12 activities to get "thinking"

Here we are at the end of 2008. I am reflecting back on this year, what I've been up to and how things have evolved in my life. One of the key characteristics of this year is a focus on thinking "differently". I've been nurturing my creative thinking side this year, and have compiled the following list of 12 activities that can help me think differently (or even just to get thinking). Maybe they'll be helpful to you too...

1. Draw a storyboard. So often, I focus on problem and solution. But, by trying to convey the problem and solution in a story format, I have to think about context, mindset and impact. It's a different frame to look at, and sometimes I realize that I wasn't really thinking about the whole picture.

2. Write a letter. This works particularly well when I am obsessing or frustrated. I seem to think more clearly when writing. I have to chose my words and thoughts and put them into semi-coherent form. It needs to flow and be logical. This forces rigor into my thoughts, which often opens up new ideas for dealing with the issues that I am obsessed or frustrated about.

3. Find an image (or images) that represent what I think or feel about something. Sometimes, the right image can help me uncover a new lens to look through at the problem, which can help suggest different paths or solutions I hadn't thought of.

4. Sticky-Note thoughts. When there is lots of stuff roaming around my head, I write down one thought per note and shuffle them around, then organize them into dimensions, groups or flowcharts. This can really help me lasso my thoughts and ideas and put them into some usable form.

5. Take a camera out and try to capture things related to the issue I'm thinking about. Looking through the small window at the world helps me focus on small details that I might otherwise miss.

6. Draw with crayons and blank paper... it's like reconnecting with my inner kindergartner. Somehow, having chunky wax of many colors and a white canvas that I can scribble on gets my creative juices flowing. Let me make one thing clear... this isn't about the output of the drawing, it's about the ACTION of scribbling that is freeing. How often do you allow yourself to just play, with no particular goal in mind? I don't do it often, but kids do all the time. Harnessing that freedom can get my creative juices flowing. No one ever has to see what you've done... just toss the results in the recycling bin, then turn your thoughts back to the issue at hand.

7. Put it all together, then throw stuff out. I do this with presentations all the time. It's somehow always easy to add a new slide. But then, there are too many... so, I try to take out half and see if the story still holds together. I keep eliminating until I reach the core point or message that I need to focus on. It's hard to let things go, but it almost always makes it better.

8. Mind map. There is some great software out there for mind mapping, which works wonderfully, but somehow there is something even more powerful about drawing it out by hand. A mind map starts with a central concept or idea. Then, you just free associate... (people much smarter than me have summarized the concept pretty well here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map)

9. Collage. We do it with customers, but you can just do it with yourself. Use images from the internet, magazines or anywhere else. Build a collage to capture the problem or idea. Very abstract and creative. Works for getting me "un-stuck". http://www.vizthink.com/blog/2008/12/17/fun-with-photos/

10. Photo Diary. This is something I use for research, but I've also used just for myself. It kind of relates to #3, #5, and #9 above. But, it is a little more structured. Start by making yourself a "shot list" of both concrete and abstract things relating to what you are interested in thinking about. Then, actually complete the photo diary by taking or finding pictures for each. Here's an example that you can see where I did a photo diary for myself (it's in reverse chronological order). This particular example was just where I was exploring the experience of doing a photo diary...

11. Write a newspaper article. I got this idea first from a company activity a while ago... but the idea is pretty sound. The idea is that you write the story of your future success in the past tense from someone else's perspective. This requires that you come up with a vision and think about the implications and insights. And, it's kinda fun. Again, no one ever has to see it.

12. List X things. I do this all the time and it gets me moving. For example, I wanted to write a blog post today (I haven't done one in quite a long time). So, to get myself motivated, I put in the title the number 12. This was arbitrary, and I could change it at any time. But, the challenge was then to come up with 12 things. And I did! Try it. It is amazing... it nearly always works. (I like to use 3, 5, 7 and 10 too.)

Metaphors...

Metaphors are in the air…

Yesterday, I was listening to Terry Gross on Fresh Air talking with Bill Moyers about the election. At one point, Bill Moyers quoted Joseph Campbell, “If you want to change a culture, you need to change the metaphor.” This crystallized something I’ve been wrangling with and helped me think about being more conscious of metaphors.

Metaphors are wonderful ways for us to convey concepts and help people understand what to do next. They are, of course, critical to the design profession and the history of computing. But, how often do we consciously consider our metaphors?

Nancy Duarte, from Duarte Design, wrote a blog entry today about using visual metaphors. She leverages political cartoons to convey her message… and has some excellent advice about being more purposeful in our metaphors and helping our “audience” experience the joy of discovery as they unravel the metaphor.

What are some metaphors that have informed your work?

Outside-In

A famous biochemist, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, once said, "Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought."

• What do lightbulbs and old-time kerosene bottles have in common? One of Edison's employees was trying to solve the problem of having lightbulbs stay in the socket, and he noticed how kerosene bottles kept their lids on... and "viola!" we have the screw-in lightbulb socket that still exists today.
  

• What do Botan Rice Candy and Mouthwash have in common? The makers of Listerine were looking for a way to innovate mouthwash, and the melting rice wrapper of Botan Rice Candy came to their attention... and Listerine ThinStrips were born.
  

• What does a walking a dog in the woods have to do with a method for adhering two objects? George de Mestral went out for a walk with his dog in the woods and when he returned he noticed a lot of little burrs clinging to his pants. He recognized the potential of little micro-hooks and invented "Velcro".
  

Each of these were combined to come up with new innovations. In each case, someone looked at a current solution for something and saw the potential of applying that solution to solve a completely different problem.

All too often, when we are trying to find problems and solutions, we stick to looking at our customers, the particular problems they point out and the particular solutions they use.

But the opportunity for disruptive innovation is greatly increased by looking outside of the problem. I want to inspire my colleagues and peers to spend more time looking outside to solve their problems. For this, I'd like more stories...

I'm looking for other examples of inventions that were inspired by solutions to other problems. Do you have any that I can use?

Visual Thinking and the Financial Crisis

Sometimes visual explanations help so much.

Thinking problems and their implications for communication

I'm reading this book called "Don't Believe Everything You Think: The 6 basic mistakes we make in thinking" by Thomas Kida. In it, he lists 6 tendencies we have that keep us from thinking clearly. These mistakes are:

• We prefer stories to statistics
• We seek to confirm, not to question, our ideas
• We rarely appreciate the role of chance and coincidence in shaping events
• We sometimes misperceive the world around us
• We tend to oversimplify our thinking
• We have faulty memories

Thomas' book is full of illustrations of these "mistakes", but you'll probably recognize the truth of them just to read the list.

I got to thinking about what these tendencies suggest for designing communications. Obviously, that first bullet relates specifically. You can be far more persuasive with stories than numbers. Steven Denning, author of "The Leader's Guide to Storytelling" and "The Secret Language of Leadership", tells the story of how he persuaded the World Bank to become a knowledge-sharing organization by telling a story about the CDC. Not giving lots of facts and figures. Telling a story. I'm trying to build that skill now, because I know it takes advantage of one of our "mistakes in thinking".

The second bullet is about the confirmation bias. Since we all have a tendency to seek information that confirms our beliefs, it would be in my best interest, as a communicator, to set people's expectations about what their beliefs are, then provide information that supports that expectation. Framing is a skill that politicians have brought to an art form, and one that can help drive home a message to an audience through use of imagery, mindset and expectation.

The third bullet point refers to our tendency to interpret nothing as chance. We are pattern-recognizing creatures, even when there are no patterns to be seen. This is particularly true, apparently, when we are under stress. In our quest to find meaning around everything, we are much more prone to fall victim to superstition and illusory correlations. The good part of this for a communicator, of course, is that it means that we are all thirsty for information that fits into our understanding of the world. So, if a story can be framed appropriately, and the right amount of pepper (er, information) added... we have a savory mix for being compelling.

Of course, the fourth bullet point falls out of the second and third, as do the fifth and, ultimately, sixth.

It seems to me that it can be remarkably easy to lead people astray in their thinking. This is scary power for a thought leader to have. I wonder if this is how our world has ended up in the rather precarious financial state we are in today...

Six Million Stories...

Everyone has a story. Proof? Check out 6 Billion Others.

Web Search Strategies - Explained!

Another great explanation from Common Craft. Use of this type of "video storyboard" can be particularly helpful when trying to get early feedback from users on some new concept. Try it out!

Geography matters to personality ?

Does it matter where you live? Apparently so.

The Wall Street Journal just published an interesting article about a recent study on geographical personality traits.


There’s also an interactive graphic to display the data. Kind of basic, yet addictive.

Research Traps: 7 ways of thinking that keep you from doing great customer research

I'm giving a talk in four hours on Research Traps... common mistakes in thinking that affect the quality of customer research.

Research Traps: 7 ways of thinking that keep you from doing great customer research

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: usability research)

My new favorite book

Go buy the book "Slideology" by Nancy Duarte. Trust me, it's important. This is the greatest book...



Nancy Duarte is the person who built the slide deck for "An Inconvenient Truth". But, she's also, clearly, an amazing design thinker.

The book has lots of practical advice and ideas on building an amazing presentation. It's prompted me to completely re-think a presentation that I'm currently working on, and I'm totally excited to do the new talk.

In addition to the book, there is a cool website that goes along with it. The website has PowerPoint examples you can download.

5 corporate cultures that inhibit designing creative solutions

Many companies have only one or two products or services that were considered innovative when they were released. Few have many. Some have none. Why is that? In part, it has to do with the culture of a company. Companies that embrace design-thinking, and value experimentation and action above planning and talk tend to produce more innovative solutions. However, most companies have cultural barriers that inhibit the design of creative solutions. Here are five key cultural barriers that tend to get in the way of innovation:

• Culture of “Approval” – belief that the best answers are high-up in the organization, where people need to get tops-down guidance on what solutions need to be
• Culture of “Planning” – strict adherence to a plan, requiring perfect vision from the start
• Culture of “Correct” – with the belief that there is, in fact, one right answer
• Culture of “Committee” – where everyone must be on-board for things to move forward
• Culture of “Talk” – where employees are encouraged to tell others what their ideas are and why they are good before acting
  

The culture of approval comes about from two sources: childhood experience and business experience. Childhood is full of examples where the person higher in status (or age) has the right answers... parents, teachers, coaches... if you get approval from those sources, you are doing well. If you do not get their approval, you are "bad". The business experience comes from the war stories of those executives and managers that have had similar experiences, successes and failures in the past. Keeping in mind George Santayana's famous quote, "those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it", we are persuaded to put undo importance on the approval of those who have recognized experience in the area. In both cases, it is wise to learn from those knowledgeable sources. However, just because these people are in positions higher up in an organization, does not mean that they have the right answers all of the time. Especially when it comes to changes in the way we do or think about things. For example, Ken Olsen, president and founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, was known to have said "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." Leaders do not necessarily have better vision into the future, so a culture of approval can kill off really radical new ideas far too easily.

The culture of planning comes about from lessons learned from NOT planning. Without plans, projects tend to flounder and get out of control. The output of projects without planning tends to be incomplete or bad. The problem comes about when teams are too focused on the plan, rather than the ultimate outcome. If you want to build an airplane, you will be able to do so if you follow the plan. But, if you want to build a new, effective means of flying... you may not build an airplane at all. It isn't that plans are bad at all... it's just that you need to be clear on what it is that you are aiming for. Most successful startups actually started building things other than what they became famous for... their plans changed when they realized opportunity elsewhere. For example, PayPal started off as a mobile encryption company... but turned to web payments when it was clear that they'd found a medium with much more traction than their original thought. Similarly, Flickr started off as a gaming company, but ended up with one of the best photo sharing sites around!

The culture of correct is one that comes from math. In math, there is a correct answer. Any other answer is wrong. Math is about the only area that is so absolute... but we grow up thinking that there are absolute answers elsewhere. Since there is only one right answer, you need not look for alternatives. In product design, however, it is not clear that there is, necessarily, a right answer. One approach may be better than another... but sometimes multiple approaches can solve the problem well. For example, both airplanes and helicopters fly. When it comes to inventing new things, looking for the one "right" answer can inhibit your exploration.

The culture of committee comes from a deep respect for the other employees, and the belief that everyone may have important contributions. The problem is that getting "buy in" from all of the relevant parties before actually trying stuff out can be a huge waste of time. It may become clear right away that something is or isn't a good approach once a team moves forward with testing out the idea. When committees are involved in design, all kinds of inconsistencies and feature creep can occur. Think about Congress... most laws that get passed these days have multiple layers of laws that don't actually have anything in common with the legislation that's being passed. Wikipedia states: "The defining characteristics of "design by committee" are needless complexity, internal inconsistency, logical flaws, banality, and the lack of a unifying vision." It is sad when a great idea is smothered in mediocre ones...

The culture of "talk" is difficult to overcome. It comes about for many of the prior cultural reasons. Intuit is particularly fond of the PowerPoint Presentation method of pitching ideas. The problem is that telling is not as useful or accurate as showing. Think about the Nintendo Wii. It is a solution that you can talk about in a power-point deck: "Instead of focusing on the visual design, we'll focus on the interaction between the user and the machine." Or, you can show it: "try swinging the tennis racket! When people rely on making decisions from stated ideas, rather than on proof of concept or experiences, it makes it more likely that they will overlook or dismiss the absurd, unique, innovative approaches.

Addressing these inhibiting corporate cultures head-on can lead to effective changes that can allow innovative, creative ideas to flourish.

Building the skill: How to really see experiences in your world

You and I evolved to filter out information. We do it all the time… For example, do you really remember the details of brushing your teeth this morning? Driving to work? Checking your email this morning? This skill, ignoring information, is critical for you to function in the world. If you had to pay attention to everything that you did all the time, it would be very difficult to get anything done.

However, when we are trying to discover opportunities to delight, it is important that we overcome this ignoring skill and really notice the details of the experience. To do this, we need to consciously take ourselves out of the experiences to observe all of these elements:

• Goals – what is the experience for? How is it attained?
• Setup/Context (when, why)
• Content (words, pictures, colors, designs, architecture, etc)
• Actions (steps in the task)
• Sensory Details (sounds, tastes, smells, tactile feeling)
• Emotions (are there elements that are specifically designed to evoke emotions?)

For example, consider the experience of me brushing my teeth in the morning. Normally, I don’t think about it at all. But when I paid close attention to the experience this morning, I was able to gather a large amount of information:

Goals:

• Get clean, smooth teeth, avoid cavities, and have fresh breath for my morning.

Setup/Context:

• I need to brush my teeth because I hate my breath, the taste in my mouth, and the feeling of my teeth first thing in the morning.
• I keep my toothbrush and toothpaste in the medicine cabinet in my bathroom, behind the mirror above the sink.
• I stand in front of the sink while brushing my teeth.

Content:

• Tools I use to accomplish this task: toothbrush, toothpaste, and water.
• My toothbrush is green and white, with nubs on the side and handle.
• My toothpaste tube has a cap that rotates off (kind of traditional for toothpaste).

Actions:

• I get up and walk to my sink, open up the mirror, reach in and grab my toothbrush and toothpaste. Then, I open the lid of the toothpaste and set it down on the counter. I squeeze the toothpaste onto the brush (in the middle of the tube, which irritates my husband), and then put the brush in my mouth. I put the lid on the tube of toothpaste and put it back in the cabinet. I brush my teeth (brush, brush, brush), spitting at some point in the experience when my mouth gets too full of foam. When I feel like I’ve thoroughly brushed, I rinse the brush, slurping up water with the brush to rinse my mouth, hit my brush against the sink a couple of times, and then put the toothbrush away.

Sensory Details:

• My toothbrush has a soft and rubbery handle, so it is squishy, which makes it pleasant to hold.
• While brushing my teeth, the experience is cool, wet and foamy. My mouth fills with foam, so I have to spit.

Emotions:

• I’m usually a bit grumpy and unconscious when I start this task.
• The toothbrush itself is soft and squishy, and also bright and cheery, which makes me a little happy. But, I only notice the squishiness every once in a while (this was probably intentionally designed to delight me).
• I experience very slight anxiety when my mouth fills with foam, until I spit. Then I feel a little relief.
• I’m always a bit more awake and perky after I’m through brushing.

My challenge to you:
Try going through your day and identify the specific experiences that you encounter. Take note of the context, content, actions and sensory details. Pay attention to your emotions. Ignoring information comes naturally… work at building the skill of switching your attention back on to the experience itself.

This skill is critical when we visit customers. We have a tendency to focus in on the actions (and challenges) in the current experience, but not necessarily the related details in the environment itself and the emotions experienced.

What would happen if you stopped ignoring all those cues? What would you learn about delighting your customers if you “listened” to them on a whole new level? Start by listening to yourself. Becoming an expert at switching on your attention to look for opportunities to delight – yourself and your customers!

The benefits and risks of objective tracking

When trying to understand customers, studying their behavior is the gold standard. We’ve all experienced situations where customers say one thing but do something completely different.

A study recently came out in the journal “Nature” that looked at mobile phone use in 100,000 people (somewhere in Europe). The researchers were able to see where people were, roughly, based on which cell tower their handset was communicating with.

The aggregated data gave a picture similar to that we can get from telemetry tracking data in our products and websites.

This data gives us a clear picture of what people are really doing, although it does not provide us with information about why they are doing it.

There has been a backlash since the release of the Nature study results. This AP article makes it sound like the researchers were doing something sneaky or unethical. In fact, what they did was NOT LEGAL in the United States because they did not have permission from the people they tracked.

Some products have internal tracking, as do many websites, but we do not always include this capability in everything we build. I think we need to be doing this all the time! There are definite benefits to having this capability:
• We can see what people really do. A usability test can tell us what barriers might exist, but it doesn't show us what people would really do. Ethnographic research can give us insights into what people really do, but the data may not hold up across all of our users (perhaps only a subset of users do it that way... maybe the majority, but not everyone).
• We can see shifts in behavior, that can inform us about the effectiveness of different aspects of a design. For example, many websites do massive numbers of A/B tests on the live site to understand what drove the most traffic to the product.

The risks are:
• Jumping to the wrong conclusion about WHY something is happening (we really need to follow up with other types of research such as surveys, site visit studies, and other methods)
• Coming across as sneaky or sly. We need to ensure that data is aggregated or anonymous, or that people opt-in or are aware of the tracking so we don’t get accused of invading their privacy.

Thinking about neutral

I have mixed feelings about the NetPromoter metric. It is a 11-point survey question that we ask to our customers to assess their stated likelihood of recommending the product or service they use. The NetPromoter value is highly correlated with revenue growth in most markets, and so it is currently our best metric to predict revenue growth of a product or service. That's great. It is a self-report measure, of course, so it doesn't really correspond completely with behavior... some people give us a 10, but haven't actually recommended us... and some people have given us a 6 and have.

What is interesting, though, is how we use this measure to try to identify areas for improvement. We focus on why people are detractors.

We have a tendency to ignore the people who give ratings of 7 or 8 on the Net Promoter scale, because they don't drag our overall numbers down like detractors do.But this tendency means that we are ignoring the goldmine of rich ideas for building even more promoters. We should be building more promoters by focusing on people who are neutral.

Here are 5 reasons to focus on neutral:
They already like your product/service. Rating something well above the mid-point indicates an overall positive feeling. It is likely something fairly minor holding them back from enthusiasm.
More bang for the buck. Their issues may represent those of some of the detractors. Addressing these issues may lead to higher promoters than expected, given the population of neutrals.
It’s easier to nudge than shove.Sometimes a small thing will make the difference for this group of individuals.
They are likely to want to help.Since they like your stuff already, they are probably open to helping you devise ways to improve it.
Just interacting with them may make the difference.Positive personal interaction engenders some degree of trust and loyalty. If you make it clear that you care about them, they will care more about you.

5 things you can do on a site visit, other than watching tasks

Site visits (aka Contextual Inquiry) are an amazingly rich source for customer understanding. We typically go on site visits when we are trying to understand how people are accomplishing tasks now (whether it is with our software or something else), what their main pain-points are in a given area, opportunities for innovation, inspiration, and to gain a better understanding of our customers.

Certainly, the best interactions with participants are when they show us their processes and talk about their issues. However, there are times when it can be difficult to get customers to give us those rich experiences. For example, sometimes participants don't think their process is important or interesting. Here are a few techniques to try that can kick start richer conversations and a deeper understanding of the people you visit:

Desk surface Inventory - Where does your participant use their computer? Do they have a desk? If so, take a look at the surface of the desk. What is there? When people pile up papers or items, or stick post-it notes to their monitor, they are trying to save some piece of information for some reason. Usually, things on a desk are considered things that the participant needs to pay attention to or remember. Have them walk you through the objects and papers on their desk. What are the objects? Why are they there? Get into this discussion with your customer. It might open up a window for further exploration and insights.

"Desktop" Inventory - When looking at your participant's computer, what does their computer screen tell you? Files that people leave on the computer screen "desktop" can be left for a number of reasons; these are often files that the customer isn't ready to file, needs to remember for some period of time, or used for "working" space. Much like the desk surface inventory, understanding what people leave on their computer desktops can give you insights and open the door for deeper discussions. What does the desktop background look like? Do they have a picture? If so, ask them about it. Have them walk you through each of the icons on the desktop and tell you what they are, what they use it for and maybe when was they used the file last.

Take a tour - have them walk you around the site and explain it to you. This works really well as an ice-breaker at the beginning of a visit. Sometimes, people are somewhat disconcerted by this request. Just reassure them that you are interested in knowing a little more about them (or their business). Have them show you around and take note of the things you see and what they tell you about the person. Ask your participant what they use things for, or how often they use a space. For example, if the participant shows you their formal dining room, you could ask them about when they used the room last and why. You never know what these types of tours might reveal to you about the person. You can expect to get clues to their values, the importance of various things that they use, and gain some color to better understand your participant. This activity also tends to set a good context for the site visit participants because it makes it clear that we are there to learn from them.

A day in your life - have the participant walk you through their typical day. You can map this out as a timeline of activities, or as a map of where the person is in their space throughout the day. If the participant usually comes into the office in the morning, grabs coffee from the kitchenette, goes to their computer and checks email, walks to the FAX machine to check for incoming orders, then to the store room to pull items from inventory... well that might be pretty interesting. Seeing how people are moving through their site and what they are trying to accomplish can give you insights into how to streamline processes, unveil hidden pain-points or opportunities to delight. It is really great to take advantage of being in their site to see how they use it.

Show me something - A fun activity to try as an icebreaker that can give you ideas about what your customer values, likes and dislikes, is to have them identify various things in their environment that reflects those values. Tell the person to think about things in the site, including on their computer. Then ask them to show you things. Ask them to show you something: "frustrating", "fun", "important", "painful", "delightful", "challenging", "unique" or other terms. With each thing, have them explain it to you and why they chose that. For example, if you ask the participant to show you something "fun" and they show you a golf club, ask them why they identified it as fun... you might learn that one of their passions is golf, that they spend every Thursday afternoon playing, and that they are getting ready to participate in a local competition. This information can help you better understand your participant, but can also help you build a relationship that might encourage them to share more with you as the session proceeds. You can tailor this activity around the thing you are interested in studying. For example, if you are studying payroll customers, you might do this activity around payroll. "Show me something important about payroll", "Show me something fun about payroll"... you might stumble across something really interesting!

These are just a handful of ideas of additional things you can do in addition to watching tasks. Please share your ideas with me!

Lessons from a friends and family photo diary study

I was pretty excited about the concept of photo diary studies, but I wanted to get a feel for what it was like to run one, and what type of information I could expect to find out. So, I decided to run one with friends and family. I felt sure that I could get my family members to play along.

Logistics:

• I did a “call” for participants via email and family blog. I had 8 people reply that they were interested.


• I came up with a list of 15 activities. I tried to have them range from vague to concrete. I split the activities up into three weeks, to see whether I could maintain participation for that long.

Here was the list:

• Week 1 Activities:
  1. “This is me”
  2. "Who I am" - Take a picture that tells me who you are (anything that reflects your values, beliefs, personality or other….) and describe it for me
  3. "Past" - Take a picture that represents your past
  4. "Future" - Take a picture that represents your future
  5. "Frustrating" - Take a picture of something you find frustrating
  6. "Delightful" - Take a picture of something you find delightful
  7. "Fun" - Take a picture of something fun
  
• Week 2 Activities
  1. “Morning” - Take a sequence of at least 4 pictures representing your morning routine
  2. “Family” - Take a picture of someone in your life that you consider to be family
  3. “Desk” - Take a picture of your desk (or where you work, use your computer, etc)
  4. “Shopping” - Take a picture the next time you are shopping and describe where you are, what you are doing, and why
  5. “Challenge” - Take a picture representing your biggest challenge
  6. “Loud” - Take a picture of something loud
  7. “Life” - Take a picture that represents something you would like to do with your life
  
• Week 3 Activity (final week!)
  1. “Day” - Pick a day and take pictures throughout the day to document your day. Describe what went well and what didn’t go well during this day (include pictures, if you can).
  

How it worked out
Actual participation was much worse than expected. Of the 8 participants:

• Two participants didn’t post anything at all


• One participant only posted the “This is me” photo


• One participant only posted activities 2-5 on week 1


• One participant did the first 2 weeks, but not the last


• Three participants did all of the activities

Some technical challenges came up:

• One participant couldn’t upload her pictures because they were too large


• One participant had some goofs with uploading a few pictures (where she uploaded the wrong ones and then couldn’t figure out how to edit the entries, so she just sent duplicates)

All of the participants used existing photos as well as taking photos for the study. What surprised me what the proportion of photos that were “pre-existing”. Of the 123 images submitted, 40 pictures were clearly existing images that were uploaded.

Since I knew these people, I was in a unique position to understand the pictures and how accurate a picture of each participant was conveyed by the images and content. I felt that the overall representations were fairly accurate, although quite limited.

The best pictures came from very concrete tasks:

• Desk


• Morning


• Day
  

I liked these images… people seemed to GET INTO it and they gave a wide variety of images and interpretations:

• Challenge


• Frustrating


• Loud

The least useful were the tasks that were trying to get at who the person was. These elicited more anxiety in the participants, then revealed very predictable images having to do with parenting, etc:

• Who I am


• Past


• Future


• Life


• Family

Wrap-up
Overall, I was happy with what I’d learned from the study. I learned that the logistics of setting up and encouraging participation were pretty time consuming, but that the joy of getting people’s images made it all worthwhile. I think these types of studies might be useful for giving us a picture of what customers are like in different parts of the country (and/or world), but that it limits our view so much that it cannot be used in place of actually going there in person. I also learned that it would be very difficult to get people to really document something that they are doing on a regular basis. Once, perhaps… but not many times. For example, this really wouldn’t work if we asked someone to take a picture of what they were doing each time they logged into email for a couple of weeks.

Deep Understandings

Coming soon to a blog near you... Wendy's thoughts on gaining deep understandings.