If the term “Almost There design” hasn’t been coined yet, I’d like to be the guy who coined it.

I’ve been using it now for the past year — maybe longer. I don’t remember, but I like using it. “What is it?” you may ask. Well, it’s pretty simple and a term I use whenever I see an attempt at a product or app or experience or anything that is such a good idea, but not really executed to it’s full potential, or what it should have been, or could be, as in it’s “Almost There” but misses the mark of what it was aiming for.

I see a LOT of things that are “Almost There” – Google Now, Android, the current state of iOS, Google Glass – actually I have a very long list of things that could take a while, and maybe I’ll do a blog post about it. The sad thing is I see a lot of things that are almost there, from a lot of big companies who are known for creating new wonderful experiences. But for some reason a lot of their latest stuff is SO close yet not close enough to changing the way we do things or completely shift paradigms.

A good analogy that came to me this morning happened when I got an email from a buddy asking me about my thoughts on skeumorphism (making artificial things like interfaces look like real world things).

Disclaimer: I like a little bit of skeumorphism. It’s like salt on food. Just a little brings out the flavor but too much ruins it.

Unless you’re a horse and really like lots of salt.

Also, I don’t consider myself an interface master or expert by any means. I know what I like, what feels right, what just makes my gut go “yeah, that’s it!” or “bleh – this is really not good and it’s kinda creeping me out”.

I am and will always be a student. I’m always learning, either from others, or the world around me, or just from silly discoveries that happen most of the time by mistake – accidental inventions more or less (I know about these as I had 6 in the last 4 months that are waiting to be patented – and that surprised me).

So here’s what my friend asked:

I enjoy reading you comments on LinkedIn. I understand Apple may abandon skeuomorphisms from the user interface of IOS 7. Being an interface master, I am interested in your thoughts about skeuomorphic design elements. 
Mike

And here was my answer:

As far as the whole new iOS, I will say I’m excited to see what Jonny Ive comes up with, however there’s certain things I still like in skeumorphism, like metal buttons, or buttons that glow when on like there’s a little tiny light in them. And I do like apps that feel like the real thing – there’s a number of sound apps that mimic real synthesizers, or amps, or 8mm movie cameras. I like those because they are nostalgic feeling and bring back fond memories when I use them, as well as a bit of whimsy. 

I don’t think we can totally get away from skeumorphism — felt table tops are bad, but there is a way to use it and not be over the top or basically in the wrong place. Going completely opposite can be dangerous – tiles was one of the worst takes on going flat and people’s response to that design direction has not been good. 

What’s funny is when you think about it, is Ive’s inspiration of Braun and if they go somewhat in that direction of mimimal and more flat is that there is still skeumorphism since it’s mimicking that look..

 I know they can pull something off that’s a game-changer. They always do. What Apple is really good at is watching what other people do and how close they get – but never really get it right. That’s what I call an “almost there” (hey, there’s a reference to the Death Star trench run…). It makes an impact but it doesn’t blow up people’s perception of how something can be or should be done.

 Wow, and I just made that up as I was typing this – not the “almost there” part — I’ve been saying that for about a year now, but the analogy just popped into my head as I heard the red squadron leader in his X-wing saying “Almost there…”. 

If you’re a fan of Star Wars, Red leader made a run, was looking into his targeting computer and relying on something other than his gut. As he kept saying “Almost there”, he came SO close to blowing up the Death Star. But he didn’t. He made an impact that shook things up a bit, but he didn’t change anything. I kind of liken him to the people who rely on numbers, research, people who are trained to do things a certain way because that’s the way everyone else does it.

Red Five – Luke Skywalker, the one who didn’t go to the academy, was the outsider, hadn’t been part of the Rebel forces before – trusted his gut instinct (“Use the Force Luke”), and hit his target, blew up the Death Star, and changed things and people’s perceptions.

Apple is Red Five and literally blew up people’s perception of what a mobile phone should be with the iPhone. It was a game changer. I do believe a company can’t come out with something every single year that’s a game-changer. I don’t think it’s even so much a good idea, because people come to expect it, and lose focus on how a product changed their lives, and just want what’s next, and then what’s after that, and so on. Kind of like the kid at Christmas who blasts through their presents without being happy with the one really cool thing they’re parents spent a lot of time on finding.

I think iOS 7 is going to be a game changer. It’s not going to be an “Almost There”. It’s going to be “We’re there”. And I think Apple has something else up there sleeve (literally) that’s going to blow people’s perception of what whatever it’s going to be should be.

A wise and brilliant man recently said “Innovate or Die (dying is easier).”  That’s true. But give us some time to innovate. I mean really, truly, innovate.

You won’t be disappointed.

I was sitting down this morning having a nice cup of coffee, some eggs with spinach, and a piece of toast. 

It’s interesting when we are not rushing from here to there, going going going, that we have time to think – I mean really think. Deeply even. 

So I was thinking about how I got into UX, why I like it, what drives me to want to create great user experiences whether it’s software, an app, a website, a product, or just a whole new way of doing something we do every single day. 

The first thing I thought of was I like to fix things, and how I see lots of things that can be made into a better experience not only for myself, but my family, friends, and people in general. And it’s not a case of just making something a little easier to use, but really shaking things up — creating a whole new way to do something.

We’re so used to doing things that were invented so long ago, there’s never really any real change. People just get used to the status quo and thus progress gets stuck. 

I want to change that – and at my last job I did, but you’ll have to wait a while to see those things come to light. 

And then I thought about why do I really like doing UX? More so, what really drives me to want to do great work? And it all comes down to one thing — I love making people happy. I love to make people smile and forget about their worries, problems, drama. 

It goes back to when I was 5, and I had my Muppets  — Cookie Monster, Ernie, Bert, Grover- and my older brother and I would do shows from behind the couch for our parents, friends, and other family. We’d start out with some comedy (I did a mean Cookie Monster impression), and then we’d have them lip-sync to the Beatles.  I loved making people laugh.

It wasn’t about me or the attention – it was about serving others and making them happy.

When I was 7 I started doing magic shows for the family and friends, and eventually for the kids in the neighborhood. I’d always mess up, but would make light of it and it made people laugh, smile, and forget about life. 

When I was 8, I started tinkering with things, and figured out how to make my puppets animated, and then saw a special on “The Wonderful World of Disney” that featured Imagineers – THAT’s what I wanted to do when I grew up.  I kept doing magic shows, puppet shows, and loved to tell stories that made people laugh and smile. 

My latest personal project was (well still is because I’ll never be done with it) is a full-scale R2D2 astromech droid. Yes, I’m a bit of a Star Wars geek (or nerd…I don’t know anymore). My son and I built him to take to places like Children’s Hospital. We had him even at church one day for a series called “At the Movies”.

Between services we had him in the lobby for pictures. People lined up (lots of people) to have a chance to get their picture with him. I sat quietly off to the side, watching people and their excitement. A few adults came up to me and commented how they had been wanting to have their photo with him and meet R2 since they were kids. 

You could see sheer joy in their eyes. Amazing how a rolling piece of wood, plastic, metal, motors, lights, sounds, and lots of hot glue can make people that happy. 

So here I am now, doing UX because it’s a way to make people happy. Life is pretty hard as it is — we don’t need websites, or apps, or products that make things more so. Whether it’s an enterprise app that’s supposed to be used by someone every day at their job, or a game, or social media, or whatever,  I want to make things a joy to use.

Make people smile. 

And that’s what I love to do. 

 

Don’t hire me if you don’t want me to be truthful about everything. No, seriously. I’m posting to my blog because I actually have time to – if you look back at my blog posts the last one was around the time I went to work for Trapster (I think), and then a company in Glendale. I have time because yet again being truthful was bad for me – though truthful I will always be.

Lying is bad, yet people do that, cheat, make up things, tell white lies, and so on seem to get rewarded for it all the time. Every time I’m honest about the way things are and how they can be fixed, I’m out of a job. Let me explain.

I’m a UX Designer – well, more of an experience designer overall. My job is to design great experiences and point out when one is not. When an employer asks me to do a usability study on a product or site or app they have, I’ll be honest in my assessment, point out the good stuff that works, and of course point out all the bad things and how to fix them.

I expect the employer not have their feelings hurt by my assessment. And turns out most the time they are- they get offended, defensive, and so on, knowing their product is a steaming pile of poo, yet they don’t want to look at it.

It seems whenever I have a great job doing UX with a great company, as soon as they ask me for my take on something, and I’m COMPLETELY, and professionally honest, I find myself out of a job, because the employer doesn’t want to look at the truth.

So, my losing my last job, which suddenly ended yesterday, wasn’t because I did a usability analysis. It was because I didn’t say anything about a huge project they had been working on for YEARS, and telling them – specifically one of the owner’s whose pet project this was for a major technology client, was a big steaming pile of poo.

After losing other jobs due to my honesty about a broken product, I figured this time I won’t say anything, as I wanted to keep my job at a very cool company.

When I came on back in January, I got to see a product, and it looked like it had a few months work into it at best. I didn’t know at that time it had years of work into it. 4 months later, this week actually, it looked a little better, but not impressive. And this company is known for doing very impressive stuff.

The owner wanted a specific thing, I got what he was getting at over the last number of months, but for some reason that didn’t seem to get translated to other people there. So I designed an interface to at least make it usable. I originally designed an interface to make it really great, but we all know how things can go in a different direction. That happened a lot.

I should have been more forthright, telling the owner the issues I saw beyond the issues he saw. Yes, there was a high probability I would have lost my job sooner. Then there was a big demo to the big client. They decided they wanted to change direction. And I found myself out of a job- with the explanation that having UX in house was an experiment , and to this day, I know that for the most part most all companies consider UX to be a luxury item.

If there’s not enough work, or a big enough need, then we, as UX’ers, are a luxury item. Honest UX’ers are even more so.

If you want the truth about your product, site, app, etc. and are willing to listen, have an open mind, not be offended, and let me fix it and create an amazing experience, then great. Hire me. If not, then I’ll pass.

Really.

And that’s the truth.