What does the data say?

Some argue that there is a much deeper purpose to philosophy than reasoned arguments. A single right answer exists, and finding that right answer should be the aim of every philosophical inquiry. I doubt most experience designers think this way. If asked whether there is a single, right experience for a given service or product, most of us would probably say that there are too many variables, too many users, or too many behaviors to account for. We look to HCI experts, usability engineers, social scientists, etc., for help in finding the best amalgamations of utility, usability, and (gasp) business purpose.

Not many doubt that a product/service needs to be useful, usable, and profitable (or at least not cost prohibitive) in order to succeed. How to find that balance is the focus of an entire industry, and one of its key pillars – research – also happens to be its biggest challenge.

Take A/B or multivariate testing, both of which help determine a specific design based on the observed effectiveness of alternate treatments. This data is so authoritative that it has leveled the playing feel between stubborn client and frustrated designer, and between junior employee and overbearing executive. “Let the data speak for itself.”

But therein lies the problem, it’s just data. The objectivity and direct observation of the behaviors of a large population make it easy to discount the careful analysis of user research in the context of a stated hypothesis. Instead of using this sort of testing to fine tune a design, some are using it as a shortcut to avoid all the hard decisions that should be made before anything is tested.

While we all like it when things “just work”, we don’t strive to find that ideal state in the things we create. We seem more comfortable in following the process, checking the boxes, pulling the right levers, and pushing the right buttons in the hopes that, as boxes/levers/buttons improve, we are guaranteed a positive outcome.

Or maybe things shouldn’t just work since if they did, most of us wouldn’t have jobs.

Freedom of choice?

We make choices every moment of our lives, though we may not realize it. Here are some examples ranging from how we choose to live our lives (healthcare and finances) to the decisions we enable as a result of our own work (in this case, design).

The WSJ recently covered the complexities of diagnosing gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD) and how, in the case of infant GERD, much the treatment depends on how doctors and parents choose to treat a little understood condition.

http://tinyurl.com/6x9vp3

The NYT has an article narrating how a suburban Philadelphia mom making $50K a year accrued over $280K in debt, after choosing again and again to take up available credit offers.

http://tinyurl.com/54pvtc

In a TED talk given by Yves Behar, he highlights how allowing for a possible 400 combinations of coloring for the laptop’s logo is part of a design strategy to help kids fall in love with their laptop.

http://tinyurl.com/62xkwe

Evolution of industry, technology and society has unleashed a tsunami of choice that only a few hundred years ago would have been unimaginable. For the majority of human existence choice was absent, and in its place were dogma, tyranny, and some basics laws of nature.

We are now far from being devoid of choice, even in still totalitarian societies. This swing of the choice pendulum from no choice to constant choice may be setting the stage for the pendulum to swing back to the center. In my recent work, I have come across study after study critiquing choice. Choice is sometimes overwhelming and may, counter intuitively, result in inaction. Choice may sometimes not improve your life and, in the absence of education, may instead leave you worse off. Choice can sometimes be more for the benefit of those creating choice than for those having to choose.

As unlikely a source of design wisdom as the Pope may be, he recently said:

“Do not be fooled by those who see you as just another consumer in a market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the good, novelty usurps beauty and subjective experience displaces truth.”

Maybe the experiences that we create should emphasize relevant options as opposed to every path possible. Or perhaps choice should be presented more in context with the possible outcomes or consequences of making a particular choice. Some may see this as creating bias, or as unfairly or unnecessarily sharing risk with the individual/consumer. Being that we are a social species I find it hard to believe that bias isn’t already there and that risk isn’t already shared.

Maybe total freedom of choice is as bad an idea as the complete absence of choice.

Fail!

A couple of weeks ago I attended the much anticipated unveiling of a new design, the merits of which were almost completely lost in the resulting mayhem between the designers that had gathered. The group quickly and clearly polarized like a bunch of iron filings when even a small magnet is placed nearby. On the one corner there were those who put on display countless hours of hard work, which obviously was not to be challenged. On the other corner were those whose previous work was incorporated and improved in their absence, fully armed and ready for battle. Both were passionate about doing the right thing, and both were equally passionate about doing it their way.

This is just one of the many examples illustrating the bizarre state of the design industry resulting from the obtuse understanding of what makes a design team great. Every designer I know wants to leave their mark on the world. Who doesn’t want to be the next Tim Brown or Tom Kelley? Who doesn’t yearn to work in the hallowed grounds of Pixar or Apple? Yet as much as designers want to emulate these individuals and companies, few actually try to emulate the behaviors that make for great work and instead blame everything and everyone else for always falling short of producing great work.

IDEO hit the mainstream when it was profiled by Nightline back in 2000. I remember seeing the DVD a few years later and sharing in the tremendous positive energy in the room as my fellow designers and I wondered about what we could do if only we were allowed to work as IDEO did. Ideas ranged from the silly (“man… I would be infinitely more inspired if only I could have a DC3 wing hanging over my cube”), to the practical (“we could observe so many more users if we left the confines of our offices”). What no one seemed to notice was that everyone working on the featured project had a sense of altruism completely absent in most other design firms. It wasn’t about representing a discipline or process; it was about adding value and then parting with ownership so others can iterate beyond the original idea.

Pixar is another motivational darling. When The Incredibles was released on DVD in 2004, it included a short documentary on the process Pixar followed when creating the movie. It highlighted how important collaboration and individual empowerment are to the creative process. As with the IDEO documentary, the most powerful idea was missed by those hoping to be inspired. In order for Pixar producers, animators, and executives to effectively collaborate, they all had to focus on the merit of ideas as opposed to their source. It was about whether a change in the storyboard better represents the desired effect, not whether the suggestion came before or after it was expected in the project plan, or whether it came from this team or that team.

It's easy to want to create masterpieces, but it's hard to change behaviors that prevent us from doing so. Greatness will not happen when you finally work in an environment conducive to creativity. It will not happen when obstacles are removed so your ideas can flourish. It will not happen when the right process is in place to mimic what great teams have done in the past. Greatness will happen when, very simply, you get out of the way and let it happen.

Or you can continue to be bitter, hate the world, and sit back as more epic fails come your way… isn’t that what being a designer is all about?

RIP: My Yahoo

Yahoo has been my "primary residence" since I first left my virtual birthplace, the UNIX-based .edu domain of the University of Pennsylvania. When I moved to Yahoo my online presence was decoupled from any one service provider, giving me a certain virtual permanence I didn't realize I was looking for. Knowing this would be my home for a long time to come, I began that long journey every new homeowner looks forward to, making your new digs truly yours. My mail was first to move in. I went from ELM to Yahoo web-based mail. Then it was chat. I stopped using ytalk, frequented fewer chat rooms, and found myself always available on Y! Messenger. Finally, it was content. I no longer spent hours hopping from one URL to another, instead preferring the neat way content could be aggregated on My Yahoo.

By the end of the 1990's, I was all settled in and felt comfortable that my new home would grow and change to fit the technology and trends of the day. I figured that no matter what new widget or service popped up, My Yahoo would be the place where I would aggregate and consume information. It catalogued, it indexed, it aggregated, and it even hosted media and provided premium video services (remember that partnership with FIFA in 2002?). But there were cracks on the foundation from day one. I spent more time reading daily news feeds sent to my e-mail than I did on the My Yahoo page I had created for the same purpose. I realized Y! Messenger was not going to help me link up with those that had chosen different chat clients. Using Yahoo as a search engine yielded questionable results since they contained as many directories and categories as actual hits. And as for media, Yahoo was never even in the running with competitors like Napster and YouTube, or more mainstream outlets like iTunes.

My Yahoo became a McMansion, oversized and indistinct. Every attempted improvement just gave me another reason to move. Its mail reader is bloated and reminiscent of a Microsoft application. Its homepage, redesigned and still in beta, made half-hearted improvements to the portal shell and the content modules achieving mediocrity on both. Even its attempt at providing mobile content seems laughable in comparison to Google's mobile sites, which stripped formatting not content. Add to the list calendar services, address books, groups, "pipes", maps, and so on and so on.

Was My Yahoo attempting to integrate all aspects of my virtual life seamlessly? Who knows. Who knows what it wanted to be when it grew up. It doesn't seem to matter anymore. I'm in the process of moving again. I have moved searching, news and feeds to iGoogle. I chat via interoperable services like Trillian, Fire, and Fring. I socialize on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. I consume media via YouTube and iTunes. Maybe the value of My Yahoo is in the lessons it has to share as jack of all trades, master of none, lessons Apple (as it launches MobileMe) and Google (as it eats Yahoo's lunch) should be studying hard. It could be that both of these companies mastered the one lesson Yahoo seems to have missed early on... get the components right first and then aggregate them.

In any case I hope My Yahoo sticks around, at least it can be that PO Box that stays constant even as I have long moved to best-in-class online services.