Thursday, August 10, 2006

Event notes: Obsession - Finding the sympathetic heart of design




Obsession: Finding the sympathetic heart of design - Tom Brinck Creative Director, A9.com
08/09/06: Presentation (16 MB)

**photos for the event can be found in this flickr set**

This event was co-sponsored by the Michigan UPA.

Jack highlighted upcoming events for MOCHI:
- Joyce Chai, from MSU (probably September 14th - a Thursday)
- Peter Weinstein, from Altarum

Dave M-R highlighted the next events for UPA:
- Wed. August 16th: A survey of UI prototyping tools (Brian Phelps, 6 - 8pm, Quicken Loans, Livonia, MI
- World usability day, on Nov. 14th, in Lansing at MSU. Students are highly encouraged to participate in the student poster session being held this year.

Tim Kiernan gave a nice introduction to Tom:

Tom's presentation:
- talk's about a chapter in the 2nd Ed of usability for the web book
- user experience = difficulty in tying down the definition
- Starting off with example of Google:
-- extremely simple UI that accounts for its success
-- it actually works and does what people need
-- there's an aesthetic towards google
-- Tom launches into a design walkthrough of the google UI
-- little nuances to the UI of the google search engine

Why do people love some really ugly websites?
- parallel with why do ugly men have really pretty girlfriends
-- answer = personality
-- this is actually what the talk's about

e.g.. 2 Slashdot
- another example of a really ugly website
- but figured out who their audience was and catered to them by letting them "geek out"
-- letting people geek out about what their "obsession" is

e.g.. 3 craigslist
- didn't dwell on this eg too much

Bigger moral problem:
Why do people love sites and software that are really confusing and hard to use?
e.g.. 4 ebay
- usability problem = search for ipod nano but doesn't get what he's looking for
- as usability specialists: what good are we when we create hard to use sites that are still nonetheless popular
- serving a need and being really popular = question of how you are defining usability
-- tom defines usability in the broadest sense before
--

Usefulness & user experience
- people love what is useful, engaging and desirable
- people love what they love

e.g.. 5 iPhoto
- v1.0 was incredibly frustrating
- product has evolved since but tom is still using v1.0

Sympathetic heart of design
concept
connects:
- business needs
- brand and marketing
- user needs

Best word to describe this is "fit"
- matching what your audience wants and needs
- other synonyms: relevance, trust, culture

e.g.. 6 Michigan Ross Campaign site
- nice design
- doesn't answer questions about who it's targeted at and what do the labels mean
- e.g. of well-designed site that doesn't do what it needs to

e.g.. 7 vehix.com
- commercials really are not compelling. No one present in the audience has been to the site

e.g.. 8 1st national back weather cam
- banks used to ask diamond bullet to turn them into portals
- nobody goes to bank websites to find the weather
- banks have a problem of not having a login on the home-page
-- because login on a separate secure server
-- something that the banks needed to solve

e.g..9 answering service
- capture the problem
-- young designer at diamond bullet hit on the idea of capturing the problem visually

avoid boilerplate design
- don't have to have all pages in the site that look the same
- no inconsistent but what to have a clear message communicated in each page

e.g.. 10 PD trials
- site succeeded
- not the most beautiful design
- every element speaks out to the audience for i
- repeat users really want to see new additions to the site

e.g.. 11 coke.com
- tom never liked coke sites
- but they have very beautifully laid out pages
- however what was delivered i the site were cartoons and short films
question from jack = is it for user experience for geeks or for generating advertising to create new geeks

Rod Lowe: "usability is like safe sex it's codes of law rather than a focus on enhancement of experience."
- desirability has always been an important part of design
- some people may talk about usability as abstinence
-- usability as about rules rather then about excitement/

good concepts don't have to be ugly
e.g.. 12 world of warcraft
- 6m active users
- tuned for addictive play
- put in so much effort to make every refinement possible
- personalization and choice
- user ownership

e.g.. 13 neopets

e.g.. 14 comic life
- the coolest thing since sliced bread
- the interface is really fun

brands about user experience
e.g.. 15 ipod
- all about the user experience
- apple has built a user experience in the sense that they have a unified an easy to use system that surrounds the ipod
- Tom thinks that it's because people love to geek out on their music
- focus on "playing with my music"
- people can ignore everything but their music
- hitting on psychology of people = obsessive compulsive behavior
- most of these sites are about capturing obsessive compulsiveness in human nature
- e.g.. of blogs = people ill get obsessed about whether people have replied to their comments

e.g.. 16 starbucks
- starbuck's 3rd place
- strategy to create this third place
- there because there's comfy chairs and mood lighting
- about you having your own coffee

eg. 17 levis
- consistent effect of fit and wash
- built into giving consistency

tying this into web 2.0
- intro to what web 2.0 is by highlighting some of the buzzwords associated with web 2.0

e.g.. 18 friendster
- things that are really succeeding
- let's you connect to friends
- type of people who get on these sites = friend collectors!!!
- collectors are really a focus of this talk
- have tools that encourage this sort of behavior

obsessive properties of web 2.0
- social
-- connect to friends
-- share your data
-- find people like you
- collecting and organizing

e.g.. 19 wikipedia

design in this context is about having a social/cultural dialogue with your end-user community = creating, refining and evolving ideas

e.g.. 20 library thing
- tom's fave thing
- caters to book geeks, allows them to catalogue their libraries
- get to play with collection = rate them, sort theme, have graphs that display trends and allows visualizations of other and like-minded people
- fits all ideas of personalization, socialization and simplicity
- library thing = extremely usable
-- things respond very quickly
-- facilitates people's obsessive behavior

e.g.. 21 del.icio.us

e.g.. 22 flickr

e.g.. 23 youtube

Values and meanings at a deeper level
- "fit" and taoism
- virtue of being like "uncut wood"
-- true to himself, unpresumptious
- web 2.0 things are like that = open to experience and adapts to what happens
- designs that have no pretensions
reflecting passion for the topic and the user
- socially constructed knowledge
-- empty vessel and letting knowledge come to you = wiki
- perpetual beta
-- idea that things are not final and work
-- everything's beta
-- never call it done = always evaluating and asking user feedback

wabi sabi
- quiet or understated elegance
- pottery that sense the making = shows wear and tear and becomes a part of its environment
- inevitability = core to today's topic
-- when look at the pottery = thing is beautiful
-- imperfection has to be natural and has to come from the construction itself
-- the final design has to be = "i could not imagine that in any other way"
-- this inevitability is what tom is looking for in all design

Peter Boersma diagram for wabi sabi in user experience design

User experience is misused
- creating values in the design that are deceitful and encouraging the wrong values

How do we get a good concept with a good fit?
- by demanding high design standards
- renaissance and enlightenment values in design
- artisanship
- rational approach = metric
- focus on building a better world

PC boards esthetics:
- steve jobs " a great carpenter is not going to use lousy wood, even if its for the back of the cabinet"

how to uncover a concept:
- business needs
-- have a focussed idea of what you're trying to say
- background research
-- competitive analysis
-- user interviews
-- read books
- field research, contextual inquiry
-- know everything about your audience
-- e.g. of 30 days
-- go out and learn about the people in a way that you just cannot get information in any other way
- creativity
-- how do people come up with great ideas
-- book: how to get ideas
--- skill
--- productivity
--- risk-taking
- to find the idea that really hits the nail on the head:
-- work really hard and think!
-- not reflected in the design process
- when you have the idea down:
-- optimize
-- every element should be designed
- how do you know you've got it:
-- some group of people has to totally dig it
-- final design should feel inevitable
-- users should not imagine that it could have been other way

MOCHi & UPA presented a token of appreciation for Tom's talk

Q&A:
- recurring theme: sharing books on library thing
-- not entirely about sharing
-- some people are geeking out without having been contributors
-- various people can play different social roles

- perplexed about the tension between usability and utility
-- was there something new in what tom has been saying
-- summary = utility is crucial without it usability won't matter
-- best designs have utility and usability
-- much like chris alexander's pattern language = the quality without a name
-- ugly websites give you trust = true to their core values and not trying to be everything

- comment on renaissance and enlightenment
-- tie in with web 2.0 = not deterministic
-- balance between form and ongoing creation

Saturday, August 05, 2006

The O in MOCHI

Hi, my name is Keith Instone - I unofficially represent the "O" in MOCHI - Ohio. I live in the Toledo area and will use this blog to keep you informed about the (few) relevant events that are happening "south of the border."

We have a small group of user experience professionals in the northwest Ohio area and we are very grateful that when MOCHI was formed long ago, it included us. We come to as many meetings in Ann Arbor that we can (but it is not often enough). Someday we will host MOCHI events here and you can come visit us.

At this point, the little activity in our area is being pushed by our local ACM chapter - NWOACM. (Funny how southeastern Michigan has a SIGCHI and a SIGGRAPH chapter but no ACM chapter.) NWOACM - which I am involved in - is trying to organize something for World Usability Day (November 14th). That is probably the next thing around here that MOCHI members may be interested in.

You may also want to watch my Toledoan blog, where I cover various user experience activities in the Ohio and Michigan area. But if there is something that MOCHI members will be interested in, I will be sure to also blog it here.

And a thanks to the MOCHI officers for letting me join this blog. It will be a good way to help us all stay in touch.