Con total naturalidad, saqué mi iPhone, abrí Shazam, acerqué el teléfono al altavoz y en quince segundos tenía toda la información sobre lo que escuchábamos: autor, intérprete, nombre del disco y sello discográfico.

Me metí en Google, hice una búsqueda y conseguí la partitura en PDF. Fernando, con los ojos como platos, me miraba como si fuese el brujo del pueblo. Estaba casi en shock. No dejaba de decir cosas como “increíble” y “gracias, gracias”. Para mí, que estoy todo el día rodeado de cacharros, era lo más normal del mundo.

Al salir de su casa, todavía con la sonrisa en la cara al recordar la sorpresa de Fernando, me asaltó un pensamiento al que no dejo de darle vueltas:
“¿Y yo, cuándo fue que perdí la capacidad de asombro?”.

Me quedé un poco triste, la verdad.

This year we’re heading to Sweden once again, because there’s gonna be a new edition of From Business to Buttons and we, The Cocktail, are going to be partners. We’ve made the conference’s site, also.

It’s going to be held in Malmö, southern Sweden, on 11ht and 12th of June.

Why you should register?
Because you will be able to attend very intersting sessions and meet great speakers, like Scott Berkun (author of the books “Making things happen” and “The Myths of Innovation”) and Garr Reynolds (author of “Presentation Zen”). Of course you’ll get the chance to meet also a lot of The Cocktail guys

Why you should register RIGHT NOW?
Because there’s an early bird registration fee until April 30 and if you insert this special code: FBTBdiscount, will get an additional discount of 15%.

See you there!

How many times I’ve used the expresion “common sense” to explain what I did when I was starting into interaction design and usability. We used to say that what we do was adding common sense to the Internet, to technology and interface design. 

Not anymore.

I’m sure that common sense and “putting into the user shoes” is not enough. You need to know your user, because systems and users have evolved a lot. They have became more complex, more demanding… less naif.

User research, a discipline that seems boring and sometimes weird, is your best allied. Thanks to my colleagues from The Cocktail Analisys I confirm this certainty almost every day.  They helped us to get to know those unknown people for whom we design products.

I know I can put myself into the place of a gadget consumer or a cooking enthusiast, because I’m one of those too, but am I supposed to apply “common sense” and “empathy” with a doctor or a financial analyst? It’s completely impossible, both are so different from me that I wouldn’t know what they need if I don’t research first. 

It’s fascinating to participate in interviews and discussion groups before starting to design. You can discover hundreds of details that woul never be able to anticipate by using just common sense. And thanks to the great work of research specialists, you can have documents that support all the assumptions and decisions of the design phase.  

Today’s users & consumers dominates Internet, knows about social networks, knows how to search and compare products and solutions that satisfy his needs. And too often, knows a lot more than you.

How are you supposed to design for this new user based only on your common sense?

It’s funny, because the first thing that cames to the mind of those executives is that blogs and social tools are something for procrastination and there is no chance that they can serve as a knowldege sharing or productiviy tools. Why is that? Is it related to the technology acceptance factor?

As you all know, it takes a certain amount of time for every technology to become part of the daily lives of people. It has been that way since ever, like it was with radio, TV, computers, mobile phones… ¿Do you think this is what is happening with social applications? I’m pretty sure about it, and we need to wait until it’s whole potential it’s being recognized in some corporate environments.   

Or… maybe it’s us that we’re not doing well communicating what social applications can do for business?