A wee animation that explains pluggin.it

Grant MacEwan’s Com Sci program
rips into Pluggin.it – for the better.

Back in early January we attended Edmonton’s DemoCamp. I was pretty settled in my chair, barely on time, waiting for some “technical issue” to be resolved so the night could begin. Then a woman stood up in front of the crowd and introduced herself as Sharon Bratt, an instructor at Grant MacEwan College’s computer science program here in Edmonton, Alberta.

What she explained to the crowd next made me take notice. Her 2nd and 3rd year Com-Sci students were going to offer a usability testing program as part of their curriculum in 2012. Furthermore, they were looking for applicants who had web-based start-ups, who were interested in an unbiased, outside view of their emerging company/service/applications. This was an absolute gift Sharon was putting out to a room of 200+ people who are heavily involved in the Edmonton start-up community. I couldn’t believe it.

Our first crack at UX testing

In the very, very, early Keystone Light days of Pluggin.it we did usability testing to an extensive point with our personal networks. In total, we ran nearly 25 people through our UX test. We were pretty thorough with the process: video tapping users, having a controlled task list, extensive debriefing sessions with all users. We collected A LOT of information and applied that knowledge during our re-development of Pluggin.it.

However, there are pitfalls in picking such a sample. Firstly, we worked with our immediate network of colleagues, friends, and family. In such a context, people can be less forthcoming with negative feedback, especially when they know how close you are to the project. No one likes to deliver hurt feelings.

The other issue was our users’ experience level. In our case, we had a lot of experienced Internet users. It was simply the nature of our personal networks. These folks critiqued several points the average or novice internet user may not notice, and easily dealt with usability hurdles that would stump a novice. Identifying these novice red flags are the gold within the usability of any new web-based application. We were failing to identify many of them.

To the wolves…

Later this month a group of computer science students at Grant MacEwan are going to collect a qualified sample of ideal internet users (novice to intermediate in experience) and sit them down in front of our latest version of Pluggin.it. The entire process will run for nearly 2 weeks as users come in, use the site, and the UX test team evaluates their experience.

Along with a controlled lab environment, users will be observed as they move through a carefully constructed task list, evaluating their ease of: concept comprehension, user sign-up, and the creation/interaction of site content (ie. create a listing, plug a listing, close a listing, pay pluggers).

Following this process, the team will then collect all of the data, construct a report, and present their findings to us. We are absolutely pumped about the opportunity to get fresh eyes in front of Pluggin.it, and to receive some honest criticism from this group. The next steps for our development team will be weighing the constructive feedback and finding the time/resources to address those concerns.

So very lucky here in Edmonton

I don’t know if this is a common resource in other cities. From the other folks I have spoke with elsewhere, it’s not. We are incredibly lucky to have someone like Sharon Bratt and her students at Grant MacEwan who recognizes the value in learning this process in an academic setting, and sharing the yields of that experience with local entrepreneurs.

We expect to get a lot of great insight from the process and, while this is only a pilot project in 2012, we hope that it becomes a staple of the Grant MacEwan computer science program because formalized user testing is such an undervalued step in the start-up process.

Oh, did I forget to mention they did all of this for free!! Yeah, I know. Pretty amazing program and group of people. Thanks again!

A quick rundown on Pluggin.it

Pluggin.it’s Trevor MacDonald at the GROW 2011 Conference from Techvibes.com on Vimeo.

UX is all “growns up”?

One of the challenges we faced when evaluating the new look of Pluggin.it was trying to figure out where things were going as far as the finer points of our GUI. We did a lot of arguing, I threw a few things, Jesse shook his head more than once, we drank a few Keystone Lights, made up, and got back to working on it – and repeat. It’s a very hard process, working through an aesthetic. It’s personal, very subjective, and you can’t please everyone.

Something that gets you past these subjective humps is a technical demand list. This is basically a list of parameters that must come in priority to anything that is pretty or shines. In our case, we developed the following demands within our design:

• Template image folder must be kept to under 20 files for the entire site build.
• CSS must replace graphic implementation in all possible applications.
• Minimize page loads ( We only have one page now, and I think it’s only 100k on initial download now).

This made a pretty big difference in the way we approached the user experience. All points of information became accessible within one page, using modal windows and jQuery.

Proportion, position, and access to content

Something else happened during this process. We matured in our tastes. We confirmed a few things after spending countless hours looking at different websites, layouts, approaches to branding, and the placement of content. Big players in social media and online utilities are more focused on proportion, position, and access to content, rather than the “flavour” in which it was delivered.

In graphic design there is an old yardstick used when referring to successful logos: “if you can draw it in the sand with a stick, it’s a solid logo.” It’s a fair measure when you reflect on successful brands. The classics (McDonald’s, Shell, Pepsi, Nike, etc.) strip it down to a very simple, basic delivery. There are no shadows, gradients, bevels, or reflections needed. They, compared with the others, are more like nursery rhymes. They are easy to: interpret, recognize, navigate, and stay in your head forever.

Maturity can lead to stripping…

When you look at the recent aesthetics of heavy weights online, “less is more” seems to be winning. Facebook is about as stripped down as you can make it. The entire layout is less than a handful of hex values. Google+, and it’s design expansion into other areas of Google services, lends itself to a similar set of values.

As today’s users, we don’t shy away from the use of a 8-9px fonts for less important info (ie. Twitter), and it can be put in a light grey on white. We’re comfortable with it. We gravitate toward big, bright, and white backgrounds. In an info-hungry world we will only tolerate a fraction of a second for page downloads. If you need to divide content, just use a hairline. It’s okay, no one is judging, as long as the content is legit and arranged in an accessible means.

It’s a unique milestone in online design when the everyday user (not designer) positively reacts to the “less is more” layout. Users are well past the bells and whistles of what Photoshop can do for them. Instead, we have slowly built an appreciation for proportions, well organized content, and ease of access. With dwindling attention spans online, publishers have a growing realization that content is king and it had better come with a side of instant gratification.

As a ref to this article, I would also suggest you check out this page that lays out some methods currently employed by Google+.

Post GROW2011

Well, it was an intense 3-days in Vancouver but it didn’t disappoint. The Pluggin.it team rolled into Van late Tuesday night and headed down to the conference centre the next morning. There were closed sessions going on but it didn’t deter us from checking out the venue and poking around. First off, the VCC is an beautiful building – and I use that word sparingly in my day-to-day. Full stars to GROW on space, location, and aesthetic.

Following a wee walk-about of the area, we headed over to a Lion’s Gate pub for some pints, Setanta, and free wifi  while getting some work done. There were a few things that needed doing before we headed out to the GROW kick-off party. Just a wee 600 person mixer. Not a bad gig.

Arriving at the party you could feel the positive tech energy in the room. You could see people everywhere reconnecting, laughing, having a few cocktails, while exchanging cards and info with new introductions. Networking was a feverish theme that night. We lasted for about 3 hours with the socializing, foosball, company launches (A Thinking Ape – thanks for the shirt, Terrence), and feature booths.

Side Note: hard night of networking in Vancouver = late night sushi. Check out Tan Popo (Davie & Denmond). Unreal deal.

Day 2

Day 2 of GROW is really where everything happens. The day is jammed with speakers and it gets all kicked off with the natural investor/emcee, Howard Lindzon. He’s a riot and wicked-smaht.

The great thing about GROW is the volume of people and ideas. This really comes out more so on Day 2 than the drink infused Day 1. Because the VCC is such an immense space, it’s quite easy to identify folks in the crowd and join conversations. You quickly appreciate how many great ideas are out there and, furthermore, you are connecting with the people responsible for them. The experience becomes richer as you realize how many of these great ideas are being built in your own backyard. While we got to reconnect with our tech friends from Edmonton, we also met a long list of new friends from Calgary. This growth in our local social tech circle was such a valuable take-away from the conference.

On the other end of the spectrum you have GROW’s angels and VCs. If you are looking for this group just look for a hub of bodies patiently sauntering around one individual, jockeying for a chance to introduce themselves. More often than not, there’s a red lanyard in the centre of these huddles. A beacon for funding.

The whole thing can become a bit of a game that way. Anyone with a new idea simply wants to shake hands and exchange cards with investors, hoping for the chance to follow-up in the near future. There is a lot of ear-bending, excusing, and interrupting as angels and VCs wade through the opportunities. You can see them grow visibly tired as the day bares on. And can you blame them? 572 people in this room want to talk to you – today. It’s a tall order.

For a start-up that is the goal; meet as many investors as possible. You never really know who is looking to invest in what (within some reason) and, more importantly, you never know who knows who. Every smart start-up is looking for the “smart money”. To find it you need to do a little digging. Brochures, web profiles, and corporate websites can only tell you so much about a person’s investment interests.

For Pluggin.it, the GROW conference gave us a chance to step into a network of investors that operate outside the conference itself. We were directed to a number of different investment groups we didn’t even know existed. These bits of information and warm introductions are simply invaluable and it’s why you pay the price of admission.

Regardless of whether we: have a new idea, have capital, need capital, or need more capital; we will likely return to GROW next year. There’s great value in the seminars and contacts, but there is also a unique social aspect that a start-up can’t appreciate until going to an event like this.

Everyone wants it now…

Throughout our beta testing this year something stuck out from between the lines of our users – “I want to create, look, and/or connect with something now….” The beta version simply wasn’t fast enough. Let’s face it, page loads suck. So, this summer we tried shaving time off Pluggin.it.

A change in thinking…

During this recent round of product development we quickly realized the need to consolidate EVERYTHING into a single page. We stripped down the architecture and tried to avoid drill-down pages, multiple page logins, and the user query flow (category page > listing page > profile page…).

We really wanted to make as many things accessible, as possible; all from one place. It was a major overhaul on what we were building. U-turns are expensive.

All of  that stuff has to go in that little space, like, seriously…

When ever you are dealing with a: house, car, job, etc., there must be special provisions for specific information. And it can get lengthy.

The challenge is to pack that content creation experience into a brief moment. We want to transition a user from their feed, taking them through a series of thorough forms, uploading media, publishing the listing, and immediately syndicating it to Friend and Follower accounts. Following this, the user needs to be brought back to their query stream, feeling no sense of interruption, browsing along to the next item of interest or reward.

That’s a lot to cram into a brief moment.

Facebook does this really well…

Within the last year Facebook made some improvements….and let’s leave it at that.

There was so very much to be said about Facebook’s new take on someone else’ take of the web image gallery. Jesse and I had a few animated conversations over the new ‘Facebox’. He f#@&ing hates it, btw….Like it or not, folks are gravitating toward products they can manipulate instantly, as they do with their images/status/comments in Facebook. Users love seamless commenting, Liking, removing, editing, and updating their life in a single page load. Brilliant.

We have tried very hard to integrate these notions into our new version. We’re excited about users coming in, signing-up with the new version, and providing us with their feedback. In the meantime, forgive us if the current live version is buggy/beta. We’re moving things around, trying things out. I know, I know…we  shouldn’t do that…

Back from SF…

Well, we just wrapped up a pretty incredible week in the San Francisco / Bay Area, as well as a few other surrounding parts. Before getting down to the business side of our visit we took a little road trip out to Mavericks, hit up Santa Cruz, had a pint on the 18th hole of Pebble Beach, and took in a sunset at Carmel. Not bad. We even slipped in a Giants game against the Brewers (2-1 Giants).

Following Accelerate AB, we were inspired by a number of panelists who simply told us that if we had never been to San Francisco, get on our horse and get down there, asap. In the least, we should get a taste of what’s going on – “When you go down you’ll see that it just ‘feels’ different.” And it does.

You walk around certain areas of downtown and there are 25-35′s going from coffee shops to buildings, to subways, to incubators, and then back to a 400-500 sq ft apartment, all lugging a laptop bag behind them. What ever is in that bag might just be the next ‘big thing’. It’s inspiring when you realize that a premier portion of the free world’s tech community look to, and attempt to congregate within, a handful of area codes. Entrepreneurs looking to capitalize on very unique commercial opportunities.

On my last day I was able to meet with Atlee Clark of the C100 group at RocketSpace (181 Fremont, SF). It’s an incubator/workspace for international start-ups and currently has a solid group of Canadians working within it. Through application with the Canadian government, an accepted Canadian start-up can enjoy 3 months of free, fully equipped office space in downtown San Francisco. It clearly opens great opportunities for connecting with the right investors, garnering support, and recruiting talent.

Anyway, this week is filled with a number of slated tasks for Pluggin.it’s summer development, as well as discussing possible changes in certain areas. Oh right, and let’s not forget GROW2011 coming up. We’ve got our hands full.

Shot of RocketSpace:

There’s one last seat in the Saab

Coming off of the heels of Accelerate AB, the Pluggin.it team was inspired enough to jump online, pay the $400/per head early-bird ticket, and commit to being at GROW 2011 this August (17-19th) in Vancouver, British Columbia (http://growconf.com). It’s an exciting time over here at Pluggin.it as the development of our gold release comes along and we are looking at the prospects of investment. So, why not head out to GROW and see what is going on. Right? Right.

Presently, I hope we get accepted for the private IDEA EXCHANGE session on the 17th but spots are limited. Nonetheless, following this is two days of jam-packed info sessions and networking that we can not afford to miss. Just to kick things off on the 18th there is Howard Lindzon, CEO of StockTwits (@howardlindzon). We got to see Howard in Calgary at the Accelerate AB and he does not disappoint. He has harsh, sound knowledge that he entertainingly sprinkles with F-bombs. When you see Howard speak you just can’t deny you are getting the truth and there is no room for sugar on top.

It’s our hope to make good impressions before, during, and after GROW. If you are headed to GROW, let us know. We’re leaving from Edmonton, via Calgary, and there is one more spot left in the Saab (back seat)….

Accelerate AB – Calgary, July 13th

If you missed this event, mark it down for next year. It is the best $20 you will spend in 2012 if you are an entrepreneur / start-up in Alberta. We stumbled across it during the weeks leading up, and we weren’t sure what to expect as far as content, other than “there will be a bunch of VCs and Angels in the room”. We took that as enough of a carrot and we were registered.

Hosted Mount Royal University, the format was fairly relaxed. Four hundred of us filed into a large ballroom that had a stage at the far end. From 1-5:30 PM, Accelerate AB brought to stage some of Canada’s great tech success stories from The Valley and Bay Area of California. Guest speaker ages ranged from 20 – 5o in age and the “color” of the content did not disappoint.

As a start-up, you often come across loads of information relating to capturing venture capital or angel investment. In our experience, much of it can be very generic, obvious, safe, and nothing more than suggestive. You could say that it can be “less than inspiring”. Accelerate AB offered a body of content and conversation that was legitimate. The stories were real and much of the safe posturing was removed to reveal the bare-bones of how these Canadian start-ups, now based in California, were spurred.

While we have a lot of great technological brain power here in the north, we are a disbursed population. We don’t have a single hot pocket or mecca we can refer to, unlike The Bay or Valley. Getting exposure to this caliber of entrepreneurial talent was a great experience. As I mentioned, book early next year and expect to pay more than $20 to get in the door.

A jam-packed afternoon of great advice and motivation

Jesse Richard and Robert Murphy enjoying some cold ones at the Accelerate AB After Party (Sea Hawk Investments).

And the winner is…

This past week, (June 10th)  Pluggin.it was contacted by the Banff World Media Festival and they had some great news for us. We were in the running for 2011′s NextMedia Accelerator award. It really caught us by surprise, as we knew very little about the festival or the award.

At the time, we were in the midst of a number of CRAZY things happening within the office. In the week leading up the award:

• We were in a massive cram/dev session sorting out the new layout for Pluggin.it
• My parents had decided to drive across the country to stay with me for a week.
• Jesse/Karen had decided to sell their condo and move to Calgary.
• Other web contracts were in the balance.
• And we had to formulate a brilliant and competitive presentation to convince the judges in Banff that we were the clear winner for the NextMedia Accelerator Award.

Well, we got everything wrapped up and headed down to the beautiful Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel for 3 days of seminars, panels, networking, and our presentation. The presentation end of things was a bit stressful but we are very thankful to the opportunity.

In the end, we presented amongst a number of great tech ideas. In particular, we got to meet Taras Koulik of Speechbobble (based in Toronto). The company creates custom online social platforms for large organizations who, in turn, use the service as a means to bridge conversations amongst staff. Plus, Taras is a great guy and cheers for the Bruins so you have to like him.

You can view the complete list of competitors here.

In the end, our presentation came off extremely well and we were ultimately presented with the NextMedia Accelerator Award for 2011. It was a fantastic experience for the Pluggin.it team and was the perfect boost we needed to carry us into the summer session of site development. We would like to thank everyone at the Banff World Media Festival for the amazing opportunity and would also like to congratulate them on a great conference.

Jesse Richard and Rick MacDonnell enjoying a great lunch with the hardware.