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The Village Hall is available to both Village and External groups and provides an excellent venue for a wide range of functions. Enquiries and Reservations can be made with the Bookings Secretary on 01949 81204.
Indicative Main Hall and hire rates start from £10 per hour for local individuals or groups, with access to the well-stocked kitchen area including cooker, fridge freezer, microwave, dishwasher and plentiful crockery, cutlery and glassware all available for a further payment of just £10. The Committee Room is also available for a similar, small additional fee if required and can be used for serving food, additional changing space, storage or just for meetings! Appropriate set-up and clear-down times may also be permitted at the discretion of the Bookings Secretary without additional charge as other Bookings allow. Children's Parties for Parish Residents are usually also further discounted to encourage extended, whole-hall access for and by our younger residents for a fixed, lower sum.
Further information can be found under the Local Groups tab on our main homepage under the Village Hall Management Committee heading. The Committee do request that all event-rubbish is "split" appropriately into landfill (grey) and recycling (blue) bins by users and that all empty bottles are taken away at the end of events for appropriate recycling elsewhere by Hall users.


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In past, homes were designed by the architects on the paper in the form of a map but as the technology has been enhanced, software development has also been increased. Designing a home now in a 3D form is not a big deal & one can easily map out the design of the home, garden or related things in an easy way. There has been designed a software for the designing of the home in 3D modes & this software is known as the TurboFloorPlan 3D Home & Landscape Deluxe 2017. This is highly effective software & I would like to say that it is highly recommended software.
This home designing software is really award-winning software. This fulfills the demands of persons who want to design their homes as well as the gardens for their homes. This software is highly professional. For this software, it is not necessary to keep the past designs but it helps in creating innovative designs. The experience of this software is superb. Not only 3D designs but also 2D designs of the homes are also applicable. This provides the easiest way of designing the homes. You can design the home including chairs, tables, furniture & all such related things. Not this only but outdoor designing like garden decoration & all can be done easily. Newly designed tools have been introduced & those are:
- Customized plant sizing
- Shutter tool
- Material editor, etc
Newly & Powerful Features of Home Designing Software
- Professional touch
- Home designing, remodeling, decorating & landscaping
- In order to operate this, no experience is required
- Quick & easy access
- Designing tips are always available
- Tips & tricks available
- This software helps in planning all the phases related to your home, including:
- Foundation
- Electrical
- Plumbing
- HVAC, etc
- Tools available are easy to use & highly flexible
- You can decorate as well remodel your home
- Cabinet designer is available
- This also acts an ESTIMATOR: it estimates the cost according to the area automatically
- Wide & versatile variety of powerful & easy to use tools
- Landscaping becomes easy due to the useful tools
There are too many features of this software for the designing of homes & gardens. Including the old features, new features have also been added that has improved not only the interior decoration but also outdoor decoration of the homes & garden & related things.
Requirement of the System for This Software
- CPU Type – 1 GHz or faster 32-bit or 64-bit processor
- Microsoft Windows, Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7 or Windows Vista
- Intel Pentium III, Celeron or compatible 1.0 GHz processor or higher
- 1 GB RAM, 4 GB or more recommended
- 3 GB of Hard Disk Space
- Internet access
- VGA Video Card displaying at least 1024×768 with 32-bit color
- 64 MB Video Card Memory
- Administrator privileges are required to properly install this program
Go for it & design your home today. Live your dream having this superb & powerful software.

subset: commoncrawl


text: Dr. Uday Jani is in the news! December 29, 2015 Click here to read about Uday Jani to Lead Finding Your Spiritual Path at Lewes Share this:ShareTwitter You may also be interested in: Dr. Uday Jani: in the news and at the heart of the community Dr. Uday Jani to Explain Homeopathic Medicine Nov. 12 at Lewes Library Dr. Uday Jani is in the News! Dr. Uday Jani is in the news


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Law of Attraction India Pilgrimage
"Merge with the teachings of the Masters"
"We are born into heaven; Gaia is where we came to create." – Bruce Lipton
Rishikesh, India: November 9-15, 2019
Rishikesh (Land of the Rishi's) in Northern India has been the chosen place to experience truth for yogic Masters, Seers and Rishi's for generations. This land, in the foothills of the Himalaya's, is literally steeped in the energy of Yogic teachings. These yogic teachings are scientific; this is the knowledge of the nature of our universe. The seers understood and MASTERED how to be in flow with the Laws that govern our existence… There is a magic here to be experienced, not intellectualised; come & allow the energy of Rishikesh to reach deep into the fabric of your being to create a new set-point for manifestation.
The Law of Attraction is a Universal Law.
There are universal principles that govern the elemental nature of our universe. Scientific, mathematical, absolute truths, which indicate how 'energy' works. Throughout history, there are many Masters, seers & Rishi's who have understood this elemental universe and co-created with its flow. There are places on this earth that have magnetised these beings as the earth's energy grid here is less 'congested', and access to the frequency (vibration / energy / transmission) of this information is enhanced. Rishikesh, is one such place.
Now it is our turn to pilgrimage to India and merge with the teachings of the Masters.
The Law of Attraction sounds simple, right? What we put out, we attract. And yet, somehow we get tripped up. Most commonly I find that it is our doubt that is the biggest inhibitor. We find it difficult to BELIEVE this actually works.
This retreat is intended to help us BELIEVE and UNDERSTAND!
In our lecture sessions, I will:
• Deliver 'understandable' science as to how we manifest our world from from thought to matter;
• Describe the 'oneness' of all things, how we are eternally knitted to the fabric of the universe, and hence why we can call forth our desires;
• Provide evidence as to how to how the Law is always working perfectly.
• Refer to the Yogic sciences for evidence of how mantra and ritual has been used over time to fortify our faith.
Each day will include:
• Morning Meditation by the Ganges River: harnessing the power of our focussed attention
• Sound Based Practices: of mantra to re-organise our field of consciousness
• Asana Practices: to align the body & calm the mind
• Lecture Sessions: Science & Practical application of the attraction toolbox
• Self Care Time: rest, walk, shop, meditate or even have a massage!
• Evening Ganga Aarti: Ritual at Parmarth Niketan Ashram
• Evening Satsang: with Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswatiji
• A Seva (selfless service) Project: to support Parmarth Niketan Ashram's environmental & humanitarian projects.
(PLEASE NOTE! Price is in Australian Dollars. Please check conversion to your local currency. On March 19, 2019 conversion approx $1640USD & $1440Euro)
Deposit $500, (Deposit is non-refundable; balance due August 31, 2019)
(*Includes: Law of Attraction program, overnight accommodation in Delhi on arrival, transfer to & from Rishikesh, Food & Accomm at Green Hotel, Rishikesh).
(Refund minus deposit with cancellation on or before July 1, 2019. No refunds available for cancellations between July 2 – Nov 9 2019)
• November 7: Arrive Delhi Airport
• November 8: Group Transfer to Rishikesh
• November 9-14: Retreat!
• November 15: Final Morning Ganga Blessing. Guests Depart
Visa and Travel Information:
You can get an eTourist VISA easily online. https://indianvisaonline.gov.in/evisa/tvoa.html
All information to assist you with will VISA and travel will be sent to you upon receipt of booking. We have wonderful tour hosts in India, Uschi & Rakesh, who will liaise with you directly & assist with travel! We'll make the process easy for you, so you can simply get excited for you adventure!


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We are a local family who are stewards of the environment working to keep food scraps out of landfills and making the world a better place for generations to come.
Back to Earth Compost Crew offers easy to use home/office/restaurant/catering food scrap pick up in Suburban Philadelphia.
With 30-40% of the food supply ending up in landfills it is imperative that we make a change to our old systems. Back to Earth Compost Crew will be your partner as you change old habits or add to your current green habits.
Services range from once a week to twice a month. You decide.
Our home food scrap buckets are 5 gallons in volume with an easy on & off lid.
What can go in my bucket?
Yes! We will schedule a convenient time to discuss your food scrap pick-up needs.
We sell 2.5 gallon bags of compost. We'll happily deliver to your door upon your next scheduled food scrap pick-up.
We will schedule a time to meet with you to determine what size bucket/container as well as a convenient pick-up time.
Yes! These items can be composted:
Please email us at email@example.com if you have any questions!
Rescued Produce. Delivered.
Get $5 off your First Order by using the code COMPOST


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YAG Workshop, Saturday 28 June 2014
Today was our second workshop with Spoken Word Artist Izara B. We reflected on the objects we'd found last time in Nelson, Navy, Nation and then worked with Izara to refine and perform our spoken word pieces. Today was also the Caird Library Open Day and so we got to meet some of the Archives team to see original letters from the Georgian Navy.
Here are some of the Group's writings:
Only means of communication
Love and emotion that could sweep the nation
Nelson's navy nation
Letters would be unique
Expressing emotions
Inked onto paper
Letters would grow more personal
Personal, to bridge the gap
Gap so big from home to sea and back
People who have been dead for ages
Their possessions still remain
These letters tell stories
They help them to cope with the suffering and pain
Two weeks to get to reply maybe
Maybe they would ok
Ok at home, ok at sea
See how things go, and wait until they get back to me
Until you've read what someone's written
You don't what's in their mind
They share a story, they shape a story
From people who no longer remain
And people who were left behind
By Temitope and Kemi
A gold coin, a token of your love
Love that cannot be swept away
Away you left out to sea
Sea that took you away from me
A gold coin weighing in my hand heavy
Heavy hearted I say farewell
Farewell for now
Now I stand on my own
A gold coin that feels so light
Light with your promises
Promises to return home
Home reawakened when you return
A gold coin, a token of our marriage
Marriage as lovely as the sea and sky
Sky which holds a blanket of stars
Stars which look upon you every night
By Asmaa and Rasni
The ships leaving the dock
Our lover's hearts chained to the dock
Communication few and far between
Many men never to be seen
Children and I man a ship
A tiresome and treacherous trip
The luxury and familiarity of home life
Sought to provide for parents, family and wife
A heavy wax seal
Concealing all that I feel
The glass vial containing all of my ink
Helps me to pour out all that I think
For the wax, light my candle
The sentiment more than I can handle
I am uncertain of the journey of this letter
I wait for the day our situation betters
By Asmaa
These letters tell stories
These possessions still remain
Expressed emotions
By Kemi
The most common things
Like a tool for survival
At home and at sea
By Temitope


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Normal Vital Signs:
Temperature: 99.0-100.5 F
Pulse: 32-40 beats per minute
Respiration: 12-16 breaths per minute
Mucous Membranes: Pale pink
Capillary Refill Time: Less than 2 seconds
It is recommended that horse owners become familiar with the normal parameters of their horses' vital signs. Have your veterinarian show you how to take them properly and practice taking vital signs on a regular basis to accustom yourself to the procedures so you will be prepared when faced with taking them in a possible emergency situation.
Vaccination Schedules:
Vaccines are a safe and effective means of protecting your horse from serious, life threatening illnesses. Vaccination schedules should be developed with your veterinarian and can vary due to exposure risk, health of animal, and geographical location. Florida is considered an endemic area for EEE/WEE and WNV, due to the presence of mosquitoes year round.
The following schedule is a guideline for vaccination of adult horses, and is based off recommendations by the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) and by our practice in the Tampa Bay area.
|Unvaccinated or Questionable Vaccine History
|Previously Vaccinated
|2 dose series, 2nd dose 4-6 weeks after first dose.
|Annually, plus booster at time of penetrating injury or surgery if last dose was >6 months ago.
|Eastern/Western Equine Encephalomyelitis (EEE/WEE)*
|2 dose series, 2nd dose 4-6 weeks after first dose.
|Booster every 6 months
|Single dose
|Annual booster
|West Nile Virus (WNV)*
|2 dose series, 2nd dose 4-6 weeks after first dose.
|Booster every 6 months
|2 doses 4-6 weeks apart, 3rd dose 3-6months after 2nd dose
|Booster every 6 months
|Equine Herpes Virus (Rhino)
|3 dose series, each dose 4-6 weeks apart
|Booster every 6 months
|Strangles (Streptococcus equi) (risk based)
|2 doses, 3 weeks apart, intranasal
|Annual booster
|Potomac Horse Fever (PHF)
(for horses traveling throughout the state and the Northeast US.)
|2 dose series 3-4 weeks apart
|Annual booster
*Indicates those vaccines designated as core vaccines by the AAEP. Core vaccines protect against diseases that are endemic to a region, are highly contagious, pose a risk of severe disease, those having potential public health risk, and/or are required by law. Core vaccines have clearly demonstrable efficacy and safety, with a high enough level of patient benefit and low enough level of risk to justify their use in all equids.
Vaccination of foals should begin at 3 months of age. Consult with your veterinarian about specific vaccine schedules for foals and about special vaccine recommendations for pregnant broodmares.


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Published: 30 Jul 2018
Last Updated: 24 Jul 2018
Wang is the 26-year-old entrepreneur behind Lendingblock, the world's first crypto asset lending platform. The Cambridge and UCL graduate worked as a tech consultant with Deloitte for two years before joining deep tech accelerator Entrepreneur First, where she founded her first company, Lendr. She co-founded London-based Lendingblock with former Deloitte colleague Steve Swain last year after raising £10m through an initial coin offering (ICO).


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Tribune Obituaries
April 24, 2004
Clara Erickson
Clara J. Erickson, 74, of Eaton died Friday, April 23, at her home.
She was born Feb. 28, 1930, in Greeley to Theodore W. and Gesela (Tegtmeier) Johnson.
Mrs. Erickson was raised in the Galeton area. She started playing piano at age 11 at the Assembly of God in Greeley and was a pianist at Galeton Community Church for more than 40 years. She graduated from Galeton High School in 1948. In 1950, she married William Erickson.
Mrs. Erickson graduated from Colorado State University in 1952 with a degree in music education. She was a farm wife, but she taught piano in her home for nearly 40 years. She was active in Delta Omicron and was a member of Galeton Community Church, Kensington Club, Garden Club and Ladies Aid. She enjoyed hosting the Galeton Ladies Bible Study. She was active with her family and especially with her grandchildren.
Despite severe rheumatoid arthritis, Mrs. Erickson was cheerful, upbeat, positive and had a zest for life.
Survivors are her husband, William Erickson of Eaton; a daughter, Geenine Ellzey, and a son, Jon Erickson and wife Joy, all of Eaton; three sisters, Mabel Hicks, Edith Harrison and Margaret Whitaker and husband Larry, and two brothers, Ted Johnson and Harold Johnson and wife Diane, all of California; a brother-in-law, Ed Berry, also of California; and seven grandchildren, Joshuah, Justin, Jeremiah, Eric, David, Adam and Jodel. Her parents and a sister, Alice (Johnson) Berry, are deceased.
Services will be at 2 p.m. Tuesday at the Allnutt Funeral Service Macy Chapel. Interment will be at Sunset Memorial Gardens, Greeley.
Friends may visit from 4-8 p.m. Monday at the Macy Chapel.
Memorial gifts may be made to the Galeton Community Church in care of Allnutt Funeral Service, 702 13th St., Greeley, CO 80631.
Carolyn Hine
Carolyn Laverne "Carrie" Fiolkoski Hine, 52, of New Waverly, Texas, formerly of Greeley, died Tuesday, April 20, in Houston.
Born Feb. 11, 1952, to Edwin F. and Laverne B. (Brees) Fiolkoski in Greeley, Mrs. Hine was a 1970 graduate of Highland High School in Ault and a 1972 graduate of Weld County General Hospital School of X-Ray Medicine. She began her career in Greeley at Weld County General Hospital, now North Colorado Medical Center.
After her graduation from X-ray school, she met Jerry Hine, and on Dec. 14, 1974, they married at St. Mary Catholic Church in Greeley.
In 1979, Mrs. Hine and her husband moved from Greeley to the San Francisco Bay area, where she continued her career in the X-ray field, specializing in mammography. In the 1990s, they moved to New Waverly, where she continued to advance herself with all of the newest technology in mammography.
Survivors are her husband, Jerry; her mother, Laverne Fiolkoski of Ault; brothers, Rick Fiolkoski and wife Carol of Windsor, Steve Fiolkoski and wife Gail of Pierce and Donald Fiolkoski and David Bolton of Knoxville, Tenn.; her parents-in-law, Orville and Doris Hine of New Waverly; a niece; Tonnee Vandervliet of Mandan, N.D.; and two aunts, numerous cousins and other family and friends.
Her father; a brother, John M. Fiolkoski; a nephew. Phillip E. Fiolkoski; and grandparents are deceased.
Memorial Mass will be at 7 p.m. Thursday at St. Mary Catholic Church in Ault.
The family requests memorial contributions be made to a charity of choice or in her name to St. Mary Catholic Church of Ault. Mynatt Funeral Home in Knoxville is in charge of arrangements.
Donald Houchen
Donald M. Houchen, 62, of Denver died Tuesday, April 20, in Thornton.
Born April 11, 1942, in Los Angeles, Mr. Houchen graduated in 1960 from Galeton High School and joined the Army after high school.
In 1968, he married Betty Lue Ford of Evans. They later divorced.
Mr. Houchen lived in Greeley until 1984 when he and his family relocated to Denver to be closer to the business he owned.
Survivors are two daughters, Dionne Houchen of Brighton and Melanie Thomas of Denver; a sister, Phyllis Broswell of Pico Rivera, Calif.; and a grandson, Gavin Thomas.
Memorial services will be at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Hyland Hills Golf Course, 9650 N. Sheridan Blvd., Westminster.
All Veterans Burial and Cremation was in charge of cremation.
Ambrose Huerter
Ambrose Huerter, 90, of Greeley, formerly of Gilcrest, died Thursday, April 22, in Evergreen.
He was born June 14, 1913, in Kelly, Kan., one of 11 children of Jacob and Margaret (Kongs) Huerter.
Mr. Huerter began his business career in 1934 with John Deere Plow Co. in Kansas City, Mo. After his marriage to Mary Roberta Burkholder in 1940, they moved to Denver, where he worked for John Deere and later, Minneapolis Moline.
In 1950, Mr. Huerter moved to Gilcrest, where he worked for the Hildenbrandt Equipment Co. He purchased the business known as Gilcrest Farm Equipment.
Mr. Huerter served three terms as mayor of Gilcrest, was secretary and treasurer of the Platteville Fire Protection Association and helped bring city water, natural gas and local fire protection to Gilcrest. He also was a member of the Lions Club in Gilcrest, the Elks Lodge and Knights of Columbus in Greeley and was secretary and treasurer of the Minneapolis-Moline Dealers Association of Northern Colorado.
In 1960, Mr. Huerter and his family moved to Greeley, where he was employed with Van Why and Sons and Rain Cat Sprinkler Systems and was a manufacturer's representative for Kewanee farm machinery.
Mr. Huerter loved to fish and hunt with his friends and family, build miniature farm wagons, collect toy tractors, help his neighbors and invent useful tools. One of his inventions is patented and farm equipment manufacturers have been incorporating his suggestions in their products.
Survivors are his wife of 63 years, Roberta of Greeley; three daughters, Carole Ann Ebright of Roosevelt, Utah, Judith Huerter of Evergreen and Mary Frances Sederstrom of Omaha, Neb.; a son, John Robert Huerter of Grand Rapids, Minn.; a sister, Agnes Hutfles of Seneca, Kan.; four brothers, Ray Huerter and John Huerter, both of Anamosa, Iowa, Adrian Huerter of San Antonio and Elmer Huerter of St. Petersburg, Fla.; four grandchildren, two great-grandchildren and many nieces and nephews. A sister, Henrietta and four brothers, Henry, Vincent, Lawrence and Joseph, are deceased.
Recitation of the rosary will be at 7:30 p.m. today and Mass of the Christian Burial will be at 10 a.m. Monday, both at St. Mary's Catholic Church, 2222 23rd Ave., Greeley. Interment will be in Anamosa.
Friends may visit from 2-4 p.m. today at Stoddard Funeral Home.
Memorial gifts may be made to St. Mary's Catholic Church in care of Stoddard Funeral Home, 3205 28th St., Greeley, CO 80634.
Preciliano Martinez
Preciliano Cristobal Martinez, 73, of Greeley died Thursday, April 22, at his home.
He was born Oct. 20, 1930, in Ledoux, N.M., to Carlos and Delica (Tafoia) Martinez.
In 1949, he married Rosaida Nora Arguello. She is deceased.
Mr. Martinez loved the farm, raising animals, his family, telling jokes and spending time with his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He was always helping people and giving them rides. He was also a foster parent.
Survivors are a daughter, Anna Alvarado, and three sons, Ramon Martinez, Robert Martinez and Ralph Martinez all of Greeley; two sisters, Dela Cordova of Fremont, Calif., and Mena Cavillo of Colorado Springs; three brothers, Fred Martinez of Ledoux, Jessie Martinez of Greeley and John Martinez of Colorado Springs; 16 grandchildren;and 37 great-grandchildren. Three sons, Adam, Donald and Richard Martinez, and two sisters, Evelyn and Darlene, are deceased.
Recitation of the rosary will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday and Mass of Christian Burial will be at 10 a.m. Wednesday, both St. Peter's Historical Catholic Church, 915 12th St., Greeley. Interment will be at Sunset Memorial Gardens, Greeley.
Friends may visit from 1-5 p.m. Tuesday at Stoddard Funeral Home, 3205 28th St., Greeley. An online memorial is at http://www.mem.com.
Donald Tate
Donald R. Tate, 74, a longtime resident of Milliken, died Thursday, April 22, at North Colorado Medical Center, Greeley.
He was born Jan. 12, 1929, in Johnstown to Edgar and Rubye (Leach) Tate.
Mr. Tate was a graduate of Milliken High School. He served in the Air Force from 1948-1952. He spent the duration of his service in Eiesbadan, Germany, during the Berlin Airlift. He also was a partner with his father in Chapin and Sons grocery before entering the military.
Survivors are a sister, Dixie Sleppy of Georgia; two brothers, Jay Chapin of California and Eddie Tate of Mississippi; an uncle, Edward Tate of Tennessee; five nieces and three nephews. His parents, Edgar Tate and Clyde and Rubye Chapin, are deceased.
No services are planned. Cremation.
Allnutt Funeral Service Macy Chapel in Greeley is in charge of arrangements.
Wilbur Vos
Wilbur J. "Bill" Vos, 77, of Greeley died on Saturday, April 17.
He was born March 6, 1927, in Otley, Iowa, to John and Agnes Vos.
Mr. Vos attended schools in Pella, Iowa. He married Lois Kling in Pella in 1952. They had three children and divorced in 1969. He then married Jerre Sue (Osborne) Roch on Jan. 17, 1970.
In 1962, Mr. Vos moved his family to Fort Collins, where he owned Bill's Jeep Center, The Four Wheel Drive Center and Custom Manufacturing. He worked as a mechanic, welder and truck driver during his life.
After retirement, Mr. Vos and his wife owned the Harmony Filling Station Museum, a gas station museum, until 2000, when they sold their property and moved to Greeley.
He enjoyed traveling and camping with Jerre. They particularly enjoyed the Colorado mountains, and Mr. Vos enjoyed sharing his knowledge of Colorado history.
He was an avid four wheeler and helped to form the Larimer County Four Wheel Drive Club. He was a past member of the Fort Collins Historical Society and was an antique car enthusiast. As a member of the Harmony Presbyterian Church, he had a strong faith in the Lord and believed God has control of people's lives. He was also a member of Fort Collins Moose Lodge No. 275 and the Greeley Senior Center.
Survivors are his wife, Jerre; a daughter, Fran Anderson and husband Ed; two sons, Rick Vos and wife Linda and Tom Vos and wife Judi, all of Fort Collins; two stepchildren, Dennis Roch of Longmont and Carrie Giggy of Greeley; and six grandchildren. Also surviving are his sisters, Wilma Blanke and Joey Vander Linden, both of Pella, Dorcas King of Lakewood and Sib Van Loozenaard of Sun City, Ariz. His parents, a brother and two sisters are deceased.
Mr. Vos will be cremated and a celebration of his life will be at 1 p.m. Saturday at Harmony Presbyterian Church, 400 E. Boardwalk, Fort Collins.
Memorial gifts may be made to Harmony Presbyterian Church.
Goes Funeral Care in Fort Collins is in charge of arrangements.


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Yiddish Phrases
This page contains a table including the following: Yiddish phrases, expressions and words in Yiddish, conversation and idioms, Yiddish greetings, and survival phrases. It also helps if you simply want to know what to say when chatting in Yiddish!
Most of the sentences below are used for everyday life conversations, so they might come handy if you memorize them.


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This week on the Boagworld Show we are joined by Leisa Reichelt to discuss what is involved in user research.
Subscribe to this podcast using Apple Podcasts, Google Music, Spotify or RSS
Skip to the discussion or this week's links.
This episode of the Boagworld show is sponsored by Media Temple and Headscape. Please support the show by checking them out.
Paul: Hello and welcome to Boagworld.com the podcast for all those involved in designing, developing and running websites on a daily basis. My name is Paul. Joining me as always is Marcus. Hello Marcus.
Marcus: Hello Paul, how are you?
Paul: I'm very well, well no I'm not very well. Why did I say that? That such a British thing to say isn't it. Oh yes, stiff upper lip.
Marcus: I've got two broken legs but other than that I'm fine.
Paul: Yes.
Marcus: As you can probably hear, I am not fine.
Paul: You're sounding very nasally, which I am not so you win on that regards because if you sound bad, there is nothing worse than being ill if you don't look it or sound it.
Marcus: Yes, because no one believes you. I got a sore throat on Sunday evening and then I went all nasally yesterday and really wasn't feeling great at all. But I feel all right today, just sound funny.
Paul: Well, you've always sounded funny to me Marcus. So I am here by announcing that this is the worst episode in terms of having to record it that we've ever done. Was not only both of us are ill, which is quite unusual for us both to be ill at the same time, the farce of making this show happen is beyond belief.
Marcus: Why? Do tell, Paul.
Paul: Leisa Reichelt is on this week's show.
Marcus: But she's not here at the moment.
Paul: No she's not because we arranged an interview with her. So Leisa Reichelt is the user research and for years and years and years she's worked at the Government Digital Service here in the UK, doing some incredible work, really, really good stuff. And so I thought, we going to talk about user research, how can we not get her on the show?
She's moved back to Australia, which is where she comes from, to work with their equivalent so she's doing government stuff over there. Which was fine, except I didn't really think it through when I invited her to be on the show.
Marcus: Yes isn't it 11 or 12 hours difference?
Paul: Indeed. So I had to get up and do an interview at 7:30 AM in the morning.
Marcus: Oh bless.
Paul: Which in itself is bad. But when you then records the whole show or a whole interview and it failed to record at her end and failed to record at my end. And then you have to get up at 7:30 AM the next day to do it all again.
Marcus: And it all feels totally rehearsed I guess?
Paul: Yes, except that what we decided to do, I said to her let's not pretend that we haven't already done this once. So the conversation went off in a bit of a different angle and it was good. But it was just not funny.
Marcus: You needed an audio professional Paul didn't you?
Paul: I did need an audio professional but where do I find one? I don't know of one.
Marcus: You probably know the odd one here and there.
Paul: Well I didn't want to make you get up at 7:30 AM. But what's the chances of neither end recording?
Marcus: A very slim. But it wouldn't have made any difference if you had one end, so if you lose one you may as well lose them both.
Paul: What I meant is, my end recorded my voice but didn't record her voice. And her end didn't record her voice.
Marcus: I am recording you because I am using two sets of recording things, but yes, use Piezo Paul.
Paul: But that's what I am using.
Marcus: Oh well that should record both.
Paul: It depends how you got it set up. I'd accidentally left it on what I normally podcast on, which is me just recording my voice.
Marcus: Well I record me into Logic and both of us into Piezo.
Paul: Piezo's a very good little app isn't it, I really like it.
Marcus: Yes I had to use the backup last week because Adams recording for some reason was incredibly noisy, so it's handy to have a backup.
Paul: A very sensible of you, always backup. Which is what Ian said to me when I recently managed to screw up the database on my website.
Marcus: Yes, I believe those were the words.
Paul: Well I thought he was backing it up, and he thought I was backing it up. But Media Temple sorted us out. That's almost very good segue into our sponsor, isn't it?
Marcus: Hopefully if they are the sponsor, then yes.
Paul: No it's actually their competition. Who competes with Media Temple? There's hundreds of hosting companies but I couldn't name another one. I only know Media Temple. I've been indoctrinated that badly by them.
Marcus: We use Memset in the UK.
Paul: Don't mention, I'm about to go into a sponsor slot for Media Temple.
Marcus: You said I can't think of any. Where you lying Paul?
Paul: No I wasn't but it doesn't mean that you have to think of some, do you?
Marcus: Oops.
Paul: Anyway, let's talk about Media Temple. Whoever the other one Marcus just mentioned is, you don't want them, they're shit in comparison to Media Temple. Because Media Temple are awesome, I joke about them but they've got such a good setup, they've got such good support but they've also got a really good shared hosting platform called The Grid which is this really good arrangement for the less technical amongst us. It's got a unique cluster architecture (I don't know what that means).
Marcus: Yes, it's big hosting words.
Paul: All I know is that it's lightning fast and easily scalable and not just because I read that from their website, but I can attest to this. So it's great for hosting your own site but also you can host your client's websites on it too. They throw in Google apps so if you are like me, you use Google apps as does everybody at Headscape, you get that as part of the deal. And they offer a global CDN. Now I know what the CDN is. It's a content distributation network.
Marcus: Distributation?
Paul: Yes. It's a new word. My brain shut down.
Marcus: I know what a CDN is as well. If I know what it is…
Paul: Then anyone must. I like my CDN. I like it except the when I'm trying to make updates to the site and I don't understand why I am not seeing the updates and it's because it's been distributed on the CDN and I am not seeing them. So always remember to turn your CDN into development mode when you release a new update to your site.
So anyway, this is all nicely managed for you, there is no hassle hosting your client sites which is the first thing you need to get rid of if you run a web design agency, you get rid of the hassle of hosting because hosting is a pain in the arse isn't it?
Marcus: Yes. We don't do it any more, we might still have one or two, not sure but basically if you're an agency of 500 people I'm sure you're going to have a nice hosting division and look after people 24/7 but if your small agency like Headscape then no. It doesn't work. We work effectively nine till five Monday to Friday and websites have habit of going down on a Saturday night and they need to be dealt with, so what we tend to do is recommend hosting packages to our clients and then they buy them directly, which works nicely.
Paul: So you can host 10 sites on a grid account for $30 per month but you can extend that number at all to basically anything you want. So it's great if you are a small agency or a freelancer or whatever else that has to manage client sites, just shove them on Media Temple, it's so straightforward. Their support is so good, it's like on Friday evening, last Friday evening I had problems with my databases as I was saying just a minute ago. Boagworld went down as a result. We think it's a plug in, we haven't quite got to the bottom of it, and normally Ian sorts these things out for me but Friday evening, not a hope. He's gone, good for him really. He doesn't check his work emails over the weekend and I totally respect that, even though I wanted to punch him in the face at that particular moment.
Marcus: I'd like to see you try.
Paul: Err no. He would crush me. He would crush me like a bug.
Marcus: And I'm not giving you his phone number.
Paul: No don't. Just don't. But actually I didn't need his help. All I needed to do was login to Media Temple and I started a live chat with them and they got me fixed in two minutes. So I didn't really need to disturb Ian at all. That is flipping brilliant.
Marcus: That underlines what I was saying earlier about why a client should have a direct relationship. Because if they bought hosting through us or we had the relationship with the hosting company, they wouldn't be able to do what you did. That's why it's good for everyone. Everyone wins.
Paul: Because I am effectively a client of Headscape now. I pay you money and everything.
Marcus: We pay you money as well though Paul.
Paul: Yes I know, but you pay me a lot more than I paid you to be fair.
[Marcus sniffs loudly]
Marcus: Excuse me. Mr Sniff.
Paul: That's all right, just as long as it's not one of those really guttural, from your chest sniffs.
Marcus: I haven't got to that stage yet, that's normally towards the end of the cold isn't it?
Paul: My wife is terrible for that.
Marcus: Really? I bet she's loving you for this.
Paul: She is deeply asthmatic with little shrivelled up lungs and so whenever she gets a cold, she immediately gets a just infection and phlems up all kinds of disgusting stuff. She's repulsive.
Hey here's a random fact, the Pope only has one lung, I learnt that in QI.
Marcus: Is there a new series of QI out then?
Paul: No I think I found it, where did I find it?
Marcus: Which Pope is it then, I wonder.
Paul: It is this Pope. Trendy Pope. The cool, hip Pope. The one that Americans waive babies at.
So I do need to say one more thing about Media Temple which is that you've got a special discount as a Boagworld listener, this is the bit worth knowing. You can use promo code BOAG for 25% off the web hosting. Go to Boagworld/MediaTemple and enter the promo code upon signup.
Marcus: I notice in your note Paul that we are supposed to chat about where we would like to live in the world. We didn't do that.
Paul: Yes, it's because we segued nicely into Media Temple.
Marcus: Well I am segueing back again.
Paul: It was just talking about the way that Leisa moved to Australia.
Marcus: Well that's where she comes from isn't it?
Paul: Yes. There was a bit of me that would love to live in Australia.
Marcus: I've never been, have you been?
Paul: No I haven't, but it just looks amazing. And everyone who goes to Australia just raves about it, and it's really annoying.
Marcus: It's supposed to have cool laid back lifestyle, which is quite appealing I have to say. Being warm, is quite appealing.
Paul: But they've got a lot of things that will try to kill you.
Marcus: Yes, lots of nasty bugs.
Paul: So that's not so good. So where would you live Marcus?
Marcus: Where I live now.
Paul: Oh you are so dull.
Marcus: No, I would. The south of England.
Paul: Wouldn't you want to live on some Caribbean island with your feet up, drinking margaritas or something?
Marcus: Yes that sounds good, but it sounds more like a holiday. I'd like to have a house on a Caribbean island I could go and visit.
Paul: That would be nice. It's a difficult one isn't it? Anywhere turns boring and mundane when you are there for any long time. That's why I like my RV. Keep on trucking, or something.
Marcus: Yes I get the idea of those things but I am a bit of a stay at home really.
Paul: You are. I don't know why you segued back into this conversation because when it comes to travelling you are the dullest person I know, Marcus.
Marcus: I've been everywhere though, I've done loads travelling.
Paul: But it's like, I don't want to go anywhere as I just want to be home with my friends.
Marcus: It's not that I don't want to go anywhere, I just don't want to go anywhere for very long.
Paul: Yes that's true.
Marcus: I went to Vietnam and Cambodia for three weeks last year.
Paul: I wonder whether you would be like you are if you hadn't done all that travelling as a teenager. I wonder if that made you sick of it.
Marcus: Yes I think it did a bit. It was tedious. One hotel to another and I remember getting up more than once out of bed, trying to find the toilet and walking into a wall because I thought I was in the room I was in the night before. And it does start to get you after a while so yes you are probably right.
Paul: See, you've aged before your time really.
Marcus: I actually think I have but I don't mind.
Paul: There was an app on the App Store— this is so dull, we so need to move on but just let me tell you this— there was an app on the App Store which was a hearing app to test your hearing. I've got the hearing of a 50-year-old.
Marcus: I suspect I have got worse than that.
Paul: I don't know, you maybe.
Marcus: Usually you lose the top end, and it was probably measuring how far down the scale you go. I subjected my hearing to very loud music for many, many years and it still seems to be all right, but you don't know do you, it might be getting gradually worse and worse.
Paul: And then you die.
Marcus: And then you die, yes.
Paul: So I think on that we may as well go to the interview. See if I managed to pretend to be more wake at 7:30 AM in the morning. So this is the interview—you can tell we're both ill— this is the interview with Leisa Reichelt. Leisa, I am sorry you been sandwiched in such a shit show, but it's a really good interview, loads of great stuff about user research, so check it out.
Discussion about the importance of user research with Leisa Reichelt
Paul: So here we go again Leisa, good to have you are back.
Leisa: Second time's the charm Paul, we going to do this one for sure.
Paul: Yes, we're recording in every possible way so I suppose if people are listening to this, it's worked, which is a miracle.
Leisa: Thank goodness for that. I don't know if I could do this again.
Paul: So yes, let's introduce people to you if they haven't met you before or heard of you before. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your background and who you are and what you do?
Leisa: Sure, my name is Leisa Reichelt. I am currently the Head of Service Design at the Australian Digital Transformation Office, which is an agency in the Australian government that is tasked with making all government services clearer, simpler, faster and easier for people to get access to without having to understand how government works. Which may sound familiar, particularly if you are in the UK or the US with there were similar organisations, GDS and USDS who do very similar things. Prior to being here I was in fact at GDS as Head of User Research. But I'm originally from Australia so I've come home just in the last month and now I am based in Sydney.
Paul: Is it good to be home?
Leisa: It is lovely, the weather is just divine.
Paul: Oh shut up.
Leisa: I wait by the beach to get my bus in the morning, it's coming into the summer, it's great.
Paul: I just tell myself everything in Australia is trying to kill you. Any nature in Australia is out to kill you, isn't it? Spiders and snakes and things like that? You must be constantly in fear of your life.
Leisa: I grew up with it though so I'm a bit more used to it. We had a meeting out at the botanical Gardens in Canberra the other week and we came out and were waiting for a cab to take us to where we had to go next and a kangaroo literally hopped straight past. And a couple of guys who I was with were not from Australia and festival they were like oh my God this is so cool, and then they were like, shall be run?
Paul: Oh dear, as someone just settling in for the British winter I have to come up with some excuse, some justification that life wouldn't be better if I just moved to Australia.
Leisa: The broadband is shit.
Paul: Oh there you go then. That's a make or break for me.
Leisa: We have to go out and go to the beach instead, it's cool.
Paul: You actually go outside and have a healthy rounded life?
Leisa: I know right, you look forward to going outside when you live here, it's brilliant.
Paul: So, let's talk about user experience stuff rather than the weather, how British of me talking about the weather. So the reason we got you on this week's show is because we are talking about user research this week, which is obviously what your background is, what your specialty is. But it's one of the lesser-known disciplines, that's changing now but it was very much a lesser-known discipline. We talked about usability testing but that's about as far as we thought. So can you give me the elevator pitch of what user research is in a nutshell?
Leisa: I can definitely do that. So you might be familiar with this stick that a lot of organisations have which is around the fact that they are going to become world dominating because they're going to make things more user-friendly and be more focused on the users and all that kind of thing. And then when you go and work with them you discover that usually involves sitting in a boardroom, role-playing what a user might be like with no actual real experience of that at all. Which to be fair, in some organisations when you are designing for someone who is exactly like you, that is probably user research but for most of the rest of us, user research involves actually going out and meeting an understanding and observing the actual real pupil who would potentially be users of the thing you are making, and getting a really good understanding of what it is about them that is going to provide the challenges and opportunities for you in your design process.
Paul: The thing about sitting in boardrooms, role-playing and saying yes we know what users want, it rings so many bells with me it's unbelievable.
Leisa: It's everywhere, this is the thing, the kind of work that user researchers do is very, very old. It's been a thing for the best part of the last century may be longer than that but this notion of user centeredness has been something that everybody has talked about a lot but the reality is most organisations do practically none of that, or maybe the usability bit at the end as a form of testing. Despite all the rhetoric of customer user centeredness it's really astonishing the number and type of organisations who do little to none. It's also astonishing how once you start doing it you start thinking how did I ever think I could ever do without this?
Paul: I guess that the argument that you hear is that, I work with our users every day, I speak to them every day so therefore I've got a good understanding of them. When you feel that falls down?
Leisa: Well I think if you are actually on the front line and working with and talking to users every day you might be one of the few people in the organisation who can and actually do a decent job in a role-play. Again in most instances, those are not the people they get to be in the boardroom when the role-play is happening. They are on the phones and manning the desks, so in ways not really a real question unless you're actually inviting those people into the office, into the workshops.
People who are in call centres often have a really good understanding of what problems people are having and what the organisation can do to solve those problems better. It's also really worth understanding that you only ever get the understanding of users based on the lens that you are putting over the top of them. If you're only looking to understand them through the lens of your organisation or your product, you'll only see a tiny fragment of what their entire experience is because very rarely is it all about you. I working government and government are masters of this because the research that does happen tends to happen in a directorate of a department and a project group within that directorate and it's looking at a very, very specific thing. So you've got these little tiny nuggets of insight about people that are being gathered, like right along the bottom of this enormously long wide alter, and never actually through the lens of the actual human experience.
We did a piece of work in the UK government looking at the experience of travelling to the UK and we thought that people been travelling to the UK for very long time, surely if we go back and look at all the research has ever been done by the government about this we should be at put together a picture of what it's like. So we tried to do that and we really ended up with a mosaic view, knew a lot about little tiny bits, we really didn't know anything about the proper context of the experience that people were having. So we spent a bunch of time doing that and then we've spent a small amount of time actually going out and observing and talking to people who are having that experience. We got so much more just from that small amount of qualitative work that was really following in the user's footsteps, following through what they were doing and looking at it through the lens of the border force people who were doing that bit all those special smart gates, people who are doing that or the visas. You can't just put all the bits together and go now we understand the experience because we don't.
Paul: Also it's about the gaps in those experiences as well, isn't it. The transition points where people move from one department to another, and that's often where they fall through gaps in my experience as well.
Leisa: That's the worst bit nobody knows about it because nobody is looking for it.
Paul: How is user research different from market research because there's a lot of marketers that are listening to this that might be sitting there going, well we've been looking into our users and researching into them for donkeys years, why have recently got this new term user research?
Leisa: I think people who are doing user research are very interested in the full, rich experience that individual people are having and market researchers tend to be much more interested in an aggregated view of that, so they are interested in the behaviours of complete markets, large markets. There are subsets of behaviours as well, when we think about what marketing is it's really about how can I get a message that's going to hit home to people. So you need to know what speaks to them and what do they listen to, how can you get there attention?
So market research is very useful I am told at helping to answer those kind of questions, but those kinds of techniques don't really give you much insight into how you should design a project or service. In market research you get a lot of what's, what people read, how many of them are there? You get a lot of data. And you tend to get less insight into why people are doing the things they are doing. User researchers are very interested in why, so often a loop will happen where we will be interested in something on the back of seeing some data. So you will see something in analytics and you'll go, what's happening there? Why all of a sudden after investing 30 minutes in a form do 5% of people quit? What's going on there? Analytics probably not going to be able to tell you that because you don't know what questions to ask, or your questions often biased by stuff that's framing that comes from your organisation. Whereas you can do a small amount of user research and really quickly get down to the bottom of the case, this is why people are doing that crazy thing, that thing that doesn't make any sense. And then you go back and say here are some ways that might fix it and then you go back out to more quantitative methods to determine whether or not your design has been effective or not.
So they are just different sets of tools that help view different things. Market research doesn't tend to help you know how to know what to design and how to design it. Particularly when you are looking at big sized problems. I steal this analogy from a blog post that Ben Holiday wrote about a book that I can never remember what it's called about colouring and trucks. If you're crossing the road this all kinds of data that you could look at, you could look at what colour the eyes of the people who are crossing the road coming toward you are which could be very interesting potentially or you can look at the size and speed of the large objects that are hurtling down the road towards you as you cross. The types of methods that you would use to detect and analyse those kinds of things would be really different. In a lot of organisations, especially in government we've got truck -sized problems. We don't really need very fine detailed measurements to be able to help us identify and understand what the problems are so small-scale research is very good at helping you work out what's most important and how you might go about fixing it.
Once you get a service is working pretty well, I'd say 90% of people are doing well in interacting with your services, but to want to get every percentage after that is much more difficult. Then you need to look to more optimisation tools so you look into analytics, multi-variants testing all those kinds of things, getting behavioural economists involved. They can help you get that last 10% but most of us are still in the first 90%. We haven't quite earned the right to be using the optimisation tools yet because we're still solving basic problems.
Paul: I tell you one challenge I come across with user research is that one part of my job is to help organisations put together in-house digital teams. As part of that you are suggesting front-end coders and server side developers and user interface designers and all these kind of things and increasingly I am including in the mix a user researcher. At least one for a small in-house team. Without fail that seems to be the one that gets challenged because I think people really struggled to picture what that person actually does on a day-to-day basis. How many usability test sessions can you run? How many times can you look at the user, once we know the user surely we know the user? The job is done. So can you talk as a little bit through what a user researcher dance on a daily basis, how do they have a full-time job within a team?
Leisa: I certainly can. A user researcher does what you would expect them to do which is plan research, they help work out what we're going to do and who were going to do with, so all the preparation work that needs to be done with that. Then we execute the research, go out in the field or into the lab and do it and we analyse the research and work out what it means and then we come back with some findings. A good user researcher is also bringing their team along to experience that process as well and are not doing by themselves. Based on my experience that takes up probably about 30 to 35% of the time that a user researcher is spending in an average week. The rest of the time they spend doing the really important part which is about making sure that the team they are working with really understands what they've learned in research, and really understands what that means for the service that you're working on, what we should be working on right now and what needs fixing and actually acts on it, actually does something with it and doesn't go, oh we've done the research, ticked that box, let's move on and go and do what we were going to do anyway. There's a huge amount of inertia that teams have, they get fixated on what they think, and we've worked out what we're going to do, we going to do this. And you go out and do your research and you go, actually no that's not really the right thing to do. We need to do something a bit different.
But everyone is psychically emotionally attached to the idea of the thing that we'd already agreed we were going to do. And it can be really, really difficult to get teams to acknowledge and act on the fact that we all know now that that's not right and we need to do something different. That takes a lot of time, takes a lot of being present and being in the same space as teams, listening to what they are doing and what they are saying and inserting yourself into meetings that people have and it hasn't occurred to them that you might be useful in that meeting. Thinking about that and how you can keep communicating this, making videos, making posters and just making ways that the research can be really present and actionable and always become available and in people's faces. Ambient and not stuck in a dry thoroughfare being forgotten about. That takes a lot of time. If you don't allow time for that, then you'll spend a lot of time doing research and do nothing about it. It's a complete waste you is will not do it at all.
Paul: And also I guess you are communicating potentially not just with the development team that are developing the service but across the entire organisation, helping everyone understand the user better in their interaction with them. That's getting even bigger than when you start talking about that, it really is a big job.
Leisa: You have to understand the user needs of all the different people that you're working with. We work a lot in Agile here, it's reasonably easy once you get into the swing of it and the team gets used to having a researcher around, it's reasonably easy to communicate to them really quickly what needs doing. A lot of the time they're watching and they've already fixed it for you before you have told them what the problem was. Some in the scheme of things that's relatively easy but when you go up a level from that and you get into things like policy issues where it's not just the way that the forms designed, it's actually the policy that's behind the reason that the form is designed that way that needs changing.
See you are then dealing the whole of the group of people with whole of the group of motivations, with no sense of why you would or should have an opinion about this and why they would or should listen to you about it. They aren't used to using this kind of evidence and the way that you present what you know, persuasively is completely different. So you have to think about that and you have to make different arguments to persuade those people. And then you are right, quite often what you find in one part of the organisation is really relevant to another part of the organisation that doesn't even know that you exist. So there are huge opportunities there, connecting things up that previously weren't connected. There was really no end to the value that you can add to the organisation if you take it on yourself to focus on getting the most out of the research and making sure it's really widely communicated in a way that is actionable for the people that you're communicating it to. That's hard work, it's a very creative thing to do.
Paul: You are effectively the users representative within the organisation. You are the user's champion. Everybody else has different responsibilities, the designer says they are the user champion but really they are designing user interfaces that are deliverables. There are a lot of people that put a claim on being a user champion but not dedicated to it, and that seems to be the difference with you.
Leisa: I think that the difference is, yes to appoint but if you're going to be really, really good at this then your objectives shouldn't be to be the expert, it should be to be the expert in making your team the expert. So successes when your team is full of people who really understand the users and who will be really advocating for them all the time. That's when you've really done your job well.
Paul: So what kind of techniques are you using to make this happen? There's two sides to that question aren't there, there's the research side, what kind of techniques are you using in the research and then also what kind of techniques are you using in communicating and embedding that user centric thinking within your team?
Leisa: I think for both sides of these are potentially really creative processes. There are lots of different ways that you can tackle research based on the kind of specific constraints and challenges of the audience and the project and what you're working on. The bread-and-butter of it is just one-to-one sessions with people who are representative or who could be members of the audience that you are designing for. You might do that as an interview or you might do it as a journey mapping session, you might do it as a usability test, you might do it as a combination of those two things, there is a range of different things you could do. But mostly it's about getting in a room with one other person, ideally their room that they would do the thing in and spending usually around about an hour with them and allowing them to basically take you on a tour of their experience of whatever it is that you are investigating. That's kind of it.
Paul: So is that preferable then to, you favour that approach over things like surveys and analytics kind of thing?
Leisa: If I'm trying to understand what I should be designing and how I should be designing it then yes, absolutely. That's not to say if you have to make a high-stakes recommendation, you might do a round of qualitative research which gives you an understanding of what you think the answer might be and then you can back that up with a larger scale survey for example to validate at a more significant, to give a higher confidence level IV people and yourself who are making the decisions. You would always want to do the qualitative first so that you actually know what to ask people in the survey.
Paul: Because that's been the big one in my experience when it comes to convincing people, that they will go, well you only spoke to a handful of people or however many you spoke to—it doesn't really matter, it's never enough—oh, you've only spoken to a small number of people, that's not accurate enough. I get this a lot especially when I am working in higher education institutions that are used to academic research where you have a large pool of people that you're researching into. How do you deal with those kinds of issues?
Leisa: I really think that the only way to answer that successfully is to say, you come with me. You come with me and sit in and observe the first six or eight sessions, then after that you tell me if you think we need to see more people. And almost invariably after about the fourth or fifth session they will go, I really think I don't need to go and see any more, I got to go do some work. And they stop telling you that you need to do 12 of 15 or 20 or 40 or 60 or however many it is. And once people have had that experience they stop asking that, they stop asking for crazy sample sizes for this kind of research. But you can get into a statistical or mathematical debate with them, you will probably lose. So my best way to respond to that is to say, you come with me and at the end if you are still not sure what you think we should do then we'll do some more.
And that's good practice, that's what you should do, right? You get to the end of 6 to 8 sessions and you're still not sure what to do, you probably should do some more. And sometimes that happens but from most of us most of the time in the first 4 or 5 sessions you are just like, oh God please can we start fixing stuff.
Paul: Because in some ways you're better off once you hit something obvious like that, you are better off fixing it and going back and doing some more afterwards to see whether you've successfully fixed it and whether that has unearthed more issues really, aren't you? Rather than just banging on the same issue again and again?
Leisa: I think that's the thing about researchers, once you've done it, everything that you learnt just appears to be completely obvious. But having not done it he wouldn't be able to say the things that you can say after you've done research, if you know to mean. That's often a sign of good research which is why presenting research at the end of the study can be really scary thing to do because you get to the end and you think I got a desk of completely obvious stuff. And it really feels like that, but before you done it nobody was making that list.
Paul: One of the things that I didn't ask when we did this the first time round, which I think is quite an important question, is around – I'm very conscious that a lot of people have listened to this, what we've discussed here and they've come to the conclusion that yes, this is something that is definitely worth doing within their organisation, it's something that they need to make happen but there isn't a position available for this at the moment, is not being advertised. They could take on some of these responsibilities but as is becoming blatantly obvious this is a big job. How do they convince the powers that be of the value of doing this kind of work?
Leisa: I don't know. I think I'm going to defer to Jared Spool's position on this and say I don't know if you can.
Paul: Yes we had Jared on the show a few weeks back and talked about that exact article that you are referring to now. It's a really difficult one isn't it? My feeling is you've almost got to do it a little bit under the radar and prove the results of it.
Leisa: Yes, although it's really difficult. We talked about before about how it really is a full-time job to do user research, to do a really good job at presenting it back so that it's compelling. How you do that on to for your everyday job is killing. Maybe if you haven't got kids you could do it. The thing is your appearing to people's real empathy towards end users and a lot of people working organisations where there is a little lip service paid to that but at the end of the day people really don't care. They just want to punch stuff out the door and see if it works and hit their KPIs, it's got really nothing to do with how uses a feeling. I think in a lot of cases to make proper real systemic change you need somebody at the top who actually really cares about it.
Paul: Is very difficult isn't it, it's a very challenging situation. A big part of my job is helping people with these kinds of strategies and directions. I'm in the position where I am proposing teams of people and trying to get them to realise the value of these different people. Like I said user research is always a quite challenging one to get people to think about.
What is interesting about this is that because you some research is an emerging role, you don't as of yet go to university and go, I'm going to become a user research when I grow up. So how do people get into this? What kind of people make good use of researchers and what kind of backgrounds to they come from?
Leisa: You get them from two different directions. You get people who got an interest in people who do things like psychology and apology degrees and that kind of thing who then discover the application of it in the tech field and go, oh this is fun and interesting – I'm going to do that. And then you get the other way where you have people who are developers sometimes, designers sometimes, writers, people like that who are already in the digital field and see that this is a thing and get excited about how doing this kind of work can help them deliver better results, and get into it that way. So there's lots of different ways to get into it, you don't need a qualification to be up to do this. Is one of those things, I kind of think of it like being a bit of a trade where there was some basic stuff that you need to know but really you get good at this because you apprentice yourself to people who are good at it and you copy them and you just do it for a long time, that's how you get good at it.
For me you need to be interested in people, you need to be able to strike up a conversation, or a bit of rapport with people who are nothing at all like you, and who have very different backgrounds to you. You need to be able to listen which is a surprisingly difficult skill for some people.
Paul: I can attest to that. As I said to the last time we did this interview, when I was at Headscape, Marcus and Chris used to ban me from doing any kind of usability testing or anything like that simply because I just want to shout people and say why aren't you doing it right? Which is probably not the right approach, I am guessing.
Leisa: The other thing that I think is really important which is something that people don't necessarily think about is the analysis capabilities. The capability to look at a lot of really messy fuzzy data and turn it into something that is properly evidenced and can be traced back to individual people. But then can be turned into something actionable that teams can do something with it. That's a special skill and I think Genevieve Bell at Intel says that you are either born with that you are not. You can't really teach that. When I first read that she said that, I am like really? But since then I've been on the lookout I think she's right. I think you've either got it we haven't.
Paul: It's really interesting that another thing that I do is that I do mentorship with other agencies and other web designers and one of the people that I was working with yesterday had just done a whole load of research and came back to me and said, what do I do with all of this now? He just felt completely overwhelmed by this mass of information in front of him. So yes, it can be quite intimidating can't it?
Leisa: I think people who have even done it for a long time have that moment at the beginning of the analysis where they just go, how will I ever make sense of this? I'm sitting in a room at the moment which is just like a world of post-it notes and that's just a result of the week out in the field. It's amazing watching it transform over the course of a couple of days from being a complete chaotic mess into some really clear insights about what we know what we need to do about it.
Paul: The whole topic I find completely fascinating because although it seems to be something that a lot of organisations pay lip service to, very few actually seem to invest into getting people in. And yet of all of the different roles that you could have, this is one that creates tangible and real return on your investment. One that you can measure in a very specific way, so it amazes me that more people aren't investing in it within organisations. Just blows my mind.
Leisa: I think once you do it and you do it properly it's hard to go back again but there are plenty of organisations where they've done a half arsed job at it, where they've tried it didn't work, it's no good. And this is part of what happens if you spread researchers too thinly, and just have them tasked to do usability tests across six different projects. You're never going to get excited about this kind of work if that's the way that you're working because you never really going to get that kind of deep, empathic relationship with your users across the entire team. It would just be like a tick box thing, we've done that part, we've done the usability testing and those five annoying bugs we need to fix, let's move on.
Paul: That was a point you made a lot in the first time we recorded this, and I think it's a really important one because I think a lot of organisations do treated as a tick box exercise and do a half arsed job at it. They spread their user research is too thinly. One of the questions I asked first time round and which we haven't touched on as much this time was the issue of is this something that you can do part-time? Is this something you can just spend a little bit of time on? And there is value in that but it is almost you either do it or you don't. Is that a fair assessment?
Leisa: Yes at GDS we got to the benchmark saying you can't if you can't be in with the team three days a week you pretty much might as well not bother.
Paul: Right.
Leisa: You've got to be all in. I think this is one of the problems that people think about research as a nice to have. We will spend all the money on that, and oh look, there's no money left so we can't do research. And it shouldn't be like that at all. When you look at how digital service standards for example that we using government, the number one criteria is doing research to understand user needs because we know that's the foundation upon which we make all of the decisions about what to do and how to do it in bottles to do it in. Everybody's got a pot of time, every projects got a pot of money, and everybody at some point decides how to divide that up. If you don't do user research you are actively deciding not to do it, it's not that you're running out of money and that's a shame. You cut the pie however you want to.
Paul: I like that, unlike that way of wording it. You are actively deciding not do user research, to not care about your users. We need to end with that one. That's a better ending than the last time. Of course last time we did solve every user experience problem ever known to man, but nobody is ever going to hit that which is sad.
Leisa: Such a shame. Oh well, maybe another time.
Paul: Time we will record that bit. Leisa thank you so much for doing this again because it's such an important subject and I've really enjoyed talking about it and it's helped clarify some thinking in my mind about the recommendations I make to my client that the digital teams they put together and I'm certainly now less apologetic for trying to crowbar a user researcher into the mix of digital teams that I create. Because it's an absolutely vital role. I totally agree with you.
Leisa: Well my work here is done, thank you.
Paul: You have succeeded. Thank you very much.
Paul: I know you haven't had a chance to listen to this Marcus.
Marcus: No and I would actually like to hear this, so I may even give it a listen when I edit it.
Paul: You really ought to because it's really interesting. As I say in the interview, I've been recommending that internal digital teams have a user researcher in them. You know when we do these digital strategies and stuff, you know that I've been recommending it because you've been proofreading some of the documents, and I've always felt it's a position I have to explain and justify. I got to the point of going is this a bit over the top having a full-time researcher? But if you listen to Leisa she just blows that apart. It's such an important role and it's so underestimated. Even within agencies, I think having a professional user researcher is a really useful thing to have.
Marcus: Do you think it's a role that can straddle other roles?
Paul: Yes and no. Yes I think for example in Headscape, you've got you who does a lot of that kind of role and Chris who does the analytic side of things. I think that's fine in terms of skill sets but the point that Leisa was making is having that person, it needs to add up to a full-time person. It's a lot more than you think it is as a job. I won't repeat the interview because it's boring but when you listen to it you'll really get a sense that it's actually quite a big job we are talking about. It's not a light thing at all. It involves constantly pushing the user with the designers and developers and having someone that owns that and there ensuring it doesn't slip out of people's thinking.
Marcus: Okay I'll listen.
Paul: Listen, you will enjoy it.
Okay so that brings us on to our second sponsor slot, which is you again Marcus.
Marcus: Me! I got to do all this talking with my bunged up nose.
Paul: Awww. Do you want me to do it? Do you want me to talk about Headscape?
Marcus: No.
Paul: No? Okay, fair enough.
Marcus: You can join in, you can help me out if I need any help.
This week I'm going to talk about design. Even though it says on our website, Headscape.co.uk – Digital strategy, web design and development, I thought maybe I should just start with digital strategy and consulting because it's first in the statement. But I thought I would start with design because that's where Headscape started and that's where we made our reputation all those many, many years ago.
Paul: That's our roots.
Marcus: It is yes, and we still do a lot of it. So what I mean by design in this case? I'm talking about UX design which obviously is relevant as we are covering UX design in the series, but also visual design. But no one seems to like calling visual design, visual design. What's visual design to these days?
Paul: User interface design, rather than UX design.
Marcus: UX and UI they you go. So I thought what would possibly be useful be to take everyone through the aspects of what it would be like to work with us on a project from a UI and UX point of view.
Paul: Okay. Oh I like this, well thought through. I'm very impressed.
Marcus: It's amazing, well you know I get writing, I've got far too much probably.
Paul: I'm going to stop you if you go over your time. This is only a sponsored slot.
Marcus: How long have I got?
Paul: 30 seconds. Tops.
Marcus: Oh we've kind of done it then. We great.
Paul: Go on, say what you are going to say.
Marcus: We normally kick-off with a UX and UI-based workshop, which we discussed with James Box a couple weeks ago.
[Doorbell rings]
Paul: Hang on a minute, you carry on with this bit, the doorbell has just gone.
Marcus: Okay, let me know when you are back Paul. I'll carry on.
Some of the things we will have dealt with in a prior consulting phase, but sometimes we bang straight into dealing with UX and UI. We will look at setting objectives with whoever we are talking to and prioritising those objectives, we talked about that many times in previous shows.
Paul: I'm back by the way.
Marcus: I was just talking about the fact that we start off by objective setting and prioritising those objectives we then move on to audiences, prioritising audiences, audience requirements and prioritising those which can sometimes be related to top tasks. We'll do lots of exercises to get people involved, again I am repeating very much what we talked about James, but some the stuff that straight out of his book is things like designing a cereal box where you're effectively giving people 10 things that they can have on your home page or landing page whatever it is you are designing and you need to divide up what those different things are onto the front cover of the cereal box size the back etc. It's a prioritisation exercise but it's fun. A sober version of that would be that we'd like you to design a mobile version of this page, and that way you're enforcing a single column design and therefore enforcing prioritisation choices.
Another interesting one we do is six homepages which is again I think from James and Kenneth's book where you ask people very quickly, you give me a sheet of A4 with six boxes on and asked them to design six different homepages. Everyone can do to or maybe three really easily and then it's like, oh I don't know what to do next. So you can sometimes get some quite wacky ideas out of that, some left-field type stuff which might inspire some other part of the process so it's an interesting thing to do. Another one we do is giving people points to spend. You may have 10 items that are going to appear on your page and you've got 20 points to spend. You might want to spend 10 points on one and then one point on each the others or divide it up more evenly, it depends on the content type.
We'd also looking to developing user stories and user journeys. But we also do exercises relating to UI design, visual design. A favourite one is designing a reception area or waiting room. We have a set bunch of questions and ask is it light and airy or is it a closed room? What colour are the walls? What would be on the walls? What's the furniture like? Is there somebody at reception? All this kind of stuff, the idea being that you're making aesthetic choices but you not thinking about buttons navigation. That's something we nearly always do. We sometimes will put people into groups and get to design different mood boards as well. We'll give them access to image libraries, colour palettes and see if they can build up a different mood board to be presented at the end.
So that's the kind of thing we cover in a workshop. Following that we would then split the process into two where one direction would be developing a prototype. We might have done some early wireframes or sketches in the workshop but we would then pull them into a more of an interactive type prototype of what the final website might be. Something this testable basically, where we could look at content and cause to action. The other direction we going would be to develop mood boards. Often part of the previous phase we've been through in the workshop would be looking at the type of words that are associated with the brand. And you do forget things like strength and reliability, but you often also get people saying we're quite a fun organisation, with very innovative. They may not be part of the standard brand guidelines that you'd get so a mood boards is a great place to develop strength and reliable style as opposed to a fun and innovative one. So you can test things out there again without getting into what the navigation looks like or what button styles. You still set back from that.
Once you've agreed the direction with wireframes, we don't sign them off, we just make sure we go in the right direction, once you've decided on a particular direction will then put together a few page mock-ups pulling in the wireframe direction with the mood to board direction. We'll only do two or three because at that point we don't want to spend ages doing 10 different mock-ups of different pages, we want to get into the front-end design, which is something I'm going to talk about next time I'm doing this.
But the final point on the process would be once we are at that point, we'll do some testing. At the moment we tend to go down the online route, particularly with design testing because you can get to many hundreds of people rather than a few face-to-face.
I think one final point says that we approach projects in a more Agile way more and more it seems these days. We tend to cover most of what I've described and all the stuff I'm going to describe next time, tend to have more in tandem these days than in the stepped process that I've just described. It tends to be a shorter but more intense process these days.
So that's a very short look at our design work.
Paul: I think is possibly the longest you've ever spoken on the podcast. It was really good mind though because we don't often talk about processes very much do we? Not in any structured way. It sounds quite good when you say it like that Marcus. It sounds like we know we're doing.
Marcus: Thanks very much Paul, although as I'm saying it I'm thinking oh I forgot that, and I forgot that.
Paul: But then there so many elements. That's the trouble, you talk about process but actually it's not so much a process as a methodology. Is like a toolkit of different things you used depending on the situation and the client and all the rest of it rather than not every client goes through exactly the same process. It's interesting, it's cool.
Marcus: Exactly, a good example would be mood boards which are talked a lot about there. With some clients were done many and we've moved on and done further mood boards after that and other clients they just don't get them.
Paul: Or they've got such strong guidelines already that they are almost irrelevant.
Marcus: It's unnecessary, so were not religiously sticking to our processes saying we must do this bit next. If it's not working then try something else.
Paul: Right joke and then we can wrap up and going be ill.
Marcus: This is a football joke, I kind of like this one. It's again from the Edinburgh Fringe. This is a guy called Alan Cochrane. Did we not see him?
Paul: Yes that was the guy at the DotNet Awards.
Marcus: He was very funny.
'The first time I met my wife I knew she was a keeper, she was wearing massive gloves'.
Paul: Yeah. I wish to publicly apologise for this podcast, except for the interview which I thought was brilliant. But the mere Marcus today, we've let you down people.
Marcus: Do you think so? I think we've been kind of fireside and cosy.
Paul: A mug of cocoa. But next week is going to be really good. We've got Josh Clark coming on the show and began to talk about designing for the gaps, which is a bit abstract isn't it but it's the way that users move from one device to the other and how you can design around that. Also other types of gaps, like when they move from one social media to your website or through different departments within an organisation. And the danger is that in all these gaps users get lost or confused. How do we deal with that? So Josh Clark is going to come on talk about that is he's an expert in that area. So it should be a really good show so make sure you join us for that. You so much for listening guys, is always much appreciated and we will be back healthy and happy next week.


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Tickets went on sale only this morning for the 2015 edition of Google's annual Chrome Dev Summit to be held at the Google Quad building in Palo Alto, California, on November 17th and 18th. As with the last couple years, the limited availability of passes ensured that they were all sold out within a short while of being made available online. Which was to be expected, as demand for tickets for the event has always far outstripped supply. The summit is aimed at helping web developers exchange ideas on new APIs and multi-device workflows, and to take part in various workshops and code labs. Now with tickets to the event sold out, interested developers will still have the opportunity to catch Google's live streaming of the event straight from ground zero. Google has also said that it will be uploading all the sessions and presentations on the Google Developers YouTube channel.
While Google holds a bunch of events throughout the year aimed at specific target audiences, some like the Google I/O are more consumer-focused and hence get more coverage from the mainstream commercial tech-media. Google announces new consumer-centric products at the event, which these days, gets tons of attention for announcing a new version of Android every year. This year specifically, Google's ATAP division made some rather interesting presentations about its much-talked-about developments which are in the pipeline for commercial releases at some stage in the near future. Those include Project Jacquard, Project Soli, Project Abacus, Project Tango, Project Vault and a number of other rather interesting projects. The Dev Summit meanwhile, as the name suggests, is aimed primarily at developers, and as mentioned already, is held yearly in the month of November. It is designed to help Chrome Engineers and developers write more innovative and exciting web apps for the platform.
Coming to the Chrome Dev Summit 2015, the registrations page for tickets to this year's event now mentions that tickets are no longer available. However, interested parties without a ticket can choose to join the waiting list in case new spots become available. "Ticket Registration is now closed. Please join the waitlist for new ticket availability and information about the livestream" is the message that can now be seen on the page.


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As the Western establishment continues to try and crush Syria, Venezuela, Iran and the Philippines, the empire is setting its sights on a new target which is receiving itself less attention: Tanzania.
Although not in the form of bombs and sanctions (yet), the G8 is moving to force Tanzania to accept GMOs and patented seeds under the guise of developmental assistance and aid to one of the world's most impoverished nations. The G8 is doing so through its NAFSN (New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition) which was created in 2012. Its publicly stated goal was to end poverty for 50 million people and it is funded by the EU, U.S., UK, World Bank, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. One of its many partners in Tanzania is of course, Monsanto.
In other words, the same countries who are marching across the world and creating the largest humanitarian disasters of the 21st century are working with a global bank that has slashed, indebted and privatized countries into abject poverty. A foundation has crippled children in India and helped bring back polio and a corporation that has poisoned the food supply and the environment and destroyed the health of hundreds of millions of people. Indeed, the NAFSN is an all-star cast of prime examples of governments and organizations that no one should ever want being involved in their country.
The G8, World Bank and its "partners" has long been known to force GMOs onto hapless countries. But what they are doing to Tanzania is particularly egregious. This is because the NAFSN is not only opening Tanzania up to GMOs, or even forcing Tanzania to accept GMOs, they are forcing Tanzanians to plant and use them.
The NAFSN has forced the Tanzanian government to change its agricultural laws so that non-patented seeds (all the seeds Tanzanian people previously used; non-GMO seeds) are banned. Non-GMO seeds are now forbidden by law from being sold or even given to friends and family. Individuals who violate the law will face minimum of 12 years in prison and a $230,000 fine or both.
The NAFSN claims the decision will benefit small farmers, but it is important to note that local and small farmers and Tanzanian farming organizations were completely kept out of the negotiation process while Big Ag essentially controlled. One of the tenets of the new law much praised is that private investors will be given easier access through a more streamlined process to Tanzanian agricultural land.
What the NAFSN has done is much worse than extortion and it is more than criminal. It is open colonialism in the 21st century. Essentially, the NAFSN has used the poverty in Tanzania as a bargaining chip for its alleged food aid which is actually a bundle of toxic crops, an open police state and a massive boon to Big Ag's balance sheets.
The West has negotiated a deal which impoverished people, shivering in the cold will be given blankets covered in small pox. It is odd how things change, but remain constantly the same.
Tanzanian farmers are now going to be thrown into prison simply for planting and growing natural plants and food. This new law is the criminalization of nature, self-sustainability and independence. It is also eerily similar to other typical colonial-style practices such as banning indigenous languages. This criminalization of nature over time eliminates even the possibility of retaining one's culture and traditional practices.
The new laws themselves are so onerous that it is likely illegal even under international law. Indeed Article 9 of the International Treaty on Plant and Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture aka the Seed Treaty, states that no law should "limit any rights that farmers have to save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seed/propagating material."
It is thus telling that the World Bank, one of the self-proclaimed leaders of world charity, would push through a law such as this despite it being in contradiction to laws put forward by its own international sister organizations.
But international law or no international law, are we really to expect Tanzanian farmers to make a successful court case against the NAFSN and their own government? They have limited economic resources, limited knowledge of international law, and they are facing a coalition of the worst and most powerful elements of world civilization. They will expend many resources to find that if they are successful, they will still be competing with Big Ag.
In the meantime, they will have to use GMO seeds, or spend 12 years in a Tanzanian prison. By the time the lawsuit is finished the damage will be done.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the NAFSN's funding partners, is particularly well-known for pushing the interests of big agribusiness on small-scale farmers in developing countries, as evidenced by one of the Gates Foundation's "most successful" initiatives – the introduction of genetically modified (GM) cotton to India. Despite the promise that GM cotton would increase yields, this turned out not to be the case and Indian farmers who adopted the GM crops became trapped by debt, as their disappointing yields left them unable to pay for the expensive seeds and chemicals needed to cultivate GM plants.
This debt slavery soon led to one of the largest suicide epidemics in global history, with 300,000 Indian farmers having committed suicide over the last 20 years. Despite this travesty, Monsanto and other companies, such as Cargill and Dow Chemical, have benefited handsomely from India's "green revolution," seeing the value of their stocks skyrocket. The Gates Foundation itself has financially benefited as well due to its multi-million dollar investments in all three companies.
If the new laws being forced on Tanzania are any indication, the African nation may soon follow in India's footsteps.
The NASFN proudly boasts that it has secured $3.7 billion dollars in "private sector investment" in Africa since 2012. And they repeat these figures as if members of the organization have been collecting money with their caps in their hands. In reality, however, they have merely been talking amongst themselves and making the decision as to who can feed off of the Tanzanian people and how many shares they can have. This is not charity. It is colonialism.
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Pi Kappa Phi
Eta Delta Chapter
Pi Kappa Phi is an American fraternity that was founded by Andrew Alexander Kroeg, Jr., Lawrence Harry Mixson, and Simon Fogarty, Jr. It was founded on December 10, 1904 at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina. The fraternity currently has 150 active chapters, 93 alumni groups, 14 colonies, and more than 100,000 initiated members around the nation. There are currently 13 chapters that are based in Georgia including ours at Kennesaw State University.
Colors: White, Gold, and Royal Blue
National Founding Date: December 10, 1904
Chapter Charter Date: December 10, 1991
Chapter Events: Pi Kappa Phi Car Wash, War of the Roses, Pie a Pi Kapp, etc
National Philanthropies: PUSH America, Give a Push Weekend, Journey of Hope, and Build America
Website: http://www.pikapp.org
Motto: Nothing Shall Ever Tear Us Asunder