#starterleague

Hack Hostel

Located in Chicago, IL is the Hack Hostel, which a short term leasing apartment for students that are attending the code school Starter League as well as Dev Bootcamp. The hostel was started by Nate Kroll (pictured) after he attended Starter League. 

Don't go chasin waterfalls... 

One of the things that gets forgotten, especially when you're hanging out with just a bunch of UXers, is that you eventually do have to explain what you've been finding to the rest of the world. This is a process. This isn't just something where you toss it over the fence and just walk away. Your design thinking applies to your team as well as to the outside world. 

Have you considered ALL your assets? Have you identified your real unfair advantage? Because that should be directing you. 

This comes up as you head into building out products. There's only so much that can be built at a time, and knowing what's really key, is . . . well, key. You need to have a clear idea of your objectives, the solutions you're planning to implement and what the requirements are inherent to that solution. In other words, if you're using a door as the solution to an objective of security... you should probably make damned sure that it not only meets the requirements of open and close, but also lock.

So, you've got this down? Great. Because now we get into the magic of user stories. Basically, turning "we're going to need a lock" into "a user can lock the door" "a user can unlock a door" since having a thing is not the same as being able to use it!

This is another point where some UX needs to come to bear. Sure, it might be faster and easier to just make a door without a lock, but really, that's now just an impediment to the user! If it can't lock, why is it there in the first place? [think "user login"... do you need these? is everything being shared on the inside anyway?]. 

Finally, if your site is going to be content based [as opposed to just functionality] then you better be sure that it's easy for a user to add content. Even the most dedicated blogger will tire of writing if the platform they use is confusing, or doesn't encourage them to come back, post more, and maybe even interact with other content. 

Oh, and if anyone mentions "waterfall?" Run.

Exodus from the land of static websties happened a long time ago. The internet has slowly grown to mimic our world where yes, if you touch it, there will be some response. Behind the scenes, this has meant the evolution of jQuery. 

Since I've done a bit of Ruby, I'm also seeing another trend happening here. HTML/CSS? Yeah, welcome to the melting pot. The precise point where front-end and back-end hand off their jobs is muddy. It's not as clear cut as LinkedIn's job descriptions would have us believe. 

So, what can we really do here? Well, for one thing, you can make any website do the Harlem Shake. If that's not enough for you, then you're just going to be bored your whole life through. 

Some quick call outs: key:value pairs, so you can access say, names off a list; getters and setters, so you can quickly change everything or one type into something else [we turned all the instuctors at StarterLeague into breaded cats...]; you can add effects so images, words links [anything you can id] will explode or just run away when you click or mouseover them.

Yeah. So, pretty cool. Interactivity is what humans look for. I mean, we like it when the cat purrs when we pet it, when the dog fetches the ball when we through it. Humans demand a response to their actions. jQuery delivers it online.  

What's color? Welllllll..... If anything can blow your mind as to what color is and what it means, it's looking at how much cultural context changes the meaning of something as "simple" as green. 

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/colours-in-cultures/

Anyway, in the meantime, while that blows your mind, it is possible to get scientific about color. 

Hue: what we think of as "colors of the rainbow," the baseline of the color you're consturcting

Value: all colors are equal! ...but they differ in value. add some black to a hue and you get a shade. add some white? you've got a tint. yup, pink's a tint of red. you get it. 

Saturation: bright vs dull, not talkin about intelligence here. just how much of a hue you've got mixed in. eventually, it all fades to grey. dull dull dull, no mater how many shades of it you try to pawn off on a person.

Achieving harmony is also a [potentially] scientific process. Yes, you can get an eye for it too. But these things can be constructed. 

Complimentary? Yup, that's xmas.

Analagous? That's an "icy color palette" all the colors lined up in the blue zone. 

No, it's not SUPPOSED to be clear! If you're doing UX research and everything seems totally cut and dry, guess what? You're probably doing it wrong. 

Even something as "simple" as figuring out who your users are is a complex problem. The good thing? There's a path to follow to figure this shit out. 

Some of it is qualitative [demographics, some of the psychographic stuff], but a lot of it is quantitative. Why? Because when you ask someone to fill out a survey [and really, to get good quant numbers, that's usually what you're talking about in the end] they answer according to their own perception. They answer what they THINK you're asking, what they THINK you want to hear. 

Instead, starting with some qualitative research, some listening between the lines, then coming back around and testing you hypothesis? Yeah, that works. 

Quadrants: find your low hanging fruit

Profiles: the archetypical users you'll be addressing... yes, these sound like D&D characters.

Personas: taking your interviews and compiling them into some "real" people, as in Jane the Mom, and Ted the Mechanically-Challenged Chef

Mental Models: looking at what the thinking/feeling/doing is that a user is going through

Journies: a broad option that maps a product into a potential user's day, as in 'use case scenarios' and 'intercept moments'

Yes, this is REAL research. Just because it's not based on the answers of 5000 people, doesn't make it invalid... unless you've accidentally wound up with a whole slew of outliers. Eeeeek!

Ok. So back in the day when I first learned me some HTML/CSS chops, the biggest concern was if your tables and frames would translate over between Netscape and IE. Now? Well, you don't even know if someone's going to be looking at what you're building on a computer... or if instead they'll be trundling down a street, mobile phone in their hand [the most dangerous creature in the world is not a lion or a tiger...].

So, here's the thing. Responsive design? Only half of it is about the size and shape of what you're delivering. The other half is WHAT you put on the page. Do they need it? Does the content remain pertinent regardless of point of consumption?

Ok. Well, let's figure you got that handled. Media queries hop on in here. Not to be set as per "Here's the dimensions of your iPhone, then here's one for the tablet..." How many folks got caught with their pants down when the new iPad-Mini came out? How's a site supposed to handle the proliferation of device dimensions?

Well, these breaks you create with your media queries? It's about when your site starts looking bad... DESIGN your content. Don't let the portal design you.

Final word here: BIG shout out to Derek Eder, co-founder of Open City, co-creator of ChicagoLobbyists, and ClearStreets plow tracker [yeah, he's rad] for taking the time to give me the lo-down on what's going on under the hood with media queries!

Welcome to TYPOGRAPHY: The Craft of Caring for Words.

Yes, you can get your point across on the screen or the page without ever delving into this world of type. But here's the thing. Look around. Really look at the words on a few pages. See the differences. Every letter? It has a personality. It has an agenda. 

It's like the old "don't shoot the messenger" deal. If your tone isn't getting across right, maybe it's not the words, but how they're formed and delivered. Somewhere between ascenders and terminators, amidst the kerning and the serifs [or lack there of] perhaps your voice has been lost, hijacked. 

So pay attention, not just to what you say, but how you say it. 

If you don't have anything to say, it's not design.