imagining interactions

Design ( & Design Teaching ) - 2

2016-02-02T22:52:00.002-08:00

I totally believe that a designer must strive hard to ensure that his/her design be on the side of the social good. As a designer one should understand what impact a good or bad design can make in the society. This will not happen accidentally. At student level, designer has to be introduced to such thought process. It should be an integral part of the design education.

Design & Teaching. Both are extremely responsible professions.
Being a good designer & being a good design teacher are two totally different things.
A good designer need not to be a good design teacher and vice versa.
To make someone understand vague & abstract design concepts, requires different type of skill sets.

I believe, a design teacher has to be receptive.
He/She must be a truth seeker. An open minded person who respects questioning.
That leads to the readiness to find answers.

I believe that pragmatic style of teaching is most effective in terms of helping students to grasp a concept completely.

For a design student, its important to understand the fundamental concepts & theories thoroughly rather than trying to be an expert. At student level, it makes a lot of sense to explore different domains rather than narrowing down on one particular skill set.That will be too early.

Design - 1

2016-02-02T04:13:00.000-08:00

“That which exists may be transformed
What is nonexistent has boundless uses”
- LAO-TSE

As per my understanding, very infrequently, design investigates the nature of already existing phenomenon. Rather, design inquiries strive to add new meaning to life by exploring values in nature which doesn’t yet exist. This sheer possibility to explore something that does not yet exist & the capability to bring constructive transformation in human life excites me as a designer.

Uncertainties in everyday life, complex social, cultural and economical pressures while accepting and appreciating design & technology and the friction between these pressures inspires and engages me as a designer.

Design for the need is anytime more beautiful than design for wants.
I share Victor Papaneck’s belief — “ the most important ability that a designer can bring to his work is the ability to recognise, isolate, define, and solve problems.”

A great amount of satisfaction lies in the process of actually building the product & not just in imagining or conceptualising it. While building a prototype, one can investigate the true nature of the design solution.

Design in corporate IT firms (especially indian IT firms) is a different setup altogether as compared to the academic design research. Interacting with the stakeholders, balancing between the business & the user goals, quick ideations, wire-framing, collaborating with development & business/marketing teams to bring the design to the reality, evaluating & maintaining as it goes live. Almost every corporate designer has to follow these crucial steps.

< ... continue >

SMART TV: a brief on domain

2012-02-16T00:41:00.000-08:00

It won’t be incorrect if I claim that, Television Set, popularly known as TV, is the most seamlessly merged technological product all over the world.

For sure, this statement is true, if analyzed in Indian Context. Ever since the national telecast was introduced in early 80’s, TV has become the most favorite entertainment device in Indian household.

Back then, it was an ‘Audio-Visual Miracle’ for almost every layer of society. As Percy H. Tannenbaum stated, phenomenon of entertainment doesn't take place in vacuum & rather it has to be consider as a sociological enterprise [1]. Along with food, shelter and clothing, entertainment has always been a latent yet strong need of any flourishing society. This need is visible across different socio-economical layers & limitations. Till date, TV has catered this need most successfully.

Broadcasting different TV-channels was the sole function of this device until the recent past when it became SMART by shaking hands with The Internet!

Current form of Smart TV can be defined as a TV with capability to connect itself to the internet with or without intermediary devices.

SMART TV: A new device all together?

By allowing a TV set to talk with the internet, technology is trying to provide a wider gate way for web content & web services to enter into our household. Contents & services, which were originally developed for desktops, laptops and other internet enabled mobile devices, are now accessible through a SMART TV. Dedicated applications designed & developed for these SMART TV sets try to provide a TV-specific internet usage experience. TV remotes now bear dedicated buttons to switch to these applications & then to interact with them.

I believe, current version on SMART TV doesn't give a feeling of an entirely new device or an unknown object. It holds all traditional TV watching experience in one section and its new internet based capabilities are clustered in another section. It is a very simple mental model that user has to generate to understand SMART TV.

This model is flexible enough to allow traditional TV viewer to interact with SMART TV without hesitation or without learning new skills. In-fact, user can totally skip newly gained Smartness of this device and stick to the tradition TV watching experience.

But question is, does that how it supposed to be?

If yes then why we strive hard to add this smartness?

I suggest that this newly added smartness should calmly lie behind the current TV viewing experience, latently active to enhance the experience. While keeping the TV viewing experience intact, there should not be a must to perform ‘switching action’ to make use of internet capabilities.

Mental Model in current SMART TV:

Proposed Model:

In proposed model Internet capabilities lie behind & enhance the TV viewing experience

Enhancing The Experience by hiding the technology:

Interaction with a television set is considered as ‘lean back relaxing’ interaction. And that’s how it should be!

User must be least bothered about the technology while using net based services on a SMART TV. It should not interrupt user’s TV viewing experience.

I quote Mark wiser here “the most profound technologies are those that disappear” [6]. According to Dourish & Bell’s interpretation of word ‘disappear’, it suggests that technology should not force people to spend too much time to interact with it and rather allow user to get things done quickly [7]. Smartness of technology lies in simplifying lives while enhancing the pleasure [2].

Serendipity in Messiness:

Predicted scenarios for SMART TV usage show a glossy futuristic picture. It doesn't at all reflect the messiness in which these devices eventually land, in different countries and cultures.

As mentioned above people are well acquainted with traditional TV usage. Newly added smartness must strive to enhance their experience. It should appear as a happy & helpful accident.

Content generation:

It has always been the interesting new content broadcasted on TV that has popularized TV as a device among households.

Applications generated for SMART TV should take up the responsibility to generate interest among users. Eventually these net based apps will bring smartness to the TV.

Users & Adaptation to new Technology:

Considering the current version of SMART TV, another debatable question arises, which is - Should SMART TV then be considered as a ‘disruptive technology’? , something that changes the entire course of industry! It’s an important question because as claimed by Donald Norman such technologies though being difficult and painful to introduce, will eventually not only succeed but also dominate [2].

The risk I see in it is, it will ask user to scratch out its TV viewing knowledge & experience s/he gained over the years and this could affect and extend the early adaptation phase.

The change in customer as a technology matures [3]

From the entertainment perspective, with HD video, crystal clear sound & flat screens available in affordable prices, TV viewing experience has reached to its saturation. Average user is satisfied with technology embedded in a TV set.

If introduced as a disruptive technology, the challenge will be to cross the ‘Chasm’ successfully. Mobile phones managed to cross this chasm very smoothly as they satisfied a very basic socioeconomically need of society i.e. being able to communicate with each other irrespective of spatial & locomotive limitations.

To keep the threshold low innovators should try to cater to the very basic need with better experience, rather than providing thousand different services in this entertainment unit.

< we are trying to put SMART TV in UPPER RIGHT quadrant

< current TV experience is in LOWER RIGHT quadrant

The need-satisfaction curve of technology [3]

We need to clearly defined & decided whether we see SMART TV as a next generation entertainment hub or yet another information appliance with internet as its brain or rather combination of both!

Human is very receptive to new information and considering the internet penetration in developing nations like India, certainly there is a scope for introducing internet to unattended audience through TV sets.

But I believe, people don’t want a Computer on their walls!

After mobile phone revolution, SMART TV might show us a new dimension of ‘Ubiquitous/Calm Computing’. [6]

References:

[1] ‘The entertainment functions of Television’, Percy H. Tannenbaum

[2] The Invisible Computer, Donald A. Norman
[3]http://jnd.org/dn.mss/the_life_cycle_of_a_technology_why_it_is_so_difficult_for_large_companies_to_innovate.html

[4] http://www.livemint.com/2010/04/22003237/India-will-have-90-pay-TV-pen.html

[5] http://www.international-television.org/tv_market_data/indian-pay-tv.html

[6] Scientific American 1991,78

[7] Divining a digital future, Paul Dourish and Genevieve bell.

'Mind Games'

2011-02-21T21:03:00.000-08:00

'Ergonomics of Mind'! A term coined by Jef Raskin (initiator of MacBook project at Apple).

Physical limitations of human body are thoroughly gauged in Ergonomics. Branch of (Tangible) Product Design is well equipped with clearly defined design guidelines. No wonder, as great number of inventions interact with human physically reality,be it a door handle or a car steering.

But there are different kind of products that don't consume attention of our physical selves only and rather deals with our MIND. Example?...mobile apps & websites etc...Softwares,I am talking about.

As a designer of such products one has to understand rules & limitations of HUMAN MINDS. Thats where study of COGNITION comes to help. Study of how human acquires knowledge & understand 'things' through senses, experiences, thoughts, action etc. Its an extensive field & one can spend years exploring it. It consists some very vague but important topics like Human Intuition & Perception.

Raskin claims & proves that there are certain obvious HUMAN COGNETIC LIMITATIONS which if ignored will surely make negative impact on your design. These limitations are common to all humans irrespective of age, gender, location, education etc.

In HCI we have to cater to a huge number of users with all possible varieties. Along with other differences user’s task related needs differ too. While working with such varied factors if users share some COMMON MENTAL ATTRIBUTES, which if explored before trying to serve DIFFERENCES AMONG INDIVIDUALS, can minimize our work load & provide us some common ground to work up on.

Raskin has separated these limitations in two sets titled as Cognitive Conscious & Cognitive Unconscious. Each of it studied across some commonly shared properties like, When it gets invoked? How long it persists? What is the capacity? How it operates? etc. For example in non routine situations decisions will be taken consciously while humans can perform repetitive tasks unconsciously.

Recently while working on a project that deals with IVR on mobile phones I found this study of Cognitive Limitations very useful. IVR includes branching of a task. You need to press correct num-pad key (number) to reach to the desired information which might be buried deep down in menu hierarchy. And this is how you navigate. So far no visual feedback is available. User can get lost in IVR’s branched menu system very easily.

In such situations, it helps to design with the understanding that ‘branching tasks takes users continuos conscious attention’.
Conscious memory fades out in just few seconds so its very obvious to keep number of options in a menu not more than seven(which is considered to be the maximum capacity of this type of memory) that too with precise wording.(I am not asking to use less words but just enough to help user to understand the option clearly )

Selecting/choosing an option directly from list of options by pressing associated button on mobile num-pad is easier than answering an question as Yes or No (again by pressing buttons on num-pad but there will be just two options at a time!) to make a selection, because it shifts our ‘locus of attention’ form task of choosing(which is our primary task in any IVR) to finding a correct answer to a question.( that too when we don’t know where the wrong answer will take us!)

I am still studying & exploring these cognitive limitations. I believe it helps me to understand user’s behavior & adapt my design accordingly.

*A must read book

Human Interface, The: New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems

By Jef Raskin

Physics for Interaction Design ? ?

2010-03-02T09:05:00.000-08:00

...

'Theory of relativity' is for large objects.. stars, planets etc, 'Quantum physics ' is for small particles..electron etc & INTERACTION DESIGN is for humans ! :D

....Ohh i miss physics... just had a long conversation on quantum physics with this brilliant dude who lives next too me ..& I realized how much i miss studying physics. I was trying find out how Interaction Design can borrow some principles, designs etc from this extensive & very practical world of physics...well i don't know whether we can do that or not but now at least I can show you ...or should i say I can teach you ;) how electrons behave irregularly & what's the problem in interacting with such uncertain object!

Its very easy! Just imagine a keyboard where every key changes its position after every hit on a key...! Imagine typing with such a random keyboard :)

cya

Algorithms, Heuristics & AI....

2010-01-22T10:20:00.000-08:00

Following are excerpts from two books I have been reading recently. I found it interesting, as I believe they lead me to my favorite field of AI.

Both authors are talking about decision-making process or problem solving methods. First one focuses on Humans where as second one emphasizes on problem solving methods of computer systems. I think following excerpts throw light on some of the very basic human behaviors, which I would like to test & follow as an interaction designer, while
designing authentic experiences such as augmented reality,

I hope it will be a good reference for at least some of you

Book Title:- “ UNDERSTANDING HUMAN COGNITION BEHAVIOR”

Rules of logic don’t work very well in poorly defined situations. And most real world problems are, unfortunately very poorly defined

Algorithms & Heuristics

To find a solution to a problem we use these two approaches

Algorithms are

- exact rules

- step-by-step procedure

- precise

- always same for a particular condition

Heuristics are
- - loosely defined rules along with the knowledge of when to use them
- - the more knowledge you have about the situation the more precise the heuristic can become.

The ability of human being to cope up with the real world situations depends primarily on the use of heuristics & not algorithms.

Human beings using heuristics may not realize they are following any kind of rule; they might describe their behavior as going by “intuition” or “the seat of their pants”…however chances are that in the same situation they would do the same thing. And if they repeat a successful heuristic often enough it may become a conscious “rule-of-thumb”

- Heuristics get better with experiences

Book Title:- “HCI REMIXED.”

Chapter: “Interaction is the future of computing”

(P. Wegner 1997) – Michel Beaudouin-Lafon

...Church’s thesis, the corner stone of computer science states that everything a computer can do is reducible to what can be done by a human
finite-state Turing machine. Wegner shows that Church’s thesis may hold in the closed world of an algorithm that reads its input, shuts down from outside world while it computes its results, and then spits it out. But it can not hold in an open system that that harnesses the power of its environment by interacting with it as it runs, because the environment provides an endless stream of unpredictable events that can’t be reduced to an algorithm. ….
…. formal proofs of software systems that interact with their environments are impossible unless one makes strong assumptions about their environment, typically reducing it to an algorithmic behavior.

...I hope I would elaborate further on these excerpts, very soon...

Merge it seamlessly...

2009-11-21T07:41:00.000-08:00

A portable color printer "picturemate PM 270" by Epson has allowed a totally illiterate below poverty line person in Mumbai , Haji Ali to invent a new business of mobile photoshop.

Machine has small touch screen control panel with menus written in english.

Slots to insert memory cards into machine.

This particular operator, was handling two machines(kept on Coca-Cola's empty container... Man! this coke thing is everywhere ;)) simultaneously with around 5-10 memory cards from 4 different instant photographers present at the sea shore.He was continuously surrounded with customers waiting for their photographs.

That sophisticated printing machine got embedded in these peoples life seamlessly.

I am not sure whether these people were the intended user of this machine or not but they found a meaning in it & converted this product into a useful resource to improve their living...

“Designers has to design artifacts with at least some expectation of their use ….

…but designers are continually surprised by the way their artifacts have used or

the way in which they are incorporated into the activities of user “

- Paul Daurish

Small Screen: It’s not that Small!

2009-11-07T06:46:00.001-08:00

...plz allow me to continue writing in the context of mobile web browsing :)

The most popular limitation of mobile-phone web browsing is Mobile's small display area(as compare to desktop/laptop screen). I agree that it affects browsing a lot & we need to deal with it smartly.

Mobile phone users are broadly satisfied with its screen size, though they would always like to have a bigger screen size which will be handy too. Have you ever heard any mobile user complaining,"Hey, I would like to type my SMS on desktop screen first!"

But when it comes to internet browsing mobile phone's LIMITED display area becomes an issue!

Why?...because we are not treating it with proper respect! :)

As as far as web browsing is concerned, by desperately pushing large web pages into mobile screen, just to give desktop browsing experience, we are not doing any justice to mobile screen.

Even safari browser for iPhone shows a zoomed out picture of home page when you opens a web site in it. Its a bird’s eye view of that page on desktop screen. One can hardly perceive blurred text & scaled down images. If you are familiar with the page then this view helps you to navigate within page or else you have to zoom in & out to browse, which is really frustrating.

I would like to quote Michael Mace here - “ A Mobile Phone is not a computer. It has all the technology inside that a computer have, but its fundamentally different due to not only its size but also the way its used ”. So rather than just focusing on smaller screen size we should strive to understand the context of mobile usage.

Mobile Web Applications for Gmail, Facebook delivers mobile specific interactions smoothly by properly optimizing there content, services to mobile screen size & delivers satisfactory experience on mobile phone.

So lets not think that its a smaller display area..Instead you can say that we have limited display area...that's what all we have...& think again before calling it as a limitation! If we compare physical dimensions then obviously mobile phone screens are David to desktop monitor Goliath & to win the battle choice of weapon is very important :)

/* I found above image here */

Web Browsing Experience For Mobile phone!

2009-11-05T02:09:00.000-08:00

Human being is very receptive to information.

Fast & instant access to information affects our decisions making process.

And I believe that with its ‘Mobile’ & ‘Always On’ capability mobile phones can cater this need of information very effectively.

Its my assumption that, soon there will be a generation of Internet users who will be introduced to web browsing through mobile phones & not on a desktop computer.

Exactly like my generation started using mobile phones with hardly any preconceptions developed because of land line phone usage. Mobile penetration has already outnumbering televisions 3-to-1 and PCs by more than 4-to-1. 40% of all Internet users having mobile Internet access(IDC)

In may 2009 when I have started researching for my project on Mobile Web Browsing I found that Every other mobile handset producer, Internet/service provider & browser developer promises the 'Exact Desktop Web Browsing experience' on mobile phone.

And they mean it! They are following all desktop web browsing metaphors like tab, bookmarks, history etc. & trying to implement them as it is in a mobile browser!

Google used the term 'Full Web Experience' to explain Android's web browsing capability.

Web has changed drastically in last decade. Consumer of web now generating content for web. People are not only browsing but also uploading video, images, making comments, playing games, chatting with each other. Web has became important medium for socializing. Now web is more than HTML+ Java Script + CSS.

First time after the invention of WWW, in the form of Mobile phones we have a widely accepted, easily accessible platform (as compare to desktop) to access web.

We have varied web content & a totally new platform to access this new web.

These things didn’t exist when the 1st browser was created. So rather than desperately trying to give exact desktop web browsing experience on mobile phones, I think, it makes more sense to start from scratch & design a totally new experience considering this new web content & mobile phone’s needs limitations & advantages.

Imagining interactions ...

2009-07-21T09:26:00.000-07:00

There is this book on my desk "Imagining India" by Nandan Nilekani, tempting me to stop my p2 work & finish it...well my Blog's name came from this book...