This is not a webpage.
Perhaps not as clever following René Magritte’s The Treachery of Images, yet still valid (I would have said that back in 1928, except I wasn’t invited to the French exhibition and webpages weren’t in common use yet… and my parents hadn’t been born). Consider René’s point for a moment. The image of a pipe cannot be smoked; therefore, it is not a pipe. Surrealism has always fascinated me as a topic of philosophical discussion (which, I confess, might have been encouraged by my favorite college pastime – screwing with inebriated philosophy majors). Regardless, the topic seems to have some weight in the world of user experience design (UXD). But first, allow me to expand on my initial observation.
The Treachery of Images - 1928-1929
How do you define a webpage? Is it the rendered output of the browser? The content contained on the page? The underlying code such as HTML, CSS, javascript, Flash and such? The underlying ones and zeros representing ASCII and various compressed media files that store and transfer that code? Is it the local copy stored temporarily for the browser? The copy on my server (and if so, which one)?
As you can see, the whole concept of what we call a “webpage” gets pretty convoluted when you try to nail it down. We all (or at least I hope all of you) understand implicitly what a webpage is. But the definition seems to be a bit elusive. Now, I’m pretty confident several of those proposed definitions could suffice, but none of them would really be complete. That’s why, no matter how you define it, I can refute your definition and say “this is not a webpage.”
What’s the point of all this babbling about semantics? How does it relate to something real (as opposed to surreal)? I’m getting to that. Don’t worry, you’re not the first person to suggest I over think things occasionally, so bear with me.
The activity of thinking this through forces you (or at least me) to think of things from a mindset that I wouldn’t normally consider. As a practitioner of UXD, I consider a website the culmination of technologies and content delivered to your browser when a super special URI is accessed. As an entrepreneur, a website is little more than one delivery vehicle for a potentially valuable solution to some problem a given group of people have. As a businessman, a website is a potential asset created and maintained by the firm to increase revenue, decrease costs or maintain existing clients (assuming new clients will increase revenue).
Here’s the problem – These are all valid, yet juxtaposed, concepts. Each of those definitions are valid for a website, but reconciling them is nearly impossible. This is what UX designers deal with on a regular basis (perhaps it’s just me, but I’ll assume that at least some designers are like me). The act of design is frequently an attempt to reconcile inherently incongruous juxtapositions (i.e., surreal).
Good design sometimes requires us to look past temporarily incongruous juxtapositions, so long as they cancel out in the end.
Frequently, to design a good experience, the designer must put himself or herself into a mental position that hasn’t been (or can’t ever be) directly experienced. For instance, when I was working on Plum Keeper, I had to consider the experience from the primary user group’s perspective, which is pretty typical. Unfortunately for me, the primary user group are mothers of small children with moderate computer skills. Being a single male (yes women of the Interweb I’m a single geek, how original) with no children (last I checked), the whole young mother thing is a bit unlikely to ever happen and certainly hasn’t occurred yet. Furthermore, I’m hardly a computer guru, but I’ve been around the block a few times (I started on a C64 and have been online since the early 90s… good ol’ BBS’s). I know plenty of mothers who I interviewed for the project, but as much as I sympathize with their situations I can never truly empathize. This is where understanding (or at least pretending to understand) surrealism can help in reality. The same skills used to digest those incongruous juxtapositions of surrealism will help feel out alternative design possibilities (e.g., me mothering a couple young kids). I think the design Kyrie Robinson (who has the unfair advantage of being a mother of young children) and I came up with will work out pretty well, but only time will tell.
It reminds me of electrical engineering. For those of you that haven’t studied the topic, it can get a bit confused. Imaginary numbers supposedly simplify the algebra (if you insist on calling that mess simplified), but they have to cancel out in the end (seeing as we live in the non-imaginary world). Now, when dealing with trivial cases, this seems obvious and is pretty easy to do. My class was a bit different. Hard doesn’t begin to explain it, but I’ll tell the story of my migraines and C+ worthy 17% another day.
So here’s the grand wisdom (or at least a good idea) that I’ve garnered from surrealism, which I use in product design: Good design sometimes requires us to look past temporarily incongruous juxtapositions, so long as they cancel out in the end. Although I might not be able to empathize with a mother of young children, I can attempt to sympathize. In doing so (if I do my job well), I create an experience that will effectively solve a problem for those mothers. The imaginary number of my design efforts (me as a mother) cancels out (real mothers like it too).
An old friend and colleague from Creighton University, Travis Graham, has decided to try his hand at product design. I am quite confident in his ability to design successful products. Granted, he doesn’t have much experience beyond a few small internal projects and coursework, but we all started in a similar situation.
I plan on helping Travis work through a couple projects to build up his resume and figure out if he really enjoys the design. If successful, I’d like to bring him on to support some of my projects over the next year. Then, with a little luck, the one-man band will start to become a more diverse organization allowing us to take on more projects and specialize to some extent.
The more the merrier. Travis will bring insight, talent, and perspective to future projects.
We’ve decided to start with a small website redesign. Travis has contacted the site owner, who seems very receptive to having a free redesign. In fact, the owner seems interested in changing the business focus and image a bit, so it’s a good thing Travis and I both have MBAs as well. I suppose being slightly over-educated does have its benefits on occasion.
I believe everybody should have a few ‘secret’ talents. Talents that aren’t necessarily obvious and have no clear relationship to work or hobbies. One of my secret talents is carving pumpkins.
It’s that time of year again. Many people anticipate the children dressed up looking for candy. Some of the children happen to be in their 20s and 30s.
We look forward to the latest pumpkin carving challenge… this year, we go for a Trek.
I’ve always enjoyed Halloween. The activity of exploring new areas of your personality via costume fascinates me. Probably one of the things that drew me to role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons® when I was a kid… okay, so I continued playing DnD and similar games through college, too. Anyway, carving pumpkins offered a way for my creative side to come out for a few hours a year without much investment of time or effort.
A few years ago I suggested I could carve a pumpkin better than a friend of mine. This turned into an annual challenge. After I carved Yoda a couple years ago (the picture above), we started to get more serious. Last year involved a Lord of the Rings theme. My Balrog fighting Gandalf tribute failed miserably. It turns out that carving a creature described as “shadow and flame” is rather difficult. This year we went for a Star Trek theme. Unfortunately, Matt’s pumpkin was rotten when we started carving, so I was the only one able to finish. I have only one word to describe it, “KHAAAAAN!”
Wrath of Khan pumpkin, 2007 - by Josh
We’ll probably go for a fantasy theme again next year. Possibly Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, or Marvel comics. Then again, we might just as easily go for a Monty Python theme, because “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”
Here is the complete gallery of pumpkins we have created over the last few years.
I’ve officially started working with Sojern. We’re still ironing out a few of the contract details, but things should be finalized shortly. This should be an interesting experience, to say the least.
And people say I’m ambitious. Sojern has set out with a defined goal of creating $1 billion of shareholder value over the next 3-4 years. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great group of people with lots of talent. They’ve got the resources and management with enough business acumen and sales experience to probably pull it off. However, that’s one hell of a goal to start out with!
If nothing else, Sojern should be an interesting ride. I’m not convinced the business is ready (maybe in six months) for my skill-set yet; however, I’ll do everything I can in the meantime. Hopefully, I’m wrong and they will need to develop all of the components currently being discussed in parallel. I suspect quite a few components and concepts will fall into v3, v4, and v5 discussions, because this project strikes me as substantially larger than most people involved want to admit. I have been accused of biting too much off at the same time, but I’ve never seen an entire office do it at the same time. I hope I’m wrong, but it’s hard to not notice some of the signs.
Despite all of this, the monstrous goals, the gargantuan challenges, the short time-line, I still think Sojern will probably succeed. It is just a matter of time. Given the collection of experience already in the room and the several million dollars in angel investment already acquired, I doubt it’ll take very long for success to find Sojern.
“Struggle is good.” Or so my high school English teacher quipped on a regular basis. I suppose part of me, a big part perhaps, agrees. It’s a bitter sweet thing when Intuit closed the Omaha office. On the one hand, there is much I left unfinished. On the other hand, it forced me to find something different, which might be better in the long run.
I enjoyed my brief time at Intuit; however, with rising prospects elsewhere leaving opens up innumerable opportunities I would have either overlooked or bypassed while at Intuit. There is something to be said for constantly throwing oneself into the raptures of change and chaos. It might be crazy… or it might be brilliant. Haven’t decided which just yet 
Maybe I’ll still have a chance to work on some of those lingering projects as a contractor in a few months. And, if nothing else, I learned a few things, made some improvements in a few products, and met some really great people. Any experience with all of that must have been worth it.
On the plus side, a majority of the people from the office are joining a new startup called Sojern. I’m not a big fan of the misspelling of sojourn (to have a safe and successful trip or journey); however, the business plan is interesting. I’m negotiating a part-time contract with Sojern along with a couple other possible clients.
Of course, I have every confidence that the entire group will land on their respective feet without any trouble. The whole office was comprised of experienced professionals with more than a bit of entrepreneurial spirit.
Great news everybody! Philip Haine (Obvious Design, Steal this Idea) has invited me to work with some of his clients, because he’s taking a sabbatical to finish his book on product vision. Philip and I worked briefly together on a couple projects at Intuit, and I’m really excited to have the opportunity to learn some more from him. Philip has been a user interface designer for years and consulting for about 11 years. Needless to say, I have much to learn from the Jedi Master.
Philip was the primary designer behind TurboTax Expense Pro (I had a bit of input simply because I sit 30 feet from the developers). He also worked on MyCorp and TurboTax Business. In fact, Expense Pro and MyCorp are the two products with the most potential at Intuit in my opinion. Philip designed very solid interfaces for both applications. Philip walked me through the terrifying complexity of MyCorp with ease… which is quite a statement considering the hundreds upon hundreds of offering combinations possible–each with legal and financial implications.
I should have my official LLC documents within a couple weeks, so it is looking up for the consulting gig. With Philip’s generous help and a little luck, I’ll be able to get involved with a couple Silicon Valley projects before the end of the year.
I will be starting a short-term contract with Northern Natural Gas next week to help clean up an internal application and lay down some UI groundwork for a longer term consolidation effort. Effectively a survivor of the Enron debacle (or maybe they were just purchased by one of the fragmented companies that came out of Enron), NNG supplies natural gas from Texas to Lake Superior.
I’ll be working at their headquarters in Omaha, which should be interesting. I’ve heard good things about the work environment, but suspect the internal IT projects are underfunded with poorly implemented incentives around the business unit… which is pretty status quo for IT in my experience. Either way, this will keep me busy through at least the first week or two of September, which is good. With a little luck I’ll have the consulting business up to speed by the time this contract runs out.
I am in the process of forming an LLC to start independent consulting. This, with a little luck, will help me put my skills to the test. Most importantly, I hope to get involved with some interesting projects around the country that push interaction design to the limits and test my ability to manage product vision.
Sorry about lack of content on this post, but I’m excited to see where this leads.
Intuit has decided to close the Omaha office. Acquired along with It’s Deductible four years ago, Omaha has supported numerous Intuit small business products. The powers that be were looking at FY08 projections and found the company was running about $60M over budget. Although it is sad Omaha will be closing, the decision is hardly a surprise. It’s been considered numerous times ever since the acquisition. In fact, I only saw two possible courses of action for the office long term–close it or spin it off as a R&D product incubator. As much as I would have liked to work in a think tank, the later option would increase expenses while closing the office is an easy save of $15M. The team here is quite talented, so I don’t expect anybody will have trouble finding new employment. Of course a few will move to California and continue with Intuit.
It’s been real… It’s been fun… It’s been real fun, but all great things come to an end. We had a very talented group of engineering, support, and product staff, so I expect great things in the future even if we don’t all work in the same office.
Even though I only joined the team nine months ago, I see this as an opportunity to do something new. I haven’t decided if I’d like to move to California (oh so expensive) or not… but for right now I’m just looking for a great project to work on… location, income, etc. are all negotiable.