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thoughts on iPad

April 30th, 2010, posted in Design, HCI, User Experience

So I’ve had an iPad for the last two weeks, the wifi 32GB model. Because we need the money for something much more worthy, I’ve decided to sell it, and because they are not generally available here yet in the Netherlands, making a few bucks on it will be easy.

I’ve enjoyed making great skype calls when I was abroad, there are a number of fun games, Harbor Master in particular I’ve found addicting. I’m a bit vain so I’ve enjoyed the looks I get from people when I pull the iPad out, and it’s especially fun to let people play with it. I thought the keyboard would suck, but honestly I was able to use it in short bursts and a fairly high speed without too much to learn. The WiFi reception is better than my 1st generation iPod touch, but not a lot, and not nearly as good as most laptops.

There seems to be a few things that stand out to me about the iPad and why I think it will have a decent amount of success: The User Experience (UX) of getting to the content you want to consume or create is fast, applications are so easy to get and buy, and there are a lot fewer problems of upkeep. There are a few problems though and a lot of that has to do with it’s size and form factor. Overall though it’s a win.

From though to action in seconds

From the moment that you think you may want to do something online to the time you are doing it is just a few seconds depending on how close at hand the iPad is. For those coming from a windows environment this is especially astounding and appreciated. How does it take your windows based laptop to start up from being closed (which means either sleep or hibernation as a state)? The fastest I’ve ever seen is 30 seconds. With most OS X products it’s 5 seconds or less. This is why smartphones are being used more and more for quick sips of internet content and certain content creation tasks that are fast and easy (like twitter), it’s just easier. Letting people do what they want to do quickly and easily is a key to a great user experience and has been a key tenet to usability for 20+ years. Apple has understood that, many others have not.

Yeah there’s an app for that

The app store makes it easy for people who see needs, both large and small, to be able to fill them and make money doing so. Creating the AppStore and demanding that you link your device to your itunes account in order to use the device (which I personally found very annoying) makes a tremendous amount of business sense. The experience of the user is seamless and easy. The experience of the developer is not so much so, but the rewards can be great so people are willing to do it, and once you’ve jumped through Apple’s hoops and given a third of the money to them you have the chance of having your app catch on like wildfire in your chosen market.

I hope my mom gets this

And my dad, and several of my friends who often look to me as tech support. There are fewer ways in which to do any kind of software damage to an iPad. Losing files is an impossibility, messing up the OS is really hard to do for most people, and malware and its ilk don’t yet exist and even when they do pop up eventually 95% of it will all be theoretical vulnerabilities. If all the worlds computing devices were like the iPad (not that I’m saying they should be) then I think we’d see a lot fewer tech support calls and a lot less frustration. For those concerned about user experience making the life of those who use your product easier because they have fewer problems with it is a big thing. The balance between the power user who has a certain list of demands and those who just want something to work has been played out many times and in many products. There have been countless technology oriented pundits who have predicted the failure of this device because of this. These are a certain brand of techies, geeks, and engineer. This device, by and large, is not for them. They will be happier with their android phone, the rumored android based tablets, and their netbooks.

But how do you hold it

I sat playing a game or two or checking my email for 20-45 minutes, constantly shifting the way I held the device or trying to balance it properly on my lap, on a pillow on my lap, on the table so it’s tilted in the right angle, or holding it in one hand and having it get tired and switching. If I had a cool keyboard this would solve some of the problems, but what about when I want to play a game for a while, and not just 3 minutes? What about when this is my main computing device for several days and I need to be productive (which generally means reading, writing, and email for me)? Reading is fine, it’s comfortable, but doing anything more than swiping pages or scrolling and after a short while you’ll get tired or uncomfortable. My wrists started hurting in strange places.

Thoughts for the UX designer

If you’ve identified, as Apple has, the three top tasks they think people will do (you can’t do user studies on a device that doesn’t exist) then you need to make that experience as pleasurable as possible. Apple thinks photos, email, and web browsing are the three big things. Making it fast to get to those things is key.

Email: I admittedly have not used the mail client because the custom iPad gmail interface made me not ever want to attempt that. Why? Because I need my archive button. Sure moving things into folders isn’t the best thing ever, but it’s still decent. In the past we would have talked about number of clicks to a page, now I’m talking time from pushing the power button to being in my email.

Photos: It’s really easy to imagine using this device in the house or in the office as a lightweight computing device that is kept on display as a photo frame, then you just grab it and do something. The button that turns the iPad into a handsome digital photo frame is prominent. Syncing to iPhoto is painless and with a fairly large storage, putting many if not all of your photos is very possible. Sorting through them and looking at them is fun and interesting. It connects people and puts your photos in a place where they are MUCH more accessible than your computer.

Browsing: Mobile Safari is no Firefox (which is not a compliment) and because it identifies itself as a mobile device and there is no way to turn that off, some sites may not show up as you would like them to. This is the techie in me speaking. I don’t think my mom would ever care that she couldn’t change options in google checkout and update her credit card for payment there. Windows phones have the option of turning this on and off, I would suggest the same here. Getting rid of tabs and having a palette of open windows seems like a good idea, but there are problems with this for the way I use the device. First is the button one uses to open other windows or a new one. It’s totally baffling. I struggled with it for a minute, pushing every button to see get it. Even after I knew which one it was I constantly had to remember it as the icon is SO generic and doesn’t indicate what it is. It’s also placed in an awkward position, and as far as I’m able to tell you can’t move it. There is also no visual indication of how many other windows are open. All of these relatively easy to fix problems are not the case on my iPod touch. I have to say that when I compare the experience to a “real” computer I find it lacking, when I compare it to my iPod, I don’t find it much better besides having more space on the screen. To me this is not “the best web browsing experience.” Add to this the fact that content creation is significantly harder in many cases and this becomes a major point of failure for the iPad.

Thoughts for User Researchers

Of course Apple doesn’t really do a whole lot of user research, or if they do it’s not publicized, but what if you were approached by a company launching a product that is really “blue ocean” creating a new market, and they wanted to know what they should do? It depends on which stage of the product development phase they were in, but let’s assume they have a working prototype. Do what Apple did: find what you think the top three things are and make those three things amazing. Post-launch pay A LOT of attention to the way people use the device. Set up expectations with both product managers and engineers that there will need to be a number of small incremental and very fast updates to the product once you see the device in action. User observation and studies will reveal a number of issues quickly. Find ways to funnel all of the feedback on the product back to you and those involved so it can be acted upon. Your role will be 30% curator/collector of that information and 70% interpreter and evangelist of that information.

Design and values

April 20th, 2009, posted in Design, New Media, Philosophy of Technology

I got an email (and he blogged it too) from Erik Stolteman, the director of the HCI/Design Program here at IU,

I want to recommend you to look at this video from the TED conference by Pattie Maes, maybe some of you have seen this before, it is quite fun and interesting.
http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html

When you have looked at it, you can read this highly critical review of the demonstration
http://www.andyrutledge.com/blind-leading-the-blind.php#fragment-4

The demonstration and the review together presents what in many ways can be seen as core issues of interaction design, for instance, what designs are good, what designs are needed, are there designs we should not strive for.

Look, read, and think…

My reaction is:

I find it interesting (actually I’d like to just say I wish that he would open it, but perhaps he doesn’t feel like he has the time to devote to such an endeavor) that Andy Rutledge doesn’t open his blog to comments, thereby giving him a place to critique others and not for others to be able to engage with him on that critique.

The critique that he makes seems to be rooted in the fact that he beleives that augmented reality is distracting from our own human senses and will lull us into relying on things outside of our control instead of our own senses and instincts.
This is a fairly sound argument as this is certainly how most users will end up using it. The implicit assumption and judgement is that this is a bad thing. While I absolutely agree that “no person is their word cloud” If one is used to interacting with people largely online, some people may actually feel more comfortable having some of those same affordances with them during face to face interaction. I make no judgement on whether this is a good or a bad thing.

Where I do have an issue with this though is for the non-social uses of the technology. It seems that the mantra of “bringing the answers to where the questions are” makes a fair amount of sense. I absolutely agree with Andy when he says that you probably have already done your research on what brands to buy and if you haven’t then you probably don’t really care that much, but there are other issues to be considered. So often our choices are based on old information, or simply habit. What if new values have come into our lives? Sustainability was already mentioned and it’s a good topic. 10 years ago as a working professional I had a very different set of priorities in terms of affordability as well as awareness of what goes into many of our products today. I had only the vaguest sense of buying natural cleaning products or environmentally friendly products, for example I avoided things that contained CFCs. Today the constraints are different as are my sensibilities, and I may not have thought about those choices as I approach the mega aisle in my local giant-mart. If it strikes me that perhaps I may want to rethink my choice there, then I have a hard time saying that would be a bad thing should I want to do so.

The bottom line is always the same though. When a designer makes a choice they embed values. So often these values are hidden, and not obvious. On the other hand our designs, as soon as we let them out of our hands, are no longer ours and will be changed and co-opted by others, and in doing so they will tend to align with the values and interests of those who are doing so. What I encourage all of us to do is to be thoughtful and intentional with our choices.

As for this particular case, I agree with Routledge for the most part, we need not get so wrapped up in techno-fetishism that we neglect the human and trust the five senses and incredible power of our own minds.

Social Media Design

February 19th, 2009, posted in Design, Social Media, Twitter, User Experience

So I’ve started musing about social media design lately. I place social media design as a subset of communication design. I’m making these terms up as I go, but I think it shold make a fair amount of sense. Commnication design is the process by which you design your communication strategy & infrasrtucture. Social Media obivously is much the same but focused on social media. Social media if you wanting a definition is are technologies that connect people. They usually involve a profile, and the ability to connect with people in some way, prototypical examples of the day are twitter, facebook, myspace, & linkedin. You can design communications for an organization as well as an individual.

What I’m proposing is that just like any other design situation what you do should be intentional, and should serve the real human needs of those involved. What I mean by intentional is that it is not haphazard or something that simply grew up over time. I’m all for organic growth of systems, as long as there was some intentional starting point, and preiodic review of those systems to make sure they are still serving the needs of those using them.

So many organizations today are saying both internally and externally: we want to blog, we want to get out there and get into this whole social media thing. I say, for the most part, that is probably a good thing, but you shouldn’t do it just because it sounds cool, you should do it to serve some purpose, whether that be to further the bottom line, open the lines of communication with your customers, enahnce your brand, or some combination of the three plus many of the other possibilities. Blogging for blogging’s sake is silly and may be counter productive.

Here are my initial recommendations to organizations that want to get involved in social media. You need to:

Identify what you want to accomplish with social media
Identify people within your organization that already feel comfortable with social media
Get an understanding of what your stakeholders/clients would want via social media
Find some way to measure your efforts, i.e. we’ll be successful when:____
Make sure 1&4 align.

I’m going to write about this more, but this is a first shot.

My next step is to look at how traditional design process fit into this model.

Does Design Thinking=Market Research?

November 20th, 2008, posted in Design, Research

While reading a fine article over at BrandWeek I noticed this:

Similarly, Tim Leberecht, vp of marketing and communications at Frog Design, San Francisco, said he believed there was nothing new about DT. “Doing in-depth research, that’s what marketers have done for decades,” he said. Leberecht conceded that having customers along for the ride during the creative process is new, but is more the result of the craze over crowdsourcing than for DT, per se.

DT in this context is Design Thinking of course. This is an interesting concept. Predictably I don’t have enough time to go back and do the historical research and say whether he Tim is right or not, I don’t think, however that what he refers to as having customers along for the the ride is as trivial a difference as he seems to think. He attributes this to the craze over crowdsourcing. I assume he means that this is a fad, just one that will go away like any other fad.

I do not think that the human-centered ethos that design thinking brings with it is a mere triviality. I think it is important, and will in fact prove to be the key differentiator in terms of results and value both economic and human.

Economic value: Market research HAS been around for ages and best practices are widely available and are usually instituted leaving little differentiation. DT can differentiate an organization that uses it internally by creating a better working environment, and can differentiate products and services by creating things that fit with human needs and that are beautiful.

Human Value: Market research is oriented towards seeing a hole in a marketplace, see where opportunity is, and to use the most common parlance “make people want to buy stuff” perhaps stuff they don’t even really need. Design Thinking on the other hand is steeped in a human-centered ethos that creates stuff that fits a need, and in my opinion, fits the needs of humanity/society. Many designers are creating products, services, and accompanying systems that are green or sustainable (no I’m not going to unpack that loaded term) so that while they make things that are great for individuals, they are also making things that are good for everyone too. This is a great example of a human value that DT can bring to the marketplace, not because it’s popular, but because it’s the right thing to do and people want to do, they just don’t have good ways to do it.

OK so maybe I got a little bit on my soap box, but I think my point came through.

Apple gets User Experience

October 14th, 2008, posted in Design, User Experience

Of course all the apple fans were waiting with baited breeath and yes all the details on the new models are very cool for those considering upgrades, but I am impressed that even if Apple is reliant on so-called expert design, (not really doing user testing until after the design is done, and hey they have some of the best experts working for them) which is contrary to the more participatory methods I would recommend, they also seem to understand what people want.

What does your typical laptop user want when they are in the offce? quickly plug in and use a larger display, hence their LED Cinema Display. Connect the three plugs that are all combined from the display, USB, mag-safe power, and the new mini display port and it seemlessly brings your computer onto the larger display. No one likes having to have a separate hub, and power cord. To me this is low-hanging fruit, a basic insight that any UX professional would get within minutes of speaking with or observing laptop users, yet Apple is the first to really do this… Why?

One reason is that Apple is constantly thinking in terms of systems, how each device, service, and piece of software fits together. While at any given moment not every piece of their line fits together visually (the super mouse for example retains the last generation look and feel) they make every effort to make them all look similar and the white look was with us so long that anyone familiar with Apple will recognize it as part of the family. The primary reason why ipods are ther #1 mp3 player is because it’s not just a device, it’s a service and software too, the itunes store is flawless when it comes to how easy it is to plug in a device and get music on it (although my readers will know I have never and will never for the forseeable future purchase from the itunes store for other reasons). The new LED Cinema Display matches the new MacBook Pro completely which follows this theme.

I could write much more on this topic, but I couldn’t resist this small post.

Designing for Experience