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Interaction Design is Design of Time
and Other Observations
March 18, 2008
The inception of IxDA ColoradoIt's official: Laurie Lamar of Industrial Wisdom and I have started IxDA Colorado, the local chapter of Interaction Designers Association. As of today we are nineteen people strong. We are planning our first face-to-face meeting for April 10th. It would be interesting to meet the others in the field.
The excitement is mounting.
April 14, 2008 - Language metaphor for UE disciplines
This metaphor came up at our last IxDA Colorado meetup (which was quite lively, by the way).
"IA handles nouns, IxD — verbs, Visual Design — adjectives."
This is course division, of course.
Will Evans has extended the metaphor further:
"Content Strategists are nouns,
IAs is the grammar,
IxD is the verbs,
Visual is the adjectives,
Experience Architects are the poets....I know there is a Haiku in here somewhere"
April 3, 2006: Interaction design is design of time
Interaction design is concerned primarily with time design (as opposed with design of space - a realm of graphic design).
The goal of interaction design is to remove time fluff: excessive clicks, scrolling, browsing, unnecessary screens - time-wasting information/interaction (of course the important question here is who decides which information is important (in a good process the importance is filtered from future users)).
Since time flow is subjective experience, the designer goal is to make it seamless unless disruptions are required due to overriding safety concerns.
Another important condition: the processes should be optimized to fit human nature (for instance it should support learning via exploration of system boundaries, for another instance it should support hero role playing), not to "ease of use" - a misnomer for usability if there was one.
Conversation related to this post from IxD list.
"Time isn't the main thing. It's the only thing"
Miles DavisApril 6, 2006: Interaction design is design of time (refined concept, last update: May 1, 2006)
After some discussion on IxD list here is refined definition of interaction design.
We live in time. The goal of interaction design is design of time in user defined meaningful way. User gives time meaning based on perceived length of the time interval. The scale for time perception (see below) provides practical outline of meaning of different time periods.
Interaction designer needs to be able to uncover and to incorporate those time interval meanings, which users do not consciously articulate (this is what contextual interviews as well as education in philosophy and human sciences (physiology, linguistics, cognitive psychology, anthropology, sociology...) are for). The time fluff, which is defined by user as meaningless, should be removed. Time flow disruptions due to safety concerns are not meaningless.
The level of control of user time varies from one design to another. To paraphrase: users can be offered few or many interaction choices by design. Here are several examples of tight and loose control of user time (tight vs. loose): architecture (tunnel vs. office), music (classic vs. jazz), writing (sonnet vs. essay), UI design (wizard vs. primary app window), visual presentation (movie vs. photo), directory (automated phone system vs. yellow pages book). Notice that even though these examples share the principle of time design, not all of them are related to space design.
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I believe that this definition addresses intentionally slow design, Myst game experience, social nature of humans as well as safety concerns.April 4, 2006: Scale of time perception
To design time one needs to be aware of time perception properties.
All times are approximate within one order of magnitude.
Recent updates are in green color. Last update May 4, 2006.
Time Interval Perception Example of interval perception Possible underlying mechanism Comment 0.1 sec perception of causation; selection of single option in simple decision making (Hick's law) "Is this button sticky or what?" eye saccade, low level neuron pattern activation this interval is important for nonchoppy animation 1 sec perception of interval of taking turns in conversation; homing part of the movement in Fitt's law "Well, I clicked. How come nothing happens?", "Who designed these tiny buttons, raccoons?" for movement - formation of specific prediction patterns in somatosensory section of cortex 10 sec time interval before attention begins to drift from a single task "I like the colors. And the point is?" low level pattern activation in neocortex this particular interval is especially important for movie editing All of the above is important for design of perceived system response time (see GUI Bloopers by Jeff Johnson).
Attention span is important for interaction design of single interface.
Recognition is somewhere in the above time scale.1 min 3 clicks web design principle, formation of simple mental model, recall "This is wrong website!" 10-30 min formation of flow experience "I think I see where you going", "Where was I?" predictive pattern preactivation in higher layers of neocortex with formation of new pattern connections 1 h duration of branstorming session "We are going in circles" articulation of existing strong patterns from different people/backgrounds An example of social interaction design. Design for this time period if you are interested in new ideas from a group. 4-8 hours duration of flow experience "What time is it?", "Eureka!" predictive pattern preactivation in higher layers of neocortex with formation of new pattern connections Formation of new patterns. Consider this time period if you are interested in new ideas from a single individual. 1 day short memory storage, formation of long term memory "Who was that chap who wrote about design of time yesterday?" interaction of hippocampus and neocortex 1 week learning simple skill "Gmail? What is it?" Hebbian learning? 1 year learning complex skill "Unix command interface? No problem..." formation of significantly new patterns and propagation of stable patterns into lower levels of neocortex, Hebbian learning? 10 years formation of personal values; new technology develops into commodity "Who am I?" - a midlife crisis question; "Google it" persistent neocortex patterns, development of persistent behavioral patterns Lifetime (100 years) individual memory "Who was that bully in the high school?" persistent neocortex patterns Thousands of years societal, cultural memory "Does this design contribute to global warming?", "Who is this God person anyway?", "How come cannibal tools are obsolete?" storytelling, language Interaction design ethics change over this time period, see also Sustainable Interaction Design. Millions of years DNA memory "Whom will I sleep with tonight?" - perennial question of selfish gene "lizard" brain Design aesthetics? Conversation related to this post from IxD list.
Indeed, interaction design is design of perceived time. "Perceived" qualifier is superfluous if you happen to be an experientialist (good book on experientialism and on prototype theory of classification is "Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things" by Lakoff).
Notice that attention is drawn to time intervals listed above only when the time intervals are violated. Hence design of attention is related but narrower category than design of time.
April 5, 2006 - Why is it important? Practical implications
I like this story I have heard on NPR some time ago: "There are three stages of scientific discovery - 1. people deny it is true, 2. deny it is important 3. credit it to wrong person".
Stage 2. Why is it important?
It creates mindset focused on time.
Unified framework for interaction design. A stumble to ponder "Why is this warning written in green instead of red?" could be quantitatively compared to two clicks and scroll to use drop down menu, to system responsiveness.
For once system responsiveness could be incorporated as one of the more prominent properties of interaction design (among other time consuming properties). Jeff Johnson lamented lack of this attention in GUI Bloopers.
Time based approach to interaction design suggests criteria for quantitative evaluation of various interaction designs, both heuristics and usability testing - the holy grail of academia. For that the time perception table below would have to be expanded and validated (potential degree generating project). Of course in business environment Krug's "Don't make me think" approach, reduce clutter in mental and physical load will remain preferred, cost efficient method.
April 6, 2006 - Why AI and UI Design are in fact branches of Interaction Design
Challis offered this view of interaction design.
The classification illustrated by the diagram is misleading. Both UI and IA should be viewed as branches of interaction design.
Why UI design is interaction design? Take a look at any illustration of eye tracking of UI. They unfold in time. Hence guided time perception is indelible from UI design. Users spend time looking and discovering familiar patterns and use them as anchors for further interactions. This time should be designed.
Why IA is interaction design? It is primary goal is reducing time of finding meaningful information.
In this classification user experience is associated with interaction design, even though it is indeed wider category (a lot of experience is not designed).
April 10, 2006 - Why UI Design is in fact a branch of Interaction Design
Here only some of UI Design principles concerned with time:
- Chunking, Arranging content in grids, Alignment - reduce time of information scanning
- Fitt's law and Recognition over recall - directly time related
- Hick's law and related Signal-to-Noise ratio, Form follows function, Ockham's razor and Framing (or Priming), Choice of color and language based on Cognitive Dissonance principle - all save time by focusing on "user defined" meaningful info
- Storytelling and consistency - save time remembering things and predicting events
Even somewhat tricky Attractiveness Bias or "Halo" Effect principle can be reduced to (gene encoded) filter for information credibility, and therefore helps to find meaningful info quicker.
Hence UI design is design of time, is interaction design (unless one chooses to ignore all of the above principles in which case resulting design should not include UI attribute in my opinion).
Good example of time based interaction design approach specifically related to UI Design is described in "Designing from Both Sides of the Screen" by Isaaks and Walendoewski. To choose layout of screen elements the authors use matrix of frequency of use vs. commonality of use. Both frequency and commonality are time-of-use criteria.
The authors also offer somewhat rough but practical measure of time in UI Design: mouse click. For instance selecting item from a menu is 3 clicks (open, scroll, select). I would add 1 more "click" to remember which menu to open.
July 24, 2006 - Psychology, interaction design and a crack
Jack Bellise took exception to my 'Power User' motivation argument from Do keyboard shortcuts always facilitate work? message. In fact I have cracked him up:
Oleh, you crack me up.
Let me see if I've got this right. You perceive, in the matter of software keyboard support, issues of class struggle and id/ego conflict? I thought I was creative... but this is profoundly imaginative. (You don't have your father wrapped in duct tape and locked in a closet, do you?)
And all this time I thought it was simply that productivity-minded people seek to constantly add to their keyboard repertoire because its precision is unconditional, and it therefore yields several benefits, speed among them.
Here is my response:
Well, I think, if you don’t crack up at least one person, then the message is not worth writing, don’t you agree? Thanks in turn for your thought provoking message - those are to be treasured.
You make two curious points.
First you argue that productivity-minded people would find speed desirable and beneficial:
"...productivity-minded people seek to constantly [learn X - OK] because ... it ... yields ... speed."
It is true indeed that speed of task performance often leads to higher productivity for that particular task. However, the point I was trying to make in my message is that Productivity is multilayered concept, it has different meanings depending on user goals (speed of particular task performance could be only one of those goals, but not necessarily the primary goal), or to rephrase it: "Not all people are productivity-minded". I believe that design should take into account considerations of nonproductively-minded people.
You second point is on the scope of applicability of UCD/GDD, namely at which cut-off point you stop thinking about user goals and begin to "just do it!":
"You perceive, in the matter of software keyboard support, issues of [motivation due to creativity and proficiency, AKA self-actualization and self-esteem - this is what I wrote in my original message - OK]. And all this time I thought it was simply that productivity-minded people seek to constantly add to their keyboard repertoire because its precision is unconditional [their motivation is reliability and usability - OK] "
This second point is more interesting to argue because it is only once removed from the "just code it" approach, the all-too familiar attitude in the current software development environment.
To me UCD/GDD is more than simply a collection of useful usability guidelines. There are many examples where consistent application of guidelines, without knowledge of their origins has been counterproductive in unanticipated context. This is why I begin to design with a concept, and attempt to take into account user motivations. Once I have the concept of user interaction, maintaining user centered approach becomes quite effortless even in the small matters of shortcut implementation.
Do I agonize over id/ego/superego conflict when I think about which hot key to use in my design? Not really. Might I consider user motivations to learn and his cognitive limitations, when I think about adding the effort-demanding interaction to the design I make? You bet.
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Actually I have misunderstood Jack. So I had to write another reply to clarify my position. Here is that second response:
Jack,
I would like to admit the crucial mistake in my previous reply to you: I have misunderstood you - you were not arguing with my description of motivation for the "Slackers", you were referring to the "Power Users".
In my original message I have mentioned that self-esteem could be the motivation behind memorizing the keyboard shortcuts for 'Power Users'. I wrote:
"Decision to design for shortcuts should take into account user background. For instance, mastery of shortcuts can be used to build self-esteem. As one learns shortcuts, he might claim membership in the exclusive group of the 'Power Users' (instant three-prong boost to self-esteem via authority, scarcity and social proof). 'Engineers' (personality type) love shortcuts. Accountants, Writers, power plant Operators (occupations) satisfice, and would rather spend time doing accounting, writing, power plant operating - the tasks, which extend far beyond the tool, instead of attempting to memorize shortcuts within the tool."
You, on the other hand, argue that keyboard mastery is goal good enough to justify life-long study; no further motivations to learn should be implied, thank you very much... Well, if that were true, why not give people any gadget at all and they will happily spend the rest of their very short lives exploring it, because it is right there, in front of them to master. Why would we need to design for interaction at all?
I certainly disagree with this position. I strongly believe that people, including 'Power Users' do have other reasons to learn the stuff they do aside from the sheer challenge of complexity of the task at hand. Achieving high social status in their niche is very much one of those reasons, if only to bring more little 'Power Users' in this world.
So the real question I would like to ask you is this: In your opinion what makes people productivity-minded?
By the way, my references are Maslow's pyramid of needs, Cialdini's psychology of influence and Dawkins et al evolutionary psychology. Could you provide me with yours so I will not spend the rest of my life studying the unnecessary complexity of human psychology?
June 25, 2006 - On joy of exploration (tying two threads together)
Jack Bellis on Windows 3.x interface (thread "Semantics of the Elements of UX"):
"But I still want the dual-pane [Windows 3.x] File Manager back. After giving up on PowerDesk, I was surprised to find my power-user coworkers using Servant Salamander, a dual-pane tool."
Eugene Chen on example of static "star-tree" navigation (thread "information navigation can be fun")
"This is really terrific: http://www.di.fm/edmguide/edmguide.html. Trying to figure out why..." [see below].
The music guide interface, Eugene likes, is essentially File Manager on steroids (it presents a few more ways to group leaf objects).
Both interfaces support user exploration, hence both are efficient tools for creation and support of mental models of explored systems, hence they are attractive to users (they empower user, reduce confusion, save user's time to build that mental model).
Incidentally breadcrumbs are attractive for the same reason (weaker exploration tool of course).
The rest of Eugene's post:
Trying to figure out why...
- I think one thing is that so much space is given to navigating the space and comparatively little is given to the leaf topics (just the box in the lower right and the music itself).
- Responsiveness! zero latency = no reason to stop
- It's always fun to check out an old subject in a new way.
- You can multitask by listening to one item, while planning your next selection.
- Some kind of interesting multi-channel juxtaposition going on. Like listening to information or jukebox as wikipedia
- There is a particular aesthetic - this design makes drinking from a firehouse seem fun. (this woudn't always be true and the exact opposite approach could be cool too, but they really pulled it off)
- Getting lost is ok if you always end up somewhere interesting.Usually I'm not so bullish on applying info vis techniques to designs, because although they are fascinating, they often come off as convoluted and unapproachable. But it seems like some of this could be applied to other domains. For instance, when shopping for books, or wikipedia articles, navigation is usually just a step on the way to item or article page. Why couldn't it be more like spreading out a bunch of objects on a table and seeing how they relate?
May. 2, 2006 - The Infinite Mind online - time perception
The Infinite Mind is radio program with focus on human mind, psychology, cognition etc. There are several archives on the web. One of them is here. The Infinite Mind covered time perception in several of it's progams: Time, Hypomania, Writer's Block, Body Clocks.
April 24, 2006 - Sustainable design
Interesting post on Sustainable Design.
The sustainable design is one of the latest developments in the steady shift from "father knows best", "absolute truth" views to "cooperative knowledge", humanist mentality and ethics. In Western civilization the shift started about 500 years ago with advent of Renaissance.
Lakoff in 'Don't Think of an Elephant' illustrates this shift of views with the example of current US politics where neocons (visibly represented by "Bush, Inc.") embody the latest push-back of "restrictive father" family values and therefore disregard such issues as sustainable living. It's a good book where Lakoff also offers several approaches to reframing our collective conscience in terms responsible living.
Other Observations
January 17, 2006 - Marketing and blinking decisions
First marketing quote from Harvard Business School article:
"People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!" - Harvard Business School marketing professor Theodore Levitt
The above statement is the essence of goal-oriented design. In this case Marketing overlaps with User Experience. The common difference between the two is that Marketing deals with buyers and therefore emphasizes immediate visceral perception of the product, while User Experience is about users and is concerned with long term effect of the product on the customer.
Another article is from Nature, Web users judge sites in the blink of an eye essentially reiterates conclusions of Blink by Gladwell this time for websites. Visceral, reflexive choices (Norman) made via ventromedial prefrontal cortex (Gladwell) due to repeated exposure to 10-20 favorite sites such as Google. In fact the title of the article hints at that book.
Google factor:
"These days, enlightened web users want to see a "puritan" approach"
"People enjoy being right, so continuing to use a website that gave a good first impression helps to 'prove' to themselves that they made a good initial decision."The last quote describes common "Aesthetic-Usability" effect. Mimicry via pure graphic design also might create it. Keeping and deepening this effect with subsequent usage is what frequently overlooked by Marketing, of concern to Usability and where blink judgement could fail.
May. 8, 2006 - What is the best way to explain Interaction Design to Marketing?
To paraphrase Drucker: from a business point of view Interaction Design has the same objectives as Marketing - it makes Selling superfluous.
January 1, 2006 - Reflective and Reflexive thinking
The usual way people process new experience is to reflect on the nature of the experience once they have time to reflect. After the experience repeats several times people adopt a set of specific responses to the irritant – newness wears off and routine, reflexive thinking (also known as intuition) takes over. This path is obvious whenever one learn new subject, be it learning new gadget, language, acquiring professional judgment (snap or “blink” evaluations covered in the recent “Blink” book) or dancing tango.
This natural reflective to reflexive path is disrupted when one watches TV. The visual feed is incessant so that there is no time for reflective analysis of what is presented. On the other hand, reflexive thinking (applying existing sets of responses to presented information) is very close to being saturated, the new stimulus is always there to bring fresh reflexive response – that’s why it is rarely boring to watch MTV while you watch MTV (unless you happen to drift away for a second of reflective thinking and suddenly realize that it is indeed tremendous waste of time).
The truly important consequence of this reflexive mode of watching TV is that the reflection (reflective thinking) is outsourced to TV program producer. She makes the decision which reflexive stereotypes will be used in the program. Recall that we acquire reflexive stereotypes due to constant repetition of the experience. In this case we get the repetition of preset responses selected not due to our reflective thinking but selected by someone else.
Let’s say you watch news feed from location on TV. Once the footage ends announcer will give you immediate facial response offering appropriate judgment on the subject. Without reflective thinking viewers ape the facial expression of commentator and get a healthy dose of freshly minted indoctrination (notice that words are actually not all that important in this case). Since there is no time to reflect on what has been said (very often there is little to reflect upon anyway) it is very easy to see how TV medium is a perfect vehicle for spreading and reinforcing reflexive bullshit.
On somewhat different level if your news coverage is dedicated to gang shootings and disasters of any kind, well, then number one - the entertaining reflexive responses are very easy to induce and number two – subdued commercials point the way to safe and pleasant shopping heaven. Isn’t it what TV is all about anyway?
Another popular vehicle for exciting reflexive thinking is video games.
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Inspired by “Things that make us smart” by Donald Norman, “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell and “Understanding Media” by Marshall McLuhan.January 26, 2006 - The designer part of the story
David Heller asked:
I am just wondering if any of you have ever been accused of suffering from perfectionism when you're designing and working on projects. Somebody just told me that many usability folks suffer from perfectionism and it's their biggest downfall.
I bet that Somebody comes from the business side. Perhaps trickled via techs but still originating in business. This is where I have heard it from and here is why.
As an interaction designer you have to consider and reconcile vast variety of inputs: sociology, behavior, cognition, linguistics, technology, art - you cannot help but to make your decisions ponderous simply because you happen to be aware of all these influences, which is hardly an asset if you are an entrepreneur constantly fighting for that perception footprint in the market, where often even below "good enough" is perfect.
Or as P. J. Plauger (Computer Language) put it:
My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what's really going on to be scared.
Of course this comment was especially relevant for yesterday's technology market, not for rapidly expanding technology as commodity reality. That's why there is an increase in demand for Interaction Designers and even though there always will be some Negotiations and Love Songs between business and design (as well as technology) sides, design begins to hold stronger suite.
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Note that in my experience usability means many different things in different companies, from strictly specialized usability testing, to anything user related including design and even some marketing.February 2, 2006 - Pursuing advanced degree in academia or going to business
I have met more original thinkers with Bachelor or Master degrees than those with PhD. The reason is simple: the biggest virtue of research scientist is methodical patience.
There are two kinds of people who would be happy pursuing scientific careers: exceptionally bright and those who are able day after day reproduce the same observations to prove the point. Geniuses are generally hard to come by in any field (when you do the experience might be devastating to your ego). There are also other personality types but they do not fit very well, have to adjust against the grain.
In science most of the time is spent reproducing results to prove an occasional inspiration. Thus scientist digs deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole to prove single point. If the point is good enough there could be entire new world on the other end of the tunnel. Or perhaps in one of the side shoots. More often than not all you get is really deep hole with scientist in it. Scientists with advanced degrees are often indispensable specialists in exceedingly small field.
In business inspirations compete with each other in different businesses. One does not have to reproduce observations to prove their validity, if idea is wrong itsimply dies, like any other meme, with its originator often left unemployed (in ideal world - right away, in the real one - possibly and eventually). One has to constantly move, innovate, and reinvent himself to stay afloat. People skills are essential (that's why bullshit is rampant).
All of the above is grossly oversimplified generalized view of course.
And so the choice is between personality types (not so much money, by the way, in the long run). If you are happy with methodic paced lifestyle and excited about the field enough to be motivated to dig the same tunnel for years, go for PhD. If constant change is more to your taste get educated well enough to understand the ropes and get the rest from solving problems while you work.
As far as material compensation is concerned, on average and in the life-long run it is about the same. It is much more important and much easier, more enjoyable to make money if you play to your strengths.
Academia does have one trump card though - the campus life with all those Bachelored youngsters filled with inspiring ideas swarming around.
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I have PhD in Molecular Biology. I know one tango musician with degree in Molecular Biology, but I doubt there are many IxD practitioners with the same.January 2, 2006 - What's in the word or taxonomy of mind
Motivation: Reflective + [Behavioral + Visceral] (Donald Norman)
Structure: Superego + [Ego + id] (Sigmund Freud)
Conscious vs. Subconscious (Sigmund Freud)
Reaction: I like Reflective vs. Reflexive thinking since it is immediately obvious (to me) what lies behind these two labels.And while I am on the subject, three hierarchies of needs (satisfying lower level enables higher needs):
Maslow's motivation needs: Physiological - Safety - Love - Self-esteem - Self-Actualization
Product feature values: Functionality - Reliability - Usability - Proficiency - Creativity
McCloud's 6 steps of learning: Surface – Craft – Structure – Idiom – (Form – Idea/Purpose)September 20, 2005 - Philosophy of bullshit
Bullhorn Bullshit, how is it that James Wolcott always manages to find just the right words?
I went to the library today and lo and behold they had "On Bullshit" by Harry G. Frankfurt on display. Coincidence? The closing sentence in that book is that sincerity by itself is bullshit. Indeed when the ideal of correctness (adherence to facts) is replaced by ideal of sincerity (adherence to opinions) this rattling conclusion is inevitable. As I was listening to the book (I recommend reading it - the voice over is atrocious here) I couldn't help thinking of Derik Rawson of Tango-L.
Bullshit is of course a philosophy of Helpers (Kingdomality) - those folks live in alternative universe where there are no laws of reality but only those of opinions (often sincere). One does not have to be right as long as he is sincere.
Can you argue with bullshit mongers (normally I call them buffoons)? Not really. They do live in an alternative universe after all. Besides they might sincerely agree with you today and as sincerely agree with opposing opinion tomorrow.
Bullshit is malady of any large corporation (beaurocracy - try to spell this word without dictionary). When you are ten times removed from meaningful customer feedback (or from reality) bullshitting becomes millions times easier to perform. Hence popularity of Dilbert maxims on management.
As applied to software industry: if you are shielded from results of coding shitty product (for instance investors pay your salary, not customers) bullshit design decisions become reasonable mode of action.
How do you fix the bullshit? In a word: accountability (reality check). For software usability is effective bullshit meter.
If we take closer look at Kingdomality we'll see that Benevolent Ruler, Dreamer-Writer and Helper Knight adopt bullshitting as a way of life. Is it terrible? Not at all. Someone needs to rally the troops. Where would we be without poets? But most important of all, this Universe would be utterly lost without "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" - now that would be terrible loss. On the other hand bullshitter can also make very profitable living as a think tank contributor or a theocon.
In the opposite corner we find reality upholders: Engineer, Merchant and Challenger Knight.
On margins of bullshitters are Gray Cardinal and Shepherd (Doctor). Gray Cardinal lies for personal profit more often than bullshits. Shepherd (Doctor) lies more often than bullshit for benevolent cause (to sooth). Since this later is benevolent is it harmless? I don't think so. Soothing a gangrena is not, for example.
Another interesting anti-bullshit author is James W. Loewen - both The lies my teacher told me and Rethinking Our Past: Recognizing Facts Fictions, and Lies in American History.
May 6, 2006 - BSI was doing breakfast pancakes and listening to luminous segment on Bullshit from To the Best of Our Knowledge archives; an interview with Harry Frankfurt, the author of 'On Bullshit'. Such a refreshing perspective on current state of the media, and some human relationships. Plain cool.
Closing comments from the program:
How would our culture change without BS in it?
It would be a lot quiter... Hm. I don't know how it would be different, appart from the fact that a lot of people would find it difficult to say anything.
January 16, 2006 - Ah, the times, the mores, or more on bullshit
From NY Times:
...our culture's enshrinement of subjectivity - "moi" as a modus operandi for processing the world. Cable news is now peopled with commentators who serve up opinion and interpretation instead of news, just as the Internet is awash in bloggers who trade in gossip and speculation instead of fact. For many of these people, it's not about being accurate or fair. It's about being entertaining, snarky or provocative - something that's decidedly easier and less time-consuming to do than old fashioned investigative reporting or hard-nosed research.
Needless to say very often and then software design decisions are based on the same "time-saving" opinion approach. What is the cause? What are the consequences?
January 24, 2006 - Observing society at work
Entrepreneur is someone who inspires smarter people to work for him. Hence an entrepreneur is a person with extended, outsourced mind. Hence much smarter than any single smartest person working for him (there are exceptions).
Small discussion at IxD list on value of blogging. "Is it valuable for job search?" etc.
I blog to capture thoughts in words. It would be too much work to do it for money.
March 19, 2006 - It's the web...
Robert Hoekman wrote:
It's the web. No one has ever been killed by a badly-designed web site. Injuries are rare.
A bridge does not have the option of failing. The web does. A web app can be evolved, overhauled, redesigned, and refactored 1000 times in a year.
First on consequences: If ecommerce website were to fail me by $20 I might not be killed, but their business would suffer by more than $20. If Alta Vista were to consistently fail me by a more arcane option instead of what I am looking for, their business would suffer (as indeed it did). To illustrate this further recite this sentence to a web business owner as you deliver malfunctioning web site to him:
"It's the web. No one has ever been killed by a badly-designed web site. Injuries are rare."
On causes: The ease of changes to web _application_ is a myth, which does not take into account the holistic nature of system development - as you change something here, you need to keep in mind as well as retest eleven things over there, because safety as well as usability are emergent properties of system design. In my experience changes in web application are not easy at all.
I have just finished reading "Safeware" by Nancy Leveson, it gives nice overview of these topics. Funny too.
"And they looked upon the software, and saw that it was good. But they just had to add this one other feature..." G.F.McCormick - Epigraph from Safeware.
February 1, 2008 - Anti-social networking
Good article by Adam Greenfield on why social networking websites are dumb. To wit, the sites are not nuanced enough to reflect the complexity - change over the time, polarity, distance and, most importantly, inexplicitness, of the relationships.
Not quite related, except that it is about relationships is 'Why nerds are unpopular' - the nerds have autotelic personalities in a vacuous environment, where the only definition of social success is popularity.
March 6, 2006 - On the lowest common denominator
"Neurath believed in a socialism that relied on information access and the democraticization of data and that the lowest common denominator of understanding was a requisite." - As long as there is medium supporting the process and so it is not imposed from above (as in the USSR for example). Internet, especially wikis seem to support that promise.
A few more thoughts on the notion of the lowest common denominator.
In general the lowest common denominator is newborn baby.
That's why respecting user intelligence, asking them about their background (building personas) and challenging that real intelligence ever so subtly is so important. For instance due to asking we know that the lowest common denominator for comprehension of scatter plots is person with intelligence developed to the level of 12 year old schoolchildren. Hence we can safely use them for adults.
As a side note, communists failed to appreciate this approach (asking different people what they want (and understanding the answers) since the notion of personas wasn't popular at the time) and drew heavily on pre-existing Christian notions and standards of human behavior. As a result about seven million Ukrainian "kulaks" were starved to death by Stalin in 1933 (hence no love lost toward communists on my part). It wasn't personal error, by the way as communists kept saying, it was systemic misunderstanding of human nature on communists part reflected in their manifesto resulting from general lack of knowledge of sociology and psychology in 19th century when the manifesto was written. Otherwise Marx's analysis of capitalism was brilliant.
I do not like the quality of Wurman's work all that much but this quote from his interview was worth reading the interview: "Lou Kahn says that you only say something new to one person. If it is more than one person, then you are giving a performance". Actually what you do in that case is you attempt to talk to perceived lowest denominator of the group of people. The more people in the audience the lower is perceived nominal intelligence (more on that in "Crowds and Power" by Elias Canetti). And that is precisely where the general internet promise lies - one can talk to his own level and find appreciative audience (of course similar promises were held and somewhat fulfilled by media before internet: roads, books, newspapers, coffee shops, radio etc.). The above talk to your own level notion is of course unrelated to design for web where one needs to design for specific if abstract personas, who are not the lowest common denominator.
November 30, 2005 - How Argentine Tango relates to Interaction Design
The dearth of recent posts is due to lack of fresh insights worth writing about. I guess I have approached my usual three year saturation period. The only attribute I could add to “tango is intimacy without responsibility” definition is that the intimacy is inspired and facilitated by music since musicality is essential to getting in synch with each other.
Another reason for not writing to the blog is that I am spending more time thinking about interaction design. Tango did help me to figure out some of my personality traits aside from purely physical. Those are creativity, analysis and to some extent empathy. As well as weaker sides – dislike of pure maintenance. All of the stronger traits are important to become a good tango dancer and I think I will certainly keep tangoing as a hobby. Especially since tango is very therapeutic (for those of us who "live the lives of quiet desperation") - trip to Buenos Aires has been especially eye opening in this sense. All of the stronger traits are employed to even larger extent in interaction design. Hence the switch of focus. Possibly with another, "Interaction Design" blog.
Random
Two books:
"Surely you must be joking, Mr. Feynman!" by Richard P. Feynman - occasioanlly annoyingly coy. It was curious to see the transition from "what is [annoyingly] clever" to "what is needed" in his motivation since I went through the same at some point. The same transition has happened and is mentioned in Alan Cooper's book on interactive design "The inmates are running the asylum". Since the inmates are still mostly young interactive design has to be separate discipline.Another analogy found in "Surely you must be joking, Mr. Feynman!" and "The inmates are running the asylum". Both guys use concrete examples to quickly assess viability of assumptions. Cooper builds fictional yet well defined personas to see in his mind if specific software feature is helpful to users, Feinman uses examples provided by theory creators.
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