Technology is getting better at doing things on behalf of its users. "Don't worry about that," it says, "Tell me what you want, and I'll do the rest." (Read more about how tech is shifting users from task-doers to flow-managers at Treating users (Like a Boss.))

This trend is great because it saves users tedious work that computers are better at doing. But people aren't comfortable just giving control over to a system, especially when it's an opaque "black box" of a function that just provides the end result. Like a car, users need a hood to look under to build enough trust before they will close it up and get back behind the wheel.

Problem: Trust in a new system is never automatic

Cooper is excited to announce a partnership with WEA, the Women's Earth Alliance, for our upcoming UX Bootcamp in late July. WEA is a Berkeley-based non-profit who partners internationally with grassroots organizations to provide financial resources, training, advocacy and peer support for women leaders who are addressing acute environmental and climate challenges in their communities.

"Women — caretakers, mothers, community leaders, healers, farmers, artisans, and resource stewards — around the world are making purposeful commitments to transforming the quality of their lives and their environments. Their efforts to sustain and protect their families, cultures, and natural resources are nothing less than heroic."
— WEA web site

 

The Challenge
The UX Bootcamp is part intensive design course, part friendly design competition. In this four-day workshop, Cooper's industry experts will guide you through the goal-directed design process we use to create useful, meaningful, impactful digital products and services. You will partner with designers, engineers, and product managers from around the globe to re-envision WEA's web platform and create ideas for a mobile platform, both of which educate a global audience about women-led global endeavors in Africa, India, and the USA. Cooper U educators and WEA representatives will review final design concepts presented by small teams, and we will donate $1000 to the nonprofit in the name of the winners. In this engaging competition you will learn critical leadership, communication and collaboration skills while designing for positive change in the world!

Event Facts and Links
Workshop and Design Challenge Dates: July 30 - August 2, 2012
Event Location: San Francisco, California
Register Now!

Want a Taste of What UX Bootcamp Is Like?
In April, Cooper U hosted our inaugural UX Bootcamp in partnership with The American Red Cross of Greater Columbus. Designers, engineers and product managers joined forces in Columbus, Ohio to learn about user experience design while creating mobile app concepts for ClubRED (a young professional's volunteer group within the American Red Cross of Greater Columbus). To get a glimpse of what that UX Bootcamp was like, check out the final concepts pitched by the teams, this post by our student, Amber Howard, or these photos of the magic in action.

For those of you who don't know, Thursday was Bike to Work Day. Every year thousands of Bay Area commuters ditch their cars, bus passes, and walking shoes to zoom down the streets commuting in massive pelotons to work. As they often ride to work anyway, the Cooper team joined the festivities, riding in style, sporting machines for speed, function, and fashion.

From the Perspective of Cooper U Student & Intern, Nikki Knox

Last month, company executives, engineers, product managers, and UX designers stepped away from their demanding schedules to experience the design process and philosophy of Cooper U in the April Interaction Design class. As a designer with a background in healthcare architecture and medical products, Cooper U's qualitative-based curriculum felt familiar in a way that resonated with the core intentions that motivated me to become a designer in the first place. What wasn't familiar, however, were the tools that Cooper U provided to guide the creative process, and the innovative ways they invited class participation.

I know what it's like to feel stuck on old ideas, so I appreciated the "Pretend it's Magic" exercise. It is designed to spark creativity in unexpected ways, and to kickstart the generation of big ideas. In the class, we were asked to consider what a "magic" entertainment system would look like. My group explored "disappearing" TV entertainment modules that only leave a 3D projection to engage with. We also imagined a screening system that gets jealous when other viewing devices are present (so no more watching TV and using your laptop at the same time - it might make your program angry!). These ideas may seem silly, yet they can help any team overcome self-imposed limitations and reconsider the range of possibility.

In addition, more in-depth design tools, such as Personas, provide a way to keep the end-user involved in the product from start to finish. They embody the user's actual behaviors, goals and environments. For example, our team's persona, DeAndra, is a 35-year-old photographer from Portland, Oregon. Her quote, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I have many eyes," summarizes her perspective and beliefs about the photos she takes. She played a vital role in guiding our mobile Photo Book app that we designed as part of the class. Features such as editing and tagging were designed with DeAndra in mind, helping us avoid designs based on our own preferences and experiences.

These are merely two examples from the many design tools that Cooper U provided during the course. The curriculum was designed to foster curiosity, create a sense of community, and invite storytelling based on design experience. Therefore, we could freely reflect on our own design processes and inquire about those of others, which enabled us to learn from Cooper as well as each other.

Of all the conversations we had, it was the questions about the designer's role in product development that intrigued me the most. In comparison to architecture, Interaction Design is a new and rapidly expanding field; designers and companies both struggle with determining the relationship between design and business. How do engineers and designers work together? What can company executives contribute to the process? How are product managers and marketing departments influencing design? In the class, we explored techniques to help facilitate conversations, as well as tools to help drive and focus design.

Ultimately, the practicum wasn't about providing standardized answers but about providing a safe platform upon which these questions could be boldly explored. The class reinforces my belief that design extends far beyond implementing creative ideas. The designer's role is that of facilitator - navigating people, resources and ideas through a complicated web of possibilities and responsibilities. Thank you to Cooper U for providing a process that understands and supports this vital role!

Upcoming IxD (Interaction Design) Course:
June 19-22, 2012

Life at Cooper

Cooper recently brought back the Friday Afternoon Social Hour! Everyone enjoyed Suzy's seriously strong sangria and tasty tapas, and the great conversations in this all around good time. If this sounds like how you'd like to wrap up the work week, join us! We are currently looking for a Business Development Manager.

See more of our life at Cooper on our Tumbler. 

Sketch 2.0 Released

*Download the sample .Sketch file from my Dribbble account.

Sketch 2.0 is a new Mac application designed to be what Adobe Fireworks has struggled to become: the defacto standard for interface design. With a toolset targeting the professional user interface and icon designer, Sketch seems to be headed down the right path.

Sketch is not without its issues and may not be mature enough to replace Photoshop or Fireworks as of the version 1 release; however it's an excellent start and well worth your time to checkout.

Several of us at Cooper are very excited by Sketch, so expect a more detailed review soon. In the meantime, checkout Sketch for yourself.

The Monoprice Graphics Tablet

*Video Monoprice Graphics Tablet line quality by Ray Frenden.

In the world of drawing tablets, there is Wacom and...umm...well...nobody else. That's what I thought before I read Ray Frenden's review of the inexpensive Monoprice graphic tablet "The Little Monoprice Graphics Tablet That Could."

With a starting price of under $50 for a 10X6.25 inch graphic drawing tablet, the Monoprice tablet seems too good to be true. After reading Ray's review and a quick twitter search of other Monoprice tablet users, I've become a believer and am seriously considering replacing my Wacom Bamboo tablet.

Checkout the Monoprice tablets for yourself; it just might save you a couple hundred bucks.

Stay up-to-date with your favorite web service feeds

If you're a Basecamp, Github, Dropmark, or Dribbble user, you might find Feeds interesting. Feeds lives in your menu bar monitoring your favorite web services, notifying you when new content is posted.

Dialoggs enters private beta

Dialoggs is a new web service that just entered it's private beta phase. Dialoggs describes it's self as a combination of Twitter, Facebook's privacy controls, and Tumbler's multimedia features.

Dialoggs allows you to follow people and send public and private messages just like in Twitter. What separates Dialoggs from Twitter, and what I'm most excited about, is Dialoggs ability to have long form conversations. Not having to worry about how many characters I have left? Priceless!

 

If your interested in learning more about Dialoggs, checkout "Introducing Dialoggs."

Follow the creators on Twitter to win invite codes to Dialoggs: @drewwilson, @ammmir

Dialog.gs Website

 

Interacting with media across multiple devices

 

With the rise of mobile devices, more and more I need to be able to move files from my desktop to my mobile devices. Apple, Google, and Microsoft, along with several other third parties, have developed solutions but nothing that delivers a truly seamless user experience. Interaction designer Ishac Betran, in his article "Watch This Ingenious UI Idea For Dragging Files From Your Phone To Computer" details an elegant seamless drag-n-drop solution.

iPad Keyboard Prototype

 

Another interesting concept is the "iPad Keyboard Prototype" created by Daniel Chase Hooper. The video demonstrates a simple, intuitive way for simplifying text editing on the iPad. Instead of tap-and-hold to edit text, the user can swipe the cursor around the text block to quickly edit the text.

App pick of the week: Track 8

Track 8 brings the Metro experience to your iPad in a slick music player, allowing you to browse your music in an immersive visual experience.  

Checkout Track 8 for yourself.

 

Defining and creating a memorable experience for your customers is no easy task. Product owners and development teams can easily rattle off ideas to designers about what features are necessary to stay competitive. But if you ask them to share their vision for the overall more subtle emotional aspects of the experience, they often get quiet or resort to the familiar old UI clichés of "simplicity, intuitiveness, etc." This means that you often start your design work with less insight than you need to drive visual and interaction design.

Enter the experience workshop - a collaborative meeting and setup where clients can really talk about what a great experience can feel like among a sea of inspirational images, digital interfaces, products, services, brands, cars, textures, and more. Companies that build digital products and services are engaging in a new level of competition; it's no longer good enough to deliver a usable product. Our designs must reach an aspirational vision that elevates the experience beyond mere usability, and a visual, collaborative workshop pushes people to explore and discuss the possibilities.

The workshop helps teams discuss what attributes are inherent in these other experiences that are meaningful to the experience they're defining. After a process of prioritization and discussion, the end result is often a huge cloud of ideas and words that sit on a spectrum from a poor experience to an ideal experience. The examples aren't what's important for our output. We collect insight from the discussion, the words, that help us define the ideal experience.

The workshop brings teams together to learn and collaborate on the experience. What I love most about this activity is the connections made from people across different teams that can relate on a personal level because of their shared experiences. It's not just a visioning exercise for the future; it's a team-building event.

Check out the above video to see a glimpse of the workshop in action. And if you want to learn more about how to conduct a workshop and integrate this new approach into your company, you can sign up for an upcoming Cooper U Visual Interface Design course. In fact, we have just a few spots left in next week's class (May 7-8), if this post left you inspired...

Related links

• Cooper U Visual Interface Design course
• The visual interface is now your brand
• What marketing execs should know about user experience
• Measuring visual designers' strategic value

The American Red Cross of Greater Columbus Shares Their Experience of UX Bootcamp

Last month, 26 designers, engineers, and product managers crammed their brains with Cooper's design methodology and put those learnings into practice designing mobile app concepts for volunteers of the American Red Cross of Greater Columbus. The nonprofit was involved all four days, let our students conducts design research interviews with their volunteers, and gave stellar critique during the final presentations of the teams. We asked Sarah Lewan, Coordinator of Volunteer Resources for the American Red Cross of Greater Columbus, to tell us about her team's experience of our inaugural UX Bootcamp. Here's what she shared with us...

What was most surprising about this experience?

The most surprising thing to me and my team was how involved the students would actually be in developing a solution for an app.  We had no idea the scope of this project and Bootcamp until the actual workshops began.
 

What did you learn about the design process as you watched the students go through UX Bootcamp?

I am not a designer.  I am a volunteer coordinator.  So this was definitely VERY exciting for me.  I learned so much about techniques and tools to use in the UX process.  I believe that I can use some of these techniques in the development of other projects and processes that do not have to deal with design as well.
 

What stood out to you about the mobile application concepts that the teams came up with?

All of the teams worked VERY hard on their designs.  It was interesting to see the difference on the designs, based on the demographics of the team.  I loved the fact that all of the teams came to the Bootcamp knowing little to none about the American Red Cross and our programs, but left becoming advocates for the organization. 
 

Did the concepts the teams presented inspire any ideas?

We were all inspired by the plans that the teams developed.  We think that there are many portions of all three that we can adapt and use within the Red Cross.
   

What stood out to you about the final presentations and judging portion of the event?

The final presentations were awesome!  It was so amazing to watch these teams come together from day one and finally end up with a finished produce.  I saw so many transformations in the design and initial concepts.  I witnessed teams grow and learn from each other.  I witnessed adults learn to think "outside of the box". 

The judging was particularly difficult.  All of the teams worked so hard.  But in the end, there was one that just captured the essence of what ClubRED (the Red Cross of Greater Columbus volunteer organization) was all about. 
 

Is there anything else you would like to share about your experience?

This was one of the most amazing education experiences I have witnessed.  I didn't want the week to end.  I would love to be involved in more experiences like this!
 

If you're curious to know more about that inaugural UX Bootcamp...

Check out the final concepts pitched by the teams, this post by our student, Amber Howard, or these photos of the magic in action. We'll be announcing a new bootcamp soon; email us at CooperU@Cooper.com if you'd like information.

New Hires! 

 

Upcoming CooperU Courses 

Cooper UX Bootcamp: A Firsthand Account 

New and Interesting

As long as I can remember, I've maintained an library of inspirational imagery. I'm always consuming visually appealing material, so if I find something, I grab it, whether it's an interesting font, photograph, texture, color palette, icon, or UX pattern. Growing as a visual designer means keeping up with the ever-shifting trends and visual innovations out there in the world, and a library of inspiration can be a place to stockpile the state-of-the-art.

Just about anything can inspire visual creativity. Don't limit yourself to obvious things like icons or UI elements; branch out and explore non-digital works like paintings and illustrations. Over the years, I've collected thousands of these interesting and inspiring artifacts, including fonts, photographs, textures, color palettes, and even code snippets. As my collection grew, though, it became increasingly difficult to maintain it and keep it useful. Enter Evernote.

Why Evernote?

Evernote excels at nearly everything I was looking for in a digital asset management application: it makes content collection, tagging, and sharing a snap. But Evernote's secret awesomeness is in search: it can instantly find text not only in tags, titles, and notes, but also, using very accurate OCR, within the images themselves.

Search inside images

Suppose I'm working on a contact form and I want some inspiration from the outstanding examples in my library. Instead of hunting and pecking for interesting form elements amongst the hundreds of images I've clipped from around the web, I can search using text I think might be included in the images I want. Typing "First Name", for example, finds all of my clips with that text inside the image or its metadata. This is a killer feature - it makes quickly searching my library a whole lot less painful, and also frees me from needing to exhaustively tag every single artifact as I go.

If you find yourself running the same searches over and over, Evernote can save it for you as a shortcut. (See this great article on Evernote power searching for more tricks.)

Dead simple content capture

To build your inspiration library, grabbing content has to be dead simple - otherwise it's a chore and it doesn't get done! Fortunately, Evernote has super fast capture tools for pretty much any situation. In a browser, take your pick from: Chrome, Firefox and Safari extensions. Even Internet Explorer gets the love (install the Windows desktop client to get the IE extension).

With the recent acquisition of Skitch, capturing extends beyond browsers to any screen content. With Skitch, you can screen-grab, annotate, and send to Evernote in just a few quick steps. (Here's a video demo of skitch in action.) Skitch works on your Mac, iPad or Android device.

Disclaimer: I worked on the design of the Skitch icon.

Your inspiration library, everywhere

One of Evernote's key strengths is being able to access all your content on any device. Apart from the desktop clients, Evernote has an excellent web interface. In many ways, I prefer the web version - it's a simpler front-end. It's great when I need quick access to my inspiration library.

The Evernote iPhone and iPad apps are some of the best on the iOS platform, hands down. They are free, and offer everything that is great about the desktop and web versions in a mobile form factor. Evernote has an Android app, as well.

More Evernote quick tips

A few other random pieces of advice for those of you using Evernote to capture the inspiration around you:

• It's a good idea to organize and tag stuff as you enter them. You'll thank yourself later.
• Re-title notes to make them more content specific. Titles like "DSC00003" will end up making finding things later more difficult.
• Keep well structured folder stacks.
• Use the Saved Searches feature.
• Another quick way to capture: on a Mac, drag and drop items onto the dock icon.

Go get some inspiration

I've focused on the virtues of Evernote, but whichever application you use, building and maintaining a personal inspiration library of visual materials can be an extremely valuable tool for any designer.

Here are some places I go when I want to find new material for my library:

• http://www.behance.net/
• http://pinterest.com/
• http://ffffound.com/
• http://dribbble.com/
• http://www.thebestdesigns.com/
• http://losttype.com/browse/
• From thenextweb.com: 97 places to find design inspiration

What about you?

How do you use Evernote? Any fresh ideas for maintaining a personal inspiration library? Do tell!

As a first time student at Cooper U, I was wowed by Cooper's Design Collaboration & Communication session. I was able to dive back into the product development process and carefully examine how the way teams communicate directly informs what kind of experience is created. Here are highlights of what I'll be using for my projects going forward.

Lesson 1: Meetings Don't Have to Suck

I have been through the grinder with teams of very capable, intelligent people. Sometimes, we ended up feeling confused, shot down, angry, and stuck even though all the elements of productivity seem to be right in front of us. So, what went wrong? In Cooper U's Design Collaboration and Communication session, we learned that these issues usually are not solved just by changing the meeting stakeholders or the design. The challenges are often in making ideas heard and effectively receiving information from others - the fundamentals of communication. Our teachers, Kendra Shimmell and Stefan Klocek taught us how to deal with conflict, stop communication gaps, and eliminate misunderstandings in tangible, useful ways.

Lesson 2: Never Ask "So, What Do You Think?"

Feedback can easily become a haphazard free-for-all about every aspect of the work. Here are a few strategies out of this tangential abyss:
• Keep feedback on user flow and visual language separate. Asking people to think about both at the same time is cognitively difficult and reduces the overall quality of their feedback.
• Make sure your team knows the questions you would like answered from the start. Sounds simple, but that's often not often specifically clarified.
• Keep user/interaction flows conceptual and sketch-like to focus stakeholders on these elements and minimize the distraction of visually-rich examples.
• When visual elements are in review, start with parts and pieces like the buttons, color palette, and icons, as individual elements focus stakeholders attention on details like color, mood, and shape.