Multi-sense and Multi-tasking Experience

There was a time not that long ago when people would use a single sense and carry out a single task in a single place. We now tend to use multiple senses and carry out multiple tasks while moving from place to place.

There are advantages and disadvantages of the technologies that make this possible. Fans of technology, like myself, tend to focus on the huge benefits of essentially doing more and having a wider sensory experience while doing it. Critics of technology focus on the negatives involving safety, health, and overall quality of work and life. The fans and critics are both right and we as users of technology (and some of us as designers of technology) should periodically take stock of whether the right balance has been struck given the particular context of use.

For example, I started writing this post on the treadmill while listening to a podcast. The ability to do three things at once when we all have so little time in a day is so tempting thanks to these technologies. I find that listening to music, podcasts, or audiobooks while on the treadmill or driving is the perfect combination. Listening to podcasts or audiobooks while answering email or tweeting also works but I typically have to switch to instrumental music while writing something more substantial that requires more thought and attention. For certain types of work, I have to turn off all sound and instant messaging/texting clients and focus on a single-task. I got off the treadmill and switched to instrumental music to finish this post.

We all have different thresholds when it comes to what we desire as a minimum level of multi-sense and multi-tasking as well as what the maximum level of these that we can handle. In addition, certain situations and types of work should further determine the optimal level. I think we need to find those thresholds and consider contexts to determine the right level in a particular situation.

Of course, then we all also need to take the occasional sabbatical from technology entirely to think freely and fully experience the world and people around us. I worry that we don't do that enough with the ready availability of all this technology all the time.

As always, I'd greatly appreciate your thoughts on this via the commenting mechanism.

Cloud User Experience

I first wrote about the concept of the Total User Experience some fifteen years ago. Back then it was all about finding out about a product, going to a store to buy it, actually buying it, unboxing it, installing it, using it, getting help with using it, getting additional support when the help didn't help, and upgrading or uninstalling it. During this time virtually all applications ran right on your computer and the resulting files created were saved there as well. We've witnessed a gradual evolution of that total user experience with more and more of it involving the web. Advertising went online, then buying and directly downloading products. Increasingly, help and support have been available over the web too. The last aspect of the user experience to move to the web is the application itself and its data.

The move of all aspects of what used to comprise the total user experience to the web has, interestingly, created a new total user experience focussed on the online experience itself. Perhaps the most important aspect of that experience in staying connected online.

Most people's concerns regarding so-called cloud computing center on the uptime of the cloud vender's service. While this is important, the service interuptions from the major vendors have been very infrequent and relatively brief. However, an often overlooked aspect of the cloud user experience is the uptime of ISPs and company and home networking systems.

I had a disruption of service from my ISP yesterday for about five hours. This prevented me from doing my work and anything else online. The support staff, while friendly, didn't seem to understand or appreciate how serious a problem like this is when you're using cloud computing. ISPs have to realize their importance in the total cloud user experience for it to work effectively. This is an aspect of cloud computing that is often disregarded. I believe it is critically important and may well turn out to be the weak link in the cloud computing strategy unless ISPs come to understand their new role in the total cloud computing user experience.

As always, I'd appreciate your thoughts on this topic via the comment mechanism.

Future UI Directions

We used to have server computers, desktop computers, and notebook computers. Life was simple. We still have all those but we now also have the iPhone, iPod Touch, and Palm Pre. We're also soon going to have a whole bunch of tablets and possibly one from Apple too.

From a design perspective, we're seeing two entirely different user interface paradigms and interaction styles currently--computer and mobile. On the computer side, we have three basic flavors all of which are pretty well the same--Windows, OSX, and Linux. On the mobile side, we have the iPhone/Touch and the Pre operating systems which are also quite similar to one another. When tablets are introduced, they'll likely have a UI much more similar to the mobile than the computer paradigms. Given the hype about the tablets before any have been released and Apple hasn't even confirmed they're working on one, they'll likely be highly successful. If so, it'll be interesting to see what happens to computer OS UIs. Add into the mix the fact that most applications will be in the cloud, have a browser as their app container, and the fact that Google is developing an operating system optimized for this environment and we have a dramatically changing environment.

All of this suggests that we're in for an interesting and exciting time over the next while given this evolution of user interfaces and interaction styles. I believe the future will involve a combination of what we see in the mobile space today together with what we see as cloud-based Rich Internet Applications in the browser. What we know as computer user interfaces and interaction styles today will be a thing of the past and won't be carried into the future, although this may take a while to be fully realized given the install-base of traditional computers and operating systems. I believe designers need to stay on top of these paradigm shifts in user interface and user interaction because the rate of change is increasing dramatically. We may even see a reemergence of voice, possibly large gesture (beyond touch with fingers), and hopefully a sixth-sense style display sometime in the near future too. We may get that Minority Report dream yet.

As always, I'd greatly appreciate hearing any views you may have on this via the comment facility below.

Designing Business Space

Joining me for this podcast episode are Davis Neable (User Experience Professional, IBM Software Group) and Cale Vardy (Visual Designer, IBM Software Group Media Design Studio) talking about the design of IBM Business Space Powered by WebSphere. After introductions, the user research that was carried out is outlined as is the development of persona and user stories, the early wireframe designs and over time high fidelity designs, and the user feedback that was collected throughout the project. Design challenges are summarized together with the innovative design solutions. In addition, the pros and cons of distributed design and development were discussed as well as the technologies the team used to optimize their design work.

Producing a Podcast - Part II

I covered everything to think about, plan, and get in order to produce a podcast in Part I a number of blog posts ago. I'll cover the actual recording and post-production in this post. The recording setup is a little different for the case of recording a podcast with only me speaking versus the case when I have one or more guests. I use Audacity for the former and Pamela for the latter. Audacity is an amazing Open Source tool for recording and editing audio. It is also free. You can get it at SourceForge.net. Pamela is a call management tool for Skype which also does an amazing job of recording one or more Skype calls. Pamela isn't free but isn't very expensive.

When I record a podcast with just myself using Audacity, I ensure that my microphone is appropriately selected as the capture device in the operating system as well as in Audacity

itself by selecting Edit, then Preferences, and selecting the Audio I/O tab. I set the recording volume level as high as possible without distorting which for me is about the seven mark on the gauge. I also watch the visualization of the recording to ensure that levels don't get to high or too low. If I make a mistake, I simply leave a pause and then start again. I look for pauses during post-production in order to remove the sections with any errors.

When I'm doing a podcast with guests, I get them all to download and register with Skype. Computer to computer Skype is free and provides the best possible recording quality. I also have Skype-out which allows me to call a land line or cell phone from my computer but I try not to use that option too often because it lowers the quality of the sound. I get the sound levels right by recording my guests and I while we talk informally before the call about planning and logistics. That type of discussion is normally important anyway but also provides the ability to adjust the Pamela and Skype recording levels. I also send out the following checklist to my podcast guests a week or more prior to the actual recording.

Please take a few minutes to go over these instructions and

guidelines well before the scheduled podcast recording.

• Install Skype if you don't already have it or if you already have it installed, make sure you have the latest version (via Help -> Latest Updates)
• Search for and connect with Skype userid "******" - that's the account that will call you on Skype just prior to the recording session
• Use a wired internet connection if possible although wireless will work if fast enough
• Make sure there are no other computers in the house (if you're recording from home) that are using the internet during the recording session
• Stop all resource intensive applications running on your computer
• Use a good quality headset and test it with the "Echo/Sound Test Service" in your Skype contacts list - (the computer mic is of insufficient quality)
• Make sure to participate on the podcast in a quiet setting with no background noise or distractions
• Please turn off all messaging clients (Sametime, MSN, etc.)
• Turn the ringer off on a phones and cell phones within earshot - even vibrate can be heard on the recording
• Keep a 3-6 inch distance of the microphone from your mouth and do not touch the microphone while we're recording
• If you need to adjust the microphone or headset during the call or cough, use the mute button on Skype, and remember to turn it off before talking
• Podcasts are quite informal so feel free to speak naturally in the way you would normally have a conversation with someone at a conference
• Make sure to sign-in to your Skype account a few minutes before the scheduled recording

I go over this checklist with my guests prior to the recording session to ensure that phones are turned off in particular.

At the conclusion of the recording, I save the session in Pamela as a wave file.

Whereas the two types of podcasts are recorded using different technologies, I edit both using Audacity with the same techniques. I first delete any discussion before and after the actual recording. I next look for any mistakes, obvious undesirable sounds (lip smacks, pops, ums and ahs), and long pauses. I select them and delete them, often first listening to them while selected to ensure I'm getting the right section.

After the editing is complete, I run the full audio through several filters by selecting All on the Edit menu and then selecting the filters from the Effects menu. I first Compress, then Normalize, and finally Amplify. This ensures that I'll have a reduced file size with consistent quality and volume of audio. I next put in the introductory music segment via the Project menu and Import Audio. I position the two audio tracks by using the Time Shift Tool. I next generate the mp3 file by selecting Export as mp3 from the File menu.

Now I've got the full mp3 file but need to add album art and text to the file so that visual identifier

for the particular podcast shows on the iPhone or iPod and that the information about the podcast shows when the screen is tapped. I mentioned the Apple products but I actually try to make my podcasts available to as wide as audience as possible and use the mp3 format for that purpose. Apple's own aac format has the advantage of being able to include multiple images throughout the podcast but acc files can only be used on Apple products. The mp3 format is much more pervasive and can be played on virtually all systems. I use iTunes to add the album art and text by copying the mp3 file into iTunes and then right mouse clicking on the entry, selecting Get info, and then using the Artwork tab and the Lyrics tab to add the album art and text respectively.

The last stage involves uploading the file using FileZilla, another great free Open Source program. I use Podbean for my podcast hosting. They have a free version to get started. I use Podbean to create the requisite rss tags. I first had to submit my podcasts to iTunes (and the Zune Marketplace is available to do that too) but after that, the podcast episodes automatically appear in iTunes and are delivered directly to subscribers as well.

I've tried to be detailed in my description but if any of this wasn't clear or you'd like to contribute your own experiences and recommendations, please feel free to use the commenting facility below to continue the discussion. Happy podcasting!

Accessible Kiosk Touch Screen Design

My guest for this UXDesignCast podcast episode was Bill Curtis-Davidson of the IBM Ability and Accessibility Center. Bill describes the IBM’s kiosk business, outlines the accessiblity challenges with kiosks, details the innovative solution he designed, and summarizes the feedback he’s received on the design. We also discuss the generalizability of the solutions discussed to other touch-based user interfaces beyond kiosks. Additional information on this project is available in the Design Gallery section of our Design@IBM site.

Social Networking: The Walled Garden

Like many of you, I'm on the major social networking systems Twitter and Facebook and also contribute content on this blog, two podcasts, and two websites. The problem I see is that each of these systems is a walled garden. Podcaster Leo Laporte has been talking about this in general lately too. When I write a post here, people read it and make comments on the blog itself. I also tweet about it on Twitter and send it as a link on Facebook. The latter two also often generate further discussion within Twitter and Facebook. The blog content is picked up by other sites and blogs which leads to further discussion there. The problem is that nothing pulls this all together. Readers of this blog don't see some of the great comments followers have tweeted on Twitter or friends have left on Facebook unless you follow me on Twitter or are a friend of mine on Facebook. Add to that, the comments regarding podcasts which are in iTunes and on the respective show notes sites.

It is interesting to point out that this mostly relevant to comments made rather than the originating content. Tools like TweetDeck allow you to post content to Twitter and Facebook accounts and blog posts and podcasts themselves are syndicated via RSS but the comments about any of this content remains within the social networking walled gardens. To continue the analogy, it is like the hosts of garden parties freely walk from one garden to the next but their guests have to stay within the walls of their designated parties.

A solution here isn't obvious and likely is being worked hard by people at Facebook, Twitter, and Google. The challenge is that some of these systems are wide open like Twitter while others are closed like Facebook. While Facebook is working on making itself more open (and the recent purchase of FriendFeed will likely expedite this), I still think that it needs to tread carefully. Rather than making everything wide open on Facebook, my vote would be to have a checkbox on a post or comment indicating that it can be shared or perhaps a more pervasive option but one that is still under the control of the user. Then we also need the ability to aggregate all content related to a particular topic. For example, all comments about this blog post whether they were written in the comment box here or a reply on Twitter, or a comment in Facebook would appear or be directly accessible from each of those sources.

As always, I welcome your thoughts - using whichever walled commenting system you'd like.

Browser Design

Operating systems are becoming less important and browsers more important as data move into the cloud and virtually all our interactions whether we're using a computer or a smart phone are through a browser. Even though we often read market share numbers for the various browsers in the press, I was interested in learning what readers of this blog and followers of my Twitter accounts used. Readers of this blog are three times more likely to use Firefox as they are to use Internet Explorer or Safari and those browsers are used about equally by the blog readers. Chrome is about half as popular as IE and Safari. Opera use hardly registers. Let's now look at browser use by the followers on Twitter. As shown in the pie chart, Firefox is used by 61% of followers, Chrome by 12%, Safari by 11%, IE by 10%, and Opera by 4%. Firefox leads by a large margin is browser use when considering blog readers or Twitter followers. Safari and IE are clustered together in second place and Chrome is in that pack based on the Twitter results too. Opera doesn't appear to be in the running.

What leads to these results and why are they so different from the numbers typically reported in the press? Many argue that the higher numbers in the press reported for IE are due to users of computers running Windows who simply haven't or don't know how to use a browser other than the one that came installed on their computer. Readers of this blog and followers of the Twitter account are likely more advanced users who have made a choice of which browser they want to use. Incidentally, the Safari numbers are likely increasing due to the increase in Macs, iPhones, and iPod Touches with the latter two having only Safari available as a browser and Macs have the choice currently of Safari and Firefox (with half the blog readers who use Macs using Safari and half Firefox). Interestingly, only one reader in the past month used Safari on Windows.

If the readers and followers are more discerning, what are they using as their primary criteria for choosing a browser. I asked my Twitter followers to list their top three criteria and here's what they said:

• easy and clear GUI, low memory usage, amount of available addons that are useful
• speed, tabs, does it behave with applications like a web meeting
• Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, in other words standards based
• speed, speed, and speed
• speed, organization of my info such as downloads/history/bookmarks, and lack of Microsoft influence
• availability of add-ons, speed, tab browsing
• speed, fewer buttons, customized extensions (zotero); as a result I am most often using FF, and waiting for zotero on chrome
• security, speed, compatibility with the sites I visit (aka adherence to web standards)
• starts fast; loads pages fast; flash and java support
• my company standard (IE), what my web visitors use (IE), habit (IE). Chrome is nice but IE has my cookies
• it's not IE, it's not IE, still not IE
• it is what my users use based on web logs, same, same (always ends up as IE)
• speed, security, apps
• speed, reliability, developer tools. only since chrome have I considered speed to be really important
• that it's not written by Microsoft, speed, support for social services (delicious, twitter etc)

A pretty interesting set of responses. There are a few common themes. The importance of speed was mentioned 12 times and people tend to feel pretty strongly about IE both positively and negatively. Web standards was mentioned several times and, interestingly, as a reason to use IE. Add-ons and extensions were a factor too and mostly in relation to Firefox.

I personally haven't used IE for a number of years other than for the one or two applications that I need to use which only work in IE. I've used Firefox as my primary browser on Windows and Mac until very recently when I've moved to Chrome on Windows and am waiting for it to be made available on the Mac. The speed of Chrome, particularly in rendering JavaScript, the single search/address bar, the minimal browser UI especially in application mode, and the addition of themes recently motivated me to make Chrome my default browser. I'm very pleased with it. I hope that all those who develop browsers will follow Google's lead with its Chrome browser. As always, I'd very much appreciate it if you would use the comment feature of this blog to share any thoughts you may have on this. Thanks.

Open Source Design

Open Source Software (OSS) is an interesting phenomenon. The idea of having many developers working individually and together for free to create an offering for others to use is truly intriguing. I'd recommend reading Chris Anderson's new book, "Free: The Future of a Radical Price" for an explanation for the motivation behind this type of free contribution. I've been interested for some time in the aspects of Open Source software that are done well and the aspects that aren't done as well. I've also been interested in the related issue of the relative contribution to Open Source projects by developers versus designers. Let's first start with the general interest in Open Source Software. I asked my Twitter followers to take a poll asking them what type of software they preferred and fully 65% indicated that they prefer open source software. The reasons given included the fact that it is free and that they like the philosophy behind it. However, the reasons often given for preferring proprietary/commercial software is better design and support. When I asked the followers who are designers whether they had contributed to an open source project, only 11 percent said that they had and 95 percent were of the view that we needed a better system for having designers contribute to open source projects.

Many of the open source projects I've seen do need help in the area of user experience design. There are exceptions but most of those involve design contributed from a company that directly funds that work and often that results in a commercial offering. In fact, some would argue that it is the addition of good user experience design that provides the business value to create a commercial product from an open source project. Is that the only way to improve the design of open source projects? I'd very much appreciate it if you would use the comment section below to provide any ideas you may have on how to improve the design of open source software.

Electronic Communication Podcast

I've been thinking a lot about the various types of electronic communication that we deal with everyday and have blogged about aspects of it here as well. I've put together my thoughts and advice on everything from Facebook and Twitter to texting, instant messaging, e-mail, conference calling, and video conferencing in a podcast episode in my Life Habits series. I discuss my thoughts on how to effectively use these mechanisms as well as how to limit them as well. You can subscribe to the series via the iTunes store as well as the Zune store. You can also listen to the podcast episode right here on the blog. As usual, I'd very much appreciate any feedback you may have on the podcast episode via a comment on this blog and/or on the relevant pages within the iTunes and Zune stores.

Business Landscape of Design Podcast

Joining Karel on this episode are Val Fox (Director, Innovative Technology Solutions, Ryerson University), Keith Instone (Information Architecture Lead, IBM CIO’s Office, IBM.com), and Eliane Tozman (User Interface Designer, IBM Media Design Studio). The panel discusses the recent announcements of Bing and Chrome OS, followed by a description of the Ryerson Digital Playground and the poll results relating to the design impact on purchase decisions. The interesting link for this month is the what is a browser video and the community news regarding the call for papers for CHI 2009 and the new UX Book Club initiative.

Design Impact on Purchase Decisions

Most people involved in user experience design spend the majority of their effort on honing their skills and applying them in creating a great look and feel for the offerings on which they work. However, it is often necessary to clearly communicate the business value of that design work. The most important business metric is often the impact of the design on purchase decisions. Similar to the surveys I've conducted in the past on this, I recently decided to poll the followers I have on my @ibmdesign Twitter account. I asked them the question, "what percentage of your product purchase decisions are typically based on the look and feel of the user interface?" and received the responses visualized in this pie chart. A total of 88% of respondents reported that look and feel was the basis of the purchase decision more than half of the time and 32% reported that it was the basis of their decision 76-100% of the time. These results corroborate and further extend previous findings which indicated that half of purchase decisions are based solely on the look and feel of the user interface.

As usual, please feel free to provide any thoughts you may have on this using the comment mechanism provided.

Mobile Blogging

I have a mobile device with me at all time and a computer only some of the time. I therefore thought I should try out writing and uploading blog posts remotely. I'm writing this post using my iPod Touch while I'm on vacation.

I'm finding that I'm doing more and more using a mobile device. I do the majority of my tweeting, a significant amount of my e-mail, as well as rss reading, facebooking, and even checking my Google Analytics on a mobile device. So, blogging makes sense too.

I'd love to hear about your experiences in using mobile platforms via the commenting mechansim below.

Mobile & Real-Team Web Innovation Podcast

Joining me on this episode are Val Fox (Director, Innovative Technology Solutions, Ryerson University), Keith Instone (Information Architecture Lead, IBM CIO’s Office, IBM.com), Eliane Tozman (User Interface Designer, IBM Media Design Studio), and our newest member of the panel Jay Trimble (Group Lead for the User Centered Technology Group, NASA Ames Research Center). The panel discusses the Palm Pre and Palm's new WebOS, an update on the Usability Professionals Association (UPA) including an innovative perspective on design called Evil by Design, a summary of the trend toward what has recently called the real-time web including design features of Google Wave and recent experiences regarding Twitter. The interesting website of the month that was discussed is spezify.com and the community news concerned the IxDA organization. The Mozilla Labs design challenge together with IxDA was also discussed.

As always, please use the comment capability of this blog to provide any feedback you may have on this podcast episode.

Producing a Podcast - Part I

I've been creating podcasts for about a year and a half and during that time have been asked on a regular basis how I go about doing it. I've provided those who asked the details of whatever setup and procedure I used at the time. I've regularly improved upon the equipment, software, and settings. However, I'm pretty well satisfied with the setup that I have now so thought I'd share what I do and what I use here; that way, I simply have to point people here for all the details.

The most important aspect of doing a podcast is the content. The subject of the podcast series should be something that you know well and are passionate about. You'll be spending a lot of time on it and will need to produce episodes on a fairly steady basis so make sure that you choose your subject area carefully. It should also be a subject that others are interested in and that there aren't hundreds of podcasts on already. You can check what podcasts are available on various subjects by doing searches in the iTunes store. You should plan on creating a podcast episode ideally on a weekly basis but every few weeks is usually acceptable too. Listeners start to develop an expectation of receiving your episodes at a particular cadence so you should try to stick to a steady schedule of delivery. There are times when get out of the regular rhythm but then just get back to it when you can. I was ill recently, for example, and then experienced laryngitis for weeks afterward which prevented me from recording episodes (having a voice is rather important in podcasting). I've heard that 30 minutes is the ideal length of a podcast although an hour or longer may be appropriate especially given panel type formats. A microphone is the most important piece of equipment you'll need. I use an Audio-Technica AT2020 microphone. It is what is referred to as a large diaphragm condenser microphone. It has great sound but you need to also use a pop filter with it (to prevent an explosive sound when you say the letters 'p' and 't'). I use an Apex pop filter. I have both attached to a floor mounted microphone stand that doesn't touch any other surface such as the desk to prevent the picking up of any extraneous noise. I record in a room with broadloom and make sure that anything else that can make a noice isn't in the room or within earshot (even a cellphone on vibrate will be picked up by the microphone). I don't use a script but do make notes prior to the recording, the quotes and top 10 lists in the case of my Life Habits podcast and the list of articles and their links in the case of my UXDesignCast podcast).

Given the amount of material to cover, I'll divide this post into a Part I and a Part II. I'll address the actual recording and post-production software, settings, filters, uploading, and posting in Part II. As usual, feel free to contribute any of your own thoughts, experiences, and/or questions using the commenting capability of this blog.

Dynamic Forms, Survey Construction, & Design Inspiration Podcast

Here's episode #26 in my UXDesignCast podcast series. Joining me on this episode are Julie Santilli (IBM Visual Design Community and Tools Lead ), David Schwartz (IBM UI Architecture, Patterns, & Assets Lead), and Bob Jones (IBM User Experience Community & Tools Strategy Lead). The episode provides advice on designing dynamic forms, on constructing effective surveys, and discusses design quotes and recommended reading that provide design insight, advice, and inspiration.

As always, please use the comment capability of this blog to provide any feedback you may have on this podcast episode.

Influential Books on Design

I've been interested for some time in getting other people's perspectives on a number of topics but most recently on the topic of the most influential books on design. So, I asked the followers of my @ibmdesign and @karelvredenburg Twitter accounts the question, "What's the most influential book you've read on design that you'd recommend to others?" I received a number of really good responses so thought I'd share them here. I've decided to include the additional words people used in describing their books. It is interesting to note that five people mentioned books by Donald Norman with the first four recommending "The Design of Everyday Things" and the fifth recommending his more recent "Emotional Design". The rest of the list includes some pretty interesting books some of which I know I haven't read but now will.

• Donald Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things".
• "The Design of Everyday Things" by Donald Norman, perhaps the best and most foundational design book.
• I think Don Norman's "Design of Everyday Things" is a must-read for anyone who designs anything!
• "Design of Everyday Things"
• Most influential book: "Emotional Design" by Donald Norman
• "Set Phasers on Stun" has great case studies of design gone awry.
• "Dreaming in code" is an interesting guide to software development.
• The most influential book on design that I have read is "Goodnight Moon" by Margaret Wise Brown. The audience is enormous.
• "Computers and democracy: a scandinavian challenge" (1987) - first major participatory design publication in english
• "Dont make me think" is the best design book. At least for me. Principals discussed applied any where.
• "Now You See It: Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis" by Stephen Few
• Jeff Johnson's "GUI Bloopers" is the most practical useable desktop reference for companies that don't have standards or UX staff.
• "The Illusion of Life"; "Design is multidisciplinary", so I don't think we've only 1 most influential book
• "Sketching User Experiences"
• "Reflective Practitioner"
• "A primer of visual literacy"

If you have any books to add to the list or have any comments on the books already listed, please leave a comment below.

Innovation & Design Balance Podcast

Here's episode #25 in my UXDesignCast podcast series. I use a number of different formats in the series including interviews with design leaders of companies across the industry, education sessions, interviews with IBM design teams, and panel discussions. The latest session is a panel format and included panelists Val Fox (Director, Innovative Technology Solutions, Ryerson University), Keith Instone (Information Architecture Lead, IBM CIO's Office, IBM.com), and Eliane Tozman (User Interface Designer, IBM Media Design Studio). In this episode, the panel discusses the Sixth Sense research project, the future of internet search, data-driven design, and what's messing up our UIs (see previous post on this blog).

I recorded this podcast some weeks ago but we had so many technical difficulties with the recording (one panelist didn't have the regular microphone, one didn't have mute working yielding huge echoes, another had a phone ring, and other interruptions) that it took until now to provide an edited version of it. I'd appreciate any comments you may have on it using the regular commenting mechanism.

Twitter Insights

Who would have thought that an application that provided users the ability to input 140 characters of text, have others see it, and be able to see what others write would have become such a success. I've pointed out previously in this blog that I attribute the success of Twitter to the ability to connect with other human beings very efficiently with a minimum of technology in between.

There is a lot we can learn from this phenomenon if we collect and analyze relevant information. I did that via my two Twitter accounts (@ibmdesign and @karelvredenburg) and a polling tool. I've summarized below some of the key findings.

Twitter Use:
A total of 68% of followers have Twitter visible to them most of the day. That's a lot of people keeping track of what is on Twitter for a good portion of the day. Interestingly, Twitterers are not the same as Facebookers. Followers reported using Twitter 80% of the time and Facebook 20% but when I polled my Facebook friends the opposite was true.

Electronic Communication:
Followers responded that 65.7% of the time they interact with others during a typical day is via electronic means. Of course, this isn't just Twitter but is still astounding that two out of every three interactions people have during a typical day are via electronic means and only one out of the three is face-to-face in person communication.

Percent of Tweets Read:
You wonder what percentage of tweets people actually read on Twitter. I asked that too. Followers reported reading 47% of tweets on average but there was a low group which read 5% and high group which read 90%. The low group typically followed a lot of people making it difficult to read a significant proportion of the tweets coming through.

Website or Clients:
On average, users reported accessing the twitter.com site only 7.6% of the time they use Twitter. The vast majority use desktop or mobile Twitter clients. The percentage is interesting because the only statistics that are ever provided for the total number of Twitter users are those of the number of people who use the Twitter.com site. If the 7.6% is at all in the ball-park, this suggests that the total number of users of Twitter exceeds that of Facebook. It would seem possible to accurately count the total number of users since the source client information is included in each tweet but nobody to my knowledge has reported those numbers.

Time to Start Tweeting:
A recent report questioned whether people who join Twitter are serious about using it since it appeared that 60% didn't continue tweeting for the first month. I ran a poll on this one and found that 33% started reading and tweeting immediately, 18% took a week to start, 14% took more than a month, 21% took several months, and 11% took more than a year before that started. I'm actually in the several months group myself. It took me a while to figure Twitter out and friends of mine have the same experience. From these data, it would appear that 49% of people do not tweet during the first month that they've signed up for Twitter but they do after a month or much later. This itself is interesting. While the basic concepts behind Twitter is fairly straight-forward, the actual use if it with all of its conventions isn't.

Conventions:
In a previous post on this blog I wrote the Twitter Authoring Guidelines to help people getting started with Twitter. I'd suggest that anyone still unclear about aspects of the Twitterversse to read that post. It is interesting that most of the conventions in Twitter simply involved someone starting to use a particular practice and then others following their lead. After that, the conventions are incorporated into the various Twitter clients. I've been involved with an effort to improve the design of one of the most important elements of Twitter--the retweet. Most people use the standard "RT @name" to retweet content that someone else has written. The assumption is that this format indicates attribution of the source but virtually no change in the content. Another format "via @name" is supposed to be for retweeting with paraphasing or additional content. Everyone is aware of the former format but fewer are aware of the latter one. One of my followers proposed a new much more efficient format "~@name" which takes one in the place of three or four characters of the precious 140. It is also quite simple and elegant. Of course, I ran a poll on this too and the results showed that 69% of preferred to use the "~@name" format in place of at least some of the other formats. A full 37% want to replace both other retweeting formats with the tilde, 17% think that only the RT format should be replaced, and 14% believe that tilde should replace the "via" format. I'm now using "~@name" for all of my retweeting and encourage you to do as well.

I'm quite amazed at the ability to very quickly collect this type of information using Twitter itself. Of course, it is simply self-report and thus doesn't necessarily reflect reality perfectly. However, I believe this information provides interesting insights into key aspects of the Twitterverse. As always, I'd appreciate any thoughts you may have on any of this by using the commenting feature of this blog.

Design Mentoring

I've served as a mentor to many people over my career and have also learned a lot from the people who have mentored me. In fact, it was my mentees and mentors who inspired me to start the UXDesignCast and Life Habits podcasts. My experience of late communicating regularly with the more that 3,000 people who follow my two Twitter accounts gave me the idea to collect some mentoring wisdom from this crowd that I could share with everyone. I asked two questions that yielded some great responses.

What's the one thing you didn't learn in design (or other) school that you now believe is key to success?

• How to play nicely with others -- art of influence versus trying to solo
• Entrepreneurship, client communication, proper valuation of work
• On the job there are way more people involved in the iterative process than there were in school; things aren't as flexible
• Trusting your gut, "liking" the people you hire, and always standing up for what you believe in
• Working with people across differences in discipline, background, and power - design as a social practice emphasizing diversity
• How to listen -substantially underestimated
• Speed is key to iteration. Trial & error trumps genius. Perfect is enemy of the good
• Soft skills like persuasion, communication to marketing, developers, sales, CEO's, negotiating

What's the most insightful, interesting, or valuable thing anyone ever told you about design?

• Best advice re design "simplicity, less is more, balance, specialist generalist, implicit communication, realign, define problem, iterate, reflect".
• That you don't have to be "a designer" to be a designer
• All Display Is No Display” From newspaper editor on art of balancing headlines (display) art & text.
• (Industrial) Designers are "Specialists Generalists"; they need to know something about everything in order to do their jobs.
• Design = implicit communication
• Realign not redesign
• Clearly define the problem, iterate often and step away regularly in order to reflect.
• It was in London, during a lecture, someone told me : "every morning you are a designer" because of clothing.
• "That is painful to look at."

I'd like to thank all those who provided input on this via Twitter and would like to invite you to contribute any additional thoughts you may have on either of these questions using the commenting capability of this blog.