I'm an IBMer: Reflections on 100 Years

IBM celebrates its 100th birthday this year. I've been with IBM for almost a quarter of that time and the various anniversary activities around the centential have also led to some reflection on my part regarding my time with the company. 

I never intended to work for IBM. It wasn't my career objective. I was targetting a career in music during my highschool years and a career as a Psychologist during my undergraduate and early graduate school years. Toward the end of graduate school I became intriqued by the human-computer interface largely through some experiences I was having in carrying out research in the lab which was controlled by software and hardware devices. My primary focus was on human information processing and in particular on the primacy of affective or emotional reactions to information displayed on the screen. I was looking for designs that optimized positive versus negative emotional reactions.  I not only assessed self-report measures of affective reactions but also physiological measures like galvanic skins response and heart rate as well.  In addition, I couldn't help but notice a powerful gender difference when I was hiring research assistants. The job simply involved operating a computer which presented different user interface elements and tracked physiolgical measurements.  All of the eighteen applicants for the job were men despite the fact that the faculty had more women than men. Further investigation indicated that it was the use of a computer that was preventing many women from applying. This led me to examine the origins of the gender bias, to develop a computer phobia assessment instrument, and to design and comparatively evaluate user interfaces that were effective for even severely computer phobic women. I presented the findings from this research program at a conference and afterwards had several interviews with the press.

An IBMer heard one of the radio interviews, gave me a call, and asked me if I had ever thought of working for IBM.  I told him honestly that I hadn't but that I was a huge fan of the company having just read a fascinating book about the history of IBM.  I was not only impressed by the company's technical achievements and business success but also by its core principles and values. I recall reading a story in the book about what happened at a big company sales meeting when the CEO learned that one of the salesmen at the meeting had a wife at home about to deliver a baby and how the CEO called for a helicopter to immediately fly that IBMer home to be with his wife. There were many similar stories that painted a picture of a company that cared as much about its employees as its customers and stockholders. Based on that book, I agreed to an interview, accepted the job being offered to me, and privately gave myself a year to try out the company. Well, that year has now turned into twenty-three thus far.

As I reflect on those twenty-three years, I realize that my experience working for IBM has largely involved a realization of the promise of that book I read about the company so many years ago. I've had amazing managers throughout my career who have to a person lived those core IBM principles and values. I hope too that I have lived those principles and values in my role as a manager and employee. I've tried to do great work over the years and believe I've been appropriately rewarded for the work I've done. I've been approached by a number of other companies but have always decided to stay at IBM. There were some tough times and transformations the company had to go through too but throughout it all I'm still convinced that I'm working for the best company in the world. And that makes me proud to say that "I'm an IBMer."    

It is with that pride that I've included a video here that tells the story of IBM's 100 year history. Enjoy. 

Interactions on Facebook vs. Twitter

I've been on Facebook and Twitter for years and have written some six thousand tweets and countless (because they're not counted) Facebook updates. I typically get on social networks soon after they're available and do the same with digital gadgets. I have personal Facebook and Twitter accounts and IBM Design Facebook and Twitter accounts as well (the company Facebook account is handled by a member of my team, Scott Lewis). The follower/friend counts are as follows: Facebook personal account 350, Facebook company account 1,548, Twitter personal account 1,367, and Twitter company account 13,748. 

I've been noticing a change in my use and enjoyment of these two social networking systems over the past few months. I tend to spend most of my social networking time on Facebook these days and only occassionally on Twitter. One of the reasons for preferring Facebook is the amount of interaction I typically have as well as the richness of content which includes photographs and videos. I also find that the interaction is richer with "likes" as well as comments. The fact that the discussion thread stays together and is visible is also key as is the fact that the discussion tends to go on for days and sometimes weeks. In contrast, replies on Twitter aren't kept together or visible, and then to only last for an hour or two. I find that Twitter is better at announcing things and sharing links which then get retweeted by others. The retweets are gratifying but not quite the same as a substantive conversation. Don't get me wrong, I have had good interactions on Twitter on both my IBM Design company account as well as on my personal one. There are people on Twitter whom I have great conversations with and while I enjoy those conversations, they aren't as frequent, deep, or lengthly as they are on Facebook.

I wanted to test my impression that I have more interactions on Facebook compared to Twitter so I conducted a mini experiment. I posted the following on Facebook, "Karel Vredenburg is conducting an experiment comparing Facebook and Twitter to see which has the most interaction. Let's see how many likes this update can generate. The same request will be made on Twitter. Thanks!" and the same, albeit slightly shortened text due to the 140 character limit was posted on Twitter, "I'm conducting an experiment comparing Facebook & Twitter to see which has the most interaction. Let's see how many replies we can generate." The results were that the update on Facebook generated 19 likes and the post on Twitter yielded 2 replies. When I thanked the 2 people on Twitter who replied, that led to three more replies from one of my Twitter followers. A post just prior to this about the same topic yielded 3 likes and 5 comments from different people on Facebook but no activity at all on Twitter.

I should point out that this is based on my own experience alone and likely also has something to do with the composition of friends and followers I have on the two systems. My Facebook friends are comprised of actual friends, family, colleagues, and a few listeners of my Life Habits podcast series. My personal Twitter account has a few friends and colleagues as followers but the remainder are people who linked to me but whom I really don't know at all outside of Twitter. The company accounts on Facebook and Twitter are naturally made up of virtually all people I don't know at all outside of these systems. However, that doesn't mean there isn't good interaction with those accounts, just that the interaction is less frequent per follower. I should mention that I've also been on Google's Buzz which did support threaded conversations and I'm also on LinkedIn with its update function. Neither of these systems has kept my interest in terms of interactions.

Of course all users will have a different experience with these systems because there are so many variables that can differ for any two people. I thought it interesting to hear the views of netcaster Leo Laporte on this topic. He has no use for Facebook other than being aware of its features in order to report on them and finds greater value in Twitter and, in fact, also preferred Google's Buzz but no longer uses that system. 

I'd appreciate hearing about your experiences on these two social networking systems using the commenting system of this site. Interestingly, when I post links to my blog posts on Facebook and Twitter, I usually get comments within Facebook on the link rather than here on the blog.

Gestural Interfaces

I first saw gestural interfaces in university labs and demonstrated at conferences about twenty years ago. Back then, the user would have to wear what was called a "data glove" in order for the computer to sense the actions of the user. Then about four years ago Nintendo came out with the Wii which was the first commercial product to truly exploit a gestural interface. While you didn't have to have a data glove, you did have to hold onto a remote typically called a Wiimote. It was impressive at the time to experience a game system responding to the movement of the Wiimote you were holding. It was an impressive augmentation of the type of interactions users could have with technology. Users could play a game of bowling and other games which involved fairly course movements. Wii Fitness was also popular as it perfectly matched the characteristics of the interaction. Of course, hardcore games weren't very effective or successful on the platform.

This Christmas season witnessed the introduction of two advances in gestural interfaces with Sony's Move and Microsoft's Kinect. Sony improved upon the Nintendo's Wii with being able to detect movement and positioning in all dimensions. However, it still requires a remote. Microsoft, on the other hand, took the technology one step further with its Kinect system. The Kinect has no remote at all. It's as if it's designers watched the Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report, and tried to recreate the interaction styles within it. You move your hand up and down to navigate through a list of items and select an item by waving your hand to the left. The system can also recognize you by name. You can also give it voice commands. All of this certainly pushes the envelope in terms of user interface interaction action methods and styles. Similar to the Wii though, the range of games that can be played using the technology is limited. The game Dance Central is particularly well suited to the technology's capabilities.

So, what's the significance of these technological advances in gestural interfaces? Do they simply provide a better way of interacting with a limited number of games on game systems largely used by kids? I believe that we're just entering an incredibly exciting period during which all kinds of interaction methods and styles will be applied in a variety ways to a wide range of products. The applications we're seeing today are really only a proof of concept for these technologies. I believe that we'll see more nuanced uses of these technologies for particular situations and use cases. For example, while you might use a touch interface for creating content (as I am doing now writing this on my iPad), you might use a gestural interface for demonstrating or presenting content as you stand in front of a group of people. You may also use voice to select a song to play on your car's sound system but use gesture to change the volume or balance. I'm delighted to see the introductions of these technologies in the environments they are today but I'm excited to imagine the endless possibilities of combinations of them in the future.

iMentoring: Technology-Enabled Self-Improvement

I was interviewed recently for an article in Pursuit Magazine about my Life Habits podcast series. That piece and a comment from a listener that I read in the Australian iTunes store got me thinking about the changes taking place in the ways in which people can go about improving themselves. In the not so distant past, the options you had for getting help for improving yourself were limited to finding and then visiting with a personal life coach or mentor (often a Psychologist in private practice), buying a book on a subject that you wanted to improve upon, or sending for CDs or audio tapes that you learned about from ads in magazines or on television. While these types of self-improvement still exist and can be quite useful, people aren't limited to only these for-fee options. People can now use their Smartphone or iPod type portable audio player to find and play thousands of podcasts on a wide variety of self-improvement topics. Listener Toni in Australia points out a key benefit of podcasts like mine, "...you get the feeling that he is your own personal coach/mentor." Despite using a fairly impersonal communication mechanism, listening to podcasts particularly when using headphones can often give the listener an intimate connection to the person on the podcast which has the effect of reinforcing the messages being given and making them more personal. In addition, the podcasts are free, come out with a new episode on a regular basis, and the best of them encourage two-way communication and a feeling of community.

A lot of people can be helped world-wide using podcasts. My own is popular in the major English speaking countries like the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK but increasingly it is also on the top 10 list of podcasts in countries like India and Singapore. Electronic delivery of mp3 files via iTunes makes all of this possible. It is quite phenomenal the increase in reach that these technologies afford and, in turn, the ability to have huge populations of listeners glean the benefits of these programs.

Of course, not all improvement can be self-improvement. Mandy KloppersCertain problems still require one-on-one attention from a professional. In the case of my podcast, I only provide the podcast material myself but I regularly invite guests to join me on particular episodes to address topics on which they are experts. Those guests thus far have been professionals who also provide individual counselling in their offices as well as technology-mediated sessions. UK Psychologist Mandy Kloppers does it all. She runs Mandy Jane - Life Design and has consulting rooms in Woking, Surrey, UK, but also provides counseling by phone, email, text, and Skype. She specializes in personal relationships, depression, anxiety, and self-improvement/personal development. US-based Marie-Josée Shaar runs Smarts and Stamina which is dedicated to providing "accessible, high-quality, scientifically-based healthy mind, body, and productivity information" to help "cultivateMarie-Josée Shaar a positive work environment that promotes productivity, engagement, and innovation" by empowering clients "to make their best, most significant contributions everyday at work, at home, and in the world". Marie-Josée provides training to companies, counseling to individuals. and writes a great short newsletter. Kathryn BrittonKathryn Britton runs Theano Coaching and provides coaching, work group consulting, speaking, and teaching in all aspects of Positive Psychology. She is also an author and will be speaking on an upcoming episode of my podcast about her latest book Gratitude: How to Appreciate Life's Gifts. Kathryn's coaching focuses on "successful baby boomer professionals who are feeling the restless calling to make a greater positive difference in the world." I very much enjoy working with Mandy, Marie-Josée, and Kathryn and congratulate them on embracing technology-mediated self-improvement using the methods I've outlined here.

To participate in this iMentoring experience you simply need to subscribe to the Life Habits podcast within iTunes or go to the shownotes site. Recent episodes have included ones on taking things too personally and improving sleep. The latter episode was with Marie-Josée, and new episodes with Mandy and with Kathryn will be recorded very soon. Of course, don't limit yourself to my Life Habits podcast series, I'd suggest you check out the other fine self-improvement podcasts that are available as well and enjoy iMentoring.

Cultural Influences on Design

I just returned from a two week trip to China. I was a keynote speaker, along with others like Don Norman and Bill Buxton, at the User Friendly 2010 Conference in Nanjing. The theme of this Usability Professionals Association International Conference was "Embracing Asian Culture". A number of the speakers addressed the theme by discussing the various ways they incorporated cultural differences across the globe into their product designs. My presentation also included some material on the ways we go about understanding users in various parts of the world and the ways we address any cultural differences. After the conference, I spent some time in other Chinese cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Suzhou as well as traveling between them. I observed what people wore, what phones they used, and what was available in their stores.

I used to be of the view that companies should do everything they can to understand cultural preferences and then come up with designs that incorporate these preferences.  My experiences in China have led me to think that we need a hybrid approach that involves addressing cultural preferences under certain circumstances and not under other circumstance.  

An observation of the mobile phones that are most desired and the clothing fashions that have the greatest influence in China suggests that traditional colors and styles don't much matter with regard to these products. Black iPhones are everywhere as are clothes fashions that originate in Italy. However, store displays and their electronic equivalents exhibit what to Western eyes looks to be overwhelming and chaotic arrangements of products. The results of a fascinating research study that was presented at the conference may provide some insights into why this aspect of design may have a deep-seated basis in culture. The study by Takahiko Masuda et al., (2008) entitled, "Placing a Face in Context: Cultural Differences in the Perception of Facial Emotion" showed different groups the same two sketches of five students with one in the center who's facial expression didn't change but the other four students' expressions where happy in one and sad in the other version of the sketch. When the sketches were shown to North American subjects and asked to say whether the main character was happy or sad in each, the typical response was that there was no difference in the two sketches. Asian subjects, on the other hand, tended to respond that the main character was happy or sad when the others in the sketch were depicted as having these emotions. When I first saw the two pictures I laughed to myself thinking that the pictures were identical. I'm a typical Westerner in this regard. This study illustrates the Asian subjects responded based on their perception of the entire sketch involving all the people in it whereas the Western subjects responded based on a single individual and ignored the rest of the sketch and the people in it. There appears to be a difference in the individual versus group dimension but also in the figure versus ground one. As I traveled China, I saw more and more examples of both of these dimensions at work and was more and more convinced of their centrality and their importance to design.

I consider this only the beginning of a quest to understand the meaningful differences between the cultures with regard to design but I do think it points our future work in interesting directions.    

Reference:

Masuda, Takahiko; Ellsworth, Phoebe C.; Mesquita, Batja; Leu, Janxin; Tanida, Shigehito; Van de Veerdonk, Ellen; Placing the face in context: Cultural differences in the perception of facial emotion; Journal of Personality and Social Psychology; mars 2008; vol 94(3) 365-381. 

My iPhone 4 Computer

I always like to use a product for a while before providing my perspectives on it here. I've had the iPhone 4 for a few weeks now and would like to share some thoughts I have on it. The buying experience was an interesting one. Much like what happened with the Nintendo Wii and other recent products from Apple as well, it is very difficult to actually give your money to these companies. Due to a combination of high demand and not enough product getting into the supply chain, potential customers have to put their names on waiting lists with their carrier and call regularly to check to see if their name is getting near the top of the list. Alternatively, potential customers could stand in long lines outside of an Apple store and hope they had enough stock to last to where you're standing in line. Of course, this increases the anticipation and generates significantly greater free advertising for Apple given the buzz of friends talking about it and the press covering. In my case, I gave up on the waiting list as my name didn't seem to be moving because the store wasn't getting any iPhone 4 32G units virtually at all. Instead, I went to a large store and made my case to get a unit and that worked.

I've said it here before but I absolutely love the getting started experience with Apple products in general but especially so with mobile products. The box is elegant and you don't actually want to throw it away and it seems like such a shame. Once you plug the iPhone into your computer with iTunes, you get prompted as to whether you'd like to restore the new phone with the old phone content. After you accept that prompt, the system spends some time copying over the content to the new phone and when that's done, you're all set! Compare that to the experience with a computer, any computer!

When you turn on the iPhone 4 to use it for the first time, you're struck by the incredible beauty and legibility of the 326 pixels per inch "Retina" display. Photographs are amazing to view on it and text is too. You wouldn't think that a high resolution display would make that much difference for text but for a display this size it really does. It's easier on the eyes and everything else you look at after getting used to the iPhone 4 just looks low quality. The increased speed of the processor is also noticeable and makes the unit highly responsive and apps feel like they have an instant on capability. The 5 mega-pixel camera is phenomenal and creates stunning photos. The HD movie recording and editing capability is also outstanding. The HDR feature looks interesting but I haven't figured out how to combine the resulting individual shots into a single HDR one. I'm sure it says how somewhere but this is an instance where Apple hasn't in my view done enough to make the experience seamless and intuitive. The front-facing camera is an interesting feature too if you intend to use FaceTime, the in the phone video-conferencing facility. I use video conferencing at work and with friends daily, almost hourly, on my computer. I think I would use FaceTime but right now its use is restricted to other people who have iPhone 4s and also WiFi. If it integrated with something like Skype, I would use it all the time but as it stands now, I've never even been able to try it. Apple advertises the fact that the iPhone 4 supports multitasking but of course this is the capability they built into iOS4 which also runs on previous generations of iPhones. I've written here in a previous post what I think of iOS4's multitasking user interface so I won't repeat it here other than to say that the multitasking capability is useful but the user interface elements to control it are definitely not.

With the new capabilities of the iPhone 4 and the apps I now use regularly, I'm finding that my iPhone is becoming a true computer for me. I can deal with work and personal email, text messaging with my kids, friends, and colleagues, write my blog and moderate comments for it, search for a buy stock images, buy domain names, create and manage my to-do lists, write short documents, view presentations, work with my calendar, work with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, get directions and navigation instructions, check my flights, check the weather forecast, do my banking, track my investments, work with my fitness trainer, read books, watch movies, take and edit photographs and movies, determine how much products cost in other stores, test my hearing, read the newspaper, listen to and/or watch podcasts, have Skype sessions, play games, and, make phone calls. Given all those tasks, it's kind of strange that it is called a phone. I find it absolutely amazing that we have this much power and utility in our pockets and that is such a joy to use, look at, and feel.         

Effective Management

A listener to my Life Habits podcast series asked me to address the topic of effective management in a podcast episode. I've been a manager for close to two decades and have recently been promoted to an executive management position. That got me thinking about what I consider to be the key ingredients to being an effective manager. I also realized that most of the ingredients are the same whether someone holds a formal position of manager or serves in a management like role (including parents, coaches, etc.). I had already devoted a previous episode to the topic of leadership, which I believe is closely related. Someone can be a manager without being a leader and a leader without being a manager but I believe both sets of skills are most effective together. I compiled some interesting quotes, put together a top 10 list (actually counted wrong and the list actually has 11 items in it), and recorded the podcast episode. You can access it within iTunes or via the show notes site. I'd appreciate any thought you may want to share after you listen to the podcast episode.    

The Power of Customer Experiences

I've written widely on the importance of the total customer experience on this blog, in a book on the subject, and elsewhere. However, it is so rare that you experience excellence in this space that when you do, it is worth writing about and celebrating.

I've been experiencing an intermittent problem with my iPhone. It occasionally dies necessitating a hard reboot or it cycles through a reboot cycle automatically. I took it to Apple about a month ago and the woman working at the Genius Bar thought it might have been due to the fact that I had so many apps running in the background taking up RAM. You may recall my post here talking about the problem with the multitasking user model which leads to this situation. She suggested I cancel running apps every once in a while and if that didn't help, to try restoring the system. I've been canceling apps regularly but still had the rebooting problem. I therefore tried the restore suggestion but that didn't help either.

That led me to take the iPhone back to the Apple store. The place was packed and had long lines to purchase stuff and to visit the Genius Bar. Luckily, I had reserved a time online for the Genius Bar.

The Genius Bar itself was being fully used so the Apple staff member helped me right in the line. I told him my story, he checked the record of my last visit, and promptly told me that he didn't want me to have to waste more of my time possibly having to come back again so they would just give me a brand new phone. Just like that! It only took a few minutes and I was out of the store. I haven't had any problems whatsoever with the phone after that.

Pretty impressive customer service in my view. I should also point out that customers in the Genius Bar line had a unique perspective on the problems that they were having. To a person they pointed out that they loved Apple despite whatever problem they had with a particular product. Experiences like the one I had engender such loyalty in customers that they'll forgive the company for the occasional problem they experience with their products. Now that's a pretty good position to get into as a company.

Communicating Assertively

I do a podcast series called Life Habits Mentoring, as most of you probably know. I just recorded an episode on the topic of communicating assertively. I've always believed that interpersonal communication is critically important in all aspects of life, whether communicating the features of a design you've just done, discussing a problem with a family member, or expressing your views to a good friend. 
I provide advice on how to achieve balance in your communication between being passive and not expressing your your views at all to being too aggressive and expressing your views at the expense of other people. I don't pretend that I'm perfect at this myself but I think the top 10 items I've compiled will make anyone more assertive and, in turn, more effective in life.  You can listen to the podcast episode on my Life Habits show notes website or via iTunes.  

Mobile Blogging App Review

I've tried a number of different mobile blogging solutions and have always found them lacking in some fundamental ways. Until now. The latest version of the SquareSpace iPhone app looks really promising. In fact, I'm writing this post on the app. I just took a screen shot of the editing user interface and added it as image to this post. I also just entered the image editing mode but all I could do with the picture is to delete it. The text editing tab is great as are the post saving options (save to the iPhone, save as draft to the site, and save and publish to the site).

One other really valuable feature of the new version is comment management. The app also has a notification feature for comments which is incredibly useful for a blogger like me who has turned on comment moderation which requires me to explicitly approve comments. You may recall that I had to turn that on given the number of spam comments I was getting.

All in all, a really promising app, assuming of course that the post I just wrote here publishes properly with the image imbedded.

<Please note that I had to fix the size and the positioning of the image outside of the mobile app so the app a really good but not yet perfect>

A New User Experience Bar for OSs

Much of the discussion regarding the user experience improvements with modern SmartPhones and tablets focuses on the touch interaction with and graphically rich rendering of the user interface. I've also pointed out here the dramatic improvement in installing applications on these devices, typically with a single click on one button. All of these are of course significant improvements. However, I just experienced another phenomenal improvement in these devices (at least those built by Apple) with regard to restoring the system. I was recently advised by Apple to restore my iPhone. It sounded to me like the advice I often hear on tech podcasts and also from PC company support staff. I dreaded having to backup all the data then reinstall the operating system and then reinstall all the apps, copying back the data, changing back settings/passwords, etc.

I pressed the "Restore" button on iTunes to restore my iPhone and waited. After it was done and I looked at my iPhone, I was absolutely shocked. Everything was back to normal, all apps, all data, all settings, all preferences, everything! I was delighted. I think this is the new user experience bar for restoring all operating systems. This is how it should be done everywhere. Period.

Mobile Design Innovation

I heard the buzz about a new iPad app called Flipboard a few days ago so downloaded it to see what all the talk was about. Due to its popularity, the company could only make some of the capability of the app available upon download and the remainder, Twitter and Facebook integration, after a day or two. I knew immediately when the app launched that I was experiencing something entirely different. The splash screen shows full screen photos with a slow animation cross the screen of highlights from the various content sources you've selected. This approach to splash screens is novel and immediately grabs the user's attention with directly relevant content using often stunningly good photographs. Please note we're not even really using the app yet but have been drawn into it in an amazingly engaging way.

After you swipe to the left across the screen, you see the main Flipboard content channels. There is a starter set of content sources but you can select whichever ones you'd like from a fairly long list of candidates, including Wired, The New York Times, Fast Company, The Economist, Nature, Engadget, and The Onion.

Two special sources are Facebook and Twitter. These are the ones that you need to request access to during the early days of the launch of the app. Once you get your copy of Flipboard activated you now get content directly from your Facebook and Twitter streams into Flipboard. 

So, what's so new you say, other than the cool photo splashscreen other than the fact that this app aggregates content from a number of different sources into one place?  There are other apps that do that already and I've used most if not all of them.

What's truly unique about Flipboard is its design. It seamlessly integrates and visually renders content into in a way that Steve Jobs would call magical. Take a look at the screen shot above. Looks like a magazine layout, doesn't it? A layout that a designer would have manually crafted with photos included for appropriate emphasis of certain aspects of stories, etc. What you're actually looking at in that screen shot is my Twitter stream. Twitter is usually quite stark with textual tweets, links, and the occasional image. Flipboard has designed and coded algorithms to handle the layout and rendering of content dynamically and automatically. And the results are amazing. The user also has the option to tap on a story (actually a Tweet but it feels like a story) to see more detail as well as to be able to tap on any images to see them in full screen mode. You've never seen the images in your Twitter stream, Facebook updates, or from your online news sources look better! The subtle animation effects are also very effective. 

It is often said that the spreadsheet program Lotus 1-2-3 was the "killer app" that drove the early success of the PC industry. I believe that Flipboard will do the same for the iPad and like devices. It shows was it possible with the device and its user interface patterns will likely (and should) be used widely in mobile apps like this. The app isn't without controversy, however, due to the way it pulls content from sources but I hope that this won't hamper the success of this amazing app. I should give you one caution, though. The app is so engaging to use that you'll find yourself spending much more time with it than you planned. It's like the experience you have with games except that in this case you're actually learning a ton during that extra time.       

New Commenting Hurdle

I first started blogging on October 17, 2006 and initially turned on open commenting. Most blogs and sites did that around that time. The idea was to encourage open communication between the person writing the blog and anyone who wanted to write a comment. By 2007, I was getting spam comments on the blog so turned on moderated commenting. That turned out to take a fair amount of time moderating the comments and it also led to questions from users who wondered where their comment had gone. By February 2009, I turned on open commenting again to see how that would work this time around. The plan was to allow direct commenting and publishing the comments automatically but for me to spend some time once every several weeks to moderate comments after the fact. The problem is that there have been have been a surprising number of spam comments. So much so that I've decided to turn on limited moderated commenting.

I had a look around and found out that most sites actually use some form of moderated commenting. The key news sites and tech blogs use this. The only exceptions appear to be sites like YouTube and I've been finding the comments are the worst part of YouTube. The ratio of thoughtful and valuable comments to sheer crap is like 1 to 50. I find unfortunate that virtually everything that is made available has to either be gamed for a cheap buck or taken over by fools.

Please let me know if the change in the commenting system is too much of a hurdle (note that the photo of a hurdle shown above is courtesy of Fanboy30 via Creative Commons license.) 

Apple Design vs. User Error

I've been thoroughly enjoying the use of my iPhone as regular readers of this blog will know from my previous posts. The importance placed on design at Apple and the design decisions made up until recently have been exemplary. Something appears to have changed however. I haven't used an iPhone 4 so can't really comment much on the problems with using the antennas as the actual bezel but it appears that it was an amazing industrial design masterpiece but a failure with users. If you haven't heard, there are pervasive reports of dropped phone calls when the iPhone 4 is held in certain ways particularly by left-handed users. Apple has essentially said that the problem is due to user error and that users should simply hold the phone differently or add a case. I'll leave the rest of that discussion to those who have first-hand experience with the device.

I do have first-hand experience with the new version of the operating system, iOS4, running on my iPhone 3GS. Since installing the new OS, my phone had been operating strangely: it would die even though it had a full battery charge, spontaneously reboot, and crash apps while I was using them. I was heart-broken that my wonderful iPhone had now developed some fatal flaw and the device that I could trust to always work now would be as unreliable as previous devices I'd used were.

A friend suggested I take it into an Apple store to have a Genius check it out. I did that. What I learned absolutely shocked me. The Genius ran a diagnostic program which reported a lack of available RAM. On further investigation it was determined that the lack of available RAM was due to multitasking. I haven't used multitasking much but was surprised to learn that many of the 100 or so apps I have on my iPhone were still running, albeit in suspended mode in most cases.  Turns out that I didn't have the appropriate user model for the way multitasking works on the iPhone. I wonder how many users share my confusion. Here's actually how Apple designed multitasking to work. Every app you launch until you reboot is running in multitasking mode - and taking up memory! Guess how you're expected to stop apps from multitasking and taking up memory? You have to get into delete mode and delete by press the minus sign on every app in the multitasking tray! (see the screen capture above) Apparently, Steve Jobs when announcing iOS4 said something to the effect of companies who's multitasking operating systems require a task manager (meaning Microsoft's Windows) has failed to do its job. Well then, Apple has failed to do its job because not only is the multitasking tray on the iPhone a task manager, it requires you to manually delete every app you want to stop running on your device! If I could disable multitasking I would. Now I have to spend time manually deleting apps or reboot regularly both of which are a waste of time. I sure hope that the maintenance release of iOS4 fixes this problem and the one that iPhone 4 users are experiencing.  

Apple is known for brilliant design but due to its intensely secretive culture, it doesn't do much user testing. It seems to me that the problems with the iPhone 4 and the problem I've identified here with the design of iOS4 may have been a casualty of this culture. I'd appreciate any thoughts you may have on this. 

Length of Podcast Episodes

I ask for feedback on my podcasts on a regular basis in order to further improve them. One recurring theme relates to the optimal length of individual episodes. I typically aim for a length of about 30 minutes in length for episodes that I'm doing by myself and normally about 45 minutes to an hour for episodes that involve a guest. Listeners have suggested having longer and shorter episodes and a number have also indicated that they're fine with the current length. Recently a listener wrote me to suggest that I do a quick poll on the topic to get the range and average preference from a representative number of listeners. I've done that before regarding things like the ideal frequency so decided to do it again regarding the length. I've created a poll using a new (to me) service called Wufoo. I've included a widget at the bottom of the right column of this website that you can use to complete the poll. Feel free to make any comments here too on the topic. Thanks!   

Going Digital for Free

Many aspects of our lives have been going digital over the past few years. A typical knee-jerk response to a question is to simply Google it.  I consider Google an appliance for my brain given how often I use it in this way. The majority of people now listen to music in the form of MP3s using an iPod, iPhone, or some other personal audio device. Many also watch digital movies on their computer screens or increasingly on their TV screens too. News is increasingly consumed in digital form via websites, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, or podcasts. Books are now often read on dedicated devices such as a Kindle or directly on devices like iPhones and iPads and alternatively listened to as audio books in the way that music is listened to. 

I'm an early adopter of most things digital and have consumed content almost exclusively in digital form for the past few years. I've been paying for much of this digital content though whether through iTunes for music and movies, audible.com for audio books, and amazon.com for eBooks. I was reflecting the other day on the fact that I used to borrow books, music, and movies from the public library, the physical versions of these things. I thought it was an amazing tax-supported way of simply borrowing media for the time period you needed it. I remember checking periodically with the library to see if they were moving into the digital world and was routinely disappointed to learn that they weren't. In fact, I found it extremely frustrating that I couldn't even access the online catalog because all the computers were being used by people accessing their email!

You can imagine my delight when I recently checked with my public library website and found that they now provide digital media and the ability to download and transfer it directly to your media device (an iPhone in my case). The media stays on your device for the loan period and automatically disappears after that leaving you extra space on your device. They offer music, movies, ebooks, and audio books. Since finding this new free resource about a couple of weeks ago, I've already listened to four audio books. I'd recommend that you check out your local public library website to see if yours has digital content for download as well.  

Optimizing Teamwork

Most of what we do at work and at play is done with other people. However, little attention is often paid to enhancing what we do with others in teams. There is certainly lots of attention on how to improve the performance of sports teams but that isn't the case for other teams in work and educational settings. A listener of my Life Habits podcast series sent me a question on this topic. She used to be an Olympic athlete in a non-team sport and was now retired from sports and needing to learn how to work effectively and optimally on teams at work. I gave that some thought and came up with a list of ten ideas to consider in enhancing and optimizing the workings of teams. I recorded a podcast episode on the topic which you can listen to via the Life Habits iTunes page or via the web at the Life Habits show notes site. I would appreciate any thoughts you may have on the episode and the ideas discussed in it. (the photograph on the right is courtesy of Ingorrr via Creative Commons license)  

Design Guidelines and Trade-offs

Design guidelines and design trade-offs are often hotly debated in design circles. However, very little is know about them in actual practice. Now a doctoral student, Steve Szigeti, is doing research on this very topic.  Steve is a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Information (iSchool) at the University of Toronto, as well as a graduate fellow in the Knowledge Media Design collaborative program at the university. I'd like to share Steve's invitation for you to participate in his study here. Here are his words: 

I'm seeking your help in a research study which looks at the role of design guidelines and design trade-offs in the process of web interface design. I would be grateful if you could share your opinions and experiences in a web based questionnaire. The questionnaire takes roughly 15-20 minutes to complete. All of your responses will remain confidential. This study is part of doctoral research in the Faculty of Information (iSchool) at the University of Toronto. I am interested in the experiences you and other web interface designers have with aspects of the design process, such as the use of guidelines and your experiences (if any) with design trade-offs. In appreciation for your participation, aggregate results of the survey will be posted at http://www.szigeti.ca after September 1, 2010.  If you would like more information about this study, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Please contribute to Steve's study by taking this questionnaire. Thanks.

Apple's New iOS4

I just upgraded my iPhone to the new version of the operating system. Apple renamed what used to be the iPhone OS to the more generic iOS because it is the system that powers the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. The latest version, iOS4, comes with the new iPhone 4 but it is also being made available for free for previous iPhone models. I have an iPhone GS so the upgrade was a really nice surprise, especially for free!

The major enhancements that come with iOS4 include multitasking, folders, integrated and threaded mail, and camera zooming. Let's explore each of these in turn.

Multitasking is a welcomed addition to the iPhone. The method of switching between apps once you know that you have to double-press the button is pretty intuitive and convenient. What isn't so intuitive is what this control actually does. The tray of running apps is obvious enough but what is confusing is the fact that that tray just keeps filling up with apps even if you closed them down by single pressing the button. The only way to remove apps from the actively running tray appears to be to explicitly delete them, which is weird. Apparently, only a few apps are able to actually keep running whereas others simply suspend their state while not in focus. Any difference between these two types of apps in terms of their multitasking ability isn't apparent in the user interface itself.

Folders are not only a nice to have but a necessity if you have a reasonably large collection of apps. The user interface action in this case isn't intuitive but once you've done it once, it does feel natural. You have to simply drag one app icon onto another and a folder is created with the default name of the category of the apps. You can then add up to 12 apps per folder. Rather than having to scroll to the right and left through many pages of apps, the new folders allow you to simply tap on a folder which reveals all the apps within it without having to do any scrolling. I've found this a perfect way of cleaning up the apps on my iPhone and being able to access them in a much more efficient manner.

Mail has been enhanced with the addition of an integrated inbox and threaded conversations. I'm not crazy about the integrated inbox because I personally don't want my work and personal email in a single inbox. I find it jarring. However, others may think it is a great feature. As for the threaded conversations, I can't find them. I don't know if you have to somehow turn this feature on through another hidden user interface action but I don't see any threading in my inboxes. I'm assuming that the feature is essentially the approach that Google introduced into its GMail system where all replies to an initial email are nested together. I use that all the time in GMail and in Lotus Notes but I don't see it in my iPhone inboxes. When I find it, I'll report back here what I think of it.

Camera zooming is an incredibly important addition to the iPhone. I take pretty well all my pictures with the iPhone and the other day I was taking pictures of my daughter and her friends at a pre-prom party we hosted at our house. For some of the pictures, we had the group of friends all line up on the other side of the swimming pool from the parents taking pictures. The parents with actual cameras were able to zoom in to capture the group of friends across the pool but I wasn't able to zoom at all and, as a result, missed some of the detail. I now can with the updates made to the camera which allows you to move a slider on the camera view to set the right level of zoom. Pretty sweet!

While my very early experiences with the enhancements made to iOS4 weren't unqualifiedly positive, I am still very pleased with the update and especially so given the price - free. 

iPad - Design without Affordance

I've now had a lot more experience with the iPad. I continue to thoroughly enjoy using it. However, I'm going through a similar experience that I went through (and blogged about here) with my iPhone initially. The experience is one of thinking that certain things just don't work only to learn later that there was a hidden user interface feature to carry out some action that the user had no way of knowing about. I had concluded that certain websites were simply not enabled for the iPad and I thought it weird that they hadn't done anything about the problems given the popularity of the iPad. For example, several parts of Facebook simply didn't work such as the list of friends. The problem was scrolling the list of friends. When I tried to swipe down on the list, the way you scroll down everywhere else on the device, the page would move slightly but the pop-up layer would move with it but the list of friends would stay put. Regular users of MacBooks would have a clue as to what to try to get this type of list to scroll but everyone else is left in the dark. I asked a number of other people about this and nobody that I found knew a way of scrolling lists like the ones on Facebook and we just assumed the site was not appropriately enabled for the iPad.

It was colleague of mine that finally clued me into the solution - the two finger swipe. I just tried it tonight and it worked! While I'm glad that I now know how to do something that is pretty basic on the iPad, it got me thinking about Apple's overall strategy of designing without affordances. The overall assumption is that the various touch actions are intuitive and, as a result, it is so much more efficient to not clutter screens with affordances like scroll bars. To Apple's credit, most of the touch actions are intuitive. However, the problem is the set of touch actions that are not intuitive and how users are supposed to find out about them. I admire Apple's commitment to its design principles for virtually all other aspects of the design of this device but that purity of adherence to the principles does have its costs and this is one of them.