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.

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?

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

[This is going to be a 2 part piece discussing first why designing for contexts of use is so important by analyzing kayak.com as a great example. Then part two is going to ask for a new metaphor to be be used to describe this type of design across a greater number of platforms.]

In 2005 and 2006 (you know, ancient times) we started to see that the metaphor of the page that existed till that point to describe the major context of focus in UI design for the web was starting to crumble. At the 2006 IA Summit Gene Smith quoted me as saying “The Page is Dead” as he stated afterward “Long Live the Page!”. I took his talk to heart. Later that year, I changed my own presentations to talk directly to the page and the importance of understanding that “the page is a metaphor of a moment of uninterrupted context.”

There are 3 core points to make in this slide (besides the fact that Neo kicked ass!):

1. Nothing on the internet really exists. It is only through metaphor that we can understand anything that happens on computers at all. It’s all 1′s and 0′s and we are at the mercy of those who present concepts to us so we can derive meaning to the whole.

2. The web has transitioned from a mode primarily of reading and writing to a mode of activities and tasks.

3. If we are to have a metaphor at all, like “page” then we need to reframe what it means so that the meaning we give it fits the analogy of its reality.

The example I gave back then was kayak.com. 4 years later (4 decades in internet terms) it is still as good as ever. There are 3 distinct contexts within Kayak:

1. creating your search query
2. browsing results with the ability to filter and sort along key criteria
3. confirming your purchase destination

There are other distinct contexts, but you can look at these as the primary examples if the flow of Kayak as a service. What is unclear is why these contexts? What makes these moments of distinction worthy of separation, focus, and control? Let’s review each one.

When creating a search query there is one thing we know. We know what we are searching for. We know nothing else. By “what we are searching for” we know what type of travel item. We also know the criteria of that search. It makes no sense to have a bunch of blank areas taking up space and/or creating distraction for the end user.

But what Kayak knows that the end user may not, is the intensity of the process of running a search for travel. By maintaining a distinct context here it is easier for the designer/developer of Kayak to mitigate the awful feeling of waiting for results to emerge. That is to say that the next context, results, is completely reliant on the criteria of the search. Any change in most of the parameters of a travel search require a deep set of processing rules across many servers to acquire a result set.

What the user learns, only upon first use is the shere enormity of a results set for Kayak. If Kayak was to make room for both setting the search query and its result set, there would have to be a sacrifice of usability of both screens. Further, if the end-user changed specific criteria like dates or places in the search query while viewing results, existing results would have to disappear, or alternatively there would have to be a clear way to save pieces of the existing results or concatenate the results of multiple queries. This level of complication would be difficult for even the best designer to manage with probably only utility for a small subset of user real world scenarios.

The power of Kayak though is revealed on this screen more than any other. It is in the left side filters. I can change any of these parameters and without so much as a flick of the page, the data (which is already resident on my computer) is limited in view or changed in order as I requested. Being able to play with this data in real-time without having to run heavy queries back to Kayak’s server is a win for me (the end user) and for Kayak (as it reduces load on their servers).

Besides the filtering capabilities of the UI, it is also important for the UI to offer controls to progressively display if not give options for the next level of key actions, such as purchase. In the example above, when the user clicks “select” for any option, they are presented with a dialog overlay of the precise purchase options.  There are other overlays like this in the results list area. There is also progressive display of parameter options that are not as used as often in the filter area on the left side panel. Combined these allow the user to change the context permanently (the filter presentations) and then the overlays for progressive temporary information, or an access confirming for the end user goes to the right place when they want to.

A great feature in Kayak is the overlay to see a the details of a single direction on a flight combination. This overlay with accompanying options allows the user to get valuable information that is contextualized with useful options for making decisions without a large investment through the change of the interface.

The details view of all directions and all stops is made available through a contextual progressive display. This has had various view types in the past. At one time for example it was a dialog overlay that was modal (didn’t allow the user to use the rest of the application unless the dialog was acted upon). What is also interesting is that depending on the type of travel object being searched for (flights, hotels, cars) this interaction changes. For example, for hotels the amount of information in a details view is so large with so many different types of views (hotel info, map, reviews) that it actually opens a completely new context, but does so without destroying the results view by opening a completely new window or tab (depending on the user’s settings).

Here on the flight page though, this progressive “opening” of the details of the flight selection could be seen as a “sub context” because as you can see, the amount of information that needs to be made available takes up so much of the screen real estate that almost all the rest of the results page is gone. What this does allow though is to take advantage of the 4th dimension in Interaction Design through scrolling. A user can easily compare 2 open details views by having them both open and scrolling between them. I do not think though this is how it is commonly used. So its other advantage is that it allows the user to dig deeper without feeling like there is a large investment in the system to present this information to them and thus not difficult to return back to where they were.

As you can see through this deconstruction of the contexts of Kayak, a lot of thought went into when to “change the page” and when not to. It is important to have focus, but it is also important to make the user feel comfortable in highly invested search operations, so they feel at ease in digging deeper.

I hope this deconstruction of Kayak.com will help any designer in the future make decisions about when and where to create new contexts and how to manage dominant and as described in the last example, sub-dominant contexts.

In the next part of this series, I’m going to discuss why the page metaphor needs to change to something more robust so that the idea of context management can be applied generally to all types of platforms.

Found this great interview done by @JohnnyHolland of Mark Baskinger, Professor of Industrial Design & Interaction Design at Carnegie Mellon University. He talks beautiful about drawing and what value it gives the designer. Can’t wait to reference this as part of my “secret sauce” workshop @UxLx next month in Lisbon.

Check it out:

Mark Baskinger on Drawing Ideas and Communicating Interaction from Johnny Holland on Vimeo.

Finally got 2 seconds on my friend’s iPad today. Can’t walk into Best Buy because I don’t trust myself. I played with it for maybe 5min tops and a lot of that time was with my little boy tuggin’ at my sleeve saying, “What’s this?” So this is by no means a review.

Despite being accused of being a “total fanboy” (something I don’t understand since until a month ago I never owned a mac my entire life) I was really skeptical of the iPad. I just knew though that until I touched it, my opinion was going to be quite stupid. I was skeptical for a few reasons:

• The hardware made me feel like it was just a big iPod Touch.
• I was REALLY upset w/ the lack of capture tools (no camera or mic)
• And like Robert Fabricant pointed out on Fast Company recently the OS felt really like a step up from the phone OS. This felt like something MS would do about 5 years ago.

So I finally got to pick it up. I have to admit I wasn’t wowed. I don’t think I”m really the market for it. Maybe if I didn’t already have my netbook that I’m using now beautifully with @jolicloud running I might be.  I don’t watch a lot of movies and I’m not a big reader. I have tried to tell myself that maybe I would read more if I had an e-reader, but my wife won’t let me test that out and to be honest, I think she’s right on this one. Oh! I am also not a big gamer. Lastly, I live on my iPhone. I type blog entries, really long emails, do task lists, etc. So I don’t need something bigger just to type better, faster on it.

But that’s me and that’s not the point of this. Not every tool has to be for everyone. But that’s not the point here either.

What I noticed in all this that for some reason struck me harder than in previous work I’ve done in similar spaces myself is how important trust is to the design process. I look at the iPad and I realize that few organizations could do it. Not b/c of lack of talent or lack of skill, but because of lack of trust. Now I could flip this and say that Steve Jobs is capable of seeing the future, but I really doubt that. He definitely has vision and enables vision with his team, but seeing vision through takes trust. A manager and all the team members have to sit back and say, “It will come” and they have to know that “It’s ok if it doesn’t.”

That’s a HUGE deal. There are few environments that I have worked in in either software or hardware that has that freedom of time and failure. Or truly the impossibility of failure because of the freedom of time.

Along with this, I will add the importance of building it to know. Only in using it can we know the true value of interactivity. To me this has been the largest failure of most UX practices where the UX designer never builds anything. How can they know the success of their design if it cannot be used. If you are working on anything more complex than a standard info-site then as a designer it needs to be played with, touched, manipulated, transacted with to be understood and validated as successful.

Tools have come out lately that help this cause, but the processes of UX designers are still too wrapped up in the wastefulness of tools that are way too static. The only static 2D images we produce should be sketches. Anything else after that has to be interactive. If you can’t make it interactive at any level of richness then find a partner who can or get yourself a relatively cheap subscription to lynda.com and figure it out.

The only way that “It will come” is if you build it.

It’s not even an insurmountable disadvantage. Just a disadvantage.

I go back and forth with my appreciation for and my disfavor of open systems. I believe that everyone has taken sides in the world. You either believe in government or you don’t. That is to say, you believe that agencies can act on your behalf or you don’t. For example (w/o any data to prove it), I believe that most open source software folks when push came to shove (meaning, if you were to really dig deep using the Socratic or similar method) are libertarians. They hate any sort of control over anything, out of fear that that control will be abused. A sound piece of logic to say the least. Now on the flip side, I am a betting man who will consider that designers tend to be socialists. They are bound by strong humanistic ethics AND believe that government can do good to help societies achieve those ethical standards.

So what does this have to do with anything?

Well, open systems are played out in software more than any place right now. 10 years ago OSS folks would ride charging at full tilt against the Microsoft juggernaut deriding that closed system. It was easy. The system just sucked. It wasn’t even fair. That is to say that anyone tilting at MS back at the turn of the millenium or earlier using any logic system would be right b/c the initial frame was “you suck!”. Everything else after that just rang true regardless of being proven or not. Today, the new target of OSS expletives seems to be Apple. Hell, it isn’t even about an open system fighting against Apple, but about a closed system’s “rights” on another closed system. (Definitely great marketing by Adobe to have everyone defending their closed system as a flag bearer of the open movement, suddenly.)

For the last 3 years, open system people have been complaining about Apple’s iPhone OS. Hell, there are entire communities of practice dedicated to hacking the system open and minions ready to follow on. I think this is great actually. I think that Apple hasn’t even fought back that hard b/c they think it is great. A pretty insignificant group of people, get to tinker publicly with the iPhone system while Apple watches and sees how it fails, etc. I bet they have researchers (probably outside of the fortress in Cupertino) jailbreaking their iPhones and doing reports on use.

But within this group are those who can’t bother. They prefer to just work in an open system. Their prayers answered by Google with Android devices which actually do compete well. It is a totally open system (well not totally) and is even Open Source. Android devices even have all the great features that an iPhone doesn’t have. Seriously, they are all there (forgetting about yesterday’s announcement).

But from a design perspective (sorry it took me so long to get here) and even a business perspective, this just doesn’t matter.

Why?

Because open systems people lack patience and strategic thinking. Yup! I said it. There ya go! With very few exceptions (ok, Mozilla you’re off the hook), OSS systems have failed to deliver mainstream, compelling, engaging, successful products. Even Android, while “open source” ain’t really all that open. it is just “opener” and more of its success has to do with carrier wars than w/ phone wars. If Apple could release on Verizon as is w/o any changes the Motorola Droid would be an afterthought to the mainstream market. Maybe Blackberry (as closed as it gets) will maintain some of VZs smartphone marketplace due to its great design focused on productivity more than entertainment and content consumption like the iPhone.

Android and Palm with their rush to “multi-tasking” (BTW, when I owned a Blackberry, I don’t remember really having anything background running except for Email and other PIM functionality) and a clipboard, succeeded to release it before the iPhone. I would argue though that their implementations lacked thorough thought of the strategic idiosyncrasies involved in doing this on a mobile solution. Battery life is only one of the issues here.

As I listened to Apple talk about what they did to make their implementation of Multi-tasking work, it just started to really crystalize for me one salient point about Apple.

It is not about the right feature, but the right feature done right at the right time.

This means being thorough. It means understanding the ins and outs of your system. It means being patient until both design and engineering get it right, and not just get it done.

This level of intentionality is something that open systems can’t deploy well if at all. If everyone is free, then no one waits. No one considers. No one designs.

As a point of context. I have been shopping for an Android phone for my wife who is dedicated to VZ. (I don’t blame her; completely.) I finally got a chance to play with someone’s phone and well it sucked. it didn’t suck out of the box when I tried it at the store, but it sucked on his version. With all the openness he had so many apps running and so many apps integrated into the OS itself that it was beginning to feel like a Windows 3.11 box.

This doesn’t happen on an iPhone and won’t. It won’t b/c the “government” of Apple led by Emperor Steve won’t let you do that to yourself. Why? b/c one person having a bad experience on his device could mean 5-125 others hearing about it. If only Emperor Steve could control AT&T there would never be a bad experience on his device, ever.

As part of a press release that was crafted by SCAD for the Interaction 10 | Savannah conference, i was asked for a quote (well a lot of quotes) and this one was put in there:

“Interaction design is not the design of a medium but rather a philosophical shift in how to design for any medium. It answers the questions of why, how and what with a new lens and expanded impact,”

I found it interesting that after a big brain dump on what is IxDA, what is its influence, what is its partnership with SCAD in the past and now in the future and what is Interaction 10, this is the quote they chose. It’s one of those quotes that when you read it you double take as if listening to yourself on an audio recording. Ya know? that sense of disbelief that that is really you.

Then I read it again and I realized I didn’t say anything at all, because the statement is so separated from its context that it just isn’t real. So here is the full paragraph in which I was responding to this question, “What is unique about interaction design at SCAD?”

As far as I can tell SCAD is the only design school that offers interaction design as a minor to its undergrads. The program here at SCAD for the minor is geared towards bringing the design of behavior across all the design disciplines here at SCAD. By focusing on behavior regardless of medium, we have a strong opportunity to bring a new level of fidelity to all our design programs. Interaction Design is not the design of a medium but rather a philosophical shift in how to design for any medium. By concentrating on the dialog that takes place between people products & services and then the effect that those dialogs have on the behaviors of people, interaction design, answers the questions of why, how, and what with a new lens and expanded impact.

Reading that, again really helps fill in the blanks for me and is a lot more meaningful all around.

Watch This! before continuing: (It’s an amazing video prototype that re-thinks multi-touch for the desktop.)

10/GUI from C. Miller on Vimeo.

First Clayton, I’m incredibly impressed by this video. It shows an attention to detail in production value, theoretical analysis, and overall solutioneering that I know many can learn and be inspired by.

I have a host of questions about the video:

1. This feels overly complicated. “It feels” that way b/c it looks like (I can’t play w/ it yet, right?) a piano metaphor and at that the gestures that each finger has to be able to articulate to reach the level of expert is even more complex than that of a pianist. That being said, I just realized that most functionality is available in simple strokes and this can be a way of ramping up someone from novice to expert. I just wonder how many people will be able to make it past chopsticks.

2. I have worked in the industrial design community for quite some time now. Their reliance on tablet profile desktop screens through the use of Wacom Cintiques is quite strong. Other 3D software communities like visual effects artists, etc. are also making great use of this model. The flexibility of the the cinque to articulate between positions is the key to its success b/c it takes advantage of the reality that there are different modes of operation throughout the day. I do Alias and then I answer email. But my main point is that due to the this ability to transform the tablet is not permanent and thus the stress you suggest inherit in that design is not real. BUT! I also want to say that before we had computers we wrote. I mean w/ a pen and this meant looking down and such. We survived that, no? All that is to say that I would re-evaluate your critique of the tablet position, or your limited view of the tablet profile and re-examine it.

3. Who? who is this for? I think your video is trying to generalize experiences which may not be true. For example I have changed my entire mode of operation to be comopletely browser driven. Close to 80% of my daily interactions happen in the browser. This means that due to tabs I have 1 application open at a time with maybe 2 other widgets that I access from a sidebar (music & twitter). This model of interaction feels like it is an extreme case, which is why the person above who talks about music is totally perfect for this, b/c music has such a level of complexity of controls.

Further, is “window” operation/manipulation really that hard in the current model? I probably spend 80% of my time on the keyboard and 20% on the mouse, so what problem are you look at that requires such an intense shift in hardware and software models?

This is to ask plainly, “Is the problem that great or even really there at all?”

But another important point to this is that design needs to not just think about human mechanics, but needs to be situational. I love video prototypes, but I stress to anyone who tries it that video prototypes need to be situational. The narrative of human use is an imperative in making the medium be truly useful to a design process. So I would ask that a 2nd take on this video do just that. place a “real” person in the middle using this in their day to day life. Bumptop a similar attempt at desktop re-design has the same problem, while I think that Aurora by Adapative Path is a great example of changing the browser & hell the desktop too, by embedding real human narrative into their demonstrations.

4. the loss of direct manipulation feels to me to be the crux of the issue. What makes an iphone and other multi-touch systems “work” is direct manipulation. If multi-touch is just a remoted system like a mouse, then all you’ve done is change the point of gesturing and added an arguable level of complexity that is not required. to me it is direct manipulation and not gesturing where the greatest added benefit of touch comes to play and this doesn’t address this.

5. the keyboard. 1 area that is interesting is that you don’t address the transitional moments of shifting between keyboard (well we all know the keyboard is a problem in and of itself) and the “pointing device”. The simple and current elbow articulation to a single handed mouse not only is simple and the muscle memory easy to embed, but it has the added value of leaving 1 hand on the keyboard so that experts (ever play doom?) can gesture with both hands to create unique modes of operation. I.e. control and drag causes a copy.

But the real benefit of this mode of operation is that w/ one hand “always on the keyboard” you end up with increased efficiency of target acquisition b/c the moving hand can always use the reference point of the stationary hand when trying to find home keys when leaving the mouse.

6. the existing trackpad issues where not addressed. The main one being my wife’s pet peeve which is that she always looses her cursor with accidental taps by her wrists.

7. Why choose 1. Going back to my ID studio, the current set up has many devices: critique (pen direct touch), 3D mouse, keyboard and regular mouse.

Most importantly though, that putting yourself out there like this to criticism is HUGE. This is inspirational not only for what it offers directly but because it offers a point of discussion. I could have never done this level of articulation with someone to respond to as well produced as your demonstration. It has great thinking and there are real problems to address, or more importantly even if the problems aren’t great, there are still places where we can hope to do better.

My top list:
1. object management
2. ergonomic data entry
3. mental models of pervasive and transitive computing
4. form factors beyond (too wide, open, eh?)
5. self induced behavioral change through technology

Thanx Clayton for putting this out there! It is going straight in front of all my classes and my entire faculty today!

– dave

It is so hard to not become a victim of our surroundings and this post is trying really hard to not do that.

I have a pretty multi-facetted history; however, that history has been linear in its movement away from technology and towards design. Not that these are opposites, but they have centers of overlapping communities. Each community with its own distinctiveness at its center. Language, methods, mental models, etc. And to be very blunt, my techy side was never really at the engineering level, and more at the social scientist level. Both though share a rationalistic and analytical tendency that allows them to speak more easily with each other like a Norwegian speaking with a Swede, as opposed to a Scandinavian speaking with a French person. This latter simile is more like that of a techie to a designer. Did you notice how the level of zoom changed? (important here).

As many have noted, I’m pretty passionate when I speak. This is a double-edged sword to say the least. I think passion helps you get listened to, but if the energy is not directly properly, it is often interpreted as being definitive instead of suggestive. Lately, there have been a lot of discussion (good discussion) about the relevance of “user-centered design”. Unfortunately, since no one really has a lock on what the heck UCD is, it is hard to have a conversation about it. Further, the idea that there are so many contexts for work makes it further difficult to come to any sort of group consensus about it. Further, people are in different parts of their career.

Some might say that this lack of cohesion of a single community of practice is at the core of the problem and it is hard to argue that. But that is plain cynical and I do believe there is more than binds all these differences than separates us.

Since we are trying to generalize, I will break this down to a common denominator. “user centered design” is the philosophy that we must in a measured and methodical way bring the user into various stages of the development process of products & services. The bold elements are there for a reason.  Measured is not necessarily quantitative, but it is declarative and can be related to the data of observation (in the (social) scientific sense of the term). Methodical is important because it relates to the intentionality of the observations and that they observations follow a method with a history, and a collection of case studies that support its use. This to me is the bare minimum in order to maintain that UCD is a useful, viable term for design.

User Experience is the result of any design artifact that uses UCD. It is NOT “experience design”, but an experience design can be a user experience. Further “user experience” implies by the use of the term user that the experience focuses on “use”. But that might push back the discussion a bit, so gloss over it if you felt the hair on your neck go up.

Now that we know what I’m saying when I say these terms we can move on. The reason I feel like these terms are still moot is because of history. It assumes that sometime in 1991 when Mitch Kapor first declared the software design manifesto or even further back when SIGCHI split from HFES or even further back when HFES formed that these were the first moments of UCD at all. We can look back to DaVinci and his work or we can look even further to the work of “de Architecture” by Vitruvius to see how human beings were being methodically considered in measured ways.

Even in modern times (turn of the century) the idea that we must design for humans has taken place well outside the realm of software design. Henry Dreyfus’ “Designing for Humans” is a core book of study for anyone doing Industrial Design, for example. And there are many more examples. So at best UCD is not describing something new, but describing something specific within a new area where it has been missing. Ok, that’s all well and good.

Today, though, we are designing in close collaboration with more and more types of people and the reality is that the language of UCD in practice and theory is couched in terms that while relevant to many looses relevancy for way too many.

So as someone who has declared that UX and UCD are dead, it is not out of insensitivity to the need that we constantly observe, measure, analyze and model, but rather out of a change of audience when I promote my thinking.

But to the contrary, Dave …

I just recently returned from the Industrial Design Society of America’s IDUS annual conference. There were more “design research” sessions than any other single topic by my best analysis. I didn’t attend many but one that really got me was one of the closing keynotes. It was a brilliant example of how we need to be engaged in observational and immersive research in order to get out of ourselves. What the speaker said is that “gut-based design is at best a derivative of conventions” and in order to leave convention we need new data.

At no time during his talk did this person once use UCD or any other language we would consider in our purview as UX practitioners. He was completely grounded in realm where anthropology and industrial design meet (quite often I might add).

But I hear so many people in software design whom UCD can’t be taken for granted and so many in the ID community for whom research is non-existent. This is why UCD/UX is still relevant for them. But for me, in my world, in my experience, UCD/UX ended about 5 years ago. Suggest to me that research is optional or disposable and I won’t take the job. If you insist that research is the core to great design, you’d equally loose my attention.

I teach research methods and I’m drilling into these students the idea 2 things:

1) you can’t start to design unless you know why and for whom

2) you can’t do research without designing it from the ground up

The dialectic between design and research is strong. You should never stop designing and you should never stop observing. Does observation always need to be methodical and measured? I don’t think so. It is more important to just get out of oneself and consider the world around you. There are contexts where observation has to be measured in order to be useful and the best forms of measured observation are methodical. But again, the goals and contexts will determine how and when.

Today I was working on my workshop for prospective high school students who are interested in SCAD (@scaddotedu). The workshop is a 2.5 hour interactive, hands-on, intensive extravaganza.

So I’m using as a base my 1/2 day workshop that I did as part of Interaction 09 as an Intro to IxD. Fun times were had by all. But as I looked at that slides, I realized that WAY too much of that material is way beyond what high school students need. So, I’m toning it down and beefing it up.

One area (about 1/2 the workshop, I hope) is a break down of the practice of making. Previously, I had the following: sketching, tell, frame, refine. For the most part I think this works, but it is incomplete for me and well not descript enough.

So here is where I landed in my haste to get this all together on time:

Immerse, Collaborate & Observe:
One must do research. The best kind starts with immersion. I’m an anthropologist at my core and ethnographic participatory observation is still my favorite type of research. But any sort of immersion coupled with acute observation leads to great results. This past week at IDSA I heard from a design researcher from Continuum that in order to really design out of our cultural box we need to immerse ourselves into something wholly new. The collaborate to me is next. Now that you’ve acquired the language and customs, it is time to collaborate. Partner with those whom you want to design for (and in this case with). All the while in both processes there is observation. In fact, observation and our ability to capture what we observe is a crucial tool & skill to learn.

Tasks:

• Ethnography
• Interview
• co-design/participatory design
• participate
• Analyze
• Model
• Understand

Explore & Experiment:
I have gone on record many times saying that design is the intentional creation of an environment that encourages serendipity to occur. When I talk about sketching I can’t not mention this fact, and it is during the early ideation process where we take the insights from immersive and collaborative observation and analyze and synthesize them into creativity–exploring new paths, and experimenting with things only previously unimagined. The opening up to associative juxtapositions is at the heart of designerly method throughout all these processes and frameworks.

Tasks

• sketch
• prototype
• play
• travel
• discovery
• create

Situate & humanize:
I used to call this “telling”, but it is what we do with the narrative that is more important than the narrative itself. What we need to accomplish with any manner of narrative is to humanize our ideas and make sure that the characters, objects, dialog all have a well defined context.

Tasks

• storyboard
• video prototype
• role-play
• define
• understand
• judge
• embue
  

Frame & validate:
At some point the funnel has to get much smaller. To do that we must look at what we know. Not just from the user research but from the other areas of consideration. One of these areas is just the human being. and another are human beings. This is where we hone the solution to fit, to be the RIGHT design. We take our language acquisition and use our inner Rosetta Stone to translate requirements into comprehendable interfaces and all that goes with them. Finally, it is about making the design right!

Tasks

• wireframe
• structure
• task flow
• language setting
• seo
• organize
• navigate

Finish & express:
Finish in this sense is like the finish on an object. The final details that bring it all together. But this is also where the designer adds flourishes from their own soul to express themselves aesthetically.

Tasks

• Help (inline/other)
• Messaging
• exception management
• Visual design
• Audio design
• Motion Graphics
• Final interactive prototype — ship it!

So that’s where I’ve landed today. What y’all think?

(I started this post over 3 months ago and finished it today. Sorry if it feels a tad disjointed, but I still like it. Hopefully you will gain some inspiration and motivation by it.)

In 2008 I had the pleasure of co-chairing the first Interaction Design Association (IxDA) conference, Interaction 08 | Savannah. My partner in crime, Dan Saffer, provided a tapestry weaved through his vision of what would make a great program for the interaction design community, and I had a shared vision of what the conference experience should/needs to be.

There were many success criteria that anyone sets for themselves but the overwhelming response (and associated almost 200 person waiting list) of Interaction 08 were the pre-success factors that led to more important ones later, such as rave reviews and well the number of returnees to this year’s, now 2nd annual, conference, Interaction 09 | Vancouver.

The new chairperson, Greg Petroff, under new constraints led a tremendous team of volunteers to create an even better event than its predecessor. Greg, followed much of the same parameters of programming that Dan set up, with is own unique twists, and he had a different city with different challenges & opportunities that he was able to use to his advantage to create a great total experience.

As the logistician, in my organizing of the 1st conference, I was convinced that the logistics made the event, and I was totally wrong. They frame the event, but they don’t make the event. What makes the event are the people. Hands down, this year had an energy and a sense of community that last year did not. The critical mass of Twitter & Facebook had an undeniable effect on how people not only communicated, but also related to one another before, during and now even afterwards.

People talk about the “summer camp” atmosphere of the conference, but not in a bad cliquy way. Why? Because anyone and everyone can have instant entre into the world of the camp itself. There is an almost zero barrier to entering the world of Twitter and following being such a passive act with little obtrusion to those you are following, means you can connect anonymously and assert yourself on your own terms.

But the conference was not Twitter by any means. The other piece that people brought into the conference is their voice. The voice of the conference was everywhere. The true desire to use our skills and talents towards improving the human condition was infused throughout the conference. This wasn’t by design, except to say the design was to let the natural voice of the community find itself. It came through the organic conversation between speakers and attendees and sometimes between speaker and speaker.

Being at the center of it all, I often wonder if I’m just kidding myself. Is this feeling just for me? Did all 450 or so people at the Four Seasons & Fairmont in Vancouver have any semblance of the same experience? (Please let me know if you didn’t.) I am constantly challenging this, so I don’t get too myopic in my world view.

What I hear though is that many, and I would argue most of the people I met (many of whom for the 1st time physically or virtually) had some level of contentment and connection to what was created in this gathering.

But back to the voices and what they were saying and how they were saying it. Despite the many technical difficulties the one recurring thought I have when I think about this year versus last year is that we all from keynote to lightning round speaker to hallway conversationalist matured. Our tones, our topics, our means of connecting with one another have all gotten more professional, more intelligent, more thoughtful, and more human.

The other piece of the conference that was there for me, was a sense of positivism. Not necessarily optimism, but positivism. What’s the difference? Well to me, one can still have a sense of the negative nature of the world we live in, but still feel as though they can have a positive effect towards changing it. Obviously, the sustainability folks (talked about on many other forums) have put out their call to arms to help save the world, but Dan Saffer & Kim Goodwin put out in my mind an equally important call to arms–BE DESIGNERS!

Dan Saffer’s presentation did a great job of invigorating the audience about what is at the core of what we DO and to get out there and just DO IT! Kim’s was more reflective and urged us to understand the connections between us as people/practioners as human beings, and to take on the challenges of our practice, especially the one of education.

As the next Interaction conference looms, back to Savannah, where I now call home and hosted by the Savannah College of Art & Design, which I now call employer, I see something even more new beginning to grow. A next step for the interaction design community and the user experience community as a whole.

1. The frame we are creating for Interaction 10 | Savannah is going to be completely different. The new co-chairs, Bill Derouchey and Jennifer Bove (@billder & @jlb), have been listening, but also exploring the possibilities of what we haven’t thought of before. They are designing with the help of a great team a new type of conference. One that the UX community has not seen before.

2. SCAD is working harder to make sure the logistics are even that much better than before. We have more venues (none are hotels, except for the pre-conf workshops) that really bring out the spirit of both SCAD and historical Savannah. Two venues date back to the 1700′s.

3. But this isn’t about history, but more about inspiration. This event will have new voices emerge (or old voices using new tones) that include student contests, interactive art exhibition and film documentaries.

4. Don’t just listen, but get active, engage, do. The pre-conferences aren’t going to be the only place to engage in dialog, or work with your hands. There will be inspirational talking heads, but there will also be discussions and activities to participate in both days of the conference.

There are a few things from the ’08 conference to continue to look forward to. Odds are the weather will be better than Vancouver (we have a 67% chance of better than north of Dixie weather in Feb in Savannah). And most importantly we are planning on bringing back our old caterer for a couple of the parties. Our event at Interaction 08 | Savannah won our caterer accolades in the press all around the Southeast. So she’ll be coming back.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, there is the most important thing again–the voices. There is no better voice to bring to Interaction 10 | Savannah than your own. So bring it. Make a submission of the various types of presentation and leading opportunities and rise up in chorus with the many others who will be presenting and leading this coming February.

I’d love it if peeps would leave a comment if they have even the slightest inkling that they’d like to lead something at Interaction 10 | Savannah. But more importantly go to http://interaction.ixda.org/ and submit your abstract(s) for consideration.

See ya there! (I mean here! I live here now!)

Through AIR, standard web and WebKit there has been a proliferation of applications whose data almost completely resides on the network and is accessed through a series of APIs. In many cases the elements that make up the GUI itself are also distributed over the network making them even thinner as is the case with Web-based applications.

The reason these application environments exist is to aggregate and add a touch of special sauce to the data that they get from their own as well as from 3rd Party sources. They wrap up the data in usually a much better bow (if they are to be used at all) than before they existed.

I have been paying special attention to a class of thin applications that have been growing ever mightily over the last 2 years–Twitter clients. There are 3 standard varieties of twitter clients that I’m considering here: Adobe AIR, Web-based or WebKit (for iPhone & other mobiles), and platform native clients (iPhone apps, Blackberry apps, Mac, Lin, or Win native).

Regardless of platform or mode of development and distribution most of these applications try to achieve almost the same exact functionality. Here is a list of common functionality:

• Read your home feed
• Read your mentions (@you)
• Read DMs you sent
• Read DMs you received
• Read your personal feed
• Post an update
• Post a reply
• Post a DM

Other features that are prevelent but not in all clients:

• ability to retweet
• view reply threads
• Add to favorites
• see your favorites
• See user profiles
  • recent posts
  • favorites
  • #’s of followers/following
  • List of followers/following
  • Ability to block
  • report spam
  • mentions of that ID
  • (links to other info like location & links in description tend to go to browser as it is uncontrolled data and not controlled by the API, though I could see location being more controlled, as some apps have done, now that I think about it.)
• do searches
• save those searches
• create user lists/groups
• Open links from tweets into embedded browser
• Ability to email links
• Copy links
• retweet links (alone)
• From embed browser save to instapaper or similar service
• run multiple accounts (or toggle between multiple accounts)
• Notifications (home, mentions and DMs)
• Ability to shorten URLs (pick URL shortener)
• Ability to add a photo (choose twitter photo site)
• Ability to update your location on your profile
  • include update in a tweet
• Then there are the host of options for all this stuff as well.
• Facebook support.
• display images
• call out link titles

We have to be realistic. There are many different types of users of Twitter. So it is great that there are so many different clients to choose from. Ya know, we all can’t drive SUVs or MiniVans, right?

But regardless of the collection of features or more importantly how they are arranged, is how they are made available to the user. One of the great things about the Twitter eco-system is that most of what needs to be delivered to an end-user even if not directly part of the Twitter offering can be obtained through the 3rd party’s APIs or otherwise crunched out from structured HTML.

What does this mean? This means that there is almost no reason for a Twitter client to throw you out of their environment for almost any bit of Twitter and other related info. And this is especially egregious when the application you are working in, is not in a web browser itself. But web apps regardless of type are not out of the clear. With use of Prism in most netbook refreshes and Fluid on Mac and maxed out windows in mobile web browsers (w/o easy tabbing) opening links outside the initial primary environment is annoying at best and just a real hardship on the user interaction load, which is completely and utterly unnecessary.

I know that almost all of these apps are sold on the cheap at best or free, but for the ones that use ad support or are charging anything at all, you have to be doing better.

What really kills me is when a company like IconFactory do some amazing work in iPhone in this specific regard, but don’t have the same level of detail or support in their desktop application. Makes me cringe.

But this isn’t about iPhone applications. It is about any thin client. Why leave the primary environment of your application for any of the following:

• open a map
• open a calendar
• view an image or video
• open an article w/ an RSS feed/address reference
• etc.

So before you think you can short-cut your app dev time by saying, “but we can just open a browser window and get to the same info that way, ” realize what you are doing to your end users. You are basically telling them, that your services are incomplete.

The equivalent happens when your DSL provider tells you to call your telco. You feel let down and out of control. Imagine what happens when you have consistent and controlled service from the same entity. You feel like a human and not a hot potato.

All of this is further inspiration as I continue working on my Tweet101 project (http://tweet101.pbworks.com) where I’m trying to marry a complete software design course with an open education project with an open source design project. If you are THIS interested in twitter clients, software design, &/or education then feel free to join the project.

Ping me at @daveixd or @tweet101_org if you have any questions or comments (or leave a comment here, or join Tweet101)

(an experiment in open source design and interaction design education)

Introduction

What I’m about to start is a huge project. I won’t be doing it alone (at least not for long, 1 way or another). I want to create a series of tutorials that take on the multiple facets that lead to the design of great software. The project is about educating ourselves and each other. Like an Unconference where no one comes to purely consume, everyone who enters this project is a co-teacher, mentor, and student.

What we are here to do is design and prototype (at all levels of fidelity and manner) GREAT software and services for software. But we are also looking to reframe the open source project as a design centric one. We are here to make huge mistakes, get terribly embarrassed, teach each other, and learn from all.

Project Goals:

1. To create an educational framework for interaction design specifically and all aspects of digital design more generally. Hopefully the framework can be repeated as a long-term and remote capable curriculum.
2. To be a framework for others to plug-in their educational expertise in topics that I am unable to elaborate on. This is a major requirement as there are definitely facets of this project that I will definitely be recruiting help for.
3. To e a framework to push my own learning in areas that I am lacking as a designer, as a developer, etc.  And in so doing be a framework for others to fill in their own gaps as well. Being a teacher teaches you one thing so quickly–that you have so much more to learn.

Why twitter

1. confined and easily understood space
2. while confined it is cloudware + unproduct + traditional software product all wrapped in one
3. it covers traditional desktop, iPhone, webkit, mobile (other), widgets (blog, dashboard, google gadgets, sidebar)
4. there are actually fairly different and exciting contexts of uses and user types (aka personas that can be explored long term)
5. there is a robust collection of existing tools out there for deconstruction
6. basic functionality is small but could be built upon and grow complexity over time or through iterations of design & development
7. there is a large design community and larger developer community already fairly invested in their own use and possibly invested in being involved in this way

Get involved

While the end goal of this project is go all open, the early days, weeks, and probably months are going to need to be more closed. Not opaque from view, but rather we need to create a glass box.

So with that in mind I’m looking for people with interest in the concept for the project, believe in open education, and have something to bring to the project that I don’t have. Here’s the list:

• Visual design: especially in regards to interactivity
• Game deign/theory
• True programming skills: Flex/Flash, iPhone, Java, HTML 5, Databases, APIs, Web Services
• Service design
• Business
• video prototyping
• visual thinking
• social theory, especially around social networks

Everyone should consider themselves a creative contributor and remember that one of the goals is related to design-centrism.

To this regard people interested should send me an email (me(at)davemalouf(dot)com). In it should be the following:

1. explaining what contribution they hope to bring to the project,
2. how twitter makes a difference to their lives and the people around them,
3. a vision statement about open source design,
4. and finally what they most want to learn through this project

The glass around the box

So how will the rest of you benefit from all this?

1. All participants will be encouraged and expected to blog frequently about this project.
2. Calls for participation in the form of pure student roles will come up often. Outstanding students will be asked to become full contributors .
3. Everyone reading this and other blog posts will be encouraged to give feedback to the work as it is presented. The eventual hope for the project as it grows and flourishes is to apply more resources towards better transparent & inclusive systems.  (I didn’t want plain free wiki-ware, so am using socialtext which does not have “public” abilities in its free version.)

Well for now, just put your feedback here in the comment form below and let’s get this party started.

On my flight from Oslo to Copenhagen, I started a list of cultural assumptions and moraes I observed throughout the last 10 days of my stay in Scandinavia.

As a summary I’ve spend 3 days in Copenhagen, 2 days in Malmö, 3 days in Stockholm, and 2 days in Oslo. I mostly spent time with various interaction designers within these cities and from around Scandinavia.

Most of these observations happened in the course of just “living” my life day to day through my travels.

So here’s the list in no order (and remember, just my observations:

1. Mom left a baby outside in it’s stroller while she went into the cafe to get coffee. (She did ask a total stranger to watch the child.) On a side note at the airport that same day a woman went to the bathroom and asked me to watch her personal belongings.
2. Scooters (think Razor) were being used by various roles. There were different designs, but for staff who had to travel up and down the concourse, they sometimes had scooters. My favorite was the newspaper delivery guy b/c it was a 3-wheeler so the front could hold a lot of papers.
3. you push a button to open the door on a train or bus. in Oslo they had 2 buttons, 1 for most people and 1 for people who needed more time to get in (the icon was a baby pram). This was on local commuter trains, inside doors of the trains, on buses, and on long distance trains.
4. Speaking of public transit. There was an honor system with transit. yes, there were “control” agents, but in 10 days, I only got checked on the Airport Express train from Stockholm to Arland Airport.
5. Moving on to bathrooms, I’ll start w/ 2 levels of flushing. I know they do this throughout much of Europe and even Israel, but I was reminded of it often. it didn’t happen everywhere. The idea is that flushing #1 doesn’t require as much water as flushing #2.
6. Most facets for showers/bathtubs had numbers on the temperature control part of the tub and the pressure and the temp were separate controls.
7. Handheld showers were everywhere (though my last designery hotel also had a waterfall shower head and I LOVED IT!)
8. Many showers don’t have curtains. many hotels have half glass bath tubs and many hotels/bathrooms in private homes don’t have bathtubs at all and the “shower stalls” were often just a curtain and sometimes not even that. (I experienced similar stuff in Israel too.)
9. Light switches for bathrooms are outside the room quite often. Drives me fuckin’ crazy.
10. Nudity is a lot more accepted. I notice this in TV commercials mostly
11. Bike culture is huge, especially in Copenhagen, so I’ll start there.
12. in CPH bike paths are EVERYWHERE. They are so sophisticated, its really hard to explain. you just have to experience.
13. In CPH (and in Oslo) putting children on your bikes were quite common. In CPH in particular there were 3 brands of 3-wheel bikes all made locally that accommodate either children or cargo.
14. In CPH many services are done on bike including the postal delivery
15. My fave infrastructure piece in CPH was that bike paths had turning lanes. (yup! it was that crowded)
16. In CPH for sure, but also in STO and Oslo very few people except children wore helmets when riding.
17. People in CPH didn’t lock their bikes to a solid surface. They do however have a pretty standard set of locks that lock the back wheel preventing the spokes to turn around the hub. Of course, I was told that people ask why there is a high rate of bike theft.
18. In CPH there were many bike rentals but few bike shares (everyone has a bike, why do a share).
19. In Oslo bike shares were HUGE. They were also very visible in STO but both countries’ infrastructure for bikes was just being figured out.
20. Work practices felt really different too. My fave is obviously the standard 5 weeks vacation and most offices closed for 3 weeks in July. Now that I get 22 weeks vacation this isn’t as big a deal for me, but I feel for my peers who often get 2-3 weeks and often (and this seemed odd to the Scandis)  can’t even take them.
21. Universal healthcare is pretty standard. yes, they pay for it in taxes, but the safety net on healthcare is HUGE
22. But this led to an amazing discussion where I finally got to a core difference between Scandi and US. Both countries believe in individual success being rewarded. But in Scandi they believe that individual success cannot be at the expense of the community.
23. Design aesthetics were really different in each country, but “minimalism” or “centricism” was a common theme.
24. It seemed that DK was only into strict minimalism in the best modern tradition. There were even strong traditions of progressing from cheap stuff from Ikea to more inheritable or heirloom pieces.
25. In STO there was a connection to the rustic aesthetic in both architecture of homes and in furnishings.
26. Hotels were ALWAYS modern minimalist to a 1.
27. oslo had a host of electric cars and a service of car sharing setup around a model
28. i was related the great story of how Danes go indoors during the cold months, but they do so w/ their curtains open. I liked that story a lot. Then in summer they rush outside. And I can say in Oslo and CPH there were tons of people outside when the sun was out. in STO it was pouring the whole time.
29. the Scandis held their knife oddly. Hard to explain. They did hold it appropriately in their right hand, but they did it in a very different angle than I’ve seen in the US.
30. Baby strollers were almost always prams (4 large wheeled). Bugaboos, Stokki Exploris, and Quinny’s were around, but not nearly as often as these prams.
31. My friend has a VW TDI (diesel) where the car shuts off at a light. Its not a hybrid and its a tad disconcerting until you get used to it, but I’m sure it is a HUGE energy savings. My friend claims upwards of 60-70mph in his car.
32. Chip & Pin for credit cards abound.
33. People use cards for much more and the use of checks is unheard of (at least in Oslo)
34. Meals in restaurants are served in very small portions (appropriate and mostly delicious)
35. All 3 cities had robust, efficient commuter public transit at all levels.
36. OSLO and STO had GREAT!!!! Amazing!!!! bullet trains from the airport to the city center. CPH didn’t need a bullet b/c the airport was practically in the middle of the city.
37. HUGE appreciation of history
38. All 3 countries are royalists. They love their royalty.
39. On the trains there were plastic bags provided so that you can easily dispose of trash, but also as a community task take a bag with you if you see it is full.
40. On another note on plastic bags in Skane & DK there were plastic bags in the bathrooms available for fem hygiene.
41. Restaurants in museums were REALLY good! Expensive, but not that much more than similar quality. They also were almost always make an order, take a number and we’ll deliver it to you table, where the main dish was delivered, but the sides and salad were buffet style.
42. Chocolate milk in the executive lounge at the Hilton CPH. CHOCOLATE MILK! I’m sorry that is unheard of.
43. Dark chocolate hot chocolate. LOVE IT!!!! Milk + dark chocolate is a wonderfult thing.

UPDATE: 44. citizen’s acceptance of having government place controls on their lives, their economy, etc.

45. Deep connection to the outdoors, family and the combination there off.

What do you think?

One I want to add is not about Scandinavia, but a story I heard today. That we often see Asian tourists wearing surgical masks. *I* assumed that this was a person scared of getting sick from swine flu scare. What my friend told me was that it was probably someone who was sick who was probably preventing the spread of their contageon. It was a mind boggling moment.

I have had this idea in one shape or another for a few weeks now. It all started during the days of the heavy debates on the IAI and IxDA lists about the nature of our communities and the relevance if any to the term UX for me in particular and our total practice more generally. Where I landed is a very unstable place, but a place that has been getting constant shoring up by peers and circumstance.

I’ll just put on the plate the BIG DEAL.

Technology as a focus of attention of “design” is over.

What I mean by this is a lot broader interpretation of technology than meer computers and networks, but any medium: print, audio, structures, etc. One might even interpret “technology” to be “medium”. A strong statement, eh?

I believe that the Digital Age of the last period which is really the “Information Age” if not over, is waning. Wow! that’s a statement. As social networks are exploding and the application of technology to new situation seems endless, how can one make such a statement?

I am coming from 3 places:

1. Not that technology can’t do great things.
2. However, focusing on technology or medium’s will never lead to great solutions
3. More will be done by applying existing technologies in new ways, or by transforming ourselves around existing technologies then any change created by wholly new technologies.

Some might think that I’m restating Robert Fabricant’s thesis from the Interaction 09 | Vancouver keynote he made where he made 2 bold statements:

Interaction Design is not about technology

The medium of Interaction Design is Behavior

But, in this half-baked blog post, I’m positing something more. I’m saying that “medium focused” design is flawed. That any design practice that defines itself first and foremost from its medium will always start in some way from the position of “what?” while in this day in age, the most important first question for designers should always be “why?”.

Are you asking “why?”

This notion also flies in the face of those who call themselves user centered designers who probably would say the first question would be “who?” I counter this charge on 2 levels. In this day and age where transformation against the “will” of the user is one of the primary missions of design’s largest challenges, “who” and “for whom” and even “why whom?” (motivations & goals) is secondary to the more dire goals of the planet, and society.

But putting that aside for a moment It is important to realize that there is something big going on. Industrial Design is changing. A design discipline who’s focus was on 3D form is now becoming THE design discipline focused on “why?”. It is the one next to IxD that is moving the Service Design, Sustainability, and Design Thinking elements in the design community more than anyone (just my opinion, but I’m stickin’ w/ it). It understands that “why?” is the only way to move these concerns forward. It’s not that there aren’t elements in other design disciplines taking on “why?” but I would argue with less vigor and total commitment. From IDSA, to Core77, to IDEO, frog design, etc. the very heart of ID practice and organization is focussing itself on issues of “why?”

Before this realization of mine, I was convinced that only IxD really dealt with designing for “why?” but even then too many of my co-practitioners are still way too interested in designing “what?” for “who?” But at the core of IxD is still the greatest message of “why?” I have seen in a single design discipline (if not practice).

At this point, this may be a bit disjointed, but I’m convinced more than ever that only through cross-disciplinary teams can “why?” ever truly be answered appropriately or well. Our pre-dispositions spoil us. We need to have reflection from other positions. Self-reflection is a trap, that is just a feedback loop. In the world of design this cuts in 2 different directions:

Verticals: Those who’s origins if not current practice focused on a specific medium. Graphic Design, Architecture, Industrial Design, Interactive Design, Fashion Design, etc.

Horizontals: Those disciplines that transcend all mediums and have been sussed out through the advent of networked computational technologies (that isn’t to say they are limited by it, but they were born from it). Information Architecture & Interaction Design

It is important that there are people strong in verticals. These people are necessary to be the craftspeople who can carve out the prototypes to model the solutions of tomorrow. It is equally important to have people strong in the horizontals who can guide the questions that are beyond mediums and answer the real questions of developing problem statements outside of technology and embedded in people.

So there are 2 parts of this half-baked thesis (Damn! I wish I had some 1/2 baked Ben & Jerry’s).

1. We are in an inter-technology period where our biggest changes are going to come by applying existing technologies towards the goal of changing our organization: transformation
2. Because of #1, we need to re-think the ways that design disciplines are organized both in academia and in practice.

It is this 2nd point that I’d like to tackle next:

I’d like to propose that all design schools change their organization (including my own). Due to the pervasiveness of technology, the tools and the solutions have led to a universal truism. No discipline of art or design is devoid of computational, networked technology. Ergo, having programs that focus on technology is meaningless for a design school. Technology should be considered foundational as much as color theory or art history to these programs. But also equally foundational is how to teach students to design from the “why?” Then, they can work on gaining practice in medium’s craft at higher levels.

I’d like to suggest 2 years of foundation where students learn traditional foundation, but then learn a new foundation:

1. Research Methods: ethnography, evaluation, etc.
2. Social Sciences: Sociology, Economics, Political Science, Psychology, Anthropology
3. Business: Finance, Marketing
4. Creative thinking
5. Horizontal design: IA & IxD
6. 3 Verticals: (Intros): Product, Communications, Interactive, Architecture

Then the next 3 years (yes, 3 years) of undergraduate education are a collection of studios that help a student either focus deeply on 1 vertical, or combine 2 to a level of relevant competency all the while applying horizontal design disciplines in either case.

Ok, this is as far as I can take this for now. I’m sorry for the hob-gobblin of ideas, but if I didn’t get this out of my head, I’d explode. Your help, insights, criticisms, etc. in helping me suss this out, would be appreciated. Be gentle though.

This summer I need to go to camp. Yup. Like the young school teachers who turned camp counselors over the summer, I too need a job.

So let me talk a little bit about what I can do for y’all.

Remotely:

1. Do Interaction Design work. UI Design work on web, software, embedded and hardware. This would work best in the scenario where your team is not formally trained in ui design, ia, or ixd practices and need that extra nudge to get them over the edge and produce better work, but you can’t afford to hire new blood during these times permanently.
2. Do mentoring with your team combined remote & in person. What this means is that I can work with your team and give them guidance, and instruction on process and criticism to make what they deliver 1st class. This works best for a young start up UX team that needs a higher level design director managing their work, but funds are low for such a permanent high level position, but you don’t want your quality to diminish during this hard times.

On site for short stints (less than a week at a time):

1. The most obvious thing is a controlled workshop.
   1. • Sketching for IxD – This workshop is perfect for organizations that want to begin to move their UX &/or UI team towards a more design centric process of innovation & creativity. Sketching as a process is at the heart of great design thinking. It is a tool for idea generation and rapid idea validation. (1 day)
      • How to design Rich Internet Applications – Taking fundamentals of HCI & mixing it with a new understanding of the aesthetics of interaction design, this workshop will take UI Devs/Designers, IAs, and others past the basic patterns of RIA design, and towards a deeper understanding of what works in the growingly complex rich paradigms of today’s network-based applications. (1-2 days)
      • Introduction to IxD – This workshop is great for people who are in product management, business analysis, and other non-design roles such as development and information architecture, but find themselves doing interaction design as part of their jobs. They just want to know more about what they are doing.  (1/2-1 day)
   • You represent an organization that would like to have me come in and do one of my workshops that I’ve done in the past or offer something new:
   • What other organizations have suggested in the past is that I do 1 of these 1-2 day workshops, then we do an day of mentorship & critique on ongonig work within the organization.
2. Bring me in to facilitate a design sprint for your team. What is a design sprint? It is a short term design exercise around a specific problem where a group researches, ideates, refines, tests and produces work within a short time. I’d suggest 5 biz days. (NOT 9-5). Obviously, after the sprint I can remain connected the project, remotely, if desired.

I’m also obviously open to YOUR suggestions as well.

So I know in these troubled times added expenses are hard to endure, but having temporary help to get you through times where permenant design leadership is lacking, can really save the day.

Shoot me an email! dave(dot)ixd(at)gmail(dot)com

So today I went to http://businesstobuttons.com/ and finally saw the new updated site for this year’s conference. There are a few European conferences that year after year get a special mix of presenters and workshop leaders and THIS one always had my attention. More than Shift or Lift, I have always wanted to go. Maybe it is because of the special mix of organizers (inUse, Ergonomidesign, and Malmö University) who are able to combine their diverse points of view and bring together such a special group of speakers. I don’t know how they have done it so consistently year after year. I’m just so excited that @niklasw invited me and accepted my crazy idea for a talk.

Some people at Interaction 09 | Vancouver may have heard me say that I’m going to Malmö this summer for this conference. I know I might have come across as bragging a bit. But my jubilation at attending this event is not so much ego as it is FINALLY getting to check off that box that has been on my travel sheet since I was a little boy to go to Scandinavia. I have dreamed of the halls of Valhalla since I was a little boy (1 too many episodes of Thor, or something like that). My interest only increased the older I got, and the closer to design I became. Was it the story of how Denmark protected almost all of its Jews? The Swedish entrepreneur who used his industrial backings to save even more? Yea, that played into as well. So I hope people don’t confuse being giddy as a boy in a comic book store with arrogance and bragging. If you did see it as bragging, I’m sorry.

So today I finally got to see the list of speakers who will be joining me. What is so interesting is that 3 of them are people whom I interviewed with through my career to work FOR them. I’m humbled to be speaking as a peer with this group and feel like I’ll be as much an attendee as a speaker at this event.

As for me, I’m coming up with a completely new talk I’d like to share. It helps if you are a music fan such as myself (see just below here). I’m also doing my workshop, “Sketching for Interaction Design” which I’m also hoping to do in other spots in Northern Europe if time and money permits.

Anyway, here is the talk I’ll be doing, and do be sure to check out the links for speakers and the rest of the conference I spattered above:

“What’s going on” to “We’re not gonna take it”

The customer of yesterday focused on quality differentiation. The customer of today assumes quality as a given.

The new differentiators are beyond quality and usability, but is directly related to holistic aesthetic design consideration.

Designers bring a new level of “fit” to this new class of products and services. They imbue stories that engage and delight. Surrounding all this is depth, connectedness, and individual expression, that adds up to the “soul” of a design.

Achieving this level of design is hard work. But even more, it requires a rich and rigorous understanding of the make up of interaction design as the design of situations, and of behavior of products as they respond to human interfacing.

How to get there is through a rich understanding of design foundations as the core tools and language for communicating this holistic vision.

Let’s look at what all this means practically for your product and services and explore them together in conversation.

Thanx again to @niklasw and the rest of the organizing team for From Business to Buttons. I can’t wait to see all my new Scandinavian friends when I’m there this June. I’m also planning on staying a few days before the conference in Copenhagen and after the conference in Stockholm.