You'll want to update your subscriptions to this new feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/JoeLamantia

Thanks much for moving along with the inevitable tide of technological progress :)

Modular Web Design: Creating Reusable Components for User Experience Design and Documentation, by Nathan Curtis, of eightshapes fame. Components, frameworks, and modularity are near and dear to my heart (when applied in the right times and places for design purposes), so I can say with confidence that Modular Web Design is the best exploration of the what, how and why of modular design currently available. It should change the way you think about architecting experiences of all kinds, and - if you're on board already - help you put this approach into practice with clear examples, advice, and guidance.

Card Sorting: Designing Usable Categories, from the good people at Rosenfeld Media. Card Sorting is a thorough treatment of one of the most flexible, affordable, and lightweight methods in the user experience toolkit. Use my tool, but for chapter and verse on card sorting, read Donna Spencer's book.

Buy both, and enjoy!

**Update: Bruce Sterling just posted about it in his Beyond the Beyond blog at Wired. Thanks for noticing, Bruce!

Here's the abstract from the session:

This case study reviews the methods and insights that emerged from an 18-month effort to coordinate and enhance the scattered user experiences of a suite of information retrieval tools sold as services by a major investment ratings agency. The session will share a method for understanding audience needs in diverse information access contexts; review a collection of information retrieval patterns, look at conceptual design methods for user experiences, and review a set of longer term patterns in customer behavior called lifecycles, and consider the impact of organizational and cultural factors on design decisions.

This session will presents reusable experience design tools and findings relevant for contexts such as enterprise search and information access, service design, and product and platform management.

Thanks to everyone who came by!

First, the latest installment of Everyware: Designing the Ubiquitous Experience (my column for UXmatters) was published back in March. It explores the world of Vernor Vinge's story Synthetic Serendipity from the experience design perspective. Vinge is justly reknowned as an SF author, but what makes Synthetic Serendipity worth reading closely is the dense collection of ideas it shares: augmented reality, wearable computing systems, a network-based co-creation economy open to all participation by people of all ages, the games vs. reality inversion, generational differences in adaptation to technological change, etc.

Mostly, I like Synthetic Serendipity as an entry point into the ubiquitous computing space because it presents a picture of the future from the viewpoint of an ordinary kid, who has ordinary concerns; go to school, play video games, stay out of trouble with friends.

In the companion piece in draft now, I look much further ahead, exploring scenarios that consider what happens when the boundaries separating humans from the environment blur and dissolve, and humanity itself becomes an object of design.

Second, and related, Jeff Parks just posted the podcast of a group discussion on ubiquitous computing that he organized at the IA Summit in Memphis. You'll hear me along with Jeff, Steve Baty, Will Evans, Matthew Milan, John Tirmandi, Joe Sokohl, Todd Zaki Warfel as we share examples, ideas, and questions about the intersection of user experience and ubiquitous computing. Thanks to Jeff for making this happen - it was a fun session, and I hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed recording it.

This set of materials addresses some of the most important questions for practitioners considering a framework-based approach to design: why framewarks matter for user experience and interaction design, what frameworks are useful for, and how you can work with them effectively.

Why *do* frameworks matter? As I'm arguing, look around and you'll see profound shifts changing the structural makeup of the digital environment, the contexts and boundaries of the experiences, and the role of professional designers.

For designers, very complicated and interesting problems are on the way: think of Mike Kuniavsky's work defining some of the fundamental concepts behind the 'smart things' that will inhabit this new design environment, such as information shadows and service avatars. It's plain that this world will require new tools, and I believe frameworks are part of that toolkit. (See my column Everyware: Design for the Ubiquitous Experience for ongoing perspective.)

And check out the slides for the rest of the workshop :)

Nothing better than blues, barbecue, and Building Blocks!

What about the rest of the book? I've seen the complete outline, and let me say that if you like modularity as much as we do and you're designing interfaces, this is the book for you. Maybe you're even working with some variation of the building blocks, or a similar design framework? And the cover features Legos!

Of course, if you *don't* like modularity, there's no need to sweat about it: the future has a place for everyone [We'll be busy playing with our Siftables]. Just don't be surprised if it turns out to be smallish, dry, and bit - uhh - box-like...

As usual, I try to share some of the best thinking on these ideas; in this case I quote liberally from Nicole Lazarro. (I hope she takes this as a compliment.) Her insights into the emotional drivers for social and game experiences and the nature of cross media are - no surprise - right on, and coming true years after first publication.

Some of the more eye-opening material I discovered while looking into the design of this game / community hybrid concerns the direct connection between game mechanics (a design question), the space of possible choices for players, the emotions these choices inspire and encourage, and the resulting experience of the game environment.

From the functional to the psychological, it seems there really is an 'architecture of fun' for both games and social experiences. It is just another example of how architecture of any (and all) kinds is an enormous influencing factor on peoples' experiences.

This is the first of two parts - stay tuned for the follow-up, once we clear the disclosure question.

A slidecast will follow shortly, now that my laptop is back in working order, and I can fire up ScreenFlow.

We've got a lot of great material to share - and shape - on where this new[ish] discipline is headed, from four complementary but distinct professional perspectives (digital agency, in-house services group, management, design consultancy), shared by leading practitioners.

Here's a quick description:

"Changes are happening fast in technology, the economy, and even the various User Experience professions. In the midst of such turbulence, conventional Information Architecture can have trouble seeming fully relevant. Some may see it as a commodity, or a narrow specialty that has little to do with the game-changing emergence of social media, ubiquitous & mobile computing, and the rest.

This full-day workshop will address such concerns with a boundary-pushing foray into IA craft and strategy. We'll show how core IA skills are more relevant and strategically important than ever, and we'll explore how we can extend IA to its full potential in 21st century UX design."

Read more about Beyond Findability here. Register here.

See you in Memphis!

I think hybrid experiences that combine games dynamism and sophisticated social spaces are a very important part of the future for interactive experiences, and the organizers have been kind enough to offer us the opening keynote, so if you can get a ticket to Forli, we'd love to see you in the audience.

Here's the full description of our talk:

Co-evolution of a Socially Rich Game Experience and Community Architecture

What form will the next generation of interactive experiences take? The exact nature of the future is always unknown. But now that everything is 'social', and games are a fully legitimate cultural phenomenon more profitable and more popular than Hollywood films, we can expect to see the emergence of experiences that combine aspects of games and social media in new ways.

One example of a hybrid experience that combines game elements and complex social interactions is the cross-media environment formed by the popular Killzone games and their companion site Killzone.com. By design, the Killzone games and the Killzone.com site have co-evolved over time to interconnect on many levels. In the most recent version (planned for public release in early 2009), the game console and web site experiences work in concert to enhance gameplay with sophisticated social dynamics, and provide an active community destination that is 'synchronized' with events in the game in real time. The hybrid Killzone environment allows active game players and community members to move back and forth between game and web experiences, with simultaneous awareness of and connection to people and events in both settings.

Leading games researcher and designer Nicole Lazzaro calls these hybrid experiences 'Massively Social On-line Games'. In these types of interactive experiences, players build meaningful histories for individual characters and groups of all sizes through competitive and cooperative interactions that take place in the linked game and community contexts. Game mechanisms and social architecture elements are designed to encourage the accumulation of shared experiences, group identities, and collective histories. Over time, designers hope shared experiences will serve as the basis for a body of social memory.

This case study will follow the co-evolution of Killzone and Killzone.com, revisiting major business and design decisions in context, examining the changing nature of the community, and considering the lessons learned at each stage of the development of this early example of the next generation of massively social on-line game.

This presentation shares an overview of all the major waves of change affecting digital experiences, some of the especially forward-looking insights around shifts in our identities, and the implications for those creating digital experiences.

The 8 waves discussed here (are there more? let me know!)

• Digital = Social
• Co-Creation
• Digital Natives
• Itʼs All a Game
• Take Away
• Everyware
• Convergence
• Seeing Is Believing

Even better, our friends at Smart Experience and Rosenfeld Media are offering a 25% discount on registrations, which is good for these tough times.

Use this discount code when registering: LAMANTIAWBNR

Enjoy!

"Everyware" will be a journey through the expanding wavefront of the ubiquitous experience as it impacts design, covering topics ranging from ubiquitous computing to near-field communication, pervasive computing, The Internet of Things, spimes, ubicomp, locative media, and ambient informatics.

I hope it's as good to read as it has been to write. And keep the comments flowing!

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