Outlining “Opportunity Mapping: A Working through Screens Sketchbook”

“Working through Screens” Ideas + Visual Sense Making = “Opportunity Mapping”

Another bit of planning similar to the last post, laying the groundwork for what’s to come on this blog:

I have been thinking though a series of posts that will culminate in another book, “Opportunity Mapping: A Working through Screens Sketchbook.” As mentioned in an earlier post, this will be one of two “sketchbooks” that will show ways to bring “Working through Screens” 100 envisioning ideas to life.

The motivation for this new work is in the opening thoughts of “Working through Screens.”

  • “Product teams creating computing tools for specialized workers struggle to understand what is needed and to successfully satisfy a myriad of constraints.”
  • “Targeted improvements in the design of these tools can have large impacts on workers’ experiences. Visionary design can advance entire fields and industries.”
  • “Dive into the specific cognitive challenges of knowledge workers’ practices in order to uncover new sources of product meaning and value.”
  • “Keep asking questions until you uncover driving factors that resonate. Create visual models of them. Focus your team on these shared kernels of understanding and insight. Lay the groundwork for inspiration.”
  • “Set higher goals for users’ experiences.”


If valuable application design action starts with the recognition of an opportunity, then this thread of posts will focus on presenting some ideas of how product teams might develop shared understandings of where to focus their limited design attention.

How can teams move beyond top ten lists of “breakdowns” to improve workplace user experiences in transformative ways? What maps of design opportunities could push the boundaries of what might be considered core to application user experiences?

“Opportunity Mapping” will provide an organizing point of view and plenty of highly visual examples to answer these questions.

The plan is to create posts for each of these points, and then pull them together at some point into a single Application Concepting Series volume (print on demand or free .pdf). I’m sure that I will be editing this rough Table of Contents along the way, and I will also link out to completed posts as this project rolls along.

Front Matter

• Opening thoughts: Accelerating innovation for specialized work
• Opening thoughts: More systemic frameworks for design ideation
• Table of Contents (this post)
• Preface

Common Sense Making Challenges in Product Teams

• Challenge – Laying a foundation of shared understanding about current user experiences
• Challenge – Thinking through common opportunities to improve knowledge work
• Challenge – Representing problems before jumping into design solutions
• Challenge – Choosing where to focus design attention in complex systems

Why Opportunity Mapping

• Opportunity maps are a way to thoughtfully bridge UX data and conceptual design
• Opportunity maps focus a product team’s design efforts
• Opportunity maps do not cover the full range of an eventual solution
• Opportunity maps can have four different levels of focus
• Opportunity maps offer a general approach, not a concrete process
• Opportunity maps can be built from 100 “Working through Screens” ideas

1. Identification

• Identification – Collaboratively identifying a broad range of potential design opportunities
• Identification – Medical system example
• Identification – Clinical research system example
• Identification – Architectural system example
• Identification – Financial trading system example

2. Consolidation

• Consolidation – Distilling identified opportunities into consolidated maps
• Consolidation – Medical system example
• Consolidation – Clinical research system example
• Consolidation – Architectural system example
• Consolidation – Financial trading system example

3. Selection

• Selection – Selecting targeted opportunities and mapping the meaning of those choices
• Selection – Medical system example
• Selection – Clinical research system example
• Selection – Architectural system example
• Selection – Financial trading system example

4. Communication

• Communication – Distilling selected opportunity focus and direction for product team audience
• Communication – Medical system example
• Communication – Clinical research system example
• Communication – Architectural system example
• Communication – Financial trading system example

Closing Matter

• Using opportunity maps throughout the product development lifecycle
• Bibliography and further reading
• About the author + Flashbulb Interaction, Inc.

Sound interesting? Have ideas that you would like to share about compelling new ways to visualize user experience opportunities? Your input would be greatly appreciated! Please comment on this post, tweet @J_Burghardt or send an email to jburghardt@flashbulbinteraction.com
Filed under: "Opportunity Mapping" | Posted by J_Burghardt on 04/11/2010 8:24 PM | Comments (0)
Outlining “Application Snapshots: A Working through Screens Sketchbook”

I have been thinking through a series of posts that will culminate in another book, “Application Snapshots: A Working through Screens Sketchbook.” As mentioned in an earlier post, this will be one of two “sketchbooks” that will show ways to bring “Working through Screens” 100 envisioning ideas to life.

Readers have responded positively to the illustrations and new design patterns in Flashbulb Interaction’s creative commons work, so “Application Snapshots” will be a fairly free form sketchbook of design ideas. Mostly showing, rather than telling. None of these ideas will have been vetted through usability research or real world implementation – and that’s not the point. Instead, this project will be about sparking ideas in a technology space where many potential user experience innovations are left unexplored and design often evolves in slow iterations.

So here are 25 groupings with four “Working through Screens” ideas in each cluster. The plan is to create an “Application Snapshot” for each grouping, and then pull them together at some point into a single Application Concepting Series volume (print on demand or free .pdf). I’m sure that I will be editing this rough Table of Contents along the way, and I will also link out to completed posts as this project rolls along.

Snapshot 1
H3. Automated historical records and versions
E1. Offloading long term memory effort
D1. Respected tempos of work
K9. Directed application interoperation

Snapshot 2
L2. Contemporary application aesthetics
E2. Offloading short term memory effort
D7. Eventual habit and automaticity
K3. Recognizable applicability to targeted work

Snapshot 3
J4. Authorship awareness, presence, and contact facilitation
J1. Integral communication pathways
I4. Uncertain or missing content
D6. Alerting and reminding cues

Snapshot 4
L3. Iconic design resemblances within applications
B4. Object associations and user defined objects
A6. Open and emergent work scenarios
M1. Iterative conversations with knowledge workers

Snapshot 5
I2. Comprehensive and relevant search
G4. Workspace awareness embedded in interactions
G2. Levels of selection and action scope
D3. Current workload, priority of work, and opportunity costs

Snapshot 6
M3. Application user communities
I7. Archived information
F8. Representational transformations
B6. Flagged variability within or between objects

Snapshot 7
H2. Extensive and reconstructive undo
E3. Automation of low level operations
E5. Visibility into automation
D2. Expected effort

Snapshot 8
K2. Introductory user experience
I3. Powerful filtering and sorting
H1. Active versioning
C2. Application interaction model

Snapshot 9
B5. Object states and activity flow visibility
F4. Support for visualization at different levels
I5. Integration of information sources
A5. Interrelations of operation, task, and activity scenarios

Snapshot 10
J6. Streamlined standard communications
G3. Error prevention and handling in individual interactions
F6. Instrumental results representations
B10. Object templates

Snapshot 11
J3. Explicit work handoffs
E6. Internal locus of control
E4. Automation of task or activity scenarios
C6. Standardized application workflows

Snapshot 12
K12. Trusted and credible processes and content
F10. Symbolic visual languages
F11. Representational codes and context
A4. Standardization of work practice through mediation

Snapshot 13
K8. Seamless inter-application interactivity
K13. Reliable and direct activity infrastructure
D5. Resuming work
F9. Simultaneous or sequential use of representations

Snapshot 14
K10. Openness to application integration and extension
F7. Highly functional tables
L1. High quality and appealing work products
J7. Pervasive printing

Snapshot 15
B9. Common management actions for objects
K6. Design for frequency of access and skill acquisition
C4. Pathways for task and activity based wayfinding
A9. High value ratio for targeted work practices

Snapshot 16
H4. Working annotations
I6. Explicit messaging for information updates
C3. Levels of interaction patterns
B3. Coupling of application and real world objects

Snapshot 17
K4. Verification of operation
K5. Understanding and reframing alternate interpretations
B8. Explicit mapping of objects to work mediation
A3. Work practices appropriate for computer mediation

Snapshot 18
K1. Application localization
F2. Established genres of information representation
B2. Flexible identification of object instances
A8. Local practices and scenario variations

Snapshot 19
F1. Coordinated representational elements
C8. Defaults, customization, and automated tailoring
L4. Appropriate use of imagery and direct branding
D4. Minimizing distraction and fostering concentration

Snapshot 20
K7. Clear and comprehensive instructional assistance
C5. Permissions and views tailored to workers’ identities
C1. Intentional and articulated conceptual models
A2. Workers’ interrelations and relationships

Snapshot 21
K11. End user programming
G6. Contextual push of related information
B1. Named objects and information structures
M2. System champions

Snapshot 22
M4. Unanticipated uses of technology
G7. Transitioning work from private to public view
F5. Comparative representations
C9. Error prevention and handling conventions

Snapshot 23
J2. Representational common ground
C7. Structural support of workspace awareness
B7. Object ownership and availability rules
A7. Collaboration scenarios and variations

Snapshot 24
L5. Iconoclastic product design
G1. Narrative experiences
F3. Novel information representations
C10. Predictable application states

Snapshot 25
J5. Public annotation
I1. Flexible information organization
G5. Impromptu tangents and juxtapositions
A1. Influential physical and cultural environments

Sound interesting? Have some thoughts on how “Working through Screens” ideas could be illustrated through example “snapshot” sketches? Your input would be greatly appreciated! Please comment on this post, tweet @J_Burghardt or send an email to jburghardt@flashbulbinteraction.com

Filed under: "Application Snapshots" | Posted by J_Burghardt on 03/28/2010 5:16 PM | Comments (0)
Seeking input on your experiences using “Working through Screens”
As part of launching print on demand versions of our inaugural publication, I am gathering anecdotes about how readers have applied the “Working through Screens” ideas to their own projects.


Have you applied “Working through Screens” to your own application definition and design efforts? If you have a story to share, please comment on this post, providing as much detail as you are comfortable sharing about your project and how you put “Working through Screens” to use. (Alternately, tweet @J_Burghardt or send an email to info@flashbulbinteraction.com).


Your input will help Flashbulb Interaction improve future publications in our “Application Concepting Series.” I look forward to hearing about your experiences!
Filed under: "Working through Screens" | Posted by J_Burghardt on 01/26/2010 9:49 PM | Comments (2)
Announcing “Working through Screens” print on demand softcover books


To celebrate the first anniversary of Flashbulb Interaction’s inaugural book, “Working through Screens: 100 Ideas for Envisioning Powerful, Engaging, and Productive User Experiences in Knowledge Work,” I have converted the book to create two 400 page, softcover, print on demand versions through Lulu.com:

NOTE: Prices are Lulu.com minimum cost for printing (without any author markup).

The new, 8.5” X 11” format is also available for download as a .pdf

View a list of all “Working through Screens” formats

The reader response from the e-book versions in the first year has been extremely gratifying, and I would like to enthusiastically thank everyone who has taken the time to let me know their thoughts on this project.

Here are a few reader comments that I am particularly thrilled with:

  • “This is gorgeous and insightful.” Christina Wodtke
  • “Beautiful illustrations and useful patterns abound.” Jess McMullin
  • “An excellent, well-illustrated ebook on concept design for designers and product developers.” Michael Angeles
  • “An impressive collection of semi-abstracted design ideas and considerations for knowledge work…” Jonas Löwgren
  • “I can’t wait to delve deeper into this thoughtfully designed document.” Keith Tatum
  • “I think that people will find it a very useful guide and idea-generator.” Judy Ramey


I also want to thank everyone who tweeted, emailed about, and socially bookmarked “Working through Screens” – your sharing and responses have been truly inspiring. I would particularly like to thank all of the blogs and sites that posted about the free e-book (apologies if I have missed anyone):



What do you think of the print on demand versions of “Working through Screens”? Please comment on this post, tweet @J_Burghardt, or send email to info@flashbulbinteraction.com. I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Filed under: "Working through Screens", Studio Reports | Posted by J_Burghardt on 9:14 PM | Comments (0)
Announcing Iterative Blogging of Two New “Application Concepting Series” Titles
Q: What will you find on this blog in the near future?

A: Ideas for advancing user experience in the evolving knowledge workplace.

More specifically, I will be using this space to iteratively write the next two titles in Flashbulb Interaction’s “Application Concepting Series” of publications:

  • “Opportunity Mapping: A Working through Screens Sketchbook”
  • “Application Snapshots: A Working through Screens Sketchbook”


By iteratively blogging draft content for these publications, I hope to gather feedback from readers like you.

As the titles suggest, each of these publications will be extensions of Flashbulb Interaction’s first book, “Working through Screens: 100 Ideas for Envisioning Powerful, Engaging, and Productive User Experiences in Knowledge Work.”  These two new volumes will showcase a variety of ways that product teams might apply the 100 envisioning ideas to early, strategic phases of application definition and design.

Since “Working through Screens” was an intensive writing project, these next two volumes are going to focus more on visuals – on showing instead of telling. In keeping with the “sketchbook” idea, these projects will also be shorter and more open in format.  In general, both publications will be made up of a series of discrete “sketches,” with each idea presented in a two page “illustration and explanation” spread.  Since each spread of content will be self contained, my hope is that these new works will be especially well suited to being drafted as blog posts, right here at www.ApplicationConcepting.com.

When this blog is eventually full of content, and the two “Working through Screens Sketchbooks” have come together from the sum of all the parts, the plan is to make each publication available as free .pdf files and as print on demand books.

Sound interesting?  Have ideas that you would like to share about compelling new ways to visualize user experience opportunities?  Or maybe you have some thoughts on how “Working through Screens” ideas could be illustrated through example “snapshot” sketches?  Your input would be greatly appreciated! Please comment on this post, tweet @J_Burghardt or send an email to jburghardt@flashbulbinteraction.com

Filed under: "Application Snapshots", "Opportunity Mapping", Studio Reports | Posted by J_Burghardt on 01/08/2010 1:51 PM | Comments (0)
Kicking Off “Application Concepting” Blog
Flashbulb Interaction’s studio blog is now up and running!

Over time, you will find that this “Application Concepting” URL (www.ApplicationConcepting.com) will be geared toward “ideas for advancing user experience in the evolving knowledge workplace.” As an extension of our “Application Concepting Series” of book publications, this blog will strive to contribute to a larger discussion around how to drive vision in specialized application design.

If you define or design computing tools for some type of knowledge work activity or highly targeted profession, then this blog will provide you with a regular drumbeat of inspiration and ideas (subscribe to blog RSS updates). I look forward to hearing your comments!

Also, for quick updates from our consulting studio, including relevant links to online resources and general news about our work in progress, see our FlashbulbUX Twitter feed or subscribe to our Twitter RSS updates.

Jacob Burghardt
President + Principal Consultant
Flashbulb Interaction, Inc.
E: jburghardt@FlashbulbInteraction.com
P: 206.280.3135

Filed under: Studio Reports | Posted by J_Burghardt on 12:59 PM | Comments (0)
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