Interaction Designer focused on mobile, web and service design from a cognitive science and business strategy perspective.

May 22, 2013#

Thoughts Related to Lex Friedman’s Experiment with a Lumia 920

Lex Friedman’s experiment with the Windows Phone reminds me of the some pain points with the OSs experience — and how it hasn’t gotten any better.

(Before plowing through this post, I highly recommend listening to this podcast covering the highlights of a four-part series in which Lex Friedman switches off his iPhone 5 in favor for a Windows Phone. Yes, I know that was from 2 months ago. I’m catching up here).

There are many reasons to love and hate the Windows Phone and iOS experiences. I didn’t make a formal announcement about this, but I switched back to Windows Phone about 3 months ago after switching back to the iOS from a pervious stint with a Lumia 800. This schizophrenic swapping of phones is symbolic of my love-hate relationship with the two phone operating systems. As Lex points out in his detailed, month-long experiment, there is a lot to like (especially initially) about the WP and the Lumia 920. Here is Lex describing his experience during the first week:

Despite its perhaps lackluster adoption in the marketplace, the Windows Phone OS itself is certainly no joke, and the Lumia 920 is a great device. Far from being a chore, my time with this phone is actually fun.

Both of us knew that the ecosystem was ill-supported (it, in fact, still is), but we both accepted that as a flaw of most things that are in their beginnings. Windows Phone 8 is only just now a mature enough to be in the ranks of iOS and Android 4.2+. The pervious Windows Phone version on the Lumia 800, while a dramatic departure from any mobile offering from the firm, failed to deliver in ways that the Lumia 920 makes up for. It’s like the dramatic change from the original iPhone to the iPhone 3G — the difference was night and day even though the experience seems the same on the surface.

Despite the ecosystem flaws, the Windows Phone OS has some joyous, almost genius moments, which I have described in length in this post matching up iOS and WP OS feature by feature. We both seem to agree that the iOS start screen experience is plussed by the WP live tiles view. Lex goes further to say (at least in the first week), that the tiles “add a degree of intelligence to the OSs home screen.” Seeing the content float to the surface makes it easy to “get in and get out” (as the earlier Windows Phone commercials touted as a feature). Lex doesn’t spend much time with the threaded messaging feature, but I feel this is one of the key reasons I keep coming back to the OS. It is effortless and intuitive to switch from a Facebook conversation to text message, and seeing the content from both streams feels more informative than the sectioned-off experience that iOS provides.

Lex fell out of his honeymoon phase quickly, and in the rest of his journey found the OS more annoying than enjoyable. Plagues included lack of notification controls, awful battery life, TellMe’s inferiority to Siri, and feeling the lack of app support. I completely agree with all of his points, and most of them are mostly related to poor hardware design or feature support. The message is that the ideas behind Windows Phone are solid, but the execution is poor. There are so many ideas that feel correct, but in practice they miss the mark enough to be a hinderance. For example, Lex points out that the keyboard doesn’t “trust itself:”

Still, the Windows Phone keyboard frustrates me, because it has the potential to be much better than iOS’s keyboard, yet squanders much of it. One big problem is that Windows Phone doesn’t trust itself enough: As you type, if it’s certain that your typo-laden word is meant to be something else, Windows Phone will autocorrect the word when you hit space. But it’s too often not comfortable enough making the correction on its own; instead, you must tap on the correct word above the keyboard. Trust yourself, Windows Phone! Of course by “vimputer” I meant “computer,” buddy! Don’t second guess.

I have scratched my head at this feature for a while, and my only conclusion is that the implementation is an attempt to be a design for everyone. I know this isn’t entirely the case — I have met some of the Windows Phone designers and they have persona driven work which should inform these decisions. But, if you were a fledgling OS competing with a widely respected platform, the gut instinct would likely be to target as much of the competition as well. It’s a always tough to make trade offs, but I feel that the Windows Phone’s “no compromise” attitude may have left some holes like the one above to be exposed.

Lex concludes his saga by suggesting a Frakenphone, but this would likely just create more complexity than desirability. I’ve heard Lex on In Beta and appreciate his desire to be really in-control about his phone experiences — the suggestions he makes would likely work well for his life style. But, Lex is a power user of sorts, given his extensive history with technology. A phone with multiple home screen tiles would likely become an even more cluttered mess of panels for people who wouldn’t spend the time cleaning up the window dressings. The seemingly primitive notification system on Windows Phone works for people who may not want to be bombarded with notifications and prefer the live tile experiences in place of notification center. Again, these are trade offs which I appreciate from both OSs.

Nevertheless, Lex’s opinion piece(s) bring to light many shortcomings of the OS and ecosystem in general. I definitely feel the pinch that Lex had after my second affair with the Windows Phone, and will probably switch back to the iPhone as well. I’ll be more reluctant since there hasn’t been a change to iOS just yet, but the small annoyances are (once again) catching up with me.

May 20, 2013#

The Big Purple Monster

Yahoo has been a busy beast, acquiring several companies and shoring up its mobile and social game. Here’s what we can take away so far.

In case you haven’t noticed, Yahoo has made a lot of moves since Marissa Mayer has taken the helm. This handy Wikipedia page lists every Yahoo! M&A since inception, where I have derived this list that includes those M&A’s that have occurred since her start date (June 16th, 2012) (click to enlarge, or visit the link):

Some observations:

It looks like they are playing catch up in the social space: Stamped, Snip.it, Loki and Tumblr are all platforms that benefit from a strong, social user base. Over the years, Yahoo has evolved from it’s portal-like nature and has attempted to generate content that people would share from the site itself. Yahoo’s major content generators, Sports, Games, Flickr, and News stand to gain significant traction when coupled with the social platforms the company has required.
Mobile is the big play: All of these platforms have shined and scaled thanks to mobile usage. Stamped, for example, is a mobile social network that let’s people recommend things by snapping a photo of them and giving a rating on that item. This app could easily be integrated with Flickr photo shares and plugged into Tumblr. Which leads me to…
It’s time to build the ecosystem: These acquisitions are made to make it easier to make, share, and propagate content within a larger Yahoo ecosystem. Every acquisition feels like another puzzle piece being added to a greater picture: Stamped, Snip.it, Flickr and other Yahoo content is where the chain starts, Tumblr is the link to share this content, including Summly aggregation and propagation powering the backend. It’s a pretty solid picture on paper, but it will be up to the company to really make the transition and integration seamless.
Valuations of these companies are based on the future Yahoo stands to gain: Tumblr didn’t really have a clear revenue model beyond advertising, and it was struggling really to find a solid traction to match its massive scale. Yahoo has a solid advertising network and now has a vehicle to send ads through, but that’s the happy path. It will take a significant amount of further investment to make these services feel integrated as the months go by.

So far, Yahoo has done a pretty good job with cleaning up in house products and showing off their new flair. Their standard mobile offerings, including Weather and Flickr, have been given a great face lift and people have enjoyed the results so far. Yahoo still has a bit more to do before the big “rebranding” and hero updates to Mail and Games left. The M&As above likely serve that purpose, particularly as attractors to the new Yahoo. It’s great that the company already has a decent track record and that the Internet is quite ~~forgiving~~ forgetful.

May 5, 2013#

After an intense, exciting two years, I have completed my Master’s in HCI/d from Indiana University. The last month or so on this blog has been a bit stale, but I am looking forward to getting back to writing my thoughts down.

As always, I am sharing links and thoughts on Twitter as well.

May 5, 2013#

Beyond Activity and Engagement as Metrics for Use

Many companies use statistics to rationalize their need for existence, but these stats are disconnected from the true determinator of success: enjoyability by the users of their service.

Software companies typically rely on number of users as one measurement of health, but some companies pass over the fact that a proportion of these users are inactive. To compound this issue, there is no standard definition of activity — it is defined by the company who wishes to provide this information (and some companies don’t even do that much). In late 2012, Twitter ‘tweeted’ that it had more than 200 million active users on the service. In August 2012, Mint.com announced 10 million registered users. In early 2012, Airbnb was found to have 2.1 million registered users, but 85% were apparently declared inactive. All of these reports lack any standard or yardstick as to what their claims imply, so it is difficult to exactly know what true usage means. On the whole, the total number of users doesn’t seem to be a great stat in terms of how successful a company is really doing, which is why many people often point to ‘harder’ stats, like revenues per user.

But I’d like to actually draw your attention to those inactive people — the people that so many people chop off or dismiss from such metrics. Let’s suppose we defined a true, blue active Twitter user as someone all the users who meet any of the following:

Has created an account within the past two weeks.
Has posted a tweet to the account within the past week.
Follows at least 10 people and is followed by 1 person.

It is likely that the number of users engaged with Twitter is closer to 30-50 million; therefore, the number of inactive users is conservatively 100 million. These 100 million accounts (owned by supposed “customers“) are just sitting there, taking up some space on server racks, waiting to be accessed by their owners. Are we to presume that Twitter is a healthy service with this much waste?

A wastefully created account is one that neither engages with the service and is not adding to the enjoyment of others who are engaged with the service. It’s an account that just sits there in a void of inactivity, only contributing to the user count metric. If we take this definition as a lens, then perhaps inactive accounts aren’t wasteful after all. Consider a person’s financials on Mint.com. This person may have only used Mint for a day or two before reverting back to traditional financial management (online or otherwise). Even though he or she isn’t using the features Mint can provide, the data he or she has kept on the service is to the benefit of others, since it is used towards metrics like “average spending for your area” or “trends for people who eat out a lot.” These metrics can be thought of as a common pool resource of information, where more people benefit from the metric’s robustness when more data is present. But, there is also a diminishing return to the number of accounts on a service. It could be that the data provided by users could go “stale,” or rendered obsolete due to the changing of times, economy, or other spending behavior. Mint (and other companies) may have algorithms to curb these issues, but data complexity may outpace these algorithms.

My speculations only lead to a demand for more critical metrics for usage and consumption on software services. While scale is a useful metric for startups to make the pitch to VCs as a metric of their product’s viability, there should be greater scrutiny to the quality of these accounts. In other words, thinking of success in terms of shipment, usage, or activity seems highly disconnected compared to the actual goals of the software: making life better for the users themselves.

March 22, 2013#

IBM

After a six month-ish job search, a lot of traveling and meeting some great people, I have formally accepted an offer to join IBM design after completing my MS degree.

IBM is undergoing a massive transformation, but in a way that goes back to its roots. The company has always been one focused on business/enterprise solutions, but they have had some great design perspective come through the doors. Most designers know about the Eames’ impact on the company, but it was Elliot Noyes who kickstarted the golden age of corporate design through the company (In fact, he recruited the Eames to join IBM). Noyes hired architects to construct some of IBM’s buildings, but also shaped the corporate image that IBM embodies today. The narrative fades away in the 70s and 80s as machine power and scaling were primary drivers of information for computing technology. What we know as “user centered design” didn’t really kick off until the tail end of this period. While IBM continued to innovate, they did so relatively quietly compared to most consumer-facing companies, like Apple or Google. Now, the lull is over and the firm is making a serious commitment to hire talent from all levels to help shape the next “100 years.”

It’s an exciting proposition for me as the job promises an intersection of a lot of my interests: rigorous rationale to shape design products, defining design process at scale, and creating/shaping ideas at a massive scale that can create impact. I got a chance to meet so many cool people while thinking about where to start a career. Startups had a strong pull given the fast-paced, scrappy lifestyle. On the other hand, corporations often had long-term, sustained design challenges. Design at IBM seems to sit between these two extremes — they are hiring many designers to help support their massive product portfolio in a startup-like fashion. While I may be assigned to work on a particular product offering, the scale and diversity of IBM’s systems allow for multiple learning opportunities with many teams and types of projects.

I couldn’t be more excited — but for now it’s time to finish up my thesis with gusto!

February 22, 2013#

Why We Still Buy Into Retail

MG Siegler draws a connection between the rumored Google stores and Microsoft’s fledgling operations based off of Apple’s playbook:

Naturally, this led others to take a page from Apple’s playbook. Notably, Microsoft. And while the experiment is ongoing, so far, those stores do not appear to be taking off in the same way. So when you hear the news that Google is considering opening their own retail stores as well, you might, well, scoff. But I think that would be a mistake. I think Google could be poised to nail retail as well.

It makes sense for a company that makes a hardware play to enter the retail store business. You can control the entire product experience by having a brick and mortar store to boot. Apple stores are like tourist attractions in many places, and their brand has become synonymous with style and luxury as a result. Microsoft, as MG notes, is taking a copycat approach, but at least they realize the importance of showcasing their products in the way they want to, rather than relying on Best Buy.

It’s the little things that make the Apple store retail model one to copy. You walk into a store and are (usually) greeted by a blue shirt to get your buying experience going. It’s usually 10-15 seconds before the first touch point. If you skip the greeters, you can drift back to the genius bar area and check in. You don’t have to stand in line thanks to a check-in system (where they note what you are wearing so they find you later). This leaves your wallet time to fly out of your pants and buy that extra lightning cable or take a look at the latest iPod. Once you get service, the company goes to great strides to make sure they have exhausted all options in order to get you to walk away happy. Some people don’t realize this: the company will bend over backwards and do things in order to make sure you tell others about them. A little over warranty? Ask (nicely) and you’ll get that new phone anyway. Want some data migrated? Normally you’d be charged for this service, but Apple does it for free. It’s like crack that is supposed to keep you coming back.

It takes a long time to built a strong promotion ecosystem, one in which the customers themselves are the lifeblood. Making a play for retail is great to showcase products, but it is the experience around them that makes the stores the most successful. Today, Best Buy is more of an Amazon showroom, especially thanks to recent advancements in the Amazon mobile app, which has a fantastic price-checking experience using a smartphone camera. As such, traditional retailers are borrowing from the Apple playbook to drive people into the stores, so that they can keep revenues in tact and provide a physical presence to the product’s typically sold online.

I like the idea of a coffee shop in a retail store, and in general it is a reason why malls are still a popular destination. At a shopping mall, you get to experience brands that you care about alongside food and people in the area. Shopping is a primary consideration, but a secondary purpose to a mall is entertainment. Starbucks understands the inverse: people come to Starbucks mainly to hang out as a “third-place.” Selling coffee is the added reason people come. Genius bar customers are in a similar bucket: they are coming to get a repair job, but they also get to shop while they wait. The picture painted here is that people are amazingly fickle. We go out and shop for things we want, and those wants change like the wind. What doesn’t change is the need for human connectivity, entertainment, and activity. The best retailers know this and bring those needs to the forefront.

February 22, 2013#

Reinvent Payphones Submission

Recently I worked with a team of grad design students (in the HCI/d master’s program at IU) to produce a concept video and interactive prototype for New York City’s “Reinvent Payphones” project. You can check out our video submission to see the design we produced if you are interested.

We set aside about 3 weeks to complete this greenfield concepting exercise, where we were mainly tested on our ability to constrain a problem space with fuzzy project requirements. The team of judges made it clear during a Q&A discussion that the space was wide open, and they encouraged teams to explore any and all types of concepts around five main requirements: connectivity, creativity, visual design, functionality, and community impact. We felt that the payphone is something that is utilized for many types of situations, so we first moved to design for a particular case: the everyday phone call. The phone call where you are wanting to meet up with someone, or just have a few minutes to catch up. Payphones are not only a way to connect with others, but they are a symbol of New York City. We wanted to accentuate both aspects of the payphone by creating an immersive sound and light experience for people.

The finalists of the contest will be announced next week, but we enjoyed producing a design regardless of the outcome. It’s always good to brush up on design skills and produce work for real world projects, especially when they are as wide open as this one.

February 12, 2013#

The Living Room, Brought to you by Microsoft

While gaming devices are important, it’s clear that entertainment media, and how we view it, is due for a drastic makeover. The fact is that TV interaction is terrible, cable is a rip off and on demand media is all the rage. The evolution of how we consume media is happening as slow as homo erectus to modern man. The technology to realize a new media experience has finally caught up, but corporations are still grasping the truth that traditional subscription models will be history in the coming years. On the one hand, you have AMC and HBO pumping out fantastic content but binding themselves to larger cable contracts, which is a safe, constant cash flow for the two firms. On the other hand, you have Netflix and Hulu betting on exclusive online content. The jury is out as to who is winning, but cutting the cord isn’t just a trend anymore either.

A recent Kotaku article (from Stephen Totilo and Luke Plunkett) outlines the specifications and features of the next Xbox, which doesn’t really make the system sound like one to play games on:

The next-generation Xbox—the one that will follow the still-popular Xbox 360—will run multiple games at once, require game installations, and will only work when a much-improved version of the popular but divisive Kinect sensor array is plugged in, according to a source who says he has access to development hardware.

Kotaku is an Engadget property mainly focused on gaming, so the above description of the device is catered to those interested in the Xbox as a gaming console. But what if we take the paragraph and modify it a little bit (bolded words changed are mine):

The next-generation Xbox—the one that will follow the still-popular Xbox 360—will run multiple channels at once, require channel installations…

Imagine this: a set-top box that is part of a Microsoft ecology of devices whose purpose is to augment your living room experience by connecting you to all types of content — not just games, but networks and on-demand media. The next Xbox (“Durango”) can run multiple live channels at the same time, and allow recording of that content, so you never miss a beat of the media you wish to watch. Kinect is the primary input that people will be familiar with — it acts like Siri and is the hub of personal assistance for your living room.

Microsoft is in the best position to become a leading distributor of media as they continue to unify their ecosystem. Xbox serves as the primary set-top box to manage content, Kinect is the primary input for people, Windows 8 architecture extends media functionality to allow for games and other apps to interface with the Xbox, and all of these products are connected through a growing cloud services competency. Contrast this with Apple’s “hobbyist” attitude and Google’s continued floundering in the space. Of course we don’t know what the future holds for the other two companies, but the path is clear for Microsoft — the key differentiator for the company is to rule the living room.

February 2, 2013#

IXDA Postscript

Interaction is the premier conference for design practitioners to come together as a community to discuss the latest topics in UX/IX design. I attended this year’s IXDA conference in Toronto, CA as a local leader, volunteer, and student in design.

The interaction design community has grown closer over the years thanks to the IXDA and Interaction’s conferences. Ten years ago, the IXDA was founded out of a listserv, with the loose idea of allowing people to have a forum to discuss the up-and-coming field of interaction design. The first conferences began in 2005 and have boomed in attendance since. While IXDA has grown to an immense group of 30,000+ members, the Interaction’s 800ish attendees made it seem like the world had picked up and moved to the snowy lands of Canada for a week.

IXDA ’13, before conference attendees arrived for the day’s processions.

Conference topics covered the most talked about themes of interaction design, including big data, social design, service design, and looking beyond mobile devices. In particular, each keynote covered contrasting spaces in the field. Albert Shum‘s talk, Windows Phone GM, preached on the importance of connections and human values in design, which he delivered with passion and fire to a packed audience at the MTCC in Toronto.

Albert Shum talking about how the Internet of Things relates to our increasing connectedness to technology.

Jer Thorp advised attendees to remember human centeredness when considering data visualization design. Every talk seemed to have more of a synthesizing nature — not going too low level into topics but instead bringing together the latest trends in design.

Jer Thorp talks about how the data we need to solve the world’s toughest problems is right under our noses.

My favorite part of the conference was meeting all of the local leaders throughout the conference. I’ve never met a group of people so inspired to make a difference. The local leaders are responsible for chapters around the world, organizing events, managing membership counts, and providing a forum for active conversation and participation in their areas.

Local leaders brainstorming events that chapters can hold.

Each area has it’s own unique challenges. As the Bloomington local leader, I learned many techniques to raise money in the town to drive event activity participation. I also got some great ideas for future events, including a book club discussion and fishbowl conversations. If you aren’t already an IXDA Bloomington member, join us!

I want to thanks all of the conference organizers, especially Sue, Sarah, Carol, Joi, Mark, Ciara, and everyone else on this page. This was a fantastically organized and produced conference, and it wouldn’t have been possible without everyone involved. I sincerely hope I can make next year’s Interaction conference in Amsterdam (!).

January 18, 2013#

A Tale of Two Rebrands

Two organizations made a major change to their brand identity recently, and both have been greeted with an extremely negative response. The first organization, the University of California, had such a massive outcry from its constituents that the school’s president recommended the change be retracted (see this excellent 99% Invisible podcast on the change). Recently, American Airlines announced the “New American” branding, but the change has been seen as anything but American. Dustin Curtis:

After forty-six years, one of the finest corporate brands in history has been reduced to patriotic lipstick.

I find both outcries a bit harsh, but expected human reactions. Many people who were against the UC logo went as far as to contact the lead designer and express their disgust, even though the logo was more of an add-on rather than a replacement (again, listen to the podcast). The American Airlines rebrand removes Helvetica, which is a polarizing move at best. This Smashing Magazine article paints the dissonance well:

I sincerely believe that people (even designers) who say Helvetica is legible are simply confused. It’s pervasive, certainly. We see it everywhere — that’s why we think we can read Helvetica — but it is not nearly as legible as, say, Frutiger or Syntax, for the reasons I have stated above. Syntax is not merely a legible typeface: Syntax is beautiful, it’s sublime, it sings. Well, you argue, Helvetica is neutral. Yes, Helvetica is neutral, but it also symbolizes blandness and conformity and… well, sorry Swiss people, boredom.

The mind is really great at recognizing and appreciating patterns. Helvetica appears in so many contexts that it becomes vanilla — acceptable for many situations, loved by some, and ignored by others. It’s a staple of our visual diet. As such, making a drastic change results in a need to adjust, so you can imagine there being some pushback.

Introducing a new brand identity will still not be the ultimate crowd pleaser for the same reasons, but the slow roll-out may lead to broader acceptance in the long term. Perhaps the UC folks, with a better framed proposal, could have avoided the backlash from those who thought the seal would be replaced (they only wanted to replace the logo). Perhaps American should not have mentioned that the new fleet would display their logo, and that the rebrand would be tested on the web first. These relatively subtler moves could allow people’s minds to readjust to appreciating the rebrands, perhaps leading to less negativity towards the creators and the firms.

On the other hand, a rebrand represents a commitment to a new attitude for the company. For American, language of “fresh” and “modern” litter the introduction page. Clearly the team and company shared the idea that the fleet was looking a bit stale. Naysayers will speak out, but some research probably lead them to the final concept. This is a case where transparently documenting a design’s creation may help sway dissenters, but brand identity is a tough venue to communicate process. We can appreciate design decisions in software or hardware because there are many interactions to explore. A brand identity is judged (unfortunately) like a book cover: either it’s appealing or it is left on the shelf.

Design is about picking a context and a target user base, and both groups should embrace this idea moving forward. Those who think American’s redesign is a failure, like Dustin, may not be the target for American. A modern look implies a need to focus on the future — younger people. In the case of UC, the context of the logo’s use would need to be well defined early and explained clearly. A good design succeeds because it fulfills the needs of the people that it is made for.