Getting Real: An unofficial compilation of the app development wisdom of 37signals

37signals has been sporadically releasing articles on their Signal vs. Noise blog (and teaching workshops) based on what they learned while building and selling their products such as Basecamp, Ta-da Lists and Backpack (coming soon).

Because they haven't organized it all in one place (guys!), I'm doing it.

With great pride, I give you ...

The Unofficial 37signals Getting Real Compilation

• No functional spec
  "So what do we do in place of a functional spec? We write a one page story about what the app should do. If it takes more than a page to explain it, then it’s too complex. ... Then we begin building the interface — the interface is the functional spec. First with some quick and simple paper sketches, then directly into HTML. Unlike paragraphs of text that are open to alternate interpretations, interface designs are common ground."
• Just say no to Lorem Ipsum
  "The goal here is to get as close to the real customer experience as possible. Don't abstract yourself from the real experience. Every layer removed pushes you further and further away from the actual customer experience."
• Less mass (related: Less is ... more satisfying)
  "Change must be easy is really the most important point. If you can’t change, you’ll lose. Change needs to be your business. And the best way to make sure you can change when you need to change is to reduce your mass."
• Clarity vs Simplicity
  "What really matters is clarity. Clarity in visual design. Clarity in copywriting. Clarity in purpose, mission, and statement. Clarity allows someone to 'get it' while simplicity only allows someone to 'see it.'"
• Client work: Hire the right client
  "Working with the right clients is absolutely critical. The trick is knowing when to say no. The wrong client can kill morale, force good employees out, and cost you big opportunities. Working with the right client isn’t work at all — it’s a pleasure."
• Client work: Pick two - scope, timeframe or budget
  "Promising someone everything they want (fixed price, fixed scope, fixed timeframe) simply isn’t realistic if you want to deliver something great."
• How to make big things happen with small teams (SxSW 2005 Presentation)

I wonder if I can convince them to do a surprise, rip-roaring workshop at Y! HQ?

omg

I just had coffee with the lady who designed the tools that were used by Brad Bird and team to make The Incredibles. She's on the bonus DVD.

I didn't know this until she told me. I need to watch the bonus DVD again.

omg

She's my new colleague.

I love Yahoo!

Brad Bird interview

Readymade asks Brad Bird, director of The Incredibles and The Iron Giant, "How did you get that f*&%ing awesome job?"

Secrets to success:

• Send your stuff to your heroes: "My parents always said, 'Might as well send it to the people you admire most, and then work your way down.' Maybe there's only a one in a hundred chance that they'll like it or respond or whatever, but don't go to someone within easy reach; go to somebody who you respect. Shoot as high as you can shoot."
• Find leaders who protect their people: "[Simpsons executive producer] Jim Brooks basically acts as a titanium shield that a lot of bad decision making bounces off of. Pixar has the same thing. There is this force field over this place held up by its success-it's a very protected environment to grow a movie in. All of the best experiences I've had have been in the shadow of 800-pound gorillas like Jim, with the exception of Iron Giant, where I didn't have any gorillas to protect me."
• Avoid middle managers: "Oftentimes the people at the top are really fun and the people on your way up are really fun, but there's something about a lot of middle managers-people that don't have the power to say yes but do have the power to say no. . The ones who are just sitting there and making sure the paper clips are clipped on at a certain angle. ... They're responsible for a lot of bad movies."

Yes.

Yahoos who blog

Been meaning to do this for awhile. Blogs of Yahoos that I read for "scoops", but mostly for credible, cunning and funny stuff. It'll start as a list for now, but may include descriptions later. Or not.

• Jeremy: This is the uber-blogger at Yahoo!, I think. His blog is the one I read religiously.
• Russ Beattie: Mobile strategy guy. Must meet him soon.
• NateK: Kickass Webdev.
• Stanley: Kickass VisD.
• Brian: Kickass VisD.
• Lance: Fellow ID/IA.

And there's me. But you knew that.

Information Aesthetics, Information Esthetics

Information Aesthetics (infosthetics.com): "Inspired by Manovich's definition of information aesthetics, this weblog explores the symbiotic relationships between creative design and the field of information visualization, in what could be coined as 'creative information visualization'."

Information Esthetics (i.e.): "Making data meaningful—this phrase could describe what dozens of professions strive for: Wall Street systems designers, fine artists, advertising creatives, computer interface researchers, and many others. Occasionally something important happens in these practices: a data representation is created that reveals the subject’s nature with such clarity and grace that it both informs and moves the viewer. We both understand and care. This is the focus of Information Esthetics."

Information design that helps us to understand and care. Clear and graceful data displays. Beautiful meaning.

I park like an idiot.com

Get your bumper stickers right here!

I can see some nimrods parking-challenged cadets at Y! HQ that deserve to get their cars plastered.

Iparklikeanidiot.com

(via Coudal Fresh Signals)

Routing around the problem: Media

At work, I've found success is often gained not by pushing harder against "roadblocks" and "bottlenecks" but by being like the Internet and routing around them.*

The media industry giants have thrown considerable money into throwing up roadblocks and bottlenecks. In the short term, these ham-handed efforts have proven successful. But the tide cannot be held back.

Recent developments are beginning to show that big media's victories in maintaining their brick-and-mortar distribution model will ultimately be shallow and fleeting:

• OurMedia.org: Open-source, free storage and distribution for all forms of data.


• Olivelink: "... allows you to share your personal audio and videos with family, friends—anyone and anywhere you like—with nothing more than a PC and broadband Internet connection." (via the superb PVR Blog)
  


• David LaChappelle: Debuted his movie Rize via WiMax hi-bandwidth wireless tech. (Intel encrypted the digital movie in Oregon, streamed it to Salt Lake City, which transmitted it via microwave to Park City, then via WiMax to a ski-lodge at the top of 10,000-foot mountain, where a HP MCE PC decoded and projected it to a high-def digital projector.)
  


• Decemberists: Debuted their free high-quality music video via BitTorrent.


• Robert Rodriguez: Completely independent, nearly all-digital, blockbuster movie maker (Wired article, due online Mar 29)


• Mark Cuban: Taking cinema completely digital (Wired article, due online Mar 30). Note: Mr Cuban, Mavericks owner and probably the first billionaire blogger, made his billions off his sale of Broadcast.com to Yahoo!

*Taoists might say this is being like water, and flowing around the rocks.

Blogs that turn into business

Zeldman asks: Should your blog have a business? And points out how design agencies like Coudal Partners and 37Signals (my faves from Chicago, or possibly anywhere) have, via their blogs, been able to attract enough people to buy their products that they've pretty much stopped being client services companies and turned into product development companies instead.

Meaning, if your blog attracts enough like-minded folk to buy product, why do you need to do client work?

Taken to another level, if my blog has attractive enough content to find a sizable paying audience, why do I need to work? I'm looking at you, kottke!

Yahoo! bought Flickr!

And Ludicorp, to boot. Which is the key thing. The team.

Maybe this is why Stewart Butterfield didn't show up at IA Summit.

Holy crap, this is awesome. Another sign that we do get it.

Let's just please, please, not screw this up.

• Jeremy's thoughts
• Caterina Fake's announcement

Notes to self:

1. Get Stewart and Caterina to redo Web 2.0 prezo for their new Y! colleagues.
2. See about wangling a trip up to Ludicorp HQ in Vancouver. (New Y! Canada West HQ? Hoohoo.)

Final thoughts on IA Summit 2005

Boss has requested I take five minutes next week to share with the designers in my business unit.

Gonna develop the presentation right here. Need to review my notes and pull out all the "*" points.

THEME

Crossing boundaries


KEYWORDS, HOT MEMES

Folksonomies, ubicomp, power and ethics of persuasive design, death of the page, AJAX, RIA


WHAT I LEARNED

Folksonomies
- good adjunct to structured hierarchy
- good for spotting trends, popularity (up and down), and long tail mkt opportunities

Ubicomp
- smaller, specialized, embedded, invisible, connected
- think systems (iPod = tip, iTunes = iceberg)
- intimacy, global humiliation, invisible danger

Visualization
- framework of tools that help go beyond info retrieval
- go beyond text, design to leverage our visual processing/pattern recognition abilities
- showing changes over time and space

Rise of interaction
- not just designing for info retrieval
- what do you do after you find the info? Explore, learn, play, etc.

Metaphor is not dead
- still a powerful tool for changing perspective, communication across disparate domains, etc.


STUFF THAT AFFECTS OUR WORK

Visualization that allows users to more quickly (enjoyably?) grok complex datasets, explore options across multiple dimensions

Rich experiences using "dynamic" tech (AJAX, RIA), beyond web pages

Design an ecology - including the whole system, services, community - rather than the website or app


* AHA MOMENTS (parsed out all notes that had a * next to them)

Ubicomp
*- a cellphone is not the handset, it's the person, it's how she uses it, the system, the other people who use it, the services
*- eventual disappearance of "the computer" (Norman)
*- iPod + iTunes, the device (iPod) is the tip of the system (iTunes) iceberg
*- ambience: showing info in way that doesn't demand your attention
*- ubicomp creating very narrow slits of UI for very large info structures (more info, less space)

Infoviz and Interaction design
*- Adapt environment to yourself: infoviz aims to do this in order to deal with the previous two
*- mapping knowledge, discovery and use tasks to visualization types!
*- epistemic actions (vs optimizing actions): external actions that modify environment to reduce time, complexity, unreliability of cognitive processes
*- if we think of pragmatic actions, we focus on optimality, the one path, the fastest

Infoviz and IA
*Takes advantage of visual processing
*Gestalt laws
- proximity: grouping based on spatial relationships
- closure: our ability to perceive boundaries
- continuity/connectedness: perceive things as more alike due to lines, _trumps proximity_
* it takes advantage of auto-processing and massively parallel processing in our visual cortex!
*- clustering algo based on psych principles, not just mechanical

Metaphor
*- cross-domain mapping!
- mapping abstract concepts to concrete things
- time space states actions causation
*- Metaphor as bridging/communication mechanism
*- Metaphor as Sales tool
- important part of the design process is selling ideas to those who will implement and fund them
- shared metaphors bring a team together, keep project vision intact

*THE DESIGN PROCESS IS A STORY

*Metaphors give us boundaries
- w/o boundaries, things are difficult to comprehend and reason about
*Metaphors can endow machines w/ human-like characteristics, making them more approachable and usable
- use to find hidden characteristics of content
- fit the metaphor to the content, not the other way around
- be aware of the cultural and contextual properties of metaphor
- choose metaphors that scale appropriately (hard to do)
*A tool to change behavior

RIA
*- Flash vs AJAX
- AJAX: no graphic control?, somewhat transparent transitions, difficult to integrate rich media
- Flash: no built-in measurement, no built-in logging, look at user events vs server hits
*- riaia.com

IA of things
*- ubicomp leads to highly-specialized and info-rich products
- e.g., info-goggles, car PCs
Site maps become function maps
- inventory all possible flow
*- incorporate "at rest" state

Personal infocloud
*ATTRACTION MODEL
*Person attracts info
*- don't think about just how user finds info but also about how they use, store, reuse

Folksonomies
*- content owners have lost control of aboutness (e.g., Google "miserable failure" = "GW Bush biography")
*- folksonomy ties tightly together people and content
*- 5 lessons of folksonomy:
1. leverage what already exists
2. tap wisdom of crowds (and users)
3. tap the compulsion to share (don't ask too much, pennies vs dollars)
4. context counts (avoid generalizations)
5. never underestimate people's thirst for anarchy
*- harvesting outlier tags (long tail) may be lucrative opportunity (e.g., Carhart farm wear is cool wear to German skateboarders, Carhart has new market)
*- folksonomies aid rapid development of categorization schemes
*- folksonomy allows for poetry in classification ("me" tag in Flickr is more personal, visceral than "self-portrait")
*- metadata creating community (squaredcircle in Flickr - people taking pictures so they can use a specific tag)
*- linking disparate domains of expertise that use different terms for the exact same thing
*- feedback loops in tagging tools to help maturity
*- freelisting: search tags and related tags and related related tags, then use those tags for cardsort

Ethics of persuasion
*- decided to make his lab have point of view after he wrote his book: it's bad esp. when large orgs use tech to take choices away from us and _taking freedoms away from us_
*- video games are highly compelling because they're the best at _letting you to know your competency is increasing_
*- cause and effect relationships
*- operant conditioning - it's not rational, it's working on you _even if you don't know it_
- computers can train you just like animal trainers train dolphins and dogs (e.g., slot machines)

Drawn!: Inspiration is everywhere

Drawn is a collaborative weblog for illustrators, artists, cartoonists, and anyone who likes to draw.

Must. not. add. to. feed. reader. Too. late.

US Army officer thinks we need spy blogs for better intelligence gathering

He hasn't seen The Spiders, the absolutely visionary online comic published several years ago by e-sheep (Patrick Farley), has he?

Wired article: We need spy blogs

Machines of loving grace: User experience for ubiquitous-computing environments (Mike Kuniavsky)

Session description

Mike Kuniavsky (orangecone.com)
Raw notes to be polished:

CONTEXT
- understanding larger social, cultural, technological context is more important than tactical usability
*- a cellphone is not the handset, it's the person, it's how she uses it, the system, the other people who use it, the services
- systems thinking!
- cellphone is tip of iceberg for understanding small specialized devices that help people in some way


BRIEF HISTORY
ubicomp, coined by Mark Weiser (RIP)

Key Concepts
- embedded in physical design of product, key part, not attachment
- specialized: focused on task, augmented by computing
- personalized: binds data and device to an individual

- opposite of virtual reality (Weiser): augmented reality, hyperreality
*- eventual disappearance of "the computer" (Norman)

Electrification metaphor
- Motor -> attach motor to enhance sewing machine -> today, motor inside tools, ubiquitous

Ubicomp examples
- Robosapien toy robot, Prius, Adidas1 shoes, iPod shuffle
- they have computers and they have to communicate w/ people

Names: intimate computing, pervasive computing, animated intelligence

Speeding up
- miniaturization
- wireless stds: Metcalfe's Law, network effect
- low-power, fast CPUs
- better batteries
- IPv6: lot more address space, allow things to be individually addressed (ct:RFID!)

IMMEDIATE ISSUES
- no screen, no keyboard

SYSTEMS
*- iPod + iTunes, the device (iPod) is the tip of the system (iTunes) iceberg
- Acura handsfree phone: car becomes the phone - the experience of the network, not the device

INTIMACY
- smaller, specialized, leads to intimate devices in peoples lives: iPod, cellphone, WiFi detector ring
- different sizes: bluetooth headset, Health Monitor, Prada delayed image mirror (so you can see how you look from the back)
- collect intimate data: MS Lifebits

AMBIENCE
- ambient orb: display info you don't need immediately, displays brightness and color
*- showing info in way that doesn't demand your attention
- Ron Arad "ticker" crystal chandelier for Swarovsky

EFFECTS OF UBICOMP

Changes in expectations
- embedded computing hides all the workings of the device
- hides good and bad
- tendency for device to take animist qualities: people start projecting psychology on device to understand how it works

Threatened civil liberties
- subtle, difficult to predict
- surveillance
- easier to install, difficult to manage and understand limitations

ETHICAL GUIDELINES - Adam Greenfield, see B&A article, Nov2004
0. First, do no harm

1. Default to harmless

2. Be self-disclosing
- be clear about what you're doing, how user can affect it

3. Be conservative of face
- don't shame users

4. Be conservative of time

5. Be deniable
- plausible deniability

ct: maps to BJ Fogg persuasion design ethics


WHERE DOES IA FIT IN
*- ubicomp creating very narrow slits of UI for very large info structures
- how do we manage the info flood they are creating themselves?
- prioritizing info

------------------
ct: ubicomp + inherent metadata + folksonomies for organizing info?

Also made me think of two perfect examples of good and bad side of ubicomp that I encountered just this week:

1. Bad, stupid, silly, scary: Paris Hilton's Sidekick hacked. Intimate info. Wide-ranging public revelations.
2. Good yet scary: Friend left cellphone on plane. Went to web account. Found pictures some college kid had taken on her phone. Found phone numbers that she had not dialled. Called those numbers. Contacted college kid. He said he would send it back.

It's getting easier and easier to do really stupid things on a global scale without even realizing it.
------------------

New perspectives on interaction: What IA can learn from research on visual math cognitive tools (Karl Fast)

Karl Fast, InterAct Research Group, Faculty of Info & Media Studies, U of Western Ontario
- teaches in HCI program
www.livingskies.com
karl.fast@pobox.com

Update: Karl couldn't make his slides available but kindly provided me a handout (PDF) that covers the main points.

"visual math cogno tools" (MCTs)
visual math representations (VMRs)
- beautiful patterns: cellular, chemical

Math concepts - symbolic representations (e.g., Maxwell Equations = electricity)

DISCIPLINE PERSPECTIVES

- IA: conceptualizes users as rats in maze (find the cheese! rat-centered design!)
- Usability: let's simplify the maze!
- Persuasive design: get the rat to like the maze
- Experience design: change the color of the maze, add mood music
- Infoviz: Use the visual processing: Let's add density - a lot of mazes!

AGENT IN ENVIRONMENT

- Adapt yourself to the environment
- Move to another: IAs designing to avoid people from doing this!
- *Adapt environment to yourself: infoviz aims to do this in order to deal with the previous two

WHY MATH?
- Most people don't understand
- variable levels of abstraction
- reduce computational problems
- study how interaction w/ visual representations supports learning, exploration, problem-solving, analyzing, evaluating, reasoning, etc. (thinking of info beyond retrieval, not just finding things!)

RESEARCH GOAL: FRAMEWORK FOR INTERACTION W/ VMRS
- descriptive frameworks, rules and guidelines, increasingly prescriptive
*- mapping knowledge, discovery and use tasks to visualization types!
- what tool is appropriate for what type of interaction?

THREE BASIC INTERACTIONS

Conversing (talking)

Manipulating (using hands)

Navigating (using the feet)

TASK-BASED INTERACTIONS: 12 tasks (see slides)
Communication w/ a representation

E.g., Fragmenting
- reverse of composing and chunking
- fragmenting icosahedron (20-sided polygon?), tetrahedon
- via: cutting but leaving whole connected, exploding
- we naturally do this: design process, visual processing of a page (parsing the meta of a blog page: title, profile, post)
- e.g, grouping results by document type (fragments)

Discrete filtering

Range-based (dynamic) filtering - over time and space
- PARSE tool

TRANSITIONS
- understanding relationships between different representations
- combines animating, repicturing, searching

INTERACTIVITY
- as distinct from interaction
- feel, form, properties and qualities of the interaction
- affordance, etc. (see slide)

"academics are paid to be clever, not to be right."

Epistemic actions and Tetris
- research shows as you get more experienced, the no. of rotatations increase! (vs decrease)
- pragmatic actions: external actions to move closer to a goal
*- epistemic actions: external actions that modify environment to reduce time, complexity, unreliability of cognitive processes

EPISTEMIC ACTIONS IN THE MAZE
*- if we think of pragmatic actions, we focus on optimality, the one path, the fastest
- but optimal relative to what?
- what's optimal in IA design? time? fun? learning?
- but epistemic actions are important too: what are the implications

*ct: one of the best, if not the best, definitely the most unexpected source of ideas - mind-changing

Information Visualization: the Information Architecture Connection (Sherry Koshman, Ph.D.)

Session description

Raw notes to be polished:

Koshman, IA Program, U of Pitt
http://www.sis.pitt.edu/~skoshman

RESEARCH FOUNDATION
- interface design
- HCI
- Human Info Processing: how people use systems, effectiveness
- Information Retrieval

*Takes advantage of visual processing

Visualizations may help search w/
- how doc set relates to query
- re-prioritizing doc ranking
- improving cumbersome lists of docs

VISUAL PROCESSING CONCEPTS
- viz systems are intuitive
- uses low level preattentive visual processing

*Gestalt laws
- proximity: grouping based on spatial relationships
- closure: our ability to perceive boundaries
- continuity/connectedness: perceive things as more alike due to lines, _trumps proximity_
* it takes advantage of auto-processing and massively parallel processing in our visual cortex!

VIBE USER STUDY
- Experts/Novices
- Compare VIBE vs text interfaces
- Findings for group/task

- no significant difference between experts and novices
- visual recog faster than text processing?
*- need to think of new ways of testing these systems and viz field

SHARED CONCEPTS W/ IA

Common metaphor: space, structure

Provides high level and item level views

Visual org

Navigation

User-centered focus

Application to the Web

TOUCHGRAPH USER STUDY
- documented in Journal of Web Engineering
- similarity testing?
- like social network graphing, but applied to topics
- hub and spoke model
- change "radius" to set range of connections from a node

Conclusions
- Level of topic knowledge is a predictor on node use
- implications: knowledge diversity, does viz system handle gaps in knowledge of user

OTHER VIZ SYSTEMS

Mooter.com
*- clustering algo based on psych principles, not just mechanical
- same as Vivisimo? Clusty?

Kartoo.com
*- represent viz challenge of # of arbitrary meanings that need to be learned (e.g., icons)
- cartographic map metaphor

Grokker (trial software)
- Clustering
- "solar system", "planetary" approach

Stamen.com
- take nouns from GNews and map as _sparkline_ (Tufte!)
- different-colored chips; size = extent, color = trend (gain, lose coverage)
- rollover a chip: small histogram of coverage over the week

MapStan Search
- Document ranking
- streetmap metaphor
- a circle is a _town square_ (Ha.)

IMPLICATIONS FOR WEB SITE DESIGN

Interface design
- document glyphs (iconic representations) may be personalized by users (Wist!)
- Viz type: matrix of models vs features to build toolset (how about let user choose viz type too?)
- Use of text

Web IR
- viz of user activity (e.g. user query logs)
- viz content activity (e.g., what's been updated? etc., RSS feeds)
- viz of site content maps
- viz of controlled vocab (Visualthesauraus.com, thinkmap) and folksonomies (social network mapping?)

*- perhaps having a viz system do all the work of info retrieval is asking too much: need IA! (stained glass windows may have been great for communicating ideas during medieval times when few people were literate, but what about today?

L'Express

Our last supper in Montreal, at L'Express, with Jane and Mark, Ben, Wendy and Gabriel. French bistro, including the cigarette smoke. Mmmm ... koff!

They served us cornichons - baby pickles - in a big jar. Tasted good when dipped in moutard.

Had beef bone marrow - 4 bones on end, each topped with an endive (I'm guessing) leaf, toasted baguette slices and a small bowl of sea salt. Mmm. Entree of calf liver, two large slices, one of which I shared with Gabriel in exchange for some veal kidney. We were being adventurous, yes.

Then the whole group shared three desserts: My mind blurs with the decadence - some orange souffle-like thing sitting on a thick caramel glaze and cream, a chocolate-coffee ice-cream served in two thick slices, and some sort of small-cookie plate.

And, oh yes, the two bottles of Cotes du Rhone (Barrera? Gabriel, we better not forget this!) were just superb: smooth, light, warm, with ... oh, they were just delicious!

Understanding Interaction Design (David Heller)

Session description

Presentation slides posted at David's blog.

Came to this late, thanks to a miscalculation on my part.

... inform, impact

According to Heller and the IxDG,
- IA preps content
- IxD presents interaction models for that info to be reached

- not trying to create another faction, but a common way to communicate across disciplines

Interaction Design Group (IxDG): http://ixdg.org

That's all I got and I'm not convinced that it made a compelling argument that another group is needed, or that the communication and integration across disciplines won't happen organically anyway.

Designing the enterprise experience: how IA advances UCD in complex environments (Uday Gajendar)

Session description

Uday Gajendar, Adobe (previously w/ oracle and bea)

Enterprise and e-business systems, CRM, KPI, transactional ...

My face turned hot. I started to perspire. My heart started to beat faster.

I left.

I really need to trust my instincts more.

The Role of Metaphor in Interaction Design (Dan Saffer)

DEFINITION

"seeing something as something else" Kenneth Burke

"Our conceptual system is fundamentally metaphoric" Lakoff and Johnson

*- cross-domain mapping!
- mapping abstract concepts to concrete things
- time space states actions causation

INTERACTION DESIGN

Interaction is communication

Use it in a conscious manner in the _design process_ and within products

Tendency to think that problems are fixed (corrected? or unchanging?)

POWER OF METAPHOR

"Things are selected for attention and named in such a way as to fit the frame constructed for the situation." Schoen
- tenement as "blight" as "folk community"
- Jews as "vermin"

METAPHOR TOOLS

*Metaphor as bridging/communication mechanism
- Designers of chemist logbook and chemists used process of Making Tea as a common language/domain

Metaphor as innovation tool
- new ideas are almost always the product of juxtaposition (Nixon and Elvis)

*Metaphor as Sales tool
- important part of the design process is selling ideas to those who will implement and fund them
- shared metaphors bring a team together, keep project vision intact

Metaphor as mediator between computer and human
- means to understand complex digital devices

*THE DESIGN PROCESS IS A STORY

METAPHOR IN PRODUCTS
- Ryukyu ALIVE: info space as galaxy
- Artifacts of the Presence Era: data is geology

*Metaphors give us boundaries
- w/o boundaries, things are difficult to comprehend and reason about

Moving through space and time
- defining problem space and change

*Metaphors can endow machines w/ human-like characteristics, making them more approachable and usable

Introducing new concepts to users
- computer as programming tool to desktop
- TiVo and VCR changed shows from streams to commodities

CRITICISM

Metaphors are misleading
- MS BOB, computer as house

do not scale well,
- mapping abstract directly to physical is a difficult thing to do (can you sweep PC desktop clean?)

degrade over time
- do we still think of desktop?

overused
- can be hindrance to more advanced users

BUT DON'T THROW IT OUT

We can't help using it.

Limited ways to change perspective
- metaphor is one of the most powerful ways

Too powerful to ignore

Design is about invention
- invention = juxtaposition, metaphor = juxtaposition, therefore invention = metaphor (Heh. Nice syllogism.)


USING

- use to find hidden characteristics of content
- fit the metaphor to the content, not the other way around
- be aware of the cultural and contextual properties of metaphor
- choose metaphors that scale appropriately (hard to do)

*A tool to change behavior


DISCUSSION

- Lakoff book
- Lakoff has online list of thousands of metaphors
- metaphor for focused use, "explosion of meaning that dissipates rapidly" (does it break down because we expect it to do too much?)
- metaphor extended becomes "language"?

Reflections on IA Summit so far

A half-day remains after today.

Just wanted to jot down some thoughts on the benefits I gained here:

• Serendipity: idea generation - most of the content was not earth-shaking, but certain points presented in different ways did cause some brain sparks; different ways of approaching problems, applying solutions from one domain to another.
  
  
• External Networking: Opportunity to meet interesting people as well as to recruit.
  
  
• Internal Networking: Getting to know my Y! colleagues better outside of work.
  
  
• Competitive monitoring: Mmm hmm. Yup.
  
  
• Wake-up call: BJ Fogg's call for designers to recognize our power and ethical responsibility to create experiences that increase freedom (not necessarily choice; sometimes, too many choices can be oppressive), or at the very least, to not decrease it.
  
  
• Good presenters in action: Attending so many prezos allowed me to observe differences in the quality of public speaking and how it affected reception of the content. A Powerpoint does not a good presentation make. Good presenters could make average content attractive, increase audience participation. The best presenters had well-organized slides, projected their voices clearly, and made it a point to engage their audience, almost in a conversational manner, throughout their talks. Poor presenters, from what I heard, not only skewered their own content, but caused people to leave the room. Presentation, in this case, cannot be separated from content.

Some things I didn't like, which typically happen at these sorts of gatherings:

• Rudimentary content: Some of the content seemed basic. Perhaps it's because the conference is still geared to IAs who may not have as much experience with interaction or application or product design. Perhaps some requirement that speakers identify who they think would benefit from their topic (skill level, experience level, job title, role, etc.) could be incorporated for future IA Summits.
  
  
• Repackaging of old content: Some of the energy spent on taking old concepts and giving them new names was a little draining for me to listen to. Perhaps this was an effort to reshape ideas to be more palatable to an IA-centric audience.
  
  
• Poor, poor Internet access: We were wired in our bedrooms and wireless in the lobby and conference floor (CDN$16/day covered both flavors). But wireless was either unreliable or flat out not available to most, which was what was needed for those of us blogging the presentations (ok, just me). I was able to jack in in some of the conference rooms, and I only discovered this because I was really looking. Next time, the conference facility should have wireless as a given, and it should just be included as a cost of registration. It's 2005, and does the facility provider really need to nickel and dime everyone for internet access?
  
  
• Pick someplace warm: Montreal is beautiful, but in March? The next places that start with "M"? Monterey, CA. Miami. Monaco. Mmmm.
  

Rich Internet Applications (PANEL: Dennis Schleicher, Jennifer King, Tara Diachenko, Pat Callow, Gene Smith, Livia Labate, Todd Warfel)

Session description

Panel includes *Liv Labate, Comcast

Visualization: transitions and movements, flows
- riding in car: slow to fast: telephone poles -> wires -> up and down wave

- Schleicher (IA, J Walter Thompson): idea for panel inspired by oddpost! "pushing the limits" of the Web

- beyond desktop: problems with always-on, always-connected
[ct: info-sipping vs info-drinking]

JENNIFER KING, JWT: White Castle Online Nutritional App

- recommendation made to client, not live yet
- serve up info based on geog location
- audience: less tech-savvy, low-income
- end result: decisions based on nutrition data
- different locations may offer different foods
- competitive baseline: nutritional matrix
- simplifying constraint: White Castle has limited menu

Solution
- rethink linear process, all happening in one place
- consider data sources (prob. XLS from client, build their own XML)
- consistent interface
*all data lives w/in app


TARA DIACHENKO, JWT: Ford Vehicle's Towing Guide
- app did not work on demo, didn't test before prezo!

*asynchronous presentation
- decrease latency, app already thinking of data on next page while you're tooling on the current one

Interactive
- for older users, may not want completely smooth process, continue to use stepped process
[ct: speed of experience should be choreographed for user context, slow fast slow fast fast fast slow]

Visual continuity and display
- context: people starting to be frustrated w/ any kind of page refresh
- transitions: smooth changes between elements and views
- document transitions

Stateless/seamless
- don't need to have pagination process
- everything in one view, ideally
- if not appropriate, use transitions (e.g., overlays) for more seamless

Communication
- send towing spec to vehicle configuration tool

RIA = web + software + communication


GENE SMITH: Content Architecture Richness

Why richness?

*What is richness?
- visual design
- transition (meaningful, transparent, how data is being transformed, result of user action, start anywhere, reducing latency)
- interactions (user events - *impact on metrics, reactive interfaces vs all-or-nothing)
- integrated rich media (audio, video)

Transitions
- make the gutter (space between states) meaningful

Reactive interface
- scaled response to events, not all or nothing

*Flash vs AJAX
- AJAX: no graphic control?, somewhat transparent transitions, difficult to integrate rich media
- Flash: no built-in measurement, no built-in logging, look at user events vs server hits

Traditional apps
- task-focused, business-oriented, e-commerce, configurators

Possibilities for content
- visualization: Newsmap, Map of the market,
- exploration: Music Map
- asynchronous presentation: CBC radio 3
- cross-channel interactivity


*LIVIA LABATE: The Future of Web Apps
- Design Mgr, Comcast High Speed Internet

Death of the page
- break free from page paradigm

"Traditional" uses
- task-focused, business-oriented, e-commerce, configurators
- *rich content delivery, *communication (and other devices)

Rich content delivery
- better design (content visualization, exploration):

New Comcast site is completely Flash
- assumption was had to be Flash (we're a broadband co)
- but want to leverage how we use it
- Comcast.net serves partner feeds, lots of data normalization

*We are going to leverage _from_ desktop (rather than moving to desktop)

The Fan
- video player

Communication
- asynchronous presentation
- cross-channel interactivity (think of structure)
- multi- modality (converging elements, views)

*Learning from Mistakes
- metrics (adapt success metrics - no page hits)
*- behavior tracking is part of designing
- behavior tracking implementation (tools are not efficient)
- surf track buttons

ct: What metrics? What behaviors? are they tracking

ct: What is up with the Fan?


TODD WARFEL: RIA Challenges (Opportunities) for IA

Comparison of RIA methods
- Flash seems to be strongest, relatively low cost

User expectations
- not being able to do desktop functionality thru browser

Appropriate Domains
- Shopping
- Shipping
- Transactional (banking, investing)
- Dashboards

Seamless (less intrusive) transitions

Examples
- Macromedia Central
- Mastercraft boat builder

Deliverables
- wireframes + storyboards
- interactive wireframes (prototype!)

*Nobody mentioned Flex as a dev tool

*riaia.com

DISCUSSION

*- Travelocity looking at RIAs (accessibility issues), need to be able to do white label functionality, internationalization

Talked w/ Livia Labate, Design Manager, Comcast High Speed Internet

The IA of Things, Part Two: Twenty Years of Lessons Learned (Jim Leftwich)

Session description

Jim Leftwich, principal, orbit interaction

- started as product designer (engineering background) in early 80s
- always interested in symbology: represent things in simple ways
- influences: Bauhaus, Bucky Fuller
- system thinker, generalist, pattern perceiver, supersystems
- Strength in physical model-making (fiberglass, plexiglass, etc.)
- lots of experience in digital media systems UI

TONS of projects: plane missile training system, Fed Reserve bill sorting, GPS, plane exterior/interior mockup, CRT display, user interfaces, SUN OpenLook OS GUI

Infospace: Jim's experiment in browser-based OS, metadata-enabled info display and visualization
- google "Infospace Jim Leftwich" for white paper

BREAKING MYTHS, PERSONAL EXPERIMENTS

*Has a "prosumer" philosophy - people are not passive users
- use your visual cortex! Our brains are pattern recognizers!
- iconoclastic, entrepreneurial approach

Metaverse (structured) vs Myverse (interactive, virtual interpretation)

Needles (Fixed Data structures/filter listings) and Haystacks (Interactive data set visualization)

Visualizing the contexts and interrelationships of info
- e.g., Interactive TV - what are people watching right now?
- quality is overlooked is ability to amplify awareness ("Computer is bicycle for the mind" Steve Jobs)

Darkness and datasmog
- why not visualize our spam as vegetation?

Visualized conferencing system

Infospace
- filter sets associated with attribute, mnedtadata
- filter sets are modular, reconfigurable, savable, tradable
- can be used interactively and passively

PROJECTS

Acuson Sequoia Ultrasound System
- create _interactional language_ and _centralize_ interactions to simplify use and interface
- learned how to drive an interface w/o looking at it

Very definitely possible to design based on ability to perceive generalized patterns

* Starsight Telecast (personal project)
- clickable thumbwheel, remote control
- TV guide
- contextual linking
- got patents but they ended up in a box
- TV guides still suck

*Don't make users spelunk (where they can't see the whole system)
*Don't allow users to run off a cliff

Talked w/ Jim afterwards.

The Information Architecture of Things - Part I: What If a Button Really Is a Button? (Bill DeRouchey)

Session description

Bill Rouchey is an ID - industrial designer - from Ziba design.

speaker started out as IA, moved in to ID, works for ZIBA (product design co)

CONTEXT AND TRENDS

Products get more complicated
- no longer focus on single tasks: consume, manipulate and present info in small space

All require _getability_: If they don't get it, they won't get it

Products traditionally don't tap the entire experience
- fast and cheap access to info adds complexity

Elegance v features
- need for elegance and reduced cost usu. means fewer physical controls
- leads to increased modality in controls
- competitive marketplace usu. means more features

It's going to get worse and better
- more complicated, more interesting
*- ubicomp leads to highly-specialized and info-rich products
- e.g., info-goggles, car PCs
- new opportunities for people who enjoy both structuring info and designing elegance

SKILLS THAT TRANSFER
- process
- usability, mental models , etc

SKILLS THAT DON'T

- taxonomies and classifications play a lesser role
- web specifics (server, coding, databases)
- The principles help, the details don't

SIMILARITIES

It's still organizing info
- structuring a system that works
- documenting the solution

Knowing the user is key
- get into their context, what they don't realize they need
- what makes them giggle?

Team-driven process
- collaboration is key
- team includes CFM (color, finish, materials)

DIFFERENCES

Physical context
- screen size
- two hands or one
- display stared at or glanced at
- safety issues (medical devices)

Interaction is event-driven
- "at rest" state
- interaction triggered by events; process the event, return to "at rest" (documenting a loop vs a path)

Interaction model is reversed
- Devices: less info; less visual space; wide variety of interaction points (buttons, knobs, sliders, switches, gestures); push, push+hold, slide, turn (fast or slow), turn+ hold, tilt, shake, etc.

Modality increases
- Devices: heavily varies; same control can have multiple physical actions (push vs hold) combined w/ user modes (set clock vs set alarm)

Feedback
- Devices: visual (new screen, lighting icons), audio (ding, buzz), spoken, touch (vibration, detents)

SITE MAPS

Site maps aren't enough
- don't easily capture multiple interactions per control

Site maps become function maps
- inventory all possible flow
*- incorporate "at rest" state
- example shown akin to mobile phone functional flows

WIREFRAMES

Wireframes don't apply
- complex to capture offscreen status/feedback (sounds, lighting)
- difficult to capture modes
- physical form of device gets in the way

Wireframes become screenflows

LESSONS LEARNED

Rapid prototyping not conducive to document maintenance

*Divorce function from layout
- interaction definition occurs simultaneously with prototyping
*Divorce function from action (abstract it! - think like CSS/XML)
- Document topology, not description (object-oriented approach, analogous to CSS)

NEW DELIVERABLES

Interaction matrix
- grid to compare all possible interactions in all modes

Screenflows
- similar to wireframes

Other documents: inventories
- modes
- possible user actions
- screen templates and animations
- system feedback (sounds, lighting); use high-level names that match actions (Scroll, Confirm)
- patterns (how it all goes together)

SUMMARY
- future is getting wierder
- new complexity means new opportunities, regardless of you job title
- Objects are closer than they appear (take in all the info you can, read wierd stuff, e.g., Erratic Behavior - Sweden)
- Don't forget to abstract your documentation (patterns not results)

-----------------------
ct: I see opportunity for software that allows you to represent interactions and modes in different views for different purposes (engineering, client presentation, user experience direction)
-----------------------

Anise

Another singular dining experience, thanks again to Jane's coordinating skills, this time at Anise, a Lebanese restaurant with a French twist.

Just a beautifully designed experience from the dining room (red velvet chairs) to the appointments (napkins specially folded with an anise clove placed in a corner as an accent) to the culinary works of art to the facilities (only rolled hand towels stacked on a zigzag shelf). I had a grilled octopus appetizer and roast quail with grilled beans in a foie gras sauce. Ended the meal by sharing four desserts - chocolate fondant, chocolate pouch, pistachine (the best dessert, ground pistachio terrine flavored with cardamom sugar, topped with almond slices and rose jam) and caramel mouse - with Jane, Gabriel, Wendy and Ben.

Super.

Information Objects (Richard Ziade)

Session description

Applying cognitive load theory and object-oriented thinking to information design

COGNITIVE LOAD THEORY
- short term vs long term memory

Long-term memory
- we don't store it in a place, we store it as a building block
- we link new building blocks to pre-existing blocks

UCD
- focused on more complex tasks
- little focus on "assumed" skills and knowledge
- info objects leverages the most basic skills that we all have

REDUCING COGNITIVE LOAD
Determinants
- user intelligence
- ease of relating new stimuli to existing schema (how much work does it take before something becomes long-term memory)

STUFF ABOUT THINGS (real things)
*- space, size, weight, persistence, can contain other things, perform actions if controlled in certain ways

INFO OBJECT
*-representations of clusters of info that can do things based on certain controls (ct: See peterme's document genres?)

Can exist as
- tangible things (e.g, timesheets)
- concepts (e.g, work queue)

Why define
- object complexity and richness (how much can you do with it?)
- information object interplay

HOW TO OBJECTIFY INFO
- helps to create methodology to sort through complex info
- visual cues

Delineation (= grouping? separation?)
- Headlining
- Wrapping, boundaries
- Physical presence
- Spacing
- Icons and Objects

Object instances
- Titling (e.g., Project Dakota vs Dakota)
- Color
- Symbols and icons

Object composition
- objects inside of other objects [ct: man everything looks so boxy, boxes within boxes]

Motion

WEB
- lousy way of delivering apps: (e.g., Amazon add to shopping cart) snapshots vs manipulating info objects
- browser is narrow window (doesn't allow you to see top, bottom and sides of info object)

BORROWING FROM OBJECT-ORIENTED THINKING

----------
this guy had the best looking slides I'd seen all day - nice design, slick graphics and animation - done in Flash

- for the most part, not earth-shaking. We're already componentizing interface elements, or information. This speaks to consistency or robustness of interface elements within an app or site for ease of development, use, education, reuse (patterns?)
----------

IA for the Personal InfoCloud (Thomas Vander Wal)

Session description

Raw notes to be polished:

prezo: http:/vanderwal.net/essays/pic/050305

personal infocloud
- how we store, manage, reuse info

INFO CLOUDS
- global: internet, not really organized, for everybody
- local: defined by location, membership (e.g., intranet, museum)
- external: info we don't know about, different language (dark internet?)
- personal

Properties of personal infocloud
- person-centered
- access (what device, method of connecting to content)
- organization (what group does the person belong to)
- tasks, actions, context-aware


*ATTRACTION MODEL
*Person attracts info

Receptors
- intellectual (think, vocab)
- perceptual (credibility
- physical (senses, constraints, e.g., walking, driving)
- mechanical

INFO LIFE CYCLE
- info need -> seeking -> recognizing -> retaining/storing following -> info reuse -> personal info cloud ... REPEAT.
*- don't think about just how user finds info but also about how they use, store, reuse
- how does info follow you around?

INFO REUSE
- intellectual property
- we publish info because we think others may benefit from it

SCENARIOS MAP
- Environment (Work, Mobile, Home) and contexts and their info uses
- Work: Desk, Meetings
- Mobile: Transit, Driving
- Home: Living Room, Office
- evaluate using receptors in Attraction Model to decide what is appropriate infocloud, interaction

IA USES
- use infocloud properties, receptors to build personas
- design for adaptability

Structuring information
- deep linking
- externally stored usage
- externally structured

Design and develop standards
- design for info reuse for different modes of access and contexts
- offer more than one option

Document Genres - The Hidden Workhorse of Information Architecture (Peter Merholz)

Session Description

Slides (PDF) [via Peterme's follow up on his blog, 3/10/2005]

-----------------------
My thoughts: creating _meaningful packages of content_ based on _groupings_ of metadata, rather than focusing on individual metadata
- packages of content that serve different uses (e.g., book, guidebook, map, listings)
- use suggested by content and _form_
-----------------------

what's the difference between these genres
- form, structure

making explicit the genres of info we're offering so people know what to do with them
- what affordances can we provide?
- what cues

- "genres emerge as a response to purpose"
- genre is a _communicative action_, can be book, video, prezo
- digital doc genres akin to content types

- content inventory -> content map (e.g., janice fraser's work on PeopleSoft docs)
- challenge: what is most meaningful level of granularity to define genres?
- mapping content genres again user tasks -> leads to IA

- genres serve as important "trigger words", pretty much all a user has to figure out where to go

good examples
- TrendMicro

document genre not= content type (doc type?)
genre not= template
- genres drive templates (layout)
- genre also include content and purpose

separating presentation from content
- but for genres, presentation is key to communicating what to do w/ content

*-content as object, the "thingness" of content, the shape of info
*- genres are medium/device/channel-specific: maynot be easy to just pour content once, and automatically reuse it over multi-platforms

*- evaluating channels (PC, PDA, mobile phone, paper, phone call) by _genre needs_: portability, interactivity, detail/depth, multimedia, familiarity/trust, reflection, responsiveness, multitaskability, solidity of record -- then evaluating the importance of those qualities for a task (e.g., buying a house)

- meaningful divergence vs convergence (one size does not fit all)

- genres are fluid, innovation occurs when developing the right genre, in the right context, for the right medium
*- IAs need to think about how people _use_ use info, not just how to find it

Content Packaging and Metadata: A Change in the Approach to Content Production (John O'Donovan, Ben Lavender)

Official session description

Raw notes to be polished:

John O'Donovan (johnodonovan@bbc.com) - can talk about stuff, can't necessarily link to it (proprietary).

metadata for content fragments at the BBC

archive must be: accessible, utilized, realize value

utilization
- meta usable in _different contexts_

accesible
- can find content in relevant format

realization
- get more value out of content and content mgt

key: capture metadata at point of creation

EXAMPLES
E-Learning
- segmented
- learning environments - making content reusable by packaging it
- challenge - right content and context for individual
- World view: reusable content asset -> reusable info object -> learning object -> learning path assembly -> delivery
(doesn't this look like an application/platform architecture)
- mapping same assets _across 9 different curricula_
- Standards: SCORM (object model), Learning object metadata, IMS packaging (how to put assets together in a packet)
- asset -> metadata -> package -> sequence and context
- applications: augmented reality
- shipping massive amounts of content from one platform to new platforms

TV
- BBC wants to be completely tapeless by 2010: small tapeless HD camera that capture metadata
- BBC tech direction internal video to show fully digital future: EPG, search, surprise me, TIVO like, mobile, multi-platform (nothing new here)

SMEF (Std Media Exchange Framework)
- semantic model
- 360 degree production process vs linear process
- commission . Schedule > epg > post, video, interactive production >

TV Anytime
- splitting content horizontally (segment, "scenes") and vertically (strands, e.g., by actor)
- "TiVo on speed"
- good for comedy sketch shows for people to see only the characters they like
- challenge of serving content by preferences: many people in one house -> avatars and user guides (character learns your preferences and biases)

IMP
- interactive media player, downloadable software
- currently running as a trial
- BB P2P network
*- watch what you want, when and where you want
- "unmissable TV"
- back and forth 7 days, 14-day guide
- Guide metadata displayed: show, broadcast time, duration, channel, size

DISCUSSION
- similarities to podcasting
- DRM challenge: who owns particular bits of content, how many times do you get paid for BB content?
- new commissioning process needs new model for rights mgt, e.g., XRML
- time-shifting changes production by making it out of the schedule (e.g., extending the content)
- programs may become more interactive, and change depending on viewer
- people still think TV is passive (serving content based on preferences may be seen as invasion of privacy)
- separate division to commercialize content (e.g., movie library)
- big challenge in video search: scanning thru a piece of video online (rather than reading the transcript) (working on this)

Sorting out Social Classification (Peter Merholz, Peter Morville, Thomas Vander Wal, Gene Smith)

Session description

Huh. Looks like Stewart Butterfield bolted at the last minute. Now we'll have a bunch of IA gurus nattering on about social classification, while the one guy who's actually made a wildly successful implementation of social classification is absent. Hmph.

Raw notes to be polished later:

KEYWORDS
- long tail, emergent trends/vocabs, wisdom of crowds

TYPES OF FOLKSONOMY
- broad = many users tagging one reource
- narrow = few users tagging one resource

quadrant
- tags (public - private) vs ownership (my stuff - others' stuff)

various opinions re: experts vs amateurs
- Clay Shirky, Rosenfeld, Weinberger: The old way creates a tree, the new way rakes leaves together

ISSUES
- retrieval, quality, authority, economics, scalability, usability

PETER MORVILLE
- Revenge of librarians - "Internet will make everyone a librarian"
- metadata is sexy today
- took a provocative stance: Folksonomies - Better than Nothing?
- Apophenia: mistaking noise for signal
- Weinberger is right! Leaves rot and provide food for trees
*- content owners have lost control of aboutness (e.g., Google "miserable failure" = "GW Bush biography")
*- folksonomy ties tightly together people and content
- data and metadata relationship is changing (data was suitcase, metadata was the name tag on it)
- child tracker watch (findability and breadcrumbing), RFID chip implant makes Mexico Attorney General a smart object
*- 5 lessons of folksonomy:
1. leverage what already exists
2. tap wisdom of crowds (and users)
3. tap the compulsion to share (don't ask too much, pennies vs dollars)
4. context counts (avoid generalizations)
5. never underestimate people's thirst for anarchy
- persistent disequilibrium (Kevin Kelly): how we define things continues to change

THOMAS VAN DER WAL
- tags vs metadata
*- harvesting outlier tags (long tail) may be lucrative opportunity (e.g., Carhart farm wear is cool wear to German skateboarders, Carhart has new market)
- identify trends in realtime

PETERME
- metadata for the masses
- issues of practicality
- traditional wine classification (country, year, grape, etc.) vs "goes good w/ steak" etc.
- metadata problem: content creators tagging their content
*- folksonomies aid rapid development of categorization schemes
- folksonomy problems: how to relate synonyms (e.g., nyc, newyork, newyorkcity)
- multiple meanings (e.g., flow, flowchart)
- misnomers, bad data (e.g., people think archaeology = paleontology)
- desire lines: use folksonomies to develop more robust classification
- examples of hybrid classification systems: Getty
*- folksonomy allows for poetry in classification ("me" tag in Flickr is more personal, visceral than "self-portrait")
- Platonic ideal of classification (perfect, robust) vs personal, human approaches (compelling, inspiring)
- findability vs discoverability
*- metadata creating community (squaredcircle in Flickr - people taking pictures so they can use a specific tag)

DISCUSSION
- combining taxonomy and folksonomy
- folksonomy as research tool
*- linking disparate domains of expertise that use different terms for the exact same thing
- how to make everyday people want to tag their content? ... increase ROI of tagging
- Morville: folksonomy as socially acceptable form of spyware
- are critiques of folksonomy more implementation issues (e.g., tool maturity)?
- the power of naming things: neologisms, coinages (e.g., AJAX)
- JJG: Web development as history of people running away from the hard work of IA
- Lou R: are we getting too excited about another new scheme or technology? Shouldn't we be more skeptical? Are we missing opportunity to demonstrate IA strengths are in synthesis and skepticism
- example: IAs going in to sort out a Wiki
*- feedback loops in tagging tools to help maturity
*- freelisting: search tags and related tags and related related tags, then use those tags for cardsort
- what is the tipping point for a tag? Where does the power curve, net effect begin?

IA Summit 2005 Keynote: Persuasive technology: Using computers to change what we think and do (BJ Fogg)

Session description

Raw notes to be polished later:

we have a responsibility as designers because we're advancing a view of the world (changing beliefs and behaviors) with our interaction designs

plan for impact to mitigate negative side effects (paddling vs drifting in the rapids)

one time behavior change vs behavior over time (ongoing relationship)
- make sure relationship "wears" well

CAPTOLOGY
- overlap of persuasion + computers
- increasingly uncomfortable w/ idea that computers can change the way we think and feel
*- decided to make his lab have point of view after he wrote his book: it's bad esp. when large orgs use tech to take choices away from us and _taking freedoms away from us_
- methods: tunneling, rubber stamping, reduction, piggybacking, tailoring, dangling carrot
- apps have moved from functionality to modifying behavior (e.g., Quicken)
- most interesting not business: relationships, health, politics

ETHICS
- our ethical responsibility is to educate people (not regulate or legislate)
- making commercials
- PAM, health monitor

PERSUASION STRATEGIES
- WebMD Health Manager, personalized health program
- work monitor

HOW DO YOU DESIGN FOR PERSUASION
- what do you want people to believe and do? (impact analysis: high importance to org success, and high feasibility to implement)
- nothing else matters unless it does those high impact things
- persuasion strategies with powerful impact: praise, persistence, barrier reduction, immediate rewards, pain & fear, etc., hope (lottery = "for a dollar, people get hope")

"FIRE" IN CAPTOLOGY (unpublished)
- War game as US Army recruiting tool
- rehearsing behaviors makes it more likely that you will do it in the real world
- good vs bad depends on what behaviors you're rehearsing!
*- video games are highly compelling because they're the best at _letting you to know your competency is increasing_
*- cause and effect relationships
- automated behavior modification: operant conditioning with computers
- classical = e.g., clicker training w/ dog (associate click w/ reward)
*- operant conditioning - it's not rational, it's working on you _even if you don't know it_
- computers can train you just like animal trainers train dolphins and dogs (e.g., slot machines)
- periodic reinforcement is more powerful than predictable reinforcement
- what sounds do people love & hate? online research allows us to narrow down to 'what sounds do Japanese men 30-39 love and hate?
- find what elements people find most favorable and make those most prominent

PERSUASION PROFILING
- large online retailer experimenting different methods on you to see what works and doesn't work on you
- collecting motivational profiles and selling them!
- mapping high motivation and high ability

SEQUENCING STRATEGIES
- beyond one-time persuasion strategies
- online research makes it easy to have large sample groups, and we can try lot more techniques and seeing what works rather than carefully tailoring strategies

WHO WE ARE IS WHAT WE CREATE
- dad's fingerprints on bowl that he made
- method matters
*- specialize (find some niche that you do better than anyone else in the world -- paradox: the more you specialize, the wider your impact)
- specialize in three things that in 40 hrs would make you a world expert
*- take risks (climb Cheops)
*- appreciation (being thankful), puts you right, grounds you ... changes heart rhythms
*- rebound (from failure)

- what is your True North? what is constantly guiding you?
- community: who is coming with you on your journey? we need to work together.

Au Pied de Cochon

Last night's dinner with Gabriel and Jane at Au Pied de Cochon was, how do we say, "the pig's foot". (I wonder if the French would say this like the English say "The dog's bollocks"? Heh.)

We started with a sampler plate, followed by poutine (cheese fries) topped with foie gras and another foie gras dish with thick bacon and a sweet sauce on a bed of something I haven't figured out. Then came the sweetbread pastry, and the piece de resistance: the restaurant namesake au pied de cochon, an actual pig's trotter that went up to the knee, stuffed w/ foie gras, laid atop a bed of cheesy mash potatoes in a mushroom sauce. Eugenia, our lovely waitress for the evening, clued us into the secret technique to "carving" this monumental dish: stab it in the center with a steak knife and slice lengthwise away from the trotter end, so that the treasures within burst forth. We didn't realize it was going to be that much food. Gabriel took a picture to prove we actually ate it. By the time we got to it, we were almost full. We fought bravely to finish, but alas the lovely trotter won. No dessert for us. And I think I'm going vegetarian today.

In Montreal

It's sunny. And cold. -11^oC at noon, was what the cab driver told us (bumped into Lance at SFO, turned out he was the only other Yahoo who was sensible/crazy enough to take the red-eye). 12.2^oF. I'm tired after catching the red-eye. But that cold woke me up. For a moment.

Lunch now. Then nap. Opening reception tonight. Hooha.

Off to Montreal for IA Summit 2005

These are the IA Summit 2005 presentations (complete conference schedule) I plan to attend and blog (with live updates, I hope, depending on connection availability).

• Persuasive technology: Using computers to change what we think and do
  
  
• Sorting out Social Classification - Panel (which includes a founder of Flickr) discusses the use of group tagging and categorization in leading social networks and associated apps
  
  
• Content Packaging and Metadata - Exploring how the BBC produces and packages content for consumption, in a world where broadcast media is distributed in non-linear forms
  
  
• IA for the Personal Info Cloud - Development and design framework for making information that is personally useful available on any device or application
  
  
• Information Objects - Applying what we know about a 3-D world in order to better understand and manipulate complex information
  
  
• The IA of things Part 1 - An industrial designer explores IA skills that will and won't transfer to designing for devices with real interfaces
  
  
• The IA of things Part 2 - Another industrial designer discusses how we will need to design for a world where product, software, functionality, interaction, information and environments have converged
  
  
• Rich Internet Applications - Stateless GUIs that utilize a network connection to provide perception of real-time activity. Session explores case studies, benefits and appropriate uses of RIAs.
  
  
• Information Visualization: The IA Connection - Explores research into different Web-based info visualization tools, predominant tools, and how they can be used to improve Web site design
  
  
• Machines of Loving Grace: User experience for ubiquitous computing - Exploring how ubicomp changes they way we present and organize information
  

Thanks to my employer Yahoo! and my boss Marky Mark for this opportunity. If anyone sees this, and is attending, say hi if you get the chance.