The home: information, entertainment, communication

Some key phrases you hear lately in the press sound like ...

"MegaCorp is creating its strategy for bringing the PC into the living room."

or

"Networking company connects your office PC to your stereo."

or

"MegaMegaPC is building a PC that stacks right in with your stereo."

What do you see in common here? Its the nastiest two letters in HCI, In My Humble Opinion (IMHO; This will be the last time you see this spelled out). What is it about the PC? Why has such a technology that has past its prime stayed around without any real competition. Its not like they haven't tried. Java Network Systems from Oracle and Sun were "the rage" way back when. e-Mail terminals and WebTV also had a small little outcrop in the late 90's as well. But they all failed in comparison to the PC. So now because of those failures we are stuck with a product, basic OS interaction structure, and metaphor model that really doesn't satisfy the growing new universe that is pan-device, multi-system, convergent, and pervasive in ways that a brick, even a laptop verion of a brick can satisfy.

This problem area is more than any other reason why I am going to Industrial Design school. The solutions are not out there yet, though some are trying. But I do know the solution is going to be some combination of design areas: space, social, behavioral, informational, physical form, network technology, etc. There are technologies on the horizon that are going to enable us very soon to just be connected whether we are under the ocean or in space, or in our home in the other room. The future is not peer-to-peer, not client-server, not mainframe, not thin-client, not thick-client, but all of these, revamped, rethought, and redesigned. To me the next 10 years is where we start making the Minority Reports, Star Treks, and other Sci-Fi computer universes reality. Some of these ideas, such as pervasive advertising, and constant location monitoring are scary as heck as we grapple with privacy issues, but the other advantages such as continuous monitoring for the elderly and otherwise disabled will give a new level of freedom to many.

I'm interested in where this is all going and how we can get to a future where I pick up a pad, say what I'm about to work on and the document is "transmitted" into its meory and when I say (not click save, say it) it returns back to its primary repository. These types of situations can't be that far off, now that blue tooth, WiMax, and other wireless technologies are just around the corner and the ubiquity of "syncing" devices such as PDAs, MP3 Players, and Digital Cameras. Even our Cellphones connect wirelessly to the main computer to sync or to a headshet for wireless handsfree speech.

So, part of this space every so often is going to work on a new idea, crumb, meme that will take on this idea of the convergent living environment. Hope you joing me.

Can 1 dial or menu do it all?

So I bought a new iPod. There have been many articles have their been lauding and fewer criticizing (mostly the battery) the iPod. I think this one is going to do a little critiquing, but hopefully for the purpose of moving IxD forward and less to give pointers for the next version of the iPod or anyone else wanting to use (with or without permission) a Click Wheel.

Now in all honesty, not everything is in the wheel/menu combo: play, skip forward/reverse(|<, >|), pause, and power off; Oh! and of course the "hold" key which is vital b/c it turns off everything else. For the most part, though, the system is used through the touch-sensitive wheel, clicking the "menu" button, which is really the top of the wheel and is really a "back" button from a navigation sense. and the center-button which is a select button. The wheel navigates flat lists, actually really fast (sometimes faster than you think or can keep up with) and then you move to the item you want to select and select it. Oh! the play button is also used as a form of selection depending on the "mode" or what part of the menu taxonomy you are in. I think it only works as selection if you are in the "music" node of the menu taxonomy/heirarchy.

Another "modal" behavior of the wheel is that what you are viewing what is playing the volume is the command of the wheel and not navigating. You can also change this default by clicking the center-button and then the wheel allows you to fast-forward (>>) or rapid-reverse (<<). It is interesting to note what is not in the menu. There was a conscious decision made by the designers (and I invite them to comment on their process for their problem structuring and design decisions in the comments here) to give some functions an immediacy that the others don't require. This idea of immediacy is something that is not often addressed as a pattern in and of itself from what I have experienced thus far. The idea through the use of my iPod has become very important to me and I am now trying to think about how I apply this question to other projects I work on. Here are some samples:

• Web sites ... "I want to get from anywhere to everywhere with one click."

• Applications ... "Put it in the toolbar so it is always available"

But samples of where we decide on purpose to hide things are even more bountiful:

• cellphone ... hiding the power button so it isn't hit on accident

• palms ... requiring that you turn on the screen before other buttons work (I realize this is an options)

• Applications ... menus, menus, menus

• Applications ... wizards

• Web sites ... intro pages

Obviously, some of these are meaningful and useful and others are not. The same is true for the iPod and every other interactive device software or hard out there.

The question I have is how do you make a decision in this regards? What is immediate vs. what can be hidden or modal?

Going back to the iPod for some examples:

1. Volume: volume control needs to be available no matter what I'm doing. Instead of giving a reason, it is better to give a scenario. I'm playing Solitaire, and one of my songs comes on too loud ... I need to instantly lower it before my ears blow. With the iPod today this is not so easy to do. You have to go up 3 and down 1 in order to get to the point where your volume control will work. Now admittedly this changes dramatically if you have the remote. But when I pay $300 for a device, should I really be expected to pay a 15% ($40) premium to have this feature? I won't make it a separate subject, but where is mute? This to me is really missing from many portable devices. The reason this is so important as a feature for the iPod is b/c it is not only used in a "portable" setting. Many people attach their iPod to their stereos and more and more are being used in cars (take the BMW example).

2. Shuffle: This is my personal pet peeve of the iPod. Turning this on and off is something I do in tandem with my music selection, and is not a static choice as might be the EQ or something like that.

3. EQ: The issue here is slightly different than the others. THIS one is about how do you decide what should be modal vs. what shouldn't. This to me deserves the same behavior as that of volume. It is dependent on the song so when a song is being displayed then you need to be able to change the EQ to fit the requirements of that song. Now I know you can pre-set EQ settings in iTunes, but most of us wouldn't be able to do that, or wouldn't choose to do that. So it is connected to the song. So there should be a way to choose EQ from the song like you can use <<>>.

4. Backlight: This one makes no sense to me. Why? because when I need it I can't use the menu in the first place to find the switch to turn it on, no? And there is no specific mode when I would need it more than any other. This one is also something easy to add to the system through 1 of 2 methods that wouldn't require a single change to the system's form (see below). Currently "holding down" the click wheel at the "play" position turns the power off. Well what if I held down the "menu" or the center-button until the light comes on and then it stays on for a timed period or until usage stops or until I go back to that item and hold it long enough again but this time till the backlight turns off? This is just as un-intuitive as holding "play", but just as easy to remember in that it is directly related to an appropriate context--menu or selection.

What makes these items so interesting is that they are items that change the parameters of play and their use exist outside of mode for all practical purpose or more accurately the first 2 are pan-modal and the last one is defined not by mode but by context of use.

This idea of pan-modality and contextualized immediacy are both variables that need to be addressed when thinking about the use of menus, modal behaviors, and other similar structures.

The thing that balances this is clarity of complexity. How much can you prioritize in any given mode or pan-modally and still keep the interface clear and simple. There have been pushes lately within IxD towards a model where complexity is hidden and only displayed on a "need" basis. There is a phrase for this, I'm not inventing it, but I'm going blank. Email me if you know the two word phrase I'm trying to think of here. The other thing that Apple is definitely balancing here is the form vs. the function. The iPod is beautiful. It has the lines of a car--minimalistic, smooth, precise, technical, clean. Adding more interface items to it would hinder that. Making a touch screen (and all that goes into that) would make it too expensive.

"Immediacy" is defined in the context of use. For tools that have such a broad-base of use like an iPod it is impossible to achieve total and complete satisfaction. One way out of this is the way palmOS does by providing the 4 application buttons as a means of configuring YOUR primary needs. The iPod could have configurable behaviors across some of the items that I suggested above in the backlight case. Double-clicking is also another item that is not utilized in the iPod, which is interesting since the Mac relies so heavily on it.

It might be good that when designing your products that you make part of the process the question of "What does the user need NOW?".

Why go to grad school? How to choose a program?

Hey there folks, I just posted something to another blog and thought people might like a pointer to it. The comment is in response to a posting about whether grad school is worth it and choosing a proper program. In general, OK-Cancel, just rocks, but I really liked this article in particular. Go to the article to see my comment. Be sure to check out the comic on the home page too.

As I write this I think it would be worthwhile to categorize a list of schools that have programs worth looking at around the world:

• Well, I'm going to Pratt Institute, so it must be good. (There are too many Industrial Design Schools to mention.)
  
• Carnegie Mellon has both HCI and Interaction Design Programs
• Stanford seems to just allow students to mix and match. Someone recently wrote a bit on the IxDG Discussion List about their experience as an undergrad at Stanford. (As a Cal grad, obviously, I would only post this because I really beleive they are offering something special.)
  
• Interaction Design Institute Ivrea
  
• University College London's Interaction Centre (UCLIC)
• Institute of Design, @ the Illinois Institute of Technology
  
• Royal College of Art

There also seem to be many many other programs throughout Europe especially in Scandanavia and Holland of which I can't remember enough of their names to do a google on them right now.

An intro and a little bit of definition

Hi Everyone,

Well, I've realized lately that I have a lot on my mind when it comes to design and I want to be able to comment more formally on the things I see around me that have to do most directly with Interaction Design. Call this prep work for my upcoming graduate work in Industrial Design at Pratt. But there seems to be so much going on in our universe much of which is being commented on heavily by others, and I just think, I've got a bit I want to put into the coffers. I want to encourage people to comment.

What I realized when setting up this blog is the title sorta begs a lot of questions and I thought this might be as good as any place to start. So I'm starting right here--Engage!

"Engage"--What does this word really mean? What does it mean to design and why have I chosen it above other words or phrases like usable, useful, easy to use, pleasant, findable, etc. etc. To me this one word is an umbrella for the others. It does not necessarily mean that these other words aren't valuable to the project ahead of us, but that they come to a balance during good design that the end result is "engage" (conjugate according to context).

Let's break out the Meriam-Webster (new window). Wow! what a long definition. The ones that stick out for me are the words (synonyms): engross, involve, participate, guarantee, and finally, mesh.

Each one of these words in combination say something about a product where the user is "engaged". A product gets a user involved, meshes with their life, allows them to participate, gives them a brand guarantee (security), and if truly successful engrosses the user so that they do not even realize they are using something special, different, or previously unavailable before. To do this of course will require, usable, pleasant, useful, etc. However, when we look at "engage" we encapsulate all those and then some.

So this is why I choose this word as my success target in a single word.

Let's get at it ... -- Engage!

(Yes, all implicit references to Capt. Jean-Luc Piccard are not accidental, though I don't think there is any copyright violation in the use of a single word that I am aware of. I would love a call from the folks at Viacom/Paramont to come knockin'; hopefully with a job offer.)