Attending: 

* MikeMigurski (stamen)
* JayCross
* RashmiSinha
* RowanNairn
* KaiKunz
* CrisPerdue
* JesseAndrews (Tux for Kids)
* AdamMarsh
* EugeneEricKim

context: 

* [FLOSS Usability Sprint http://www.flossusability.org/]

ExtremeProgramming criticisms: 

* ring of snakes -- stringing together all the bad practices
** if you don't do one thing "extremely" enough, everything breaks apart

idea of agile versus extremeprogramming is right idea 

"The Only Sustainable Advantage" 

* John Hagel and John Seeley Brown
* two points of views
** take innovative people, jam them together, give them an impossible deadline, or other constraint for ProductiveFriction
** see if what they do can be generalized

need intermediary between user and developer -- HCI person 

IWP 

* capturing user interaction
* HTML-based
* not OpenSource
* CrisPerdue

fight for control 

* usability practitioner knows how to understand the user
* front-end before code

before coding: what's the point? 

survival of the fittest in the ecosytem 

* learn from failed projects
* only works with public apps
** what about apps developed internally?

Adam went through process 

* two people drawing screen
* went to mockup tool
* alpha in Ruby On Rails
* framework allows you to prototype so fast, tension disappears

open source for developers usable 

can user be part of conversation? 

* can be bad
** if you want to observe behavior, if they are aware, that ruins it
* we all like what we know more than we know what we like

huge part of design is marketing 

be careful about what you use as your model 

* may have very different user base

SocialText usability needs improvement! 

* SocialtextHiringForUsability if you're looking -- AdinaLevin

lot of work of usability person is to fight battles 

* get data to prove points to marketing and tech

very powerful to get developer to watch user 

one approach: transfer of usability knowledge to developers, rather than involving usability professionals 

is role of marketing usability? 

* no
* original purpose of marketing was understanding users
* turned out to be easier to make users want something than it was to understand what they wanted
* marketing often not qualified to design your product

what are Firefox's best practices? 

whoever is in charge must be focused on the user experience 

best customers won't tell you if they don't like your product. they just won't buy it. 

tension: do you just do the feature customer wants to pay for, or do you focus on usability which may require feature removal

See Also: SocialtextHiringForUsability