[IxDA Discuss] NYT:Digital Designers Rediscover Their Hands
— means you have to be extremely self-critical, says Mr. Sennett, whose book The Craftsman (Yale University Press, 2008), examines the importance of skilled manual labor, which he believes includes computer programming. EVEN in highly abstract fields, like the design of next-generation electronic circuits, some people believe that hands-on experiences can enhance creativity. You need your hands to verify experimentally a technology that doesn't exist, says Mario Paniccia, director of Intel's photonics technology lab in Santa Clara, Calif. Building optical switches in silicon materials, for example, requires engineers to test the experimental switches themselves, and to build test equipment, too. Bringing human hands back into the world of digital designers may have profound long-term consequences. Designs could become safer, more user-friendly and even more durable. At the very least, the process of creating things could become a happier one. While working in simulated computer worlds has undeniable appeal, Mr. Tulley says, the physical act of making things helps the whole person. G. Pascal Zachary writes about technology and economic development. E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] murli nagasundaram, ph.d. | www.murli.com | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | +91 99 0269 6920 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] History of Plus Symbol (+) in HCI
Good digging, Bojhan. At this site: http://davewiner.userland.com/outlinersProgramming under the section 'VisiText', he writes: VisiText was the first outliner to use the now-familliar expand and collapse outline display. Probably not the definitive answer to your question, Charlie, but a good place to start. Of course, the idea could have come from Dave Winer's Aunt Ruth while he was munching her wonderful lattkes and she in turn might have got it from Rabbi Avram whose son just happened to be a geek. Cheers, Murli On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 12:44 AM, Bojhan Somers [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hey, I acctually think so to, if you visit his website you can see that back in 1987 he started using this in his interfaces ( http://static.userland.com/misc/outliners/images/tank241pc/outliner1.gif ) and http://static.userland.com/misc/outliners/images/more11c/outline1.gif . His website beign http://www.outliners.com/ . Best Regards, Bojhan Somers Murli Nagasundaram schreef: I recall outliner programs such as ThinkTank (by Dave Winer?) as being among the first to use the +/- notation for expand and collapse. This was in the mid to late 1980's. - murli Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] History of Plus Symbol (+) in HCI
I recall outliner programs such as ThinkTank (by Dave Winer?) as being among the first to use the +/- notation for expand and collapse. This was in the mid to late 1980's. - murli On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 7:57 PM, Chauncey Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There are several pictorial histories of GUIs that have examples of interface objects that go back as far as the Xerox Alto http://toastytech.com/guis/ http://www.guidebookgallery.org/icons The object with the + sign is often associated with a treeview object so you might try searching on that. I looked in my Windows 3.1 guide and in that book, there is no treeview, but hierarchical folders for file operations (no +). One trick that many people, even after many years don't know (or aren't aware of) is that the plus sign in Windows often allows you to open things up without changing the selection focus (different tree view widget may allow different types of interactions). Since the plus is possible in character cell applications, you might want to look at some of the early office products. You might also want to search for examples of file managers. Wikipedia has a good list of file managers that might use the plus sign. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_manager Chauncey On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 9:47 AM, Charles Hannon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am interested in the history of (+). I am tracking the evolution of this interaction idiom (and others) and the ways in which user mental models have to adapt to such changes. je I think (+) first meant expand as opposed to (-) which meant collapse. In iTunes it means Add Playlist and this has been copied (very crudely) in the Sony Reader eBook Library application. In the original iPhone/iPod Touch Safari interface it meant Add Bookmark but after the January 2008 upgrade it has been generalized to mean Add Something. I am not a long-time Mac user so I wonder if (+) has always been part of the Apple lexicon, or if it is new. Also, has anyone on this list seen (or created) different implementations/meanings of (+) in other products? Charlie Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Power icon
Alex, great questions, and more importantly, what I would consider the proper attitude. And I also like how you have presented your perspective as a personal one and not pretend to speak for entire populations or all of humankind. I think this is one good way to make progress in a contentious setting (dropping bombs on and imprisoning protestors being another way, although not a very healthy one). I will just speak to one thing that popped out of your message: What represents power or something functioning? Lightning? As a matter of fact, there is just one word in Hindi and Urdu for both lightning and electricity -- the word is 'bijlee'. Who'da thunk, hunh?! So for Hindi/Urdu speakers (who live in Northern India and much of Pakistan) a lighting flash symbol is likely to work well. Just how did you know, Alex? ;-) - murli On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 3:42 PM, Alexander Livingstone [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What represents power or something functioning? Lightning? I would associate that with danger. Alex. -- murli nagasundaram, ph.d. | www.murli.com | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | +91 99 02 69 69 20 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Power icon
Until I joined this conversation I had not noticed the difference between the power on/off and standby symbols. Yes, now I can see the difference, but I had no idea before that the two were significantly different. And I was trained as a (mechanical) engineer. It's far too subtle a difference for most (regular) people. The symbol also looks vaguely sexual, although this is probably just my mind. -murli On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 7:39 PM, Bryan Minihan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think it looks a little like an ashtray... Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Power icon
Compare with the definitive origins of the Peace Symbol. http://www.docspopuli.org/articles/PeaceSymbolArticle.html How many know that it is stylized representation of the composite semaphore signs for the letters 'N' and 'D', as in 'Nuclear Disarmament'? Or that at one point, the Christian Cross was an option considered? The symbol is widely recognized among certain cultures or subcultures. It is even meaningful to anyone familiar with semaphore. But for most others, it is pretty arbitrary. Nevertheless, it has taken on a life of its own. Murli -- murli nagasundaram, ph.d. | www.murli.com | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | +91 99 02 69 69 20 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Power icon
Until I moved to the US from India in 1986, I don't recall having encountered the 0/1 power symbol more than a couple of times. Even today, the symbol is quite rare except on computers and some other digital products. Many educated people in India could probably guess at the meaning of the symbol but the use or awareness of the symbol is far from universal in land of over a billion people (and a rapidly emerging market for consumer durables). This is not a rant against the 'Standard Power Symbol' -- it's simply to take note that naive assumptions about universality and a dismissive attitude towards raising questions about the issue are very similar to the attitude of some system developers who view users as being 'losers' and if they are unable to appropriately use a system then its their own problem. Language and symbology does take time to permeate through society, particularly a large, diverse, complex one. While most symbols are at least somewhat arbitrary, the 'right arrow/right-pointing triangle' used for the PLAY button is much less so -- pointing and arrows developed early enough in the evolution of the species that the symbol could be considered 'universal'. The Pause and Stop symbols, however, are pretty darned arbitrary -- the mapping to the real functions is cognitively more taxing. Sitting here in my parents' home in India, I can step out of the house and point at any random person outside and be fairly certain that they don't understand the 0/1 symbol. This situation is unlikely to change for a long while. Indeed, I am pretty sure that they are more likely to associate the power function with a button colored RED than one with an arbitrary symbol slapped on it. The association of a color or more primeval shape with a fundamental function such as power on/off is more likely than its association with an arbitrary symbol. Speaking of learning arbitrary conventions: Power switches in India follow the British standard of turning on if the switch is down and turning off it is up -- the reverse of what obtains in the Americas. While one's mind quickly learns this distinction, muscle memory is quite another thing. The reliance on arbitrary symbols in a critical, possibly catastrophic situation is fraught with peril, especially if quick reflexes are essential to contain a rapidly emergent problem. I learned to drive on the left hand side of the road in India and then had to learn to drive on the other side in the US. I'm pretty good at switching sides when I travel across the oceans and choose to drive. But I know a lot of people who refuse to drive in one or another country because they don't trust their reflexes. And if you choose to drive in India, you'd better have good reflexes -- and a calm, unruffled, mind. I live with my aged parents in India now. Every day -- and indeed several times a day -- I encounter situations that they are unable to cope with because of an inability to deal with arbitrary symbols or conventions, or complex processes. Generalizing design principles from a Web 2.0 user base of twenty-something, college-educated, Americans leaves a whole lot of people out in the cold. - murli Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Power icon
I'm guessing you eat donuts and muffins for breakfast and take your coffee black -- isn't that what everybody does? ;-) Growing up in India, we used to use this thing that apparently came on wires -- though I have never actually see it with my eyes, I kinda believe the wise people who assured us it did. We used to attach the wires to a set of holes in the wall that the Village Elders told us never to explore because there were Evil Demons present in there. Perhaps because of their Evil Nature, the Wise Ones chose never to place any symbol next to the Wall Holes, lest the symbols imbue the Evil Demons with more vengeful power than they already possessed. Since the Gods have now decreed that there is No Other Way to graphically represent an On/Off switch I think we should hereafter accept it as our totem. Sorry to sound like a troll, but I am amused by the 'No Other Way' perspective among some designers. I think it is possible to both acknowledge that there might be few options but to learn an arbitrarily developed symbol as well as understand and accept that there are going to be issues relating to having it universally recognized. This is just being realistic. Designing while esconced in an ivory tower is not particularly useful. Regards, murli On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 8:16 AM, Weixi Yen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ...I'm guessing you don't use a power outlet ;) I don't see why there is so much hesitation to use the icon. For whatever reason or other, this circle IO has become a standard. Anyone who uses electricity (and those would be people using web apps) has probably encounted it. That's why it is safe to use in the OP's situation. Also... http://images.google.com/images?ie=UTF-8oe=UTF-8sourceid=navclientgfns=1q=power+iconum=1sa=Ntab=wi There's really no other way to graphically represent an On/Off switch... -- murli nagasundaram, ph.d. | www.murli.com | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | +91 99 02 69 69 20 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] “The Most Frequently Used Featu res in Microsoft Office”
The problem with (and yet, advantage of) software is its near-infinite plasticity. In the physical world, a device such as a bicycle attains design maturity (in terms of both form and features) fairly quickly and remains largely unchanged thereafter. [If anything, designers try to simplify its form even further.] Different sorts of vehicles with 3, 4, or more wheels are created to meet specific needs given that physical designs are not quite so plastic. Of course, from time-to-time, designers try to develop 'hybrid, multi-purpose vehicles' that try to interpolate between multiple vehicular forms to meet a broader spectrum of needs. Design evolution and integration in software is achieved far more rapidly -- and with greater ease, from a developer's standpoint. Humans, on the other hand, have not yet evolved to easily deal with (cognitively, emotionally as well as physically) with such immense shape-shifting plasticity in the physical world (which is why shape-shifting beings are met with fear and anxiety). So there is a wide gap between what is achievable through technology and what humans can comfortably work with. Alexander mentioned the problem of organizing 500+ commands. The answer is, you don't organize it. Not in the conventional way, anyway. Anybody who had downloaded Mosaic back in 1992-93 and surfed over to Yahoo would have found (at one point) an organized list of about 50 websites -- that's all there was at that time. Yahoo continued with that model -- creating organized lists -- and then added a search feature when the web exploded beyond the point where organized lists of any kind become virtually impossible. Remember the time when there were these things called 'Web Portals' that were supposed to simplify your surfing experience? Where the heck did those go? When Google entered there scene, there were already a gazillion websites. Organization wasn't even an option. The solution was to provide the best kind of search facility possible so that you could find (in theory, anyway), exactly what you were looking for even if you didn't know the precise terms to use. While we are still not at the point where clicking on 'I'm feeling lucky' will take you to exactly where you want to go, the Google model has worked very well. Used to be that one had to grab domain names that matched your corporate name precisely. Now, all you need to do is to type in words that relate somehow to the corporation and, more often than not, the right link is there right on the first page of results. So, I think search-based feature access might be the way to deal with a huge feature list. The day I first accessd Google, I fell in love with it and left Yahoo search forever. It's true that I rarely use advanced search, but I rarely need it, anyway. Word processor designers can learn a lot from Google. Murli Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Is interaction design more than skin deep?
Of course it is. I hate these kind of annoying teaser headlines that the print and broadcast media use to get people to read a news story/watch a program. But here's what I'm getting at: In the beginning was Interface Design. Then it was argued that it's more than 'just' the 'interface', which regular folk take to mean pretty looking screens -- that it's actually 'Interaction Design'; that we are interested in matters beyond 'merely' the 'interface', and in fact we would like to design the entire interaction process. Further along the way, we became interested in the entire User Experience, and not just the process of interaction. And who knows how much more will be included in the scope of what we claim to be our domain in a few years. The question then is: where do we stop, if we intend to stop at all? In another ongoing thread, I brought up the matter of Action Technologies' Coordinator, which Chauncey Wilson on this forum has tested while at Digital Equipment, back in the 1980's. The Coordinator (sounds a lot like 'The Terminator' doesn't it?) was quickly dubbed 'fascistware' and nearly universally rejected by its users. Weigh in here if you please, Chauncey, since you actually did thorough usability testing on the product -- but even if The Coordinator would have passed the usual gauntlet of usability tests; even if it got two thumbs up on every ease of use measure, it still probably would have failed. Not because it didn't serve any useful purpose, but because, among other things, it attempted to force certain changes in individual and social behavior. So, from the perspective of today's User Experience professional -- where does a UXP's responsibility end? Does a UXP's responsibility today encompass everything that traditionally was the domain of the folks who gathered requirements and wrote the specs. So, for instance, if somebody were to think of embarking on a project like The Coordinator today, would the UXP, even while such a project was being mooted, raise red flags and suitably modify the goals of the project? Since one or more threads right now are devoted to trying to define the field, it might be useful to work from the outside in -- where do we draw the line (if at all we draw a line) and say that anything beyond the line is (mostly) outside the scope of UX? -- murli *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Myers Briggs, DISC, Personality of UX Folk
Great examples there, Chauncey. My introduction to social psychology in the context of information technology occurred a couple of decades ago through the watershed article by Lee Sproull and Sara Kiesler, Reducing social context cues: electronic mail in organizational communicationn. It was the first study, if I recall, that thoroughly investigated why people engage in flaming while online (even if they are perfectly polite face-to-face). Social psych research also helped us in the design of an Electronic Meeting/Brainstorming System called VisionQuest, back in the late 1980's. [During the time when we were transitioning from command line to GUIs in the Microsoft universe, most users found the DOS version far easier to use than the Windows one, for this particular application. And there were sound reasons for preferring DOS over Windows.] One of the big (at the time) failures in the are of Groupware/CSCW/Call-it-what-you-will was a product called The Coordinator from Action Technologies, an outfit floated by Terry Winograd (of Stanford Comp Sci) and his student Fernando Flores [they describe their research in 'Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation For Design.] A lack of any proper understanding of Social Psych (by the designers) rather than any technical or other usability problem led to the wholesale rejection of this technology in places like Pacific Bell. Coordinator was, on paper, an extremely useful group tool, founded on Speech Act Theory. It simply didn't recognize the social undercurrents that might make people reluctant to use it however useful it might be. I think that awareness of social psychology principles should be a requirement for designing any social computing system. Amen to that. And practically every application that involves interaction with others, which includes most internet apps satisfy this description. Murli On Jan 30, 2008 10:14 PM, Chauncey Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Social Psychology is a field with many solid theories, principles, and empirical studies. The application of social psychology principles can be seen in the work on Persuasive Techology by B. J. Fogg, the work by Reeves and Nass reported in the Media Equation, and much work on collaboration techologies (which has gone by many names including CSCW, groupware social networking). Social psychology (though not often referred to directly) has been in play since the early days of the internet. When we discuss Web 2.0 technologies, the conversations often get around to social issues with that are connected to social psychology research and theory. The field of social psychology contains many measures of experience ranging from social interaction questionnaires to physiological measures. When designers are designing products for collaboration, they often discuss issues related to social psychology principles (collective behavior, rumor transmission, attribution theory, reputation management, self-revelation, and persuasion). some of the fundamental research on attitudes and persuasion from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, if now being applied to social computing. I think that awareness of social psychology principles should be a requirement for designing any social computing system. Chauncey On Jan 29, 2008 9:58 AM, Murli Nagasundaram [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm simply astounded that an individual who considers himself to be a User Experience professional views social psychology to be a pseudo science. If someone has developed a mathematical or engineering measure for the construct known as 'Experience', I am eager to be educated. Cheers, murli ps: BTW, I agree that the social sciences are a somewhat different kind of science(s) than the physical sciences. But the philosophy of science as applied in both instances is the same. On Jan 28, 2008 7:54 PM, W Evans [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's far beyond the simple, less than dangerous pseudo science of social psychology - where theories, concepts, tests do not effect real people and do not cost real money. *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Myers Briggs, DISC, Personality of UX Folk
Just wanted to add the following as required (hilarious) education for anyone developing social apps: http://www.politicsforum.org/images/flame_warriors/ or http://www.flamewarriors.com/ Mike Reed, the creator, is unquestionably a genius. -- Murli *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Continuous Scroll
One of the things not mentioned in this discussion is whether such an implementation (infinite scroll) is appropriate for all kinds of information. There is tool/technology/feature, on the one hand, and there is the content on the other. While there are probably people who read entire novels online, they likely constitute a minuscule minority. Browser based interaction is very well suited for relatively small quantities of content, especially content that is highly hyperlinked (which was the original purpose of the web, wasn't it?). I don't think the book or book-like devices are likely to go away because the form is very well suited to the nature of content and manner in which that content is imbibed. Likewise, infinite scrolling works very well in Google Reader and other such applications that contain many pieces of small, independent chunks of content. I absolutely detest reading long articles online (such as articles from The Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker, Salon). The moment I see that the article runs into, say, 14 pages, I search for a link that generates all the content on a single page (if available) and after reading the first couple of paragraphs, I read the concluding ones and quickly scan the rest. If it takes too long to load, I bail out. To return to the main issue, one must evaluate the usefulness or usability of Infinite Scrolling with respect to the nature of content in question. My hunch is that if a study were to be conducted, people would rate the U/U of IS variably according to application/content. Unfortunately, every time a new technology or paradigm is developed, there is a rush to try applying it indiscriminately to just every manner of content on Teh Interwebs. - murli *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Myers Briggs, DISC, Personality of UX Folk
Chauncey, wow, I didn't realize there would be people on this list who might even remember Coordinator, leave alone having tested it! I bow before thee! Yes, I recall that the consensus was that it was 'Fascistware'. How did Supportinator go, btw -- was it accepted, used? By making one's responses (rather, the tags, right?) optional, did it dilute the utility of the tool, making it a no-win proposition? I'm curious to know about instances where the idea succeeded, and what was done (technically, and otherwise) to make that possible. Interesting that you mentioned Whiteside. I attended the session on Usability Engineering at CHI '89 in Austin, TX conducted by John Whiteside, John Bennett of IBM Almaden and Keith Butler of Boeing, and had great conversations with them. I have the tutorial book with me by my side right now! Pleasant memories. Where is John Whiteside now, incidentally? -- the gutting of DEC's technical and research groups may have been financially necessary, but was among the sadder events of the last century. I'm wondering if -- and I never really reflected on this very deeply -- the coming of the web and the spread of the GUI in the 1990's (with Windows 3.0) displaced (at least temporarily) some of the great social psych work of the 1970's and 1980's which dealt less with issues relating to direct interaction and more with substantive issues regarding how people relate to each other through technology mediated interactions. Maybe it is indeed time to bring it all back and one or more sessions/tracks at IxDA would be a great idea. And of course, the theories you mention -- nothing more practical, as one of my profs used to say, than a good theory. Regards, -murli On Jan 31, 2008 6:48 PM, Chauncey Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello Murli, Your email brought back some interesting memories. In the 1980s, I did some usability testing of the Coordinator at DEC and it was viewed as too controlling. The group I worked with adapted the concept to be more like a Supportinator where commitments were tracked, but in a less dictatorial manner. The group I worked with was led by John Whiteside who brought the concepts of usability engineering and contextualism into the mainstream and was intrigued by speech act theory. We read Winograd and Flores and took an entire year to read Heidegger's Being and Time. Sara Kiesler has done excellent work for almost two decades and was prescient about the importance of social psychology to social computer systems of all sorts. My introduction to social psychology came as a graduate student in the 1970s where I was steeped in attribution theory, exchange theory (important in online relationships and discussion groups), and attitude research. My focus then was in the social psychology of criminal victimization -- the study of discretion in the criminal justice system. My professor and I published 3 book chapters and many papers and presentations on the impact of social psychological variables on crime reporting. I think that a talk at the next IxDA conference on the important of social psychology to interaction design would be a great topic. I would enjoy talking about exchange theory in the context of electronic relationships and communities. Some of the old work of Peter Blau, the sociologist Homans, and others is quite applicable to the exchanges that go on in interaction design. Chauncey On Jan 31, 2008 7:28 AM, Murli Nagasundaram [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Great examples there, Chauncey. My introduction to social psychology in the context of information technology occurred a couple of decades ago through the watershed article by Lee Sproull and Sara Kiesler, Reducing social context cues: electronic mail in organizational communicationn. It was the first study, if I recall, that thoroughly investigated why people engage in flaming while online (even if they are perfectly polite face-to-face). Social psych research also helped us in the design of an Electronic Meeting/Brainstorming System called VisionQuest, back in the late 1980's. [During the time when we were transitioning from command line to GUIs in the Microsoft universe, most users found the DOS version far easier to use than the Windows one, for this particular application. And there were sound reasons for preferring DOS over Windows.] One of the big (at the time) failures in the are of Groupware/CSCW/Call-it-what-you-will was a product called The Coordinator from Action Technologies, an outfit floated by Terry Winograd (of Stanford Comp Sci) and his student Fernando Flores [they describe their research in 'Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation For Design.] A lack of any proper understanding of Social Psych (by the designers) rather than any technical or other usability problem led to the wholesale rejection of this technology in places like Pacific Bell. Coordinator
[IxDA Discuss] Social app popularity begins to decline
Social apps are far more complex than single-user apps. I wonder to what extent a lack of social psych research input into the design of these apps -- the most popular ones having been designed by college undergrads -- is causing their popularity to plateau? To me, this suggests a discontinuity similar to the one that occurred when command line interfaces were displaced by GUIs. Every GUI out there can trace its origins to the the multi-disclipinary, thoroughly grounded research conducted at Xerox PARC. I think it's possible to go only so far by the seat of one's pants. Without GUIs or at least the bastardized compromises that were delivered on the DOS platform in the mid-1980's, PC use would have plateaued in much the way the social apps are slowing down now. The next phase of Social App development might require Sproull, Kiesler, Turoff, Hiltz and others to re-emerge from the shadows. -murli http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/31/myspace_fb_comscore_drop/ 'Facebook fatigue' kicks in as people tire of social networksSeven Two year itch pokeBy Chris Williamshttp://forms.theregister.co.uk/mail_author/?story_url=/2008/01/31/myspace_fb_comscore_drop/ → More by this authorhttp://search.theregister.co.uk/?author=Chris%20Williams Published Thursday 31st January 2008 15:19 GMT Find out how your peers are dealing with Virtualizationhttp://whitepapers.theregister.co.uk/paper/view/341/reg2?td=toptextlink *Shhh!* Can you hear a hiss? That's the sound of naughty facts deflating the social networking balloon a tad. Whisper it, but numbers from web analytics outfit comScore have confirmed what the chatter in bars and cafes has been saying for months - people are, just, well, *bored* of social networks. The average length of time users spend on all of the top three sites is on the slide. Bebo, MySpace and Facebook all took double-digit percentage hits in the last months of 2007. December could perhaps be forgiven as a seasonal blip when people see their real friends and family, but the trend was already south. The story year-on-year is even uglier for social networking advocates. Bebo and MySpace were both well down on the same period in 2006 - Murdoch's site by 24 per cent. Facebook meanwhile chalked up a rise, although way off its mid-2007 hype peak when you couldn't move for zeitgeist-chasing where's the Facebook angle? stories in the press and on TV. You can survey the full numerical horror for youself herehttp://creativecapital.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/its-official-us-social-networking-sites-see-slow-down/at Creative Capital. That user engagement is dropping off (page impression growth is merely slowing) should be of particular concern for the sales people struggling to turn these free services into profit-making businesses. In the age of tabbed browsing, how long people stick around is particularly key for interactive sites, where people aren't attracted by useful information, but by time-wasting opportunities. And as we've noted here before, if the cash isn't raining down on you you need a phenomenal growth line to sell credulous reporters and investors. Expansion into non-English speaking countries is viewed as such a panacea for the increasingly obvious slowdown US social networks are suffering (see Facebook's trawl for translation bitcheshttp://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/24/fb_translation/ ). The fact is that web users people are just as fickle in Leipzig as they are in London, and it seems to us that a delayed Friends Reunited (remember that?) effect is kicking in. When Friends Reunited enjoyed its phenomenal growth period people would join, log in maybe a dozen times, catch up with those class mates they wanted to, then forget about it. On Facebook behaviour seems much the same; join, accumulate dozens of semi-friends, spy on a few exes for a bit, play some Scrabulous, get bored, then get on with your life, occasionally dropping in to respond to a message or see some photos that have been posted. Similarly, once the novelty of MySpace wears off, most people only stop by to check out bands or watch videos. They've basically developed a way to add a penny-scraping coda to the Friends Reunited pattern, thanks to diversions that have been enabled by broadband. The biggest difference is that Friends Reunited made easy profit because it didn't give all its features away to users for free. In the meantime, expect spinners to work on massaging the comScore figures, and happy-clappy bloggers to leap to social networking's defence by claiming the falls are sign of the market maturing, and of fierce competition. They could be right, but it still means that the individual business are not the goldmine their greedy backers slavered over. Despite his endearing deployment of rubber sandals in public, Mark Zuckerberg is yet to convince marketeers - the only people who are ever going to pay him for access to Facebook - that the popularity of his site heralds the next 100 years of media. And the
Re: [IxDA Discuss] The Beautiful and the Useful
Where should I start? I fear that this discussion will end in a fierce debate concerning the meaning of the term 'design' -- one that has probably occurred several times on this list (and elsewhere). There might even be a secondary debate on the meaning of the term 'interaction'. Nevertheless, coming from an engineering background, there are several streams of design in engineering where aesthetics play no role at all. Then there is organization design, service design and systems design where again, aesthetics, if it is an issue, is at best peripheral. If you ask me personally, I would tell you that aesthetics should be integral -- but I recognize that that is a personal value of mine, one that I would like to evangelize, but one that is not universally shared, since it is not essential to design (in many domains of design). Aesthetics is an issue only where: a) there exists human interaction with the design, b) the human interaction involves the senses, mainly visual and auditory, probably, and, c) aesthetics are a key aspect of the perceived or real usability or acceptance of the thing designed. Now I beginning to wonder if there will occur a fierce debate on the meaning of 'aesthetics'. - murli On Feb 1, 2008 9:45 AM, Andrei Herasimchuk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Jan 31, 2008, at 7:44 PM, Pankaj Chawla wrote: On 2/1/08, Andrei Herasimchuk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I know of no formalized design profession in existence in this modern world where aesthetics, both material and immaterial, are not integral in some fashion to the practice of the discipline. Integral, yes; fundamental no. Ok... I'm game. What other formalized design profession is this true for? What other formalized design discipline exists where aesthetics are not fundamental? -- Andrei Herasimchuk *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Online Masters Degree and Certificate in Information Architecture at Kent State University
I would add UMich Ann Arbor School of Info and Georgia Tech. -murli On Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:38:35, Jeff Howard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Jim, There are a lot of threads about IxD education in the archives: http://www.ixda.org/topics.php?topic=education If I were researching it today, offhand I'd probably look into a few of the following: - CMU School of Design - IIT Institute of Design - NYU Interactive Telecommunications Program - Stanford d.school (a few classes anyway) - RCA Design Interactions - Köln International School of Design - Cophenhagen Institute of Interaction Design // jeff *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Myers Briggs, DISC, Personality of UX Folk
I'm simply astounded that an individual who considers himself to be a User Experience professional views social psychology to be a pseudo science. If someone has developed a mathematical or engineering measure for the construct known as 'Experience', I am eager to be educated. Cheers, murli ps: BTW, I agree that the social sciences are a somewhat different kind of science(s) than the physical sciences. But the philosophy of science as applied in both instances is the same. On Jan 28, 2008 7:54 PM, W Evans [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's far beyond the simple, less than dangerous pseudo science of social psychology - where theories, concepts, tests do not effect real people and do not cost real money. *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Myers Briggs, DISC, Personality of UX Folk
I find that the MBTI does predict one's approach to problem solving and interaction with others. Or rather, the MBTI codifies behaviors and perspectives that we generally expect from an individual. -m On Jan 28, 2008 7:33 AM, Troy Gardner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: nor does it predict behavior. This doesn't match my experience, else people wouldn't be using it to 'please understand me' ;). While this may not generalize to all types, most of my friends are predominately *NT*'s and despite coming from all over the place, show remarkably similar approaches to handling problems, communicating and worldviews, that are distinctly different from non NT's. *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Myers Briggs, DISC, Personality of UX Folk
One problem with psychology -- rather with the popular use of psychology -- is that everbody believes themselves to be a lay psychologist; the same doesn't hold true for medicine, for example, or biology. A related problem is the way technical terms become appropriated by society, their meanings becoming distorted even while people believe the distorted meanings to refer to the same original terms. 'Relativity' is one such term from physics that has become a part of everyday speech but the common connotation is quite removed from its technical definition. I'm referring here to the terms 'extraversion' (rather than 'extroversion') and 'intraversion'. These terms are commonly taken to mean -- the backslapping sociable behavior is extraversion, while sitting alone in a corner reading a book is introversion. Not at all. A Extravert TRAIT as understood by people in business) is understood to mean that the individual draws energy through relatively intense interaction with people. An Intravert TRAIT would mean that the concerned individual feels drained by interacting with people. The terms don't mean that a Intravert avoids people or that an Extravert is relentlessly garrulous. One realizes that there are a variety of activities one is required to engage in in order to live a productive life, but there are some activities one prefers and thoroughly over others. OVER A LONG PERIOD OF TIME. Personality tests should not be administered to children who are still developing their personalities and may not show stable results for those under 25. But for older persons, the results tend to become increasingly reliable --- provided one is not gaming the instrument [which will happen if it is seen as something to 'score' in]. Being 'animated' does not -- by itself -- an EXTRAVERT make. An intraverted person can become very animated about an issue that she is very passionate about. Being intraverted and passionate are not mutually exclusive. In fact, the halls of academe are filled with intraverted persons who aren't necessarily dull and boring in class. Giving lectures doesn't demand 'extraversion'. Doing presentations in the manner of Tom Peters and Steve Ballmer does demand 'extraversion'. Likewise, being not very communicative at a cocktail party does not imply that one is an 'intravert'. Perhaps the context doesn't excite you very much. It is possible that you are really an 'intravert'. Judge your 'intraversion' and 'extraversion' from how you feel about interacting in small or large groups intensely with others, not necessarily on matters that are your primary interest (such as IxD, for instance). As for me, I enjoy solitude as much as the next person and many of my deepest insights come from going out for a walk alone. But I can (and do) pick up conversations with anybody, anywhere, without signficant effort. And such interactions leave me energized rather than drained. [Now, there are people and situations that drain me, but those are exceptions.] I conclude, therefore, that I am an Extravert. And that is exactly what the instrument tells me. I do my taxes, and run through the numbers with a fine toothcomb. Heck, I have qualifications in engineering, business, and information technology. And I can do detailed, structured, technical stuff when required. But I absolutely enjoy fuzzy, ambiguous, uncertain situations and tasks. I must emphasize that the evaluation is to be done by oneself. One may use the observations of others as additional data points to either reinforce or refute one's position. And by aggregating a lot of such anecdotal data, one can get close to the 'truth', whatever that might be. There is another issue relating to the 'attribution error' point that you make. Some individuals -- and personality styles -- tend to be better at accurately understanding themselves than others. Howard Gardner calls this 'intrapersonal intelligence.' Both Gardner and the MBTI have been trashed by 'fine scholars everywhere' as well as sneering skeptics. Nevertheless, a lot of very intelligent and reasonable people (and not just those that read the National Inquirer, Readers Digest and People) find a lot of face validity in both Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences and the MBTI (and other personality tests). Always keep in mind George Box's dictum: All models are wrong. Some are useful. And Richard Hamming's advice: The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers. Insight is what we're looking for. Personality style instruments are not accurate, but accuracy is not their purpose, but insight. And a model. And who doesn't use models. -- murli nagasundaram, ph.d. | www.murli.com | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | +91 99 02 69 69 20 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Myers Briggs, DISC, Personality of UX Folk
Approximations work pretty well even in the hard sciences. in fact, science chugs along merrily for hundreds of years with inaccurate models, making real progress, before more accurate models come along -- and as a bonus, you don't have to trash all the progress you have made. Outside of the physical sciences - in the social sciences, humanities and the arts -- exactitude is not even an available option; approximation is all you that can attain. And in fact, any attempt to be exact is not only sisyphean, but completely counterproductive because meaning is actually generated holistically, at the level of approximations. Perfectly accurate descriptions are reductionist and necessarily wrong. -m (ENFP btw -- but you might have guessed that already! ;-)) On Jan 27, 2008 1:51 AM, Troy Gardner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: RE: Extraverted and Introverted. I feel these are badly defined terms, social introversion/extroversion, introverted/extroverted thinking and problem solving, and introspection and empathy of others are very different, and very context dependent. RE: MBTI Trying to capture the vast world of human behaviors into 16 boxes is at best a gross approximation. But if you're talking to a person, and need to approximately describe them it has utility...at least more predictive utility than astrological signs. Troy (INTX btw) -- murli nagasundaram, ph.d. | www.murli.com | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | +91 99 02 69 69 20 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Myers Briggs, DISC, Personality of UX Folk
There is a fundamental confusion here between two different things: STATES and TRAITS. Traits are persistent, States are transient. Every individual can be characterized has having certain persistent traits. Persistent doesn't mean they will never change -- it only means that they will remain quite stable over a long period of time, barring some signficant life-changing (including, traumatic) experiences. [If your TRAITS change frequently, you need some serious help.] States, on the other hand, like moods, change from moment to moment. MBTI and other 'personality style' instruments do not assess STATES but TRAITS. Also, whoever uses such instruments for recruitment is guilty of grossly misusing them and violating their fundamental purpose. Personality style instruments are best employed to gain insights into oneself. They should be answered honestly, if they are to be of any use - any instrument can be 'gamed' to give the desired results, but who benefits from this? I have used the MBTI for years with my students to help them understand themselves and be able to better relate to others and most of them love it. I also tell them -- and this is important that such instruments do not delimit the scope of an individuals behaviors because of the distinction between STATES and TRAITS. They should never be used for pigeonholing people. I don't require my students to share their MBTI profiles with others, but many do, voluntarily. -murli == On Jan 25, 2008 5:15 PM, Chauncey Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Think about how we may be quite different personas in different situations -- I'm very shy at cocktail parties and avoid them as much as possible but I can be quite theatrical in front of a good audience -- two quite different behaviors in social situations. *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Aza Raskin's Humanized to help Mozilla refine Firefox user experience
Since browsers are likely the most commonly used app across various user categories (I don't have any actual data on this), this should be a positive development. -m http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2008/01/15/mozilla-hires-developers-from-humanized Mozilla hires developers from Humanized By Ryan Paul | Published: January 15, 2008 - 03:03PM CT Mozilla has hired several developers from Humanized, a small software company that is known for its considerable usability expertise and innovative user interface design. The Humanized developers will be working at Mozilla Labs on Firefox and innovative new projects. We talked to Mozilla CEO John Lilly, who provided some additional details. Mozilla has hired three of the principals from Humanized. They will be joining the Mozilla Labs team on January 16, 2008. We expect a lot of innovation work from them, some Firefox-related, some broader, just like everything else in Mozilla Labs, Lilly told us. The work done by the Humanized principals speaks for itself—there are lots of great, web-relevant ideas in their work, and we're excited to have them join Mozilla. It should be noted that this is not an acquisition, as some have erroneously reported elsewhere in the blogosphere. Lilly clarifies that: This was not an acquisition. No premium was paid and no intellectual property was acquired by Mozilla. I met Humanized president Aza Raskin (son of Macintosh luminary Jef Raskin) at the Ubuntu Developer Summit last year. At the summit, Aza gave a very informative presentation about user interface design and discussed usability issues in several applications. His design philosophy extends from the belief that the best kind of interface is no interface at all. He advocates creating software that conforms to the Taoist notion of Wu Wei, which is to act without doing. Mozilla's recruitment of interface experts from Humanized is a very nice move. We have seen some really intriguing technologies coming out of Mozilla labs lately and the addition of a few usability gurus will surely help Mozilla provide a better user experience. *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Tata Nano vs. OLPC/XO
Michael, while that story sadly turned out to be an urban myth (if it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't) there are numerous instances of resourcefulness one encounters as one wanders about in poor societies where people survive, if not thrive, in the most challenging circumstances -- and here's the incredible part: with their humanity intact; and indeed remaining more human and humane than many if not most people one encounters in cities. I have been shamed many times by the generosity I have encountered among people that many consider poor. - The micro-banking revolution began in Bangladesh - villagers in the Indian subcontinent often build their own satellite dishes out of scrap metal they find on the roadside - An entire class of students gets through school sharing a single textbook per subject; they end up with far sharper memories - The humble streetlamp is the venue for many a night class One down side of the new prosperity -- and who doesn't want to be prosperous? -- is the kind of ingenuity, quickwittedness and autonomous behavior that didn't take uninterrupted and clean power, water, roads, etc. for granted. The upside, of course, is that people can spend their lives doing more than merely surviving. But even in extreme circumstances, the arts have always thrived, if only as a means of venting one's anguish and pain, a case in point being the Roma people of Europe. -murli On Jan 12, 2008 1:59 AM, Michael Micheletti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Your statement reminds me of something I read (sorry can't remember the source) about the design of a writing instrument for the US space program. The astronauts needed to be able to write in zero gravity, upside down, in a vacuum, while Martians were attacking, etc. A large program was established; some many hours and millions of dollars later the Fisher Space Pen emerged to great praise. The Russian space program, constrained by budget, gave their astronauts pencils. Michael Micheletti -- murli nagasundaram, ph.d. | www.murli.com | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | +91 99 02 69 69 20 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Tata Nano vs. OLPC/XO
On Jan 10, Ratan Tata, patriarch of the Tata conglomerate in India unveiled what is billed as the least expensive car in the world, the Nano. Not a very original name, but the story behind the car is quite fascinating. Here is an interview with Ratan Tata about how the project was initiated and how the design evolved. http://www.domain-b.com/companies/companies_t/Tata_Motors/20080110_makingof_thenano.html I bring this up to compare and contrast with the XO project. Both involve technologies, and both have the goal of making technology accessible and available to people who could have never dreamed of having it before. Let's leave aside issues of pollution, crowding, fossil fuels, etc. for the moment (there are lots of good arguments on both sides there, and some very practical issues that grand theories and ideals cannot address). One project was taken up by a famous university lab and the other by a famous corporation (who are hoping to buy Jaguar and Land Rover). Both projects were driven by high ideals. Ratan Tata is head of the probably the most ethical and socially conscious corporation in India; they are respected through the length and breadth of the country). This was his pet project, his parting gift to the people of India and the developing world before he retired. Nicholas Negroponte has a very high profile in academia and industry, and the XO is clearly Negroponte's pet project. Differences now emerge. The XO was created by a very talented group located in the most technologically advanced nation in the world for people living in the most underdeveloped nations. The Nano was created by a talented group of engineers located in nation with the largest population of poor people. The designners could observe the daily struggles of their 'clients' to and from work every day. The Nano is a conventional car driven no differently from any other. The key challenges related to keeping cost of production under $2,500. This resulted in 34 patent applications, many related to the design of the engine. Cost cutting had to be so severe, that even savings of 25 to 50 cents on a part were considered significant. Having lived in both the US and India for many years, I realize it is impossible to truly and completely empathize with one's clients unless one really has been totally immersed in their culture and are able to accept their perspective. I recall back in the early 1980's when we used to use 8-bit microcomputers to run corporate applications formerly run on IBM mainframes. Living in a scarcity-prone society drastically affects one's mindset (in both positive and negative ways). You learn to live with less, and get the most from whatever is available. This generates a nation of MacGuyvers (apologies to non-US list members -- MacGuyver is one of my favorite TV characters who gets out of difficult situations using whatever is available around him). I am convinced that the Nano as it exists could not have been designed in either Japan or the US (or any G-8 nation, for that matter). Whether that is a positive or a negative, I don't know yet, but I believe it is important design factor to keep in mind. Cheers, Murli *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar not so Sweet?
This sounds so much like the Nature vs. Nurture debate which ended in a tie, BTW, if it ended at all that one might as well state it up front to stave off a lot of discharged steam. Practically every discipline centered around people (psychology, sociology, economics, anthropology, medicine, etc.) has engaged (and will continue to engage) in this debate, explicitly or implicitly. Consider the decline of Skinnerian behaviorism after Chomsky's work on linguistics. Despite the bad rap that Behaviorism has got, numerous organizations and institutions (the military, for instance) apply it successfully. So let's just say that there are many universal principles of design and a significant fraction of these are a consequence of common biological and physical constraints. And further, to the extent that there are common determinants of culture, there are additional principles of design that could be considered kinda-sorta universal. And then there are probably some idiosyncratic cultural issues for which no 'universal principles' will work (at all times). But then this has always been the case in every realm of human endeavor since time immemorial. The variable plasticity of the human mind (across age groups, cultures, contexts, etc.) in its ability to adapt to circumstances will render this discussion quite fruitless. On the other hand, there's nothing so fun as a good fight! Fruitlessness apart, it's likely to bring out some interesting issues. -murli On 12/27/07, Dan Saffer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This begs the question: are there universal principles of (interaction) design that apply regardless of the context or user base? Are there standards that apply equally to CEOs in London and impoverished children in sub-Saharan Africa? My guess is: yes, there are some. Fitts' Law, Hick's Law, Tesler's Law, the Poka-Yoke Principle, and probably a few others are fixed. What these are would be an interesting list. Dan *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Design in Interaction Design?
Rich, placing something second on a list of firsts, if you will, doesn't mean one can do without it. It's something like asking, What's the single most important organ in the human body, and no matter what anybody answers, you can always claim, but how could you ever live without X, so obviously, you're wrong? So the problem lies either with the question, What's the single most important ? (since you can never accomplish anything at all with that single thing), or with taking such a question literally; if you're going ask, 'What's the single most important ...? you've got to accept that it doesn't mean it is the only one that's needed at all. I was attempting to make a distinction between Design in general, which, as Katie Albers has pointed out, means a gazillion different things, and the more specific sort of design called interaction design. What makes an INTERACTION designer different from, say, a Fashion Designer, Subterranean Septic Tank Designer, or Homing Missile Designer is the emphasis on INTERACTION; the fact you engage in a conversation with the thing; it responds and changes, and thereby influences your behavior. That's it. Single Most Important is not the same as Only; to treat it as such would be turn this into a strawman argument. Nobody in their right mind would claim that Design is not important for Design; this forum is called IxDA for a reason, and we take Design to be a baseline. Cheers, Murli *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
At least a few posts seem to suggest that design is more art than science. This is a serious -- and possibly widespread (in the community, may not be in this forum) -- misconception, and is founded on a misunderstanding of the term 'design' which deems the terms 'art' and 'design' to be near synonyms. I seriously doubt if artists, prior to the 20th century would have called themselves designers. In fact, I doubt if serious/successful artists today would like the appelation 'designer' applied to them. I have a friend who would like to be an artist full-time but works as a designer to 'pay the bills'. This conflation of art and design may have something to do with the visibility and iconic status of architects from around the beginning of the 20th century (Walter Gropius/Bauhaus, Frank Lloyd Wright, etc.). Architects -- as distinct from civil engineers, or 'mere' builders -- were/are supposedly persons of vision and flair who 'imagined habitations' rather than drew up buildings. They became celebrities whose rock-star status often camouflaged the impractical nature of some of their designs [of current notoriety is Frank Gehry's leaky design for MIT]. The term design means, among other things something deliberate, intentional, considered, and ... horror of horrors! ... calculated. Before I discovered psychology, anthropology and computer science, my first degree was in Mechanical Engineering and my senior thesis involved the DESIGN of a heat exchanger for a nuclear power plant. Now, despite the fact that I was the college cartoonist at the time, there was nothing art-related in my project. Sure, I did engineering drawings of the heat exchanger, but it was calculated to avoid Three Mile Island sort of situations. No jury awards and all for flair and panache and all that sort of thing. Design means working to a purpose, and to claim that Design is all or mostly about 'that ineffable something' strikes me as being a little scary. Ineffability is great for pure art, but Design better be pretty darned effable. One thing I noticed from many posts is the preponderance of people with a formal/semi-formal background in art and hence having strong visual/spatial skills. Also, a significant proportion seem [and I could be totally mistaken here] to work on/with websites rather than with physical artifacts such a cellphones, ATMs, hearing aids, etc. If one is tasked with designing the billionth website or corporate logo on this planet, then yes, you've got to go into that state of ineffability to conjure up a visual design that has that ol' je ne sais quois: something unique, distinct, and fresh. Undoubtedly, the visual impactis an important consideration for a website, and to be able to come up with a unique website design in this vast web ocean requires an immense amount of creativity and original, unstructured thinking. Once you've come up with that fresh new angle that projects a unique identity, there's a lot of science to making a site successful. As far as physical artifacts are concerned, there are far fewer archetypes within a specific domain than the potential (visual) variety of websites; the visual is just one among many aspects, and thus visual aesthetics no longer occupy center stage (there are tactile and auditory issues too, among others). It's interesting that while this is a forum of interaction designers -- with the emphasis on 'interaction' -- that there is so much focus on the visual and spatial. Sure, finally most of what is designed will manifest itself in visual form (except for purely auditory design); but designing the INTERACTION PROCESS which is more critical than the visual presentation is nearly pure science. Jakob's Nielsen's site is pretty ho-hum looking, but from an interaction perspective, I think the man has it all down pretty well. Perhaps this reflects my bias -- I didn't get into this field from the world of art (despite a personal passion for art, and though I sport earrings, an artsy two-day stubble and love my latte; and yes, I do own a black beret, but it's in a box somewhere); my formal training is in engineering and the social/behavioral sciences. Everything constructed deliberately by human beings, is, by definition, art (everything else, is nature). Science does not -- and perhaps never can -- precisely determine how a design will manifest itself; but it sure does set a whole bunch of boundaries (and constraints) that delimit its scope. -murli -- murli nagasundaram, ph.d. | www.murli.com | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | +91 99 02 69 69 20 - The reason why death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity -- it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous possessive love that grabs at what it can. - Yann Martel, The Life of Pi. *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Design in Interaction Design?
Rich, I would respectfully disagree. The foremost talent needed in being an INTERACTION designer is the ability to understand, codify, structure and support INTERACTIONS between humans and interactive artifacts (and between humans THROUGH interactive artifacts). Plus the talent to design things, which involves creativity and problem solving skills. Plus insight. - murli On 12/20/07, Rich Rogan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think the foremost talent needed in being an Interaction Designer is the ability to Design, defining Design as the ability of creative problem solving in a spacial manner for users. -- murli nagasundaram, ph.d. | www.murli.com | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | +91 99 02 69 69 20 - The reason why death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity -- it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous possessive love that grabs at what it can. - Yann Martel, The Life of Pi. *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Design in Interaction Design?
Lucy, I'm glad you brought up the issue of psych. I actually arrived on Planet IxD via psych/computer science (after my basic training as a mechanical engineer). I have always thought of IxD as being driven first by psych/social psych/anthropology and only then by the visual arts. A year and a half ago I met a talented young psych undergrad who loved designing websites (to pay his way) but had never heard of IxD. I grabbed him by both shoulders, put him through a couple of courses, and now he is in a great grad school program pursuing an HCI degree. - murli On Thu, 20 Dec 2007 01:31:44, Lucy Buykx [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I too noticed the large number of graphics and arts backgrounds in the 'how did you get here thread'. But what struck me was how few (I think only one) who mentioned any psychology studies. When I started my degree I studied alongside working as a computer programmer. It seemed self evident there would be people working in the cross over between the disciplines. Humans interact with computers so we need to understand both in order to make the experience for both better. The single psych reference against 90% arts/graphic design confirms my experience that psychologists are not pushed (or pulled) towards this incredibly important field. Since most of the participants on this list I have to ask this question of the people you work with. How many of your colleagues have studied psychology? Is it considered important or are psych degrees to general to be of use? -- murli nagasundaram, ph.d. | www.murli.com | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | +91 99 02 69 69 20 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: BBC article
Jeff (Axup), thanks for continuing the discussion and opening up many new sub-threads -- I would like to address every one of those, but clearly can't. But let me continue the conversation anyway. Bear with me through the following points which seem unrelated to the issue initially. 1. The idea of 'developing' versus 'developed' nation is a Western, 20th century one. I don't quite care for politics, or ideologies, left, right, center, religious, political, sociological, etc. but this much seems clear to me; ALL nations deemed 'developing' or 'underdeveloped' were those that used to be European colonies -- more specifically, the colonies of six Western European nations: UK, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Netherlands. Before the 20th century, there was no such dichotomy. 2. 'Underdevelopment' or 'backwardness' was a consequence of these later-labeled 'underdeveloped' nations having been looted of their natural wealth by the Colonial Six (C6) and their fragile, carefully evolved over the centuries social order having been thoroughly destroyed. It is well established that without the wealth looted from the 'backward' nations, modern Western society (through the Industrial Revolution) would never have happened. I also acknowledge that the other factor was the development of modern Western science which was NOT looted from 'underdeveloped' nations. 3. Modern Western values, behaviors, etc. were then established as the 'Gold Standard' by which ALL societies would be judged and evaluated. 2. The terms 'developing' and 'underdeveloped' -- in my not-so-humble-opinion were coined as a way of skirting around any guilt and responsibility associated with the 'underdevelopment' of formerly non-underdeveloped nations. By using the term 'underdeveloped' one creates the impression in readers not acquainted or interested in history that such a situation always existed, and it was left to the Magnanimous and Advanced Person From the West to come develop your nation -- through the device of various innocuous sounding institutions such as the World Bank. BTW, numerous well-intentioned and decent Westerners bought into this (not knowing history) and have dedicated their lives to improving the lot of the less-privileged, without realizing that their efforts are probably being constantly undermined by Western institutions more interested in maintaining the status quo (of disparities) because it is these disparities that allow for the maintenance of the high standards of the West that everybody in the world is asked (implicitly, through media images) to aspire to -- but if they actually did, then such high standards would become unsustainable in every part of the world. Left to themselves, and without external exploitation, all societies will eventually develop and attain some quasi-steady state -- or at least a state of 'sustainable growth/development'. So what does all this have to do with the XO and technological interventions in 'developing'/'underdeveloped' nations, you might ask. First, one needs to change one's understanding of 'underdevelopment' -- where it came from, how it happened, and how it might be avoided in the future. Second, human society has been around for 2 million years or more, and has survived and thrived in the most difficult of circumstance. People of all cultures are resourceful. One must treat them with respect and work WITH them to develop solutions rather than come fresh off the boat, bearing trinkets, determined to solve their most pressing problems in a couple of months and walking away satisfied, without thinking through the consquences, particularly the issue of sustainability. Alternatively, when you introduce an intervention, don't go about proclaiming that it's earth-shattering and will alter society in profound ways forever and that there's nothing nearly so important as it around -- much more modesty is advised. I think the quality of modesty was lacking in the OLPC/XO project at least with regard to how it was promoted. On the other hand, perhaps all marketing demands a lack of modesty -- I quit sales after 5 years, early in my career, and never went back to that line of work. I've already said too much, I think! Regards, murli *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
Kim, to reinforce your point, I was sent a link to a simple flash-based game that I passed on to friends and family. It's a very simple, very crudely-designed game, but has turned out to be so addictive that it has led some to joke that it's threatening to tear apart families and destroy productivity at some corporations where it has been spreading around like wildfire. If nothing else, Jakob is reminding us to focus on the essence of the site/application rather than being carried away by the promise of shiny bells and whistles available in hot new tools. Incidentally, this discussion also reminds me of the distinction (in my view) between a couple of generations of iMacs. (For ease of reference, I'll use the following idiosyncratic generational nomenclature: 1. Jelly Bean 2. Desklamp 3. Monopod I 4 Monopod II (current generation) I refer here to Desklamp and Monopod I. Desklamp was a truly original design which couldn't have emerged from 'Usability Principles' alone. There was a great deal of novelty in its physical appearance and the elements of which it was constituted, which would have required a great deal of Productive (vs. Reproductive) Thinking. Monopod II, on the other hand, is a stark, minimalist design, more likely to have been created from Usability Principles alone. There was a zen-like stripping down of the design to its bare essentials. And what could be more bare and essential than a flat panel monitor with just one foot/leg. I actually felt very sad and disappointed to see Monopod I replacing Desklamp, but Monopod has grown on me, with time. Desklamp is a delight to look at, intriguing in its juxtaposition of fshapes, but Monopod works well without attracting any attention to itself beyond a 'Oh, that's nice, now let's get on with our work.' -m ps: oh btw, in case you've been a little too worried about your high productivity, here it is; you may have already received it from some friend or family member: http://n.ethz.ch/student/mkos/pinguin.swf On 12/18/07, Kim Bieler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have to view Nielsen's design-agnostic persona (and website) as a design statement in itself. I think his point is, people don't care about the wrapping as long as they're convinced they want the present inside. Or, put another way, content is king. And yes, I do think he's thumbing his nose at all those lipstick- wearing pigs out there. -- murli nagasundaram, ph.d. | www.murli.com | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | +91 99 02 69 69 20 - The reason why death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity -- it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous possessive love that grabs at what it can. - Yann Martel, The Life of Pi. *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
Correct me if I am wrong here, Joseph, but from your perspective the term Usability should be used only with regard to Testing and Evaluation. Am I right? (I'm not challenging your perspective, only trying to determine if there is a consensual or at least majority view here.) On 12/19/07, Joseph Selbie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have always thought this was the wrong way to view the difference between usability and design. It makes it seem as if they are part of the same process. My way of thinking about them -- which at least makes it clear for me -- is that usability testing *measures* the success of design. Once you get your measurement of success or failure, then you *design* a new solution -- two different processes. -- murli nagasundaram, ph.d. | www.murli.com | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | +91 99 02 69 69 20 - The reason why death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity -- it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous possessive love that grabs at what it can. - Yann Martel, The Life of Pi. *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: BBC article
I just realized that I had sent this message to Jeff alone rather than the group, so here it is again. (As an aside,it looks like the list options have been set so that 'reply' goes to the poster rather than the group. I don't know whether the listmaster intentionally chose this setting -- I can see how reply-to-poster can prevent the occasional embarrassing situation, but it's a bit of pain to consciously have to choose reply-to--all each time.) --- Jeff, nice site; also, now that I know you're a musician, I'm prepared to take back everything I said about music (since I merely appreciate music, but am not a musician)! At any rate ... since we're talking culture here ... almost everybody who speaks of 'modernization' treats the term synonymously with 'Westernization'. I read articles in magazines and newspapers and academic journals where the writer makes approving comments (without realizing how patronizing they sound) about how some society or organization looked 'modern' (always meaning 'Western'). Which becomes the One True Way. The Correct Political Systems, the Correct Social Values, the Correct Form of Attire, the Correct Food, the Correct Language, the Correct Forms of Entertainment, etc. and of course, the Correct Designs is equated to Whatever Is Being Done in The West Right Now. Things that the West no longer does are naturally, No Longer Correct. There is belief in a steady, monotonic improvement from last year to this year and on to the next. This the larger Weltanschauung within which the Designer from MIT operates. So her belief in the technology's worth for just about any social group out there is very strong. After all, everyday, every magazine, newspaper, journal, media source tells her than at least technology-wise, things are getting better and better. So whatever spouts forth from the center of her forehead, must be good. This is not unlike a strong religious belief and fervor. I know friends who are this way, and they are decent and smart people. Very informed too, but nevertheless. Consequently, it is often the Design Beneficiary's fault for not properly accepting and adopting the Gifted Design. Or so is the belief. And even where the Designer appreciates cultural differences, the hope is that One Day They Will Modernize ( i.e., Westernize). And then they can gain the full benefits of The Design. You're absolutely right that technology is implicit in all culture. Many technologists react with disbelief if they are told this. Again, that Weltanschauung thing. There is something called Adaptive Structuration Theory which explains how people Appropriate technologies according to their own culture and social structure regardless of how the technology was intended to be used. The designer sometimes (often?) views this outcome as a failure of her technology and intent. One strategy she uses to prevent such adaptive appropriation is to build in RESTRICTIONS in her design so that it can be used only in one (or a few) specific, anticipated ways. Where the user culture has no option, they might bend to the dictates of the technology, but in others, they may end up rejecting it. Regards, murli *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: BBC article
On 12/14/07, Jeff Seager [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I like diversity in theory and in practice, and I believe that cultural diversity is an advantage to all of us. I cannot agree with you more. At the same time, the religious fervor and evangelistic zeal with which ideas are marketed (even in secular contexts -- evangelistic behavior has become embedded in culture) as being the Best/Only solution to problems -- with free-market economics supporting/promoting evangelical behavior (because, you see, you Grow, or Die) makes the sustenance of cultural diversity very hard. The Abiline Paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox kicks in. (Very likely, it was this phenomenon which led to that disaster called the Iraq War, but I don't wish to stray into politics here.) Some of that advantage may be forever hidden from us until such time that diversity is no more. Perhaps this technology won't eliminate cultural diversity, but the possibility is something to consider. At worst I think the desire to disseminate such technology is a well-intentioned arrogance, and certainly not the first or the last in human history. Amen to that, Brother Jeff! Well-intentioned arrogance, indeed -- the key cause of many avoidable man-made calamities. -m murli nagasundaram, ph.d. | www.murli.com | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | +91 99 02 69 69 20 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: BBC article
Robert, I'm looking forward to your review of the OLPC. From what I have read, it has some really neat interface/interaction innovations. Then the peer networking, low power consumption, and so on. As regards the skepticism. I have spent 60% of my life in India and 40% in the US, and lived in both large cities and small towns (in both countries). I have been involved with startups and had the pleasure of interacting with some really smart people doing bleeding edge technology research. It was all very heady and exciting. Time and experience have mellowed me. Lots of very cool stuff never took off. Some of it was due to foolish business decisions, and some others due to plain lack of vision. But many of those cool technologies that I was dazzled by, seem rather silly, in retrospect. Techies more often than not, mean well, and a significant fraction will admit to a deep-seated need to make a positive impact on the world by helping the less-privileged. But that does not always translate into ideas and actions that 'succeed'. I have encountered too many instances of intended beneficiaries spurning or misusing the 'wonderful gifts' that Benevolent Wizards From Distant Lands have designed and built for them. My limited understanding of the OLPC project is that it was almost entirely designed and built under the aegis of MIT's Totally Cool Media Lab in near-perfect conditions and in an environment overloaded with Very Smart People. Hence my skepticism. Regards, murli *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: BBC article
On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 08:15:32, David Malouf [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The tool itself is great (arguably), but it doesn't necessarily fit the entire eco-system. Dave, this is exactly the sort of thing I worry about. be sure to include those you are designing for, and turn the design process into designing with. Precisely. And I understand this is difficult. It requires an enormous amount of patience on both sides, and especially, perhaps, on the part of the Bearer of Gifts [BoG]. Also, the willingness on the part of BoG to eliminate the one thing she believed was the coolest aspect of her Gift because the Giftee had no use for it. A lot of the time, a big part of BoG's ego is wrapped up in her design, because she came up with some really cool ideas that were incorporated in the design. And when these begin to be eliminated, her sense of ownership begins to ebb, and along with it, her desire to pursue the project. This is when she realizes that she was more interested in Designing And Building Cool Things than in Trying to Address Somebody's Problem. When the Cool Thing is not used the way she hoped it would, she feels a sense of betrayal. This sort of issue comes up not only in design, but in any kind of collaboration across cultures, such as when musicians from different cultural paradigms collaborate. Most the time -- in my experience and opinion -- their collaborative efforts never quite rise above a level of mediocre mish-mash. There is little that is of lasting value. I don't intend to start a flame war with this last extension of my thesis, BTW! At Motorola Enterprise Mobility we have made designing with the core premise behind our design process using field research and field validation processes of design research at many iterative steps in the total design process so that we engage those we are designing for, so instead we are designing with. That's great. Could you share some stories, some examples, Dave. It's good to hear war stories, about things that have worked and things that haven't. Thanks and regards, murli *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Define the User Centered Design process
This is good stuff. If we accept that any well-thought out process ought to be founded on a sound philosophy (or paradigm/model/theory/etc.), why can't UCD be BOTH a philosophy/paradigm as well as the label (rather than definition) for a VARIETY of different processes. Which might beg the question, is there such a thing as Non-User Centered Design? And while NUCD might not be a philosophy, we do know that many designs develop with little concern for the user, or alternatively, are Developer/Designer Centered. Therefore UCD is a justifiable label. I first encountered the term in the title of Norman and Draper's edited collection of papers, UCSD (a clever title, since Norman was on the faculty of UCSD at the time) two decades ago. I initially sneered at the title since I thought, 'What other kind of systems design could there ever be.' But the more I hung around geeks, the more I realized that being user-centered was the exception rather than the norm among them; at least, even when they believed they were being user-centered, they were, in fact, merely projecting their own personas on to arbitrary users employing 'cold logic'. So, in conclusion, for those who always look the world through user-centered lenses (and this is mostly a personality style issue, in my experience), the term is redundant. And perhaps most IxD practitioners and theoreticians are in fact UC. If so, then the term serves the purpose of at least signaling to the rest of the world of their intent. -- Murli Nagasundaram, Ph.D. http://www.murli.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Some form fun, to lighten the mood
So, can this thread be used to illustrate an example of what is NOT User Centered Design, a topic being discussed in another thread? Which brings up an interesting design issue. Is there any tool that allows discussion threads to flow like rivers, connecting at times, and then flowing off in different directions if the contact is only temporary? Yeah, I know this can be done manually and mentally, but is front end, or an applet that can be, say, embedded in Gmail as well as other mail clients, which allows you to drag two threads together and connect them visually, so that anyone who wishes can travel back up both tributaries if they wish? [Now, chances are, with such busy threads and such busy people, nobody really has the time or desire to go back up a thread, but there might be some context in which this sort of structural feature is useful.] -murli *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Verifying a user is human
Here's one called Asirra that Microsoft is working on: http://research.microsoft.com/asirra/ Blurb: * Asirra is a human interactive proof that asks users to identify photos of cats and dogs. It's powered by over three million photos from our unique partnership with Petfinder.com http://www.petfinder.com/. Protect your web site with Asirra — free! Cheers, murli | www.murli.com * *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] The Rise and Fall of Friendster
Interesting story. I noted a couple of telling passages (from a design/prototype/deployment perspective): I did what you're always told to do as a young entrepreneur, Abrams says. I brought on experienced investors to help Friendster fulfill its potential. But the all-star team was the curse of death. The growth presented immediate engineering headaches. ... By late 2003, load times regularly clocked in at over a minute and users were beginning to complain in blogs and forums. ... The problem might have been solved if someone had reworked the software to ignore distant connections--for example, by calculating only connections between friends. But Friendster's engineers were so preoccupied with day-to-day slowdowns that they neglected to step back and ask what was causing them. This time, he plans to favor quick and dirty engineering solutions over the elegant but not necessarily practical ideas that were imposed by Friendster's management. The most critical issues appear to have involved paying attention to the social context of the technical solution plus the need to rapidly prototype and test, learning and modifying the design as you go, rather than waste an undue amount of time building grand initial plans divorced from reality. -mn. On 11/26/07, Mike Scarpiello [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is a little long, but a really great analysis of the first social networking site - http://tinyurl.com/2k86l9 -- Murli Nagasundaram, Ph.D. http://www.murli.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] +91 99 02 69 69 20 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Kindle
Another take on Kindle. This reviewer likes it, and discusses why. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasicarticleId=9048498pageNumber=1 Opinion: Why Amazon's Kindle is revolutionary Surprising facts about Amazon's new Kindle e-book reader Mike Elgan mn *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Visions on Keyboards with OLED-screen buttons (context-dependent keyboard layout)
Sundry online gizmo forums (e.g., Gizmodo and Engadget) tend to go gaga over the Optimus. While it looks pretty and sure has a following among fans of shiny objects, it unfortunately is very unfriendly towards muscle/kinesthetic memory. Note how the QWERTY keyboard has prevailed despite its layout being 'sub-optimal'. Doug Engelbart's 5-key chorded keyboard never caught on even (or, especially) among the early UI mavens at PARC and elsewhere. For the same reason. Engelbart claimed that the device helped experts. Likewise, the Optimus is probably not for 'the rest of us.' -murli | www.murli.com On 11/22/07, Nicolai Bentsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi IxDA! Came across a gallery of the Optimus Maximus Keyboard http://www.engadget.com/photos/hands-on-with-optimus-maximus-at-last/ Imagine this as a standard on all new laptops and keyboards from an interaction perspective: *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Does eye-tracking carry any real meaning?
Good points. But this follows the old saw that to the guy with a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail. All that the eye-tracking tells you is that the user's eyes spend a lot of time looking at specific parts of the screen/page. No more, no less. Eye tracking provides useful inputs once one has already developed a couple of alternative design prototypes. It can help one make design choices some way along the design proces, but eye-tracking alone cannot drive design. Indeed, I don't know of any one technique which by itself can or should drive design. Despite having a strong techie background myself, I let my intuitions guide me in coming up with rough cuts which then can be measured against various guidelines, paradigms or methods. I believe that guidelines are useful aids/heuristics for those who already have an eye and a feel for design, and who therefore know when to respect or reject received wisdom; but no amount of guidelines can turn a random person into a designer. -murli nagasundaram www.murli.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
