Design Workflows at Work

Whenever I'm out shopping, I try to notice and absorb all the signage and branding. There are some very creative uses of shapes and typography all around us. Much of it is white noise, bombarding us with messages about the benefits of various products. In that regard, traditional advertising is lost on me because I am more likely to appreciate the fonts and kerning of a logo rather than an actual item.

I try to notice how the overall shopping experience ties into the store's identity. A good example of this is Target. Several years ago, they underwent a complete re-alignment around their brand. The store now has a much more cohesive experience, which helps distinguish them from the more generic competitors such as Wal-Mart, whose main staples are the yellow smiley face and a 5-point star. That's about as generic as you can get. Target, on the other hand makes good use of their bullseye symbol throughtout their stores, and even on rooftops which are visible via Google Maps.

http://adsoftheworld.com/media/ambient/target_googlemaps

Another thing I tend to notice are various aspects of interaction design in the real world. For instance, debit/credit card interfaces at the check-out counter. Some of them require me to enter my PIN, answer cash back yes/no, and then confirm the price. Others simply let me enter my PIN, specify any cash back, and then the machine prints the receipt. As far as interaction design goes, the second scenario is far more efficient because by entering your pin number in the first place, you are implicitly agreeing to the price that has been both told to you verbally by the cashier and displayed digitally on the screen. So, assuming you answered "no" to the cash back question, the total has not changed at all.

I find that as I specifically focus on the creative aspects of the world beyond the browser, I am able to delve back in and apply some of the things I have noticed. In this regard, a trip to the supermarket becomes less of a chore and more of a fact-finding mission. While it is not always realistic, I try as much as possible to just live in a state of awareness of the creativity in the world around me.

When I used to work at a Fortune 500 company, we had a very strict workflow. This had both its pluses and drawbacks. On the one hand, you knew day-in day-out what was expected, but on the other there was not really a whole lot of room for variance or creativity. Now that I work at Geniant, I am afforded the ability to be more of a change agent, helping to shape things to how they ought to be instead of just marching to the tune of the status quo. I enjoy the aspect of being treated like the SWAT team, and not just a cop writing parking tickets. When we're on the job, it is to help solve bigger problems.

I prefer to work in a collaborative environment in which everyone has something to bring to the table. My philosophy is: If people are members of a team, it should be for a reason and not just to put warm bodies in chairs. At Geniant, It is awesome to work with a team of talented guys and gals. That being said, I would prefer to work alone if the only alternative is a cubicle farm. I suppose it's trite, but whatever gets the job done in the best way possible is what I tend to favor. If the people around me add to my ability to be better at what I do, then they collectively are an asset and not a distraction. In the same regard, I enjoy being on-hand to help address questions that others may have.

Since I work a typical 9-to-5, I just go through the regular routine that many other people do: coffee, meetings, paperwork, etc. If it is a slow day, I will usually read Bloglines to catch up on what's going on in the web standards world.

http://www.bloglines.com/public/nathansmith/

I have about 180 feeds that I am subscribed to, but have become quite adept at scanning through what is relevant and cutting out the fluff. I have a pretty good "crap filter" as Kathy Sierra describes it. I have heard of many people cutting back their feed subscriptions in order to be able to better focus on their work. To me though, I only will read RSS if I know that there is nothing better to do. I mean, does anyone really open the ol' feed-reader expecting anything other than distraction? If so, you're kidding yourself. So, I tend to subscribe to interesting sites as I find them, and just do a lot of "Mark as read."

When doing freelance work, much of it is in the evening or on the weekends. If I find myself unable to concentrate, I sometimes will go through the motions of a typical morning: shower, brush teeth, shave stubble if need be. I have found that this helps to kick-start my brain by fooling myself into thinking that I am going to the day-job. After a half-hour, I am able to sit back down in my home office and feel refreshed, ready to face the task at hand. Another thing I like to do is go out with my wife and grab coffee somewhere. Sometimes, this helps a solution to come to mind for some coding problem or design rut. I think of this as a boomarang approach – the revelation comes at you sideways, when you're not actively seeking it, but passively mulling it over in your subconscience.

This is going to sound like an advertisement, but it's not. Steve Smith of Orderedlist.com introduced me to Billings 2 (http://billings2.com/) which I now use for time tracking all of my freelance projects. In the past, I tended to do a fixed price per project, but I think that hourly rates are the way to go now, to ensure that if there is scope creep or project delays that are the fault of the client, that they are the ones paying for it. Otherwise, lost opportunity cost stinks.

Billings 2 is a great program, because you can track things down to 1-minute incriments, it handles tax rates depending on your geography, and you can send invoices easily to clients. I much prefer a desktop application to tracking time, as opposed to something like Basecamp or Blinksale – though they are very good web-apps in their own right. Billings make it easy to start/stop the timer for multiple projects, and will auto-pause if you step away from the computer (default is 5 mins). Plus, if I am working on the road without access to the Internet, I can still be accurately accounting for time spent, rather than having to remember to enter it later on via a web browser. It's also nice to see the running clock in the OSX top-bar, reminding me to stay on-task when clocked-in.

Oh, just the typical distractions: phone, instant messenger, Twitter, email, etc. When I'm working, I try to keep those to a minimum unless they directly relate to what I am currently trying to accomplish.

My experience working for a large company helped me realize how much planning goes into the functionality of a web application before the interface is even discussed. In that regard, it prepared me for the worst possible design-by-comittee scenarios that can occur, and made me appreciate the importance of good information architecture and interaction design. It's sort of like the saying "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone." – I realized the value of planning only when I saw it done poorly. On smaller-scale projects, it's easy to just start designing right away, but the larger ones require a lot of preparation. While I appreciate the "getting real" (http://gettingreal.37signals.com/) approach, such a methodology only works if people actually "get it" initially. Getting real is like playing jazz without sheet music – It presupposes a certain level of talent, and that people actually know how to play instruments in the first place. If you are working with a group of people who are businessmen at heart rather than designers/coders/tinkerers, then documentation becomes the focal point.

I guess you could say I have two workflows: [1] One for the corporate world in which things move at an uncomfortably slow pace because a group only moves as fast as its slowest member, and [2] A more agile workflow when working alongside people who are familiar with web development. In this environment, there is much less arguing over things that are commonly agreed upon, and more coming up with creative solutions to problems that really matter. In an ideal world, we would live in the 2nd scenario all the time, but most of the time the real world in the 1st example tends to win out.

I had touched on this a bit before – the whole retail/shopping experience tends to catch my eye. The way that products are arranged and categorized in stores tends to make me think of content on large information-heavy websites. For instance, there may be a section of a store specifically for snack foods, yet you almost always see popcorn also displayed near the movie area. In this regard, I think of sites which use strategic cross-linking of pages to help the user find related content which may fall under a number of different classifications. The recent redesign of AIGA.com does a good job of bringing older content to the forefront that otherwise might be overlooked because of age. It's like a good wine list.

Another discipline that influences how I work is professional print design. This past summer, I read the Elements of Typographical Style after having seen it referenced at http://webtypography.net/ . It goes through many of the aspects of good (paper) page layout, and much of this can be applied to the web as well. It also talks about when and where it is acceptable to mix typefaces and which ones convey specific moods or feelings. In general, it just helps you be more cognizant of the usage of type. I would recommend that book to anyone looking to produce sites that are distinguished by their writing. While I was reading this book, my wife and I were touring around London. It was nice to read about typographic principles, and then see them in action via the various museums and art galleries.

As I alluded to before, at large companies there is a lot of down-time amongst designers and developers, waiting while the higher-up businesspeople get their ducks in a row for each project. During these lulls in action, I learned a great deal from Cody Lindley (http://codylindley.com/) about how to maximize and make the best use of my time. He and I have talked on several occasions about how to be diligent when there is not a specifically defined metric for success. It's like the old saying: "Who you are is what you do when nobody is looking." In that regard, instead of just watching YouTube all day, I would push myself to learn something new about JavaScript, CSS, etc. I also learned quite a bit about graphic design from my old coworker Hugh Griffith (http://design-spectacle.com/).

Lately, I have had the same type of discussion with Garrett Dimon, who shares the same attitude of constant self-improvement and sharpening of ones own skills. I have learned a great deal from all of my coworkers at Geniant. I am thankful to be in an environment in which ego comes second to collaboration, and actually delivering on a great project. I think that aspect of staying hungry to learn is what it takes to survive when choosing the web as a profession. At the recent Refresh Dallas meet-up, Ron Hall described this most succinctly: "When I committed to excellence in web development I was basically sentencing myself to graduate school for the rest of my life" (http://busynoggin.com/).

I have always admired the work of both Doug Bowman and Dan Cederholm, because they come up with sites that lean towards minimalist, while still being visually distinctive. I enjoy that style because of the efficency with which it is delivered. On the flip-side, I admire the work of Cameron Moll because his style is so visually rich with color and texture. I also like the style of Bryan Veloso, who pushes the limits of clean and linear presentation, bordering on the futuristic. And of course, my coworker Jared Christensen who is the resident design guru, responsible for all our corporate branding at Geniant.

Another big influence for me has been Jonathan Snook. In my mind, he is like the "total package" of web-samurai, because he's superb at JavaScript, CSS and PHP while also quite capable of doing decent visual design if need be. If he were an action movie star, he'd be the dude that you'd want on your team who could drive just about every vehicle imaginable. He has the patience of a saint, and has helped answer many of my questions when faced with coding conundrums.

Perhaps I'm odd, but if it is possible I think I have the opposite of ADHD. Rather than lacking focus, I usually have a tough time realizing it's time to stop. My report card as a kid said "Has a hard time switching activities" – because if I was in the middle of finishing homework for one subject, I wouldn't want to get out the book for the next. In that regard, to get away and leave work alone I like to watch movies or hang out with my wife and play Scrabble.