Prioritizing Priorities

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The first thing I do when I sit down on the train is to look at my list of to do items for the day. My method of managing this list includes duplicating the previous day’s action items to the current day so I always have a record of past activities. With a fresh list in hand I look to prune it, removing items and repositioning others so I can structure my forthcoming day in a way that I can get the most done. Productivity is top of mind because experience tells me if I don’t take an active role of controlling my day, my day will control me. How many of us sit down to do work and are almost immediately bombarded with messages. Email inquiries, meeting requests, Slack notifications, the list goes on. This is nothing new nor unique to my situation, it is a common experience many of us share each and every day. This is one of the reasons the “Productivity Economy” is—and has been—so popular for so long. Countless books, videos, podcasts, Twitter, and Instagram feeds are all to happy to tell you—or sell you—on the idea that less is more. Trim the fat. Cut out the waste. Say no. These are tried and true methods by which we can, and do, look to take back our time. Reclaim control of our day. In order to do any of this we must do two simple things:

  1. Make a list
  2. Prioritize that list

First things first

In order do effectively prioritize our activities we must first get everything that is in our head out in front of us. Contrary to what many software applications would love to sell you, the tools you use to document your list doesn’t matter. I’ve tried them all and the best user experience always comes down the simplest one that works for you. I use a text editing application called Notational Velocity that syncs with an mobile app called SimpleNote I have on my iPhone. It gives me the flexibility to format the list—or any other notes I need to take—in the way I need it at the time I need it. While I lament that a digital solution is void of the satisfaction of running the graphite of ones sharp pencil through a handwritten note, it is the price to pay to have access to the list from any digital device.

Get into groups

My list of tasks are organized into five distinct groups that I picked up from the 99U book Manage Your Day-to-Day by Jocelyn K. Glei:

  1. Critical. The items that go into this category should be short and actionable for the day. Include no more than three-to-five and ruthlessly prioritize so you are confident you can work through this group. Feel like a task may to too big for one category? Break it up into smaller pieces and get it done.
  2. Important. Action items in this section are the ones that first fall out of the Critical area. They are—as the label describes—important to you and you want them to stay top of mind. They just may not be as urgent as those items in the critical category.
  3. Nice to have. Lists are inherently tools we use to not forget things. This category serves that purpose well. It is important to you and includes items that you want to accomplish but are not able to at the moment. Let’s not forget about them. Better yet, let’s revisit them on a frequent basis and decide if now is the right time to elevate them to the next level. This should not be a dumping ground for things to do but a thoughtful group of activities that are intended to help you achieve your goals.
  4. Eliminate. Sometimes it feels that our todo list is a never ending stream of tasks and requests. If we stop and ask ourselves “Why is this important and how will it help me achieve my goals” then we will find ourselves in a position to decide what is unnecessary. While our ambitions may be limitless our time is not. Peter Drucker says this best: “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which could not be done at all.”
  5. Delegate. Wonderful category. Anything that you can delegate, go delegate. Give it to someone else—particularly if you think they may do a better job at it than you. Look at activity from a high level and understand that what is important is getting the task done well and in a timely manner.

An editor’s eye

One of the most important skills to hone as someone who makes things is to develop the skill to edit. It allows the creator to see the whole picture and shape the work without getting lost in the detail. Writer Tracy Kidder and editor Richard Todd talk about this in their book Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction where they state “(Editors) need to see its structure in totality before they become involved in minutiae.” Editorship is a craft all its own but we can all practice key tenants to become more efficient at what we do and make work more meaningful to us. Famed film editor Walter Murch talks about this in his book on the subject In the Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing where he states “Editing is not so much as putting together as discovering a path.” We are all on a path and the pitfalls of distraction will keep us from where we want to go. Make your list of priorities your guidebook to show you the way.

The Value of Visualization

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Much of my job as a User Experience Director involves visualizing ideas for my clients, my teams, and myself. The conventional way to do this is to draw pictures. Break out the dry erase marker, pony up to the whiteboard, and a few minutes later some boxes and arrows take the shape of recognizable—albeit primitive—solution that gives the audience a sense of what you are thinking about. I’ll refrain from the adage that involves pictures and a thousand words.

Drawing without a surface

I spend a lot of time on conference calls where ideas are sometimes shared visually but many times—too many—we are left our imaginations to construct the scenario being described to us. The topic of conversation may not be design related and involve a business or technical topics that is clear to some of the participants, but abstract to others. It is standard fare that modern web conference software comes equipt with tools to draw out the idea but that is seldomly used. Why? Perhaps the speaker doesn’t feel they can proficiently draw? Not visualizing puts the ideas at risk of being misunderstood. It is more likely than not that each participant has a picture in their mind. Each of us brings a different point of view. We have our own experiences, our own frames of reference that we call upon to craft the story we are listening to. There is nothing wrong with that per se—in fact that is one of the ways in which we all can contribute a variety of ideas. But when a visual aid isn’t present there is also a risk of straying off track. Lose focus. Misinterpreting the intent if the narrative.

Mental model making

We are visual creatures and when we describe ideas and—to be effective—it is necessary for the audience to align, maintain focus, and engage with the context. Author Charles Duhigg describes in his book Smarter, Faster, Better “If you need to improve your focus and learn to avoid distractions, take a moment to visualize, with as much detail as possible, what you are about to do. It’s easier to know what’s ahead when there’s a well-rounded script inside your head.” He goes on to talk about how we successful communication relies on building mental models. The more we, as presenters, can inform those mental models, the clearer we will be in our communication. Building those mental models in your head require energy and a conscious practice to actively listen to the presenter. Some people are better at visualizing than others. Some can think in three dimensions, others two dimensions, while others can’t put images together at all and need it spelled out. It requires a lot of mental energy to focus on a topic, and to follow the conversation while constructing images in our minds that reference the subject matter makes it all the more challenging.As designers we must be sensitive to this in order to effectively sell our ideas.

Always be aware of your audience

When sharing ideas, whether in a presentation to a steering committee or your in-house design team, remember there will be some who will be left behind by the choices you make in telling your story. It’s a performance, treat it that way. Think about it as an member of the audience. How you would feel sitting across from yourself at the conference room table or on the other end of the conference bridge? What would you need to understand the concepts and ideas being discussed? What references would make sense to you use? How hard are you willing to actively listen to understand the point?

Getting Into It

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To do anything well, we have to be “into it”. What does that mean? Where do we get the motivation to dive into something so strongly that we forget everything else around us? War is being waged in every direction in the battle for our attention.

To resist these shiny objects of desire and clear our mind to focus takes energy. It is one of the reasons why productivity gurus have been championing the benefits of mindfulness and sleep. Sleep provides your brain the rest it needs to reset and recharge so It may use that energy to fend off attention attacks and give you the space you need. It requires some mastery over the decision-making parts of our lizard brains (e.g. the amygdala) to take command of the ship and steer it in the right direction to get to our destination.

But getting ourselves ready to do good work requires other things as well. It needs a spark. While a strong shot of inspiration helps, a more dependable means involves routine. Maintaining a consistent practice each day is the best path to get to our goal. Author Seth Godin talked about this with screenwriter Brian Koppelman on his podcast The Moment and advised “if you ship the work and ship the work and ship to work, you will discover it’s a craft. If you keep waiting for the lightning bolt it will never hit you.” That rigor helps us get better at what we do, which in turn gives us confidence, which gives us the strength go continue to do more good work. It is a virtuous cycle.

I am always looking for that feeling of being lost in my work. There is a sense of great satisfaction of looking forward to creating something new and looking back at something that I, and my team, have created. Early in my practice it would be that I would only want you start something if knew how it was going to end. Or felt inspired. Or I could be sure it would come out perfect. As a creative professional my job is to produce and guide others to produce inspired work every day—whether that lightning bolt strikes or not. What experience demonstrates is that it is the process that I love the most. Putting ideas out there and getting it on the whiteboard, page, or screen is the only first step to getting started. Cal Newport, describes this in his book Deep Work as “professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create a new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.” I’ve set up rules for myself to make sure I am creating my best work:

  1. Throw nothing away. Document each idea for a reason. Even bad ideas provide pieces that may prove valuable to solve the puzzle.
  2. Assume you will make several iterations. While Paul Rand is to have famously presented a single logo design option to his clients, he doubtlessly left dozens of iterations left on his drawing board back at his Connecticut studio. In other words—get it all out on the the table. Build confidence in knowing that you explored every visible avenue.
  3. Putting ideas out in public helps to shape them. It is by communicating our work that we articulate our intent. Whether that be through speaking, writing, or interpretive dance, we are forced to describe the piece from a different perspective. We also have the benefit of—hopefully—receiving constructive feedback in return.
  4. Walk away—and then come back. Build in enough time in the process to walk away from the work so that you may return with fresh eyes and a clear head. Point of view is everything and by looking at the work with some time in between will allow you to put your editing hat on. An editor looks at a piece objectively, with a critical eye and nose pointing to the best product.
  5. Present with purpose. When it comes time to formally share your work with clients, know your story. Designers tell stories to themselves as they are making work that rationalize decisions. Synthesize those thoughts into a cohesive, clear narrative that your audience will understand the thinking that went it to making meaningful work.

Getting into work is not always easy but it’s one of the main reasons why we do this. It’s to recapture that feeling of exploration and discovery and making something that is valuable for the project and meaningful to yourself.

The Value of Focus

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Our attention is valuable. Digital products spend countless dollars wrestling over the where our eyeballs go. While we devote fractions of seconds to reading and deleting, browsing, filtering. All of that time adds up. It takes cognitive energy to process each piece of information. Each article we read, product we compare, video we watch, and song that we play, we are always asking ourselves the same question: Is this worth my time?

Applying an economic metaphor makes sense. Time is a democratized currency that we all have to spend. How we choose to spend it says a lot about who we are. This one of the reasons why user experience is so critical. With the deluge of content intended to distract us our ability to focus on tasks and goals has become even more important. We value systems that provide us with what we are looking for in the most effortless way. Those experiences that seek to—intentionally or otherwise—distract our lizard brains from what we seek are deemed are not seen as useful.

So how do we create products that empower users and allow them to increase their focus? Some believe the path lies in offering less, not more. Steve Jobs famously said “Focus is about saying “no” to almost everything..so you can say yes to the right things.” We learn as much about user behavior from what a user doesn’t choose, than from what they do. But sometimes offering less is not an option.

If you are Amazon, less products goes against your business model. No, the answer lies in offering the right types of information at the right time. This means anticipating questions users have as they navigate the site and showing them the right content at the right time. It means giving them tools to filter down their options. Author Daniel Pink says in his book Drive, “Prospects of prize narrows focus.” The more we can help the user along the path to their destination, the more often they are likely to take the journey again.

Why, Oh Why AI?

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The AI Summit New York is billed as the world’s largest gathering connecting the Artificial Intelligence community to businesses. Tech companies, consultants, and field experts from across the country  talk about their latest and greatest advancements. While AI has been around for decades businesses are now grasping how they may be able to apply it to very real business problems in an effort to create a competitive advantage in their respective markets.

Does AI have anything to do with the user experience? Yes, of course it does—it actually has everything to do with it. How? Designers are deciders of what, how, when, where, and why information is presented to an audience. Design provides the pathway to answer the users questions. The shorter that path the more satisfying the results. AI has the potential to make that path very short and deeply meaningful. Here are a few takeaways from summit and the state of AI in business.

AI has a branding problem

Decades of pop-cultural references have spurred fears that all AI technology is the same, that it will be taking away our jobs and taking over our society—or even worse. While anything is possible a more rational take is to simply look at it as a tool to find patterns within vast amounts of information. Machine Learning allows us to simply analyze patterns in data. Google’s Chief Decision Scientist Cassie Koztrhov describes AI as a machine that “explains with examples”. Show it pictures and it will discover patterns that humans may not be able to do on their own. Once patterns are recognized, Natural Language Understanding (NLU) can make meaning out of the unstructured language. Natural Language Processing (NLP) will then take that unstructured language and derive insights from the sentiment that would take way too long for humans to do at the same scale.

Gavin Michael, Head of Technology for Citi described how they consider it as “augmented intelligence” where they are giving tools to employees to do their jobs better. He talked about how behavioral analytics will take the friction out of interacting with the bank. Humans are still required for the job, but having extra information about the customer readily available can conceptually make their experience better. This may be a more practical way to think about it in context to the work you do.

The internet isn’t getting any smaller

As the internet continues to increase in size humans are going to continue to need tools to be able to understand it, filter it, and prioritize the information for what is most meaningful to us. It is the insights we derive from such activities  that will allow businesses to make smarter predictions and more accurate decisions that reduces their risk. But it doesn’t mean anything if the data is not presented to the decision-maker in a format that they can’t understand. This is where UX comes in. In order for the data be useful to the decision-maker it must be presented in a format that allows them to understand what it is, where it came from, and how it can help them make a choice.

Number of websites between 1991 to 2018

Internet Live Stats

UX designers job must ask continue to ask questions as they would for any project but in cases where they are building enterprise applications and tools will be used by a narrow audience, the questions must go deeper and understand how they can craft a tool that augments the users behavior and empowers them to do their job better. It all depends of course on who is using the product. An Marketing SVPs’ information needs will be different than that of a customer service agent. Both can benefit from data that gives them insight into the problem they are trying to solve and the context by which the insights are presented make all the difference.

Scale the space between

In order for businesses to grow they must find opportunities in new  and underserved markets. These markets take place in the space between larger, more established entities. Analyzing user behavior enables businesses to understand the direction of trends and make predictions that may lead to creating new—and perhaps innovative—products and services. Four largest companies in the world are tech companies, each trying to leverage both large and small communities within their ecosystems.

For businesses to grow it is imperative for them to consistently deliver better customer experiences. Machine learning empowers those organizations to do that at scale. But keep in mind this involves tracking user patterns and mapping their behaviors all in an effort to service them with—what sometimes feels like—an endless conveyor belt of new products. As UX designers it is important to recognize this cycle and be sensitive to user concerns. Each time a user enters their name in an input field, or clicks on a button, they are giving their personal information they are entrusting to the product. Most users don’t think that deeply about it but we should. Tech empires are built by the bricks of each piece of data.

Melissa Boxer, VP, Product Strategy and Customer Success, Adaptive Intelligence emphasizes to “know your why”—which is at the foundational design philosophy. This was echoed in several sessions along with another common theme: start with the problem and not the solution. In other words, be clear about its purpose. Trust is built using the technology in a responsible way. Therefore future products must infuse transparency to earn that trust. Empower users with knowledge and tools to understand that what they are getting is because of what they are giving.

AI will continue to play a major role in the development of products. It is our responsibility as designers to understand how it can be used and why it will make the experience better for the user.