I’m thankful for

• My wonderful son William, he teaches me so much on a daily basis.
• Meeting Rob, and the experiences we have shared nurturing the loving relationship that we’ve had
• My son’s new school. William had to switch schools this year, and through this dramatic change, it went for the best.
• Getting the opportunity to go to Frankfurt and India, and all of the insights and experiences of that trip that also made me realize how fortunate I am
• My relationship with William’s father, and how involved he is with loving his son
• Celebrating my birthday with loving friends
• Celebrating William’s 4th birthday with his class and friends
• My mom, brother, and his kids
• The opportunity to go to Captiva, San Francisco, Seattle, and Kansas City
• My special friends Kristin and Patty who became mother’s this year
• Going to Universal Studios with Krystal and Rob for Krystal’s birthday
• Attending Essence of Being and Passionate Manifestation, growing personally and spiritually from that experience and meeting the loving healing forest of friends
• The kitties who were born in my back yard
• Halloween with my family and friends
• The time spent camping in the Keys with Krystal and Rob.
• Carolina, Joe and Ellie in Hawaii. The way they have welcome me into their home for the week of Thanksgiving and letting me meet their friends.
• My wonderful roommates Krystal and Jen, it’s been really fun and I love you both
• Grandma Denton and my mom for always making time for William.
• Taking William to birthday parties and playdates
• My loving house, and job, that without I would not be able to support myself.
• Waking up each morning to create a new day
• Attending the “Cool Kids Reunion” and reconnecting with friends who I lost touch with over the years
• My health
• The spirit that runs through me and everything alive on this earth

When I think about everything I have to be thankful for, it becomes easy to get overwhelmed with how truly blessed I am.

I left the hotel with my coworker, her mom and sister for a day in the city. They had rented a driver from outside the hotel in hopes to save money, however the car was too small, the driver was too smelly, and he got us lost several times. After an argument with the cab company, we let the driver go, and had a driver from the hotel come pick us up. He took us to the shopping district of Pune, the shopping Mall on MG road. There are lots of places in Pune from the exterior are dirty and decrepit, as we walked into the  mall, the inside was shockingly new and modern. I went to a store called West End, and purchased a few outfits. Outside the store was a Pizza Hut. The Pizza was very similar to US pizza except it was served with an extra portion of peppers and ketchup. Outside the mall were very poor looking women and children looking for hand-outs.

I had a very hard time with giving children on the street money because of watching the movie Slum Dog Millionaire. They would tug at my sleeve and put their hands to their mouths to gesture they wanted food. I made sure that later I stopped to buy some candy, as I know that if they had candy they would probably eat it. If I gave them money, they might give it to someone who may be exploiting them.

The view from outside the mall was definitely a stark contrast of modern and poverty. The streets were very dirty and unkept, but the buildings were lined with brightly-colored billboards advertising luxury goods.

After we left the mall, we went to some strip-mall looking buildings. We were lead down 3 flights of stairs to a store called Pix Boutique. We were made to take our shoes off before entering the store. Inside was an array of modern fixtures and shelves filled with brightly colored traditional Indian dresses. A gentleman had us take a seat, and he pulled out dresses that he thought would fit us. My coworker and I tried on several. I ended up buying a dark red/brownish 3 piece traditional indian outfit. It had leggings, a dress, and a sash. We also went to a shop called the Bombay store where I found several gifts for friends and family.

After our shopping we went to search for a beauty salon (pronounced Saloon to the locals). We finally found one that was open at around 7PM. There I got a pedi/mani, and the girls got their brows threaded. I had never seen this process before. As the evening approached traffic picked up. Pune’s lack of public infrastructure has left it a city with poor roads and bad traffic.

Sunday night I had a pretty serious case of Jet Lag. Although I was dead tired from all of the running around we did all day, I could not fall asleep. I felt as though my body was vibrating as I laid in bed. I used breathing techniques and meditation to relax and I eventually fell asleep around 3 am.

First of all, when you arrive at the hotel in the car, a security officer goes around the perimeter of the underside of the car with a mirror to look for bombs. They also circle the car with a dog, sniffing for bombs I assume, and they open each door. As they open your door they always say “good day” with a smile. I suppose this is supposed to make you feel better about being searched. When you approach the hotel, they take your bags to be passed through an x-ray machine, and you have to walk through a metal detector to get through the front door. As you get through, a woman wearing a pretty teal and blue sari welcomes you with a smile as she passes a metal detector over your body. After a few days this behavior became to be quite normal, and I would just greet her with my arms open assuming the position for scan.

When you enter the hotel room, there is a slot next to the door where you put your room key. This activates the electricity in the suite. This benefits the hotel guest because they always know where their key is, and it benefits the hotel because after a few moments it deactivates the lights in the room. It does not turn off the power outlets, so your computer and razor can still be charging after you leave. Another thing I had to get adjusted to was brushing my teeth with bottled water. Most of the electrical outlets in the room have built-in adapters that work for US plugs, however it doesn’t convert the AMPS, so there were still certain electrical items that could not be plugged in.

From hotel room window, there was an interesting view. A large power line tower was immediately to the left, straight out was a hotel that was under construction.  To the right I have a view of the Security gate, the road, and across the road is a very modern looking HP gas station. Behind the gas station I can see green fields, the city line, and behind that are some mountains. The sides of the streets are littered with exorbitant billboards advertising modern luxuries.

After I unpacked I went downstairs to an amazing breakfast buffet. The Marriott really out did itself in food quality and service. Most of the service personnel go out of their way to remember your name, and who your colleagues are. They are also very well versed in the art of small talk, which helps a traveler eating alone feel more at home. The breakfast buffet included Indian specialties, cereals, western breakfast items, british breakfast items, a full array of baked goods, fresh fruits, and fruit juices. They would also make eggs, waffles, and eggs benedict to order. They also offered masala chai upon request.

After lunch I retired back to my room, and took a 2.3 hour nap. My coworker was spending time with her mom and sister, so I decided to go out for a little shopping. I requested a driver and asked him to take me to shop. He took me to a little shop on Bund Garden Road. There I looked at semi precious stones set in silver and gold. The prices were in USD, and I managed to haggle the price down 20%. I was very proud of myself as until recently I was not very good at negotiating prices.

During that period my coworker’s family came and she got reacquainted with them.  We spent some time at the hotel, and I tried a few drinks I had never heard of before. One was called a Paantini, which I didn’t really care for. It was vodka, maritni rosso, gulkand (sweet preserve of rose petals) and coconut chunks. The other drink I had was a Pina Spice, and it was Pineapple Juice, Vodka, Lime and Cardamom seeds. I really enjoyed that one a lot. Unfortunately it took me 2 or 3 days to see how much tax they charge on alcohol at the hotel room.

I have practiced Yoga on and off for over 10 years, and I have 3 friends who are yoga instructors, so there were definitely aspects of Indian culture that I was fascinated with. I understand the concepts of OM (in fact I got an OM tattoo in 2002). However I am not familiar with the complex religion known as Hinduism, I knew that I would be exposed to Hindu parts of Indian culture. A coworker of mine gave me the book of Self-Enfoldment by Swami Chinmayananda to read while I was in India. It was a very good book, and it explained a lot of Spiritual concepts that are rooted in Hinduism and some concepts from the great thinkers from the beginning of documentation and before. I really enjoyed a the way it explained reality and gave clear instruction on pursuing Self Realization. I recommend this reading if you are at all interested in expanding your Spirituality. One of the things I definitely wanted to do to expand my field of experience while in India was attend to a yoga class, or a meditation class.

My journey to India was to start with 2 days of travel, 2 weeks in India, and then 2 days of travel back. My coworker and I left from Miami and we had a 9 hour layover in Frankfurt. We made it a point to leave the airport, and take the train to downtown Frankfurt to see what the city had to offer. Neither one of us spoke German fluently, but there were several people who spoke enough English to help us on our way. I did a little research before I left the states to see if there was anything in Frankfurt that held interest to me, and the one thing on my list of things to do was to visit the Johann Wolfgang Goethe house. Goethe is most famous for his story Faust, which is considered one of Germany’s most important pieces of literature. Fortunately when we arrived downtown, we were about 2 blocks away from the Goethe house, and for 5 Euros we were able to get in. For more information about the Goethe Haus click here. Before the Goethe house we stopped for some authentic German food and a beer, then we were back on our way to the airport for our flight to India.

Since I’ve been traveling more, I’ve come to rely on my iPhone more and more each day. I got excited about using Yelp, Foursquare, and Loopted so my friends could keep up with all of my different destinations. Until my phone started to get very very slow. So slow, that I had to quit using these location social networking apps, because by the time my phone refreshed, I was no longer at that location.

I didn’t purchase the new iPhone when it came out, but I did upgrade to the 4.0 OS. This was a really annoying upgrade, as I lost all of my applications. I could get the back, but they each had to be downloaded again. The problem with my iPhone 3GS being very slow continued to persist.

Finally one day I was playing an ever so painfully slow game of Words with Friends on my phone, when I noticed the advertisements that were cycling through the banners on the game. And a lightbulb went off. I noticed that each time I played this free version of the game that I had new advertisements being displayed. I realized that when I used these ‘free’ games that they had to call back to their source, and download the new ads. Who knows how many megabytes these advertisements were, but what I did notice, was that synchronizing these adds apparently took precedence over all of the other functions of my telephone. THIS was what was causing my phone to slow down.

To be sure I went to the App store and purchased Words with Friends. I then went and deleted the free version. Viola! My iPhone was instantly faster!

Lesson learned, that watching advertisements is not the only problem with using free iPhone apps from the App store. Purchasing commonly used applications helps support the developers who write the app, and will also increase the over all speed of your iPhone.

After my experience this past week, I stumbled across a blog article on Pleasure and Pain by Whitney Hess that jived completely with my thoughts when I read these job descriptions. Her article published  in Mashable is titled “10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design.” In her article, Whitney describes that “there is no one-size-fits-all advice for UX.”

I too have shared the ‘blank stare’ that she describes when she tells someone she is a user experience designer, and I too tell people that I make things easy to use. More than that, being a User Experience designer is really taking a holistic approach to making sure that what you design ‘makes sense’. This goes beyond the graphics, the verbiage, and can even transcend into culture.

From Whitney’s article she lists the following as the 10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design.

The following below the list is my commentary on these 10 Myths.

The 10 things user experience design is NOT…

1. .. user interface design

2. ..a step in the process

3. .. about technology

4. ..just about usability

5. ..just about the user

6. ..expensive

7. ..easy

8. ..the role of one person or department

9. .. a single discipline

10. .. a choice.

User experience is not:

1. ..user interface design. Having a holistic look at something goes beyond what you see on the UI. It also takes into account the interaction of the user and the cosmetic graphics on the screen. It also includes things like ‘time’. You can design a beautiful UI, but if you don’t consider how long it takes the page to load, then the user’s frustration will cancel out however beautiful the design in. In fact, on a web site, chances are the user won’t even wait to see the design.

2. .. a step in the process. During the engineering process of any user-centric application, it is important to get user input, before, during and after the development process. Even when you think a page final, the need to iterate may manifest itself by feedback as put into production in different environments. You should never consider a design unchangeable, after all, the only thing that stays the same is change.

3. ..about technology. One of the questions I hear a lot as a UI designer, is “which platform do I prefer, Mac, or PC?” To me the platform is just another tool to get something done. User experience is something that surrounds you. It can be the dull droning of sounds in your work environment, or the ambient lighting in your workspace. There are variables that the UX designer does or does not have control over, but the possibilities in the entire user environment should be taken into consideration when designing. Things like input and output controls, and various artifacts all influence design decisions.

4. …just about usability. The success or failure of a product does not always boil down to usability. There has to be a need for a product for it to be widely adopted.

5. ..just about the user. There will always be a need for for business goals to be met in a design. There are constraints as far as time, resources and expense in creating a successful product. Collecting user information is very important, but you also need to have buy-in from your stakeholders, and make sure that your designs can be implemented by engineers.

6. ..expensive. I often times think there is a misconception that user testing, or collecting user data is an expensive undertaking. However, the cost of creating an application that is unusable, or losing market-share to a competitor because users enjoy using their product more is a lot more expensive than doing some leg-work upfront. User testing does not have to be in a laboratory with one-way glass mirrors. The most challenging part of doing user-testing can be finding the users for the test. But once you get over the recruitment process, it can be as simple as just observing someone while they use an application, or go through some hand drawn wireframes. In desperate situations I’ve even collected some user data through phone conversations or email. It is better to collect whatever information from users you can than just trying to wing-it.

7. ..easy. I mentioned getting users for user testing right? Don’t fall into the trap of becoming your own user. Sure it’s important to use the application that you’re designing for at least to some extent, but don’t try to cut corners and forgo getting real feedback from outside sources. When you start making assumptions is when you quit innovating your designs.

8. .. the role of one person or department. Many people in UX are often called evangelists. This is because in order to spread a culture of UX in organizations they constantly need to talk about it.  User Experience is a very important part of Customer Experience as a whole. The UX designer needs to be in tune with Customer Service representatives, Marketing, Development, Management, Product Management and try to get everyone engaged in providing information that shapes the way users interact with the applications being designed. It’s important to collect information on previous versions so you work on making the next version more compelling.

 9. ..a single discipline. Before I became a human factors engineer, my background was in business analysis and design. I still use a lot of those skills as an HFE, but I have also find myself in the position to be a teacher, a writer, an information architect, a usability tester, an interviewer, and every once in a while a schmoozer. Someone who works in User Experience design may have to go in the field to do Contextual Interviews to collect work processes for users. They document their findings, do analysis, create knowledge maps, mental models, do card sorting exercises, create wireframes, write specifications, design screens, and teach their peers how to use new designs.

10. a Choice.  User Experience design helps reduce surprises when a product launches. Collecting user information, doing research, performing user testing, getting feedback and implementing feedback are some of the top ways you can ensure that your users will become fanatical about your products. Not doing these processes, leaves room for a lot of risk that the competition who does these processes will have the advantage. Many companies do not emphasize how important it is that your customers find pleasure in using the products that you provide for them.

That wraps up my commentary on the 10 Myths of User Experience. Just remember that it’s not just GUI design, it’s much, much more. It’s not important just to talk about User Experience, but to put it into practice in everything you do as a UX designer every day.

• I am always the most grateful for William Otto. He is spectacular and only gets better every day.
• William will be out of diapers soon
• William attending a great daycare/school.
• Going to Mark and Jaime’s awesome Superbowl party.
• Having a Girls Night Out with Jaime and her beautiful sisters memorial day weekend.
• Spending time with Brooks and Linda at Graysen’s 2nd birthday party.
• Taking William to Funtastic Friday’s in Hollywood.
• Getting to watch William growing from a toddler to a little boy.
• Getting to take William to his first Easter Egg  Hunt, and watch him celebrate that he got 1 egg, and spending Easter with Nicole, Dan and their beautiful kids.
• Spending time celebrating with my friends at The Melting Pot for my birthday this year.
• Playing with William in his inflatable pool and water guns on hot summer days.
• Celebrating William’s 2nd birthday at the park with so many wonderful friends.
• Getting to see Jane’s Addition and NIN in concert this year with Damion and Dave.
• Spending time at the Hollywood Arts and Culture center, and getting introduced to the famous dog artist Tillamook Cheddar.
• Spending time with Joe, Carolina, Ellie, when they came to visit from Hawaii, and getting to hang out with Karina and her new family.
• Going to Jungle Island with William and Damion.
• Getting to have a Girls Weekend out in South Beach for Arelis’s Birthday/Bachelorette party.
• Watching Arelis and Will exchange their wedding vows in Orlando and having an awesome time with our friends.
• Visits from my mom, who is willing to drive for 5.5 hours to spend 1 night at my house.
• Living with my wonderful roomate Krystal, who I am always having fun with.
• Grandma Denton who loves to spend time with William.
• Living downtown, and being able to go downstairs and walk to the Cinema Paradiso, or the Downtowner.
• Catching up with Brian and Diane on his birthday and getting to reconnect with so many of my friends from the Keys that I haven’t seen in years.
• All of the free little festivals I’ve stumbled upon this year while living Downtown.
• Loving my job, working in a great project, and working for Brian who is an awesome boss.
• Being there for my friends when they need me.
• President Obama and all of the great changes he’s working for in this country.
• The air I breath and the sunshine I feel on my face on so many beautiful Florida days.
• Driving in my convertible with the top down.
• Waking up each morning to create a new day.
• Reconnecting with friends that I haven’t had contact with in many years and keeping up with them on Facebook.
• New friends that I’ve made this year.

Even though 2009 had its challenges, it has still been a great year.

In this economy everyone is trying to re-use code as much as possible, so it’s pretty rare that you would get the opportunity to create a UI completely from scratch. There are front-end frameworks to be leveraged (Adobe Flex for example), there is back-end code reuse, and there are branding standards to be adhered to. This means that there is never 100% flexibility. Even in situations as small as what terminology to use, the decisions can be shaped by localization costs. Expense will always been a major factor in UI design even if it may not be obvious, and it’s something that all designers must live with.

I would say that I have designed 50% more interfaces than what are actually going to be leveraged in the application that is being delivered. But I always have to keep in mind that we are designing iteratively, and each of the pieces that aren’t going to be in this months release, may get slated to be in the next future release. This also gives me time to revisit the design based on customer feedback on existing functionality, and when I iteratively get back to these features I can see if I can improve them before they finally get included.

One of the important aspects of my role is not to dictate the way things are going to look or work, I have to show flexibility to the development teams and to the business, and my role is to gather customer data to hone my designs to their needs.  Based on customer data, I present suggested designs to the business and development and get their feedback before any development work is started. As the developers begin to work, if there are any holes in the design they know that I am the centralized point of contact for getting their questions answered–hopefully by customers.

Being in a Human Factors position will often times require social stills between many different groups. You want to have a great relationship with the business (Product Management), the developers and the customers if you expect to make a difference and get your designs approved and implimented.

There have been plenty of challenges during this process. Having a solid information architecture for the suite of products in development would be nice. One of the design issues that has come up is the use of a “delete” button. Should we offer a delete button, or should the user just use the delete key on their keyboard? It seems to me that every opportunity should be taken to use keyboard shortcuts as much as possible. However, if one of the applications in the suite follows that design pattern, then they all should. Needless to say I’m losing this battle.

Another design challenge has been determining when to refresh the user’s screen. We try to avoid refreshes as much as possible because it inhibits the speed of the application, however, how to we let the users know that their view is not updated. When you have the possibility of hundreds of users using an Infrastructure management tool, and several people could be making changes to the infrastructure at once, when does it become a collaboration tool? Do we notify the user when new connections have been made? How do we determine how much information is too much information?

Due to the lack of customer exposure doing the design process, we will have to hash out some of these details during the product beta, but it would have been nice to have all these details before development started. Sometimes you never know how something is going to feel until you use it.

–That’s all for me today, signing off! UXDiva.