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design anthropology

Inclusive Design at Big Design

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I am a presenter at the Big Design conference next month in Dallas where I will be doing a presentation on Inclusive Design beyond Accessibility. There just so happens to be another talk on Inclusive design at the same conference, so I am changing my tactics a bit from presenting research I’ve done on my own to reaching out to the masses to gather stories of people affected by exclusive design that the general public has no knowledge of, is not affected by, or completely ignores either out of ignorance or inconvenience.

Inclusive design presentation
Inclusive Design Presentation, Saturday, September 21st at 4pm at Gilley’s in Dallas, Texas

As an anthropologist and a designer, I feel this particular intersection of people and design is a perfect fit for anthropological work. I am interested in learning more about people’s experiences around exclusive design concerning cognitive, emotional, mental, physical, environmental, economic and financial, as well as gender and race (and any combination). The exclusion can be either physical or digital (or a combination). All exclusive design is important to me. I am also interested in learning about inclusive design that has greatly affected people or even design that came close or tried to be inclusive but missed the mark.

To that end, I am currently recruiting people to share their stories. If you would like to share your story, please contact me. At the moment, I am doing email interviews but I am open to communicating in what ever way is easiest for you. Please note that any information you share with me will be data I will potentially share in my presentation. You can choose to remain anonymous or attach your name and image, what ever is most comfortable for you. As a note, there is no compensation associated with this research. However, if I use your stories, I will attribute you in anyway you see fit and you will receive access to my presentation to share as you wish.

All of my research needs to be completed by September 14th. So please reach out to me as soon as possible. I look forward to hearing from you!

Following your Passions

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October was a month of wonderful opportunities. My first was the ability to go to Barcelona, Spain for a Design Thinking Facilitation course. This course was different than previous ones I have attended where design thinking methodologies are introduced. It was specifically about how to lead different exercises and what makes a good facilitator with actual practice doing it. The final day was for advanced people where we focused on different skills that make a good facilitator like talking, walking, standing, and even improv. I’m not necessarily a huge fan of DT. As an anthropologist, I see a lot of things “borrowed” from my discipline and repurposed for it. That said, I think there is a time and a place to use it and it should be considered a set of tools to use rather than the end all be all of getting companies and design on the same page.

Beyond the course itself, I was able to meet a lot of people from my company in person, which was really nice as I work from home. I was able to work in a little sightseeing as well. It was a beautiful city and I am very glad I had a chance to visit it. 

After I returned from Barcelona, I was a guest lecturer at UNT on Design Anthropology. There I talked about what I do, what I don’t, my career path that got me here, and how I use anthropological skills in business and design every day. 

The following week I presented on Team Building at DFW Beyond. I will write a post about this individually with a transcript of my talk for those who are interested! 

Though these three things may seem completely separate there is in fact a link between them. All three provided me with opportunities to learn how to help people through facilitation, share how I help people through anthropology, and share how people can be helped through intentional team building. Though I have many passions, my main passion is helping others and I find myself truly lucky that I’ve found a way to do so through design, research, and even gaming. More on the last in my next post! 

On Anthropology and User Experience Design

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I get a few inquiries each semester from students looking for information on how to get into user experience design, especially those with an anthropology background. I generally try to respond to each of these separately as they each have their own perspective and needs, however, this semester I am trying to get my dissertation defended on top of my every day job as a UXD (which is getting more complicated by the minute). So, rather than leave these unanswered, I am providing a public response here that includes the most common things I share. If you have comments or questions, please leave them! It will be easier for me to respond to those here than individual emails and you may help someone else who has a similar inquiry.

Response Below

Thank you for reaching out to me. Let me start out by saying that having a background in anthropology will lend itself greatly to UX design, however, it is only one part. My suggestion is to consider opportunities where you will be asked to learn to program or script (even just HTML/CSS) and have real users use what you create. This is not necessarily where your career path as a UXD will take you, but creating something, having users use it, and then having to “fix” it to make it better for them, will provide you with insight that no degree program will ever do.

After that, I suggest looking into classes in cognitive psychology and information architecture or information behavior. Adding those to your anthropology perspective will help you find out what users want and then understand what they really need – which may be two separate things. 😉

As for internships, consider looking into the agency world. What I mean by that is marketing/creative agencies that do campaigns for other companies. Not that you want to go into marketing, I prefer the high tech/application world myself, but it allows you to see how UX is applied to multiple groups of people and projects in a short amount of time. A lot of times you can find UXD or IA (information architecture) opportunities – both of which would be beneficial to you.

I also suggest looking into these authors: Steve Krug, Don Norman, Jakob Nielsen, Jesse James Garrett, Luke Wroblewski, Lois Rosenfield, and Peter Morville (These are just off the top of my head, they will give you a good introduction to user experience design – but there are plenty more out there to learn from!)

And I suggest taking a look at the UX Slack channel that has UXers from all over the world lending their perspectives to the field (and it may lead to internship opportunities).

I hope that helps!

End Response

There is a lot that could be added to this, however, I feel it is a great place for people to start. I definitely recommend everyone going into user experience design have some sort of programming or scripting background where people have had to use what you create. My biggest failure as a developer led me to becoming a UXD and in my particular field I use skills I learned as a systems administrator/developer all the time. Not that I do those things anymore, but my past experiences and my understanding of those things definitely help inform me how to make those things easier for others to do. And really, that’s the best part of being an anthropologist and a UXD – being able to use your own experiences to inform your designs. That is, after all, what participant observation is all about!

To learn more about my professional experience, please visit my design and ethnography site.

p.s. This may be edited and updated as I have time. If you have questions/comments – please post them!

Anthropology + UI Design = Streamlined Experiences

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Nice to know I’ll be needed in the future.

From the article ‘Top 60 Jobs That Will Rock the Future‘:

40.Interface Designer
Pretty soon your PC won’t be the only interactive digital element of your home. It’s probably already started with your television, but more scientists are needed to work on ways to streamline the home experience. From integrated entertainment elements to simpler multifunction pads to adjust climate control devices, part of the challenge is to devise ways to make new interface elements attractive and user-friendly.

I love the bit about ‘more scientists’ are needed in design. Most people look to engineers overlooking the fact that social scientist, as in anthropologists, can play very key roles in design!

Anyone need me now? I am currently open to new opportunities of any sort!
Resume | Portfolio (large print ready file!)

Podcasting and Paperwriting

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It’s been a while since I have updated! My apologies.

You see, I have been writing – a lot even. However, everything I have written has either been papers for class, or the script to my SXSW podcast. This is of course beyond my normal workload as a usability and interface engineer who works for a company that is pounding code on our next release, which has kept me very very busy as well!

While I cannot publish my SXSW podcast as it was accepted and will be published on the SXSW site in April/May, I can treat you to the results of my research and analysis completed last year for Motorola on how people extend their experiences through secondary devices. My particular part was focused on complex multiple engagements which is a combination of multitasking and quick succession of singular tasks made possible by the use of secondary screens / mobile devices.

You can download the PDF here.

An interesting trend…

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This semester I am taking Design Anthropology. I took this class as an undergrad and it is one of the reasons why I chose to pursue my masters in anthropology. The experience in working with a tech company, in both cases Motorola, on a real research issue where we go out and do field work and then as a class analyze the data, is simply amazing. This semester we researched how people extend their experiences through second screens or mobile devices.

I spoke at the beginning of the semester about how I use my iPhone (and previously Blackberry and before that Treo – I’ve had a smart phone since 2002). Several of the things I do include using it to share my immediate experience with my friends such as picture blogging (Twinkle for Twitter and Flickr to Livejournal), actual blogging, looking up information for class while listening to the lecture and participating in the discussion, and researching products in stores while in the store. This is all in addition to checking my email, chatting, texting, playing games (Spore at the moment), reading blogs, and using many other programs. The class looked back at me as if I was an alien. Most use their phone only for talking or at most texting. So, I made it my mission to actually find someone to do my fieldwork on that did the same thing I did.

And I did! I chose First Saturday, a tech swap meet, to do my research. I knew I’d find SOMEONE that did what I did there. And sure enough, my partner and I spotted someone at about 3am trying to buy a Macbook. What we found out was that during the half hour we observed him he used three phones, 2 Blackberries and 1 iPhone, to chat with his partner who was there with him (he had one Blackberry), look up prices, research the product itself, and research a technical problem the Macbook was experiencing. Aha! I am not the only one! This does, however, bring me to an interesting trend – on the spot researching, and stores seem to be cashing in on it.

Two ads come to mind immediately of stores mentioning how they provide access to a computer right in the store in order to research the product and their competitors prices. I think though, that they should take this one step further – why not offer an in store wireless connection that mobile phones can use to do the research with. Through that connection offer a ‘homepage’ or default page that comes up when they go to connect with all of the in-store specials. These specials then list not only the store’s price, but also their competitors online prices as well as specs, compatibility, and upgrade information about the product itself.

While yes, I agree that few people will use this in the beginning, but imagine those people then SHARING that information with the people around them. Then those people the shared it with learning of it, using it, and then sharing it with others too. It’s an in store marketing device, one that they are already providing through the use of an in store computer, but one that is a bit more private and a hell of a lot more useful than most sales people.

This can then be extended even further than that – say using a barcode scanner or photo recognition software. Just imagine the possibilities when you put access to pertinent information in the palm of a consumers hand.

One example would be utilizing Target’s Amazon relation ship by putting URLs on the tags for all the electronic items in the store. Here I can go an extra step and actually read the reviews for the item I’m looking to purchase. I not only get to look up prices, specs, and other important information, but I also get to see what OTHER people think of the product too. Then, if I purchase it in store I can say perhaps get $5 off my next Amazon or Target purchase if I leave a review thus perpetuating the cycle.

Nintendo sees the light letting you download demos of games right to your DS in some stores. Bookstores should jump on that letting you read reviews of the latest releases right on your mobile device, or go one step further by allowing you to download ebooks/zines after checking out the real thing. Giving people access right in the store to information as well as reviews and then allowing them to EASILY share their experience with others is, in my humble opinion, one of the great ways to bridge the gap between the brick and mortar stores and their thriving digital counterparts.

The trend has already begun. Stores are already giving people access to computers right there in the store to do this – it’s time someone started taking just a bit further.

/end being a dork, usability junky and ex advertising agency information architect…

p.s. My chapter for our report to Motorola is on Complex Multiple Engagements – think of it as an analysis of our observations on how people strive to do things simultaneously or in quick succession through the use of technology – then design implications based on my analysis of these observations.

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