Posts on innovation, user experience, research and design
I'm currently a product innovation manager with experience in product management, user-centered design, usability engineering, brand management and visual design.
Note: This is a personal blog containing personal opinions about research, innovations and experiences that I find interesting and informative. It is not associated with my employer in any way, shape or form.
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Data-driven design as hill-climbing
This is probably the best analogy I've read for data-driven design versus creative design. It comes from our favorite design luminary, Don Norman, in his Design Without Designers article in Core77 this week.
Data-driven design is "hill-climbing," a well-known algorithm for optimization. Imagine standing in the dark in an unknown, hilly terrain. How do you get to the top of the hill when you can't see? Test the immediate surroundings to determine which direction goes up the most steeply and take a step that way. Repeat until every direction leads to a lower level.
But what if the terrain has many hills? How would you know whether you are on the highest? Answer: you can't know. This is called the "local maximum" problem: you can't tell if you are on highest hill (a global maximum) or just at the top of a small one.
When a computer does hill climbing on a mathematical space, it tries to avoid the problem of local maxima by initiating climbs from numerous, different parts of the space being explored, selecting the highest of the separate attempts. This doesn't guarantee the very highest peak, but it can avoid being stuck on a low-ranking one. This strategy is seldom available to a designer: it is difficult enough to come up with a single starting point, let alone multiple, different ones. So, refinement through testing in the world of design is usually only capable of reaching the local maximum. Is there a far better solution (that is, is there a different hill which yields far superior results)? Testing will never tell us.
Here is where creative people come in. Breakthroughs occur when a person restructures the problem, thereby recognizing that one is exploring the wrong space. This is the creative side of design and invention. Incremental enhancements will not get us there.
via Core77
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Repetitive, bored and urgent
The NYC Usability Professionals Association recently, held the "Google Presents User Experience & Mobile Apps where Google UX designer Leland Rechis described the three user states Google uses to characterize mobile device users:
- Repetitive - Users who are checking for the same piece of information over and over again, like checking the same stock quotes or weather. Google uses cookies to help cater to mobile users who check and recheck the same data points
- Bored - Users who have time on their hands. People on trains or waiting in airports or sitting in cafes. Mobile users in this behavior group look a lot more like casual Web surfers, but mobile phones don't offer the robust user input of a desktop, so the applications have to be tailored.
- Urgent - Users who have to find something specific fast, like the location of a bakery or directions to the airport. Since a lot of these questions are location-aware, Google tries to build location into the mobile versions of these queries.
What I think is interesting about this is the "bored" group. It's neat to see an articulated strategy for delivering content to people just killing time. It used to be that usability and user experience were almost exclusively focused on helping the user accomplish productive tasks. Of course that's still the case but it just goes to show how far the Internet, and by extension web human factors, has been altered by the shift to the Web being a channel for info-tainment.
via kottke (again)
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Google Adds Wayfinding Inukshuk Everywhere
I just continue to be impressed with the development and innovation coming out of Google. Using a combination of crowdsourced content contributed via Google Map Maker, and some good old fashioned data power, Google has been able to transform Indian road-based directions to landmark-based. While the whole post on Google's Blog is worth a read, here are the two juicy research nuggets:
We found that using landmarks in directions helps for two simple reasons: they are easier to see than street signs and they are easier to remember than street names. Spotting a pink building on a corner or remembering to turn after a gas station is much easier than trying to recall an unfamiliar street name. Sometimes there are simply too many signs to look at, and the street sign drowns in the visual noise. A good landmark always stands out.We also discovered that there are three situations in which people resort to landmarks. The first is when people need to orient themselves — for instance, they just exited a subway station and are not sure which way to go. Google Maps would say: "Head southeast for 0.2 miles." A person would say: "Start walking away from the McDonald's." The second situation is when people use a landmark to describe a turn: "Turn right after the Starbucks." The third use, however, is the most interesting. We discovered that often people simply want to confirm that they are still on the right track and haven't missed their turn.
Why this is great? The obvious reason is that this form of getting and giving directions is instinctual. When I read Google's post I was immediately reminded of some complementary wayfinding insights from Jared Spool of UIE from a few years back. When describing wayfinding on websites he brought up the concept of inukshuk.
Per Wikipedia:
Inukshuk vary in shape and size, with deep roots in the Inuit culture. The word inuksuk means "something which acts for or performs the function of a person." The inuksuk may have been used for navigation, as a point of reference, a marker for hunting grounds, or as a food cache. Historically the most common type of inuksuit is a single stone positioned in an upright manner.
The concept of using landmarks, in the Inuit's case man-made towers of rocks, (which makes sense considering not much stands out in an icy plain in the dead of winter) goes way back. We all seem to have this directional system baked in. Humanity, via Google, has simply reached the point where we are now able to turn everyday landmarks into inukshuks on a grand scale. That little fruitstand on the side of 104th Street? It's an inukshuk now. So is the fountain across the street.
Tagging is the new inukshuk building. Google Maps is simply enabling the ability to see these inukshuks in context. Whereas the Inuit assigned meaning to towers of stones that was only understood by the tacit knowledge of their culture, Google is enabling anyone to assign meaning to anything in such a way that everyone can interpret that meaning in any number of different contexts. Google is helping us read and interpret ambient meaning, in real time, as we go about our day.
It's just in time wayfinding.
But this is just the start. A quick look at the other tools in Google's arsenal and you can begin to see a more complete picture of what we may be hearing in the not too distant future on our turn-by-turn directions read aloud. Say you're an amateur astronomer, what if Google allows you to sign up for an Google Sky-enabled feed that you can import into your turn-by-turn directions. All of a sudden the crowdsourced inukshuks are there, but so are spatial inukshuks. Your drive to the movie theater just got a lot more interesting:
"You're approaching a Taco Bell. Turn right onto Highway 12 after the Taco Bell. You'll stay on this street for 3 miles. As you finish your turn, you'll see the Atlanta skyline directly ahead of you. Just above the Bank of America Plaza, you'll see the moon rising. It's the first full moon of the year. While you can't see it because of the ambient light, just to the right of the moon, Mars, Jupiter and Venus are aligned with Earth. This is the last time these planets will be aligned with Earth for 14 years..."
History buffs could import historical overlays. "The Walmart you are about to pass by was the site of the first skirmish in the Civil War in Georgia..."
The possibilities are endless.
Understanding where you are, what you're seeing via tagged landmarks opens up a tremendous opportunity to enrich the world around us as we're experiencing it. It's just a fascinating time to be seeing technology being molded to serve humans in richer and more familiar ways than ever before.
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Still Broken: LinkedIn's Advanced Search by ZIP
LinkedIn rolled out a new interface today designed to improve screen real estate and navigation. I wasn't aware of the redesign until I went out there this morning but immediately noticed the changes. While it's not stunningly beautiful, it's still very functional and that wins all the important awards in my book. That said, one area that still bugs me on LinkedIn is the Advanced Search.
A lot of times I'll go out to LinkedIn to see if I can find a contact, only to discover through the Basic Search that there are several David Jones (as an example) on LinkedIn. Go figure. Instead of paging through the results, I'll just back up and hit the Advanced Search.This is typically fine if I know the company that the contact works for, but in some cases, I don't know that information. I may just know that they work somewhere near Rome, Georgia. Unfortunately, to perform this search, you can't just enter "Rome, GA" into your search criteria. You actually have to know Rome's ZIP Code.
Yeah.
Harder-Than-They-Should-Be Steps
While I'm sure that's the easiest way for the search to function technically, it's not at all functional for the people using the system, unless of course you're this guy. He probably loves this "feature". But if you're not that guy, at this point in your search, you're going to need to hit the "Lookup" link. But not before re-scanning the page to make sure you're not missing a City/State entry field. (You're not).
Clicking on "Lookup", you're taken to GeoNames, a third-party provider of ZIP codes. Fine, so you type in 'Rome, GA" and you get 5 search results for Rome.
Now you need to remember back to the other screen and recall that you are searching a 50 mile radius. Since Rome, GA is way smaller than that, you can pick any of these and you should be fine. Even still, you have to remember that search radius and after remembering you still scan that list one more time just to be sure you pick the right result. These are unnecessary mental reps that ding the usability; the system shouldn't make you think this much. Regardless, once you decide to pick one of the ZIPs, there's no "Use this ZIP" button or anything, you have to physically copy the ZIP, close the window or tab and then paste it (or memorize it or transcribe between screens) into the LinkedIn field.
Now complaining about copying and pasting sounds supremely lazy, but that step is just the culmination of a couple of harder-than-they-should-be steps. This search has just gotten annoying via death by a thousand (or 5 in this case) cuts. The reason these are cuts to the experience is that we're all used to Google (and other smart) searches now.
vs Smart Searches
Compare: I was playing cards with my buddy and he was showing off his new Droid. Specifically he was raving about the Google Search enabled voice dial, proclaiming. "You don't even need to have Pizza Hut in your contacts when you say 'Call Pizza Hut' . . . it just knows where your phone is, looks up the nearest Pizza Hut via Google, and calls that number for you." I had a similar experience with Google Search the other day. My wife and I were trying to send directions to a local park to some friends. The problem was that I didn't know the address of the park. I did, however know the name of a restaurant right next to the park. So in Google Maps, I just typed the destination as "Downwind Restaurant". Sure enough, Google knew where that was.
Compare: I was playing cards with my buddy and he was showing off his new Droid. Specifically he was raving about the Google Search enabled voice dial, proclaiming. "You don't even need to have Pizza Hut in your contacts when you say 'Call Pizza Hut' . . . it just knows where your phone is, looks up the nearest Pizza Hut via Google, and calls that number for you." I had a similar experience with Google Search the other day. My wife and I were trying to send directions to a local park to some friends. The problem was that I didn't know the address of the park. I did, however know the name of a restaurant right next to the park. So in Google Maps, I just typed the destination as "Downwind Restaurant". Sure enough, Google knew where that was.
These are smart searches. The system is working for me in these examples. Contrast that to LinkedIn's search and you see why its geography search is distracting and annoying. Just let me type in "Rome, Georgia" or "Rome, Saskatchewan" "Rome, Italy" and have the system know the what I mean. Worst case, let me simply choose from the top three most likely places.
And sure this Advanced Search commentary is about a very small piece of functionality in an otherwise solid application, but attention to these details is what can set your brand and user experience apart. Better to be set apart by good experiences (Google's search) than frustrating ones.
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Data-Driven Innovation - Google DNS
I came across a rare blog post yesterday evening. It's rare because it stitches together data from a couple of places to help solve a conundrum. In this case, it also illustrated some fantastic vignettes on usability testing, data-driven strategy and innovation. What was the conundrum? Yesterday, Google launched its DNS service but it hasn't been exactly clear why. Google's official response effectively states that "It's good if the Internet is fast because people can be more productive." Sounds altruistic, just like another recent comment from Google about not stealing all of the talent in the world, but Jason Kottke (@kottke) has a different thought on why Google would be interested in accelerating page load speed.
From his post:
Google VP Marissa Mayer told the audience at the Web 2.0 conference that slowing a user's search experience down even a fraction of a second results in fewer searches and less customer satisfaction. Marissa ran an experiment where Google increased the number of search results to thirty. Traffic and revenue from Google searchers in the experimental group dropped by 20%. Ouch. Why? Why, when users had asked for this, did they seem to hate it? After a bit of looking, Marissa explained that they found an uncontrolled variable. The page with 10 results took .4 seconds to generate. The page with 30 results took .9 seconds. Half a second delay caused a 20% drop in traffic. Half a second delay killed user satisfaction.
Some lessons here:
- Users say one thing and mean another so you have to understand latent/unspoken needs
- Data is required to make strategic changes
- Usability testing is fundamental to product success
- Google's pretty smart (and so is Amazon, which is mentioned in the post as well)
There's a lot to like in such a short post. Full text can be found here.
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