Category: Blog

Weekend Favs February 8th written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week. I don’t go into depth about the finds, but I encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online […]

Low Budget, Big Impact: Crafting Video Ads with Humor written by Jarret Redding read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Emily McGregor

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Emily McGregor, founder of Penguin Cat Creative, a copywriting agency specializing in high-converting marketing funnels and campaigns. With over 20 years of experience in video marketing, comedic content, and creative advertising, Emily has helped bestselling authors, top influencers, and e-commerce brands craft compelling, humor-driven video ads that engage audiences and drive sales.

During our conversation, Emily shared powerful insights on how businesses—regardless of budget—can leverage humor in marketing to enhance customer engagement, build a strong brand voice, and create video ads that resonate. By tapping into emotional marketing, storytelling in marketing, and advertising psychology, brands can stand out in a crowded digital landscape.

Emily McGregor’s expertise in comedic advertising and creative video ads proves that humor, when done right, can be a game-changer in digital marketing strategies. Whether you’re working with a tight budget or looking to refresh your brand voice, leveraging humor can lead to more customer connection, higher social media engagement, and increased sales conversion.

Key Takeaways:

• Comedy is a powerful marketing tool – Humor in marketing creates instant emotional connections, increasing customer trust and engagement. It helps brands stand out while making complex topics more relatable.
• Know your audience deeply – Effective comedy in branding requires understanding your audience’s pain points, language, and humor style to craft content that truly resonates.
• Lean into constraints for creativity – Limited budgets shouldn’t be seen as obstacles; instead, they can inspire innovative, high-converting marketing strategies. Simple locations, clever concepts, and strong storytelling in marketing can outperform high-budget productions.
• Authenticity matters in video ads – Today’s consumers are drawn to real, engaging content. A well-crafted, humorous video marketing campaign builds customer connection and drives social media engagement.
• Storytelling drives success – The best video marketing isn’t just about jokes; it’s about weaving humor into compelling narratives that highlight brand voice and reinforce marketing funnels.
• Test, refine, and optimize – Creating impactful comedic content involves iteration. Even professional comedians tweak their jokes based on audience response—businesses should do the same with their marketing campaigns.

Chapters:

[00:09] Introducing Emily McGregor
[01:12] What is Comedic Content?
[02:32] Comedy Great for Customer Connections
[03:44] Is There a Formula to Funny?
[04:27] Comedy Communicates You Understand
[05:47] How Low Budget Ads Can Compete
[08:49] Developing a Brand Voice with Humor
[09:57] Which Industries Can Use Comedy?
[10:59] The Comedy Writing Process
[13:49] When Jokes Fall Flat
[14:25] Understanding Your Ideal Client
[15:47] What is the Place of Video in Marketing Channels?

More About Emily McGregor: 

• Check out Emily McGregor’s Website
• Connect with Emily McGregor on LinkedIn

A new video that shows a possible 007 from the past has recently surfaced online, while we’re all wringing our arms over the personality of the next James Bond. The picture from 2006 displays Henry Cavill running through ranges from GoldenEye as part of a screen test for Casino Royale. Cavill’s ranges recreate the initial exchange between […]

The first article on Den of Geek was Henry Cavill’s James Bond Audition Tape Evidence That He Could Still Get a Wonderful 007.

In the ‘ 90s, there was a dramatic series between system and PC games. Most PC names were created solely for the mouse and keyboard, and many activities that were first released on PC previously received console ports ( and vice versa ). There is much less information about troubleshooting online than there is today because these first PC games were infamously finicky to fit. This was still centuries before YouTube and Reddit did go online.

However, if you could overcome those issues, you would be rewarded with cutting-edge game. The 90s PC gaming picture was a golden age of developers taking huge risks, creating whole new genres, and pushing new titles ‘ graphics cards far beyond what consoles of the time was complete. These are the 15 best Desktop activities of the ‘ 90s.

15. Components

Nowadays, MMORPGs are a dime a dozen, but in 1999, the idea of an online only 3D game where you could play alongside other players ( or fight them in PvP ) was unimaginable. Given the show’s then-beefy system requirements and how uncommon it was to discover a reliable internet connection to also play it, one of the genre’s main pioneers, EverQuest, wasn’t very visible either. These were the time when most people were also relying on AOL and ring off, after all.

EverQuest, however, provided an addictive glance of the types of experiences that would occupy gaming in the upcoming decades for those who could find online. Even though EverQuest‘s popularity has declined, it is still astonishingly popular and also gets new expansions on a regular basis.

14. False Tournament

False Tournament wasn’t the first website FPS to recognize just how significant the competitive website part would be in these headings moving forward. Certain, there’s a barebones plan around, but most people rarely touched it. False Tournament’s main attraction was always the abundance of online options that allowed you to modify every match to give you the experience you desired.

Put in some of the best first-person guns ever created, some of which are still relevant today, and you have a winner.

13. The Secret of Monkey Island

Adventure activities had long been a popular form of PC games in the 1980s, but some of the best titles in the music emerged in the 1990s. This beautiful time kicked off in 1990 with The Secret of Monkey Island. First of all, pirates are fantastic and frequently work well in movie games, and Guybrush Threepwood, a young pirate, is one of the funniest and most attractive characters in all of video games.

The Secret of Monkey Island features some excellent graphics from the time, as well as strange and wonderful scenarios and ingenious puzzles. Plus, it was much more visible than other adventure activities, which tended to be staggeringly difficult if you made the slightest error. This game has a reason to remain a significant effect on adventure sports.

12. Society II

Is Civilization II the best film in the series? Far from it, though, because the sequel capitalized on everything the original ones did so also. To be clear, everything here is excellent. Due to AI that significantly improved on the initial show’s and its numerous options for both conflict and politics, Civilization II is still the deepest technique game of the 1990s.

Society II has its mad fans despite the better sequels. In 2012, one Redditor renowned posted about his decade-long sport where three societies were continually locked in radioactive conflict and climate catastrophe. Some 90s video games have that kind of replay value.

11. Insects Armageddon

Insects Armageddon is one of those activities that “feels” right. The sport has a great voice that is both dreadful and in love with its unique irony. Armageddon actually does seem like it may start at any time, but it’s just as likely to come from a Holy Hand Grenade as an air attack.

The science are expertly tuned, regardless of whether the weaponry are normal or crazy. Whether you’re playing online or the surprisingly extensive single-player campaign, success or failure not feels cruel. There’s a good reason why, even after many sequel, this is still widely considered the height of the Worms company.

10. Dark Forces from Star Wars

With the huge acceptance of Doom in the’ 90s, all Dark Forces definitely needed to be a success was get a half decent Star Wars-skinned Doom copy, and everyone would have loved it. At first glance, this classic shooter appears to be exactly like it, but once you really get into it, it becomes obvious that the developers were much more focused on pushing the genre ahead than making a low, licensed cash-in.

We now take for granted a number of FPS ideas from Dark Forces, including climbing, the ability to glance up and down, the addition of puzzles and more challenging vision objectives, and levels with many floors. While it definitely claws the look and sound of the Star Wars movie, those innovations made it a lover preferred even among those hardly know a weapon from a mild change.

9. SimCity 2000

Have you ever thought you could run your town better than the people in charge? You have, of course! SimCity 2000 provided players with everything they could ever need to construct the city of their dreams, including roads, libraries, and a variety of power plant types. Tax your citizens until they flee, or cut your budget to the bare minimum. Then there was the option to simply try to rebuild from the ground up and completely resurrect your efforts with natural disasters. The choices were almost limitless.

SimCity 2000 was a massive success, and since EA obtained the rights to the series, they’ve tried to reboot the series every few years. However, none of those games have quite the same level of pure gameplay bliss as this gem, despite the better graphics.

8. Diablo

Yes, Diablo II is far superior to the first film, but it also came out in 2000, making it unqualified from this list. The first Diablo game is incredibly entertaining and addictive despite having three fundamental classes and much less loot than the many games it would inspire.

A lot of it is the setting. Diablo‘s dark, foreboding atmosphere has always helped it stand out, making it a favorite since its very first release. Who would have imagined how enjoyable going to Hell would be?

7. The Dark Project is Thief:

Many people were completely rethinking what could be accomplished in the medium after watching Thief. Sure, screenshots made this look like another first-person shooter ( hardly an anomaly in the late’ 90s ), but the actual stealth gameplay was far ahead of anything else on the market at the time. You avoided facing off against your foes. Instead of using distractions to your advantage, you had to use stealth, hiding in the shadows, and using it.

These ideas went on to the influence other fan-favorite series, such as Hitman and Splinter Cell, and then appeared in all sorts of other genres as well to varying degrees of success. Even though Thief was incredibly influential, Looking Glass Studios, a developer, shut down in 2000, and subsequent sequels from other developers didn’t have nearly as much of an impact or success as the first game.

6. Planescape: Torment

The original Baldur’s Gate might be included on this list, you might think. Sure, that was a fantastic CRPG from the 1990s, but even though the two titles have many similarities and even operate on the same basic engine, Planescape: Torment actually has a lot of similarities.

Planescape: Torment is just a much more unique game, exploring some of the darker, more bizarre worlds of Dungeons &amp, Dragons. A welcome new approach to the genre was put forth by the less emphasis on combat, especially given how well-written every last line of dialogue is and how many different directions the plot can take.

5. Quake II

With significant successes like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, id Software was at the height of its abilities in the 1990s. Simply put, the legendary developers had no business being wrong. All the work they put into the first-person shooter genre ultimately culminated in Quake II. The 3D graphics were among the most advanced ever created at the time of its release.

More importantly, the gameplay provided support for it. The game was fast, smooth, and challenging, with a lengthy single-player campaign. One of the best multiplayer shooters of the decade was the best option once you had finished that. Even now, Quake II performs surprisingly well if you can find a few other gamers who are willing to play it online.

4. System Shock 2

One of the first FPS games to realize that a view could be used for more than just shooting was System Shock 2. This is an early sci-fi horror masterpiece that will disturb you just as often as it will give you something to fire a weapon at. Additionally, it still offers a ton of RPG customization, which is another rarity in the genre at the time.

System Shock 2 has the feel of a game from the 2020s with a few changes, despite its original release in 1999. This was a wildly ambitious game that years ahead of its time. Unfortunately, as is often the case, that meant the general public was unsure of what to make of it, and early sales were low, even if critics were enthusiastic about it. At least it has received a lot more attention over the past few decades, and a remake is on the horizon.

3. Secondly, blaring

The Wasteland and its numerous strange inhabitants were a wonderful introduction in the original Fallout. The second game is even better, even if it doesn’t change a whole lot from the first. Despite having less advanced 3D graphics than more recent Fallout games, it still retains many of the gameplay concepts from earlier games.

The game’s title is more about finding original ways to complete each quest than combat. Usually that means using your head, or talking your way out of trouble. Some of the best post-apocalyptic role-playing there is.

2. StarCraft

StarCraft is still widely regarded as the best of the many real-time strategy games that were a PC staple for the majority of the 1990s. The strength of StarCraft rests in its balance. Sure, there are similarities between the game’s three playable races, but each of them have their own unique units, strengths, and weaknesses that ensure no one side has an advantage over the others.

In the 2000s, StarCraft attracted a sizable professional community, particularly in South Korea, where the top players were renowned athletes. Because of its flawless design, it was one of the first to attract such a large professional audience. Even now, it’s still highly debatable whether another RTS ( including StarCraft II ) is as well-designed as this classic.

1. Half-Life

There was still only ever going to be one title at the top of this list, despite how innovative and eclectic PC games were in the 1990s. Half-Life wasn’t just a tremendous first-person shooter, it was a landmark title that moved the entire industry forward and established Valve as a powerhouse developer that basically runs the PC game market to this day with Steam.

Half-Life‘s genius is how the shooting takes a backseat to the storytelling. No other game has used scripted scenes as effectively as they did before, or told a compelling story. You really couldn’t wait to see what would happen to Gordon Freeman next. Even though Half-Life 3 seems as elusive as ever after all these years, we still want to know what happens to him next.

The first post on Den of Geek was titled” 15 Best PC Games of the &#8217, 90s.”

In the open circle of Florence, Italy, on February 7, 1497, the Dominican reverend Girolamo Savonarola and his followers burned works of art and literary works. Decrying these things as obstacles that change the person’s focus from God, they called the fire” the Fire of the Vanities”. The expression has been repeatedly used ]…

The most depressing 90s film by Brian De Palma is then free to watch website if you dare.

In the ‘ 90s, there was a dramatic series between system and PC games. Some PC games that were first released on PC never received system ports ( and vice versa ), and the majority of PC games were built entirely with a mouse and keyboard. There is much less information about debugging online than there is today because these earlier PC games were also extremely finicky to mount. This was still centuries before YouTube and Reddit did go online.

However, if you could overcome those issues, you would receive cutting-edge game. The 90s PC gaming scene was a golden age when developers took great risks, full genres were created, and fresh titles continually push graphics cards beyond what consoles of the time may perform. These are the 15 best Desktop activities of the ‘ 90s.

15. Components

Nowadays, MMORPGs are a dime a dozen, but in 1999, the idea of an online only 3D game where you could join guilds and explore with other players ( or fight them in PvP ) was mind-blowing. Given the show’s then-beefy system requirements and how uncommon it was to discover a trustworthy internet connection to also play it, one of the genre’s main pioneers, EverQuest, wasn’t very accessible sometimes. These were the time when most people were also relying on AOL and ring off, after all.

Source, however, gave those who could access the online experience that may predominate gambling in the upcoming decades an addictive glimpse of the genre. Even though EverQuest‘s popularity has declined, it is still astonishingly popular and actually gets new expansions on a regular basis.

14. False Tournament

False Tournament wasn’t the first virtual FPS to recognize how significant the competitive website part would be in these titles moving forward. Certain, there’s a barebones plan around, but most people rarely touched it. False Tournament’s most impressive feature was the abundance of online options, which allowed you to modify each fit to give you the desired experience.

Put in some of the best first-person shooters ever created, some of which are still relevant today, and you have a winner.

13. The Secret of Monkey Island

Adventure activities had long been a popular form of PC games in the 1980s, but some of the best titles in the music emerged in the 1990s. This beautiful time kicked off in 1990 with The Secret of Monkey Island. First of all, thieves are fantastic and frequently work well in movie matches, and aspiring rogue Guybrush Threepwood is one of the funniest and most charming figures in all of video game.

The Secret of Monkey Island features some excellent design at the time, as well as weird and wonderful scenarios and ingenious riddles. Plus, it was much more available than other adventure activities, which tended to be staggeringly difficult if you made the slightest error. This game has a reason to remain a significant impact on adventure games.

12. Culture II

Which of the line ‘ best episodes is Civilization II? Far from it, though, because the sequel built on anything they did so nicely. It wasn’t a great game at the time. To be clear, everything here is excellent. Due to AI that significantly improved on the initial show’s and its numerous options for both conflict and politics, Civilization II is still the deepest technique game of the 1990s.

Culture II has rabid fans despite the better sequel. In 2012, one Redditor legend posted about his decade-long sport where three societies were continually locked in radioactive conflict and climate catastrophe. Some 1990s video games have that kind of endurance.

11. Insects Armageddon

Insects Armageddon is one of those activities that “feels” right. The sport has a great tone that is both adored and dreadful. Armageddon actually does seem like it may start at any time, but it’s just as likely to come from a Holy Hand Grenade as an air attack.

The science are flawless, no matter whether they are normal or crazy. Whether you’re playing online or the surprisingly extensive single-player campaign, success or failure not feels cruel. There’s a good reason why, even after many sequel, this is still widely considered the height of the Worms company.

10. Dark Forces: Star Wars

With the huge popularity of Doom in the’ 90s, all Dark Forces definitely needed to be a success was get a half decent Star Wars-skinned Doom clone, and everyone would have loved it. At first glance, this classic shooter appears to be exactly like it, but once you start playing, it becomes clear that the creators were much more focused on pushing the genre forward than producing a cheap, licensed cash-in.

We now take for granted certain FPS concepts from Dark Forces, such as jumping, the ability to look up and down, the inclusion of puzzles and more challenging mission objectives, and levels with multiple floors. While it absolutely nails the look and sound of the Star Wars movie, those innovations made it a fan favorite even among those barely know a lightsaber from a light switch.

9. SimCity 2000

Have you ever thought you could run your town better than the people in charge? You do, of course! With the addition of schools, libraries, roads, and a variety of power plant types, SimCity 2000 gave players everything they could ever need to construct the city of their dreams. Tax your citizens until they flee, or cut your budget to the bare minimum. Then, with natural disasters, you could simply try to rebuild from scratch. The choices were almost limitless.

SimCity 2000 was a massive success, and since EA obtained the rights to the series, they’ve tried to reboot the series every few years. None of those games, however, have quite the same level of pure gameplay pleasure as this gem.

8. Diablo

Yes, Diablo II is far superior to the first film, but it also came out in 2000, making it exempt from this list. The first Diablo game is incredibly fun and addictive, despite being a very simple action RPG with three fundamental classes and much less loot than the many games it would inspire.

A lot of it is the setting. Diablo‘s dark, foreboding atmosphere has always helped it stand out, making it a favorite since its very first release. Who would have imagined how enjoyable going to Hell would be?

7. The Dark Project is Thief:

Thief is one of those games that made a lot of people completely reevaluate what could be accomplished in the medium. Sure, screenshots made this look like another first-person shooter ( hardly an anomaly in the late’ 90s ), but the actual stealth gameplay was far ahead of anything else on the market at the time. You didn’t want to face off against your own enemies. Instead, using distractions to your advantage, hiding in the shadows, and using stealth were the keys to progress.

These ideas went on to the influence other fan-favorite series, such as Hitman and Splinter Cell, and then appeared in all sorts of other genres as well to varying degrees of success. Even though Thief had a significant impact, Looking Glass Studios, a company that created sequels for other developers, lost business in 2000, and the sequels didn’t have nearly as much of an impact or success as the first game.

6. Planescape: Torment

The original Baldur’s Gate might be included on this list, you might think. Sure, that was a fantastic CRPG from the 1990s, but even though the two titles have many similarities and even operate on the same basic engine, Planescape: Torment actually has a lot of similarities.

Planescape: Torment is just a much more unique game, exploring some of the darker, more bizarre worlds of Dungeons &amp, Dragons. A welcome new approach to the genre was put forth by the less emphasis on combat, especially given how well-written every last line of dialogue is and how many different directions the plot can take.

5. Quake II

With significant successes like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom under its belt, id Software was at the height of its capabilities in the 1990s. The legendary developers were utterly incapable of doing anything wrong. All the work they put into the first-person shooter genre ultimately culminated in Quake II. The 3D graphics were among the most advanced ever created at the time of its release.

More importantly, the gameplay provided support for it. The game was fast, smooth, and challenging, with a lengthy single-player campaign. One of the best multiplayer shooters of the decade was the best option once you had finished that. Even now, Quake II performs surprisingly well if you can find a few other gamers who are willing to play it online.

4. System Shock 2

One of the first FPS games to realize that the view could be used for more than just shooting was System Shock 2. This is an early sci-fi horror masterpiece that will disturb you just as often as it will give you something to fire a weapon at. Additionally, there is a ton of RPG customization, which is another rarity in the time.

System Shock 2 was originally released in 1999, but it almost feels like it could be a game from the 2020s with a few changes. This was a wildly ambitious game that years ahead of its time. Unfortunately, as is often the case, that meant that even though critics adored it, early sales were low. At least it has received a lot more attention over the past few decades, and a remake is currently being planned.

3. Secondly, blaring

The first Fallout was a fantastic introduction to Wasteland and its numerous odd residents. The second game is even better, even if it doesn’t change a whole lot from the first. Despite having less advanced 3D graphics than more recent Fallout games, it still retains many of the gameplay concepts from earlier games.

The game’s title is more about finding original ways to complete each quest than combat. Usually that means using your head, or talking your way out of trouble. Some of the best old-school role-playing in the world is apocalyptic.

2. StarCraft

StarCraft is still widely regarded as the best of the many real-time strategy games that were a PC staple for the majority of the 1990s. StarCraft‘s genius lies in its balance. Sure, there are similarities between the game’s three playable races, but each of them have their own unique units, strengths, and weaknesses that ensure no one side has an advantage over the others.

In the 2000s, StarCraft was one of the first to attract a sizable professional community, especially in South Korea, where top players were renowned athletes. Because of this, it became one of the first to attract a sizable professional community. Even now, it’s still highly debatable whether another RTS ( including StarCraft II ) is as well-designed as this classic.

1. Half-Life

There was still only ever going to be one title at the top of this list, despite how innovative and eclectic PC games were in the 1990s. Half-Life wasn’t just a tremendous first-person shooter, it was a landmark title that moved the entire industry forward and established Valve as a powerhouse developer that basically runs the PC game market to this day with Steam.

Half-Life‘s genius is how the shooting takes a backseat to the storytelling. No other game had used scripted scenes as well as they did before, or told a story that was so compelling .Scripted scenes are now overused. You really couldn’t wait to see what would happen to Gordon Freeman next. Even though Half-Life 3 seems as elusive as ever after all these years, we still want to know what happens to him next.

The first post on Den of Geek: 15 Best PC Games of the &#8217, 90s appeared first.

horizontal outlines and distinctive black and white stripes. Sullen emotions and pale skin tones. disheveled tresses and frequently handcrafted specific outcomes. There are some common threads and themes in Tim Burton’s films. So much so that 40 years after his directorial career began, Burton’s films remain instantly recognizable and a good gateway to]… ]

Every Tim Burton film was initial ranked from worst to best in Den of Geek.

There was a dramatic distinction between pc games and PC games in the 1990s. Many sports that second released on Computers never received system ships ( and vice versa ), and most Computer names were built specifically for a mouse and keyboard. There is much less information about debugging online than there is today because these first PC games were also extremely finicky to mount. Before Reddit and YouTube may be available online, this was still years old.

But if you could get past those concerns, the prize was cutting edge games. The 90s PC gambling scene was a golden age when developers took great risks, full genres were created, and fresh titles continually push graphics cards beyond the capabilities of traditional consoles. The top 15 PC game released in the 1990s are listed below.

15. Components

MMORPGs are a dime a dozen nowadays, but in 1999, the idea of an online-only 3D game where you could join guilds and adventure with other players ( or fight them in PvP ) was mind blowing stuff. Given the show’s then-beefy system requirements and how uncommon it was to discover a reliable internet connection to also play it, one of the genre’s main pioneers, EverQuest, wasn’t very visible either. After all, these were the times when the majority of people still relied on AOL and dial-up.

But for those who may find online, EverQuest provided an addictive view of the type of encounters that would occupy games in the coming years. Even though EverQuest‘s popularity has declined significantly from what it once was, it is still unexpectedly active online and also receives fresh expansions on an annual basis.

14. False Tournament

False Tournament wasn’t the first website FPS to recognize how significant the competitive website part would be in these titles moving forward. Yes, there is a stripped-down campaign around, but the majority of people have never touched it. The legend of Unreal Tournament was always the success of online choices that let you change each fit to get the actual knowledge you were looking for.

Put in some of the best first-person snipers of all time, which are still a part of the music today, and you have the formula for one of the best and most important first-person shooters ever created.

13. The Secret of Monkey Island

Adventure activities had long been a popular form of PC games in the 1980s, but some of the best titles in the music emerged in the 1990s. The Secret of Monkey Island, the start of this beautiful years, was released in 1990. First off, pirates are simply wonderful, and tend to work wonderful in movie games, and aspiring pirate Guybrush Threepwood is one of the funniest and most charming characters in all of gaming.

The Secret of Monkey Island features some excellent graphics from the time, as well as strange and wonderful scenarios and clever puzzles. Additionally, it was much more playable than other adventure games, which were frequently incredibly challenging if you made the slightest error. There’s a reason why this game continues to be a huge influence on adventure games.

12. Civilization II

Is Civilization II the best in the series? Far from it, though, because it wasn’t a great game in its day, but because the sequels built on everything it did so well. To be clear, everything is fantastic here. Civilization II is still the deepest strategy game of the’ 90s thanks to AI that vastly improved on the original game’s, and its multitude of options for both combat and diplomacy.

Civilization II has rabid fans despite the better sequels. One Redditor famously posted about his decade-long game in which three civilizations were perpetually locked in nuclear war and climate catastrophe in 2012, in which case one of the world’s most famous people made a famous post. Few games from the ‘ 90s have that kind of longevity.

11. Armageddon: The Worms

Worms Armageddon is one of those games that just “feels” right. The game has a fantastic tone that is both dreadful and in love with its own absurdity. Armageddon appears to be ready to launch right away, but it’s just as likely to do so with an airstrike as a Holy Hand Grenade.

Whether the weapons are conventional or ridiculous, the physics are finely tuned. Whether you’re playing multiplayer or the surprisingly extensive single-player campaign, success or failure never feels unfair. This is still widely regarded as the pinnacle of the Worms franchise for a good reason even after numerous sequels.

10. Dark Forces: Star Wars

Everyone would have adored a halfway decent Star Wars-skinned Doom clone, which was what all Dark Forces really needed to succeed in due to the enormous popularity of Doom in the 1990s. At first glance, that’s exactly what this classic shooter looks like, but when you actually dive into it, it’s clear that the developers were much more interested in pushing the genre forward than cranking out a cheap licensed cash-in.

We now take for granted a number of FPS concepts from Dark Forces, including jumping, the ability to look up and down, the inclusion of puzzles and more challenging mission objectives, and levels with multiple floors. Even though it completely recreates the Star Wars film’s appearance and sound, those changes made it a favorite even among those who don’t know a lightsaber from a light switch.

9. SimCity 2000

Have you ever believed that you could lead your town more effectively than the locals? Of course you have! With the addition of schools, libraries, roads, and a variety of power plant types, SimCity 2000 gave players everything they could ever need to construct the city of their dreams. If you want to reduce your budget to the absolute minimum, tax your citizens until they flee. Then there was the ability to just destroy all of your hard work with natural disasters and try to rebuild from the ground up. The choices were almost limitless.

Since EA has the rights to the series, SimCity 2000 has been a huge success, and they have tried to reboot the series every few years. But while those games all look better, none have matched the pure gameplay bliss of this gem.

8. Diablo

Yes, Diablo II is far superior to the original, but it also came out in 2000, disqualifying it form this list. The first Diablo game is incredibly fun and addictive, despite being a very simple action RPG with three fundamental classes and much less loot than the many games it would inspire.

The setting plays a significant role in it. The dark, foreboding atmosphere of Diablo has always helped set it apart, and made it a fan favorite from this very first release. Who would have imagined going to Hell to be so enjoyable?

7. Thief: The Dark Project

Many people were completely rethinking what could be accomplished in the medium after watching Thief. Sure, screenshots made this appear like another first-person shooter ( which was unsurprising in the late 1990s ), but the actual stealth gameplay was far superior to anything else on the market at the time. You didn’t want to confront enemies head on. Instead of using distractions to your advantage, you had to use stealth, hiding in the shadows, and using it.

These concepts eventually had an impact on other fan-favorite television shows like Hitman and Splinter Cell, and they were then translated into various other genres with varying degrees of success. As hugely influential as Thief was, developer Looking Glass Studios went out of business in 2000, and later sequels from other developers didn’t have anywhere near the same impact or success as the first game.

6. Torment in Planescape

You might think that the original Baldur’s Gate would be on this list. Sure, that was a fantastic CRPG from the 1990s, but even though the two titles have many similarities and even operate on the same basic engine, Planescape: Torment actually has a lot of similarities.

Dungeons & Dragons explores some of the darker, more bizarre worlds in Planescape: Torment, which is just much more distinctive. The reduced emphasis on combat was a welcome new approach for the genre, especially considering just how well-written every last line of dialogue is, and how many different directions the story can go in.

5. Quake II

With monumental releases like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom under its belt, id Software was at the height of its powers in the ‘ 90s. The legendary developers were simply unable to do any wrong. All the effort they put into creating the first-person shooter genre culminated in Quake II. At the time of release, the 3D graphics were among the most advanced ever seen.

More importantly, the gameplay provided support for it. With a lengthy single-player campaign, the game was quick, smooth, and challenging. Once you got through that, it was time to take things online with one of the best multiplayer shooters of the decade. Even now, if you can find a few other gamers willing to play Quake II online, it still performs surprisingly well.

4. System Shock 2

One of the first FPS games to realize that a view could be used for more than just shooting was System Shock 2. This early sci-fi horror masterpiece will both unnerve you and give you something to fire at. On top of that, it still has tons of RPG customization, another rarity in the genre at the time.

System Shock 2 was originally released in 1999, but it almost feels like it could be a game from the 2020s with a few changes. Years in the makings of this game, it was incredibly ambitious. Unfortunately, as is often the case, that meant the public at large didn’t quite know what to make of it, and early sales were low, even if critics loved it. At least it has received a lot more attention over the past few decades, and a remake is currently in development.

3. Fallout 2

The Wasteland and its numerous strange inhabitants were a wonderful introduction in the original Fallout. Even though it doesn’t significantly alter much from the first, the second game is even better. Though it lacks the 3D graphics of newer Fallout games, it still features many of the gameplay ideas that are present in modern entries.

The game’s name is more about finding original ways to complete each quest than combat, according to its name. Typically, that means using your head or speaking your way out of trouble. This is some of the best apocalyptic old-school role-playing around.

2. StarCraft

Real-time strategy games were a PC staple for much of the ‘ 90s, but StarCraft is still widely considered the very best of these titles. StarCraft excels in its balance. Although the three playable races in the game share similarities, each has its own unique units, advantages, and weaknesses, making sure no one side has an advantage over the other.

StarCraft is so perfectly designed that it became one of the first to garner a sizable professional community, particularly in South Korea where top players were full-on celebrities in the 2000s. Even now, it’s still highly debatable whether another RTS ( including StarCraft II ) is as well-designed as this classic.

1. Half-Life

There was still only ever going to be one title at the top of this list, despite how innovative and eclectic PC games were in the 1990s. Half-Life was more than just a fantastic first-person shooter; it was a groundbreaking title that revolutionized the entire gaming industry and established Valve as a top developer who essentially controls the PC game market with Steam today.

The genius of Half-Life is how the shooting takes a backseat to the storytelling. No other game had used scripted scenes as well as they did before, or told a story that was so compelling .Scripted scenes are now overused. You were so eager to see what Gordon Freeman would become next. Hell, we still want to know what happens to him next, though Half-Life 3 seems as elusive as ever after all these years.

The first post on Den of Geek was titled” 15 Best PC Games of the &#8217, 90s.”

There was a sharp distinction between pc games and PC games in the 1990s. Most PC names were created solely for a mouse and keyboard, and many games that were first released on Computers never received system ships ( and vice versa ). There was much less information in these first PC games, and they were also extremely finicky to mount.

On Den of Geek, the article 15 of the best PC activities of the 1990s first appeared.

In the ‘ 90s, there was a dramatic series between system and PC games. Most PC names were created solely for a mouse and keyboard, and many games that were first released on Computers never received system ships ( and vice versa ). There is much less information about debugging online than there is today because these earlier PC games were also extremely finicky to mount. This was still centuries before YouTube and Reddit did go online.

However, cutting-edge entertainment was the reward if you could overcome those flaws. The 90s PC gaming scene was a golden age when developers took great risks, full genres were created, and fresh titles continually push graphics cards beyond what consoles of the time may perform. These are the 15 best Desktop games of the ‘ 90s.

15. Components

Nowadays, MMORPGs are a dime a dozen, but in 1999, the idea of an online only 3D game where you could play alongside other players ( or fight them in PvP ) was unimaginable. Given the game’s then-beefy system requirements and how uncommon it was to get a reliable internet connection to actually enjoy it, one of the genre’s big pioneers, EverQuest, wasn’t particularly visible either. These were the times when most people were also relying on AOL and ring off, after all.

Source, however, offered an addictive view of the gaming genre that would rule the upcoming decades for those who could access it online. Even though EverQuest‘s popularity has declined, it is still astonishingly popular and also gets new expansions on a regular basis.

14. False Tournament

False Tournament wasn’t the first website FPS to recognize how significant the competitive website part would be as these titles progressed. Certain, there’s a barebones plan around, but most people rarely touched it. False Tournament’s main attraction was always the abundance of online options that allowed you to modify every match to give you the experience you desired.

Add in some of the best first-person guns of all time, which are still a part of the music today, and you have the formula for one of the best and most important first-person shooters ever created.

13. Monkey Island’s Key

Adventure activities had long been a popular form of PC game in the 1980s, but some of the best titles in the style emerged in the 1990s. This beautiful years kicked off in 1990 with The Secret of Monkey Island. First of all, thieves are fantastic and frequently work well in movie matches, and aspiring rogue Guybrush Threepwood is one of the funniest and most charming figures in all of video games.

The Secret of Monkey Island features some excellent graphics at the time, as well as weird and wonderful scenarios and clever puzzles. Plus, it was much more accessible than other adventure games, which tended to be crushingly difficult if you made the slightest mistake. This game has a reason to remain a significant influence on adventure games.

12. Civilization II

Is Civilization II the best film in the series? Far from it, though, because it wasn’t a great game in its day, but because the sequels built on everything it did so well. To be clear, everything here is fantastic. Due to AI, which significantly improved on the original game’s, and its numerous options for both combat and diplomacy, Civilization II is still the deepest strategy game of the 1990s.

Civilization II has rabid fans despite the better sequels. In 2012, one Redditor famously posted about his decade-long game where three civilizations were perpetually locked in nuclear war and climate calamity. Few 90s video games have that level of replayability.

11. Worms Armageddon

Worms Armageddon is one of those games that just “feels” right. The game has a fantastic tone that is both adored and dreadful. Armageddon really does seem like it could launch at any moment, but it’s just as likely to come from a Holy Hand Grenade as an air strike.

The physics are expertly tuned, regardless of whether the weapons are conventional or ridiculous. Whether you’re playing multiplayer or the surprisingly extensive single-player campaign, success or failure never feels unfair. There’s a good reason why, even after multiple sequels, this is still widely considered the pinnacle of the Worms franchise.

10. Dark Forces: Star Wars

With the massive popularity of Doom in the’ 90s, all Dark Forces really needed to be a success was be a halfway decent Star Wars-skinned Doom clone, and everyone would have loved it. At first glance, this classic shooter appears to be exactly like it, but once you actually get into it, it becomes obvious that the developers were much more focused on pushing the genre forward than making a cheap, licensed cash-in.

The inclusion of puzzles and more challenging mission objectives, levels with multiple floors, and jumping were some of the concepts in the FPS genre that we now take for granted. While it absolutely nails the look and sound of the Star Wars movie, those innovations made it a fan favorite even among those barely know a lightsaber from a light switch.

9. SimCity 2000

Have you ever thought you could run your town better than the people in charge? You have, of course! SimCity 2000 provided players with everything they could ever need to construct the city of their dreams, including roads, libraries, and a variety of power plant types. Tax your citizens until they flee, or cut your budget to the bare minimum. Then there was the option to simply try to rebuild from the ground up and completely resurrect your efforts with natural disasters. The choices were almost limitless.

SimCity 2000 was a massive success, and since EA obtained the rights to the series, they’ve tried to reboot the series every few years. None of those games, however, have quite the same level of pure gameplay pleasure as this gem.

8. Diablo

Yes, Diablo II is far superior to the first film, but it also came out in 2000, making it exempt from this list. The first Diablo game is incredibly entertaining and addictive despite having three fundamental classes and much less loot than the many games it would inspire.

A lot of it is the setting. Diablo‘s dark, foreboding atmosphere has always helped it stand out, making it a favorite from its very beginning release. Who would have imagined how enjoyable going to Hell would be?

7. The Dark Project is Thief:

Thief is one of those games that made a lot of people completely reevaluate what could be accomplished in the medium. Sure, screenshots made this look like another first-person shooter ( hardly an anomaly in the late’ 90s ), but the actual stealth gameplay was far ahead of anything else on the market at the time. You didn’t want to face off against your own enemies. Instead, the secret to progressing was to use distractions to your advantage, hide in the shadows, and use it.

These ideas went on to the influence other fan-favorite series, such as Hitman and Splinter Cell, and then appeared in all sorts of other genres as well to varying degrees of success. Even though Thief was incredibly influential, Looking Glass Studios, a developer, shut down in 2000, and subsequent sequels from other developers didn’t have nearly as much of an impact or success as the first game.

6. Planescape: Torment

You might assume that the original Baldur’s Gate would appear on this list. Sure, that was a fantastic CRPG from the 1990s, but even though the two titles have many similarities and even operate on the same basic engine, Planescape: Torment actually has a lot of similarities.

Planescape: Torment is just a much more unique game, exploring some of the darker, more bizarre worlds of Dungeons &amp, Dragons. A welcome new approach to the genre was put forth by the less emphasis on combat, especially given how well-written every last line of dialogue is and how many different directions the plot can take.

5. Quake II

With significant successes like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom under its belt, id Software was at the height of its capabilities in the 1990s. Simply put, the legendary developers had no business being wrong. All the work they put into the first-person shooter genre ultimately culminated in Quake II. The 3D graphics were among the most advanced ever created at the time of its release.

More importantly, the gameplay provided support for it. The game was fast, smooth, and challenging, with a lengthy single-player campaign. One of the best multiplayer shooters of the decade was the best option once you had finished that. If you can find a few other gamers who are willing to play Quake II online, it still performs surprisingly well.

4. System Shock 2

One of the first FPS games to realize that the view could be used for more than just shooting was System Shock 2. This is an early sci-fi horror masterpiece that will disturb you just as often as it will give you something to fire a weapon at. Additionally, it still offers a ton of RPG customization, which is another rarity in the genre at the time.

System Shock 2 has the feel of a game from the 2020s with a few changes, despite its original release in 1999. This was a wildly ambitious game that years ahead of its time. Unfortunately, as is often the case, that meant that the general public was unsure of what to make of it, and early sales were low, despite the fact that critics had praised it. At least it has received a lot more attention over the past few decades, and a remake is currently in development.

3. a total of 2

The Wasteland and its numerous strange inhabitants were fantastic to meet in the first Fallout. The second game is even better, even if it doesn’t change a whole lot from the first. Even though it lacks the 3D graphics from more recent Fallout games, it still retains many of the gameplay concepts that are present in contemporary games.

The game’s name is more about finding original ways to complete each quest than combat. Usually that means using your head, or talking your way out of trouble. This is some of the best old-school role-playing that is post-apocalyptic.

2. StarCraft

Real-time strategy games were a popular PC feature for much of the 1990s, but StarCraft is still regarded as one of the best of these titles today. StarCraft excels in its balance. Sure, there are similarities between the game’s three playable races, but each of them have their own unique units, strengths, and weaknesses that ensure no one side has an advantage over the others.

In the 2000s, StarCraft attracted a sizable professional community, particularly in South Korea, where the top players were renowned athletes. Because of its flawless design, it was one of the first to attract such a large professional audience. Even now, it’s still highly debatable whether another RTS ( including StarCraft II ) is as well-designed as this classic.

1. Half-Life

There was still only ever going to be one title at the top of this list, despite how innovative and eclectic PC games were in the 1990s. Half-Life wasn’t just a tremendous first-person shooter, it was a landmark title that moved the entire industry forward and established Valve as a powerhouse developer that basically runs the PC game market to this day with Steam.

Half-Life‘s genius is how the shooting takes a backseat to the storytelling. No other game had used scripted scenes as well as they did before, or told a story that was so compelling .Scripted scenes are now overused. You really couldn’t wait to see what would happen to Gordon Freeman next. Even though Half-Life 3 seems as elusive as ever after all these years, we still want to know what happens to him next.

The first post on Den of Geek was 15 of the best PC games of the &#8217, 90s.

We concur that computer-generated heads may make excellent personas, but not for the reason you might think. Ironically, the website highlights the core issue of this very common design method: the person ( a ) does not exist. Personas are deliberately created, just like in the photos. Data is combined with natural environment to create a singular, unrealized preview.

But strangely enough, manufacturers use personalities to encourage their style for the real world.

Personas: A action up

Most manufacturers have at least once in their careers created, used, or encountered identities. In their content” Personas- A Plain Introduction”, the Interaction Design Foundation defines profile as “fictional characters, which you create based upon your study in order to reflect the unique user types that might use your service, product, site, or brand”. Personas typically consist of a name, profile picture, quotes, demographics, goals, needs, behavior in relation to a particular service/product, emotions, and motivations ( for example, see Creative Companion’s Persona Core Poster ). According to design firm Designit, the goal of personas is to “make the research relateable, ]and ] easy to communicate, digest, reference, and apply to product and service development.”

The decontextualization of identities

Personalities are well-known because they make “dry” research information more realistic and people. However, this approach places a cap on the author’s ability to analyze the data in a way that excludes the subjects from their particular contexts. As a result, personalities don’t describe important factors that make you realize their decision-making method or allow you to connect to users ‘ thoughts and behavior, they lack stories. You are aware of the persona’s actions, but you lack the knowledge to know why. You end up with less human-like user images.

This “decontextualization” we see in identities happens in four way, which we’ll discuss below.

People are assumed to be dynamic, according to people.

Here’s a painfully obvious truth: people are not a fixed set of features. Although many businesses still try to box in their employees and customers with outdated personality tests ( referring to you, Myers-Briggs ), You act, think, and feel different according to the situations you experience. You may behave helpful to some people and harshly to others because you come across as different from everyone. And you constantly refute the selections you’ve made.

Modern psychology agree that while persons usually behave according to certain styles, it’s actually a combination of history and culture that determines how people act and take decisions. The context determines the kind of person you are at each particular time, including the environment, the effect of other persons, your mood, and the whole story that led up to a situation.

Personas do not account for this variability in their attempt to simplify reality; instead, they present a user as a fixed set of features. Like personality tests, personas snatch people away from real life. Even worse, people are labeled as” that kind of person” with no means to exercise their natural flexibility. This behavior defies stereotypes, diminishes diversity, and doesn’t reflect reality.

Personas focus on individuals, not the environment

You’re designing for a context, not an individual, in the real world. There are environmental, political, and social factors to consider when a person lives in a family, a community, or an ecosystem. A design is never meant for a single user. Instead, you create a design for one or more specific situations where a large number of people might use that product. However, personas don’t explicitly describe how a user feels about the environment, rather than show the user.

Would you always make the same decision over and over again? Despite your pledge to eat vegan, you may still choose to purchase some meat when your relatives visit. Your decisions, including your behavior, opinions, and statements, are not only completely accurate but highly contextual because they depend on a range of circumstances and variables. The persona that “represents” you wouldn’t take into account this dependency, because it doesn’t specify the premises of your decisions. It doesn’t give a justification for your behavior. People practice the well-known attribution error, which states that they too often attribute others ‘ behavior to their personalities and not to the circumstances.

As mentioned by the Interaction Design Foundation, personas are usually placed in a scenario that’s a” specific context with a problem they want to or have to solve “—does that mean context actually is considered? Unfortunately, what frequently occurs is that you choose a fictional character to play with a particular circumstance based on the fiction. How could you possibly comprehend how someone you want to represent behave in new circumstances given that you haven’t even fully investigated and understood the current context of the people you want to represent?

Personas are meaningless averages

A persona is depicted as a specific person but is not a real person, as stated in Shlomo Goltz’s introduction article on Smashing Magazine; rather, it is synthesized from observations of many people. The famous USA Air Force design planes were designed based on the average of 140 of their pilots ‘ physical dimensions, with not a single pilot actually fit within that average seat, is a well-known criticism of this aspect of personas.

The same limitation applies to mental aspects of people. Have you ever heard a famous person say something like,” They took what I said out of context!” I didn’t mean it that way when they used my words. The celebrity’s statement was reported literally, but the reporter failed to explain the context around the statement and didn’t describe the non-verbal expressions. In the end, the intended meaning was lost. You do the same when you create personas: you collect someone’s statement ( or goal, or need, or emotion ), whose meaning can only be understood if you give its own particular context, and then report it as an isolated finding.

But personas go a step further, extracting a decontextualized finding and joining it with another decontextualized finding from somebody else. The resultant set of findings frequently lacks clarity and even contrast because it lacks the fundamental justifications for and how that finding came about. It lacks any significance. And the persona doesn’t give you the full background of the person ( s ) to uncover this meaning: you would need to dive into the raw data for each single persona item to find it. What then is the persona’s usefulness?

The validity of personas can be deceiving.

To a certain extent, designers realize that a persona is a lifeless average. Designers create “relatable” personas to make them appear like real people in order to overcome this. Nothing better explains the absurdity of this than a phrase from the Interaction Design Foundation,” Add a few fictional personal details to make the persona a realistic character.” In other words, you add non-realism in an attempt to create more realism. Wouldn’t it be much more responsible to emphasize that John is only an abstraction while deliberately obscuring the fact that” John Doe” is an abstract representation of research findings? Let’s say something is artificial, and let’s say it is.

It’s the finishing touch of a persona’s decontextualization: after having assumed that people’s personalities are fixed, dismissed the importance of their environment, and hidden meaning by joining isolated, non-generalizable findings, designers invent new context to create ( their own ) meaning. As with everything they produce, they do so by introducing a lot of biases. As Designit suggests, as designers, we can” contextualize]the persona” based on our experience and reality. We create connections that are familiar to us“. With each new detail added, this practice deviates from people’s actual reality, reinforces stereotypes, and doesn’t reflect real-world diversity.

To conduct effective design research, we must report the “as-is” reality and make it relatable for our audience so that everyone can use their own empathy and formula for their own interpretation and emotional response.

Dynamic Selves: The alternative to personas

What should we do instead of using personas?

Designit suggested utilizing mindsets rather than personas. Each Mindset is a” spectrum of attitudes and emotional responses that different people have within the same context or life experience”. It challenges designers to avoid becoming fixated on just one person’s way of life. Unfortunately, despite being a step in the right direction, this proposal disregards the fact that people are influenced by how their personality, behavior, and, yes, mindset are shaped by their surroundings. Therefore, Mindsets are also not absolute but change in regard to the situation. What determines a particular Mindset, remains to be seen.

Another option is provided by Margaret P., the author of the article” Kill Your Personas,” who has argued for replacing personas with persona spectrums that include a range of user abilities. For example, a visual impairment could be permanent ( blindness ), temporary ( recovery from eye surgery ), or situational (screen glare ). Because they recognize that the context is the pattern, not the personality, Persona spectrums are extremely useful for more inclusive and context-based design. However, their only drawback is that they have a very functional perspective on users that misses the relatability of a real person viewed from within a spectrum.

In developing an alternative to personas, we aim to transform the standard design process to be context-based. Contexts are generalizable and have patterns that we can recognize, just like we tried to do this with people before. How do we find these patterns, then? How do we ensure truly context-based design?

Understand real people in a variety of contexts

Nothing about reality can be more relatable and inspiring. Therefore, we have to understand real individuals in their multi-faceted contexts, and use this understanding to fuel our design. Dynamic Selves is how we define it.

Let’s take a look at how the approach looks based on an illustration of how one of us used it in a recent study that examined Italians ‘ habits around energy consumption. We drafted a design research plan aimed at investigating people’s attitudes toward energy consumption and sustainable behavior, with a focus on smart thermostats.

1. Select the appropriate sample.

When we argue against personas, we’re often challenged with quotes such as” Where are you going to find a single person that encapsulates all the information from one of these advanced personas]? ]” The answer is straightforward: you don’t have to. Your insights need not be extensive and meaningful, as you don’t need to know much about everyone.

In qualitative research, validity does not derive from quantity but from accurate sampling. You pick the people who best fit the “population” you’re designing for. If you select the right sample and have a deep understanding of the sampled people, you can infer how the rest of the population thinks and acts. There’s no need to study seven Susans and five Yuriys, one of each will do.

In the same way, you don’t need to comprehend Susan in fifteen different ways. You have understood Susan’s plan of action once you have seen her in a few different settings. Not Susan as an atomic being but Susan in relation to the surrounding environment: how she might act, feel, and think in different situations.

It becomes clear why each person should be portrayed as an individual because each already represents an abstraction of a larger group of people in similar circumstances because each person is representative of a portion of the total population you’re researching. You don’t want to see abstractions of abstractions! These selected people need to be understood and shown in their full expression, remaining in their microcosmos—and if you want to identify patterns you can focus on identifying patterns in contexts.

However, the question remains: how do you select a sample representative? First of all, you must consider who the target market is for the product or service you are designing. It might be helpful to take into account the company’s objectives and strategy, the current customer base, and/or a potential future target audience.

In our example project, we were designing an application for those who own a smart thermostat. Everyone in their home could have a smart thermostat in the future. However, only early adopters currently own one. To build a significant sample, we needed to understand the reason why these early adopters became such. We then recruited by enticing customers to explain their needs and sources of purchase. There were those who had made the decision to purchase it, those who had been influenced by other people’s decisions, and those who had discovered it in their homes. So we selected representatives of these three situations, from different age groups and geographical locations, with an equal balance of tech savvy and non-tech savvy participants.

2. Conduct your research

After having chosen and recruited your sample, conduct your research using ethnographic methodologies. This will give you more examples and anecdotes to enrich your qualitative data. Given COVID-19 restrictions, we turned an internal ethnographic research project into home-based remote family interviews that were followed by diary research in our example project.

To gain an in-depth understanding of attitudes and decision-making trade-offs, the research focus was not limited to the interviewee alone but deliberately included the whole family. With the additions or corrections made by wives, husbands, children, or occasionally even pets, each interviewee would tell a story that would then become much more engaging and precise. We also paid attention to the behaviors that came from having relationships with other meaningful people ( such as coworkers or distant relatives ) and the relationships that came from those relationships. This wide research focus allowed us to shape a vivid mental image of dynamic situations with multiple actors.

It’s crucial that the scope of the study remain broad enough to cover all potential actors. Therefore, it typically works best to define broad research areas with broad questions. Interviews are best set up in a semi-structured way, where follow-up questions will dive into topics mentioned spontaneously by the interviewee. The most insightful findings will be made with this open-minded “plan to be surprised.” One of our participants responded to our question about how his family controlled the house temperature by saying,” My wife has not installed the thermostat’s app; she uses WhatsApp instead. If she wants to turn on the heater and she is not home, she will text me. I serve as her thermostat.

3. Analysis: Create the Dynamic Selves

You begin to represent each individual as a series of dynamic selves during the research analysis, each” Self” representing a particular context. A quote serves as the foundation of each Dynamic Self, which is supported by a photo and a few relevant demographics that serve as examples of the larger picture. The research findings themselves will show which demographics are relevant to show. In our case, the important demographics were family type, number and type of houses owned, economic status, and technological maturity because our research focused on families and their way of life to understand their needs for thermal regulation. The individuals ‘ names and ages are optional, but they were included to facilitate the stakeholders ‘ transition from personas and allow them to connect multiple actions and contexts to the same person.

To capture exact quotes, interviews need to be video-recorded and notes need to be taken verbatim as much as possible. This is crucial to ensuring that each participant’s various selves are truthful. Photos of the setting and anonymized actors are necessary to create authentic selves in ethnographic research conducted in real life. Ideally, these photos should come directly from field research, but an evocative and representative image will work, too, as long as it’s realistic and depicts meaningful actions that you associate with your participants. One of our interviewees, for instance, shared a story of how he used to spend weekends with his family in his mountain home. We depicted him hiking with his young daughter as a result.

At the end of the research analysis, we displayed all of the Selves ‘” cards” on a single canvas, categorized by activities. Each card featured a situation with a quote and a distinctive image. Each participant had several cards about themselves.

4. Identify creative uses

You will start to notice patterns once you have taken all of the main quotes from the interview transcripts and diaries and written them down as self-cards. These patterns will highlight the opportunity areas for new product creation, new functionalities, and new services—for new design.

There was a particularly intriguing insight around the concept of humidity in our example project. We became aware of the importance of humidity monitoring for health and how an environment that is too dry or wet can cause respiratory problems or worsen already existing ones. This highlighted a big opportunity for our client to educate users on this concept and become a health advisor.

Benefits of Dynamic Selves

When you conduct your research using the Dynamic Selves method, you start to notice peculiar social relations, peculiar circumstances that people face, and the consequences of their actions, as well as the fact that people are surrounded by constantly changing environments. In our thermostat project, we have come to know one of the participants, Davide, as a boyfriend, dog-lover, and tech enthusiast.

Davide is a person we might have once referred to as a “tech enthusiast.” However, there are also those who are wealthy or poor who are tech enthusiasts, whether they are single or have families. Their motivations and priorities when deciding to purchase a new thermostat can be opposite according to these different frames.

You can then generalize how Davide would act in a different situation once you have understood him in more detail and have fully grasped the underlying causes of his behavior for each circumstance. You can use your understanding of him to predict what he would think and act in the situations ( or scenarios ) you create.

The Dynamic Selves approach aims to dismiss the conflicted dual purpose of personas—to summarize and empathize at the same time—by separating your research summary from the people you’re seeking to empathize with. This is crucial because scale affects how we feel about people and how difficult it is to feel empathy for others. We have the deepest compassion for people with whom we can relate.

If you take a real person as inspiration for your design, you no longer need to create an artificial character. No more creating new plot devices to “realize” the character, no more implausible bias. Simply put, this is how they are in real life. In fact, in our experience, personas quickly become nothing more than a name in our priority guides and prototype screens, as we all know that these characters don’t really exist.

Another significant benefit of the Dynamic Selves approach is that it raises the stakes of your work: if you ruin your design, someone you and the team know and have met will suffer the consequences. It might prompt you to perform daily design checks and may prevent you from taking shortcuts.

And finally, real people in their specific contexts are a better basis for anecdotal storytelling and therefore are more effective in persuasion. In order to obtain this result, documentation of real research is necessary. It reinforces your design arguments by adding more weight and urgency:” When I met Alessandra, the conditions of her workplace struck me. Noise, bad ergonomics, lack of light, you name it. I’m afraid that if we choose to use this functionality, she’ll find her life more complicated.

Conclusion

In their article on Mindsets, Designit mentioned that “design thinking tools offer a shortcut to deal with reality’s complexities, but this process of simplification can occasionally flatten out people’s lives into a few general characteristics.” Unfortunately, personas have been culprits in a crime of oversimplification. They fail to account for the complexity of the decision-making processes of our users and don’t take into account the contexts that humans are immersed in.

Design needs to be simplified, but not to be a generalization. You have to look at the research elements that stand out: the sentences that captured your attention, the images that struck you, the sounds that linger. Use those to characterize the person in all of their contexts, and portray them. People and insights are subject to a context, but they cannot be removed because it would detract from the context’s meaning.

It’s high time for design to move away from fiction, and embrace reality—in its messy, surprising, and unquantifiable beauty—as our guide and inspiration.

” Any opinion”? is perhaps one of the worst ways to ask for suggestions. It’s obscure and unfocused, and it doesn’t give us a sense of what we’re looking for. Great comments begins sooner than we might anticipate: it begins with the demand.

It might seem contradictory to start the process of receiving feedback with a problem, but that makes sense if we realize that getting feedback can be thought of as a form of design study. The best way to ask for feedback is also to build strong questions, just like we wouldn’t do any studies without the correct questions to get the insight we need.

Design criticism is never a one-time procedure. Sure, any great comments process continues until the project is finished, but this is especially true for layout because architecture work continues iteration after iteration, from a high level to the finest details. Each stage requires its unique set of questions.

Lastly, we need to review what we received, get to the heart of its conclusions, and take action, like with any good research. Problem, generation, and evaluation. Let’s take a closer look at each of those.

The query

Being available to input is important, but we need to be specific about what we’re looking for. Any comments,” What do you think,” or” I’d love to hear your opinion” at the conclusion of a presentation are likely to generate a lot of divergent ideas, or worse, to make people follow the lead of the first speaker. And finally, we become irritated because ambiguous queries like those can result in people leaving reviews that don’t even consider keys. Which might be a savory matter, so it might be hard at that point to divert the crew to the topics that you had wanted to focus on.

But how do we enter this circumstance? It’s a combination of various components. One is that we don’t often consider asking as a part of the input method. Another is how healthy it is to assume that everyone else will agree with the problem and leave it alone. Another is that being extremely precise is frequently not necessary in non-professional debate. In short, we tend to underestimate the importance of the issues, so we don’t work on improving them.

Great questioning helps to guide and concentrate the criticism. It also serves as a form of acceptance, outlining your willingness to make remarks and the types of comments you want to receive. It puts people in the right emotional state, especially in situations when they weren’t expecting to give opinions.

There isn’t a second best method to request comments. It only needs to be certain, which can take many forms. A design for design critique that I’ve found especially helpful in my training is the one of stage over depth.

The term” level” refers to each stage of the process, which is, in our case, the design phase. The type of input changes as the consumer research moves on to the final design. But within a single stage, one might also examine whether some assumptions are correct and whether there’s been a suitable language of the amassed input into updated designs as the job has evolved. The levels of customer experience may serve as a starting point for future inquiries. What do you want to learn about venture goals? User requirements? Funnality? Material? Contact design? Data layout Interface style Navigation style? Visual layout Brand?

Here’re a some example questions that are specific and to the place that refer to different levels:

• Features: Is it desired to automate accounts creation?
• Contact design: Please review the updated movement and let me know if there are any steps or error points I may have missed.
• Information infrastructure: We have two competing bits of information on this site. Does the construction work to effectively communicate both of them?
• User interface design: What do you think about the top-of-the-page error counter, which makes sure you can see the future error even when the error is outside the viewport?
• Navigation style: From study, we identified these second-level routing items, but when you’re on the webpage, the list feels very long and hard to understand. Are there any ways to deal with this?
• The bottom-right corner’s slippery messages are clearly visible, but are they sufficient?

The another plane of sensitivity is about how heavy you’d like to go on what’s being presented. For instance, we may have introduced a new end-to-end movement, but you might want to know more about a particular viewpoint you found especially hard. This can be particularly helpful when switching between iterations because it’s crucial to identify the changes made.

There are other things that we can consider when we want to accomplish more specific—and more effective—questions.

A quick fix is to get rid of the general qualifiers from issues like “good”, “well,” “nice,” “bad,” “okay,” and” cool.” For instance, what is the question” When the wall opens and the switches appear, is this connection good”? may seem precise, but you can place the “good” tournament, and transfer it to an even better query:” When the wall opens and the buttons appear, is it clear what the next action is”?

Sometimes we do want a lot of feedback. That’s uncommon, but it can occur. In that sense, you might still make it explicit that you’re looking for a wide range of opinions, whether at a high level or with details. Or perhaps just say,” At first glance, what do you think”? so that it is obvious that what you’re asking is open ended but focused on a person’s impression after their first five seconds of inquiry.

Sometimes the project is particularly expansive, and some areas may have already been explored in detail. In these circumstances, it might be helpful to state explicitly that some parts are already locked in and aren’t accessible for feedback. Although it’s not something I’d recommend in general, I’ve found it helpful in avoiding getting back into rabbit holes like those that could lead to even more refinement if what’s important right now isn’t.

Asking specific questions can completely change the quality of the feedback that you receive. Even experienced designers will appreciate the clarity and efficiency gained from concentrating solely on what is required, and those with less refined critique skills will now be able to offer more actionable feedback. It can save a lot of time and frustration.

The iteration

Design iterations are probably the most recognizable component of the design process, and they act as a natural checkpoint for feedback. Many design tools have inline commenting, but many of them only display changes as a single fluid stream in the same file. In addition, these kinds of design tools automatically update shared UI components, make conversations disappear and require designs to always display the most recent version, unless these would-be useful features were manually disabled. The implied goal that these design tools seem to have is to arrive at just one final copy with all discussions closed, probably because they inherited patterns from how written documents are collaboratively edited. That approach to design critiques is probably not the best approach, but some teams might benefit from it even if I don’t want to be too prescriptive.

The asynchronous design-critique approach that I find most effective is to make explicit checkpoints for discussion. I’m going to use the term iteration post for this. It refers to a write-up or presentation of the design iteration that is followed by some sort of discussion thread. This can be used on any platform that can accommodate this structure. By the way, when I refer to a “write-up or presentation“, I’m including video recordings or other media too: as long as it’s asynchronous, it works.

There are many benefits to using iteration posts:

It establishes a rhythm in the design process, allowing the designer to review the feedback from each iteration and get ready for the following.
• It makes decisions visible for future review, and conversations are likewise always available.
• It keeps track of how the design evolved over time.
• It might also make it simpler to collect and act on feedback depending on the tool.

These posts of course don’t mean that no other feedback approach should be used, just that iteration posts could be the primary rhythm for a remote design team to use. And from there, there can develop additional feedback techniques ( such as live critique, pair designing, or inline comments ).

There isn’t, in my opinion, a common format for iteration posts. But there are a few high-level elements that make sense to include as a baseline:

1. The objective is.
2. The layout
3. The list of changes
4. The querys

Each project is likely to have a goal, and it should most likely be one that has already been summarized in one sentence elsewhere, such as the client brief, the product manager’s outline, or the request of the project owner. So this is something that I’d repeat in every iteration post—literally copy and pasting it. The goal is to provide context and repeat what is necessary to complete each iteration post so that there is no need to search for information in different posts. The most recent iteration post will have everything I need if I want to know about the most recent design.

This copy-and-paste part introduces another relevant concept: alignment comes from repetition. Therefore, repeating information in posts helps to ensure that everyone is on the same page.

The actual series of information-architecture outlines, diagrams, flows, maps, wireframes, screens, visuals, and any other design work that has been done is what the design is then called. In short, it’s any design artifact. In the work’s final stages, I prefer to use the term “blank” to emphasize that I’ll be displaying complete flows rather than individual screens to facilitate comprehension of the larger picture.

It might also be helpful to have clear names on the artifacts so that it is easier to refer to them. Write the post in a way that helps people understand the work. It’s not much different from creating a strong live presentation.

For a successful discussion, you should also include a bullet list of the changes made in the previous iteration to help people concentrate on what’s changed. This can be especially useful for larger pieces of work where keeping track, iteration after iteration, may prove difficult.

And finally, as noted earlier, it’s essential that you include a list of the questions to drive the design critique in the direction you want. Creating a numbered list of questions can also make it simpler to refer to each one by its number.

Not every iteration is the same. Earlier iterations don’t need to be as tightly focused—they can be more exploratory and experimental, maybe even breaking some of the design-language guidelines to see what’s possible. Then, later, the iterations begin coming to a decision and improving it until the design process is complete and the feature is ready.

Even if these iteration posts are written and intended as checkpoints, I want to point out that they are not by any means exhaustive. A post might be a draft—just a concept to get a conversation going—or it could be a cumulative list of each feature that was added over the course of each iteration until the full picture is done.

I also started using particular labels for incremental iterations over time, such as i1, i2, i3, and so on. Although this may seem like a minor labeling tip, it can be useful in many ways:

• Unique—It’s a clear unique marker. Everyone knows where to go to review things, and it’s simple to say” This was discussed in i4″ with each project.
• Unassuming—It functions like versions ( such as v1, v2, and v3 ), but versions give the impression of something big, exhausting, and complete. Iterations must be able to be exploratory, incomplete, partial.
• Future proof—It resolves the “final” naming issue that you might encounter with variations. No more files with the title “final final complete no-really-its-done” Within each project, the largest number always represents the latest iteration.

The wording release candidate (RC ) could be used to indicate when a design is finished enough to be worked on, even if there are some areas that still need improvement and, in turn, require more iterations, such as” with i8 we reached RC” or “i12 is an RC” to indicate when it is finished.

The evaluation

What usually happens during a design critique is an open discussion, with a back and forth between people that can be very productive. This strategy is particularly successful when synchronous feedback is being received live. However, when we work asynchronously, it is more effective to adopt a different strategy: we can adopt a user-research mindset. Written feedback from teammates, stakeholders, or others can be treated as if it were the result of user interviews and surveys, and we can analyze it accordingly.

This shift has some significant advantages, making asynchronous feedback particularly effective, especially around these friction points:

It makes it easier to respond to everyone.
1. It reduces the frustration from swoop-by comments.
2. It lessens our own worth.

The first friction point is having to feel pressured to respond to each and every comment. Sometimes we write the iteration post, and we get replies from our team. It’s simple, straightforward, and doesn’t cause any issues. However, there may be times when some solutions may require more in-depth discussions and the number of replies may quickly rise, which can create tension between trying to be a good team player by responding to everyone and attempting the next design iteration. This might be especially true if the person who’s replying is a stakeholder or someone directly involved in the project who we feel that we need to listen to. We must come to terms with the fact that this pressure is perfectly normal and that it’s human nature to try to accommodate those we care about. Responding to all comments at times can be effective, but when we consider a design critique more like user research, we realize that we don’t need to respond to every comment, and there are alternatives in asynchronous spaces:

One is to let the next iteration speak for itself. When the design changes and we publish a follow-up iteration, that’s the response. You could tag everyone in the previous discussion, but that’s just a choice, not a requirement.
• Another is to briefly reply to acknowledge each comment, such as” Understood. Thank you,”” Good points— I’ll review,” or” Thanks. These will be included in the upcoming iteration. In some cases, this could also be just a single top-level comment along the lines of” Thanks for all the feedback everyone—the next iteration is coming soon”!
• Another option is to quickly summarize the comments before moving on. This may be particularly helpful if your workflow uses a simplified checklist to refer to for the following iteration.

The second friction point is the swoop-by comment, which is the kind of feedback that comes from someone outside the project or team who might not be aware of the context, restrictions, decisions, or requirements —or of the previous iterations ‘ discussions. On their side, there is something that one can hope to learn: they could begin to acknowledge that they are doing this and they could be more aware of where they are coming from. Swoop-by comments frequently prompt the simple thought,” We’ve already discussed this,” and it can be frustrating to have to keep saying the same thing over and over.

Let’s begin by acknowledging again that there’s no need to reply to every comment. However, if responding to a previously litigated point might be helpful, a brief response with a link to the previous discussion for additional information is typically sufficient. Remember that repetition results in alignment, so it’s acceptable to repeat things occasionally!

Swoop-by commenting can still be useful for two reasons: they might point out something that still isn’t clear, and they also have the potential to stand in for the point of view of a user who’s seeing the design for the first time. Yes, you’ll still be frustrated, but that might at least make things better for you.

The personal stake we might have in the design could be the third friction point, which might cause us to feel defensive if the review turned into a discussion. Treating feedback as user research helps us create a healthy distance between the people giving us feedback and our ego ( because yes, even if we don’t want to admit it, it’s there ). In the end, putting everything in aggregate form helps us to prioritize our work more.

Remember to always remember that you don’t have to accept every piece of feedback, even though you need to listen to stakeholders, project owners, and specific advice. You have to analyze it and make a decision that you can justify, but sometimes “no” is the right answer.

You are in charge of making that choice as the designer who is in charge of the project. In the end, everyone has their area of expertise, and as a designer, you are the one with the most background and knowledge to make the right choice. And by listening to the feedback that you’ve received, you’re making sure that it’s also the best and most balanced decision.

Thanks to Mike Shelton and Brie Anne Demkiw for their contributions to the initial draft of this article.

One of the most powerful sweet skills we have at our disposal is the ability to work together to improve our designs while developing our own abilities and perspectives, regardless of how it is used or what it might be called.

Feedback is also one of the most underestimated equipment, and generally by assuming that we’re now great at it, we settle, forgetting that it’s a skill that can be trained, grown, and improved. Bad comments can lead to conflict on projects, lower confidence, and long-term, undermine trust and teamwork. Quality opinions can be a revolutionary force.

Practicing our knowledge is absolutely a good way to enhance, but the learning gets yet faster when it’s paired with a good base that programs and focuses the exercise. What are some fundamental components of providing effective opinions? And how can comments be changed for rural and distributed workplaces?

On the web, we may discover a long history of sequential suggestions: from the early weeks of open source, script was shared and discussed on email addresses. Developers and sprint masters discuss ideas on tickets, designers post on their favourite design tools, and so on.

Design criticism is frequently used as the term for a type of input that is given to improve our work jointly. So it shares a lot of the rules with comments in public, but it also has some variations.

The information

The material of the feedback serves as the foundation for all effective critiques, so we need to begin there. There are many versions that you can use to design your information. This one from Lara Hogan is the one I personally like best because it’s obvious and actionable.

Although this formula is typically used to provide feedback to individuals, it likewise fits really well in a style criticism because it finally addresses some of the main inquiries that we work on: What? Where? Why? How? Imagine that you’re giving some comments about some pattern function that spans several screens, like an onboard movement: there are some pages shown, a stream blueprint, and an outline of the decisions made. You notice something that needs to be improved. You’ll have a mental model that can help you be more precise and effective if you keep the three components of the equation in mind.

Here is a comment that could be given as a part of some feedback, and it might look reasonable at a first glance: it seems to superficially fulfill the elements in the equation. Does it, though?

Not sure about the hierarchy and styles of the buttons; it seems off. Can you change them?

Finding a perspective that is as specific as possible when conducting design feedback refers to more than just pointing out which area of the interface. Do you offer the user’s viewpoint? Your expert perspective? from a business perspective? The perspective of the project manager A first-time user’s perspective?

I anticipate one to go forward and the other to go back when I see these two buttons.

The why is the focus. Just pointing out a UI element might sometimes be enough if the issue may be obvious, but more often than not, you should add an explanation of what you’re pointing out.

I anticipate one to go forward and the other to go back when I see these two buttons. But this is the only screen where this happens, as before we just used a single button and an “×” to close. This seems to be breaking the consistency in the flow.

By provoking the designer’s critical thinking while receiving the feedback, the question approach is intended to provide open guidance. Notably, Lara’s equation includes a second approach: request, which instead provides instructions on how to find a particular solution. While that’s a viable option for feedback in general, for design critiques, in my experience, defaulting to the question approach usually reaches the best solutions because designers are generally more comfortable in being given an open space to explore.

For the question approach, the difference between the two can be demonstrated as an illustration:

I anticipate one to go forward and the other to go back when I see these two buttons. But this is the only screen where this happens, as before we just used a single button and an “×” to close. This seems to be breaking the consistency in the flow. Would it make sense to unify them?

Or, for the request approach:

I anticipate one to go forward and the other to go back when I see these two buttons. But this is the only screen where this happens, as before we just used a single button and an “×” to close. This seems to be breaking the consistency in the flow. Let’s make sure that all screens have the same pair of forward and back buttons.

In some situations, it might be helpful to include an additional reason why: why you think the suggestion is better.

I anticipate one to go forward and the other to go back when I see these two buttons. But this is the only screen where this happens, as before we just used a single button and an “×” to close. This seems to be breaking the consistency in the flow. Let’s make sure that all screens have the same two forward and back buttons so that users don’t get confused.

Choosing between the request and question approaches can occasionally be influenced by one’s personal preferences. I spent a while working on improving my feedback, conducting anonymous feedback reviews and sharing feedback with others. After a few rounds of this work and a year later, I got a positive response: my feedback came across as effective and grounded. until I switched teams. Surprise surprise, my next round of criticism from a specific person wasn’t very positive. The reason is that I had previously tried not to be prescriptive in my advice—because the people who I was previously working with preferred the open-ended question format over the request style of suggestions. However, there was one person in this other team who now preferred specific guidance. So I changed my feedback so that it included requests.

One comment that I heard come up a few times is that this kind of feedback is quite long, and it doesn’t seem very efficient. Yes, but no. Let’s look at both sides.

No, this style of feedback is actually efficient because the length here is a byproduct of clarity, and spending time giving this kind of feedback can provide exactly enough information for a good fix. Additionally, it can reduce misunderstandings and back-and-forth conversations in the future, boosting overall collaboration’s effectiveness and efficiency beyond the single comment. Consider the example above where the feedback would be simply” Let’s make sure that all screens have the same two forward and back buttons.” The designer receiving this feedback wouldn’t have much to go by, so they might just apply the change. The interface might change in later iterations or new features might be introduced, and perhaps the change won’t make sense anymore. Without explaining the why, the designer might assume that the change is one of consistency, but what if it wasn’t? So there could now be an underlying concern that changing the buttons would be perceived as a regression.

Yes, this type of feedback is not always effective because some comments don’t always need to be thorough, some may be obvious because of the team’s internal knowledge, which may lead to some explanations of the whys.

Therefore, the equation above is intended to serve as a mnemonic to reflect and enhance the practice rather than a strict template for feedback. Even after years of active work on my critiques, I still from time to time go back to this formula and reflect on whether what I just wrote is effective.

The tone

Feedback forms the basis for well-developed content, but that’s not really enough. The soft skills of the person who’s providing the critique can multiply the likelihood that the feedback will be well received and understood. It has been demonstrated that only positive feedback can lead to sustained change in people. It can be determined by tone alone whether content is rejected or welcomed.

Tone is crucial to work on because our goal is to be understood and have a positive working environment. Over the years, I’ve tried to summarize the required soft skills in a formula that mirrors the one for content: the receptivity equation.

Respectful feedback comes across as constructive, solid, and grounded. It’s the kind of feedback that, regardless of whether it’s positive or negative, is viewed as useful and fair.

Timing refers to when the feedback happens. When given at the wrong time, to-the-point feedback has little chance of receiving favorable reception. When a new feature’s entire high-level information architecture is about to go on sale, it might still be relevant if the questioning raises a significant blocker that no one saw, but those concerns are much more likely to have to wait for a later revision. So in general, attune your feedback to the stage of the project. Iteration in the early stages? Iteration that was later? Polishing work in progress? Each of these needs varies. The ideal setting will increase the likelihood that your feedback will be appreciated.

Attitude is the equivalent of intent, and in the context of person-to-person feedback, it can be referred to as radical candor. That entails checking whether what we have in mind will actually help the person and improve the overall project before writing. Sometimes it might be difficult to reflect on this because we might not want to admit our deep appreciation for that person. Hopefully that’s not the case, but that can happen, and that’s okay. How would I write if I really cared about them? Acknowledging that and owning that can help you make up for it. How can I stop acting aggressively? How can I be more constructive?

Form is important because having great content, perfect timing, and the right attitude might not be effective if our writing is interpreted as misunderstandings, especially in diverse and cross-cultural workplaces. There could be many reasons for this: some words might cause particular reactions, some non-native speakers might not understand all the nuances of some sentences, and other times our brains might be different and we might perceive the world differently. Neurodiversity must be taken into account. Whatever the reason, it’s important to review not just what we write but how.

A few years ago, I asked for some feedback on how I respond. I was given some sound advice, but I also got a surprise comment. They pointed out that when I wrote” Oh, ]… ]”, I made them feel stupid. That wasn’t my intention at all! I just realized that I had been giving them feedback for months and that I had always made them feel foolish. I was horrified … but also thankful. I quickly changed my spelling mistake by adding “oh” to my list of replaced words (your choice between aText, TextExpander, or others ) so that when I typed “oh,” it was immediately deleted.

Something to keep in mind is that people frequently beat around the bush, especially in teams with strong group spirit. It’s important to remember here that a positive attitude doesn’t mean going light on the feedback—it just means that even when you provide hard, difficult, or challenging feedback, you do so in a way that’s respectful and constructive. You can help someone grow the best way you can.

Giving feedback in written form can be reviewed by someone else who isn’t directly involved, which can help to reduce or eliminate any bias that might exist. I found that the best, most insightful moments for me have happened when I’ve shared a comment and I’ve asked someone who I highly trusted,” How does this sound”?,” How can I do it better”, and even” How would you have written it” ?—and I’ve learned a lot by seeing the two versions side by side.

The format

Asynchronous feedback also has a significant inherent benefit: we can devote more time to making sure that the suggestions ‘ clarity of communication and actionability fulfill two main objectives.

Let’s imagine that someone shared a design iteration for a project. You are re-reading it and leaving a comment. There are many ways to accomplish this, and context is of course important, but let’s try to think about some things that might be worthwhile to take into account.

In terms of clarity, start by grounding the critique that you’re about to give by providing context. This includes specifically describing where you’re coming from: do you have a thorough understanding of the project, or is this your first time seeing it? Are you bringing in a high-level perspective, or are you just learning the ins and outs? Are there regressions? Which user’s point of view do you consider when providing feedback? Is the design iteration at a point where it would be acceptable to ship this, or are there significant issues that need to be addressed first?

Providing context is helpful even if you’re sharing feedback within a team that already has some information on the project. And context is absolutely necessary when providing cross-team feedback. If I were to review a design that might be directly connected to my work, and if I had no idea how the project might have come to that conclusion, I would say so, highlighting my opinion as external.

We often focus on the negatives, trying to outline all the things that could be done better. That is obviously important, but focusing on the positives, especially if you saw improvement in the previous iteration, is even more crucial. Although this may seem superfluous, it’s important to keep in mind that design is a field with hundreds of possible solutions for each problem. So pointing out that the design solution that was chosen is good and explaining why it’s good has two major benefits: it confirms that the approach taken was solid, and it helps to ground your negative feedback. Sharing positive feedback can help prevent regressions on things that are going well because those things will have been identified as crucial in the long run. Positive feedback can also help, as an added bonus, prevent impostor syndrome.

There’s one powerful approach that combines both context and a focus on the positives: frame how the design is better than the status quo ( compared to a previous iteration, competitors, or benchmarks ) and why, and then on that foundation, you can add what could be improved. There is a significant difference between a critique of a design that is already in good shape and one that isn’t quite there yet.

Depersonalizing your feedback is another way to make it better: it should never be about the creator of the piece of art. It’s” This button isn’t well aligned” versus” You haven’t aligned this button well”. This can be changed in your writing very quickly by reviewing it just before sending.

One of the best ways to assist the designer who is reading your feedback is to divide it into bullet points or paragraphs, which are simpler to review and analyze one by one, in terms of actionability. For longer pieces of feedback, you might also consider splitting it into sections or even across multiple comments. Of course, it’s also possible to include screenshots or indicators for the specific area of the interface you’re referring to.

I’ve personally used emojis to enhance the bullet points in some situations. So a red square � � means that it’s something that I consider blocking, a yellow diamond � � is something that I can be convinced otherwise, but it seems to me that it should be changed, and a green circle � � is a detailed, positive confirmation. A blue spiral is also used for either something I’m uncertain about, an exploration, an open alternative, or just a note. However, I’d only use this strategy on teams where I’ve already established a high level of trust because the impact could be quite demoralizing if I had to deliver a lot of red squares, and I’d change how I’d communicate that a little.

Let’s see how this would work by reusing the example that we used earlier as the first bullet point in this list:

• 🔶 Navigation—I anticipate one to go forward and the other to go back when I see these two buttons. But this is the only screen where this happens, as before we just used a single button and an “×” to close. This seems to be breaking the consistency in the flow. Let’s make sure that all screens have the same two forward and back buttons so that users don’t get confused.
• Overall, I believe the page is strong, and this is a good candidate for our version 1. 1.0 release candidate.
• � � Metrics—Good improvement in the buttons on the metrics area, the improved contrast and new focus style make them more accessible.
• Button Style: Using the green accent in this context gives the impression that it’s a positive action because green is typically seen as a confirmation color. Do we need to look for a different shade?
• 🔶Tiles—Given the number of items on the page, and the overall page hierarchy, it seems to me that the tiles shouldn’t be using the Subtitle 1 style but the Subtitle 2 style. This will maintain consistency in the visual hierarchy.
• Background: Using a light texture is effective, but I’m not sure if doing so will cause too much noise on this kind of page. What is the thinking in using that?

What about using Figma or another design tool that enables in-place feedback to provide feedback directly? These are generally difficult to use because they conceal discussions and are harder to follow, but they can be very useful in the right context. Just make sure that each of the comments is separate so that it’s easier to match each discussion to a single task, similar to the idea of splitting mentioned above.

One last word: avoid the obvious. Sometimes we might feel good or bad about something, so we don’t say it. Or sometimes we might have a doubt that we don’t express because the question might sound stupid. Say it, that’s fine. Don’t hold it back, though. You might have to reword it a little to make the reader feel more at ease. Good feedback is transparent, even when it may be obvious.

Another benefit of asynchronous feedback is that written feedback automatically monitors decisions. Why did we do this, especially in large projects? could be a question that pops up from time to time, and there’s nothing better than open, transparent discussions that can be reviewed at any time. I advise using software to save these discussions so they can be hidden once they are resolved, for this reason.

Content, tone, and format. Each one of these subjects provides a useful model, but working to improve eight areas—observation, impact, question, timing, attitude, form, clarity, and actionability—is a lot of work to put in all at once. One way to take them one by one is to first identify the area you most need from both your own perspective and feedback from others. Then the second, followed by the third, and so on. At first you’ll have to put in extra time for every piece of feedback that you give, but after a while, it’ll become second nature, and your impact on the work will multiply.

Thanks to Mike Shelton and Brie Anne Demkiw for their contributions to the initial draft of this article.

What on earth is a passionate fatigue, then?

Envision a person determined to accomplish it all. She has two wonderful children whom she, along with her father who is also working mildly, is homeschooling during a crisis. She loves everyone at work because of how demanding her work is. She wakes up early to get some movement in ( or frequently catch up on work ), prepares dinner while the kids are having breakfast, and works while positioning herself near the end of her “fourth grade” to watch as she balances clients, tasks, and budgets. Sound like a bit? It is, even with a friendly group at home and at work.

Sounds like this person needs self-care and has too much on her disk. But no, she doesn’t have occasion for that. She begins to feel as though she’s dropping pellets. Not enough is accomplished. There’s not enough of her to be here and there, she is trying to divide her head in two all the time, all time, every time. She begins to question herself. And as those emotions become more and more real, her domestic tale becomes more and more important.

Instantly she KNOWS what she needs to do! She ought to do more.

This loop is challenging and risky. Hear why? Because when she doesn’t complete that new purpose, the narrative will only get worse. She immediately starts failing. She isn’t doing much. She is insufficient. She’ll discover more she may do because she might neglect, or perhaps her home. She doesn’t nap as much, proceed because much, all in the attempts to do more. caught in this pattern of attempting to prove herself to herself without ever succeeding. Always feeling “enough”

But, yeah, that’s what zealous burnout looks like for me. It develops gradually over the course of several weeks and months rather than immediately as a big sign. My using process appears to be moving more quickly than one’s target loss. I rate up and up and up… and therefore I simply stop.

I am the only person who has the potential.

The things that shape us are interesting. Through the camera of youth, I viewed the worries, problems, and sacrifices of someone who had to make it all work without having much. I always went without and occasionally received extras thanks to my mother’s tremendous resourcefulness and my father’s generosity.

When my mother gave me food stamps as a child, I didn’t think shame; rather, I would have good started any debates about the subject, orally eviscerating anyone who dared to criticize the handicapped girl who was attempting to ensure all of our needs were met with so little. As a child, I watched the way the worry of not making those ends meet impacted persons I love. Because I was” the one who was” make our lives a little easier, I would take on many of the physical things as the non-disabled man in my house. I soon realized that I had to put more of myself into it because I was the one who could. I learned first that when something frightens me, I may double down and work harder to make it better. I am in charge of the problem. I’ve been told that I seem courageous when people have seen this in me as an adult, but truth be told, I’m not. If I seem courageous, it’s because this conduct was forged from other people’s worries.

And here I am, surrounded by enormous tasks ahead of me, assuming that I am the one who is and therefore should, more than 30 times afterward, still feeling the urge to aimlessly drive myself forward. I feel more motivated to demonstrate that I can influence things if I put in more effort, put on more responsibilities, and demonstrate that I can influence issues.

I do not see people who struggle financially as problems, because I have seen how powerful that tide is be—it takes you along the way. I really believe I have had the opportunity to avoid many of the difficulties that came with my children. Having said that, I am also” the one who can” who believes she should, so I would think I had failed if I had to struggle to make ends meet for my own home. Though I am supported and educated, most of this is due to great wealth. But, I’ll give myself the haughtiness of claiming that my choices were wise and that they had sparked that success. I believe I am” the one who can,” so I feel compelled to do the most because of this. I can choose to halt, and with some pretty precise warm water splashed in my face, I’ve made the choice to previously. However, I don’t always choose to stop; instead, I move forward, driven by a fear that is so present that I hardly notice until I’m completely worn out.

Why all this history, then? You see, burnout is a fickle thing. Over the years, I’ve read and heard a lot about burnout. Burnout is present. Especially now, with COVID, many of us are balancing more than we ever have before—all at once! It’s difficult, and the avoidance, shutting down, and procrastination have an impact on so many amazing professionals. There are significant articles that deal with what I believe the majority of people are out there, but not me. That’s not what my burnout looks like.

The perilous invisibility of zealous burnout

In many workplaces, extra work, extra effort, and overall focused commitment are seen as an asset ( and sometimes that’s all it is ). They see someone trying to rise to challenges, not someone stuck in their fear. Many well-intentioned organizations have procedures in place to safeguard their teams from burnout. However, in situations like this, those alarms don’t always go off, and some organization members are surprised and depressed when the inevitable stop occurs. And sometimes maybe even betrayed.

When it comes to parenting, which is more so for mothers, statistically speaking, are praised for being so on top of it all when they can work, participate in after-school activities, practice self-care in the form of diet and exercise, and still meet friends for coffee or wine. Many of us watched endless streaming COVID episodes to see how challenging the female protagonist is, but she is strong, funny, and capable of doing it. It’s a “very special episode” when she breaks down, cries in the bathroom, woefully admits she needs help, and just stops for a bit. Truth be told, countless people are hidden in tears or doom-scrolling to escape. Although we are aware that the media is a lie to amuse us, the perception that it’s what we should strive for frequently permeates much of society.

Women and burnout

I cherish men. And despite the fact that I don’t love every man ( heads up, I don’t love every woman or nonbinary person either ), I think there is a wonderful range of people who fit that particular binary gender.

That said, women are still more often at risk of burnout than their male counterparts, especially in these COVID stressed times. Mothers at work experience the pressure to do everything “mom” while giving 100 %. Mothers who are not employed feel they need to do more to” justify” their lack of traditional employment. Women who are not mothers often feel the need to do even more because they don’t have that extra pressure at home. We are frequently unaware of the magnitude of the pressures we place on ourselves and others because it is vicious and systemic and a part of our culture.

And there are costs that go beyond happiness. Harvard Health Publishing released a study a decade ago that “uncovered strong links between women’s job stress and cardiovascular disease”. According to the CDC,” Heart disease is the leading cause of death for women in the United States, killing 299,578 women in 2017—or roughly 1 in every 5 female deaths,”

According to what I’ve read, this connection between work stress and health is more dangerous for women than it is for their non-female counterparts.

But what if your burnout isn’t like that either?

That might not be you either. After all, we are all unique, and so is our way of responding to stress. It’s part of what makes us human. Don’t put too much emphasis on how burnout looks; instead, learn to recognize it in yourself. What are a few questions I occasionally ask my friends if they worry about them.

Are you happy? This straightforward query ought to be your first inquiry. Even if you’re burning out doing all the things you love, you’ll probably stop enjoying yourself as you approach burnout.

Do you feel empowered to say no? I’ve observed in myself and others that when someone is going out, they no longer feel like they can say no to things. Even those who don’t” speed up” feel pressured to say “yes” to avoid apprehension.

What are three things you’ve done for yourself? We all have a tendency to stop doing things for ourselves, according to another observation. anything from avoiding conversations with friends to skipping showers and eating poorly. These can be red flags.

Are you using justifications? Many of us make an effort to avoid feeling burned out. Over and over I have heard,” It’s just crunch time”,” As soon as I do this one thing, it will all be better”, and” Well I should be able to handle this, so I’ll figure it out”. And it might actually be crunch time, a single objective, and/or a set of skills you need to master. Life happens because of that. BUT if this doesn’t stop, be honest with yourself. If you’ve worked more than 50 hours of work since January, then perhaps it’s not crunch time; perhaps it’s a bad situation you’re finding yourself in.

Do you have a strategy for overcoming this feeling? If something is truly temporary and you do need to just push through, then it has an exit route with a
defined conclusion

Take the time to listen to your friend in the same way. Be honest, allow yourself to be uncomfortable, and break the thought cycles that prevent you from healing.

So what do we do now?

What I just described is a different path to burnout, but it’s still burnout. There are well-established approaches to working through burnout:

• Get enough sleep.
• Eat well.
• Work out.
• Go outside.
• Take a break.
• Overall, practice self-care.

These are challenging for me because they seem like more tasks. Doing any of the above for me feels like a waste if I’m in the burnout cycle. The narrative is that if I’m already failing, why would I take care of myself when I’m dropping all those other balls? People need me, don’t they?

Your inner voice might already be pretty bad if you’re deeply in the cycle. If you need to, tell yourself you need to take care of the person your people depend on. Use your roles to help facilitate healing by justifying the amount of time you spend working on you if they are making you burn out.

I have come up with a few things that I do when I start to feel like I’m going into a zealous burnout to help remind myself of the airline attendant advice to put the mask on yourself first.

Cook an elaborate meal for someone!

Okay, since I’m a “food-focused” person, I’ve always been a fan of cooking for people. In my home, there are countless tales of people coming into the kitchen, turning right, and leaving when they noticed I was” chopping angrily.” But it’s more than that, and you should give it a try. Seriously. If you don’t feel like giving time for yourself, make it a priority for someone else. Most of us work in a digital world, so cooking can fill all of your senses and force you to be in the moment with all the ways you perceive the world. It can help you get a better perspective and clear your head. I’ve always had the ability to locate a location on a map and prepare food from it ( thanks, Pinterest ). I love cooking Indian food, as the smells are warm, the bread needs just enough kneading to keep my hands busy, and the process takes real attention for me because it’s not what I was brought up making. And ultimately, we all triumph!

Vent like a sniveling jerk.

Be careful with this one!

Over the past few years, I have made an effort to practice more gratitude, and I am aware of the benefits. Having said that, sometimes you just need to let it all out, even the ugly ones. Hell, I’m a big fan of not sugarcoating our lives, and that sometimes means that to get past the big pile of poop, you’re gonna wanna complain about it a bit.

When that is required, approach a trusted friend and express your concerns verbally. You must have faith in this friend not to judge you, to feel your pain, and, most importantly, to advise you to get your cranium removed from your own rectal cavity. Seriously, it’s about getting a reality check here! One of the things that I admire most about my husband is how he can simplify things down to the simplest of terms, even though sometimes after the fact. We’re spending our lives together, and I can’t wait to get over it. I’m so grateful for his words of dedication, love, and acceptance of me. It also, of course, has meant that I needed to remove my head from that rectal cavity. Again, those instances are typically appreciated in retrospect.

Grab a book, please!

There are many books out there that aren’t so much self-help as they are people just like you sharing their stories and how they’ve come to find greater balance. You might discover something that appeals to you. Among the titles that have stood out to me are:

• Thrive by Arianna Huffington
• Tim Ferriss ‘ book Tools of Titans
• Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis
• Dare to Lead by Brené Brown

Or, if I love to read or listen to a book that doesn’t have anything to do with my work-life balance, I can use another tactic. I’ve read the following books, and I think they helped to balance me out because my mind was thinking about the subjects they were interested in rather than whizzing around:

• The Drunken Botanist by Amy Stewart
• Darin Olien’s Superlife
• A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived by Adam Rutherford
• Gaia’s Garden by Toby Hemenway

If you’re not interested in reading, pick up a topic on YouTube or subscribe to a podcast. In addition to learning about raising chickens and ducks, I’ve watched countless permaculture and gardening topics. For the record, I do not have a particularly large food garden, nor do I own livestock of any kind… yet. I just find the subject fascinating, and it’s unrelated to anything that needs to be done in my life.

Give yourself a break.

You are never going to be perfect—hell, it would be boring if you were. It’s acceptable to have flaws and imperfections. It’s human nature to be depressed, anxious, and tired. It’s OK to not do it all. You can’t be brave without being imperfect, which is terrifying.

This is the most crucial part: give yourself permission to NOT do it all. You never promised to be everything to everyone at all times. We are stronger than the anxieties that motivate us.

It’s challenging. It is hard for me. That it’s okay to stop is what inspired me to write this. It’s acceptable that you have to stop an unhealthy habit that could even help you and those around you. You can still be successful in life.

We are all eulogizing how we live, according to a recent article I read. What will your professional accomplishments say, knowing that yours won’t be mentioned in that speech? What do you want it to say?

Look, I understand that none of these concepts will “fix it,” and that’s not their intention. None of us has complete control over what happens in our environment, but only how we react to it. These suggestions are to help stop the spiral effect so that you are empowered to address the underlying issues and choose your response. They are things that most of the time work for me. They might be able to work for you.

Does this sound familiar?

If something resounds familiar to you, it’s not just you. Don’t let your negative self-talk indicate that you “even burn out wrong.” It’s not wrong. Even if I’m rooted in fear like my own drivers, I think this need to do more comes from a place of love, determination, motivation, and other wonderful qualities that contribute to your incredible persona. We’re going to be fine, you see. The lives that unfold before us might never look like that story in our head—that idea of “perfect” or “done” we’re looking for, but that’s OK. Really, when we stop and look around, usually the only eyes that judge us are in the mirror.

Do you recall the Winnie the Pooh cartoon where Pooh ate so much at Rabbit’s house that his buttocks were unable to pass through the door? It came as no surprise when he abruptly declared that this was unacceptable because I already associate a lot with Rabbit. But do you recall what happened next? The big butt in his kitchen was made up of poor Pooh’s ankles and decorations, and he made the most of it.

We are resourceful and aware that we can push ourselves when necessary, even when we are exhausted or have a ton of clutter in our room. None of us has to be afraid, as we can manage any obstacle put in front of us. And maybe that means we will need to redefine success to make room for comfortable human space, but that doesn’t really sound that bad either.

So, if you’re anywhere right now, take a deep breath. Do what you need to do to get out of your head. Give thanks and take precaution.

We’ve been conversing for a long time. Whether to present information, perform transactions, or just to check in on one another, people have yammered aside, chattering and gesticulating, through spoken discussion for many generations. Only recently have we begun to write our discussions, and only recently have we outsourced them to the system, a system that exhibits a significantly higher affection for written letter than for the vernacular rigors of spoken language.

Speech is more important in laptops because it is more important than written speech in spoken and written writing. To have productive conversations with us, machines may struggle with the messiness of mortal speech: the disfluencies and pauses, the gestures and body language, and the variations in word choice and spoken dialect that is stymie even the most carefully crafted human-computer interaction. Speaking language also has the advantage of face-to-face contact, where we can easily interpret nonverbal social cues in the human-to-human scenario.

In contrast, written language develops its own fossil record of dated terms and phrases as we record it and retain usages long after they are no longer relevant in spoken communication ( for example, the salutation” To whom it may concern” ). Because it tends to be more consistent, polished, and formal, written text is fundamentally much easier for machines to parse and understand.

Spoken language lacks this luxury. There are also verbal cues and vocal behaviors that modulate conversation in nuanced ways: how something is said, not what. These are also nonverbal cues that decorate conversations with emphasis and emotional context. Whether rapid-fire, low-pitched, or high-decibel, whether sarcastic, stilted, or sighing, our spoken language conveys much more than the written word could ever muster. So as designers and content strategists, we face exciting challenges when it comes to voice interfaces, the machines we use to conduct spoken conversations.

Voice Compositions

We interact with voice interfaces for a variety of reasons, but according to Michael McTear, Zoraida Callejas, and David Griol in The Conversational Interface, those motivations by and large mirror the reasons we initiate conversations with other people, too ( ). We typically strike up a discussion by:

• we require something to be done ( such as a transaction ),
• we want to know something ( information of some sort ), or
• We are social creatures, and we need a conversation partner.

A single conversation from beginning to end that achieves some outcome for the user, starting with the voice interface’s first greeting and ending with the user exiting the interface, also fits into these three categories, which I refer to as transactional, informational, and prosocial. Note here that a conversation in our human sense—a chat between people that leads to some result and lasts an arbitrary length of time—could encompass multiple transactional, informational, and prosocial voice interactions in succession. In other words, a voice interaction is a conversation, but it is not always just one voice interaction.

Purely prosocial exchanges are more gimmicky than captivating in the majority of voice interfaces because machines are unable to yet have the capability to truly understand how we are doing and engage in the kind of glad-handing behavior that people crave. There’s also ongoing debate as to whether users actually prefer the sort of organic human conversation that begins with a prosocial voice interaction and shifts seamlessly into other types. In Voice User Interface Design, Michael Cohen, James Giangola, and Jennifer Balogh advise sticking to user expectations by imitating how they interact with other voice interfaces, which might lead to alienating them ( ).

That leaves two different types of conversations we can have with one another that a voice interface can also have easily, including one that is transactional and one that is informational, teaching us something new ( “discuss a musical” ).

Transactional voice interactions

When you order a Hawaiian pizza with extra pineapple, you’re typically having a conversation and a voice interaction when you’re tapping buttons on a food delivery app. The conversation quickly shifts from an initial smattering of neighborly small talk to the actual task at hand, which is ordering a pizza ( generously topped with pineapple, as it should be ).

Alison: Hey, how’s it going?

Burhan: Hello and welcome to Crust Deluxe! It’s chilly outside. How can I help you?

Alison, can I get a pineapple-onion pizza in Hawaii?

Burhan: Yes, but what size?

Alison: Large.

Burhan: Anything else?

Alison: No thanks, that’s it.

Burhan: Something to drink?

Alison: I’ll have a bottle of Coke.

Burhan: You are aware of it. That’ll be$ 13.55 and about fifteen minutes.

A service rendered or a product delivered: each progressive disclosure in this transactional conversation reveals more and more of the desired outcome of the transaction. Conversations that are transactional have certain characteristics: they are direct, precise, and cost-effective. They quickly dispense with pleasantries.

Informational voice interactions

While some conversations are primarily about obtaining information, some are. Though Alison might visit Crust Deluxe with the sole purpose of placing an order, she might not actually want to walk out with a pizza at all. She might be interested in trying halal or kosher dishes, gluten-free options, or something else entirely. We’re after much more than just a prosocial mini-conversation at the beginning, even though we do it once more to establish politeness.

Alison: Hey, how’s it going?

Burhan: Hello and welcome to Crust Deluxe! It’s chilly outside. How can I help you?

Alison: Can I ask a few questions?

Burhan: Of course! Continue straight ahead.

Alison: Do you have any halal options on the menu?

Burhan: Absolutely! On request, we can make any pie halal. We also have lots of vegetarian, ovo-lacto, and vegan options. Do you have any other dietary restrictions in mind?

Alison: What about pizzas that are gluten-free?

Burhan: We can definitely do a gluten-free crust for you, no problem, for both our deep-dish and thin-crust pizzas. Anything else I can say to you to help?

Alison: That’s it for now. Good to know. Thank you!

Burhan: Anytime, please.

This is a very different dialogue. Here, the goal is to obtain a particular set of facts. Informational conversations are research expeditions to gather data, news, or facts, or they are investigative quests for the truth. Voice interactions that are informational might be more long-winded than transactional conversations by necessity. Responses are typically longer, more in-depth, and carefully communicated to ensure that the customer understands the main ideas.

Voice Interfaces

At their core, voice interfaces employ speech to support users in reaching their goals. However, just because an interface has a voice component doesn’t mean that every user interacts with it through voice. We’re most concerned in this book with pure voice interfaces because multimodal voice interfaces can lean on visual components like screens as crutches, which are completely dependent on spoken conversation and lack any visual component, making them much more nuanced and challenging to deal with.

Though voice interfaces have long been integral to the imagined future of humanity in science fiction, only recently have those lofty visions become fully realized in genuine voice interfaces.

IVR ( interactive voice response ) systems

Written conversational interfaces have been used for computing for many years, but voice interfaces first started to appear in the early 1990s with text-to-speech ( TSS) dictation programs that recited written text aloud as well as speech-enabled in-car systems that gave directions to a user-provided address. With the advent of interactive voice response ( IVR ) systems, intended as an alternative to overburdened customer service representatives, we became acquainted with the first true voice interfaces that engaged in authentic conversation.

IVR systems made it easier for businesses to cut down on call centers, but they soon gained a reputation for their clunkiness. Similar to the corporate world, these systems were primarily created as metaphorical switchboards to direct customers to a real phone agent (” Say Reservations to book a flight or check an itinerary” ), and chances are you’ll have a conversation with one when you call an airline or hotel conglomerate. Despite their functional issues and users ‘ frustration with their inability to speak to an actual human right away, IVR systems proliferated in the early 1990s across a variety of industries (, PDF).

IVR systems have a reputation for having less scintillating conversations than we’re used to in real life ( or even in science fiction ), despite being extremely repetitive and monotonous conversations that typically don’t veer from a single format.

Screen readers

Parallel to the evolution of IVR systems was the invention of the screen reader, a tool that transcribes visual content into synthesized speech. It’s the most popular way to interact with text, multimedia, or form elements for website users who are blind or visually impaired. Perhaps the closest thing we have today to an out-of-the-box delivery of content via voice is represented by screen readers.

Among the first screen readers known by that moniker was the Screen Reader for the BBC Micro and NEEC Portable developed by the Research Centre for the Education of the Visually Handicapped (RCEVH) at the University of Birmingham in 1986 ( ). The first IBM Screen Reader for text-based computers was created by Jim Thatcher in the same year, which was later recreated for a computer with graphical user interfaces ( GUIs ) ( ).

The demand for accessible website tools exploded as a result of the web’s explosive growth in the 1990s. Thanks to the introduction of semantic HTML and especially ARIA roles beginning in 2008, screen readers started facilitating speedy interactions with web pages that ostensibly allow disabled users to traverse the page as an aural and temporal space rather than a visual and physical one. In other words, screen readers for the web “provide mechanisms that translate visual design constructs—proximity, proportion, etc. in A List Apart, writes Aaron Gustafson, “into useful information.” ” At least they do when documents are authored thoughtfully” ( ).

There is a big draw for screen readers: they’re challenging to use and relentlessly verbose, despite being incredibly instructive for voice interface designers. Screen readers may not be able to read websites ‘ visual structures, which can occasionally lead to awkward pronouncements that list every manipulable HTML element and make an announcement about every formatting change. For many screen reader users, working with web-based interfaces exacts a cognitive toll.

Accessibility advocate and voice engineer Chris Maury examines why the screen reader experience is ill-suited for users who rely on voice in Wired:

I hated the way Screen Readers operated from the beginning. Why are they designed the way they are? It makes no sense to present information visually and then only to have that information translated into audio. All the time and effort put into creating the ideal user experience for an app is wasted, or worse, it has a negative effect on blind users ‘ experience. ( ) _ _ _

Well-designed voice interfaces can often beat lengthy screen reader monologues in terms of speeding up users ‘ movements. After all, users of the visual interface have the advantage of freely scurrying around the viewport to find information without worrying about it. Blind users, meanwhile, are obligated to listen to every utterance synthesized into speech and therefore prize brevity and efficiency. Users with disabilities who have long had no choice but to use clumsy screen readers might find that voice interfaces, especially more contemporary voice assistants, provide a more streamlined experience.

Voice-activated devices

When we think of voice assistants (the subset of voice interfaces now commonplace in living rooms, smart homes, and offices), many of us immediately picture HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey or hear Majel Barrett’s voice as the omniscient computer in Star Trek. Voice-activated devices are akin to personal concierges that can answer questions, schedule appointments, conduct searches, and perform other common day-to-day tasks. And they’re rapidly gaining more attention from accessibility advocates for their assistive potential.

Before the earliest IVR systems found success in the enterprise, Apple published a demonstration video in 1987 depicting the Knowledge Navigator, a voice assistant that could transcribe spoken words and recognize human speech to a great degree of accuracy. Then, in 2001, Tim Berners-Lee and others created their vision for a” semantic web agent” that would carry out routine tasks like” checking calendars, making appointments, and finding locations” ( hinter paywall ). Apple’s Siri only became a reality until 2011 when it finally made voice assistants a reality for consumers.

Thanks to the plethora of voice assistants available today, there is considerable variation in how programmable and customizable certain voice assistants are over others ( Fig 1.1 ). At one extreme, everything but vendor-provided features are locked down. For instance, when Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana were released, they couldn’t extend their existing capabilities. There are no other means by which developers can interact with Siri at a low level, aside from predefined categories of tasks like sending messages, hailing rideshares, making restaurant reservations, and other things, so even now it isn’t possible to program Siri to perform arbitrary functions.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, voice assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Home offer a core foundation on which developers can build custom voice interfaces. For this reason, developers who feel constrained by the limitations of Siri and Cortana are increasingly using programmable voice assistants that are extensibable and customizable. Google Home enables the programming of arbitrary Google Assistant skills, while Amazon offers the Alexa Skills Kit, a developer framework for creating custom voice interfaces for Amazon Alexa. Today, users can choose from among thousands of custom-built skills within both the Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant ecosystems.

As businesses like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Google continue to dominate their markets, they are also selling and open-sourcing an unmatched range of tools and frameworks for designers and developers, aiming to make creating voice interfaces as simple as possible, even without the use of any code.

Often by necessity, voice assistants like Amazon Alexa tend to be monochannel—they’re tightly coupled to a device and can’t be accessed on a computer or smartphone instead. In contrast, many development platforms, such as Google’s Dialogflow, have omnichannel capabilities that allow users to create a single conversational interface that then becomes a voice interface, textual chatbot, and IVR system upon deployment. In this design-focused book, I don’t recommend any specific implementation strategies, but in Chapter 4 we’ll discuss some of the possible effects that these variables might have on the way you construct your design artifacts.

Voice Content

Simply put, voice content is content that is delivered through voice. Voice content must be free-flowing, organic, contextless, and concise in order to preserve what makes human conversation so compelling in the first place.

Our world is replete with voice content in various forms: screen readers reciting website content, voice assistants rattling off a weather forecast, and automated phone hotline responses governed by IVR systems. We’re most concerned with the audiobook content being delivered as a requirement rather than an option.

Our initial step in informational voice interfaces will likely be to provide user content, according to many of us. There’s only one problem: any content we already have isn’t in any way ready for this new habitat. How can we make the content on our websites more conversational? And how do we create fresh copy that works with voice-activated text?

Lately, we’ve begun slicing and dicing our content in unprecedented ways. Websites are, in many ways, massive vaults of what I call macrocontent: lengthy prose that can last for miles in a browser window while extending like microfilm viewers of newspaper archives. Microcontent was defined as permalinked pieces of content that stay legible regardless of the environment, such as email or text messages back in 2002, well before the present-day ubiquity of voice assistants.

A day’s weather forcast]sic], the arrival and departure times for an airplane flight, an abstract from a long publication, or a single instant message can all be examples of microcontent. ( ) _ _ _

I would update Dash’s definition of microcontent to include all instances of bite-sized content that transcends written communiqués. After all, today we encounter microcontent in interfaces where a small snippet of copy is displayed alone, unmoored from the browser, like a textbot confirmation of a restaurant reservation. Informing delivery channels both established and novel, Microcontent provides the best opportunity to find out how your content can be stretched to the limits of its potential.

Voice content stands out as being unique because it’s an illustration of how content is experienced in space rather than time. We can glance at a digital sign underground for an instant and know when the next train is arriving, but voice interfaces hold our attention captive for periods of time that we can’t easily escape or skip, something screen reader users are all too familiar with.

We need to make sure that our microcontent truly performs well as voice content because it is essentially composed of isolated blobs without any connection to the channels where they will eventually end up. This means focusing on the two most crucial characteristics of robust voice content: voice content legibility and voice content discoverability.

Our voice content’s legibility and discoverability in general both depend on how it manifests in terms of perceived space and time.