–Engage

Today I was doing a bit of moonlighting of a fun project a former colleague has graciously asked me to work on with him. I love these opportunities and I welcome them (hint, hint). It helps me stay connected to practice.

During the design phase a conversation ensued about the use of a label. It was a simple label at that. It brought up for me a knee jerk response that was so strong, I couldn’t explain it at first. I had to do some looking around the intertubes for similar labels with similar intents to communicate similar functionality and not a single site used that label. I understood the concept from the visual designer and the subject matter expert, but for the life of me, it felt like a needle in my side.

Then a few hours later I finally understood the issue I was having and it had to do with my mental model of computer systems in general and my philosophy about designing technology.

Here’s the dealio: A technological system can either be a cybernetic augmentation of our humanity or a servant that acts in our best interest. My predisposition towards story and performance has always prejudiced me (I think correctly) towards the later. The systems we create are actors as we are in a constrained & guided improvisational dialog. The former option is that technology in all its forms is a metaphorical appendage, meant to augment our very own physicality.

I will say that I lean heavily towards the “actor” but that is also because I’ve been mostly designing desktop-based systems through my career (web-based included). The ways we use desktop computers is almost always from this position of dialog.

But something is changing. What’s changing is the intrusion of mobile devices into our world. Smartphones which are in hand, and mobile, do behave by their very nature as an appendage, or more accurately an augmentation of an appendage (our hand).

So how does this play out in UI Design?

For me it all comes down to the semantics and syntax of language, but also to the type of controls we use. When designing for an appendage system. Everything should be “mine”. The computer shares the same central point of view as the owner, so of course everything that it displays is from the point of view of its owner. The list of groceries it is displaying is “mine”. Obviously, you can see the contrasting use of “your …” when the system is an actor playing the role of concierge. It is speaking to you in dialog and thus the voice of second person or other makes complete sense.

That is probably the first time I have understood from a mental model perspective how to decide when to use what terminology. But is it so clear. Can I have “your list” on the web version of an application but then have “my list” on its iPhone app? I’m not so sure that makes sense. I don’t have a clear answer but part of me feels comfortable saying that they should be different, but I’m not sure if the confusion would be noticed, ignored, or repulsive?

But this mental model can be explored further. The general tone of language is at stake here. Do the buttons I press have the POV of “self” or are the buttons an invitation from another? Am I “looking for …” something, or do I ask the system to “show me” something?

This notion of personal vs. collaborator can be added to the list of design principles that make up your project and hopeful put in a place that allows you to be reminded of that decision so that the system remains consistant. The POV of view of the voice is almost as important as the tone.

I’m excited to be a part of this years upcoming Geekend 2010 back in Savannah, where it will permanently remain.

The entire speaker list has been posted on their site with the schedule.

l’m excited to be leading a panel with one of my fave Savannah geeks, Kevin Lawver (@klawver) and new geeky friend Scott Cudney.

Here’s our description:

Is Apple More “Open” Than Google And Why You Should Care?

David Malouf, Savannah College of Art and Design (moderator)
Scott Cudney, Savannah Networks, LLC
Kevin Lawver, Music Intelligence Solutions

Using the examples of Apple and Google, this panel will explore the qualities of a system that make it open. Then the panelists will outline opportunities and issues within these systems that attendees can apply to their own contexts. (Note: Please steal this panel, share widely, attribute back to us, contribute your own ideas, and send them back our way.)

This year is looking to topple the success of laster year, so get your tickets today.

Today there was a rare piece in Techcrunch about user experience. The person keyed in on making a user experience memorable. And ya can’t argue w/ that. What it reminded me of was the one-off presentation I gave June 2009 at the From Business to Buttons conference in Malmo, Sweden.

So I think I’ll reprise it here in that spirit. Enjoy!

Today I was pointed to a blog post by an IxD (@jseiden) questioning the need for visual design skills. Below is more answer.

Seriously, give it up, you need to work on your drawing skills, or at least your envisioning skills.

You want to work on behavioral systems then you have to design not just “the wireframe” but the system. Yes you can collaborate with visual designers, but the end product is in that collaboration and you can’t think that your deliverable is “the wireframe”. It isn’t. Your deliverable always has to be the final product. This also means that the intimate collaboration (or personal abilities) also need to include production execution of the behavioral code that makes those graphics interactive, responsive, and engaging.

But even before that, visual skills communicate better even at the level of the abstract. Your models of your research, your task models, flow diagrams, sitemaps, content strategy diagrams, etc. etc. will always be more valuable if they are well communicated.

Then to communicate behavior you still need the visual. Prototypes and narratives told in visuals are always more compelling/convincing than straight up wireframes AND they are clearer an more precise allowing for the collaborate mentioned above to take place best.

I need to close w/ “bullshit” on the last comment. The DesignBoom issue is not b/c people are focused so closely on the visual, its because the visual is the only true measure that human beings can respond to. As an IxD you are part psychologist. You have to go back to the basics of cognition and perception and realize that to be noticed/perceived and then processed you have to reach a critical mass of gestalt so that the person in question “notices” what it is you want noticed. This is not a conspiracy against IxD, but rather reality of communication.

I’ll just close with this thought that I learned from my ID education as small as it was:

A great idea that is not well communicated is not really a great idea at all.

Can we communicate as well without visuals or even good visuals? That is the question and for me the answer is always no.

So here I am on my first week of having an iPad sitting in bed next to my wife who is already asleep while I am reading a book … HOLD IT RIGHT THERE PEOPLE …

1. I do not like to read books. Really I don’t. Makes my occupation of being a professor really difficult, but due to some maladies in my vision reading large volumes (over 20 pages or so) is near impossible (coupled w/ having 3 sleeping disorders for the better part of a score).
2. I do not read in bed. Never have. did ya catch the part about the sleeping disorders in #1. Location, Location, Location is the adage, and well a bed is not a good location for someone to read when reading already makes ya pretty sleepy.

So what the heck is going on?

Well, thanx to my crazy friend, @brooksre, I’m in the rare position of being about to try an iPad before I buy one. So, here I am in my first week of owning this do dad and already I am doing something I would never have done before hand. What the hell? Is it that easy? What’s going on?

It all started with Flipboard. See these screen shots:

Flipboard Opening Screen: Image is in motion, thumbnails of contributor images.

Flipboard Table of Contents: Up to 9 feeds to look at

Flipboard List View: Shows you the content of posts to Facebook, with attention on the content of links and media posted.

Flipboard Pre Article view shows you the beginning of the content from a posted link to an article. Even shows you the conversation happening on FB if any and gives you the chance to jump in.

The experience of Flipboard is not perfect, but it is very compelling. It has changed the way I engage my content on Facebook and even has given me new outlets to explore around topics like News, Design and Technology that I wouldn’t have explored as easily before. I will admit that I don’t like reading Twitter this way but that’s b/c Twitter is so darn conversational for me and less of my feed is about linking to other content on the internet.

So that started changing my habits. I found for the last 3 nights that I’d flip through my flipboards every night. Then tonight, I did it. I bought a book on Kindle and starting reading it after I was done with my flipboards.

The book was “Gamestorming” by @davegray and a few of his friends. Why that book? Well, because it was under $10 and topical for a project I’m working on. (good read so far).

So in less than a week the combination of having an iPad got me start doing something I otherwise would’ve hated doing because of the way that device affords some neat behaviors:

• A level of intimacy with the device that allows it to easily enter contexts that are less comfortable for previous contexts. Even a mobile smartphone is less comfortable as it is too small. A laptop is not only too large, but requires to be plugged in if used in this way. My laptop does not last more than 2 hours.
• A form factor that has a large enough screen, yet is still light enough to be held on the side or placed on the lap similar to a book.
• A screen with high enough resolution and pixel density as to be crisp enough.
• A platform that allows for the creation of applications like Flipboard, Reeder (Google Reader RSS Reader), and Osfoora (Twitter Client) that combines graphical richness for emotional engagement with abundant feature sets.
• A platform for easy and quick book purchasing that in SOME cases reduces the price point of distribution to levels I can live with.

I’m sure there are more reasons, but these are the ones that come to mind. I’m not suggest that having a Kindle or Nook wouldn’t have been great, but for me since I’m an iPhone user/lover, and not a big reader, the iPad as a multi-functional tool fills other practical (and impractical) needs/motivations while enabling and encouraging behavior I had previous resistance to.

Yes, this is a personal story, but

• It expresses how the insertion of technology can be effective for change
• That no 1 component is responsible for changing behavior
• That often behavioral change is at once “accidental” and “directed”.

Has anyone else noticed how inserting a new product in their lives has changed their behavior and can you explain how it do it. I’m not looking for examples where you bought a treadmill and now you run. I’m thinking of how maybe a DVR/TiVo changed your behavior in unexpected ways beyond the initial intention, or how a smartphone changed how you think about email, etc. What’s changed you?

Today Bill Gates at the new Techonomy conference (which looks like an amazing event/organization) suggested that In Five Years The Best Education Will Come From The Web. It is a great read via @techcrunch who have been covering this conference really well. But reading this and listening to the Gov. of Minnesota on the Daily Show (video available) who are suggesting that higher education can happen best off campus, I’m dismayed and befuddled. I’m more confused when I see this from Bill Gates who has been such a strong advocate for education, but then I realize he has mostly concentrated in k-12 and he himself is a college drop out. I’m sensitive to higher education, less so because I now find my career tied to the higher education wagon as a professor of design, but because I have cherished my own college experience some 20 years after the fact as one of the most defining and life altering experiences of my life.

But my life story is irrelevant here. What is more important is what institutionalized Higher Education really means. And it is not about the simple passing of knowledge. There are two overlapping paths that are crucial within institutional higher education that I’m afraid will be lost if we continue this tack of reducing public support for higher education. I also want to say that I don’t think this is an either or type thing. I believe that the power of the open internet is a powerful supplement to what I teach and rely on its videos and abundance of publicly available written material every day in my classrooms. So what is so important in the Academy that we have to maintain?

Growing up
Seriously. in the US, especially, where vast majority of of college students go long distances away from their primary support systems (families) to live on their own for the first time, college is where we get to figure out growing up. We are “supported” through economic help and social systems. We get to explore the politic, the social, the economic, the sexual, the religious and ultimately the human condition before having to fall out this growingly limited safety net to face the realities of a growingly unforgiving world.

As I write this, I realize that this is a luxury of the middle & upper classes, but one that I have also seen make a huge difference to working class individuals who have been able to make it work for themselves usually in the most heroic ways.

Depth & Focus
Having been a teacher, I have seen with my own eyes the difference it makes to work in groups with peers (not necessarily even on the same project). The support and camaraderie and co-teaching that goes on through the classroom in real time face to face is incredibly powerful. The institution is also a crucible for engaging contradiction. This is why it has tenure protection. So that the teacher’s opinion is not the basis in any way or pretense of other reasons created as an excuse for reprimand, censorship or termination. The university setting is our last monastery of contemporary thought. The protection from the “real world” that is here enables focused and deeper learning than the outside.

Not just passing on knowledge but creating it
In the end the most important thing about the academy is not just the passing of knowledge, but the creation of knowledge. The classroom is used as a testing ground for new ideas, and new idea creators. Those who take on the challenge move up the academic ranks and become our doctors of knowledge as much as becoming our teachers. Their mastery of knowledge areas is required for them to move beyond what they know and create a world beyond. The institution of higher learning is their protecter lair of study. Almost every major nobel laureate has come from higher learning. Yes, the budgets for these studies are often supported greatly by corporate financial support, but many are beyond the interest of corporations, or in contradiction to the corporate agenda. The reality is that we need to make sure that the academy remains in part (preferably) in whole separated from the corporate world. Even the government agenda has had negative impact on the results of the academy. These concerns are especially true of the pure academy that has no direct impact on the corporate balance sheet. Pure science, the humanities, the social sciences, and the arts (including design) do not always work towards either direct career development or corporate capital growth, but still have pushed humanity as far as any other non vocational or commercial endeavor.

In the end, technology alone is not enough to change the 100′s of years that the academy as we know it has been in place as an invaluable contributor to the higher calling of humanity. I shiver when those focused on the economy as the soul means of improving humanity talk about either corporatizing or removing the institution of higher learning. Money already has way to tight a hold on higher ed than it should. I pray that Bill Gate’s prediction is dead wrong.

I do agree with some of his points about text books and other issues mentioned in the article linked to above. In the end, this is not a black & white issue. The reality is that technology offers tons of opportunities for improving education, career development and even how the brick & mortar institutions of the academy should operate. Where I disagree is that an education solely developed on the Web is as valuable in the long term for humanity (or the educated).

Yup, this last 1 might get me trouble. And I don’t have tenure, or work for a tenure protected institution, so my contradiction of their policies and institutional beliefs means that mine put me in a tenuous if not frightening position.

So I’ve had a lot of offline discussions about my little call for designs of a Harley Davidson car. One major recurring theme is the importance of the sound of the vehicle. That low slow baritone sound coming out of the exhaust that you can hear a mile away defines the Harley experience as much if not more than anything else that can be designed directly by the product designer.

So me and a couple of designer friends here at SCAD started asking ourselves a few questions when we approached the issue of a car for Harley Davidson. I don’t know if we have many definitive answers but we do have good questions.

1. Does it make sense to transfer the “exact” sound of the motorcycle to a car? What differences in the car context would take issue with that sound, or support it?

What we answered here is that sound itself is not the brand alone, but the emotions associated to what the sound means (more below). But we also feel that in the context of a car – sans helmet, listening to music, or GPS navigation – the level of volume probably wouldn’t work as well (more below).

2. This begged the question of, what types of persona changes would occur by expanding to this market?

Since safety will be increased in any change to a 4-wheel, door enclosed, vehicle, the brand will become instantly more accessible/approachable to so many more people. This will mean new persona types and even a softening of the self-perception of the total brand audience. (This reason more than any other might be why HD never did this.)

As an aside, we tried to look at other brand expansions. The closest one we can think of that resembles this type of brand expansion is Apple. The case study of Apple expanding into iPods and then iPhones while maintaining brand consistency across all product lines and throughout the corporate experience has flaws, but is a great story in whole. New persona groups were introduced to the Apple brand unlike before with just desktops and laptops. Even the advent of the iMac didn’t cause as much growth in Apple’s population of customers the way the iPod did. Many of these people didn’t care about Apple the way the previous group did and some joined in head first into the fanboy mentality but from a very different place. Assuming that HD could never argue over financial growth at the expense of having to work harder to maintain its brand integrity for its core fans/groupies, the reality is that adding a car to their product line would indeed create a very different market type. This being said, that means that a car does not have to hold onto ALL the core pieces of the brand while still maintaining the values of the brand and the value of the brand to others.

3. What is the value of sound to the people who who talk about the importance of the “Harley sound”?

There were so many thoughts that this issue evoked: the sound is a literal brand that tells everyone around that the person riding THAT bike is riding a Harley Davidson. It is a brand as powerful as Ck or DG and as far as sound goes probably is the most powerful audio brand anywhere. In my mind I’m comparing it to NBC, MGM Lion, Intel, Apple’s startup, etc. When it comes to motorcycles it is not a Harley if it doesn’t have that rumble. Unlike other audio brands HD’s isn’t just about when the item is present or being presented. It is the overture & the ovation. It is the warning of the “bad ass’” approach and the encore of his departure.

I’m sure there are many other questions that we can ask but these are the ones that we were able to get to so far. I’d love to hear/read your thoughts about the quality of the Harley sound & what questions we need to be asking when deconstructing the meaning & value statements of an iconoclastic brand like Harley Davidson.

Based on where we’ve gotten so far I’d like to start putting together a more serious design brief than we’ve done thus far. Here goes:

Who is this for?

1. This would be an obvious family vehicle for the die-hard Haley fanboy. I’m using the term “family” loosely
2. The wanna-be’s or latent mid-life crisis guy who convinces their partner that this vehicle is an acceptable & safe alternative to owning a real “Hog”.

What form should it take?
I must admit I’m really torn here. Part of me wants this to be a classical roadster, but that “family” requirement is jumping out at me. So this needs to be sporty & bold but balanced with some of the needs of the family. So here’s where I’m landing:

• 4-door
• Sporty
• A more classic American line: camaro, t-bird, mustang, charger/challenger, vette. Notice that only theCharger is a 4-door of those examples, so that is another challenge, but one that is necessary.
• This is not a utility vehicle, but a car. No vans, trucks or SUVs. If pushed this might be taken into redefining the crossover category into something sportier & uniquely identifiable.
• HD is a premium (not a luxury) brand, so should this vehicle.

What about the sound?
This vehicle is not going to have THE sound. That wouldn’t make sense for this type of  ”family” car. The brand statement is going to have to be redefined. I’m thinking about how the iPod & then the iPhone were used to change the brand as represented in the industrial design for the rest of the Apple product line. A market entry piece like this can use the spirit of the Harley brand & not the precise historic execution of that brand. What’s important here is what Harley represents to people and quite honestly a lot of that message is not in the form execution. Harley Davidson is more an icon than a brand. Even Japanese bikes that model themselves on the Harley, ride on the same emotional coat tails. The ultimate message of Harley is FREEDOM. Can that be put into a “family” vehicle? If not, then I go right back to a Shelby Cobra roadster with a low rumble exhaust. I just don’t think it would be as successful & ultimately valuable. It would just be another small market vehicle.

Well, if anyone up in Wisconsin is listening, I’d love to hear if my thoughts have merit. As for everyone else, I’d love to hear your thoughts & suggestions for other brand market expansions with similarly challenging qualities. It is just interesting from time to time to give yourself a hypothetical challenge and run w/ it as far as your skills, experiences, and extra time can take you.

What the heck. I’m looking for a new car. I always wanted a Harley. Why shouldn’t Harley go into the car business. I mean if Honda and Suzuki can do it, why not Harley Davidson. Combining the brand appeal that is stronger than Mini, VW, and BMW with a larger market size can’t be a bad thing.

But what would a Harley Davidson car look like? sound like? be like?

Post links to your concepts in the comments or tagged as this Tweet suggests. #hdcar

I was honored to be asked to write for IDSA‘s latest issue of Innovation. This issue’s executive sponsor was Alistair Hamilton who I had the honor to work with and was edited by Don Carr of the Syracuse Univ Industrial and Interaction Design Program. The issue focused on interactivity and interaction design. You do need to be a member to get the magazine which is only in print format.

I was asked to write about my experience helping to form IxDA. This article at first was a history of IxDA’s growth, but eventually turned into a discussion of the “design principle” that I still feels sets IxDA apart from other similar professional organizations.

IDSA has given me permission to post a PDF of the article here so that I can share it beyond the IDSA membership.

I look forward to people’s comments, but would request that people not comment here, but rather comment here: http://www.papercomment.com/ so that the entire IDSA and non-IDSA community can join in as well.

Designing a Down-Up Organization (pdf)

Today on Twitter @odannyboy and @russwilson were doing a quick back and forth about whether designers need to know how to build what it is they are designing for. In the conversation @odannyboy pointed to this well reasoned piece explaining the point of view that it is actually bad for designers to not only know how to code but to build their own stuff if they happen to.

The summary is that you will either:

1. Limit your creativity because you cannot obvious think outside of technological constraints
2. You cannot be for both good, clean code and a good user experience at the same time

It is a well written and organized piece and worth the read, so here’s the link again. (by @lkm)

Here is my response on twitter:

@odannyboy @russwilson I think that piece is a truism. it is true because the writer says it is so, not because it is proven that it is …

@odannyboy @russwilson the other clear argument is the more you control the execution the more likely they will be executed as designed.

@odannyboy @russwilson last pt: asking a designer of interactivity to not know code is like asking a sculptor to not know the prop of clay.

Explaining a bit more this last point. No one would ever tell the artist that they are less creative because they know the technology of their medium. In fact, many in media arts push towards the code itself being an aesthetic property that effects the aesthetics of the interactive experience itself. That is not merely building blocks. But I cannot truly speak to that as I am not that good at my programming.

I do think that one CAN be a good designer without doing their own code as part of the product lifecycle, but knowing the intricacies of the medium you are designing for/with alone or in collaboration is never a bad thing.

Also, to the point about building it yourself. Whether industrial design, fashion design, architecture, or interactive design. The more you can control the elements that lead to final execution whatever form that takes the more the execution will look like the final design intent.

Of course, this can all be played with too. A more open designer will argue that design intent is not nearly as important as the moment of unpredictable co-creation that occurs between designer, service/tool provider and the human being consuming that offering. But this is at a different level. What is being offerred still needs a final form that is a design artifact in and of itself who’s execution is tangible and absolute.

I’m a big fan of projected motion media: TV & movies. I love it in fact, to a fault. Two of my favorite TV shows are So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) and Top Chef. I watch both of these shows not so much because I’m a dance aficcionado or a foodie (though I do love to dance and eat) but because I love learning about art criticism. I also love Pixar movies and again Pixar killed it with their latest release, Toy Story 3. Couple that with watching the World Cup and a very clear message is coming that I’d like to share to all you designers.

It is all about what you do in between that will turn your fantastically usable system that meets the needs of your customers so perfectly and turn it into an experience sought, after, awarded, lauded, and cherished.

On SYTYCD this week, one of the judges (a very accomplished choreographer, movie director and producer in his own right) gave the direction that you need to be more fluid between your steps. “You are hitting every step” but your movements between the steps are not full enough. (I ended quote b/c I realized I was paraphrasing.) When we look at a dancer, we are struck by fluidity. The movement feels s0 impossible to replicate that we are in awe. We are also entranced by fluidity. When there are fewer and fewer marks where we can find a pause we are brought into hypnosis like watching waves hitting the sea shore. Yes, we can create pause/stops/negative space for its own aesthetic, but this only works when it is actively contrasted against existing fluidity.

Let’s move on to cooking and Top Chef (or even Ratatouille) it is clear that the whole of the combination of ingredients is ever more powerful than them separately. But it is more than just the wine going with the steak that counts here. It is also about how moving between flavors is controlled. This is how the art of deconstructed cooking comes in. In order for it to work, it is more than just separation. The food needs to be prepared so that when eaten separately their order and their make up allows the eater to reflect on the original.

To transition this now to Toy Stor and Pixar, my friend Brooks saw the latest movie before me and he was struck (as were other reviewers) about how much better the computer rendering was. (He graduated with a degree from SCAD’s Digital Media group, so he’s pretty aware of this stuff.) and when I saw it, I too was struck by this. But this is not what made TS3 the best 3rd part of a 3pt series before. It is about the in betweens and about the holism that Pixar so beautifully crafted. Let’s take these on in order.

The trailer: Told me enough of the story to know it was about Andy getting old and the next type of fear all toys face: donation. But it wasn’t that. After watching the trailer (of course we had to prepare) re-watching Toy Story 2 was a completely new experience. It’s like that movie almost 10 years ago already knew what TS3 was going to be about. By playing off of Jessie’s story of abandonment it created the familiar and thus we were able to instantly frame the new story were were going to be entering.

The resolution: I mean screen resolution. This includes 3D, but also the resolution of the 3D rendering. They didn’t play to 3D but every scene felt deeper. By being more like what we expect the world to be we were more incline to believe what was happening in that world. But there was nothing in the digital translation of the analog that felt stopped. It was at such a high resolution that every pixel flowed into the next. There was no perception of aliasing all. The pixels just flowed together.

The segway: Pixar’s use of the segway is art. Every scene flows together perfectly referenced by the previous one. Even when we have a split in contexts/setting the movement between the two are choreographed beautifully through dialog and imagery.

These can be tied to the very well known concept of Gestalt Principles (tons of info) which draws upon the cognition & perception reality that at any given moment we are perceiving our total environment holistically.

But to translate this more tactically to our daily practice here are some things to think about:

Segway: Communicate where you are and where you are going. Yes, I bet you knew this, but do you do it? Do you really do it? How well do you telegraph your system’s journey. Of course, you have to do this without giving away too much, or the user will be overwhelmed.

Transitions: These are a type of segway, but so much more. Yes, they do communicate context, but they also increase fluidity. Transitions used to be difficult for us mere IxD’s to design for our developers in the more stagnant software and web app marketplace, but today tools like Blend and Flash Catalyst make designing transitions so utterly easy.

But this is also about choice of controls. By designing the controls transitions and sketching the motion graphic themselves using the above tools, you will find that your choice of controls may change. Some control types will not afford you the opportunity to manage more fluid transitions and further you’ll need to concentrate on how the presentation of these “new” controls do not degrade the core usability of the system.

The waiting: Transitions are not just about motion graphics. It is about managing the waiting. Whether in a software context or a service context there is almost always waiting. These pauses are seldom in your design control and seldom purposeful but they require as much design effort as the motion graphic transitions mentioned above. Sometimes it can be a simple loading animation that does what ou need, but it can be longer, or not relate directly or indirectly to an activity that can be actively monitored by your system. You are still responsible to the people using your system to engage them through, or segway them past these forced pauses.

Mental models, metaphors, abstraction: How you manage these will greatly effect the experience of “in-between”. “In-between’s” are often about how we fill in the gaps ourselves. In digital systems the gaps are huge. Many we cannot fill with literal mechanisms. We need analogs of linguistic and physical types. This in my mind is where most interaction design falls apart. One because doing this cross-culturally is very difficult, but also because of the wide variations that exist within any culture amongst their individuals. But it is one of our primary tools for filling in the gaps between digital tools and analog people.

If you want to read up more on related issues here I suggest you look up that stuff  on Gestalt Theory, watch SYTCD (the dancing is really great too!), and read up on Jonas Löwgren’s Fluency and Pliability (PDF) in interaction design.

Here is the announcement for Call for Participation for the Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs) conference happening this fall, hosted by SCAD Industrial Design Dept.

COINs2010 Call for Papers

In preparing for a meeting about my program I was forced to define some things in a way that can speak to the widest education audience of administrators and teachers. Here are 2 things I came up with that seems to be sticking and even got some good feedback from people on Twitter, so I’m sharing here.

What is Interaction Design?

Interaction Design is a multi-disciplinary design discipline that uses human understanding to manage the growth of complexity due to but not limited in scope to technology.

When first posted it said “multi-disciplinary practice”. This led to some people bringing up Applied Anthropology as possibly another practice that fit under this title. I don’t really mind sharing too much and as a trained Anthropologist sharing with Anthropology is pretty darn good with me. But there is definitely something particular about being a “design discipline” that separates IxD from Anthropology. The use of abductive thinking which in my mind separates design from other problem-solving methods (see recent IxDA thread) is core to the interaction design discipline. This separates it quite dramatically from Applied Anthropology.

What does the Interaction Designer do?

The Interaction Designer designs the behaviors of systems that lead people through positive experiences.

This one seemed to get no flack from people except for its closeness possibly to “user experience” (UX). But as discussed with @nickf (1 of my favorite twitter sparring partners) I believe that UX is not a design practice, or even a discipline. It is both a result of both of those and/or a philosophy to be applied to both of those (practice & discipline). Lastly, UX is a community of practice which is different from being a practice in and of itself.

Lastly, I want to high light this. What I appreciate the most about the above statement is that it eliminates the idea that we design experiences while still acknowledging that experiences are at the heart of what it is that is created between the artifacts that we do design and the human beings that engage with them alone and in concert with others (some of which we do design and some of which we don’t control at all).

I’d be interested in YOUR thoughts about these 2 little semantic trinkets.

As I write this, I’m also caught w/ the nagging question of how do these definitions change the way you think about what you do, or more importantly inform what it is you will continue doing moving forward? Think of this in the broadest sense if you can. I’m still scratching my head, myself, but really want to make sure that all my “defining the dam thing” hobby is more than just semantic navel gazing and has applied academic purpose.

Well, for my own tracking purposes I had to create my own brackets (taken from this generic one from @nytimes). I filled in the teams for the round of 16 as instructed in the original and then picked my winners in each of the subsequent rounds all the way to the Final.

• Here’s the PDF
• Here’s the original AI

If you do make your own predictions, let me know where to find your bracket.

Bear in mind I’m a total USer and my experience with football is well like none.

Social networking, media and marketing are all the rage these days. There are many great examples of organizations that are using these tools to re-create themselves as true social engineered businesses and kudos to them.

What I’ve noticed though is too many organizations are jumping into this realm hoping that it will change their marketing channels by reinvigorating them with newly found engaged fan[people]. This will give them a new revolutionary guard of evangelists to empower and spread the wonders of their brand.

Here’s the catch. Social at the functional levels we are trying to achieve only works for human beings, or entities that attempt to embue themselves with the same characteristics that allow human beings to engage in social systems.

To many businesses are jumping into the social mix without doing the all important first step (way before their first tweet or facebook page)–embed human qualities into your organization. Well, embed the good ones! What are those? Well their the things you think of when you think of the good people in your life with whom you are already socially engaged:

* Empathetic
* Compassionate
* Flexible
* Trustworthy
* Openly Fallible
* Apologetic
* Displays of play (individual & organizational)
* Humor (including self-deprecating)
* Friendly
* Accommodating

I think you get the point.

So until your organization can take on 1/2 of these and change your customer’s outlook of your organization if not your entire industry (I’m thinking TV, Internet, Phone, Medical and Travel) then what’s the point of having someone on Twitter. It feels so fake and so disingenuous.

I’m 40 years old (soon to be 41). If I were to calculate how many hours of TV I have watched in my life based on an average of 3 hrs of TV per day (oh! I have done lots better than that), I have watched 5 years of TV. 5 YEARS!!!! Here’s how I did it.

• 3 hours per day
• Times 365
• Times 40
• equal 43,800 hours of TV in my life time (not including the last 11 months)
• Divided that by 24 hours (as in per day)
• Divided by 365 days (per year)
• gets me 5.
  • Yes, I realize that I both multiplied by and divided by the same #. I’m not mathematician.

Ok, that’s 5 years of my life. They say that 10,000 hours of doing anything will make you a master of it. By this account, I wasted my ability to master 4 things in my life and then be well on my towards a 4th. While I don’t need to master anything there are a ton of things that I wish I had done with my time and want to use this article as a means of working towards doing them in the next 40 years of my life. I’m not sure which of these I will really do, but here they are:

1. Learn to program
2. Learn to draw
3. Learn solid graphic design skills
4. Speak 1 non-English langage really well. I’m leaning towards Hebrew or Portuguese
5. Get back into Capoeira and at least get to the point where I can teach others
6. Learn to play real folk & spanish guitar
7. Master the Birembau (capoeira/brazilian instrument)
8. Become active in politics in my local community
9. Become active in a cause I deeply believe in. Choices include:
   • ONE.org
   • Israeli peace movement
   • Ending capitalism
   • Ending racism
   • Food Revolution
   • Healthcare revolution (reform is so yesterday and ineffective)
10. Spend the time fixing my body
    • my diabetes
    • my lipids
    • my back
    • my heart
    • my sleep
11. Related but separate is to radically go through behavior modification around eating.
12. Spend time fixing my mind (oh! too many things to list here; and most too uncomfortable to do so publicly)
13. Read more
14. Dive deeply into a design problem and apply my existing mastery towards that goal. (I realize this is related to #9) Options include:
    • healthcare
    • urban living
    • education
15. Become a dive master (this requires getting over some major fears of the ocean; but diving is so awesome!)
16. Build my own company, or making my own “school” (education system)

This is all made possible now that the last great serial TV show is over. Thanx for 5 years, LOST!

TV shows I think I would maintain no matter what are:

• SG-U: or the next great Sci-Fi show. It is important to keep eyes on possible futures, even if those futures are in the present.
• So You Think You Can Dance & Top Chef: I watch these shows less for the drama then for the constant reminder of the importance of craft against rigorous criticism.
• How I Met Your Mother: a) my wife & I love this show. It’s something we do together. b) A constant reminder of the value of good friends

Well those are mine. What will you do if you turn off the TV?

Yesterday I published a blog post inspired by Jared Spool’s (@jmspool) talk at the User Experience Lisbon (@uxlx) conference. I didn’t know when it was coming out, but here are my notes as published on JohnnyHolland.org (@johnnyholland).

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3

Enjoy!

I got back from @uxlx this week. My write up of the conference will be @johnnyholland later this week. The conference was quite excellent. The diversity and quality of attendees and speakers felt unprecedented to me which combined with the venue and surrounding city made for a wonderful event.

What I want to focus on comes from the closing keynote by one of my fave UX speakers, Jared Spool (@jmspool). His talk was entitled “The Dawning Age of Experience”. In this talk he outlines the qualities of organizations and designers that have led to the design of great experiences (also successful from a business perspective, as well). In this talk, one of his main points was that great experience design is not open to introspection.

I found the use of this term odd and later asked Jared to clarify. He stated that it is not his term, but is a means of explaining results which cannot be easily explained, deconstructred, or codified. He gave 2 examples outside design that were really interesting. The first was about a group of people who can determine the sex of a baby chicken (chick) well before we can through other means with pretty good odds. Well in excess to the 50% that we are all born with. After outlining the “sexing of chicks” Jared explained a similar phenomenon amongst midwives who are able to determine a fetus’ weight with much higher accuracy rates than any medical device or doctor’s procedure in practice today.

Then Jared spoke about how this plays out within design. He explained that he was once invited to an important conference by AIGA. At one point during the conference a creative director of an interactive agency was reviewing their redesign of the Wall Street Journal. Coincidentally, Jared and his company UIE.com had just completed a review of the Wall Street Journal and other financial information sources for a project he was working on, and so he was not listening without some background to the topic of the design. It turns out that the designer nailed the design. He outlined every major point mentioned in Jared’s report and executed on those points really well.

Jared took it upon himself to question the designer. The designer claimed to have done no research–none. He was able to explain why he did what he did but he couldn’t explain how he did what he did. He could not approach it with introspection. He just did it.

How does this happen? It comes from the type of education that is not seen amongst the columns and pig skin diplomas of formal education. It comes through deep & sustained practice within the confines of relaxed mentorship. This isn’t to say that basics of craft and concepts of design thinking and supporting social sciences and humanities that make great designers can’t come out of today’s formal design education. However, the model of apprenticeship is something that is hard to replace in the school setting compared to out in the field.

In a class today, we discussed this topic because I found myself giving directions and not being able to fully support the direction and didn’t want to make shit up in front of my students. I related this story and said that basically, I just know. I know because I’ve tried so many permutations within my years of practice and have found out through all those failures that this is the right answer.

Then I remembered a very long conversation on the IxDA discussion list. The originating post was made by Jim Leftwich, now a former board member. In his originating post and the subsequent conversation he attempted to clarify what he meant by something he dubbed “Rapid Expert Design”. His explanation of his apprenticeship and working system left many aspects unexplained, but more importantly actually tried to codify how the system works.

During the conference I had opportunity to speak with Luke Wroblewski about apprenticeships. She said that everyone who worked under him  he has thought of as an apprentice to him. I know for my short spells of management I tried to think the same way, as well. But I still have pause for a few reasons. I don’t think that most UX design managers do think about apprenticing their direct reports and almost even more important, I do not think that employees understand that they are being apprenticed. First, this relates to the culture of rewarded failure that Jared speaks about in his talk. So few organizations have this culture. I have worked at many and I haven’t ran into 1 that has it, and that includes working directly for creativity-centric organizations like advertising agencies. Second, in the UX community where way too many of us do not have any formal (or even informal) training in traditional  design or visual communications we’ve never experienced what a real apprenticeship studio looks like. Even many programs today are more focused on imparting chances for practice over having practice being part of an apprenticeship experience. Third, it is rare that upon hiring employees feel that they are entering an apprentice environment. I have never heard a hiring manager put in their job description that they are looking for an apprentice. Basically, we are made to feel as if our employment is the equivalent of being converted from a human being into a cog into a machine.

My entire career has been one where I’ve been hunting to be an apprentice. I know that it is not something that requires direct overt invitation. The closest I feel I came to that for myself is in my previous job at Motorola Enterprise Mobility, when I got to work with the amazing (and humble) Ted Booth. He is currently the Director of Interaction Design at Smart Design. Unfortunately, for me he took that position at Smart months after I joined Motorola, so I was not really able to get the long term impact. I did learn a lot from other peers there in an apprentice like way, but the lack of depth in any one area, and the lack of closeness in discipline made it difficult to sustain an apprentice-like atmosphere.

All this begs the question of what an apprenticeship should look like? How can an organization set up such an experience? I may take this on as part of a more broad discussion about design education, formal and informal in the coming weeks. For this article, I’ll conclude with the thought that definitely within the user experience experience the concept of apprenticeship needs revitalization. Even in more traditional design disciplines economic forces are making it hard for well meaning organizations to sustain the requirements that make apprenticeships work.

More soon, I hope!

[I also want to add that having a "mentor" is not the same as being a part of a thorough and formal apprenticeship.]

A very interesting take on where IxD is from a Greek in Scotland.