It’s been a busy year! Looking back, it’s clear that we’re riding a wave of UX Renaissance. Our customers and companies across all industries are recognizing users’ thirst for top shelve UX design and the importance of providing rich and engaging experiences.
A year ago, nearly to the day, we headed into 2011 with our press release on the redesign of SBA.gov, in partnership with DRT Strategies and Promet Solutions – since then, we’ve been in a full on marathon sprint!
We’ve had some time to come up for air to put up a few portfolio, blog, twitter, and FB posts – but it’s been tough to get it all up to share at the pace we’re moving. We’ll follow up with more detailed posts and website additions about our clients in the coming month(s), but here is a quick sampling from some of Limina’s 2011 clients and work.
We want to thank all of our customers for investing in User Experience! Special thanks to our partners and collaborators; Promet Solutions, Alex Hsiao @Perphic, Jacob Burhardt @FlashbulbInteraction, Alla Zollers @azollers, Cory Lebson @CoryLebson and Linchpin @linchpin_agency for making this one of our strongest business years to date!
A recent article in UX magazine talks about “selective attention” (also known as “visual blindness”, or “wishful seeing”), and how these aspects of human visual perception can be useful in UX. I like to look at it from a different angle – an angle that we should all consider from time to time: that of the eyes of a child!
Children’s perception of the world is so unique, so genuine that information, basic or complex, is visualized in the barest fashion. After reading this article, I watched my 14-month old scan through a Toys R Us magazine. On a page filled with microscopic 1 x 1.5 cm images (representing some game software), my son could point out the images that featured Lightening McQueen, the red speedster straight out of the Disney/Pixar animation movie Cars 2.
What’s my point? My son is only looking for images of the red speedster because that is what he wants to see; who cares about Dora the Explorer, or Nemo! This could be the same for your clients or users – motivation, expectations, impatience makes people see (and experience) different things – and the design of your web portal could succumb to the same narrow mindedness…unless you use this as a tool in your design!
Try integrating some of these ideas to work with possible selective attention:
1. Design to your clients’ or users’ expectations – In the example above, my son wants to see the Cars 2 picture. Similarly, if your clients want a design that communicates fashionable & hip or conventional & retro, research the different cues that represent these environments. Expected, accepted, or conventional design cues can help render more usability. We all have accepted cues that bring more information than we sometimes may want. For example, how would you react to a laundry detergent that was red in color? We accept that laundry detergents are within a certain color range – blue, green, white, essentially. These colors are accepted laundry detergent colors, whether we like it or not, and communicate certain characteristics (cleaning, perfume) that are intrinsic to our own accepted cues.
2. “Perception is malleable” – So, you think you are a unique mind and can steer clear of social influences and pressure? Think again. Your perception of everything you see, feel, touch is dependent on experiences from a year ago, a day ago, or even a minute ago! If I translate the methodology used in the Balcetis & Dunning (2006) paper, I can influence your choice of seeing the glass half empty or half full if I tell you upfront about wars and the declining economy, or about the shining sun and cute puppies (well, I guess that depends on if you like puppies…Ok, you get the drift). This means that you can also predispose your clients’ perception by discussing upfront the unique logo choice that was a hit with the testing agency, or about the wording that was changed in order to bring clarity to the software. Positive pre-disposition can go a long way!
3. Remove any potential ambiguity – In the example of my son’s selective attention to only the Cars 2 character, I noticed that he would hesitate in his choice when there was a visual similar to a car, or red in color. This ambiguity was basically distracting his attention, and here, unfortunately, steering him in the wrong direction. Similarly, you don’t want any ambiguity or confusion in your design. You can also read a past article about Tropicana’s failed design change.
TEST YOUR SELECTIVE ATTENTION
References:
UX Magazine on-line (October 2011), Article No. 754 by Andrew Turrell http://uxmag.com/articles/selective-attention-and-user-experience).
Balcetis and Dunning (2006) Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 91, No. 4, p612.
We’re both proud and excited to announce our Marketing & Social Media Manager Ms. Kareen Forissier who formally joined our team as our first employee! Kareen joins us with a background in product design and development (she was a product manager for Procter and Gamble for 5 years) and in public relations (legislative assistant to a Hawaii county Council member for 3 years).
Today, Kareen has taken the helm managing our social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, Blog) in addition to designing and implementing our Marketing Plan.
“You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed, and believe what ever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes”. ~ The Matrix
Over the past few months, the Limina team has been carefully preparing to grow our business. We have a little way to go yet, but I thought it would be nice to post an update to keep everyone up to speed. As some of you may know, Limina has been around since 2003, and operating in more or less the same model for the past 7 years. We could conceivably stay this size and continue to enjoy our success as a small UX consultancy for years to come, but we’ve decided that it’s time for change.
Contributing factors to Limina’s shift:
US Small Business Administration 8(a) Business Development program. Limina entered into this program in 2010. Participating in this business development program allows Limina to compete on Federal contracts which have been set aside for 8(a) firms. Given the scope and duration of Federal contracts, growth to support our resource demands will be immanent.
Increased demand for UX services. Over the past two years, Limina has experience increased demand for our UX research, strategy and design services – we love our work, but we need to eat and sleep – more hands on deck will help distribute the load.
Product development opportunity – this topic is Top Secret and we can’t give away any details. Suffice to say, we will be dividing our focus from the services side of our business to deliver on a turn-key products which will deliver massive value to the field of technology. With our focus divided, we’ll need more staff to work on client delivery and product research, design & development.
It’s just time.
We don’t have a specific timeline to share, but concrete plans are in motion to secure an office space in the DC Metro area to expend the team. We’re working out a benefits package and employee handbook details… and stacking our project pipeline with exciting new projects!
What does this mean for you?
If you’re currently working with Limina as an independent contractor – and you like it that way, don’t worry – we understand that works for you and we won’t cut off our contractors from our projects. If you’re an independent UX consultant and you’re looking to work on exciting user centered design consultancy – we’re interested, send your contact info, resume and portfolio work samples our way!
If you’re looking for a full time UX career – working with a team of innovative collaborators, start preparing your resume and portfolios! We’re taking applications and we’ll reach out to you when we kick off our interview process. For a list of opportunities – check out our job listings.
If you feel like our posts are too far and few between – Follow us out on Twitter! We tweet daily – and save you time on hunting for tasty UX treats. Over capacity on twitter follows? Hit us up on Facebook and slap that “Like” button.
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