Archive for the ‘mobile’ Category

Oxymoron

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

This is the ELSE Mobile. It’s a touch screen phone. They’re all the rage, I hear.

I’ve not used the ELSE Mobile, but I know from their website that I needn’t bother. I know because they claim this handset demonstrates a:

“user-experience-centric philosophy designed to enhance man-machine capabilities through pre-integration services.”

With this lone sentence, ELSE instantly destroy any pretence of user-centred design. No user-centred company would let their copywriters produce such unmitigated nonsense. I barely need to mention the splash screen, the breaking of the Back button, the grammatical errors (“Most device are…”) and the autoplaying music on the Flash monstrosity they call a website.

This, dear reader, is the opposite of user experience design.

[Thanks to Lewis for the link.]

Posted in mobile, user experience | 8 Comments »

dConstruct 09 in review

Monday, September 7th, 2009

After you build forty or fifty websites there really isn’t any magic in it.

dConstruct’s comfortable niche as the thinking person’s web conference was quickly disrupted by Adam Greenfield’s early remarks. Decrying web and UX design is a risky strategy in a room made largely of web designers and developers, yet it was a thought entirely consistent with our theme of Designing For Tomorrow. The phrase wrapped topics that have been of recent interest to us Clearlefties: ubicomp, gestural interfaces, networked devices and what lies beyond our familiar digital horizons.

Adam led us into a world where information is omnipresent and persistent, where actions stick to identities and the presentation of self is a largely forgotten luxury. A world where objects become services, shared not owned, implies a post-capitalist swing perhaps alluded to by recent economic events. As a recent and voracious reader of Everyware, I was thrilled by Adam’s talk. I’m sure the imminent podcast will reward careful re-evaluation.

Mike Migurksi provided a practical counterpoint with a case history of Stamen’s information design work, with subsequent colour commentary by Ben Cerveny. Ben’s dense, rapid idea stream was perhaps a step too far after such an analytical opening; although Stamen’s work is undeniably excellent, many felt a gap between the metaphysics and the design output, and some of Ben’s more elaborate statements seemed hard to grasp.

Brian Fling explored the mobile field with characteristic flair and pace. Focusing on the future lives of the post-millenials native to the digital age, Brian proposed that history will judge the mobile (and the iPhone in particular) as the flying car we have been waiting for. We are living through a second industrial revolution, based on the portable, personal power of bringing people closer through technology.

Next up, an elaborate Gaia theory of sci-fi and interaction from Nathan Shedroff and Chris Noessel. In an entertaining presentation, the over-used Minority Report example was only (multi)touched upon once, and Jurassic Park’s ridiculous UNIX scene was rightly used for cheap laughs. Of particular interest was the pair’s evidence that anthropomorphism can exist at non-visual levels (consider R2D2′s bleeps and Amazon 1-click servant), although, like Ben before, some other claims seemed rather hazier.

Robin Hunicke, known for her work on “the Maslow’s Hierarchy game known as The Sims”, unfortunately alienated her audience with a spoiler (albeit well meaning) for a film still on general release, and struggled to recover favour. Her West Coast bubbliness sat awkwardly at odds with her academic subject matter, which was coincidentally recapped by August De Los Reyes. Any Microsoft speaker knows he has an uphill battle to win over a sceptical audience; fortunately August’s self-deprecating humour was an instant hit. We imbue objects with intelligence (slide rules, other technological tools), so why not emotion too? Heartbroken families insist on the repair, not replacement, of their Roombas – can we conjure similarly powerful dynamics in the systems we create? August closed with Office Labs’ concept video, a surprisingly rousing vision that raised hairs on necks across the Dome.

The stage was set for a wonderful denouement from Russell Davies, who produced a performance straight from the traditions of British music hall. Russell predicted that digital buildings will give us “Blade Runner brought to you by the makers of Cillit Bang”, and that as technology matures the only way we will escape cliché is to redomain, appropriating ideas from other fields. Russell provided a marvellous reminder that, despite the intelligent contributions of the day, as an industry we are prone to hubris. We’d be daft to disregard the marvellous infrastructure our media predecessors have created.

At its best, the fifth dConstruct was simply outstanding. In its rare low points, it disappointed. As such, it’s at a crossroads. The trend has certainly been cerebral, and this year’s theme certainly encouraged abstract exploration. Early feedback says our audience is happy with this, and that the differentiation from other conferences is an important part of dConstruct’s appeal. Yet there’s always a danger of vanishing into pretension, and the conference must of course appeal to 700+ attendees.

I’m sure Clearleft won’t be taking any snap decisions. dConstruct has become part of the fabric of our company and hopefully the annual schedule, and, in line with our chosen theme for the year, we’ll be thinking carefully about what happens next. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the day and your preferred direction for dConstruct 2010.

Photos: Matt Biddulph, FriiSpray, Tom Jenkins.

Posted in conferences, design, mobile | 5 Comments »

Why is technology so dull?

Friday, October 31st, 2008

The concept of personality has us hooked; just look at Cosmo quizzes and the thousands of online personality tests. And rightly so: it’s something that has profound effects on our friendships, love lives (that old “she’s got a nice personality” chestnut) and careers. For instance, Bruce Tognazzini claims that designers must have an ‘N’ in their MBTI, one of the slightly less dubious profiling tools. (I actually agree with him on this. I’m an INTJ myself.)

However, we’re also a little infatuated with personality, and often assume that someone’s actions are caused by the ‘type’ of person they are, while ignoring the social and environmental forces that influence them (the fundamental attribution error). In reality, personality is always framed and affected by the world around us, meaning behaviour can be quite variable. Just because someone’s angry once, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re an angry person. We have to work backwards, interpolating someone’s underlying personality from several observations of their behaviour. You can’t really get to know someone from a minute in their company.

For instance, at a football match, I drink, swear, and slip into a latent Welsh accent. This is no surprise—my environment almost demands it of me, since I’m surrounded by drunken, sweary Welshmen. But you’ll find me behave very differently in bed with a girl, going through airport security, or talking to my Nan. This behavioural variance is part of being human and people who lack it are deemed to be boring. If you behave the same in a nightclub as in a library, you won’t be invited out again.

Constrast this with technology, which behaves in a very rigid manner—the same in all environments. I think it’s time to make technology more interesting by introducing some mild behavioural variance. Sampled over a few readings, we can then start to form an opinion about the underlying personality, which is where we make those emotional connections.

Clearly we can’t go too far. Some behavioural consistency is essential for usability, and some devices are better suited to quirkiness than others. However, the dead zero we’re at now is clinical and drab.

Fortunately, we have the jigsaw pieces we need to imbue technology with personality. We just need to put them together. As mentioned above, behavioural variance generally comes from environmental influence. This meshes nicely with technology’s increasing context-awareness. Bluetooth, RFID, APIs, accelerometers, spimes etc, common geek parlance, all refer to ways technology is becoming more aware of itself, other technologies and us. But it doesn’t need to be this esoteric. Glade recently released a quite silly air freshener that only activates in the presence of a human.

The concept of an emotional response to technology isn’t new, by any means. For example, the uncanny valley:

I happen to think the uncanny valley is bullshit, but I challenge anyone to watch the following and not be slightly saddened:

So let’s imagine an operating system that sees you’ve split up with your girlfriend and says sorry. A program that knows you were out drinking last night and therefore uses muted colours and suggests you take frequent breaks. A mobile that loves going on rollercoasters.

This could be so much more fun. And the exciting part is I don’t think it’s too far out of our reach—for starters, we already give out plenty of these informational cues (knowingly or not):

Ultimately what we’re aiming for is intelligence (or at least pretence thereof) in technology. In the words of Piaget, “intelligence is the ability of an organism to adapt to a change”. I think behavioural variance is a perfect example of this adaptation, and for that reason I think we shouldn’t be scared of giving our future technology a personality of its own.

Based on my lightning talk “A rainy day, lost luggage and tangled Christmas tree lights” given at Skillswap On Speed, 29 Oct.

Posted in creativity, design, mobile, user experience | 5 Comments »

Not an iPhone review

Wednesday, November 14th, 2007

There are enough of them already. I just wanted to talk about two interesting things.

Interesting thing one
The dictionary is superb. See I predict a pint on the marvellous GrammarBlog. As I think Peter Morville commented previously, I think one of the most intelligent and thoughtful touches Apple added was to have swear words included by default. We all know they’re the first thing we add. Followed by their variants, with and without capital letters. Apple chose to admit we’re all grown ups. Bravo.

Interesting thing two
When people found out I was planning to buy one, some secret global pact to dissuade me was apparently signed. Every damn person had a negative opinion to share, and believe me, I heard them all. But isn’t it only 8GB? Get a Nokia N95 instead, it’s got a better camera. Yeah, but it’s not meant to be very good as a phone, you know? Isn’t it really expensive? Have you seen the latest [insert mediocre LG clone here]?

Two thoughts: a) fuck off – I’ll buy what I like, and b) why did this particular handset cause such a reaction? I’ve certainly never had it with other handsets, and I’ve usually purchased at the upper end of the bleeding edge of early adoption.

Now, as a smart and pithy blogger I ought to have an answer and sum it up in a neat soundbite at the end. Except I really don’t get it. Jealousy? Too childish. Genuine concern that I’d buy a lemon? Nope, don’t think that’s it. Genuinely stumped, although I expect people get similar reactions when they buy their first Mercedes, for some reason. Might have to wait a few years to see if I’m right.

Posted in mobile | No Comments »

iTold you so

Sunday, September 30th, 2007

Can’t help feeling all the mock outrage about hacked iPhones being bricked by Apple’s latest update is a little unnecessary. It’s simple: you fucked with your phone, and you knew you were invalidating the warranty. Deal with it.

I get that people want to use third party apps and generally I do support devices being open and flexible. The sooner the mobile industry moves away from network exclusivity and locked handsets, the better. But for now, like it or not, that’s how these companies make their money and they’re sticking with it. You took a gamble and lost, so enough of the wailing and chest-beating. If I hacked my PS2 to fry eggs as well as play games, could I still take it back to the shop when it broke?

Apple’s recent conduct has been, well, almost Microsoftian, and that’s kinda worrying. Let’s hope they return to the light side soon enough. But I’m with them on this. Seriously, if you want an open-source platform to hack around with, install Ubuntu. Don’t get an iPhone.

[Clearly, I'm not talking about people whose phone has been nerfed due to no fault of their own. That's far more worrying, and raises even more questions about Apple's shoddy QA - which is probably the one thing giving me second thoughts.]

Posted in mobile | No Comments »

iPhone: lovely, but get over it

Wednesday, January 10th, 2007

Delegates “screamed”. Twitter ground to a halt. The shockwaves of a simultaneous nerdgasm shook the very core of the internet.

Yes, it is a lovely phone.

My first thoughts are that it looks extremely promising, although like Dan Saffer at Adaptive Path I will reserve judgement until I see exactly how they’ve implemented the OS and touch-screen functionality. I’ve not watched the keynote yet (it’ll still be there tomorrow) – I’m sure that will give me a little more detail. But, damn, the UI looks comfortable and intuitive, the aesthetics are of course very special, and hopefully it’ll give handset design the kick up the arse it needs.

But, with that said: Everyone! Relax! The fanboy outpourings have been just a little too desperate. It won’t be available over here for several months and, more than likely, won’t be entirely pedestal-worthy from the outset.

First, it’s tied in to a single US carrier (on a huge 2-year contract) with no word yet on UK availability. It may take a while to become the mass market hit it should be.

Second, while Apple know how to do lots of things very very well, a phone is a new thing for them. Great design is iterative: so while I have little doubt that the 2nd gen iPhone will be a real market-killer (much like the iPod), I’m sure version 1 will have its imperfections. And no, that’s not just sour grapes because I just upgraded to a Nokia N73 :)

So, yes, it is a lovely phone. But let’s put it in perspective: it’s just a phone, not a cure for cancer. I’m excited, but not as much as I am about seeing Joanna Newsom on Monday.

Posted in mobile, user experience | 3 Comments »