tl;dr - Web actions are actions a visitor to your site or application does to another site or app. They create a cleaner and more seamless user experience.

Introducing the Concept of Web Actions

It’s been over a month now since IndieWeb Camp took place in Portland, OR.  Over the course of the weekend I was introduced to concepts and terminology new to me – like web intents, sharecropping, and the NASCAR idea – and I had the opportunity to brainstorm more freely than I typically get to on a normal day.

After learning about the concepts behind web intents, I was captivated by the idea of organizing basic website actions (like tweeting, emailing, hearting, likeing) into their root categories.  I was also inspired by the notion that we – as web creators – are often needlessly cluttering sites with ill-placed social media buttons and confusing action forms.

Working with several ideas in mind, I joined in to focus on web intents, but soon noticed that the original pilgrims had moved on to web introducers as a concept [see also - and note that Paul Kinlan is now back focusing on web intents].  @t and I agreed that something was missing and that this space in general was confusing and lacked definition.

We agreed to continue our brainstorming, working out a few ideas we had shared.  Moving forward, we began using the term “web actions” to describe the space we were working in.

What Are Web Actions?

It’s taken me awhile to get my head around what a web action really is and which alternatives are just collections of buttons and links. As we are using the term now, web actions are actions your visitors take on your site or application to another site or application. Having an account and an authentication level are implied aspects because your visitor has to log in to the second site or application in order for a share, save, or send to take place. Web actions mean that the visitor stays on your site while completing the action, rather than opening up a new page on another site or launching an application.

The NASCAR Effect

Web actions begin to solve the problem of the NASCAR effect, where many sites today are completely littered with social buttons and share widgets. Like race cars slapped with promo stickers, blogs and businesses have filled their footers, sidebars, and whitespace with buttons for saving and sharing posts or pages on each and every remotely popular social site.

Companies like AddThis made it easy for even the less-technically-inclined to include a snippet of Javascript on their sites and generate an array of social options. It’s also easy to justify the inclusion of various buttons on your site by just noting that everyone else is doing it. I’ve done that myself.

(Incidentally, the current version of this blog doesn’t use web actions as I ultimately see them occurring. However, since it’s my own testbed for new items, expect some changes in the near future.)

Button Slut – n.  A blogger or website owner who adorns his or her site with a large number of buttons or badges.

Fixing the Button Candy

These collections of digital kitsch add clutter to sites and often slow them down. I would also guess that for many sites, having an abundance of social share buttons actually decreases the effectiveness of each button. Social buttons and similar features were originally intended to provide visitors with easy shortcuts and to encourage a behavior of sharing. I have a hunch that on many sites today, NASCAR arrays are often ignored like in-page ads.

Web actions break down visitor behaviors into simple, clean, less arrogant interactions. They should allow visitors to your site to be able to share or save content without giving it a second thought. Web actions should not be intrusive to the content or the design. They are the more effective, more minimalistic alternative to social button overgrowth.

Examples of Web Actions

An area that initially attracted me to the concept was the idea of breaking down and organizing existing on-page actions – likes, sends, tweets, hearts, stars, saves – into categories based on the underlying intention of the person. If you ignore the underlying social network, site, or application and think just about the motivation behind the behavior, similarities begin to emerge.

While by no means a complete list, a few examples are:

• Saving content, such as bookmarking it, adding it to a list, or marking it some fashion so that it’s easy to identify later.
• Sharing content, such as announcing a link to friends or family, emailing an article, or redistributing a message.
• Showing support (for an author or for an organization in general); this might loosely be called, ‘giving props to,’ or adding your stamp of approval.
• Purchasing something, where a click and a confirmation executes a transaction with a separate site.

For a more specific example of a sharing web action, we can look at emailing. If you’re reading a great blog post and you want to pass it on to a friend, along with a note about the article, you might choose the “send” action. From there you have a saved preference of email. Once you choose to email the article, a pre-populated message window opens up that includes a link to the article in the body and the article title in the subject line. You can add your message, your recipient’s address, and send it off without leaving the original page.

Moving Forward in the Space

I see a mix of interactions on sites and apps today, ranging from overblown NASCAR arrays to scenarios very similar to the one described above. What we have seen as much of during our initial discussion of web actions, is the devision and classification of specific actions by the visitor’s overarching intention, or the conscious placement of certain actions on the page in a position that is most usable for the visitor.

These areas are open for research and discussion. Is it better to put an action for reading a post later at the top of the post assuming they haven’t read anything? Does it make sense to place a sharing action at the bottom of a post and assume this is where the reader will look when he wants to tweet the article out to followers? I don’t know, but I’m excited to perform the research.

I also don’t know if the way I breakdown and categorize various buttons and badges into web action clusters is the same way someone else might instinctively group this information. But I do know how to solicit this type of information from others.

In the immediate future, @t and I will be solidifying more details on web actions, including performing some of the research I’ve mentioned above. I’ve started screenshoting a few of the web action examples I’ve come across, and I’ll add to this Flickr collection over time. I would encourage others to contribute their own with #webactions. Thoughts, questions, and positive discussions are always welcome.

Button arrays via icondock.com and webtoolkit4.me.

A More Visual Example of Web Actions

First: One button summarizes the root intention

Second: The visitor's preferred services for the action are shown

Third: The content is saved to the visitor's account with the option to edit accordingly

Fourth: The content is saved to the account

Creating a Ubiquitous Information Architecture and Designing Across Devices

Download the Egg Matrix Omnigraffle Alpha Version

Download the Egg Matrix PDF Alpha Version

The Egg Matrix is a tool for planning content, features, and scenarios when creating an information architecture that will exist across multiple devices and touch points.

Where Did the Idea Come From?

In college, I had an environmental design professor who described the field as such:

Architecture is the profession that designs the shell or the structure of the built environment. Interior design is the profession that designs the interactions and spaces inside that built environment. Landscape architecture is the profession that designs the space outside this structure.

Environmental design encompasses all three, studying our interactions with the built environment, how we move through it, how we move around it, how we integrate with the natural environment, and so on.

I always had the idea of an egg in my head, in part because he described architecture as being like a shell of sorts, and partially because we talked a lot about animal habitats and homes.

Environmental design is a human-centered design discipline that covers our physical surroundings. It considers the shared ecology between places and spaces, interiors and exteriors, the mechanic and the organic. Many of the same principles and ideals carry over into the digital space.

When the Digital World Spills Over into the Physical World

When we design for digital spaces today, it’s no longer safe to assume that the majority of our users will access our information from a similar static setup in an office or home. Digital information travels freely now between devices, locations, and online and offline habitats. In fact, it’s nearly impossible to know the context or situation that surrounds each of our users.

It also seems likely that even before we have mastered the art of designing across desktop and mobile platforms, we will find ourselves creating spaces in cars, kiosks, mirrors, table tops, refrigerators, and many other devices. There is no set of rules that tells us how to create the right mix of content and features so that our users will have a seamless experience whenever and wherever they access our information.

The Egg Matrix

The Egg Matrix is my attempt to create a tool for cataloging the different forces that should be considered when determining the architecture, features, and overall design of a multi-device experience. My hope is that it is flexible enough to be applicable to topical challenges, like designing for mobile vs desktop spaces, but that it also will encompass future needs, such as television or in-car apps.

The concept is simple. There is a subset of the experience (the egg) that you can directly control. You are responsible for the structure, the content, the messaging, and the interaction that goes into your design. There are also two equally important forces at play that contribute to the experience and overall success of what you’ve designed. There is the internal composition of the user (the yolk) and the extrinsic environment that the experience takes place in (the nest). You might be able to influence certain aspects of both areas, and you might be able to design around certain scenarios, but you’ll never be responsible for the creation of these realms.

By breaking each area down into individual factors, you’ll be able to create a better model for your structure. I’ve broken each field out into the initial factors that I thought were most crucial, but there is certainly room for expansion, refinement, and feedback.

Start with a single node of content, and build out from there. What features are needed to interact with that content? How often is the content accessed by the user? What possible contexts might the user be in when accessing the content? What belief systems might he or she be bringing to the experience?

The breakdown currently is as follows:
The Nest covers environment, location, context, and locomotion.
The Egg covers message, content, task, frequency, urgency, privacy, intimacy, tracking, and measurement.
The Yolk covers motivations, needs, desires, and knowledge.

You may find yourself creating multiple columns for a single content node to cover the array of possible touch points or devices your users might encounter.

I included a section called “messaging.” This may relate to a marketing campaign, a company brand message, or a common slogan. It’s important the spaces you design don’t contradict the messaging being broadcast to users.

I’ve also included fields for noting tracking and measurements. These are for listing how you plan to measure the experience and what measurement points you’re going to look for.

How Do You Know If The Model Is Working?

Like any other model, it has to be put into action and tested. Fortunately, this “model” can be tested in several ways. You can gather feed and ask questions of users. You can create a prototype to test. When you’re satisfied with the performance of a prototype, you can design the real deal, and then continue to make refinements with ongoing feedback.

I’ve listed the Egg Matrix worksheet here so that others can download it, play around with it, refine it, and provide feedback.

Download the Egg Matrix Omnigraffle Alpha Version

Download the Egg Matrix PDF Alpha Version

A Sheep Brain - From My Neuroscience Class in Collge

At the beginning of March, I had the pleasure of giving a talk on brain waves and technology at Portland State University as part of the Nuts & Bold Ideas seminar program. It’s always nice to spend a little time catching up on subjects I love but don’t get to deal with on a day-to-day basis. Inspiration for this topic came from my background in cognitive science and my interest in emerging technology.

I posted the slides over at Slideshare, however, out of context they have little value. So below is a summary of the information covered.

Medical Advances

As is typically the case, much of the early research exploring brain waves and neuronal implants sought to understand how the brain works and explore options for people who had suffered brain injuries or brain disabilities.

One specific area of interest and potential has been around memory loss and memory disorders. Would it be possible to develop a neural prosthetic that replaced the hippocampus and helped the patient form long-term memories? Such technology might be applied to patients with head traumas, strokes, and Alzheimer’s Disease.

Locked-in syndrome has been another area of interest. Perhaps technology could help patients who are paralyzed and not able to communicate express their thoughts through brainwaves. In this area, devices have been explored that allow patients to control robotic prostheses and devices that allow them to type out messages by moving a computer cursor.

From Rats to Monkeys to People

Over the past 20-30 years, research has progressed from initial studies of neuronal firings to experiments with rats and monkeys, all the way to preliminary work with people. Researchers set out to find ways to replicate certain brain activities using silicon brain implants. Many robust studies have been performed with monkeys; monkeys with silicon implants have been able to control computer mice over the internet, move a robotic arm to feed themselves, and keep a walking robot moving, all through the power of their thoughts.

One person who’s gotten a lot of attention from the media is Matthew Nagle. After being paralyzed from the neck down in an accident, Matthew is now the user of one of the most sophisticated brain-computer interfaces in existence. The cords implanted into his brain attach to a computer that allows him to play pong and practice drawing circles on the screen with his mind.

Playing with Brain Technology

Recently, several companies have developed consumer-facing EEG technology at a lower cost (and lower level of sophistication) than technology typically used in medical environments. This has opened the door for toys, hacks, and experiments powered by brain waves.

The Australian company Emotiv launched their Epoc EEG neuroheadset just over a year ago, and it’s currently the most sophisticated device for consumers (I have this one). Competing companies and products are the Neural Impulse Actuator (NIA) from OCZ and an EEG headset from Neurosky. The NIA from OCZ is a headband designed for heavy gamers. They use their thoughts to control actions in the game, rather than using a mouse or joystick for the movements. Neurosky stays competitive by licensing their technology out to other companies like Mattel, Sega, and Nokia, for games and device development.

Building Off the Mind

Using these tools as a springboard, new games have emerged and hackers have put together their own devices. Some researchers tweaked the NIA to work with a Roomba (robotic vacuum cleaner). When the wearer had happy thoughts, the Roomba scooted closer. If thoughts were more agitated, the Roomba spun away. Another researcher named Adam Wilson attracted attention after he hooked an EEG brain cap up and used it to send messages to Twitter by selecting characters from a computer interface.

The MindFlex game from Mattel uses Neurosky technology to move little balls around. The XWave is another creation built off Neurosky technology. This one proclaims to allow you to control apps on your phone via your thoughts while wearing the headset. Naturally of course, Mattel also released a Star Wars game built off the Neurosky.

A musician named Robert Schneider modified the MindFlex game from Mattel (Neurosky technology) and hooked it up to an analog synth that would play music based on mind activity.

Bigger Applications for Brainwaves

Intendix is a company that developed the EEG brain cap by Adam Wilson to tweet. Their technology allows the wearer to select characters from a computer screen in order to type. In addition to medical advances, this technology could be used by other researchers and commercial groups who want to explore and experiment with brainwaves as aspects of their studies or product developments.

Intel announced that they would like to have brain sensors developed by 2020 that could be implanted and would allow people to control and operated personal technology. If Intel integrated this technology throughout their product line, brain implants could become more common and widespread for consumer use.

While American car companies in Detroit have been playing around with possibilities for using an EEG headset to control things like radio stations, volume, and air conditioning, one research group in Germany went ahead and hooked an Emotiv up to a car. Their “braindriver” setup allows the user to control the steering wheel with thoughts alone.

The Government Funds Cyberkinetics

The US government has a history of sometimes funding projects related to cyberkinetic research. The government has contributed money to medical projects in this area, and the Department of Defense gave funding to the BrainGate software project. Even before the movie Avatar came out, people were brainstorming possible ways for soldiers to control and command robot fighters.

With Project Silent Talk, DARPA set aside $4 million in funding during 2010 to explore mental communication between soldiers. The idea behind the project was to create EEG maps of soldiers’ brain responses to certain military commands. With this information charted, it might be possible for soldiers to think commands and have the information translated and sent to other soldiers without direct communication.

Personal Uses of Mental Technology

If widespread brain technology were to become more of a reality, what could we expect? As we’ve already seen with the brain driving car and the neuro-controlled video games, some tasks might be completed hands-free. The catch here is that attention and mental control are still required.

Many people have speculated about a “telepathy chip.” While still theoretical, such a device might allow you to project your thoughts or feelings onto another user, and then receive feelings or thoughts back. This raises the question of whether we would be able to understand and interpret the various symbols and feelings floating around in each other’s heads. It also could lead to social problems. If you come home late on a Friday night and don’t want to have a brain sync with your spouse, what does that say?

With a brain implant, we might be able to gain augmented intelligence. Could we look up articles on Wikipedia or perform a Google search without anyone knowing?

Problems and Further Questions

If we were to implant chips into our brains and use them to transfer information wirelessly, it’s possible that these networks could be hacked. In fact, some researchers have already begun publicizing the fact that current technologies aren’t being designed with tight enough security and controls.

Brain implants are high cost and carry a high risk. Many of the most sophisticated non-invasive EEG readers also have a high cost and come with a lot of equipment that must be moved around. With the high cost attached, what if brain augmentation became a realm only accessible by the wealthy?

The most accurate information about our brains comes from silicon chips implanted in the brain or placed directly on top of the brain and underneath the skull. Data coming in from the less invasive EEG caps has to travel through your skull to get picked up, which can make a weak signal weaker. Some researchers have said that because of the limitations involved, devices utilizing EEG technology are near a dead-end. They may never be able to develop the high spatial resolution needed to further applications.

On a philosophical level, brain implant technology might be hard to get widely accepted. Oxford philosopher Bernard Williams said that, just like people initially had a hard time with heart transplants because the heart belonged to someone else and because it carries strong symbolism, brain prosthetics might be difficult for some to accept. The brain controls our identity and personality. If we change it or modify it too much, what becomes of our Self?

To explore the immediate future of brain-computer interfaces, the XPrize committee has said they’ll explore a BCI XPrize. First they must determine what this kind of challenge might look like, how long it would take to develop the technology, and which organizations are best set up to complete a BCI XPrize challenge.

If you made it this far, you might also be interested in the Ignite talk I gave.

More Resources

In no particular order, some articles on brains and technology.

A Mind-Controlled Musical Instrument | PSFK

Electric Mind Trailer | Singularity Hub

The Next Hacking Frontier:  Your Brain? | Wired

Scientists Develop Brain Chip | BBC

Chips Coming to a Brain Near You | Wired

Brain Computer Interfacing: From Prosthetic Limbs to Telepathy Chips | H+

Innovation: Mind Reading Devices Will Change Your Brain | New Scientist

Twitter Telepathy | Wired

Monkey Think, Robot Do | Scientific American

Intel: Chips in Brains Will Control Computers by 2020 | ComputerWorld

The Memory Hacker | PopSci

Mind Control | Wired

Igniting a Brain-Computer Interface Revolution – BCI X Prize | Singularity Hub

Intendix, The Brain Computer Interface Goes Commercial | Singularity Hub

Uploading for Life Extension will be Valid | IEET

Hacking the Brain: Brain to Computer Interface Hardware Moves from the Realm of Research | EDN

Researchers Tweak Roomba to Respond to Emotions | Wired

Mindful Motion: Miguel Nicolelis and Mind-Powered Robots; and Creating Science Cities in Brazil and Beyond | Scientific American

Mattel Introduces Mind Controlled Game | PSFK

Changing Brain Waves to Action | Seattle Times

Thinking About It | The Economist

First thing first, I love Delicious. I’ve saved selected links on the bookmarking site every day for years, building up a collection of wonderful things that I rarely, if ever, go back to look at. What I’m really doing here is hoarding information. Before Delicious, I saved a lot of bookmarks in my browser. It took time to keep things organized and categorized, but information management is important.

However, as the wonderful world of technology evolved, I went from using one computer, to using two, and then three. And low and behold, people came up with more than one browser that worked on a Mac, and suddenly I had bookmarks saved all over the place. I still did my part to try and keep things organized in a singular location, but even structural unity can’t always survive complete hard drive wipeouts. And I’ve crashed hard drives a few too many times. There is little worse than knowing you’ve lost incredibly important information, but you have no idea what it was.

Enter a little online service whose domain name hack I could never type right. Delicious solved the problem of multiple computers, multiple browsers, and multiple crashes. As a bonus – and a high point for me – Delicious had a tagging classification system. This service solved my bookmarking problems and amassed a wealth of data on how humans classify information.

When Yahoo not-so-publically announced their plans to sunset Delicious, I was very disappointed. Like many other users, I think the information contained within the bookmarking platform is incredibly rich and interesting. While the site is still up and running for now, I have stopped saving things as often, and I’ve fiddled around with various open source installs of bookmarking alternatives. And today I turned on Voyurl.

Voyurl is not a Delicious replacement, but that’s not what they’re trying to be. It is, however, a collection of links from other users. Namely, it’s every single link you browsed. Voyurl is one of several new services that have been dubbed “real-time clickstream sharing.” It’s not edited, it’s not classified, and it’s not curated by the user – at least, not initially. As the name suggests, Voyurl offers a voyeuristic look at every site you browsed and how long you spent there, open and streaming for all users to see.

Sound a little creepy? I think the Voyurl team is playing to that angel. Sound a little intriguing? It is.

For all the privacy trolls out there, it’s an opt-in service. You physically click a button to signal that you’re willing to share your browsing behaviors. I imagine however, that it’s pretty easy to forget that the little button is clicked on as you are going about your day online.

What is Voyurl exactly? At present, the startup is a beta service that is funded, in part, by a Kickstarter project and known by some for the stalker ads they ran on Google this past summer. Once you’re a member of the site, you download a Firefox plugin, turn the plugin on in your browser, and then bounce about the internet as usual. All the sites you visit and the links you click on quietly get stored away in your Voyurl account.

If all that sounds less than captivating, here’s the juicy part: Once you log into your account, you get a real-time stream of every page you visited, along with info on how long you were on the page. And…you can see the same for all the other members.
Click on the eyeball icon (yes, it’s an eyeball) and there’s your voyeur view of everything members are looking at. You can drill down and see specific individuals’ streams, scope out their profiles (if they’ve filled one out), and check out any interesting links. As good website people know, users spend 99% of their time online not at your site (unless you’re Facebook). Now you can peak at the other sites they’re hitting.

It gets better (or worse, depending on where you stand). There are stats of all the links that have been visited by Voyurl members. Marketers and data nerds should take a gander, because you can sort by top users, top categories, and top URLs. Everything is split up by both time on site and number of total visits. If you were wondering, the top site – by both time on site and number of total visits – is….Facebook. Twitter and Google Reader fall in shortly there after.

I can see immense possibilities for gathering a little competitive and demographic insight from just poking around in the links and clickstreams, but right now the “sample size” of users is very small and skewed toward the, “I like early-adopter tech startup beta stuff” crowd. If that’s your market, it looks like your users are into Facebook, NYT breaking news, Twitter, more Facebook, Tumblr, Hacker News, fantasy football, and Facebook.

There are still some bugs and oddities about the site. There’s a sidebar for filtering links by a whole list of categories, but so far when I’ve selected options, nothing has happened. Links are being assigned categories and they’re color-coded by group. There are some navigational things that could be cleaned up, and some icons aren’t exactly clear until your start clicking on things.

You can click on links in the stream to get to a page with a screenshot and various stats, like who first visited the site, and how many times it’s been visited and favorited. There is also the option to add tags to links, although this feature is so buried that I doubt it will gain the same level of usage as a site like Delicious.

Overall, I find Voyurl interesting to poke around in but less useful for finding quality information. There isn’t currently a strong way to filter out the signal from the noise, and I really don’t care how many pages of Facebook pictures everyone looked at and how long people spent playing CityVille. When I first logged in, there weren’t many users but most seemed to be from the New York area. Now I’m seeing more users, but almost all have updated their settings to be anonymous.

For those that aren’t anonymous, it’s pretty easy to grab that user name and location and tie the person back to their Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and so on. The site also grabs whatever is in the page title, so even if you’re set to “anonymous,” I’ve seen a fair number of email addresses and usernames for various sites go by.

If you’re interested in trying out Voyurl yourself, I have three invites. Hit the comments if you want one.

The Top Categories Page

The Top URLs Page

Everyone's Links in the Real-Time Stream

A User's Profile Shows a Stream of Links

The Link Page for Facebook

When I stumbled across it a year ago, I immediately loved the Japanese band SOUR’s music video “Hibi No Neiro.” The video was created by BBH agency for a minimal budget and went on to win many awards and become a viral success.

The magic of that video was the use of fan-submitted webcam shots and the clever choreography that pulled them together. As often happens with original and ingenious ideas, rips-offs soon appeared. Pepsi produced a commercial for their Pepsi Refresh Project that was surprisingly unrefreshing with its many similarities.

With its interactive and social media ties, I’m surprised I didn’t hear about SOUR’s new video until now. Their latest video, for their single “Mirror,” was released December 9th. The video follows the trail set by Arcade Fire’s HTML5 browser video experiment this past fall. Where Arcade Fire customized the “We Used to Wait” video with Google Streetview images based on the viewer’s location, SOUR brings you into “Mirror” by connecting to your social networks first.

Designed by the New York side of Wieden + Kennedy and funded with $5,000 raised through Kickstarter, “Mirror” is a fun media experience. To start, you can connect your Twitter account, your Facebook account, and your computer’s web camera. The interactive video shows off some of the features of HTML5 (best to view it on Safari or Chrome), and brings in images from your social accounts, from web pages where your name is listed (mine got www.erinjorichey.com and my LinkedIn profile), and from Google maps of your listed location.

Check it out and enjoy the fun.

Mirror by SOUR

Beautiful Data: The Stories Behind Elegant Data Solutions

As Google Director of Research Peter Norvig says in his essay on data for a natural language corpus, “Most of this book deals with data that is beautiful in the sense of Baudelaire: ‘All which is beautiful and noble is the result of reason and calculation.’”  Admittedly, Beautiful Data isn’t the book I expected, but it was captivating nonetheless.

Based mainly on its title and cover image, I anticipated Beautiful Data would be something more like Jonathan Harris meets a college math book.  However, the book is neither filled with visual representations of information, nor is it heavy on the equations. Rather, it’s a collection of individual essays all loosely tied to the topic of data usage.

Don’t look for how-tos, lectures, or any mechanics.  This book is the liberal arts version of computer science.  Thirty-nine individuals, each with varying degrees of experience and all covering an array of industries, present stories on how they use data and how data have influenced their work.  Their case studies and examples sometimes touch on the philosophy of data and analysis and occasionally are intimate portrayals of the marvels and shortcomings experienced when dealing with information.

Offering alluring glimpses into the projects and data centers of organizations like Facebook and Google, graduate student research, and the making of a Radiohead music video, these are stories of data experiences.  Beautiful Data feels a bit like bedtime reading for the data scientist, statistician, or programmer.  When you’re done going through the stacks, logs, and code of the day, choose a story and learn how other people are capturing, moving, and understanding bits of information.

I began with the essay on applying aspects of user experience to data collection, “Beautiful People: Keeping Users in Mind When Designing Data Collection Methods.”  The story starts with the notion that researchers can often get better data from users who don’t specifically know that they are being surveyed.  For those times when a researcher must explicitly ask users to complete a survey in order to gather valuable data, the authors go through a case study on designing a demographic survey to collect perceptions of luxury products.

I enjoyed the essay from Jeff Hammerbacher, the once data manager at Facebook and now founder of Cloudera.  More than just an inside look at the struggles Facebook encountered as its databases expanded during the site’s rise to popularity, the essay, “Information Platforms and the Rise of the Scientist,” is the story of how Hammerbacher went from a 17 year old hiding out in his local library to a research scientist at Facebook, despite his “potentially suboptimal background.”

Returning to Peter Norvig, his piece “Natural Language Corpus Data” has a mundane title but is an essay I wish I could have read in college while I was deep in linguistic corpora and word frequencies.  In amazingly straightforward terms, Norvig breaks down what a linguistic data corpus is and what kind of information the Google n-gram corpus holds.  More technical than many of the essays, Norvig does include the Python and calculations specific to his discussions, but non-programmers should be able to skip through the more technical details and still come away with a strong understanding of the ideas.  As Norvig explains of the data points in the Google corpus, it isn’t merely the collection and aggregation of data that makes it beautiful; “The data is beautiful because it represents much of what is worth saying.”

Beautiful Data: The Stories Behind Elegant Data Solutions is published by O’Reilly Media.  You can purchase a copy from O’Reilly, Amazon, or other book sellers.  I received a free download of this book from O’Reilly to write this review but I chose the book based on my own interests in data and analysis.

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Library science majors rejoice, now you can catalog your personal collection stamp a due date on each book your friends try to steal.  It really has an ink pad, a stamp, and library book cards / sleeves.

Random Geometry Wallpaper

From Hermitage

$128.00

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Please put this wallpaper in your office, and then hang the above wall calendar over it.  Your clients might go insane.

Flowchart of the Holidays

Greeting Card

$4.50

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If you’re only going to give someone a card, it might as well be good.  What are you doing for the holidays?  Just  follow the chart.

Everything Explained Through Flowcharts

The Book

$11.55

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Even the Table of Contents is a flowchart.

16 Months Worth of Drawing Exercises in Microsoft Excel

By Danielle Aubert

$47.50

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No actual drawing exercises or Excel tutorials here, but the author spent 16 months using Excel to create various pieces of art.  Thought R was fun? Check out these Excel pieces.

Map Art Prints

Hand-Drawn City Prints

$35.00

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Inked by hand with little lines, these city prints map out the streets of famous cities.  Choose from Portland, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Rome, Madrid, and more.

City Neighborhood Posters

Ork Posters

$22.00

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I first saw these in a friend’s apartment. She had one for each city she’d lived in: Portland, Los Angeles, and Seattle.  The posters squish the names of the different city districts into areas into the areas they cover.

Nonsensical Infographics

Art Without The Math

$20.00 +

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These pictures (four in all) from artist Chad Hagen show the beauty of infographics without the mess of trying to understand what they actually mean.  They’d also look great in my house.

When Google announced their new visual search website for designer fashion, Boutiques.com, I took a look at the complementary iPad app they also released.  As the Boutiques.com website is positioned as a direct competitor to the site ShopStyle, I thought it only fair to take a look at their iPad app as well.

ShopStyle iPad App Main Screen

Launched in 2006, ShopStyle aggregates fashion from a variety of online retailers, both department stores and boutiques.  The company was acquired by Sugar Inc and became part of the Sugar suite of media sites.  ShopStyle continues to attract users who can browse through clothing from a variety of stores, create their own style lookbooks, and follow the inspiration of others.  ShopStyle widgets promote products on bloggers’ websites and on the Glam network.  The experience is curated discovery mixed with directed browsing.

Browsing through the Clothing Category

The iPad app, which came out this summer, puts the browsing experience into users’ hands.  It’s a sleek interface that quickly takes you into different categories for clothing, footwear, accessories, and more.

Browsing Products on the ShopStyle iPad App

The Product Details Screen

Here are my thoughts on the app:

iPad App Pros

• It’s very easy to quickly narrow in on the type of product you’re looking for.  Categories are straightforward, and there are a variety of refinement options for things like brand, store, price, color, etc.
• It has a clean modern interface that looks nice on the iPad.

iPad App Cons

• It’s not social.  The ShopStyle website has components for creating and exploring lookbooks, following users, and checking out curated trends.  All of that is missing from the app.
• The app interface may be easy to navigate, but once you leave the product details screen for the product page on the retailer’s site, you’re stuck with an experience that isn’t mobile-optimized.

You may also want to check out the previous post on the Boutiques.com iPad app.

This past summer, Google acquired visual search company Like.com, leaving many to wonder whether Google would soon be applying this pattern recognition technology to Google Product Search.  Yesterday we saw the result of that acquisition.  Google launched new site Boutiques.com along with a matching iPad app.

The main screen of the iPad app lets you browse through style collections or "Boutiques."

Like.com began as a comparison shopping website that differentiated itself by focusing on “visual search.”  Unlike other comparison sites, the primary focus was all on apparel, with an emphasis on fashion for women.  Adding aspects of discoverability into the search and browse process, Like users could sort through products by choosing colors and shapes.  Select one blue hobo purse and the results would bring back any other similar blue hobo purses.  As a merchant, I began using Like.com in 2008, but the technology and interface were still rough and the backend reporting was almost non-existent.

Once you've selected a boutique, images of the fashion inspiration are above and relevant products can be browsed through below.

The release of Boutiques.com is a different step for Google.  The site is very un-Googley.  As a fashion and celebrity oriented site limited only to women’s clothing, purses, and accessories, Boutiques places itself as a formidable competitor to ShopStyle.  ShopStyle, a social shopping site that was acquired by Sugar Inc in 2007, has a similar focus and demographic.  Users create trendboards or lookbooks based on their favorite styles and celebrities.  Designer fashions from all the major retailers and smaller boutiques are pulled into the site, and users can group items together and search styles.  ShopStyle launched originally with just women’s fashion in the US, but has since expanded to include Men’s, Kid’s, Home, and other countries.  They also have an iPad app.

Select a product and the details for that item open in an overlay above the main screen. Other products that are "visually similar" are presented below the product details.

I decided to go through the Boutiques.com iPad app to check out the features and functionalities.  The session was recorded with my iPad usability testing camera (first prototype).  The camera is the funny looking thing in front of my face.

After exploring the iPad app a bit, here are my impressions.

iPad App Pros

• The visual search technology seems much improved from the older Like.com days and the interface is more modern and clean than anything Like.com ever had.
• You can refine products displayed by color, fabric pattern, price, and style.  I like the treatment of the popups that allow you to choose your refinements.
• When you select your product type (shoes, tops, etc), a drop-down shows all the possible silhouettes or styles for that type of item.  Just choose V-neck, blouse, tank, etc from the list and all matching products will show up.
• The interface, in general, is clean and modern feeling.

iPad App Cons

• When you tap a product, a product detail opens in an overlay.  After tapping out of the overlay to get back to the main site, the app crashed everytime.
• The app is designed for users to browse via style collections or “boutiques.”  That’s fine if you want to browse through fashion like a magazine, but if you’re actually on the hunt for a specific type of clothing, there’s no way to initially begin narrowing down by product or designer.
• The app wants to make personalized product recommendations based on your style interests and wants you to follow other users and create your own “boutiques.”  I don’t have any interest in logging in to the app and creating a new account, especially if I can’t do it from my existing Google account or through Twitter OAuth.
• From the browse screen, the interface tells you the designer, but you have no idea who is selling it until you pull up the product detail.  Even then, I didn’t notice the merchant listed until after playing with the app for awhile.
• The interface is only horizontal.  I really would have preferred it if the app had been designed to work in either viewing mode.

Interested in how Google’s iPad fashion app compares to the rest of the market?  I’ve also posted a comparison with the ShopStyle iPad app.