Archive for September, 2006
SHiFT: Stop Designing Products
Peter Merholz’s Stop Designing Products presentation at SHiFT 2006 made the case for designing systems instead of just the point solutions within (in most cases individual products). Merholz described how Adaptive Path’s research when working on the redesign of a financial services Web site led them to discover that the Web site they were working on was only a single part of a much broader set of customer touch points for their client.
Merholz then walked through several examples of integrated systems in action. In addition to George Eastman’s original Kodak “box camera”, he described how iTunes, the iPod, and the iTunes Music Store all work together to create a cohesive experience. In particular, the iTunes software absorbs a lot of the functionality that other MP3 player companies try to cram into their player. Flickr, on the other is an example of a very open system (as opposed to Apple’s tightly closed system) that allows others to expand the site’s functionality.
Insight into these examples and more led Merholz to embrace Frog Design’s mantra of “the system is the product” and to evolve Adaptive Path’s work and principles to account for a broader set of customer experiences and increasing expectations. As a result, his firm and other designers have needed to address bigger problems.
Why the shift? Looking at the history of economic theory, Merholz explained how most approaches to date have focused on enabling optimization of efficiency and quality. Now these factors have run their course (Dell Computer differentiating by price alone is a notable example) and companies need creativity and innovation to move forward. As a result, the importance of design has begun to increase.
According to Merholz, the path forward is developing coherent “experience startegies” that establish a vision that defines how users engage with your entire organization (system). Not just your product.
Tags: shift2006, user experience, strategy
Originally
from Functioning Form: Interface Design
by
reBlogged
by michael
on Dec 31, 1969, 11:59PM
the problem of involuntary empathy
The commercial ethnographer lives or dies by his or her ability to hear what the consumer is thinking and feeling. This empathy can be
trained. It can be improved. But really good ethnographers begin with
a native gift.
What is true of mathematicians is also true of
ethnographers. The former have heads that stream with numbers, the
latter have heads that stream with experiential matters, thoughts and
feelings that belong not to themselves, but to someone else. The
commercial ethnographer is grateful that the world prizes his or her
ability, but in point of fact, empathy is something he or she would do
in any case. Call it obsessive. At the very least, it is
involuntary.
Where does the gift come from? Who knows. Sometimes, I guess, it
comes from pathological circumstances. The most emphatic person I have
ever met was a 10 year old girl I was interviewed for a Canadian
government project on young smokers. It was a very strange sensation
to be "scanning" her only to realize the she was scanning us, and a
whole lot better than any thing we could manage. Compared to this
little kid, we were rank amateurs. I felt as if I had been turned to
glass. We learned eventually that the preferred form of punishment in
this girl’s home was a cigarette burn to the body. I guess that would
have the potential of making a virtuoso of anyone.
The native gift grows with
experience. The more we use it, the better it becomes. We get new
range, new depth. We can capture thoughts and feelings that would have
been alien and irreproducible a few years before.
But our
gift for empathy does ever seem to get more controllable. It can’t be
turned off and on. This species of empathy remains involuntary. We
will internalize the world whether we want to or not.
Now this is a special problem when there is someone in the room who is
deeply at odds with the ethnographic interview. I’ve had this
experience twice in the last couple of months. In one case, there was
a representation of the client team who distrusted the method and its
practitioner. While "hoovering up" things from the respondent,
inevitably, I would hoover up the skepticism of the client rep.
Oh,
this is not good. You are using the method to absorb a deeply distrust
of the method, and this cycle speeds up and spins out. In the second
case, the client rep was not so much skeptical as deeply controlling.
Now, the "other voice" that came to the ethnographer was one that
contested any of the power that came to the ethnographer. Oh, not good
at all! To empathize with some one who deeply resents you is to resent
yourself.
Naturally, you try to "jam" the signal. And eventually you manage the
interviews. But you pay a psychic tax on top of the psychic costs of a
process that is quite demanding enough as it is. In a perfect world, we would manage the alien signal. We would say things like, well, that’s just the way they feel about the process." But we don’t and we can’t because what we are doing is not voluntary. It is, not to be self dramatizing about it, an involuntary rushing out of the self into someone else. We don’t do it by choice. We just do it.
I am not sure there is a point to this meditation, except perhaps to ask if other’s have wrestled with this nasty little contradiction and found a way to break free of it.
p.s., I made it across the Pacific to Portland. The EPIC conference is most interesting. If I can shake the jetlag, reports to follow.
Originally
from This Blog Sits at the
by
reBlogged
by michael
on Sep 26, 2006, 2:26AM
Geek to Live: The 100th installment
by Gina Trapani
It was a little more than a year ago that we decided to make Lifehacker into something more than just a link blog: a source of original feature articles on software and productivity that you won’t find anywhere else. I chose the title “Geek to Live” for my twice-weekly feature post because it embodies what Lifehacker’s all about: a tech-centric approach to solving common every day problems. (Oh yeah, and it’s the site tagline, too.)
Right now you’re reading the 100th installment of Geek to Live, which has spanned every one of my personal nerdy obsessions over the past year: from home networking, Firefox, and data security to personal finance, netiquette and web publishing. A lot happens in the course of a year, so today I’ve gone back and updated the dustier GTL installments and rounded up a giant look back at the series so far.
Home servers
How to set up a personal home web server (Sept 2005) – The debut of Geek to Live prompted the most reader questions (which I still get via email today) of them all. Updated the text for Apache version 2.2 and added further reading links. Enabled comments.
Control your home computer from anywhere (Sept 2005) – Using VNC, you can drive your home PC or Mac from any internet-connected computer. Comments now enabled.
Tech support with UltraVNC SingleClick (Sept 2006) – Remote control Mom’s computer using a standalone VNC client you can email to her.
Host a personal wiki on your home computer (Sept 2005) – Using Instiki, a great beginner’s wiki. Comments enabled.
Set up your personal Wikipedia (March 2006) – Using MediaWiki, a more advanced wiki package. Comments enabled.
Access a home server behind a router/firewall (Sept 2005) A primer on port-forwarding through a home router/firewall. Comments enabled.
Assign a domain name to your home web server (Sept 2005) – Use a dynamic DNS service to register a memorable domain name for your home server (be it VNC, FTP, Web or Instiki.) Comments enabled.
Finding free stuff
6 ways to find reusable media (Aug 2006) – Homage to the public domain, Creative Commons and the Free Documentation License.
Find free music on the web (Nov 2005) – Your mostly-legal MP3′s await.
Networking
Fast, one wire network (IP over FireWire) (May 2006) – This won’t work in Vista, so enjoy it while you can.
Create your own virtual private network with Hamachi (Sept 2006) – Free VPN for secure file-sharing.
Set up a home wireless network (March 2006) – Send this to your brother-in-law who wants to set up wifi.
Web publishing
Improve your web site with Google Analytics (Sept 2006) – Diving into the web stats package you want on your site.
Have a say in what Google says about you (Feb 2006) – Create the online legacy you control.
Write effectively for the Web (Nov 2005) – Physician, heal thyself.
Netiquette
The art of asking (August 2006) – Applies IRL as well as online.
How to deal with Internet Meanies (March 2006) – Develop troll immunity.
Lifehacker’s guide to weblog comments (Sept 2005) – On being a good commenter.
Passwords and Security
Choose (and remember) great passwords (July 2006) – A few methods.
Securely track your passwords (July 2006) – With KeePass.
Secure your saved passwords in Firefox (Feb 2006) – Without Firefox saved passwords I wouldn’t be able to login to anything.
Encrypt your data (June 2006) – Lock up your USB thumb drive or simply your pr0n collection.
Money
Automate your finances (May 2006)
Send and receive money with your cell phone (May 2006)
Year-end money moves (Dec 2005)
Avoid New Year’s credit card debt (Dec 2005)
Firefox
My favorite Greasemonkey user scripts (Dec 2005) – Still my favorite Firefox extension EVER.
Turn Firefox into a web writer (Nov 2005)
Fifteen Firefox Quick Searches (Oct 2005) – Don’t miss Adam’s follow-up take on Firefox Quick Searches.
Backup
Automatically back up your hard drive (Jan 2006) – Set it and forget it. One of the most popular GTL’s ever published.
Automatically email yourself file backups (April 2006) – Somewhat hacky (in the bad way) command line automated self-email with file attachments.
Effective data capture
Develop your (digital) photographic memory (April 2006) – Put that ubiquitous cameraphone to good use.
Take study-worthy lecture notes (Sept 2006) – An overview of the Cornell note-taking method; especially geared towards students.
Quick-log your work day (July 2006) – Track what you did all day long without tiresome interruptions.
Save and annotate the Web with Scrapbook (April 2006) – Pre-Google Notebook, Firefox-based web clippings. Still outstanding from a feature set perspective.
Personal organization
Organizing “My Documents” (Feb 2006) – A simple folder scheme.
Extreme makeover, filing cabinet edition (Feb 2006) – Taking the “work” out of “paperwork.”
The Usable Home (Oct 2005) – Your apartment is just like a software interface. How easy is it to use?
Tickle yourself with Yahoo! Calendar (Sept 2005) – Pre-Google Calendar email/SMS reminders about Mom’s birthday.
Mental focus
Firewall your attention at the office (Jan 2006)
Ban time-wasting web sites (Jan 2006)
Command line
Mirror files across systems with Rsync (Aug 2006)
Plain text calendar with Remind (July 2006)
Mastering Wget (March 2006)
Introduction to Cygwin: part 1, part 2, part 3 (June 2006)
Operating Systems
Format your hard drive and install Windows XP from scratch (March 2006) – When the last resort is your only one.
Windows Vista RC 1, in screenshots (Sept 2006) – A photo gallery of what’s to come on new PC’s in 2007.
Rescue files with a boot CD (August 2006) – Start up your unbootable PC with a Knoppix CD.
Future-proof your email address (Dec 2005)
Essential email filters (July 2006)
Empty your inbox with the Trusted Trio (June 2006)
Knock down repetitive e-mail with Thunderbird’s QuickText (Nov 2005)
Train others how to use email (Jan 2006)
Best tools
Top 10 free and cheap productivity tools (July 2006)
Lifehacker Pack (Jan 2006) – My answer to Google Pack.
Top underrated apps of 2005 (Dec 2005)
Best apps of 2005 (Dec 2005)
Phew! At a few thousand words a pop, I must admit I never thought 100 articles later it’d still be full steam ahead. But Geek to Live’s been the most fun I’ve ever had in a textarea. I hope it’s been good for you, too.
Got any topic requests for future Geek to Live installments? Lemme know in the comments. And as always, thanks for reading.
Gina Trapani, the editor of Lifehacker, looks forward to writing the next 100. Her semi-weekly feature, Geek to Live, appears every Wednesday and Friday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Geek to Live feed to get new installments in your newsreader.
Originally
from Lifehacker
reBlogged
by michael
on Sep 27, 2006, 5:30PM
DesignCharts // Weekly Top40 Website Design Charts // Because Web Designers Are The New Rockstars
This site posts a weekly top 40 list of the best Flash websites. For those tracking the zeitgeist of Flash Design and interactive media, this site is a boon.
Design intervention at Philips [Fast Company]
In a long, in-depth Fast Company feature article, Jennifer Rheingold tries to answer the question if Philips will “emerge as a shining example of an organization that fueled its renaissance with design, or as one that ultimately failed because it lost sight of its real objective?”. In
Originally
from Putting people first
by
reBlogged
by michael
on Sep 25, 2006, 6:04AM
Ethnographic research on teens and brands
 |
Starcom MediaVest Group (a subsidiary of the Publicis Group) and CNET Networks, Inc. revealed the results of an ethnographic study on teens and brands.
The extensive ethnographic youth study was aimed at “helping marketers understand how to reach today’s elusive population of 13- to 34-year-olds, responsible for $600 billion each year in consumer spending”. The study set out to assess “how young people feel about brands, how they talk about them with friends, and how they take in, manipulate, and redistribute marketing messages”. In addition, the study identifies ‘brand sirens’, i.e. “the super-influencers of the youth market, including who they are, what they do, and how marketers can better reach them”. Not surprisingly (in light of the sponsors), the study shows that “today’s young people care about the brands they use, talk often with their friends about brands, and like watching real-time television”. - Read press release |
Originally
from Putting people first
by
reBlogged
by michael
on Sep 26, 2006, 6:03AM
the trouble with theory (EPIC ethnography III)
My EPIC presentation took a position impatient with theory. I will
later accused of being anti-intellectual. This must be wrong. As my neice pointed out, I am uncle-intellectual.
The trouble is not with me. The trouble is with what it means to solve
problems in a dynamic culture. The trouble is with theory.
Marshall Sahlins argues that every theory is a bargain with reality.
It gives us certain kinds of knowledge by denying us the possibility of
other kinds of knowledge. (My phrasing. All regrets if the master had
hoped for something more nuanced.)
Working for clients, we are obliged to deal always with shifting
perspectives, mountains of data, complicated problem sets and an urgent
time line. As good marketers, there is lots to crunch, much to
contemplate, and the BFI (big f*cking idea) can come from any where.
Anyone who is a slave to any one theory puts the enterprise at risk.
Solving the problems of most clients demands methodological lability and
an intellectual opportunism. We want to have all the theories we have
ever encountered at our disposal. In my case, this must mean a
willingness to draw upon structuralism, semiotics, structural
functionalism, functionalism, post modernism, and much else besides.
We want to be agnostic.
Theoretical loyalty is a terrible idea not least because we are willing
away all the other insights that promiscuity make available.
Theoretical loyalty, that’s precisely the sort of thing that is likely
to appeal to academics for whom tribal loyalty is the very point of the
exercise, not least because it is so often used to decide whether and
where they will be allowed to teach and publish.
No, a certain intellectual mobility is called for. Typically, we have
10 days between our introduction to the problem and the our
conclusion. That’s 10 days to get from, say, a deep ignorance of the mutual
fund industry to insights and recommendations that are capable of
adding real value. I think we can not unless we are prepared to press
into service any and all the intellectual patterns with which we are acquainted.
I am not arguing the case for no theory. The world of marketing began, I guess, in retail. Someone would go to the shop floor and see what was selling. This was all the intelligence one needed to stay in business. This was no theory. But every corporation is now a ship in high seas. Every kind of data must be consulted. Every kind of strategy contemplated. Only consultants who are prepared to make use of everything they know can serve. We do not wish these consultants to forsake theory. We want them to forsake the idea of a single theory. But a blue helmet on them if we must, but "ecumenical" is the watch word here.
Originally
from This Blog Sits at the
by
reBlogged
by michael
on Sep 28, 2006, 11:35PM
Prototyping the perimeters
Artists, architects, designers, and other practitioners are constantly fashioning new forms and challenging disciplinary boundaries as they employ techniques such as rapid prototyping and generative processes. In the exhibition ‘Perimeters, Boundaries, and Borders,’ at Lancaster, UK’s Citylab, organizers Fast-uk and Folly explore the range of objects, buildings, and products being conceptualized with the aid of digital technologies. Aoife Ludlow’s ‘Remember to Forget?’ is a series of jewelry designs that envisioned accessories incorporating RFID tags that allow the wearer to record information and emotions associated with those special items that we put on daily. Tavs Jorgensen uses a data glove in his ‘Motion in Form’ project. After gesturing around an object, data collected by the glove is given physical shape using CNC (Computer Numerical Control) milling, creating representations of the movements in materials such as glass or ceramics. Addressing traces of a different sort is Cylcone.soc, a data mapping piece by Gavin Bailey and Tom Corby. These works and many more examples from the frontiers of art and design are on view until October 21st. – Michelle Kasprzak
Originally
from Rhizome.org: Rhizome News
reBlogged
by michael
on Sep 29, 2006, 7:00AM
Under the lid
Wired deconstructs Easy Cheese, a true geek/kitsch crossover product.
Easy Cheese is not a true aerosol–the food never comes in contact with propellant. The can has two sections: The bottom is filled with nitrogen gas, and the top with cheese. Press the nozzle and the nitrogen pressure pushes the cheese out of the can. The nozzle is notched for two reasons: To produce those pretty little floret patterns when the cheese is released, and to ensure that the tasty condiment comes out even if the end of the nozzle is pushed right up against the cracker.
…
Originally
from core77.com's design blog
reBlogged
by michael
on Sep 29, 2006, 8:32PM
Search photos by color with Yotophoto
Image search engine Yotophoto scours the interweb’s free-to-use images and makes them searchable.
We’ve covered stock photos (and other reusable media) before, but what makes Yotophoto special is that you can search photos by color. And I’m not talking red/yellow/green. You can enter in custom hex values and get images matching that exact color (the search in the screenshot matches Yotophoto’s logo, for example). Whether you’re a designer, blogger, or just someone who likes an interesting search engine, Yotophoto looks great.
Originally
from Lifehacker
reBlogged
by michael
on Sep 29, 2006, 9:00PM
