He has posted a unique document that rarely is seen outside final deliverables: the design direction brief. It’s a document that can be called many things, but is at its simplest, a method to visualize the rationale behind the design itself. I would read through his blog post, as it provides some interesting context to the redesign itself, but I’d like to point out one thing in particular…
“Craigslist isn’t broken. We don’t want to overhaul it, we want to enhance it. Think of Craigslist as an application, not just a series of pages[.]”
I think he got the direction all wrong. Craigslist is content. Pure content sourced from users. That’s about as opposite of an “application” in my mental model as I can think of. If I were Craig, I might have dismissed this entire design (very nice, I might add) out-of-hand simply because of this single slide.
And that’s why having window into a design brief is so interesting. Khoi Ving didn’t even seem to follow his own direction. Where in the redesign are the “application” design decisions? To me, it looks like he reinforces the idea of “a series of pages” just by the organization of the IA (as he aptly points out as Craigslist own powerful folksonomy). He retains the location as a pivot point for the content. In an application, or at least my mental model of an application, the pivot point of the content could be anywhere.
For example, if I am looking for an apartment it makes perfect sense to view by the location hierarchy. But if I am looking for a piece of furniture (original Eames furniture make frequent appearances) I may want to search multi-city. Sure you can (sorta) do that in the global search offered on the homepage of the redesign, but where is that global search in a regional site? Regardless of that precise UI issue, having any attribute for the pivot would be a great enhancement and very app-like to me. Having faceted search would be even better.
On the other hand, he really nails the brand direction…
It really does look better but not different.
]]>In the video below, Associate Professor Elinor Hollinshead says about the courses: “(…) creative thinking, analyzing, and critique… but without a sense of product, more really exploration.”
It really nails what this first year is about and is so difficult to achieve. We spend our every day life trying to finish something, or solve a problem, that the time to explore becomes shorter and shorter. Check out the video summary of Foundation year and you’ll get a very good sense of RISD’s approach.
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Augmented reality (AR) is a field of computer research which deals with the combination of real-world and computer-generated data (virtual reality), where computer graphics objects are blended into real footage in real time. The term is believed to have been coined in 1990 by Thomas Caudell, an employee of Boeing at the time. – via Wikipedia
While there are plenty of examples of Augmented Reality out there right now, most are either not geared towards the consumer market and / or are only for purely entertainment purposes. For example GE’s Smart Grid Advertising Campaign.
With the release of the iPhone 3G S, with its built in compass and video camera, it looks like useful AR applications will finally soon be available en-mass to end users.
Nearest Tube, developed by Acrossair, is an exciting example of such an application.
What’s interesting about this to me is that there is no input interface to speak of. The environment (as displayed through the filter of the video camera) and the users direction (as determined by the internal compass) is the only user input.
The Microsoft Natal Project is another example of how “interfaceless” interactions (enabled by sensors) have the potential to dramatically change not only how users interact with applications, but also our roles as designers of these interactions.
While it is certain that the interaction patterns that we create (and the deliverables we use to capture them) will likely need to evolve greatly, the underlying design principles and problem solving process we use to create experiences that meet users (and business) goals will not.
]]>Having accurate information about these key aspects of your business is essential for business and capacity planing.
- How many hours have been recorded against a project estimate (Time Tracking)?
- Are you selling enough time to pay for your operations (Cash-flow)?
- When will your employees have free time (Calendaring)?
A service oriented business that produces digital products (files), might also need a centralized place to post their work product.
Today, there are many desktop and web-applications that do a great job managing one or two of these things but none (that I could find) that handles them all. This is curious (and frustrating) to me because there is such a strong relationship between them.
Time Tracking
There are quite a few good time tracking web-apps out there and I’ve used many of them. At DesignMap, we use a service called Tick for tracking our time against a total number of project hours. We can easily see the overall project percentage complete and see who has entered hours for a particular task (good for postmortems). What we can’t see is how a particular project is resourced – who is assigned this work, will it take up all of their time, for how long?
Tick for time tracking.
At the enterprise level there are many good calendaring solutions out there. This are much less well put together for small businesses, many, if they are like us rely on hacks and work-arounds to accomplish what we need. Since we are a small, all Mac shop, we use iCal to manage our individual schedules. From iCal we all subscribe to a central Google calendar to view each others rough workload and capacity. This capacity information doesn’t, but would ideally, map to actual resourcing estimates and assignments entered in the time tracking tool. The appointments on our calendar don’t, but would ideally, show up on our time-card as time entered against the appropriate project.
iCal for calendaring.
QuickBooks is of course the de-facto application for tracking and planning the movement of money in and out of small businesses. We use this too but felt like we were missing a simple high level picture of our expenses and project income. To fill this void we use a web-application called Pulse. Pulse allows us at a glance to see when money is scheduled to leave our account to pay for expenses, and when we expect to receive payment for completed projects. These payment milestones don’t, but would ideally, map to project estimates and dates entered elsewhere.
Pulse for cash-flow.
We use a web-application called Basecamp to help share and collaborate with clients on the deliverables of every project we undertake. Basecamp does a great job at this and we’ve come to rely on it in many way. It also does have some very basic time tracking and calendar milestone features but they still don’t connect the dots in the way we need. There is no way to enter time estimates, map milestones to time entered, view project completion percentages, or view employee resourcing levels. There are a number of similar products out there that are slightly better in various aspects, but again, none that give us this the full picture we need in one place.
Basecamp for sharing files.
If you build it, will they will come?
I have to believe that we are not unique in our need for this all-in-one small business application. Not only would every small design studio I know of rejoice, but so would any other small service oriented business.
Why hasn’t this been built yet? There certainly are a lot of moving parts and complexity in this system. If a client were to ask us to design this application one of the first things we would do is create a model of the various data objects and map their relationships to each other (inputs, outputs, etc.). This would help us quickly get a sense of the size and complexity of the system and establish key relationships and hierarchies.
Next, we might create a number of high-level (low fidelity) representations of key screens that show how these data objects and functions might be manifested in an actual user experience. From here we’d move on to the detailed design of screens and interactions, then visual design, then development.
Product Model
Key Views
For a while now we’ve been toying around with the idea of developing our own products (if we can find the time) – after all, we do this full time for our clients. If we build this – would you want to use it?
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“When I joined Google as its first visual designer, the company was already seven years old. Seven years is a long time to run a company without a classically trained designer. Google had plenty of designers on staff then, but most of them had backgrounds in CS or HCI. And none of them were in high-up, respected leadership positions. Without a person at (or near) the helm who thoroughly understands the principles and elements of Design, a company eventually runs out of reasons for design decisions.”
I am not sure why Bowman cites this particular Wikipedia article, which does not adhere to the writing standards, and is clearly written about interior design. Many other articles would be better to cite, one obvious article being as straight forward as Design.
I agree that the design role needs a seat at the table, but a seat at Google’s table? It was founded as an engineering company, and they have not strayed far from that. I would dare to say if they changed that formula it would change Google’s success. Not every company needs to emulate Apple (but more could.)
“With every new design decision, critics cry foul. Without conviction, doubt creeps in. Instincts fail. “Is this the right move?” When a company is filled with engineers, it turns to engineering to solve problems. Reduce each decision to a simple logic problem. Remove all subjectivity and just look at the data. Data in your favor? Ok, launch it. Data shows negative effects? Back to the drawing board. And that data eventually becomes a crutch for every decision, paralyzing the company and preventing it from making any daring design decisions.”
Besides the bitterness of the post, the designer failed at their job if they are unable to appeal to the engineer’s ration and logic and be persuasive. It shouldn’t matter if there is one or a hundred engineers in the room. Design is not just spent in Photoshop.
Back to the topic of design versus data: one of the larger design decisions, such as the location of the tabs (above the URL bar) I don’t believe were left up to the user. Form follows function here, and there lies real opportunities for innovation.
A fantastic point was made in the http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/business/10ping.html NYTimes article covering Bowman’s departure:
“It is more from engaging with users, watching what they do, understanding their pain points, that you get big leaps in design,” Ms. Dunn said.
“That approach informed a redesign at Cooliris, a start-up whose software offers a way to view pictures and videos on a three-dimensional virtual wall of thumbnail images. In the new version, which Ms. Dunn helped design, the company includes headlines and other text next to images.
“Even though it changes the visual impact, it is critical that people have access to that information as they are scanning the wall,” Ms. Dunn said. “Now that it is out there, we can do the kind of micro-testing that Google talks about. But the broad design decision was not made that way.”
The location of the tabs is a great example of a “broad design” decision – it reinforces a key aspect what we call the user’s mental model of Chrome. The buttons, the location bar, etc. are all contained within a specific tab. Now the interface reflects that appropriately. I am sure if there was a survey – users would mostly not care but if pushed would prefer either tabs on top or on bottom roughly equally. There would be no definitive decision based on data. Bowman’s frustration with needing to prove a case for a pixel or a shade of blue is maybe more appropriately related to his position in the company.
Bowman’s title at Twitter is “Creative Director” which implies a much larger design role than his former Google one of “Senior Visual Designer”. I hope he breaks from his traditional view of design and truly does innovate with the new kid on the block.
]]>Yesterday at the E3 video game conference Microsoft presented Project Natal – a prototype device that combines a camera, depth sensor, and microphone for the XBox 360 that allows users to interact directly (without any hardware control) with specially designed video games.
All-in-all a very neat vision of what COULD be. If and when this ever gets released I have serious doubts that interacting via Natal will ever be as smooth as this promo indicates. That is of course, kind of the point with these kinds of visioning pieces – to ignore the specifics and paint as exciting and optimal picture of the near future as possible.
I always think about the Knowledge Navigator piece created by Hugh Dubberly while at Apple as the gold standard example of this.
Regardless of what actually gets built, it is clear that new, unique and exciting interaction problems are present that will need to be solved.
- How do you indicate focus on a screen when there is more than one thing that can be interacted with?
- How do you denote who’s actions should be recognized and acted upon?
- Will people get tired – how long can certain types of interactions be maintained?
- What is the setup and initiation process like for direct interaction with games?
And the list goes on and on. All of these can of course be solved, but the question is how to address them in a simple way that doesn’t outweigh any “wow” factor gained when interacting with these specially designed games.
I suspect that for now, the direct motion interaction will be contained to very specific moments (certain specially games and system functions) and that 95% of everything else will require the standard XBox controllers. This means there will be lots of transitions from one method of interacting to another.
Some would argue that one of the main reasons Apple has been successful with the iPhone is because they didn’t compromise by allowing mixed input. In interaction design, it is almost always a compromise to have to consider variable input. Once you go down this road, you need to begin to address things that are not core to the users goals like indicating which input method is acceptable when. It also requires users to learn two entirely different methods of interacting with one product.
All that aside, I am excited by what this may mean for the video game industry and human computer interaction in general. AND its an excuse to bring home yet another game system – its all “research” (and tax deductible?) for us in the product development industry!
]]>Keeping a long story short, I found myself on Sunday at the local airport taking off in a Cessna 170 with my mother and nephew for a one hour scenic tour of the area I grew up in. Beyond the enjoyment of flying at 1000 to 2500 feet above the ground (I’ve always loved airplanes), I found I was enjoying something thoroughly unrelated: my iPhone
As the flight was unplanned, I only had my iPhone as a camera – as we flew over areas I snapped a bunch of photos, disappointed I didn’t have a proper camera. Lately, my iPhone has been incredibly frustrating and patently unenjoyable. Because of it I’ve considered switching to the Palm Pre, before I’ve even laid my hands on one. Through the flight, I realized that though I lived for the better part of 18 years in the area, I couldn’t recognize anything from the air. I then realized I had a perfectly good GPS radio and satellite map in my hand!
I opened up Google Maps, and it worked like a charm! I used the hybrid view so the streets were labeled and the 3G network in the area was plenty fast enough to keep up with 120mph Cessna.
The large break in routine of traveling home, to a small break in the way I used my iPhone, was a surprising light bulb for me. A piece of technology that I’ve grown so accustomed to using in particular patterns become so delightful in an unexpected way. A ripple effect of breaking routines that could never be predicted.
The Snohomish River on the iPhone Google Maps
The Snohomish River from the Cessna
It turns out iTunes is good for more than supporting my insatiable need to expand my music collection and clog up my iPhone with applications I rarely use more than once – free Art and Design audio and video content!
The content ranges from fine arts lectures to interaction design tips, and the sources that range from word renowned museums and universities to niche interaction design websites.
Today I’m watching the latest lecture from the Walker Art Center series: Architecture / Design with Sol Sender, Scott Thomas and Paul Schmlezer on the importance that design played in the Obama presidential campaign.
Here are a few other resources to check out – I can’t vouch for each of these personally but at least I now know what I’ll be doing with my few precious “non-billable” hours for the rest of the year. If anyone knows of any other good resources on iTunes please let me know!
Museums
Indianapolis Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Universities
Walker Art Center Architecture / Design Lecture series
MIT
Yale Arts and Architecture
Stanford (HCI Seminar)
Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science
Ruminations on RISD by John Maeda, RISD’s new president.
Miscellaneous Design: Studios, Consultants, Websites
UIE SpoolCast
Adaptive Path Podcast
IBM UX DesignCast
Boxes and Arrows Podcast
Design Events and Conferences
TEDTalks
Adaptive Path UX Week 2007
BayCHI Podcast
It’s time to stop whining. The economy might be melting down like a pat of butter on a hot Hummer roof, but for some people — you, maybe? — this could be a very good thing.
Here’s why. At no other time in recent history has it been easier or cheaper to start a new kind of company. Possibly a very profitable company. Let’s call these start-ups LILOs, for “a little in, a lot out.” These are Web-based businesses that cost almost nothing to get off the ground yet can turn into great moneymakers (if you work hard and are patient, but we’ll get to that part of the story).
Living and working in the internet industry of San Francisco, we’ve see this “new” startup style for years now, well before the general economy downturn. But I can’t fault TIME for not being, well, timely.
But, in the article, TIME did choose to profile two startups founded or co-founded by fellow RISD alumni. Big kudos for that, even though the article misses nearly every reason these “LILO” startups may be successful (how about the advent of cheap server hosting? or that these startups rarely depend on advertising for their business model?).
RISD is not just a school for the arts, it is a school for creativity. I’m a strong believer that creativity will lead us out of the failure of convention, something I hope TIME will one day write about.
Check out AirBnB.com and MotorMouths.com
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Fleischman's Usability Lab
A quick post as I’m experiencing the gamut of emotions watching our design being used by real users. Overall its a delight to see your design in action and hearing user’s feedback – not always do we get to execute a design to a high fidelity… so much of what we do is the design of user experience systems that get implemented over months or even years of development effort.
These concept tests (and usability tests) allow us and our client to simulate a future reality and observe real users interact with our design… as predicted, and sometimes not as predicted. A painful process, but often where the real value is. This not only helps future iterations of the product, but also how we approach design for other products, a sort of “pay it forward” experience. On a personal note, it helps me regain a better perspective – our user’s perspective. It is easy to deeply care about your design, it is also easy to obscure the end goal of deeply caring about your users.
We’re testing at Fleischman’s Field Research facility in downtown San Francisco. It is a top-notch lab, as is the interviewer, Beth Leber from Eureka Insights – her patience and objectivity is a study of professionalism in this industry. I wish I could publish the topic of the concept we are testing, but many of you may use it sometime in the near future!
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