Please tell us what you think
posted at 5:00 AM on October 16, 2008

It has been a real pleasure having you all at UX Intensive Copenhagen! You survived the week. Congratulations. Whew. 

We’ve got a short survey we’d love for you to fill out. It will only take a minute or two and will help us make UX Intensive better for the next group. 

Click Here to take survey

We hope you take what you learned here back to your organizations. Keep us posted on the results!

“How can I improve my drawing skills?”
posted at 4:59 AM on October 14, 2008

One of the methods we used in the Design Strategy day was a visualization of a new service for Hotel Ganache. A question arose after that exercise: “How can I improve my drawing skills?”

Here’s just a couple of ideas of where to start.

• Rapid Viz is a solid book that teaches drawing techniques to get your ideas out quickly. It’s several years old but has enjoyed a recent revival due to the rising popularity of sketching.
• Leah Buley of Adaptive Path provides a few simple drawing suggestions in context of an approach to UX titled, “How to Be a UX Team of One“
• Dan Roam’s book, “The Back of the Napkin“, provides some great examples of how to use basic drawing skills to solve big problems.

Does anyone else have suggestions?

Design Strategy: notes and links
posted at 4:54 AM on October 14, 2008

Thanks everyone for your participation in yesterday’s workshop. I truly appreciate the smart questions, and the interesting ideas you shared about design strategy. There’s a couple of things I wanted to share with you right away:

• Here’s a PDF file of the slides from the workshop.
• A couple of weeks ago I did a podcast with Lulu Pachuau and Bob Medcalf of Provoke, a design consultancy in New Zealand. Lulu attended a past UX Intensive event and then integrated much of what she learned into a project for Industrial Research Limited. The podcast and associated presentation share many ideas of how you might adapt and integrate the tools into your work.
• I made reference to the Adaptive Path report, “Leveraging Business Value: How ROI Changes User Experience.” We’re now allowing you to download the full ROI report for free! In it, you’ll find detailed explanations of the UX Value Chain and the Linking Elephants model.

Also, I wanted to provide a list of the many references and ideas that were brought up in the workshop and during discussions:

• A blog post detailing one of my examples of experience strategy, the Target ClearRX drug delivery system. There’s several links within to articles and the backstory behind the pill bottle redesign.
• I made a couple of references to Michael Porter and his seminal essay, “What is Strategy?” Unfortunately it’s $6.50 from Harvard Business Review, but it’s also a great read. Also a good read is a recent interview Michael Porter did with the Wharton School of Business explaining why “being the best” isn’t a strategy (requires sign-up).
• And if you want to use numbers to help you make your case for design and UX, Henning Fischer’s essay on Business Case Modeling for Design Initiatives is a great how-to, plus you can download his spreadsheet that shows all his math.
• The value curve example comes from Blue Ocean Strategy, but the authors prior article in HBR is cheaper and a faster read, if you’re looking for short cuts. Another example of a value curve is Scott Weisbrod’s example of the value curve for the Wii.
• I talked about the value of creating tangible expressions of he strategy to define what the strategy is or could be. One of my favorite examples of prototyping and testing new experience-based strategies comes from Kevin Cheng’s presentation on Communicating Concepts through Comics.
• Here’s the Charmr video that I shared, a great example of creating a clear vision of what an experience could be. Here’s more on the Charmr project.
• One way to quickly get to Definition is the sketchboard technique. Here’s an essay on sketchboads with details behind that movie on how we do it and downloads to the tools we use.

Thanks for a great session!
Brandon

Tip for this week: think about guest experiences
posted at 12:12 PM on September 30, 2008

A little tip for getting in the zone for UX Intensive this week. Several of the hands-on exercises we’ll be doing (especially for Design Strategy and Design Research) have to do with the guest experience around hotels. From planning and booking, to arrival, to the stay, to the departure and any future relationship with the hotel.

So whether you’re traveling to Copenhagen and staying in a hotel, or just there during the day for the experience of meeting in a hotel, keep your eyes open and think about: What is the experience of being a hotel guest? Where does that experience start and end? How and when do you know what the hotel experience might be like? And how do they create value for the business and for the customer?

We’re looking forward to rolling up our sleeves together to work on and think about creating great experiences!

The Conference Social Network: CrowdVine
posted at 8:52 AM on September 26, 2008

As part of UXI, we’re offering a social network where attendees can meet and connect before the event. It’s a large event this year and we want to make sure you get as much out of networking in the lobby as you do from the sessions.

Browse the network and sign up for an account!

What should you do once you’re in?

• Add a picture. That’ll help people put a name to a face.
• Fill out your profile. This will help people find you.
• Find people you want to meet. From their profile you can let them know that you are a “fan” or that you “want-to-meet.” Or you leave a comment with something more specific.

We’re working with CrowdVine to provide the social network. They’re here to provide support, answer your questions, and give tips on how to make the most of the experience. They’ve provided a moderator who you can contact directly: Tony Stubblebine, < tony at crowd vine dot com>

Tag your photos uxicph2008 on flickr.com

Location

The Copenhagen Marriott Hotel
5 Kalvebod Brygge
Copenhagen, DK-1560 Denmark