Observation: A few tidbits about driving
I drove to the South Carolina Upcountry this weekend and had a few ideas about the driving experience along the way. First, though, let me say a few things. Greenville, SC was quite a surprise. I can’t believe that I haven’t heard about this town more. It had a pleasant downtown area and quite simply felt right. Also, I am feeling very tired and not very clever. Please give me a break on this post
Let’s talk about the stereo. I own a VW Rabbit. In my opinion, you would be hard-pressed to find a better value in a vehicle; but it’s not without flaws. I found myself constantly fussing with the volume on the stereo. There was a back and forth between conversation with my wife and then some time listening to the stereo. I felt like I was constantly turning the volume up and down. It made me wonder why the stereo has no ability to adjust itself. In my mind, it doesn’t seem unreasonable for the stereo to be able to monitor speech sounds in the car and parse them from musical sounds. Also, why not monitor other ambient sounds. If you hit that patch of pavement that is rather loud, then adjust accordingly. My point being, If someone is talking in the car; then have the stereo adjust to a volume appropriate for conversation background music. Yes, I know there are some potential issues with this; but doesn’t this seem like a good idea in general?
The good folks at Volkswagen have designed one nice feature with the stereo. No matter what volume you leave the radio at when you shut off the car, it will reset to a reasonable starting level when you start it up. You can sort of see the scenario. Coming home from a frustrating day at work, you blare your favorite anthem of the week. You shut off the car, forgetting that the volume will be startling when you go to start your car at 8 in the morning. Problem solved.
The other thing I thought was funny/interesting about driving is the ludic experience of driving. It seems that human nature is to make a game out of just about anything. The same holds true for driving. I found myself constantly monitoring my expected arrival time on the GPS unit in order to try to lower the time. After a while, I started declaring a time that I was going to make my destination by. This would, of course, require shaving several minutes off the time that Garmin estimated. I arrived back home approximately 30 seconds after the time that Garmin predicted. I was pretty disappointed.
By the way, I refer to my GPS unit as if it were a person. I call it ‘Garmin’. I never call it ‘the Garmin’. When it sends me the wrong way, I say ‘Damn it Garmin’. I find my own behavior fascinating, amusing, and somewhat creepy.
Thought: Too many acronyms
I notice that in the software world we are rather fond of the acronym. Here’s the rub (and I know all you have done this before). You end up in some meeting where acronyms are being thrown around left and right. Half of them you are trying to piece together as the meeting is going along. I mean, c’mon I’m a smart person I’m sure I can figure out what XYZ means. By the time you figure it out, you have missed the conversation. Next thing you know, you need everything to be rewound so that you can catch up.
Rectify this please.
- Stop the conversation and ask when you don’t know what something means.
- Write down the acronyms and figure them out later if that will help maintain the flow of conversation.
- Create a list of all the acronyms you have encountered.
- You are going to forget what some of them mean.
- New employees will love you for it.
- A shared lexicon is important for being on the same page when discussing with stakeholders.
- As a speaker be cognizant of this problem.
- When you write a paper, for example, it is expected that the first use of an acronym be spelled out. Perhaps you need to speak it out.
- Provide a list of relevant acronyms for formal meetings.
- Don’t use them. You might not sound as cool, but people might understand you.
Now for next week, a conversation about ‘dropping the cliches’, ‘losing the bad analogies’, and ‘banning the tiresome catch phrases’. Booya. JK. TTFN.
Design: Rosie the recipe generator
I’ve been thinking about this idea for a while. Do you ever look in your fridge, see seemingly disparate items, and wonder how you are going to make a meal out of them? This concept aims at aiding individuals with ingredient-troubled refrigerator and cupboard situations. The idea is simple.
- You sign up for an account.
- You tell the system what you like and what you don’t.
- You then do a search for recipes that contain the items you have or let the system create a recipe for you.
Okay, admittedly that’s the tricky part. If you could get the logic down, though, it would be fun to see what kinds of things it would suggest. The name, by the way comes from Rosie the robot on the Jetsons. For some reason, this idea made me think of that cartoon. I’m not really sure why, but for this concept I’m not going to question it. Obviously the UI needs a lot more fleshing out, but the pictures below convey the general concept.
Thought: UX week 2008
I attended UX week and all in all had a postive impression of the event. Practically every speaker was engaging. I really appreciated how the Adaptive Path people created a cohesive experience for the conference goers. To not have done so would have been a major gaff. It seemed that whoever was in charge of planning the conference, had paid attention to the little details.
One of my favorite aspects of the conference was how being part of the conference wasn’t just about being at UX week. It was also about being in San Francisco, which in my opinion is a great city. The recognition that people are at the conference to participate in the proceedings but also to enjoy their surroundings was crucial to its success. From the micro level of where you sat, to the hotel that it was hosted in, to the location of receptions, to the city itself; everything seemed to be done with intent. It wasn’t perfect, though.
My biggest complaint was the large number of case study style presentations. Truthfully, these can be interesting and inspiring. My biggest problem with these is that the focus is often on the design experience and not the user experience. These stories are often told as accounts of the trials and tribulations of a Design team that ultimately end on a high note. We are left with a ‘lessons learned’ slide at the end. These types of presentations are fine, but at a user experience conference let’s talk about user experience.
A second complaint (and I can’t fault Adaptive Path for this one) is that conference goers in general want to be spoon fed information. I don’t know how many times someone has told me that presentation ‘x’ was interesting but it didn’t apply to their work. It’s the same complaint I hear from people about Design theory. Guess what? We’re Designers. Isn’t it our job to take in information, abstract from it, and then figure out how to utilize it in our designs? People are always searching for certainty when a large part of being a good Designer is dealing with uncertainty. Some things aren’t quantifiable or directly observable. I do believe that the things we experience in our lives change us. That change in turn affects the way we think about Design.
At the next UX week, I would like to see a bit more focus on the total user experience. I think Designers tend to focus on a user’s direct interaction with a system, when in fact experience encompasses the past, present, and future. We don’t come to interact with information technogolies without some predispositions and we don’t look back without some baggage. I consider this all part of the user experience.
Observation: bathroom texting
This is something that I have noticed lately when I use the restroom at work. I notice that one of the stalls is occupied and then I hear the unmistakable sound of someone texting while using the bathroom. Well, actually that’s an assumption but the cadence of that sound is pretty unique.
What I find funny is that I have no way to verify that the individual in the stall is using the bathroom. For all I know, they are hiding out taking a break from work. I know you Customer Service Representative managers out there are watching every last minute. I just really like the image of someone sneaking away to sit on a toilet to take a break. It does, though, bring up the question of why people are texting in the stall.
- Is it because they are not allowed to text at work, so they have to hide it?
- Is it because they don’t want to seem like slackers, so they hide their texting?
- Are they just bored while using the bathroom so they find something to occupy their time? After all, there are no magazines sitting in the stalls at work.
Anyway, I find it interesting that people are texting while in the stall. Alright Motorola that’s a freebie. I’m not exactly sure how you would leverage that knowlege anyway.
Welcome
Welcome to my new blog. The purpose of this blog is to have a repository for all my ideas about Design that were formerly collected on scraps of paper or just floated around in my head. There are going to be three basic categories: thoughts, observations, designs. ‘Thoughts’ are going to be my musings about some aspect of Design. This may be a critique of current Design or ideas for new ways to approach Design. ‘Observations’ are going to focus on individuals’ relationship with Design. ‘Designs’ are going to be sketches or descriptions for the creation of new artifacts.
I am currently working professionally as an Interaction Designer, but I am going to try to explore a wide variety of Design disciplines. I can’t promise that all these ideas are going to be well-formed. Some may be naive. I do hope, however, that you find something here that provokes thought.
Please respond. Please be critical. Please be respectful.
Thank you. I hope to engage in discussion with you shortly.
-Nick Quagliara