Powzot http://www.powzot.com A blog about anything my little heart desires posterous.com Fri, 22 Jul 2011 11:16:10 -0700 The wireframe is not dead, dying or even ill http://www.powzot.com/the-wireframe-is-not-dead-dying-or-even-ill http://www.powzot.com/the-wireframe-is-not-dead-dying-or-even-ill This morning I came across an article posted on Twitter titled, "Wireframes are dead, long live rapid prototyping"  My response was "This claim is idiotic." Here's why:

"I don't think that word means what you think it means..."

To the author's credit, he's talking about wireframes the artifact. His claim is that creating another set of documents between designer's sketches and a prototype to take to testing is cumbersome and not well suited for the growing demand of Agile UX design process. There are multiple problems with this claim:

  • Wireframes (the artifact) are generally the best way to show managers and other non-technical stake holders what is actually going to be happening quickly and cheaply. They're also a great reference for "how does this work again?" style questions for designers and developers building a piece of software. Do you really want to have to pull up a prototype and navigate through it to see what it is you need to know? This is like saying, "you don't need the book, you can just watch the movie."
  • Functional prototypes take longer to make. Applications like Axure and Balsamiq still generate wireframes, they just let you also string them together in a semi-interactive way. This isn't new, exciting methodology, we've been doing this with powerpoint  and wireframes for years. Going to this kind of functional prototype from polished wireframes documents is a trival task as far as resource allocation goes.
  • Designer's sketches are not often sufficient as an artifact to communicate the designer's intent. That's why we have comps and wireframes, not because they're just really fun to make or to justify our existence. It's the best way to get what's in our head into the heads of other people.
These problems aside, the bigger problem with this claim that "Wireframes are dead!" is that many don't distinguish between wireframes the artifact and wireframing as a sketching/ideating method. In a blog titled "UX for the masses" I would expect the author to be clearer about which thing he's actually talking about. I know there is confusion here because I've seen and participated in the discussion on Twitter about it this morning. "You don't need wireframes anymore, you can just sketch and then build a prototype" That's true you can. But that doesn't mean there isn't any wireframing, it just means there isn't a formal wireframe document.

Wireframes are to UIs as storyboards are the feature films, they're the road map. They tell you roughly how things are going to play out and what's supposed to be happening. Just like storyboards they're quick and cheap to make, that's why they exist. To go to the kind of "functional prototypes" that Axure or Balsamiq or the like are providing isn't saving any time or killing wireframes, the work is still being done, the method is still being used. It doesn't matter if you print them out and put them in a binder or not.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1085768/avatarMarch2011.png http://posterous.com/users/5BhsgMayplzX Tony Santos tsmuse Tony Santos Thu, 30 Jun 2011 06:33:00 -0700 What is the "new social" really? http://www.powzot.com/what-is-the-new-social-really http://www.powzot.com/what-is-the-new-social-really

I've been thinking about this a lot in the last six months or so, and the hubbub over Google+ in the last few days has brought this back to the front of my mind. My question about "the new social" (a term I've heard people use more than I'd thought possible) stem from a situation like this, I'm sure you've been here if you're not a crazy facebooker/twitterer:***

  • Friend A brings up some new, never before mentioned information about herself in conversation like, "So, when I have the baby I think I'm going to continue only eating only raw foods."
  • I/you react in shock, shocked not by the intended news of the statement, "I'm going to continue only eating raw foods," but by the news of something big like a pregnancy. Says something like, "Wait....what? You're pregnant?!?" 
  • Friend A responds rather disgusted with,"Yeah, I posted about it on my Facebook wall/Twitter stream/Online social media do-dad, I can't believe you're not reading my updates!"
First of all, yes the above example is completely made up, so no I'm not talking about you if we're friends and I didn't know you were pregnant. I might be talking about you though if you rely on social media as a primary, one way, 24-hour news-esq stream about you and expect your friends to be following your every move there. This kind of situation is where my question comes from; is this the "new social" everyone is talking about? 

What the heck is social anyway?
According to Twitter and Facebook (or Foursquare, or whatever your favorite "social" app is) the act of sharing some piece of information where everyone can see it is a social act. As a UX designer, that doesn't feel very social to me. Social interactions at there most basic look something like this:
Newsocialblogdiagrams01
or maybe something like this in the case of internet scale social interactions:
Newsocialblogdiagrams02
These diagrams happen everyday online. The first could be something like AIM, GTalk, or ICQ (no I'm just kidding, no one uses ICQ anymore), a DM on Twitter, a private message on Facebook, an email or a text message. It's a conversation. You know, that thing you did on your phone before you texted all the time.But it's just so much easier to text than have a phone call! I know, I'm right there with you. (For real, I'm a big texter.)

The second diagram could be comments on a blog, twitter @replies, a chat room, or the comments on a facebook wall post. It's still a conversation, it's just happening with more than two people. (The diagram should show the flow between the three smaller guys too, but that would have been a lot of arrows to deal with, and you get the idea.)

So by now I'm sure you're saying, "Thanks Tony, your diagrams are swell, but I already know this. What's your point?" The point is this is how these services were intended to work back in the before time — in the long long ago of 2005-07. And it's how they did work for the most part. I used Facebook in college and had actual conversations with people I had met briefly the night before, or in a class or at a football game, all after the fact. When I joined Twitter in 2007 I met lots of great people and had lots of great conversations. These two diagrams were how you would describe the systems back then. That was before it was "the new social" though. Before there were hundreds of millions of people and billions of dollars in advertising revenue at stake. Before your mom was on Facebook (but not before jokes about your mom were on Facebook, those were always there) and before Ashton Kutcher found Twitter. The new social, at least in my experience looks like this most of the time:
Newsocialblogdiagrams03
And it's this diagram that leads to conversations like the fake one (based on similar real conversations) above. This is your Facebook wall or your Twitter stream now, for the vast majority of users. This is "social media" that lets your great aunt Edna share pictures of her 55 cats with you and your whole family, or Kim Kardashian make $10,000 per tweet, or your best friend tweet about how great she felt after that run and that blueberry muffin with the smiley face blueberries from that cafe down the street with that cute barrista. It's also the "social" component of apps that you and I love like Foursquare, Facebook Places, DailyMile, Nike+, or Posterous (the platform this blog is running on.) Sure, there's a mechanism for 2 way communication, but how much do you really use it? How many of your friends use it? How many of their comments do you respond to? Remember, social now is simply the act of putting information out there to be consumed by your friends and followers and anyone who searches for you or your friends and followers on Google/Bing/Yahoo/Lycos (no, I'm kidding again. No one uses Lycos anymore either.)

And the most scandalous part of this whole "new social" thing is that it's not even new! We are already familiar with this model, it looks like this:
Newsocialblogdiagrams04
And it wasn't even new when the TV came out! Hell, TV stole it from radio, which stole it from the newspaper, which stole it from books, which stole it from scrolls...etc, etc. It's called broadcast, and there's nothing social about it. 

So what's the big deal?
No, this isn't a rant about how my friends, or your friends, or society in general is slowly coming to expect social interaction to more closely resemble voyeurism or stalking, although that's probably something someone should write about. The problem is that more and more stuff is coming out claiming to be social when it's not, and that's stifling innovation for real social technology. And it's the designers' fault. 

"Social media" is a great thing, don't get me wrong, it's just not very social anymore. It's enabling broadcast, and it's designed to be used that way. Why? It's easier to sell ads using these platforms if they're actually broadcast platforms, because marketers don't like to be talked back to and marketers are paying for it. Enabling almost a billion people to create their own, personal broadcast channel that's available to the whole world is a huge achievement. But it's not a social interaction. It's not a social experience.It's not a social technology. We all know what a social experience is, and if you ask those early adopters of current "social media," the possibilities felt endless in the early days, and the gratification of connecting with other people in a way where physical location didn't matter was huge. Social media was about collaboration, because social IS about collaboration.

Social interactions are not just about sharing, they're about interacting with other humans in a way that's meaningful for everyone involved. You don't have a social relationship with the cast of Glee, even though they're sharing their delightful story of overcoming high school adversity through singing the pop hits of the 70s, 80s and today. But according to the rules of social media you do. They're sharing content and you're consuming it. See how it's a broken definition? (unless you're actually friends with the cast of Glee, in which case, think of some other example smarty pants.) 

In the last two and a half years we've actually not made nearly as many advances in social technology as have been claimed, we've just made great leaps in personal broadcast technology. I don't have an invite to Google+ yet, but when I get one I hope that the claims that it's "Just like Facebook, but it's not run by Facebook" are wrong. If they actually did it right, Google+ could be the first truly big breakthrough in social technology since Twitter...before it got really popular at SxSWi and started retooling to become a personal broadcast platform to bring in more VC money and ad revenues. 

*** Full disclosure: I am actually quite guilty of saying, "Didn't you see that, I posted it on Twitter?" 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1085768/avatarMarch2011.png http://posterous.com/users/5BhsgMayplzX Tony Santos tsmuse Tony Santos Fri, 10 Jun 2011 12:22:49 -0700 Useless Error Message of the Day: 10 June - Public Wifi login http://www.powzot.com/useless-error-message-of-the-day-10-june-publ http://www.powzot.com/useless-error-message-of-the-day-10-june-publ
Sputnik_agent_error

If you can't provide any useful information about what's happening, at least be amusing. This is just lazy.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1085768/avatarMarch2011.png http://posterous.com/users/5BhsgMayplzX Tony Santos tsmuse Tony Santos Mon, 06 Jun 2011 12:39:08 -0700 What iOS looks like now http://www.powzot.com/what-ios-looks-like-now http://www.powzot.com/what-ios-looks-like-now
Ios

In a word: options. You can still make iTunes your hub if you want, but now you don't have to. And that's the biggest announcment in the history of this device ecosystem, now you don't have to have a PC/Mac to enter.  

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1085768/avatarMarch2011.png http://posterous.com/users/5BhsgMayplzX Tony Santos tsmuse Tony Santos Mon, 25 Apr 2011 05:39:00 -0700 Sneaky things you can do to make your designs "Human Centered" http://www.powzot.com/sneaky-things-you-can-do-to-make-your-designs http://www.powzot.com/sneaky-things-you-can-do-to-make-your-designs

Saturday I read a fantastic article by Whitney Hess, "You're not a user experience designer if..." (and you should read it too). In it she brings up really excellent points about things that a lot of "UX designers" don't actually do. Things like: talk to users, design in a vacuum, make design decisions based on personal preferences, don't use UX methods, etc.  While I completely agree, and shouted it from the Twitter roof-tops, it was a part at the end that caught my attention and made me decide to write this blog post.

If you have the title of User Experience Designer and you want to do these things but aren’t being allowed to, don’t stand for it. 

I've been in that situation. A lot. In fact, it was not being able to do these things as an "interactive designer" or "interactive art director"(titles that I held for the first 4-5 years of my career) that caused me to almost give up on design completely, consequently find this whole thing called "UX Design" and figure out that I was trying to do "UX design" in addition to the graphic and interaction design I was doing. It's because of this that I passionately argue for real UX design. It's also because of this that I've hacked together some covert UX methods that you can use if you're in a situation where you want to do real UX, but can't. 

First, a disclaimer
These are, more or less, methods I've used over the last few years when I just couldn't get approval to do real user research or testing. I will never, ever ever ever say these are "good" methods, they're just better than not doing anything. These are in no way "science" and are so far off from pure UX design methods that I'll probably get some nasty emails and comments anyway. Still, as I've been told by multiple people I really respect, "Any research/testing is better than none." 

Also, I take no responsibility if you get fired because you get caught using these methods. I'm sorry, but it was probably for the best anyway.

Sneaky things you can do to make your designs "Human Centered"

Informal happy-hour individual interviews
Chances are you probably know some people on Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/In Real Life that are like your users. (at least in someway) Can't do a real ethnographic study? Can't do formal, structured/semi-structured interviews even over the phone? It's time to head to the bar! Pick a few people and a few days, and individually take them out for a drink, preferably someplace where the music isn't too loud. Bring a notebook (or use an audio recorder if you can get away with it) and ask them questions. Ask them their opinions. TALK TO THEM. Try not to drink too much (at least until you're done.) The beauty of this is two fold. First, your participant's incentive is built in. Secondly, you can often times get a 2nd informal interview with someone that is in the bar who overhears you. Is there a sampling bias? OH YEAH, but if they pass your screening criteria take what you can get. More data is better than less in these situations.

Surveymonkey after-hours survey
Surveys are great, because they can kinda run themselves now thanks to the internet, all you have to do is write them. They're also great because you can get a 10 question survey with up to 100 responses per month for FREE, which means this one isn't actually going to cost you anything. (No this isn't a paid endorsement) 100 responses is good for 90% confidence (p=0.1) just FYI, so your results will actually have some statistical validity too! (assuming your questions are good)

Diary study with friends or others who will help you
So you can't go and run a full fledged ethnographic study, if you have really awesome friends who are close to your target user group you can get them to take a cheap notebook to work with them and self-report the things they do/frustrations they have/whatever you need to find out. Is it as good as observing? Nope. You're gonna miss a lot, I'm not going to lie. However, you're not going to miss as much as you would not doing it and just guessing. 

Informal happy-hour cognitive walkthrough
This is a lot like the happy hour individual interviews, except you pull some of your coworkers instead. Bring your wires, or comps or whatever you need to test with you, and tell them you want their opinion on them. The key to this one is informal, don't ask for "stories about using X."  This also has the benefit of slowing indoctrinating coworkers into the HCD fold, and slowly changing the culture to be more friendly to all of this stuff. 

Paper prototyping on coworkers/friends/family/innocent bystanders
If they're close to your user base, draw them a quick marker comp and ask them to pretend it's your product and perform a task on it. (I've done this on napkins before, which is why it's always good to have at least one sharpie with you at all times.) This is a legit method (maybe the most legit in the list) when you want to quickly confirm a wacky idea without having to spend time doing nice looking wires or comps. I recommend this testing method for anyone working on an early stage of a project. 

After-hours card sort
The Internet has made so many things better (like autotuning every sound in nature) including card sorts. Just like the survey, you can run an online card sort and kinda just ignore it except when you're setting it up and analyzing the results. Websort.Net is by far my favorite card sorting tool, and it's totally free. 

The bottom line
The real secret is that you can do almost any formal research or testing method informally, under the radar and on the cheap using your social network, assuming you're willing to put in some extra work after-hours. Is it perfect? No. Is it science? Kinda...it's probably got too many confounds to count though. But, it's better than nothing. Unless it's really really small, your network of friends and family online and off probably has at least a semi-representative sample of your user-base. 

The real question is how to you present your results, or use it to argue your points? If you can get extra points for, "I did user research/testing in my off time" use it like you would if you had been allowed to do it. If not, just credit your awesome rockstar design skills. Say something like "You know, I just really get people" ...and then start looking for a real UX job. 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1085768/avatarMarch2011.png http://posterous.com/users/5BhsgMayplzX Tony Santos tsmuse Tony Santos Fri, 15 Apr 2011 11:38:00 -0700 Ohhhhh you said the F worrrrddd!!! http://www.powzot.com/ohhhhh-you-said-the-f-worrrrddd http://www.powzot.com/ohhhhh-you-said-the-f-worrrrddd

It's very funny (to me anyway) that I came out of college decrying research, it "ruined design," and a few years later my love for research informed design pushed me back into college to learn more about it. It's also funny (probably still just to me) that I continue to run into these two seemingly opposed design camps all the time, the pro and anti research designers. I'm among friends in one, and inevitably find myself defending the dreaded F**cus Gr**p in the other. It's like a bad word in a lot of circles, f**cus gr**p, and as I always end up explaining, "it's because people don't run the dreaded f**cus gr**p right." They don't ask the participants the right questions. They use it to answer the wrong kind of research questions. They blindly follow the majority opinion as if it was handed down on stone tablets. Bottom line, they fuck it up. Worse yet, this is the only research method a lot of designers, including fresh out of design school me, know. At the very least the only one they think of when someone says "research." 

Research isn't a bad word for designers (even f**cus gr**p)
This is the basic argument I find myself making when in the company of the anti-research designers. I'm a designer, not a researcher. I have a heavy-weight, framed piece of paper that says just that, and in December I'll have two. (This is the only "trust me, I'm a doctor" style statement you're going to get from me, I promise.) As a designer, research is just another tool in my toolbox for solving design problems. It's just like photoshop, or illustrator or my sketchbook. Research does NOT dictate design decisions, it informs them. This is something I usually have to repeat, so I will in an obnoxious type treatment to make it stand out

RESEARCH DOES NOT DICTATE DESIGN DECISIONS, IT INFORMS THEM. 
(Sorry, I it wouldn't let me make it blink too.)  If you're a designer and you think back to your design classes, you'll likely remember doing some kind of asking around or looking at what other people had already done in that space for every project you did. That's research. AND it isn't a f**cus gr**p. (It's likely a competitive analysis or an unstructured individual interview, for the researchers in the audience keeping track.) Your research didn't totally take away all your choices as a designer, and you probably didn't completely change your initial gut feelings based on it. It didn't dictate your design. But it did inform you, and you might have modified some of your initial assumptions, and you may have abandoned bad ideas if they proved to be bad, or already done, or whatever you found. It may have even given you an idea because you saw something new and it sparked something awesome in your crazy designer brain. This is why good research, used correctly is magical.  

Let's talk about the damn f**cus gr**p for a minute
(Warning: this is a rant, you have been warned.)
Most people (especially in advertising) ruin focus groups. This is not an "ivory tower" opinion. This is my on the ground, in the trenches throwing grenades, practitioner's opinion. They're not looking for additional information to inform the design, they're looking for truth. Worse yet, they're not just looking for a truth, they're looking for "The Truth," a totally generalizable (ecologically valid for you researches still keeping track) truth. One that describes everyone like their group everywhere. A group that is usually structured to represent everyone on the planet. Sorry, a f**cus gr**p is the wrong test for finding "The Truth." It's a qualitative test that is at best going to give you an idea of your specific group's opinions, if and only if you recruit the right group and ignore the idea of group think and follow the leader mentality in groups like this, and dont' have one guy who does 80% of the talking for the whole group. At best you're going to be able to say "we showed it to 10 people and 2 of them told us all these things." F**cus gr**ps are not generalizable, period! The are not "The Truth," and to use them as such is foolish, and you should feel sorry for those people because they're likely going to lose a lot of money.

If you're going to hate the f**cus gr**p , hate it for these reasons.  Don't hate it because "research kills creativity." it doesn't, it focuses creativity, and gives you new jumping off points if it's done well.

Design is not art, deal with it. 
This is the other argument that is used to try and defend the anti-research designer position, "Design is art." This is a horse that's been beaten to death, and I'm usually one of the people holding a bat. Design is not art. It can be objectively evaluated because the whole goal of design is problem solving. The goal of Art is expressing the ideas, emotion and opinions of the artist. You can't do that wrong. That's what makes it art. You can't look at art and realistically say, "The artist totally failed to capture the way she was feeling in this piece." You can look at design reasonably say, "this piece fails to capture the attributes of our brand," or "this product is hard to use and it's even harder to look at," or even "why would you design a shirt with no neck hole, no one can wear this!" Design can be wrong. The confusing part is that there are usually many solutions to the same design problem, and all of them are right, but the wrong ones are still wrong. 

There is absolutely an art to design, and great design often does the things art does too, but design is not art. It's design. Even when it conveys emotion. Even when it conveys opinion. Design is concerned with solving a problem that most likely has multiple solutions, and this is why research is such a great tool. It can help you sift through those worse solutions, that are still technically right, to find the great ones. Why wouldn't you want something to help you sift through an endless pile of hay to find the five needles you're looking for?

So what...?
Research is your friend, dear fellow designers. It can lead you to new ideas, better ideas, by pointing to the right path in the tangled map of options we have; and if it's done well that's all it will do. Research can't ever substitute the thoughtful work of a good designer, because good research isn't creative. To quote Dr. David Evans of Psycster research (one of my graduate school instructors): 

A research study by it’s very nature is a cheap, fast proxy to reality.

It's a peak out the window. A designer takes all the information she has about a problem, combines it with everything else she knows and turns it into a solution. Well done research is just one more thing the designer gets to know and use. If you want to be an anti-research designer, why not be an anti-bad-research designer? 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1085768/avatarMarch2011.png http://posterous.com/users/5BhsgMayplzX Tony Santos tsmuse Tony Santos Wed, 06 Apr 2011 11:32:36 -0700 Are you training your users for a bad experience? http://www.powzot.com/are-you-training-your-users-for-a-bad-experie http://www.powzot.com/are-you-training-your-users-for-a-bad-experie If you have an email address, you've probably received at least one email this week about how it was leaked by Epsilon (I've received four now.) If you're not familiar with who they are or why they have your email address to lose (I wasn't) Cnet has a pretty good article about it. What I find so troubling about this in particular, is that Chase bank was one of the notification emails I got. This is troubling because of the way Chase's rewards program works, and the behavior they've trained their users to exhibit is now the very same behavior they are warning them against. This is part of experience design that often gets ignored, and now it's going to be huge.

Training your users to do the wrong thing
If you're not a chase account holder, you're likely not familiar with their rewards program and the behavior I'm talking about. Once a quarter, the bank chooses three to four categories that cardholders get 5% cash-back on. They announce this with emails, and if all the emails were doing was announcing these special categories I wouldn't be writing this post. To qualify for this offer, you have to follow a link in the email and sign in at a microsite. Hello fishers, I hope you have your pirated copies of photoshop warmed up. 

This is the behavior the company endorsed, following a link in an email and signing in. I'm sure no one in the marketing department, or at Epsilon ever dreamed they would now be sending out emails telling people to do the opposite (don't give your account info to anyone who asks for it via email), but the damage is already done. The mental model is already set for thousands (or maybe even millions), "To get my 5% cash back on X this quarter, I click the link in my email and log in to sign up." 

Fish, meet barrel. 

How can we do better?
When we're designing systems, any systems, we need to take into account the behaviors we're training users to exhibit. More importantly, we need to be aware of the big red flag, don't ever do that style behaviors for a particular domain. Training users to follow email links to sign in is a dangerous design because it's so easy to spoof an email and a website these days. To add insult to injury, it's completely unnecessary to make people do this. You can track the success of your email by setting a special link to the account site, where there is significant anti-spoofing measures is place, instead. You could just send an email announcing it, telling people to go log into their account to activate it. Or you could just automate it. Asking users to follow a link from an email and sign-in is one step removed from sending them an email and asking them to reply with their credentials, and it's not a big enough step to make it ok. 

I'm sure there was a business goal driving this dangerous design, but how much money are you saving now if even 1% of your effected users get fished? How does that experience effect your brand? How does it effect your current customer base of non-fished users? Word of mouth is a powerful marketing force, and it's directly tied to the experience your customers have with your stuff (branding, advertising, customer service reps, third party vendors, and even people you've opened the door for who impersonate you well.) 

So what...?
As designers, sure we have to be champions of good design, but we also have a responsibility to avoid designing things that will get us shanked later on. In this case, an already serious data breech is made even worse by a bad design. Chase trained their users to walk right into a fishing scheme, for whatever business reasons. I've yet to meet an interaction or experience designer who isn't really Internet savvy, so I'm sure whoever came up with the model Chase went with was aware of all the things you're never supposed to do from an email. But there is always the chance a designer had no hand in this system, or that they were ignored. We'll never know unless Chase decides to tell us. What we need to do, as a community of design professionals, is keep this event in mind and make sure we're not reinforcing bad web behavior with our systems.    

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1085768/avatarMarch2011.png http://posterous.com/users/5BhsgMayplzX Tony Santos tsmuse Tony Santos Tue, 15 Mar 2011 12:08:55 -0700 Why kids are almost always better at new tech than you http://www.powzot.com/why-kids-are-almost-always-better-at-new-tech http://www.powzot.com/why-kids-are-almost-always-better-at-new-tech A few days ago I was walking back from lunch in downtown Seattle when I overheard the women behind me talking about the Microsoft Kinect. One of the women was talking about how her young daughter "jumped right in" using the device, without having to be told much about how it works. She was also talking about how after almost a month she still has problems using it. "I don't know how she can be so good at it and I'm so terrible," the woman asked her friend. 

They grew up with it, duh
This isn't anything new, and as you can probably guess the friend replied, "Kids are just better at this stuff because they've grown up with it." This is a pretty standard response whenever someone younger than you figures out some new-fangled technology that you can't. But is it really true? This little girl didn't "grow up" with the Kinect, it's only been available to the public for about six months. Sure, she did very likely grow up in the age of consumer electronics, but none of them use the natural human interface that the Kinect does, and even non-standard (i.e. buttons, mice, keyboards, control sticks) input methods are fairly new. Apple's multi-touch devices have only been around for three and a half years, and Nintendo's Wii is only a year older. I will admit that three to four years is a long time for a little kid, but even with that much exposure to similar (although still very different) devices I don't buy the whole "They've just grown up with it" rationale. 

Some say tech, it is a river...
Technology is a constantly evolving monster. It doesn't exist in nicely posed snapshots until the next big thing comes out and replaces it. New things are released to augment the existing tech until companies can afford to push the next big thing into production. Upgrades and add-ons and accessories. All of these things make learning technology a constantly moving target. For example, it's very likely that your iPhone today doesn't just do the things it did last week, thanks to new apps, new accessories or new software updates pushed by Apple or app developers. This makes me think that just because the stuff existed doesn't make "they grew up with it" a very valid explanation. You don't just know everything about technology that is produced while you're under a certain age. There's another explanation that fits much better. Kids are more creative than you are.

It's all about Imagination
I don't know about you, but I've spent at least 24 of my 28 years being told what is not possible, what not to do because it's "weird" or "different", and just generally having people in positions of authority closing doors and building walls around my imagination. I'm talking about parents, teachers, and peer pressure, all slowly pushing us toward the norms and mores of our societies It's probably the same way with you, give or take a few years depending on your age. We've constructed these ideas of "normal" because it makes things work better when everyone has more or less the same expectations of common people and things where they live. We can all agree that a red light means stop, and that generally a person on the street that waves at you is just saying hi. 

Little kids don't have that inhibition yet. They don't know all the rules, so they just make stuff up as it makes sense to them. They let their imaginations fill in the gaps in their understanding of the world because it's all they have to fall back on. Their minds aren't programed to see a TV screen and immediately think "passive viewing experience," they talk back to the characters, interact with them. If you don't believe me watch an episode of anything made for kids aged two to five and see how many pauses for audience participation there are. So of course it makes sense that waving at the TV makes things happen, that jumping up and down makes you on the screen jump up and down. Why wouldn't it? The idea of the TV seeing you isn't more familiar to a child, it's just less impossible. Why wouldn't the TV see you, you can see it? It's only fair. This is how it is for most new technology, and why kids learn it faster. They don't have to unlearn the old things.

So what...?
The absence of preconceptions is what makes kids better at new technology than adults, because it's not "weird" to them that it's not like anything else. As experience designers we need to keep this idea in mind when designing new and possibly "weird" things, but we also need to try and reinvigorate the imaginations of our users. It's possible but you have to prime the pump, so to speak, and get the user into the mindset that "this is unlike anything else." Once you can do that, imagine what other ideas these newly freed users, including you, will think up?

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1085768/avatarMarch2011.png http://posterous.com/users/5BhsgMayplzX Tony Santos tsmuse Tony Santos Sat, 26 Feb 2011 23:55:00 -0800 Reading Recommendations http://www.powzot.com/reading-recommendations http://www.powzot.com/reading-recommendations
In the last few weeks I've had a few people ask me if I could recommend any books on design. The short answer is yes I can, but mostly only because I have a thing for books and I can't go into a bookstore without buying at least four, so I just happen to have a lot of books. (Yes, I have read them all, thank you very much.) The reason this is the short answer is because I'm firmly in the camp that to become a designer you simply have to start designing. A lot. A whole lot. It's a very learn by doing skill, even interaction and experience design. However, there are a lot of great books I've read that have added a lot of little interesting tidbits to the experience of just being a designer for years and years, so I thought I'd make that list and share it with anyone who was interested.

These are by no means the definitive reading list, just what I've read over the the years, or have on my current reading list. I've also thrown in some movies and a couple card decks that I really love. The best advice I can give any designer is the advice given to me during a junior year portfolio review by  John Jay, a creative director from Wieden + Kennedy (I majored in Advertising and Graphic Design for my undergrad, so I had mostly words of wisdom from designers working in advertising) and it is:

The great ideas are out on the streets, in a club or a bar or a park, not in your office or at your desk. Make sure you get up from your desk every once and a while and experience it.  

So read some of these books, but then go out and experience the world and find inspiration and solutions to your design problems in those experiences. If you want to be a designer, or you want to be a better designer, just start designing lots of stuff. Practice makes perfect.

The List

Interaction/Experience Design
  • The Design of Everyday Things - Norman
  • Designing Interactions - Moggridge
  • Sketching User Experiences - Buxton
  • Emotional Design - Norman
Design Basics
  • Design Basics - Pentak
  • Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative - Eisener (this is technically a book about making comics, but I've found it very helpful to know these concepts designing interactions, because I can use them to help tell other people about my ideas via storyboard)
Design History
  • History of Modern Design - Raizman (this is a must read in my opinion)
  • Dictionary of Design since 1900 - Julier 
  • Dictionary of Graphic Design and Designers - Livingston
Design Documentaries
  • Objectified
  • Helvetica
Graphic Design Quickstarts
  • The Non-designer's design book - Williams
  • The Mac is not a Typewriter - Williams
  • Making and Breaking the Grid - Samara (this is a must have reference if you're doing any visual design)
  • Lettering for Production - Gates (out of print)
Ad books that could be helpful
  • Hey Whipple Squeeze This - Sullivan
  • Hoopla - CP+B
  • Pick Me - Vonk & Kestin
Other Fun stuff
  • Art and Copy (movie)
  • Please Exit Through the Giftshop (movie)
  • The Story of Stuff (the 2007 original) (movie)
  • Ideo Method Cards
  • Handbook of Usability Testing - Rubin & Chisnell
  • Mental Notes Cards
  • Control: A History of Behavioral Psychology - Mills
  • Emotions Revealed - Ekman
  • ReInventing Comics - McCloud
  • Comics and Sequential Art - Eisener 
Books I'm Currently Reading (but can't recommend beyond that because I haven't finished them yet) 
  • Living with Complexity - Norman
  • Unmasking the Face - Friesen
  • Behavioral Analysis and Measurement Methods - Meister
  • Ambient Findability - Morville
If you have any suggestions (stuff I could add to my currently reading list), leave them in the comments :)

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1085768/avatarMarch2011.png http://posterous.com/users/5BhsgMayplzX Tony Santos tsmuse Tony Santos Wed, 23 Feb 2011 11:51:00 -0800 The UX Implications of Watson http://www.powzot.com/the-ux-implications-of-watson http://www.powzot.com/the-ux-implications-of-watson

Unless you were either under a rock or not a techno-geek last week you've probably heard about IBM's Watson natural language processor and it's spanking of the two best Jeopardy players on the planet. It was amazing to watch the way the computer looked at all the data it had access to (and it was a lot) and found the answers. It wasn't perfect, when Watson was wrong it was hilariously wrong, but it was right more than it was wrong.

Why this is something UX folk need to keep an eye on?

You may be thinking, "Tony, this is a great achievement in computer science and engineering but why should I, the illustrious user experience professional reading your blog, care?" Well, very skilled and attractive reader, I'm glad you asked. Let's play the imagination game for a minute. 

Imagine a world where systems like Watson aren't giant, expensive, out of reach systems that exist only in R&D labs. Imagine a world where systems like Watson are commonplace in offices or neighborhoods or households. A world where the computer can take input in natural language and it's hooked up to the Internet.

"Computer, I need a list of all know cultures who believe the colour red means anger." 

What does that system look like? What does it sound like? How does it respond or present its answer? Do you have to say "computer," every time? Should these interactions be more like a conversation with another person or still like giving orders to a machine? These are just the experience questions I could think of in a few minutes.

This kind of computing, while it answers many engineering problems, opens a whole new area of HCI that we've only really thought about in Star Trek and other science fiction. Think about the possibilities of a computer that can understand what you're saying to it without using special commands. Think about the frustrations and the usability issues it will bring. Think about the effect a computer that is fluent in your language will have on the psychology of how we interact with computers.

Back to The Future

Like most of the stuff we talk about in the blogosphere, this falls into the category of "The Future of ________" but this future is coming at us faster than a lot of that other “Future Stuff.” IBM is already talking about utilizing Watson to help doctors do differential diagnosis. The possibilities are nearly endless; we just need to start thinking about them. Yay future! (But I still want my hover board.)

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1085768/avatarMarch2011.png http://posterous.com/users/5BhsgMayplzX Tony Santos tsmuse Tony Santos Wed, 16 Feb 2011 09:23:33 -0800 Your phone is not the computer of the future http://www.powzot.com/your-phone-is-not-the-computer-of-the-future http://www.powzot.com/your-phone-is-not-the-computer-of-the-future
Everyone keeps buzzing about how smart phones are little computers, and that's true. They are. So is an iPod touch or your GPS in your car. Those things aren't going to replace your desktop or laptop, now or in the future. And neither is your iPhone / android / windows phone 7 / blackberry / webOS phone. I know, that's contrary to what almost everyone is saying, but it's true. 

What phones are good at

A good phone is good at being a phone. Not just in the 135 year old definition of a phone as an electronic voice relay system. At it's core, the telephone is a system that let's us transmit and receive information over long distances almost instantly. That's really all it does. It's a device that enables near instantaneous communication, like the telegraph before it, beyond the sight of the sender. In 1876, the year the first patent was issued for an electric telephone, that information was sending sound over electric lines. Today, in 2011, it's sending bits over radio waves. Even the voice part of your cell phone works this way. The GPS too. At it's core the thing that makes a smart phone really valuable is it's radio(s). It's connected to the world, via the Internet, via radio waves. 

What phones are bad at

The main thing smart phones are bad at is being big. (Although many are trying to get bigger.) Big is an important quality they lack if they're going to be the "computers of the future." Small screens, small keyboards don't make for good computers. That's why you can buy a 30" LCD display for your desktop or desk parked laptop. Big screens are good for the things we use computers for, especially if those screens are going to be displaying soft-keyboards too. Phones are also bad at real multi-tasking (this is one of those things we need big screens for.) This is mostly an issue of power consumption and battery limitations, but it also has to do with the small screens. It takes a lot of power to run a high performing CPU, and phone batteries can only be so big, not to mention they also have to power backlights and radios and flash memory and RAM and GPUs and ect, ect. Multi-tasking is near essential part of modern computing, no matter what Steve Jobs and the team working on OS X Lion say. Don't believe me? Spend the next hour only letting your computer run one application at a time and see how futuristic it feels. 

So what is the future?

I don't mean to imply that smartphones aren't an important part of the future of computing, quite the contrary, they're a key part. They're just not going to take the place of any real computer. Phones are great at being the gateway to connectivity, and that's their place in the ultra fractured, multi- device future of computing. They're going to keep being phones. Your tablet and your smart watch and your other crazy ubiquitous computing peripherals are all going to need an on ramp to the Internet, and your little smart phone is damn good at that. 

It's also pretty good for acting as a quick window into larger, cloud-based applications with multiple points of user interaction. A quick entry into your personal finance application, updating your workout application with your latest gps and hear rate monitor workout info, setting your thermostat or other simple Internet enabled appliance, uploading pictures to your shared albums, etc. The phone is a small window. It's not good for making things, or really for consuming content larger that text messages or tweets or maybe text only emails. It's good at grabbing information from the world around it with it's sensors, (think cameras, microphones, gps) not your keyboard pecking. Its great at displaying small chunks of information, and its great at sending these things along to a more capable platform for any kind of manipulation. 

Your tablet will be much better at normal laptop style tasks. It's got a bigger screen, a larger keyboard, stylus input, and a larger battery more capable of running a more powerful CPU. And most importantly, it doesn't have a radio to run. It doesn't need one. None of your future computing accessories do, because that's your phone's job. It's part of being a phone in the future. Sending your bits beyond the horizon via radio waves. And it doesn't care what you used to make those bits.  We need to keep this in mind as we're designing and building smartphone apps. Focus on the things the phone does well and stop trying to stuff in features that the phone does poorly. 

The future of your phone is not as a laptop killer, it's as your laptops ride.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1085768/avatarMarch2011.png http://posterous.com/users/5BhsgMayplzX Tony Santos tsmuse Tony Santos Mon, 07 Feb 2011 09:22:18 -0800 Why nobody likes research http://www.powzot.com/why-nobody-likes-research http://www.powzot.com/why-nobody-likes-research Ok, not nobody. I love research. You might. Your boss probably doesn't. Her boss almost certainly doesn't. Yes yes, this is only the case most of the time, not all of the time. But why is that?

Research is Expensive
It costs money to do any kind of research. Even if you're just looking things up on the internet, that time costs someone money. If you're actually doing research with research subjects you usually have to pay them. You usually have to buy materials to conduct your research, if you don't have them already. Some times you have to travel. Bottom line, it hurts the bottom line. (ok not really, but we're not there yet)

Research Takes Time
You have to design a study. Find people to participate. Run the study. Analyze all the data you collected. Make sense of all your analysis. Even a "quick little survey" isn't really that quick most of the time. And "time is money." (See above pun about the bottom line.)

Henry Ford Ruined Research
Or at least he did in the minds of people who are too busy to understand an often quoted Henry Ford snippet:

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. — Henry Ford

I've heard this "famous quote" more times in the last six months than any other, often to justify to me why we can't do research. First, I can't actually find the source of this quote. I haven't spent hours and hours searching, but an hour on Google, GoogleScholar, wikiQuotes and wikipedia have left me with no source for it. The point is, he may have never said it. He did not invent the automobile, he just was the first to mass produce it cheaply. But it doesn't matter, because he's getting credit for saying it. And because he's a great name in American business, it carries weight. The problem is, it misses the point entirely. 

There are no silver bullets, and Henry Ford probably knew this, even if you (or your boss) don't
This has been beaten to death I'm sure, but "asking people what they wanted" is simply asking the wrong question. Yes, if you ask someone directly "what can I make you?" they're going to define it in terms they already know. Like "faster horses." You're not looking for THE answer with research, your looking for clues to AN answer. 

Assuming the Ford quote is true, then yes had he asked people what they wanted they likely would have told him something about horses. They were the primary means of travel at the time. Followed by walking if you couldn't afford a horse. He also might have gotten lucky, if he'd asked enough people, and gotten a couple cars and an airplane. Those would have been the "crazy outliers." But, if he had asked them "What is it about travel now that you dislike the most?" he likely would have learned things like: horses have to rest every few hours while pulling a wagon, it's not easy to take care of a horse, it's expensive to take care of a horse, dogs and other animals can spook a horse and that's very dangerous, etc. He would have found problems to make solutions for. Problems that the mass production of the automobile would eventually solve. 

This is what the people who swear that research is a waste of time fail to see, because they expect it to be a silver bullet and it's not. It never is. It's more about finding out what the problems really are, if you're making your thing for the right people, or if your solution is correct but not defined in terms the right people understand. These are the qualities that make the great things you love. I guarantee it. You can't make something great on purpose without knowing the answers to these kinds of questions, and it's very expensive to try and stumble into greatness all the time. 

In the end...
The Ford quote is often used to defend the stance of the "lone genius" even if sometimes that "lone genius" is a team at a company. That's simply not the way to make great things. Awesome doesn't happen in a vacuum, or a silo or sitting at your desk with the blinders on for 18 hours. It happens when you ask the right people the right questions to figure out what that "awesome" is, before you start searching. Had Ford "asked people" (and I don't know if he or anyone else did for him) he may have found out that things like "with electric lights, people can more safely drive in the dark." And maybe he did. The point is, Model-T aside, the only way you can know if you're solving a problem is to ask the people you think have it. Not to ask them what the answer to your design problem is, because they won't know. But to ask them what their problem is, so you can design a solution to it. It's these well researched, well designed solutions that make the research effort pay for itself many times over. They're the solutions that become the next big thing, which is actually good for the bottom line (see, I got there). Those well researched solutions are the only kind that will consistently lead to a great experience for the user, even if Henry Ford supposedly said otherwise.  

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1085768/avatarMarch2011.png http://posterous.com/users/5BhsgMayplzX Tony Santos tsmuse Tony Santos Tue, 27 Jul 2010 15:01:10 -0700 Is your usability accessible? http://www.powzot.com/is-your-usability-accessible http://www.powzot.com/is-your-usability-accessible The Americans with Disabilities Act turned 20 years old yesterday, and that fact (thanks NPR!) got me thinking about accessibility in designs. 

An Accessible After Thought
My experience as a designer has taught me that accessibility issues don't factor into a lot of UI design decisions (primarily because either the designer doesn't think about them, or someone controlling the money says it's too expensive), or if they do it's after the design is finished and someone talked to a company lawyer. Accessibility is part of a truly user friendly design, and these considerations are just as important as any considerations about wayfinding, visual flow, hot spots, etc that you work though in your initial wire frames, even if what you're designing doesn't have to comply with the ADA.

Design for the Universe, then they can be your user too
I was just recently turned on to the idea of "Universal Design." It's not so much a new idea to me as the fact that it had a name was new to me. I love it as a theory. So often we think of things as well designed because they're beautiful, and that's definitely part of it. But beauty is worthless if you can't use the thing. And think about the commercial impacts of creating accessible products that are functional AND beautiful. How many more could you sell? 

Twenty years after the passage of the ADA, we need to make sure that we as designers (whatever your particular flavor of design happens to be) aren't taking the strides we've made in the last 20 years for granted. Accessibility needs to be at the top of the design considerations list for everything for a design to be truly successful, and for us to keep pushing the limits of good design.  

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1085768/avatarMarch2011.png http://posterous.com/users/5BhsgMayplzX Tony Santos tsmuse Tony Santos Thu, 15 Jul 2010 15:34:06 -0700 The User Friendly Brand http://www.powzot.com/the-user-friendly-brand http://www.powzot.com/the-user-friendly-brand I'll let you in on a little secret (that's actually not a secret at all if you've ever talked to me in real life), I love branding. I love brands. They are, when built and grown correctly, at the exact center of my interests in marketing, communications, design and psychology. So, when I saw that Old Spice was doing this week on the web, I fell in love. 

Taking youTube by storm
This week's rocket-like rise to the top of the most viewed lists on youTube was just the latest part of this increasingly strong brand surfacing. If you missed it, The Man Your Man Could Smell Like character from the very popular 2010 Super Bowl spot took questions from the internet at large and made over 100 personalized responses on youTube. You can see all of them at the Old Spice youTube channel, or on the @oldspice twitter account. It's really an amazing thing, and it took the net by storm. I suspect that if it hadn't been a sponsored topic on twitter, it would have started trending on itself. Questions, comments, jokes and parody videos rolled in from across the web. People were interacting with a brand, and helping it grow organically in a way we haven't seen before.

Why it worked
The formula is really a simple one, but it's hard to pull off. They made a great character who was approachable, fun and an ambassador for the brand who wasn't selling all the time. The Man Your Man Could Smell Like was a character that could actually interact with the audience, and was well thought out and developed enough that he could exist outside the confines of a thirty or sixty second spot. After they had this great character, they told some really compelling stories about the product through this guy (goofy as they were), and then they let us meet him, by asking him questions. This last part is where the brand became more user friendly than any of the other big brands people talk about whenever branding comes up: Apple, Target, Coca-cola, et al. It wasn't just about selling Old Spice anymore, although they managed to mention the product quite a bit, it was about creating a positive user experience with the brand. An experience that was personal, and the next time these participants see an Old Spice product, any of them, they'll remember.  

How is this a "user friendly" brand?
It's a real question that a lot of brands need to ask themselves. When we look at the big name brands like Apple or Target, they're still one way, you need to buy this thing because you'll be cool like us brands. They work and they work well, for now. Old Spice took a step beyond that in the last two days, when they let people into the brand, and let their interactions shape it and the history of The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.

Imagine if Apple let people participate in this free and open way? Or Target. Or anyone. The advertising wouldn't be a burden, something people want to skip past with the DVR or block with an add-on to their web browser. Even this small interaction, letting the user help shape the experience just once, will likely make them more accepting of future adverts and marketing, even if they aren't as directly involved. If we define "user friendly" as anything that makes the users experience pleasant or enjoyable, then Old Spice has set the bar for brand usability. I'm sure we'll see the imitators flooding the web in the next few months, the real question will be if their attempts to copy this effort will lead to something as user friendly, or if it will just be more noise to be ignored. 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1085768/avatarMarch2011.png http://posterous.com/users/5BhsgMayplzX Tony Santos tsmuse Tony Santos Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:49:59 -0700 A quick fix to the iPhone notification system http://www.powzot.com/a-quick-fix-to-the-iphone-notification-system http://www.powzot.com/a-quick-fix-to-the-iphone-notification-system Before I jump in, yes I realize this is my 4th or 5th post and it's the second one about the damn iPhone. Well, this is mostly because I own an iPhone, and as it's my only phone I use it a lot during the day and I think about ways to fix the annoyances that ultimately come up with it. I have a feeling if I had any other smartphone, I'd be writing similarly about it. Or to put it another way, no I'm not an Apple fan boy.

My biggest complaint: the iPhone notification system

This isn't a unique complain about the phone, but it is a big one and one that is easy to fix (or at least I think it is) without having to totally rework Apple's current design thinking. Before I get any nearer a solution, let's review the model I'm complaining about. 

The iPhone offers notifications via one, all interrupting modal (aka popup) window.  It doesn't matter what kind of notification it is or what application on the phone it's coming from. As the iPhone is essentially a unitasker (this has been discussed many other places, I'll come back and add links soon), this doesn't really feel out of place. Each window contains only one message, and to clear them you have to view them linearly, one at a time. It also interrupts everything else that's going on, unless it's a phone call. It's not great, but Cupertino thinks this is "the best" way to do it, and to some extent they're right. Here's why. 

The iPhone, at it's core, is a phone. I know, shocking, it's only 5/6 of the products name, but don't feel bad about missing that, almost everyone has. Is it a mobile computing platform? Yes. Is it a media player? Yes. A portable gaming device? Yes. Is it an internet access point? Yes. You know what else does all those things? the iPod touch and the iPad. That functionality is what all the iOS devices share, but the thing that makes the iPhone different is the phone part. Without it, it's just an iPod touch (literally, remove the radios and it's the same damn thing.)

So, keeping the phone in mind what do you expect your phone to do? It's only job really is to ring when someone calls and then let the magic of telephone communications take place (in this case it has to do with radio waves, but that part of it isn't important.) In fact when it doesn't do that people get mad. If you don't believe me ask someone who spends any time in Manhattan and has an iPhone. But there are times when you don't want it to ring. When you don't want to see SMS messages, foursquare notifications, twitter notifications, or any other push notifications. There are times when you want to put the phone part of the phone on hold. 

Apple was very smart here, because instead of their usual line of "we know best" they decided that the iPhone wouldn't be smart enough to decide when you didn't want your incoming communications front and center. This makes sense, your game of Plants vs Zombies isn't more important than a call from a family member most of the time. The phone simply just didn't have a way to prioritize it's core function, being a communications device, against everything else it can do. What they failed to do, as they have all across iOS, is let the user tell the iPhone what she wants. 

The Solution: "iPhone, hold my calls." 

Just like in the low tech days, when you didn't want to be bothered by the phone you simple made it not ring. This could mean something as simple as telling your assistant to hold you calls (if you're one of those lucky people with an assistant) or it could be as drastic as unplugging the phone from the wall. But you can't unplug you iPhone from the wall. Sure, you can put it in airplane mode, but what if you want to use the GPS? What if you still want the phone to ring, but you don't want all those popup notifications? What if you only want push notifications but not calls or SMS? Enter, Do not Disturb. 

Add a new panel to the system settings, or a new app, to manage these Do not Disturb states. The light switch style on/off toggles are already a familiar element in the iOS UI. Lets just add 3 more that, when turned on hold your calls/sms/push. "Holding your calls" in this instance would really mean: sending phone calls straight to voicemail (a function that already exists in the OS and is mapped to the hardware lock button), and supressing the popup windows. This would solve the "oh man, I just got a text and it killed ______!" and it would do it in a way that doesn't totally alter the way Apple had envisioned the iPhone.   

Don't get me wrong. I'd love to see an Android or webOS style notification system come to the iPhone, but I'm not holding my breath. In it's 4th major revision, iOS still doesn't even really support multitasking. The Do not Disturb model might serve as a nice compromise, at least until iOS9. 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1085768/avatarMarch2011.png http://posterous.com/users/5BhsgMayplzX Tony Santos tsmuse Tony Santos Wed, 07 Jul 2010 16:22:00 -0700 It's all about sharing awesomeness today http://www.powzot.com/its-all-about-sharing-awesomeness-today http://www.powzot.com/its-all-about-sharing-awesomeness-today

I wrote a ton about ice cream cones on Monday, and I've been pretty busy the last two days, but I came across this video and it's FANTASTIC. Making cool stuff like this is why I became a designer (no, sadly I wasn't involved at all in this project, it was done by Vitamins Design in London) in the first place, now I just need to find someone who will pay me to make them cool stuff like this. Great UX and beautiful graphic design. Wonder why Apple isn't doing their manual like this?

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1085768/avatarMarch2011.png http://posterous.com/users/5BhsgMayplzX Tony Santos tsmuse Tony Santos Mon, 05 Jul 2010 22:02:02 -0700 Holiday Edition http://www.powzot.com/holiday-edition-2 http://www.powzot.com/holiday-edition-2
It's a holiday weekend, and despite having so far written only about things I thought were doing UX wrong, I thought I'd take the theme of the holiday for me and dissect the UX of one of my favorite things about summer time, the ice cream cone. Yes, in the spirit of the three day weekend, and totally goofing off (and lack of any other ideas of what to write about) I'm going to attempt to write a UX blog about ice cream cones. Join me, won't you?

The ice cream cone may very well be the most single efficient food cointainer/untensile ever invented. It's environmentally friendly, because when you're finished with it you eat it, it's so simple even untrained children can use it, while there are a few variations on the cone, the basic form and function of the ice cream cone are the same across the cone spectrum. In my fairly extensive experience, there are three basic types of cones to be found at most ice cream stands/stores/bars/eateries: The flat bottom "cake cone, the cone shaped sugar cone and the bigger cone shapes waffle cone. The waffle cone is my personal favorite because of it's larger ice cream carrying capacity, but all three have their merits when it comes to their designs. 

The original, the sugar cone:

I don't actually know if it's "the original", as I have done no research for this piece, but in my mind this would be the place to start. It's the most simple of the cone designs. Sugarly dough, bakes into a conical shape. Nothing fancy, it's just there to do it's job, hold on to your ice cream momentarily, and then be delicious after. There are a few downsides to this elegantly simple design though. It's prone to leaking, usually because there is a small hole in the bottom. They also tend to be rather small, so they have to hold most of their ice cream on top, which makes double and triple scoops more spill prone. Overall the sugar cone does it's job well, and as long as you're not eating a tower of ice cream or planning on take longer than 10 or 15 mins to eat, the sugar cone is all you need. 

The high-tech cake cone:

The cake cone takes the cone design and does it one better. Not technicaly a cone, but a cylinder, the cake cone brings a flat bottom and reenforced multi-chamber design to the party. They tend to last longer, and you can set them down on a flat surface. These are big improvements but they come at the cost of flavor. As an edible container, the cake cone is the least appetizing of the cones, often made of some sort of "cake" that more closely resembles paper. A great cone for a slow eater, like it's sugar cone cousin, it's lack of interior space makes it less desirable for multi-scoop treats, it's advantage comes purely in it's ability to stand upright.

The new commer, the waffle cone:

Again, I have no idea how "new" th waffle cone is. I do know that it costs more than a regular cone, but it's advantages make it worth every penny. A true innovation in ice cream cone technology, someone must have asked "What would happen if I made a really big sugar cone, but made it out of delicious waffle batter instead?" This the waffle cone was born. It's sheer hugeness makes it perfect for holding not only multiple scoops of ice cream, but toppings. While it lacks the flat bottom innovation of the cake cone, the waffle cone tends to be thicker, and so holds up to a slower snacker. It is also the safest cone for multi-scoop endeavors, or people who don't want to get ice cream all over their face, because it's often served with a spoon as well. 

No matter what your preference, enjoy some ice cream or frozen something this weekend, it's sure to be user friendly. Until next time...

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1085768/avatarMarch2011.png http://posterous.com/users/5BhsgMayplzX Tony Santos tsmuse Tony Santos Wed, 30 Jun 2010 23:35:55 -0700 It's social media day, just like every other day since 2006 http://www.powzot.com/its-social-media-day-just-like-every-other-da http://www.powzot.com/its-social-media-day-just-like-every-other-da I was informed this morning that today was "social media day." There were parties and meetups and well excuses to go drink (we need them now that the USA is out of the world cup.) Really, it was a chance for "gurus" to pretend that because Facebook and Twitter are now on the news every night, that they need a special day to prove how guru-tastic they are. In fact, most of the people I know in the social media sphere just made funny remarks about how dumb it was and moved on (I was also in that camp, BUT...I also blogged about it.) The fact is, social media is exactly like the social part of real life. Where you have to be nice to people, not be a dick, be honest and be interesting. Hard stuff, I know.

So what does this have to do with UX? Well, honestly having special days for social media, to pretend that it's really any different than having a real social experience are making something awesome and empowering into something more complicated than it really is. This is bad for UX for social media, esp for people who aren't on the cutting edge, because making something out to be more complicated than it really is always leads to a less enjoyable experience. But hell, it sells books and speaking engagements, so screw everyone else. 

For the record, this blog SUPER hard to write. I had to send an email, and we all know how hard that is. Good thing I found a guru at the bar.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1085768/avatarMarch2011.png http://posterous.com/users/5BhsgMayplzX Tony Santos tsmuse Tony Santos Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:36:15 -0700 The inevitable iPhone 4 post, from a UX perspective http://www.powzot.com/the-inevitable-iphone-4-post-from-a-ux-perspe http://www.powzot.com/the-inevitable-iphone-4-post-from-a-ux-perspe Everyone is talking about this, so of course I have to get my two cents in, right? Yes I know I"m late to the party on this one. 

Actually, the main thing that gets me the most about all this iPhone 4 stuff doesn't have anything to do with the product as much as it has to do with every blogger and PR person's idea of Dieter Rams philosophy on design. So let's just clear that part up first. Rams ten principles of good design are: 
  • Good design is innovative
  • Good design makes a product useful
  • Good design is aesthetic
  • Good design makes a product understandable
  • Good design is unobtrusive
  • Good design is honest
  • Good design is long-lasting
  • Good design is thorough down to the last detail
  • Good design is environmentally friendly
  • Good design is as little design as possible
Apple (and really Jonathan Ive, since he's the head of design at Apple) hits a lot of these. iPhone 4 is innovative, aesthetic, understandable, unobtrusive, and as little design as possible (which I would call "simple" but I'm trying to make a point here using Rams's words) but it isn't long-lasting or environmentally friendly (hello new model every year, meet Dieter Rams). It isn't thorough down to the last detail, because of the antenna problems (yes, if you aren't having these problems you need to accept there are a lot of people who are) and because of that flaw the product isn't as useful as it could be since it's usefulness is based almost solely on being able to comunicate with a cellular network.  Apple has hit way more of these than they've missed, and while the few they've missed are big ones, I can not deny, as a designer, the iPhone 4 is a beautiful piece of gadget to look at. 

But ultimately it's a phone, and it needs to work like a phone, not a "beautiful old camera" to totally take a quote out of context. This, however, isn't the biggest user experience problem the iPhone 4 has. Apple's response to any complaint's about the phone's performance is iPhone 4's biggest UX problem. "Don't hold it like that" and "Just buy a case for it" don't make for a good experience, and this is a prime example of something most companies fail to see when they design a product. Customer service is a big part of the user's overall experience with any product. Effectively saying "hold it differently" or "spend more money" isn't a solution, and it's leaving a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. And that's too bad, because the iPhone as a product line is a fantastic product, it's just got a big UX problem they need to clear up, and that's Apple. 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1085768/avatarMarch2011.png http://posterous.com/users/5BhsgMayplzX Tony Santos tsmuse Tony Santos Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:57:00 -0700 The "rules" post http://www.powzot.com/the-rules-post http://www.powzot.com/the-rules-post

I have a blog (www.powzot.com)... which I haven't updated in months. Mostly because I haven't had time to write thoughtful, meaningful posts about PowZot's main topic, marketing and advertising. But I still have stuff to say. Stuff that doesn't fit into twitter and it's 140 character limit. Stuff about design, about user experience, about small business, about whatever else it in my head at the time I feel like writing. To that end I'm setting up some rules to keep me writing (something I really feel like I need to do more) and set expectations for you, if you are one of the crazy people who chose to read all this. 

  1. All posts are "rough drafts", they will be written and posted. No posts will linger, waiting to be edited.
  2. Try at least in some way, even if it's lame, to tie it back to UX. Fall back will be "I can't tie this back to UX in anyway."
  3. All other rules are thrown out the window. 
That's it. On with the show.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1085768/avatarMarch2011.png http://posterous.com/users/5BhsgMayplzX Tony Santos tsmuse Tony Santos