Month: July 2010

Categories
Design HCId Travel

What surfing taught me about being a designer

A view of the trees, the waves and the boards where we danced on water.

I’ve never gone surfing before. Swimming, snorkeling, kayaking and Slip ‘n Sliding–but never surfing. Welcome to California. With just a few weeks of my internship left at RockMelt, I’ve been thinking about what I learned this summer. A new friend took surfing near Pacifica to ride some waves. While tumbling around in the Ocean, I spent some time thinking about design.

Let the waves knock you over
Swallow lots of water, burn your eyes with salt, chase after your board and do it again. and again. and again. and again. This is part of the fun. But soon, you’ll learn to hold your breath. You’ll listen for the wave, you’ll close your eyes and hang onto your board just a little bit tighter. Everything you design won’t get developed. Most ideas won’t even make it past a sketch. But you ride it out as far as it takes you. Don’t paddle to the shore and go home, get back on that board.

Point your board beyond the wave
The waves keep coming, especially when you first get started. There are lots of waves, roadblocks, problems to solve. As soon as you can get through them, you can hop up on the board and ride it out. But you would never set your goal so low that you’re project is guaranteed to flounder (though sometimes it happens anyway). So the trick is to the point the nose of the board beyond the wave. Float on top of wave; let it flow beneath you–past you. Aim for where you want to be, what you want to accomplish. But, you know, if the ocean eats you alive, you’ll be ok. Hold your breath, protect your head, let the waves spit you out and get back on that board.

Listen to your environment
Most of the time, the signs are there. Listen to your customers, your colleagues, your managers. Look for their body language, their tone of voice and the frequency of feedback. Sometimes, there is salt water burning in your eyes. That doesn’t mean you all your senses are dead. Open your ears and listen for the wave rushing up behind you. Either duck for cover or be ready to take it head on.

Pick your battles
You can’t ride every wave. Even if you could, you wouldn’t want to. Catch your breath, check out your surroundings and brace yourself. Face the a friendly wave or the surging tide that will give you either the best ride of your life or the biggest smackdown of the day. Though, if you keep taking the easy ones, you won’t get very good at surfing, or make a very good product, nor will you have very much fun. But sometimes, the best approach is to slip under the current, wait out the rumble, poke your head above water, look for the clear and get back on that board. You can’t do everything. So figure out what you can do and go with it full force.

Be uncomfortable
Frigid saltwater and cloudy skies do not feel nice. Neither does sitting inside at a desk all day. So compromise. Make it work; accept a little discomfort. You’re doing something great. Instead of complaining, get up, go for a walk outside and enjoy the sunshine.

Someone will always be better than you
That’s okay. Let them be. Sometimes, you can learn from them. All you probably need to do is just practice more.

Live in the moment
This one’s easy. Be where you are. Focus on one thing at a time and do your best.

Categories
Design HCId Journalism Share

What makes content shareable?

Below is a graduate journalism school independent study proposal.

Summary
Social media may be in its infancy but its model changes as quickly as slowly as mature newsroom are evolving. In short, the divide between social and hard news media is growing further apart. Traditional or hard news values like timeliness, impact and accuracy are important tools that inform reporters and journalists. However, there is little conversation published about social news values. My research will include understanding and defining emergent themes such as social news, social journalists, shareability and social media.
What will I do?
I will wireframe existing social media tools to analyze their designs, interview social journalists (Facebook and Twitter users) to understand how they decide what to consume and share and I will study their news feeds. For wireframes, I will draw out the essential parts of sharing interfaces to better understand the user interactions. I will sketch out the the placement of text fields, buttons, hovers and behaviors. Throughout these tasks I will consume texts and videos related to shareable content.
Why understanding the shareability of content important?
It is important for multiple stakeholders to understand what drives the share-ability of content. I will focus on members of the news media and interaction designers. Understanding what makes content sharable is intended to inform future models and designs that serve publishers and consumers.

Who wants to know what makes content shareable?

News Media Members (Traditional) News media companies now compete for attention of consumers casually browsing who subconsciously debate between social news in their Twitter stream or hard news on the The New York Times online. However, increasing the shareability of New York Times content can benefit journalists, consumers, other content producers and communities.

Interaction Designers
 It is important for interaction designers creating social broadcasting tools to understand the values and motives of their users. In doing this, they can design empowering, usable products and services that deliver better experiences.

Objective
Develop a critical eye as an interaction designer and journalist to understand what makes content shareable thereby informing the design and models of future media content and tools. The goal will be to make and deliver insights to distribute to news producers news site designers and device designers. I will deliver insights  about what kind of content and design increases shareablity and will likely increase traffic and quality of news companies’ brands.

Deliverables
 Throughout the semester my work will be publicly shared through my media networks like Twitter, Facebook, Quora and on my personal blog. I will blog my insights and findings throughout the semester. My blog will include a rich analysis and conversation of my questions and findings. The blog will be text and hopefully comment heavy. All sources requiring citation, analysis and conversation will be referenced and discussed at http://nina.keystreams.com/share.

I will summarize and express my findings in a highly shareable medium. I will plan produce a video but will change the medium if my research something that has higher shareability. This will be based on the feedback and insights I gain from my networks.

I will also attend the social media theory group meetings coordinated by Mark Deuze to inform my project and discuss my findings.

Process (Subject to change based on research findings)

  1. Lit Review
    • Define social media, social journalists, sharability
    • Develop an understanding of social news values related to traditional news values (impact, timeliness, prominence, proximity, conflict, weight, etc)
  2. Framework
  3. Questions
    • Who do social journalists produce content for?
    • What do social journalists consume?
    • What motivates social journalists from sharing content?
    • What do social journalists get for sharing content?
    • Is the medium the message?
  4. Evidence (Data)
    • Potential Interviews
      • Aditya Agarwal, Facebook (Director of Engineering)
      • Arjun Banker, Facebook (Platform)
      • Matthew Beebe, RockMelt (Designer)
      • Andrew Devigal, New York Times (Multimedia Editor)
      • Tyson Evans, New York Times (Interface Engineer)
      • Jason Putorti, Bessemer Venture Partners (Designer in Residence)
      • Robin Sloan, Twitter (Online Strategist)
      • Xande Macedo, RockMelt (Designer)
      • Mark Slee, Facebook (Lead Project Manager)
      • Poynter
      • Digg
      • LinkedIn
    • Explore and wireframe features essential to social media like geo-location tags, Twitter @replies, @ facebook tagging, including a URL, inline photo and video scraping

Resources

Media
Below is a preliminary list of relevant video and texts I want to consume and analyze to motivate my research. As I research new books, videos, papers and blog posts will become relevant and some listed below will become less important. Citations of consumed and referred content will be included as a deliverable.(Social and News Media)

Design

Theories

Schedule of Work (subject to change)

30 August
Begin search for heavy facebook and twitter social journalists
Consume, share and analyze related media

05 September
Wireframe interaction design and analyze of Facebook and Twitter clients
Consume, share and analyze related media
12 September
Wireframe interaction design and analyze of Facebook and Twitter clients
Consume, share and analyze related media
19 September
Prepare questions for social journalists and social media designers, engineers, project managers
Consume, share and analyze related media
26 September
Prepare for and interview journalists at SND Boulder
03 October
Interviews with social journalists and analysis of their news feeds
Consume, share and analyze related media
10 October
Interviews with social journalists and analysis of their news feeds
Consume, share and analyze related media
17 October
Interviews with “techies” & Interview Analysis
Consume, share and analyze related media
24 October
Develop an analysis between traditional news values and social news values
Consume, share and analyze related media
31 October
Relate interview findings with social news values and social news features (geotagging, @ replies, etc)
Consume, share and analyze related media
01 November
Begin forming a synthesis of findings and an argument for what makes content shareable
Consume, share and analyze related media
08 November
Form synthesis of findings and an argument for what makes content shareable
Consume, share and analyze related media
15 November
Form synthesis of findings and an argument for what makes content shareable
Consume, share and analyze related media
22 November

Video Production (Storyboarding)

Thanksgiving

29 November
Video Production
06 December
Video Production
13 December
Video Finishing & Collection of deliverables

Details
 During the Fall 2010 semester at Indiana University in Bloomington at the School of Bloomington, I, Nina Mehta, propose the Independent Study above with Professor Hans Ibold for three J804 credits. I will not be sitting in on an undergraduate course. All deliverable will be submit to Professor Ibold by or on Friday, December 17th, 2010 at midnight.

Arjun Banker, Matthew Beebe, Adrienne Dye, John Wayne Hill, Apurva Pangam and Robin Sloan for being listening ears and critical friends.

Categories
Travel

24 hours in Portland

Whilst on holiday in Seattle, via San Francisco, I felt inspired to go on a 1940s style American adventure. Manifest Destiny, Oregon Trail. Monday night I booked a morning Coast Starlight ride along the coast to Portland. I made friends in the lounge car and marveled at what is my country.

The never ending beautiful view

I started posting notes on Facebook before I travel to guide my explorations. I find that my friends have a better sense of my interests than any tour book. I also always seem to discover I know more people where I’m going than I thought. It’s a great archive I can share with my friends in the future and helps all my friends know what has already been recommended to me. The other benefit is that usually when I return from somewhere, people say something like “I lived in Portland for 3 years, why didn’t you tell me you were going?”

This land is your land, this land is my land.

The Coast Starlight ride from Seattle to Portland was absolutely beautiful. I felt like i was in a 1940’s American adventure. I booked my trip the night before and took off with what only fit in my purse.

I was given a Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous Tour of Chris Johnson. He and I are dear friends from my Indy Star days. We met at the epic Powell Bookstore and walked throughout the Northwest neighborhood. We had lunch at The New Old Lompoc, a great backyard-like pub. Late into our walk throughout the city we headed back downtown for amazing cocktails at The Portland City Grille that boasted the most unbelievable view of the city and mountains. I highly recommend any mojito including the blood orange beverage.

The view from Portland City Grill

My highschool turnabout dance date (fun fact) Justin came to pick us up and we enjoyed an evening on the patio at the Rontoms lounge. My roommate, Sravi, from San Francisco just moved to Portland. We gave him and some new friends a healthy hipster dosage he had been missing. The evening carried onto a late Cajun Creole dinner at Le Bistro Montage. Delicious faire that’s always open late. Here I was with zero plan, living completely free, from whim to whim with so many parts of my life coming together at once. All of us had a nightcap at a great little dive, The Bonfire Lounge.

Chris, my tourguide
Sravi, my dungeonmate
Justin, my blast from the past (and true gentleman!)

Early morning, I did the most cliche thing possible and ate granola in Portland. We visited the Waffle Window for a fruit, yogurt, granola breakfast.

Fruit, Yogurt and Granola from the Waffle Window

Chris took me around some vintage shops on Hawthorne where we bought sweet water guns and a mood ring for me to know when I feel purpley. We meant to meet Chris’ friends at Prost! a German Pub, to watch the World Cup match against Spain on the up and coming Mississippi Avenue. It was overly crowded so we strolled down the road for a cooler spot to hide from the hot hot heat.

The trip wound down with the best tacos of my entire life from ?Por Que No? that are also incredibly inexpensive. Absolutely amazing.

Carnitas and Tinga tacos
Weapons of choice

I wrapped up my trip downtown, got some Voodoo Doughnuts for the road and jumped on the Cascade for a snooze and ride back to Portland.

Oreos, Fruity Pebbles and a Voodoo Doll

Not bad for just one day. I can’t wait to visit again.

I'm a little proud of my $1 mood ring.