24 Weeks Metro-Design for Windows Phone | # 3 Forming ideas and concepts
In a previous article, " Designing Applications for Windows Phone, " we discussed the importance of determining the theme of your application for Windows Phone. The ideas stage will help you improve your theme and generate ideas that will help improve user interaction for this topic. We talked about choosing user experience as a theme, such as lunch, jogging or swimming, instead of thinking about applications from an API or RSS viewpoint accessible from outside.
Formation of ideas and concepts is a fun stage and it is best to play with other people! - There are three main stages in the phase of the formation of ideas and concepts: 1) brainstorming 2) research and 3) consolidation. In a nutshell, at the brainstorming stage, you create tons of ideas , at the research stage, you dissect and study many of these ideas (but not all), and at the consolidation stage, you decide which ideas will go forward to become part of your application. Only some of them make him alive .
Brainstorming is usually the first step in designing a Windows Phone application (or designing something from this area). This stage is complete freedom of thought. It's about inventing tons of ideas, even if some of them are more crazy than others. It's about thinking outside the box to come up with innovative solutions.
The best tool for brainstorming is storytelling and a huge amount of multi-colored stickers for notes, although sketches and moodboards will also help. To begin with, this article has 10 really good tips for effective brainstorming.
Basically you will use brainstorming to determine two things: 1) the general idea for your application, and then 2) the possibilities for your application.
Brainstorming can help you come up with interesting ideas for Windows Phone apps that provide unique user value and stand out among other apps in the Marketplace. After you have determined the overall goal of your application, brainstorming can help you create and explore specific ideas (opportunities) for your application.
First, you will need a topic or a main (common) custom script (s) to solve. One of the typical ones we see here is the almost instinctive approach of “creating an application just because there is an API and a web service accessible from the outside.” Thus, in the end, we have dozens of clients Yelp !, Twitter or Foursquare. Although there is nothing wrong with trying to create the best client for any of these services, the real opportunity to innovate is found in the way of thinking from the point of view of user experience, and not the API, or web services. Thus, instead of saying " I will create an application based on the Yelp API! ", Say: " I will create an application to help the user get a dining experience ." Decide what user experience you want in your application will be part of and based on your activity, your personal preferences, hobbies, or what you hear what people really want. You will find that the most successful customers of Twitter (Seesmic) or Foursquare (4th and Mayor) are those who think outside the framework of the API.
Another common approach that we see at this stage in some people is supporting oneself from the very beginning. For example, they begin a stage of ideas, knowing that they will create an application " to check stock prices ." Thus, in the end, we have another application of stock quotes or another application for reading an RSS feed. The key to inventing good and original ideas for applications is the thought of user experience . So instead of thinking “ I’ll create an application for trading in the securities market ”, think “ I’m exploring how to help the user with the experience of trading in the securities market ” - ah! It is much broader, giving you more opportunities to come up with ways to contribute to the experience.
A powerful brainstorming technique for performing this kind of approach to generating ideas for Windows Phone applications is the subjects + verbs + objects technique. I remember, we did it in architecture school and it was fun! Last year we started using it also for developing user interfaces.
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We used this group brainstorming technique during the Windows Phone Design Day tour. It consists in the presence of a group of people who write a bunch of words - subjects, verbs and objects associated with the user interface, then select some of these words to create a new script. This exercise ignites creativity because it forces you to find a solution to scenarios based on words that you did not write to yourself — scenarios that you would never have thought up to yourself if there was no collective consciousness of the group.
- Take a few multicolored stickers and markers. Preferably all markers should have the same line thickness and the same color (black).
- Take 3 multi-colored stickers and write the word subjects on the first, objects on the second and verbs on the third.
- Stick these 3 stickers on a large wall.
- At this point, you should have certain themes for your Windows Phone application — don't forget to think about user experience, such as lunch, sailing, or development (no specific solution this time). We will use the lunch experience (food in the restaurant) in this example.
- Ask participants to write one subject , one verb, and one object related to the process and “lunch” experience. One word for each, on a separate sticker and stick them under the stickers with the headings that you originally created.
- This will fill the wall with a bunch of subjects, verbs and objects related to the lunch experience (or any other topic that you and your team have chosen, such as running, swimming ...)
- The next step is to divide the group into smaller teams of 2 or 3 people (or 1 if there are few team members) and ask them to choose 3 words that the team likes: one subject, one verb, one object. Ask them to choose words that generate ideas and include imagination for user scripts. Some teams will argue, agreeing which words to choose. The solution here is to give each team member to choose one word so that they end up with one subject, a verb and one object. In fact, you can assign a random set of words to each team - this will make them think outside the box and come up with a unique custom application script for the solution.
- Once the teams have chosen their 3 words, they are ready to start generating ideas on how to solve or execute the script that magically appears by selecting a random subject, a verb, and an object. For example:
- vegetarian girlfriend + scream + double cheeseburger
- children + play + food
- cook + cook (food) + tomatoes
- grandfather (grandmother) + offer + receipt
- Lady Gaga + meet + dishes
“Then participants should come up with scenarios that inspire these 3 words, for example, Lady Gaga + meet + dishes ... We know that we will not develop Windows Phone applications specifically for Lady Gaga, right? Simply, if we are not big fans, we will not create applications focused specifically on Lady Gaga, but what if we transform Lady Gaga into a broader concept, such as “Famous personalities”. So, famous personalities meet with the dishes. What if we create an app to track individuals who visit different places for lunch or dinner? There may be maps and personalities and when users find someone known, they will mark that person. I'm not talking about the application for paparazzi, but about an application that gives the user the opportunity to imagine that he will run into his favorite actress or hip-hop rapper if he goes to dinner or dinner in place X or Y. Use the capabilities of Foursquare and Yelp, and You have some good APIs to support your user experience. This is just an idea. It is important to encourage participants not to be embarrassed to take words literally, but to extrapolate to all meanings, as in the case of Lady Gaga, which we have expanded to a well-known personality or the verb “shout”, which can be expanded to “be upset as a whole” or “having a problem”. This idea of ​​the appearance of a person in restaurants is such that I would never have thought of it myself if it were not for these words that some people in my group wrote on these stickers.
Here is another example of three words that actually caught my attention: children + play + food . I would never have thought of this script myself - I do not have children, but thanks to the 3rd different people who wrote these words, I now have a script to work on it. Children play with food in a restaurant - this can be a real problem. How can we help solve this scenario?
Some methods are described in the Game Storming book that may be helpful. Here is one example of using a brainstorming technique called an impossible script . Remember that these are games, so if you take it too seriously, you will not go far, you just do not need to think about how you will create an application or what internal server architecture is necessary. Just have fun. At subsequent stages, you will have enough time to prioritize, explore technical capabilities and deal with ideas. Now play this game with your team.
Mother and father, perhaps 2 or 3 children who play with food, and this is a problem, but the same couple with 100 children would be an impossible scenario! Impossible, isn't it? (I think ...) what would you do as a parent of a hundred children who play with food, taking them to a restaurant? It sounds like a nightmare - you need to know all their names, their preferences, which they follow, which of them are vegetarian, their age groups? Which of them behaves in the best way, who is the worst? Etc. As a caring parent of 100 children, you would know these things, it's just an impossible scenario. Now bring it back to reality: while it is not possible for a parent to take her / his 100 children to a restaurant, it is really possible to have 100 children (from different parents) in a simple restaurant or other public place such as a museum - find out at McDonalds or Chucky Cheese (chain of children's restaurants in the USA - approx. transl. )! Now translate all your “learning experience” as the parent of a hundred children and use it for the restaurant manager or for the restaurant itself. How could a restaurant help these hundred children (or their parents) not to play with food and not make a mess in this place? What if the application is a sponsor of social activity in restaurants, a kind of mini-social media for parents, provides an opportunity to meet and let the children play together at the event or just let the children learn about other children's subcultures based on other children who participate in this event?
Another way to test your subject + verb + object is an alternative world, where you would say something like “what if in a restaurant on the moon?”. What will happen to the meatball, abandoned child? I imagine the meatball flying through the entire restaurant, falling into a grumpy old man on the other side! It gave me an idea ... What if your app becomes a real game where kids can make the mess they want? With the actual food from this restaurant? How about throwing a little Big Mac or McNuggets. If Fruit Ninja already exists, then why not make Messy Food (mess with food, bedlam in a restaurant). It makes me think what will happen if Angry Birds meet Fruit Ninja and Cooking Mama.
Another method is the images of others . Here you have to imagine that you are someone or something in the dining experience. Of course, you can act as a waiter and discover an unforgettable experience from his / her point of view. This will help you open scenarios for your mind that you would not otherwise think about. Allow you and your team to think from a completely different perspective. Now, instead of assuming that you are human, think that you are a plate of pasta. Think about how you got to the restaurant, from what ingredients you are made, how you were cooked, served, eaten. It will also provide you with an unforgettable experience from a point of view from which you could not have thought before. Does this mean that we will create applications for pasta plates? Not necessarily ... But studying the life cycle of pasta will teach you more about what is happening behind the counter, in the kitchen, with supplies or storage (storage) in a restaurant, and I am sure that new ideas will be opened for applications.
A very distinctive approach is to think first about the availability of the API, right? :) The API, web services, and all these goodies should be just tools that help your application contribute to making the user experience better.
There are some major brainstorming books, such as the Game Assault and Tinkerta . They tend to be more brainstorming for marketing / business groups (in my opinion), but you can adapt some of these methods to the design team as well.
Play these actions (the game is just a provisional name) with your team mates or with friends and family if you are an independent developer. These are games for inventing ideas. You should not be too serious at this stage. Everything will be serious in the next few stages.
At the end, you can present your ideas to your team (or friends) using Pecha Kucha ( or Chit Chat in Japanese ) - a presentation model in which you have 20 slides and 20 seconds per slide to present a brief overview of your ideas. This is a great model, as it forces you to remove trash and noise and leave only the best ideas. It will also make you start “pushing” these crazy ideas to the ground.
At this stage, you and your team are studying the practicality (business), attractiveness (experience) and viability (technology) of these ideas that you came up with during the brainstorming stage. I will focus on the experience in this article, as I am sure that if you are a developer or product / marketing manager, reading this post you will know much more about how to explore the technical viability of ideas.
When it comes to research, the goal is to take some of the ideas that came up during the brainstorming session and divide, stretch and test them. You can do this with some of the following tools:
Sketches
Storyboards
Prototypes
Story telling
As mentioned earlier, designing is not a one-time type of activity - not an “one-try” type of activity. Designing is a process in which we take shapeless pieces of concepts and ideas, and begin to work with them, study them and treat them like clay . Gradually, we learn these ideas better, coming to the conclusion that all this is beginning to take a certain form. Sketches, storyboards, prototypes (focusing on paper prototypes at this stage of the formation of ideas) and storytelling are tools for any creative person who allow you to explore the idea.
“The sculptures are simply enclosed within the marble block, and the artist’s task is to free them by removing excess stone” - Michelangelo
Technique boxing gloves shows exactly what the sketch is all, in particular during this stage of the study. You do not need to become an artist by conveying your ideas in sketches. In fact, at the beginning of the sketching phase, it works even better, being more abstract and common with your strokes. This is what a boxing glove (or better yet, a thick pencil or marker) will help you do. Try the following exercise: take a black marker and a sticker (one of the smallest) and try to draw a full panorama of Windows Phone in it. The paper size and thickness of the lines immediately restrict you from adding details, and this is what sketches of a general, non-detailed description of your ideas are needed for.
Sketch: A powerful tool for visual thinking , by Mike Rohde / is a terrific article on sketches with many excellent links and resources. The dirty art of creating user interface sketches by Peiter Buick / is a must-read article on creating user interface sketches with a large number of practical methods.
This is a great article series on sketching tips from Anders Toxboe /:
Creating user interface sketches, tip # 1: Draw rectangles and corners
Creating user interface sketches, tip # 2: Drawing a shadow
Creating user interface sketches, tip # 3: Using a thick pen
Creating user interface sketches, tip # 4: Keep your hands off the paper
Creating user interface sketches, tip # 5: Limit yourself
Finally, there are 50 resources about sketches for user interface designers - there are some interesting articles, videos and presentations for those who want to delve into sketches.
Paper prototyping literally means using paper to build an “interactive” (I would even say “managed”) experience of interaction. You can prepare a paper prototype by making sketches on paper. For Windows Phone applications, you can sketch it all on rectangular pieces of paper. Personally, I used stickers of 3''x5 '' (7.5x22.5 cm) for sketching panoramas, summary pages and pages. This is great because you can stick some stickers next to each other and arrange panoramas with 4-6 panels, or summary pages with 3-6 sections. If you perform custom testing of your prototypes, then you can arrange the presentation a little larger and make a sketch in the page size of the letter (Letter). How to make objects interactive? Well, literally to make a sketch, from various screens and user interface modules that will be displayed or changed when the user “interacts” with them. In this guided prototype, you must help the user by inserting, deleting, modifying parts of the paper prototype, depending on what the user wants to do. This is a great way to start testing the concept early enough, and it's cheap, not because it's paper, but because in 15-60 minutes you can create a good paper prototype, and then invest hours, days or weeks, creating interactivity. Remember, at this moment we are still in the technique of forming ideas, and we still give shape to "shapeless pieces of ideas."
Another way to create paper prototypes is what I learned from Jared Potter / Jared Potter / - Sr. Design Integrator in design studio. He makes sketches of panoramas, summary pages, pages, and then takes pictures of them from his phone. Then he sends these photos to himself via email and imports them into Expression Blend (you can also use Powerpoint ...). In Expression Blend, he creates buttons on top of thumbnails, in areas where he drew interactive elements, such as buttons, application toolbar buttons (AppBar), list items. He then creates an interaction (Behaviors) so that the buttons bring him to other screens (other sketches). After 15 minutes, he has a complete paper prototype (interactive) working in Blend and he is ready to start testing some of his ideas. This is a kind of hybrid paper and digital prototyping technique, but also cheap (given that you can use Blend, PowerPoint or equivalent).
Paper prototyping - by Shawn Medero / is great material for reading with theoretical and practical advice. Creating paper screen diagrams is another good reading material. Please note that in this case, the author explains the technique that uses the previously created elements of the user interface of the wireframe. They are printed, and then the user interface is composed of them. These are still paper prototypes, although the thumbnails are not created with a pen / pencil — instead, they use pre-created user interface controls and templates. Should I create some of these UI control patterns for Windows Phone? Ok, let's do it.
These are 3 big articles about paper prototyping theory - not so many practical tips, but it's nice to read to understand the significance of building rough prototypes:
Paper prototypes: still our favorite
Looking back on 16 years of paper prototyping
Using paper prototypes for risk management
Some people (including me) claim that this is the most important tool for generating ideas. Storytelling is indeed fundamental to the entire user interface design process. Storytelling allows you to convey scenarios and describe users, problems and solutions in a way that makes sense, which attracts people and allows them to immerse themselves in the world of the future, where your application exists.This not only helps you and your teammates and customers to understand your vision of the application, but it also helps to delve into the application and make it more interesting. A good story telling is also what makes your application ready for sales ... sales to investors, teammates, customers and users. Flat story will give a flat application. A structured and fascinating narrative usually reflects applications that are unique.
A good way to explain the meaning of storytelling in user experience design is with the words:
“Storytelling usually begins with the introduction of“ Once ... ”, then the narrator makes a short pause to collect his thoughts. The traditional entries, of which many (often with answers from the audience), were “rituals”, which served as a signal that the narrator suspended “time and space”, as we know, and moved the audience into the world of imagination and play. „- Barry McWilliams /
“ As experience shows, now covering several media, channels and formats, we have to look at narration, interaction, emotional elements to support transitions through channels and formats ”- Joe Lamantia / Joe Lamantia /, Beyond Findability Seminar at the IA Summit 09
“To create a truly memorable and satisfactory result, the user experience designer needs to understand how to create a logical and viable structure for experience and needs in order to understand those elements that are important for creating an emotional connection with the users of the product.” - Cindy Chastain / Chastain cindy /
«If the emotion and meaning can come out of alignment elements that make up the history, to design the optimal experience, we have to have a story that matches the product elements, the Tools or system. "- Cindy Chastain / Cindy Chastain /
Storytelling is the basis for any other way of communicating user experience ideas and user interfaces. Stories can be told through voice, in sketches, storyboards, mood boards and / or video.
Telling a story about user experience is not too different from writing scripts for movies or novels. Similar narrative elements exist for developers and designers to create attractiveness and reveal details about user experience. Common elements of the narration are: theme, world, character (s), details (objects), history (s) (place of action) .
Themeis one phrase that describes everything. Your foundation. Your mantra. Phrase you and your team will live. Each scenario, feature, solution that you take for the needs of the application must pass through a theme filter - a thematic test. The world is a parameter, a landscape, a room, a street or in the key of digital experience - these are also screens (of different sizes), or platforms, such as phones, tablets or even Facebook, where this digital experience takes place. Characters are subjects or (persons) or other creatures participating in the experience.
Details (objects) are physical or digital assets that complement the user (s) in their experience. Stories define the actions and relationships between subjects and objects.
In addition to the elements of the story, the structure is also important. You will find different story formats with several different structures. The basic structure of the story consists of: strings, climax and denouement . Thus, when defining and telling a user experience history, one should begin by describing the users and their context. You can set their problems or goals, and finally explain how this scenario will be solved with the help of your application. The biggest risk for stories is that they can be flat - tell stories instead that have poignant moments of revelation and moments in which everything seems to be lost, and then the feature you have invented decides everything.
You can share user experience stories by writing them down using some sort of visual tools such as sketches in storyboards and / or mood boards. Also note that storytelling in user experience design is a multidimensional meaning with different levels of experience for which you can write a story. First you can write a complete application top-level history. Finally, you can write stories for specific features.
A very valuable technique that I learned from marketing was to write mini-stories called “speaking in an elevator,” the basis of which is to be able to convey a story in 30 seconds or less. If you cannot describe your application, your main feature areas, or a specific feature in less than 30 seconds, then most likely you have not yet mastered the script or feature, and you need more time to study it.
“If you cannot tell the story of your application or a specific feature in 140 characters, you may need to learn more deeply before continuing the process.”
Even more effective method that I use recently is to describe your application, your main areas or specific features in modern standards of “speech in an elevator”: status on Facebook or tweet on Twitter. So try to write a mini-story (actually a nano-story) in 420 characters for Facebook status, and then 140 characters for Twitter. If you cannot describe your application or feature in this limited number of characters, then, as already mentioned, most likely you cannot still consolidate the user experience in such a way that research is no longer required. If the team has a reconciliation conflict for a long history tweet describing their application or features of their application, then it would be nice to go back and talk more about the application or feature,in finding key elements contributing to user experience.
Here are some good descriptions that I found in the Marketplace for Windows Phone:
CocktailFlow
Twitter : Browse, search and discover cocktails with a continuously growing collection of drinks.
Facebook : Browse, search and discover cocktails with a continuously growing collection of drinks. The app has beautifully decorated cocktail recipes and determines what can be prepared from the ingredients in the bar. He also gives advice on what ingredients to buy more to make extra tasty cocktails.
Seesmic
Twitter : Seesmic allows you to update and view multiple social networks simultaneously in an effective and powerful application.
Facebook :Seesmic allows you to update and view several social networks simultaneously in an effective and powerful application. Manage multiple Twitter, Facebook, Salesforce Chatter accounts and organize all your accounts, search queries, relevant topics, and lists in your custom "space" control panel.
Topics of experience: a story element applied to design — it was a terrific session presented by Cindy Chastain at the IA Summit 2009 in Memphis. She talked about storytelling for user experience designers and developers. It is better to write through a design written by Brownwyn Jones / Brownwyn Jones /, this is a good article that gives practical advice to better write user experience stories. ArticleUsing stories for a better user experience , written by Whitney Quesenbery / explains the use of personalities for writing stories, as well as ideas for collecting stories directly from users during testing sessions. Here is a Whitney presentation with notes and slides. Not directly related to user experience design, but I think this article is about conflicts and characters in the story structure , which was very useful for me to understand the basic story structure - a structure that can be easily translated into storytelling about user experience.
During the research phase, you will inevitably be confronted with a conflict of interest, and people will fall in love with their ideas. Ideas like children and babies can be so cute that you don’t want to let them go even when they are evil. Thus, learn to cut the rope and let go of ideas if they prove (and this is the key word here ... prove) that they are not justified. At the same time, embracing some ideas and defending them at any cost is equally important. Without a strong mastermind in a team, a good idea can fly off the track and get lost forever. What we want to find throughout our study is “evidence that proves” that this is a worthwhile idea, or that it is not. During this process, the idea will evolve and at the end you will learn a lot about it. Notice, this is not the timeto make this idea 100% mature, but to feel how feasible it is. I just readtweet with Ed Catmull / Pixar's president: " The Pixar culture is to protect an unformed idea ."
If brainstorming is all about freedom, then consolidation is all about making decisions, about getting clarity and about reaching consensus between different points of view in a team. At the moment, the team will study and learn a lot of ideas in detail. At this point, it will be easier for the team to decide which of the ideas will be further developed and proceed to the next steps. A good technique for this point is the use of red and green dots or any other method of forced ranking. What we want to achieve here is the elimination of ambiguity and the presence of a clear priority list of scenarios, so that we can remove those ideas that simply do not have the technical, business and experience potential.
The compulsory ranking method is to give people $ 100 (conditional) and ask them to put as many dollars as they wish alongside the idea / scenario, which they consider to be promoted and developed as part of the Windows Phone application. In the hands of people there will be a budget and in practice it will make people think well of what to invest their “money”. Some people can make a choice by dividing their investments (voices) into 5 parts - $ 20 each. Others will be a specific idea and put $ 45 on it, and the rest will be divided into other ideas. Some can divide their investments into 100 parts! But of course their “decision and power of influence” will be greatly reduced.
In the end, depending on the results, the threshold is determined and all ideas having a rating below this threshold are removed. All others become a priority list of scripts for your application, which will be further studied to turn them into features. Done! :)
Previous article | # 2 Windows Phone Application Design Process
PS Other materials about Metro in Russian are collected on MSDN in the « metro-design » hub
Formation of ideas and concepts is a fun stage and it is best to play with other people! - There are three main stages in the phase of the formation of ideas and concepts: 1) brainstorming 2) research and 3) consolidation. In a nutshell, at the brainstorming stage, you create tons of ideas , at the research stage, you dissect and study many of these ideas (but not all), and at the consolidation stage, you decide which ideas will go forward to become part of your application. Only some of them make him alive .
Brainstorm
Brainstorming is usually the first step in designing a Windows Phone application (or designing something from this area). This stage is complete freedom of thought. It's about inventing tons of ideas, even if some of them are more crazy than others. It's about thinking outside the box to come up with innovative solutions.
The best tool for brainstorming is storytelling and a huge amount of multi-colored stickers for notes, although sketches and moodboards will also help. To begin with, this article has 10 really good tips for effective brainstorming.
Basically you will use brainstorming to determine two things: 1) the general idea for your application, and then 2) the possibilities for your application.
Brainstorming can help you come up with interesting ideas for Windows Phone apps that provide unique user value and stand out among other apps in the Marketplace. After you have determined the overall goal of your application, brainstorming can help you create and explore specific ideas (opportunities) for your application.
First, you will need a topic or a main (common) custom script (s) to solve. One of the typical ones we see here is the almost instinctive approach of “creating an application just because there is an API and a web service accessible from the outside.” Thus, in the end, we have dozens of clients Yelp !, Twitter or Foursquare. Although there is nothing wrong with trying to create the best client for any of these services, the real opportunity to innovate is found in the way of thinking from the point of view of user experience, and not the API, or web services. Thus, instead of saying " I will create an application based on the Yelp API! ", Say: " I will create an application to help the user get a dining experience ." Decide what user experience you want in your application will be part of and based on your activity, your personal preferences, hobbies, or what you hear what people really want. You will find that the most successful customers of Twitter (Seesmic) or Foursquare (4th and Mayor) are those who think outside the framework of the API.
Another common approach that we see at this stage in some people is supporting oneself from the very beginning. For example, they begin a stage of ideas, knowing that they will create an application " to check stock prices ." Thus, in the end, we have another application of stock quotes or another application for reading an RSS feed. The key to inventing good and original ideas for applications is the thought of user experience . So instead of thinking “ I’ll create an application for trading in the securities market ”, think “ I’m exploring how to help the user with the experience of trading in the securities market ” - ah! It is much broader, giving you more opportunities to come up with ways to contribute to the experience.
A powerful brainstorming technique for performing this kind of approach to generating ideas for Windows Phone applications is the subjects + verbs + objects technique. I remember, we did it in architecture school and it was fun! Last year we started using it also for developing user interfaces.
')
Subjects + Verbs + Objects
We used this group brainstorming technique during the Windows Phone Design Day tour. It consists in the presence of a group of people who write a bunch of words - subjects, verbs and objects associated with the user interface, then select some of these words to create a new script. This exercise ignites creativity because it forces you to find a solution to scenarios based on words that you did not write to yourself — scenarios that you would never have thought up to yourself if there was no collective consciousness of the group.
- Take a few multicolored stickers and markers. Preferably all markers should have the same line thickness and the same color (black).
- Take 3 multi-colored stickers and write the word subjects on the first, objects on the second and verbs on the third.
- Stick these 3 stickers on a large wall.
- At this point, you should have certain themes for your Windows Phone application — don't forget to think about user experience, such as lunch, sailing, or development (no specific solution this time). We will use the lunch experience (food in the restaurant) in this example.
- Ask participants to write one subject , one verb, and one object related to the process and “lunch” experience. One word for each, on a separate sticker and stick them under the stickers with the headings that you originally created.
- This will fill the wall with a bunch of subjects, verbs and objects related to the lunch experience (or any other topic that you and your team have chosen, such as running, swimming ...)
- The next step is to divide the group into smaller teams of 2 or 3 people (or 1 if there are few team members) and ask them to choose 3 words that the team likes: one subject, one verb, one object. Ask them to choose words that generate ideas and include imagination for user scripts. Some teams will argue, agreeing which words to choose. The solution here is to give each team member to choose one word so that they end up with one subject, a verb and one object. In fact, you can assign a random set of words to each team - this will make them think outside the box and come up with a unique custom application script for the solution.
- Once the teams have chosen their 3 words, they are ready to start generating ideas on how to solve or execute the script that magically appears by selecting a random subject, a verb, and an object. For example:
- vegetarian girlfriend + scream + double cheeseburger
- children + play + food
- cook + cook (food) + tomatoes
- grandfather (grandmother) + offer + receipt
- Lady Gaga + meet + dishes
“Then participants should come up with scenarios that inspire these 3 words, for example, Lady Gaga + meet + dishes ... We know that we will not develop Windows Phone applications specifically for Lady Gaga, right? Simply, if we are not big fans, we will not create applications focused specifically on Lady Gaga, but what if we transform Lady Gaga into a broader concept, such as “Famous personalities”. So, famous personalities meet with the dishes. What if we create an app to track individuals who visit different places for lunch or dinner? There may be maps and personalities and when users find someone known, they will mark that person. I'm not talking about the application for paparazzi, but about an application that gives the user the opportunity to imagine that he will run into his favorite actress or hip-hop rapper if he goes to dinner or dinner in place X or Y. Use the capabilities of Foursquare and Yelp, and You have some good APIs to support your user experience. This is just an idea. It is important to encourage participants not to be embarrassed to take words literally, but to extrapolate to all meanings, as in the case of Lady Gaga, which we have expanded to a well-known personality or the verb “shout”, which can be expanded to “be upset as a whole” or “having a problem”. This idea of ​​the appearance of a person in restaurants is such that I would never have thought of it myself if it were not for these words that some people in my group wrote on these stickers.
Here is another example of three words that actually caught my attention: children + play + food . I would never have thought of this script myself - I do not have children, but thanks to the 3rd different people who wrote these words, I now have a script to work on it. Children play with food in a restaurant - this can be a real problem. How can we help solve this scenario?
Some methods are described in the Game Storming book that may be helpful. Here is one example of using a brainstorming technique called an impossible script . Remember that these are games, so if you take it too seriously, you will not go far, you just do not need to think about how you will create an application or what internal server architecture is necessary. Just have fun. At subsequent stages, you will have enough time to prioritize, explore technical capabilities and deal with ideas. Now play this game with your team.
Impossible scenario for “kids + play + food”
Mother and father, perhaps 2 or 3 children who play with food, and this is a problem, but the same couple with 100 children would be an impossible scenario! Impossible, isn't it? (I think ...) what would you do as a parent of a hundred children who play with food, taking them to a restaurant? It sounds like a nightmare - you need to know all their names, their preferences, which they follow, which of them are vegetarian, their age groups? Which of them behaves in the best way, who is the worst? Etc. As a caring parent of 100 children, you would know these things, it's just an impossible scenario. Now bring it back to reality: while it is not possible for a parent to take her / his 100 children to a restaurant, it is really possible to have 100 children (from different parents) in a simple restaurant or other public place such as a museum - find out at McDonalds or Chucky Cheese (chain of children's restaurants in the USA - approx. transl. )! Now translate all your “learning experience” as the parent of a hundred children and use it for the restaurant manager or for the restaurant itself. How could a restaurant help these hundred children (or their parents) not to play with food and not make a mess in this place? What if the application is a sponsor of social activity in restaurants, a kind of mini-social media for parents, provides an opportunity to meet and let the children play together at the event or just let the children learn about other children's subcultures based on other children who participate in this event?
Another way to test your subject + verb + object is an alternative world, where you would say something like “what if in a restaurant on the moon?”. What will happen to the meatball, abandoned child? I imagine the meatball flying through the entire restaurant, falling into a grumpy old man on the other side! It gave me an idea ... What if your app becomes a real game where kids can make the mess they want? With the actual food from this restaurant? How about throwing a little Big Mac or McNuggets. If Fruit Ninja already exists, then why not make Messy Food (mess with food, bedlam in a restaurant). It makes me think what will happen if Angry Birds meet Fruit Ninja and Cooking Mama.
Another method is the images of others . Here you have to imagine that you are someone or something in the dining experience. Of course, you can act as a waiter and discover an unforgettable experience from his / her point of view. This will help you open scenarios for your mind that you would not otherwise think about. Allow you and your team to think from a completely different perspective. Now, instead of assuming that you are human, think that you are a plate of pasta. Think about how you got to the restaurant, from what ingredients you are made, how you were cooked, served, eaten. It will also provide you with an unforgettable experience from a point of view from which you could not have thought before. Does this mean that we will create applications for pasta plates? Not necessarily ... But studying the life cycle of pasta will teach you more about what is happening behind the counter, in the kitchen, with supplies or storage (storage) in a restaurant, and I am sure that new ideas will be opened for applications.
A very distinctive approach is to think first about the availability of the API, right? :) The API, web services, and all these goodies should be just tools that help your application contribute to making the user experience better.
There are some major brainstorming books, such as the Game Assault and Tinkerta . They tend to be more brainstorming for marketing / business groups (in my opinion), but you can adapt some of these methods to the design team as well.
Play these actions (the game is just a provisional name) with your team mates or with friends and family if you are an independent developer. These are games for inventing ideas. You should not be too serious at this stage. Everything will be serious in the next few stages.
Pecha Kucha
At the end, you can present your ideas to your team (or friends) using Pecha Kucha ( or Chit Chat in Japanese ) - a presentation model in which you have 20 slides and 20 seconds per slide to present a brief overview of your ideas. This is a great model, as it forces you to remove trash and noise and leave only the best ideas. It will also make you start “pushing” these crazy ideas to the ground.
Study
At this stage, you and your team are studying the practicality (business), attractiveness (experience) and viability (technology) of these ideas that you came up with during the brainstorming stage. I will focus on the experience in this article, as I am sure that if you are a developer or product / marketing manager, reading this post you will know much more about how to explore the technical viability of ideas.
When it comes to research, the goal is to take some of the ideas that came up during the brainstorming session and divide, stretch and test them. You can do this with some of the following tools:
Sketches
Storyboards
Prototypes
Story telling
As mentioned earlier, designing is not a one-time type of activity - not an “one-try” type of activity. Designing is a process in which we take shapeless pieces of concepts and ideas, and begin to work with them, study them and treat them like clay . Gradually, we learn these ideas better, coming to the conclusion that all this is beginning to take a certain form. Sketches, storyboards, prototypes (focusing on paper prototypes at this stage of the formation of ideas) and storytelling are tools for any creative person who allow you to explore the idea.
“The sculptures are simply enclosed within the marble block, and the artist’s task is to free them by removing excess stone” - Michelangelo
Sketches and storyboards
Technique boxing gloves shows exactly what the sketch is all, in particular during this stage of the study. You do not need to become an artist by conveying your ideas in sketches. In fact, at the beginning of the sketching phase, it works even better, being more abstract and common with your strokes. This is what a boxing glove (or better yet, a thick pencil or marker) will help you do. Try the following exercise: take a black marker and a sticker (one of the smallest) and try to draw a full panorama of Windows Phone in it. The paper size and thickness of the lines immediately restrict you from adding details, and this is what sketches of a general, non-detailed description of your ideas are needed for.
Sketch: A powerful tool for visual thinking , by Mike Rohde / is a terrific article on sketches with many excellent links and resources. The dirty art of creating user interface sketches by Peiter Buick / is a must-read article on creating user interface sketches with a large number of practical methods.
This is a great article series on sketching tips from Anders Toxboe /:
Creating user interface sketches, tip # 1: Draw rectangles and corners
Creating user interface sketches, tip # 2: Drawing a shadow
Creating user interface sketches, tip # 3: Using a thick pen
Creating user interface sketches, tip # 4: Keep your hands off the paper
Creating user interface sketches, tip # 5: Limit yourself
Finally, there are 50 resources about sketches for user interface designers - there are some interesting articles, videos and presentations for those who want to delve into sketches.
Paper prototyping
Paper prototyping literally means using paper to build an “interactive” (I would even say “managed”) experience of interaction. You can prepare a paper prototype by making sketches on paper. For Windows Phone applications, you can sketch it all on rectangular pieces of paper. Personally, I used stickers of 3''x5 '' (7.5x22.5 cm) for sketching panoramas, summary pages and pages. This is great because you can stick some stickers next to each other and arrange panoramas with 4-6 panels, or summary pages with 3-6 sections. If you perform custom testing of your prototypes, then you can arrange the presentation a little larger and make a sketch in the page size of the letter (Letter). How to make objects interactive? Well, literally to make a sketch, from various screens and user interface modules that will be displayed or changed when the user “interacts” with them. In this guided prototype, you must help the user by inserting, deleting, modifying parts of the paper prototype, depending on what the user wants to do. This is a great way to start testing the concept early enough, and it's cheap, not because it's paper, but because in 15-60 minutes you can create a good paper prototype, and then invest hours, days or weeks, creating interactivity. Remember, at this moment we are still in the technique of forming ideas, and we still give shape to "shapeless pieces of ideas."
Another way to create paper prototypes is what I learned from Jared Potter / Jared Potter / - Sr. Design Integrator in design studio. He makes sketches of panoramas, summary pages, pages, and then takes pictures of them from his phone. Then he sends these photos to himself via email and imports them into Expression Blend (you can also use Powerpoint ...). In Expression Blend, he creates buttons on top of thumbnails, in areas where he drew interactive elements, such as buttons, application toolbar buttons (AppBar), list items. He then creates an interaction (Behaviors) so that the buttons bring him to other screens (other sketches). After 15 minutes, he has a complete paper prototype (interactive) working in Blend and he is ready to start testing some of his ideas. This is a kind of hybrid paper and digital prototyping technique, but also cheap (given that you can use Blend, PowerPoint or equivalent).
Paper prototyping - by Shawn Medero / is great material for reading with theoretical and practical advice. Creating paper screen diagrams is another good reading material. Please note that in this case, the author explains the technique that uses the previously created elements of the user interface of the wireframe. They are printed, and then the user interface is composed of them. These are still paper prototypes, although the thumbnails are not created with a pen / pencil — instead, they use pre-created user interface controls and templates. Should I create some of these UI control patterns for Windows Phone? Ok, let's do it.
These are 3 big articles about paper prototyping theory - not so many practical tips, but it's nice to read to understand the significance of building rough prototypes:
Paper prototypes: still our favorite
Looking back on 16 years of paper prototyping
Using paper prototypes for risk management
Story telling
Some people (including me) claim that this is the most important tool for generating ideas. Storytelling is indeed fundamental to the entire user interface design process. Storytelling allows you to convey scenarios and describe users, problems and solutions in a way that makes sense, which attracts people and allows them to immerse themselves in the world of the future, where your application exists.This not only helps you and your teammates and customers to understand your vision of the application, but it also helps to delve into the application and make it more interesting. A good story telling is also what makes your application ready for sales ... sales to investors, teammates, customers and users. Flat story will give a flat application. A structured and fascinating narrative usually reflects applications that are unique.
A good way to explain the meaning of storytelling in user experience design is with the words:
“Storytelling usually begins with the introduction of“ Once ... ”, then the narrator makes a short pause to collect his thoughts. The traditional entries, of which many (often with answers from the audience), were “rituals”, which served as a signal that the narrator suspended “time and space”, as we know, and moved the audience into the world of imagination and play. „- Barry McWilliams /
“ As experience shows, now covering several media, channels and formats, we have to look at narration, interaction, emotional elements to support transitions through channels and formats ”- Joe Lamantia / Joe Lamantia /, Beyond Findability Seminar at the IA Summit 09
“To create a truly memorable and satisfactory result, the user experience designer needs to understand how to create a logical and viable structure for experience and needs in order to understand those elements that are important for creating an emotional connection with the users of the product.” - Cindy Chastain / Chastain cindy /
«If the emotion and meaning can come out of alignment elements that make up the history, to design the optimal experience, we have to have a story that matches the product elements, the Tools or system. "- Cindy Chastain / Cindy Chastain /
Storytelling is the basis for any other way of communicating user experience ideas and user interfaces. Stories can be told through voice, in sketches, storyboards, mood boards and / or video.
Telling a story about user experience is not too different from writing scripts for movies or novels. Similar narrative elements exist for developers and designers to create attractiveness and reveal details about user experience. Common elements of the narration are: theme, world, character (s), details (objects), history (s) (place of action) .
Themeis one phrase that describes everything. Your foundation. Your mantra. Phrase you and your team will live. Each scenario, feature, solution that you take for the needs of the application must pass through a theme filter - a thematic test. The world is a parameter, a landscape, a room, a street or in the key of digital experience - these are also screens (of different sizes), or platforms, such as phones, tablets or even Facebook, where this digital experience takes place. Characters are subjects or (persons) or other creatures participating in the experience.
Details (objects) are physical or digital assets that complement the user (s) in their experience. Stories define the actions and relationships between subjects and objects.
In addition to the elements of the story, the structure is also important. You will find different story formats with several different structures. The basic structure of the story consists of: strings, climax and denouement . Thus, when defining and telling a user experience history, one should begin by describing the users and their context. You can set their problems or goals, and finally explain how this scenario will be solved with the help of your application. The biggest risk for stories is that they can be flat - tell stories instead that have poignant moments of revelation and moments in which everything seems to be lost, and then the feature you have invented decides everything.
You can share user experience stories by writing them down using some sort of visual tools such as sketches in storyboards and / or mood boards. Also note that storytelling in user experience design is a multidimensional meaning with different levels of experience for which you can write a story. First you can write a complete application top-level history. Finally, you can write stories for specific features.
A very valuable technique that I learned from marketing was to write mini-stories called “speaking in an elevator,” the basis of which is to be able to convey a story in 30 seconds or less. If you cannot describe your application, your main feature areas, or a specific feature in less than 30 seconds, then most likely you have not yet mastered the script or feature, and you need more time to study it.
“If you cannot tell the story of your application or a specific feature in 140 characters, you may need to learn more deeply before continuing the process.”
Even more effective method that I use recently is to describe your application, your main areas or specific features in modern standards of “speech in an elevator”: status on Facebook or tweet on Twitter. So try to write a mini-story (actually a nano-story) in 420 characters for Facebook status, and then 140 characters for Twitter. If you cannot describe your application or feature in this limited number of characters, then, as already mentioned, most likely you cannot still consolidate the user experience in such a way that research is no longer required. If the team has a reconciliation conflict for a long history tweet describing their application or features of their application, then it would be nice to go back and talk more about the application or feature,in finding key elements contributing to user experience.
Here are some good descriptions that I found in the Marketplace for Windows Phone:
CocktailFlow
Twitter : Browse, search and discover cocktails with a continuously growing collection of drinks.
Facebook : Browse, search and discover cocktails with a continuously growing collection of drinks. The app has beautifully decorated cocktail recipes and determines what can be prepared from the ingredients in the bar. He also gives advice on what ingredients to buy more to make extra tasty cocktails.
Seesmic
Twitter : Seesmic allows you to update and view multiple social networks simultaneously in an effective and powerful application.
Facebook :Seesmic allows you to update and view several social networks simultaneously in an effective and powerful application. Manage multiple Twitter, Facebook, Salesforce Chatter accounts and organize all your accounts, search queries, relevant topics, and lists in your custom "space" control panel.
Topics of experience: a story element applied to design — it was a terrific session presented by Cindy Chastain at the IA Summit 2009 in Memphis. She talked about storytelling for user experience designers and developers. It is better to write through a design written by Brownwyn Jones / Brownwyn Jones /, this is a good article that gives practical advice to better write user experience stories. ArticleUsing stories for a better user experience , written by Whitney Quesenbery / explains the use of personalities for writing stories, as well as ideas for collecting stories directly from users during testing sessions. Here is a Whitney presentation with notes and slides. Not directly related to user experience design, but I think this article is about conflicts and characters in the story structure , which was very useful for me to understand the basic story structure - a structure that can be easily translated into storytelling about user experience.
A note about being careful with ... children
During the research phase, you will inevitably be confronted with a conflict of interest, and people will fall in love with their ideas. Ideas like children and babies can be so cute that you don’t want to let them go even when they are evil. Thus, learn to cut the rope and let go of ideas if they prove (and this is the key word here ... prove) that they are not justified. At the same time, embracing some ideas and defending them at any cost is equally important. Without a strong mastermind in a team, a good idea can fly off the track and get lost forever. What we want to find throughout our study is “evidence that proves” that this is a worthwhile idea, or that it is not. During this process, the idea will evolve and at the end you will learn a lot about it. Notice, this is not the timeto make this idea 100% mature, but to feel how feasible it is. I just readtweet with Ed Catmull / Pixar's president: " The Pixar culture is to protect an unformed idea ."
Fastening
If brainstorming is all about freedom, then consolidation is all about making decisions, about getting clarity and about reaching consensus between different points of view in a team. At the moment, the team will study and learn a lot of ideas in detail. At this point, it will be easier for the team to decide which of the ideas will be further developed and proceed to the next steps. A good technique for this point is the use of red and green dots or any other method of forced ranking. What we want to achieve here is the elimination of ambiguity and the presence of a clear priority list of scenarios, so that we can remove those ideas that simply do not have the technical, business and experience potential.
The compulsory ranking method is to give people $ 100 (conditional) and ask them to put as many dollars as they wish alongside the idea / scenario, which they consider to be promoted and developed as part of the Windows Phone application. In the hands of people there will be a budget and in practice it will make people think well of what to invest their “money”. Some people can make a choice by dividing their investments (voices) into 5 parts - $ 20 each. Others will be a specific idea and put $ 45 on it, and the rest will be divided into other ideas. Some can divide their investments into 100 parts! But of course their “decision and power of influence” will be greatly reduced.
In the end, depending on the results, the threshold is determined and all ideas having a rating below this threshold are removed. All others become a priority list of scripts for your application, which will be further studied to turn them into features. Done! :)
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PS Other materials about Metro in Russian are collected on MSDN in the « metro-design » hub
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