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This
was a book that instantly appealed to me. The subtitle used the
words, "Interaction Design", the author works as an "interaction
designer" for a well known brand and the book sought to tackle
the issue of design for information appliances - small, specific
purpose, often handheld devices. In short, I was the perfect fit
for the target audience, as a guy who does Interaction Design often
for small, specific purpose devices. This book was aimed at guys
like me. So I just had to buy it.
It's
an edited book. Eric Bergman contributes only the Introduction and
has persuaded and according to Don Norman, cajoled the other authors
into their contributions of 11 other chapters which include an interview
with Don Norman of "Design of Everyday Things" fame, and
another with Rob Haitani, the interaction designer of the original
Palm Pilot, who is now with Handspring. Another chapter includes
the story of the EPOC operating system for the Psion Revo and it's
predecessors. EPOC is now being promoted by Symbian the WAP Forum
alliance joint venture company. Sandwiched between Rob Haitani's
Palm Pilot story and the Psion EPOC story is the official story
of the Windows CE operating system. We are also offered the story
of the development of the first Nokia WAP phones and Aaron Marcus's
account of an experimental Motorola in-car navigation system. Considering
the editor works for Sun, this book is a triumph of the new spirit
of co-opetition which exits in the high tech sector today.
Despite
the fact that Bergman had the idea back in late '98 and it took
until spring 2000 to come to publication, the book is still current
and offers real value. It begins with a definition of Information
Appliance,
"An appliance specializing in information: knowledge,
facts, graphics, images, video, or sound. An information appliance
is designed to perform a specific activity, such as music, photography,
or writing. A distinguishing feature of information appliances
is the ability to share information among themselves."
Invisibility
If
you've read Don Norman's, "The invisible computer" then
you could skip chapter 1, however you would miss Norman's advocacy
for replication services like those we now see at fusionOne
and Roku . However, Norman does
point out that such replication between the collection of devices
we own has to be effortless, a point underscored by Rob Haitani
in Chapter 4. Norman wanders into the "hot" topic of device
convergence. He makes some other observations such as Information
Appliance users will keep their devices for a long time and become
expert users. How long have you had your pocket calculator for example?
I've had mine since junior high school. [ Err. That's a lot more
than half my life :-) ]
I
was left in no doubt that Norman is an advocate for the common majority
of people and I felt an empathy with his point of view. He touches
briefly on privacy and social implications of these new appliances
and points out that the true killer application will exploit the
social value of communication between people. He skims through other
current issues like design of location based services, design for
the wireless web is different from the wired web, HTML was a backward
step for UI design, "Write Once, Run Anywhere" doesn't
work for the UI and was a false promise, and reminds us that for
information appliances there is a basic conflict between simplicity
over variety and breadth of function. He concludes with the prediction
that AOL is the company which "gets it" and will go on
to dominate the information age. [ See the recent editorial, "Aggregating
Experience" for another take on AOL dominance ].
All
in all, Norman is good value in this impressive interview.
All
hanging out
Something
the book lacks is an editorial piece which pulls it all together.
Bergman hasn't attempted to extract the analysis and design methods,
techniques and tips from the rest of the book and present a consensus
approach. So to some extent the considerable content in the book
is just left to hang out all over in a somewhat untidy fashion.
Two of Bergman's colleagues from Sun do offer their own personal
"Design considerations for Information Appliances" in
chapter 2. Later chapters from others offer complimentary and occasionally
contradictory material but this is a start towards a repeatable
process. If I had a criticism of this chapter it's the basic assumption
that you are starting at the software, as though the hardware is
already a given. This may be a true pragmatic outlook, but surely
as Haitani will show in chapter 4, when you are designing an information
appliance, you must design the hardware and the software together
as part of one overall user experience.
This
chapter did contain some good points on the tradeoffs and differences
in set top box versus palm format design and illustrated the Jef
Raskin approach to developing a reduced modes device.
An
internet appliance
Chapter
3 is a war story from Netpliance,
a manufacturer of computers specifically for browsing the internet.
Amongst the three authors perhaps the best known is Scott Isensee,
who was a co-author on the OVID
methodology book which was reviewed last year. The chapter offers
us a look at the process used at Netpliance to identify the requirements
then analyse them and eventually create a design. Although the early
part of the chapter reads like company PR material, it develops
into interesting reading. Already several common themes are emerging
from the different authors.
Anthropology
is key - understand the target users, how they live, how they
will use the device and for what. This is achieved with lifestyle
snapshots and usage
scenarios.
Design
with the 80 / 20 rule in mind. The design is trying to achieve
the 20% of functionality which will deliver a compelling product
for 80% of the users, because "Less IS more" on a small
screen.
Interaction
Design must come early or first before the technology issues are
decided
The
best results come from multidisciplinary teams
Discount
usability studies on early prototypes pays off
The
Netpliance example really serves to highlight the necessary tight
coupling of marketing and user interface design functions in order
to optimize the user experience. If you take a single lesson from
each chapter then this is the best value from chapter 3.
Another
great interview
Rob
Haitani has a great story to tell about the early days of the Palm
Pilot. Much of what he has to say begins to underscore what we've
already heard but he adds some of his own sharp observations such
as the concept of "software miniaturization" and his equation
for User Frustration which sounded a lot like Cooper's
idea of cognitive friction.
The
key lesson from this chapter has to be that style guides must go
beyond the mere definition of interface components and usage but
must abstract to higher levels and include emerging patterns of
interaction.
We
also get an insight into the approach of using fine grained transactions
with direct edit. [ Another reference in this area is the Sun work
on HotJava
Views
of which Haitani seems unaware - at least he didn't reference it
as predecessor material ] The final piece of advice ought to be
obvious - Don't try to recreate PC applications on the Palm Pilot.
Windows
CE
Chapter
5 reads like Microsoft PR. It even includes a legal disclaimer.
The early part of the chapter includes a lot of boring history and
product roadmaps. When you couple it with the almost apologetic
tone, it's a turn off. However, persevering is probably worth it.
The chapter goes on to describe the MS process, team structure and
design approach. It actually sounds very similar to what is considered
state-of-the-art process in interaction design. It includes use
of lifestyle snapshots as well as usability testing of early paper
prototypes. It also gives us some insights to the difficulty of
developing a new product inside Microsoft as we read that the design
goals were changed mid development so that the new product would
share the same look and feel as the new Windows 95 PC product.
Reading
this chapter I was reminded of an issue which irks me. The possibility
that true repeatability in interaction design is impossible. The
problem is that the quality of people is just too important. In
the triumvirate of people, process and technology, Microsoft clearly
has the availability of technology, a good state-of-the-art process,
so that just leaves the people as the big variable. The next two
chapters were to underscore this belief. According to the author
Psion had very little process but produced a truly great result.
A good design "just happened". Magic. On the other hand,
Nokia used surprisingly state-of-the-art processes and yet produced
a somewhat cludgy WAP phone design the 7110 and associated microbrowser.
So
another common theme of the book might be that people are key to
a great result and divine intervention may be necessary before a
great user experience can be delivered.
Navigation
Systems
Aaron
Marcus provides a look at an experimental in-car navigation system
developed at Motorola. This work was carried out around 1992 and
serves as a useful reminder to young wireless web developers that
there is history out there if they care to dig around for it. This
chapter is strong on "metaphor" and perhaps reflects the
UI design fashion of those earlier times. Filled with screen shots,
this chapter adds perhaps one thing to our short list of lessons
learned, that developing custom tools for prototyping or rapid development
can be worthwhile.
I
will confess to skipping over chapter 9 on the design of interactive
toys. Designing for children in general is a subject which fascinates
me but then so does Egyptology. I simply don't have time for everything.
Lessons
from Game Design
Chapter
10 really did interest me, as a former game developer. There were
really three key reasons I got out of games. One was a cyclical
downturn in the industry which made it unattractive financially;
the next was the critical one, I simply didn't understand game design,
though I was great at implementing the code; the third was the high
risk factor, that you could write a great game and everything could
be theoretically perfect but it would still flop in the sales charts.
So I was looking for the answers. Unsurprisingly, more than 10 years
later, Chuck Clanton did have those answers.
Clanton
identifies that games need a well crafted user interface, great
game mechanics but most of all great game play. It was this third
element which defeated me. So I became a user interface designer
instead. This chapter focuses on game play. What follows is 30 pages
of analysis of what makes great game play and how elements of certain
established game genres actually work psychologically. If only I'd
known this 12 years ago :-(
Going
Beyond...
Arguably
chapter 9 and 10 qualified for the "beyond" from the title
but chapter 11 which looks at "Persuasive technologies and
Netsmart Devices" really does go beyond. I found this the best
value in the whole book. It was interesting stuff with some great
ideas for new information appliances which will "persuade"
people. Thought provoking. It explains the psychology and sociology
of persuasion and how we can use that in networked information appliance
design. Imagine for example the fridge which dissuaded you from
opening that Coke and advised you that a glass of milk would be
much better for you instead.
Frightening
stuff indeed!
Summary
In
short it's a pick'n'mix of what's current in interaction design.
It offers some great value. It must contain the equivalent of at
least two years worth of uidesign.net material. Some of the stories
and anecdotes are interesting and entertaining. On the other hand,
you are unlikely to unveil a great revelation which will magically
transform your next design into smash hit. The overall lesson is
"You've either got it, or you ain't, Baby!"
Recommendation
5/5.
For pure breadth, achievement of compilation it just scrapes into
the top tier! However, much of it has been said before even if this
presentation of it is new. There just wasn't enough depth. The war
stories of device design are interesting history but add little
to provide a repeatable understanding of "how to". The
later material particularly the chapter on "Persuasive"
technology was truly thought provoking.
Order
this book...
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