Inspiration Process

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Inspiration can come from all over. I get inspired for build from books, websites, music, photos, and art in general. Some times the best inspiration can come from process. Following the proper procedures for generating ideas is important, generic catchall phrase have been around for years about thinking outside the box or breaking the mold. We have all heard our boss say this.

Currently this is hugely important for many people. Budgets are pressed, resources are short and the pressure is on. So how do you step to this mounting pressure to succeed? Lots of coffee is definitely one answer, but process is another. It seems strange that something like process can be used in the same sentence as creativity but it is true. The scientific method has been around for decades and helps to show that having a process can help you find your solution, so how do we apply this sort of method to design?

There steps that can lead you to multiple ideas, lets lay them out -

1. Identify the problem - This is the biggest step you can take realizing something is wrong . Problems can come from a number of places and many times you have problems and don’t even know it. The best way to identify problems is to test often and in lots of ways. User experience testing is great for seeing how people actually use the product, marketing research to make sure you are hitting the intended audience, technical testing to make sure things function as expecting, the list goes on.
2. Research the problem - Why is the problem occurring?
3. See how others have solved the problem - it is important to look at as many examples as possible
4. See what others have done wrong
5. Write a brief - This should be a short statement outlining the goals, this will help guide the creative process and set the direction of all future decisions.
6. Mind mapping - Sometimes writing down everything that could possibly be associated with the item being studied can bring exciting new possibilities to the table. Get as many people as possible involved and bring a thesaurus, a good way to start is to just write down words and related words. This context will help you to think about the different directions possible.
7. Turn the idea upside down - If you were to do it completely wrong what would you do. Throw out the worst possible ideas you can come up with. Some times they turn into the best.
8. Mood Boarding - Pick a spot on the wall of the office and have people post pictures of things they like on it, or that solve the problem well. This can be very inspirational.
9. Sketch- Start putting together sketches of a proposed solution. Just put together as many as you can analyze them later
10. Pre-production - By this time you should have enough concepts to put together some concepts work with the client to iron out the ideas

So there is a brief outline, entire books are written about this topic so this is very brief. Hopefully you find it helpful!

NBC O&O Site Launch

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

As many of you know I have been working very dilligently with the very bright team of web developers at NBC. Well the day has come and the first of nine sites has launched. http://www.nbcchicago.com is the result of many months of work by a NBC internal start up team. Together we have build a very solid site that emphasis news from a local perspective.

The site has some interesting features that make the news more relevant for the standard city dweller. I was discussing this last night with Liz and one of the reasons why a younger demographic doesn’t get into local tv news is that it is not really all that relevant or interesting. TV news has long been subjected to short news cast and has thus limited its coverage. Newspaper have really ruled the roost on the web and why? Because they cover more. Go to any local tv news site you have poor coverage of things to do in the city (unless the tv station is sponsoring them), you have an over emphasis on hard hitting news which many cities lack and less of a focus on things that really interest or affect a viewer. Local stations have also always struggled with larger news corporations like CNN. These site really cover the news most people care about much more fully then a local station can.

Local stations do have strengths and the ability to have even more. Local stations have a view into the life style of their city. The can reach a lot of people in the area and review and cover any event, play, music event, restaurant, new store, etc… This is on top of their news content. They also have access to tons of video equipment. The new NBC sites do a great job of emphasizing their stations strengths. The make stories hyper local by geo tagging them, they have a great events tool, and cover everything without over cluttering their sites. They also clearly label everything. TV stations have always had trouble with ignoring their broadcast shows and letting the web be its own thing. Not every one who looks at your web site watches your news. Thus not every one knows that Cindy on The Town is actually a feature that covers things to do in the city. However a user can generally guess that entertainment is just that. Hats off to NBC for realizing this.

NBC also made a bold move and realized they have weaknesses. They are encouraging link off to other sites. The thinking is that some times it is interesting and we may not cover it or that some one else may have better coverage. Essentially if a reporter thinks something is worth reading why should they keep that from their readers? Heck Matt Drudge never wrote a story in his life.

So all in all this site is great and breaking the mold. Hats off to all the people I worked with on this project and good luck!

Machinery Row Site Launch

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

I have just completed a free lance project I have been working on for quite some time. www.machineryrowbicycles.com is a catalog based web site.

Their are many bike shop websites out there, however they all sort of look and are organized the same. I wanted to to try something a bit different. I spent a large portion of time thinking about the information structure and the design of the site. I tried to get some things highlighted on the home page from every important section with large images with out making a really long site.

One of the biggest challenges in the build was the amount of ways to sort the same data. I started out with the bike section. Bikes can be sorted by type, price, brand, size, etc… I decided that the most logical way to sort these was by type, then give the user the ability to sort by the brand. Long term I would like to add a sort by price option but have yet to build this.

I also tried out some new technologies and ideas on this site. I have been tinkering with jQuery a lot on this project and have to say that it is a great tool for adding interaction to a site. I also started using microformats here and their and hope this will help with SEO. One other SEO trick I am trying is using html text for the header graphic.

The site was built out on Expression Engine, which has proven to be an excellent tool!

Weather Plus Launch

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Every once in a while you get an opportunity to build something that you don’t normally build. This is a great opportunity and challenge, Weather Plus brought me that challenge. From the beginning of February until now I have had the wonderful opportunity to work with a group who is really pushing the limits of video on the web. To meet their needs I work with a highly talented group of developers to envision and create a video content management system that aggregates content from UGC, Weather Plus and television affiliate users. The purpose of this tool is to re purpose content in as many ways possible to easily reuse it in as many place as possible.

This challenged us in many ways. How do you make content easily travel between different CMS’s, blogs, and television. We solved these problems and more thanks to evolving web standards. Technologies like MRSS, embeded flash players, MP4 and flash video we were able to create a highly extensible video CMS that powers a great site.

Mobile Web Design By Cameron Moll

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

I just finished Cameron Moll’s book Mobile Web Design. This book was a great primer for the mobile web developer. I get asked tons of mobile questions and many times are stuck with no answer. This book offers a lot of answers. While it is not a book aimed at give technical answers it give a solid foundation to build on. The book focuses on how to approach mobile design, how to decide the best solution for access, and the options that are available for browsers.

Bottom line if you are new to mobile web design or answer a lot client mobile questions I recommend picking this book up.