July 2015

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 26 jul 2015

Effective collaboration between private and public entities, by pooling their strengths and resources, can bring better and efficient outcomes of public and civic services for the citizens. An example of such a collaborative approach is the Small Business Portal that was launched in 2014 in San Francisco. For the project, Mayor's Office, Department of Technology, Office of Economic and Workforce Development, Office of Small Business and Tomorrow Parter's (a design firm), came together to create a one-stop portal for people that provides information for starting, managing and expanding a company. The design firm utilized human-centered design principles to shape the innovation strategy and build a website that simplified and streamlined the process of starting a business. They took an 'inside out' and 'outside in' approach to understanding the challenges. Extensive research and focus groups were used and this finally led to establishing six main attributes for building a successful interface. According to Gaby Brink, founder and chief designer of Tomorrow Partners, 'They were filters for us to evaluate our design and establish clear guidelines for the various people developing content to ensure that we had a consistent voice.' The six key principles of digital design that represent their approach are - (1) Do the Right Thing: Sets the overall tone of the project. Sets clear expectations and make the process transparent. Assures the caring attitude. (2) Curate Content: Maintains the quality and availability of the right information to the diverse set of audience. (3) Make It Accessible: Responsive design and customization utilized to provide access to website on multiple devices and platforms. (4) Treat Constituents as Consumers: Users are to be treated as consumers, instead of taxpayers or voters, that civic authorities serve. (5) Dole Out Delight: Make the experience of the users pain-free, simple and as enjoyable as possible with a human approach. Shouldn't be a typical government portal. (6) Increase Trust: Make sure that the users feel that the government is working for them. Assuring that interacting with government is not a difficult and doubtful process. Jane Gong, Program Director of the Department of Technology, says 'From a user perspective, most of the time government thinks about putting together a website, it's copying from municipal code and pasting in some clip art. For the first time we did UX/UI research. This needs to be the approach of all government websites. It's time for government to take a step back and say we're here to serve people and make sure that we're accessible and responsive.' Read on...

Fast Company: 6 Principles Of Digital Design For Civic Innovation
Author: Diana Budds

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 19 jul 2015

Wikipedia article on 'Emotional Intelligence' explains it as, 'The ability to recognize one's own and other people's emotions, to discriminate between different feelings and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior'. The article further categorizes EI into three models - (1) Ability Model (by Peter Salovey and John Mayer): Focuses on the individual's ability to process emotional information and use it to navigate the social environment. (2) Trait Model (by Konstantin Vasily Petrides): Encompasses behavioral dispositions and self perceived abilities and is measured through self report. (3) Mixed Model (by Daniel Goleman): A combination of both ability and trait EI. It defines EI as an array of skills and characteristics that drive leadership performance. While most people may believe that innovation and creativity are born traits and might not have any connection with EI, but Harvey Deutschendorf, author and EI expert, explains that EI plays an important role in innovative and creative thinking. He outlines 7 common EI-related traits that innovators have - (1) Innovators have their ego in check. (2) Emotionally intelligent people are confident, not arrogant. (3) They are continually curious. (4) They are good listeners. (5) They don't let their emotions affect their innovation efforts. (6) They can take direction. (7) They empathize with co-workers and customers. Read on...

Fast Company: 7 HABITS OF INNOVATIVE THINKERS
Author: Harvey Deutschendorf

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 16 jul 2015

Design is an important aspect of web and mobile strategy of businesses. It is necessary that users of the website and apps have ease of access to information regarding products and services, and can effectively interact and engage with it. Usability and other aspects of design become all the more critical when the website is a social platform like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc. Continuous improvement and transformation of design on these platforms is driven both by internal and external necessities. The redesigns are generally due to the evolving and dynamic nature of technologies and the changing behavior of users and needs of the customers. According to Amy Parnell, Director of User Experience at LinkedIn, 'Our design principles focus on creating experiences that are approachable, streamlined, personalized and guided. We want to ensure the experience feels efficient and productive, helping our members to achieve their goals.' According to her, redesign at LinkedIn is based on data collected from multiple sources - market research, user research, site metrics and analytics and help center feedback. Internal feedback from employees is critical before the public launch. External feedback from customers is obtained to further refine or modify the design based on user requirements. Valuable content is needed to engage and retain customers. Read on...

Adweek: How Important is Design? Q&A with LinkedIn's Amy Parnell
Author: Justin Lafferty