Whit Hour – Week 13

Thank you so much to the ~29 people who showed up for the thirteenth week of Whit Hour — my weekly one-hour video chat to answer any and all of your questions about user experience, consulting, and whatever else you throw at me.

Tune in every Monday night from 10-11pm Eastern Time at http://www.livestream.com/whithour.

Whit Hour – Week 13

August 16, 2010, from 10:17-11:17pm ET

This Week’s Beer

None! It was a rough day and I figured beer wasn’t a good idea.

Questions Asked and (Hopefully) Answered

1. how do you handle convincing backend developers that a ui change is beneficial when they argue that its not the case?
2. how do you find/attract your freelance work?
3. have you had to abadon any UX projects
4. how do you find the confidence to advice a team? just through all your research that you’ve done or purely thru believing in yourself?
5. Why did you choose to be an independent consultant as opposed to starting a business?
6. Do you learn from developers? How can developers help improve UX?
7. where do UX people hang out / discuss online
8. Have you ever had to work with any Interwoven/Autonomy products? If so what are your thoughts?
9. what type of projects do you work on for your own professional exercise, writing, desiging, playing spider solitaire?
10. what are your favourite tools? any prototyping tools?
11. do you do any UX outside of HCI?
12. How do you determine when to use traditional UX patterns vs. trying to create new ones?
13. what beer are you drinking tonight?
14. what’s the #1 book in your library, fiction or work related, doesn’t matter

Full Text Chat

Welcome to the ‘whithour’ room.
crashhelmet: :)
whitneyhess mod: So it appears that Livestream isn’t working for me
whitneyhess mod: Is anyone in here?
crashhelmet: i am
jonathan: Hi whitney!
Ian: :-(
shiawuen: showing offline
PML: all your bases are belong to us
crashhelmet: this is cursed
whitneyhess mod: Livestream Webcaster won’t launch
whitneyhess mod: this is the 4th platform i’ve tried in a year, it’s incredible
crashhelmet: you should just run go to meeting haha
jonathan: there you are
crashhelmet: you are on the air
gabimoore changed their nickname to gabimoore.
shanink: yup
jgilkey: yes, i can hear you
shanink: yay!
Ian: yup
PML: w00t!
justin_davis: gotcha now!
jgilkey: lots of echo though
jgilkey: yes
justin_davis: yup
Ian: yes
jonathan: I can hear you
shiawuen: no problem
pixelflips: yay! finally made it home from work at a decent hour. yup can hear you
Leon: I can hear you clearly over here in the Republic of Panama
stillpixels: yep
macdeke: yep
gabimoore: awesome of you to be doing this today, i know it’s been a rough day
pixelflips: how do you handle convincing backend developers that a ui change is beneficial when they argue that its not the case?
jonathan: whitney appears to have frozen
stillpixels: how do you find/attract your freelance work?
pixelflips: awesome – great answer!! thanks for the tip, that is very helpful and will def be used in my arsenal – thanks again!
jonathan: no you’re good now
crashhelmet: have you had to abadon any UX projects
shanink: how do you find the confidence to advice a team? just through all your research that you’ve done or purely thru believing in yourself?
shanink: advise…whoops
gabimoore: Why did you choose to be an independent consultant as opposed to starting a business?
justin_davis: sounds like @jmspool’s hands vs. brains article :)
stillpixels: great answer – cheers! “independant” over “freelancer” is a good distinction
GangstaCode: where do UX people hang out / discuss online
crashhelmet: ouch. sounds sucky. thanks for the honesty.
RodrigoSanchez: @GanstaCode look into IxDA and UPA groups in your local area
gabimoore: Do you learn from developers? How can developers help improve UX?
RodrigoSanchez: those are great places to meet great people in UX
crashhelmet: what are your favourite tools (sorry if this is a repeat question)
shanink: awesome :)
shanink: definitely
mango: hire an assistance
mango: like inception, assemble your own team
gabimoore: I hear you, I’m exactly the same, trusting is really hard
robertbanh: are those all your books behind you? wow
whitneyhess mod: http://www.elizabethbuie.com/resources/uxtweeps-p2.html
whitneyhess mod: http://www.elizabethbuie.com/resources/uxtweeps.html
GangstaCode: gangsta answer
GangstaCode: thanks!
orian: why aren’t those just two Twitter lists?
crashhelmet: do you do any UX outside of HCI
r: Have you ever had to work with any Interwoven/Autonomy products? If so what are your thoughts?
macdeke: So … what type of projects do you work on for your own professional exercise, writing, desiging, playing spider solitaire?
shanink: i was gonna just ask if you dedicate time to reading :) i have a problem with books myself. LOVE.
FallLine: Couldn’t agree more on your assessment (UX v HCI)
whitneyhess mod: Jan Chipchase
Ian: interwoven is a content management system
macdeke: yes
r: Interwoven/Autonomy make enterprise level Content Management Systems and Asset management tools.
zarzecks: driving range helps too :)
crashhelmet: • r.e. HCi sorry i meant ourside of web/software development
gabimoore: any prototyping tools?
crashhelmet: thanks for reply on tools – just wanted to know what you used not an endorsement
crashhelmet: and finally – i LOVE skitch
shanink: i have that same ‘issue’, not ‘problem’. fiction vs. work related books. i don’t feel so alone this evening…i’m glad i joined in this live chat.
jonathan: Yes I have that same issue, shanink!
robertbanh: +1 book problem here too :)
zarzecks: How do you determine when to use traditional UX patterns vs. trying to create new ones?
crashhelmet: oooh good question
zarzecks: ugly word :)
robertbanh: what are some UX patterns? just to name a few…
jonathan: Would these be considered UX patterns? http://patterns.endeca.com/content/library/en/home.html
zarzecks: skip intro?
whitneyhess mod: http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/
whitneyhess mod: http://quince.infragistics.com/
jodyferry: http://www.flickr.com/photos/morville/collections/72157603785835882/
whitneyhess mod: http://www.designingsocialinterfaces.com/patterns.wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
whitneyhess mod: http://www.flickr.com/photos/factoryjoe/collections/72157600001823120/
zarzecks: http://www.lukew.com/ff/archive.asp?tag&patterns
RodrigoSanchez: http://patterntap.com/
zarzecks: even: http://jqueryui.com/
robertbanh: thank you for talking about design patterns between developers and UI users
jodyferry: what’s your big idea for an iPhone app?
jonathan: that’s a very mysterious response :)
jodyferry: yes! thanks!
zarzecks: what beer are you drinking tonight?
zarzecks: boo
robertbanh: what’s the #1 book in your library, fiction or work related, doesn’t matter
shanink: thank you! :D
jonathan: that’s a tough question
robertbanh: favorite?
shanink: or one that you’d read again, no question
robertbanh: no, u can answer how u like
shanink: right, robertbanh
whitneyhess mod: Time and Again, Jack Finney
robertbanh: i’m buying that book tonight!
zarzecks: really great b!ook
zarzecks: *book!
robertbanh: like max tivoli and time traveler’s wife
RodrigoSanchez: thanks as always whitney. ps i got my copy of objectified :-) looking forward to watching it this weekend.
robertbanh: thank you!
whitneyhess mod: Sketching User Experiences, Bill Buxton
jonathan: Whitney’s Book Club ;)
shanink: thank you, thank you
jonathan: thank you
jodyferry: good night. See ya! :)
Pedro Belleza: Thanks!
jgilkey: thank you :)
jonathan: good night!
lwcavallucci: Hi Whitney, I’m listening in, but working at same time. Great Whithour tonight.

JOIN ME NEXT WEEK

Monday, August 23, 10-11pm Eastern Time at http://www.livestream.com/whithour (new location), and bring your questions!

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