Displaying your portfolio-My Journey

Many times one of the first thing a client ask me is "Do you have a online portfolio?" I answer "yes."  The next sentence i enjoy hearing is, I enjoy the "process" you took with project "X."  What i am good at is refining and defining the functionality and flow of enterprise applications plus facilitating what the client is telling me from what they really mean. I have seen "UX" portfolio which have 10 or 20 examples of (wireframes, sitemaps, user flows) but they have very little context or constraints listed. I have heard feedback from people reviewing these sites and express to me how competent and "experienced" this person is and they would hire them. I say to them "Really, you can infer the qualification of a person just by looking at a title for a deliverable and a picture of it?" 

My journey to display and communicate the "process" I took on various projects has led down the case study + many examples, many examples + Company, many examples + specific deliverable categories and finally to ScreenCasting on Vimeo with applications i used. As of this writing i am finishing my screenCast of one of my projects which includes: goals of project as a whole, specific page guidelines (Presented with Keynote Application) user flow diagram of the sign-in process and clicking through remaining pages.

This screenCast solves many of the problems in the past:

• People want to quickly flip back and forth viewing various types of deliverables without having to click 4 plus times and figure out how to navigate to particular areas.
• To see ALL deliverable(s) at full screen size while clicking the lower right full screen video icon.
• "Audio" project annotations could be added to explain complex screen interactions.

Created using DivShot.com-Using TwitterBootStrap

<div class=“container”>

  <br>

  <h3>SignUp For a Free 30 Day Trial</h3>

  <div>Please Fill in all Fields:

    <div>

      <br>

      <div class=“control-group”></div>

    </div>

    <div class=“control-group”></div>

  </div>

  <form>

    <div>

      <div class=“control-group”></div>First Name:

      <div>

        <input type=“text”> 

      </div>

      <div>Last Name:</div>

      <div class=“control-group”>

        <div class=“controls”>

          <input type=“text”> 

        </div>

      </div>

      <div></div>

      <div>

        <div class=“control-group”>

          <div class=“controls”></div>

        </div>Job Title:

        <h3 class=“pull-right”>No Downloads.

          <br> No Software to install.

          <br> 

        </h3>

        <div>

          <input type=“text”> 

        </div>

        <div>Email:</div>

        <div class=“control-group”>

          <div class=“controls”>

            <input type=“text”>

            <br>

            <div class=“pull-right”>Register now and&nbsp; for 30 days you'll have access

              <br> to a trail set of top features and capabilities of

              <br> the world's most popular CRM application.

              <br> See for yourself why more than 2 million users

              <br> love Sales Cloud.

              <br> 

            </div>Phone:

            <br>

            <input type=“text”> 

          </div>Company:

          <br>

          <input type=“text”>

          <div class=“control-group”>Employees

            <img class=“pull-right” src=“https://s3.amazonaws.com/jetstrap-site/images/what_icon.png”

            width=“175”>

            <div class=“controls”>

              <select>

                <option value=“Select One”>Select One</option>

                <option value=“1 to 10”>1 to 10</option>

                <option value=“11 to 20”>11 to 20</option>

              </select>

            </div>Postal Code:

            <br>

            <input type=“text”> &nbsp;

            <div class=“control-group”>Employees

              <div class=“controls”>

                <select>

                  <option value=“English”>English</option>

                  <option value=“Spanish”>Spanish</option>

                  <option value=“French”>French</option>

                </select>

                <label class=“radio”>

                  <input type=“radio”> I agree to the

                  <a href=“mastersubscriptionagreement.com/”>Masters Subscription Agreement</a> 

                </label>

                <a class=“btn”>Start Free Trial</a> 

              </div>

            </div>

          </div>

          <div></div>

          <div></div>

        </div>

      </div>

    </div>

  </form>

</div>

Sign-In Screen

The log-in screen is designed to keep the user on the same page when selecting to log-in as a new user or to sign-up as a new user using a form. So instead of the user receiving a separate web page when they click a radio button, the screen will “shift” within the same page to reveal the “I have an account” screen or “im new” screen. The “Forgot your Password” text will be a hyperlink to a separate page in which the user can enter criteria to recover their password.

Do we need experience and job levels in a job description?

I can understand for many professions you need to have years and job levels (e.g; entry, junior, senior), but with software design, i am wondering if the emphasis should be more on problem solving, getting work done through people,  and a match with company or department philosophy.  A few recruiters and hiring managers have contacted me and we had a conversation about work philosophies, team dynamics, and work environments.  They are honest about how work is currently done (i.e;  we work with outdated computer equipment and management that has trouble planing for the future.) Some people say, "Who would want to work for a company when you say those things?" I say " You have to listen to the WHOLE conversation before you make an assessment of a company or a particular department. They may be implementing major shifts in how they are doing certain things, or this particular department may have a healthy productive environment which is being duplicated by new senior management.  But the majority of the time the inquires for job vacancies start with, how many years do you have in XYZ? Do you have this particular deliverable? (e.g; sitemaps, wireframes, user flows, usability testing report, user research plan etc.)  I do not see xyz in your portfolio, i need to see that in order to consider you for this position.   

I understand that for scale issues having this "conversation" is not realistic when you have a company of 30,000 people in 7 states or your HR department is one or two people. Many HR systems are built are the old systems and to revise it would cost thousand if not millions of dollars. I like this quote by Albert Einstein " What is the definition of insanity?" doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. HR departments have the best of intentions with this legacy systems and philosophies but are disappointed in the end when the person they hired with years of experience and operated in past jobs at the senior level fails to produce what is needed to move the project forward. 

I have hope that the hiring practices of these progressive companies spreads and maybe one day people may enjoy "exploring" or "applying" for job opportunities.

Job Description more on how instead of why you done projects

I have had more inquiries about UX related positions,  very few companies focused on the "why" when they post job descriptions.  They seemed to focused on the deliverable and ask me the question, do you have sitemaps, wireframes or interactive prototypes to show? Now my portfolio does explain the process i went through on projects in addition to a deliverable, but the format i am trying to get to when posting to my portfolio section is saying "here is my framework for software problem solving for this particular project." plus here are some deliverable(s) that support that framework. I understand that companies define UX related duites and job titles in many different ways and then they present these definitions in job description because that is their understanding and project experience.  In the past after i graduated from my masters program in Human Computer Interaction i used to challenge recruiters from HR departments and agencies when they would classify a job as a information architect or user researcher. I would lecture them on what qualifies for "information architecture" or "user researcher".  Now 4 years later and many project under my belt,  I understand that part of my job to help them clarify from what they are telling me to what they really mean. Coming from an HR background many of the positions that come across your desk to be filled you may have a basic concept of what this job entails or the company intranet may provide you with typical job duties and education this person may have but for specialized fields, a different approach needs to be taken when writing job descriptions. So as i do with many clients I try to get them into a story telling mode and establish a framework in which I can refer to to help us clarify what they are telling me to what they really mean.

Wireframing with ArtBoards in CS5 with illustrator

Summarised Jake Burton Denmark blog post in my own words in a mindmap:

Effective and Efficient email on mobile device?

How many telephone rings would you allow before you want something else to happen?

I was thinking about telephone rings and how that applies to differant contextes with businesses and personal relationships. Watching family, friends and business people make phone calls i notice the frustation levels and the willingness to allow more or less rings seems to correlate with the intent and context of the conversation.

When I was modifying my business phone menu system for incoming calls, I used the stop watch on my ipod touch to see how many telephone rings i could receive during 5 seconds before it trasferred into the tree directory. You could receive just short of 4 calls, about 1 seconds more and it would be a solid 4 calls. So I set it at 3 seconds and thought about, why do people call me on my business phone? email address? fax number? company name? website address? I would say yes to all but intent and context have more variables to consider.

What i often do for brainstorming sessions when i am sitting at my desk is open mindJet mind manager and starting exploring and expanding ideas. As the central theme i type in: How many telephone rings would you allow before you want something else to happen? As topics I put intent and context, then placed constraints as a subtopic.

This mind map helps me while i am running scenarios in my head or sketching them out. How do these scenarios match with the current system?  For this question I usually sketch a flow/ task analysis, then if possible actually perform these task with these scenarios.

The end result was:

I set the phone to 6 seconds before the phone directory starts based on the results i discovered peforming differant scenarios.

What I observed in the New Jersey DMV

I arrived in the parking lot at 7:25am on a Saturday during the second week of July, the line had already extended about 50 people deep. Some people had zip loc bags of documents which contained passports, social security cards, and bills. The other groups of people carried documents in their hands or some kind of binder. When more people arrived, the majority of them took a spot behind me and went into the "wait your turn mode". The wait your turn mode consisted of the following activities: Doing some kind of activity on cell phone checking email, checking facebook, and making and receiving calls. Side note: few people observed texting. The conversations between people centered around: What line is this for? Do you know if I have all the required documents? Is this the right building for x? Four people had been waiting in the line when they remembered they left a document in their car, two of them used the social norm we learned as children "would you save my place?"  The car for one of them was located about 20 feet away so this person just step away without saying anything, got his documents and step back into line. The final person of the four got that look of "I want to say something, but does it matter?", so this person walk away from the line, got the documents from the car and with a regretful face took a place at the back of the line. When the doors opened at 8:00am, a person with a loud clear speaking voice started to announce criteria for people to know what group they needed to go into with certain documents. After this person announced the group criteria, this person said " group X follow me into the building." Only a few people started to follow her and then people in the line started to talk with each other on clarifying what criteria went with certain groups. This person noticed that few people are following so this person went individually down the line and asked "what are you here for?"  "You need X and Y document, let me see those." If you did not have certain documents this person told you "in order to start and complete this certain type of transaction you needed to go and get the documents you are missing." Once inside if you had your required documents filled out, you waited in a line to see a person in a group of 3 to verify you had the correct number of documents called the six points of verification. If you had all your documents but not filled out you had to go the reception area and fill them out and give up your place in the line inside the building. When you are verified to have the six points of verification you are directed into a line that is particular to your situation(e.g; drivers licence renewal, title transfer etc).

Next steps after observation notes:

Identify behaviors that seem to be roadblocks in order to move forward in the process. ( sticky notes plus affinity diagramming).

Created a Mind Manager Map to represent priorites and themes in research

Create wireframe to illustrate placement of items and overall structure.

The process i take to start a project

The foundation for my user experience philosophy is having a practical purpose for the process we decide on to reach a final decision about a problem.  Through collaboration with company personnel plus customers, we can start to see the picture come into focus and during this process we can start to make correlations between these various elements to arrive with a shared vision. The cohesiveness to arrive with a shared vision contains three elements: user, project, and business goals. The goal is the end result after you go through some elements to arrive at this destination. The basic shells to arrive at the end goal are: context and reasons.  Start by asking, what type of environment are we working in? What objects or decisions do we need before proceeding?  After these questions are answered you can start by connecting these basic shells into the main goal and see if it makes sense.

The Entrepreneur's Creed

I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon -- if I can, I seek opportunity -- not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed.

I refuse to barter incentive for a dole; I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of Utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat.

It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for myself, to enjoy the benefit of my creations and to face the world boldly and say "This, with God's help, I have done."

All this is what it means to be an entrepreneur.

Sam Walton 

WalMart Stores

Bank ATM use case changed needed

Today I went to the bank to deposit a business check, I decided to use the ATM because it was lunchtime and the bank was busy inside. I entered my ATM pin and received a message that it was incorrect, so I thought I type it in wrong and entered it again. I thought to myself, did I change it? I tried an older pin then tried my previous number again, "You have reach the maximum amount of pin entries, you account is locked." I waited inline for about 10 min then I was told by the teller" You can not use your ATM card for 24 hours, but I can complete your deposit and any other transaction you may have."  I told the teller "so you are temporary taken away a convenience, and unable to reset my account?" "We are doing this for your security, so if someone tried to access your account, they would be unable to do so. If we had the option to reset your account and your identity was verified over the phone, they could withdraw a large amount of cash. So this forces the person to come face to face with the teller to verify your identity." I told the teller " Ok that makes sense but, I am the person that owns this account, I have my drivers license, social security number, and checking account book to tell you that I am who I say I am. A branch manager or a combination of people with high level access should be able to reset my account to the normal state. If you wanted to get fancy, you could also verify my identity through fingerprint or a retinal scan. Do you have a piece of paper I asked the teller? I made a circle with "customer" in the center, security is your second circle, and then you have procedures that happen when this type of scenario happens, you have your reasons that you just outlined to me. The question you are NOT asking yourself is what is the cost to the customer? You are taking a convenience away from me, but I am saying that I am who I say I am and I want my privileges fully restored now."  The branch manager came over and said, "I am REALLY sorry for the inconvenience this causes you but we are unable to unlocked you account for 24 hours."  I smiled at him and said "If you need help implemented a software solution for this problem in the future please call my company, have a great day."

You too will be assimilated

Work environments are REALLY interesting to me, some are isolated islands in which people talk, perform task and adopt a cultural mental model in which they believe in or think they do. They go through the day interacting with colleagues,  performing task, learning new skills, and acquiring new knowledge. People have many project on their schedule and complete section of them during the day and week. Many of the outputs of these project are CRAP but they are completed with the same work enviroment status quo mentality.

As a consultant you board a plane and take a trip to this isolated island and try to adopt or assimilate these work environments. Like the episode "the borg" on star trek the next generation, you could be "assimilated" and think, talk and perform tasks just like everybody else. You will be an indivdual but think like the "collective."  So how do you work in an assimilated mentality but produce quality work? Here is a list of work approaches that I have used:

• Use your own equipment: When you use your own equipment, that ownership or separation mentality that is needed to help improve the process is maintained.
• I keep a daily calendar reminder saying" You are here just to improve upon the process, NOT changed it."
• Make sure you follow company guidelines for deliverables but have your purpose and goals clearly defined.

Can you solve and work with OUR business projects?

I think so much of the emphasis during the job interview is placed on past history, the real question to be answered is Can you solve and work with OUR business projects?  So much of the interview process starts off with " Tell me about yourself" "Tell me about your past projects" "Do you have a portfolio?" or the more common theme is equating experience with success on the job, "I see you work 5 years at a leading consulting firm working on a wide variety of projects,  when can you start?"  How many times have you hired someone that is a great speaker in the interview and has a stellar portfolio, but when they work on YOUR business projects they seem to perform like a person whose 5 years is really composed into 1. 

What about a pattern/ component library for hiring? A reference repository in which you can have a general guidelines for a certain area of your company (pattern) then have specific criteria for hiring for a particular position in a particular division located in a particular department (component.)  In most companies we have a form of a pattern / component library it is called a job description. It does give the criteria that is suggested and required to perform the duties of the job, but is the person the made the criteria "qualified" to do so? Also if we apply the same evaluation process to ALL jobs in which the job duties are varied, should we be surprised when a employee we hired does not perform the duties of the job adequately?

Another tool I feel would contribute to a higher "success" rate when interviewing a potential employee is to break down the job description into percentages. Yes it is true we all have many duties during the day, but we do have a core shell if you will or a "theme" to our job. Since you probably have direct access to the people that actually perform the job we could start interviewing these people and then use affinity diagramming to identify themes and relationships.

I am NOT saying this will happen overnight but smaller increments to improving the "process" is better then working the same "crappy" process and expecting different results.