UX Design, Industrial Design, and Food

Beer & UX Hackathon II

Wed, 17 Jun 2020 23:22:59 GMT

The Beer & UX Virtual Hackathon was another great success!

Guest speaker Dr. Morgan Wickline Getchell shared some amazing insights into how to effectively communicate information during a crisis. Our teams all did well, but we could only crown one winner. After much deliberation, Team 5 ( Robert Charnley , Pamela Lin , Glenda Ngo , Rohan Pal , and Alisa Kutsina ) were awarded Apple gift cards for their design solution. A well planned and executed solution in barely an hour.

The Neuron UX team did an excellent job fielding questions along with driving design discussion into the relationship between communication and design.

Thank you to Chris Marciano, Lucia Marciano, Matt Stoner, Michelle Stoner, Ryan Matthew, Mark Munroe, and Sagal Kahin for allowing me to host/coordinate another one of their events. It's always a challenge and pleasure.

Special thank you to Figma for sponsoring the event.

#figma #beerandux #neuronUX #uxdesign #hackathon #meetup #humancentereddesign #covid19 #coronavirus #contacttracing

Beer & UX Hackathon

Wed, 06 May 2020 18:34:34 GMT

The Beer & UX Virtual Hackathon was another great success!

Last night I hosted my first Hackathon in partnership with Neuron UX and sponsored by Figma. It was such a fun event to create, lead, and be a part of. We had a great turnout of participants and spectators along with some fun interviews with the Neuron team.

The winning team members (Lauren Oh, Lyrics Rabino, Caroline Nduta, Chris Wallace, Sarah Ganbat, Rohan Pal, and Malina Cheeneebash) were awarded $25 Apple gift cards for their insightful solution.

Congratulations to the winners and thank you to all the participants!

#uxdesign #bringpeopletogether #hackathon #covid19 #beerandUX #neuronUX

Apple's Missed Opportunity

christophercentersdesign@gmail.com (Christopher Centers) — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 19:32:34 GMT

In Spring 2014 I had an idea to utilize the Bluetooth in an iPhone as a way to send users relevant data about businesses & services that they were physically near (I called it ProxiCoin). Little did I know, in Summer 2013 Apple had announced this same idea in the form of iBeacon. As a tool, the product had a lot of potential however it received little attention from a consumer side and some on the business side. So, what happened to the iBeacon? #Apple #usercentereddesign #reboot

In Spring 2014 I had an idea to utilize the Bluetooth in an iPhone as a way to send users relevant data about businesses & services that they were physically near. I called it "ProxiCoin". Little did I know, in Summer 2013 Apple had announced this same idea in the form of iBeacon. As a tool, the product had a lot of potential however it received little attention from a consumer side and some on the business side. So, what happened to the iBeacon?

According to 9 to 5 Mac, it failed for several reasons (https://9to5mac.com/2018/10/29/beacon-adoption/) 1) Few customers have heard of beacons, so most haven’t installed retailer apps, 2) Bluetooth has limited range and signals are easily blocked by people and store furniture, 3) Customers tend to discontinue app use if they feel they’re being spammed, and 4) Growing concern about privacy, with apps failing to be upfront about the data they collect.

It’s my opinion that iBeacon was both too soon and approached its solution from the wrong perspective. I know, right? Did I question an Apple technology? Yes. I am a huge Apple fan and user, so I get disheartened to see one of their products fail. So, how do I justify my claims?

Let’s first look at timing. That, I feel, is probably the easiest to claim since phones are far more advanced now and so are their users. Users practically expect in-depth customer awareness and for services to meet their every need. That was not the case in 2013 when consumers were still getting comfortable with how much our smartphones could do.

As it relates to their approach, there are two main issues. I think they had the best of intentions and were wanting to give users a solution to a need they didn’t know they had (the true Apple way). The problem is, they didn’t tell users what that need was before they tried to sell them on the solution. The other being that they didn’t build in a way to target only relevant information to the user.

The service interaction between the business/service and user needed to be more like a key fitting into a lock or a punchcard. Meaning, for each user, only certain details of the experience are relevant. The user doesn’t need, nor do they want, to be blasted with notifications from every storefront as they walk by. They want to know that relevant information will be quickly and seamlessly presented to them.

Restaurant scenario : A young couple is walking through the city in the early evening. They discuss dinner and decide to walk around and see what interests them. One of them simply selects the “dinner” slider switch on their phone and puts it away. At that point, a punchcard of data populated from previous Yelp searches and reviews they’ve written is created. As they continue to stroll the city they pass Elephant Sushi which matches up with the punchcard. The user is then notified with two points of interest: the restaurant rating & current wait time. Should they decide to pick the restaurant, all they would need to do is swipe the wait time notification to automatically add their name to the list. (No data was shared until they added their name to the waitlist).

Public transportation scenario : A user is headed to work. They have already selected their preferred routes in their app. As they approach the transit stop they are promptly informed of the current wait time, any delays on their route, and alternate route information.

DSW scenario : A user is walking through the city. They have previously been browsing for women’s shoes on their phone. Based on their shopping habit a temporary punchcard is created. As they walk by DSW shoe store they are notified about a current sale on women’s shoes. As a special bonus, it informs the user that if they shop now they will receive an additional discount by swiping the notification to reveal a temporary QR code to use at purchase.

By using a punchcard strategy, it allows for passive filtering and avoiding unnecessary notifications. On the business side, the data they are broadcasting is somewhat like a weekly flyer. A blast of all related data in a burst format. The data that matches the points on the punchcard gets pushed and the rest is deflected.

Macy’s illustration : The image shows how the business would input the current data points for their sale and broadcast it out via iBeacon. Three users are shown and what their punchcard data might be like. As each user passes by Macy’s they receive a notification with only the relevant points-of-interest and a call to action should they decide to shop.

Apple may have missed the opportunity in 2013, but it is my option that it still has an opportunity to become successful with the right approach.

* The images included are from the concept I had arrived at in 2014.

What I Didn't Know

christophercentersdesign@gmail.com (Christopher Centers) — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 21:02:47 GMT

I didn't get the job, but it's not why I thought

Earlier this year I had an onsite interview at Bank of the West in San Francisco. I was very excited and did all my prep work. I built a presentation showcasing one of my favorite projects (Gobble Pro), a few "about me" slides, and some supplemental slides showing off some of my industrial design accomplishments. All-in-all, I felt confident about my prep work, my 3 hours of interviewing with members of the team, and how it wrapped up as I was leaving.

A few days later I got the email telling me that I hadn't gotten the position. I was very disappointed and began to analyze every moment of the interviewing process. Did I communicate clearly? Did I showcase all of my strong points? Did I show that I believe in growth and will work hard? Thousands of questions.

After a few days of dwelling on the questions and feeling as though I had done everything I could have, I decided I would start asking some of the team members for feedback on my interview. Maybe I'd gain some insights into where I had made a misstep in the process. I was able to get some responses, most of which were very encouraging. I still had questions though about it all and really just needed a straight answer.

I finally sat down one afternoon and boldly wrote a LinkedIn message to Avery Oldt, SVP of Design. I was passionate and respectful, but did my best to try and convince him that I was a solid candidate for the roll. After hitting send, I began to wonder if I would get a response. After all, he's the top of the design food chain at BofW and surely had more important things to do than give feedback to a candidate they didn't hire.

Much to my surprise, he did respond. And, after every question I had asked myself about why I didn't get the job, I was wrong about all of them.

The following is his response to my interview and why I wasn't hired:

Hi Chris, thanks for the note, I’ll keep those posts coming.

Happy to give you feedback. I want to start by saying not all designers are the right designer at the right time for every design org. You are a perfect fit for a role out there, just not our team right now for the roles we need to fill.

There are many factors that go into deciding what type of soft skills and hard skills are needed to balance a team and it’s pretty difficult to determine how a candidate stacks up to our expectations. A good guide is to calibrate the candidates against our current team members and other candidates we meet with in the search process.

I also want to share that we have a pretty thorough evaluation process. Even though we move quickly we give heavy consideration to all aspects of the work a designer has on their resume, portfolio, and their presentation. You’d be surprised at the level of detailed scrutiny the interview panel discusses when we get together at the end of an interview series.

When we have a good understanding of a designer’s skill and potential our conversation often becomes one of comparison and calibration. ‘They have this skill like Joe, this other aspect we also see from Mary; but on this skill are they good enough to keep pace with Jill?’

For your evaluation I believe there were positive comments about your prior experience and what that would bring to the role. I believe there was also recognition that from a purely UX Design perspective it appeared you had the training and school projects to demonstrate decent potential in that space.

This area, UX Design, and the practice aligned to General Assembly’s training isn’t a strong need for us as a primary operating mode for designers on the team. It is one aspect of their work, but not the area we have the most need for skills. If we had a stronger need for someone with primarily those skills and we had the time and environment for them to learn other skills you would be a better fit. Given our current team that isn’t the case.

The area where we have the most need is in highly developed digital product design and the visual design skills that go with it. This in my experience is also the skill set that takes longer to learn through hundreds of projects, design systems development, and mentoring by senior designers. It shows up on every detail on every screen a top candidate presents, including their deck itself. We are looking for someone already at that level. I have zero doubts that you can get there, but it I’m afraid we aren’t the right fit for you right now.

I think you’d do great on any team where they are looking for more skills aligned to your current experience, or on a team big enough to give you the opportunity to grow and learn. Lots of super great brands have these roles open and a stint in a role like that at Google or Facebook would probably be a great move for you right now.

I know rejection is tough. And career changes are super hard b/c you can feel like you are starting over (you are! I have too, you can do it!). I myself have interviewed with some really great teams and thought I was a perfect fit, and was dismayed when it didn’t work out. What I tell myself is that I’m not on the inside, I can only see from my limited point of view. Regardless of what I think about my skills or match to the role I have near zero understanding of what they really need, and perhaps they are unable to express it. They are a better judge on what would work for them. Passing on hiring me for their role isn’t an objective judgement of me - it is a judgment of me-for-this-role. I’m still the same and still trying to get better in the way I want everyday, with a bit of feedback gained from every experience.

Good luck to you. Your next job is out there, don’t dwell on this small bump, go get it!

Best,

Avery

Reading it again, I continue to notice things that I can focus on moving forward as well as what I cannot control during the hiring process.

I am very grateful for Avery's feedback.

Cheers!

Photo by Steve Halama on Unsplash