Show and Tell
Instructor: the room controls for this activity, and the room display for the projector.
Wednesday, September 16, Friday, September 18, and Wednesday, September 23. Everyone presents, from their own laptop, over three days.
Why Today
This is the first time the whole room looks at one thing together. Until now the person looking at your site has been sitting next to you, and you could explain. The room can’t be explained to. Eighteen people open your address at once and see whatever is actually there, in the first thirty seconds, the way a stranger would. That’s the audience your site has when you aren’t in the room, which is nearly always.
It matters more now than it used to. A change costs you a sentence, so the slow part isn’t making the change, it’s knowing which one to make. Eighteen people telling you what they saw first is the cheapest way to find out that there is.
And there’s a pull to resist. Your agent can produce a hundred competent designs, and they all look like each other, because that’s what the middle of everything it has seen looks like. Nothing you can ask it will fix that; it doesn’t know what’s yours. A room of people saying plainly what they saw is how a studio gets its taste back, and it’s the oldest thing in this course that has nothing to do with computers.
Nobody is grading the site. Nobody is grading how you present it either.
Before Class
Five things, and none of them takes long.
A change to your site should show on your own laptop within seconds, without deploying. If every change means putting it online, ask your agent:
Can you set things up so I see changes to my site on my own laptop right away, without deploying?
Going live should be one sentence to your agent. You’ll be doing it in front of everyone, so it’s worth knowing it works today rather than finding out on the projector.
Your site has to answer when somebody else opens it, because only a site that answers gets a turn today. Open your own address in a new window before you come, and if nothing loads, that’s the thing to fix first.
Have a change in mind that you can make in a minute. Not a redesign. One thing you’ve been meaning to do.
And test your screen share once, on the critique page. Press the button, choose Entire Screen, see your own screen come back at you, then stop. On a Mac, Chrome will be blocked until you turn it on in System Settings, under Privacy & Security, Screen & System Audio Recording, and then quit and reopen Chrome: it only notices after a relaunch. Safari asks you on its own. Chrome or Edge share best; if yours won’t, tell me before class and we’ll use mine.
Check In
Open the critique page. Opening it checks you in, so there’s nothing to sign, and puts you in the queue if your site is answering.
That last part is the one new rule today. The page looks at the address the course has for you, right then, and says what it found. If your site answered, you’re in line. If it didn’t, or the course hasn’t got an address for you at all, you’re not in line yet, and the page says which it is. Ask your agent to take your site live and tell the course its address, or paste it on the sites page yourself, then press Check again. You can do that any time during class, and you’re back in line the moment it answers.
Share your screen, and yours joins a wall of everyone’s up on the projector. That’s how you know sharing works, and it’s how I know who’s here. A name up there tagged no site is somebody whose address I can’t reach.
Then one line, before anyone has said anything: what on your site is most you? It goes up beside your name when it’s your turn. Write it now, not on the spot.
When It’s Your Turn
Seven minutes, from where you’re sitting, on your own laptop. Everyone in the room is about to open your address, which is why a turn only goes to a site that’s answering. Nobody plugs anything in: the projector shows your screen, your name, your address, your line, and a countdown. The countdown goes amber at zero and keeps counting. It doesn’t move anything; I do.
I ask everyone the same two things, in the same words:
What about this site is you?
Show us a change: on your laptop first, then live.
Start the deploy early. It takes a minute or so for a change to show at your real address, and that minute is when the room asks you something rather than watching you wait. Talk while it lands.
The questions come from people’s pages, and I put one on the wall at a time, with the asker’s first name on it. Answer the question, not the version of it you’d rather have been asked.
While Someone Else Is Up
Open their address on your own machine. Their screen is on the projector and a small copy is on your page, but the site itself is the thing to look at, and you can only really look at it in your own window.
Look the way a stranger would, before you say anything. What did you look at first? Who does this seem to be for? Could you find what you wanted? There’s a companion on your page to think out loud with. It can read their site but it can’t see it, and it won’t write your note for you: the words that reach them have to be yours.
Then send one of two things. A note, which they read after class, in the three shapes you know:
- I notice: what you saw. “I notice I couldn’t tell what you study until the third scroll.”
- I wonder: a question. “I wonder who this is for.”
- What if: one thing to try. “What if the projects came first?”
Specific beats kind: “it’s nice” gives them nothing to do. Specific and positive counts too, and tells them what not to break. You don’t have to find something wrong.
Or a question, which is for now. It goes in a queue on my page and I put some of them on the wall, with your first name, unless you untick the box.
Seven minutes is one thing, or two. Not a list.
Giving and Taking It
Everything anyone says today is about the site, not about you, and I’ll keep it that way. Critique has a long history of going wrong, from deflating to cruel, and it isn’t going to go that way in this room: the shapes above are the shapes, the first name goes on the question, and I’m the one who puts it on the wall.
When you’re the one up, the useful posture is curiosity, not defense. You don’t have to agree, and you don’t have to answer everything. “Say more” is a fine reply. So is “I hadn’t seen that.” What you’re collecting is what your site looks like from outside your own head, which is the one view you can’t get on your own.
Here is the thing that makes this different from every critique that came before it. A suggestion used to cost an afternoon to try, so people argued about whether it was worth trying. With an agent, it costs a sentence. “What if the projects came first?” is a change you can see in a minute and undo in another. So the cheapest, most generous thing you can do with a note is try it, look, and then decide. Keep the ones that make the site more you. Change back the ones that don’t. Either way you learn something about your own site that you couldn’t have learned alone.
And when you’re the one writing: you’re writing to someone who can act on it in a minute. Make it something they can act on.
What This Takes
Several different things, and nobody has all of them. Noticing what a stranger sees first. Saying plainly what you saw instead of what you concluded from it. Asking a question that has an answer. Sensing something is off before you can say why. Getting a change to run, and then getting it live, while people watch. You’re better than the person beside you at some of these and worse at others, and over three days you’ll see all of it.
What Reaches Whom
Worth knowing before you type anything.
Notes and questions go to the presenter, with your name on them, after class. Not during: nobody should be reading about themselves while they’re supposed to be looking at someone else’s site. A question also goes up on the wall with your first name if I show it, unless you untick “with my name”, in which case it says it came from the room.
Your chat with the companion goes to nobody. It stays between you, the companion, and me.
Nothing from anyone’s screen is recorded. While you share, your screen goes to the projector and to the room’s pages, and it’s forgotten within a minute. Nothing said out loud is recorded either.
None of it is graded.
The Last Few Minutes
I close the session, and the notes and questions about your site appear on the critique page. If I forget, it closes itself. Then, as after every session: tell the course how it went, a short conversation rather than a form. It isn’t anonymous, and the page says so before you start.
If you’d rather see it than read it, there’s a walkthrough: the whole thing recorded end to end, the projector, my page, and two students’ screens side by side.
If You Missed It
Everyone showed their site to the whole room, from their own laptop: a page captured their screen and the projector showed it as live video, so nobody plugged anything in. From the second day their own microphone captioned them while they talked, on the wall and on everyone else's page, because the back row couldn't always hear. Seven minutes each, over three days. A turn went to whoever's site was answering while the class ran, so the first thing everyone did was check the address the course had for them. I asked everyone the same two things: what about this site is you, and show us a change, on your laptop first and then live. Then questions from the room, which came in through people's pages and went up on the wall with the asker's name. While someone was up, everyone else was on their site, with a companion to help them see more, writing the presenter notes for after class.
The notes and questions about your site are on the critique page now that the session is closed. If you haven't had a turn yet, you're first next time.
On Your Own
You can't get the room, but you can get the two questions. Prop your phone up and record seven minutes: say what about the site is you, then make one change and take it live, saying what you're doing as you go. Watch it back. Where did you say "this bit" instead of what it is? Where did you wait for the deploy with nothing to say? Then send the address to two people who weren't there and ask each of them for one question, not a compliment. Answer the questions on the site, not in a message.
Before next class: a change to your site should show on your own laptop within seconds, going live should be one sentence to your agent, and your address should answer when someone else opens it. That last one is what gets you a turn. If any of the three isn't true, ask your agent to fix it; the setup page covers the rest.
Running It Yourself
For anyone teaching. The page above is written to students; this is the plan the room played, what to do without our site, and what running it taught us. Borrow freely.
The Plan
| Section | Minutes | What students are told |
|---|---|---|
| Check In | 5 | Open the critique page. Opening it checks you in. Share your screen: your browser asks twice, first for the screen (choose Entire Screen; a Mac may ask you to allow Chrome and relaunch it), then for your microphone. Allow both. The microphone is the captions: what you say goes on the wall and on everyone's page when your turn comes, nothing is recorded, and the line under the button says "captions ready" once it's allowed. Your screen joins the wall up there: that's how you know it works. Then the address: only a site that answers gets a turn today, and the page says whether yours did. If it didn't, ask your agent to take your site live and tell the course its address, or paste it on the sites page yourself, then press Check again. Then one line, before anyone talks: what on your site is most you? It goes up on the wall when it's your turn. |
| Turnsrun it as many times as it needs | 64 | Seven minutes each, from your own laptop. Presenting: what about this site is you, then show us a change, on your laptop first and then live. Your microphone captions what you say on the wall and on everyone's page, live, and the words aren't kept. Everyone else: open their address on your own machine and look at it the way a stranger would. Say what you see to the companion if that helps you see more; write them a note for after class, or a question for now, which goes on the wall with your name unless you say otherwise. Nothing said out loud is recorded, and none of it is graded. |
| Feedback | 5 | Last thing: tell the course how that went. It's a short conversation, not a form, and it's the main way this class gets better while you're still in it. The notes and questions about your site appear on the critique page once I close the session. |
About 74 minutes as written. Nothing advances on its own: the instructor moves the room from one section to the next, runs one again, or skips one.
Without Our Site
Our site did five things. It put each presenter's screen on the projector from their own laptop: their page captured the whole screen and sent it to the projector as live video where the room's network allowed a direct or relayed connection, and as stills a few times a second where it didn't, with a small copy on everyone else's page. From the second day it captioned them too, from that same laptop's microphone: the words across the bottom of their screen on the wall and under the small copy on everyone's page, about a second behind them. Nothing was recorded either way, screen or voice; the words were on the wall while they were being said and gone when the turn ended. It kept the queue and the clock: whoever opened the page was checked in, and joined the line if the course could reach their site, which it looked at again every time their page said they were still here; the projector showed who was up and who was next, and I pressed Next. It took questions from the room through people's pages and put the one I chose on the wall with the asker's name, or "from the room" if they'd rather. And it held the notes people wrote about each site until the session closed, then delivered them to the person they were about. No music: the room is listening to a person, so the projector's sidebar is the queue of who is up and who is next instead.
None of that is the activity. A cable to the projector and a queue on the board does the screen and the line; swapping laptops costs a minute a person, so budget for it, or have the next person plug in while the room asks its question. Being heard is a microphone passed from hand to hand, which is what we did on the first day: it works, it costs a few seconds at each end of a turn, and somebody has to remember to carry it to the back when the questions start. Open each presenter's address yourself before you call them up, and if it doesn't load, say so and come back to them: a turn spent watching a page that won't load is a turn nobody gets back. Questions from the room are index cards passed to the front, which also lets you choose and lets someone ask without their name. Notes are the three shapes, I notice, I wonder, what if, on an index card with the presenter's name on the back, collected and handed over after class, not during. The room's safety is yours and nobody else's: you hold the three shapes, you keep the asker's name on the question, and you decide what goes up in front of everyone. Say at the start that all of it is about the site and not about the person, and then keep it that way. Ask every presenter the same two questions, in the same words, and wait three seconds after each before you help. Two days for about eighteen people at seven minutes each; don't go under five, because a deploy takes a minute to show and that minute is when the room's question gets asked. End each day with a few minutes for them to tell you how it went.