Debra Michalides

On a recent project I lobbied for us to rework an affinity model we thought we were finished with. I sent an email requesting this and outlying what I thought were valid points. The reaction I received from the former engineers I lobbied to was not something I anticipated. They teased me about being a perfectionist.

Why was I called a perfectionist? First I need to explain a little about the process of building an affinity model. An affinity model in Contextual Design is a consolidation of data from user interviews. To consolidate the data we print each interview note on a post-it and as a group arrange them on the wall into different relationships. This process has many places were there is more than one right answer on how to group notes. One could easily spend eternity moving post-its around and telling different stories. As you can imagine, for those who lean toward perfectionism, this is purgatory. My colleagues assumed with my request for improvement that I had entered into this slippery slope.

The only thing that keeps us sane when building an affinity diagram is an understanding of the project focus. If we didn’t have a project focus then every single note and every word on it would become equally important leaving no way to tell a coherent story or to edit out things that do not matter. When I lobbied for us to spend a little more time on our affinity it was my intention to make the affinity best tell the user story that mattered and one that better matched our focus.

So what would have happened if we left it alone? Maybe nothing, but maybe our design would have suffered because an important issue for a user was not obvious. We can’t ever know the answer, however in this case I decided I didn’t want to risk it.

I want to believe that my experience has taught me what battles to fight for and what battles are merely my own desire to control the world and make it perfect. I don’t always get this right and my own perfectionist agenda creeps in, but I keep trying anyway.

My engineer minded colleagues didn’t have the same perspective I had and thought the affinity model was fine, but they indulged me anyway and allowed for more time to refine. In the end I think we all believed it was worth the time and we got a better model. I appreciate my colleagues for challenging my motives, because I think there are times when “being thorough” can find its way into perfectionism. I will admit there were multiple times while building the affinity model that I caught myself rearranging the post-it notes on the wall so they lined up nicely in a grid.

It seems to me that there are two sides at play here for designers, if you want things to be “right” you could easily end up seeking perfection if you don’t manage yourself. On the other hand you need to make sure that things that only you as a designer can see don’t fall through the cracks. I don’t claim to know what the “perfect” balance is for avoiding the perfectionist trap, but I think we are all safer if we remember to step back every so often to remind ourselves of what we are trying to accomplish in a project. Stepping back and reminding myself of my project concept was the first thing I recall being taught in art school and years later I now realize it is the most important design skill I have.

I went to the doctor a few months ago because I was exhausted and not sleeping well. I, like most of us with internet access, looked up my symptoms in addition to talking to a few people and had, without a doubt, decided that I needed a sleep study. Luckily for me, my doctor didn’t listen to my self-diagnosis and instead asked additional questions about my health. Because of the answers to those questions she thought it could be hypothyroidism and ordered a test.  The test revealed that it was a thyroid problem.

If you look at the symptoms for hypothyroidism you will realize that any of them individually or just a few together could really be anything.  Here is a list from mayoclinic.com

• Fatigue
• Sluggishness
• Depression
• Increased sensitivity to cold
• Constipation
• Pale, dry skin
• A puffy face
• Hoarse voice
• An elevated blood cholesterol level
• Unexplained weight gain
• Muscle aches, tenderness and stiffness
• Pain, stiffness or swelling in your joints
• Muscle weakness
• Heavier than normal menstrual periods
• Brittle fingernails and hair

Some of the symptoms listed, such as dry skin, seem more like an annoyance than anything related to something serious. I would never think to bring up many of these symptoms if I thought I had a sleep disorder because they didn’t make sense with what I thought the problem was. Once my doctor confirmed that I had a thyroid condition it became clear to me that these other symptoms were related and with the proper treatment my quality of life has changed.

What does this story tell us as designers?

It tells us that users tend to self-diagnose with their health and are likely to do the same with issues related to products and processes. Much like with their health care many users are not knowledgeable enough to fix their usability problems or even to diagnose them correctly. I have had countless interview subjects tell me that they know exactly what the company should do to fix the software and everything will be fine. Sometimes I get clients who try to diagnose the problem and are very confident they know what it is.  Many are surprised to learn differently when the data is collected. If we do what the users and clients say based on their perspective of the situation we might miss the real diagnosis. They can’t be relied on to see the related issues in the same way that I couldn’t know that something seemingly trivial like dry skin could be relevant to my doctor’s investigation.

My doctor was able to test her theory about the few symptoms I confessed by running a test.  She needed more information than what I told her because I couldn’t be relied on to reveal everything that was relevant. Designers need to “test” users to find out the rest of the story by observing them doing their work and not just listening to what they tell us. If my doctor had only listened to me and just completed a sleep study we may have found a treatment that worked a little, but I could have been back in the office for every other symptom, trying one thing after another and spending a long time not getting better. Many times we, as designers, do just that.  We treat one usability issue and make the product a little better but then our users come back with other issues that are related. If we had probed a little more in the beginning we could have fixed them the first time.

What we do is not as high risk as health care and we don’t suffer the same consequences if we diagnose a problem incorrectly (though there have been cases where poor usability has caused a serious accident), but we do owe it to our users and our clients to improve the user experience as best we can. If we don’t improve a product well enough, the health of the company is at risk and it could lose customers and/or revenue.

The real lesson here is to remember that we are the experts with the outside perspective. We have the know-how to do it right the first time by investigating the symptoms, seeing the bigger picture and offering a proper diagnosis.

Due to circumstances beyond my control I have been blessed with some time off recently.  I quickly realized that I had neglected my website long enough and that putting together an online portfolio was well over due. I began this project like I imagine most designers do by looking through old work to see if any thing is still relevant and could be made new.

This process of exploration took me to 2 computers, a home web server, an external hard drive and a realization that even though its hard to find anything its still an advantage to save every file you ever made. While clicking through all the folders and opening files I felt at times like I was going back in time and rediscovering my own thoughts and ideas about design, job hunting and resume building. Wow I have come a long way! At first I laughed at myself because of what I thought was acceptable even just over 2 years ago! Now I see that looking back is a way to begin to understand how much I have grown as a designer and as a woman in business. I am grateful for this new perspective on myself and to see all that I have managed to accomplish and experience. It also made me hungry for more by showing me that I have goals yet to be fulfilled.

This comes at a great time because I had felt recently that I wasn’t growing as a designer and that maybe I was falling behind. I had no way of seeing beyond the “now” because its hard to know if you are moving forward when you don’t stop to take a look back once and a while and rediscover what you passed in the distance. It’s like getting in touch with an old friend. You have new things to share while you can also reminisce about the shared experiences you had.  When catching up with an old friend they remind you of who you used to be and you quickly realize that you have changed.

Old friends also remind you of who you are and always will be; the fundamental you. After rediscovering all those projects, I  found common themes across them that painted a picture for me of the type of designer I naturally am. Even before it was my job and it was a required part of the design process, I was always trying to find ways to gather data about what people really do so I could discover the issues and fix them. Somewhere in the old disorganized mess of files I had collected I discovered how much I have grown and was reminded of the designer I have always been and will continue to be.

Recently I decided to attend an industry event and went online to register for it. The organization running the event decided to use EventBrite for registration.

I started to register by clicking the link from the organization’s website. I was immediately directed to the EventBrite site. I could easily see that I had one choice for ticket type and I just needed to select the amount of tickets I wanted. I selected one and chose the order now button. Here is where things got tricky. I was asked if I wanted to pay using PayPal or, if I didn’t have a PayPal account, I could use a credit card. I do have a PayPal account; however I never use it and can’t remember the last time I logged in so I decided to just pay by credit card.

Simple enough right? No.  Instead it figured out that I had a PayPal account and asked me to login to use it. This was after I had completed the form and entered the credit card information I wanted to use. Now I was annoyed, but because I really wanted to go to the conference I decided I would play this game and use my PayPal account. Well, as I suspected all my information was out of date and the credit card on file was not active anymore. I thought ok, fine. I’ll update it.  But after I entered the card I wanted to use it told me another PayPal account was using that card and I could not. It became obvious at that point that my husband uses his PayPal account more than I do and had updated it. So I found another credit card to use which was rejected because I never use it and probably forgot to put the new one in my wallet when it came in the mail. So what am I supposed to do at this point? Well my last resort was to try to start over to see if it would let me register without PayPal.

So I tried to start over, but it turned out that EventBrite had saved the information I had entered and I couldn’t start over. It knew I had a PayPal account and it was determined to make me use it. I gave up and told my husband to go in with his PayPal account and to register for me.  And then, even after registering successfully, I got an email asking me to finish my original registration.

Why am I ranting? Is this just another site with usability problems? I think it’s a bigger and different issue. In this situation I was passed through 3 organizations, UPA, EventBrite and PayPal. It makes perfect sense from a business and user experience level that the UPA outsourced to EventBrite because it’s not worth it for them to build a system for this once a year event. Also many people are familiar with EventBrite so they know how to use it. It also makes sense that EventBrite’s services partner well with PayPal offerings and provide great value to the users. However by partnering and outsourcing all the organizations as a whole have created a completely new user experience.

The entire process from beginning to end needs to be considered and clearly this was not in this case. When I do projects I typically work with one client, on one product and collect data for them alone. But we have 3 companies here who have to work together. So whose job is it to fix the issues and consider the entire user experience?

Obviously UPA has no or little control over how EventBrite’s site works. PayPal has more control in that they are business partners and probably are involved in how they are represented on the EventBrite site, but even still I doubt they have any say in how EventBrite’s product works. So it seems that EventBrite is the company on the hook because they are the ones that are bringing it all together and without them neither UPA or PayPal would be able to accomplish anything.

Is it always that simple? Probably not, but it seems to me that if you can find the key partner, the one that everyone needs and change their product within the context of the other partners and what they bring to the user, then you are closer to being able to affect the entire experience for the better.

While talking with my grandmother recently about the new trash can my aunt had purchased for her, I had a flashback to being 12 years old when the old trash can was purchased. I remember that my grandfather was going to buy a new trash can and decided to take me along. While at the store we had a couple of options. One was like their current trash can in that it had a lid and could fit a regular size trash bag. The other had a lid and could fit a regular size trash bag, but had a foot pedal. I had noticed that my grandparents would have to open the lid with one hand while throwing away trash with the other. Sometimes this was a problem because some trash required two hands. I told my grandfather of this issue I had observed and told him that the foot pedal would solve the problem. He agreed and took it home.

It took them about 1 year before they finally made the foot pedal a permanent habit. I believe this was because they didn’t know they had a problem in the first place. The lifting of the lid with one hand didn’t seem to bother them. I was the one that pointed out that they had a problem and that there was a more efficient method. In the store my grandfather agreed with me and saw the value of the foot pedal, but that didn’t immediately translate into using it. Over time whenever I visited and noticed the weren’t using the pedal I would remind them it was there and about how much easier it would be. Every time they used it they saw how much easier it was and did not deny its value, even still they had old habits to break. If they had been frustrated by the previous method and were being prevented from properly throwing away the trash then they may have switched more easily.

As an interaction designer it is my responsibility to observe people and find those places where they struggle so I can improve them. Many times users say to me, ” Yeah this is so easy, look you just click here, wait 10 minutes and then go back and hit refresh….”.  Meanwhile I am watching them jump through hoops to get anything done. So how do we help users adopt new methods that make their lives easier even if they have not realized they have a problem?

For starters we may need to consider reinforcing the new method when we see them go for the old one, like I had reminded my grandparents every time they threw something away. We need to find a way to establish the new habit without preventing them from using their current practice thus giving them time to transition. If we prevented them from using the old method right away they would be upset seeing as they didn’t know they had a problem in the first place. Once the new method is a habit and the value is obvious nothing less will be acceptable.

It seems that society has done a fabulous job of engineering things that are good for us out of our lives. Escalators are one such invention that has made it convenient to not exercise so much so that excercise needs to be planned and really worked at. Prepared foods can be high in fats and other badnesses yet they are convenient so we go for those instead of healthy foods that need to be made.   We have even figured out how to easily get information to show up for us on our iPhones, it tells us where things are and what things mean just by talking to it. So what I wonder is are we engineering thinking out of our lives? Is there any loss to us if we dont know how to do traditional research without using Google? What thinking activities are we now losing that we will need to make up elsewhere?