In a special episode recorded on location, Tom Diab, proprietor of the Gourmet Chocolate Cafe in Chelsea, Michigan, shares his ideas on customer experience design for cafes. Through a bonanza of entertaining storytelling, Tom, a former schoolteacher and drug rep for Pfizer, tells Tim and guest cohost Chris how he and his wife decided to open a cafe, how they found a location, the design choices they made for the physical spaces and menus and goods offered, and why small businesses can innovate better than corporate competitors.

Some of Tom’s ideas include: Design for your customers, not yourself; test your designs with customers before implementing; creatively balance the needs of child-free patrons with parent patrons to provide an ambience for all; co-advertise with competitors; organic design iteration is good; invest in your customers’ community and you will be rewarded in the long term. You’ll hear conceptual references to field research, usability testing, and participatory design throughout Tom’s narrative.

The website for the Gourmet Chocolate Cafe may be found at www.gourmetchocolatecafe.com, but this episode is not about websites–it’s about the brick and mortar experience of cafes. Tim is a “power user” of the Gourmet Chocolate Cafe and Chris provided the “newbie” perspective. Make sure you watch the video tour in Design Critique episode 32a to see the design features we discuss in this interview.

This episode’s content has been certified 100 percent iPhone-free by the Design Critique Anti-Hype League of America.

Before you listen to episode 32b, which is an interview with the Gourmet Chocolate Cafe’s designer and proprietor, please watch this ten-minute video tour of the cafe. Tim points out key features of the cafe that are discussed during the following interview about the customer experience design of the cafe.

The following free software can play this MPEG-4 video file.

VLC Media Player for Macintosh, Windows, and Linux:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

QuickTime Player for Macintosh and Windows:
http://www.quicktime.com

Tim and Tom catch up on email sent by listeners over the past ten months. Thanks to everyone who wrote in with kind words or questions or observations, whether we read them on air or not.

Jason’s link to the atomic time watch:
www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/watches/8765

John’s response to our Information Architecture wordcast:
www.smorgasbord-design.blogspot.com/2007/01/
information-architecting-coffee-shop.html

Ben’s designs for rice cookers in response to our rice cooker critique:
www.benarent.co.uk/bog/bens-blub/solution-for-tim-tom-rice-cookers

Colin’s designs for airport seating:
www.finkle.ca/major_01.htm

Andy’s mention of the 2007 dConstruct conference happening in September:
www.2007.dconstruct.org

Tim’s mention of the soon-to-be-happening international UPA conference:
www.usabilityprofessionals.org/conference/2007

And Mark sent a link to his free text-to-speech converter website that Tim checked
out and liked:
www.spokentext.net
Tim also liked Mark’s interview on WebAxe this past March:
www.checkengineusa.com/web_axe_podcast/audio/web_axe_episode_42.mp3

Watch Tim and Tom at World Usability Day 2006 on the campus of Michigan State University. In part 2 of 2, Tom concludes his discussion on the usability and accessibility of podcasts. Then the guys answer questions from the audience.

The following free software can play this MPEG-4 video file.

VLC Media Player for Macintosh, Windows, and Linux:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

QuickTime Player for Macintosh and Windows:
http://www.quicktime.com

Watch Tim and Tom at World Usability Day 2006 on the campus of Michigan State University. In part 1 of 2, Tim relates Design Critique’s origin and purpose, and issues a call for more user experience-related podcasts. Tom begins his discussion on the usability and accessibility of podcasts themselves. Part 2 should be up in another day or so. The following free software can play this MPEG-4 video file. VLC Media Player for Macintosh, Windows, and Linux: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ QuickTime Player for Macintosh and Windows: http://www.quicktime.com Tech stuff: We got a miniDV copy from the original DVCAM master and have tried to balance resolution (which was a bit grainy from our miniDV copy) with file size constraints.

Tim and Tom discuss the Speaking of Software project at Michigan Tech and interview professors Chuck Wallace, Bob Johnson, and Ann Brady about improving the training of software engineers at the undergraduate level. If you’re an educator or industry professional curious about innovations in teaching software engineering, this episode is for you.

Before you listen to the interview, we encourage you to read the article as published in Technical Communication, Volume 53, Number 3, August 2006, pp. 317-325. Unfortunately, as of this writing the Society for Technical Communication does not sell this article online. If you do not subscribe to the journal, check a local college library.

Ann, Bob, and Chuck would like to hear from you. Replace [AT] with the @ sign (and eliminate spaces on either side) to send them email at the addresses below.
Ann: mabrady [AT] mtu.edu
Bob: rrjohnso [AT] mtu.edu
Chuck: wallace [AT] mtu.edu

The project’s website (and this summer’s Chautauqua invitation) is at
http://www.speaksoft.mtu.edu/

Read some history of the Chautauqua Movement at
http://members.aol.com/alphachautauquan/what.html

House band Peter Grey sings “This One” to round things out.

Tim and Tom critique rice cooker designs. Cookers from Oster, Aroma, and Panasonic are discussed. As always, you can find pictures of the user interfaces critiqued at www.designcritique.net (as well as in the artwork for this MP3 file). Jen’s “InTheNo” podcast can be found at 1000TimesNo.net. Everybody head over there pronto to hear one of the best new podcasts ever. In her own words, “…we speak with people whose experiences give them an interesting perspective on what happens, and what to do, when life confronts you with ‘No.’ As many of our guests will tell you, ‘No’ is often just the beginning of the story.” Cashew the Clown can be found at www.cashewtheclown.com. House band Peter Grey sings “Without My Girl”.

What happens when a secondary function of a product is so good that it becomes the primary reason for purchase among a customer demographic? Tim is joined by special guests Mike and Keith for a discussion of iRiver’s IFP-800 (top of photo) and IFP-700 series (bottom) of digital audio players/recorders. iRiver designed the MP3 recording for these units so well that many people use them purely as portable MP3 recorders, not players.

iRiver also created two form factors for one product with the IFP series, so we discuss each industrial designs’ relative merits. As always, you can find pictures of the designs discussed at
www.designcritique.net (Note: the wide angle lens made the 700 look wider than the 800. It isn’t.)

Colorado Video Impressions is at www.coloradovid.com.
Mystic River is at www.misticriver.net.
Hydrogen Audio is at www.hydrogenaudio.org.

Tim and Tom are joined by guest Chris Farnum for a wordcast episode about Information Architecture. What is it, where did it come from, and how does IA contribute to a great customer experience?
While presenting at Michigan’s World Usability Day event, Tim and Tom met Dennis and Ross from the podcast WebAxe, which deals with web accessibility. Take a listen by going to
www.webaxe.blogspot.com.

Lastly, house band Peter Grey sings “Sweet Unknown”. And in addition to Edward Tufte’s books, here are the books and authors mentioned in this episode:

* Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites by Peter Morville and Louis Rosenfeld

*Usability for the Web: Designing Web Sites that Work by Tom Brinck, Darren Gergle, and Scott D. Wood

*How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built by Stewart Brand

* The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander

Tim and Tom interview Carissa and Carol from Menlo Innovations. Menlo recently completed a user interface design project for the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Department in Michigan, and observing users in the context of their work environnment was crucial to the design process.
Tim reminds listeners about World Usability Day coming up on Tuesday, November 14th, and Peter Grey sings “Frozen Girl”.

Menlo’s website is at http://www.menloinnovations.com/

World Usability Day news is at www.worldusabilityday.org