idp yin

A recent e-mail from one of my mentors, Michael W. Schiesser, reminded me that the ancient Chinese observed life manifesting itself as dualist forces, Yin and Yang.

Yang energy is characterized by expansion, growth, forward movement, making things happen. Our society (and therefore, graduate education) is most oriented toward Yang energy.

Yin energy, however, is characterized by contraction, rest and reflection, acceptance, surrender, openness. I’ve tried to encourage some of this behavior throughout the course; but I especially hope that during these weeks between semesters you have given yourself more “Yin time.”

Perhaps some of the things you studied and what we experienced in IDP make a little more sense to you now (if not, I wish you would ask me). If you’ve been able to contract, look inward, and reflect, would you share your thoughts here?

metamorphosis

Metamorphosis by M.C. Escher (1898-1972)

Erik Stolterman and I wrote a paper last summer about the issue of transforming non-designers into designers (that would be you!). We see you moving through three transitions:

(P) Pre-emergence
(T) Transitional
(D) Designerly Thinking

Characteristic of each of these transitions is a penetration of barriers. Rather than progression along a smooth continuum, you penetrate these (intellectual, practical, psychological and social) barriers in a step-like function.

I’d like to share these barriers with you and get your comments. Perhaps you have additional barriers to suggest, or ones to eliminate or modify. For each person who adds a thoughtful comment, you’ll earn TWO magic points. In particular, which barriers have you punched through? What still needs work?

Barriers (numerals in parentheses indicate the transitional stage(s) where the barrier occurs)

1. Design definitions. Naïve designers’ conception of HCI/d includes mostly graphic design and interface design; experienced designers also include interaction design, experience design, emotional design, and systems design. (P)
2. Best solution. Naïve designers hold onto the belief that there is a best solution; experienced designers believe there exist many solutions and judged by critical criteria and presented through a design argument or explanation. (P)
3. Technology-centered vs. human-centered. Naïve designers focus on the technology; experienced designers study human behavior, motivation and need. It’s very difficult to “let go” of gadgets and things; there’s an over-fascination with techno-fetishism among naïve designers. (P, T)
4. Me and we. Naïve designers defend their own designs; experienced designers look to their team for inspiration and solutions. (P, T)
5. User research. Naïve designers underplay the role of user research; they know what people want. Tools such as personas are resisted rather than embraced naturally in the design process. Experienced designers do not make assumptions about human desires and motivations; they study it instead. (P, T)
6. Algorithm / design paradox. Naïve designers expect to memorize algorithmic solutions to problems; experienced designers learn to deal with ill-structured problems, seemingly paradoxical situations and design thinking. (P, T)
7. IT domination. Naïve designers tend to overemphasize efficiency, effectiveness, scalability; experienced designers include experience and emotion. (T)
8. Idea loyalty. Naïve designers hold onto a single idea; experienced designers engage in systematic exploration of multiple ideas. (T)
9. Critique culture. Naïve designers worry about school grades; experienced designers welcome critique. (T, D)
10. Notebook. Naïve designers sketch for a particular project; experienced designers sketch continuously, deriving inspiration from all contexts. (T, D)
11. Role. Naïve designers are learning what they do and how to do it; experienced designers begin to defend the position of design in a multi-person development team made up of designers and non-designers. (T, D)
12. Research and philosophy. Naïve designers find solutions in the HCI literature; experienced designers explore philosophical foundations of design as well. (D)
13. Reflective designer. Naïve designers spend little to no time reflecting on how they are designing versus experienced designers who can look at themselves “out of body” as they design. (D)
14. Omnipresence. Naïve designers see design embedded in objects; experienced designers see systems that affect designs and designs that affect systems. (D)
15. External / internal. Naïve designers find external answers to design problems; experienced designers begin to look internally and introspectively for inspiration and resolution. (D)

dance and design

Yesterday, Nancy Schwartz helped us think about the analogy between dance and design.

Why look at dance (or choreography) and interactive design? Both require the successful balance of technology and aesthetics, and both focus on communication with people through design. Nancy discussed:

Form and structure as they relate to the choreographer and the designer;

Technical demands as they relate to the performer and “the screen;” and

Aesthetics as they relate to the audience and the user.

It would be good to explore the analogy further, particularly as we move away from “the screen” to social networking and even issues of sustainability. I encourage you to use the comment section as a vehicle of exploration. (A magic point will be awarded to the first five people who write a thoughtful response.)

And if you require further inspiration, take a look the dancing scientists: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/1120/2

Havelock Ellis, in his book, The Dance of Life (1923) said: “Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is no mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself.” I feel similarly about design.

lessons learned

Adam Siegel presented 15 lessons learned. I’m presenting them here, with a bit of commentary. See the forum for the complete slide set. But this prompts me to ask you, what lessons have you learned this semester? Please log in and add your own lessons learned list.

1. “Boot-strapping” the company has kept us hyper-focused on our goals and made us sleep like sh&%^$t. Having lots of money can kill you (but it’s helpful if you can control the urges it brings). Not receiving a paycheck keeps you focused on the “big rocks” of your business. You don’t have time or money to waste. On the other hand, having lots of money removes the focus on what’s important, for design and operations; you start thinking about who has the best office and the kind of art you put on the walls vs. the needs of your future customers.
   
2. Resist the urge to keep adding feature requests, especially when you’re small. Features you don’t use yourself are not going to get the love they deserve. Get the core right; that’s what your customers will use and that’s what you use. There’s an expression: “You need to eat your own dog food,” meaning, you need to use your own product.
3. Be able to describe what you are doing in a few sentences and the value you will bring or people lose interest. (You’re a start-up now, not from a big company or University). This is sometimes called “the elevator speech.” You need to describe what your company is about in the time it takes to ride the elevator from the first floor to the last (and I’m not talking about the Empire State Building). Sometimes you only get a couple minutes to present your idea. The response you’re looking for is “that’s interesting; tell me more.”
   
4. Just because there are already competitors doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities. Design is more about improvement than invention. Good companies are about good execution of these designs (the building, marketing, and selling of the products).
   
5. Good design is highly coveted these days – it has a direct impact on sales. This is why you’ll be in high demand when you graduate, assuming you learn how to do ‘it.’
   
6. Depending on the type of application you’re building, don’t be afraid to just “put it out there” and iterate.  A lot. (Some design elements on Inkling are in their 20th and 30th versions. Good design is redesign! You’ll learn farm more and learn it faster by implementing a “good design” than by waiting until you perfect it before you release it. And here’s the irony: how would you know that it is “perfect” unless you release it?
7. Take advantage of larger “buzz” trends if you are small (rising tides lift all boats). This is about marketing your company and getting press. Journalists always are looking for good stories to tell; give them one!
   
8. Be persistent because you are not likely on the top of someone’s agenda. “No” is only the start of the conversation. (Joe Kraus). Tenacity. That’s where it’s at. “Never, never, never give up!” (Winston Churchill). A corporate executive is told all the time that the company’s product is no good, it’s a bad idea, etc. You have to be wise enough to know when to listen and when to ignore.
   
9. MBAs think they can run your company after being in school for a week. They also think they know how to run your company after they graduate. Experience trumps school, but school+experience is a great combination!
   
10. LISTEN to people who have been through this before. Lessons learned are the most valuable information possible when starting a company. The people who have been “around the block” a few times have much to teach us. Just make sure they don’t have one year of experience repeated 20 times versus someone with 20 years of experience.
    
11. In a world of horrible customer service, good customer service really stands out: (a) Quick response; (b) Helpful; and (c) Friendly. Keeping current customers can be more profitable than going after new ones. And happy customers are your best evangelists.
    
12. Allowing people to “try before you buy” makes for more informed potential customers and generates leads with no work on your part. Don’t be afraid to give it away, but have a solid plan for generating revenue too.
    
13. Don’t be a jerk about money. Be willing to give things away for free to get to the bigger sale. You never know who knows who or what network someone is connected into.
    
14. Cut your losses immediately and move on-features and people. We’ve been through 2 accountants, 2 lawyers, and just fired our PR firm. Hanging onto the wrong people can take down a company. It’s so easy to merely focus on the problem people. But they are ruining the morale of the high-performing people too, and you may lose some of them.
    
15. It all comes down to trust in every aspect of the business: customers, co-founders, partners. No trust, no success. You’re only as good as your word.

So what are your lessons learned this semester in IDP? Please write a comment.

anticipating the unanticipated

We’re in the middle of designing solutions for a complex, “wicked problem,” and it reminded me of a book I read some years ago: The Logic of Failure: Recognizing and Avoiding Error in Complex Situations, by Dietrich Dörner. The author tells a story of a city council and its mayor trying to fix the volume of traffic, noise, and air pollution in their downtown area. To solve the problem they introduced speed bumps and the speed limit was reduced to 20 miles per hour. But the results were unexpected: 1) the speed bumps forced people to drive in a lower gear, thus increasing the noise and exhaust fumes; 2) but because of the reduced speed, people spent more time shopping, and this actually increased the number of cars in the downtown area; 3) eventually fewer and fewer went downtown because of these reasons; 4) people started shopping in a near-by mall; 5) downtown stores, once thriving, were facing bankruptcy, and 6) tax revenues were significantly down. “The fate of this environment-conscious town demonstrates how human planning and decision-making processes can go awry if we do not pay enough attention to possible side effects and long-term repercussions, if we apply corrective measures too aggressively or too timidly, of if we ignore premises we should have considered.” [p.2]

It seems we’re wired for this kind of ad hoc thinking. Hunting, building a fire, or chasing away a wild animal does not have much significance beyond the act; “…our prehistoric ancestors did not have to think beyond the situation itself. The need to see a problem embedded in the context of other problems rarely arose. For us, however, this is the rule, not the exception. Do our habits of thought measure up to the demands of thinking in systems? What errors are we prone to when we have to take side effects and long-term repercussions into account?” [p. 6]

As we build systems, we need to be aware of short-term, long-term, and unexpected consequences. Smart designers understand the motivations and needs of their target population. In the next post we’ll discuss some techniques for anticipating the unanticipated.

framing

One of the most important tasks for the team facilitator is “framing.” It’s a way for the facilitator to tell the team:

1. what is next;
2. how to proceed; and
3. why it is important.

A team meeting should be a sequence of frames beginning with the check-in, the main part of the meeting, and then the postmortem or team reflection. Here are some examples:

The check-in frame:
(Of course, use your own words) It’s good to see everyone again. Let’s take three minutes now to share what’s happening in our lives and then we’ll check-in. This will help us get to work.

In this frame, the facilitator sets a goal and a time limit, tells the team how to proceed, and states why this activity is important.

The goals frame:
Today we have two hours for our meeting, ending at noon today. Here are the goals for our meeting: [list 2-3 goals on the white board] If we can accomplish these goals, I truly believe we will move our project forward in an important way.

Notice that the facilitator tells the team why it would be good to accomplish these goals. Of course, after a brief discussion of the goals, the facilitator should follow with a team vote: I propose these goals. One, two, three… [thumb voting]. If there’s a “thumbs down,” the facilitator should ask, What would it take to get you in?

The postmortem frame (10 minutes before the end of the meeting):
We’ve reached the end of our time together. Let’s reflect on our meeting today. Let’s discuss what went well and what didn’t. From this we’ll have a better meeting next time.

Again, the facilitator frames the next ten minutes by saying what will happen next, describes how the conversation should proceed, and explains why it’s important to have this conversation.

Framing can make a huge positive difference in team meetings. It’s one of the most important tools available to the facilitator.

What other team techniques have you found to be useful?

design courage: Atul, Maya, and you

I enjoy reading non-fiction, mostly around HCI issues, but occasionally in other areas. One such book was Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance, by Atul Gawande. From the book jacket: “The struggle to perform well is universal: each of us faces fatigue, limited resources, and imperfect abilities in whatever we do. [Sound familiar?] But nowhere is this drive to do better more important than in medicine, where lives may be on the line with any decision.” Gawande describes three core requirements for success in medicine:

1. Diligence — attention to detail.
2. To do right — despite moral obstacles.
3. Ingenuity — arising “from deliberate, even obsessive, reflection on failure and a constant searching for new solutions.”

Medicine is a profession that involves risk and responsibility; and so does human-computer interaction design. As we consider Gawande’s core requirements for medicine, what are the parallels in hci/d?

We are half way through the semester; we are at an important turning point as we engage with the problem of local production and sustainability: will we dig deep within ourselves to find our excellence, or will we simply do what’s necessary to complete the task?

Maya Lin

Maya Lin is a design hero. At the age of 21, while still an undergraduate at Yale she submitted her design to a competition: the 1982 Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. And, of course, we all know that she was the winner. What is less known is the political battle she endured, often ugly and filled with racist innuendos. Lin understood that to do right (in Gawande’s terms) meant to defend her vision of personal and national loss. Her design allowed the memorial visitor to enter a “pain of loss,” not to purge it but to contemplate it.

Get inspired. Listen to Atul Gawande as he speaks to the Commonwealth Club of California.

Maya Lin’s design document is quoted here:

“Walking through this park-like area, the memorial appears as a rift in the earth, a long, polished, black stone wall, emerging from and receding into the earth. Approaching the memorial, the ground slopes gently downward and the low walls emerging on either side, growing out of the earth, extend and converge at a point below and ahead. Walking into this grassy site contained by the walls of the memorial we can barely make out the carved names upon the memorial’s walls. These names, seemingly infinite in number, convey the sense of overwhelming numbers, while unifying these individuals into a whole.

The memorial is composed not as an unchanging monument, but as a moving composition to be understood as we move into and out of it. The passage itself is gradual; the descent to the origin slow, but it is at the origin that the memorial is to be fully understood. At the intersection of these walls, on the right side, is carved the date of the first death. It is followed by the names of those who died in the war, in chronological order. These names continue on this wall appearing to recede into the earth at the wall’s end. The names resume on the left wall as the wall emerges from the earth, continuing back to the origin where the date of the last death is carved at the bottom of this wall. Thus the war’s beginning and end meet; the war is ‘complete,’ coming full- circle, yet broken by the earth that bounds the angle’s open side, and continued within the earth itself. As we turn to leave, we see these walls stretching into the distance, directing us to the Washington Monument, to the left, and the Lincoln Memorial, to the right, thus bringing the Vietnam Memorial into an historical context. We the living are brought to a concrete realization of these deaths.

Brought to a sharp awareness of such a loss, it is up to each individual to resolve or come to terms with this loss. For death, is in the end a personal and private matter, and the area contained with this memorial is a quiet place, meant for personal reflection and private reckoning. The black granite walls, each two hundred feet long, and ten feet below ground at their lowest point (gradually ascending toward ground level) effectively act as a sound barrier, yet are of such a height and length so as not to appear threatening or enclosing. The actual area is wide and shallow, allowing for a sense of privacy, and the sunlight from the memorial’s southern exposure along with the grassy park surrounding and within its walls, contribute to the serenity of the area. Thus this memorial is for those who have died, and for us to remember them.

The memorial’s origin is located approximately at the center of the site; its legs each extending two hundred feet towards the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. The walls, contained on one side by the earth, are ten feet below ground at their point of origin, gradually lessening in height, until they finally recede totally into the earth, at their ends. The walls are to be made of a hard, polished black granite, with the names to be carved in a simple Trojan letter. The memorial’s construction involves recontouring the area within the wall’s boundaries, so as to provide for an easily accessible descent, but as much of the site as possible should be left untouched. The area should remain as a park, for all to enjoy.”

[For Maya Lin's complete submission, see: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/MayaLinsubmission.jpg]

preparing to be wrong

Yesterday I spoke of “big concept” teaching and related it to a personal experience:

In the mid-sixties, when I was an undergraduate at the University of Illinois, I took a course in physics. In those days, they didn’t offer “Physics for Poets.” There were only hard-core physics courses, taken mostly by engineering majors. But I wanted to know how the physical world worked, so I signed up. A good student, I attended all of the classes, took thorough notes, read the textbook, and completed all of the assigned exercises at the end of every chapter.

All went well until the first exam. I opened the test booklet and suddenly wondered if I was in the right course. “When did we learn how to solve these problems?” I wondered in bewilderment. I muddled through them, trying to remember the formulae I had memorized. Needless to say, I didn’t do very well on the exams or in the course and therefore redirected my interests elsewhere.

What happened? If I had had the courage to ask my instructor about the exam questions, the professor probably would have been puzzled by my confusion. We had different views of the subject. For me, physics was a vast collection of different problems, each with its particular formula. If a problem looked like example 3.7 in the text, I felt confident. Or if a problem matched well with formula 3.5.2, then the solution was forthcoming. But if a problem was new and different, I was lost. My professor, however, had no box in his head that contained this problem.

He understood physics in an entirely different way. For him, physics consisted of big ideas and central relationships like Force = mass x acceleration. Problems on the exam were not independent problems but variations on the big ideas. Nothing would have seemed unusual to the professor; each problem was a variation of something well known. But everything seemed unique to me, his naïve student!

Big concept teaching, something my physics professor did not do, can result in big concept thinking. I related the story of Robert, a first grade student learning to solve equations in one of four forms: simple addition, subtraction, algebra addition (e.g., 5 + X = 7), and algebra subtraction (e.g., 5 = 8 – Y). For each of these four forms or subconcepts, the teacher treated in the same way: “We begin with the equal sign — what you count to on one side of the equal sign, you must count to on the other side…” After solving many problems in this manner, Robert solved a new form involving negative numbers (4 – 6 = ?). Why did Robert succeed? Becuse he was taught the bigger concept that united all of the problem types, including one never seen.

Think of an extremely smart person, someone many would describe as brilliant. How would you describe this person’s understanding of their area of expertise, whether it be finance, art history, biology, or any other discipline? Typically, these people understand big concepts: they see their world as a handful of basic themes with lesser concepts as variations on these themes.

Most of us don’t organize the world this way. We  don’t see themes and variations, we only see variations, each one independent of the other. Our heads are filled with disconnected facts and principles. But the very smart person reduces this wide array to a small set that helps him or her quickly grasp new situations.

Why is this instructional design insight — big concept teaching and learning — important for interaction design? For one, every interaction, every interface, must be learned. A design will be easier to learn if it is consistent (shares critical properties) with other designs. For example, we can learn to operate a new Mac application if we know how to operate other Mac applications. Certain menus are positioned in the same way making it easier for us to learn the fundamental controls. The designed consistency creates a big concept design for the user-learners.

But there’s another implication of big concept teaching and learning for us as designers. You may think of the seven themes — human-centered design, transparency, computer imagination, and so on — as the big ideas that help focus our attention on good design. The techniques that we learn along the way — persona development, goal-directed design — are simply tools for the designer; they facilitate the designer’s job.

To focus merely on the tools (like focusing on single physics examples or forumlae), you will memorize single techniques. Useful, yes, but missing the point. Instead, allow your mind to be reflective and ask yourself what do all of these techniques mean. You can read many HCI books (my office and home are filled with them) and can easily become confused by the suggested techniques — trying to line them all up — looking for consistencies and inconsistencies among them. But the expert designer begins to ask what these techniques mean. Variations (don’t worry about the vagaries among the techniques) lead to themes. Big concepts lead to big insights.

I didn’t have time to share the following video with you. But I’d like for you to take the time to watch it. The video comes from the TED conference, a conference attended by many influential people in the IT industry. It is a 20-minute talk by Sir Ken Robinson called “Do Schools Kill Creativity?

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

We need to celebrate the “gift of imagination.” Robinson would say that we need to be prepared to be wrong. To put it another way, Richard Saul Wurman would say that there are three misrules we learn in school that do not serve us well:

• It’s better to say “I know,” than to say “I don’t know.”
• It’s better to answer a question than to ask a question.
• It’s better to worship at the foot of success than to understand the nature of failure.

How do we let go of these old habits?

Now is your opportunity to practice being wrong. Now is your opportunity to ask questions and make mistakes, individually and as a team. Our goal is to learn to think in big concept ways so that we may design in big concept ways. How else will we awaken possibility in people?

As designers and as world citizens, our future depends on it.

(As always, I’m interested in your comments.)

I in team

It’s almost trite these days to say, “There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team.’” By this saying people mean, when working in a team you need to drop the ego. Team work requires that everyone have “skin in the game” with equitable sharing of the labor. The McCarthy protocols we introduced in class are designed to assure that all members of the team agree on all fundamental decisions – the design mantra, product core, product features, what will be developed and in what order, how usability testing will be conducted, and so on. The voting protocol with features of thumb voting, asking “what would it take to get you in,” and not moving forward until everyone is “in” ensures that everyone is committed to the success of the project. And when presenting your result to others, you’ve been admonished to use the inclusive “we” rather than the self-centered “I” or “my” as in “I decided to…” or “my idea was to…” Who cares? It merely diminishes you in front of others. At the time of presentation, it’s all about “we.”

But there’s a subtle and perhaps more important message in this often quoted aphorism from business leadership seminars. It’s the place in the process where the “I” can make a big difference – not always an immediate difference but a long-term difference. It has to do with contributing to the team’s success by helping to empower the abilities of each of its members. It has to do with guaranteeing that each team member is skilled and productive. It has to do with helping your team members overcome a negative emotional state due to hunger, thirst, lack of exercise, or “just feeling down.” What it’s not about is you trying to overcome team deficiencies by working harder and shouldering the burden.

So what are you supposed to do if you notice that someone on your team is not performing at an acceptable level? Your team member is slacking off. She doesn’t speak up and contribute to the discussion. He can’t write a complete sentence. He doesn’t show up on time or leaves early. She’s unable to use PowerPoint to build the presentation. He wants to return to his other obligations after spending many hours on the project. And the list continues.

There is action you can take, but it’s not doing it yourself. Help your fellow team member succeed. Teach her a new skill; help him get writing help at the writing center or edit the text with your teammate sitting next to you. Ask the quiet team member to be the facilitator. Figure out how meetings can be more efficient so that the person with a family can be home with the family (broadly defined). Once you move away from the notion that it’s all on your shoulders to make the project successful, you realize that there are many things you can do to help each other. And so what if the project is not perfect? (Zen Dog laughs at perfectionists; he knows that humans don’t achieve perfection. He knows that work turned into a lover will eventually laugh back in your face. And what’s truly important is lost.)

Has your team ever gone out to lunch together or shared some drinks? Have you gone to the gym and worked out as a team? Did you take a short walk during the “check in” process? These informal times can contribute indirectly to your team’s success; it gives you an opportunity to learn about each other – your fellow member’s motivations and skills. It’s not all about you, but you can affect the outcome. Collaboration sometimes requires that some learn new skills so that they can collaborate more effectively. Whining is not an option.

(And when you figure it out, send a note to the U.S. Congress. They clearly need to be asking, “What will it take to get you in?”)

seasons of love

End of week 3, start of week 4.

It always happens.

Like clockwork.

http://idp08red.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/where-my-feet-will-take-me/

http://idp08green.wordpress.com/2008/09/21/unexpected/

http://idp08orange.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/muse/

http://idp08blue.wordpress.com/2008/09/21/zen-dog-listens-to-girl-talk/

Hang in.

It will get better.

It always happens.

Like clockwork.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8iTeDl_Wug