I’m just thinking out loud today, but wanted to get this down somewhere (even if nobody will read it). Is there a way to create a design that encourages a user to apply reasonable skepticism? I’m not talking about making people paranoid that their computer is watching them. You computer is not watching you. Honest. Rather, I’m referring to educational programs that encourage kids (K-college) to be skeptical of things they read.
This comes back to a couple recurring conversations I’ve been having about our education system. I certainly think our education system in the States has, for the most part, failed us. I don’t expect everybody to be a super genius, but I do expect a base level of competency that simply doesn’t exist. A big part of that seems to stem from an inability to discern the difference between information and propaganda.
It is true that advertising has very little effect on the younger generation (kids just coming out of high school and younger). At least they aren’t effected by traditional advertising much. There is peer-based advertising, but I digress. People today don’t seem to understand the difference between a valid and rational documentary and one-sided propaganda posing as a documentary. Or news program. Or reality (as opposed to reality TV). I propose this problem is exacerbated in the schools, but I don’t know of evidence supporting that hypothesis.
Of course, that’s an important statement unto itself. I recognize, more or less, the limitations of my own knowledge. However, I try to apply a litmus test against any new knowledge to determine if it’s reasonable. Granted, I was the kid in class that corrected the teacher or book when an error occurred. The students I’ve seen the last few years don’t even consider a text book could be wrong. Hint: every text book ever written has errors.
I don’t have any solution right now, but I wonder if there are ways to encourage exploration and skepticism into the UXD at a fundamental level. There are some amazing UIs for children to explore ideas, gamers to access advanced tools from limited controllers, and professionals to accomplish complex tasks with few keystrokes. I’m going to try drafting up some concepts over the next few weeks and explore the question here (and perhaps another blog or two). Can design encourage appropriate skepticism?
Funny how the “real world” presents us with bad design all of the time. We usually get past it; however, there is a moment of confusion; a pause or hesitation; an element of frustration. Over time, these things add up to big frustrations. Designers call these problems fancy names like cognitive friction or poor modality. Most people just know there is something wrong and frequently can’t even articulate why it’s wrong.
Theater 11 or theater 12?
Here’s a great example. I was walking into a theater about a week ago and saw this brilliant signage.
At first glance I couldn’t believe I was reading that correctly. In the space of two or three minutes, there were several comments made by people walking into the theater. Ok, I’m not counting the people I was with, because they are big geeks like me and notice these things.
I glanced at a couple theaters on the way out and the numbers are supposed to be read down, which makes the signage much more useful. All they have to do is put a vertical line between the numbers to help the eye differentiate between them. In the case of theater 11 and theater 12, the numbers read correctly top-down or left-right. Perhaps an edge case, but pretty important for at least several hundred patrons every day.
Despite my focus on software usability, we a bombarded with bad design everyday. Wouldn’t it be great if people spent just a little more time thinking things through the rest of us could get through the day with a little less frustration? Nobody is perfect, but how many people signed off on this? The architect, the contractor, the person applying the signs, the investor(s), the manager(s), the rest of the staff, etc. etc. etc. Remember, if one person complains about something, there are probably 50 others that noticed it and just didn’t say anything.
What bad designs have you been victim to today?
When I was in the Air Force, we had a running joke. If an organization can be this fucked up, why is it planes don’t just fall from the skies? We all had faith in the individuals, but figured the bureaucracy would somehow find a way to disallow maintenance or perhaps change the order from bolts to nuts because of a misfiled entry. In the end, it seemed incredible that planes didn’t have wings simply fall off more often.
Today reminds me of Brazil. I realize most people have never heard of this movie. It’s a surreal dystopian view of the future from the mind of Terry Gilliam. One of my favorite movies, it takes a bureaucratic approach to 1984… on acid. In fact, the entire movie follows the mishaps based on a single character error on a single form. A suspected terrorist Tuttle becomes a poor Buttle. Buttle plays by the rules and is still incarcerated, convicted and executed because of this mistake, which the machinery of society quickly sweeps under the rug. After all, the Ministry of Information doesn’t make mistakes.
I’ve spent the last several days working through some interesting problems for a client. The application in question is focused on organization charts, so I’ve reviewed several larger organization charts as part of my research. Let’s just say, it doesn’t inspire confidence in corporate America.
Can anybody answer my simple question – why don’t planes fall from the sky?
A recent article on ReadWriteWeb hit on a topic that I’ve been thinking about quite a bit lately. Oh FriendFeed, What You Really Need is Accountability. Can trolls, even spam, be minimized with accountability?
This is a problem that has come up many times in the last few years. In fact, there are a couple social networks I’ve worked on that discussed rating-style solutions. I, ultimately, agree with the article that this is a problem of accountability, but I don’t know if something like rating really solves it. After all, we don’t really go around rating people in the real-world. We might internally denote good or bad experiences, but I doubt many people have given me a solid one to five star rating (not counting the occasional employer of course).
Perhaps, the underlying problem is in the technology itself. We simply don’t internalize text the way we do other forms of communication. We’re not wired that way biologically. Text is a somewhat dehumanizing medium, which leads to a perception of no accountability. Rating systems might work as a stopgap measure, but probably won’t create a lasting solution (after all, people will game any system given the opportunity). Crowd sourcing does have limitations, because crowds have a tendency of turning into mobs.
I suspect this is a growing pain of social media (or even the Internet as a whole). Consider the rapid increase in available printing presses during the mid-18th century. The pamphlets and propaganda published by our founding fathers wouldn’t exactly pass muster today. They frequently “trolled” one another via call and response on their respective papers (go back and read some if you have time, it’s quite entertaining when they break down to name calling). The only difference is there was a week or more lag between call and response. Even up through the early 20th century, news papers were the premier form of mass communication and left much to be desired (take Hurst of example, modifying news to sell product is hardly new). Hurst famously said, “Give me the pictures, I’ll give you the war.” Today, responses occur within seconds and the negative feedback loop becomes an almost self-sustaining torrent of hate (and then somebody calls you Hitler).
My point is this, it took us the better part of 150 years to develop some form of decorum within the modern paper medium – and that’s debatable.
What if our technology outpaced our social development too much? I’m just thinking out loud here, but these solutions presume that people are generally polite and respectful. However, that might be a construct of physical interaction… a throw back to our biological need to avoid pissing off the alpha male , being the weakling left behind or getting injured by a predator. Those are survival instincts I can get behind. Text, whether on the Internet or in print, removes you quite a bit from the consumer of the information. Without the gates inherent to print (cost and risk of using limited resources to print and distribute something), perhaps we just begin to realize how twisted people really are. Ayn Rand would be proud (although I’m more of a John Stewart Mills fan… never cared for Rand much).
Perhaps we just need to learn a new decorum of respect in an age when publishing is freely available to anyone. It took more than 150 years for news paper reporters and press owners to learn some respect (and they occasionally forget it still today). We don’t have that kind of time to figure this one out though. Once society begins to internalize social media and the Internet as an extension of yourself, things like trolling will be limited to people that actually behave this way (e.g., frat brothers). I don’t think simple ratings will a) create an accurate enough picture of the interactions or b) effectively minimize trolling in the first place.
Omaha.com. Run by the local paper, this is supposed to be a resource of information about the area. It’s supposed to espouse journalistic integrity, knowledge and content. Unfortunately, this site simply fails. Fail fail fail fail.
Omaha.com is one of the few sites that consistently degrades the experience with each “upgrade”
Let’s just ignore the poor content for a moment and focus on the design (text included, but not specific content). I don’t know who the “designer” was (and I’m using that term loosely here), but I do know that he needs to look for a different line of work (or at least learn how to do his chosen line of work a bit).
For the sake of convention in this post, I’m going to call our designer friend Tim the Designer or Tim for short (if, by some strange coincidence, the designer’s name actually is Tim, I apologize; if the designer happens to be a woman, I apologize… to women everywhere for such a poor representation of work).
Header
This might be the worst header I’ve seen since 1997. It is way to thick. There are about 170px of wasted space (light blue with gratuitous ads) before we get to the real header. I understand Tim the Designer (or more accurately, his boss the Paper) needs to have ads displayed to support the Paper… after all, with the Paper’s lack of quality control I wouldn’t expect people to actually pay for it. However, it’s important to temper those ads with some reasonableness. Cracked has better ad placement, and they aren’t exactly the typical aspiration of “legitimate” news sites.
Examining the header of Omaha.com
I’m not sure why the navigation is so small on an overly thick gray bevel. I don’t know why Tim the Designer chose a serif font for the navigation either. At this size and weight serifs make letters look smudged and difficult to read. Why do designers like Tim insist on making important navigation all CAPS? Don’t they realize people read by recognizing word shapes? The high and low points within a word help define those shapes and make it easier to read. This is typography 101 stuff, Tim (do you think Tim knows a big word like typography?). Maybe I’ll send a copy of Helvetica to Tim. It might help get him on the right track (different line of work?).
Where are the tabs? It looks like Tim tried to create a tab metaphor, but then forgot to actually include the tabs. This leaves us users oblivious to our current location within the site. No big deal when we’re on the homepage like the above example, but it is pretty confusing once we dive into a section or article.
This is a site supposedly interested in content, yet I have to look for the search mechanism. There was a great survey done just a few months ago about search location patterns. Thanks Tim, you’ve completely destroyed that UI pattern we’ve all grown accustomed to. Why? Does Tim bother to ask questions like, “why?”
Secondary navigation
But why stop there? Tim certainly didn’t. We’ve also been given secondary navigation that drops out of the primary navigation on roll-over. Tim, there’s a nifty concept in UXD (or HCI or whatever you want to call it) called discover-ability. Those primary navigation links don’t even really look like links; they certainly don’t look like additional options are available. On top of poor discover-ability, those navigation links have elusively small target areas (putting your cursor above the text won’t activate the link or secondary navigation, but below the text will). Just in case we were wondering what we just moused over, Tim has included large duplicate copy of what we just moused over. I especially like how mousing over the correct area of primary navigation tells me what section (metro/region in this case) my current article belongs in *dripping with venomous sarcasm*. Thanks for helping, Tim. Why does this site make me feel as though I’m being treated like a tw0-year-old?
More secondary navigation?
Left navigation bar
So Tim created second form of secondary navigation… sorta. The really bright blue thing along the left side (that breaks into the main navigation bar implying a strong relationship) is one form of secondary navigation. Well, it’s more of a weak attempt to create quick connections to areas of interest. A very weak attempt. As we dive into articles and actually attempt to find content (gods forbid anybody wants content from a news site), the role and importance of that blue bar becomes increasingly strained. In fact, this makes it apparent Tim the Designer started with the homepage rather than the content page. Apparently, Tim doesn’t think much of promoting content on the Paper’s news site (I realize the Paper is probably equally guilty of this poor product vision, but Tim’s job is to help keep the Paper on track… clearly, we can’t count on news papers to know anything about new fads like the Internet).
I especially like how the links separated by bars (e.g., Today | Activities, etc.) only have a single space of separation. That makes it easy to read and click to navigate the small links (at least I think they’re links… they don’t look any different than the text, so I can’t be certain!). Some of the links become slightly brighter when you mouse-over them (and I do mean slightly). Some actually bother to add an underlying, which at least makes those links easy to identify. In fact, there are at least five or six different ways links are treated throughout the page.
The calendar is bloody confusing. It’s the 15th, but it shows me the rest of the week (so we can presumably see the future). When I click on the 19th, I get a list of events for the 19th. Okay, I can see a use-case for this one (congratulations Tim). Unfortunately, despite being on a page all about the upcoming events on the 19th, my calendar still has the 15th subtly highlighted. The calendar only shows me a week into the future, so I must not think much of yesterday’s news. Sorry Tim, looks like you’ve failed again.
I’ll have another installment to continue describing how badly Omaha.com and Tim the Designer have failed.
I realize I’m hardly innocent. We all make mistakes and occasionally miss typos. My grammar teachers would most likely cringe at half of the things I write. However, I find it slightly disturbing that some errors are more frequent than correct usage. Take, for instance, a few simple examples of simple diction that seem to fall apart on the Internet (yes, I’m looking at you social networks, instant messages and email).
"Severally" search on Twitter
Severally: One at a time; apart from others
Severely: Strict in judgment, discipline, or government; strongly critical or condemnatory
I understand that severally is a word usually limited to the lawyers (or liars as my law prof, Ken Berke, used to say), but doesn’t this still seem a bit egregious?
I searched Twitter and a few other sites to find good examples of severally used correctly. With the exception of texts written by professionals, I haven’t found many. I went back more than a week and every instance of severally should have been severely, which is even slightly shorter! One would assume people Twitting about should pay close attention to wasted characters.
Or how about something a bit simpler. Something that I would expect the average third-grader to understand (but suspect wouldn’t nonetheless).
Guest: one who is a recipient of hospitality at the home or table of another
Guess: to predict (a result or an event) without sufficient information
The funny part is guess should be easier to type. So, either people typically mispronounce these words, don’t know how to type or had really bad English teachers. Now, it’s most likely a combination of all of those things, but I don’t think I’m asking too much here.
Insure: to provide or arrange insurance for
Ensure: to make sure or certain
Perhaps a subtle difference, but this one annoys me for some reason. Some dictionaries have added a third or fourth definition to insure that mirrors ensure. Perhaps I’ve spent a few too many years reading finance and economics books; however, these two words seem very distinctly different to me. I believe Frank Knight’s definitions of risk and uncertainty probably influenced me here. Knight defined risk as anything one could calculate and purchase insurance against. Uncertainty, however, cannot be calculated or insured. An entrepreneur accepts uncertainty (and is rewarded for it when successful) while purchasing insurance to cover risks. The entrepreneur has the difficult task of ensuring his investors the project has a good likelihood of success. It might be anal, but there is an important difference when you attempt to be specific.
They’re: contraction for “they are” (note how it includes both pronoun and verb, so it’s built in an action.. like it’s)
There: at or in that place
Their: used as a modifier before a noun
Okay, these three are a bit of a pet peeve of mine. Even if you’re typing a quick message on a Blackberry or iPhone, you should be able to take the time to differentiate between a noun + verb, noun and modifier. These are completely different words!
The list goes on and on. I could probably write a short novel describing the pains of passive tense alone (thanks Ken). As Vampire Weekend put it, who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma? I’d just like people to think about their content contributions a little bit more than seem to.* Semantics might be a dull subject, but it is necessary to effectively communicate… and what’s the point of creating content if it doesn’t communicate? A strong understanding of the nuances of language improve your ability to communicate and succeed in life.
Ultimately, I’m lazy. I use big words occasionally, because they articulate my thoughts more accurately, and that means I can use fewer words. In other words, sesquipedalian people improve efficacy and efficiency by developing concise communication.
That being said, always speak to the level of your audience (after all, communication requires comprehension to be valuable). Don’t go around using words like sesquipedalian, unless you’re confident your audience either a) knows what it means, b) would like to learn a new word or c) is holding a dictionary. Otherwise, stick to your audience and focus the communication. I might get a bit long winded, but I try to be precise (one of the bad habits I picked up tying to communicate with lawyers and engineers).
* Yes, you can end a sentence with a preposition in English. Your second-grade teacher didn’t know what she was talking about. The rule, as I understand it, comes from Latin; however, English has a Germanic root, not Romantic. If you don’t believe me, consider which of these sounds more natural.
- Who are you going out with?
- With whom are you going out?
I learned everything I needed for business from magic… or more accurately, while studying magic as a kid.
Once upon a time (I was about 11 or 12 at the time), I was invited to a mentorship program. We were supposed to pick a profession. The organization then found a mentor in that profession to offer advice on what the profession is really about, how to go about getting into it, etc. The organizers didn’t really know what to say when I told them I wanted to be a magician. They suggested that wasn’t a profession. Well, I had to ask what profession people like Teller, David Copperfield, Siegfried and Roy (it was the early ”90s at the time) and Harry Blackstone used when filling out their taxes.
Now, it just so happens I grew up in Fort Wayne, IN… which happens to be the home of Dick Stoner. For those of you not familiar with the niche world of magic, Dick Stoner is a fairly well known name. He did a bunch of corporate retreats and such, but also developed small chain of the best magic stores in the Midwest (the flagship store is in downtown Fort Wayne).
Eventually, the organizers contacted Dick and asked if he’d be interested in mentoring a student (me). At first he was hesitant (after all, most 12-year-olds probably make pretty bad apprentices). But after hearing he didn’t have a profession, he decided to mentor me (partly out of spite I suspect). This is when I started to learn everything needed in business.
First, let’s cover the basics of what magic teaches. Penn does an excellent job of defining and, with the help of Teller, demonstrating the seven basic principles of magic. On a side note, Teller has one of the coolest houses ever built.
Seven Principles of Magic
- Palm: To hold an object in an apparently empty hand
- Ditch: To secretly dispose of an unneeded object
- Steal: To secretly obtain a needed object (the opposite of ditch)
- Load: To secretly move the object to where it’’s needed
- Simulation: To give the impression that something that hasn’t happened has
- Misdirection: To lead attention away from a secret move
- Switch: To secretly exchange one object for another
I would like to append one more vital ingredient that magic requires, but isn’t magic specific – style. Anybody that has had a chance to see Penn & Teller should recognize their distinct and spectacular presentation style. In fact, every great magician I’ve ever seen or read about has a distinct style of presentation from Houdini and Blackstone to Teller and Blaine (I don’t particularly care for Blaine, but he has found a degree of commercial success). Stoner helped me understand the importance of presentation more than anything else. Even the simplest slight of hand can be impressive with the right presentation.
I’m not suggesting that one should be deceptive. In fact, I’d argue magic is anything but deceptive. The entire audience knows that it is an illusion. The audience is attempting to out think the illusion. The performer, on the other hand, is explicitly telling the audience “this isn’t real,” before convincing the audience that it looks real. It’s a bit like the movie The Usual Suspects, which starts by showing you what happened and then spends 90 minutes convincing you that you didn’t see the first few minutes. These principles simply help you (the entrepreneur or intrapreneur) present your case in the best possible light.
Now I present my modified principles in light of their benefits to business and entrepreneurism.
Eight Principles of Entrepreneurism
- Palm: Don’t overload people with too much information. If you’re speaking to a layperson or group, don’t use jargon or get into technical details. If you”re working with engineers, don’t bother reviewing marketing details. You might need to have a grasp on all of the moving parts, but people actually moving the parts usually don’t need that much detail. Make sure everybody understands the big picture (what you”re building) and how their part fits. Then, focus on their particular piece. That’s what is important to them after all. Engineers don’t care about market surveys and marketers don’t know the first thing about IC architecture. Now, I believe in transparency as well. So, if an engineer specifically asks about the marketing plans, I’m more than happy to spend two hours explaining the marketing plan and how it relates to engineering. However, it’s rare people want too much detail outside of their specialty, because it takes lots of time and generally isn’t too valuable (beyond simple academic curiosity). Learn when to palm information that isn’t pertinent.
- Ditch: Know when an idea or component no longer has potential positive benefit to the firm or society. It’s important to constantly remind yourself that each milestone represents a go / no-go decision point. All of the thought and energy previously expended become sunk costs (to be fair, you might be able to recover some value on a similar or related project, but I generally find it’s better to assume nothing can be salvaged when making the decision). Learn when to ditch a failed course of action.
- Steal: Steal has some pretty negative connotations in business. Rather, consider this more of a legitimate acquisition. Always keep your eyes on the evolution of the markets. Attempt to understand what is going on and how it interrelates. Use this knowledge to place yourself in the room discussing the next big idea in your area. This is hardly an easy task, but if you genuinely contribute value to the conversation, all you need to do is know where an when to show up. Ultimately, learn to identify worthy ideas.
- Load: Once you”re in the room discussing the next big idea, be sure to load it with lots of smart people with different opinions. A wise man once suggested that we “always strive to be the dumbest person in the room.” Lincoln went on to create a “team of rivals” that succeeded where most would have failed. This will lead to more robust ideas and improved likelihood of success. Given the degree of risk and uncertainty inherent in entrepreneurism (and I’m referring to Schumpeter’s high entrepreneur for the economists reading), anything that can improve the chance of success is hugely beneficial. Learn to load your teams with smart rivals.
- Simulation: Don”t be afraid to use props when they make sense. People generally have trouble accurately imagining something that doesn’t exist yet. It’s almost impossible for an untrained eye to understand what a house will be like when looking at blueprints; what using an application will be like looking at wireframes or screenshots; what a device will feel like looking at a CAD rendering. Building mockups, proofs of concept and prototypes helps those untrained eyes grok the endgame. Engineers might understand widget blueprints, but the investors that support building widgets and marketers selling widgets probably won’t. This is one way to alleviate the problems with transferring tacit or mostly tacit knowledge. These tactics also help find problems with an idea before investing substantial resources. Learn to simulate key experiences for stakeholders.
- Misdirection: I’m a bit hesitant to leave this on the list, but it is important. First, allow me to again emphasize that I am not suggesting you deceive anybody. That being said, sometimes it helps to apply responsible blinders to keep people focussed. One of my former professors, Mel Fugate, once said, “a manager’s primary purpose is to take all of the blame and give all of the credit.” To accomplish this task, a good manager misdirects his/her managers. A good manager convinces everybody outside of their direct reports that the mistakes made were entirely the manager’s fault. Successes, on the other hand, are attributed to a great team. Although subtle, this encourages subordinates to go above and beyond if necessary while superiors recognize an accountable and well respected manager. Learn to strategically misdirect superiors to support subordinates.
- Switch: Even before I started studying magic, I spent quite a bit of time reading about space and its exploration. Now, believe it or not, this was before the Internet as we know it existed, so I wrote snail-mail letters to every NASA facility asking for more information, pictures etc. There are several boxes worth still sitting in a closet at my parent’s house, I’m certain. Now, whether you’re doing a magic show or sending a probe to Titan (a Saturn moon that might be able to support microbial life), it’s pretty important to have a Plan B… and C and D and E. There should always be a way, even if only loosely considered, to switch a risk into a solution. I learned ways to overcome hecklers, people trying to ruin tricks, obnoxious audience members, etc. At one point, I had several hundred jokes memorized to help turn those problems into opportunities in the middle of the show (which is just part of my style). A few years ago I got into my car and drove till I found a job… of course, I had several solid phone interviews already under my belt. About 1200 miles and 36 hours later I had two job offers in hand and willing to bid up my compensation. I wish I could simply say I’m that good, but I’m not. I had Plan Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta and Echo. Luckily Alpha worked out that time, but I had friends with couches and additional interviews lined up in a half-dozen cities around the country. Learn to think on your feet and switch out potential risks for potential solutions quickly.
- Style: Everybody should have a presentation style. A loose code that defines your approach to managing problems. I tend to be laid back and casual. I prefer to use humor to deflate a situation and logic to solve the problem (think geeky humor followed by Spock-like problem-solving). I also enjoy a good debate, so if you have a question or idea, be prepared for a lengthy set of questions and suggestions. I present that by wearing red Chuck Taylor’s (favorite footwear of the tenth Doctor, David Tennant), jeans and a simple dress shirt (probably worn a few more times than recommended). That’’s my style. It has evolved over the years, but there are common themes for at least the last 10-15 years. And, much to my dismay, most people around town recognize that style… although they probably don’t know why I wear red shoes. This helps a) people remember who I am and b) help my reputation precede me. I’ve been introduced to people who recognize my shoes and then associate some previous conversation or person to me before we even begin to talk. Now, assuming you have a good reputation to spread around, that helps meetings go more smoothly and more quickly. Furthermore, people quickly get a good idea of how I operate. If they’re comfortable with my style, it’s much easier to do business with me. It doesn’t matter if we met in the boardroom or the bar, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what I am. This, of course, also helps me be more memorable when presenting an idea or discussing a potential deal. Learn to develop, espouse and consistently apply your style.
Despite several degrees in business and a few years of experience, my most valuable lessons in business and entrepreneurism hearken back to magic. I use these principles every day and encourage both superiors and subordinates to consider the valuable lessons magic offers. By the way, your card is the Three of Clubs. 
This is not a webpage.
Perhaps not as clever following René Magritte’s The Treachery of Images, yet still valid (I would have said that back in 1928, except I wasn’t invited to the French exhibition and webpages weren’t in common use yet… and my parents hadn’t been born). Consider René’s point for a moment. The image of a pipe cannot be smoked; therefore, it is not a pipe. Surrealism has always fascinated me as a topic of philosophical discussion (which, I confess, might have been encouraged by my favorite college pastime – screwing with inebriated philosophy majors). Regardless, the topic seems to have some weight in the world of user experience design (UXD). But first, allow me to expand on my initial observation.
The Treachery of Images - 1928-1929
How do you define a webpage? Is it the rendered output of the browser? The content contained on the page? The underlying code such as HTML, CSS, javascript, Flash and such? The underlying ones and zeros representing ASCII and various compressed media files that store and transfer that code? Is it the local copy stored temporarily for the browser? The copy on my server (and if so, which one)?
As you can see, the whole concept of what we call a “webpage” gets pretty convoluted when you try to nail it down. We all (or at least I hope all of you) understand implicitly what a webpage is. But the definition seems to be a bit elusive. Now, I’m pretty confident several of those proposed definitions could suffice, but none of them would really be complete. That’s why, no matter how you define it, I can refute your definition and say “this is not a webpage.”
What’s the point of all this babbling about semantics? How does it relate to something real (as opposed to surreal)? I’m getting to that. Don’t worry, you’re not the first person to suggest I over think things occasionally, so bear with me.
The activity of thinking this through forces you (or at least me) to think of things from a mindset that I wouldn’t normally consider. As a practitioner of UXD, I consider a website the culmination of technologies and content delivered to your browser when a super special URI is accessed. As an entrepreneur, a website is little more than one delivery vehicle for a potentially valuable solution to some problem a given group of people have. As a businessman, a website is a potential asset created and maintained by the firm to increase revenue, decrease costs or maintain existing clients (assuming new clients will increase revenue).
Here’s the problem – These are all valid, yet juxtaposed, concepts. Each of those definitions are valid for a website, but reconciling them is nearly impossible. This is what UX designers deal with on a regular basis (perhaps it’s just me, but I’ll assume that at least some designers are like me). The act of design is frequently an attempt to reconcile inherently incongruous juxtapositions (i.e., surreal).
Good design sometimes requires us to look past temporarily incongruous juxtapositions, so long as they cancel out in the end.
Frequently, to design a good experience, the designer must put himself or herself into a mental position that hasn’t been (or can’t ever be) directly experienced. For instance, when I was working on Plum Keeper, I had to consider the experience from the primary user group’s perspective, which is pretty typical. Unfortunately for me, the primary user group are mothers of small children with moderate computer skills. Being a single male (yes women of the Interweb I’m a single geek, how original) with no children (last I checked), the whole young mother thing is a bit unlikely to ever happen and certainly hasn’t occurred yet. Furthermore, I’m hardly a computer guru, but I’ve been around the block a few times (I started on a C64 and have been online since the early 90s… good ol’ BBS’s). I know plenty of mothers who I interviewed for the project, but as much as I sympathize with their situations I can never truly empathize. This is where understanding (or at least pretending to understand) surrealism can help in reality. The same skills used to digest those incongruous juxtapositions of surrealism will help feel out alternative design possibilities (e.g., me mothering a couple young kids). I think the design Kyrie Robinson (who has the unfair advantage of being a mother of young children) and I came up with will work out pretty well, but only time will tell.
It reminds me of electrical engineering. For those of you that haven’t studied the topic, it can get a bit confused. Imaginary numbers supposedly simplify the algebra (if you insist on calling that mess simplified), but they have to cancel out in the end (seeing as we live in the non-imaginary world). Now, when dealing with trivial cases, this seems obvious and is pretty easy to do. My class was a bit different. Hard doesn’t begin to explain it, but I’ll tell the story of my migraines and C+ worthy 17% another day.
So here’s the grand wisdom (or at least a good idea) that I’ve garnered from surrealism, which I use in product design: Good design sometimes requires us to look past temporarily incongruous juxtapositions, so long as they cancel out in the end. Although I might not be able to empathize with a mother of young children, I can attempt to sympathize. In doing so (if I do my job well), I create an experience that will effectively solve a problem for those mothers. The imaginary number of my design efforts (me as a mother) cancels out (real mothers like it too).
An old friend and colleague from Creighton University, Travis Graham, has decided to try his hand at product design. I am quite confident in his ability to design successful products. Granted, he doesn’t have much experience beyond a few small internal projects and coursework, but we all started in a similar situation.
I plan on helping Travis work through a couple projects to build up his resume and figure out if he really enjoys the design. If successful, I’d like to bring him on to support some of my projects over the next year. Then, with a little luck, the one-man band will start to become a more diverse organization allowing us to take on more projects and specialize to some extent.
The more the merrier. Travis will bring insight, talent, and perspective to future projects.
We’ve decided to start with a small website redesign. Travis has contacted the site owner, who seems very receptive to having a free redesign. In fact, the owner seems interested in changing the business focus and image a bit, so it’s a good thing Travis and I both have MBAs as well. I suppose being slightly over-educated does have its benefits on occasion.
I believe everybody should have a few ‘secret’ talents. Talents that aren’t necessarily obvious and have no clear relationship to work or hobbies. One of my secret talents is carving pumpkins.
It’s that time of year again. Many people anticipate the children dressed up looking for candy. Some of the children happen to be in their 20s and 30s.
We look forward to the latest pumpkin carving challenge… this year, we go for a Trek.
I’ve always enjoyed Halloween. The activity of exploring new areas of your personality via costume fascinates me. Probably one of the things that drew me to role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons® when I was a kid… okay, so I continued playing DnD and similar games through college, too. Anyway, carving pumpkins offered a way for my creative side to come out for a few hours a year without much investment of time or effort.
A few years ago I suggested I could carve a pumpkin better than a friend of mine. This turned into an annual challenge. After I carved Yoda a couple years ago (the picture above), we started to get more serious. Last year involved a Lord of the Rings theme. My Balrog fighting Gandalf tribute failed miserably. It turns out that carving a creature described as “shadow and flame” is rather difficult. This year we went for a Star Trek theme. Unfortunately, Matt’s pumpkin was rotten when we started carving, so I was the only one able to finish. I have only one word to describe it, “KHAAAAAN!”
Wrath of Khan pumpkin, 2007 - by Josh
We’ll probably go for a fantasy theme again next year. Possibly Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, or Marvel comics. Then again, we might just as easily go for a Monty Python theme, because “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”
Here is the complete gallery of pumpkins we have created over the last few years.
