Couple of us designers attended tonight’s Puget Sound SIGCHI event hosted by Google at its Fremont office. The location wasn’t new to Tab and I. 4 years ago, we both worked for the same design firm. The firm’s office was the very location Google’s at now.
This was my 2nd time attended UX event hosted by Google. From past experience, I knew the meeting room is going to be a mad house. We arrived early enough this time to score ourselves a decent spot. There was even time for a quick tour to Googl’e usability lab and eye tracking device.
The speaker tonight was Jake Knapp, UI designer at Google. Jake shared his typical day at work and how things got done in this fast pace and engineer-driven culture.
His talking points were pretty straight forward, and were already adapted by companies practicing Agile Development Manifesto. One tip particularly got me interested was the importance of presentation to UX professionals.
How design concept is conveyed to the entire team and generate great feedback relied heavily on designers’ ability to give good presentation. Just like any design project, presentation should have a goal, start from paper and sketches, and plan out a storyboard that’ll help to get your point crossed.
A list of rule of thumbs:
- Follow the 3-word rule: 3 bullets and enough said
- 10/20/30 rule by Guy Kawasaki: 10 slides, 20 minutes, and make sure use 30 pt fonts for your slides
- Be careful presenting mock-ups. Drawing is a better alternative, as the focus will not be on the design details. Also drawing invites people to participate.
Jake’s talk ended with resources on tonight’s topic:
- More tips on presentation skills, check out Presentation Zen.
- Tech tricks, tips, and downloads for getting things done – Lifehacker.
- You Tube – David Allen: Getting Things Done (46 minutes)
Living in the Seattle area, Smelly is a user experience designer by day, a running, cycling, gardening type of girl when she wasn't wearing the designer hat.
