Technology, Information, Experience Design… Helping you get it.

Recently the UX team at my company has made a concerted effort to start using iPads on client engagements. We thought the rest of the organization might want to know how it’s going and what we are doing so we asked our developers to submit their questions and two members of the UX team and I responded:

How are you using the iPad on projects?

[RW] Note taking, design sketching

[RD] Thinking through tricky problems with drawings and showing clients deliverables. It’s superior to a laptop if you don’t have a hardcopy.

KL and I had to do a task analysis on a project, I used the iPad to seed the analysis using iBrainstorm, which we then moved onto a whiteboard, and ultimately turned into a client deliverable:

[KL] This is my first project with the iPad. I’ve been taking notes with Evernote. It’s less conspicuous than laptop. We’ve also been collaborating on sketches and idea generation. It’s more casual. Sketching is great on it, especially since Adobe Ideas allows you to publish vector files in Illustrator.

It’s also nice to be able to do these things from anywhere.

What is the iPad replacing?

[RW] Paper notebook, graph paper, scraps of paper…you see the pattern.

[RD] It replaces a laptop in situations when you don’t want your equipment to be so obtrusive.

[KL] Sketchbook, notebook, and sometimes laptop. I don’t have to carry a big huge pad of paper or a Moleskine any more.

What apps do you use for sketching and do you use a stylus (if so, which one)

[RW] Adobe Ideas for sketching.  Radtech stylus, but I don’t like it.

[RD] Adobe Ideas constantly and Omnigraffle occasionally. I’m using the BoxWave stylus and I love it.

[KL] Adobe Ideas for work. Sketchbook Pro is nice but it’s raster-based so not as effective for work, though it does allow more flexibility with brushes, pallets, and tools. I use a Pogo Sketch stylus.

What practical impediments/advantages are you finding?

[RW] Pros: It’s not as difficult to hold and type on as I thought. Sketch output is much higher quality than I could do by hand, and generally faster. Workflow is generally improved by being more sketch-centric and skipping the scanning step is great.

Cons: The hard thing is being willing to “cut the cord” to the laptop and rely on it, but that will happen in time. I find that I rely on the iPhone 4 a lot b/c the screen is soooo much better and it has a camera. iPad really needs a camera.

[RD] Pros: It’s actually usable as a digital sketchpad. I’m still getting used to drawing on it but it’s already much easier to work through an idea and end up with a presentable thought that actually looks good.

Cons: I wish it was able to recognize my palm versus the stylus when I’m drawing. I’d also like to see a camera integrated, though I’m sure it will happen soon enough.

[KL] Pros: Saving a lot of time and paper. It also allows our work to be repurposed. I’m interested in trying Omingraffle between the laptop and iPad.

Cons: Its one more expensive thing I’m carrying around and worrying about breaking. It’s another thing I have to keep charged. It gets dirty really fast. And it’s one more way for me to get email (I don’t need another way to get email.)

Will it change the way you work?

[RW] It encourages me to sketch more and to sketch more collaboratively.

[RD] I find it much easier to engage with clients and colleagues when showing work or ideas on it than on a laptop or desktop screen. It encourages a different sort of physical engagement than other equipment.

[KL] It already has. I’m replacing the paper part of my process with the iPad. I am a little worried that I’ll lose the low-fidelity throw-away sketching part of my process. I automatically treat something on the screen as more precious than something I just scribble out on a scrap paper.

How have clients reacted?

[RW] Clients are wowed by it and love the output. The fact that the output tends to be somewhat consistent is great, b/c it presents well as a whole.

[RD] Clients have loved it so far. They like the drawings we are creating on it and they are impressed that we are actually using it in a productive way. I think it says something to them about our approach to technology and innovation when they see us successfully integrating new tools and processes into our work for their benefit.

[KL] Clients think it’s cool. Everything just looks nicer in the iPad. They look at it as the latest thing so it has that cool-factor to it. They seem to be impressed by it.

Is it a legitimate tool for your job?

[RW] Absolutely. It saves me a huge amount of time, far more value in the time I have saved than the cost of the thing. It adds really no overhead, in terms of having to manage another device.

[RD] Without a doubt. One of the reasons I decided to buy the first version was that I started to see what some other UX pros were doing with theirs and I had to be in on it. I predict that as we get better and better with it, iPad sketches, prototypes, and demonstrations will be a regular part of our process and deliverables.

[KL] Yes. I didn’t think that it first (*Note: KL did make fun of RD for being the first in the department to use one on a project.) The biggest thing, besides the cool-factor, is that what was the paper part of our process is now easily stored and sharable and it’s more convenient on the trading floor.

Please share your experiences and thoughts about this kind of  iPad usage in the comments.

Thanks.