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 philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Marking the Shift: Making Things People Want, Not Making People Want Things
I'm one of those slightly twisted persons who think about the things behind other things, like thinking about how people think about change. That's handy for design territory, of course, but more than utility, there's something about it that leads my mind off into the fields, wandering blissfully. Fortunately, there's always plenty of raw material and I get to indulge in this often. One thing that fascinates me is how people try to frame or explain what they see as new or different, ascribing characteristics that fit their take on or help their resistance to it. But what I really enjoy is the grappling with the change and the meaning and impact of and reasons for the change in an honest, open way, acknowledging discomfort, unwieldiness, and the unknown. Most of us are not confident about that sort of struggle, so we avoid it, despite the richness of life it contains and the resilience it teaches us.
Three recent articles, and a talk and meet-up with one of the authors, spoke to me about change in the air that I've also been noticing. Two of them are connected, but have different focal points that make one stronger than the other relative to the change they discuss. The other is a wonderful example of the struggle that should be part of big changes. I'll highlight these and offer a few of my thoughts about them.
The context is the shift from how we design to make products and services more attractive to people to designing products and services that people want and need. Though we've talked about people-centered design for years, the practice of the former is still company-centered in reality.
John Maeda highlights this in a piece that I missed somehow when it came out last fall. He wrote to ask If Design's No Longer the Killer Differentiator, What Is?, stating along the way that "what people are looking for now is a way to reconnect with their values: to ground how they can, will, and should live in the world."
This is an important statement about a vital idea and one we designers would do well to keep forefront at all times. But I find John's framing a bit off, because I think people always are, and always have been trying to connect to what they value. So, his assertion is perfectly valid, except the word "now" is a bit of a red herring. Thinking about the right thing, but with a bent toward feeling like it's new when it isn't.
What really seems to be happening is that we are becoming more acutely aware of the subtle business-centrism we've maintained even as we designed under the proclamation that "People are what matters!" There's a tremendous difference between making people want products and making products that people want. It's not that what people truly want has changed, it's that we're finally realizing we're not helping them get it.
Of course it's true that many people got caught up in what they were being offered and lured into, but mainly by empty promises falsely representing greater or deeper meaning. We are starting to understand that we can help them see their way beyond that because the human passion for true meaning and beauty are ancient and ageless. So when John writes, "Art speaks to us as humans, not as “human capital.” Art shows us that human beings still matter in a world where money talks the loudest, where computers know everything about us, and where robots fabricate our next meal and also our ride there," he is tapping into something that goes much further back than the Occupy movement and the appearance of MakerFaire.
I do think he very correctly pulls us into the effort to focus more clearly on things of value, even charging it with a sense of responsibility. It is important for all of us to ask "how do we have more of these successes? ... Just how do we make – not just find – the next generation of artists who will propel us and reveal the way forward?"
Jim Jacoby might answer that they are not for us to find, but for us to realize that we are them. We can become those artists, both of product and people, as we make and teach.
In Dissing Disintermediation, Jim argues that "we need to rebalance ourselves in the context of layered systems. and the american (sic) differentiation in global markets can be the celebration of craftsmen once again...they should be meaningfully designing at multiple layers in a complex system. and we should be actively involved in the dialectic with them." A conversation has begun that does something else I'm very fond of, that shows how together the single and the multiple, the simple and complex are bound in a real way to move and shape the world around us. The systems that exist and are constantly in motion can be realized, engaged, and consciously and conscientiously reshaped. Part of the change is in the widespread realization that what is really going on around us is bigger, more connected, and more subject to our influence than we have been aware of.
Understanding and practicing good design gave us an entry into both the realization and the opportunity to act on it. The past 20 - 30 years of tremendous growth in the craft and its role in business is an important change, one that has taken a great deal of fight and perseverance. But point of the current shift is that we are only part way down the path of learning how to design and how to use it truly well.
Bruce Nussbaum reinforces that in his article, So You’ve Discovered the Importance of Good Design. Don’t Make These Mistakes, the goal of which appears to be to shake up the comfort levels, laurel-resting, status quo-maintaining we might be doing now that design is seen as a factor in recent successes. He accuses the design practice, and businesses embracing it, of tying themselves to a past we need to move beyond. The push is to acknowledge that enabling and engaging with meaning and value is not just about incorporating about designers and design practices into business. I agree, but this is something that mature designers working at deeper and broader levels have known. Case in point, he hammers on the practice of user experience design as coming from "a design culture...where passive consumers “experience” something provided by someone else." The front line of designers know that experience is emergent and collaborative and we designers simply try to optimize the chance of conditions in which good things happen.
Bruce underscores our need to go deeper on growing "creative intelligence," similar to emotional and intellectual intelligences, "to move away from the outdated relics of design and towards creative competence." Personally, the three are one to me. The idea of divided or compartmentalized intelligences, a la right / left brain, no longer seems helpful, and is possibly stigmatizing and constraining.
I recently had the privilege of listening to Bruce speak and chatting with him afterward. It was a great treat and the depth and color he gave to the topic was enlightening, powerful, and motivating. He's a very gracious conversationalist, too. I am in agreement with his mission of growing creative abilities, especially in high-functioning groups, I simply think it is the next part of a journey, not a replacement for something that was necessarily faulty or mistaken.
It's an amazing and wonderful path we're on. I get the sense that the social, economic, and technological changes underway are leading to another societal shift and am very hopeful that we can do well with it. We designers and makers have big charges, responsibilities to make good and make well.
With that, I'll close with another quote from Jim: "so, get back to work, but think about what you're building… what you’re doing… that you’re not a hacker, or info-worker, writer, designer, or programmer but a ‘maker.’ you're a craftsman in your own right. the dialectic you can create between yourself and the world around you is the craft you are charged with every day. you exist in the context of a layer in this system ... now it’s simply a matter of becoming conscious to it.
we’re waking up to the creation of the world around us."
Go!
Three recent articles, and a talk and meet-up with one of the authors, spoke to me about change in the air that I've also been noticing. Two of them are connected, but have different focal points that make one stronger than the other relative to the change they discuss. The other is a wonderful example of the struggle that should be part of big changes. I'll highlight these and offer a few of my thoughts about them.
The context is the shift from how we design to make products and services more attractive to people to designing products and services that people want and need. Though we've talked about people-centered design for years, the practice of the former is still company-centered in reality.
John Maeda highlights this in a piece that I missed somehow when it came out last fall. He wrote to ask If Design's No Longer the Killer Differentiator, What Is?, stating along the way that "what people are looking for now is a way to reconnect with their values: to ground how they can, will, and should live in the world."
This is an important statement about a vital idea and one we designers would do well to keep forefront at all times. But I find John's framing a bit off, because I think people always are, and always have been trying to connect to what they value. So, his assertion is perfectly valid, except the word "now" is a bit of a red herring. Thinking about the right thing, but with a bent toward feeling like it's new when it isn't.
What really seems to be happening is that we are becoming more acutely aware of the subtle business-centrism we've maintained even as we designed under the proclamation that "People are what matters!" There's a tremendous difference between making people want products and making products that people want. It's not that what people truly want has changed, it's that we're finally realizing we're not helping them get it.
Of course it's true that many people got caught up in what they were being offered and lured into, but mainly by empty promises falsely representing greater or deeper meaning. We are starting to understand that we can help them see their way beyond that because the human passion for true meaning and beauty are ancient and ageless. So when John writes, "Art speaks to us as humans, not as “human capital.” Art shows us that human beings still matter in a world where money talks the loudest, where computers know everything about us, and where robots fabricate our next meal and also our ride there," he is tapping into something that goes much further back than the Occupy movement and the appearance of MakerFaire.
I do think he very correctly pulls us into the effort to focus more clearly on things of value, even charging it with a sense of responsibility. It is important for all of us to ask "how do we have more of these successes? ... Just how do we make – not just find – the next generation of artists who will propel us and reveal the way forward?"
Jim Jacoby might answer that they are not for us to find, but for us to realize that we are them. We can become those artists, both of product and people, as we make and teach.
In Dissing Disintermediation, Jim argues that "we need to rebalance ourselves in the context of layered systems. and the american (sic) differentiation in global markets can be the celebration of craftsmen once again...they should be meaningfully designing at multiple layers in a complex system. and we should be actively involved in the dialectic with them." A conversation has begun that does something else I'm very fond of, that shows how together the single and the multiple, the simple and complex are bound in a real way to move and shape the world around us. The systems that exist and are constantly in motion can be realized, engaged, and consciously and conscientiously reshaped. Part of the change is in the widespread realization that what is really going on around us is bigger, more connected, and more subject to our influence than we have been aware of.
Understanding and practicing good design gave us an entry into both the realization and the opportunity to act on it. The past 20 - 30 years of tremendous growth in the craft and its role in business is an important change, one that has taken a great deal of fight and perseverance. But point of the current shift is that we are only part way down the path of learning how to design and how to use it truly well.
Bruce Nussbaum reinforces that in his article, So You’ve Discovered the Importance of Good Design. Don’t Make These Mistakes, the goal of which appears to be to shake up the comfort levels, laurel-resting, status quo-maintaining we might be doing now that design is seen as a factor in recent successes. He accuses the design practice, and businesses embracing it, of tying themselves to a past we need to move beyond. The push is to acknowledge that enabling and engaging with meaning and value is not just about incorporating about designers and design practices into business. I agree, but this is something that mature designers working at deeper and broader levels have known. Case in point, he hammers on the practice of user experience design as coming from "a design culture...where passive consumers “experience” something provided by someone else." The front line of designers know that experience is emergent and collaborative and we designers simply try to optimize the chance of conditions in which good things happen.
Bruce underscores our need to go deeper on growing "creative intelligence," similar to emotional and intellectual intelligences, "to move away from the outdated relics of design and towards creative competence." Personally, the three are one to me. The idea of divided or compartmentalized intelligences, a la right / left brain, no longer seems helpful, and is possibly stigmatizing and constraining.
I recently had the privilege of listening to Bruce speak and chatting with him afterward. It was a great treat and the depth and color he gave to the topic was enlightening, powerful, and motivating. He's a very gracious conversationalist, too. I am in agreement with his mission of growing creative abilities, especially in high-functioning groups, I simply think it is the next part of a journey, not a replacement for something that was necessarily faulty or mistaken.
It's an amazing and wonderful path we're on. I get the sense that the social, economic, and technological changes underway are leading to another societal shift and am very hopeful that we can do well with it. We designers and makers have big charges, responsibilities to make good and make well.
With that, I'll close with another quote from Jim: "so, get back to work, but think about what you're building… what you’re doing… that you’re not a hacker, or info-worker, writer, designer, or programmer but a ‘maker.’ you're a craftsman in your own right. the dialectic you can create between yourself and the world around you is the craft you are charged with every day. you exist in the context of a layer in this system ... now it’s simply a matter of becoming conscious to it.
we’re waking up to the creation of the world around us."
Go!
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?
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.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
With better tools you can build more crap faster
Last week I attended a lecture given by a software development company offering a new development tool for mobile developers. They are tapping into the moves by Google and Palm toward the mobile web app framework versus the native app focus of Apple. While that is an interesting business battle to watch, the central point of the lecture focused on something more disturbing and worth our time actually engaging in as designers.
They started by pointing out stats that most of us know or expected: the apps in Apple's store are mostly failures. Many never capture a significant number of users and many that do show an initial spurt of purchases, then fall dramatically. The number of apps that have significant purchase and use over time is very small. To make things worse, the lecturers indicated that iPhone and other mobile apps typically require fairly large amounts of time and effort, meaning that the ROI for the vast majority of apps is very negative.
As a designer, my response was of course that the failing apps do not meet the criteria that any software must for successful adoption: usability, usefulness, and engagement. Meaning that most developers are really wasting their time in addition to the consumers and even Apple's. This company's response was far different from mine, though. They essentially are resigned to the current state that the widespread development of crappy apps is a permanent condition. Their solution to the problem as they see it is to greatly shorten the time and effort needed to develop. So, if we can build apps faster, then we can build more apps. And if we can build more apps faster, we increase our chances of getting lucky that one of them won't be crap.
While I can understand this logic, and it has a fine product marketing tradition backing it up, it is very flawed. Let's look at a few reasons:
- Consumers are rejecting these apps. Putting them up faster will not change that. Statistically, it will actually worsen the percentages.
- Building more apps will vastly increase the clutter that consumers have to deal with, leading to the probability that good apps will get lost in the madness.
- Failures lead to zero or negative ROI. Getting there faster is not a bad thing, but it is not a good driving goal for software tools.
- We are in the beginning (I continue to hope) of a design revolution. Aims such as this company's waste precious talent and time that could be used to make progress toward good design.
To be fair, the product looked interesting and useful. Perhaps it could be used to build better apps faster. And I certainly agree that experimentation and failure are part of the marketplace. However, creating better products for consumers is accomplished in large part by aiming to build better products, not simply more of the status quo, faster.
Share your thoughts about this below.
Good design in 2009.
They started by pointing out stats that most of us know or expected: the apps in Apple's store are mostly failures. Many never capture a significant number of users and many that do show an initial spurt of purchases, then fall dramatically. The number of apps that have significant purchase and use over time is very small. To make things worse, the lecturers indicated that iPhone and other mobile apps typically require fairly large amounts of time and effort, meaning that the ROI for the vast majority of apps is very negative.
As a designer, my response was of course that the failing apps do not meet the criteria that any software must for successful adoption: usability, usefulness, and engagement. Meaning that most developers are really wasting their time in addition to the consumers and even Apple's. This company's response was far different from mine, though. They essentially are resigned to the current state that the widespread development of crappy apps is a permanent condition. Their solution to the problem as they see it is to greatly shorten the time and effort needed to develop. So, if we can build apps faster, then we can build more apps. And if we can build more apps faster, we increase our chances of getting lucky that one of them won't be crap.
While I can understand this logic, and it has a fine product marketing tradition backing it up, it is very flawed. Let's look at a few reasons:
- Consumers are rejecting these apps. Putting them up faster will not change that. Statistically, it will actually worsen the percentages.
- Building more apps will vastly increase the clutter that consumers have to deal with, leading to the probability that good apps will get lost in the madness.
- Failures lead to zero or negative ROI. Getting there faster is not a bad thing, but it is not a good driving goal for software tools.
- We are in the beginning (I continue to hope) of a design revolution. Aims such as this company's waste precious talent and time that could be used to make progress toward good design.
To be fair, the product looked interesting and useful. Perhaps it could be used to build better apps faster. And I certainly agree that experimentation and failure are part of the marketplace. However, creating better products for consumers is accomplished in large part by aiming to build better products, not simply more of the status quo, faster.
Share your thoughts about this below.
Good design in 2009.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Step up to the microphone
Ah, wow. It's been 3 months since I posted last. That's not good. So, I am stepping back up to put my humble and not-so-humble thoughts out to you. At least lots has happened. design - outloud is up and going. It's parent company, Watch Me Media, is a legal entity. We have paying customers (Be one!). I've been asked to act as CTO for a health care start-up project, and, last but not least, we were able to spend time in Colorado. And then there's all the kids activities, family stuff, watering the grass, etc.
Sounds pretty good, but it's also been a difficult time as multiple projects have evaporated due to economic conditions. Maybe more on that later. And soon I will start posting again about design and the business and practice of it.
For now, we persist.
Sounds pretty good, but it's also been a difficult time as multiple projects have evaporated due to economic conditions. Maybe more on that later. And soon I will start posting again about design and the business and practice of it.
For now, we persist.
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 ==>.
Friday, April 3, 2009
WTF? Public Behavior, Infernal Machines, and Voice Interaction/Interface Design
Recently one of the semi-annually popular questions in the voice interface world floated out of its storage closet and back into the email list shared by many speech designers: “What should our applications do when cursing by a caller is detected?” I thought about not responding this time, but realized that we hadn’t really publicly hashed out the argument for not doing anything too special. Plus, we always joke about having an app say something like “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” which has been said enough to worry me that maybe someone will take it seriously. So, I responded that trying to be sure of what sub-context is meant by the caller is very difficult and many times the use of vulgarity is in fact not a sign of trouble or frustration. It is more effective to focus our efforts on creating effective and pleasant interactions for the vast majority of callers who are not swearing out of frustration or at all. That’s what I posted to the list.
The response to that was the equivalent of crickets and instead other respondents focused, as before, on maybe doing this or that, all essentially variations on the theme of giving negative reinforcement to the caller or even punishing them, such as going silent for a while or transferring them to a low-priority wait queue. My thought on that is, as a colleague suggested, let’s figure out how to make mallets bop the caller on the head every time they swear.
The bottom line is that designs must accommodate and respond accommodatingly to a wide variety of social behaviors, some of which will differ greatly from the company’s and designer’s point of views and cultural biases. While an organization might understandably choose to have a strict policy regarding how their customers are allowed to treat employees, it is ridiculous to think of requiring similar behavior standards for actions around or even toward inanimate software. It is not wise or even practical to try to enforce ambiguous, dynamic, class- and culture-based behavior norms on people who are not asking for it and are often already upset or stressed by a situation they perceive as been caused by the company. Make no mistake, designers are in the behavior modification business. However, that is true only as far as required to achieve the person’s desired goal within the allowances of the company.
Be nice to the people using your application, but don’t get bothered if they aren’t nice back. Don’t try to change behavior that is not directly relevant to their success. Focus on getting to success.
The response to that was the equivalent of crickets and instead other respondents focused, as before, on maybe doing this or that, all essentially variations on the theme of giving negative reinforcement to the caller or even punishing them, such as going silent for a while or transferring them to a low-priority wait queue. My thought on that is, as a colleague suggested, let’s figure out how to make mallets bop the caller on the head every time they swear.
The bottom line is that designs must accommodate and respond accommodatingly to a wide variety of social behaviors, some of which will differ greatly from the company’s and designer’s point of views and cultural biases. While an organization might understandably choose to have a strict policy regarding how their customers are allowed to treat employees, it is ridiculous to think of requiring similar behavior standards for actions around or even toward inanimate software. It is not wise or even practical to try to enforce ambiguous, dynamic, class- and culture-based behavior norms on people who are not asking for it and are often already upset or stressed by a situation they perceive as been caused by the company. Make no mistake, designers are in the behavior modification business. However, that is true only as far as required to achieve the person’s desired goal within the allowances of the company.
Be nice to the people using your application, but don’t get bothered if they aren’t nice back. Don’t try to change behavior that is not directly relevant to their success. Focus on getting to success.
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.
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