IDEA Conference 2008: Day 2

This is a continuation of my coverage from the IDEA Conference in Chicago from October 7-8, 2008. My Day 1 roundup can be found here.

The speakers from Day 2 were Chris Crawford, Alberto Cañas, Jason Fried, Aradhana Goel, Bill DeRouchey and Andrew Hinton.

Let’s get right to it…

Chris Crawford: “Linguistic User Interfaces”

• Chris Crawford, game designer, says he’s been living in the mountains for the past 10 years
• Sapir-whorf hypothesis: inside the human mind, language & reality are closely connected.
• Since a computer cannot hold reality, it can’t really hold language. It’s actually more toy-like.
• Crawford says first q you ask when designing software: “What does the user DO?” Not what do they see.
• Actual number of verbs in software relates to how powerful it is. Verbs need to be accessible. Count the # that ppl actually use
• Ratio of accessible verbs to actual verbs would equal 1 in an ideal world
• Expectable verbs = the expectations created by the model. When you set expectations w one element, user expects it to be repeated
• Chris Crawford is an animated and emphatic speaker. Perfect for the first session after a late night of drinking
• Graphical user interface puts the verbs right in front of your face. Accessible : Actual is near 1. Actual : Expectable is near 1
• GUIs fall short when the verb count gets too high. More levels of hierarchy reduce the Accessible and increase the Expectable
• GUIs aren’t effective above ~100 verbs. But as we march forward into the future, we want to offer more and more verbs. Problem.
• The Little Mermaid is 22 pages at 36 point font. It’s 122 unique verbs. “That’s a pro-level application”
• Interactive storytelling requires thousands of verbs. GUIs don’t cut it. “We need a linguistic user interface” — Chris Crawford
• 25,000 typical words in the English vocab. If storyworld requires 1,000 words then Actual:Expectable=.4 Bad!
• Inverse parser = presenting options to user for them to select in a given context
• Chris Crawford is throwing his voice
• “Dramatic context” ;)
• Context limits available options, reduces size of menus. Makes it more usable
• Chris Crawford demoing storybook madlibs-type interface
• Crawford demoing Storytron’s Storyworld Authoring Tool (Swat). Creates dramatic possibilities
• The courage to err: oral communication rife w ambiguity. Expect contextual ambiguity, users will resolve. Move them along quickly.
• Error rates can be high. But that’s ok. What’s actually important is the ratio of correct to incorrect. Get it mostly right
• Our own immune system gets it wrong a lot. It makes guesses based on limited information. But it responds quickly, it’s aggressive
• Chris Crawford: “Death to CYA!” (cover your ass) Have the courage to make mistakes, but respond quickly. Requires lotsa processing
• Chris Crawford rocked. I really enjoyed that. Now my head is spinning

Alberto Cañas: “CmapTools: From Meaningful Learning to a Network of Knowledge Builders”

• Dr. Alberto Cañas, Co-founder and asst director of Institute for Human and Machine Cognition
• Not a designer, marketer or business person (@armano asked for show of hands before his talk yesterday). Cañas is a researcher
• Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) made up of computer scientists, psychologists, physicians, engineers, etc
• IHMC all about researching machine learning. 2nd most sensible organ in your body is your tongue. Could allow blind ppl to “see”
• Designing human-centered flight displays through greater understanding of peripheral vision. Provide feedback in new ways
• Cmap Tools software developed to allow users to create and share concept models.
• Artificial flight: Is it feathers or the beak? Can we really recreate the experience w/o getting naked? Birds don’t wear clothes
• Our bone structure is different than a bird’s, etc. But once you understand theory of aerodynamics then you can make things fly
• The web comes along & what do we do? We put a page on it. Why? Because we were used to looking @ pages. Like wearing a beak to fly
• You need to understand the *theory* in order to create new systems. “Concept maps facilitate the explicit expression of knowledge”
• “I still don’t know what you all do, and from what I can tell neither do you” — Alberto Cañas to the audience
• “Knowledge isn’t only concepts. It’s propositions, units of meaning or claims. Relationships between two concepts” Brilliant!
• A theory of learning: each person constructs their own meanings for concepts and propositions from experience over time
• But you have to WANT to learn!
• Children have better understanding of concepts than adults do. Children can tell you so much, they’re absorbing it all
• “Meaningful learning is innate” — Alberto Cañas
• Linking phrases: “is necessary for,” “is based on,” “facilitates the,” “can build” etc etc
• Concept maps are also an interesting way to navigate tons of info on a subject. Provides multiple entry points and reduces noise
• Alberto Cañas talking about a project he worked on creating concept maps with students in Panama. Too much to capture here
• Read about it here: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2005/05/67685

Jason Fried: “Getting Real”

• @jasonfried is up now! No slides. Talking for 15 minutes and then doing Q&A
• @jasonfried is cofounder of @37signals for those two of you who don’t know
• They don’t plan: no personas, flowcharts, anything. They’re “holdovers from other disciplines.” They build & figure it out as we go
• All those artifacts are abstractions. They allude to “an illusion of agreement”
• They sketch with thick markers. Random ideas of what you can do through the interface. Pencils/pens are too high resolution
• “Epicenter of design”: they focus on the one thing on the page that must exist. Then they ask what else this could possibly need
• “We figure out what to put on the page by using it.” They are their own users [but not all software can be designed that way!]
• The longer it takes you to develop something, the less likely it becomes that you’ll ever release it
• Get feedback from real people who use your product. Start with a simple core, then improve
• Interruptions prevent us from actually getting anything done. No one works during the day anymore. They work @ night & on weekends
• @37signals has 12 ppl & don’t all work out of same office b/c it’s just distracting. They use passive collaboration on group chat
• Audience Q: “can I have a job?” Audience laughter
• “Hire only when it hurts, when you can’t do it anymore… And don’t hire a job you haven’t done yourself before” — @jasonfried
• Audience Q: “How do you use ‘Getting Real’ with clients?” @jasonfried: Most of the process stuff is bullshit
• When they were doing web design, they never offered 3 design solutions. They delivered one. The right design
• “Not every client will be receptive to that, but you don’t have to hire them. Remember that you’re hiring your clients, too”
• If you don’t have a good fit with the client, then neither of you will ever be happy with the work. Find the right match
• If you present 2 designs, one good & one bad, the client is going to pick the bad one. So don’t show them something you don’t like
• Meetings are expensive. 1hr mtg is really only 1hr if only 1 person is in the room. 5ppl, 5hrs. 10ppl, 10hrs. Losing productivity
• Demand respect from your clients. Don’t be afraid to fight back. You wouldn’t tell the plumber how to fix the toilet– @jasonfried
• “We’re always scratching our own itch. We’re not special. We’re a small biz. If we need it, hundreds of companies do too”
• What’s your perspective on competitive analysis? “We don’t pay attention to the competition. We pay attention to the customers”
• 10yrs ago successful software meant big shelf space. Advantage now “The Internet is the biggest shelf there ever was” @jasonfried

Aradhana Goel: “Emerging trends | Design thinking | Service innovation”

• “We all believe in human-centered design. We all believe that when it comes to design empathy is key” – Aradhana Goel
• She has seen design challenges evolve from tangible to intangible, permanent to temporal, reactive to predictive
• More and more at IDEO she’s been dealing with projects that are very open-ended. “We’re 2nd in marketplace. How do we become 1st?”
• “Open challenges require a fundamental shift in where we look. Not only need empathy for indiv, but also get pulse of collective”
• What are the trend factors? Societal, technology, business
• Societal: shifts in cultural landscape, patterns of behavioral change, connections between domains
• Technology enablers: state of the art, new potential opportunities, patterns of adoption
• Business trends: changing the value equation, emerging and established revenue models, stakeholder ecosystems
• “Trends are temporal by definition…In today’s very nimble world, one year is like a lifetime.” – Goel
• Goel showing a mosaic of her Facebook friends and I know some of those people!
• Examples of “culture of networks” trend: http://GreenNote.com Amex’s http://membersproject.com
• Trend: nomadism. Parasitic living. Seamless transitions b/w contexts. “Today everything is living in the cloud…we’re untethered”
• She couldn’t find a really good example of nomadism trend but is working on some now. http://CitizenM.com is a close example
• Trend: conscientious consumption. Sustainable living. Physical scarcity and digital abundance.
• Goel is brilliant. A true synthesist. All this stuff that’s been floating around in my head is perfectly articulated on the slide
• Examples of conscientious consumption: Toyota-Prius and Zipcar
• “They say green is the new black”
• Technology trends: platform approach. No killer application. Choice and flexibility.
• Tech trend: Adaptive Services. Evolutionary. Customization over time. “Over time they become you.” Netflix, Amazon, Pandora
• Multi-channel conversations. New paradigm of customer service. Twitter accounts for @Zappos @comcastcares @southwestair
• Trend: free! Redefining value for commodities. Skype, Flickr, Nokia-CWM
• Trend: crowd-sourcing. Distributive co-creation. Open Innovation. Zappos, Best Buy, Air New Zealand
• Zappos has a guidebook for how to provide service to customers. But it’s not written from the top down; it’s written by employees
• Trend: micro transactions as applied to emerging markets. Micro-lending. M-Pesa, Grameen bank, Kiva. [I hope you’re participating]
• @milewis just tweeted that you can request a copy of the Zappos customer service guidebook just by emailing them!
• Human factors (user interviews, observations, extreme users) + Trend factors (media audits, era analysis, expert panels)
• Trend factors is finding the context and Human factors is digging into context. Complementary approaches, no one or the other
• Projects that helped Goel realize all this. 1) “Design a converged services portfolio for a siloed organization”
• 2) “Make mobile phone top of the wallet (financial tool)”. 3) “Design concepts for the future of retail banking (beyond 2015)”

[Download Aradhana’s slides]

Bill DeRouchey: “The Language of Interaction”

• @billder is a Senior Interaction Designer at Ziba Design
• “The Language of Interaction” No matter what we call ourselves, we’re designing some kind of interface that people use
• What can we actually learn from the objects that we have to do alone? Remotes, for example.
• @billder wants to draw from previous sessions, especially Chris Crawford’s and @armano’s
• Past experiences affect our future expectations. A triangle is just a triangle until it’s turned sideways, then it’s a Play button
• The @ symbol denotes much more than it ever did before. Email, Twitter, etc. Or as @mediajunkie yelled out: “whitney hess”
• “We need to see what people see” so it can inform out designs. Seek inspiration outside of technology.
• Seek inspiration from common interactions like ATMs. Or from what amuses us, like gas pumps.
• Inspiration from what scares the hell out of us. Ticket machine at the Metro in DC
• The more people see things the more they’ll expect to see them, so we need to be aware of it. “We create and curate this language”
• Meaning migrates across domains. Meaning can evolve. TV sports: arrow pointed to team w possession. Now labeled “possession arrow”
• We need to decode the language of interaction in order to be able to use it. Elements, relationships, principles
• Fridge interface: instead of up and down arrows for temp, “warmer” & “cooler.” But then they added “TurboCool” and “ExpressChill”
• Ppl are used to seeing things in zones. We do it w/o realizing. Consider Amazon. We auto ignore in certain areas we think are ads
• Clarity. If everyone calls it “sleep” on an alarm, why change it to “repeat alarm”?
• Weatherband button has a divot so you can get to it faster. Makes sense in hurricane or tornado areas. Geographically-based button
• Clarity: anticipate the question. Measuring cups that display the size in big bold letters
• Muxtape‘s big bold letters on song titles. “RIP Muxtape” — @billder
• @billder’s microwave forces him to set the date. There’s no possible reason why a microwave could need to know the date
• So many buttons on a remote. Are all these things really necessary?
• Designing for surprise & delight. Parking lot in Portland tells you of spaces in each direction. Green light above open spots

Bill DeRouchey’s slides:

Andrew Hinton: “You are (Mostly) Here: Digital Space and the Context Problem”

• Let’s say Vegas provides a new service: you’re going to be watched everywhere you spend $ and it’ll be shared w/ your peeps
• You wouldn’t like it very much. Well that’s basically what Facebook did with Beacon.
• There was mass revolt against Beacon and it hurt Facebook’s brand. Why did it happen? FB didn’t take time to get to know the users
• @inkblurt showing a photo of a urinal that Marcel Duchamp submitted to a gallery. He was challenging all preconceived notions
• Labels affect our perception. @inkblurt showing this image
• @inkblurt asks: If 5 ppl were on a track & the train was coming, would you pull the lever to save 5 if it would kill 1 person?
• Power of context in language. Context is somewhat biological and when ppl hear this question you can see reaction in the brain
• Maps are archetypal way of how people form contexts. Map (language), territory (context)
• RT @kaleemux: Showing 10 different maps of Boylan Heights in the context of power lines, parking spaces, water, street signs, etc
• Multi-user domain (MUD) In digital space, map creates the territory! No physical space to look at
• Fuzzy boundaries between real and virtual. Google results for “leatherworking” giving directions to build World of Warcraft garb
• Ppl in the audience are on their comps, Twittering, emailing, blogging, while listening. We rarely do one thing at a time anymore
• Fuzzy human stuff is being made into data. Like matters of the heart translated to “relationship status” on Facebook
• @inkblurt using “Eats Shoots and Leaves” example to illustrate context created by one comma :)
• D vs @ on Twitter. Really easy to make the mistake (as we all know). Hitting Reply All on an email when you really didn’t want to
• “We’re now offered a plethora of choices & places that each has its own architecture that shapes your identity when you’re there”
• Sherry Turkle: “Real life is just one more window”
• Information Architecture is about language and context informing each other — @inkblurt
• @inkblurt wrapping up with Qs now. @mmilan asks: how do we evangelize the practice while we’re still sharpening the language?
• @inkblurt says we do top-down and bottom-up approaches simultaneously.
• What about emotional contexts that users bring to our software/sites? It does add friction & we have to try to be aware of them
• @inkblurt is too smart for me

[Download Andrew’s slides]

[Podcasts of all talks can be found on Boxes and Arrows]

Related Posts:

• IDEA Conference 2008: Day 1 November 2, 2008 | 3 comments
• Data Visualization Inspiration November 12, 2008 | 6 comments
• 10 best Twitterers to follow for your soul, not your career March 19, 2011 | 7 comments
• Twitter as group therapy May 1, 2009 | 6 comments
• Conference Twittering September 22, 2008 | 7 comments