Pragmatic Usability

Having been battered daily with the news of our doomed world economy, I’ve been forced to think through the concept of an ‘economy’ in general. What is one, really? And, if you’re not an economist and have no real desire to go much deeper than two serious NPR reports defining terms and conditions, how do you get the answer? Intuition, I say.

An economy is an ecology of trust. Period. The more you listen to these stories, the more this truth rises to the top. Money has no value except the trust it implies. Nor does a derivative financial tool… or any other instrument in an ‘economy’ for that matter (stock price, market cap, etc. etc.).

Once you begin draining trust from the pond, the ecology begins to falter. Pull too much and dead fish start showing up at the surface. Over-heat growth with fertilizers and an unsustainable pace becomes the norm, only to fall off and become a scary change… because what was the norm is no longer ‘normal.’

Regardless, I’m not here to talk economics. Rather, it’s a metaphor that is as real as your hand in front of you. An economy is an ecology of trust and clearly it can be broken, if not ruined, by abusing the inputs and outputs of the ecology. Which reveals that any community is an ecology of trust. Communities are ecologies where the currency is trust. This applies to project teams, division, or whole companies.

An effective company–especially one that needs to innovate regularly–needs to establish ground rules for a healthy ecology of trust. To be effective, you have to know one another. You have to know what each of you is capable of. And you have to believe that when you ask someone for something, they’ll deliver it.

Ground Rules emerge. They ensure that you don’t break down the ecology of trust that makes whatever you’re running hum (what the employees normally see as this hard-to-define ‘culture’ that they live in). It’s actually quite easy once you look through the lens of trust-as-currency and people-as-an-economy.

• You can’t grow too fast or too big, otherwise you’ll fall in on yourself. False accelerators make for false norms.
• You can’t stand for misinformation or abuse, otherwise the currency drops and energy slows.
• The strength of your currency (trust) is an exchange commodity with other companies.
• Depending on the work you do, there are limits to the size you can grow in order to sustain a vibrant ecology.
• The work you sell is the nutrition upon which your ecology sustains. Sell the wrong stuff or too much of the same and your ecology stagnates.

The ground rules you find in reflection such as this become the pillars of a sustainable company, culture, and life style for the people you lead.It’s easy to find companies struggling in today’s economy. The media are shoving them at us in order to make a story we’ll watch. Fear is unfortunately engaging. What you’re not seeing is the under-reported bevy of those who are doing all right… and why. Because they knew who they were all along and set up ecologies that were sustainable in their own right. This isn’t to say that we aren’t all affected by the macroeconomic ecology around us. But it is to say that the stronger yours is at a local level, the more insulated you’ll be from ‘head winds’, ’slow downs’, and the like.

What’s the ecology of your team, organization, or company all about?

Came across this article from our smart counterparts at Human Factors International (HFI). Dr. Eric Schaffer refers to himself as the Pragmatic Ergonomist. Has a certain ring to it, no? I won’t attempt to label myself here, but he chimes in to endorse an interesting point around the use of pupil-tracking/heatmaps as part of the user-centered design process.

In the article, Kathleen Straub, PhD, CUA, discusses the importance of measuring where people, “do, and don’t, look.” The requisite pupil-tracking heatmaps are presented and pontification ensues. I mean that in a good way :o). I’ve observed in the past, though, that HFI struggles a bit to reconcile the good visual designer’s mentality and goals with the good experience engineer’s approach. HFI, as a compayn, is clearly founded and defined by the latter. More on that in a moment…

I’ve always shied away from pupil tracking for the cost and encumbrance.  That said, Straub raises number of well-reasoned points around fallback techniques and how they can be corrupted. One that she doesn’t consider, though, is a favorite of mine: memory sketches.

Here’s how you do it. In order to determine what attracts the eye and is memorable…

• Sit in front of your user/participant and tell them that you are going to show them a screen.
  Suggest that they should review the page as they would naturally consider it.
• In the traditional testing setup, reveal the page on a monitor in front of the user while you watch from across the table.
• Observe their eye pattern.
  It will follow a z-pattern of sorts, all things being equal
  (strong page designs outside of the z-pattern may affect the norm).
• Regardless, once it is clear that their eyes have traversed the page, remove the sample from view.
  The review should typically last 5-10 seconds.
• Hand the participant a blank page and ask them to sketch the contents to the best of their recollection.
  Words and shapes are all desired, entirely within whatever rudimentary drawing skill they might possess.
  (They should not have been warned that this would be asked of them.)

As you gather a representative number of sketches from participants, you’ll begin to see patterns in what is recalled and not. Straub makes a good point that their is often more intelligence in what the user doesn’t look at than what they do. A common attraction with heatmaps in review is to look at the hot spots and celebrate or question them. Less commonly, the dark areas are considered and adjusted. In this case, missing content across sketches becomes suspect. For instance, we proved out that the louder an advertisement yelled across a page, the less recalled it was in subsequent sketches. We got this work done long before the papers and publications about the success of Google text ads.
It should go without saying that a visual designer and an experience designer should analyze the results together. The tension and insight across these perspectives create the best findings. In some cases both skills may live in one person, but be sure you are convinced of that before allowing one individual to adjudicate results.

At any rate, this poor man’s eye tracking has returned significant value for me over the years.

I never would have thought how relevant pragmatism might become when first starting this blog. Since my last post, Summer came and went, the political landscape heated up, and the economy froze. Heading into Fall, it’s crystal clear ‘pragmatic’ will be the watchword. Businesses of all kinds are bracing for the ride. The agency world in particular appears to be shaking a bit in anticipation.

Any predictions on the top 3 outcomes you expect from all this?

As a footnote…

It entertains me to some extent that HFI is touting its discovery of motivation in the design of interactions (their P.E.T. concept is about all you hear from them these days), I’m pleased to see a rather cold approach to research/design warming somewhat. It’s all part of the convergence toward a customer-aware convergence that so many businesses are trying to achieve. It’s a matter of shaking the habits and biases of each individual heritage (for agencies, technology firms, usability companies, researchers, and so forth). We’ll see how they all do, HFI included.

God bless Don Norman. I mean really, God bless him. Without the early legitimization of user centered design, rigorous research, and an occasionally irrepressible voice in the public media… well, we’d all be a little further behind in our careers. If you’re in usability in one form or another, that means you. So stop for a minute and think a nice thought for Don, no matter your denomination.

Having just returned from a great conference at Business to Buttons in Malmö, Sweden, I’m heartened by the continued expansion of the usability mantra and its introduction into common business parlance. I also credit the InUse folks who organized and led the conference (congrats, Darja on the new baby!!). They placed business strategy in direct with usability execution and on occasion there were sparks. Little did I know they’d flare up in the first 15 minutes of the conference and better yet, directly from the mouth of one god-like Don Norman.

Sean Pillot De Chenecey (don’t ask me how to pronounce it; nobody said his full name at the conference). There he was in all his British glory kicking things off with the ‘first’ keynote on business strategy, brand impact, marketing trends. You name it; we were ready for brilliance. Starting 15 minutes behind schedule, he was forced to compress his talk into the 20 remaining. And, as might be expected, strategy compressed into an unreasonable time frame sounds like a barrage of random unsubstantiated thoughts. Even poor Sean could not avoid the trap, though as usual it still sounded smarter with the accent. Dang Brits.

Scattered applause and up comes Don. A hushed tone. What will he say? Where will he lead us? First words as Sean ducked out of the room: “I didn’t understand a word of that. Did you?” The crowd looked on. “If you did, you don’t belong here…” And he was off into his presentation… a re-hash of thoughts and insights from two year-old research. Nobody seemingly notice the comments under his hushed breath. But I did, there in the front row, my subconscious mind mulling ‘what the hell.’

I parked the oddity and enjoyed the rest of the day, Twittering my ass off for the first time in my life. Conferences make that damn technology make sense. But I digress. There was breakfast to be had on Day Two…

And, thanks be to God, we were In The Same Hotel as Don Norman. Yep. And they served a great breakfast every morning that attracted the likes of me and… Don. Yep. So there we were sitting a mere feet from each other and I could hear the hushed whispers around the room (as must he): “It’s –Don– Norman.” A grandfatherly rock star. He stuck close to a co-presenter for the most part, though he graciously accepted conversation when those around presented themselves almost as something to endure. He played with the salt shakers. Asked those around which was pepper and which was salt by the holes in each. He took pictures of them and complimented their European styling. Much better than those in his upcoming presentation. ‘Fans’ awkwardly held up napkins to help even the light around his photo-shoot. (We were treated to photos of the bathroom stall from his flight over as a highlight of usability… and slight social awkwardness later on.)

But we’re not there yet. Breakfast still. Focus. He took up the topic of marketers and reflected back on yesterday’s ‘Sean.’ “They wreck it all,” said attendee nearby. “They come in with their pretty pictures and usurp the process,” said another. “It’s just not fair. We can’t defend against their pretty pictures.” Don advised sagely, “You have to put them in their place. They’ll always have their pretty pictures and big ideas, these marketers.”  Blech. The last word a derision spat on the table between two elegant shakers. “You have to hold onto your client and keep them on task. Make them follow the process. Marketers will destroy that.” How do we do it, Don? came the requests. The crowd gathered slightly, leaning over muslix and smoked salmon. “Oh, they have their place. If you have to, give them a role on the project making pretty pictures of the designs. Just don’t let them get ahead of you. If they do, all is lost.” An ‘us or them’ strategy. A woman nearby questioned the plausibility. “They’re too big for us. They take over when they show up.” His response: “Don’t over think it. They are the enemy and you have to keep them in their place.”

I damn near dropped my spoon.

His keynote later that morning dropped the same ‘enemy’ comment, again under his breath. My thinking went from subconscious to roiling. Sean is the enemy and Don is the purest savior? What was this? Where was I?

InUse has stepped into something here. They’re very smart people and this isn’t by accident. They just didn’t force us together hard enough. I say, Let’s throw down. Let’s go cage-match. Let’s co-present. Let’s debate. And for those who want to inherit the earth, two philosophies will enter… one will leave. Those who survive won’t have the better philosophy, they’ll have a merged process and an embraced acceptance of one another. I eagerly await next year’s conference and the chance to speak on this in coming months no matter the venue.

Where will Don stand? Either at the sunset of a brilliant career or the dawning of a revolution.  I like the man and I’m hoping for the best from our great leader. Meanwhile, I’m on the lookout for an articulate twenty-something to throw history out the window and shock us in the coming year’s keynotes.

Hmm. Jared Spool, at this year’s iA Summit 2008 in Miami (April 10-14), keynoted to start things off. He stood on the premise that UCD may no longer be relevant because its premise is out-dated and there are better ways to work. He goes further to point out that some of the best innovations of late, especially the ever-vexing Apple products as well as the success of Google, Twitter, and Facebook all side-stepped formal UCD, especially research. As a researcher himself, Spool analyzes the characteristics of the companies who put these ’successes’ on the market and suggests a path toward becoming more innovative and presumably more successful.

I don’t buy it, Jared. Neither did a lot of the attendees at the conference according to a variety of blog postings (such as the Digital Design Blog by Avenue A and the various conference postings under the CrowdVine community site). As my colleague, Carolyn Chandler, pointed out the other day, it appears to be vogue now to attack the parent from which your very fame was born. Take care old guard, as you begin to tread some spongy ground.

UCD as dogma is just that: dogma. If applied as dogma by ineffective teams, it doesn’t mean the method itself is dogma. I doubt most sophisticated design teams (those comprised of cross-functional skill sets including visual design, interaction design, user experience research, and both front- and back-end technologists) would look at any methodology and arbitrarily say that step 1 must come before step 2. UCD, like so many other guiding principles out there, is a composite of common sense at the end of the day. Well-ordered, for sure, but common sense nonetheless.

Properly applied methodology results in elegant execution. Properly integrated cross-functions reveal new results and uncommon thought. To call out someone like Jobs as an icon that may be opening an excuse to drop UCD inherently skips a step–a very vital step. It fails to recognize that Steve and others have internalized the best of the common sense found in UCD and they understand the checks and balances of technology… to design… to audience needs. These balances and understandings–when they become internal–don’t melt away. They become more fluid and more skillfully applied to creative thought.

Lock-step marches through dogmatic team exercises are just the by-products of teams who have not yet figured out how to run together. Flashes of brilliance, on the other hand, are not magical and are no excuse to drop valuable process. Your cited middle-ground of tips and tricks as a means toward improving team effectiveness is really just narrating an observation that you as a researcher are able to actually observe. Should you have the benefit of spending a lot more time with Steve Jobs or the next Google inventor–whoever that might be–I suspect your powers of observation will reveal individuals who have internalized a lot of what our industry has spent so many years getting down on paper.

Just like brilliant musicians, some of us will land perfect interfaces by ‘channeling’ them–as a musician might claim–from some higher source. But plenty of other artists toil the hard way… constructing, deconstructing, refining, collaborating, and testing in a process-driven path. You might consider a scale of skilled teams as a better framework for articulating your finding rather than a full swing at the industry that has benefited you so well to this point.

Solving real problems with real, usable solutions is inspiring to say the least. When it’s done in a way that blows the competition out of the water, it’s even better. In today’s rough real estate market, it has been particularly interesting to watch Blockshopper.com sort out its own take on real information for real users. Currently providing, “real estate news and market data services for current and aspiring homeowners,” this site has setup operations in three markets: Chicago, St. Louis, and South Florida.

Now I must admit, I have some recommendations for how they could significantly improve the interaction design to make their data even more engaging. But, the depth of information gathered, the correlation across data sources, and the raw the power gained by the end-user is intoxicating.

Again, consider the market. Who is buying houses these days. Well, based on public records and a correlation of numerous other data sources, Blockshopper can tell you exactly who. With some old-fashioned reporting, they are further able to provide a little background story on some of these buyers. Now you, as the interested market observer, can begin watching who’s buying what and pick up a little backstory along the way. Headlines like, “Homebuilder sells for $1.45M in Roscoe Village,” and, “Rockford attorney spends $445k for new Wolfram condo” can frankly become the beginning of an addiction.

Once registered, you can place ads of your own relative to specific locations. You can tag specific areas for observation and alerts. Just imagine if you could start to use some of the hundreds of variables in a visually controlled (drag and drop) dashboard. Move sliders up or down and watch a cloud of relevant properties realign around your core interests. Now that would be fun! No doubt, someone’s working on something like it right now. It’s enough to make Tufte’s head pop.

There are competitors (www.zillow.com and others). But without the data richness and the addictive quality of the news stories, I fail to see the differentiating value that these others might provide. They’ve been in the market much longer than Blockshopper and appear to have burned through far more venture dollars, but have made little progress in breaking through to the core human needs and interests we have. I can say one thing, the presentation of their visual experience is more brand-appropriate and sadly that counts for a lot still.

If only the blockshopper guys would clean up their design and improve some of the on-screen interactions. Well, then they’d really have something to be reckoned with… ;o)