Life in Perpetual Beta
The site & the developing documentary seem like an interesting find.
Melissa Pierce, producer & filmmaker behind the documentary has been in conversation with a band of very interesting creatives, primarily in and around Chicago. From Jim Coudal to Carlo Segura, Jason Fried to David Armano, Gary Vaynerchuk and the guys at Skinny Corp. The common theme, though it drifts, centers around the connection between creativity & authenticity.
With that said, go check out Life in Perpetual Beta.
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10/06/2008 Death to mouse
The famed & revered Bruce “Tog” Tognazzini was recently quoted in an article by the Financial Times as saying “In many ways, our continued reliance on the computer mouse reduces us to little more than cavemen, running around pointing at symbols and ‘grunting’ with each click”
In many ways this is already true. Many portables use either a nipple or a trackpad, although I’m sure this isn’t exactly what he was getting at.And of course let’s not forget touch screen displays such as the iPhone’s, which provides a unique and highly “gestured” mode of navigating from screen to screen.
It’s quite an interesting point, as with most things digital, we’ve designed devices or interfaces with referential analogs such as the pen or pencil and typewriter. Devices like the Cintiq, though brilliant in many ways, is simply a tablet PC or even worse, a pad of paper.
5-Second Test: A web app
While trying to catch up on all things design, I found a great tool via Robert Hoekman’s recent post at the IXDA site. It’s called 5 second test, a product who’s sole intent is to help facilitate and manage Jarod Spool’s 5-second test model for usability testing.
How it works: Creating a test is simple
The product is tight, simple and seems to be an incredibly valuable asset for quick, off the cuff insight & feedback from a user community. To start I’ll walk through how the product works from the perspective of the test moderator or manager. To start, you only need two simple things. One screenshot for which you’d like to gain some feedback and insight, and an email address. Here’s how it works:
- On the homepage your prompted to enter your email address & upload an image for testing
- Submit this information and you’re immediately provided with a short, unique URL for the test. This is displayed on the next screen and emailed as well.
- Email each participant with the instructions they should follow and include the link.
Essentially it’s that easy.
Now for the end user. It’s also quite simple.
How it works: Conducting a test is as easy as email
The other side of the product of course is to display the single screen to the test participants and collect their input after the screen is presented. This too is simple and straightforward.Here’s how the test participants would interact with the product:
- The participant would click the link from the email you provided (hopefully reading your thorough instructions first)
- The user is sent to a landing page, and given some instruction about how the test is conducted
- The user clicks “Start Test” and is presented with provided screenshot.
- After Five (5) second the display dissolves to reveal five form field to input the items they remembered based on the instructions you provided
- You’re done
I’m curious to see how the User Experience community and testing community make use of this product as I could see it becoming a fairly strong asset being that it’s so stripped down and simple. Obviously for more complex or intricate insight, a more traditional approach should be taken, but for quick, minute details such as accuracy of “Call to Action” buttons or copy, this could certainly be invaluable. We’ll see how the product evolves in featureset and experience, but thus far, it hits the nail on the head.
Oh, and to protect the client, the site enables the test creator to disable/delete the test upon compilation of results. Obviously useful.
The act of setting goals
Sometimes the simple act of writting a goal down on paper is all you need to ensure it’s accomplished. Pin it up near your monitor, in your wallent, as a reminder on your calendar, etc, and you will likely increase the chances of its acheivment.
I happened upon a very brief post today by Ryan Graves of ActionsTalk.com. The post highlights the acheivement of his goal to reach 100 visitors in a single day (certainly more than read this teeny site on a single day at this point).
Interestingly enough, as simple as all this sounds, when looking at it on a personal scale, it can be frustrating and difficult. It’s one thing to help someone else set goals, and an different story when doing it for yourself.
So in an effort to keep myself honest, on track, and perhaps set myself up for a little failure, I’m going to commit myself to publishing a post a week. I certainly have enough topics to write about, and over time since re-launching Source ID, I’ve become increasingly comfortable putting my own voice and opinion out there. We’ll see where it takes me.
So, goal #1: Set goals
Safety in Social Networks
A common, and interesting occurrence that tends to happen on social sites such as Twitter, Facebook, etc., is the reporting of natural disaster events. Most pertinent to me, Earthquakes.
I was reminded of this tonight when perusing my Twitter stream and came across a flurry of posts around 9pm Pacific all centered on the topic of a scale 4 earthquake in the East Bay of San Francisco. First of all I knew nothing of the event. It’s not the biggest we’ve had out here by any stretch, but certainly strong enough to feel, and apparently enough to cause a ruckus on Twitter by those located around me.
And of course this isn’t the first time. It happens often, if not daily.
Now perhaps the title of this post is slightly exagerated. Could I find safety in a social network? Can Twitter save my life? Will Facebook or Myspace warn me of an impending flood? I suppose not, but the underlining idea here is the distribution of information is more than just a game. Social networking is not solely about random chit-chat and blather. It’s a concept that allows for human scale interaction and communication through the use of connected technology. It’s no different at it’s core than picking up the phone, walking to your neighbors yard, or chatting with your neighbor on an international flight.
Perhaps a slightly more apt title would be reporting through the social graph.
The search for voice
So as you can tell, I’ve done very little in way of posting on this here blog. See, I’m a relative newbie to the world of blogging, and as such never quite know what to write, or more over, what I want this blog to be about.
After sitting down from time to time and digging through some of my favorite blogs / authors first few posts I always am reminded that blogging and the act of finding ones voice is typically an evolutionary process. Particularly for those new to the act of writing and blogging. So, with that said, I appologize upfront from the likely random scattering of topics that may ensue.
Perhaps you can consider this my first post, or simply my proclomation that this is one big experiment. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I am sure to find out over time. Hopefully with the help of readers / subscribers through comments. What topics, opinions, observations do you find interesting (so far none it would seem)
So here’s to the great experiment. Let’s see where it goes.
iPhone: The issues with evolution
The iPhone, Apple’s pearl of the mobile device. Perhaps one could even say its the evolution of Apple’s early “Newton” hand-held from decades ago.
Well, this story is likely short, but important to me. It’s about the evolution of one man’s experience with a product. A product loved by many, particularly me. As a designer, and one most critically involved and interested in the design for experiences, the iPhone presented a revolution in the mobile phone or mobile device experience. A very true and valiant translation of experience from Mac OSX on the desktop to a mobile device.
I was a relative late comer to the iPhone, allowing the market to pick out all the bugs or issues that typically follow an early product. I learned my lesson after buying the first round of Intel touting Mac’s, placing my order at midnight the evening of their release. The following months weren’t too bad, but certainly contained a mix of “bugs” related to a new product. It comes with the territory.
But enough with that. Let’s fast forward to the issue at hand. My iPhone, and it’s presumed “evolution”.
Since the release of the devices 2.0 OS my experience has progressively gone down hill. Missed calls, late messages, required restarting the entire OS in order to web browse, download or send email, or even making phone calls. It’s really been a fairly disasterous experience, and one that makes me wish the old days of just having a phone that works (namely my old Samsung….).
Don’t get me wrong for one minute. I still love this phone. Sorry, this device. It’s far more than a phone, and no competitor on the market can come close to the experience this little puppy provides. It’s mind blowing, amazing, refreshing, a new outlook on how communication, productivity and fun can all play in the same sandbox. But Apple must recognize that the experience they provide is extremely fragile, and by releasing updates to software in the name of progress only to diminish the presumed and proven value of the device is extremely detrimental.
With that said, I’ll end this post and go play with my iPhone!
Bonding with the Customer
After reading a recent post on the blog her Nature his Nature titled “Take Your Customer To Work Day”, I couldn’t help but think about it’s similarity to the concepts of Participatory Design & Field Research all leading to an informed Design for User Experience.
In the article, author “shazell” highlights the importance of providing a level of clarity & transparency to the customer about how your business works and cares for their use of your companies products and/or services. As the article also points out, this could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the business and, of course, how the company treats their customer.
In the world of Participatory Design, much of the same is true. Its effectiveness is highly dependent on the clarity and perspective a business has towards their community of customers. If they truly care about how they serve and provide products or services for their customer, then this mode of research is incredibly effective. The basic principle is to allow the customer to have an active voice in the design of products that your company is ultimately designing for their user or consumption. The idea behind this is, from a marketing perspective, that you have the potential to limit your risk of poor market penetration.
On this same note, Field Research has many of the same effects, but almost in reverse. Field Research provides a design team the opportunity to experience how a customer uses the product or service they are designing for. Never conducted in a lab, the intent is to allow the designer (or researcher) into the daily life of the customer, essentially giving the designer the opportunity to “live the brand of the customer”.
What I find most interesting about this idea of “Take Your Customer To Work Day” is that in a few cases, this is actually happening. Take Etsy as an example. The online marketplace for all things handmade, has been building incredibly tight bonds with their buyers and sellers by inviting them into the Brooklyn headquarters to produce their goods. Pretty friendly, huh? And bringing a whole new meaning to the term “User Experience”.
And in some way, entrepreneurial gem Threadless is opening their doors to the customer party, though in a fairly different manner. The online community retailer of t-shirt designers and buyers has redefined what it means to be a company. The company has completely blurred the line between customer & consumer in a marketplace, and one might say they see themselves hardly as an intermediary, but instead, truly a participant in the community.
So in closing, as we see more and more creative uses for Social Media tools, our perspectives on the topic of User Experience evolve, finding new ways to connect to each other, and find new ways to share experiences between business & consumer.
Barking up the wrong tree
In a recent post
Personally, I couldn’t agree more with this quick snippet of daily insight. All too often designers are asked to “Make it bigger” & “Make it louder”, and as much as these tactics work to some degree, a level of tact, poise, and quite simply, respect for the end user (customer or consumer) is the most effective long-term approach
My own experience with “Barkers” happens a bit closer to home. North Beach in San Francisco. Walk along Columbus Avenue and you’ll be accosted by any number of Barkers on your stroll. Have I been to a single restaurant fronted by a Backer in my many trips into the city by the bay? Nope. Where do I go? A little, quiet, quality spot around a quiet corner. Dark, warm, and comfortable. The noise is on the inside, coming from the crowd of diners conversing, not Barkers trying to drag me in with “Bigger” & “Louder” messages.
When designing a ad, website, brochure, or application we need consider the holistic experience we’re trying to provide our customer, as well as the context or baggage they carry with them. Tourists. They’re likely tired, hungry, and want a nice relaxing environment to reflect on the days sights, sounds, and purchases. Give them a memory equal to their experience of the day.
Where does barking ultimately leave a business. Likely attracting the wrong kind of customer. Or at least one that doesn’t interest me as a business owner. Perhaps someone like this guy or this guy. Yeah, they’re funny to look at, but you wouldn’t want to hang out with them too long!
I suppose the same goes for dogs. In particular, mine. A barking dog does not attract people, it scares them away. I wish my own dog would learn that simple rule! :)
Dusties PT 1
Over this past weekend I found myself sifting through the dark dirty corners of my external hard drive, which amongst other things, seems to contain an archive of random dj mixes from my years previous running Subsystence web broadcasts out of my apartment (perhaps defined as a precursor to podcasts) and the Subsystence radio program (broadcast from Northwestern Universities WNUR studios).
Below is a complete broadcast from the later. This is part test of a new Wordpress Plugin (found here). The mix is fairly distorted and well, sloppy, but that’s how I like it.
track length: 1:02:48
Side note
For those with a quizical look on your face (for the one, maybe two people who read this blog currently), I used to DJ, and for a while tried my hand at web broadcasting from my Chicago apartment. That site was called Subsystence, for which you can find some information here.
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