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One of the most important foundations of our UXD practice is what we call the UXD Stack. The Stack is the framework that we use to assess all incoming projects. The five tenents in The Stack are:

   Primary Goal: What business goal are we trying to achieve?
   Audience: What do we need to achieve the goal?
   Content: What content and functionality are required for the audience to achieve their goals?
   Context: What non-verbal queues will make the message more credible?
   Media/Technology: How is the message technically presented?

Context is the bridge between the users and how they interact with the content of the site. Context is one of the primary elements of the site design that can make or break a design. Establishing a consistent and user-centric context is key to creating a site that will relate to the users and likewise make it successful.

As many of those who know me can attest I am a lover of cartooning. I started cartooning at a young age and started my first published cartoon in high school. My first cartoon strip was entitled "Dr. Ratlab & Ratty"-basically the strip involved Dr. Ratlab finding new and clever ways to blow-up Ratty but in true comic nature Ratty always survived to be blown-again. I continued cartooning in college with editorial comics for the Kentucky Kernel (University of Kentucky) and the North Texan (niversity of North Texas). Most of my work was either political in nature or strip. My final strip was entitled "The Crayon People"-after a reference that Christopher Lloyd made where he stated he loved getting fan mail from those who wrote in crayon. None the less one of the real lessons I learned in writing for strips was context.

I am a huge fan of the comic artist Scott McCloud, and in reading one of his posts the other day I was introduced to two strips that really blew me away: 3eanuts  and Garfield Minus Garfield. In both of these strips the presenter removes an important part of the original strip. It is amazing. In 3eanuts the final frame is removed and in Garfield Minus Garfield, Garfield is removed. These simple edits change the entire context of the strips and in my opinion make them even more interesting.

I just watched a documentary called "Exit Through the Gift Shop" by renowned street artist Bansky. Now those not familiar with Bansky's work, well, you are just missing out. The documentary follows a French shopkeeper, Thierry Guetta, through his obsession with filming everything in his life to his newest obsession documenting street artists. The funny part is that Thierry is always filming but never watches any of the film he shoots. The street artists let him tag along (no pun intended) because they think he is documenting their art form. He shoots them because he is obsessed with filming and their life style adds more adventure and danger to his obsession.

Thierry works his way through up and coming street artists like Invader, then Shepard Fairey (of the Obama Hope poster fame), and finally to the elusive Bansky. The final culmination of his obsession comes after a meeting with Bansky when Thierry comes back to the states and begins copying everyone's work, posting it to the streets, and then takes on the moniker "MBW" aka Mr. Brain Wash.

In the final segments of the film MBW liquidates his savings, mortgages his house and hires artists and crafts people to create his own Banskyesque art show featuring the new works of MBW! With extensive Hype by Mr. Thierry the show sells out and MBW sells over a million dollars in its 3 week run. Mr. Fairey and Bansky take a way their support and talk sour grapes about how Thierry didn't pay his dues and he shouldn't be selling his "copied" work for the prices he is selling them.

Another artist by the name of Mark Kostabi created as similar hype in the late 80s and early 90s when he also hired a team of artists to create his work. Mr. Kostabi paid the artist an hourly wage and gave bonuses for the art he selected to sign. He also went as far as setting his studio up in an old "peep show" venue where people could come in and pay money to have the windows open to view his art staff creating art. Back then Mr. Kostabi's art practices brought the age old question "what is art" to the forefront. Similar to the declarations by Marcel Duchamp where he placed a found urinal in the gallery stating that because he recognized and discovered the beauty of the object his "discovery" then changed the object from common Lou to high art.

Working as a user experience practitioner and graphic designer I to spend much of my day creating and defending my design decisions. What makes good design? How do you recognize and categorize good design? Who is responsible for a designs worth or success? Is it the client or the designer?

What is your opinion on what makes a successful design? I'd love to hear your thoughts and ramblings.

So you are on assignment and you are delivering some "award-winning" work. You've got a design that addresses all the client's needs and  concerns-it's spot on based on the user research in terms of audience, the target users love it, and heck the design is innovative and outright beautiful to look at. Your client loves it and takes it to one of his many internal clients to show it off. The internal client looks at it and says...."I like it but can we make it burnt orange?"

So you finally look around the client's office and you see that they are a tried and true University of Texas alumnus. The office is to the brim with Bevo bobble-heads,  pictures of your client  at Darrell K. Royal stadium sporting burnt orange body paint, and another picture of Mack Brown kissing his new born son! O,h but your award winning design won't work with burnt orange.

Unbeknownst to you, this UT fanatic is married to the CEO's daughter and his department could cause your client's project to stall or even be canceled. You can see the fear in your client's eyes as UT Man begins requesting revisions to make your design more "UT-centric"...

Although this example is a bit extreme it isn't that unlikely. As a consultant you will often be faced with clients who wish to treat a design project based on personal whims as opposed to being based on user research and common/standard design principles and patterns. I have been in this situation many times and most times it is very frustrating. I for one believe that design is a service, but it is also a craft-something that fulfills a purpose created through thoughtful consideration based on the needs and desires of the users and the consumers.  When faced with these situations all I can hear in my head is Mr. Spock saying, "The needs of the many outweigh those of the few!"

That being said, I am still a consultant. How far must I argue for what I know is right? How far can we push our expert opinions based on the big design picture in lieu of creating work that is created only to address specific client desires? Have you been in this situation? What were you resolutions? Did you have to fight the fight alone or did you get support from your peers? Please share with me your thoughts and comments.

In design school it was many a students dreams to become the next great art director or graphic designer. Long nights spent coming up with the next ad or campaign that would be showcased in Print Magazine or Communication Arts. Once you left school and got to work in the real world you found that the task of becoming the next great art director would most likely not be a solo affair. While many of us were perfecting our skills in layout, illustration, and design, most of us had not considered the importance of cleverly-constructed word play. It was in this moment of desperation that we discovered the ad world had a well-developed strategy where an art director should be paired with a copywriter–a wonderful union.

If you have ever watched the hit series Mad Men, about the glory days of a 60s Madison Avenue advertising agency, you can witness the collaboration of Peggy and the writers with Sal the art director. Very dramatic and a pretty accurate account of day-to-day life in advertising. The truth is that rarely does someone rise to greatness without the help of others who are equally committed and driven. Some of my best design work was created through collaboration. The advertising and design community has known this for years. So at this point you might be thinking, "how does this relate to application design and development?"

Taking what we have learned from the ad agencies and the successful collaboration between an art director and a copywriter–I believe there is strong correlation between the relationship between an Information Architect (IA) /User Experience Designer (UXD) and a Front-End Developer (FED). Just as my early years in adverting and design were strengthened through creative collaborations I believe the same can be true through the direct teaming of IAs and FEDs. 

I have found that on those projects where I have had the ability to work closely and collaborate with a FED that the deliverables are exponentially more successful. Why is this? They are more successful due to collaboration. Where I as a IA/UXD can visualize information and how I might successfully present it on the screen, the FED takes my thoughts/designs and makes them tangible-both of us pushing the other to push the design, functionality, and usability of the final deliverable.

I am a huge proponent of collaboration. I believe that to truly create genius we have to open ourselves up to new ideas and relationships; discover new possibilities in what we might consider the mundane. All of us have the ability to be creative in what we do sometimes you just need to look at things from a different viewpoint or perspective. I'd be interested in hearing from others who might have also shared these experiences. Are there other symbiotic relationships in the development cycle that you have found increase the quality od your work? How can you successfully collaborate remotely? I'd love to hear your thoughts.