UXblog http://ampli2de.com/uxblog/ Random UX thoughs en-us Nucleus CMS v3.50 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://ampli2de.com/uxblog//nucleus/nucleus2.gif UXblog http://ampli2de.com/uxblog/ One of Canada's Best Locations for Working Remotely: My Rooftop Patio xml-rss2.php?itemid=84 TelusTalksBusiness.com, I've decided to submit a short description of my rooftop patio as candidate for the space I believe is Canada's best location for working outside the office. To my surprise, the second installment of the aforementioned site's Talking Business blog on the subject features my submission and links to the Ampli2de Communications website.

I happen to work on the patio quite a bit, mostly in the evenings since my laptop screens are nowhere near bright enough to allow me to work outside in bright sunlight. But nonetheless, there's nothing that gets the creative juices flowing like being in the open air and circumventing the ergonomics and comfort limitations of the computer desk and office chair.

Quiet Comfort

I've always worked remotely, either for an entire day or before/after going to the office. But whether I was in airports, planes, trains, coffee shops, on the beach, etc., it never felt as natural, quiet, comfortable and less distracting as lounging in my hammock with my laptop, hacking away at the project at hand. Even though I am based in downtown Ottawa's Golden Triangle neighbourhood, two blocks away from the Rideau Canal and the busy Elgin Street, the patio is an exceptionally quiet area given the location.

User Experience

And speaking of user experience, whoever originally built the patio had the vision to install outdoor electricity plugs, so I am not a beneficiary of the convenience of wireless networking, but also of unlimited battery life for my gadgets. And speaking of convenience, more often than not, the barbecue and a bottle of wine seem to complement my setup better than anything else. So there you have it, the absolute best place to work remotely in Canada.

What about you guys? Where do you tend to spend the bulk of your time when working remotely?]]> community xml-rss2.php?itemid=84 Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:35:54 -0400 Six Ways to Improve the User Experience of Hotel Rooms xml-rss2.php?itemid=82 Spending years living out of a suitcase also meant that every other week, or in some cases every other night, I would sleep in a different hotel room. At the advice of a fellow UX professional, I've decided to write this post about my thoughts on the user experience of these rooms. I'm not an interior designer, so I know nothing about building codes and I will make no reference to Feng Shui. This post is about the business traveller and the little things that can be done to make the hotel stay experience much more enjoyable for people like me.

I typically flew out every week on Monday morning, went straight to work after I landed, put in an full day's work, and then finally made my way exhausted to the hotel. This means that by the time I was about to check it, it was nighttime about 99% of the time. I arrived in front of my hotel room door, keycard in one hand, luggage roller in the other. One of the most frustratings moments when checking into a room is not being able to immediately find the light swich beside the entrance door. I'm not picky in terms of which way the door opens, as long as on the inside of the wall, beside the lock, I can feel the light switch in the dark right away. Having the switch on the opposite side (which means I have to get my luggage inside, close the door, and then keep searching in the dark, is not an option. Neither are multiple light switches unintuitively budled somewhere inside the room, an even worse as it forces me to prop the door open with my luggage so I can find a light switch, any light switch, that I can turn on in order to orient myself through furniture maze of a room layout that I am not yet familiar with.Some hotels made it easier by having the light on in the entrance hallway. That worked for my exhausted state of mind but didn't sit very well with my energy conscious doppelganger who always wondered how hotel managers justify paying for hours electricity consumption when no one is inhabiting the rooms. If the light swiches are not easy to find, why not have the door automatically turn on the light when the room door opens? You can do this by installing a door contact switch or a motion detector inside that activates for a few seconds once the door is opened. Think about it, I was typically exhausted, and by that point really lazy as well, but that was it. Can you imagine an elderly person who doesn't see well to begin with, scrambling in the dark for a light switch? All it takes just a little bit of common sense.

Electrical Outlets

Most of the time I felt like a hotel room Jacques Cousteau, diving under the bed and under the desk digging for free electrical outlets (and not always finding enough). One of the first things I wanted to do when I settled in was to turn on my laptop, charge my phone, camera batteries, etc. I'm a world traveller so I have a few devices following me around these days. I don't mind having to bend down and use visible electrical outlets on the empty walls. But I do mind having to move my bed so I can use the laptop in bed. Having one single extra outlet on the base of the desk lamp is a good start, but there are a couple of problems with it. Most times, the desk is too far from the bed (what can I say, having Platinum status meant room upgrades to suites more often than not), and if there is also only one, it means that I cannot charge the phone or my camera batteries while my laptop is one (and it's on pretty much all the time). A simple solution is to expose at least a double swith on an empty wall right beside the bed. Another would be to have all of the lamps (including the bed lamps) sporting outlets on the base. Or even simpler, buy a long enough extension outlet with multiple plugs in each room and don't hide it from plain sight. It may not be the most aesthetically pleasing option, but it will make life easier for a lot of people.

The Mini-Safe

I typically travel with a fairly large digital SLR camera. I also have a 14 inch laptop. In most cases, the safe at the hotel was big enough to hold one, but not both of those items. Luckily, nothing was ever stolen from my room (knock on wood), but if you are going to provide your guests with the comfort of being able to lock your valuables, make sure it is big enough to hold some travel essentials. About half of the safes I've used were created in such a way that my laptop would just fit in in terms of length and width, but it would not fit height of the camera at the same time. Or it would fit the camera height, but then there would be no space for the laptop. Do some research, and make sure that a typical laptop (my guess would be up to 15') and a big camera can fit in at the same time. Or are hotel chains anticipating that all business travelers will have iPads in the near future?

Let There Be Darkness

The fourth item is dealing with the overuse of technology. Some of the new hotels have these new halogen type digital clocks that are brighter than the sun. It's good to be able to tell the time in the dark, but when the clock is bright enough to read a book, I'm switching it off. I have a cellphone and luckily I can set my alarm on it. Funny how hotels go to the extremes to make sure that the blinds/curtains can keep the room completely dark, yet they have dumb digital halogen clocks that don't adapt to ambient light and therefore render the blinds useless.

Space, The Final Frontier

Then, there is the minifridge/minibar. I am all for trying to sell overpriced beverages in the room, and I even have no problem with the constant humming of the minifridge (well, I have occasionally been known to unplug them if they were too loud for my liking). But why not leave a couple of empty slots in the fridge so I can put my yogourt or half of my Subway sandwich in there? Don't make me problem solve when I really don't have to. I normally just take out of the fridge whatever beverages are in the slots I want to use and put them back later. But I'm not sure the next guests appreciate overpriced stale beer. You can't tell me that every single item in those overstuffed minifridges are best sellers and you cannot part with a couple of slots the size of yogurt containers...

Readable Labelling

Another little experience problem is using small identical soap, shampoo and shower gel containers with minuscule font sizes that describe the type of product. I have better than 20/20 vision, but it's still annoying to have to handle a container, read about its contents and put it back, when in most cases having different containers or a large font would make me save those extra seconds it takes to decide if I am using the right bathroom product.

What are your thoughts on this? Any annoying user experience features you've encountered in hotel rooms? And I don't mean noise levels from the neighbours, malfunctioning remotes etc., I mean things that have been designed in a manner that is counterproductive to hotel room guests who don't want their experience turn into a problem-solving endeavour.]]> user experience xml-rss2.php?itemid=82 Sun, 30 May 2010 14:39:00 -0400 Case Studies: The Only Way to Promote Web 2.0 / Social Media in the Public Sector xml-rss2.php?itemid=80 PS must embrace Web 2.0 tools citing Clerk of the Privy Council Wayne Wouters’ call for "collaboration, innovation and better use of technology" in the Canadian Public Sector. If anyone bothered to read the (mostly negative) comments of the story, they would realize that such ‘call to arms’ articles simply do not resonate with the Canadian public, especially in difficult economic times for those currently underemployed or unemployed in the private sector.

Is His Clerkiness (my term of endearment for all things Wayne Wouters) right? The answer is 'Absolutely!' (although based on his usage pattern of social media tools to this point my own evaluation would be that His Clerkiness himself still doesn’t have a clue as to what to do and how to engage, but hopefully he’s learning and that is commendable in its own right). But when it comes to the public, I think they are sick of impersonal press releases and newspaper articles that do not bother to do any research or provide relateable information. This type of article and press release may work internally because someone who is essentially the CEO of Federal Government employees pushes down a communication piece to his team, but at the end of the day, this only means a waste of printing paper when it comes to the public at large. I would make the argument that the public would likely respond much more positively to case studies or examples of how web 2.0 and social media tools used within the public sector are directly or indirectly improving the lives of public servants and citizens.

As a private person, I use social media tools (almost) daily. It makes sense for me to do so, mainly from a networking and research point of view. The internet is a huge repository of valuable information and I need social media users to point out the more popular resources that I may be interested in. I also am able to connect with thought leaders in my domain without having to fly to San Francisco, New York and LA and introduce myself during a professional conference. Social media saves me time and money, and it helps expanding my professional network.

My Own Example

And if you’re wondering why this is relevant to the public, I’ll give you my own example of how a public sector organization’s use of social media tools helped me make an educated decision and helped me save time. The Ottawa Public Heath agency has a Twitter account (@ottawahealth) that continually broadcasted the locations and wait times of the H1N1 immunization clinics during the winter season. Because I live close to City Hall, the location of one of the immunization clinics, I was able to show up and get my H1N1 flu shot at a time when there was almost no line, and I was in and out of there in less than 20 minutes. I know some of my friends have waited in lines for more than 2 hrs for the same thing when they just showed up. To me, the fact that Ottawa Public Health used real-time Twitter messaging was definitely a real timesaver. And I suppose there are many more people who can attest to that. This example has direct public implications, but I am sure there are many more (internal or external) public sector examples that may have indirect implications to those outside the firewalls of public institutions.

Consider Your Audience

Rather than telling or implying to the uneducated public that the PS will be using Facebook (for non-specified reasons) at work (which rendered so many Ottawa Citizen readers irate) give us some your own personal examples of how you’re using web 2.0 and social media tools internally for the benefits of your fellow employees or Canadian citizens, and maybe then people will lend their support to this whole technological renewal of the public sector and its potential cost implications.

We all know that the PS already has a huge perception problem related to productivity, staffing and execution, and social media tools may improve at least some of those facets (even though I know this mostly applies to the younger generation of public servants that are curious enough to figure out what Web 2.0 and social media tools can do for them).

Am I wrong to think case studies and examples are a better way of promoting this process as opposed to press releases and glorified newspaper articles? Please leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts on this.]]> community xml-rss2.php?itemid=80 Tue, 27 Apr 2010 14:01:00 -0400 UXWG: The Dawn of a New UX Era in the Canadian Government? xml-rss2.php?itemid=77
Its original lineup includes the likes of @ResultsJunkie, @sagecram, @spydergrrl, @krisaston, @mjmclean, @patlaj, @jmacerve and @hilittle, all of whom have been actively raising awareness about the importance of positioning and conducting high-quality UX work within the Public Service. I'm not someone who is known for throwing superlatives at the Federal Government, but seeing the internal UX community finally step out of the shadows is truly a huge step forward towards improving the customer experience of every Canadian, regardless of which side of the firewall they are on.

Sadly (for me :O), details of the web managers council UX discussions have not been publicly shared to the outside world, so I've decided to write this post and share my own thoughts on the possible evolution of this encouraging endeavour.

Promote Well-Rounded Skillsets

In my opinion, the hardest skill to master for a modern UX practitioner is becoming a persuasive communicator, and consequently, being good at it. These days, UX technical skills are relatively easy to acquire as the internet is full of tutorials, deliverable examples and tools related to everything from end-user research, information architecture, interaction design, prototyping, usability testing, etc. But the most persistent objection that I've encountered when I discussed UX with Public Service employees is that (generally) members of higher bureaucracy levels do not particularly care about the subject and therefore are not willing to promote, support or spend money on UX initiatives. Well, do not despair, even those of us outside of the PS encounter bureaucratic environments at various client sites, and more often than not we have to fight our own visibility and traction battles. Knowing how to deal with the human obstacles will unlock a lot of avenues for higher quality GoC experiences.

Search for UX Champions

I think of user experience (and the related user-centered design paradigm) as not simply justifying the users' point of view to the various players involved (business, IT, communications) but also selling the inherited benefits to anyone and everyone within the organization. Let's face it, other than those directly involved, very few people in the GoC know what UX is, nevermind its short-term and long-term benefits. More often than not, the educational aspect related to promoting UX to various groups has to be accompanied with a hard sell to the organization, a difficult task without senior management / executive support. So one of the things that UX practitioners should do (if they haven't done this already) is find someone at a senior level in the organization willing to lend an ear to what they have to say. Having an EX officially assume the title of 'UX Champion' is always nice leverage when it comes to boosting the credibility of the practice. Also, because the PS is such a huge organization, I would have to say that one of the core purposes of the UXWG should be helping new UX personnel progressively undertake the role of UX evangelists within their own departmental organization.

Define a UX Strategy and a Roadmap

I also believe that the purpose of the UXWG should be much broader than sharing UX best practices and deliverables. When it comes to deciding exactly what activities the group should undertake, the first steps should be creating a GoC UX strategy and roadmap for its implementation. Everyone involved should make suggestions on what is needed to move the practice forward, from better ways to working with business/IT teams to creating rotating leadership position(s) that mandate and support the creation of those efforts. Roadmaps should cover at least the next two fiscal years and should be reviewed at least every 4 months. That way, the UXWG is working towards its own milestones (goals) and is not diluting its presence by only supporting the common endeavors of individual practitioners. On a quick sidenote, one activity that should introduced on any web-based project in the GoC is assessing readiness. I hear so much about having limited resources and the fact that people did the best they could, well, those factors could have been caught on a readiness assessment done at the beginning of the project and the project could have either been delayed or the necessary resources could've been made available. This assessment could be done by the UX team as they will have to interface with the business, IT and communications team during the project anyway.

Make the UXWG a True Community

While participating in #w2p events is a great cross-functional informal gathering place, the UXWG will also need a professional community that will share and support its members during the ups and downs of its lifeline. A monthly/bi-monthly meeting of PS UX professionals will prove invaluable in the long run. Sharing ideas, successes, lessons learned, etc. will give everyone an opportunity to learn from each other and will make them better practitioners. I also imagine that being able to vent in an environment when people understand your frustrations can also be a significant benefit to the long term sanity of the group.

Conduct Ongoing UX Training

In order to effectively propagate the effort of the UXWG community, new UX recruits will need direct visibility to the group's activities. The best way of doing this is to combine the presentation of what your group does with specific traning. Get involved with the HR teams responsible for creating onboarding documentation and add UX training to the curricullum of every new UX recruit. Promoting and conducting a UX trainig curricullum for GoC (as far as I am aware, basic UX training has already been created and conducted) on a regular basis (every 3-4 months) would be a huge step forward in maintaining, connecting and renewing the community on an ongoing basis. In addition, existing (interface) design standards and templates for all projects and products (which the GoC is doing through CLF) should explicitly describe the role of the UX practitioner and should provide links to the UXWG community for additional help and/or information.

Make UX Part of the GoC Culture

Another important initiative is working slowly at making user experience part of your organizational culture. Working formally and informally with managers and practitioners from the IT, business and communications teams is always an opportunity to place UX at the heart of every public channel of your organization. UX should be hierarchically positioned on the same level (not below, and not above) as the IT team, the business team and the communications team. Traditionally in a GoC department, UX resources are part of either the IT team or the communications team, an archaic model that places UX resources in a hierarchically inferior position with respect to those that are expected to be influenced by the UX work they are supervising. This is not a problem when the management of those particular teams in on board with institutionalizing UX, but when that is not the case, not having an equal voice is detrimental to the visibility and success of the UX initiatives.

Become Active Externally

Another way to promote your organization and acquire new skills is to get involved in UX events outside of the GoC community. Social media and local practitioner group (such as CapCHI) events are a great way to connect with other local UX professionals, share ideas and promote the public service as a UX employer of choice. This may also potentially help with ongoing recruiting efforts as well as researching and connecting informally with potential UX subcontracting partners who are also active on the local UX scene.

So that's my quick and dirty rant about the evolution of UX within GoC without knowing much about the current state of affairs... A lot of it is high-level, but since there is no public data that I can use in terms of numbers, reach, and existing infrastructure/deliverable standards, these are just some ideas that may be of help in the long run. Do you guys agree? Or is this another Vicodin-infused outside dream of an internal GoC UX Nirvana?]]> user experience xml-rss2.php?itemid=77 Mon, 19 Apr 2010 13:42:00 -0400 Best and Worst of CLF 2.0 Public Web Design xml-rss2.php?itemid=68 My last blog article had some harsh words directed at those responsible for creating the new website of the Clerk of Privy Council. Public Service employees and people in the community rallied around the opinion that the public should leave the Government alone, irrespective of whether they produce quality or not (calling it 'experimentation'). I still absolutely disagree with that opinion. Everyone's work should be open to critical feedback, especially publicly funded projects. If you put something out there (be it a website, a social media profile, a poster, a photo, a sculpture, a painting etc.), you are opening yourself up for, among other things, criticism. You can choose to act on it, ignore it, or respond to it. But to say that it's ok to produce inferior material because those responsible are not interested in properly researching and creating their deliverables is a fallacy. Someone from within GoC told me offline that the Government can accept to be open, but cannot accept being wrong. When did GoC websites become exempt from being scrutinized?

Others have lamented I am in no position to question the quality of a website because design is subjective. I agree that design is subjective, and I would add that it is also personal. But regardless, we have had design contests since the beginning of time because quality and innovation are also obvious to the masses, and especially to those trained in creating or evaluating visual material. And because there is a huge number of GoC websites, those who have worked in visual communications, design or user experience for the government can pick and choose with relative ease the ones that stand out in quality as well as the ones who are not exactly up to par. So for today's post, I chose to agree to disagree with those who think we should tolerate mediocrity and create a Best and Worst list for GoC CLF-based public website designs.

Best and Worst lists are the bread and butter of many research bodies, including Forrester and Gartner. Bloggers all over the world publish Best and Worst lists every day. To choose these websites, I have reviewed the homepage of every site on the Departments and Agencies list available at www.gc.ca, and also looked at select microsites of some of those departmental homepages.

The Selection Process

The depth of this evaluation only covers the look and feel of the English homepage of each site from a visual perspective, and no functional analysis has been performed on the homepage or the inner pages.

*addendum: The first task was coming up with a list of things than I can evaluate quickly, by just looking at the sites (i listed them on Post-It notes and eventually removed all the functional ones because I felt I cannot provide much insight without visiting each tree element on the sitemap of each department/agency website). These are the 7 items I kept (I have added the description for the purpose of this comment, but at the time, what I was looking for somehow seemed fairly defined in my mind since I have done a lot of comparative research before starting UX projects before):

1. Modern design (subjective but still qualitative): is the design modern, does it inspire trust and confidence?
2. Originality (subject/objective): have the creators expanded on the CLF 2.0 paradigm or have they simply repurposed the code / template provided by TBS?
3. Consistency (subjective/objective): are the design elements and color pallette sensible and consistent?
4. Modern features (objective): ex: embedded video, content scrollers, dynamic content etc.
5. Social media use (objective): are there RSS feeds, Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube?
6. Help/Accessibility features (objective): dynamic font sizes, printer friendly versions etc.
7. Clarity (very subjective without UT): can I tell what the site is for and identify which element I potentially want to navigate to fairly quickly?

Once I had the criteria (that took me about 15-20 mins to come up with), I created the reference and then proceeded using roughly the steps below:

1. I opened the CLF 2.0 template from the TBS website and used the TBS website as the middle reference (the middle point so to speak) on my imaginary CLF 2.0 scale.
2. I started opening each site on the Government and Departments list (link in the article) in alphabetical order and if it heavily deviated from the CLF 2.0 templates and the TBS website, I have kept the sites open in a separate tab.
3. I ended up with about 8-10 candidates for the Best list (what can I say, I am way too picky) and about 20 candidates for my Worst list (this was a lot harder to narrow down)
4. I evaluated the Best shortlisted sites amongst each other, and reconsidered my criteria from above.

This second part took me at least 5 hours, because trying to be objective while comparing things first to the CLF template / TBS website and then to each other takes a lot more thought.

The 5 Best CLF 2.0 Designs

The sites below are easily the better designed sites that I've seen on the Federal Government internet landscape. Their visual design is well executed, it is consistent, it contains modern components, it is innovative, and at the same time it is clean and professional. These are the kind of websites I would hope to see every GoC department attempt to emulate.


The 5 Worst CLF 2.0 Designs

The following sites have significant room for improvement. They all require better graphics design, more content and possibly a wider array of visual components. In the case of clerk.gc.ca, my previous blog post explains in detail why I believe that a site that was launched last week is clearly underperforming by today's standards.


Still Using CLF 1.0

The following sites have never been upgraded to CLF 2.0. This is not a comprehensive list, I am aware of at least five more GoC homepages and a large number of older inner pages that have never made the jump to CLF 2.0. Who knows, maybe these guys will join the CLF 3.0 party.


What do you guys think? Are you aware of any other sites that deserve to be on the Best or Worst list on CLF 2.0 designs?]]> standards xml-rss2.php?itemid=68 Fri, 9 Apr 2010 12:35:00 -0400 One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: 'His Clerkiness' is Online xml-rss2.php?itemid=65 http://clerk.gc.ca. Nota Bene: no disrespect is intended by using the term 'His Clerkiness', it is simply a catchy, affectionate term that has been making the rounds on Twitter about a week ago, a day before the official launch of the website.

Wayne Wouters imageOn its own, the very presence of the site marks a bit of a shift in the way the Government of Canada is interacting with its internal (PS employees) and external audience (the public at-large). A real-time Twitter feed (and not a link to a Twitter account) is prominently featured on the main page. CLF bilingualism requirements are met by way of echoing two different Twitter accounts: @WayneWouters for the English version, and @WayneGWouters for those on the other side of the Alexandria Bridge.

So far, His Clerkiness' newly adopted microblogging persona has been relatively quiet. There are only three tweets in the timeline, one announcing the launch of the website, a link to the Clerk's Annual Report and a Thank You note for those who provided feedback on the website. Well, Your Clerkiness, if you haven't received a lot of responses, consider this article my very own way of providing feedback to your new virtual endeavour.

Another relatively unusual component for a GoC CLF-compliant website that can be found on the main page is the presence of a Flash video introduction. Historically, flash video introductions have been used on social networking and blog landing pages. More recently, flash video intros have become increasingly popular within political websites. They are short, official, effective and easy to create, so kudos to His Clerkiness (and/or his communications team) for broadening the CLF spectrum. For those of you keeping track, you can find a second flash video in the How We Help section.

NO REAL ENGAGEMENT

But as it is the case with the majority of GoC websites, apart from the novel elements mentioned above, clerk.gc.ca seems to have missed on some real opportunities. While Twitter and a link to GCpedia are being used as the token social media elements, there is no paradigm showing real intent to engage the public or the public service. There is no commitment to use the site as a public service community hub, nor is there a dedicated community workspace. There are no aggregated twitter lists of PS employees managed within those Twitter profiles. No recommended social bookmarks and no YouTube channel for commentary. There are no calls to action, or a place to discuss issues. Your Clerkiness, if you are going to broadcast the use social media and act like a progressive leader, you need to at least build and manage a PS community via multiple channels, and designate community management human resources. Occasional Twitter status updates are not a social media strategy. The first step you should have taken is to sit down with your communications team and with the #w2p folks (who are currently in the middle of a joint effort to develop a social media strategy for GoC) and figure out a way to approach this endeavour. Although, it's never too late…

OPEN WALLET, NOT OPEN SOURCE

Another disappointing characteristic of clerk.gc.ca is the fact that the website is built on Microsoft ASP technology. While there is nothing wrong with the technology itself, Your Clerkiness could have made a bold statement by embracing open source and go the way of Drupal, Joomla or any other open CMS platform. This would have acknowledged the need for open standards and open source within the Government and would have made it clear that the PS is moving towards making innovative cost-effective decisions for Canadian taxpayers.

DISREGARD FOR USER EXPERIENCE

The last considerations also constitute the most recurring theme in my posts: the user experience (or lack thereof). A quick glace at the website reveals a visual layout that was rushed out the door and is reminiscent of the late 1990's. The brown hue used by the main visual elements is an unfortunate choice of primary color (removed previous statement because of subjectivity reasons, although I still think the statement is valid). The styling of right column buttons is inconsistent (eg. the ‘More’ button in the annual report box fades top to bottom from white to brown, while the 'Follow Me' button in the Twitter box underneath fades top to bottom from black to brown).

Another major user experience mishap is the lack of visual feedback for the currently selected section and item in the left side menu. This is a faux-pas that plagues a lot of government websites and its solution consists of a five minute fix of the CSS file responsible for rendering the menu items. Also, the consistency of graphics positioning on the right column is a mess (eg. the distance between the title text of the 'Latest News' box and its grey border is 2-3 times greater than the distance between the title text of the 'Twitter' box and its own grey border). Some grey boxes on the right side columns of inner pages exhibit a grey shadow effect under the top border while some don’t.

VISUAL (MIS)TREATMENT

This leads me to the point where I openly question the image processing abilities of the visual designer who worked on the clerk.gc.ca website. Any site visitor will be able to tell that the photo stitching quality of the main banner is absolutely laughable. Each sepia photo of previous Clerks is blended in using different settings. From left to right, the first photo has a large white halo, the second one has a much less noticeable halo, the third one is cropped tightly without a halo, while the last one exhibits a noticeable halo once again.

And while some of these inconsistencies may pass a quick internal review, the eyes of a trained User Experience professional will identify them immediately. Sadly, this is not an exception to the norm when it comes to Government of Canada websites, and just like I mentioned in my previous posts, unless quality and process standards are addressed in parallel with CLF compliance, this is the kind of outcome the public at-large has come to expect.

WANT SOME HELP?

Your Clerkiness, if you are interested in remedying the issues with the user experience and information architecture of your virtual presence, I would be willing to volunteer my time (absolutely free of charge) to help you out. But I sincerely doubt that your communications department would actually bring up issues with their current work in a direct conversation.

What do you guys think? Do you feel like this is a missed opportunity or do you feel like http://clerk.gc.ca is good enough?]]> user experience xml-rss2.php?itemid=65 Mon, 5 Apr 2010 17:22:54 -0400 TEDx CarletonU: Veni, Vidi, Admirati xml-rss2.php?itemid=57
TEDx CarletonU logoThe best way (well, the only way) I can describe it is sharing a room with visionaries, people with big dreams and overpowering desires to do something different and make significant contributions their professional field of choice. You can call them creators, innovators, brainiacs, entrepreneurs, changemakers, but the title itself is irrelevant. What matters is the fact that their work has the potential to improve our human condition. A fact so very few of us can claim.

I'm also not going to attempt to describe the presentations from last night or try to prove that I belonged by quoting some of the inspiring ideas that were unveiled. I wouldn't do them justice and the very presence of the speakers was one of the key ingredients to being immersed in those new exciting realms that mesh science, technology, art and social responsibility. What I can promise you is that if and when the video recordings finally surface on the interwebs, I'll make sure to anchor them to this post, in case some of you are interested in a time-delayed virtual experience of the evening's official events.While some of the projections shown by presenters involved in research related to international development painted a somber picture, the evening had its fair share of lighthearted moments. CBC Radio One's Alan Neal was a wonderful MC and made sure no one felt out of place by deflecting the bulk of the jokes onto himself (which proved to be a valiant and surprisingly effective strategy). His antics during speaker transitions were worthy of accomplished comedians. My favourite moment included an unexpected virtual passer-by, the white Winterlude mammoth that almost stole the show during Jesse Stewart's ice percussion video presentation.

If you weren't one of the lucky 100 who received an invitation this time, the best way to follow the proceedings was on twitter (hashtag #TEDxCU). The TEDxCarletonU twitter team (headed by Japman Bajaj) had a lot of competition from the twitter birds in the audience who were equally up to the challenge of keeping the rest of the virtual world in the loop. For the first time at an event I didn't feel out of place for having my phone turned on, and religiously following the conversations during intermissions.

And now that it's all over and withdrawal/nostalgia settles in, many thanks are in order to the event's organizers, starting with Carleton Innovation Director and TEDxCarletonU curator Luc Lalande (the man with the vision), the Gladstone Theatre (an amazing venue if you are like the vast majority of the attendees who were there for the first time), the MC, the evening's wonderful presenters from Carleton University (in order of appearance: Dr. Banu Örmeci, Manuel Baez, Jesse Stewart, Maria DeRosa and Jim Davies), the caterers, the camermen and computer operators, the web team, the twitter team... etc.

This event was different (and that is probably the case with all TEDx and TED events), so for all those out there contemplating the difficulty of filling in an essay-style long answer application for future TEDx events, let me give you a piece of advice. Go ahead and do it. It will be one of the most inspiring events you'll ever be a part of. ]]> conference xml-rss2.php?itemid=57 Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:57:03 -0400 CLF 3.0 Crowdsourcing: A Public Traction Pill for OpenGov Initiatives xml-rss2.php?itemid=52 CLF3Layout.doc, 100Kb) published in my previous blog post was extremely positive, the item that generated the most intriguing follow-up conversation was the concept of crowdsourcing the CLF 3.0 visual design to the general public.

crowdsourcing loudspeaker imageIt is well documented that the Government of Canada has fallen behind other governments when it comes to Gov 2.0 initiatives. Countries like New Zealand, Finland and Australia have all created clean, modern and professional look and feel standards for their government web properties. And although still behind Canada on look and feel standardization, the US Federal Government roared ahead of the pack on the OpenGov front, riding the popularity of crowdsourcing initiatives like Data.gov, Peer to Patent, the recently announced Design for America contest, as well as virally marketed local initiatives like Apps for Democracy. If you are not familiar with these, and you’re wondering just how successful our southern neighbours were in capturing the public’s interest, here's an example: when launched, in May 2009, Data.gov had just 47 data sets. 10 months later, it now has more than 168,000 and it's growing every day. Another country at the forefront of the OpenGov movement, New Zealand, has successfully released data.govt.nz, its own data catalog used for crowdsourcing purposes.

I would venture to say that while I am confident that Canada will (eventually) open its federal data (there are some great internal collaboration and OpenGov initiatives that are driven out by the enthusiastic W2P public servant crowd - twitter search: #w2p), we have clearly missed the boat on being leaders in the open data space. However, there is one initiative that can put Canada right up there with the leaders in this space: crowdsourcing the new version of our Federal Government's look and feel standards (CLF 3.0). To my knowledge, no government has done this yet and pulling it off would not only raise the profile of our Gov2.0 and OpenGov programs, but would bring much needed positive coverage both nationally and internationally for our battered Public Service decision-makers. As they say, if you can't win, make up your own sport :O)

THE SITUATION AT TBS/CIOB

As documented in my previous post and numerous other web articles, CLF 1.0 and 2.0 have clearly failed from a visual, information architecture and accessibility standpoint. A recent lawsuit citing the lack of standardized accessible features for persons with disabilities in Federal Government properties is directly responsible for making accessibility the focus of future CLF improvements, probably at the expense of visual design. TBS / CIOB are left justifying their stances on CLF 2.0 and are scrambling to fill in the blanks as they go, lagging well behind public expectations. And while internal interest in CLF has steadily increased, the large number of empty GCPEDIA (Government of Canada collaboration wiki) CLF-related working groups is a testament to the fact that internal-only collaboration is still the wrong approach.
Moreover, despite the fact that public’s view of the standard is at an all time low, the CLF team ranks are made of just a handful of people, focused mostly on accessibility features. Largely ignoring the UX (user experience) side of CLF is a major oversight, and as a taxpayer, this is not exactly a confidence builder looking ahead. This make me wonder if we require a lawsuit targeting specifically how unintuitive the visual features and information architecture of CLF 2.0 are, in order to persuade TBS/CIOB to add competent user experience expertise to the team.

POSITIVE MEDIA COVERAGE

Crowdsourcing CLF 3.0 will solve all these functional and perception-related mishaps. Unlike the typical path of subcontracting work to a preferred local supplier (which will no doubt unleash a coast-to-coast media backlash regardless of the amount of accolades won by the GoC’s advertising agency of choice), a crowdsourcing competition based on electronic submissions will allow participation of any individual or agency, regardless of their geographic location. Full involvement of the public (via popular voting, student submissions, sponsorships etc.) will allow the Federal Government to make educated decisions about the entire visual feature set that will be included in CLF3, while saving taxpayers money and saving itself a lot of time (more on this later).

THE ISSUE OF TIMING

From a timing perspective, I believe there is a very short window of opportunity here, especially by Government standards. If we want to be the first, and we if we want this to be the crowning achievement in kickstarting a true open government era in Canada, the crowdsourcing competition would have to start no later than mid-summer. This gives the TBS folks four very short months to work a crowdsourcing proposal through the ranks and obtain ministerial approval. And while the political side of things is moving, the real work also has to get under way. A professional, independent (non CLF 2.0 please) website will have to be built as the central piece of the initiative, for both marketing and operational (submissions and judging) purposes. Social media will have to be engaged both internally and externally to get the word out, and viral marketing campaigns will have to be created. The importance of student submissions should also be promoted on campuses across the country (those submissions will certainly serve as a springboard for the careers of those young designers, maybe even by offering a job with the federal government for the best student submission).

JUDGING ENTRIES

The next dilemma for a crowdsourcing endeavour is choosing judges. Not only do we need competent judges who truly understand three very important pieces of the CLF puzzle: design, user experience and technology, but we want them to also be able to spread the word about the contest. A judging criteria guide would have to be created in order to give an idea to both the judges and the competitors about the feature sets that will be evaluated.

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

I mentioned earlier that I will talk about the financial implication of such an undertaking. In my previous post I stated that I am confident that most people would do this free of charge as a means of helping out and/or self-branding. But it would be better from a marketing standpoint to make this a true competition with great prizes in all of the winning categories (I would estimate in the total prize money for the competition in the 20,000 to 50,000 range). This is also where sponsorship deals come in. Companies like Adobe, Apple, Microsoft immediately come to mind, as possible suppliers of prizes (imagine offering Adobe CS5 to the top finalists in the popular vote and the student vote, or a brand new 17’ MacBook Pros to students who could never afford this while paying for university?). High profile sponsorship deals will not only allow this competition to become the talk of the interwebs, but will also significantly sweeten the financial commitment that the Federal Government needs to make in order to successfully see this initiative through.

As far as the money saved by the taxpayers, currently CLF 3.0 is expected at the earliest sometime in the 2011-12 fiscal year, which is clearly too late. A crowdsourcing competition would not only accelerate the process, but it will also save a lot of money on top of the sponsorship funds. If you’re still skeptical, here's another example from the US. In the first 30 days, the first edition of Apps for Democracy yielded 47 applications - a $2,300,000 value to the city of Washington DC at a cost of only $50,000. This is a 46 to 1 ratio of return. I don't know about you, but if all the money spent by the government would have anything resembling that kind of impact, I would personally write an open letter to the PM urging him to crowsource every public service known to man. But for now, let’s start with CLF.

OPINIONS?

What do you guys think? How can we make this happen? If you have a couple of minutes, please leave a comment below so we can keep the conversation going...]]> standards xml-rss2.php?itemid=52 Sun, 28 Mar 2010 13:42:00 -0400 Thoughts on CLF 3.0 From Outside the Firewall... xml-rss2.php?itemid=40
I mean no disrespect to the guys at TBS, but after a couple of iterations, it's time to get this thing on the right path. I think the first two versions have proven one thing: that creating the visual blueprint of our government's web presence should NOT be left (entirely) up to internal organizations. I can't even begin to guess the total amount of taxpayer money spent on creating the CLF specifications, and the even more obscene amount spent to port government web content from CLF 1.0 to CLF 2.0. And while there are a handful of departments (e.g. Service Canada) that have done a nice job of designing within and around the constraints of CLF, most of the Government of Canada sites (including the TBS site) are still a visual eyesore. And it's not just TBS' fault, it's the individual departments' complete ignorance of color theory and their inability to select design shops (because let's face it, most of them hire external consulting firms to do the web deed for them) that actually understand how to design a professionally pleasant website in the 21st century.

I could go on an on about why CLF 2.0 is bad, but that's not the point of this post. What I'm going to do is attempt to give you my thoughts on what would make CLF 3.0 a much more successful endeavour, from both the GoC perspective, as well as the taxpayers'. Feel free to download the template (MS Word document, 100Kb) that I created for the purpose of this discussion (you can also do so by clicking on the image above). The template is distributed under a Creative Commons (CC) Attribution Share-Alike license.

1. Crowdsource the visual design template (look and feel)

The first thing I want to talk about is CLF authoring. So far, CLF authoring was entirely up to TBS. These days, the online lanscape is overtaken by the social web, and it's time for the GoC to use social tools to get a design that we all enjoy. Yes, I do believe the CLF 3.0 visual design should be crowdsourced. And while TBS will still maintain decision power of the final look, I think GoC should create a competition (you know, with cash prizes and everything, not that every designer wouldn't do it for free simply for the exposure that comes with CLF authoring) and a judges panel that will declare finalists. The public should also be allowed to vote in their preferences, with prizes going to the panel winner, the winner of the popular vote, behind and outside the firewall winners, best student submissions etc. And in the process of (hopefully) making the right decition, TBS could even combine visual and content features from multiple submissions. This way, just like in any other user-centered design methodology, users will have an input, and a say in what they will use. More details about this top can now be found in my next blog post, CLF 3.0 Crowdsourcing: A Public Traction Pill for OpenGov Initiatives

2. Provide departments with color pallettes

I am personally not a big fan of rainbow-looking webpages when it comes to visual and web design. I'm also fairly confident that most people's understanding of a professional look also includes a notion of using a restricted color-matched palette. As a result, I believe the mandate of CLF should also include providing each department (after consulting with the department of course) with a primary and secondary color palette that should be used on their web properties. This will eliminate much of the current rainbow feel of most government websites and should improve the overall impact of the CLF design. Another option here could be to create a (relatively large) number of color palettes and the departments could choose on their own which palette they will use.

3. Use a common visual header for all GoC web properties

This statement may seem redundant as the first two CLF standards have used common headers since their inception. What I mean is not simply using the same structure and standardized dimensions, but having the same visual header, with the only difference being the data and the hyperlinked destinations. This will not only eliminate the possibility of butchering header graphics (and this is a huge problem of CLF 1.0 and 2.0), but will keep the header simple and professional. An interesting starting point towards that is provided by Tom Bradley, in his blog post, A Proposal for CLF 3.0. I personally think there is still a lot of room for improvement there, but the idea is on the right track. Simpler, minimalistic, ample use of white space, less screen real estate, practically a lot of the principles of usable design. My own thoughts on the header are that it should be some kind of white or black-based gradient background, with the elements flowing left to right, with an integrated search bar. Again, if you haven't done it yet, feel free to download the accompanying high fidelity wireframe (in MS Word 2003 format). The visual concept is still in its early infancy but should still do the trick in illustrating some of these concepts.

4. Mandate the use of RSS and social media

We are at the point where every department should be able to (and some already do) syndicate news, press releases etc. Since every government department and agency has a communications department that prepares press releases on a regular basis, I think it's time Canadians have a choice to follow the news coming out of the departments that they are interested in without having to always browse to the department site and find the press releases page. This will reduce traffic on the department websites (which is a good thing) for those who are only looking to see what that department is up to. Also (and i know this is a bit of a contentious topic), every department should have at least an unofficial Twitter account (and some already have official ones) that will broadcast whenever a new press release, tool or item is published to the general public. That way, not only can we subscribe to the RSS feeds, but we can be alerted via Twitter in real time when new material or web tools are published. Some of the departments are already doing this, so good for them to embrace social media with the rest of the world. And one last point on this, the link to the page containing the RSS feeds should be included in the common header so we don't have to look for it or have to rely on the underperforming GoC search engine. At that point, a directory of GoC feeds and social media accounts would also make a lot of sense, but that's just wishful thinking now :O)

5. Move to a primary horizontal navigation system at the top

Let's face it, the CLF 1.0 and 2.0 experiment of using the leftmost vertical column for primary, secondary, tertiary and n-tiary navigation has been a disaster. Trying to find information on most GoC websites makes it a tall order even for those of us that practically live on the web. The current navigational model is not working, and it's time to move to a navigational paradigm that is more flexible. As shown in my proposal, I would suggest including a horizontal bar containing primary and secondary navigation, right under the common header. The advantage of this, is that the height of the combined header and navigation bar should still be less than the height of the current CLF 2.0 header (in my example, the total height is 120px), and therefore would allow more white space and real estate for the main content area of the page templates.

6. Make the left navigation column optional

For those sections of departmental websites that require additional navigation, the left column of the main content area should still be used display additional deep links. But before jumping on doing this with everything, please do me a favour: when working on the IA of a government department website, hire a COMPETENT IA (information architect), because this is the most important aspect of your site that you will have control over.

7. Use a real common footer

Unlike the header, which uses different data for each government department, the current CLF footers are identical. However, they are largely useless as they provide very little information that modern web citizens expect to find. My submission contains a CLF footer that is based on the same visual design theme as the CLF header, and provides a lot more information. It includes four data columns, with the leftmost column reproducing a greyscale version of the Government of Canada logo, the copyright information and the "Return to Top" link. The next column contains links to all the important notices, from privacy and terms of use, to disclaimers and accessibility notices. The third column contains the contact information of the current department, and the last column will display all of the social media links that this department is in charge of.

8. Accessibility

CLF 3.0 should move at least to WCAG 2.0. Simple as that. Flash and Silverlight should also be allowed as long as transcripts or description of the Flash animations are provided, just like it is the case today. But unlike CLF 2.0, I believe TBS should provide templated accessible components to be used in the development of GoC sites to ensure that department don't interpret these requirements loosely. Such components would include sliding panels, advanced HTML controls, Flash/XML wrappers, etc.

9. Main content area

As this article is getting rather large, I will restrain for getting further into the main content area for the time being (maybe a future blog post?). The information architecture of the main content area should be left to the devices of each department, and the only thing that should be mandated in the overall layout is its width, which by the time we get to CLF 3.0, should cater to screen resolutions of at least 1024x768 pixels (my template is 980 pixels wide to account for various browser borders). If departments choose to use 1, 2, 3 or more columns of content, it should be up to them. There will also be a lot of freedom in how each departmental website will be composed, and the relatively large size of the main content area should allow for some interesting combinations of photographic backgrounds and (accessible) rich internet and web 2.0 features.

What do you guys think of something like this? Is it too restrictive? or too loose? Is it better than CLF 2.0? Or are these simply dreams from outside the firewall?]]> standards xml-rss2.php?itemid=40 Sun, 21 Mar 2010 22:28:00 -0400 Why Do Creative Types Avoid the Public Sector? xml-rss2.php?itemid=36
But let's face it, as much as no one wants to hear it (especially in a city like Ottawa where a large percentage of the population are public sector employees), the situation is not quite as well defined. The public sector bills itself as an environment that makes a difference in people's lives. These days however, 76 percent of a recent survey of young people up to the age of 30, think non-profits are more likely to make such a difference compared to only 16 percent who would prefer the public service for this same reason.

Now let's look at creative types (insert your favourite creative job here, I am a User Experience professional so I do consider myself part of this group). Since a great deal of our work relies on imagination, we absolutely don't enjoy working in a command and control organization. Moreover, creative types enjoy an environment that relies on the enthusiasm and optimism of young adults. Something we can find in non-profits, boutique consulting firms, etc. but not so much in the typical public sector department.

Another survey of young professionals revealed their notable preference for job mobility within a single organization as opposed to the open market. Sounds like an ideal situation for the public sector, but in reality, its image is one of a slow-moving, bureaucratic monolith, hopelessly experimenting with 'innovative practices' fed by external consulting firms, to streamline itself in what is becoming a much more competitive economical landscape.As young (and sometime unattached from a family standpoint) creative types, they are also passionate about their work and can sometimes spend longer hours than required at the office or working on projects from home or from a mobile office. This is another reason why the private sector, which typically offers generous incentives for high-performance workers is also a more attractive option than the public sector and its perceived deeply ingrained culture of accepting mediocrity, which consequently prevents it from creating meaningful incentive performance programs.

Along the same lines, the public sector bills itself as an organization that cares about work-life balance, and is built on unionized worker groups, which culturally removes all incentives for high performance. Everyone knows that once you're in a public sector union, you can 'coast' in your position for life, so the motivation to perform at the highest possible level rests only with the individual, and let's face it, if the incentives are not there the employees will find eventually find ways to cut corners.

In the real world, creative types have a variety of skills, often combining artistic, technical and managerial skills. Joining the public sector, would require them to find a fit within either of those three job classifications, and consequently stop pursuing their capacities in the other areas, which are equally important to them in becoming well rounded practitioners.

Creative types also like a dynamic and optimistic environment. I've done a lot of consulting in the public sector, both in Canada and the US, and I've met my fair share of public service employees who have often 'emotionally' quit their job long before retirement, or before quitting physically. Working with such colleagues makes it difficult to stay positive and look forward to a long career, possibly alongside them.
Dealing with public funds, there are also public accountability acts that come into this equation. This means that adherence to rigid processes takes precedence over innovation and results. External scrutiny causes senior management to restrain from introducing any changes that may make them the subject of negative headlines, either internally or publicly.

Now I know this is a very stereotypical post, and I know for a fact that it doesn't apply to every government agency and department, yet I believe it still expresses some of the challenges that the public sector is currently facing and will do so for some time. I also know that this does not abide by the typical Canadian political correctness mantra, so you'll have to excuse my tendency to speak (or in this case write) my mind... As a creative entrepreneur living in Ottawa, a lot of my friends are suggesting that I should join the public sector, yet, because of the reasons stated above, I am reticent to even attempt it, hoping that the economy will eventually right itself and I will be able to find a fit in the private sector where I've been successful so far. What do you guys think? ]]> community xml-rss2.php?itemid=36 Mon, 15 Mar 2010 02:30:54 -0400