My name is
Jack Moffett. I am an Interaction Designer with over ten years of experience. According to
Herb Simon, that makes me an expert, so I must have something worth sharing. I have started this venture as an exercise to spur critical thinking about my chosen profession. I hope that others may find it thought provoking as well.
DesignAday will present a brief thought about Design every weekday.
Dustin Curtis has a tale to tell about American Airlines, the design of their website, and the way they run their business. It isn’t pretty. This post is in response, so I encourage you to read it first.
Observation 1: Give the benefit of the doubt.
Dustin’s initial post was rather harsh, declaring that AA should fire their entire design team and hire outside contractors to redesign the website. He recommended this with no knowledge of the organization or the people that work there. He didn’t consider the constraints in which the design team works or the size of the company. It would be like me writing a post declaring that Microsoft should fire all their UI designers and hire somebody else to redesign Windows from scratch. It’s a ridiculous proposition, and disrespectful. When writing a critique, you should assume that you don’t have all of the facts and be careful of making hard-line declamations. Realize that there may be good reasons for things to be the way they are that you can’t discern, and don’t place blame unless you have proof. Consider it a low-foot diet.
Observation 2: Know your limits.
Mr. X obviously suspected that his letter may not be well-received, as he asked that Dustin not publish his name. I guess he thought that would prevent anyone from discovering his identity. Just as obviously, he was wrong. If you feel like you are doing something you could get in trouble for, don’t do it, unless you are willing to face the consequences. For the most part, I don’t post about the company I work for or the specifics of the work that I do there. If I wanted to respond to a post like Dustin’s, I would approach my manager about it first. The company is bigger than I am, and I wouldn’t take matters involving the company into my own hands.
Observation 3: Respect your employees.
Even if Mr. X did overstep his bounds a little, AA’s reaction was uncalled for. He was obviously defending the company in a friendly and intelligent manner. If they didn’t want him doing this, they should have reprimanded him. I doubt Mr. X would have done it again. Firing him within an hour after his letter was posted reeks of a knee-jerk reaction that wasn’t given proper consideration. Personally, I think they should have thanked him for trying to defuse a situation that would negatively impact the company’s image, asked him to please consult with them prior to making public responses in the future, and then asked that he head up a new effort to find a way to improve the website design and approval process.
In the past, collaboration was limited to collocated activities and voice communication via telephone or radio. The introduction of mobile computers has opened up numerous possibilities for remote collaboration.
When multiple mobile devices are connected via a wireless network supported by a server, participating technicians can share information and maintain awareness of overall status. I’ve designed software that helps Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) units track step-by-step procedure progress, as well as equipment status, and allows warfighters utilizing GPS to pinpoint each team member on a map of the area. Furthermore, team members are able to record locations of explosive devices and other hazards, information that is immediately shared with the rest of the team. The system included a “media board” where recorded audio and digital photographs could also be shared with all participants within seconds.
I’ve had a Fantom vacuum for over 10 years. It was a well-designed product, and we definitely got our money’s worth out of it. A circuit board went bad and the beater stopped turning. Fantom went out of business several years ago, so I decided repairing it wouldn’t be a good option. My in-laws decided they would give us a new vacuum as an early Christmas gift, so my wife and her mother went shopping on Monday. They came home with a Dyson.
When I got home from work, Susie excitedly showed me how to empty the canister. The Fantom had a canister, which was a huge improvement over dealing with bags, but the Dyson takes it a step further. Where you had to rotate the Fantom’s canister and pull the lid off, the Dyson has a lever that opens the bottom of the canister. You just hold it over the trash can, pull the lever, shake it a little, and then close it again.
Once again, thoughtful design resulted in small details leading to the sale of a more expensive product. There are other features that set this model apart for her, but I’ll leave those for future posts.
Most of the projects that I work on are for the military or industry. As such, all of the software that I design runs on Windows. Even the web-based applications are built for IE without cross-browser support being a priority. In the past, I’ve had to remote into old, slow Windows machines or VMs to run IE or native applications. Now that I have a Mac with an Intel processor, I’m able to run Windows on it. I installed it yesterday using Parallels.
Parallels made the installation a piece of cake. All I had to do was insert the install CD, enter a license number, and away it went. I turned my attention to other work and in a matter of minutes, I heard the Windows startup sound.
Parallels has a few different view modes. You can run Windows in a window, where the window contains the Windows desktop, and all applications are opened in windows within the Windows window (catch that?). You can run it full screen so that you don’t see your Mac’s desktop at all. The best way to use it is in “Coherence” mode. This hides the Windows desktop altogether and presents each window as a window within your Mac OS X environment. Pressing the minimize button results in the window moving to the dock, genie effect and all. Windows can be moved between spaces, and they are sorted by Exposé. Clicking the Parallels icon in the dock results in the display of the Start Menu. Notifications are displayed in the standard Windows speech bubble in the bottom-right corner of the screen. The clipboard is shared between operating systems, and you can drag and drop between Windows and Mac applications. Network connections were made automatically without needing any of my input.
I showed it to one of the developers I work with, and he was surprised at how fast it runs. I’m impressed by the seamlessness with which they have integrated the Windows UI with the Mac OS. If you have to run Windows for testing, this is the way to do it.
I must admit, though, I do feel a little dirty having done it.
The program for Interaction 10 has been posted, and it looks like it will be another outstanding conference. The keynote speakers will be Paola Antonelli, Dan Hill, Jon Kolko, Ezio Manzini, Nathan Shedroff, and a true legend in the field, Bill Moggridge. Additional invited speakers are Timo Arnall, Cindy Chastain, Liz Danzico, Shelley Evenson, Dave Gray, Tom Igoe, Peter Morville, and Denise Wilton. Looking at this list and the 28 speakers selected from 250 session submissions, it appears that Service Design and sustainability with both be significant themes running through the conference.
Registration is now open, and early bird pricing is in effect through November. The past two conferences have sold out, and I see no reason for this one to not follow suit. I’m hoping to attend again, but that’s likely dependent on at least partial support from my company. Here’s hoping.
The ebook reader product space just got interesting with last week’s release of the Nook form Barnes & Noble. It is very close to the Kindle in size with the same E Ink display. A majority of the features found on the Kindle are mirrored on the Nook, including wireless connectivity for book purchases and subscription downloads. Where they differ significantly is in their user interfaces.
While they both place buttons for page turning on both sides of the screen, this is as far as the similarity goes. The bottom third of the Kindle’s face is given over to a physical keyboard—row upon row of tiny buttons. The Nook, on the other hand, sports a 3.5 inch color touchscreen. This screen is used for navigation, providing access to the various functions of the device, and browsing of your library in a coverflow-esque fashion (although not as fluid). It also provides the means by which you can highlight content, bookmark pages, and make annotations. This is what I was most curious about. How do they provide a touch UI in that small space that affords these complex interactions without direct manipulation, and presumably text entry. Unfortunately, they don’t demonstrate any of this in the screenshots or videos on the site. It’s almost as if they purposefully didn’t show it, perhaps to hide a kludgey interaction.
From what I’ve seen, the Nook seems more elegant than the Kindle, but I’ve never had the opportunity to try either one. And this is one instance in which having brick and mortar may provide an advantage. According to the website, you can try the Nook in the physical stores. I may have to pop in the next time I see a Barnes & Noble in my vicinity.
So, I’ve been using my printer for a couple months since it started telling me to replace all three color toner cartridges. I wrote about that back in September. Last night, I was trying to print out two pages of black text, and the printer refused to print, displaying an error message stating that all three cartridges were “end of life”. A quick search turned up a number of discussion forums with the instructions on how to circumvent this premature money grab on the part of Brother.
There are little windows on the sides of the cartridges through which you can see the toner. Apparently, the printer has some kind of optical mechanism for testing the amount of toner left. Of course, once the toner gets below a certain level, it no longer detects it, even though there is still some in there. According to the instructions, placing electrical tape over these windows causes the printer to think there is still toner in the cartridge. That doesn’t make much sense to me, as the chances of all three cartridges reporting empty at exactly the same time are highly unlikely.
I didn’t test that procedure, as there were also instructions on how to access a special menu via the console that lets you reset the life of each toner cartridge. This worked just fine, and I was finally able to print my pages. We’ll see how much farther I get before printed pages actually start showing signs of low toner.
I’ve had Google’s app on my iPhone since it was released, but I have rarely used it. I thought of it more as a gimmick than a useful feature. In case you aren’t familiar with it, I’ll provide a brief explanation. After launching the app, you can raise the phone to your ear and speak a word or phrase that you wish to search for. The application listens to your speech, transcribes it, performs the search, and returns the results. I suppose it could be handy if you are on the move and need to look something up, but don’t want to stop to type. I think I have used it in such a fashion once or twice.
I was recently writing something in which I wanted to use the word “cachet,” but I couldn’t remember how it was spelled. All I could think of was “cache,” but as that is a different word with its own meaning, it kept me from using the auto-complete feature in my dictionary widget to find “cachet.” I knew how to pronounce the word, and Google’s app came to mind. I turned on my phone, spoke the word, and sure enough, Google promptly returned a list of results containing the word “cachet.”
Update: Something happened to the second half of this post when I saved it. I just discovered that it was incomplete and have re-written it. I’m sorry for the incomplete post.
I’ve had an annoyance with the bouncing mail icon in the dock for quite some time. I like the notification mechanism, but I don’t like the fact that it bounces even when the Mail application has focus. In the past, I would ignore it while reading my mail. Then, I would minimize Mail, or switch to a different space, and remember, too late, that the icon was still bouncing. Clicking on the icon would stop the bouncing but bring Mail back up at the same time.
Snow Leopard hasn’t entirely fixed this, but it has mitigated the annoyance. I noticed that when an icon is bouncing in the dock, simply moving the cursor over it will stop the bouncing. It takes that as a sign that you have seen and acknowledged the notification.
The Pittsburgh chapter of the IxDA gathered last night in the historic Terminal Buildings, home of Gist Design. Gist led us through an exercise in which we role-played through a usability research scenario. The attendees were assigned to either the client, the research team, or the pool of respondents. Each person on the client side was provided with a card explaining their role in the company and their motivations, which they had to express in the initial meeting with the research team. The members of the research team had to probe the client for the information they would need to design their study. At the end of this first phase of the game, two judges rated us on our performance, bestowing proclamations of “nice”, “niiice”, or “niiiiiiiiiice”.
The whole exercise centered around a label maker, and the second phase saw the research team fiddling with the device and planning out their approach—what they wanted to learn and how they would go about learning it. During this phase, they were interrupted by a phone call from the client’s head of marketing, asking them to gather additional information about their target market. They were again rated on their performance before carrying out the study. This was the point at which the respondents joined in, acting as study subjects, relating their label-making needs and trying to figure out how to use the label maker. The team was again rated on their performance during the study. Finally, the research team had to organize their findings and present to the client.
We all had a great time mimicking the customers and users we have dealt with so many times in the past, and the exercise led to much discussion about approaches to research, client relationships, and the value of user research in the design process.
