09 11th, 2008Sorry, I just couldn’t resist including this ad, also from the JAL onboard catalog:
No matter how many pictures they show of using this bin for recycling bottles or raking up leaves, we all know the truth: it’s a mobile urinal.
Browsing through the Japan Airlines Shop onboard catalog, I enjoyed seeing products that wouldn’t be offered by, say, the SkyMall or Hammacher Schlemmer catalogs found in U.S. airline seatpockets.
Here are two examples, both of which assume a preference for sitting close to the floor:
The ad also boasts scientific-looking heat-maps charting pressure on the derrière, proving that sitting on this chair will distribute weight more evenly than sitting directly on the tatami mat.
You’ve gotta love how the desk folds into an end table…
Unfortunately, these products are only available to Japanese residents, so the rest of us are out of luck.
Predicting user intention has a long history. There’s always the hope that you can train a computer to anticipate the user’s next move and launch the desired application or function at just the right moment, without requiring a user command.
The question is, how do you predict? How do you know what a user wants to do next?
The traditional methods can be generally categorized as:
- Statistical methods. Study ten or a hundred or a thousand people using your program, and discover which functions are usually requested after which other functions. A common example: you might find that after launching Word, 90% of the time users next create a new blank document. Therefore, when launching the program, automatically cause a new file to be created immediately. Another common example: Apple Mail recognizes an email address format or internet link format in text, and automatically creates a clickable link within the mail body. There are mountains of ethnomethodological studies that try to provide relevant data for predictive use.
- Track individual user habits. Allow the application to track a user’s actions, and learn the user’s behavior patterns. Then activate functions automatically based upon past use.
A non-real-life example — more of a wish — from JK On The Run:
After I finish doing my email, or even before I’m done if there are too many emails to do them all, I want to go to Google Reader to check all the items from my RSS feeds overnight. I can open up Firefox or just say “check the feeds” or the equivalent and the [Intuitive Interface] knows to fire up Firefox with the Google Reader page loaded. The key to the learning capabilities of the [Intuitive Interface] is that just because I use Firefox doesn’t mean you do. If it’s learned from your actions that you use Opera or Internet Explorer then that’s what it will use for you. No overt training required, the [Intuitive Interface] can learn volumes about your preferences and what you normally do just by paying attention when you do them. After just a short time of doing this the [Intuitive Interface] can be working WITH you, not just for you. It will become a very intelligent personal assistant that works the way you do when you do. It’s always watching what you do and WHEN you do it as most people’s work days are very routine when it comes to schedule.
3. Allow the user to control and register actions and preferences. Photoshop does this by recording your action history, and then letting you not only undo actions, but also “record” sets of actions for future application to other documents. The Mac OS does something similar in helping you set which applications are used to open which documents.
What everyone yearns for is something like the first two categories — where the user does nothing, and the computer comes up with the right action “like magic”. The problem is that in real life, only category three is really useful. Why?
Consider the following two reports:
One of the features on my three-year old Acura that I’ve come to enjoy is its keyless entry and ignition feature. Walk up to the car, touch a button on the door handle to unlock it, and start the car without inserting the key. All while the key stays in my pocket. It’s a feature now found on many cars and eliminates the need to find your keys in a pocket, briefcase or purse.
It can even tell the difference between my key or my wife’s. This can have some unintended consequences. If my wife enters the car first from the passenger side with her key, all of the radio stations and other settings default to hers. (She thinks that’s great as it reminds me to be a gentleman and open her door first.)
[from Phil Baker’s Concept to Consumer blog]
***
Blackberry has this nice feature where you type a word without bothering with capitalization or punctuation, for example, typing “im” for “I’m”, and it changes it on the fly. (Funny, because there’s no actual spell-check…) It’s a feature that’s convenient, although I tend to under-use it.
Anyway, little glitch, I tried to send someone my Israeli email address the other day. It ends with @netvision.net.il. Except that my alert Blackberry insisted it was @netvision.net.I’ll. I went back to erase/change/fix maybe 6 times, unsuccessfully. Not a helpful feature, in this case! Why should I be in a power struggle with my cell phone? […]
Found another one: can’t type the word “id” (as in Freudian), or the initials for identification or industrial design (ID). I just keep getting “I’d”.
When is the tradeoff of 95% accuracy offset by the 5% error rate (uncorrectable errors)? Another long tail question? Kind of.
[from Feature Power Struggle, posted in this blog]
You get the idea. I’m sure you can draw examples from your own life. Unless a use-case prediction is true 100% of the time, the frustration of an incorrect prediction has to be allowed for. If the error is minor or easily corrected for, then the predictive action may be worthwhile (eg, having applications create new documents at launch — closing the new document window is a minor inconvenience, and the extra wait is unnoticeable). If the error is harder to correct, or more annoying (How do you tell the car who is really driving? How do you override Blackberry’s auto-punctuation?), the frequent convenience may not outweigh the occasional frustration.
It’s worth pointing out that anything in categories 2 or 3 will benefit from unshared use of the device. Sharing machines/phones/computers/cars when preferences have been customized or learned for a particular individual will entail even greater frustration than if there had been no customization in the first place. Which leads us to more “Me”and less “We”.
[Disclosure: I work for Power2B, who are developing a 3D touchscreen and interactive TV interface that predicts user activity by tracking actual trajectories in real time, rather than through any of the above systems.]
Of the five or six mobile phones that I’ve had in the last couple of years (including a Blackberry 8700, Nokias 6230, 6680, E65, the odd — very odd — Motorola i85, plus a Samsung disaster), the keys on the Nokia 1208 are by far the most satisfying. Just the right amount of pressure is needed, and each key is easily distinguished by feel from its neighbors, despite the one-piece keyboard top layer.
Click click.
Yeah, just right.
The only keyboard to beat it is my old Nokia 3330, a phone that still sits at the top of my list for all-time great usability. We still haven’t retired the 3330 unit; it’s got a pre-pay card SIM in it, and gets used by international guests.
Terem is the local Urgent Care Center — a fantastic alternative to the emergency room, founded by the inspiring Dr. David Applebaum, ztz”l.
The Terem branch near our home recently moved to a new building after many, many years in its old home. To help people find the new site, they posted some signs at the major intersections nearby:
Did you spot the same problem I did? The Terem logo is a heart-shaped letter “tet”, ending in an arrow that points to 10:00 (up and to the left). The purpose of the sign, however, is to direct you to make a right turn (see the white-on-red long arrow at the bottom of the sign?).
Visually, there are two conflicting messages. If you’re in a hurry, or overwhelmed, or don’t know the neighborhood, which message will sink in? (Probably the first — which is misleading.) Or will they just fight for your attention as the lines of cars behind you honk in frustration?
User Experience designers talk about mobility meaning independence, individuality, and personal freedom. Or mobility meaning communication, income, and literacy.
What if mobility means you might be blown up by a terrorist? If mobility means vulnerability and insecurity? What happens when you combine a culture that glorifies charity with an environment of mortal vulnerability?
Israel is a country brimming with charitable acts. The phone book has 50 pages of free loan society (”gemach“) listings, offering interest- and payment-free loans of money, cell phones, baby strollers, pacifiers, Sabbath meals, medicines, photocopies, fax machines, tools… you name it.
The 600-pound gorilla of free loan societies is, of course, Yad Sarah, founded by Rabbi Uri Lupoliansky, currently mayor of Jerusalem. But gemachs are a common family activity.
It’s normal for Jewish homes worldwide to have one or more charity boxes, into which small change (usually) is collected over months or years, then picked up by the organization who owns the box. Our home currently has about five of them, including one shaped like a tractor to help support farmers during the sabbatical shemitta year.
A field between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, left fallow for the Sabbatical (Shemitta) year.
A typically Israeli sight is that of charity boxes in public places — available should a sudden philanthropic urge strike, or you just have some spare change in your hand. Or you get nervous about taking public transportation.
Here’s a common one (affixed to a pole near a bus stop):
Here’s a collection box outside the counter of a downtown bakery (note that the money collected isn’t for the shop owner):
The translated sign reads: Hidden Charity — i.e., the donor and recipient don’t know one another, which is a more sensitive form of charity — for Sabbath charity and kindness to families blessed with many children (may they live long) in honor of the holy Sabbath and the holidays. [The money will be donated to] the charity [in honor of] Rabbi Meir Baal haNes and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, may their memories protect us. May you be blessed from on high with good fortune, blessing, and success.
Here’s one I saw just down the block from my home, also next to a bus stop, but somehow it has been grown right into the knot of a tree:
Seen in Narita Airport:
The English text of the sign reads: “If you don’t mind to discard the prohibited items such as knives, scissors and lighters. Please put them into this box.”
I wonder if anyone ever has? I assume that the items already within were planted there in advance. What would motivate someone to drop a forbidden item in the clear box rather than in a nearby garbage bin? (I can see the negative motivation, not to drop things in the box, because other people will see that you didn’t know not to bring those “dangerous” items along.) If the box’s purpose isn’t really to collect items, what is it? Perhaps it serves as an eye-catching early alert (before entering the security line) that allows people to save face by warning them that some items must be disposed of?
Seen recently at a security checkpoint in BKK (Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport*):
Using music stands as mobile desks makes perfect sense, but the musical decorations didn’t support the “fear and awe” that security should exude.
*maybe if I write it out enough times, I’ll actually remember the airport’s real name.
It’s well-known that travelers cluster around outlets in airports, circling like vultures to swoop down upon an available slot, and hoarding “good spots” until the flight boards. Some airports are more electrically friendly than others.
I think having to take the floor apart is a bit extreme.
Outlet desperation, seen recently at BKK (Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport):
Part I
I’m from Los Angeles. In L.A., we say “You are what you drive.” Sad, but true.
In a sprawling city with inadequate public transportation and a high average income, people go everywhere in their cars.
When I was a child, the car was a vehicle. My grandparents had cars (one per family, not one per grandparent) with bench seats front and rear. I climbed in and sat between Grandma and Grandpa, and we talked while we drove. If it got hot, there were these neat triangular vent windows that popped open in back, and roll-down windows that took about five minutes to roll back up (and an equal amount of time to recover from). Maps went in the glove compartment. Eating and drinking in the car were not conceivable.
When I was a teenager, the car had evolved to become a second home. My parents’ cars (one per parent) each had air conditioning, radio with five station memory buttons, power windows, console storage and a cupholder. The map was a fat Thomas Guide 
By the time I finished school, the car had become an extension of self, part of a person’s identity. When you got your first drivers’ license, you started thinking about getting your own car. When my dad handed down his (totally cool) car to me, the first thing I did was earn the money to install a cassette player. I didn’t talk to anybody (car phones were so new that I only knew three people who had them, all in their forties), except sometimes my little brother, when I took him to school. When my first children were born, we drove and sang along to tapes and CDs.
Today, car interior design has gone farther than ever in cocooning the individual rather than the group: DVD players front and back, separate headphone jacks, individual climate control (front and back; driver and passenger). Second- and third-row captain’s seats. Cup holders in every door, seatback, and floor panel. iPod and mobile phone jacks. Memory storage of your seat’s height, location, and degree of lumbar support.
“You are what you drive.”
Step back for a moment, and you’ll see that these design trends paint a larger cultural picture. The car has moved from a shared space (bench seats, no entertainment, little customization) to a highly personal space that is unlikely to be shared. When it is shared (for example, in a family mini-van), every effort is made to create as much private space as possible (individual seats, individual climate control, individual cupholders, individual entertainment and entertainment controls).
It’s a very different attitude about the car and how you spend time in it.
To me, it’s speaks of a very Western interpretation of mobility: Freedom, Entertainment, Movement, Privacy, Independence. Mobility = Individuality.
Part II
This attitude and the design ethic it inspired isn’t limited to cars. It has been the driving force (sorry) in mobile phone design for years.
Listen to the usability experts up until about a year ago. Everything was about how “personal” the mobile phone is. Studies showing that a high percentage of people don’t feel comfortable sharing their phone, or letting someone even use their phone briefly. The personal messages, notes, contacts, call history, browser history, photos.
Even more, there’s a sort of personal identification and relationship with the phone itself. Going further, your mobile phone number is more meaningful that your social security number — it’s one of your names. Your mobile number represents you, unlike a landline number which represents a location, and doesn’t follow you around.
I have a book here on mobile phones in Japanese life called Personal, Portable, Pedestrian
It’s all true, but there’s a big problem with all this: it’s all based on “Western” cultures. Cultures in which individuality, freedom and personal space are high on the list of life’s priorities.
Paul Adams (User Experience Researcher, Google) at the MEX conference pointed out in his presentation that if you look at countries like India and China, there are people everywhere.
Americans look at these teeming masses and say, “chaos”. But it’s not chaotic to non-Western eyes. What we perceive as “chaos” may be perceived locally as “shared space”. Paul gave the example of Southwest Airlines’ seating system, which for years was a “first come-first served” arrangement, proven to be faster than assigned seating. For Americans, this was perceived as chaotic. We prefer assigned seats because we place so high a value on our unique, personal, private space. It defines us. (Southwest has since changed over to a numbered boarding order — with it’s own adorable website to explain it. Which already tells you something.)
But that isn’t necessarily true of people in other countries, other cultures. What is valuable to one person may be undesirable to another.
Even in our “own” Western culture, feelings about personal space are changing. Definitions of privacy (personal secrets that you share with 800 blog readers…), of space (virtual, real, contained within a particular device or account) are changing.
Spaces that were once shared (eg., living room, public bus) are now personal (iPod as a “sphere of isolation”, killing time with mobile broadband). Spaces that were once personal (eg., Walkman music player, internet browser) are now shared (sharing headphones, Zune WiFi, Facebook Wall, IM, location based services).
Part III
I just got a Nokia 1208 as a gift; an upgrade to my Kosher Phone account. (We’ll talk about kosher phones another time. Suffice it to say for now that a kosher phone is a phone with no data capabilities.)
If you’re reading this blog, a dual-band Series 30
* Get instant access to phone features [one programmable softkey]
* Add a little color to your life [lo-res color display and exchangeable color faceplates]
* Monitor and manage your costs [calling card tracking and call timers]
Notable features on the 1208 are an integrated LED flashlight on top (where some phones have the power button or IR window), speakerphone, support for multiple user contact lists, pre-loaded polyphonic ringtones, dust-resistant keypad, durable materials construction with non-slip backing, and a very long battery life (7 hours talk time / 15 days standby).
You may have noticed that the feature set doesn’t exactly match your checklist of phone features. That’s because the 1208 was designed for… well… less-developed countries. Despite the fact that its being sold everywhere (which is pretty interesting), priorities in the design were cost reduction, durability (many users, dusty climates) and sharability (if you can only afford to have one phone per household — or even per neighborhood — then making sharing easier becomes very important).
Which is exactly why the 1208 was on my Wish List; it’s a great example of the new attention being paid to read people, real cultures, real usage needs in the design of products and services. It has taken a long time to recognize that overall, we have enough feature. It’s about delivering them in a meaningful way, and hearing what people truly need.
It’s also about respecting other people enough to accept their own mobile identity definitions and priorities (family, community, participation, responsibility, communication), without trying to impose our “better” systems on them. In doing so, we honor others, while creating new design and product possibilities that benefit everyone.
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