It is part of our series of community member reviews critiquing UX books. Read some of our other reviews or see the full list of recommended books.

The Book 

Title: Figure it Out: Getting from Information to Understanding
Authors: Stephen P. Anderson & Karl Fast
Publisher: Two Waves Books (An imprint of Rosenfeld Media)
Price at time of review: Paperback + Ebook bundle USD$32.00; Ebook only USD$13.00 (prices from Rosenfeld Media website)

Book Summary

In this book, Anderson & Fast remind us that information is only understandable in relation to people and their needs. They follow that we must strive to make information understandable, perhaps involving testing “with the intended audience”, evaluating the understandability, and iterating “until it reaches an acceptable level of understanding” (p.13). In the introduction they explicitly pose the question; how might we help others make sense of confusing information?

Based on this, I was expecting a ‘how to’ book to help us present information in a way that aids understanding — to help designers do the heavy lifting of sense-making, and to provide users with understanding and not just information. 

This would have been useful given the wide range of industries that need to make information understandable in our modern world — from creators of content to anyone writing a complex privacy policy or ToS agreement. Communicating complex information that needs to be understood by the masses is always important, but especially now amongst the current COVID-19 pandemic. The authors themselves remind us that we, as consumers of information, should expect more — especially when it is coming from experts and professionals. State health and public safety information should be unambiguous. 

Instead, Anderson & Fast’s ‘Figure it Out’ is a book about the ways in which we think and how humans understand information. This isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy it, or that it isn’t a useful book. It is a theory-heavy look at perception that is perhaps suited to more junior (or trained on the job) UX and UI designers who want to learn how users understand and perceive. I make this distinction because any designer coming from a psychology- or Human-Computer Interaction– (HCI) focused background will likely already have a grasp of these concepts. Still, it is a helpful refresher to inspire new ideas in even seasoned designers. 

Structure

The book is broken in 6 parts with a total of 15 Chapters; 

Part 1 focuses on where cognition happens. Parts 2 through 4 focus on how we understand – through associations, external representations and interactions. Then, part 5 describes systems of understanding in small and large groups, and part 6 looks at current, and possible future, tools that help us understand information. 

Key Takeaways 

From this book, you’ll learn about the ways we humans think and how we understand. 

There are several different ways that we ‘make knowledge’, and these are often intertwined. Information is a resource, not a finished product, and needs to be transformed to aid understanding. I’ve summarised the book in 5 key takeaways and represented them in a sketch note. 

1. Information does not equal understanding

For complex situations where there aren’t simple answers, Anderson & Fast remind us that understanding requires more than just access to information. We are only doing half of our job when we put the onus back on the user to make sense of information.

We are only doing half of our job when we put the onus back on the user to make sense of information.  

2. Knowledge is influenced by prior associations

Prior associations impact how individuals interpret information, and these interpretations differ between people. Anderson & Fast explain that we ‘know’ things based on associations activated in our minds; we make sense of new information by linking it to a familiar concept. 

Prior associations also come from narratives; we learn through stories (including fictional ones) and transfer meaning from them when we come across new information. In Chapter 3, the authors take a “short dystopian journey” (p.50) to a future where we have “permanent, updatable implants” in our brains that allow corporations and governments to “peer into our minds and access our most intimate thoughts”. The use of implants is the focus of my own PhD dissertation, and a large part of the misperceptions and fear that surround the topic are based on fictional claims such as these. Given the book emphasises how we use stories to make associations and learn, I think it is pertinent to remind a reader that this is a speculative future.

We also understand by identifying patterns; our minds are good at seeing patterns which are influenced by prior associations. What we see is based on what we already know. Meaning comes from associations whether they are intended or not. 

The lesson that designers can take away from Anderson & Fast’s explanation of how associations influence thinking is that we need to carefully choose frames, words and visuals to ensure we are not invoking the wrong association that could result in misperception. 

We need to carefully choose frames, words and visuals to ensure we are not invoking the wrong association that could result in misperception. 

3. Knowledge influences external representations

We create external representations as a way to extend our thinking into the world using tools, models, drawings and more. This is an integral part of sense-making, not just a means of presenting information. 

The authors explain how representations help create meaning by extending our thinking into the external environment. Visual representations make abstract ideas concrete by holding information. The way that information is arranged in space aids memory and recall, influences understanding, and conveys meaning. The arrangement (grouping, sequencing, ordering etc.) exposes abstract relationships between information. Presenting the same exact information in different ways (called isomorphic representation) can provide different perspectives in understanding and interpreting information. 

4. Understanding is not simply ‘brain bound’

Thinking is not just confined to the brain – it’s spread across the body and the world. We extend our minds, and memory, by offsetting information into the external world. Our ability to understand is limited when we have to do all of the work in our heads. 

Anderson & Fast explain that by representing information outside of our minds we can manipulate the information – allowing for new meaning to be created. Doing the thinking in the world rather than in our heads can be faster and more accurate. Furthermore, bringing thinking into the physical (or digital) world can be easier than imagining inside our heads. Another reason this is easier is because not everyone has the ability to do mental visualisation. 

Doing the thinking ‘in the world‘ rather than ‘in our heads’ can be faster and more accurate.

5. Information is a resource to be interacted with

Anderson & Fast describe interaction as a part of the thinking process, not just a way to view information. It’s necessary to create understanding because interaction helps us see things in a new light. We make meaning by doing. When we manipulate information (physically or digitally) we make new connections which change our perception, therefore allowing us to see new meaning. It’s like how arranging scrabble tiles helps us see more potential combinations than with thinking alone.

Information itself is like pieces of a puzzle. It needs to be transformed, (the pieces put together) so we can understand what it means. We synthesise and transform information so that we can understand it. This book will teach you a myriad of ways that we think; by sorting, chunking, annotating and a myriad of other ways you will learn in this book. Specifically, Anderson & Fast teach readers 15 interactions used to understand information (grouped into 4 themes: foraging, turning, externalising and construction). 

For designers, this means we should arrange information as an external representation in order to support perception and create understanding. We should also consider how we can allow users to perform these manipulations themselves to create understanding. 

The Review

The good 

• This book is educational. If you have your expectations set correctly up front (that it is not a ‘how-to’ guide) this book can give you new perspectives to bring to your work.
  
• It covers a breadth of topics. The book goes wide with the theory, covering many aspects with one book – from cognition to Gestalt principles. 

• There’s still a lot of ‘figuring out’ to do yourself, but the examples throughout the book will likely spur your own thinking in how you can apply these concepts to your own work.

The ‘it depends’ 

• It’s theory informed. This can be both good and bad depending on your personal preference. Personally, I’m a big geek so I liked this. It may help you understand the why behind some things you are already doing as a designer and help you explain the theory to the business to get buy in.
  
• It’s cognitive science heavy. Similarly, this could be good or bad depending on your personal preferences (for me, it’s good). The authors spend a considerable amount of time explaining theories of mind, but then tell us that how the mind really works doesn’t matter for our purpose – and then go back to exploring cognition and where thinking happens. Confusing? 

The bad 

• Some of the theory feels repetitive. If you have read Daniel Kahneman’s ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’ any time in recent memory, many of the examples around perception and biases will be familiar and feel repetitive to you.
  
• The authors are good at pointing out that some examples are for Western cultures, but for other examples accessibility and diversity appears to be an afterthought. Vision is mentioned as powerful and important with little attention paid to blind or low vision individuals (although colour blindness, sign language and braille are mentioned briefly). The book also assumes that everyone can visualise in their mind, forgetting people with aphantasia. I raise this to remind you of other aspects we need to keep in mind when thinking about how people understand.
  
• Better proof-reading and copy editing was required. I make this comment based on three factors:
  • First, issues with referencing, there are direct quotes without proper attribution (e.g. p.71). I’m not accusing the authors of plagiarism, but this is an annoyance for the reader. Another is that the referencing style changes throughout. This seems like a glaring oversight for a theory-heavy book about understanding.
  • Secondly, some examples took me out of the narrative as I spent time trying to find answers that were either not included or involved flipping pages searching for answers. If you’re anything like me, and can’t leave things unsolved, this will lead you down a rabbit hole. Information that is difficult to navigate is ironic in a book about understanding!
  • Finally, not all acronyms or models are explained in detail. 

The TL;DR 

‘Figure it Out: Getting from Information to Understanding’ leaves a lot for the reader to figure out themselves. But if you enjoy a theory-heavy volume (I know I do) there is a lot to learn from Anderson & Fast’s book.

Overall, I found it useful and it sparked some ideas for my own work. I took notes for my thesis dissertation, scribbled some diagrams for work, and discussed the concepts with a colleague. However, it is worth noting that the onus is on the reader to figure out exactly how to apply the theories and knowledge learnt, in order to then create understanding for our users. 

The post Review: ‘Figure it Out: Getting from Information to Understanding’ appeared first on UX Mastery.

Jorge explained that over the past couple of decades we’ve been moving many of our key social interactions from the places where we have experienced them in the past — physical environments — to a new type of environment: one we enter through these “small glass rectangles we carry about in our pockets”.

In Jorge’s words, those of us who design these new “user experiences” have greater responsibility — and greater agency — than designers who’ve come before. As such designers, Jorge urged us to think about _How might we design information environments that better support our needs as a society in the long term?_

If you didn’t make the session because you didn’t know about it, make sure you join our community to get updates of upcoming sessions.

If you’re interested in seeing what we discussed, or you want to revisit your own questions, here is a full transcript of the chat.

Transcript

hawk

2018-10-18 22:03

First up, thanks so much for your time today @jarango – we’re lucky to have you

jarango

2018-10-18 22:03

Thanks @hawk! I’m excited to be here.

hawk

2018-10-18 22:03

The formal intro: Jorge Arango is an information architect and strategic designer. He partners with product, design, and innovation leaders to create digital places that make people smarter. In addition to his consulting practice, Jorge also teaches, writes, and speaks at global design conferences.

hawk

2018-10-18 22:03

Jorge is the author of Living in Information: Responsible Design for Digital Places. You can find it on Rosenfeld Media or Amazon.

hawk

2018-10-18 22:03

https://bit.ly/livingininformation

hawk

2018-10-18 22:04

https://amzn.to/2tfNRvH

hawk

2018-10-18 22:04

And that’s the basis of our talk for today.

hawk

2018-10-18 22:04

@jarango over to you. Give us some context around the book and the topic.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:04

Thanks

jarango

2018-10-18 22:05

And thanks to everyone who’s sharing this space with us.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:06

Let me start by introducing myself. My background is in architecture (as in the design of buildings.) But I’ve been in (what we now call) UX for almost 25 years.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:08

Back in the mid-1990s a book came into my life that changed the course of my career. It was Richard Saul Wurman’s _Information Architects_. https://www.amazon.com/Information-Architects-Richard-Saul-Wurman/dp/1888001380/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1539900476&sr=8-2&keywords=information+architects

jarango

2018-10-18 22:08

The cover of that book has a definition of what an information architect is that resonated with me.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:09

However, the content of the book wasn’t exactly what I was into at the time.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:10

The book highlighted people from various fields who were “making the complex clear.”

jarango

2018-10-18 22:10

I was designing websites at the time. The connection between designing websites and making the complex clear was obvious, and there were some folks featured in the book who were doing that.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:11

However, a couple of years later another book came out with a similar title which was much closer to what I was doing.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:11

_Information Architecture for the World Wide Web_: https://www.amazon.com/Information-Architecture-World-Wide-Web/dp/1565922824/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1539900688&sr=8-2&keywords=information+architecture+for+the+world+wide+web

jarango

2018-10-18 22:12

1998. Twenty years ago!

jarango

2018-10-18 22:13

In any case, I identified much more closely with the focus of this book: it had some of the stuff Wurman was talking about, but applying it to the work I was doing.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:13

Information architecture became the focus of my career.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:14

(Sidebar: A few years ago I had the privilege of collaborating with Lou Rosenfeld and Peter Morville on producing the fourth edition of the polar bear book.)

jarango

2018-10-18 22:15

In any case, I’ve done most of my work in Panama (where I’m originally from). A few years ago, my family and I decided to move to northern California. Before the move, a friend from the IA community said, “You know, IA isn’t talked about much here.”

jarango

2018-10-18 22:15

I was flabbergasted.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:16

How could this be? This is where the digital systems that are turning the world upside down are being built!

jarango

2018-10-18 22:16

Fast forward a few years…

jarango

2018-10-18 22:17

In the fall of 2016 I gave two keynote presentations in a three week period. The first was in Santiago, Chile, and the second was in Rome. The week between these two trips was when the U.S. Presidential election was decided.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:18

It was a very interesting time.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:19

That summer, the U.K. had voted to leave the European Union. A momentous decision!

jarango

2018-10-18 22:21

Regardless of where you stand politically, it’s pretty clear that something disconcerting has happened to our ability to hold civic discourse.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:21

Are you with me so far?

jarango

2018-10-18 22:22

Here’s the thing.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:22

I thought I left architecture 25 years ago. But over time it’s become clear to me that I never did.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:24

Over the past couple of decades we’ve been moving many of our key social interactions from the places where our species has experienced them thus far — physical environments — to a new type of environment: one we enter through these small glass rectangles we carry about in our pockets.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:25

We are having this conversation in such an environment.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:25

It’s an interesting thing.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:26

In any case, I’m not here to teach you marketable skills. :slightly_smiling_face: My aim is to get you to understand what you do a bit differently. To reframe the work.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:27

Because software is eating the world, as Marc Andreessen has said. And those of us who design “user experiences” have greater responsibility — and greater agency — than designers who’ve come before.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:28

So I want to share with you the question that drives my work (and my new book): _How might we design information environments that better support our needs as a society in the long term?_

jarango

2018-10-18 22:29

It’s pretty clear that “move fast and break things” isn’t doing it.

rvaelle

2018-10-18 22:29

:+1:

treyroady

2018-10-18 22:30

It becomes “break people” after a bit, doesn’t it?

jarango

2018-10-18 22:30

It this was a presentation, I’d need a drink of water about now.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:30

:slightly_smiling_face:

jarango

2018-10-18 22:30

In any case, you won’t be surprised to learn that I think that information architecture holds good answers to this question.

hawk

2018-10-18 22:31

Would you like us to throw some questions at you?

jarango

2018-10-18 22:31

Happy to entertain questions at any time.

lukcha

2018-10-18 22:31

True dat

hawk

2018-10-18 22:32

Great. you heard the man!

treyroady

2018-10-18 22:32

What are the 3 biggest things that information architecture has leverage on improving for society?

treyroady

2018-10-18 22:32

:sunglasses:

jarango

2018-10-18 22:32

@treyroady that’s an excellent question

jarango

2018-10-18 22:33

There are two areas of focus that information architects (and architects before them) are particularly adept at: structures and systems.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:34

Thinking structurally and systemically is essential if you are to minimize the risk of having to face unintended consequences.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:35

There’s a third area of focus which IAs haven’t paid as much attention to in the past — something I’m hoping to change. And that’s sustainability.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:35

Structures and systems change over time. We want them to evolve in ways that help them serve our needs. That requires that we start thinking sustainably.

rvaelle

2018-10-18 22:36

Can you give an example?

crystal

2018-10-18 22:37

This is especially true twitch AI coming into the picture

crystal

2018-10-18 22:37

I’ve heard it described as a move from taxonomies to ontologies regarding ia

jarango

2018-10-18 22:37

Let me dive a bit deeper before giving examples.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:37

Are you familiar with Stewart Brand’s concept of pace layers?

jarango

2018-10-18 22:38

This is a fascinating — and important — idea: some things in the world are composed of things that change at different rates, some faster than others.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:38

It’s true of buildings (as Brand pointed out in his book _How Buildings Learn_.)

cboyer

2018-10-18 22:39

IA has always felt divergent -> convergent and top down. Are there any tools for architects in recognizing patterns and guiding systems in machine learning?

jarango

2018-10-18 22:39

It’s also true of civilizations (what the diagram above is about.)

cboyer

2018-10-18 22:39

I recognize this is probably too big a question :slightly_smiling_face:

jarango

2018-10-18 22:39

@cboyer that’s an important observation. We’ll get to it.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:41

For the person who expressed confusion at the diagram above, perhaps this one is easier to grok:

treyroady

2018-10-18 22:41

Well, *I’m* certainly interested.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:41

That’s from Brand’s _How Buildings Learn_.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:41

The idea is that buildings are composed of layers that change at different rates.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:42

The site (the ground) the building is built on changes more slowly than services (like plumbing, for example.)

jarango

2018-10-18 22:42

“Stuff” is things like furniture. Super easy and cheap to move around.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:42

In any case, there are things in the world that change like this.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:43

Understanding this is important, especially if we’re aiming to make things that support our needs in the long term.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:43

In the first pace layer model I posted, the slowest changing layer is labeled “Nature.” Think our biological composition. It changes very slowly!

jarango

2018-10-18 22:44

Whereas something like fashion or art change very quickly.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:44

In the middle you have things like governance structures, infrastructure, and commerce.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:44

All changing at different rates.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:45

Brand offers a great insight here that can help us design things that support our needs better in the long term…

jarango

2018-10-18 22:46

The civilizations that last are the ones that strike a good balance between the fast-changing layers at the top and the slow changing layers at the bottom. This is because _the fast changing layers are where civilizations learn new things, and the slow changing layers are where they remember the things that are worth while_. The ones that stand the test of time. (Literally.)

jarango

2018-10-18 22:46

With me so far?

treyroady

2018-10-18 22:47

But what about the interaction between governance, infrastructure, and commerce? Could you say that our governance shift is due to a large shift in infrastructure and commerce as well?

jarango

2018-10-18 22:47

They all interrelate with each other.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:48

We’re living in a period when many of these layers are changing faster than before and going through tremendous disruptions.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:48

I’d love to dive deeper into that, but I have another model to share with you.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:49

This is a pace layer model for what we call “UX design.”

jarango

2018-10-18 22:50

As with Brand’s model, the fastest changing layer is the one on top.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:50

That’s what we usually work on. You can think of it as UI.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:50

Buttons, screens, voice interactions, etc.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:51

You will notice I’ve separated structure from form.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:51

There’s a reason for that.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:51

As with buildings, structure in our work tends to change more slowly that the surface design of UIs.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:52

When I worked on the fourth polar bear book, I had to go through the entire book updating the examples. Some of those screenshots were a decade old. The UIs had changed a lot. But when you looked at the navigation bars, you could recognize that they were the same structure.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:53

In any case, the real power resides in the lower — slower — layers.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:53

As designers, we must be cognizant of the model, and understand what the role of our work is vis-a-vis the real power that drives it.

hawk

2018-10-18 22:54

@jarango Before we run out of time can we jump back and revisit @cboyer’s question:
IA has always felt divergent -> convergent and top down. Are there any tools for architects in recognizing patterns and guiding systems in machine learning?

jarango

2018-10-18 22:54

Yes.

cboyer

2018-10-18 22:54

For those of us who have have seen the cycles, this is very true.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:54

Thanks for bringing it back

jarango

2018-10-18 22:55

The reason I wanted to share the model was because we need to start thinking of things like machine learning in terms of structure and form, and what those structures and forms are in service to.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:56

Architects (the building type) are not form designers primarily. They help clients _frame the problem_. The client may know they want to build a shopping mall, but often lack the tools for defining what the _program_ for a shopping mall should be. That’s part of what we need to take on.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:57

Architecture has a long tradition of adapting forms and structure to contextual conditions and new technologies.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:58

The top-down impression comes from the “starchitects” that are most famous. But much of our lives happens in buildings that are much more responsive to contextual conditions than that sort of work.

cboyer

2018-10-18 22:58

I agree. I’ve been fortunate to lead both product design and data product / machine learning initiatives. Design is rarely if ever at the table for machine learning initiatives, and we have much to offer in framing what we want to know and more importantly, what is discovered

jarango

2018-10-18 22:59

Not sure I answered the question specifically — as Clyde said, it is somewhat broad.

jarango

2018-10-18 22:59

In any case, I want us all to think more architecturally. But that doesn’t necessarily mean top-down.

cboyer

2018-10-18 22:59

I’ll post my comment in the main thread. And thanks for diving in on this. agree. I’ve been fortunate to lead both product design and data product / machine learning initiatives. Design is rarely if ever at the table for machine learning initiatives, and we have much to offer in framing what we want to know and more importantly, what is discovered

jarango

2018-10-18 23:00

Design is making the possible tangible.

jarango

2018-10-18 23:00

And the possible can now lead down unimaginable paths.

treyroady

2018-10-18 23:00

@cboyer: that experience might be worth a good read, if you write it up :slightly_smiling_face:

jarango

2018-10-18 23:00

Our role is to help people envision what that could be.

cboyer

2018-10-18 23:00

We need to be at the table with the data scientists

jarango

2018-10-18 23:00

And the consequences.

hawk

2018-10-18 23:01

As much as I hate to do this, we’ve hit the top of the hour.

jarango

2018-10-18 23:01

:disappointed:

hawk

2018-10-18 23:01

If you want to keep talking @jarango there is no reason at all that you can’t…

jarango

2018-10-18 23:01

I can hang out for a few more minutes.

cboyer

2018-10-18 23:01

I’m notoriously lazy about writing. I tend to do stuff and then jump to the next thing. But this is a topic that has been weighing on me quite a bit.

hawk

2018-10-18 23:01

But you’re free to go if you need to!

hawk

2018-10-18 23:01

Excellent.

jarango

2018-10-18 23:01

It’d be great to hear from other folks.

hawk

2018-10-18 23:02

Agreed. does anyone have something to throw into the ring?

cboyer

2018-10-18 23:02

Thanks so much. You’re book is fantastic by the way and I can’t recommend it enough.

treyroady

2018-10-18 23:02

Well, I can say that I’m working at a very AI / ML heavy company right now, and I could potentially benefit a lot from any major mistakes you made

nwhysel

2018-10-18 23:03

Sounds like we are moving into issues of ethics. Especially in ML.

holliedoar

2018-10-18 23:03

I’d be really interested to hear any examples of IA being used to shift those slower layers as I definitely agree that its where the power is

maadonna

2018-10-18 23:03

Random thought – designers/uxers (whatever we call ourselves now) could do with a better understanding of things like domain and content modelling. That structure layer is a better place to focus than on the form layer. Unfortunately I see lots of focus on the form and little on the deeper layers

jarango

2018-10-18 23:04

@maadonna Bingo

jarango

2018-10-18 23:04

Part of it is due to the fact that structure is abstract.

maadonna

2018-10-18 23:04

And sometimes hard :slightly_smiling_face: And not pretty

jarango

2018-10-18 23:04

People don’t like abstraction. It makes them nervous.

jarango

2018-10-18 23:04

(Especially stakeholders.)

jarango

2018-10-18 23:04

They want to know what things are going to _look like_.

maadonna

2018-10-18 23:05

The other kind of related thing here – AI/ML is all about making models of the world. They are also in that structure layer

jarango

2018-10-18 23:05

@holliedoar as you may imagine, it’s easier to point to change happening in the opposite direction.

maadonna

2018-10-18 23:05

And if AI/ML folks make the wrong model (because they used history as training data) they screw up everything, but it’s already embedded

jarango

2018-10-18 23:06

I remember years ago seeing a presentation about a redesign for a publication’s website. I think it was a magazine.

jarango

2018-10-18 23:07

The navigation structure had been completely changed to conform to what the ad sales team could sell, as opposed to what made the magazine special.

jarango

2018-10-18 23:07

But remember: the fast layers are also where we can _experiment_ with things.

jarango

2018-10-18 23:08

It’s easier to try out new forms (and structures) than new strategies.

jarango

2018-10-18 23:08

Or the sales org. :slightly_smiling_face:

cboyer

2018-10-18 23:08

Choosing the wrong model is a problem. Developers find they like their one hammer and use it on everything. A lot of success seems to come from experience and intuition, similar traits as the most effective designers.

jarango

2018-10-18 23:08

As designers, understanding this can mean that we can provide more value. Not just to our organizations, but to society more broadly.

jarango

2018-10-18 23:10

Any more thoughts/observations? (I must jump off in a few minutes, alas.)

maadonna

2018-10-18 23:10

I must find my copy of How Buildings Work :slightly_smiling_face:

jarango

2018-10-18 23:10

A great book!

jarango

2018-10-18 23:11

Also check out Brand’s _The Clock of the Long Now_

nwhysel

2018-10-18 23:11

Thanks, Jorge!

crystal

2018-10-18 23:11

Governance is becoming critical for benefits to society with information environments and creating safe information environments

hawk

2018-10-18 23:11

I want to say another huge thank you for your time and wisdom Jorge.

The post Transcript: <em>Ask the UXperts:</em> Living in Information — with Jorge Arango appeared first on UX Mastery.

We’ll be publishing all of these interviews in an upcoming ebook that showcases the personalities of the user experience field.

Here’s an excerpt from our chat with Jessica Enders, from Formulate Information Design in Melbourne, Australia.

Can you sketch out what a typical day looks like for you, from the time you wake up, maybe to the time you go to bed at night?

Well I definitely get up and I run about 10 kilometres, and then I … I’m just kidding, haha! A typical day for me would be, unfortunately, waking up tired—and I don’t have any children or anything to blame on! I don’t know why that is. I’m one of those people who needs 10 hours of sleep a night.

I’m generally raring to go in the mornings though—I get up, have breakfast, potter around and do a few things, then come in to work.

I usually check Twitter on my phone on the train on the way in, and read my email. I’m trying to get out of the habit of checking my email before I even get out of bed! I think it’s important to separate work and home life, or else you’re never going to get any serious downtime. I’ll usually have a major task in mind that I need to get done—whether it’s do those wireframes, or write that review or prepare that presentation—but I’ll check my emails just to make sure that nothing needs dealing with urgently, and to try to keep the inbox low if I can.

Then it’s getting on with that major task, and working backwards from deadlines to when I need to do things.

I usually try and tweet something relevant about form design in the afternoon. That way, it catches the people in Europe as well as people here. I’ll give a few retweets from over there and our Australian friends as well.

I basically get absorbed in one task and I will just solidly do that. I do have this piece of software that’s free called Time Out Free on my Mac that reminds me to take a break and stretch every hour, because I have kind of big problems with tension in my shoulders, neck and computer using stuff, so I would always stand up in the middle of the open hub, and “aeroplane” with my arms, and stretch my neck. No-one’s gotten up to join me yet, but I’m hoping they will eventually.

I usually grab lunch with some of the folks here in the office, or do some reading over lunch while I eat.

In the evenings I do a few different things—I’m learning Argentinean tango. I have a penchant for unusual dance styles, so I’ve done a couple of years of Egyptian, which is kind of like belly dancing, but a bit less cabaret/showgirl, and a bit more culturally aware. I did a few years of South Indian classical dancing, as well, haha. But my knees weren’t good enough for that, so now I’m into my third favourite which is Tango, which I love.

I’m also trying to learn French—I’m using some online software for that. Cooking dinner, doing chores, that sort of thing. I do jog, as well, occasionally, and probably watch an hour or two of TV before going to bed.

I always read fiction just before I got to sleep. I read so much non-fiction during the day that it’s nice to get taken away to somewhere different just before you fall asleep.

And I am at the moment trying to do meditation every day! So the plan is, when I get home from work, to do that. It helps me divide the working day and the evening.

My work is often in large chunks. When I’m working on a presentation or a design for a couple of days, that’s pretty much all I do. Then I deliver it to the client, and while they’re reviewing it, I catch up on some of my reading and doing some small things and just the business stuff—insurance or what have you. So it’s very much dictated by client projects and where they are and what they need.

You can follow Jessica on Twitter at @formulate.

The full transcript of this interview is available in our ebook, “Everyday UX”.
Let us know what you think of this interview. Are there any UXers you’d like us to interview in this series? Leave your suggestions in the comments.

The post UX Snapshot: An Interview With Jessica Enders appeared first on UX Mastery.

One of the activities in which I take much delight during these visits (aside from my mother’s cooking and seeing my parents dote on their grandchildren) is rifling through the old boxes that I never got around to taking with me when I first moved out of home years ago.

It was during one of these recent trips that I stumbled upon a gem of a book from my childhood: The Lettering Book, by Noelene Morris.

As I flicked through it, I realised that this dog-eared children’s masterpiece was almost entirely responsible for igniting my interest in design and typography. While Bringhurst and other typography texts have their place on my bookshelf today, this practical, fun approach to typography is a fantastic way to get kids excited about typefaces and applying care to letterforms. I can remember spending hours copying many of the typefaces by hand, and inventing my own letterforms that had variety, personality and type empathy.

First published in 1982 in a spiral-bound cover, and republished as recently as 2006, there are still copies available online.

There are good reasons for its longevity. The Lettering Book is more than just “typography for kids.” As well as the basics of typography—serif, sans serif, slab serif, decorative, and other type families—there are pages dedicated to page layout, connectors, containers, alignment and more. Given the number of time it was reprinted, I’d wager this book is responsible for an entire generation of kids excited about typography and design.

And what a perfect primer for sketchnoting! I’ve always enjoyed experimenting with different graphic elements on a page, but this is probably where much of my inspiration first came from.

For fear of sounding old, I wonder if today’s kids share the joy of creating their own typefaces on the headings of their school pages … I suspect not. You don’t learn the intricacies of creating letter shapes by typing an assignment up on the computer and choosing a single dropdown from Microsoft Word!

I grabbed the book from my parents’ bookshelf to bring home to Melbourne, hoping it might instil in my daughters the same sense of appreciation for design and type. And if it doesn’t, I’m sure it will still serve as a valuable reference (perhaps when preparing for one of the workshops that I’m teaching soon!)

Did you grow up copying typefaces from The Lettering Book? I’d love to hear from you!

The post My First Typography Book (Spoiler: It’s Not Bringhurst) appeared first on UX Mastery.

With this in mind, I thought I’d break down the approach I take, and list some tips for others interested in getting started with sketchnoting.

What is Sketchnoting?

The term sketchnoting describes the style of visual note-taking that has become popular at tech conferences in the past few years. Mike Rohde has been the most vocal champion (he has a book coming out on the topic soon), and Eva-Lotta Lamm has been a prolific creator of the art form of late (she’s published a couple of books as well!).

While sketchnoting is usually practiced by attendees at conferences, it can be fun to create them in other situations, too. For example, I recently had a short stint in hospital, and captured my thoughts about surgery as a sketchnote before going into theatre:

Regardless of the circumstance, the skills for creating a sketchnote can be broken down into four basic categories:

• planning
• listening
• processing, and
• drawing.

In this article, I’ll list 20 tips for how to hone your skills in each of these categories.

Planning

For the most part, I don’t really do any preparation before starting a sketchnote. However, there are a few tasks you can do in advance so that you’re best equipped on the day:

1. Tool Up

While it’s not essential to use an expensive art pen and a trendy moleskine notebook to create beautiful sketchnotes, you don’t want to start off on the back foot. Spend a few bucks on the minimum amount of stationery that gives you the best chance at creating something you’re proud of, but doesn’t weigh you down. I recommend:

• A blank notebook large enough so that you won’t feel restricted by space (I use a Derwent A4 Visual Art Diary, with 110 GSM pages)
• A reasonable quality black felt tip pen that you’re confident won’t run out on you half way through (psst: buy a second while you’re at it, in case it does!). You may want to experiment with different tip diameters—I usually use a 0.5 Mitsubishi Uni Pin.
• A Copic grey marker, and possibly one other highlight colour for when you’re feeling really adventurous. Personally I love monochrome sketchnotes, but a splash of colour, when used for highlights, can definitely bring an extra dimension to your masterpiece.
• This last point is a controversial inclusion, but I’d suggest also buying yourself some correction fluid. Purists might suggest that tarnishing your page with liquid paper defeats the purpose, and mistakes are part of the learning process. That’s all well and good, but if you make a minor mistake, I think it’s totally fair game to white it out before presenting it to the world. It’s not ideal, and I avoid it when possible, but a small blob of correction fluid will always look better than an ugly crossed-out mistake, in my opinion.

Note: I have tried a few times to sketchnote using my iPad and the tablet pen that I use with it. There are a couple of great sketching apps for that device like excel flowcharts. (We use Wacom’s Bamboo Paper app for many of the feature images on this site), but none of them give me the flexibility and ability to see the big picture that I need when sketchnoting. Also, correction fluid can damage the screen!

2. Practice On A Recording

Perhaps this is obvious, but if there’s a conference coming up and you’re thinking about sketchnoting some of the sessions, why not get some practice in beforehand? We live in an amazing age, where presentations on sites like Coursera and TED.com are available online for free. Instead of watching yet another Big Bang Theory, plug your laptop into the big screen TV, load up some inspiring presentations, and get sketching!

3. Master Sketching Common Objects

It’s useful to have a cache of objects in your repertoire, ready to pull out as needed. In particular, if you attend tech conferences, there are certain words that will crop up time and again (think “ship”, “cloud”, “user”, “link”). Practice visual representations of these words in advance, so you don’t get flustered trying to draw them for the first time in the middle of a talk. Here are some suggestions:

• Basic shapes: stars, squares, rectangles, triangles, circles,
• Basic objects: ship, home, fish, user, cloud, link, hand, mouse, book, newspaper, magazine, tree, envelope, brick, brain, magnifying glass, pencil, paper, scissors, knife, fork, spoon, iPhone, iPad, desktop, laptop, web browser, cursor
• Basic maps: a screenshot of Google Maps, a quick world map
• Famous brands & logos: Apple, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, IBM…

Google Images is a great resource for finding inspiration to model your sketches on.

4. Give Yourself A Headstart

For most of the presentations I attend, I like to begin the sketchnote with a caricature of the speaker, as well as the name of the talk, the name of the presenter, and possibly the organisation that he or she represents. You don’t need to follow this format (capturing the likeness of someone’s face is something I still find very difficult to do!). However, if you do, there’s no need to wait for the talk to begin to sketch this information—that stuff is always in the conference schedule, along with a photo of the presenter that you could use as your base for your caricature!)

So while other people are changing rooms and the presenter is being introduced, I like to make a start on my sketch, so that I’m not playing catch-up with meta-data once the presentation has begun.

Listening

Here are a few tips for capturing key points from the talk.

5. Choose Your Seat Carefully

Most people attending a conference presentation don’t really care where they sit—as long as they’re able to see the projector and the presenter’s face. They may be influenced by where their friends are sitting, or may position themselves at the back in case they decide to bail on the talk halfway through.

This means that, for the most part, you should have almost free range to choose a strategic vantage point to obtain the best sketchnote. More often than not, this means sitting in the front row, so you have no visual obstacles. However that’s not always the case—at a recent conference I attended, there were a few round tables at the back. Being able to rest my notebook on a table, rather than on my lap, meant I had a much steadier hand. I think my sketches are better as a result.

6. Look For Easy Wins

I find the easiest presentations to capture in sketchnote form are ones that have very visual slides—graphics, charts, and pictures of LOLcats are all memorable and fairly obvious material to capture on your page. Sure, you can always add ideas of your own, but there’s generally less thought required—the presenter has done a lot of the work in translating words to pictures for you, so make the most of that!

It can be difficult to capture an entire chart on paper—especially if the presenter doesn’t leave the slide up for long enough—so be sure to jot down the axes and key points quickly. Then if the slide disappears, you’ll have already captured the essence of the chart and can round it out later.

7. Latch Onto Quotes

Quotes—whether they be key phrases you hear the presenter say, or quotes by other people that the presenter uses in his talk—are often poignant summaries of a topic, and you should listen carefully for them. When you hear one that resonates or beautifully summarises the point being made, jot it down and wrap it in some fancy talking marks or a speech balloon.

Processing

It takes some practice to be able to truly listen to someone talk while thinking about another topic at the same time. Some might suggest this multi-tasking skill is unique to women, but I know for a fact that there are men who are able to listen to their girlfriend or wife talk while simultaneously choosing which footy team to bet on in the coming weekend, so this is not a skill that is limited to one gender.

Jokes aside, listening and thinking in parallel is something many of us do all the time, and you can tap into this skill while sketchnoting. Here are some tips:

8. Take Advantage Of Down Time

Most talks will have intense moments where the audience’s attention is completely focussed, followed by slower sections in between. This light and shade is the mark of a good presentation, but it’s also a boon for you, as it can provide you with some sketching time.

If you hear something amazing during an intense moment, and don’t want to turn away, don’t! (or jot down the one phrase that summarises the moment). Then, when the moment has passed, you can tune out a little and start to embellish those words (using fancy typography, an accompanying graphic, or additional comments).

9. Pace Yourself

A lot of people are stunned at how I’m able to judge the amount of space it takes to capture the essence of a presentation on a page. I have a secret weapon here—it’s called maths. Yes, I’ll keep an eye on the clock, and if I haven’t filled over half the page by the time that the presentation is halfway complete, then I’ll start getting busy: writing larger, sketching images that might have been playing around in my head, and sifting through what I’ve heard to distil whether any of it is worth writing down or capturing visually using an icon or image that might suit. Likewise, if I’ve burned through page real estate too quickly, I’ll slow down and be more discerning about which snippets of the remaining talk will fill out the remaining space on the page.

10. Curate

It can be tempting to try and capture everything about the presentation. Instead, think of yourself as an art curator whose job it is to sort through the noise, and select a few standout masterpieces to include in your exhibition. Your sketchnote should not serve as a comprehensive reference—it’s a moment in time that reflects the takeaways that you found important.

11. Let It Flow

Don’t confine yourself to a four-column layout, or always move in a strictly left-right fashion. The page is your canvas, and while there’s nothing wrong with creating a very logical, sequential layout, you might try mixing it up on occasion—start in the centre of the page, or move around organically; write sideways, upside down, or in a loop-the-loop when you feel like it. Don’t fret about whether it will look any good, just let the sketch flow.

Additionally, if the presenter hits a technical hurdle, makes an unintended joke, becomes flustered by a heckler, or is interrupted by a security alarm, weave that into your sketch as well! Sometimes the best aspects of a sketchnote are the fortuitous, unplanned activities that accompany the official slide set.

Drawing

Ultimately, the words and pictures you form on the page is what makes your sketchnote. Here are some tips for making them look awesome.

12. Be A C.R.A.P. Sketcher

In The Non-Designer’s Design Book, Robin Williams introduces the concept of C.R.A.P. design. Of course, she’s not suggesting you should arrange your elements on the page in a way that looks terrible, but that you make use of:

• Contrast: This could involve using light and dark colours, combining a straight, rigid typeface with a cursive script, or applying heavy and light shapes.
• Repetition: Litter the same visual cues throughout the design, such as drop caps, bullets, or some little cartoon frog that appears regularly
• Alignment: Line things up on purpose, rather than having them almost match. It looks smarter and makes text easier to read.
• Proximity: Group related objects or concepts on the page. If two concepts are completely unrelated, draw them on opposite ends of the canvas.

These four principles will get you a long way to creating a sketchnote that is pleasing to look out, rather than one that looks like a collection of random scrawls.

13. Use Consistent Type

When I say “type”, I really just mean “make your handwriting neat and the same.” This may be counter intuitive if you have messy handwriting, but the best tip I can give is to slow down when you construct each word. Be patient about crafting each of the letter forms one by one, rather than your usual scrawl. Most conference presentations are 50 minutes long—that’s a lot of time to fill an A4 or letter-sized page, so you don’t need to hurry.

I’ve begun utilising a very tall, narrow typeface lately, mostly because I like the look of it, but also because it allows me to fit more words on one line. It also contrasts well with fancier, more decorative typefaces that I might want to use for contrast, such as a cursive script or a heavy, blocky heading.

14. Employ Type Empathy

Type empathy is a term I first heard back in design school. It occurs when the meaning of a word is accurately reflected by its typeface. Here are some examples:

I’m sure you can think of other examples. It can be really fun to invent empathic typefaces on the fly! If you hear a word that prompts a specific image in your head, see if you can work that image into the type somehow. If that sounds too hard, you could always just keep an eye out for one of the above words (or a synonym) and just copy what I’ve done here!

15. Draw Beautiful Ampersands

The ampersand is a much-loved character by graphic designers. Depending on the typeface, it can be a simple, understated connector or an elaborate, eccentric statement all of its own. Here are a few different types of ampersands for you to practice with. Being able to whip one of these out instead of your usual handwriting can really make a heading stand out.

16. Use Creative Containers

Speech bubbles, thought clouds, sound effect containers, dotted-line rules, double-border rectangles: there are a ton of simple containers that you can add to your sketch to chunk text in a way that is visually interesting. Here are a few of my favourites:

17. Use Creative Connectors

While containers are useful for isolating chunks of text, connectors are used to group those chunks together. Arrows are the most common connectors that I use in my sketchnotes, but there’s no reason you couldn’t include a range of swirly flourishes and other intricate shapes throughout your sketch. In fact, it might be a good idea to keep a separate “doodle” page, where you can experiment and invent new shapes to be brought across into future sketchnotes.

18. Apply Shading & Colour

That Copic grey marker I mentioned at the start of this list is how I add depth to my black and white sketches. You can use it to:

• create shading on one side of an object
• add a shadow on the ground below an object
• highlight text
• colour in containers, for visual contrast
• the list goes on…

Some sketchnoters also like to include a single colour, to highlight text, draw attention to parts of a sketch or make key concepts lift from the page.  The key to colour is not overdoing it—when in doubt, I’d suggest keeping it black and white.

Here’s another dirty secret of mine: the sketchnotes I created at a recent conference all had the grey marker effects applied on the plane home from the conference. I don’t subscribe to any kind of purist mentality that “the sketch must be completed during the presentation” . It only took a few minutes to add grey shades to those sketches, and I think the extra depth that it brings to the sketch is terrific.

19. Find Your Own Style

I’ve given some template approaches in this post which I hope will give you a good framework to build upon, but over time your sketchnotes will develop their own unique personality. Be proud of your sketches, refer to them regularly, and you’ll see an original style evolve.

20. Share Your Work

In general, people love seeing how other people think, and a sketchnote is a good approximation of how you have processed a presentation. Be sure to share your sketch online, either via a blog, a service like Flickr, or by emailing your masterpieces to the Sketchnote Army blog. You’ll find most people will be supportive of your efforts, and you’ll gain confidence from any feedback you receive.

In addition, a sketchnote (either a digital copy or the original piece of paper) is always a wonderful, unique way of thanking a presenter for the time they have put into their presentation.

I hope you’ve found these tips useful, and I look forward to seeing your creations online! Be sure to check out Mike Rohde’s book, The Sketchnote Handbook, which features a two-page spread by yours truly!

If you liked this post, feel free to share it on Twitter or Facebook.

The post Sketchnoting 101: How To Create Awesome Visual Notes appeared first on UX Mastery.

Give us a rundown of how you came to work as a user experience practitioner, what it is you do, and what you love about it.

For the first 10 years of my working life I continued the path set at university: doing what I was good at because I wasn’t sure what I actually wanted to do. I was good at maths, logic, computer science, psychology. It was when a magnificent book called I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was fell into my hands that I realised my passion had always been for making usable forms. Whether I was temping at a doctor’s surgery or developing surveys for the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the design of the form – or whatever instrument that was used to collect data – was the bit that I loved by far the most.

That led me to explore what options were out there, and I discovered that there was a field called User Experience. I’d always thought the world needed this field but didn’t have it. To me, that “invisibility” is a sign of how young the field is.

I worked for about two years as a senior interaction designer at The Hiser Group but when I was being urged away from forms into more generalisation, I thought the time was ripe to try doing purely forms in a business of my own. I started Formulate Information Design in 2007, so it’s coming up to five years now.

People think I’m crazy to want to design forms. It’s as if I’m aspiring to be a garbage collector. But forms are actually so rich in so many different interesting areas: from sociology to linguistics; from business process engineering to visual perception. I’d dare any current or prospective UXer to find a more challenging, engaging and rewarding specialisation.

Every now and then we see passionate blog posts pop up, bemoaning the use of “UX” as a discipline and arguing that everyone involved in making a product should be thinking about the user experience, not just the “UX designer”. What are your thoughts on this?

To my mind, all design should be about creating great experiences. Otherwise, I say it’s art, not design. And let me be clear: a “great experience” means everything from pleasing aesthetics, to comfort, to functionality, to emotional engagement, to cost effectiveness and more, all of which applies to every stakeholder, not just the end users.

So I guess I’m in some agreement with those blog posts, but I also think the reality is that we can’t get (true) design to be a norm without first going through the period of establishing the field of user experience, with widespread recognition and influence. I’m deliberately using different terms because I think somewhere along the line user experience and design will need to come together. For as long as a chair can win a design award when you can’t actually sit in it for more than two minutes, I say we have a problem. Of course, I know there’s a whole design establishment with which I’m probably at odds by holding this view, but I guess that’s part of what makes me a passionate user advocate.

What’s your take on the state of user experience design in Australia, compared to the rest of the world?

Jon Kolko did a closing keynote at UX Australia last year and it was great to hear his enthusiasm and insight. One of his key points was that user experience “has arrived.” Maybe, when you’re doing projects with some very forward-thinking US corporates – who are naturally going to be attracted to a charismatic ‘rockstar’ of the field like Jon – it may seem like UX has made it. But I get the impression that no matter where in the world you are, down in the trenches, UX most certainly is not a default part of the conversation nor a frequent – let alone consistent – holder of power in the organisational hierarchy. I don’t mean to sound negative; I just think we’ve got a way to go yet before we have the influence that we should have.

Interestingly, some of the best and most effective form designers are here in Australia, with our North American counterparts lingering behind. Partially that’s because we’re less hamstrung by legislation here in Australia, partly I think it’s because we were graced by a wonderful leader in the late Rob Barnett. But even here in Australia we are still just a clutch of people trying to get heard by business and governments alike. After all, when was the last time you had a seamless form-filling experience?

What tips would you give to a print designer who was interested in transitioning to a career as a UX designer?

I would imagine that good print designers already have:

• an appreciation of the interplay between form and function;
• an ability to work within constraints; and
• good organisational skills.

This is an excellent core for any UX designer. Add to that a deep willingness to understand people’s needs, desires, perceptions and opinions, together with solid communicate skills, and I think realistically you have all you need to learn to be a UX designer on-the-job. Just make sure you are in an environment of experience and collaboration.

Let us know what attendees to UX Australia can expect from your workshop.

Let me first be clear that when I say “forms”, I mean any tool for collecting data, be it on the web, the desktop or on paper.

Attendees can expect a meaty and fun day spent learning the secrets of creating forms that just work, pleasing form-fillers and form-owners alike. People who have attended my sessions in the past always comment – with a sparkle in their eyes – that from that point onwards, they will never look at a form the same way. My workshops are always hands-on, people get to talk about their own experience (both as users and designers), and we cover lots of immediately applicable design solutions. And it doesn’t matter what your background is: print or otherwise; I guarantee you’ll get something positive and worthwhile out of the experience.

UX Australia is a two-day conference about user experience design. It’s on at the Sofitel Brisbane Central from 30-31 August, 2012, and features a ton of local and international presenters. There are also two days of workshops on August 28 and 29.

The post Jessica Enders: Forms with Finesse appeared first on UX Mastery.