You know the stuff that you should just do, it’s always kinda in the back of your mind.  Do it now!

Tomorrow’s the 1st June and it’s almost been a year since I started Objective Digital
properly! Among other things, I have to get ready for the end of financial year.

Here’s a list I used to help myself, even though I’ve just moved house, there’s a lot to do!

Think creatively

• Do/review 5 year plan - again
• Go through the important bits of paper I wrote during meetings and conferences that are collecting dust and mind map any good ideas
• Do EFY08 strategy with accountant
• Add all mind maps created in last 6 months to master mind map
• Take five great ideas from new master map
• Refresh website content based on what I have learnt
• Refresh work wiki content, based on what I should have shared

Be organised

Learn

• Read magazines that I’ve kept because they looked interesting! Throw out the rest
• Read RSS, daily

Be safe

• Backup – all computers
• Get car serviced (thought I’d throw that in!)

Be a nerd

• Tidy up USB Hub connections on my desk
• Improve audio visual in office – buy new music!
• Delete all files from memory sticks in my drawer
• Free up hard drive space
• Organise Apps in my ‘Dock’
• Delete any unused apps on Mac – or use them!
• Synchronise phone and Mac
• Update company document templates

Communicate

• Take photos off camera and put them on Facebook
• Take more family photos and show everyone who keeps asking for some of Ben!
• File blog ideas and schedule time to write them
• Say hi to 20 of the people I have connections to in social networks.
• Tend to facebook (and other) groups I set up
• Ring family

Kylie just read a great quote to me from the BRW. 

‘If money is your goal, it’s a waste of time - a dry hollow tunnel. There are only two things in life that motivate me; having fun and being useful.’ Andrew Forrest, Rich dude.

I agree.

I am doing my most exciting project ever!

You may know I originally did psychology to help people! How about if psych services were delivered online?  We could help people globally!

What do you think?
- Would you do it?
- How should it work?

I have answers streaming in on:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Survey Monkey (anonymous)

And thanks to Tangler, we have a disussion forum there too! Please share your thoughts. You can be anonymous if you like!

Thanks in advance!!

We are at CeBIT tomorrow til the 22 May!

Tobii are here from Sweden and will be exhibiting with Objective! They’re bringing the latest in eye tracking technology, as well as some really cool eye control demos.

In addition, they will have a MyTobii P10 to show you. This is popular with people who have limited movement and speech because it allows them to talk and type with their eyes! I’ve recently blogged about using Mind Power here.

Come and see us at Stand Z74!

Lately I’ve been seeing briefs for Rich Internet Apps (RIAs) that require a certain number of ‘wireframes’?

RIAs are characterised by multiple interactions on one screen without a full screen refresh. One screen has many different states - Drop downs, fly outs, sliders, changing grids, the list goes on. They are just like a desktop app.

I get worried because most people think a wireframe refers to a Visio or PowerPoint diagram that is a flat file and has limited simulation or clear description of how interactions work on the screen.  This is not sufficient as you need to create many very similar wireframes to show how the screen works. It can be done, as Steve Collins suggests, ‘You create lots and lots of wireframes, like a traditional cartoon animation, to show how all the screen states can change!’ A waste of time. 

The night before last, when I was at Interesting South, the problem with traditional wireframes was hammered home.  I was chatting to Twitter guru and coder, Brad Kellett (@bck) about how requirements get communicated to him. He basically said, ‘I usually get some crappy wireframes that leave too many options open. I am often unclear of how a client wants to put together.’

‘So how do you get an RIA right?’, I ask. ‘ Oh, it ends up in lengthy face-to-face interaction, while I try and work out what they need!’. He even said that he’d love a library of the hand gestures clients use to interpret how they think the RIA should be designed!

What he really needs is something much more detailed than just wireframes and interaction. The ‘wireframe’ has to realistically represent all the interactions that occur on one screen of an RIA! He needs a high res model of the interface.

Hi-res and Lo-res wireframes

Thanks to Steve Collins for putting this together for me.  Firstly, Lo-res wireframes are the same as the wireframes that I see referred to in briefs, but with an RIA they are just not enough to communicate to a developer what to do with them. They have a valid use:

• laying out core page functionality
• representing major navigation items
• validating major components and structure. 

Lo-res wireframes are critical to developing an understanding of potential application and site framework as well as building an understanding of major application interactions prior to developing hi-res wireframes. 

Hi-res wireframes build upon the lo-res wireframes, they are used to:

• instantiate and test the understanding of application and site flow
• show to clients and potential end-users exactly what they are getting
• describe every screen interaction in detail to application developers and graphic designers to aid in building the application.

Hi-res wireframes can also be used as the foundation of a functional prototype for testers, designers and developers to test assumptions against.  Testing against hi-res wireframes and prototypes can provide significant cost savings early in the project, militating against expensive and time-consuming changes late in the project lifecycle.

Axure have solved this problem with a fantastic tool that can be used to produce hi-res wireframes and is not much harder to use than Visio. You can even use it to run usability testing on the out put and it can be printed into a very clear spec document too.

I’ve seen many [usability] reports with an inordinate amount of repetition. A consultant might identify that users have trouble finding things, using the navigation of a business application, and then proceed to mention the issue in the:

1. Exec summary
2. Findings
3. Task specific data and
4. Heuristic (criteria) evaluation section. 

What a waste of time and how boring for the reader (and the author)!

Instead the report should be planned properly so that there is a maximum of two repeats:

1. In the report, and
2. Exec summary.

Our reports use lots of pictures and tables most of the time they don’t even have an exec summary!

In this post I describe how I use mind maps to organise my thoughts and arrange an efficient hierarchy of information. This is the best way to make sure you don’t repeat yourself. And you don’t leave anything out!

So far in this report writing series, you’ll be on the right track if you:

1. use some spin,
2. design it properly and
3. minimise repetitiion.

Clients are busy people and they never read long, text heavy [usability] reports. Design can be a useful tool to buy more time from them and make it easier for them to draw meaningful Nuggets from your documents.

Following on from my post about spin in report writing, here’s 12 report design tips to engage your time poor readers:

1. ‘Design’ your report template so that it captures your readers’ attention immediately and increases the likelihood of them reading your report. 
2. Use a designer to create the template. Don’t make the design up yourself, if that’s not your specialty, it will look silly.
3. Your report markets your brand, forever - Ask yourself, ‘Does my client feel proud of my report when they show their colleagues?’
4. Be consistent with your branding and design across documents so they can recognise/find them.
5. Be consistent with your branding and design within a document - That’s common sense really!
6. Use images that catch the eye  - we know a picture tells 1000s of words.
7. Put call outs (speech bubbles) on the images - they can be quick easy to read (if you say useful stuff).
8. Highlight the important messages with formatting and headings - so they are scannable and easily recognised.
9. Use a standard layout that highlights the priority findings on all pages - that way a people can choose the level of detail to read.
10. Use tables with images and icons - they may the report look shorter and allow easy comparison and scanning. However, you can fit lots of info in there if your smart!
11. If you have a design recommendation, don’t describe it, draw it! If you can’t draw then find an example and paste a screen shot in the report.
12. If you are using wireframes make them look ‘designed’ with some logos, curves, colour and shading. Plain black and white wireframes look amateurish!

i reckon we need to bring back the design into usability! It’s no longer about making things work, that’s a given. It’s about making them cool too!

I’m doing a lunch presentation on next Tuesday at Bureaux, where I have my office.

I will be showing how I use online tools to improve communication, knowledge management and marketing.  Hopefully I can seamlessly link the tools together on different sites during my preso!!

Here it is on Slideshare!

As an outcome of all of this you basically get free marketing on search engines!

Scribd is another way of publishing your stuff on the web to get noticed!

I’ll add more ideas here on Tuesday night!