Discoverability

Hey iPhone users, did you know that you have access to special diacritical characters? Neither did I. The bloggers at iSmashphone had to point it out to me in their entry 12 iPhone Tricks You Might Not Have Known.

The way you do it is to press and hold the base character, and the line of diacritical characters appears above. Slide your finger to the correct one and lift up, and now you can properly spell the word háček.

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Digregiousness

One of the nice things about working with smart people is the conversation. It soars to heights, teleports across topics serendipitously, and can suddenly dive back towards its original target like a bird of prey. As an illustration, one day I slyly documented these topic shifts over a long lunch between myself and two other designers at the company. The results of this exercise are below.

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Crappy interface embarrasses Sulu on national television—not cool

Wanna Bet is a new show on ABC wherein celebrities bet on whether “ordinary” people can accomplish extraordinary things. Whichever celebrity has the most money at the end of the program gets to donate it to the charity of his or her choice. The way it works is that the show introduces the ordinary person, describes the (usually very odd) action this person is going to attempt, and the celebrities write down their prediction and bet amount. The attempt is made, the person succeeds or fails, and then the celebrities reveal their bets to much fanfare.

So far so good, right? The trouble is that there is some kind of disconnect in the betting process. On the first episode George Takei (better known as Sulu from Star Trek) excitedly revealed that he had guessed correctly and had bet $20,000. The show’s hosts, however, informed him he had only bet $2,000. For anyone not employed as a designer of interactive systems, it looked like George Takei was having a senior moment. It was embarrassing. The other celebrities on the show spent the rest of the episode pretending to have flubbed their bets to make up for it.

So where’s the failure here? George Takei is getting on in years; maybe he’s just not very comfortable with technology. Leaving off a zero is an easy mistake, right? Maybe, except that in the very next episode of the show, the same thing happened to comedian Melissa Peterman who thought she bet $5,000 but “really” bet $6,000. She’s only 37 and sharp as a whip. The show is now two for two, and I would argue there is a failure in the system.

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The Birds Nest & the television experience

Amazement operated on many levels during the Opening Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. During each performance, my mind struggled to process what I was seeing. What is this? How in the world did they pull this off? Where does an idea like this even come from?

TV: These small boxes will now take the form of a keyboard, and the keyboard will sprout a peach blossom.
Doug: ... Huh.
TV: Now the small boxes, which have made precise, machine-like movements for the last ten minutes, will reveal that humans have been operating them the whole time.
Doug: ... Wait, what? ... How ...
TV: Now a globe will rise, and dozens of people will fly around it in precise circles.
Doug's brain: [explodes]

In a Wahington Post editorial, Roger K. Lewis recently wrote that NBC didn't once mention the architects of the venue, Beijing National Stadium. Hmm. That's funny. I didn't mention them during the telecast either, but that's because my brain had been reduced to a pre-verbal state.

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Slanty (and underhanded) Design

I’ve been entranced with the notion of Slanty Design ever since I read Russell Beale’s article about it in Communications of the ACM in 2007. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, Slanty Design is kind of anti-affordance, a difficulty-of-use employed to achieve certain design decisions. I think even the acknowledgment of such tools mark a maturity of interaction design: it’s not solely about making things easy to use. (Just, perhaps, mostly?) Unfortunately, the use of slanty design isn’t always to encourage better behavior. Sometimes it’s just greed.

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Countdown to a spanking

XP: Are you SURE you don't want to restart now?

A constant thorn in my side from our use of Windows XP as our primary workstations is the Automatic Updates feature. In explaining my frustration to others, I've inevitably compared it to very similar behavior in Mac OS X, which for some reason does not drive me insane. I've been unable to put my finger on the difference until just this morning. Where OS X also presents a modal (non-closeable) dialog that requires an action, Windows floats that dialog above everything else, forcing the issue. With OS X, I can happily continue about my day, and decide to restart only when it is convenient for me. XP on the other hand, requires a 'Restart Now' or a 'Restart Later' before it gets out of my way, and choosing 'Restart Later' begins a Sisyphean cycle of misery until finally the computer has had enough of your sandbagging and counts down an automatic restart, like a mother counting down the time you have left before you get a spanking.

What a difference being able to click away makes.

Pull and Push Communication

A friend recently told me that she was challenged by information management in the design process. "I'm looking for anything to facilitate faster communication…[it's hard to] remember all the people I have to contact to update about something. Sometimes I'll send out an email and forget the developer, or forget the QA person - and this happens vice-versa…not intentional for anyone. It's just hard to remember everyone in a fast moving environment. "

Communication is tricky. I have to say that face-to-face has advantages over other methods because you can tailor the communication, but it is time consuming. When face-to-face won't do, consider these questions:

• What are the most essential elements you’re trying to communicate and to whom?
• What are your objectives for the communication?
• What are the most effective methods to achieve that?

I’ve been hearing a lot about “visibility” at the Agile '08 conference. Development teams keep card walls that describe the work they are doing. Anyone can mosey up and see what’s happening. Designers can do a similar thing, by posting a timeline, and work product related to each step. Project wiki’s are also good for the running stream of work done. This is all “pull” communication that people can check in on when they are curious, or need reassurance about what your team is doing.

In my experience, “push” communication should be used sparingly, and should contain summaries and action items. People are busy and don’t have time to process a lot of email. Make your moments with them count.

What do you think? What works for you?

Why I read my speech at Agile08

Some attendees at the recent Agile08 conference were put off when it appeared that I was reading my speech rather than delivering it offhand. (If you're interested, you can find my slides and speakers notes here.)

It’s true; I was reading my speech.

When I speak to groups of interaction designers or business people I often address them extemporaneously. It’s a style I enjoy very much and feel that I can do well.

However, the Agile08 audience demanded special treatment. Not only was it large, but it consisted primarily of programmers, agile coaches, and product managers. These professionals are bright, knowledgeable, critical, and opinionated. They do not suffer fools lightly. I was coming to them as something of an outsider; not having programmed for a living for years, and never having programmed in a canonically agile shop.

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Beautiful Monsters: Check your assumptions at the door

Every product, service, or business model is defined in large measure by what designers take for granted. These assumptions can be held so deeply as to be invisible to the designers themselves. And yet their acknowledgment, and negotiation, are key to industrial evolution, profit, and harmonious relationships to various ecosystems.

In the early days, for instance, you could assume that those with access to computers were backed by organizations willing to invest the funds necessary to acquire or build the complex infrastructure required by computational behemoths. But with the advent of microprocessors and other such developments, that all changed. Now the intrusion of computers into every corner of our lives is nearly complete, with 11 percent of the people recently polled saying they’d like their email deliver directly into their brains in the ultimate post-media consumer fad.

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Brainstorm without snapping branches

Ah, the rumble of an impending brainstorm. In some organizations, it is a prized tool that puts a sparkle in the eye and wind in the sails. In others, it's a feared term and a necessary evil.

And what exactly is a brainstorm anyway? Many disciplines, whether design, business, technology, or otherwise, have their own brainstorming voodoo, though it can seem like this vision is transported via secret handshakes and smoke signals. Everyone knows something is going on, but no one really articulates what. After all, it's really just the time when we get together and come up with stuff (hopefully of the clever variety), right?

I've found myself brainstorming to many tunes over the years, from industrial design rock-fests to a modern interaction design synthpop, a visual design rumba to a change management cha-cha. And this often little-understood microcosm of society has an uncanny way of pushing buttons and exposing long-held beliefs right when they're on the way to the chopping block. It's the place where the skeletons come out, and can remain fraught with quicksand no matter how long you've been doing it.

So why bother? Sure, they can be challenging. But they are also where the magic happens. Where the mish-mash of life experiences come together to create something from nothing. And the principles that make this magic happen don't change.

This is what I've learned along the way...

Be present — Put it away.

A single person checking their email or starring out the window can have a ripple effect on the whole room. This is your time! The time for the great idea. Be there for it.

Be the dynamic — Say it, show it, repeat.

Make explicit the desired group dynamic alongside the goals for the session outcome. Discuss the goals with the room, get agreement, and then keep those goals in sight. While focusing on a new idea, people can easily forget themselves and relax into old (sometimes less constructive) habits; it's only human. So stick up those dynamic and outcome goals (to your forehead if you have to) as an ever-present target.

Be a good citizen — Build a community with your bricks.

A highly-functioning brainstorm participant is both an individual contributor and advocate for the group at the same time. Each of their ideas serves a dual purpose - to contribute to the output of the session, as well as to act as a springboard for someone else's next idea. Do both with intention.

Be positive — See the good, and say so (and don't throw those bricks.)

See the good in your own ideas, and articulate the positive in the ideas of others. This is how the momentum gets started, and how to keep it going. Make "Yes, and also..." your favorite phrase.

Be safe — Keep the wolf at bay.

Ask clarifying questions if you need to, but keep those ideas away from judgment or analysis; Try setting aside a separate time for processing later. One wacky idea is all it takes to ignite the twinkle of the idea in someone's eye. Analysis and judgment are the big-idea-stealers in disguise, and guarantee discord will break the momentum before you ever get to the REALLY BIG idea.

Be flexible — Keep the energy up.

Once you have the momentum going, be flexible and go with the flow. And don't forget to pause for the occasional office Nerf gun battle if you're stuck. (You do have an office Nerf gun, don't you?) Sometimes there's nothing better to shake loose those brain cells or energize the room than a little silliness and a good laugh.

So what's the result of all this? You're ready to...

Be highly generative — Have more and better ideas, and have them fast!

Brainstorming is as much about intuition and free-association as it is about brainpower or knowledge. Speed and quantity help break through the 'low-hanging fruit' ideas, and get the brain-juice flowing. The result? You push through to new combinations and insights that will surprise and enlighten you, pointing the way. You'll get to better places than you ever thought you'd go, and I bet you'll win the day.

So what brainstorming voodoo have you picked up along the way? What works for you? What doesn't?