I'm really excited to be featured in an interview by a couple of the fine folks at Involution Studios in Columbus. You can find it here: Making things people want, Not making people want things with Phillip Hunter.
Erik Dahl, a friend from Twitter and IxDA, and his colleague Jon Follett reached out to me a few weeks ago shortly after I posted Marking the Shift: Making Things People Want, Not Making People Want Things at the end of March. They wanted to explore the topics deeper on their podcast. We talked for a little over an hour about the post and related subjects such as the role of designers in society and emotion-driven desire. It was a great conversation and really enjoyable to be part of. Many thanks to Erik and Jon.
Dirk Knemeyer, who was not part of the interview conversations, added a wonderfully provocative opening that challenges the notion that the shift is really happening or even can happen. He makes some strong points that boil down to basic human imperfections: greed, avarice, immediate gratification, etc. For sure, a relatively few higher-minded designers aren't likely to make large shifts within the historical and economic gargantuan that we call the world economy that has been built up by traditional commercial practices. I don't agree that there are zero-sums involved or that the effort isn't worthwhile and noticeable, but the complexity and size of the systems involved can make it seem so. I'm glad he brought up this view. It's not really opposite mine so much as helpful in seeing a more accurate big picture.
It was a real treat to be involved in this. Give it a listen!
Showing posts with label interaction design. Show all posts
Showing posts with label interaction design. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
More isn’t better, but (help me with) Something Else is
Sometimes it occurs to me that we designers have tools in our toolbox that we use trustingly but haven’t explained why to others. Such a tool is usually rightfully worthy of our use and trust, but should be accompanied by sound theories and reasons. To that end, I thought I’d spend a little time on the origins of the VUI design component “help me with something else” and its variants.
Ideas around it first began back in 2000 or so on a project at Intervoice for a British Columbian transit company. We were designing a menu of options and were dissatisfied with the in vogue wording used to point to choices that were on a secondary menu. I.e.:
“You can say ‘plan a trip’, ‘get a schedule’, ‘paratransit’, or ‘more options’.”
That sort of phrasing seemed to be clunky and out of character for the design feel we wanted to deliver and we just felt it was inadequate for callers to latch onto.
In an informal discussion, one of my team members said “we need something else”, referring to the current choices being used in the design world, such as “more choices”, “other”, “none of those”, etc. When he said that, we looked at each other and said, “why not try ‘something else’ in the prompt?” So we began thinking about this:
“You can say ‘plan a trip’, ‘get a schedule’, ‘paratransit’, or ‘something else’.”
We liked where that was going, but quickly thought of a semantic problem in that the instruction seemed not to refer so much to additional choices but rather to telling the caller that they could say just about anything else. That, of course, was not the case and would cause interaction issues. Plus, the phrase seemed overly ambiguous, maybe even more so than “more options”. So after a bit of round-and-round about it, we determined that we wanted to try the phrase “help me with something else” (HMWSE).
“You can say ‘plan a trip, ‘get a schedule’, ‘paratransit’, or ‘help me with something else’.”
Though it might seem pedestrian now, this was a pretty novel idea at that time. The “more options” construction came directly from DTMF IVR menu structures, meaning it was deeply ingrained as the default presentation. Furthermore, in the early days of voice interaction design, there was an emphasis on pithy phrasing and HMWSE seemed like a mouthful. However, it had several strong characteristics that appealed to us. It was clear, used more common wording, and we actually heard similar phrasing in everyday conversations around us.
Fate, though, had other plans then. For a couple of reasons, we weren’t able to use the idea in that current design. But I held on to it for several years and finally had the opportunity to try it out again in 2004 at Voice Partners. We were working a significant redesign for a mobile carrier’s customer service line. As you can imagine, there were many functions for callers to choose from in the application. As soon as I saw the struggle with how to represent the concept of other things the callers could choose, I suggested that we try out HMWSE. I walked through its origins and we had some good discussion about why we though it would work. So we tried it in usability testing in opposition to the traditional “more options” and it was then that the strongest reason for the superiority of HMWSE emerged.
As we watched and listened to participants move through and struggle with the menus, two patterns of behavior became clear around their decisions to access more choices. Many of those who used “more options” seemed to be exhibiting surfing behavior triggered by that phrase. That is, they wanted to hear and think about all possible choices before committing to one because “more options” seemed to mean “more options that you might want to hear before you make a decision”. This frequently led, though, to failures in the menus as callers encountered cognitive load problems having to hold all the choices and their possible meanings in mind. Callers who heard and used HMWSE, however, did not encounter nearly the same number of problems. They were not surfing but rather, and this is the key point, they were listening to and then rejecting previously heard choices when they said HMWSE.
“Help me with something else” allowed them to hear, absorb, then discard choices they did not consider valid and specify to the system that new choices should be presented.
This was a major eye-opener for me, and my co-designers. While we had suspected that HMWSE was better, we had discovered a solid cognitive reason for it. Callers clearly preferred not to surf, but to have a way to eliminate choices rather than play a guessing game. Thus, HMWSE became a new best practice for use when menus exceeded a certain length.
Failing menu: “You can say ‘my bill’, ‘my plan’, ‘technical support’, or ‘more options’.”
Winning menu: “You can say ‘my bill’, ‘my plan’, or ‘technical support’. You can also say ‘help me with something else’.”
Now, to be clear, all the other principles of good menu design still apply. Choices must be clear, unique, and aurally distinct, among others. HMWSE is not a ticket to allow “anything goes” menu construction. But, when used with a solid set of menu items that need to span more than one presentation instance, it is the best choice for letting callers know that if they do not hear what they want in the initial list, they have a clear way of indicating that they want to discard the first list and hear another.
“More Options” for HMWSE
In the several years since that discovery, the use of HMWSE has grown in two ways.
First, I’ve encountered situations where a variation of HMWSE works better than the original wording. Semantically the concept is the same, though. An example is:
“You can say ‘car’, ‘bus’, or ‘train’. You can also say ‘I need different transportation.’”
Additionally, we began using a variant of the idea with open-ended prompts. Until the last couple of years, the standard was to coerce the caller into saying anything at a “What are you calling about today?” type prompt in the hopes we could pin a meaning on it. However, many callers are just not sure what to do or what will happen and so are reluctant to give an actionable utterance. At Voice Partners, then at SpeechCycle, rather then “erroring” into a menu, we began very successfully using “what are my choices” and “give me some choices” as ways callers could specify that they preferred a menu over the open prompt. Such phrases allow caller choice and control versus locking them into a specific interaction method.
The other area of growth is a more widespread use beyond up-front menus where HMWSE can still mean “I don’t want any of those so give me different options”. Some examples are follow-up menus after tasks are completed, lists of items to select from, and lists of global actions. Again, as the previous area indicates, these additional contexts sometimes require variations on the wording.
A Note: SE <> HMWSE
One thing I want to be clear about is that the use of HMWSE is better than just offering callers the phrase “something else”. In the past couple of years, I’ve heard systems presenting simply “something else” in menus, and that’s a mistake for reasons mentioned above. It fails on a semantic level to be a clear instruction to obtain other menu choices and instead at best sounds like an invitation to say anything. I strongly discourage its use.
So, don’t be afraid to offer your callers a good range of choices in more than one menu. In HMWSE you have a tested tool to use for that. Yes, there is research that I consider valid that shows that menus with more than four or five items can work well. However, there are contexts in which doing so might not be the best approach. Because of that, HMWSE helps round out the set of tools to help create great voice interactions when offering choices to callers.
Ideas around it first began back in 2000 or so on a project at Intervoice for a British Columbian transit company. We were designing a menu of options and were dissatisfied with the in vogue wording used to point to choices that were on a secondary menu. I.e.:
“You can say ‘plan a trip’, ‘get a schedule’, ‘paratransit’, or ‘more options’.”
That sort of phrasing seemed to be clunky and out of character for the design feel we wanted to deliver and we just felt it was inadequate for callers to latch onto.
In an informal discussion, one of my team members said “we need something else”, referring to the current choices being used in the design world, such as “more choices”, “other”, “none of those”, etc. When he said that, we looked at each other and said, “why not try ‘something else’ in the prompt?” So we began thinking about this:
“You can say ‘plan a trip’, ‘get a schedule’, ‘paratransit’, or ‘something else’.”
We liked where that was going, but quickly thought of a semantic problem in that the instruction seemed not to refer so much to additional choices but rather to telling the caller that they could say just about anything else. That, of course, was not the case and would cause interaction issues. Plus, the phrase seemed overly ambiguous, maybe even more so than “more options”. So after a bit of round-and-round about it, we determined that we wanted to try the phrase “help me with something else” (HMWSE).
“You can say ‘plan a trip, ‘get a schedule’, ‘paratransit’, or ‘help me with something else’.”
Though it might seem pedestrian now, this was a pretty novel idea at that time. The “more options” construction came directly from DTMF IVR menu structures, meaning it was deeply ingrained as the default presentation. Furthermore, in the early days of voice interaction design, there was an emphasis on pithy phrasing and HMWSE seemed like a mouthful. However, it had several strong characteristics that appealed to us. It was clear, used more common wording, and we actually heard similar phrasing in everyday conversations around us.
Fate, though, had other plans then. For a couple of reasons, we weren’t able to use the idea in that current design. But I held on to it for several years and finally had the opportunity to try it out again in 2004 at Voice Partners. We were working a significant redesign for a mobile carrier’s customer service line. As you can imagine, there were many functions for callers to choose from in the application. As soon as I saw the struggle with how to represent the concept of other things the callers could choose, I suggested that we try out HMWSE. I walked through its origins and we had some good discussion about why we though it would work. So we tried it in usability testing in opposition to the traditional “more options” and it was then that the strongest reason for the superiority of HMWSE emerged.
As we watched and listened to participants move through and struggle with the menus, two patterns of behavior became clear around their decisions to access more choices. Many of those who used “more options” seemed to be exhibiting surfing behavior triggered by that phrase. That is, they wanted to hear and think about all possible choices before committing to one because “more options” seemed to mean “more options that you might want to hear before you make a decision”. This frequently led, though, to failures in the menus as callers encountered cognitive load problems having to hold all the choices and their possible meanings in mind. Callers who heard and used HMWSE, however, did not encounter nearly the same number of problems. They were not surfing but rather, and this is the key point, they were listening to and then rejecting previously heard choices when they said HMWSE.
“Help me with something else” allowed them to hear, absorb, then discard choices they did not consider valid and specify to the system that new choices should be presented.
This was a major eye-opener for me, and my co-designers. While we had suspected that HMWSE was better, we had discovered a solid cognitive reason for it. Callers clearly preferred not to surf, but to have a way to eliminate choices rather than play a guessing game. Thus, HMWSE became a new best practice for use when menus exceeded a certain length.
Failing menu: “You can say ‘my bill’, ‘my plan’, ‘technical support’, or ‘more options’.”
Winning menu: “You can say ‘my bill’, ‘my plan’, or ‘technical support’. You can also say ‘help me with something else’.”
Now, to be clear, all the other principles of good menu design still apply. Choices must be clear, unique, and aurally distinct, among others. HMWSE is not a ticket to allow “anything goes” menu construction. But, when used with a solid set of menu items that need to span more than one presentation instance, it is the best choice for letting callers know that if they do not hear what they want in the initial list, they have a clear way of indicating that they want to discard the first list and hear another.
“More Options” for HMWSE
In the several years since that discovery, the use of HMWSE has grown in two ways.
First, I’ve encountered situations where a variation of HMWSE works better than the original wording. Semantically the concept is the same, though. An example is:
“You can say ‘car’, ‘bus’, or ‘train’. You can also say ‘I need different transportation.’”
Additionally, we began using a variant of the idea with open-ended prompts. Until the last couple of years, the standard was to coerce the caller into saying anything at a “What are you calling about today?” type prompt in the hopes we could pin a meaning on it. However, many callers are just not sure what to do or what will happen and so are reluctant to give an actionable utterance. At Voice Partners, then at SpeechCycle, rather then “erroring” into a menu, we began very successfully using “what are my choices” and “give me some choices” as ways callers could specify that they preferred a menu over the open prompt. Such phrases allow caller choice and control versus locking them into a specific interaction method.
The other area of growth is a more widespread use beyond up-front menus where HMWSE can still mean “I don’t want any of those so give me different options”. Some examples are follow-up menus after tasks are completed, lists of items to select from, and lists of global actions. Again, as the previous area indicates, these additional contexts sometimes require variations on the wording.
A Note: SE <> HMWSE
One thing I want to be clear about is that the use of HMWSE is better than just offering callers the phrase “something else”. In the past couple of years, I’ve heard systems presenting simply “something else” in menus, and that’s a mistake for reasons mentioned above. It fails on a semantic level to be a clear instruction to obtain other menu choices and instead at best sounds like an invitation to say anything. I strongly discourage its use.
So, don’t be afraid to offer your callers a good range of choices in more than one menu. In HMWSE you have a tested tool to use for that. Yes, there is research that I consider valid that shows that menus with more than four or five items can work well. However, there are contexts in which doing so might not be the best approach. Because of that, HMWSE helps round out the set of tools to help create great voice interactions when offering choices to callers.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
This can be the beginning of a beautiful friendship
An interesting thing about going to tech-oriented conferences that mix business managers and implementers is the tension between messages. There are often competing and conflicting voices promoting technology and customer (user) experience. The technology vendors publicize the latest new thing, the upgrade that brings it all together, and the surefire way to get more customers spending more money. The experience folks shout that whatever is to be done must be done based purely on customer need and desire; that user experience (UX) is all that matters.
Now, it's no secret which side I've been on in most of these public discourses. Though I've been on the tech side in some cases, mostly by far I've preached from the gospel of good experience. And in the situation that it's clear that moving toward a certain technology would harm customer experience, my position would be unwavering.
However, the primary argument and distinction is no longer valid and true to me. I now see these two as elements on a continuum. Even as elements to alternate during and maybe even between projects. They are interdependent, and maybe even codependent.
The way I see it, many of our advances in customer experience have relied on or been part of new technology or new use of existing technology. From the other side, technology relies on good customer experience for successful adoption. Look at Amazon during the emergence of the commercial web. And then there's everybody's favorite example, Apple's iPhone. Both involved a push forward in customer experience AND the use of technology. Neither would be as successful without the blend of both. And neither would be as interesting if one aspect won out over the other.
Where I'm going with this is to request a truce in the tech versus UX battle. Both are good and both are needed. Tech creators need to acknowledge that they need good UX design to win the hearts and hands of consumers. UX-ers need to acknowledge that good technology is needed to advance parts of our cause and that new (good) tech gives us a chance to shine.
Before the truce can be fully agreed to though, we have a little catching up to do in the basics. Too much technology, useful as it can be, has been put out there without the needed UX crafting to accompany it. Because of that, both the users (consumers) and the technology are getting short shrift. Users feel ignored and abused. The tech vendors are getting slammed for very correctable reasons. We need to stop the train for a bit and get the interaction with the technology to the point where users can easily and satisfyingly do what they want to. Get the basics to the right level, then continue with a balanced approach.
(Aside: Not all tech implementations are redeemable, I know. But I am setting those cases aside for now and assuming that much of it can be helped.)
To illustrate, think again about what happened in the iPhone. For all its glory, it introduced very little new technology. Its primary features existed in other released or demoed products. The "new" about the iPhone is the better way that Apple blended the technology and UX.
Alternatively, there is also evidence that drawing back the level of technology used while improving the user experience is also effective. Wired magazine shows the examples of the Flip video camera and Skype, among others, in a recent article. Now, I disagree with the assessment they make that these simpler and easier to use products are just "good enough" since the implication is that they are inferior to the more feature-rich products. By typical standards such as profitability and rate of adoption, the new breeds are superior to their overdone predecessors.
There are many other areas where one approach or the other is needed, and I'll point to voice interaction as my prime example. A great many applications out there use speech recognition technology that is only a few years old. But most of the applications were designed using old or no design principles by people with negligible design training, if any. Furthermore, the technology is often under or incorrectly used. And the consumer reaction has been predictable. Interactive Voice Response is one of the most maligned technologies in our current age. On top of that, it often fails to meet the business goals for which it was brought in. This was avoidable and can be made right. It requires simply taking a break from the bumbling techno-lust and focusing on getting the UX in line with the level of technology chosen. Or even reducing the use of technology while improving performance through a UX focus.
So, it's time for a reset. For catching up and scaling down. We could make a huge positive difference in both business success and customer satisfaction by improving the user experience to the level of being on par with the state of deployed technology. And then we could grow both together. Satisfyingly, profitably, successfully.
Care to join me?
Now, it's no secret which side I've been on in most of these public discourses. Though I've been on the tech side in some cases, mostly by far I've preached from the gospel of good experience. And in the situation that it's clear that moving toward a certain technology would harm customer experience, my position would be unwavering.
However, the primary argument and distinction is no longer valid and true to me. I now see these two as elements on a continuum. Even as elements to alternate during and maybe even between projects. They are interdependent, and maybe even codependent.
The way I see it, many of our advances in customer experience have relied on or been part of new technology or new use of existing technology. From the other side, technology relies on good customer experience for successful adoption. Look at Amazon during the emergence of the commercial web. And then there's everybody's favorite example, Apple's iPhone. Both involved a push forward in customer experience AND the use of technology. Neither would be as successful without the blend of both. And neither would be as interesting if one aspect won out over the other.
Where I'm going with this is to request a truce in the tech versus UX battle. Both are good and both are needed. Tech creators need to acknowledge that they need good UX design to win the hearts and hands of consumers. UX-ers need to acknowledge that good technology is needed to advance parts of our cause and that new (good) tech gives us a chance to shine.
Before the truce can be fully agreed to though, we have a little catching up to do in the basics. Too much technology, useful as it can be, has been put out there without the needed UX crafting to accompany it. Because of that, both the users (consumers) and the technology are getting short shrift. Users feel ignored and abused. The tech vendors are getting slammed for very correctable reasons. We need to stop the train for a bit and get the interaction with the technology to the point where users can easily and satisfyingly do what they want to. Get the basics to the right level, then continue with a balanced approach.
(Aside: Not all tech implementations are redeemable, I know. But I am setting those cases aside for now and assuming that much of it can be helped.)
To illustrate, think again about what happened in the iPhone. For all its glory, it introduced very little new technology. Its primary features existed in other released or demoed products. The "new" about the iPhone is the better way that Apple blended the technology and UX.
Alternatively, there is also evidence that drawing back the level of technology used while improving the user experience is also effective. Wired magazine shows the examples of the Flip video camera and Skype, among others, in a recent article. Now, I disagree with the assessment they make that these simpler and easier to use products are just "good enough" since the implication is that they are inferior to the more feature-rich products. By typical standards such as profitability and rate of adoption, the new breeds are superior to their overdone predecessors.
There are many other areas where one approach or the other is needed, and I'll point to voice interaction as my prime example. A great many applications out there use speech recognition technology that is only a few years old. But most of the applications were designed using old or no design principles by people with negligible design training, if any. Furthermore, the technology is often under or incorrectly used. And the consumer reaction has been predictable. Interactive Voice Response is one of the most maligned technologies in our current age. On top of that, it often fails to meet the business goals for which it was brought in. This was avoidable and can be made right. It requires simply taking a break from the bumbling techno-lust and focusing on getting the UX in line with the level of technology chosen. Or even reducing the use of technology while improving performance through a UX focus.
So, it's time for a reset. For catching up and scaling down. We could make a huge positive difference in both business success and customer satisfaction by improving the user experience to the level of being on par with the state of deployed technology. And then we could grow both together. Satisfyingly, profitably, successfully.
Care to join me?
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Patterns and Experience
Enjoyed giving my two presentations last week at SpeechTEK in New York. Both seem well received, especially the patterns talk. It's gotten 150+ views on Slideshare since, which is very gratifying!
See them both for yourself:
Sorry for the formatting issues in the second one. They appeared after the upload. Not sure what's going on.
Later this week, I'll offer thoughts on SpeechTEK, and some talking points I covered in the presentations.
Good to see lots of folks!
See them both for yourself:
IVR Design Patterns
View more presentations from Phillip Hunter.
People Get Ready
View more presentations from Phillip Hunter.
Sorry for the formatting issues in the second one. They appeared after the upload. Not sure what's going on.
Later this week, I'll offer thoughts on SpeechTEK, and some talking points I covered in the presentations.
Good to see lots of folks!
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
A few thoughts on Consistency
While going through the Apple human interface guidelines, the section on consistency of the interface spurred some thoughts. This has been an discussion-provoking topic within interaction and interface design for some time and most especially for voice interaction.
Many times I've altered a recently seen screen heading, a repeated phrase of instruction, a past sequence of events, or a previously-used command for context and have been accused of "being inconsistent". Most of the time, I've been able to effectively point out how the context allows or even demands the change. Other times I've simply had to say "let's see what data we get." Other, other times I've had to accede to uneducated demands. And I'm sure I will have those arguments again, but, for the record and perhaps the education of a few, here are reasons to be consistent and times where consistency is bad.
Consistency is important for:
- Meeting user expectations and allowing predictability. A thing that looks like a button should be press-able or click-able. If a task seems like it could be done more than once, users should be able to, easily. Be consistent with the good and useful things users know and expect that they learned elsewhere.
- Promoting understanding and predictability of meaning. Users want to get what is happening and will happen. In speech, this is why using good synonyms is so important. We wouldn't (I hope!) dream of telling the user, "Say the same thing you did last time." We'll allow "checking", "checking account", and "debit account" all to mean the same thing. Because they do. Consistency here is the continuity of meaning, not the continued use of identical words.
- Infrequently given instructions and commands/actions. If a user needs to remember something, it should be predictable between tasks and especially sessions.
Consistency is bad when:
- It becomes distractingly repetitive. Hearing or seeing a menu for a third time in a task sequence shouldn't be like the first instance. Repeated instructions and events are easily ignored or glossed over. Items offered in context are more easily absorbed.
- It makes the user wonder if they are in a loop or a previous action was ignored. Let the interaction adapt and implicitly let the user know that the UI is "aware" of the evolving engagement that is occurring.
- It mimics behaviors we would consider highly unusual in people. I.e., "You can choose either your savings account or your checking account. So, just say 'savings account' or 'checking account'." A person being that consistent with the word 'account' would be looked at sideways. Implicature works for machines, too. Better: "You can choose either your savings or your checking account. So, just say 'savings' or 'checking'." Even better: "You can choose either your savings or checking account. So, which one?"
The moral here is, like other design principles, consistency is a fantastic and powerful concept to employ in the right places and ways. Used thoughtlessly, it can cause confusion and discomfort. If you're unsure, study it, ask questions, and most of all, bounce your design ideas off others and listen to feedback. Consistency is not a hammer to use to pound on a design you simply disagree with. In fact, doing so usually is a sign of ignorance of proper design practices. And no one likes to seem ignorant.
Design well.
Many times I've altered a recently seen screen heading, a repeated phrase of instruction, a past sequence of events, or a previously-used command for context and have been accused of "being inconsistent". Most of the time, I've been able to effectively point out how the context allows or even demands the change. Other times I've simply had to say "let's see what data we get." Other, other times I've had to accede to uneducated demands. And I'm sure I will have those arguments again, but, for the record and perhaps the education of a few, here are reasons to be consistent and times where consistency is bad.
Consistency is important for:
- Meeting user expectations and allowing predictability. A thing that looks like a button should be press-able or click-able. If a task seems like it could be done more than once, users should be able to, easily. Be consistent with the good and useful things users know and expect that they learned elsewhere.
- Promoting understanding and predictability of meaning. Users want to get what is happening and will happen. In speech, this is why using good synonyms is so important. We wouldn't (I hope!) dream of telling the user, "Say the same thing you did last time." We'll allow "checking", "checking account", and "debit account" all to mean the same thing. Because they do. Consistency here is the continuity of meaning, not the continued use of identical words.
- Infrequently given instructions and commands/actions. If a user needs to remember something, it should be predictable between tasks and especially sessions.
Consistency is bad when:
- It becomes distractingly repetitive. Hearing or seeing a menu for a third time in a task sequence shouldn't be like the first instance. Repeated instructions and events are easily ignored or glossed over. Items offered in context are more easily absorbed.
- It makes the user wonder if they are in a loop or a previous action was ignored. Let the interaction adapt and implicitly let the user know that the UI is "aware" of the evolving engagement that is occurring.
- It mimics behaviors we would consider highly unusual in people. I.e., "You can choose either your savings account or your checking account. So, just say 'savings account' or 'checking account'." A person being that consistent with the word 'account' would be looked at sideways. Implicature works for machines, too. Better: "You can choose either your savings or your checking account. So, just say 'savings' or 'checking'." Even better: "You can choose either your savings or checking account. So, which one?"
The moral here is, like other design principles, consistency is a fantastic and powerful concept to employ in the right places and ways. Used thoughtlessly, it can cause confusion and discomfort. If you're unsure, study it, ask questions, and most of all, bounce your design ideas off others and listen to feedback. Consistency is not a hammer to use to pound on a design you simply disagree with. In fact, doing so usually is a sign of ignorance of proper design practices. And no one likes to seem ignorant.
Design well.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Doing the Right Thing - Beyond Ethics in Design
I have just read the legendary Henry Dreyfuss’s Designing for People and am enjoying having my eyes opened further in so many ways. It’s really amazing that of the struggles we have in design, so many were already encountered and thought about and we’ve just managed to ignore resources like this until recently. At least on a broad scale. But maybe that’s another post. One of the things impacting me greatly right now is the professional ethic Dreyfuss recounts working by, including flatly refusing work.
I also recently watched Changeling and was equally struck by the fantastic amount and depth of corruption and disrespect for people displayed by the Los Angeles police department of the time. (Historical accounts of the same events appear to indicate that the movie did not exaggerate much.) I imagine a persistent and unchecked growth throughout the organization that perhaps could have been halted early by clear-sighted and disciplined intervention.
Thirdly, I came across this post from last year on UXmatters regarding the issue of whether our customers trust us and how little we directly address that question. Think about that. Do we even stop to think about whether the people at the company paying us trust us? Think about the ramifications of both “no” and “yes”.
These things, along with some of the causes of our economic crisis, caused me to think about how we as people and designers do or don’t keep ourselves on the straight and narrow and thoughtfully demonstrate our trustworthiness. And while I could discuss oaths and codes of ethics used in other disciplines, I really am wondering what we designers can and will do in this regard. Certainly we care very much about this, right? Our focus is to produce effective experiences that benefit both organization and individual. Yet there are, of course, opportunities for a designer to act unethically or even criminally, whether by fraud, negligence, incompetence, or harm. I doubt much of that happens now, but there is sure to be greater opportunity for temptation as our profession grows beyond a relative handful of idealistic practitioners.
As a loose, non-regulated community made up of individuals and small groups, can we prevent succumbing to temptation? If so, how? Dreyfuss had his rule of “inside out” design and a high ethical standard, but he evidently self-enforced both. We have our mission statements, peer reviews, etc., but these are generally quality-oriented and some things are only part of processes. AIGA has had some discussion of the topic, but even there it is acknowledged that “just having…a statement that we may agree with is not enough.”
How do we prevent ethics problems before they need to be detected and acted on, especially when we don’t even have enforcement ability? Lawyers can be sanctioned and disbarred, but not only is the design community unlikely to be desirous of or successful at finding a similar construct, I’m asking my questions in hope that we can go beyond that and find something more far-reaching, immediate, and preventative. Some means of openness embedded in all design processes that keep us in line and from taking the easy way out.
The times we are in tell us clearly that the best and brightest can be blinded by and blind to their own selfishness. And that this selfishness and self-centeredness hurts us all, including many who have no power in the hurtful situations. How can we prevent the worst in our designer selves? Not in shackling, designers-are-five-year-olds ways, but with mechanisms that make us go beyond just doing it for the money. I think there are multiple facets to the sense of doing the right thing in design and engendering the trust of our customers, such as:
- Committing to a standard of excellence in our service and product.
- Advocating for the best blend of designs that are good for people and business.
- Lobbying for the right technologies to be used.
- Being willing to draw lines when high standards cannot be met.
Is this possible? What are other considerations, other components? Can we find or create such mechanisms beyond merely agreeing to a code of ethics?
What will we do as a community to make sure we do the right thing?
I have ideas, but I’d like to hear from you while I work on them.
I also recently watched Changeling and was equally struck by the fantastic amount and depth of corruption and disrespect for people displayed by the Los Angeles police department of the time. (Historical accounts of the same events appear to indicate that the movie did not exaggerate much.) I imagine a persistent and unchecked growth throughout the organization that perhaps could have been halted early by clear-sighted and disciplined intervention.
Thirdly, I came across this post from last year on UXmatters regarding the issue of whether our customers trust us and how little we directly address that question. Think about that. Do we even stop to think about whether the people at the company paying us trust us? Think about the ramifications of both “no” and “yes”.
These things, along with some of the causes of our economic crisis, caused me to think about how we as people and designers do or don’t keep ourselves on the straight and narrow and thoughtfully demonstrate our trustworthiness. And while I could discuss oaths and codes of ethics used in other disciplines, I really am wondering what we designers can and will do in this regard. Certainly we care very much about this, right? Our focus is to produce effective experiences that benefit both organization and individual. Yet there are, of course, opportunities for a designer to act unethically or even criminally, whether by fraud, negligence, incompetence, or harm. I doubt much of that happens now, but there is sure to be greater opportunity for temptation as our profession grows beyond a relative handful of idealistic practitioners.
As a loose, non-regulated community made up of individuals and small groups, can we prevent succumbing to temptation? If so, how? Dreyfuss had his rule of “inside out” design and a high ethical standard, but he evidently self-enforced both. We have our mission statements, peer reviews, etc., but these are generally quality-oriented and some things are only part of processes. AIGA has had some discussion of the topic, but even there it is acknowledged that “just having…a statement that we may agree with is not enough.”
How do we prevent ethics problems before they need to be detected and acted on, especially when we don’t even have enforcement ability? Lawyers can be sanctioned and disbarred, but not only is the design community unlikely to be desirous of or successful at finding a similar construct, I’m asking my questions in hope that we can go beyond that and find something more far-reaching, immediate, and preventative. Some means of openness embedded in all design processes that keep us in line and from taking the easy way out.
The times we are in tell us clearly that the best and brightest can be blinded by and blind to their own selfishness. And that this selfishness and self-centeredness hurts us all, including many who have no power in the hurtful situations. How can we prevent the worst in our designer selves? Not in shackling, designers-are-five-year-olds ways, but with mechanisms that make us go beyond just doing it for the money. I think there are multiple facets to the sense of doing the right thing in design and engendering the trust of our customers, such as:
- Committing to a standard of excellence in our service and product.
- Advocating for the best blend of designs that are good for people and business.
- Lobbying for the right technologies to be used.
- Being willing to draw lines when high standards cannot be met.
Is this possible? What are other considerations, other components? Can we find or create such mechanisms beyond merely agreeing to a code of ethics?
What will we do as a community to make sure we do the right thing?
I have ideas, but I’d like to hear from you while I work on them.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Designing for Success - A New Start (again)
This week I stepped out of the airplane again, into the rushing wind hurtling towards earth - beauty, thrill, opportunity, independence, and complete dependence. After three years working with great people on cool stuff, I’ve decided to play on the bigger field, becoming my own boss again, and have left SpeechCycle. I love design and helping people with design and design strategy and I want to do that for a larger group of customers across a larger set of domains.
Of course, this seems like a crazy time to jump when people are losing jobs and homes and all, but I was really inspired by some of the people I met at the IxDA conference and the itch has gotten worse. In addition, I've been shown several times recently that some of the most successful companies of this century and last were started during downturns. And even more specifically, one of the most successful designers in American history, Henry Dreyfuss, started his practice in 1929. As he put it,
I believe right now there are significant opportunities for companies to make the same sort of investments that improve the customer experience and the bottom line at the same time.
I can help make you successful and profitable by making your customers enjoy your services and products more.
I am offering design services in the areas of voice, mobile, and web/desktop applications. Specifically, I can help with design strategy, requirements, prototyping, and of course complete designs and documentation for them.
In addition, for companies looking at how their speech application is performing or thinking about starting a speech recognition project, I can help navigate the waters of performance evaluation and improvement as well as knowing whether a speech IVR vendor is providing the right solution.
To get started, I will consult and contract under design out loud. At some point, there will be a separate web site for that. For now, you can read about my abilities and background on my CV/résumé site, www.phillipwhunter.com.
I look forward to getting to know many more of you. And of course, I welcome the chance to contribute to projects you are involved in or can recommend me to. Please get in touch via phillip (at) phillipwhunter (dot) com.
As always, your comments are welcomed.
Of course, this seems like a crazy time to jump when people are losing jobs and homes and all, but I was really inspired by some of the people I met at the IxDA conference and the itch has gotten worse. In addition, I've been shown several times recently that some of the most successful companies of this century and last were started during downturns. And even more specifically, one of the most successful designers in American history, Henry Dreyfuss, started his practice in 1929. As he put it,
“When business reached bottom, companies began to undercut each other. At the same time, alert manufacturers came to the realization that the answer to their problem lay in making their product work better, more convenient to the consumer, and better-looking.”
I believe right now there are significant opportunities for companies to make the same sort of investments that improve the customer experience and the bottom line at the same time.
I can help make you successful and profitable by making your customers enjoy your services and products more.
I am offering design services in the areas of voice, mobile, and web/desktop applications. Specifically, I can help with design strategy, requirements, prototyping, and of course complete designs and documentation for them.
In addition, for companies looking at how their speech application is performing or thinking about starting a speech recognition project, I can help navigate the waters of performance evaluation and improvement as well as knowing whether a speech IVR vendor is providing the right solution.
To get started, I will consult and contract under design out loud. At some point, there will be a separate web site for that. For now, you can read about my abilities and background on my CV/résumé site, www.phillipwhunter.com.
I look forward to getting to know many more of you. And of course, I welcome the chance to contribute to projects you are involved in or can recommend me to. Please get in touch via phillip (at) phillipwhunter (dot) com.
As always, your comments are welcomed.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
IxDA'09 To Go: 60-ish days out, what’s sticking?
I never really got around to posting my final review thoughts of IxDA09, but now that it’s been about 2 months since, I thought maybe I’d share some things that have stuck with me. (If you want to see conference reviews, mine here, others here).
A) I still have a lot of gratitude to have found so many like-minded (design- and other-wise) individuals. It helped me know I am on the right path and to be stronger in the fight that still goes on for good design. It also lit a flame, still burning, to help build the design community further (labels be damned). I also really enjoyed meeting the "names" in our field.
2) Being there solidified the quest I’ve been on to learn more about other areas of experience design. I’ve even thought about going for an advanced degree, which I swore I’d never do. It also helped to know that others also feel like they are constantly learning in this field, even if I think they must be light years beyond me. There is just too much happening too fast for it to matter what you've mastered today. Cover your basics, such as empathy and willingness to experiment, then buckle-in and get ready for the ride.
Blue) Regarding the fight for good design, the conference made me more passionate about calling out bad design when I encounter it. If you’ve read other posts here, you’ve seen that. Added to what I was already thinking about, speakers covered designing for sustainability and behavior change and design-focused business leadership. All things we need to have informing our approaches, decisions, paths, and conversations with clients.
Delta) It was really exciting to hear and see emerging design tools and interaction mediums. NUI & gestural interfaces, mobile, MS Surface, Axure, Catalyst (someday soon we hope), etc., along with continuing extensions of browser-type experiences with Silverlight and Flex. I am very much a n00b with much of it, but as I wrote above, I’m learning as fast as I can.
Things are starting to happen with IxDA-DFW (again), so I look forward to some company in keeping these takeaways alive and well. Please reach out to me if you want to connect on these kinds of topics or hear more about them. Comment or find me on Twitter over there ==>.
A) I still have a lot of gratitude to have found so many like-minded (design- and other-wise) individuals. It helped me know I am on the right path and to be stronger in the fight that still goes on for good design. It also lit a flame, still burning, to help build the design community further (labels be damned). I also really enjoyed meeting the "names" in our field.
2) Being there solidified the quest I’ve been on to learn more about other areas of experience design. I’ve even thought about going for an advanced degree, which I swore I’d never do. It also helped to know that others also feel like they are constantly learning in this field, even if I think they must be light years beyond me. There is just too much happening too fast for it to matter what you've mastered today. Cover your basics, such as empathy and willingness to experiment, then buckle-in and get ready for the ride.
Blue) Regarding the fight for good design, the conference made me more passionate about calling out bad design when I encounter it. If you’ve read other posts here, you’ve seen that. Added to what I was already thinking about, speakers covered designing for sustainability and behavior change and design-focused business leadership. All things we need to have informing our approaches, decisions, paths, and conversations with clients.
Delta) It was really exciting to hear and see emerging design tools and interaction mediums. NUI & gestural interfaces, mobile, MS Surface, Axure, Catalyst (someday soon we hope), etc., along with continuing extensions of browser-type experiences with Silverlight and Flex. I am very much a n00b with much of it, but as I wrote above, I’m learning as fast as I can.
Things are starting to happen with IxDA-DFW (again), so I look forward to some company in keeping these takeaways alive and well. Please reach out to me if you want to connect on these kinds of topics or hear more about them. Comment or find me on Twitter over there ==>.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
I don't think I said what you think I said - Interviews and "Natural Language"
"Hi, I've just got a few questions." Not everyone likes it, but I will admit I do. I like to get interviewed. I like to be asked questions. I like to feel like someone cares about my answers, relative truth aside. I like to think the thoughts and words will make their way into a tight, punchy piece that makes a reader or a thousand think a different thought or care more. But, I know enough from a media course and life to know better than to expect much of that.
Now, this week, I received several mentions in a Speech Technology magazine article and I'm glad. It's a bit ironic, given news I'll get to in another post, but I'm enjoying it. At the risk of not getting interviewed in the future, I do need, though, to straighten out a tiny thing or two.
So, if you're not a speech geek, or wanna-be speech geek, skip to the next post, otherwise, a couple of discussion points:
First, the article is a great intro to current thinking about the use of open-prompting (soliciting content constrained by context, not wording). I favor this approach when it makes sense and can be delivered properly. In general, my thoughts are represented well. But, to get to the point, I didn't actually assert "that callers shouldn’t be exposed to a hierarchy of more than five categories." I do think menus structured like that can be problematic and are frequently done poorly, but research (Hura & McKienzie) and deployments (McKienzie, Levine) have shown that the right combination of wording and delivery can allow menus to be fairly lengthy and still be effective. I agree with those findings.
Moving on, the article discusses the idea that a high-frequency example is very important, which is correct. However, open-prompts should almost never start with "How may I help you?" Not only is there a register problem, but putting the call to action before giving the caller space to respond is generally a recipe for disaster, despite enabling barge-in.
Next, "performance anxiety," my (unattributed) quote, is not a technical term. Funny? Yes. Not technical.
Then, the sentence reading "Users are given the option of accessing them by saying something like What are some choices?" really should read "Callers can be given the option to access them by suggesting they say something like "Give me some choices." The difference appears subtle, but trust me, it's important. Control and certainty are increased by this very much directive statement, whereas the other feels too much like browsing.
Lastly, I need to put a finer point on "it’s important to design the back-off menu open-ended like the first prompt." Actually, the true matter is to allow not a full range of open responses, but to look for responses in tuning data for the menu and adding to the grammar utterances that are clearly a response to the open prompt but not in-grammar for the menu. For example, a caller saying "my internet account" to a menu asking them to specify whether their call is about their bill, an order, tech support, or an appointment. And of course adding logic to handle such utterances. Doing this will be effective and caller-pleasing without the trouble of a parallel SLM grammar.
So, these are not slams, but rather just trying to make sure that the right information is out there. The article is, I think and hope, a good discussion starter. Including the last few paragraphs, which are sort of not-directly-on-topic, but are vitally important nonetheless.
Please add your take on the article here. If you want to know more about the concepts presented there or here, or you want to interview me ;), please let me know: phillip at phillipwhunter dot com.
-pnl
UPDATE: Eric Barkin responded very graciously to my post on his SpeechTech blog page. I appreciate his comments and especially agree with the points about the need for a larger design improvement discussion.
Now, this week, I received several mentions in a Speech Technology magazine article and I'm glad. It's a bit ironic, given news I'll get to in another post, but I'm enjoying it. At the risk of not getting interviewed in the future, I do need, though, to straighten out a tiny thing or two.
So, if you're not a speech geek, or wanna-be speech geek, skip to the next post, otherwise, a couple of discussion points:
First, the article is a great intro to current thinking about the use of open-prompting (soliciting content constrained by context, not wording). I favor this approach when it makes sense and can be delivered properly. In general, my thoughts are represented well. But, to get to the point, I didn't actually assert "that callers shouldn’t be exposed to a hierarchy of more than five categories." I do think menus structured like that can be problematic and are frequently done poorly, but research (Hura & McKienzie) and deployments (McKienzie, Levine) have shown that the right combination of wording and delivery can allow menus to be fairly lengthy and still be effective. I agree with those findings.
Moving on, the article discusses the idea that a high-frequency example is very important, which is correct. However, open-prompts should almost never start with "How may I help you?" Not only is there a register problem, but putting the call to action before giving the caller space to respond is generally a recipe for disaster, despite enabling barge-in.
Next, "performance anxiety," my (unattributed) quote, is not a technical term. Funny? Yes. Not technical.
Then, the sentence reading "Users are given the option of accessing them by saying something like What are some choices?" really should read "Callers can be given the option to access them by suggesting they say something like "Give me some choices." The difference appears subtle, but trust me, it's important. Control and certainty are increased by this very much directive statement, whereas the other feels too much like browsing.
Lastly, I need to put a finer point on "it’s important to design the back-off menu open-ended like the first prompt." Actually, the true matter is to allow not a full range of open responses, but to look for responses in tuning data for the menu and adding to the grammar utterances that are clearly a response to the open prompt but not in-grammar for the menu. For example, a caller saying "my internet account" to a menu asking them to specify whether their call is about their bill, an order, tech support, or an appointment. And of course adding logic to handle such utterances. Doing this will be effective and caller-pleasing without the trouble of a parallel SLM grammar.
So, these are not slams, but rather just trying to make sure that the right information is out there. The article is, I think and hope, a good discussion starter. Including the last few paragraphs, which are sort of not-directly-on-topic, but are vitally important nonetheless.
Please add your take on the article here. If you want to know more about the concepts presented there or here, or you want to interview me ;), please let me know: phillip at phillipwhunter dot com.
-pnl
UPDATE: Eric Barkin responded very graciously to my post on his SpeechTech blog page. I appreciate his comments and especially agree with the points about the need for a larger design improvement discussion.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Data, Art, Design, and a big ID/IxD Success Story
Three events occurred, or were publicized, in the past few days that merit posting here and considering all together. First, an apparently widely-respected visual designer left Google using some strong language about his frustration regarding the design mentality there. I'll let you read his words to get your own impression rather than commenting directly.
You back? Ok.
To paraphrase somewhat, he tells a fresh tale of the decades-old battle of design based on data versus what some like to call "art". We in the Voice Interaction realm have had the same challenges and have often said in our little world that VUI Design is a "science and art". And while I have even held forth on that, I have been uncomfortable for the past few years with that way of characterizing it. One reason is that many of our language structure and wording decisions are actually based on researched and published linguistic and thought paradigms, similar to visual design choices about layout and color. Secondly, designing well is often an exercise in doing so within limitations and with compromises instead of letting one's expressionistic soul run free (That's a great thing for your painting or weekend band. Not usually so good for the business needs of your employer.).
Which leads me to the second event. OK/Cancel is a comic and blog by a couple of guys who took a hiatus from the end of 2007 to now and returned strongly with a great strip and good commentary on the ex-Googler and the data/art debate that fits nicely with my comments above and the article I wrote with Roberto Pieraccini linked to above. This is an area we in speech and all designers need to reflect on in order to truly begin the maturation of our practices, processes, and reputation.
Doing so will, I believe, lead to more of the third event. Thursday's NY Times ran this article in the Inside Technology section, A Tiny Camcorder Has a Big Payday. Pure Digital Technologies, the maker of the very popular Flip camcorder (audio warning) was purchased for $590 million by Cisco (About a 2.5-3x valuation as near as I can tell). To me, this is a triumph of good design. Cisco decided that a profitable company focused on simple, good products could add to Cisco's bottom line for years to come. While their decision was most certainly not all about good design, the philosophy of Pure Digital mostly is. This should serve as reinforcement and encouragement to all designers that combining customer focus, good design principles and practices with persistence and reading the market in-between the lines can and does work because success is success.
Good Design in 2009.
-pnl
You back? Ok.
To paraphrase somewhat, he tells a fresh tale of the decades-old battle of design based on data versus what some like to call "art". We in the Voice Interaction realm have had the same challenges and have often said in our little world that VUI Design is a "science and art". And while I have even held forth on that, I have been uncomfortable for the past few years with that way of characterizing it. One reason is that many of our language structure and wording decisions are actually based on researched and published linguistic and thought paradigms, similar to visual design choices about layout and color. Secondly, designing well is often an exercise in doing so within limitations and with compromises instead of letting one's expressionistic soul run free (That's a great thing for your painting or weekend band. Not usually so good for the business needs of your employer.).
Which leads me to the second event. OK/Cancel is a comic and blog by a couple of guys who took a hiatus from the end of 2007 to now and returned strongly with a great strip and good commentary on the ex-Googler and the data/art debate that fits nicely with my comments above and the article I wrote with Roberto Pieraccini linked to above. This is an area we in speech and all designers need to reflect on in order to truly begin the maturation of our practices, processes, and reputation.
Doing so will, I believe, lead to more of the third event. Thursday's NY Times ran this article in the Inside Technology section, A Tiny Camcorder Has a Big Payday. Pure Digital Technologies, the maker of the very popular Flip camcorder (audio warning) was purchased for $590 million by Cisco (About a 2.5-3x valuation as near as I can tell). To me, this is a triumph of good design. Cisco decided that a profitable company focused on simple, good products could add to Cisco's bottom line for years to come. While their decision was most certainly not all about good design, the philosophy of Pure Digital mostly is. This should serve as reinforcement and encouragement to all designers that combining customer focus, good design principles and practices with persistence and reading the market in-between the lines can and does work because success is success.
Good Design in 2009.
-pnl
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Head and heart: Thoughts on what goes into creation
I intentionally mostly stay away from writing about the theoretical and philosophical. Primarily that's due to feeling not qualified enough and desirous of avoiding "religious" arguments. But, I find my mind returning to this topic for no other reason than I like it and it is meaningful to me. So out it spills.
As a practitioner and appreciator of multiple creative arts, I know that a critical element of most artifacts I see as having some kind of value exist at an intersection of the technical and the passionate. In other words, there is a substantial measure of beauty present because the artist has appreciable mastery of both the execution of and the expression within their medium. In other, other words, they can make their instrument do well what they want and show well what they feel.
For further explication I contrast that not with the complete lack of those two, though certainly creations exist that are empty of both. Those are mostly cases of instances that someone should be doing something else. Or, more graciously, they are instances that I have no capacity to appreciate. Rather, it is sadder to me when there is no intersection because the creation is missing one or the other. When the artist is focused solely on the technical execution (listen to how fast I play this complicated musical structure) or the passionate expression (listen to my messy inarticulate anger). The former is cold, the latter a tantrum.
As you appreciate someone's creation, whether a painting, poem, piece of music, film, interface, product, I encourage you to look for these two elements and how they intersect and interact. They certainly will not always be, and do not need to be at all, or maybe should rarely be, in balance. But I have found that both are necessary. And as I create, I try be sure I am practicing both. There is far more satisfaction, I think, in executing expression as well as possible.
-pnl
Note: Thanks to @semanticwill for adding design-outloud.com to his blog roll. He is an excellent designer (fans of Kayak.com, among others, have him to thank) and thinker. Visitors from there, welcome and thank you! Haven't heard of him? Go see: blog.semanticfoundry.com.
As a practitioner and appreciator of multiple creative arts, I know that a critical element of most artifacts I see as having some kind of value exist at an intersection of the technical and the passionate. In other words, there is a substantial measure of beauty present because the artist has appreciable mastery of both the execution of and the expression within their medium. In other, other words, they can make their instrument do well what they want and show well what they feel.
For further explication I contrast that not with the complete lack of those two, though certainly creations exist that are empty of both. Those are mostly cases of instances that someone should be doing something else. Or, more graciously, they are instances that I have no capacity to appreciate. Rather, it is sadder to me when there is no intersection because the creation is missing one or the other. When the artist is focused solely on the technical execution (listen to how fast I play this complicated musical structure) or the passionate expression (listen to my messy inarticulate anger). The former is cold, the latter a tantrum.
As you appreciate someone's creation, whether a painting, poem, piece of music, film, interface, product, I encourage you to look for these two elements and how they intersect and interact. They certainly will not always be, and do not need to be at all, or maybe should rarely be, in balance. But I have found that both are necessary. And as I create, I try be sure I am practicing both. There is far more satisfaction, I think, in executing expression as well as possible.
-pnl
Note: Thanks to @semanticwill for adding design-outloud.com to his blog roll. He is an excellent designer (fans of Kayak.com, among others, have him to thank) and thinker. Visitors from there, welcome and thank you! Haven't heard of him? Go see: blog.semanticfoundry.com.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
When Search is Not
Been thinking about an idea for a while about how search (for knowledge large and small), the huge, fantastic journey enabled by encyclopedias and changed forever by the world wide web, is changing still. I am sure I am not unique in this, but I honestly haven't looked much into what others might be saying. But posting a few thoughts here might spur some research later.
Maybe I have an unusual or even incomplete sort of definition of search, but I think capital "S" Search for "Where is Coraline showing?" or "What's the average weight of the adult male Asian elephant?" or "What books have been written about the declining use of steam engines?" is different from wanting to know my bank balance or ordering a taxi. Some of my thought over the past six months has gone into ideas about connecting people directly to information or physical products. That is, getting them what they want without needing to them needing to know how to access and use an intermediary to get to their desire. I see signs of this change happening. I think mobile apps like ShopSavvy are in the neighborhood. And it turns out the Google has been embedding some of this sort of thing into their Search portal. The NY Times' David Pogue describes it as SECRETS OF THE SEARCH BOX in which "Certain kinds of information, however, get special treatment." (Cue trippy music and Leonard Nimoy)
Yes, in both these cases, there is still an intermediary, but both show at least one interesting new characteristic. ShopSavvy operates on your personal mobile device, using something that has become fairly ubiquitous, the camera function. So, it's not fully a special addition. It is more a new use of something many people are already familiar with. Then you add in the personalization touches such as wish lists and the new use turns nearly into something indispensable. The Google example shows a shift, to me, in the perception of the idea of search. "If I can ask big questions using this, can I also ask the not-so-big or not-so-general questions?" Questions that don't need to be retrieved from among billions of facts and aggregated into a list to sift through.
I have played with some design sketches involving mobile devices that take a request along those two lines of repurposing the familiar and and delivers the person very directly to a result. No need to know what application to open, no need to know which mode, to remember passwords, to type in financial info, etc. And the interactions are kicked off with easy, unconstrained, sort-of-but-not-really-search type specifications of desire, such as "order my coffee". And I think mobile is very much driving this. Mobile interaction is becoming its own thing and people do and will want to have very different experiences being mobile than they do anchored to a laptop or desktop. These experiences will need to be at once lighter and more powerful, which in part means the role and presence of intermediating technology must decrease.
Big "S" Search will always be used and important. Specialized applications that must be accessed/installed and learned will be around for quite a bit longer. But in between these two is emerging a new area of access and interaction that will be easier, more powerful, and much richer for people. Not sure what to call it yet or exactly how it will manifest, but it will be very, very cool to be part of.
Make 2009 the Year of Good Design.
-pnl
Maybe I have an unusual or even incomplete sort of definition of search, but I think capital "S" Search for "Where is Coraline showing?" or "What's the average weight of the adult male Asian elephant?" or "What books have been written about the declining use of steam engines?" is different from wanting to know my bank balance or ordering a taxi. Some of my thought over the past six months has gone into ideas about connecting people directly to information or physical products. That is, getting them what they want without needing to them needing to know how to access and use an intermediary to get to their desire. I see signs of this change happening. I think mobile apps like ShopSavvy are in the neighborhood. And it turns out the Google has been embedding some of this sort of thing into their Search portal. The NY Times' David Pogue describes it as SECRETS OF THE SEARCH BOX in which "Certain kinds of information, however, get special treatment." (Cue trippy music and Leonard Nimoy)
Yes, in both these cases, there is still an intermediary, but both show at least one interesting new characteristic. ShopSavvy operates on your personal mobile device, using something that has become fairly ubiquitous, the camera function. So, it's not fully a special addition. It is more a new use of something many people are already familiar with. Then you add in the personalization touches such as wish lists and the new use turns nearly into something indispensable. The Google example shows a shift, to me, in the perception of the idea of search. "If I can ask big questions using this, can I also ask the not-so-big or not-so-general questions?" Questions that don't need to be retrieved from among billions of facts and aggregated into a list to sift through.
I have played with some design sketches involving mobile devices that take a request along those two lines of repurposing the familiar and and delivers the person very directly to a result. No need to know what application to open, no need to know which mode, to remember passwords, to type in financial info, etc. And the interactions are kicked off with easy, unconstrained, sort-of-but-not-really-search type specifications of desire, such as "order my coffee". And I think mobile is very much driving this. Mobile interaction is becoming its own thing and people do and will want to have very different experiences being mobile than they do anchored to a laptop or desktop. These experiences will need to be at once lighter and more powerful, which in part means the role and presence of intermediating technology must decrease.
Big "S" Search will always be used and important. Specialized applications that must be accessed/installed and learned will be around for quite a bit longer. But in between these two is emerging a new area of access and interaction that will be easier, more powerful, and much richer for people. Not sure what to call it yet or exactly how it will manifest, but it will be very, very cool to be part of.
Make 2009 the Year of Good Design.
-pnl
Monday, February 23, 2009
IxDA Workshops – Stretching the Brain Muscles
All right. I will make this happen and get my rememories of IxDA'09 up here. Bronchitis still hanging on, but I am determined. Here goes.
Thursday, the 5th, held the first of three workshops I had signed up to attend. First up was a Design Studio led by Jeanine Harriman & Liya Zheng from LiquidNet. Not only did they make me envious of their design-focused environment, they led me through the first real studio exercises outside of voice design that I’d ever participated in. I loved every second. Yes, the anxiety about being new to this world was there, but I dove in figuring that the faster I displayed my ignorance the quicker I would get helped to see the right track. However, I quickly discovered that I had a place here, that my ideas wove easily with those of others. Guided by Jeanine and Liya, we worked through three exercises that moved us along a design path from a narrowly focused interaction design of a new way to engage online clothes buyers to a service design for a clothing retailer seeking to create positive relationships with customers, society in general, and the environment 30 years in the future. In this one session, we discussed online avatars, self-cleaning, disease-resistant clothing, and everything in between. Design-wise we produced storyboards, strategy documents, and a service map. It was fantastic, especially getting to know and working with Brian, Dante, and Adler. I left the session incredibly energized and looking forward to everything else so very happy to be there.
My scritch-a-scratch sketching.
After finding some lunch and chatting with my sweetie, I settled in for a very crowded session covering Adobe’s CS4. This quickly went over my head since I have only dabbled a bit in Photoshop and Dreamweaver over the past few years and know next to nothing about Fireworks, Flash, and the rest. However, the presenter was doing a great job showing off the power of the tools in the suite and, if I ever have the need and chance, I look forward to learning more. I left this session early and decided to catch up on email and some reading.
That evening the conference held a pubcrawl. We managed to make through about 4 spots around Gastown before I called it a night. I met a number of great people such as Daniel N., Jack M., and DeniseP. talking kids, home automation, martinis, work environments and design, of course. It was also my first chance to say “Hi” to some NYC area designers (Dave M. and MJ) I met when I spoke at the IxDA meeting last March at IconNicholson.
Friday morning’s workshop subject was the thing that’s all the rage these days, touch-screen and gestural interactions. Bill Derouchey from Ziba and Dan Saffer from Kicker led. I was extra-psyched to see Dan since I had recently read his first book (which I in turn passed on to a nephew thinking about interaction design as a career. Hey Matt!). I had high hopes for this session. They were more than fulfilled. The two of them gave us a 45 minute or so overview of what types of touch and gesture-based interfaces exist so far, technologies underlying them, and special design considerations they have, including problems, tips, and tricks. Funny that fingerprints can cause problems! They also covered how sensors, such as the iPhone accelerometer, are the secret sauce that really help touch and gesture be effective.
Displaying Dan
Then time to work! The two main exercises had us creating a 6x6 interactive area for a record store to bring customers back into the shops and re-engage the store-based buying experience while incorporating the alluring qualities of today’s digital interfaces. Using touch and gestures, of course. Awesome! And the, er, kicker was that we had to produce paper prototypes that would be interacted with unguided by a member of another group. A rapid design session followed by instant user feedback. Instant adrenalin! Each of the five tables had about 8 people, which was a little much for every single person to contribute ideas constantly, but we settled into a pattern of taking turns and notes and making things. We created a 5 seat table that allowed simulated record bin browsing, looking at covers and jackets, listening, sharing with others at the table, a shopping bag, and a means of checkout.
Shaun M. draws really well!
We were the slowest about creating our materials, but we ended up being the last group to present, so we snuck in some extra work while listening to the others. There was an amazing range of ideas and I must have said “I wish I’d thought of that!” about a dozen times, but as our turn came up I felt really pumped about our approach. I had suggested that we say next to nothing to our test participant after seeing that other groups got very hands on about walking through theirs. I felt that would be the strongest test, just seeing what would happen. That was a great idea because the woman sat down at our “Turntable” and began verbally and manually working through the prototype. As she said and did different steps, we would put different artifacts or simulated screen changes in front of her. And it worked really well! The biggest thing we learned was kind of a “doh!” moment, when it was pointed out that she just slapped her forearms down on our touch-screen, which would have probably caused all kinds of weirdness. Lesson learned, but quickly and cheaply, if this were a real project. After a bit of summary, we wrapped up with homework: take an everyday mechanical object around us and redesign it using touch and gesture. Look for that here in the future.
This workshop just added to my joy at being at the conference. I felt like I was compressing tons of learning into a little time and really finding myself as a designer among all these others who have so much more experience in these area. It was great to feel like I could swim right alongside them.
Next, the conference proper. Hopefully this bronchitis won’t cause another slow down in posting the rest.
-pnl
Thursday, the 5th, held the first of three workshops I had signed up to attend. First up was a Design Studio led by Jeanine Harriman & Liya Zheng from LiquidNet. Not only did they make me envious of their design-focused environment, they led me through the first real studio exercises outside of voice design that I’d ever participated in. I loved every second. Yes, the anxiety about being new to this world was there, but I dove in figuring that the faster I displayed my ignorance the quicker I would get helped to see the right track. However, I quickly discovered that I had a place here, that my ideas wove easily with those of others. Guided by Jeanine and Liya, we worked through three exercises that moved us along a design path from a narrowly focused interaction design of a new way to engage online clothes buyers to a service design for a clothing retailer seeking to create positive relationships with customers, society in general, and the environment 30 years in the future. In this one session, we discussed online avatars, self-cleaning, disease-resistant clothing, and everything in between. Design-wise we produced storyboards, strategy documents, and a service map. It was fantastic, especially getting to know and working with Brian, Dante, and Adler. I left the session incredibly energized and looking forward to everything else so very happy to be there.
My scritch-a-scratch sketching.
After finding some lunch and chatting with my sweetie, I settled in for a very crowded session covering Adobe’s CS4. This quickly went over my head since I have only dabbled a bit in Photoshop and Dreamweaver over the past few years and know next to nothing about Fireworks, Flash, and the rest. However, the presenter was doing a great job showing off the power of the tools in the suite and, if I ever have the need and chance, I look forward to learning more. I left this session early and decided to catch up on email and some reading.
That evening the conference held a pubcrawl. We managed to make through about 4 spots around Gastown before I called it a night. I met a number of great people such as Daniel N., Jack M., and DeniseP. talking kids, home automation, martinis, work environments and design, of course. It was also my first chance to say “Hi” to some NYC area designers (Dave M. and MJ) I met when I spoke at the IxDA meeting last March at IconNicholson.
Friday morning’s workshop subject was the thing that’s all the rage these days, touch-screen and gestural interactions. Bill Derouchey from Ziba and Dan Saffer from Kicker led. I was extra-psyched to see Dan since I had recently read his first book (which I in turn passed on to a nephew thinking about interaction design as a career. Hey Matt!). I had high hopes for this session. They were more than fulfilled. The two of them gave us a 45 minute or so overview of what types of touch and gesture-based interfaces exist so far, technologies underlying them, and special design considerations they have, including problems, tips, and tricks. Funny that fingerprints can cause problems! They also covered how sensors, such as the iPhone accelerometer, are the secret sauce that really help touch and gesture be effective.
Displaying Dan
Then time to work! The two main exercises had us creating a 6x6 interactive area for a record store to bring customers back into the shops and re-engage the store-based buying experience while incorporating the alluring qualities of today’s digital interfaces. Using touch and gestures, of course. Awesome! And the, er, kicker was that we had to produce paper prototypes that would be interacted with unguided by a member of another group. A rapid design session followed by instant user feedback. Instant adrenalin! Each of the five tables had about 8 people, which was a little much for every single person to contribute ideas constantly, but we settled into a pattern of taking turns and notes and making things. We created a 5 seat table that allowed simulated record bin browsing, looking at covers and jackets, listening, sharing with others at the table, a shopping bag, and a means of checkout.
Shaun M. draws really well!
We were the slowest about creating our materials, but we ended up being the last group to present, so we snuck in some extra work while listening to the others. There was an amazing range of ideas and I must have said “I wish I’d thought of that!” about a dozen times, but as our turn came up I felt really pumped about our approach. I had suggested that we say next to nothing to our test participant after seeing that other groups got very hands on about walking through theirs. I felt that would be the strongest test, just seeing what would happen. That was a great idea because the woman sat down at our “Turntable” and began verbally and manually working through the prototype. As she said and did different steps, we would put different artifacts or simulated screen changes in front of her. And it worked really well! The biggest thing we learned was kind of a “doh!” moment, when it was pointed out that she just slapped her forearms down on our touch-screen, which would have probably caused all kinds of weirdness. Lesson learned, but quickly and cheaply, if this were a real project. After a bit of summary, we wrapped up with homework: take an everyday mechanical object around us and redesign it using touch and gesture. Look for that here in the future.
This workshop just added to my joy at being at the conference. I felt like I was compressing tons of learning into a little time and really finding myself as a designer among all these others who have so much more experience in these area. It was great to feel like I could swim right alongside them.
Next, the conference proper. Hopefully this bronchitis won’t cause another slow down in posting the rest.
-pnl
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Finally: IxDA 2009 – Vancouver, BC, Canada, in five parts
Arrival
The Interaction Design Association is a young professional organization that just put on its second annual conference. I missed the first in 2008, held in
Why apprehensive? I felt like the new kid starting school in the middle of the year as well as a bit of an interloper. All of these people probably knew each other well and I had only met a few briefly. Plus, so many of them have degrees in a field barely ten years old! I felt unknown and unqualified to be attending. Also imposing was that my area of focus in interaction design has been speech recognition, little known and less understood. I have done some web and desktop app design, but nothing on the scale of many of the attendees. I was actually going to be around people responsible for design thought and work that I had admired for years. For me, it was a bit like being a guitar player (oh, actually I am) and getting to meet someone like Eric Johnson. But I knew virtually none of them would be able to relate to my daily craft. Nonetheless, I was determined not to be a wallflower and so to meet as many people as I could, find out more about them, and hopefully, make some sort of decent impression. Most of all, I hoped to really stretch my brain into design areas I have only dabbled in or read about, especially mobile and service.
Things started well right after arrival. An uneventful flight and border crossing led to sitting on a bus with three guys from Chicago’s Manifest Digital, Jim, Kevin, and Jason. They were there as sponsors and participants. We briefly traded details of who and where and then concentrated on finding our hotel. I would meet up with them again later, to my gain in more ways than one.
The afternoon weather was fantastic and I was able to walk around bit taking photos and had a bite to eat at Steamworks, a brewpub in Gastown. Their Coal Porter brew was the best micro I’ve had in a long time. After that, I headed to the room (by the way, I found the Four Seasons to be very comfortable and I had a great view) early due to no energy and wanting to be ready to learn in the morning. I followed a few arrivals via twitter and settled in.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Busy week, strong links
So, I haven't had enough time to fully pull together my own thoughts about IxDA '09, but go here for what others have had to say:
Lots o'links Courtesy of SemanticWill
Also, a couple of cool other tidbits:
Why Interaction Design Matters
Becoming a Customer Experience-Driven Business
Fight the good fight. Every moment. Every Day.
-pnl
Lots o'links Courtesy of SemanticWill
Also, a couple of cool other tidbits:
Why Interaction Design Matters
Becoming a Customer Experience-Driven Business
Fight the good fight. Every moment. Every Day.
-pnl
Monday, February 9, 2009
Back from Vancouver - IxDA'09
Just got back. Really tired but so happy to have gone. This view greeted me on the last day of the conference.
I'll post more links and thoughts during the week.
Good design 2009.
-pnl
Saturday, February 7, 2009
IxDA09 in Vancouver
On day 3 of the IxDA conference and have loved every minute. Tweeting (@designoutloud) like a madman (at least to me). John Thackara, Rob Fabricant, Dan Saffer have enlightened and inspired. But really so much good stuff. This is a big deal.
More pics.
Making 2009 the Year of Good Design.
-pnl
Thursday, January 29, 2009
It's time for a movement!
Being a designer who uses verbal language, I, and many of my colleagues, pay attention to Language Log, a blog by various language academics and other professionals in the field. James pointed out this post, which came out the same day as my previous post here.
Coincidence? Yeeesss, but for all the right reasons. This is bad, people. We have to fix things before more people get more hurt and more stressed.
Persistent bad design is immoral.
-pnl
Coincidence? Yeeesss, but for all the right reasons. This is bad, people. We have to fix things before more people get more hurt and more stressed.
Persistent bad design is immoral.
-pnl
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Bad Design Is Immoral
Persistent bad design is immoral.
(For those of you into relativism, I encourage a contemplative tour of This is Broken in regards to design.)
Those companies and people who produce designs that continually cause difficulty, stress, frustration, tension, anger, delay, waste (esp. time), confusion, harm, etc. and do nothing about it when faced with its effects are committing absolute crimes against their fellow people.
Persistent bad design is immoral. It is life-sucking.
My first exhibit is personal. Summer '08 I "upgraded" from a 3 year old Treo 600 to a Verizon XV6800, i.e. an HTC running Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.0. I did this vaguely aware of the bad rep WM had, but I figured it was no worse than the desktop/laptop OS. I now know the depth of my ignorance. Suffice to say that the review I linked to feels effusively, and two-headed calf wrongly, positive.
Some of you might ask, "why give up the Treo?" or "Why not an iPhone, design phreak?" Well, the Treo was outdated, the camera sucked, etc. and I am a fairly happy and committed Verizon family plan customer. And I wanted a touchscreen, so a CrackBerry wouldn't work. So, after much cajoling from a colleague, I took the plunge. I'm still gasping for air.
How has this $400 device plagued me? Let me post the ways:
1 frequent lock-ups, often requiring battery removal
2 vibration starts and won't stop until a reboot
3 screen update latency often leading to repeated numbers during dialing
4 constant task interruption telling me it has sent a text (why do I even need to be notified of that? I am only interested in failure. I assume success.)
5 inability (until recently) to modify basic system functions of notification and sounds
6 The voice activation button is exactly where a thumb goes for regular holding of the phone
7 The volume won't go above moderately loud and so fades badly in noisy environments
8 MS ActiveSync has no setting for "don't sync until I tell you to"
9 When charging, there was no way to tell how charged it was
10 The camera, which takes decent pics, requires psychic or omniscient powers to use it. The buttons are baffling and there is no help on the device
Now, those aren't my top ten, because what I can't even write coherently and succinctly is how amazingly bad it is at handling phone calls when something else happens, like an incoming text. Or how confusing it can be to use the call history. Or how many steps are required to modify a contact. In fact, the only thing I can really say is easy is to move files onto and off the device from my laptop. And while that is handy, it is not a daily/hourly vital task like some of these others.
Which leads me to the highlight of the story. WM 6.1 was released in the fall and I heard promise of "major" improvements. I'm thinking I don't want improvements, I want do-overs. So I put it off until yesterday. And imagine my glee when I realize that there are TWO updates now. Since updates WIPE the phone, it's as if Suckrosoft figured they'd repay all those who complained the first time around.
So here's what happened. At the end of the day, I download the update files and transfer them to the phone. Then I open the readme docs, which, I find out, are helpful screenshots of the install program I am about to start. But onward. I begin. The dire warnings come that I am erasing ALL data on the device (Thanks, I know). Thirty minutes later, it finishes. Let me stop here for a moment to say that I am a "I'll figure it out"-geek, meaning that I can get through, but I'm not hacking core software, and I can easily imagine that a non-technical person might never have gotten through this alone. But all appears okay. I even download and install a couple of decent UI customizers to make me feel better on the surface.
I feel good about this and go to bed.
I awake this morning to hear my phone ring. For half a second. I get up and go to it. It rings again, barely long enough to see that it's my friend Chuck. No way to answer. Then one more time. He and I are supposed to talk later in the morning, but I need coffee first. I make it, then call. Or, rather, try to call. "We're sorry, but Verizon Wireless does not recognize your phone as an authorized device". Hmm. Upgrade? Erase all data? Crap.
So I call the activation number, which I happen to have memorized for reasons you can guess. "Programming successful!" Phew. Calling Chuck. "We're sorry, but Verizon Wireless does not recognize your phone as an authorized device". AAAHHHHHAHHAAAHHAHAHHHHH!!!!!!
All that work for FAIL?!?! Calm down. 1..2..3... They mention a number. I call it. The "Account Authorization" department will help me as soon as a representative is available. One comes on. I give my number. She finds my account. She fixes the issue. Great, I say. "Anything else I can help you with?" Yes, say I, did the upgrade cause this? "Yes, that's what I fixed. When the update is done, we have to go in and fix the account." AAAHHHHHAHHAAAHHAHAHHHHH!!!!!!
COULDN'T SOMEONE PUT THAT IN THE INSTRUCTIONS?!!?!!?!?
Persistent bad design is immoral.
And here I am. And here we are. I have been thinking about this subject, the immorality of bad design, for a while now and this story is good to kick a series of posts off with. In addition to the time I spent working on this post (about 2.5 hours), I have spent far more painful times dealing with the phone while actually trying to get things done. A tool, a device, especially an expensive one, that is bought to help with life should HELP!!!! This phone has interrupted important business calls, caused incorrect information to be sent, prevented timely wake-ups, etc. with all the attending difficulty, stress, frustration, tension, anger, delay, waste (esp. time), confusion, harm, etc.
It's wrong. It should change. We should demand it. We should make it better.
As I said earlier:
"Be bold in identifying bad design.
We simply must change the role of design from creating specifications to improving life."
-pnl
(For those of you into relativism, I encourage a contemplative tour of This is Broken in regards to design.)
Those companies and people who produce designs that continually cause difficulty, stress, frustration, tension, anger, delay, waste (esp. time), confusion, harm, etc. and do nothing about it when faced with its effects are committing absolute crimes against their fellow people.
Persistent bad design is immoral. It is life-sucking.
My first exhibit is personal. Summer '08 I "upgraded" from a 3 year old Treo 600 to a Verizon XV6800, i.e. an HTC running Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.0. I did this vaguely aware of the bad rep WM had, but I figured it was no worse than the desktop/laptop OS. I now know the depth of my ignorance. Suffice to say that the review I linked to feels effusively, and two-headed calf wrongly, positive.
Some of you might ask, "why give up the Treo?" or "Why not an iPhone, design phreak?" Well, the Treo was outdated, the camera sucked, etc. and I am a fairly happy and committed Verizon family plan customer. And I wanted a touchscreen, so a CrackBerry wouldn't work. So, after much cajoling from a colleague, I took the plunge. I'm still gasping for air.
How has this $400 device plagued me? Let me post the ways:
1 frequent lock-ups, often requiring battery removal
2 vibration starts and won't stop until a reboot
3 screen update latency often leading to repeated numbers during dialing
4 constant task interruption telling me it has sent a text (why do I even need to be notified of that? I am only interested in failure. I assume success.)
5 inability (until recently) to modify basic system functions of notification and sounds
6 The voice activation button is exactly where a thumb goes for regular holding of the phone
7 The volume won't go above moderately loud and so fades badly in noisy environments
8 MS ActiveSync has no setting for "don't sync until I tell you to"
9 When charging, there was no way to tell how charged it was
10 The camera, which takes decent pics, requires psychic or omniscient powers to use it. The buttons are baffling and there is no help on the device
Now, those aren't my top ten, because what I can't even write coherently and succinctly is how amazingly bad it is at handling phone calls when something else happens, like an incoming text. Or how confusing it can be to use the call history. Or how many steps are required to modify a contact. In fact, the only thing I can really say is easy is to move files onto and off the device from my laptop. And while that is handy, it is not a daily/hourly vital task like some of these others.
Which leads me to the highlight of the story. WM 6.1 was released in the fall and I heard promise of "major" improvements. I'm thinking I don't want improvements, I want do-overs. So I put it off until yesterday. And imagine my glee when I realize that there are TWO updates now. Since updates WIPE the phone, it's as if Suckrosoft figured they'd repay all those who complained the first time around.
So here's what happened. At the end of the day, I download the update files and transfer them to the phone. Then I open the readme docs, which, I find out, are helpful screenshots of the install program I am about to start. But onward. I begin. The dire warnings come that I am erasing ALL data on the device (Thanks, I know). Thirty minutes later, it finishes. Let me stop here for a moment to say that I am a "I'll figure it out"-geek, meaning that I can get through, but I'm not hacking core software, and I can easily imagine that a non-technical person might never have gotten through this alone. But all appears okay. I even download and install a couple of decent UI customizers to make me feel better on the surface.
I feel good about this and go to bed.
I awake this morning to hear my phone ring. For half a second. I get up and go to it. It rings again, barely long enough to see that it's my friend Chuck. No way to answer. Then one more time. He and I are supposed to talk later in the morning, but I need coffee first. I make it, then call. Or, rather, try to call. "We're sorry, but Verizon Wireless does not recognize your phone as an authorized device". Hmm. Upgrade? Erase all data? Crap.
So I call the activation number, which I happen to have memorized for reasons you can guess. "Programming successful!" Phew. Calling Chuck. "We're sorry, but Verizon Wireless does not recognize your phone as an authorized device". AAAHHHHHAHHAAAHHAHAHHHHH!!!!!!
All that work for FAIL?!?! Calm down. 1..2..3... They mention a number. I call it. The "Account Authorization" department will help me as soon as a representative is available. One comes on. I give my number. She finds my account. She fixes the issue. Great, I say. "Anything else I can help you with?" Yes, say I, did the upgrade cause this? "Yes, that's what I fixed. When the update is done, we have to go in and fix the account." AAAHHHHHAHHAAAHHAHAHHHHH!!!!!!
COULDN'T SOMEONE PUT THAT IN THE INSTRUCTIONS?!!?!!?!?
Persistent bad design is immoral.
And here I am. And here we are. I have been thinking about this subject, the immorality of bad design, for a while now and this story is good to kick a series of posts off with. In addition to the time I spent working on this post (about 2.5 hours), I have spent far more painful times dealing with the phone while actually trying to get things done. A tool, a device, especially an expensive one, that is bought to help with life should HELP!!!! This phone has interrupted important business calls, caused incorrect information to be sent, prevented timely wake-ups, etc. with all the attending difficulty, stress, frustration, tension, anger, delay, waste (esp. time), confusion, harm, etc.
It's wrong. It should change. We should demand it. We should make it better.
As I said earlier:
"Be bold in identifying bad design.
We simply must change the role of design from creating specifications to improving life."
-pnl
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Designer documentary
This just showed up on gizmodo via ixda, a documentary about designers. Looks very cool.
Let's hope it make us designers feel all warm and fuzzy but also opens eyes about the whys and hows of design.
-pnl
Let's hope it make us designers feel all warm and fuzzy but also opens eyes about the whys and hows of design.
-pnl
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