Blog of Much Holding

Let’s go back in time a bit – back in time to those carefree days of yore, when companies like Microsoft or Adobe piled new feature after new feature into each consecutive release of their flagship products… When each new release promoted a new shopping list of goodies to entice eager buyers to upgrade.

Remember all that? Because those days are long gone. Dead, and buried. The new rules of engagement? Not more features, but better features. Improvements, enhancements, and usability. The design of the software is now the selling point.

And I couldn’t be happier. Why is obvious, but I’ll state it directly anyway: Now the programs are designed for users, and not by engineers or project managers trying to one-up the competition. Now, the software is appropriate, appealing and most importantly USEFUL.

Two examples, both from the Big 800-lb Gorilla of software, Microsoft. Recently, Microsoft released the beta of their Microsoft Office 2010 suite, and the design enhancements are plentiful and incredible. They have designed a new File “menu” that groups like functions in a way that brings a gasp to users who are accustomed to the old awkward UI that was presented when they tried to print or export documents – it even provides context-driven options that are based on the specific Office program you are using, integrated and consistent across programs.

The second example? Microsoft’s recently announce Windows Mobile 7 operating system (renamed “Windows Phone 7”). The new UI is a dramatic departure from the standard phone interface, in that the UI is driven by data and not applications – contextual options display about your calendar mail and contacts, instead of having applications be the center of the interaction model. it’s unique, it’s user-centered and, frankly… it’s bold. It’s the type of innovative design work one would expect from a company like Apple – not Microsoft. It’s impressive.

So, when even the king of “featuritis” Microsoft starts to focus on experience design… well, the tide has turned.

It’s a great time to be a software designer, and an even better time to be a user experience designer – because, finally, the companies who make software “get it” – it’s about the how, not just about the what. It’s about making engaging appealing experiences for user – not just shipping lots of bullet-point functionality.

Is this an ongoing trend? Absolutely. I see more and more companies embracing a user-centered design model, especially in those areas where software is becoming a “commodity play” – which is, well, almost everywhere. I see good times – and great human-computer interactions – ahead.

If you are a tech geek, you were probably glued to your computer screens and clicking refresh every 30 seconds Wednesday afternoon, as Steve Jobs and Apple unveiled their new tablet, called the iPad. I know I was, and am very impressed with the features and industrial design of the device. But commentators on the Internet seems split right down the middle about it.

Shortly after the announcement, the criticisms started flying all around the Internet: “I don’t need it.” “It sounds like a feminine hygiene product.” ”It’s just a big iPod Touch.” “Where’s the camera?” And so on. I don’t disagree with many of these comments – especially the ones around the product name – but I think they are mostly trivialities. The iPad is a game changer, for many reasons, and one that I think will be very very successful.

Why? Because it is going to be a device that people will use instead of a full-fledged computer, just as netbooks have supplanted full laptops and desktops. Netbooks are limited devices, just as they stated in the keynote announcing the iPad. Is the iPad better than a notebook? No. It’s different, and services many of the same needs that netbooks do, only better – which is why I think it will be successful.

The best description I heard of the iPad came from Chief TWIT Leo Laporte, immediately after the announcement. The iPad is not as powerful as a full computer, it doesn’t do multitasking, but that’s fine. It’s an appliance, a utilitarian device that gets “out of the way” and lets people DO THINGS. That’s been Apple’s modus operandi for years, and this device appears to do that quite elegantly.

Another observation from the announcement: Steve Jobs said very directly at the end that they could not have released this two years ago, basically because the interaction model and UI would have been too high a learning curve for consumers. The iPhone and iPod Touch, as it shares the same model as the iPad, has reduced that learning curve tremendously.

This, I think, is one of the brilliant things about what Apple does. They can do some revolutionary things with their products – just look at some of their patent applications – but they know that if they put something out that is too “out there” then users will be confused and this “resistance to the new” prevents them from purchasing the device. Again, another reason I’m bullish on the iPad.

So, what does this mean when it comes to us Interaction design folks? It means a great opportunity to do things differently. Looking at the keynote and reviewing the updated SDK, it appears the interaction models and controls they have defined for the iPad are very consistent and quite “learnable” – I particularly like the way they have designed the standard “portrait” mode and differentiated if from “landscape”, hiding contextual navigation and other controls in portrait and displaying them in landscape (The e-mail client is a good example of this).

More than that though, the iPad presents us with both design opportunities and challenges. We have to adapt to the new interaction models that the iPad allows. The thing that the iPad reminds me most of is, ironically, a Microsoft product. Microsoft Surface featured some very interesting technology and design ideas that allowed you to “play” with information on a tabletop. Now, we have similar tech in a portable magazine-sized device, and the same possibility, which was much more limited when it comes to Surface, is available to all.

I know that I am already working on how I can design things in this medium, and if you want to “future proof” yourself, I’d recommend you start looking into doing the same. Knowing how to design apps on the iPad will, in my opinion, become a very desirable skill in the years to come.

In recent years one of the big concerns that some civil liberty groups have expressed about the US government has been around a program called Total Information Awareness. This system was intended to be a massive database of personal information about, well, us – a huge collection of content that can be filtered and sorted by CTU… err, I mean Homeland Security, to help fight terrorism.

I won’t debate the pros or cons about that idea (but, as a libertarian, you can probably guess my opinion) but instead I bring this up to note that similar concerns have been expressed about another huge data system that has an incredible amount of personal information about Americans… Google.

No, I’m not one of those “OMG Google is spying on us” types, I just think we are about to enter a new era very soon where Total Information Awareness is not something that we will need to be afraid of – it will be something that all of us are going to have access to, anywhere we are.

Two examples: First, there are the augmented reality apps that are being developed by many different companies allows you to use your mobile device’s camera and GPS to “see” additional details about your surroundings. The best example of this I have seen is in the Yelp app, which gives you contextual information about restaurants, shops, and more in this manner.

Second is Google Goggles, another piece of “beta” software that is kind of “augmented reality on steroids.” It allows you to access similar contextual knowledge, only n this case it is not limited to restaurant, entertainment or shop reviews – you can take a picture of a neighborhood and Google will give you information about where you are, all from that really big database they are managing of, well, EVERYTHING. They won’t do facial recognition, out of privacy concerns… but who’s to say someone else won’t push that technology out there, to get a jump on Google in this new metadata-filled space?

When you can install Google Goggles on Android phones and Yelp on that and other devices, for free, I think you are seeing a new and challenging area that we as users and designers need to be very very cautious about. The potential for information overload is greater than ever when you can access such contextual information anytime, anywhere… not to mention the potential for abuse (especially if the facial recognition stuff is eventually made public).

The world is changing, and as I said before, the future has arrived – it’s just not the one we were expecting. Let’s remember (quoting that great scientist Jeff Goldblum) that just because technology allows us to do something doesn’t mean we should.

Simplicity matters.

I can’t even count the number of times I have tried to do something in a software program and the process of attempting the task at hand was either needlessly complicated or hard to find or both. I almost used the word “confronted” in that last sentence, because that’s what it felt like – conflict. The program was not working with me, it was fighting me – using controls and ideas that an engineer had conceived, one that was alien to me as a use.

I do not want to fight software – I want to USE software.

As a user experience designer, I hope (and pray) to never inflict the type of contrived and ill-informed program on my users – that’s why I do my “due diligence” and research users, test my designs, and make the best solution I can for my company’s customers in the (always limited) time I have to deliver such a solution. And, in those times I find limited – which is more often than not – I follow two basic principles.

Wabi and Sabi.

What, you may think, is that? Well, they are two concepts of simplicity as defined in Zen (details here). I approach these concepts as a designer, not with any pretension or formal focus, but as guiding principles. I make the design simple and try and make it effortless for the user to take and use. My designs will never be perfect – nothing is.

I always focus on the saying I heard many years ago that “perfect is the enemy of good,” and so always try and I make the design appropriate and approachable more than anything else, using the language of the user and not some contrived technical terms or making the screen oppressive and, therefore, intimidating.

It isn’t easy, and I’m still working on it, but I definitely recommend that you take the concepts of Zen to heart whenever you approach a design problem. The simple path is sometimes far better than the complex one.

One of the many things I am paying close attention to is the demographic group called “Tweens.” These are young people, aged 11 to 14, who grew up in a world where Internet access and mobile devices are ever-present. These aren’t the future users, in many instances they are already users of the solutions that professional user experience designers like myself create.

So how do you support these users, both now and when they are buyers of technology (not just consumers)? What interaction models will they be comfortable with? To answer these questions, I recommend you start playing with, and looking at, the UI designs found in game systems.

No, this is not because all kids these days play video games (though a majority have or do) – it is because quite often the menu design and control mechanisms found in said game platforms are incredibly innovative and well done. 

All the major systems – the Wii, the XBox 360 and the Playstation 3 –  have a well-designed and throughout menu structure, allowing for contextual options to be presented in the appropriate places. While none of them are perfect, it is obvious that a lot of thought was applied to to the information architecture.

Additionally, all feature some degree of 3-dimensional menuing which allows for the content provider to expand the options available to the users both “horizontally” and “vertically” – which in turn allows for an extensible experience that can evolve over time. The design was forward-thinking, understanding that new options (like social media plug-ins) can and will appear. This extensibility should be appreciated and, where applicable, emulated.

Finally, the controllers used to browse these designs provide limited input, the limits of the hardware has encouraged additional focus on ergonomics and simplicity – two keys to affective design.

So, is it crazy to play games to do design research? Nope – the next great design idea you may have may have its origins in a good game of Call of Duty.

Everything is designed.

That basic insight is something I realized many years ago – and, while the idea that someone, somewhere, created the designs of everything around you, wherever you are maybe is an obvious fact, embracing that idea should excite anyone who does experience design.

Think about it. Your desk, your pen, that chair you sit on. At some point someone sat in front of a blank sheet of paper or an empty computer screen and made an idea EXIST. Made it real.

Which means that if someone designed all that, you can design stuff like that too.

Excited yet?

So, if your a UX designer, or an aspiring designer, why does this matter? It matters because we have case studies on good and bad design all around us. As was famously written in the seminal book Don Norman The Design of Everyday Things, we can learn from this.

I have read interviews with many very award-winning authors where they have basically stated that if you want to become a good writer you need to be a good and/or voracious reader. Beyond just writing (and doing it every day), writers need input – different voices
they can appreciate and use to hone thier own work.

Like writing, UX Design is equal parts skill and art. Expose yourself to the experiences all around you – architecture, industrial design, marketing, packaging, what-have-you. Interact with different devices beyond your current mobile device or computer. Increase your input.

Finally, don’t be a design snob – no matter what you think about a particular company, don’t let that stop you from trying out thier products and exposing yourself to thier designs (most obvious example: Apple fanboys, play with Windows 7… There’s some interesting stuff in there).