“I make websites and apps behave the way you expect them to”

I’ve never really had a good way to continue that conversation though, or a short, succinct answer to “How?”. Lately though, it’s clear that empathy and story is the common denominator to everything I do. It was certainly story and empathy when I applied myself to acting in my teens, it was story and (mostly computer directed) empathy along with crazy stubbornness when I toiled away at bizarre javascripts in the late 90’s and it’s most certainly story and empathy now, as I try to mold user experiences into something that’s actually usable and enjoyable.

Apparently, I’m also a magician, something that sits well with my overall perception of self.

-How?

Through Digital Empathy, is how.

Empathy, Blade Runner Style

Although it the video seems a little old, it’s exciting. Features, according to Sima Systems, include

• Multi-Touch — The ability to recognize multiple and simultaneous touch points. Capable of recognizing ten or more simultaneous touch points at 1,000 updates per second.
• Multi-Force — The ability to measure the “z axis”. This allows the user to locate a point without activating it, then, by exerting slightly more pressure to actually activate the point. There is no need to lift fingers and retouch.
• Dynamic Home Row — Allows the user to touch the sensor without looking at the display or pad, and intuitively the sensor understands the purpose of the gesture (i.e. typing, commands). The sensor can be programmed for virtually any manner of touch and gesture input.
• High Resolution — The resolution (points/mm) remains constant regardless of sensor size.
• Auto Calibration — The touch sensor self calibrates with each touch providing optimal point data at all times.
• Standard Materials and Processes — Same materials and manufacturing processes as those used for standard resistive sensors. This provides a proven and stable means to implement SiMa’s touch sensor wherever standard resistive sensors are now deployed.

There’s a video over at their site of the Gemi Pad

Via Touch User Interface

The why’s;

• Status updates and short messages are simply here to stay. There’s far less impedance in three lines, public or private.
• Loose coupling. Follow is the word, not Friend - no reciprocating action required to build your social graph.
• Upon the shoulders of giants. Instead of launching a new service, build on what you have. When Google integrates Buzz into Gmail, the interaction paradigm is adjusted, but not reinvented.

From an Attention perspective, we’re heading the right way. It doesn’t feature read/unread and it doesn’t introduce another inbox (at least not on a separate location).

[Updated] One more thing – It’s disruptive too, with open data standards says ReadWriteWeb, which of course is awesome.

Finally – a tip of the hat to Roger Åberg of Bazooka and Feber.se for bringing the greatness of the real buzz to us in the last millenia with buzz.bazooka.se. Keep your head up, I’ll be back daily!

The potential of this doesn’t really become apparent until you start looking at it from a tablet or e-reader perspective. With both hands occupied holding your device steady, how are you going to interact with it?

Steady it and release one hand, of course. But it’s sometimes hard to see what you’re doing when your paws are in the way. With your nimble fingers running up and down on the backside, perhaps in cohort with your thumbs on the side, the possibilities are endless.

Try and imagine the feeling of reading an article and scrolling, by simply moving your fingers up and down the back of your device. Smooth, like magic. And since your spatial awareness in relation your hands is really good, even when you can’t see your fingers, you’ll find your way around the screen with ease.

Here’s an article from macpredicitons.com speculating on a Back of the Device touch interface for the upcoming device (or what have you) from Apple.

A lot of the work we do in interaction design is about increasing the signal-to-noise ratio. Allowing users to focus on the task at hand is essential to great user experiences. Google recognizes this, and it’s no secret that most people come there to search.

Here’s what I like

• Primary Persona Focus – It’s few that are courageous enough to actually focus on their Primary Persona’s key goal.
• Perseverance – initially the fade-in yielded longer Time to First Action-delays, but over time, it’s become shorter than before. Applause to the UX team for waiting it out!

Here’s what I think needs work

• Privacy – I can’t tell wether I’m logged in or not if I start searching. This isn’t a big issue, but it’s something to consider.
• Are you feeling lucky? Why not let it join the rest of the secondary actions?

The fade-in happens as soon as you move your mouse or leave the search field. You might be distracted if the content were to fade in as you we’re typing, but it doesn’t. It’s surprisingly refreshing. Great stuff, simply put.

Soon, we’ll be talking about what content goes below the Fold, as well as what belongs after the Fade.

(The effect isn’t available in Safari as I write this)

Now, I can see about a gazillion issues here regarding how the interactions are actually defined. Dragging a contact shares the document? But I just wanted to add their phone numer to the document. Or whatever. But it’s still cool. And, are we really going back to the stylus? I hope not. On the other hand, maybe I’ll learn how to print again.

Via Gizmodo – Courier: First Details of Microsoft’s Secret Tablet

However, US Postal Services have managed to come up with an application apart. It helps you select what box to use for shipping, without entering any information about what you’re shipping. It’s still imbued with the basic problems of augmented reality, but it most certainly is useful! There’s hope, after all.

[Via ronnestam.com]

I’ve never worked this much in my life before, and I’ve never had this much fun before.

Anyhow. We’ve got this blackboard in the office and it’s full of impressive names. If you have something important to communicate online, you should be on it too.

Who: All the lovely people
Where: Frödingsvägen 1 (map with communications)
When: Saturday, March 14. Trickle feed from 18.00.
Food & Drink: Plenty
Miniature car racing: Hell yes, with awards for overachievers.

Save this event in your calendar

Here’s a picture of my left ear at another party. We wore hats and it was great fun. This will too.

Let me know if you’re coming (and if your bringing extras) with a quick e-mail to jonas@jobolito.se or text/call me at 0708-837292.

I’m all in favor of eye-tracking and other methods of usability testing that observe the subject. People can hardly ever tell why they’re doing what they’re doing, anyway.

A basic, important understanding is how people scan results;

They start from the first result and continue down the list until they find a result they consider helpful and click it — or until they decide to refine their query.

A nice video of eye-tracking shows you just how the user moves her eyes through the results. They’re impressed at how fast the eyes are moving, but if you know anything about saccades (the involuntary, constant moving of  our eyes that assemble vision) you’re more likely to be interested by the fact that the subjects eyes are moving slowly through the results, indicating a tight focus on the task at hand.

They also talk about Universal Search, where thumbnail images appear next to some results. Their test data indicates that the thumbnails are helpful – they allow users to more quickly confirm or dismiss a result as relevant.

Clean and simple but functional, and best of breed when it comes to talking about their work

I for one, am particularly proud of the rather complicated jQuery plugin I wrote to columnize text and how it’s integrated into the Umbraco backend. And the fact that every page on the multilingual site comes in two flavors – black and white, completely interchangable (they’re not using the black very often, but the effect is stunning).

Horizontal columns in a case study

Vertical columns in a case study

Anyhow – you can see for yourself at deasign.com.

Really? Everyone gets Microsoft Office? I think what they were after is more something like

Microsoft Dynamics CRM works just like Microsoft Office. So everyone endures it.

Microsoft Office isn’t something people get, it’s something people use because they haven’t got any options. Some are bound by office policy and some simply don’t realize there are alternatives. Office is simply a bad default that few people truly get, and those who do have invested considerable amounts of time to learn. The pack, that don’t get it, have invested considerable amounts of time getting it to work in spite of all the crazy stuff going on.

blargh.

I absolutely agree, but for different reasons. He suggest three versions between $129 and $149, but why stop there – how about selling just one version – Windows 7.

Let me illustrate;

Compare Vista Editions - If you want a rugged street experience, go for Home Basic...

OS X - there's only one edition. No pre-purchase anxiety on what to buy here, just buy or no-buy...

Yes, I know Windows users outnumber OS X users like ten to one, but which one is the mover? That’s right…

User Experience isn’t just about interface, it’s about message too. If people can understand your business model – they’re less likely to feel screwed over. In fact, having a simple, straight-forward transparent pricing strategy is usability 101.

It allows you to sync your Gmail with your computer, so that you can access it when offline. It also has a “flaky connection mode” that has Gmail operate in offline mode, but with continous syncing in the background.

In essence, Gmail is now a fully functional IMAP client in your browser. It’s great news for anyone who’s commited to the Gmail interface (I’m not one of them).

On a wider scale – the emergent trend is clear with regards to the cloud revolution. Services in the cloud, with local cache for offline situations. You might want to hold off on that netbook just yet – it might not hold your data :).

They made a video for people who don’t know how to read, or whatever.

The latest is a very retro-futuristic contraption which he’s worn once a day for the past three months. Apparently, he’s noted some improvement. Good for you I say – now I’m eagerly awaiting you next Discworld book! Get better soon.

[Dailymail via Gizmodo]

1 SEK (2009)

1 SEK (2001)

1 SEK (2000, Limited Millenium edition)

1 SEK (1976-2001)

2 SEK (1952 – 1971)

5 SEK (1976-)

10 SEK (2001)

10 SEK (1991-2001)

Unlike special edition coins, They’re minting 40 million of them in 2009, which means there’s enough of them to circulate between our 9 million strong populace.

Sit back, relax and wait for the reports of confused and angry citizens and traders refusing to accept the seemingly counterfeit coin. There is a slight chance that the overall awareness about the new coin will be high due to the fact that it stands out against the static of coins in general, but I think that if there’s ever a good idea to be conservative about change, this would be it. I looks nice though.

The old work ethic, hard work, was the enabler for the industrial revolution. It stipulates that hard work is good for its own sake and that it makes us better as human beings. As the information age began, hard work became even more important – up until the ’80s, using a computer program often required you to build it first. At the turn of the century many of my colleagues, myself and the industry at large, prided ourselves in being hard workers. We would hammer away day and night to get the job done, sleep under our desks and deliver, deliver, deliver. We worked crazy hours. We worked hard.

In Outliers, Malcom Gladwell observes;

Control of attention is the ultimate individual power. People who can do that are not prisoners of the stimuli around them.

Looking back, it’s possible that not all of those hours were work. We did play a little too. In fact, at times it was all play. As we’ve grown, individually and as an industry, we’ve fortunately started to work fewer hours, and although many of us still work hard we’ve handed the torch to the game development crowd. Man do they work hard…

How do your distractions manifest?

Distractions aren’t just easy to come by, they seek us out. We’re im:d, twittered, syndicated, e-mailed and called. We’re facebooked, tumblred and jaikued. We’re massively influenced by recommendations and tips from our peers. We’re subjected to marketing by companies whose sole existence relies on distracting us enough so that we’ll spend a few minutes watching their funny clip. When we’re accosted from all sides at all hours, how does anyone get anything done, ever?

A new black

The new work ethic is controlling your attention. It means that you should strive to work less hours, but stay on task and be more effective in the hours you do work. If we’re going to cope, we have to learn how to tune out. The pundit that can focus for six hours a day is ever more valuable to an employer or client, than the one that “works” for twelve hours every day reacting to every impulse, internal as external.

What can service providers do?

If you’re offering something online, or anywhere, you need to consider emphasizing the aspects of your service or product that makes peoples lives more simple, not more complex (aka cool). On my end, I’ve been sketching out an application that will help us manage our conversations better. If successful, it may well lessen the attention fragmentation we experience.

The back story

The meme originates in filter failures and the proverbial distraction virus. In May of 2008 programming language designer Paul Graham pointed out that “[Internet-based distraction] is not a static obstacle that you avoid like you might avoid a rock in the road. Distraction seeks you out.”

Gladwell makes a case for circumstance, social factors and genes as key factors to success rather than hard work in Outliers, but David Brooks wrote a very interesting commentary to rebuke it, where he mentions the new work ethic. This inspired Mike Elgan to write Work Ethic 2.0: Attention Control. It’s a good read.

Where do we go from here?

The subject of attention control is huge, and requires a post all of it’s own. I recommend taking a cue from people with small children, they’re usually extremely effective when they get a chance to work.

I’ll leave you with this; if you base your self esteem on the amount of twitters you receive, you’re on a slippery slope.

How do you manage your attention? Share your tricks in the comments.

All posts in my series of predictions for 2009;

1. I Want my Package Now, Right Now
2. We Start to Notice our Observers
3. We Depart from Mediocrity
4. Free is the Magic Number
5. Attention Control is the new Work Ethic

Now I’m going to digress about my personal history with computers. You can skip past it to the part where I go on talking about windows 7.

Me and PCs go way back. I was playing Pac Man and Space Invaders at four and Larry Leisure Suit Larry at eight (It’s taught me everything I know about Lovin’). At 9 I started programming Basic and then Pascal at 10. Although I’ve flirted a lot with the Amiga, I was most certainly a Microsoftee from toddlerhood. First MS-DOS, then Windows.

I remember when Win95 appeared, late 1995 I was discussing it’s pros and cons with a teacher at Polson High School in Montana, where I was an exchange student. Although I was looking forward to my new computer arriving, I was iffy about it having the fancy OS installed. I can’t remember the details of my reluctance, but I was certainly a bit conservative against the new paradigms that Win95 introduced over Windows 3.11. I got used to it just fine though.

In late 2006, I made the switch. I was in Oslo at Fast building a (now defunct) music streaming and sharing service called Ezmo, not unlike Spotify. Although the primary development environment was windows we were working with Java and Apache on the backend. I got my brand new MBP up and running in a day and I’ve never looked back since.

It’s tempting to say that it was the release of Vista that was the tipping point. In fairness, it’s suck-ish nature did contribute to the timing of my switch, but the key was OS X adopting Unix at the turn of the century and few years earlier and it’s move to the x86 architecture – OS X had entered familiar territory and it was looking better than ever.

I still run windows on an almost daily basis. My work focuses on interaction design and user experiences at large, but I still do a fair amount of development in visual studio, both for fun and profit. I run a very stripped version of Windows Server 2003 in a Parallels VM. It’s a great setup and it also allows me to do browser and OS testing easily when creating websites.

On to what I actually think about windows 7

Windows 7 still exhibits many of the problems inherent to the Windows platform. It’s way to eager and it fails to deliver the instant gratification that is so critical to good experiences. The install is surprisingly fast, about 30 minutes. It’s starts up quickly too, but hasn’t windows always on a fresh install?

Why does my desktop only contain the Recycle Bin? Are they really that eager for me to throw things away? Where are my files? There’s a very complicated looking folder with three tabs marked with different colors and some sort of shiny holder at the bottom of my screen. Maybe my files are there? Yup, that’s it.

I’ve started up a fresh install, and I have three “PC issues” to resolve. Why are there issues with a brand new install? There should be endless love, no questions asked and immediate productivity.

The first thing Windows Defender wants to do, is scan for malware. That’s freakishly paranoid.

Next, if windows thinks me having an antivirus program is so important that it suggests I “Find and antivirus program online (Important)”, why isn’t that part of the OS already? It’s patently bizarre.

On the whole, it behaves quite well. My favorite detail is that Shut Down actually shuts down, instead of presenting more options. From a usability perspective it’s getting better, but it has a tendency to become more cluttered rather that less, which really isn’t what anyone needs. Window Snapping is really nice too, we’ll probably see it introduced on other platforms before long.

Windows 7 bores me. I’m going to quit reviewing it now, I feel I can’t do it justice. To summarize, it’s going to replace Vista in the same way that Highlander 3 pretended there was never a Highlander 2. When it’s ready for prime time, it will replace my win 2003 setup, so as I don’t fall hopelessly behind. Good riddance.

Before you go, here’s the most crippling aspect of the Windows user experience

It’s tendency to not surrender the responsibility for it’s experience. This goes both for the OS and for software running on it.Windows is extremely obtrusive. It could just start up with default settings, no questions asked and let me get on with my business. But it seems virtually impossible for anything to happen without there being at least one or two (often more) questions like these;

Please select how you would like the Prolikate Gurb to behave?

How the hell should I know? It’s your f**king show!

Operating systems should be vessels of productivity. In that capacity, their highest priority must be to get out of the way and let us get on with our business.

Via Chris Anderson, I find out that Amazon’s hit-list o for 2008 reveals that the best selling MP3 album of 2008 was free. That’s right, free as in lunch.

Licensed under Creative Commons, NiN still made $1.6 million in revenues off it. The revenues were voluntary. Consumers could have downloaded it, legally, from any file sharing source, but many chose to pay anyway, to support the band.

Come July, Chris Anderson’s new book FREE hits the stands. I have no idea whether it’ll be another iconic hit like The Long Tail, or stay niche. I’ve pre-ordered it at any rate and look forward to the read. It’s looking not-so-niche right now, as SvD’s Adam Erlandsson mentions it in an article on the outlook of free (in Swedish, very decent layman reading, btw).

Free if you can dominates our thinking about new ventures online, but it’s likely the pressure to convert will rise considerably during ‘09. If free is a budding religion, venture capitalists are the Spanish Inquisition.

Plenty of viable models are based on free. Gmail is free, with ads, and so is Google App unless you want to get rid of the ads, or if you’re a company and like words such as QoS, SSO and Integration in general. Spotify charges nothing if you can live with the ads, but for ~$10 / month you’re ad free. Skype is free for the basics, but more advanced services costs money. The Open Source movement is increasingly looking to a model where individuals get it free, and corporations have to pay, but are given support in return, and it turns out they don’t mind.

It’s likely that ad-driven models are going to be weakened this year as ad-spending drops. Smarter companies will have to go further into Freemium models to be sustainable. And if you haven’t already, read Better-than-free and the see how it can apply to your business.

Here’s what I think is happening; free becomes a token of quality and pay-ahead becomes an indication of crapware. Good luck.

…

All posts in my series of predictions for 2009;

1. I Want my Package Now, Right Now
2. We Start to Notice our Observers
3. We Depart from Mediocrity
4. Free is the Magic Number
5. Attention Control is the new Work Ethic
   

The year is starting slow, and it’s going to be anything but white hot. The financial difficulties is going to throw many decent companies into despondency and we’re certainly going to loose some of them. In some cases it’s going to be a much needed weeding out of sub par services, in others it’s going to be a sad loss. Consolidation will be the word, and a lot of invested time is going to change hands.

More notably, is that when people have less money to spend, they’re going to be more picky about where they spend it. It’s anything from big to small – I’ll probably cancel either my Spotify or my Raphsody account. Maybe I’ll stick to one morning newspaper instead of two. Nothing big unless drastic actions are required, but my small stuff is the entire business of some companies.

When I consider the implications of this depression on Interaction Design in products and services, I can’t help but feel positive. Increasingly, it’s going to be the decisive factor when user decides what to let go of. Feeling good about the brand, and having a good user experience is going to be important when the choice suddenly becomes limited. Value for money, or time, transcends content mass or user base in 2009.

Mediocre services and devices are going to fall hard this year. Those who try to be everything for everyone are going to be losers and those who specialize and focus their offerings and interfaces are going to be winners.

Footnote: Om Malik wants to say goodbye to mediocrity, focusing on bad talent and bail-out plans. It’s a nice rant & call to action. I’m all for it.

[...] companies that are in survival mode don’t do anything that would make them go from being mediocre to being great — because they are too busy just surviving.

…

All posts in my series of predictions for 2009;

1. I Want my Package Now, Right Now
2. We Start to Notice our Observers
3. We Depart from Mediocrity
4. Free is the Magic Number
5. Attention Control is the new Work Ethic