The ZURBlog is where we discuss interaction design and strategy.

It's a well-worn argument between designers and engineers: Can you drive an emotional decision based on data? We think so! In fact, we've come up with a way to combine both personal preference and analytics for results that help everyone on the team make the best decisions.

Verify is a great way to quickly collect and analyze user feedback. We created this web-based tool to help users act on hard data, not intuition or gut-reactions.

Designers shouldn't shy away from working with data, in fact they should embrace it. Data works as an agent for esoteric ideas that may have no grounding, and it helps validate the strategy of a design concept. Before you launch a real product, be sure to collect data and learn how to use it to influence the design process in a way that supports or improves specific decisions, rather than the entire concept.

A great example of data-driven decisions came up recently with a client of ours. We weren't sure how to proceed with the timestamps on comments - do we use a literal time stamp with date and time, or a relative stamp with something like '3 days ago.' We ran a test with Verify for a day and got back some results which helped us inform the client and make a better, specific decision. Check out the results:

Verify: Timestamp Test

66 responses over 12 hours

View the Results »

Another example is this blog post - we had discussed what type of smiley face to use in the header, settling on a sketched version instead of a more graphically rich version. Were we right? Help us out by taking a new Verify test - we'll update this post with the results in a couple days.

Remember: testing and data collection tools won't do your work for you. They're not going to help your customers give you good ideas, so don't rely on them as a crutch. Data is great to have, and terrific for helping move a project forward, but be careful to ask the right questions and create good hypotheses. Otherwise, you could end up with wrong assumptions, or end up with a very different project than you originally had in mind.

There's a notion that professional designers need to show only one version of a concept to clients or stakeholders. At ZURB, we don't think that's the best rule of thumb. Although sometimes having only one version can be good for moving a project along, overall this methodology is flawed for a few reasons.

Multiple ideas create better ideas

A new spark can emerge in the process, so keep those concepts flowing. Collaboration is a great way to open up new ideas, and it helps create lots and lots of new ideas. Soliciting input from others allows you to get great ideas from numerous team members.

Focus, don't give them a buffet of options

Worry less about how many you are accumulating, and more about how you're focusing the design problem. They can be pared down later. If you're not careful developing multiple design concepts can get you into trouble. You run the risk of offering too many choices without a clear sense of direction. Showing three focused solutions is far better than showing 10 "choices." Design doesn't work like a vending machine, so if you're presenting your ideas like a snack bar, you're going to get a client selecting whatever looks tastiest at the time.

Designers need to build relationships to help clients work through decisions they may not understand. Revealing your design process with the three-concept rule builds trust and helps those who aren't design specialists understand how things will unfold.

The idea of showing three focused concepts to a client may take some getting used to, but it's the best way to help your client meet their end goals. Remember, a client or stakeholder may not understand your choice of puce green, but if it helps her solve a problem, then you're doing your job.

When working with a designer, its often easy to fall into set patterns or expectations of how a relationship will unfold during a project. Knowing what motivates the designer on your team goes a long way toward getting the results you want. Here are a few things that the motivate the designers we know.

We're Visual Translators

First of all, it's not about the money. Sure, designers care about making money just like everyone else— but we aren't going to sell our soul to get it. Many designers thrive on the thrill of creating a visual language out of abstract concepts. In fact, when it comes down to it, we're visual translators.

We're Right Brain/Left Brain

We want to exercise both our right and left brain. Sometimes designers are not too orderly in their approach to solving problems (we prefer to think of it as organized chaos). The truth is, the brain doesn't work in a linear fashion when its piecing together creative solutions. It doesn't mean we're not deadline-driven, it's just that when a design project is timeboxed, the results will reflect that.

Work with designers to channel energy that can stimulate follow through for other critical tasks. To give both the right and left brain a good workout, help designers bucket time into "project structure" time and "creative thinking" time. At ZURB, we occasionally require designers to write a business email that lays out the intent of their work before we actually start designing.

We Skip the Politics

Okay, let's be honest. Sometimes designers are a bit lazy— the path of least resistance is just fine with us. Just because you highlight the way you want something done, that doesn't mean we're automatically going to approach the problem your way. On the other hand, it doesn't mean the objectives have changed either. Political bureaucracy isn't going to encourage designers to create magic— in fact it saps their energy and keeps them from driving ideas forward. If that's lazy, so be it for a designer.

We're Vain

Finally, we just love our pixels. Vanity is a designer's weakness, but it's also a trait you can use to your benefit if you give a designer ownership of his work. Visuals have sex appeal whether there is meaning or not and designers love this control. Just realize that power can be channeled with proper goals and vision so be sure to provide this structure for designers.

Each designer has his own set of motivators. Understanding the particulars and how to address them will go a long way toward keeping your designer happy and prolific.

ZURBvision: A 3D camera built from two iPod Nanos

ZURB Office 3D Video Nate Bolt 3D Video

It came about like this: we were walking down to get coffee and discussing the finer points of Nate Bolt's SHOTS video. Nate was coming to the office to do a Soapbox and we decided two dimensions weren't enough to fully capture him, so we set about to build our own 3D camera. It was a huge success and much easier then you would think. Here is our process in three easy steps, so that you can follow along at home.

Step 1: Acquire two identical video cameras

Everyone at ZURB got an iPod Nano at the holiday party last year and two happened to be in the office on Friday, score! Attach the cameras to a fixed surface about 6-7 inches apart. I found a piece of metal and a couple rubber bands that did the trick.

You need to have the cameras pretty level with each other (think how your eyes work) but don't sweat getting them perfectly aligned, your going to fix that in step two.

Step 2: Record video from both cameras

In case this is not obvious; you're going to record from both cameras at the same time. However you don't need to start both camera at exactly the same time since we can easily sync them when we do the editing. Which brings us to the tricky part...

The end format we need is a single video file that has both sources side by side. A little Googling found a Windows app called StereoMovie Maker that will help you combine, sync and align the two videos. It's not the most intuitive software so here is the workflow we developed:

1. Transcode your video files to MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 (StereoMovie Maker only supports these formats).
2. Click File -> Open Left / Right /Movies...
3. Select your two video files.
4. Use the arrows at the bottom of the screen to sync the timing of the two videos.
5. Click Adjust -> Easy Adjustment to open the adjustment window.
6. Focus on something distinct in the background (like the power outlet in this example) and using the horizontal and vertical sliders align the red and blue images so they completely overlap
7. Click File -> Save Stereo Movie.
8. Make sure you select the Side-by-side option.
9. Select the Microsoft Video 1 compressor. YouTube has no problem reading this format and it is significantly smaller then using no compression.

If you did this all correctly then your saved video should look like this, both videos sources side by side in a single file:

Step 3: Upload to YouTube

Upload the video to YouTube and add the tag yt3d:enable=true. This tells YouTube to combine your two side by side videos into a single 3D video.

That's it; once YouTube has finished processing the video you can go to its YouTube page and test it out with your Red / Cyan glasses. If have Amber / Blue or Green / Magenta Glasses you can use those instead by toggling the 3D options next to the pop out button in the lower right hand corner of the player.

Note that embedded YouTube videos do not support 3D, you must go to the YouTube video page for this feature.

Here are the two videos we made on Friday with this setup:

ZURB Office 3D Video Nate Bolt 3D Video

Do you want to work for a company that does awesome things like building 3D cameras from scratch? Check out our talent page and show us what you got.

It’s dreadful to think about, but most of your work as a designer is about getting it wrong. Think about the last design project you worked on. How many iterations did you have to go through before you got it right? Probably quite a few.

Although few other professions spend so much time getting it wrong, it's important to realize that it's perfectly okay when designers do. Does the rest of your team understand this, or do they continually focus on wrong answers? If so, there may be a disconnect in your process, or maybe they don't understand your process at all. Be sure to let your team know that it's okay to fail as long as the end result is a win. In fact, it's more than okay— failure is the only way you'll get to a win.