Swedish National Museum Experience Journey Map

Last week I met with up with my friend Kajsa Hartig that works as a Digital Navigator at Nordiska Museet in Stockholm. We had been trying to link up and visit the Swedish National Museum that is going to be remodeled and had an exhibition that highlighted a large interactive touch screen based exhibition about the remodel of the museum (we thought). We picked a date and visited the museum but sadly the exhibition was no longer being showed. This is what we deduced, since no one seemed to have any recollection of the exhibition despite me reading an article in the Swedish newspaper describing it.

I found the entire visit a bit frustrating but things were saved by a good cup of coffee and chat with Kajsa. During the conversation, I explained to her I was confused over that so many museums seem to miss some basic elements when people visit them. The trend from physical ownership to access via technology is something that is increasing (cars, music etc) but yet museums have been dealing with this for years in that they display very valuable and rare objects. A key part of having access to these objects is insuring that the user experience is at a high level. We started discussing this issue further and I began to describe my recent experience working Customer Journey Mapping. I felt this technique could be very valuable in the museum world. I began sketching my experience as I prepared for todays visit and the events that followed in order to demonstrate the key points.

After the visit, I had a spare moment and sat down and refined my sketches  to demonstrate how this could work.

My Experience Map

Let me start by saying this is the information for one person, me, and to get a more general view of an organization’s user base one who need to conduct similar research for a larger group of persons. This group should include users that representative an accurate cross section for this organization. This would allow patterns within user groups to be established and documented using segmentation techniques or user personas.

The first diagram shows my journey divided into some basic steps. Each step refers to a mental mode I went through for the journey – research, enter/ticket, exhibition, break coffee, exit and post visit. Within each mode I then noted key experience points and if I viewed these as positive or negative.

The second image demonstrates which channels I used to interact with the museum as I passed through various mental modes. For each experience point, I also indicated my mood at the time – happy, frustrated, confused etc.

If I had to summarize the visit I would say the weak points were:

  • Information gathering prior to the visit via the website could have been improved. National Museums website is good, but jammed with information. Some different graphics choices (typography and white space)  could have made the information more easily readable.
  • No Mobile website. In the beginning I was simply looking for the opening hours and I was taken to the normal website via my smart phone and forced to navigate to the ‘About Us’ (Om oss). There was considerable pinching and expanding involved.
  • The information/ ticket is almost hidden from the visitor when they enter. I found this odd since this is central for all visitors. Fortunately, there are many helpful staff that directed me to the correct area.
  • The personal at the information desk was very nice, but wasnt very informed of the present (outside the information brochure) exhibitions and had no idea of past exhibitions. I also thought the response ‘why dont you buy a ticket and see if the exhibition is here now’ was a bit poor.’ I turns out this what I ended up doing, and the exhibitions wasnt there after all. I did see some other lovely artifacts !

Overall the visit to the museum was very pleasant but two areas needed additional thinking – access to information surrounding the exhibits and design of entrance/ticket areas.

Bringing the outside in using experience journey maps

Experience journey maps are a tool to help bring the outside world into an organization. They are a tool that can help bring customer stories to life. An entire story. Not just the piece one silo or function within an organization normally may encounter.

And as we map out the customer’s story, our organization’s own story becomes visible. And often what’s revealed is an incomplete fractured story.

By using experiences maps organizations can identify areas where information and technology can be introduced that improve these fractured stories. I am convinced that all museums would benefit from understanding their users better and then to match their offerings to insure a consistently positive experience for all groups.

References:

Visualizing the customer experience using customer experience journey maps

Improving the Starbucks Experience

How to create an Experience Map

Experience Mapping — a useful tool to gain customer insights

Mapping the customer experience with customer experience journey maps

How an MBA meets the silos challenge of UX

When I was applying to one particular job at a UX form in Stockholm the issue of my MBA came up in the interview.

‘ How is your MBA useful in the UX area ?’ they asked.

Now, I had never given this much thought and had seriously considered removing the MBA from my CV but my pride (and all the hours I put into to it) forced me to leave it on. Usually I just didn’t mention it much.

I don’t remember what I answered exactly, but it centered around strategy and analysis…..or something. As I remember it could have been a better answer.

I think partially I was a bit embarrassed of the degree. This is especially true in Sweden, where it isn’t so very well known outside from the top schools in Europe and the US and thus hard to relate to. Since it wasn’t a ‘design’ degree it somehow didn’t go over as relevant.

Advantages of an MBA in the UX area

Having worked a few years now in a number of UX agencies in Stockholm I have definitely seen the value of my MBA.

1. Ability to conduct analysis – this is probably the most valuable area that I learned from my MBA. The ability to structure, analyze, then communicate the results to an audience has been invaluable in my UX.

2. Real Cases – We were always exposed to the basic theories in various areas, but there were ALWAYS coupled with real case studies. Very little purely theoretical examples.

3. Education based on frameworks and mastery in applying them. No absolute right and wrong. – Now I have read some criticism of MBAs recently in light of the value of design thinking in business. Basically the argument goes – MBA education encourages one answer to the case while design thinking embraces multiple possible outcomes. In my experience this can’t be farther from the truth. For most cases we could propose many solutions as long as they could be justified. Believe me, if you have studied enough theories and frameworks you can justify anything. The best case studies that I did were ones that I combined frameworks from multiple areas to justify a innovation solution. Sounds a bit like design thinking doesn’t it?

4. Consider things in their entirety. By the end of your program you are encouraged to think holistically and apply your knowledge across many operational areas.

This last point bares some further explanation, since I think it is particularly relevant.

The Challenges of Silos

I have just finished following the UXLX event in Lisbon on twitter and noted the continuing discussion around ‘silos’ in organizations and how they limit effective UX thinking. I have been involved in the UX area for a few years now and attended a handful of conference. In all of these conferences, this issue of ‘silo crossing’ always comes up in varying degrees. Clearly this is an area of frustration.

The discussions seems to follow a similar patterns with a good dose of hand wringing.

‘The managers in department ________ just don’t understand the value of what we are doing… ‘

We need to ‘cross the silos’ or ‘ get a seat in the C-suite’ or something similar…

My true belief is that to integrate UX thinking into organizations will require people to meet somewhere in the middle between the silos. I agree with Peter Merholz that UX should be seen as a strategic effort as well embody tactical solutions (methods and tools). Until this is achieved we all will need to understand the other side.

To effectively eliminate silos (or at least minimize the effects), UX practitioners need to understand the other silos. To understand persons working in other silos we need to understand their motivations and how they define success. One way to do this is through business education.

When you look the core of a typical general MBA curriculum, you see a couple core areas:

1. Strategy
2. Finance
3. Marketing
4. Human Motivation – extremely valuable.
5. Some sort of Quantitative Analysis

All of these areas of knowledge have been beneficial, but what they have given me in my UX work is understanding.

Understanding of other departments and what their function is in an organisation and how they measure success. What makes them tick if you will.

Crossing Silos.

‘Understanding other silos can make yours better.’

@kimgoodwin

Now I am not suggesting that all UX practitioners drop their wireframing tools and head off to business school. This is overkill.

But I do think that UXers should take the time to educate themselves in the basics of how businesses operate and organize themselves. Maybe shift the spotlight of their view point a bit more over to the other silo.

And UX consultancies and other organisations; the next time someone shows up at your door step with an MBA under their belt, give them a chance, they may just surprise you.

Jonathan Ives and Prototypes

I can’t imagine designing without making [physical products],

I love making prototypes. We go right from idea to prototypes. I just love making objects.

Prototypes create this dramatic shift in the conversation – suddenly it becomes tangible and the silence goes away.

- Jonathan Ive

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model …

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

Great post The Problem With “Innovation” in which he cites the above quote from Buckminster Fuller and points out that what looks silly, superficial, inconsequential and downright distracting when they’re first proposed can “suddenly” have fundamental consequences for society as a whole. Or, as the author puts it:

New models create new markets, but they’re often misunderstood at the outset. Stupid checkins reshape how we explore and experience the real world. Prepaying for tick tock watches reshapes financial markets. Silly status updates spark revolutions. And grainy glitchy video calls cut into the commercial air travel.

Something to think about.

User Research – Look and Listen

During the last few months I have been involved number of projects that involved a considerable amount of user research and testing. Through this process, I have interviewed over 50 persons for a number of digital and physical devices. There are already a large number of posts discussing user research planning and structure so I didnt really see the need for one more. What I did want to document, is the ‘people’ aspect of the research and summarize which techniques that worked well for me.

1. Listen – If I say listen, this is a bit obvious, but I am surprised at how many people that don’t really listen during user tests. Whether this is to get through the test as fast possible or an over concentration on the task at hand, people sometime fail to listen. To assist the dialog I often try to use the same terminilogy as the participants. An exmple of this is when I interviewed bus drivers as part of a new instrument panel study I asked them which term they used to describe the panel anc continued to use the same term. (Interestingly, this was not the same term the manufacturer (client) chose to call it.)

2. Use two people to conduct a user test if possible. This will depend on the client, scope of the project and overall goals but overall results improved. This will allow one person to facilitate the interview itself and fully concentrate on the test person. I find that test persons are quite sensitive to distracted facilitators and the overall quality of the results are better. The second person can then concentrate on documenting the research and making sure the technology is working (which is often a challenge).

3. People don’t open up until they are comfortable. For some test persons this never happens, but for most some simple techniques can insure this happens fairly quickly. If the test scenarios don’t require it, try to keep the lighting as low as possible. I try to have ample space to conduct the interview. No one likes to feel cramped. Water, coffee, fruit and candy all help to get test persons to exchange freely. In general, I often start the interview with a few non-intrusive background questions. It is important to view the interview person as an individual and not just a ‘cog in the research machine’.

4. Don’t help too much. I am quite guilty of this. Very often we designers, after spending countless hours thinking about a solution, have a difficult time just letting people be in their attempts to understanding the interface. The goal of the research to to get feedback of the process and the outcome and things take time.  Be patient – just give it five minutes, before jumping in.

5. Don’t use a script. When testing people try to be as authentic as possible. The same rules apply to presentations as well as interviews. When someone sits and reads a script, test people sense this and I believe react accordingly. Very often the script is pre approved by the client to insure that everything is included in the test. In this case, I usually take the script and distill it down to a few keywords and then ‘talk’ around each these trying to weave the questions in tot the discussion. Improvisation is key here.

These are what I have come up with so far.

If you have any more good tips let me know.

Design Lessons from My Father

Over the last few years I have found myself, more the once, saying things that make me stop and think –  ’Whoa that is something my father would say’. I began to realize that much of my design and general ‘creation’ methods and philosophy comes from my father.

My father would not call himself a designer, although when asked what he did at work, he usually responded ‘making stuff’. I always found this statement a bit odd and couldn’t really relate from my childhood imagination of what fathers actually did at work (this was equal to TV dads). It wasnt until much later that I realized – together with my own desire to create something – what he meant and appreciate certain experiences.

My father exposed me and my brothers to technology at a very early age, as well as gave us ample opportunity to build things on our own (read:blow-up) – model rockets, hot air balloons (too small for people), RC airplanes, computers – you name it. When I was a bit older we were exposed to carpentry, homebuilding techniques (from reading monthly issues of Fine Homebuilding and Fine Woodworking magazines) and architecture. My father also exposed me to all things Japanese. It started with a few bonsai trees and progressed to a full scale Japanese garden in our backyard. This combination of technology and aesthetics has been a powerful combination for my future.

All of these experiences resulted in some useful lessons:

1. Read

My father read (and still does) constantly. I have many fond memories of my Dad reading in the evenings, at the beach, in airports – everywhere. My father also read everything. No matter what book or magazine he found laying in front of him he would read. It was almost that we couldnt help himself (I have the same habit). This resulted in him having a rather wide area of knowledge, that really is an asset when designing solutions. Some of my truly best design solutions are ones that I developed while reading magazines about subjects I wouldn’t normally be interested in.  True innovation occurs in the combination of previously unrelated ideas and reading is a good way of exposing yourself to these ideas.

2. Measure twice cut once – Prototypes

My father is now, after retirement, a full time carpenter. I have watched him through the years build furniture that has become more and more complex and elegant. Each project demands planning and due to the work and cost involved, a good way of minimizing risks and avoiding mistakes. Enter prototypes. If my father was making a large piece that involved new techniques he would often make a prototype with less expensive wood. This allowed my father to learned from the process, modify techniques or change the design  without breaking the bank.

In the digital world, I have found prototypes an excellent way of testing to see if a solution is effective in a low(er) cost format.

3. Try it yourself

If my father wanted to learn how do something, he read about, then gave it a try. He wasn’t very big on calling in an ‘expert’ to do certain projects if he was confident he could do it himself. He succeeded many times, and seeing this has given me the ability to try things myself I may not have considered otherwise.

One of the things about designing things digitally is that many of the technologies you can try yourself. There is usually a blog post or tutorial that can guide you through the most difficult technologies. By doing this, you learn what is involved in realizing an idea digitally and also the value of experts in these areas.

4. Tools

I remember going into by fathers shop looking at all the different tools in amazement. My brothers and I would begin to make basic wood ‘objects’ and realize we didn’t have the skills or knowledge to do what we wanted. My father would take out a strange looking tool that could perform the task easily.

‘The right tools makes things easier’ he would say.

When designing things, using the right tool, can make all the difference.

Editors Note: The opposite can also occur. I have developed some good design solutions using the completely wrong tool. It took longer, looked rather bad, but was a good solution.

Thanks to my brother Brian for inspiration and ideas for this post.

UI Design Patterns

The last few months have been a very intense time as I have recently changed jobs. In my new role, Interaction Design is a critical part of the job description (yeah) but this has put my personal UI toolbox to the test .  Over a series of weeks, I tried to expose myself to as many UI design solutions as possible. During this search, I have uncovered a large collection of some really great sites that I would like to share.

In order not just to flood my senses with design solutions and improve recollection for the future, I started a notebook of highlighted UI solutions. Actually, it started a few doodles on scraps of paper, but it soon graduated to it’s own notebook.

The method of documentation is simple, for each new resource I discover, I choose at least 3 solutions that I find interesting or relevant. I study each solution, then after a few minutes, sketch the UI from memory. For me this, this works well for internalizing the UI solution in my brain for future recall. Occasionally, I have redrawn the UI slightly different, or how I remember it, transforming it into something different.

My list of top UI design resources:

UI Design Patterns for Websites and Applications

1. UI-patterns.com

UI-patterns.com is a large collection of design patterns for UI designers to gain inspiration from. The site allows users to keep sets of their own (publicly accessible to site visitors) so that you can see other UI design pattern collections.

2. Interaction Design Pattern Library

Welie.com has an interaction design pattern library maintained by Martijn van Welie, a Ph. D. graduate in Human Computer Interaction who now works as an Interaction Design Senior Consultant for Philips Design. The library features a ton of design patterns involving various site tasks such as navigating around a site, searching a site, and basic interactions such as slideshows. Each pattern follows a specific format: (1) the problem, (2) the solution, (3) when to use the pattern, (4) why you should use the design pattern, and (5) examples of the pattern in use.

3. Pattern Tap

Created and maintained by Matthew Smith and Chris Pollock, Pattern Tap is a gallery of popular web-based User Interface components and design patterns such as slideshows and breadcrumbs. Pattern Tap allows users to create their own sets, and they now have over 7,000 user sets. There’s plenty of inspiration to be gained at Pattern Tap.

4.  design|snips

This design gallery focuses on common web page components such as navigation as well as popular design trends such as Grid layouts. design|snips has over 30 categories so that you can easily find the design pattern/trend that you’re interested in. Users are allowed to rate each design featured in the gallery so that you can see what the overall consensus is with regards to the effectiveness and appeal of a design being shown.

5. The UI Pattern Factory

The UI Pattern Factory is a UI design library and gallery. The added extra from this collection  is that they sometimes share videos in each entry to improve the description of design problems and solutions. Entries are further enhanced by user-submitted examples of the pattern, which they archive in their Flickr group: UIPatternFactory.com. A very comprehensive collection.

6. Web Design Practices

Web Design Practices is a gallery of web design patterns such as breadcrumb navigation with very thoughtful and comprehensive write-ups on each design pattern, often including statistics and helpful resources about a particular website component. This information is good when explaining why design solutions have been chosen.

7. Elements of Design

Elements of Design focuses on particular components of a web design such as login forms and site navigation in the hopes of inspiring designers, as well as to highlight prevalent patterns for typical website needs and features.

8. UI Patterns

UI Patterns is a UI design library that follows a weblog format where each post is a design pattern and a showcase of it in use on a website or web application.

9. Little Big Details

A great tumblr site that gives a daily dose of UI inspiration

10.Ultimate guide to table UI patterns

A rather short, but good,overview of types of table UIs as well examples.

I will add new ones as I find them, but so far this list is my new UI design toolbox.

Flickr Collections and Groups

1. Design Patterns

This Flickr collection maintained by Chris Messina is a showcase of unique and interesting interfaces on the web. The collection is very well-organized into sub-sets such as Drag and Drop interfaces and Calendar Views.

2. Design Patterns Group

In this Flickr Group, there are over 300 items that you can browse through to see interface design solutions and trends.

3. Web Form Design: Filling In the Blanks

Maintained by Luke Wroblewski, this Flickr set is a collection of images pertaining to web form design. This is an excellent and inspirational resource to have around for times when you are designing web forms.

4. Search Patterns

Peter Morville has a Flickr collection dedicated to gathering design to for effective search. For different types of search UI inspiration this an excellent resource.

I will add more resources as I find them, but for now, this will fill my UI design toolbox quite well.

What is the one brand you cannot live without (except Apple, Google and Ikea)?

Last week, after the latest Apple ‘Lallapalooza, juggernaut, mother of all product releases’ event for the Ipad 2, I began to think seriously about brands. I found it interesting that a brand (Apple) can command such a following for a product release. How do such brands develop such passionate followers ? Note: for the record I followed the release myself so partially this was a bit of self introspection.

I started to think about the brands that are important to me and realized the the list was quite long. I started to wonder what brands other people felt strongly about. To get a more realistic idea of what these brands could be, I conducted a very unscientific study where I surveyed  my friends on Facebook and my Twitter followers (863 as of this writing).

The question posted to Facebook and Twitter was the following:

‘What is the one brand you cannot live without (except Apple, Google and Ikea)?’

I chose to exclude certain dominating brands to get a better idea of some of the smaller brands in peoples lives.

Alphabetical result list:

Adobe
Arla
Artek
BBC
Bang & Olufsen
Carhartt
Copic
Facebook
Fender (2)
Finn.no (Norwegian marketplace)
Filippa K
Flickr (3)
G-Star
Illy
Leica
Lego (2)
Logitech
Nespresso (pod coffee)
Nikon
Northface
Norröna (outdoor equipment)
Nikon
Omega
Pampers
Paypal
Pepco (electricity)
Prophoto (photosite platform)
WordPress
SVT (Swedish television)
Senseo (pod coffee)
Systembolaget (Swedish liquor retailer)
Tiger
Wikipedia
Windows
Vitra
Volvo

If we look at the list we can see that it covers a wide range of consumer products with a few brands were mentioned more the once. Flickr, the photo-sharing site was the brand with the most votes (3). Next on the list, with two votes, we have Lego and Fender Guitars. Lego can be explained by the large number of my friends that have children at the moment. A bit of a surprise is Fender, the guitar manufacturer. Apparently, Fender products generate a great deal of passion from it users. Pod-coffee (Nespresso and Senseo) and Public Service Television (BBC and SVT) where, as a category, also voted for more the once.

So we can say that my friends and contacts value viewing photographs on line via Flickr, playing with Legos, playing Fender guitars, drinking good pod-coffee and viewing Public Television.

Statistics:
5 responses out of 185 friends on Facebook.
9 responses from from a Twitter following of 836 persons.

Erik Spiekermann: Putting Back the Face into Typeface

A very well produced interview with Erik Speikermann. I was particularly taken by his take on a few points of the design process:

1. His Creative Process

I look at design inspirations for a long time – I look through books, on the internet and then I begin to sketch what I have seen. Then I put it all away for sometime. The next day (or next week) I sit down and draw it from memory – and then it is different. It is what I remember these design inspirations are be, but it is never the same as the original.

2.Teamwork

Most things I have done have been with other people. My responsibility is to show people that the design process is always teamwork, there are no geniuses, no single incredible person that can do it all of this.

New Job

After many years at my existing employer, I have decided to move on.

In March 2011, I will begin employment as an Interaction Architect at the digital consultancy Antrop in Stockholm.

I am extremely excited about this role and look forward to working with this group of creative, experienced people.