Catharine Robertson gives an entertaining talk about incorporating playfulness into our designs and camaraderie into our working and client relationships.

1. That’s not a gun. It’s your finger!
Improv, play, and collaboration in UX
Catharine Robertson @cathro
The Berndt Group, Baltimore Improv Group http://www.flickr.com/photos/thechanel/330300067/

2. Tonight, we are ambitious
1. Learn about improv
2. Do some improv!
3. Relate improv to UX (user experience)
4. Relate improv to team & client
collaboration
5. A challenge related to improv &
Baltimore

4. I Baltimore
http://www.flickr.com/photos/su1droot/4653717780/

5. http://www.flickr.com/photos/-marlith-/2533256880/
Trained to think on my feet

6. 1996

7. I call myself an information architect.
Some might call what I do UX design.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kwdesigns/734124559/

8. Elements of user experience
Usability Desirability
Adoptability Value

9. Different products, different priorities
Social Online
networks
Usability Desirability dating
Enterprise
Games Adoptability Value software

10. What I do Clients/projects
• Solve business • Healthcare
problems • Financial services
• Meet • Real estate
user/customer • Nonprofits
needs
• Arts
• Education
• Technology

11. Another thing I do
• Mike Subelsky
founded BIG & was
my first improv
teacher
• Mike’s zen koan: If
you don’t fail at least
once each
rehearsal, you
haven’t tried hard
enough.

12. “Fail big, fail often”
• Perform at Chicago Improv Festival & others
• Found, direct, perform in Baltimore troupes
• Produce Baltimore Improv Festival first 5 years
• Write, perform in Stoop Storytelling live radio
shows
• Produce/direct/write/perform in Vauxhall:
Postmodern Vaudeville for Baltimore
• Not the best improviser, my strengths are more
meta--directing, big picture, producing,
audience experience

13. Improv in my work life
• more playful,
• more willing to try new things
• better at brainstorming
• empathy
• listening
• accept circumstances
• kill my darlings
• better client interaction
• better team collaboration

14. What is improv?
“Strictly speaking,
improvisation is
making it up as
you go along.”
Del Close & Charna Halpern
Truth in Comedy

15. Improv is a game,
and it has one rule.

16. “Yes, and…”

17. “Yes, and…”
Agree + add something

18. “Agreement” = acceptance
• Acceptance of
circumstances: who,
what, where
• Your finger is a gun,
you’re a hippo, you’re
at a bullfight in Spain
• Conversation
showstoppers
• “Hit the ball back”

19. “And” = add something
This restaurant looks
really fancy. I hope
we have enough
money.
[Yes, and] I hope
your boss
doesn’t order the
lobster.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonynewell/854258638/

20. Watching
“yes, and…”
in action

21. Play = agreement
establish what/who/where
agree on premise
accept all offers
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrissuderman/858914782/

22. Viola Spolin on play
• “Were they acting?
Get them to play.”
• Improvise choices
onstage, just as in
life.
• Players freed to
create new
opportunities so rules
of play are fulfilled.
• Son Paul Sills
founding director of
Second City.

23. Game: conducted story
http://www.flickr.com/photos/glasgowamateur/7705117134/

24. Sound familiar?
User experience (UX) work also includes:
• Accepting (requirements, constraints)
• Listening (to the market, to the client)
• Paying attention to the group (your team)
You each contribute to building something
for the user.

25. Similarities
Audience Users/customers
http://www.flickr.com/photos/apollonia666/391357963/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/photocapy/5628703464/
• Vital to the improviser • Vital to the UX person
• Best improv shows are • Best products are
for the audience, not designed with actual
improvisers use in mind
• No viable show without • No viable product
an audience without a user/customer

26. Know
your
audience

27. Know
your
users

28. Collaboration in improv
• “Hit the ball back” • Listen to scene
• Accept the partners
who/what/where • Everyone has a part,
circumstances even if supporting
• Add something of • Patterns emerge as
value to keep story the improvised
moving “game” of a scene

29. Collaboration in UX
• Agree on premise, • User testing is
constraints (who, collaboration with
what, where) customers
• “And” add • Common goals &
strategy lead to
something of value better product
for users/customers,
• When in doubt, test
clients
it out

30. The best collaboration
• Free of judgment (Spolin)
• Failure is encouraged (Subelsky)
• Inhibitions are shed
• Heightening of goals
• Making your partner look good makes
the team look great (Mick Napier)
• Reduces belly fat (Tina Fey)

31. What if you don’t like the idea?
Yes Accept you can’t change the
offer given you.
and… TRUST that hitting the ball back
will end up a worthwhile game.

32. Game reprise: Imaginary product
http://www.flickr.com/photos/glasgowamateur/7705117134/

33. Game recap

34. http://www.flickr.com/photos/remembertobreathe/5941642275/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dcjohn/102645614/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ifmuth/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/husein/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gundamwing4132/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dcjohn/102908841/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/hillary/445637777/

35. What are you saying “yes, and…” to
in Baltimore?

36. Want more?
• Steve Portigal @steveportigal
• Liz Danzico @bobulate
• Take a class! See a show!
bigimprov.org
• Say yes, but don’t just say yes. Add
something!

37. Catharine Robertson
@cathro
@berndtgroup
@bigimprov
@vauxhallshow
Baltimore UX Book Club
Thanks for saying yes to tonight!