How things become "Things"

I don't know quite what to call them but I am fascinated by "unintended special events." That's a horrible term, but I'm referring to things that became "Things" accidentally. This is hard to explain so I'll just start giving some examples.

Black Friday
The first day after Thanksgiving has long been deemed "black Friday" by retailers (which means black as in, "in the black" -- making profit). But there was never some universal decision to make this a special day. I can't give a particularly knowledgeable history here but my best guess is that this became "black Friday" completely by accident. Over the years, as a consumer focus on Christmas shopping became more prevalent, I think we as a society moved more and more toward a "holiday to holiday" mindset. The stores stock items relevant to Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas in successive order, and the combination of Thanksgiving being over and most people having that Friday off from work turned that day into an ideal shopping day. Retailers capitalized on this, creating special sales, and the process fed on itself until the day became a shopping event. This year it got particularly crazy with one person at a Wal-Mart trampled to death and gunfire at a Toys 'R' Us. But when it comes down to it, there is no particular reason for this to be a special event. It is a byproduct of the holiday calendar and consumer marketing.

Superbowl Ads
By most standards, TV commercials are an annoyance -- they're something we put up with because they fund the networks that provide us with hours of (ostensible) entertainment. But now watching the Superbowl specifically for the commercials has become a national pastime. Much like Black Friday, this was an event that fed upon itself. Knowing the huge audience for the Superbowl, and the limited attention spans of viewers, companies put more and more effort into making their Superbowl ads stand out. As the audience got wise to this, they became more discerning, comparing the ads against each other, turning the event into the competition for the best Superbowl ad of the year. The free press (and today, re-viewing on sites like YouTube) often make the multi-million dollar investments for 30 seconds of airtime into cultural touchstones. Today, some people who don't even care about the Superbowl itself still watch just to see the ads -- something virtually no other program can lay claim to.

Red Carpet Fashion
The purpose of awards shows like the Oscars is to, well, give awards to the best films (or music, or TV, etc.) of the year, and to drum up some publicity and ticket sales in the process. But it was never the stated intent of such shows to promote fashion. But as more and more stars took the opportunity to look their best on Oscar day, the reporters on the red carpet in turn paid more notice to their clothes, and now many networks and publications give their own awards for "best dressed." Joan Rivers in particular has made "who are you wearing?" a key question on the red carpet. (It's worth noting that the term "red carpet" itself is a thing-turned-"Thing" -- it was only through the repeated use of red carpets on the walkways into awards halls that it came to be synonymous with awards shows and premieres.)

There are certainly more examples, but I love thinking about how these unexpected turns happen. There are a ton on the internet alone -- LOLspeak, viral marketing -- and I think it's important to distinguish this from "memes," which are brief trends that everyone knows about for a few months but soon die away. I may post a part 2 soon but I like being reminded that no matter how shrewd a marketer or advertiser may think he/she is, ultimately the biggest trends occur through a series of unplannable accidents.

More on the overlap of politics and usability

In my last entry I mentioned how I feared getting too political. But despite that fear I'm going to soldier on. I've become borderline obsessed with the economy, and various approaches to handling it, and have constantly been thinking about the decisions I would think best were I in a position of power.

Full disclosure -- I have considered myself most closely connected to libertarianism, as I like the concept that we really should be free to do what we want without government intervention. But, and here's where usability kicks in -- we don't always *know* everything necessary to make the best choices.

There seems to be two sides to this -- either you say that it is up to you to educate yourself, and a bad choice is your own fault, but you are free to make it, or you say that people should be prevented from making such bad choices through regulation and laws that take bad options off the table.

I've come to appreciate the concept of "soft paternalism" or "libertarian paternalism," which basically says, you are free to make whatever choice you want, but we are going to try our best to steer you in the right direction.

This is almost the essence of usability in a nutshell. Make it easy for people to make choices that will satisfy them. Emphasize the most common or most logical paths but provide alternate routes to get to other options if someone knows specifically what they already want. The wikipedia article I link above has a great description, with specific reference to "defaults" -- a concept that usability expert Jakob Nielsen has written about, stressing the importance of setting defaults wisely so they are set to the most likely beneficial setting.

Compare the two. Wikipedia, giving the example of setting your retirement contribution from your paycheck (emphasis mine in both quotes):

The asymmetry of soft paternalism can be seen in the case of a policy which raises default rates. Those who are making an informed deliberate choice to put aside zero percent of their income in tax deferred savings still have this option, but those who were not saving simply out of inertia or due to procrastination are helped by higher default contribution rates.

Now read Jakob Nielsen:

Users rely on defaults in many other areas of user interface design. For example, they rarely utilize fancy customization features, making it important to optimize the default user experience, since that's what most users stick to. ... By educating and guiding users, default values help reduce errors. It's therefore important to select helpful defaults, rather than those based on the first letter of the alphabet or whatever the first option on your original list happened to be.

Imagine for a moment that at all aspects of our lives, rather than starting from "zero" on any new thing, we started anything by being told right off the bat what the most common or most beneficial starting place was, but were given the option to change that in any way we see fit. Smart businesses already apply this in many areas, essentially putting Nielsen's usability advice in effect. But I think the applications of such a concept are much more far-reaching.

I don't know that this means that "soft paternalism" and "good usability" are identical, or that the concepts therein can be applied universally, but I was struck at the similarities between the two. At the very least, it shows that you can successfully apply similar philosophies to different disciplines.

Could better usability save the economy?

Okay, maybe that headline is an overstatement, but I'd say usability is an overlooked component in saving the economy. Like any American who pays attention to current events, the economic downturn is at the forefront of my mind right now. And there is one area that has troubled me quite a bit -- the whole mortgage meltdown.

There are kind of two sides to the mortgage problem (ignoring for a moment the whole "credit swaps" thing -- which is a pretty big piece to ignore but just roll with me here): there are the individuals who bought homes they could not afford, and there are the lenders who signed off on mortgages they likely knew the buyer could not afford to repay.

Much has been made of the "predatory lenders" -- the system is set up such that a lot of the places granting the initial mortgages get a few years of high (or all) interest payments before passing the mortgage off to some larger firm for the remainder and letting them deal with the fallout of potential foreclosure. Ultimately, the initial lenders don't really care about whether or not the lendee can pay it all back -- they just want that initial burst of nearly pure-profit payments.

But what bothers me about this attack on "predatory lenders" is that pretty much any business out there seeks to increase profit, so why pick on lenders? It seems to be to be attaching some moral expectation to something that is amoral (not immoral, mind you). Paying for goods and services is a mutual exchange where each side gets something they want.

The consumer-minded side says this is unfair, but I think it's risky to remove any responsibility from the individual. If you sign a contract that requires you to pay a certain amount of money, it's ultimately your own fault if you end up unable to hold up your end of the bargain. Really, a foreclosure is the fault of the homeowner, not the lender -- even if the lender suspected you wouldn't be able to pay it back, if you have stated that you can and will pay things back, you're the one who's made the promise you can't keep.

Where this all breaks down is that not every lender is going to be explicit in terms of costs, not every homeowner is going to know to check all the fine print, and those two problems can feed off each other into a pretty dangerous spiral.

This is where usability comes into play. One of the tenets of good usability is that you don't blame the "user" if they have a problem. Even if everything to accomplish a task is there, if your users are failing to do it, then you have a problem with the presentation. You don't just say your users are stupid (because then you're both insulting your customers and losing business), you try to adjust things to make it clearer and easier to understand.

I am not familiar with the rules and regulations around signing a mortgage, but I am virtually certain the amount of paperwork involved would be confusing to even the savviest person. From a usability perspective, it's a nightmare. I have no doubt that people have signed contracts not realizing that the initial $800 a month payment is going to balloon to $2000, or that the total they pay for a $300,000 home is actually going to be something like a million dollars.

Imagine for a moment that regulations required that all major contracts have a one-page cover sheet that included clearly the monthly payment, how the monthly payment may change over time, the breakdown of interest and principal, and the total amount to be eventually paid. All of this in nice big fonts with a clear layout that is easy to read.

I fear getting too political in this blog, but I can't help but think that so many of the problems in our current economic crisis boil down to people making decisions without knowing all the information. And while many people think that the problem was a lack of regulating the kinds of decisions that could be made, I would say that the greater problem was not requiring full disclosure and clarity be provided before anyone makes any major transaction. Whether that is a potential homeowner or a potential investor, if there was a requirement of a crystal clear one-sheet explanation of the pending transaction in layman's terms, you may find fewer questionable decisions being made in the first place.

As an analogy, New York City recently began requiring chain restaurants to print calorie information next to meals. The caloric totals shocked people (some salads have more calories than a burger and fries!?), but those trying to eat healthy had full information at their disposal rather than uninformed guessing. Compare this regulation to some alternative legislation that may have required that restaurants stop serving high calorie dishes altogether. The former regulation puts the onus on the individual, but provides them with full disclosure in a clear manner. The other is the government deciding what's good for you, expecting that you won't make the good decision for yourself and taking options off the table. I'm sure some people would still prefer the latter, but I really think that letting people make their own choice, for good or bad, is better than trying to make it for them -- just make sure they know the consequences of their choices.

Usability is ultimately about providng clear information. If we can manage that, and let people make fully informed decisions, we can encourage responsibility without removing choice.

So I got an iPhone

I'm not really a gadget-head. As a diehard skeptic of, well, everything, I typically meet any new gadget with the question "why would I need this?" And usually there is no compelling reason.

But after spending months with a phone that repeatedly shut itself off upwards of ten times a day, sometimes mid-phone call, I was ready to switch, and decided to just go ahead and plunk down the dollars for an iPhone. I'm so happy I did.

I knew that it would combine my phone and MP3 player into one device, which I liked. I also knew it'd allow a few more things, namely web browsing. But I didn't realize the extent to which its app store would make the device an all-in-one EVERYTHING. I can play video games, control my desktop from the phone, update my Facebook status, listen to radio stations... it's pretty cool. (I should note, for the record, that lest this read like an Apple ad I am sure that similar smartphones like the G1 and Blackberry Storm are capable of doing many of these things as well.)

But as I was browsing reviews for good apps and downloading them on my laptop, it struck me as odd that I still have to actually attach a wire from the laptop to the iPhone. A minor problem, really, but it got me thinking about the future of computing and the whole concept of syncing. We are moving further and further away from a hard-coded "this machine does this" mindset to a software-driven wireless world where you can do anything from anywhere from any machine. We've already moved past some of the typical physical limitations of the world -- I haven't bought a CD in 2 years for example, yet have bought tons of music. Virtually every piece of software people get these days no longer requires a box with a disc in it, and can be just downloaded online. And as hardware limitations decrease to the point where, in all likelihood, we are just a few years away from pretty much every new computer can do pretty much everything, the actual machines we're on may reach a point of irrelevance as well. Imagine going up to any computer anywhere, logging in with some password, and having all of the same data and programs available to you anywhere. Services like this already exist, but this is by no means universal.

We're going to just all have our own "clouds" at some point soon. An amalgamam of files, programs, software, data, etc. that requires no physical anything except for the data storage facilities of the providers.

Not to get all sci-fi on you, but this basically means there will be two versions of any of us. The physical being, and the data identity. Some people find that scary, I find it fascinating.

And to me the most interesting part of all of this is that it happens so quickly and seamlessly. Just imagine ten years ago, the whole concept of your whole world reachable by one device in your pocket was probably hard to fathom. But it has happened, and is getting more dramatically omnipresent every day.

Which is just. So. Cool.

Designing for failure

It only takes going through a handful of creative projects to realize that virtually every tiny thing is done purposefully. Very little happens by accident, and because of this, one of my mini-pastimes is looking at common designs and trying to figure out how they came to be (or, in contrast, why antiquated designs went out of style). Last night I was pondering how the anthropomorphizing of food -- a smiley face on a popcorn box or a cup of soda -- became a successful marketing technique. And I've been wondering for months about the process that led to the creation of traffic signs -- perhaps the most vital instance of usability in action, as a failure to communicate properly could be fatal.

But I'd like to focus right now on the concept of designing for failure. Of course, an ideal system would make it virtually impossible for someone to fail, but even the most simplistic and clear designs are going to stump a few people, and sometimes failure can occur due to other complexities in the system. My shining example? Copy machines.



(Okay I know that's not a copy machine but at least it involves a cat.)

Jams in the copy machine are obscenely commonplace, as anyone who has worked in an office knows, and they can be extremely frustrating. But they're unavoidable; the mechanics of these machines are so complex that the smallest problems can trigger a jam. I imagine that early copying machines broke down so frequently that calling for a repairman became an untenable situation, and the "fix it yourself" process for un-jamming a copier became a standard for the industry. You know the drill, open the side of the machine, pull out tray 3a, take out the jammed paper from some spinny thingy labeled 5c, etc. It's annoying, but it usually works, and you can get back to copying. The time and cost savings of not having to call a repairman is well worth the minor inconvenience of having to fix it yourself.

This same concept can be applied to just about any design, including a website. You can have what you think is the most sensible site structure and design possible, with a big clearly labeled button for some key task, only to find that sometimes your visitors just miss it entirely or click the wrong thing or otherwise end up lost and confused.

The keys to anticipating error involve eliminating opportunities to make a mistake (ahem), and offering alternative paths to get to the desired result if the visitor misses or doesn't understand the primary path. While a lot of web visitors will resort to the back button and try again, you have to remember that the back button may be taking them off your site altogether. For example, let's say they search on Google for something in your industry and use the word "compare" -- this may take them to a page on your site which compares your various products. But if the visitor was looking for comparisons across a variety of brands, rather than just within one brand, the page won't be what they want, and they may end up at another site altogether. But if you have a prominent link that says "Compare to the Competition," well they just may click on that and stay with you on your site.

Other suggestions to keep visitors on the right path: use logical naming conventions (e.g., "About Us" is much more intuitive than something like "Our Way of Thinking"), provide alternative paths (e.g., include a search option, and highlight relevant contextual links on key pages, etc.), and remove anything that does not hold a lot of value to the user (a page full of marketing copy may show up high on search results but will likely not actually provide the hard info the user is looking for).

Plan for the copy jam. If you do, your visitor will be able to get back on track to find what they want rather than abandoning you entirely.

A handful of basics

There are some rules of thumb ("heuristics" for you fancy types) for designing with usability in mind that are helpful to remember. These are some of the things I try to keep in mind:

• People don't read
  They really don't. Sure, they'll read your blog if it's a topic that interests them, but on your marketing site, keep your text concise and support it with other visual clarity. People love to look at imagery and photos, but they will only scan snippets of your text until they find the one thing that interests them.
  
• Make your text readable
  When your visitors do read, they want it to be easy. Use medium-to-large fonts, use high contrast (no light gray on white, please), and don't use jarring color combinations, like red text on a bright green background. Also, avoid caps - we read based not just on letters but on shapes too, and all-caps denies us this.
• Don't use "splash" pages on websites
  Hoo boy is this a big one. No one, I repeat no one, wants to watch your fancy flash intro to your site. Visitors are there to get information, and all this does is slow them down.
• Less is more
  Is it vital? If not, get rid of it.
• Good-looking does not equal good
  Very pretty sites can be horrible to use. Ugly sites can be easy to use (hello, Craig's List!). Ideally you can be both visually appealing and usable, but never assume they go hand in hand.
• Separate personal taste from your customers' taste
  This is so hard to get past -- we want things to look and act in ways that meet our individual tastes. But if you're creating something for a particular audience, make sure it appeals to them -- not necessarily to you. I once watched a project that involved a camp brochure aimed at kids go from being bright, colorful, and fun to plain, conservative, and "elegant" in order to please some boardmembers. Wrong move. What appeals to 13 year olds and 53 year olds is going to be very different.
• Be scannable
  When creating lists, particularly in navigation, keep them left-aligned, and make each line start with the most key word. For example, on a site that lets you register copyrighted material, don't start each line with "Register Your Song" or "Register Your Album." Change that to "Song Registration" and "Album Registration" -- the leading word now carries more value and is easier to scan in a vertical list.

The shackles of innovation

It's a word that has lost virtually meaning due to its constant repetition: innovation. Any number of industries must hear this word all the time -- it seems like the single most important thing to just about everyone. Is your product, or site, or approach innovative? If not, it might as well be worthless. Everyone is trying to "think outside the box" (a phrase so cliched at this point that even putting it in quotes doesn't give it the ironic distance it deserves). There is a widespread assumption that the status quo is bad, the way we do anything today is inferior to some "new" way we've yet to discover, and the search for this "new" way should trump all other efforts.

I can't agree with any of that. Striving fervently for innovation strikes me as severely misdirected effort, not because I believe innovation is bad, but because I think it is a side effect, not a goal unto itself.

The biggest problem with focusing solely on innovation, in my mind, is the assumption that current ways are bad -- it is starting with a ground floor decision to disregard all the prior work done by those in your field to get you where you are today. It is certainly true that previous work may have been done based on faulty information, incorrect assumptions, and other ill-advised decisions that could have brought things to a highly imperfect state today. But it is by no means a guarantee -- in fact, the opposite could also be true. Your product/site/whatever could be the way it is today because of highly reasoned research and testing that led to it being extremely solid and well thought-out. Unless you know all this background already, you can't really claim that innovation is necessary.

Focusing solely on innovation also sidesteps what should probably be the true goal of any project - to make the best product/site possible. A thorough process will explore the tried and true ways as well as newer, more innovative approaches. In many cases, more standard, "non-innovative" methods may prove to be the best fit.

Let's say you create a new site or product and all your testing and research leads to a conclusion that your best bet is to rely on well-established techniques. Had your goal been solely to innovate, this project would be a failure -- you've created nothing innovative. And yet, you've created the best possible product/site for your users -- the only problem was that it didn't involve creating anything truly new, just using existing principles to their greatest effect. How could that be bad?

Now let's consider the converse situation. Rather than seeking innovation, your goal at the start of a project is solely to create the best product/site possible. You do your brainstorming and research and find that the best solution is one that DOES in fact use a new, innovative approach -- it is thoroughly supported by your testing. No one would call this project a failure, and by focusing on making the best product/site possible, you've now overdelivered by also finding an innovative approach in the process. Innovation was not the goal -- it was icing on the cake.

There are a lot of reasons why innovation is still such a prized asset -- it's sexy, it sounds good, it shakes designers out of their boredom -- but these are not enough to warrant prizing it above quality. Think you've got a better way to do something? By all means, explore that new method and see if it works better -- but be willing to recognize the value in also learning that it's possible an existing method is still superior.

I should mention that this post is partially inspired by Scott Berkun, who I saw speak at the UI12 conference in Cambridge, MA, in 2007. He spoke about the "myths of innovation" and mentioned, for example, how innovations are often accidents, and he also talked about how the word "innovation" has indeed lost a lot of meaning over the years. I don't claim that this post represents his opinions at all, but his talk came back into my mind as I worked on a recent project that was driven by a client's desire to innovate. Check out his blog, it's got some good stuff.