The other day we were discussing the book “Blink” at work and I was thinking about the story of Kenna and how we create initial perceptions of things.

I checked out Kenna’s music on Amazon.com the other day to see if I liked his music. I really was not sure how I felt. I think maybe I have been biased from reading “Blink”.

But it made me think: whenever I purchase music, I always check out the sound samples online to determine whether or not I’ll like an album. But are 30 second sound samples of a song enough to REALLY know whether it is good or bad? You may only hear the verse or the chorus, but not both. You’re not experiencing the entire song with all of it’s dynamics and different parts.

So maybe that is sort of similar to the story in “Blink” about the people who heard one of Kenna’s song vs. seeing him perform live.

“…we must explore many disciplines, since the most promising knowledge frontiers typically exist at the boundaries between fields rather than at the fields’ respective centers.”

— “How Customers Think: Essential Insights Into The Mind of the Market” by Gerald Zaltman.

At first, this quote made me think about how I have been reading books more rooted in psychology, marketing and business lately.

But then it also made me think about where all the web disciplines like design, information architecture and usability intersect. I think that anyone that is a web designer should have a good understanding of IA and usability. Sometimes I feel that we are still back in the dark ages of web design and designers are still solely focused on the visual aspects of design and just making stuff look “COOL!” instead of thinking about the entire user experience. Just what is a good web designer anyway? How should we define that criteria?

In my opinion, designers should be hanging out with IA’s and usability people and asking them tons of questions. Be curious about everything they do! Sometimes seeing things from another role’s perspective can change the way you solve a design problem. It could give you fresh ideas or even a whole new way of approaching things. I believe it will also make you a BETTER designer. So there, I’ve said it: you can NEVER learn too much about IA and usability. Just get out there and talk to IA’s and usability people. They don’t bite (usually).

Don’t let knowledge get lost in the boundries between disciplines. Everyone has something they can learn from everyone else and there is almost always some knowledge that you can take back and apply to your own job.

P.S. - I’ve done it again. I went to the bookstore yesterday and blew $60 on books! I got the one I quoted above, a book by Tom Peters on leadership and “Flow” (which was recommended by Kathy Sierra at SXSW.)

I used to think of Technorati as just a search engine for blogs, but since I met some people at SXSW2006, I decided to check out their site again. It turns out that they offer some other neat services that I was not away of.

What is Technorati? Technorati is a search engine that searches frequently updated content on the web, such as blog postings. Unlike traditional search engines, content can often get picked up in ten minutes or so. Check their FAQ for more info.

First, I claimed my blog, gave it a description and created a member profile. This allows your photo to show up when people search for your blog.

This also allowed me to associate tags with my blog. I had never used tags in the past. Tags are a way of making content searchable by key words that may not be apparent in the content. So I could be blogging about “web design” however it may also relevant to the “user experience”. I can add a hidden tag in my code so that my post will come up when people search for “user experience”. You can also search by tags in their search engine.

Then I created a “Favorites” list. There are two cool things about creating a Technorati Favorites list. The first is that you get a page with brief descriptions of all blog postings from your favorite blogs sorted by chronological order. So you will see the first few sentences of all blog postings posted that day. Then you can easily scan them and determine what to read. It’s definitely a timesaver for blogs that you read daily. The second cool thing it does, is that it will take your favorites list and consolidate them into one RSS feed. I like having my most frequently read items all at the top of my MyYahoo! start page.

You can also enter a blog’s URL and see all the sites that link to it (which can be cool or not, depending on how popular you are.)

There’s lots of other neat things about Technorati, so check it out!

If you can’t sell your idea or talk about your design with a client, it’s a lot harder to do your job well. As designers, we often have to present our designs in front of a large group of people. But as we progress in our careers we may have to do even more public speaking, such as giving an inspiring speech about the importance of design to business people. That’s a lot more difficult. It seems that most people do not like public speaking, no matter what level there are at (managers included). Here are a few links that contain tips on presentation skills:

Learn to Wow ‘Em Like Steve Jobs
Presentation Zen

I thought the lessons in this article about NetFlix were important because it’s not just about NetFlix: it’s about every business. As a matter of fact, the article reminds me very much of my daily job.

“Five Lessons From the Netflix Startup Story”

As designers, we cannot afford to think one dimensionally. A company is not just it’s website. It’s the entire experience. Our jobs are not just to create appealing looking websites and brochures. Often, we have to solve business problems as well.

The way the NetFlix envelope functions is actually more important than the way it looks.

Good customer service is essential because no matter how many people try your product because the advertising is flashy, if you don’t have good customer service: your company won’t survive.

As NetFlix evolved, they were constantly revising things and trying to make their services better (there have been 150 versions of that envelope).

The goal is to design the product so it makes people’s lives easier, then it is guaranteed to have value. That’s where we, as designers, can have the most impact to the success of a business.

Blogs, blogs and more blogs! People talking about what cereal they ate for breakfast or what color t-shirt they wore today. I wish that if I am looking for a blog on a particular subject, I could instantly find one that is well-written with intelligent, credible content. This is one thing I don’t think even Technorati will be able to do

Every day, brochures get turned into brochure-ware websites with the content that is written for the wrong target audience.

Enough already, I say! If companies are trying to gain business or bloggers are trying to gain a loyal following, they should pay more attention to the content that they publish on the web.

Shouldn’t they know if their customers or readers find their content useful or interesting? Asking readers opinions or surveying them is a great way to improve your site and increase traffic.

I think more websites and blogs should use rating systems like the 5 star rating NetFlix uses for it’s movie suggestions. Amazon asks “Was this review helpful to you?” Digg lets it’s readers vote on which articles they enjoy and is entirely based on reader feedback.

Now if the search engines could just do a better job of sniffing out quality content…

Today this article by Derek Powazek on Alistapart.com reminded me how far I’ve come in my career. At previous jobs I would wait until I had received the content from the client before I would start a design. Then I would get SO frustrated when the content that I received was not well written or appropriate for the audience. Often it seemed the content wasn’t truly thought out. At one point, I vowed never again to work for a company that did not have a full-time writer on staff.

I felt that I if had worked so hard to do a great job with the design, the quality of the content should be just as good. Sometimes I felt like I was building this beautiful container for people to just dump crap into. It made me feel disillusioned and hopeless.

But then it all changed. Many years ago, shortly after I started my current job, my manager called me over to his desk and said “I need you to design some pages for this new website.” “Sure! Where’s the content?” I asked. He told me to make it up. I was shocked! We had writers on staff. Wouldn’t they be involved? After all, that was their job, not mine. But it was conceptual work. The real project hadn’t started yet. I soon got used to making up my own content as I went along when quick conceptual sketches were required.

Now when I design, I ponder every last little word. Not only do I think about color and type hierarchy, I also think about what each and every little word communicates to the user. Content is equally as important as design. One supports the other. The two go hand-in-hand to communicate a message. You will see it during usability testing. Content can be as much of a usability issue as a bad design. Perhaps a user didn’t know what a tab name meant. Or they didn’t understand the instructions for how to use a new product.

I totally agree with Derek Powazek that user experience is not just visual design, but content as well. As you are crafting your next design, think about how the user will react to the words that are being chosen. Will they understand how to navigate the site and where to find the information they need?

Don’t be afraid to make a suggestion if you think that something could be communicated more clearly. And if you aren’t given any content? Think of it as a gift! This is your opportunity to craft a new strategy for the site, perhaps taking it in a new direction by creating an entirely new experience for the user through both words and design.