Calling the Baby Ugly

from John Wooden, Director of Usability Services

on January 29, 2010

In the world of web application and site design, there’s been a trend over the last several years toward more multi-faceted “user experience designer” roles.  According to the job descriptions, these people are expected to do it all:  user research and task analysis, information architecture, interface design, graphic design, programming, usability testing and evaluation, project management, business strategy, presentations, and so on.
Though there’s reason to be skeptical that many of us can be truly outstanding in all of these skills and practice areas, let’s just say that Acme Design Agency does indeed have such people.  Even in that case, is it really a good idea to have the same person, or team, involved in creating a design and then evaluating the usability (or user experience) of that design?
Teams can have the best intentions, but it’s tough to look in a hard, neutral, objective way at your own work.  In the same way that good writers need good editors, user interface designers need an objective, unbiased evaluation of their products.  That’s why it’s important to go outside the design team – and in some cases outside the company – and have a usability analyst conduct usability testing with representative end users, or at least do a heuristic evaluation. 
Otherwise, there’s a temptation to be defensive, to look for validation and reasons to keep the work that’s been done, instead of trying to uncover flaws or weaknesses in presentation, navigation, interaction, or content.  Design teams are a bit like parents – they aren’t likely to call their baby ugly.* They’re just not objective.  (And in the case of parents and children, that’s usually a good thing!)
I’ve had to call a few UI design babies ugly over the years – well, in so many words – and though this has sometimes stung the designers or developers involved, it’s always helped them create better interfaces.  And that’s the goal we’re all aiming for.
*Thanks to our client Kathy Bohlke, UI/U Manager at 3M, for making this analogy.

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Social Learning and Leadership Book Recommendations

from J Hruby, Director of Marketing

on January 20, 2010

At the last meeting of the Fredrickson Roundtable for Learning Leaders, our discussion topic was social learning.  In the course of the discussion, several books were recommended.  I’m sorry, I don’t know who recommend each book, but here they are:
Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization’s Toughest Challenges
by Andrew McAfee
Harvard Business School Press, 2009
ISBN-10:  1422125874

Leaders Make the Future: Ten New Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World
by Bob Johansen
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2009
ISBN-10: 1605090026
There may have been more, so if you have additional recommendations, please mention them in a comment.

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Dan Pink’s “Motivation 3.0” and Social Learning

from John Wooden, Director of Usability Services

on January 18, 2010

Dan Pink’s new book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (2009), in many ways picks up where he left off in his 2005 bestseller, A Whole New Mind:  Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. 
In his earlier work, he uses the left and right hemispheres of the brain as a metaphor for describing the rising importance of a new type of work that is more creative, non-routine, and empathic.  While work that depends on logical, linear, left-brain thinking can be easily automated and outsourced, work that depends on creative, non-linear, right-brain thinking will be more valued and less easily commoditized.  Think MFA, not MBA.
In Drive, Pink again looks at the way the economy and the nature of work have changed and makes the case that business is out of step with what really motivates us.  This time he uses the metaphor of the operating system:
• Motivation 1.0 was all about survival.  50,000 years ago on the savannah, our operating system was pretty basic.
• Motivation 2.0 was built atop Motivation 1.0 and was (and is) all about seeking rewards and avoiding punishments – carrots and sticks.  Although this worked very well for a long time, and is still useful in many instances, it’s become an unreliable operating system in the new world of work.  As economies have become more complex and our skills more sophisticated, Motivation 2.0 has begun to seem less effective.  (See my piece on the Big Shift for a related study on how business has been underachieving for decades now.) As Pink writes, Motivation 2.0 “suggested that, in the end, human beings aren’t much different from horses – that the way to get us moving in the right direction is by dangling a crunchier carrot or wielding a sharper stick.” But as studies in behavioral science have shown, carrots and sticks really are not the best way to motivate us.  Once we reach a level of compensation we believe is fair for the work we do, then what truly motivates most of us are not extrinsic rewards (compensation, parking spaces, etc.) but intrinsic values. 
• Motivation 3.0 is all about three core intrinsic values:  autonomy, mastery, and purpose. 
Autonomy
In the context of managing people, autonomy is allowing employees the independence to determine the best way to meet established goals and targets.  For example, as long as employees meet their goals ethically and responsibly, then it doesn’t matter if they show up at 9:00am or noon, or if they work from home.  It means not standing over them with a carrot or stick.  (And let’s face it, many managers find sticks easier to use than carrots.) Pink cites the positive example of the Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE), first used at Best Buy.  (Hennepin County recently adopted the ROWE model.)
Mastery
Complete mastery is a goal we will never reach, but when we work on something we really enjoy, the work of achieving mastery is not so tedious.  Ideally, the boundary between work and play dissolves and we enter what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described as “flow.” All of us should aim to find work that allows us to enter this flow state, and employers should create environments where this flow state is encouraged, where constant learning, constant opportunities to improve, are readily available.
Purpose
Purpose is all about doing work that matters to us.  As Pink says, Motivation 2.0 “doesn’t recognize purpose as a motivator.” Instead, it’s “relegated to the status of ornament – a nice accessory if you want it, so long as it doesn’t get in the way of the important stuff.” But the desire for a meaningful purpose is central to what makes us human.  Sure, extrinsic rewards are enough for some people, but for many of us, contributing to a larger purpose is crucial.
Motivation 3.0 and Social Learning
Pink cites numerous examples in Drive to show that allowing these values into the workplace does not mean sacrificing performance.  In fact, it’s just the opposite.  Embracing these values enables great performance.
Beyond the issue of fair compensation, the absence of these values from the workplace is the central reason why so many people are desperate to leave their cubicles and find something else.  At the risk of sounding like I am sucking up to my employers, the presence of these values at Fredrickson is a key reason why I’ve been here for almost ten years.
But a big reason why I am interested in Pink’s argument is the way it connects so well with the case for social learning and enterprise 2.0, because it seems to me these related technologies and practices are very much in harmony with the idea of Motivation 3.0.  For example, making social learning possible, allowing employees to learn from and contribute to enterprise blogs, wikis, forums, and more, putting tools and practices in place that improve knowledge flow – these are clearly related to the values of autonomy and mastery.  (It’s no surprise that Best Buy – where ROWE began – is also a leader in enterprise 2.0 and social learning.)
So I’ll leave you with some questions:
• To what extent does your workplace encourage and provide a sense of autonomy, mastery, and purpose? 
• Do you think Motivation 3.0 is compatible with good business performance?
• If you are involved with organizational learning, training and development, or a similar role, to what extent does your function encourage autonomy, mastery, and purpose? Alternatively, is training and development more closely related to a Motivation 2.0 environment?
• If you are a manager, what is your response to Pink’s argument?  Is it too idealistic?
What do you think?
Watch Dan Pink’s TED presentation on Drive from July 2009: http://bit.ly/DV7xg.
Read Andrew McAfee on Enterprise 2.0:  http://andrewmcafee.org/
Read Harold Jarche on Social Learning:  http://www.jarche.com/

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