts on multiple social media sites</b></h3>
It's all about the quality, and quantity of your posts - where ever you post them. You want to reach as many people as possible, that's the point, so use the services <u>that suit your business</u>. Remember the web is an interactive communication tool and you will interact with people and communicate your story well to be successful.<br />
<br />
<b>DON'T:</b> Don't go overboard and sign up for every site. It's too much work and you won't maintain them. If you're never going to make a video then don't bother with YouTube. If you find Google+ to be a waste of time, it's OK to not use it. <b>Just be strategic. </b><br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b>DO: Use photos and images as much as possible</b></h3>
People click on images. I've seen the research! It's true! People pause to look at and read images like they never do with text. So always try to include an image with whatever post your trying to make. If you're a bar for example, you should tweet a photo of that happy hour drink. Or better still... get your customers to post photos of your drinks for you!!! This really makes web people like me happy... should you decide to hire somebody like me to help you with social media marketing then this gives us valuable content to work with.<br />
<br />
<b>DON'T: </b>Write too much. According to research people don't actually read that much online. At least not in social media (not when marketing is concerned). It's better to keep your text short and sweet and use a photo to tell the story.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b>DO: Create business specific profiles</b></h3>
If you have a Facebook <b>page</b> as opposed to you normal Facebook <i>profile</i> then you can use all these bonus tools, <a href="https://www.google.com/analytics/" target="_blank">like analytics</a>. This will show you how many people reacted to your posts and even how they interacted with it! This is extremely powerful because this helps you accomplish many thing like helping you write and make better posts that more people are likely to follow through on. Also, this keeps your personal life separate from your business. Facebook offers it's own analytics for pages and you can even run your own targeted advertising on Facebook too. <br />
<br />
<b>DON'T:</b> Trust me I speak from experience. It's not going to help your business to let everybody read your political rants on Facebook. Keep it professional on your "page". <br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b>DO: Have a Clear "Call to Action"</b></h3>
This is an insider trick. A 'Call to Action' is a design on a web page or advertisement, like a "Buy Now" button or the "Like" button in Facebook. You want to have one of these 'calls to action' in some of your posts. For example, you'll want people to click from Facebook to go look at your new artwork - on your website. And you want this to be clear and obvious. If you can get people to click over to your website you can give them a lot more detail to entice them to buy your stuff. You're more in control.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img alt="Let us help you make web marketing easy! design@studioroom.com" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjfIWs9Cm_vwhDJ22peKVPuDxFdSxqNyV15VhuC1ZGTKj6QUfGnT1_lIclRcKkMEui1dIXrG6eyTw9Px84lI4UPfitCffKPCMfy4cga7i1QlaPJVYDE7ZoYrJsacvTAWqC0kkogXzmHySr/s1600/WebMarketingSpot-horz.png" title="Let us help you make web marketing easy! design@studioroom.com" /><a href="mailto:design@studioroom.com" target="_blank">design@studioroom.com</a></div>
<br />
<b>DON'T: </b>If you don't have a call to action, then all you are achieving is that somebody might read what you wrote and maaaaybe they might remember it. If you're not clear, they may not notice that you have anything for sale.<br />
<br />
<br />
Like I said <a href="http://informationalgeometry.blogspot.com/2013/04/shamelessness-part-2-why-social-media.html" target="_blank">in my previous post</a>, <u>internet and social media marketing is actual work</u>. But with a good set-up all you need to do is an hour or so a week of good quality posts, to whatever venue on the internet that connects you to the most amount of people for your time and effort. The hardest part really is getting started... And you can always hire me to help you get set-up. Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-92067181063052442512013-04-11T11:03:00.002-07:002013-04-11T12:44:55.505-07:00Shamelessness Part 2: Why Social Media Marketing Matters & Who Should Use ItThere's been a ton of talk lately about how people can use social media to grow their business. Thanks to the web you don't have to have an expensive marketing budget, you just need to create a few accounts to services like Facebook and Twitter. Last week I wrote part one about social media, a <a href="http://informationalgeometry.blogspot.com/2013/04/be-shameless-art-of-self-promotion-on.html" target="_blank">success story</a> about my client Kevin O'Malley. Next week I'll reveal more details on how to do this stuff yourself. Now I want to explain WHY you should care about social media marketing and explain WHO really needs to use it... <br />
<h2>
<b>How social media marketing works</b></h2>
<a href="http://www.wypr.org/podcast/commercial-contagions-wednesday-april-10-12-1-pm" target="_blank">Yesterday on my favorite NPR show, the MidDay show</a>, they had an expert speak
about Social Media and Viral Marketing. <a href="http://jonahberger.com/" target="_blank">Jonah Berger</a> did a great job at
explaining the "viral effect" and demonstrated that social media does indeed work. But Jonah forgot to explain HOW to USE social media which I will reveal in part 3!<br />
<br />
Here's how it works - Right
now millions upon millions of people are doing this... joking, criticizing, reviewing, recommending, and sharing <i><b>something</b></i> with each other in conversation. The internet itself is structured around writing, and the most successful websites, even YouTube, are designed to perpetually foster active chat style conversations. So internet marketing works because it exploits a very popular and natural human activity - talking to each other.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<b>WHY you should care about social media </b></h2>
The
question I get asked from people the most is "Why should I care? What's the point of this, f<i>or me?</i>" The answer is different for different people (see the WHO section below). If you're running a business, <b>you need to manage your reputation on the internet</b>.
<span style="font-size: small;">Why? Aside from being a great tool for growing your business, <span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: large;">if you don't manage your online reputation then other people, and internet forces
completely out of your control can and will hijack your online reputation if you don't take control of it yourself. </span></span></span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFmmH4fSfZyVveJfV_nOJdPRI0_0BieOWX0bqfjyE20EKOhmPURFxhoQgi2MkDBgRMA1fI8CIN0TmEFOH8AnHSS4gFeKtw1clzRXsMMChBMUaRHIZz5q6pFOfVl9ryS5PhWTG1N7glspcN/s1600/chatting-online.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFmmH4fSfZyVveJfV_nOJdPRI0_0BieOWX0bqfjyE20EKOhmPURFxhoQgi2MkDBgRMA1fI8CIN0TmEFOH8AnHSS4gFeKtw1clzRXsMMChBMUaRHIZz5q6pFOfVl9ryS5PhWTG1N7glspcN/s1600/chatting-online.png" /></a><br />
<span style="color: #b45f06;"><i>Imagine this time 1,000,000 and then imagine your business being mentioned in these chats. </i></span><br />
<br />
So let's use an example of restaurants. <b>Restaurants <i>really</i> need social media marketing </b>because complaints and bad reviews online could literally shut them down. Conversely, praise and good reviews will help them grow. Aside from that, people can make reservations and write reviews all from their smart phones with almost no effort. So customers expectations for restaurants - on the web - are already very high. Admit it, you read the reviews too so you know they work.
They also help businesses communicate with their customers and be
better.<br />
<br />
There are at least 7 major websites (or apps) that let people criticize restaurants: <br />
<ol>
<li>Yelp</li>
<li>Google </li>
<li>OpenTable </li>
<li>Zagat</li>
<li>Foursquare</li>
<li>Facebook </li>
<li>Foodspotting ... does anybody use this site?</li>
<li>Plus a LOT of local websites like your local newspaper </li>
</ol>
<h2>
<b>WHO should care?</b></h2>
Although internet and social media marketing is easy - <b>it's still work</b>. If you want to grow your business you should use social media because it is the cheapest and most effective way to promote anything, period. But (I am going to dispel one myth that traditional marketing people won't mention) <b>most people don't <i>need</i> to use social media.</b> So figure out if you need it before investing your time. <br />
<br />
<b>Who needs social media?</b><br />
Any business should care about social media marketing but some businesses benefit more than others. <br />
<ul>
<li><b>Writers</b>, <b>Authors</b> and <b>Bloggers</b> make the best use of social media to grow their audience on a budget. </li>
<li>So should <b>Artists</b> and <b>Designers</b> for the same reason as writers. </li>
<li>Any <b>new business that needs to grow quickly</b> should use social media to get the word out. </li>
<li><b>Restaurants</b>, <b>Hair Salons</b>, and <b>Shops</b> because they interact with the public. </li>
<li><b>Job seekers</b>, for competitive reasons, can benefit from social media. My friend got a job with the National Parks Service because she ran a blog... about her baby girl. </li>
<li>People like me who do <b>internet development</b> and <b>marketing</b> need to. </li>
<li><b>Anybody in a public leadership position</b>, like a professor or head doctor because they have important information to share and they are in a position of authority. </li>
<li>Tiny local businesses like a <b>neighborhood landscaper</b> would also benefit from a very small and free web presence and a little social media. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<b>Who does NOT need to waste their time with social media?</b><br />
<ul>
<li><b>Individuals in general</b> don't need social media marketing. </li>
<li><b>Doctors</b> don't need to market themselves. </li>
<li><b>Therapists</b> or any profession where <b>privacy is essential</b> should stay away from social media. </li>
<li><b>Lawyers</b> mostly don't need social media although they can be interesting. </li>
<li>Isolated successful businesses like <b>my neighborhood bar</b> which is already popular. They don't do happy hours and they never have specials. They do not need social media or any marketing whatsoever. </li>
</ul>
Fun fact: Did you know that more "data" has been created in the past decade, than
has been created in the entire previous history of the Earth? That's a lot of joking, complaining, reviewing, and conversing online! What does this have to do
with you and your "online reputation"? Everything, it's all about you... and me... and us. So TAKE CONTROL of the the web and make it work FOR you.Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-44431375505168751232013-04-05T09:58:00.000-07:002013-04-05T10:00:02.823-07:00Be Shameless - The Art of Self Promotion on the WebNobody promotes themselves more shamelessly than my client Kevin O'Malley. Kevin is a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Kevin-OMalley/e/B001H6MJ3W" target="_blank">children's book illustrator</a> and he literally walks around with a pad of paper in his hand, he's constantly drawing, at the coffee shop, in the park, everywhere. After Kevin cranks out another instant masterpiece (just like Picasso) - he gives it away! Seriously. He <i>gives away the drawing</i>. Kevin WAS ALREADY a walking social network and he didn't even know it. I must have mumbled a couple of things to him over time about the internet. We friended on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> where Kevin posts a lot of his drawings and works in progress. I told Kevin that he should <a href="http://www.blogger.com/" target="_blank">blog</a> and maybe get on <a href="http://pinterest.com/booksbyomalley/illustration/" target="_blank">Pinterest</a> - since he's already posting drawings to Facebook he mine as well post to a couple more websites. Kevin took these suggestions but still... his website was out of date. Kevin still needed a "hub". So he turned to us, and we made him <a href="http://www.booksbyomalley.com/" target="_blank">a new website</a>. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyOyLtWBhOAUAOBMVPnAC19kOL9UxWTJjO0s9PUfkl8AUYaiylQ5paSqI6aX8Ing5fDuJ1KVQjKBRfSKZezo8yzJGe72DLsGqpPsMTNOFtY3uhDzs9dNPU2WvZzf614kxWgmtu1ivpTUiE/s1600/screenshot-newHome.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="555" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyOyLtWBhOAUAOBMVPnAC19kOL9UxWTJjO0s9PUfkl8AUYaiylQ5paSqI6aX8Ing5fDuJ1KVQjKBRfSKZezo8yzJGe72DLsGqpPsMTNOFtY3uhDzs9dNPU2WvZzf614kxWgmtu1ivpTUiE/s640/screenshot-newHome.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Thanks to Kevin's incredible content, it was <i><b>easy</b></i> to make him a great new website. Now, anybody that wants to stay on top of Kevin's latest happenings, weather they are drawings or new books, can do so very easily at <a href="http://booksbyomalley.com/">booksbyomalley.com</a>.<br />
<br />
The funny thing about using the internet to promote yourself is, it's
really easy... It's really easy BUT you need to get 'set-up' first. Here's what we did for Kevin: <br />
<ol>
<li>Redesigned and re-coded his website (to make the most out of Google)</li>
<li>Strategically added his YouTube videos to his website </li>
<li>Got him on Pinterest and embedded a live feed of his illustrations on his website</li>
<li>Helped Kevin set-up a blog to start blogging his works</li>
<li>Tethered his blog and his Facebook page to the website </li>
<li>Added press with cross linking to enhance everything </li>
<li>Massaged Google for Kevin</li>
</ol>
Now, all Kevin needs to do is just tell people "please check out my website and tell your friends to check it out too!" Now, whenever he shows off his illustrations, which is all of the time, he just needs to continue being shameless. <br />
<br />
And so should I...<br />
<br />
<b>Here is <a href="http://pinterest.com/studioroom/studioroom/" target="_blank">MY Pinterest board</a> with some of my portfolio work. Please contact me for your social media hub.</b><br />
<br />
<a data-pin-board-width="600" data-pin-do="embedBoard" data-pin-scale-height="500" href="http://pinterest.com/studioroom/studioroom/"></a>
- - - <br />
<br />
<br />
<script type="text/javascript" src="//assets.pinterest.com/js/pinit.js"></script>Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-3957190304187799352013-03-12T17:03:00.000-07:002014-11-04T14:34:12.343-08:00UX Design Process aka Web Product Design ProcessSo... I'm on Pinterest updating a 'board' for my portfolio and I discover that other people have pinned my <b>Experience Design Process</b> graphic from my website. Apparently this graphic comes right up in Google Searches if you search on on Experience Design Process. Since the image <a href="http://www.studioroom.com/the-studio.php" target="_blank">on my site</a> is small I'm re-posting the graphic here! Can anybody guess what this image was originally create for?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWhN63_j0copQglTJ1pXUgnjSJPIjTp0OqbaPPbCelQtHI_GCO8DCPWWz93lAvkN-52xB3GHM6pCVEm4QzOuV7SDfTXuMBeAy_L1AJHOaLD27OXrVsnMID_LocsXSd1dJpMx71pBM9rtG5/s1600/UX-PROCESS-StephSawchenko.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Web Product Design Process Graphic" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWhN63_j0copQglTJ1pXUgnjSJPIjTp0OqbaPPbCelQtHI_GCO8DCPWWz93lAvkN-52xB3GHM6pCVEm4QzOuV7SDfTXuMBeAy_L1AJHOaLD27OXrVsnMID_LocsXSd1dJpMx71pBM9rtG5/s640/UX-PROCESS-StephSawchenko.png" height="322" title="Web Product Design Process Graphic" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><i>I don't know what I was thinking about these colors!</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">So what is going on here?</span><br />
In the middle of the graphic is a series of linear main steps to take in order to design an interactive digital product. The process starts with identifying a project's goals and ends with meeting those goals. In order to meet those goals you need to do some careful work... Surrounding the steps are a set of tasks (or methodologies) to perform in order to complete each step of the process. Over-arching the entire process are guidelines like "vetting" and "informed iteration" (shown in the yellow zone). Some tasks overlap steps and the entire process is meant to be collaborative and
iterative, which means you could repeat tasks based on what you learn
from testing or research. Or you'd repeat tasks until you get something right. OR you could repeat the entire process over again based on what you learn the first (or second, or third) time around. You'll notice that one of the first tasks is "Requirements Gathering" which includes getting together all the content and data you want in your product. You'll need <i>something</i> to research, plan and design around. These requirements should map to your end goals when you look analytics reports and you see how people are using your product, and how much it's growing. <br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Here are the steps in the process:</span><br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" style="width: 100%px;"><tbody>
<tr><td align="left" valign="middle" width="70"><br /></td><td align="left" valign="middle">We start every project by identifying the project's goals </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="middle"><br /></td>
<td align="left" valign="middle">Then we research the audience and competitors to identify unique opportunities</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="middle"><br /></td>
<td align="left" valign="middle">We map out a plan, and tailor it with each client to suit their individual needs </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="middle"><br /></td>
<td align="left" valign="middle">We put together all the components (language, images, and interactions) to create a coherent design system</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="middle"><br /></td>
<td align="left" valign="middle">We prototype our work to ensure
important details are <b>captured in an interactive format</b>, and to make
the hand-off between designer & engineer as smooth as possible </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="middle"><br /></td>
<td align="left" valign="middle">Testing tells us if we're successful in reaching our goals. Some projects require testing and iterative design phases (hence the planning)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="middle"><br /></td>
<td align="left" valign="middle">Conversions. Growth. New connections with more users. This is how we measure goals.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-27895457182900595142013-03-11T10:28:00.003-07:002013-03-12T17:04:17.415-07:00Good Management - Working from Home Takes TeamworkThe funny thing about working from home is that you rely on your co-workers and especially your managers even more than when you go to an office. I have worked in corporate offices, I have cranked out work on-site at start-ups, I've designed large scale websites in corporate environments, in agency environments, and at home. And you know what? It always comes down to management. <br />
<br />
<b>Good Management Handles the Work</b><br />
Over the course of 2009 and 2010 I worked on a very successful <a href="http://www.cengage.com/owl/" target="_blank">project for Cengage Learning</a> and - I never met my clients - ever. However the project was managed very well by Cengage's internal team. My client/manager understood the entire scope of the project and was able to break down all the work into a very effective process. <b>He communicated everything very clearly to the team, including a schedule, all the deliverables he expected, and when he wanted them</b>. We always had two-way conversations about the work and we thoroughly reviewed my output on a regular basis. My client was always clear about my pace of work, and I was always clear about his deadlines (this ensured that I could effectively manage my time as a remote resource for Cengage). Good remote managers are: Focused on business. They are not emotional or insecure, instead they are confident and goal orientated. But most importantly they communicate well, are organized and decisive. I cannot reiterate enough how important these qualities are. <br />
<br />
<b>Bad Management = Insecurity</b><br />
And I've had bad managers too, we all have. The biggest pain point of working with these people is that we need to compensate for their insecurities. Maybe you've worked for somebody who is indecisive, they are unsure about what they want? Perhaps you literally do your boss' job? Often with boot strapped start-up companies I see entrepreneurs struggle with making decisions because they are worrying about money. At one start-up I worked at in San Francisco, I would watch the CTO pound his fist and demand that the entire company work at least from 7am to 7pm. This is clearly an insecure way to try to run a company and speaks volumes for how the CTO valued other people's time. I did notice this same CTO sneak out of the office and take entire afternoons off. <b>Which leads to my main point, only bad insecure managers want to corral their employees around them <u><i>so they can make themselves feel better</i></u></b>.<br />
<br />
<b>Remember, it's the internet!</b><br />
My advice to Yahoo! and Marissa Meyer is this - Make sure your managers can handle their jobs. We "eat the dog food". We are already doing so much work online it seems waste full to drive back and forth to redundant offices.<i><b> The point of being onsite is to collaborate</b></i>. If your managers don't enable collaboration then what are they doing? There's nothing more frustrating than commuting for over 2 hours a day only to watch your boss waste time in the office. <br />
<br />
<br />Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-12890143559602758022013-02-28T15:39:00.001-08:002013-02-28T15:44:10.428-08:00Fabulous Custom Website for A Fabulous Custom Home BuilderWe're proud to announce another logo, website and collateral materials for a local custom home builder, <a href="http://www.bementandsons.com/">Bement & Sons Construction, INC</a>.<br />
<br />
Marty, our client, makes some of the most amazing custom homes I have ever seen. A beautiful fusion of Old World European design and modern construction. Evey detail has been thought about, from the accents, the systems and the <a href="http://worthingtongreenmd.com/" target="_blank">location</a> of his homes. The end result is a beautiful and luxurious home. If you're looking for dream home or considering having a custom home built in Maryland, you ought to check out <a href="http://bementandsons.com/">Bementandsons.com</a><span id="goog_1750900626"></span><span id="goog_1750900627"></span> today. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-nU99W52fn4pUi_caDUz08WdwRRZNw2WK7g9NT8cwbohRkZEQCiHOHGTVB9At1efvw2T_T39SjQBLrhkqxg7gEwx46cMZb4Tkprn6dGwZ5WUFyGsFIK3FPQN_o_nRlsZI2BxFq-cO_N5d/s1600/HomePage.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-nU99W52fn4pUi_caDUz08WdwRRZNw2WK7g9NT8cwbohRkZEQCiHOHGTVB9At1efvw2T_T39SjQBLrhkqxg7gEwx46cMZb4Tkprn6dGwZ5WUFyGsFIK3FPQN_o_nRlsZI2BxFq-cO_N5d/s1600/HomePage.png" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG68V8njVnXe7iM-w-pk99nM-TGs8zgqNCiHnq6JZ3mKvxI6Zb3gwvkqlfkxGYMxwIOUO9kpepDGQHrGYM66KzXc398eNqg-4XvPquQyOp5AqwD70Mi4nW6WTgHcR1NjC7IYLo5eGj6HEj/s1600/BementAndSonsLogo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG68V8njVnXe7iM-w-pk99nM-TGs8zgqNCiHnq6JZ3mKvxI6Zb3gwvkqlfkxGYMxwIOUO9kpepDGQHrGYM66KzXc398eNqg-4XvPquQyOp5AqwD70Mi4nW6WTgHcR1NjC7IYLo5eGj6HEj/s1600/BementAndSonsLogo.png" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-52368394137856988902013-01-24T14:50:00.000-08:002013-01-24T15:17:48.648-08:00The Pantheon of Interactive Design JobsHappy 2013! I hope everybody survived 2012 and is looking forward, not back.<br />
<br />
There seems to be a bit of confusion about different design roles in the interactive fields. Too many designers I meet are confused by job listings they read. Too many job listings are cut and pasted together, even I don't understand who that company is looking for.<br />
<br />
Recently I've been helping companies hire interactive design talent. I know soooo many people and I like to make them all happy. I haven't really formalized this but I'm toying with the idea of becoming a recruiter myself... If anybody wants to help me formalize this idea let me know! <br />
<br />
If you are a graphic designer looking to do more interactive work, or if you're trying to hire interactive designers, take a look at my list. I've defined the various roles and described the nature of the work. Feel free to comment. <br />
<br />
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Steph's guide to interactive design roles:</span></span><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">UI Designer</span></b><br />
This
person designs "user interfaces" and they usually do "front-end" code. All the stuff that you actually SEE on a web page is produced with HTML, CSS, and Javascript code. This is often a production, junior role. <br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Information Architect (IA)</span></b><br />
Aka
Information designer. They organize the layout and the flow of
information. This is really important. IA's create <u>wireframes</u> and <u>
site-maps</u>. They use programs like Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, Omni
Graffle & Visio. They do not draw pretty designs. Writers can be
IAs, as the design is more about how a web page (or app view) <i><b>reads</b></i> than how it looks. <br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Visual Designer / Interactive Art Director</span></b><br />
Other
names used for "web designer". These designers draw the pretty
interface design and usually somebody else codes. In some companies the
visual designer will take <u>wireframes</u> from the IA and then render them
into a final design using Photoshop (or Fireworks).<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Interaction Designer</span></b><br />
This
is like a bonus skill, I rarely see it headlining a job listing. These people are going by the name of UX designer these days. Interaction designers detail the step-by-step "flow" of interactive
components. It really helps to be able to code, just to prototype and
test out interactivity. <br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">User Experience Designer (UX) </span></b><br />
This
is what some agency's call their IAs. It's really all these skills
rolled into one. I think UX designers should have additional research,
strategy, and heuristic skills. They should be able to conduct user
tests, & do other research. <br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Web Product Designer or Product Manager</span></b><br />
This is the most senior of interactive design roles unless, of course it's a design manager role, in which case you should be able to do this level of work too. Gmail is an example of something that is a <u><i>product</i></u>
more than a website. The Web Product Designer is a UX designer who
makes "applications" - complex, interactive apps and websites. I don't
see many people advertise for Web Product Designers though, they usually advertise for
UX designers. A lot of web Product Managers come from design and UX
backgrounds. You'll find this kind of work at a lot of agencies these
days as everybody wants an integrated app for their company. <br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Marketing & Social Media</span></b><br />
So much of the web is interconnected so it's good to know online marketing. For example, designers should understand
how search engines, social media, and email will interconnect with their clients website. Good web marketing people are familiar with
analytic and reporting systems and they make good money. <br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Should designers know HTML, CSS, Javascript or not? </span></b><br />
Many interactive jobs list coding skills as part of the job requirements. Virtually every designer, and writer, and project manager, I have ever met has asked, "Does this company really expect me to code too?" There <b><i>is</i></b>
a difference between understanding <b><i>how</i></b> HTML and CSS <i><b>work</b></i> - and
actually hand-coding HTML and CSS. But most
of the job listings I see do not make this distinction. <b>So recruiters, if you are reading this <i>please</i> make sure your job listing clearly states if the designer actually needs to write code. </b><br />
<br />
Although I am proud of my coding skills I have found these skills make me LESS money. Designers who can code tend to get more <i>production</i> work and miss out on creative roles they've trained for. Coding skills can prevent designers from advancing in their career. <i><b>This is a big reason why a lot of talent won't respond to a poorly written job description.</b></i> If I see a role for a User Experience designer that requires coding then I immediately expect the job the pay over $140,000.00. NOT $40k. Why? Because these are different jobs (literally a UI designer job and an information architect job). There are some instances where it's good to have a designer who can code but most companies and agencies aren't set up this way. They don't merge these roles together. Agencies will merge these roles if they can get away with it to save money (but this makes people unhappy). I only see web start-ups do a good job at merging coding with design and usually these people know what they're doing.Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-85642348937781296492011-12-12T16:46:00.000-08:002011-12-13T10:41:20.772-08:00Steph's Top 10 Internet Marketing Rules FREE<div style="color: #b45f06;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Many people don't know that I dabble in a little online marketing as well as doing Interface and User Experience Design. This internet marketing helps me observe a much greater view of the people's online landscape. It's making me a better UX designer since I can see all the complex connections that data and people make together. Nowadays many small business people are asking me for help with social networks and social media marketing. They say things like, "I just don't know where to begin," really lost sounding remarks. Groupon scares the crap out of people, it's perceived as a business killer. And Foursquare is confusing, lots of people don't "get it". It seems like regular people are just now getting comfortable with Facebook. Anyway... here are my top 10 web marketing rules designed to help you use social media like a pro. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="color: #674ea7;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Marketing Rule #1 - Reciprocate! </b></span></div>
The social web is … <b>social</b>. People don’t want to talk, they want to converse, exchange photos, share links, read stories, <b>participate</b>! If a client or vendor keeps liking everything you post in Facebook, <b>reciprocate</b>! It makes a big difference. If a customer is blogging about their awesome service from you, that’s FREE marketing so thank them, give them credit and reuse it on your blog. It’s good to thank people on Facebook, LinkedIn and yelp. It’s good to publicly write thoughtful comments on relevant news articles, go ahead and link to your business in this case. Always be polite, like you would to anybody in the real world. But <b>it’s the reciprocity that really pleases people</b> and an actual connection that feels authentic so try not to hog all of the attention, give back.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #674ea7;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>
Marketing Rule #2 - Be Relevant! </b></span></div>
Just sending out email blasts alone is not a great idea anymore because people's inboxes are getting crazier by the minute. <b>The best thing about social media is that it allows almost anybody to reach their “target” audience <u style="color: #cc0000;">in a way which is very relevant to consumers</u>.</b> It’s not art, it’s science, easy science! So, pick the websites that will give you the most bang for you buck, and forget those that don’t. Almost everyone has a Facebook account and there are millions more using twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media services like yelp. Plus there are more online social networks which are industry and location specific that could be extra relevant for you and your customers. Add in the magic of highly refined advertising tools which let you <b>target</b> people down to gender, location, education level, and more. Plus internet reporting tools that literally show you exactly how well your marketing efforts are going. If you want to advertise online, do research first to determine whether Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, or a combination of these (or others) are best for you. Are you a craft person? Then Etsy.com is your thing. If your a musician, you have a lot to look at. <b>Skip the research and you’re just gonna waste money which will make you sad.</b> If you hire a pro, listen to them, they do the research so you don't have to.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #674ea7;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Marketing Rule #3 - You gotta deliver the goods. </b></span></div>
You don’t need a User Experience Designer like me to tell you that you shouldn’t disappoint your visitors by letting them down after building up their expectations. <b>All the online marketing in the world won’t make up for a bad website.</b> Imagine this scenario <span style="color: cyan;">></span> Somebody sees your nifty ad and they go and click on it. <span style="color: cyan;">></span> They come to your website and find something ugly, or stupid, something wrong, or too provocative. <span style="color: cyan;">></span> <u>This is bad design</u>. Ask yourself, “Will anybody Like this on Facebook? Will people feel good about sharing this with their friends?” The web is fickle place, one single disappointment is all it takes for a visitor to go away forever.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #674ea7;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Marketing Rule #4 - A picture actually is worth a thousand words. </b></span></div>
OK serious moment number 1... I have sat in usability testing labs and I have read many a white paper and report about this... Nothing, I mean <b>nothing sells something like an image</b>. People literally click on photos or images without even thinking about it. If you really want to bump up your business, take lots of photos of your products, of your business, of your team, of your partners, of your clients, and of your events. Hire a professional photographer to follow your business around! Photo - photo - photograph all-of-the-time! And keep all of it in a repository somewhere like Flickr. From there you can blog, post, share, tweet, and email the crud out of it to your fans or target audience anywhere, anytime or share it with your designers, contractors, and vendors. I will be adding images to this post, seriously.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #674ea7;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Marketing Rule #5 - Plan ahead! </b></span></div>
Serious moment number 2. This is what the pros do and there are numerous benefits to planning ahead. If you want to promote your business for Christmas for example, you should start planning no later than September. You need to start promoting wedding season no later than January. Why? You may need to do research, hire a freelancer, devise an advertising campaign, source or produce photos, or other creative, budget, or simply get your stuff together. You should create a schedule of what you will post in sequence, over time so as to maximize all of your work. <b>All of this takes time so plan for it.</b> If you have to send out anything printed, like postcards or fliers for a trade show, you need time to get this together and coordinate your online marketing with it so make the calendar your friend and get your colleagues addicted to planning.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #674ea7;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Marketing Rule #6 - More content = more love. </b></span></div>
The more you post to your blog, or Facebook, or twitter - the more content you’re publishing to the world. Period. Content is gold on the Internet. The more conversations you have with customers on Facebook, twitter or in a forum on LinkedIn, the more content you're actually putting online, and more people will connect to your business. This does two things - 1) It engages and entertains people. 2) It pleases the algorithms behind all of these networks. Google promotes fresher websites over stale ones in it’s search results. This is part of the reason blogs make great websites. So <b>please your fans, your clients, and the gods of the internet - at the same time - and post some fresh content appropriately for your business</b>. Listen to your clients to determine which delivery methods work best for them. And remember, sharing too much can be annoying. There is such a thing as twitter and Facebook spam as well as email spam. I try to post no more than once a day on average to Facebook.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #674ea7;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Marketing Rule #7 - Assume your customers are really smart! </b></span></div>
You know exactly what I mean. You’ve seen those dumb ads on TV that simply insult your intelligence. Perhaps you’ve seen the gross “belly fat” ads online (which by the way has been proven to be a nefarious “phishing” ad). YOUR CUSTOMERS AREN’T THAT DUMB! So be authentic and don’t take a dumb approach with your online marketing.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #674ea7;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>
Marketing Rule #8 - Use the analysis tools. </b></span></div>
Serious moment number 3. There are FREE or inexpensive yet powerful analytical tools provided to you by Google, Facebook, and many other websites. USE THEM. The great thing about the web is that you can observe so much of what goes on. Which means, you can see when people visit your website, what people click on, what they like & don't like, how often people visit your blog and for how long. You know how quickly they leave. You can see what tweets, emails, or ad campaigns are sending people to you. <b>You can literally gauge the effectiveness of everything you do.</b> All these analytical tools will help you greatly IF you use them. You don’t need to spend a lot of time just use them.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #674ea7;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Marketing Rule #9 - Communicate well. </b></span></div>
Basic English and politeness rules apply here. I use these strategies to help me stay organized and on top of online correspondence. Get good at writing concise but thoughtful comments & emails. Always put a subject in email. <b>Always be relevant</b> and avoid any confusing or misleading text in anything you write online. Just because it’s the Internet, and you might be using a smartphone to update your blog does not excuse typos and bad grammar. Make the time to appear professional. Don’t forget how smart your customers are.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #674ea7;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Marketing Rule #10 - The web is plastic. </b></span></div>
Number 10 is the anti-rule. It’s simply erroneous to assume that you can throw up a website, or a lone Facebook page and be done. Sorry. You should <b>expect to update content on your website, blog and other pages pretty regularly.</b> You could "just set something up" and let your site sit there getting stale, but that’s how your visitors will perceive it, "stale". And they won’t come back, and your search engine rank will suffer. The worst thing I think stale sites suffer from is the perception by visitors that they could be “untrustworthy”. Remember your smart, social followers want to hear from you so plan on making <u>at least</u> quarterly updates to your website. If you use the web to be in contact with your customers, and show some of that “social proof” on your site, you will do very well.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #cc0000;">
Does this seem like a lot of work? <br />
Feel free to get some help, contact us at: design @ studioroom.com</div>Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-85501491147127523912011-11-22T17:03:00.001-08:002011-11-23T09:07:54.733-08:00Being Thankful<ol>
<li>I am very very thankful that I have a very short commute to work.</li>
<li>I am thankful that I'm not paying for some stupid stranger's property investment.</li>
<li>I'm so grateful everyday that the food I make tastes good.</li>
<li>I am thankful for Baltimore, home of real - and real awesome - people.</li>
<li>I am grateful that I work for myself.</li>
<li>I am thankful that people want to work with me, even though the economy is in the tank.</li>
<li>I am thankful that I can connect with, and stay in touch with so may people, all of the time, on the internet.</li>
<li>I am grateful that I know how to communicate like a rational adult. Despite my Bachelors of Fine Art. </li>
<li>I'm thankful for my incredible family - without all of their help in this recession I would be homeless, broke, and likely insane right now. </li>
<li>I am grateful that my big mouth hasn't messed up too many things.</li>
</ol>
<b>Happy Thanksgiving Everybody! </b><br />
<ol>
</ol>Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637279501601618448.post-35233421970675706672011-11-18T12:30:00.001-08:002011-11-18T13:16:21.865-08:00FACETS Annual Art & Jewelry Sale - This Weekend in Baltimore<div style="color: purple;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Please join FACETS for their annual sale </b></span></div>
<div style="color: purple;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>this Saturday and Sunday November 19 and 20 10am - 5pm. </b></span></div>
<br />
This year in addition to fabulous unique jewelry, there are ceramics, glassware and paintings. Get a gift or shop for yourself. Tell a friend and bring them too!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUXJbsbGmln_kRMsGhZSaMR_CKQy1RuHd7Ot6N_UaV0vzKK7DLHma0vAtuSnwivKaFpFW21rczKAZwBhLSB1LOZ_3a5HkO8P9NTygDFE3aJvF3kffUsfn2WqY8pMTj8tAzRaWsB2w8oj7h/s1600/FacetsShowCard.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUXJbsbGmln_kRMsGhZSaMR_CKQy1RuHd7Ot6N_UaV0vzKK7DLHma0vAtuSnwivKaFpFW21rczKAZwBhLSB1LOZ_3a5HkO8P9NTygDFE3aJvF3kffUsfn2WqY8pMTj8tAzRaWsB2w8oj7h/s1600/FacetsShowCard.png" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Location:<br />
<a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=5100+falls+road+baltimore+maryland+21210&ll=39.355799,-76.644607&spn=0.00078,0.001647&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&hnear=5100+Falls+Rd,+Baltimore,+Maryland+21210&gl=us&t=m&z=20&vpsrc=6"><b>The Radisson at Cross Keys</b></a><br />
5100 Falls Road<br />
Baltimore, MD<br />
21210<br />
<br />
*In the Woodland RoomStephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10793561148143943591noreply@blogger.com0