South By Southwest Slog

Participating in SXSW 2010 reminded me what a privilege it is to work in the interactive industry. There were a couple of wow moments both big and small, but mostly it was the conversations with developers, UX practitioners and social media leaders that bring home what how exciting it is to be a part of this digital revolution.

And, for the most part, SXSW highlights the fact that we’re doing it “right.”  Development success story after development success story reveals an industry deeply rooted in the customer experience.  Jason Fried notwithstanding, successful properties are placing user feedback, testing and product iteration at the center of their innovation processes.

A few examples: Google integrates user testing as frequently as possible into all product development, Facebook lab testing stories abounded, Intuit’s Turbo Tax turns to customers for help with marketing plans and understanding mental models as frequently as once per week.

Here’s another takeaway.  Convergence is not impending, it’s just plain here.  Video, music, the web, television and digital social interaction are all blending from their once very separate channels into our various computing devices.  This means that the development and presentation norms and standards that we’ve long used to develop software interfaces are now being applied to nearly every aspect of our lives from music library and play software, to e-books, to banking transactions and grocery shopping.  

As we augment nearly every aspect of our lives with a digital reality, it’s imperative to remember that listening carefully to users, and incorporating their needs and their reactions into the Web sites and Web processes that we are developing is crucial to our success.  Cheers to those of us who are doing it right!