Speaks for itself really.
Hope this helps others in the experience of creating great iOS7 design, why Apple couldnt just do this for us of course Im not entirely sure … maybe they missed the designers out of their ‘users’ matrix?
Original image taken from iOS Human Interface Guidelines
Originally posted as part of the staff blog series for Digital Spark Ltd
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To start then, in brief. I’m Stacey Rogers, I joined Digital Spark around 3 months ago as Head of Interaction and I joined because something about the culture of the company struck a chord. The fact that it would be perfectly acceptable to arrive to my first interview by bike, and not hiding behind a suit and set of heels, was somewhat of a relief!
I’m going to briefly talk about “why”.
So, to start then, why the introduction? Well a) its brief because I’m only allowed 400 words, because you might not have a lot of time to read this. B) Knowing my name mean you have a point of reference for future “yeah, I read in that blog by Stacey Rogers”. And lastly, c) hopefully giving you some idea of my interview outfit gives a brief insight into us. Its not that we’re unprofessional – absolutely far from it, its just certain things don’t matter, and when people feel relaxed and can be entirely natural they connect with their purpose, as we do.
So I now have c.200 words to tell you a story!
My role at Digital Spark, as I see it, is to be the “Why Bird”. I want to know ‘the B all and end all’ of why something has been asked for in our products or why we have chosen to add it.
So… to set the scene, I’m in the clinic of an collaborating clinical team … absorbing, as we do… because it helps us to understand. I’m going through a paper form with a group of clinicians to understand how useful (or not) it is to them. We talk through each of the fields – some self-explanatory, others not so much and discuss two questions in depth: ‘Marital Status’ and the ‘Occupation’ question.
On the surface – to the layman, these might seem fairly simple. But these two questions opened quite a debate.
The marital status question. I put a tick next to it – as if to say ‘yes, needed’ – when one clinician explains that he rarely asks this question, preferring just look for a wedding ring. Another doctor isn’t sure and so I ask the inevitable “Why is it important?” question to clear this up. “Well its in case someone needs an operation”, they say, “who’s going to look after them? We need to know if someone is at home.”
So, whether someone is married or not or divorced or separated (these are the options next to the box) is completely irrelevant – this is simply the ‘what’ of the situation. The critical ‘why’ turns out to be: ‘Does this person have a support network around them or are they on their own?’
This is where my role comes in – as on our version of said paper form it won’t prompt users to ask a patients’ “Marital Status”, it’ll cut to the chase and ask them if they have anyone to look after them if they have an operation! (Maybe not in those words – but why not, if that’s actually the question you need the answer to).
At Digital Spark the User Experience is so, so important, and we’re not talking just about how pretty a screen is, UX is how this product makes someone’s working life easier or helps them to be efficient or standardises practice in the interests of patient safety. It also provides people with information and values which they can do something about or which they’re asked for 3 times a week, or helps them keep informed by providing the answers to the questions they’ll need at some point in time.
So. I ask ‘Why?’ a lot. And if people can’t come up with an answer, well then that’s where the fun starts. And what was the response to the ‘Occupation’ question, I hear you ask? Well, I’m well out of words, so maybe I’ll have to come back to that one later …
In the meantime, here’s more on the power of ‘Why’ in the brilliant TED talk from Simon Sinek. I may have watched this more than once:
Thoughts on all things user experience 