–Engage

So in case you missed it, I referenced rather quickly in my exuberance a video that Honda put together as part of their series of short videos that asks a host of “smart people” to consider what Mobility will look like in 2088. Here’s the video for your reminder:

So the last 2 days, I’ve presented this video to my classes here at SCAD. Most of the students really liked the video, but upon further watching we were able to dissect the insidiousness of the video’s message and the classic design mistake that is being presented.

They start out by projecting an environment of “the impossible”. Nameless supposedly smart people dumbfounded at the thought of having to design so far in the future. (Me too!!!) Then we have the radical architectural sustainability neo-urbanist come in and express his at first definitive answer that we should concentrate on natural bi-pedal locomotion. (That’s good b/c breakeation [sp?] hurts my shoulders).

After that lipservice to the possibilities of moving backwards, they allow us through the speakers to express our imagination for science fiction. Flying cars and jet packs are explored almost as thinly as the foot (What happen to the bike, horse, or other retro-activity?)

After that we explore the horrors of the internal combustion engine and the environment for which we live in. All of which is quite poignant and the Japanese design lead for the “Impact” really gets the heart string pulling award with his allusion to his grandson not being able to see a blue sky. Then we give a little lip service to the design of cities and habitation being made for cars.

Some how though we end up back talking about cars as a “final solution”. That mobility in 2088 will still be framed as the creation of cars, and this is where I lost it.

Steve Baty in his really long comment to the original post points out quite clearly (and I came to the similar conclusion in parallel) that the problems we are facing with transportation are not solved purely at the form factor and energy source, but at the cultural level as well.

For me it goes even a step further. It is a basic design flaw being presented. They are presenting the problem of how to design the next car (or mode of transportation), instead of presenting the problem of how to help people be in proximity to the people’s and places they require/want/desire? It is that classic design statement, “Don’t design a bridge. Design a way to cross the river.”

So my thoughts have been inspired less around cars and more about the power of virtual if not holographic work environments that exist in the home, so that you can interrelate with co-workers and have direct access to true human interactions without ever getting into a car. Of course, the thought did just occur to me that the amount of energy to do such an experience might be quite a bit. At least it has no output of carbon, just input. As an example of holographic technologies, check this out:

And with that I close these thoughts.

Will Evans who you may remember interviewed me, takes on the workshop leaders Christian Crumlish, Erin Malone and Lucas Pettinat of the “Designing and Building with Patterns and Pattern Libraries” at Interaction 09. It is just another great reasons to come to Interaction 09 | Vancouver.

The interview is Available on Boxes and Arrows right here.

I found the video below to be quite inspiring and humbling as a designer. What do you think mobility will look like 80 years from now?

In preparing for a class this week I was reading Malcolm McCullough’s Digital Ground. This is by far one of my top 5 must read IxD thinking books. In the very first chapter there is a quote that got me thinking about a thread common in the IxDA Discussion List about differentiating between interface design and interaction design. Here is the short blip that caught my attention:

The use of the term interaction design instead of interface represents a cultural advance in the field. Recent mission statements by firms, schools and publications commonly acknowledge this. (pg. 19 w/ endnote)

Endnote: For examples of protests about the current state of interface design, the overemphasis on features and specifications, and the relegation of design to an after-the-face endeavor, see … He then lists the following books (I won’t give complete bibliogrphy):

• Inmates Are Running the Asylum
• Bringing Design to Software
• Interaction Design–Beyond Human Computer Interaction

Yes, his references are old, but I think they are still relevant to the discussion and books since, while not “protests” maintain the same basic position that interaction design is not limited to the design of interfaces in the classic sense of the term.

It is important to realize that there is a discipline developing that fills the gap between the different technological and cultural frameworks for interaction and the crafts that communicate their availability, capabilities and behavior.

While interface design deisgns at the level of point of interaction & function, interaction design itself (for lack of a better name of the moment) designs at the level of human situation and narrative, liberating it from technological constraints, but focusing it on other facets and layers of the total solution.

To learn more about this and other ways of thinking about interaction design sign up for my Intro to IxD workshop at the upcoming Interaction 09 | Vancouver conference.!

I had the honor of having an email interview with the brilliant Will Evans of Semantic Foundry. The fine folks over at JohnnyHolland.org published the interview for us.

The interview is just a personal one, but is a series of interviews that Will and some others are putting together, highlighting speakers and workshop leaders for the Interaction 09 | Vancouver conference which is fast approaching.

I’ve mentioned my workshop on this blog before, but want to take this moment to really underscore how I feel this will be a tremendous opportunity for people interested in Interaction Design, but who either do the work tangentially like project managers and producers or who have been thrust upon interaction design practice from either development, HCI, information architecture, visual design, or usability.

So give the interview a read and even if you don’t come to the workshop, do come to Interaction 09. If it is 1/2 of what Interaction 08 | Savannah was like, it will be amazing!

See ya in a few weeks in Vancouver!

This summer (July – Sept), I’m looking to do 1 of the workshops I teach. If you or someone you know would be interested in organizing said workshops please let me know. I’m willing to travel most anywhere in NA provided expenses are covered and the total event meets some minimum compensation requirements.

Here’s a list of my current workshop offerings:

Sketching for Interaction Design
This workshop has been a pretty big success for Autodesk and other corporate clients, and will be taught again for TriUPA this June. I love teaching it. The premise of the workshop is to teach students how to integrate this most basic of design tools into their every day User Experience Practice. It is not a drawing class, but rather a class on design practice, using sketching as an entry path to the rest of design studio.

Designing Rich Internet Applications
This workshop has been taught in various formats all over the world with pretty good reviews. Most recently it was taught for SmartExperience.org in NYC. The premise of this workshop is to give designers who have been dealing with more traditional web application spaces to understand the new design medium of rich interactive web applications. Students will learn what richness is, why it adds value, when to use “it”, how to apply basic interaction design methods to it, and how to document it or otherwise communicate. The 2-day version borrows from the Sketching workshop above by also talking about general interaction design practice as well.

Introduction to Interaction Design
This workshop is being taught for the first time this February at Interaction 09 | Vancouver. While it is a 1st, it is based on my current position as Professor of Interaction Design at the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD). Students will learn basic frameworks for interaction design theory & practice, but more importantly learn how to begin the process of an evolving self-education in interaction design as well.

Mentoring
Another service I offer is mentorship. This is when a design team is struggling on a project and needs some outside assistance in getting back on track. My more than 15 years of experience especially in enterprise softare and products can be a valuable asset to any project that needs just a helping hand for a very short term and at avery high level. I can work with your existing design team, but bringing focus, added theoretical balance, education and tactics.

Where & How
As noted above, I’m interested in doing these workshops over the summer, between my terms at SCAD. I’m already booked for June, so that leaves July – Sept open. I can see this working a few ways:

1. A corporation would like to bring me in to their site for the day. This is the easiest to organize.
2. A not-for-profit design related organization would like me to come in and do the workshop for their members
3. Either an organization or a corporation would like to underwrite my coming to their town where I can then help promote the event. Space, and travel expenses would earn your organization a few free spots, of a more public event.
4. You are an indvidual who wants the workshop to happen. Your time and energy for organizing the workshop at your locale in such a way where we can easily cover my costs, would earn you a free spot.

Mentorship gigs would need to be crafted specifically to fit the needs of particular clients.

If any and all of this sounds interesting. Shoot me an email at dave (dot) ixd (at) gmail (dot) com.

If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that recently relocated from Brooklyn, NY to Savannah, GA. With all relocations from one part of the world to another there are a ton of changes. Moving from NYC to Georgia is only 830 miles in distance but in many ways it might as well be a different continent.

As in all things, comparisons are not always about placing value, but just about describing difference. This article is NOT that.

One of the bigger changes in mine and my family’s lives is that we have switched cable TV providers from Time Warner to Comcast. All cable companies should basically be ashamed of themselves for so blatantly internalizing the worst of the organizations they claim not to be–utilities. The bureaucracies are unbearable and the customer service is backwards. What makes all cable companies exceptional in its lack of user-focus comes out of their many years of deregulation. Basically, their entire customer experience is about selling you. It is annoying as hell and Comcast does this to the nth degree of annoyance. In the end the message and even the user interfaces are set up to sell you, getting in the way of the primary reason I fork over some $150/mo. already which is to watch TV.

The Digital Video Recorder (DVR) is a completely different problem in and of itself. Now, before I continue, I have no idea what is Comcast and what is Motorola, and what is Time Warner and with is Scientific Atlanta (respectively the service provider and hardware vendor). I know with Cellphones that service providers like Verizon are famous for taking OK UIs and making them absolutely horrible!!! I also know that many hardware vendors know squat about interaction design and the serivce providers are somewhat at the mercy of hardware capabilities and software platforms. In the end, it is probably a mix. In the end, because, I barely notice the Motorola logo, nor can I buy a DVR through anyone else but Comcast, I’m stuck thinking as a customer that this is all about Comcast. So here goes!

All of this list is going to be about comparing Comcast to Time Warner, so assume if I’m complaining about it on Comcast it is because Time Warner probably does it alraedy. This makes the offense all that much more intolerable because it is sooo easy to just steal from existing systems. I’m not only going to complain, but I’m going to hopefully make suggestions. Unfortunately, doing screen shots is way out of my time commitment here, so you’ll just have to imagine what I’m talking about.

1. Navigation

Whether I’m navigating the OnDemand menu (Wow! that is a whole topic in and of itself) or my DVR options, history, series options there is one recurring theme. For the life of me, there are way to many points where it is near impossible to go 1-step back. You have to use the primar start button to get to the main menu and drill back down again. In some cases this even means exiting the administration screens completely and re-entering from scratch.

Now there might be a way to do what I’m saying, but if a professional UI guy like myself cant’ find it, how in the world can the average person do it.

2. Close captioning

We had to call customer service to turn this on, but even after we did, it barely performs at all. Now no one in my family is deaf, but having a little guy means that we have to keep the volume low and the CC adds as supplement to the low volume.

3. No recapture after fast forwarding

I Always took this for granted with Time Warner, but when you are fast forwarding and you decide you’ve arrived Comcast starts pu right where you click play again. Time Warner will go back a set amount of time in the recording.

To me this is just required feature. No one can on one shot get the exact play spot right when fast forwarding. The fact that they don’t do this is just ludicrous.

4. Doesn’t auto-capture what you’re watching

Well it does and doesn’t. If I want to re-wind a sports event. It does just fine. What it doesn’t do is this. I’m watching a show and I realize I have to head out. I want to capture the rest of the show for later viewing. It will ONLY record moving forward. Time Warner allowed for this scenario, or better I turn on the TV to see that there is something tre-cool on, but I meant to watch something else “now”. So I want to hit record and know I got it from the beginning moving forward.

5. Labeling

Ok, there are a few circumstances where I really have to challenge the choice of labels on the navigation. The one poster-child is that there seems to be no way to view the series recording options. There is an option called “Series Priority” and fortunatley I found that and it presents me a list of my series recordings for me. But really? you can’t just call it “Your Series” or something like that?

The other big labeling issue is that they don’t label the local channels with their relative network names. I mean do I care about WSAV or that WSAV is the NBC affiliate, right?

6. HD Management (TW didn’t do this either)

Ok, this to me is just obvious. If I’m looking at the non-HD version of a channel that has an HD equiv, shouldn’t you always just show the HD version. I understand that there are some channels that don’t have an eqiv like Universal HD, but most channels just mirror an existing channel 100%. So if I click channel 4, go to 404 (or whatever the HD equiv is).

Related to this, and this IS something that Time Warner did do is that their channel grid worked that if there was a channel 10 the HD channel was 710 (700 was all HD channels). Since they didn’t do interface suggested in the first suggestion, this was a nice try to help. I suggest Comcast do the same (or better just eliminate the concept of HD channels when they aren’t necessary).

BTW, I get that it means they cant’ say they have “X HD channels”, but they can still say they have “X HD Channels in HD”.

7. Not recording what I tell it to

This is the biggest grievance. I tell it to record and it doesn’t. I have stuff set in the series settings and then it doesn’t show up in “scheduled recordings” list. It isn’t 100% of the time, but enough that I have basically no trust in the system at all. Every time this happens I curse Comcast and I’m just that much closer to going the satellite route with a TiVo.

8. Search

The title search in the guide is missing an obvious feature that TW has. As I choose letters to search for using the 4-way to navigate the alphabet, the TW version of the search disables all letters that are impossible to be the next letter. This limits my options for where to navigate to. Also, by the letters being disabled I am auto skipped through the alphabet a lot more quickly.

I have noticed a trend of 2.

In the last 2 years I have seen two parodies done expressed in roundness. One was used to make fun of Microsoft. What would happen if Microsoft tried to make an iPhone. It was a brilliant piece that deeply explores all that is wrong with the way that Microsoft sets out to design in a new space. Marketing & Developer issues drive the product way before the after thought of the end-user comes to play.

The other example just happened recently, and was used to make fun of the way Apple brilliantly explains away with hype and glitz the most useless or even bad design ideas ever.

Take a look:

oPhone

MacWheel

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

Earlier this week Whitney Hess had a piece published on Mashable.com entitled, “10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design”. Besides the well articulated premise of the article stated in the title, Whitney (@whitneyhess) did a tremendous job of demonstrating the power of the network (specirfically her network). She integrated the opinions of various notable practitioners seemlessly in her piece.

The impressive list of peeps she references includes:

• Peter Merholz
• Dan Saffer
• Liz Danzico
• Dan Brown
• Mario Bourgue
• Bill Derouchey
  
• Chris Fahey
• Will Evans
• Russ Unger
• Steve Baty
• Erin Malone
• Livia Labate
• Louis Rosenfeld
• Jared Spool
• Josh Porter

First a few thoughts about this collection:

1. Besides myself only Mario &  Livia currently works inside the  corporation they actually do design work for. I wonder if this skews the article at all. Now that being said, many HAVE in their careers worked for large corps. Erin for example worked at AOL and then Yahoo both for extended stays. Dan worked at Ameritrade for a long spell as well.
2. A large % of the folks will be speaking at or attending Interaction 09 | Vancouver in just 3 short weeks. You may want to register to join them there to follow up. (How’s that for a blatant plug, eh?)

Well, I was also one of the references in the piece. The way Whitney did her research for the piece was to ask us a broad question and then she harvested out the most compelling nuggets to fit the flow of her piece (which she did really well).

But an idea she had was to invite (suggest) that some (if not all) of us contributors on our own blogs post our entire response to her original query.

So here is my response:

It is difficult to pin down “The biggest misconception of user experience” because it differs depending on your background.

I think the most important misconception that seems to focus around user experience being focused on achieving more usable products & services. While usability is important to user experience, its focus on efficiency and effectiveness seems to blur the other important factors in user experience which include learnability and visceral and behavioral emotional responses to the products and services we use. This is most largely felt from the business & marketing sides who don’t understand aesthetics, but also comes from the creative side as well. Creatives use this misconception of user experience as a means of drawing borders between what they do and what user experience professionals do.

It is very important for people to understand that user experience is a multifaceted project that requires deep collaboration between all facets of business, design, technology, and research to come together and work holistically. Basically, while the role of the UX practitioner is often necessary to achieve a good UX, what is more important is the breaking down of silos in the product organization and creating a deep collaborative environment.

So there ya go!

I first heard this presentation at Connecting2007.org. It was my favorite for oh so many reasons. One of the best presenters without slides it caused me to think deeply about the practice of presentation and storytelling and teaching, but more importantly his topic hit home deeply as I’ve often been someone drawn to the creative always feeling just outside of creativity.

If you have a child, I would ask that you listen to this presentation and realize that creativity is so much more than personal expression, but is a powerful part of our intelligence that would make us all better and more powerful if it were maintained and even cherished.

Enjoy!

Today was my first quarterly faculty meeting at SCAD. I was pleasantly surprised that besides the usual boring policy statements and announcements there was a fantastic keynote speaker, James Howard Kunstler. Once more the speaker was somoene I didn’t know but whom I really loved listening to.

I took the opportunity to live-tweet (put up a report on twitter) of the entire presentation (as best I can). some tweets may have gotten lost due to the lack of using the proper # code (so finding it later was a bit hard), But it is all on my feed.

So here is the whole thing for ya (I even filled in the unhashed ones):

daveIxD: At the quarter faculty meeting here at SCAD. There is a keynote by James Kunstler. View Tweet

daveIxD: Kunstler is speaking about the current environmental situation, and human antipathy to the real needs of sustainability. View Tweet

daveIxD: Current oil prices are a blip caused by outiside the financial collapse. View Tweet

daveIxD: Current oil prices are a blip caused by outiside the financial collapse. View Tweet

daveIxD: We live in a completely bancropt society where capital is disappearing into an abyss. View Tweet

daveIxD: There is no capital for repairing society. View Tweet

daveIxD: Oil markets are collapsing. Our new discoveries of oil are way below our production. View Tweet

daveIxD: We need a new Saudi Arabia every yr in order to keep up with need. View Tweet

daveIxD: Exporters are using more & more & will be exporting less. #kunstler. And using oil as a bargaining chip. View Tweet

daveIxD: Uk, Canada, & Norway have been depleted. And UK is again an importer of energy again. View Tweet

daveIxD: Mexico is #3 source of oil for US after Arabia & Canada. & won’t be able to export oil in a few years. View Tweet

daveIxD: Technology & equip are not being updated b/c people see it as a dying industry. View Tweet

daveIxD: Big story is not running out of oil, but the failure of how we run major complex economic markets & production. View Tweet

daveIxD: The prob with suburbia is that it is a living arrangement with no future. #kunstler. Trying to sustain it is a misplaced investment. View Tweet

daveIxD: The whole financial collapse is caused by the spirit of the surbirban myth. #kunstler View Tweet

daveIxD: We are not going to be able to run Disneyland, Walmart & the Interstate system on alternative energy. #kunstler View Tweet

daveIxD: The “wish upon a star” mythos is keeping us from truly taking reality seriously. #kunstler. View Tweet

daveIxD: Technology is NOT going to save us. Technology is not Energy. View Tweet

daveIxD: “they’ll come up with something” is not going to happen. So we have to make other arrangements. View Tweet

daveIxD: Keeping on living the way we do is not an option. We have to inhabit the land differently. #kunstler. View Tweet

daveIxD: we have to work with what we got, but many places don’t have models for sustainable habitation. View Tweet

daveIxD: how we grow food will have to change. Especiall increasing locally grown production. View Tweet

daveIxD: we need to change retail. (way too much retail space compared to other countries.) we have to return to non-chain retail. View Tweet

daveIxD: Education will have to change. And a model of the failed economy of previous investment. Centralized schooling won’t work. View Tweet

daveIxD: home schooling will replace centralized schooling. We are going to be a poorer society. View Tweet

daveIxD: . Railroads are going to have to be rebuilt. Our railroad system would be an embarrassment to Bulgaria. View Tweet

daveIxD: why is Obama focusing on the interstates. It is a decision that demonstrates the endemic situation re: previous investment. View Tweet

daveIxD: Europe never lost the idea that the city can be a wonderful place to live. Public transportation is a key to urban dev. View Tweet

daveIxD: we are going to have to put back the infrastucture for a maritime economy. No more waterfront condos. View Tweet

daveIxD: there is going to be a new class in the US–the “formerly middle class”. They r going to be poor & very pissed off! View Tweet

daveIxD: end of industrial agriculture. Return of the local small farm. View Tweet

daveIxD: the “city of the future” of yesterday is a failed vision. View Tweet

daveIxD: suburbanites aren’t going to NYC but to small cities that are of proper scale. View Tweet

daveIxD: skyscrapers won’t work. They take too much energy to maintain. Elevators won’t be running. View Tweet

daveIxD: the public in cities have to be reclaimed. There r too many places not worth caring about. “asteroid belts” of urban planning. View Tweet

daveIxD: if you have enough of these places you end up with a country not worth caring about. View Tweet

daveIxD: we can imagine a hopeful future. Hope comes from you as imagined. You can’t give hope to people. They have to do it themselves. View Tweet

daveIxD: that last message about hope was the most important for an audience of design educators (his direct audience today). View Tweet

daveIxD: wrote a novel about a post oil world “World made By Hand”. Comes out this month. THE END View Tweet

Go on and check out my first article on the new Interaction Design webzine, JohnnyHolland.org.

Creating Serendipity: The True Art of Design

NYC IxDA – Tap is the New Click – Dan Saffer from Interaction Design Association on Vimeo.

Dan Saffer gave a great talk on gesture design to the NYC IxDA community a few months ago. It is FINALLY available on video!!!

I found this trailer and am so excited there isa movie about what *I* do and teach coming to a theatre near you.

[I'm really excited to be part of this series of speakers and workshops that the fine folks at TriUPA (North Carolina Research Triangle) were able to put together. If you are in the Triangle, I hope I'll be able to get to see you there, then. -- dave]

What’s TriUPA?

TriUPA is a local chapter of the Usability Professionals’ Association based in the Research Triangle (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area), North Carolina, USA.

This is an annual reminder about TriUPA’s activities for those in North Carolina (or nearby regions) who may not yet be plugged into our community. We’re offering an extensive workshop program in 2009, which we hope will be of interest to folks throughout the Southeast.

About TriUPA’s Professional Training

TriUPA is excited to announce our 2009 Professional Training workshop series. The goal of our workshop series is to bring to our community the best thinking and latest practices in the user experience field.

TriUPA focuses on four areas of practice…

1. usability evaluation and testing
2. user research
3. interaction design
4. information architecture

… and our workshop series is designed to address each of these areas.

Please save the dates for the following full-day workshops. Detailed information and a link to register will be sent in advance of each workshop. Fees will vary for each event, but will typically be in the range of $150 – $250 for TriUPA members, with discounts for corporate sponsors and students.

You can become a TriUPA member today, by registering on our website. It’s $15/year for professionals; free for students.

Feel free to contact Abe Crystal with any questions about our workshop series.

Abe Crystal // abe.crystal at gmail.com VP, Professional Development Programs // TriUPA

2009 Professional Training workshop series schedule

1. Matt Cornell — personal productivity for UX professionals — Monday, January 12th, 2009

2. Todd Wilkens (Adaptive Path) — design research– Friday, February 20th, 2009

3. Scott Berkun — UX and project management — Friday, April 3rd, 2009

4. David Malouf — sketching and interaction design — Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

5. Dan Brown & Nathan Curtis — UX documentation/deliverables — Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

6. Bolt|Peters — remote usability testing — TBD in October 2009

Thanks to TriUPA’s sponsors for making this workshop series possible:

• Lulu
• GSK
• BlueCross BlueShield
• Insight
• Lenovo
• Hesketh.com
• Capstrat
• User-View
• SAS
• MoreBetterLabs