Chrome: The Browser that Isn't

Earlier this week, Google entered the browser market with its shiny new offering called Chrome.  I don't know the derivation of the name but in design and engineering circles the non-content part of the browser is usually called the chrome.  If that is the derivation then they should have called it mini-Chrome because the design objective appears to have been to show as little chrome as possible.  I fully agree with this design objective and think that Google has accomplished it.

Interestingly, Google has also tried hard to make this browser a non-browser and it has met that objective too.  In application mode (which you get into by clicking on the page icon to the right of the address bar and selecting "Create Application Shortcuts") the browser really shines.  It has none of the browser elements (navigation buttons, address bar, etc.) but simply has a very small border around the web application display.  This makes web apps appear and behave like desktop apps.  That mode also creates a shortcut on the Windows desktop making the launch of any web apps the same as desktop apps.  Add to that the Google Gears replicating local data with the data in the cloud and you have desktop and web user experience parity along with all the advantages of having web apps with data available in the cloud.  Pretty cool.

Google has done some other cool enhancements to the user experience design.  Other browsers have a Google search bar (or two) together with the address bar.  Well, Google has combined these into a single entry field that acts like an address bar if a url is keyed in but acts as a Google search bar if non-urls are keyed in. Key in whatever you like and Google will deliver it to you. Pretty cool too.

In addition to these user experience enhancements, Chrome also delivers a number of additions under the covers including the isolation of web instances (tabs) so that when one site or app dies, it doesn't take down the entire set of browser instances.  There are also enhancements to the ways Rich Internet Applications (RIA) are handled optimizing their performance.

Google Chrome advances the state-of-the-art in user experience design.

Human-Human Computer Interaction

The term "Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)" has been used for years to describe the discipline concerned with improving computer technology for humans. All those years, the focus was on improving the ways in which humans could get information into and out of computer systems. Of course, that discipline is still going strong. However, with the advent of Web 2.0, I'd like to suggest that the term "Human-Human Computer Interaction" is more directly relevant.

I've written previously in this blog about various aspects of Web 2.0 and have made the point that much of so-called wisdom of crowds was really the wisdom of a few in the crowd. In other words, many of the Web 2.0 sites like Wikipedia, Flickr, and Digg have contributions of content from less than one percent of their users. However, such is not the case with Web 2.0 sites and services that truly involve Human-to-Human connections. These include MySpace, Facebook, and perhaps the best example Twitter.

Twitter is a fascinating phenomenon. When you describe Twitter to someone, they invariably respond with something like, "I can't imagine why anyone would use that". They're of that view until they first try it and then they're hooked. Twitter essentially involves keying in 140 characters of text (that's right, no graphics) and allowing others to read what you write (followers) and you being able to read what others write (following). That's it, full stop.

So, what's the appeal? Human-to-human contact. Its really easy to access the service. In addition to using the website, you can text in your updates using your cell phone (if you're in North America), you can use various desktop applications (Twirl is my favorite), and you can use various iPhone/iPod Touch apps (Twitterrific is my favorite). And, its really easy to follow other people and have them follow you. What about the content, you say. Well, I follow industry leaders, news services, and friends. Many of those as well as people who listen to my podcasts follow me. I can stay current with current events and news by the minute as they unfold, read about websites and blog posts that people whom I follow recommend, and I get a personal insight into the lives of people whom I follow and the same goes for people who follow me.

What's interesting from a design point of view is that Twitter has virtually no user interface to speak of - just 140 characters of content. The important insight to take away from the huge success of this application/service is that it is fundamentally a really easy way to connect human-to-human in a way that people find it powerful and valuable. Lots of Web 2.0 technologies and tools try to deliver on this promise but most fail. The reason why this one hasn't is its amazing simplicity and its support of what makes us human.

If you'd like to try it for yourself, just go to www.twitter.com and sign up (its free of course). And if you'd like to follow me, I'm karelvredenburg on Twitter.

Dawn of a New UI

Many years ago, designers at Xerox, Apple, Microsoft, and IBM each contributed to what became the user interface standard for personal computers. Back then, issues like whether individual windows should overlap were hotly debated. Of course, all of that is now behind us and the basic elements of the user interface of personal computers are amazingly consistent. Sure there are some differences between OSX, Windows, and Linux systems but there are vastly more similarities than differences. Enhancements to these systems are also not dramatic. Such should be the case so that users can have a mental model of how these systems work and that mental model shouldn't change very often. Of course, there are some basic problems with each of these systems that nobody is willing to fix at this point because the standard is so ubiquitous. A number of details could have been changed quite dramatically in those very early days because users hadn't yet built up a mental model.

We're witnessing another major wave of this type of phenomenon right now. The introduction of the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch 2.0 represent the beginnings of a new user interface standard for multi-touch mobile devices, and likely, multi-touch devices of all sorts in the future. It is therefore wise for all designers to explore and experience this new user interface for themselves. I've spent significant time with the new user interface and am of the view, consistent with many others, that the design is exemplary. It should be pointed out that the design is appropriate for the device it was designed for - the iPhone/Touch. I'm less sure that the design will be appropriate for other non-mobile devices that it may well be used for in the future. And remember that Apple has had difficulty in the past with successfully adapting and evolving designs such as was the case with the iPod when it started to include content in addition to music. If the experience with personal computer user interfaces is any indication, flaws in the designs of this new mobile user interface standard may have already been introduced and we have to live with them for a couple of decades.

Designing in Collaboration with 100,000 Users

MySpace is widely recognized as a user interface design mess. Facebook started out life as the clean and simple design alternative. However, with the addition of its development platform that created numerous 3rd party apps, the Facebook profile user interface has become more cluttered, unwieldy, and disorganized. Interestingly, recent stats from Nielsen indicate that Facebook traffic to the site is declining too.

The User Experience and Design team at Facebook has launched a major redesign. They're considering organizing the profile content using tabs, adding a new publisher feature for more simply adding content, and making navigation to applications easier via a drop-down menu. They don't plan on changing the site's visual signature, color palette, or branding. The design changes aren't radical but the approach to getting user input is. The team created a Facebook group within which they've been previewing proposed designs and then, using the commenting feature of Facebook, getting user feedback on them. There are 104,629 users in that group as of this writing and lots of them are providing valuable feedback. I think its brilliant that the team is using their own site to design the site.

The Facebook organization appears to be maturing given the way they're approaching this redesign. Previous changes to the site apparently didn't involve iterative design with user input and the results were disastrous.

I look forward to seeing and experiencing their redesign as an observer of their design as well as a daily user of Facebook itself.

For an in-depth report on this project, checkout BusinessWeek's recent story on Facebook's Big Facelift.

The 8 Billion Dollar Design Challenge

It has been estimated that advertisers will spend $8 billion this year on search engines. The companies on which this money will be spent are attempting to enhance their designs in order to compete in this market while at the same time having to balance the interests of users completing the search and advertisers wanting them to consider their products. Add to this, the rather dramatic changes in the content mix on the web with a greater volume of video and image material.

Google entered the market in 1998 and succeeded due to 1) superior search accuracy, 2) simplicity of its user interface, and 3) its ability to make advertising relevant to the search and insert it non-obtrusively in the search results. This is really a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) success story. Providing users what they want in a way that they want and incorporating the business model for Google seamlessly into the user experience by making it relevant and minimalist. It is truly HCI brilliance!

However, the vastly increased importance of the online platform for advertising (as witnessed by the recent takeover bids of search companies) and the new media formats on the web have created a design challenge for companies in the search engine business. In a recent article entitled Gunning for Google, author Matt Vella summarizes the key design challenges and what the major companies are doing to address them.

The Wisdom of a Few in the Crowd

Much has been made of Web 2.0's wisdom of crowds and the notion that the new read-write web is the ultimate democratic everyone can contribute nirvana. When you run a Web 2.0 site, which I have, you quickly learn that things don't really work that way. Lots and lots of people may visit and use the site but very few actually contribute. You then spend some time pondering how your Web 2.0 site could be so different from all the other Web 2.0 sites out there but if you also do a bit of digging, you find out that they're all like that. Less than one percent of all visitors to Web 2.0 sites actually contribute anything! Turns out that that very small number of very dedicated people do a lot to contribute, hence the title above "the wisdom of a few in the crowd". What's even more interesting to learn, though, is how the big Web 2.0 sites like Digg and Wikipedia actually work. Slate Magazine recently ran a really interesting article, Digg, Wikipedia, and the myth of Web 2.0 democracy that examines several different models of contribution and governance that are being used at the various sites.

Designing for the World

When we think of designing products for global markets, we often just think of translation, unicode, and other language-related issues. With the increasing importance of visual and interaction design, it is also becoming important to ensure the design of products is appropriate to various cultural preferences and sensibilities.

We've been aware of this opportunity at IBM for some years based especially on our experience with using our design centers around the world for the design of systems and websites for the Olympics. Each Olympics requires that the hosting country be responsible for a good chunk of developing systems for it. What we quickly discovered was that visual designs originating from certain countries were very different and sometimes differed significantly from North American preferences and sensibilities. It can therefore be quite a challenge to determine the best style to choose. Of course, that isn't any different from the other design decisions that need to be made based on user input. The point is though that this is another important factor to consider in design. It is also a great source of novel ideas to influence innovative design. A recent article in Fox Business reports Nokia Opens Satellite Design Studio in Rio de Janeiro and outlines Nokia's use of its world-wide design studios for the design of its future products.

Advances in User Interfaces

Many of us have been going to professional conferences like CHI for many years and seeing technology demos and other research into novel new advanced user interfaces. However, we typically go back to computers with their screens, keyboards, and mice. Although that environment is likely to be the optimal one for many people doing many of the things they do with computers now, it doesn't have to be the case for some edge type uses. I, like others, have been delighted to finally see some of that university research technology getting into products recently. The best examples are the Nintendo Wii and Apple's iPhone. Both use gesture as a primary input mechanism and do it really well. You know that a paradigm shift is happening when you can't just read about or watch someone else using one of these devices; you have to experience it for yourself. The first game you play on the Wii and the first time you flick your way through stuff on an iPhone, you've got it. Its a different experience entirely. I think this is an exciting development in the area of advanced user interfaces and one worthy of following - and one worth following first hand yourselves!

Read more in an interesting article Coming Soon: Nothing Between You and Your Machine in the New York Times.