UX Blitz

Julie Blitzer on user experience & interaction design

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Lessons from Material Design on cross-channel digital experiences - DroidCon Torino, Italy 2015

Earlier today I presented at DroidCon in Torino, Italy. Thanks to Synesthesia for the opportunity and to the audience for listening in! 

Lessons from Material Design on cross-channel digital experiences - DroidCon Torino, Italy 2015 from Julie Blitzer

Slideshare doesn't seem to retain the animation in the GIF on slide 40, so here it is: 

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Copying a design is easy, but creating a great experience is hard.

There are millions of apps in app stores. You work hard to make your app stand out in the crowd. What happens when someo…

Finding inspiration for your design work does not mean copying. In this space, it seems many are tempted to just copy the work of others, but @Sonaal recounts a story that teaches a lesson of why not to copy and how thinking through decisions yourself is always better.

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Is simple always better? "Of Mice and Men" on 99% Invisible

If you are looking at a computer screen, your right hand is probably resting on a mouse.  To the left of that mouse (or above, if you're on a laptop) is your keyboard. As you work on the computer, ...

I highly recommend the latest episode of 99% Invisible, a fantastic podcast about design. It discusses about the development of the mouse, Douglas Engelbart and whether simpler interfaces make us better or worse as thinkers, problem solvers and humans.

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Prototype your career like you prototype design concepts

Recently one of my college professors posted this article to Facebook and it elicited numerous comments and recommendations. #1, and obviously also #7, as I write this from Milano, really resonated with me. I know this blog is usually a space in which I talk about design, but considering I also receive many questions about growing careers in UX, I am going to pivot to this subject temporarily. Many consider the internships you have during college or grad school to be for the purpose of working in a place that will later offer you a job. Yes, that process does happen to some people, but most I know did not go that route, so don’t fret if you don’t either. 

The beauty of the internship is that you can “try before you buy,” and that’s exactly what I did, many times over. At the start of my college experience I thought I want to have a career in politics, maybe not running for office, but at least very close to, or inside that world. I experimented, through internships, with various career paths in that space, and not one of them got me really excited, except when I ended up helping with digital strategy and web design on an electoral campaign. Through all of those experiments, I was able to figure out it was time to redirect my career before I even finished college, although I was already nearing completion with my degree and major.

If you use “interaction design” or “UX” to describe what you do or want to be doing, there are countless types of companies in which you can work and even more variety in the kinds of projects. I recommend experimentation with the various work environments to figure out what is a fit.

The UX jobs out there largely fit into the following categories:

Working for others as an outside expert

Digital Agency: These companies work in the advertising space or are born out of traditional advertising companies. Because of this (historical) affiliation, many projects are connected to designing for selling products or services.

Design Studio or Consultancy: Often small companies in which the majority of the staff are designers and the services offered are pitched as "design," which can be anything from strategy to research to design deliverables to usability analysis and so on.

Technology consultancies or "dev shops": These companies offer technology solutions or services to their clients and believe that UX and design are part of that service offering, but you may be working as the only UX designer and UX may not be considered front and center.

Freelance: If you're just starting out, I would suggest to avoid freelance for the time being and instead find a work environment where you can learn from your colleagues and superiors. You'll grow a lot faster!

Working as an inside expert

Startup: Startups are great learning opportunities, but it is also likely you could be the only UX designer in your office or team if the company is new. That said, you can really own your process and your work. If you're a self starter type, it's worth trying, but avoid if you don't like long work hours!

In-house: Larger companies, both technology (e.g. Meetup) and others (e.g. McGraw-Hill), will hire UX designers inside their company rather than contracting out the work.

Freelance: You can also be hired on a freelance contract to work in-house for a large company and whether you are treated as an "insider" really depends on the relationship and arrangement with the client.

Did I miss one? How did you get to the kind of position you are in now and what role did internships play in helping you get there?

Thinking about a career in UX?

Check out this class I recorded for GA in summer 2013: How to Get a Job as a UX Designer

Which of these do I prefer? 

The answer to this question is personal and every designer is different! I like working alongside other designers and technologists, staying closer to the implementation process, which is how I ended up at UbiquityLab, part design studio, part technology consultancy, part business strategy.

Caveat: Unless the internship is compulsory for an academic course of study, I believe that interns must be paid, always. I was not always a paid intern, and for some of those summers in which I "prototyped" my career options, I often worked 18-hour days due to a second job that was paying. These kinds of demands of free, unpaid work from interns, are both unrealistic, unfair, and in many cases, in violation of local labor laws.

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2015 New Year's Resolution: Get back to blogging

Hey there!

After a few months of silence, I am back and hoping to be blogging more regularly in 2015. I became so quickly Europeanized after a year in Italy, that I, too, took much of August 2014 off to spend time with family, and then reentered the full-time work world as a UX Designer with UbiquityLab here in Milano.

Happy holidays and happy new year! May 2015 bring you exciting design and technology challenges and even better solutions.

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Design Kit is IDEO.org's platform to learn human-centered design, a creative approach to solving the world's most difficult problems.

IDEO recently launched a new site for learning human-centered design methodologies and sharing case studies of projects using these tools. I highly recommend taking a look at this site if you are getting started in UX and interaction design!

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Graduation day! I did it!

Today is graduation day at Domus Academy and marks the official completion of my Master in Interaction Design degree. I'm proud to have accomplished this feat (with highest possible marks of 110/110!) and very grateful for the opportunity. I'm also grateful for ten amazing new best friends from my class and mentorship from our Course Leader Claudio Moderini and Assistant Nima Gazestani. 

Photo credit: Fellow graduate Hallvar Hauge Johnsen, taken yesterday at Castel San Pietro in Verona.

With a few years of experience in interaction and UX design under my belt and even some teaching work for GA, many people asked me why I chose to go back to school. More than a degree, more than just the projects to grow your portfolio, grad school is a way to push the "reset" button on your life and start over, refocus and figure out what you really want to do, while picking up many other life lessons along the way.

So much can change in a year. One year ago...

Arduino was a thing I had just seen in TED talks and articles, but was too busy, nervous, [insert excuse here] to try it myself.

Wearable devices seemed like a conceptual long shot other than the few people wearing Google Glass I had seen around New York City. Now I've tried many of those on the market and even designed a life-saving service around wearables for my thesis project.

I could only say "Cheers" in English, French, Hebrew and Chinese. Now I can do it in Portuguese, Norwegian, Arabic, Turkish and Italian thanks to my international classmates.

I knew maybe fifty words of Italian after six weeks of Duolingo-ing. Oggi parlo italiano al livello "advanced." More to come on my journey learning Italian through technology in another blog post.

I thought the way to learn in school was by reading books and discussing what you've read, writing papers. When I was debating whether to choose Domus over other schools where I had been accepted, Claudio told me "Here, you learn by doing." They weren't kidding. We had some lectures, but read no books and instead dove head first into group projects.

Secretly felt like a phony calling myself a "designer" when I hadn't been to "D-school." I know school is not the only thing that makes one a designer, but now I have an extra boost of confidence in myself and my skills with the school seal of approval.

IxDA's Student Design Challenge was something I admired from afar as a pie in the sky dream. Thanks to the best design partner a person could ask for, hard work and sleepless nights, we made it not just to the finals in Amsterdam but all the way to 2nd place.

I had only played volleyball in English. Try playing your favorite sport in a foreign language. Few experiences in my life have been as peculiar, amusing and fun as this challenge and I am lucky to have such wonderful teammates in my ZeroNove family.

Thanks again to everyone who supported me through this journey of applying to and attending grad school. You know who you are and I couldn't have done it without you!

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Domus final project: Presentation & Report

This post is the final article of a series documenting my progress for the Final Project of the Domus Academy Master in Interaction Design.

Today's the day! The day that I will present all of the work documented thus far on this blog in my final presentation to my peers and a panel of judges. 

My final presentation:

Chain-Aid: Domus Master in Interaction Design Final Project from Julie Blitzer

And the companion report submitted to the judging panel:

Report on Chain-Aid: Domus Master in Interaction Design Final Project from Julie Blitzer

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Domus final project: introducing "Chain-Aid"

This post is part of a series documenting my progress for the Final Project of the Domus Academy Master in Interaction Design.

After five long weeks of work, I have named my concept “Chain-Aid,” as the peer-to-peer networking solution is partially inspired by the “snow day phone chains” we used when I was growing up to notify families of school closures. 

The biggest challenge so far in this process was designing a system for navigation and guidance during the evacuation scenario. I went through several iterations and design ideas until I arrived at the modified compass-like guide shown below.

Emergency alerts, following the design language choices I made previously, could appear like this:

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The New Cooper Hewitt Experience

Opening to the public on December 12, 2014 The museum will boast 60 percent more gallery space to present its important collection and temporary exhibitions and will offer an entirely new and invig...

My favorite museum is finally reopening to the public later this year. What does this have to do with UX/Interaction Design other than being a museum of design? They are experimenting with a new "Interactive Pen" visitors can use to track everything they view throughout the museum. There's also a "Process Lab" for brainstorming and learning about design thinking methodology. Cool!

The Cooper-Hewitt, also known as the Smithsonian Design Museum is the USA's only museum specifically about contemporary design. It's where I learned to love design through the years of exhibits and class trips (Eames! Girard fabric prints!) thanks to "Foot" and her Drawing & Design classes. 

In Europe/this side of the pond? Check out two other legendary design museums I have gone back to again and again:

Design Museum London

Triennale di Milano

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Domus final project: developing a design language

This post is part of a series documenting my progress for the Final Project of the Domus Academy Master in Interaction Design.

Once I figured out what the device will communicate, I then moved on to exploring the how. I want to create a consistent, meaningful and simple design language that will not get in the way of users’ ability to quickly understand the emergency messaging and interact with the device.

The use of color throughout the design of the device is consistent and deliberate. For alerts, the wristband changes to yellow. Red can mean both warning and stop, so it is not used. Blue and purple are neutral colors and thus used for grouping. In compass/evacuation mode, the indicator line for the color path is green when the victim is moving in the correct direction. Vibration is used as an additional method of notification in case the user does not see the color of the wristband changing or is sleeping and should wake up. The device will vibrate until acknowledged for emergency alerts, but only once for non-emergency messages.

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Domus final project: wearable wristband & master device

This post is part of a series documenting my progress for the Final Project of the Domus Academy Master in Interaction Design.

After exploring various types of forms and even using available technology on smart phones, I chose to create a wearable wristband device. A wristband is not invasive, easily viewed by both the person wearing it and others who may need to see signals from the device. While smart phones are already in the hands of many victims, battery life and compatibility are both challenges too difficult to overcome.

The wristband, with an interface powered by multi-colored electronic paper, connects to other wristbands in range via a peer-to-peer network. The The wristband will be supported by a “master” device, which can be given to local community leaders (like persona Jessica) who are likely to know their neighbors and can assist with guidance and be in contact with the recovery and rescue teams.

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Domus final project: collecting and sharing data using HXL standards

This post is part of a series documenting my progress for the Final Project of the Domus Academy Master in Interaction Design.

While the primary objective of this project is to connect victims in a disaster area, the data that will be provided by the designed solution could be crucial for external relief efforts in the short-term and analysis in the long-term. There is a new online platform for sharing data, as well as standards for format and type, managed by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). This project is known as the Humanitarian Exchange Language (HXL). frog design has partnered with OCHA for a research project understanding the needs and behaviors of humanitarians. For more, see this post and follow their tumblr. Along with the design of a somewhat futuristic concept for a distributable tracking and communication device, this project will suggest data collection methods and mappings that are in accordance with HXL and related UN initiatives. These data standards ask for key demographic and crisis information such as age, type of shelter, level of impact and third-party NGO organizations involved in supporting the victims. As these devices will be tracking movements and used to call for help, the data produced can be more accurate and standardized than the limited information available from burdened local relief teams. More information about these standards is available at Relief Web Labs’ Humanitarian Data Exchange and in the working draft of the data conventions (Google Docs).

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Domus Final Project: messages to send & receive

This post is part of a series documenting my progress for the Final Project of the Domus Academy Master in Interaction Design.

In order to further refine the technical requirements and begin to understand the possible information hierarchy for any interface, I’ve specified the kinds of messages the device will be able to send and receive, along with the feedback mechanisms (visual, audio, vibration, etc.) for each message. This matrix will be updated and refined as I move through the design phase of the project.

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General Assembly has a sample clip from one of my UX classes up on YouTube. Want to see more? The class is available on GA's Front Row: 

Six UX Strategies to Make Your Site More User-Friendly

Thanks again to GA's spectacular team and friend Candace Williams (now at Hakka Labs), who worked with me to produce this class and many others.

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Domus Final Project: functional requirements

This post is part of a series documenting my progress for the Final Project of the Domus Academy Master in Interaction Design.

After discussions and further research, I have chosen to explore concept direction #2:

A low-cost energy efficient device that can be distributed to victims (or available in home first aid kits in high-risk areas) immediately following a disaster. This device will help victims to communicate with each other and recovery teams in the absence of regular cellular service and even power outages.

This device should have the following attributes to meet the design objectives outlined in my Kick-off presentation. Low-cost Easy to mass produce with readily available materials. This project may assume a somewhat futuristic context and use currently expensive technologies that will be more widely available in five or ten years. Energy efficient Longer battery life that can last as long as a week or more. Can store battery life and be activated only when needed following a disaster. This challenge could be solved through sustainable recharging methods, like the crank-up radios and flashlights used today. Should alert the user if battery life is very low. Wearable or portable Following a disaster, people may move to new locations, so the device should be easy to wear or carry along. Location enabled (GPS) Be able to send the victim’s location to an emergency services station and further, display simple directions to a safer place or shelter. Peer-to-peer Connect to nearby (range TBD based on technology of choice) devices on other victims in the community without using cellular towers that may be out of service. Online and offline connectivity Any device may be periodically disconnected from the network, depending on which technology is controlling the networking among the devices. This device should store messages and send them when reconnected to the network, as basic SMS platforms have for years. Low or no infrastructure required As infrastructure is usually damaged following a storm, this system and service must operate without support from physical community infrastructure such as antennae, power lines or phone lines. Send and receive messages Send and receive messages both to longer range emergency services and to locals in the area. Feedback visible both to user and other people in short range If a user sends an “SOS” message in a crisis moment, the device should also active audio or visual indicators that can be seen or heard by others in the immediate area who might be able to help. Coordinate efficient and fast evacuations The messaging and communication service should be able to direct people to quickly evacuate to a shelter, possibly following a community leader who has a more advanced device. Simple interface with no learning curve The device should feel so simple that anyone, even the least technology-aware locals like Ethel (For more, see Personas), can use without detailed instructions. Must be intuitive without directions or assistance. Bonus: Monitor vitals Following an incident, victims could activate (or accept a request to activate) monitoring of vital signs of life, likely through pulse, so that the emergency services can know that the victims are alive and monitor communities. Bonus: Simpler version that works for smartphones and mass-market wearables If time permits, this project will also suggest a standard for emergency assistance and communication tools that could be pre-loaded with all consumer mobile devices, such as smartphones and wearables.

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Domus Final Project: Personas

This post is part of a series documenting my progress for the Final Project of the Domus Academy Master in Interaction Design.

In order to contextualize my project and progress, I created three personas. The background that informed these personas came from my own first hand experiences in recovery following Hurricane Sandy and discussions with other survivors and field workers over the past few years.