Keith Instone

With the US presidential election coming up, ballot design is starting to get some attention again. My local paper printed "Ballot design, new machines, instructions recipe for lost votes" (by Andrew Stengel and Lawrence Norden, but I cannot find the article online) in the Opinion section earlier this week. The article seems to have been triggered by a Brennan Center press release. The main point of the article is that there is now data about the number of "lost votes" (votes thrown away because of errors) that points to usability problems. That is, ballots that violate basic design principles cause more lost votes.

One of the recommendations for government officials is "Make necessary changes based on usability testing and public sample feedback". Cool!

That reminded me to check up on the Usability Professionals' Association Voting and Usability project. It had been a while since I took notice of the great work going on there. Something new appears to be the Local Election Officials testing kit.

So if you are a local elections official who has read the Toledo Blade article and you want to do some usability testing, check out the LEO testing kit. Also, if you need to hire help doing the usability testing, UPA has a list of usability consultants in Ohio. And then there is Better Ballots from the Brennan Center - and Whitney Quesenbery, a dear colleague. Ohio ballots and Ohio laws that impede usability are included.

(What I also found interesting is that most of the people who started the LEO kit are from right around here. Not from Ohio, but just up north: MSU Usability and Accessibility Center, University of Michigan and several Michigan companies.)

I am no expert in ballot design, but if you are a local election official who needs help understanding how to do usability testing on ballots, contact me and I will be more than happy to help you get started.

I do not have final details, but wanted to get the word out as soon as possible so you can start planning. Subject to change.

Who: Scott McCloud, Cartoonist and Theorist
What: Comics: A Medium in Transition
When: Friday, October 24, 2008, 6:30 pm
Where: 206 Bowen-Thompson Student Union, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio

One of the sponsoring organizations appears to be the BGSU student chapter of SIGGRAPH / Computer Arts Club. The School of Art may also be funding part of this (Todd Childers is the one who gave me the basic info - thanks Todd!).

Poking around some more, I found "The Comic Book in Popular Culture" scheduled in many rooms in the same building at the same time. Which led me to this call for participation from the Popular Culture Department. So I assume Scott's visit is part of the conference.

And checking out "Comics: A Medium in Transition" by Scott, I see these other performances:

• Dartmouth in 2006
• SIGGRAPH last year
• FlashForward in a few weeks

Stay tuned for more info...

This could be a first: three Toledo-area job openings in web user experience, at the same time.

#1 is with the Toledo Zoo as a Web Project Coordinator: "...create a website experience that engages audiences..." is mentioned in the description (in today's Toledo Blade). I do not see an online description of the job to link to, however. Contact the zoo for more information, I guess.

#2 is Web Interface Designer with TolTest, a construction management firm. "...Design web interfaces for TolTest’s next generation of internal and external applications" with "solid understanding of user-centered design principles and methodologies, information and interaction design".

#3 is Web Development Specialist/Designer at BGSU (PDF). "...Continuously improve navigation, accessibility, usability and brand image" based on a "knowledge of designing and implementing site architecture, functionality, data flow, user interfaces and intuitive navigation".

(There could be more - these are 3 that I found completely by accident. Let me know if you know of any other web user experience jobs in the area - I am happy to promote them.)

Perhaps there is something to the idea that customer experience is recession proof.

These 3 jobs are small potatoes compared to the big economic development news in the area, of course. Xunlight getting more funding and hiring. First Solar continuing to hire.

It just keeps getting bigger and better - Internet User Experience, the "local" conference with "national" quality. It will be in nearby Ann Arbor, Michigan, March 31 - April 3.

IUE, in its 4th year, has expanded to 4 days. The first day has 2 all-day tutorials to choose from. The second day is the beginning of the main conference with 7 presentations and a night out-on-the-town. The third day has 2 morning panels, a presentation and 2 half-day afternoon tutorials. The last day is an interactive workshop.

You will see how web sites have been effectively designed for many different markets and target groups, ranging from 3-year olds to adult consumers to specialized professionals. You will see dramatic before-and-after improvements to established web sites. You will learn from experts in fields such as search engine optimization, online communities, and user experience management as they explain and debate the current state, future destiny, and current opportunities that exist for businesses with these evolving technologies and professions.

We are blessed to have such a high quality program for a locally-organized event. Dave Mitropoulos-Rundus, a Michigan UPA officer, is the main force behind this, but he gets volunteers from other local groups like MOCHI, STC/SM and Refresh Detroit, to help. It is a great example of how local User Experience Network collaboration can help pull off something "local" that is comparable to the other UX conferences.

Check out the schedule and register if you are interested. I have gone every year and it has been great. I will be there for at least part of the 4 days - see you there.

Adding to my December blog posting, more information is coming out about the Peppers and Rogers book "Rules to break and laws to follow". First, the official web site for the book is now online:

• www.rulesandlaws.com

Second, I went to Martha's talk last week (thanks for the ticket Marcia), which might have been the first stop on the book tour. It was a great presentation: here are some of my notes.

• In her previous books, she was focused on marketing but now she sees how things like 1to1 are affecting the entire organization.
• If customers are not talking to each other, advertising is the critical factor for business success. If customers talk to each other, then customer experience is the most important factor. See Smart Marketing: Making Word-of-Mouth Work.
• 3 rules to break: Marketing and sales can always get more customers, value comes from your products and services, and the best measure of success is your current sales and profit.
• Steps to a good experience: Ask, remember and do something in return. The Goldfish principle: Dori on Nemo (no memory).
• Examples of good experiences: Mayo clinic (carpenters to install ramps, not health care but what their customers/patients need), "Wardrobe management" by men (not just selling them clothes), Going from "explosives business" to "broken rock business".
• Companies often optimize for making money (short term) but destroy value (long term). Example: a marketing campaign makes $250k but how many customers did it turn off / use up? "Guilty of committing mass marketing".
• What if Apple and Nike teamed up to count your steps? And other examples to personalized products and services. See Frost & Sullivan: 1to1 Impact Awards for more.
• Which is better investment? (a) Spend $10 per customer, make $10 profit each, 100% ROI. (b) Spend $20 per customer, make $15 profit each, 75% ROI.
• The Internet: Increases importance of trust and reputation. Google "Yours is a very bad hotel".
• Who (within the organization) has the goal of adding value to the customer?
• Trust: it is good for business.
• You can always get more capital; customers are the scarce resource.

(When looking for stuff for this blog entry, I also found Creating Customer Value: A (podcast) series with Peppers and Rogers which has many more nuggets. My favorite is in Volume 7: "A good experience is not just 1 piece of theater".)

Third, I am fortunate to now have a draft copy of the book, so I will start writing up reviews of pieces as I digest it. I am not sure yet what cadence will be best - chapter by chapter, the book all at once, themes across the whole book, etc.

I just discovered that we now have an AIGA local chapter in the area, AIGA Toledo. Yeah! Amy Fidler and Jenn Stucker issued a call for participation in July and had the first organizational meeting in April. Since becoming an official chapter, the group has hosted Marian Bantjes in September and a social gathering in October (with Flickr photos from both events). Amy and Jenn have collaborated on other things, too.

Before the Toledo chapter was formed, local AIGA members had the option of driving to Detroit or Cleveland for meetings. There is also an AIGA chapter in Cincinnati.

I was an AIGA member years ago, when it had an active Experience design community of practice. I am no longer an AIGA member, but one of the hi-lites of DUX was meeting AIGA members (the "dressed in black" crowd): as we talked about user experience, the differences in our backgrounds did not really matter.

AIGA Toledo represents the first truly local chapter related to user experience. As a UXnet Local Ambassador, I hope I will be able to help them incorporate the right mix of user experience topics into their programs so they can help serve the broader UX community in Northwest Ohio.

I will still be hanging out in the Ann Arbor/Detroit, Cleveland, Dayton and Columbus areas to connect with UX professionals in the region, but it will be nice to also have a connection with colleagues closer to home through our new AIGA chapter.

Thanks to Amy and Jenn and everyone else who helped form AIGA Toledo. This is great news for the area.

Many of the user experience groups in the area kicked off the "season" with meetings in September. Here is what is in store within a 3+ hour radius of Toledo for October.

• 2: Ann Arbor, The Future Direction of Google Apps
• 7: Ann Arbor, From Indie Games To Big Games
• 10: Columbus, ASIS&T - Alphabet Soup: A Metadata Overview
• 12: Cleveland, STC regional conference
• 16: Ann Arbor, AIGA - Michael Jakab
• 16: Grand Rapids (MI), UPA - Live Web Site Evaluations
• 17: Cleveland, Web Association - Building Better Landing Pages [date changed to avoid the Indians game]
• 17: Lebanon (between Dayton and Cincinnati), STC - When Did Google Become a Verb?
• 18: Columbus, CSCA - Tony Spaeth
• 18: Indianapolis, AIGA - [ shift + option + drink ]
• 18: Toledo, ACM social gathering
• 19: Cincinnati, Developing Online Brand Communities
• 24: Cleveland, UPA - Panel
• 24: Dearborn, IGDA - Education round table [added 10/4]
• 25: Cleveland, AIGA - Cocktails with Creatives
• 26: Portsmouth (east of Cincinnati), Shawnee 5.0 conference

Let me know what else I am missing from this list. Also, MOCHI is gearing up again and a UPA chapter is forming in Columbus.

On November 8th, there will be quite a few regional events for World Usability Day.

Here is a local job opportunity for a user experience professional (there are not very many opportunities around here).

HCR Manor Care: Web content administrator, Web Design (CSS) / Portal Administration. "This Web Content Administrator position will work with a team to administer our portal, utilize HTML/CSS for our web applications / web sites, manage and enhance our content management system." Two of the skills listed (in the local newspaper ad for this job):

• Web usability and user experience
• Information architecture

I know some of the people there - it would be a good place to work.

To find out more about this job, start with a Corporate office job search. You will eventually get to the job description where you can apply.

Another interesting speaker coming to Northwest Ohio - Henry Petroski, Monday, April 30, 6:30 PM, Nitschke Auditorium, University of Toledo. "To Engineer is Human" is the title of the talk. Sponsored by the U of T College of Engineering.

Local announcements: (will add more as I find them)

• UT Calendar entry
• (added 4/28) Engineer/author to speak at Samborn Distinguished Lecture - UT News

To help me understand what Henry is all about, I did some research into what my user experience colleagues have said about him.

• Josh Porter comments on The Evolution of Useful Things.
• Peter Merholz reads his books but "it's always a bit of a slog to get through his material."
• Don Norman and Michael Graves did an NPR broadcast with him on Everyday design (part of Science Friday).
• Don recommends one of his books where "he describes my visit to his home and his annoyance that I was more interested in the books on his bookshelves than in the shelves themselves."

If Josh and Peter and Don have read him, then I think it will be worth going to see him.