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Sedef Gavaz reviews Nick Marsh’s talk at London IA April 2012

Talking about talking about design by Nick Marsh

Nick took the stand to talk about “talking and design”.  He wanted to use this as an opportunity to discuss the roles of talking and conversation in designing things. Why? He believes the art of talking is skirted over in design education and it is an essential skill to have and use as “life in the commercial studio focuses on deliverables and presentations”.

We took a look at company cultures, attitudes to talking and design education. Nick shared some company slogans such as “Doing not talking” and “No talk, all action”. The moral of the story was talk less and do more. Sadly, talking is perceived as procrastination and therefore has no place in a business. But, Nick rightly pointed out that talking is “often the first thing you do when you have an idea”. There seems to be a misalignment with design education focusing on sketching and drawing, whereas life in the studio requires an eloquent communicator; someone who can present the idea, argue its strengths and persuade an audience.

Thankfully, we’re all on board with drawing. We understand the value of it, how it brings ideas to life and allows us to collaborate. “Wobbly lines help you decide”, they allow for input and comments from those you share them with, but also act as springboard for more ideas.

Is there an equivalent to sketching when it comes to talking? Nick thinks “Good creative talking has lots of wobbly lines” too; it starts off conversations and creativity. So, it’s important we get good at it especially when it comes to designing complex interactive products. Let’s face it, complex products require collaboration: conversation and talking are essential.

Things got complicated as we moved on abductive reasoning, rhetoric and talking etiquette! Nick shared four talking-tips with us, taken from ‘The Art of Conversation’ by Milton Wright:

1. Don’t talk too long without pausing for a reaction. More than a minute is too long. Forty seconds is ideal
2. Never flatly disagree with the other person. It is an implied insult
3. Don’t be too forceful or emphatic in stating your opinions until you learn the other person’s attitude and
4. Give the other person intellectual freedom and cooperation and claim them for yourself.

Nick dissected talking styles he had observed and asked if we’d experienced any of these: surfing, sparing, bulldozing, on the tabling, deliberate deluding, mono-conversating and throat punching.  If this list has made you curious, I’m sure he’d be happy to tell you more about each and every one of them.

Nick ended on an encouraging note, the creation and use of talking spaces. He defined workshops and sketching as a means of getting people to talk, to share ideas and to rapidly iterate. Nick revealed that “going for a walk can help with talking… even if it’s round old street roundabout!” So, next time you’re facing a quandary, get sketching, get walking but most of all, please get talking.

This was the first time that Nick gave this presentation, so he’d love to hear from you with feedback and/or questions – you can find him @choosenick and here are his LNDIA slides.

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Details

The May London IA will be on Tuesday 15th May 2012 at Sense Loft between 6-9.30pm.

The evening’s talks will be provided by Giles Colborne (@gilescolborne), Tim Caynes (@timcaynes) and Johanna Kollmann (@johannakoll)

Talks

Giles Colborne – IA Summit redux

Giles will be bringing a little bit of New Orleans to London with a redux of the recent IA Summit in the city.

Tim Caynes – “Designing the Mobile Wallet”

Mobile network providers, device manufacturers and banking corporations are working together to provide the solution you never knew you needed – the mobile wallet. But what is a mobile wallet and how should it work? What are the customer experiences that a good mobile wallet solution should support?

Johanna Kollmann – “Making Sense of Messy Problems: Systems Thinking for Multi-Channel UX”

It’s part of our job to talk to people to figure out complex situations. To build things people love, we have to understand not only users, but also the wider context we’re working in: people, systems, structures, business models, and more. The need to think the user experience through on several channels challenges us to envision a system that is cohesive and delivers delightful experiences.

Tickets

Tickets will be available on

Early Bird: Friday 4th May – 12 noon

Middle Bird: Monday 7th May – 12 noon

Late Bird: Wednesday 9th May – 6pm

Hosts and sponsors

Our hosts are Sense Worldwide and the Sense Network

Sense Worldwide is a transformation agency and the Sense Network is a global community held together by one sole objective: to make things better and make better things.

Our sponsors are Zebra People

Zebra People is a specialist new media recruitment consultancy. Grab Nick et al at the next event if you are looking for a new job or looking to hire.

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Sedef Gavaz reviews Joe Leech’s talk at London IA April 2012

The neuroscience of design by Joe Leech

Joe Leech began at the beginning. He talked about growing up with a psychologist mother and an architect father. He described himself as “A recovering neuroscientist via a spell as a primary school teacher”. He shared anecdotes and had us laughing when he recounted the story of how his father had trained for seven years to become an Architect and someone had just hired Joe as an “Information Architect”.

From family history to Neuroscience – Neurons, synapses and neurotransmitters flashed before us.

Joe facilitated the information flow with a steady stream of slides and questions taking us through the basic workings of the brain. The dialogue revolved around reward, dopamine and basic needs: food, sex and sleep.

Once we had the brain basics sorted Joe moved onto the computer analogy. “We have about 40 billion neurons in our brains” with each one responsible for one thing – a memory, a skill etc. Computers are often used as a model for the brain but Joe made the point that if a computer has a duel processor, it can essentially do two things at once. The brain is far more powerful and complex than any computer.

Not only can the brain do multiple things at any given time, but our perception of an experience is impacted by hormones or neurotransmitters including serotonin and dopamine. Receiving a tweet or text message can stimulate mini bursts of pleasure. Feel good hormones float through the brain and make everything else that we’re doing or experiencing just that little bit rosier!

So, if as designers we can understand how the brain works with its three layers – Instinct, feeling and thinking, then we can design accordingly. If we want people to act on impulse we’ll need target their instinct area to reduce thinking. Decisions need to be a simple yes or no. Naturally, anything that involves the upper thinking part of the brain will be slower than actions requiring the instinct or feeling layers.

Joe finished by debunking a few myths which included the Left Brain, Right Brain theory which he proclaimed rubbish!

He also added a note of caution when it comes to the use of theories likes Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, particularly for those of us working at brand agencies.

And as Joe said if you want to know more you can:

1. Read more: Neuroscience for kids and anything by VS Ramachandran
2. Check out the psychology UX Bootcamp!

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In the latest London IA Podcast we host a wide-ranging conversation with Cennydd Bowles on moving from user experience design to digital product designer, what it takes to develop visual design skills, freelancing, A List Apart, writing a book, conference speaking and of course that legendary animal of European folklore, the unicorn.

Hosted by Matthew Solle and Andrew Travers. Produced by Will Myddelton and Matthew Solle.

Three ways to get it

iTunes Audio | Audio RSS feed | Huffduffer

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Will be on 15th May

More details to follow

A special podcast

Recorded at the IA Summit 2012 in New Orleans, Giles Colborne talks with Jared Spool, Dan Brown, Dana Chisnell, Angela Coulter, Stephen Anderson, Veronica Erb and Karl Fast in this special edition of the London IA Podcast.

Three ways to get it

iTunes Audio | Audio RSS feed | Huffduffer

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Details

The April London IA will be on Tuesday 24th April 2012 at Sense Loft between 6-9.30pm.

The evening’s talks will be provided by Joe Leech (@mrjoe) and Nick Marsh (@choosenick)

Our host for the evening will be Andrew Travers

(View full size poster on Flickr)

Talks

Joe Leech: The neuroscience of design

Understanding how the brain work will make you a better designer.

Joe will talk through how we perceive and think and how designers can tap into cognition and perception theory to make their stuff more effective.

Nick Marsh: Talking about talking about design

In this talk Nick will talk about something that doesn’t get talked about very much – the role of talking and conversation in designing things.

In design education sketching and drawing get a lot of attention, and in the commercial studio deliverables and presentations are still king. But the reality of designing complex interactive products is that they require collaboration with others – and most of this collaboration happens through conversation and talking, so its important that we get good at it.

He is going to explore some existing methods and tools from other practices for analysing and understanding talking styles, in particular the study of rhetoric, and then propose a taxonomy of talking as designing.

This is the first time he has done this presentation, so he’s hoping for lots of feedback and questions.

Bios

Joe Leech

A recovering neuroscientist via a spell as a primary school teacher to a MSc in Human Computer Interaction, Joe embarked on a UX career 10 years ago.

As a User Experience Director Joe heads up a team of user experience consultants. He specialises in designing every aspect of the user experience from initial research to developing online strategies to producing wireframes & managing a design team.

He’w worked with clients like eBay, Marriott, Virgin, theTrainline and LateRooms.com.

Nick Marsh

Nick is the design director at Sidekick Studios. He’s got a background in service design and design-led strategy, but has been designing real stuff for the past few years. Read his blog at choosenick.com

Tickets

Tickets will be available on

Early Bird available at 12pm on Friday 13 April 2012

Middle Bird available at 12pm on Monday 16 April 2012

Late Bird available at 6pm on Wednesday 18 April 2012

Hosts and sponsors

Our hosts are Sense Worldwide and the Sense Network

Sense Worldwide is a transformation agency and the Sense Network is a global community held together by one sole objective: to make things better and make better things.

Our sponsors are Zebra People

Zebra People is a specialist new media recruitment consultancy. Grab Nick et al at the next event if you are looking for a new job or looking to hire.

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Episode 4 of the London IA podcast is – finally – out. In it, we chat with Giles Colborne, managing director of CX Partners and author of ‘Simple and Usable‘ about his career in design, the evolution of user centred design, writing, the role of conferences, and distraction and delight in design.

Three ways to get it

iTunes Audio | Audio RSS feed | Huffduffer

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Details

The March London IA will be on Wednesday 21st March 2012 at Sense Loft between 6-9.30pm.

The evening’s talks will be provided by Warren Hutchinson (@snowbadger) and Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino (@iotwatch)

Martin will be back to host.

Talks

Warren Hutchinson: ‘Brand with a little b, Design with a Big D’

As more and more consumers experience brands through a screen, brands can no longer just shout about how good they are in order to win customers over.

In this post-broadcast era, skills in experience design are well placed to deliver strategically important, business critical and brand true experiences that work across multiple channels. In this talk, Warren will suggest some ways to think about translating brand promises into tangible interactions in order to create ownable digital moments.

Warren is the Experience Design Director & Founder of SomeOne/Else - a digital agency who specialise in multi-channel experience design.

Prior to starting SomeOne/Else in Nov 2010, Warren’s previous roles include Experience Design Director at Universal Music, Head of Multi-Channel Experience and UX Director at LBi.

Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino: Products & products: how the web and manufacturing collaborate

Alex is a product & interaction designer and entrepreneur. She works around the “Internet of things” and is a member of the Really Interesting Group. She has been blogging since 2005.

Tickets

Tickets will be available here on…

Early Bird available at 12pm on Friday 9 March 2012

Middle Bird available at 12pm on Monday 12 March 2012

Late Bird available at 6pm on Wednesday 14 March 2012

Posters

View the three LDNIA March 2012 posters on Flickr

One

Two

Three

Hosts and Sponsors

Our hosts are Sense Worldwide and the Sense Network

Sense Worldwide is a transformation agency and the Sense Network is a global community held together by one sole objective: to make things better and make better things.

Our sponsors are Zebra People

Zebra People is a specialist new media recruitment consultancy. Grab Nick or Ben or Dean at the next event if you are looking for a new job or looking to hire.

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