Book review: Web Form Design

I view Luke Wroblewski's latest level-headed work titled Web Form Design as a book nobody really wanted to write, but somebody had to do it. Luke makes the point that in more and more cases, it is web forms that stand between your customers and the products and or services they want from you. Anybody who has spent any time at all filling in the blanks knows firsthand that there is plenty of room for improvement here.

Personally, I appreciate that the book begins with "Forms suck." (I appreciate it because it's true). The rest of the book sets out the terminology, principles and patterns necessary to design forms that suck less. Finally, for those of you who have spent more time than you care to admit arguing about label alignment, you'll find a reasonably well considered analysis of the various options that should put an end to the squabbling.

Seeing patterns in research findings

We’re always on the lookout for engaging ways to communicate the patterns we uncover in our research. What factors cluster into significant groups? What are relevant attributes and relationships? What trends do we see?

Shan Carter and Amanda Cox at the New York Times recently produced a fantastic interactive chart highlighting the voting patterns along several demographic factors in the Democratic primaries. (You can read more about this graphic from Shan Carter here.)

I love the idea of starting with this approach and overlaying additional factors to draw out relationships and relative importance. In the Times example, imagine the squares drawn in relative proportion to the number of delegates in play; color and saturation representing the percentage of Democratic votes in the 2004 presidential election. Combining multiple factors does complicate the visual, so care must be taken to preserve the clarity that makes it so effective.

At Cooper, we often do something similar, with behavioral variables of interview subjects plotted along major axes, combined with demographics like age, organization type and role, to paint a picture of the interrelated web that helps us make meaning of a diverse human population. We always try to walk through these visualizations with a story that ascribes meaning to the observations, but providing clients (and ourselves) with an opportunity to interact with the data in a well-curated way really emphasizes the relevant factors and helps everyone understand the patterns we use to drive decisions and take action.

Whither interaction design consulting firms?

Is interaction design done by consultants or employees?

When Cooper was launched as an interaction design consulting firm in 1992, the answer to this question wasn't at all clear. However, as the 90s drew to a close, I confidently predicted that the bulk of the interaction design done in the world would be done by consultants. I based this conclusion on the proliferation and success of interaction design consulting firms. I assumed that the industry would follow the model of building architecture, where major design projects are typically performed by outside consultants. Architects on corporate staff would act primarily as liaison and project management. And for the first few years of the 21st century my prediction appeared correct. Today, I wonder if I called it wrong.

More and more I see corporations both large and small with their own in-house interaction design staffers. In fact, in a broad sense, my company competes with our own clients for qualified designers. There are still many successful interaction design consulting firms, but I see an ever increasing number of design projects handled completely by internal design talent, and successfully at that.

This, of course, brings up the thoughtful question of "Whither interaction design consulting firms?" What will their role be in the next decade? Will the pendulum swing the other way, and clients find that it is less expensive to hire designers on a project-only basis instead of keeping them on staff full time? Or will the consultants find themselves working only on fringe projects that are too large, too small, too complex, or too unique?

I don't yet know the answer to these questions, but I'm leaning towards the idea of an ever-more specialized role for interaction design consultancies. What do you think?

Beautiful Monsters

From our position at the confluence of human desire, technology, and business, interaction designers can make a tremendously positive—or negative—impact on the biggest issues facing us today: the sustainability of commerce, human societies, and natural systems. Despite these opportunities, software makers are discouraged from thinking outside the aspect ratio of an individual user’s monitor.

This is the first in a series of articles intended to serve as an ongoing conversation about how interaction designers can move the industry toward an Ecosystem Centered Design to improve our fortunes, our relationships, and the health of our planet.

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Bringing sanity to swat-team design projects

In a perfect world, interaction design would begin when a product was still just a twinkle in a venture capitalist’s eye. In reality, many software products make it all the way through the development cycle with little thought to the users’ experience, and when executives, sales people, or QA testers finally get their hands on the functioning product and start sounding the alarm bells, interaction designers are brought in to clean up the mess. With increasing demand for design “swat teams” to rescue fully developed but flawed software that is scheduled to ship within months or even weeks, the critical question becomes: how can you avoid getting caught up in the chaos that frequently permeates “crisis-mode” engagements?

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How we use Fireworks

In our training courses, we're frequently asked what tools we use. The answer is pretty simple. While we might use Photoshop for heavy photo manipulation or break out Illustrator for the odd diagram or visualization, we've come to love Adobe Fireworks for designing screen-based interfaces and illustrating scenarios.

Recently, Adobe asked us to share some of our Fireworks techniques with the user community. As a result, we worked with them to create this short video about how our interaction designers and visual designers worked together on a recent project for GoldMail.

If you want to get more in depth with Fireworks, you can read a more thorough article about specific techniques that I recently wrote on Adobe's developer center.

Foldit: distributed gaming as research tool

Foldit, a game made by two medical researchers in collaboration with some computer scientists and with consultation from some game designers, taps into people's intuition where raw computer processing power isn't enough. Think distributed computing like the Stanford Chemistry Department's Folding@Home, but instead of donating idle CPU cycles to perform scientific research, you play a game that helps researchers understand human pattern recognition.

According to UW associate professor of computer science and engineering Zoran Popovic in Science Daily:

Some people are just able to look at the game and in less than two minutes, get to the top score. They can't even explain what they're doing, but somehow they're able to do it.

One of the most interesting parts is that they've incorporated competition into the game: between gamers playing for a high score, and actual research groups trying to solve problems. I think a lot about how graphic/visual/interaction design could similarly channel human energy in productive ways. There's got to be another example of this somewhere, right?

Using jigs when rendering screens

As part of most Cooper projects we create a visual styleguide that details all of the visual elements of the design. Additionally, we create detailed scenario renderings to illustrate the behaviors of the design. While the visual styleguide is the source of record for precise measurements, it is great if the detailed scenario renderings can follow the styleguide exactly. I've come up with a technique that I use to verify and correct the accuracy of my renderings in a quick, visual way.

When working with wood, it is very common to use a jig (a device for guiding a tool) to ensure accurate repeatable results. This same technique can be applied rendering screens; allowing you to easily check the position of design elements, and correct them as needed. The easiest way to explain this is to walk through an example.

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Welcome to the new Cooper Journal

Like most design agencies, Cooper crackles with conversations on a variety of topics. Unlike lots of other agencies, we've mostly conducted these conversations in primitive channels — over email and in person around the large, U-shaped couch where we eat lunch.

We call it "The Departure Lounge"

Up to now, private has been easy. Publicizing our conversation means work — to set up, to moderate, and to keep current. When you also factor in the unknown amount of Alan-wrangling, you're talking about a lot of time away from design, problem-solving, and the stuff we all love.

So why take it public now? Because we want to be part of the bigger conversation, and to bring people into our conversations. Up to now, we've participated in formal, somewhat old-fashioned ways — at conferences, and through our newsletter. We'll still do these things, but we'd also like to talk about stuff happening like, now, and the logical place to do that is via a web-based publishing platform more commonly known as a "weblog."

Our mission is to communicate deep and clarifying insights, to kick around sparky and elegant ideas, and to discuss design methods and processes. And we're excited to bring you, the Internet, into it.

So, without further ado: Welcome to the Cooper Journal!

Where does design belong in your organization?

These days, more and more companies are recognizing that design and innovation are essential to their strategy and bottom line: effective design sells products and services, improves your position in the marketplace, and turns customers into loyal advocates for your brand. If you've gotten your organization to this point, take a moment to enjoy your success! Creating demand for design is no small achievement. Unfortunately, to reap the full benefits of design, you probably still have a lot of work to do on your organization's structure, processes, and culture.

One of the first things you need to do is determine where in your organization design belongs. There are a variety of models, from outsourced design to an in-house consultancy to designers permanently embedded in individual product teams. No single structure is the right answer for every situation; you have to assess what's the best fit for the number and type of design needs you have, as well as for your organization's culture.

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