Keep The Noise Down

A round-up of news, sites and humour from the last few days.

Social Media

Astroturfing is rampant on Twitter

If you don’t already know this term, well, it refers to imitating or faking popular grassroots opinion or behaviour.  Researchers have found evidence that  political campaigns and special-interest groups are using fake Twitter accounts to give the impression of a vast political movement.

 

User Experience

What do UX professionals have in common? (interactive card sort)

C’mon all professionals working in the field of User Experience…this interactive card sort lets you sort your skills and specialist areas, to provide insight in to what User Experience Professionals have in common.

 

Do Photos of People Improve Ecommerce Conversion?

Do “friendly faces and culturally appropriate colors” increase conversion?  It appears they can, but most importantly take the time to understand what works for your target audience…

 

Expedia on how one extra data field can cost $12m

I’m puzzled to how this happened.  Yes, statistical analysis helped to root out why customers who clicked the 'Buy Now' button did not complete the transaction.  But is this something testing should have flagged up?

 

Education & Careers 

Technology enhances learning (infograph)

How effective are different forms of education materials.  The Teachers response to this are shown in this infograph.

 

Course in Lady Gaga offered at US university

What is happening to education?  Students at a US university are being offered a course in the pop singer Lady Gaga.

 

Get a Job Through YouTube

Is there anything more personal to a job application than a video? It beats paper hands down so no surprise that people are turning to YouTube as a creative way to go get hired.

 

Fun (and educational)

Keep obsolete and unusual words alive

We’re having great fun in our Interactive Media team adopting obsolete and unusual words from the Oxford English Dictionary's interactive words wall.  It’s a concept that's screaming out to be more social, but still plenty of fun to be had.

 

eCommerce

High fashion stoops to e-commerce to find new markets (video)

Many luxury brands are nervous about the Internet, worrying an online presence will dilute the sense of exclusivity. Are we turning a corner as big players are beginning to sell high-end items online?

 

Technology

Apple is shifting black iPhones by the million, but for some reason it can't even manufacture the white variety, let alone sell it

Back in June at the unveiling of the iPhone 4, CEO Steve Jobs announced two models: one black, one white. The white phone has failed to make it to market.  Why are the white models more challenging to manufacture?

Given the choice, would you prefer the black or white model?

Core Skills of a Successful User Experience Team

As User Experience matures as a discipline and the mainstream gets and values UX this has made us think harder about recruiting User Experience talent.  I look back at my CV of old and remember my previous job applications, and now that I’m looking from the inside out and recruiting for our UX team, it seems that things have got a whole load harder.  Is this a good time to mention that we’re recruiting?

Why is recruiting getting harder?

It’s hard to describe the core skills we’re looking for in a User Experience Consultant. Why? Because it depends on a mix of factors such as complimentary team skills, emerging techniques, current work, business pipeline, and a vision of where we want to take the team.  Many User Experience Consultants have crafted a rich toolkit of User Experience techniques.  At times such a broad skillset is preferable, and other times more in-depth specialist skills are a better fit.  That isn’t to say, that I’ve no idea what type of individual we need to recruit, but ask me in 3 weeks or 3 months and my response will be different. At any moment in time a multitude of factors can change my recruitment needs.

What skills does the team need?

To help inform this decision I’ve compiled a list that describes the core skills of our user Experience Team.  This list was created by looking at the skills of our User Experience team and brainstorming,, and then grouping these skills.  The skills were then weighted based on the demand for them. So hopefully providing I keep this document up to speed, at any one time I can get a pretty darn good snapshot of where we’re at and what we need.  It enables me to quickly assess the current team’s skills versus our needs, and to identify those gaps which we need to recruit in to maintain a successful UX team.

Core skills of a User Experience team

Below is the first draft of the core skills of a User Experience team that I’m working from.  Like any lists there are bound to be surprise inclusions and shock exclusions, so please let me know what you think and identify any gaps?

The UX skills were grouped under the following 6  labels:

• User Research
• Information Architecture
• Information/ Experience Design
• Interaction Design
• User Testing
• General

The core skills in each group are as follows:

Research

• Competitive Review
• Ethnography
• Field research
• Heuristic Review
• Eye tracking
• User interviews & contextual enquiry
• Mental models

Information Architecture

• Taxonomies
• Folksonomies
• Ontologies
• Card Sorting
• Affinity diagrams
• Site Map
• Navigation patterns

Information/ Experience Design

• Experience Architecture
• Experience Principles
• Persona design
• Scenario design
• User Journey development
• Scamping ideas
• Visual storytelling
• Wireframe production

Interaction Design

• Interaction/ behaviour definition
• Experience prototyping
• Design Patterns

Testing

• User testing scripts
• Conduct user testing
• Usability test analysis
• Concept testing

General

• Customer requirements gathering
• Stakeholder interviews
• Facilitation of workshops
• Brainstorming
• Client presentation skills
• In-depth knowledge of UCD process
• Estimation

Oh, in case you don’t already know, we’re recruiting User Experience Architects or Senior User Experience Consultants.

Calling all User Experience Rockstars!

Do you want to work with awesome brands including Tesco, Virgin Media, BBC & Barclays? 
Do you have an inherent belief in applying User Centered Design techniques to create intuitive, usable and inspired experiences?

If so, we have several opportunities available for talented, experienced, UX rockstars, as either User Experience Architects or Senior User Experience Consultants.

We’re looking for exceptional individuals with core capabilities around conceptual design, user profiling and task analysis, information architecture, interaction and experience design.

Our Senior User Experience Consultants have the additional responsibility of leading clients and project teams in the concepting and execution of world-class customer experiences.

The UX Role

• User experience design of high profile big brand web sites and applications.
• Translate a users objectives into an intuitive end to end digital experience
• Deliver big ideas and the magic details.
• Communicate and collaborate with the big brains that make up our in-house capabilities, such as creative designers, copywriters, developers and business analysts,
• Communicate effectively at a high level in client organisations.

Experience & Qualifications

• Core capabilities around conceptual design, user profiling and task analysis, information architecture, interaction and experience design.
• A degree in HCI or similar.
• 3+ years industry experience; 6+ years for senior user experience consultants.
• Most importantly, you must be extremely passionate about creating an experience that meets and exceeds the rule of best practice but also creates a new and improved benchmark for our others in our industry

Rewards

Work for a company that strongly values your work-life balance and offers a fantastic work environment, generous pension options, BUPA, bonuses, share options, cycle scheme (inc bike parking in the office and a shower), fresh fruit, Monmouth coffee, Friday beers & nibbles, regular Borough market lunches, charity bike rides, chance to be office DJ and more.

We need passionate User Experience specialists to deliver compelling customer experiences that fulfil consumer goals and align to key business drivers. If you have what we need then please get in touch.

London IA - Wednesday 11th November... don't miss out

The London IA event on the 11th November is not to be missed.  For newbies, this is a celebration of all-things IA (that is, Information Architecture).EMC Consulting is delighted to be hosting this event – so head over to our offices  (address below) for what promises to be a great event.

For those of you who unfortunately can’t make the event then follow what’s happening on Twitter - #londonIA  . And don’t forget to follow @london_ia to keep posted on future events and competitions.

When:  Wednesday, November 11th.  Doors open at 18:00 and it goes on until around 23:00. 

Where:  EMC Consulting, 36 Southwark Bridge Road, London, SE1 9EU

Who:

Max Gadney, Commissioning Executive in the BBC Vision Multi-Platform team
19:00 What’s the Point? IA with Purpose?

Richard Sedley, Director of the cScape Customer Engagement Unit (CEU)
20:00 Principles of Persuasion in On-site Behavior Change

Jason Mesut, Experience Director at The Team 
21:00 Play in User Experience

Oliver Reichenstein, runs Information Architects in Tokyo
22:00 Future of News

 

Thanks to Zebra People, for keeping attendees fed and watered (well, beers and wine that is)

 
Read more about the event at http://iapresentation.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/london-ia-november-11-mini-ia/

Anyone seen Barry White?

As the candles flicker and the sweet smell of lemongrass fills the room, you reach for the silky tones of Barry White to drop on your CD player and complete the 10 steps to seduction. Crap! Where’s Barry White? As you frantically finger your way through Snoop Doggy Dog and Eminem, the realisation that the classification of your CDs could be the downfall of your libido slowly dawns.

Facetted navigation is a no-brainer. No longer is Barry White sat firmly at the end a single navigation path though the information space but the multidimensional man himself can be found by the many dimensions of his music: - Soul, 1970’s, Love, Music for the Bachelor.

Faceted navigation is yesterday’s news but as I go through the agonizing process of classifying 1000+ physical CD’s, and reclassifying, and reclassifying, I’m insulted that some e-retailers don’t embrace the advantages of the information space and stumble at the first hurdle in making their products findable.

I propose Endeca and Autonomy patrol the web and enforce law and order amongst those who violate such a basic principle. Crimes against findability are not acceptable.