Nick Finck's Blog

Adobe Mighty & Napoleon - The convergence of software and hardware

2013-05-08T23:55:20+00:00

Adobe explores how software and hardware on converging and how the user experience is shared across both. Here they show off Adobe’s Mighty, a connected pen that works across devices, and Adobe Napoleon, a digital ruler and drawing compass.

Notice how easy it is to move things not from simply one screen to another, but from one device to another. My prediction is that we will see a world of connected devices that are self-aware of their proximity to other devices and the direction of their orientation relative to those other devices so you can simply move apps, images, movies, or any kind of information across the devices just like you can with a secondary screen.

All that said, watch this movie, it will blow your mind. (via Christian Heilmann)

Triple Header Week

2013-03-09T23:45:50+00:00

This week has been a very crazy week for me. From being sick and a horrible cough that has stuck with me, to presenting at three different events, and also undertaking a massive home improvement project. If you attended one of my talks at ConveyUX, SVC’s UX II Class, or Adobe CreateNOW Bash I just wanted to say thanks for spending the time to hear me talk. As promised here are the three presentations online via SpeakerDeck. Feel free to ask me any questions you may have about these presentations.

Big Picture UX

(Presented at ConveyUX)

As the field of UX professionals matures and the disciplines of interaction design, information architecture, user research, user interface design, and usability evolve to support modern technology we need to start looking at the big picture of UX. We need to go back to the roots of what UX means and how we should approach UX challenges.

UX Career Progression: Finding a Niche & Building a Personal Brand

(Presented to SVC’s UX II Class, this is a brand new talk that I haven’t given before and am still refining)

There are many things you learn as a UX designer that come from classrooms, articles, or books. This series covers UX career progression from the perspective of what is not yet covered in a book. In this first presentation of the series I am going to talk about finding a niche in what you do within the field of UX and how to build a personal brand that can enable you to get the kinds of jobs and engagements you want as you grow you career.

The Cross-Channel Experience

(Presented at Adobe CreateNOW Bash)

No matter how many departments your organization has, to your customers, it’s all the same business. They expect a cohesive experience across all touch-points with your company, regardless of whether it’s related to advertising, customer service, social presence, or the actual product or service you provide. The satisfaction of your customers, and thereby the success of your organization, depends in no small part on your ability to create a cohesive and consistently high-quality cross-channel experience. Some examples of disjointed cross-channel experiences are:

The customer has to inform the customer service representative of what the website says about their own return policy.
The specifications of a product online does not match the actual product a customer goes to pick up in the retail store.
The experience of the mobile application is far superior to the experience of the standard web application or software application.
The customer has to make three different phone calls to get their account changed because the information is stored in three separate business units.

Applying consideration for the cross-channel experience is much easier said than done. It requires a significant level of coordination and collaboration between the stakeholders, to understand not just how to optimize their particular part of the service, but to maintain that optimal and consistent experience throughout. For example, the customer service department can do a great job of correcting a problem after the fact, but they can add greater value to the product or service as a whole by collaborating with sales and product teams to prevent the issue from arising in the first place. In this presentation, you will gain a better understanding of the different ways your customers might interact with your business. We will show how you can map out these touchpoints and help drive the creation of a cohesive experience across the various channels. We will show you how to navigate the political waters within your business to implement a true cross-channel design, which will build great experiences for your customers, regardless of how they are engaging with your business.

Connecting - interaction design and the user experience

2013-01-14T18:31:44+00:00

Here is a very well crafted video on interaction design from Bassett & Partners which is titled Connecting. It is a short 18 minute documentary on the notion of how interaction design and the user experience plays a role in our future. They interview some well-known practitioners and instructors in interaction design, user experience, and experience design. (found via Ian Roop)

The 18 minute “Connecting” documentary is an exploration of the future of Interaction Design and User Experience from some of the industry’s thought leaders. As the role of software is catapulting forward, Interaction Design is seen to be not only increasing in importance dramatically, but also expected to play a leading role in shaping the coming “Internet of things.” Ultimately, when the digital and physical worlds become one, humans along with technology are potentially on the path to becoming a “super organism” capable of influencing and enabling a broad spectrum of new behaviors in the world.

The UX of Wine

2012-12-20T21:36:04+00:00

I am honored to have been involved in the UXmas project. I have talked to several people over the last year or so about my interest in writing an article about the experience of wine and after quite some time I have been able to complete that article. Given the currently light of things the article meanders in a different direction than I originally thought it would but there are some good lessons here that everyone can learn from. With that said, go ahead and read the article: The User Experience of Wine.

Big Picture UX

2012-11-18T03:51:30+00:00

Slides from my talk at MobX 2012 in Berlin, Germany. While the unicorn humor didn’t take as much as I would have liked, I think the message was clear: As UX professionals the boundaries of our work does not end at the edge of the screen. Here is the talk description:

As the field of UX professionals matures and the disciplines of interaction design, information architecture, user research, user interface design, and usability evolve to support modern technology we need to start looking at the big picture of UX. We need to go back to the roots of what UX means and how we should approach UX challenges.

Jesse James Garrett on UX

2012-11-06T23:46:30+00:00

This is probably the best interview I have seen on user experience design in quite some time, and it is no wonder that the subject of the interview is Jesse James Garrett with thanks to Brian Solis. JJG hits on the topics of not just user experience, but also social media, product strategy, the cross-channel experience, innovation versus novelty, and more. I love when people like JJG are out there talking about how UX has evolved beyond just UI design and on to bigger and broader concepts like cross-channel experience design. JJG, being one of the original forces that drove UX into the limelight, still continues to drive UX forward today. This is a must watch.

The unboxing experience for devices

2012-10-26T17:32:27+00:00

Here is an interesting concept of product packaging and instructional design for a mobile device, in this case, Samsung. I really like that the manuals are not just throw-away artifacts but actually product guides that pair nicely into your experience with the product beyond just initial setup. (via Mark Vitazko).

I know a lot of people don’t really care what the unboxing experience is for their products, but I have become very fond of products like InCase Sonic headphones, Apple products like the iPhone or iPad, Nest and more. It builds affinity for the product and brand beyond the marketing, POS, and retail experiences. If your product’s UI and/or hardware is design thoughtfully, why shouldn’t your product’s packaging be designed thoughtfully as well? Shouldn’t the unboxing be just as easy as the normal day-to-day use? The consideration for the cross-channel experience is what will uncover these kinds of insights.

Crafting Interactions with OmniGraffle

2012-07-27T05:57:13+00:00

The great folks at OmniGroup (makers of products such as OmniFocus, OmniPlan, and OmniGraffle) have published a video interview they did with me on using OmniGraffle within the discipline of interaction design. The video is only about 4 minutes long and really well produced. I am happy that such a great tool for wireframing exists. See the full post on the Omni Blog.

Microsoft, Tablets, and The User Experience

2012-06-19T06:34:05+00:00

Today Microsoft announced Surface their venture into the tablet space. While this may not be the first time Microsoft has created their own hardware (Mouse, Natural Keyboard, Xbox, Kinect, and more) it is their first venture directly into the computing device space.

I’ve been pretty impressed by the work done on the Metro UI for Windows Phone, someone clearly took the time to craft a good experience there. I am a bit worried that Windows 8 seems to be a rather late stab at integrating some of the better parts of the Metro UI into the Windows UI, but Microsoft will have to do a lot more than just a sexy UI and home-grown hardware; they will have to OWN the user experience.

You see, you have have great software and great hardware, but if you are not adopting the philosophy of user experience then you’re only going to make so much headway until you fall behind again. However, Microsoft does have two big things going for it: raw creative talent (Albert Shum and the Metro team, Bill Buxton and the Microsoft Research team), and the money (like it or not, you have to spend money on failing before you can find the right solution).

With this talent, the funding, and really adopting the philosophy of user experience company-wide, they have the potential to reinvent themselves as once again one of the forces to be reckoned with in mobile computing, computing, and more. Needless to say I will be keeping a close eye on their efforts and hope for the best.

Wallpaper TV: NDS Surfaces

2012-06-11T17:14:06+00:00

Here is an interesting stab at using any wall as a touch screen device. The folks at NDS have created something called Surfaces which utilizes OLEDs which require no side lighting (read: no bezels). The TV is basically a series of flat-panel tiles that can be placed on any wall and rearranged as needed, they can also be any shape. There is potential to also tie it into Kinect-like systems for gestural interaction. What I would like to see is touch-based interactions with Surfaces. This would enable to the product to be quite extensible. Read more on SmartPlanet and Engadget. Thanks to Rod Farmer, Matt Balara, and Glyn Thomas for the interesting conversation around these technologies.