id8 Blog

The Impossibility of User Centered Design?

Eric is right in his initial posting on our blog. Web 2.0 is people (I’m reminded here of Soylent Green, but that’s for another discussion). And of course the Web has always been about people—which is why designing usability and human centered design are such slippery concepts. There is no such thing as universal usability, and certainly no such thing as a universal human subject. So when we design an interface, we must now pay as much attention to the users on the tails of the distribution as we do the “average user.” The analyst in me cringes whenever a few people on a project team decide what is “user friendly,” simply because of the impossibility of nailing down who the “user” is.

Many in this business do various forms of usability testing, mostly based in focus groups or (rarely) videotaping end users on the current interface, or (even more rarely) a prototype of the proposed new system. But in focusing solely on the average end user, those who are not “average” are lost. Rapid prototyping, such as with iRise, provides the best means we currently have of expanding our idea of the “user”—and making the impossible possible. We can push out a prototype not just to focus groups, but even to random sample groups of a significantly large n. Not only will these data help us with designing for the bulk of the distribution, but help us see ways to design the kind of flexibility we need for all potential users. This potential is powerful, and we’re trying at id8 to tap that power for ALL kinds of interfaces.

Like a surprising number of UI folks, I spent a good many years doing textual interpretation for a living, and if the idea postmodernity has taught us anything, it is that meaning is fragmented and contextual. But rather than be paralyzed about the impossibility of meaning, I choose to embrace the multiplicity in meaning. Cultural “texts” present themselves, then, with a great deal more to offer when they can be adaptable and contextual. The same will hold true for user interfaces. The trick with companies like us is to look for ways to make such expanded processes accessible and cost effective.

At some level, I’m always thinking of this idea when I’m working on a UI project. Can we claim “user-centered” design when we don’t know our users, or even a significant sample of them? Why invest so much of our resources unless we’re pretty certain we know what they want and what they’re capable of? To simply decide in a conference room what is user friendly before we build it is a lot like saying that all literature should be written like a newspaper article. We’d be leaving out nuance, style, diversity, and innovation.

I believe it’s time for a paradigm shift in application definition and design. Let’s use more than anecdotal data and make system design itself, not just the end system, a more collaborative process. Let’s see “the user” not as the embodiment of the mean, but as a description of the entire distribution.

The Nomenclature of the Web 2.0 Ethos

One thing I liked about last month's San Francisco Web 2.0 Expo, is the exposure to new nomenclatures or catch-phrases to discuss the pulse of the industry.  How do people explain nebulous concepts or new ideas? The keynote speeches did not disappoint me in this exercise. However, they also invited me to understand the tangible application of the Web 2.0 ethos.

I watched Tim O'Reilly's opening remarks and thoroughly enjoyed the passion that he has for this industry as he describe the evolution of Web 2.0 concepts.  He encouraged us to use this paradigm to go after "the big hard problems".  And when he says big hard problems, he cites examples of  issues with global warming, politics and many social ills.

He pointed out that the internet is the open global computer, the cloud computer, to harness our collective intelligence via different peripheral devices.  In this case, the more we interact with a site or device, the more it gathers our data to create opportunities of innovation. Basically, 'It' gets better, the more we use 'It'.  It's not about the killer app or a specific platform or artifact, it's about active participation that lends a clear voice within the cloud.

He talked about how the use of mobile phones and ubiquitous sensors creates ambient computing.  Where your form factor of choice interacts with its surroundings to share  information that could be useful by something else.  He cited as an example the use of laptops with sensors as an earthquake detection service.

Clay Shirky, in his thought-provoking and humorous keynote address - Gin, Television and Social Surplus, tells us of a conversation he had with a TV producer to describe the cognitive surplus we enjoy at present. Given the 5 day work week, what do we do with the extra thoughts on our hands (or minds)?  He blames sitcoms as the timesink of the billions of TV hours in which we passively spend our surplus.

He put forth a unit of cognitive measurement that we can grok - the creation of the Wikipedia project took about 100 million hours of thought. If were were to extend this measurement to TV watching, the two hundred billion annual hours of US TV equals 2,000 Wikipedia project collaborations! So imagine what we could do if we used a fraction of TV time to transform our thoughts via participation with those things that engage us.

He believes we are at the early stages of deploying our cognitive surplus. That as we move through this cognitive transformation by interacting with the social media trifecta - engaging, creating and sharing, we can transform society.

The gist of what these two gentlemen are saying to me is, "Hey! Let's use our spare cog-time to address the really hard problems that face us in the 21st century.  To participate, consume, produce and share a possible collective intelligence to solve really important things.  Because if we do nothing, things can be catastrophic, but if we do something - even if we are wrong about the outcome - we have the possibility of creating something really cool, and that's not necessarily a bad thing."

By the way, no worries Clay...I stopped watching TV when I started my gnome mage on World of Warcraft :P.

View Tim O'Reilly's keynote via blip.tv
View Clay Shirky's keynote via blip.tv

Exposed at Web 2.0 SF

‘Web 2.0 is people!’ has to be the most resounding message that I took away from the Web 2.0 Expo in SF last week.

Author Clay Shirky delivered a memorable keynote, “Here Comes Everybody”, in which he suggested that since Web 2.0 people are doing more constructive things with their free time than watching sitcoms – and that just 1% of the time we spend watching TV in a year is enough to create the equivalent of 20 Wikipedias!

Sure, there was plenty of talk about the latest widgets, gadgets and technologies, but the common denominator was people; Social networking, user-generated content, social media, and of course, blogging.

 

Which brings me to another resounding message that I could not ignore, try as I may: ‘If you’re not blogging, you’re NOBODY.’ Apparently, this blogging thing isn't going to go away anytime soon. So here I am, writing my first post, a bit embarrassed that it has taken me so long to jump into the fray.

This blog will be authored by myself and my fellow id8ers, and will be about what we do, what we’re passionate about, and what makes us crazy. We’ll share tips and tricks for using iRise (the tool that we specialize in), thoughts about usability, methodologies, best practices; and lessons we’ve learned along the way. So there it is… we have a blog (finally!).