UX is not UI.  50% of the letters are the same, but they are very different.

Looking around the web their are some great resources/tutorials on the subject of User Experience.

• Montparnas has a wonderful UX summary which I highly recommend.  It has oodles of good info.
• This slideshow by Garrett Dimon has some wonderful quotes about design.  Reading them is inspirational to any designer.
• The elements of UX by Jesse James Garrett is a famous diagram in the UX community showing a breakdown of user experience, which I agree with.  The only extension I put into the diagram is to include product management functions inside that umbrella.
• Peter Morville at Semantic Studios has a nice approach to thinking about UX.
• The top 100 UX blogs.  Hmm, I guess I don’t count.

There are many more resources available.  This is just a sampler.  I think everyone who works on a product should be aware of the great work done here.  It will help you be more successful and will only cost a few minutes of reading.  Tough decision, I know.

Slideshare is a service that has been around for a while. I haven’t really used it much, but I had been asked to publish the Stanford presentation there, so I gave it a fresh look.

First the positives. This is a useful service. It makes sense to share presentations and to convert them to flash automatically. It is a good business with relatively low overhead. I like the model very much. They make their money on advertising and use the text of the presentation to target the ads. It’s simple and straight forward.

Now the negatives. The UI is way too busy. There are buttons and navigation and ads all over the place. I have no idea where to look. Some work on the contrasting (making certain parts darker or lighter) would help the information architecture tremendously. I think the ads needs a little more separation so I know what is content and what is ad. Maybe that is not what they want for their ad revenue, but the user would appreciate it.

Embedding the presentation here on the blog is pretty easy. They had a “wordpress.com” embed option, but I wasn’t sure what that did. I wish it had a little tooltip or something. I use Wordpress, but not wordpress.com.

Lastly, and most importantly. I don’t see the “notes” in the presentation. My presentations do NOT have a ton of text on them. They have pictures and some giant text bullets. This is the best practice for presentations. However, the one I uploaded loses 90% of it’s effectiveness without the speaker (me) to explain what we are looking at. The notes would have been helpful, but still, how effective can any presentation be without the speaker? If the answer is “very” then I submit that the presentation is too detailed and the speaker is not adding any value.

Anyway, overall, I think it’s an interesting and useful service, but I think it lacks some IA work and the ability to annotate each slide with author notes. Here is the embed below.

| View

UPDATE: Just a minor one. I was browsing some of the other design presentations.  Interesting quotes and some fun slides.  I probably could guess what the author said on that slide, so I got some value.  However, its just not the same as being there.

I am not thrilled with the Jets overall performance this weekend.  The first pick, Vernon Gholston, DE  made me happy.  Their are some questions about him, but he seems very talented.  However, it was was all lame after that.  The next pick they traded up 6 spots to get a guy that would have been available in the next round.  A tight end named Dustin Keller.  The Jets already have a tight end and needed a safety or cornerback alot more. Why trade up?

Glen’s rule #1 of NFL Drafts:  Never, ever, trade up.  All of the analysts say the same thing every year.  The likelihood of football player becoming a starter is not directly proportional to their spot in the draft.  If anything, trade DOWN and get another pick!  Picking two lower guys is more likely that one of them becomes a starter.  Why did they trade up?  What were they thinking?  Yuck.

Then they got Dwight Lowery, cornerback from San Jose State.  I hope he can play well in the NFL.  Then they picked Danny Ainge’s son Erik Ainge.  I would be very surprised if he ever took a snap at QB for the Jets, but it’s not like our QB situation is so good.  He might be the best on the team and still stink.

Finally we got Marcus Henry, WR and Nate Garner, T.  Both guys are backups.

Overall, I give them a C+.  They didn’t completely mess everything up, but in general, I didn’t think they improved the team.  Time will tell.  However, I give them high marks for their off-season spending spree.  They got alot of interesting players.  I hope they make a positive difference.  I’d like the Jets to make the playoffs if possible.  Can anyone make that happen please?

My presentation at Stanford went swimmingly.  I think my UX presentation was well received.  The class had about 50 people in it.  They laughed when I wanted them to laugh and they cried when I wanted them to cry.  My timing worked and I ended on a positive, inspirational note with 1 minute to spare.  John Gibbon, the professor who invited me to speak (and my old boss) was very engaging and educational.  And of course, the campus was just gorgeous.  I had a great time.

So now, I have guest lectured at NYU’s Stern Business School (1998) and Stanford Continuing Studies (2008).  My next appearance should be at Harvard in 2018.  Once every ten years is just my speed.

I wonder if I would enjoy going to school again after I make bazillions of dollars in our IPO?  I’d like to get a computer science degree, I think.

I am feeling very strange the last day or two.  I feel nauseas and tense.  Symptoms: A lump in my throat, constriction in my lungs, gas, hard to concentrate and general uneasy feeling.  I can’t think of anything particular that would make me feel this way.  Everything I think about could be the culprit, but none seem to meet that bar.

I’m speaking at Stanford tomorrow, but my presentation looks good and I feel confident about it.  I didn’t feel this way before speaking at The Ajax Experience last year.  Speaking of which, The Ajax Experience in Boston has honored me with an invitation to speak at the 2008 show this fall.  They are flying me out and paying for the hotel.  I am really excited about that, since I enjoyed the previous one so much.

Work is stressful, but no more than usual.  The product is selling.  The UX is dynamite.  I am trying to find a product manager and have gotten close on a few candidates, but haven’t found the right fit yet.

Home is good and not out of the ordinary.

Maybe it’s the spring?  Allergies have been acting up.  Maybe male menopause?  Mid-life crisis?  Maybe I need Enzyte, Natural Male Enhancement?  Those commercials make the guy look REALLY happy.

Side note:  The Enzyte commercials make no sense.  Having an erection doesn’t make women want to sleep with you.  In fact, it might have the opposite effect.  Are there really women who think, “If only my man had an chubby, then we could get busy”?

Anyway, I am feeling off and don’t know what to do.  It’s messing with my mojo.

I have seen this problem in several systems.  One symptom is Word 2007 crashing.  Another symptom is the Word Options do not allow you to click anything in the left tree.  Thank you to Joe Stagner who posted a fix for the problem.  It could be related to Snagit.  I use that program lot.  However, it may also be other software.

To fix it:

• 1. Start Regedit.
• 2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Data
• 3. Right mouse click on the “Data” folder and delete it.
• 4. Close Regedit.

Now my Word works better.

Now, I just have to figure out why my Firefox beta 5 has been crashing and I will be happier.

The tank was on E.  Empty.  We need to use the car.  I bike to work, I use public transportation, but damn it, I have no choice, I have to drive some places.  I had to stop and get gas.  The price of regular: $3.95.  The price of Super: $4.15.  $0.20 cents difference.  That used to mean something when the whole tank was $20. 

I just broke my record for most expensive fill up.  $70!  Can someone please give me a break!  $70?!?  Come on.  So super is $3 different than Regular.  Big deal.  I have no choice on gas.  They don’t even make an electric minivan.  (Why not? I have no idea)

Bottom line:  Gas needs to be regulated.  This is bullshit.  I want my electric minivan NOW.  I think we need to picket Washington DC.  This is more important than Iraq by alot.  Screw Iraq.  I want cheap fuel!  We need to get rid of petroleum permenently.  Somehow, I think that getting rid of it will make Iraq a non-story anyway.  They will become like most African nations. (No resources, no money, disease and famine.)

Ugh, $4 gas!  I am so sick of this!  Can we please have a revolution now?  Exxon has had ENOUGH of my money.

Managing expectations is always hard.  Lots of angles, lots of risk.  Who is right?  Should you track all of your hours?  Should you pad your hours?  In my experience, people want predictability in an unpredictable world.  They want to hear, “This is exactly what we can do at maximum efficiency.” with the follow-up later of “We delivered everything we said, on time and under budget.”

Personally, I don’t think that creates the best experience of working with someone.  People need stretch goals.  They also need to take risk into account.  Sometimes, not always, but sometimes things go wrong.  And when they go wrong, it is the wise man who had built in some wiggle room.  Under-deliver just once and you tarnish your reputation.  Over-deliver and you are a hero.  If you don’t have stretch goals and some wiggle room you are just setting yourself up for failure.

GEEK ALERT: Warning the following contains Star Trek references.

From Star Trek III:

Kirk: “How long to re-fit?”
Scotty: “Eight weeks. But you don’t have eight weeks, so I’ll do it for you in two.”
Kirk: “Do you always multiply your repair estimates by a factor of four?”
Scotty: “How else to maintain my reputation as a miracle worker?”
Kirk: “Your reputation is safe with me.”

When Scotty visited the Next Generation Enterprise and had a talk with Geordi La Forge. (Episode: “Relics”)

Scotty: “Starfleet captains are like children. They want everything right now and they want it their way. But the secret is to give them only what they need, not what they want.”
Geordi: “Yeah, well, I told the captain I’d have this analysis done in an hour.”
Scotty: “How long will it really take?”
Geordi: “An hour.”
Scotty: “You didn’t tell him now long it would really take, did you?”
Geordi: “Of course I did.”
Scotty: “Laddie, you got a lot to learn if you want people to think of you as a miracle worker!”

With this all said, You have to be careful who you tell this to.  Don’t mismanage expectations by giving away your secret sauce.  It is a delicate balance grasshopper.  Thoughts?

I’ve been pretty excited about the work I have been doing at Marketo. The marketing automation platform we built has alot of really unique models. The way segmentation works is just beautiful. I am really proud of it. Additionally, the stuff coming out in the next few months is making it even better, faster, stronger.

If you would like to see how it works, the marketing guys do a 1 hour demo every week. Click the link and sign up for the date you want. It’s pretty easy to understand and anyone can signup to watch. Even my loving relatives.

Let me know what you think.

Matthew asks, “Is today opposite day?”

I answered, “If it was opposite day, I would have to answer NO, which is the opposite of the truth.  If it was not opposite day, I would just say the truth and answer NO.  So my answer to you is, No, it is not opposite day.”

He blinks his eyes twice and walks away.  Oh well.