14 June 2007 – I was recently “meme tagged” by Susie, author of the terrific blog susiej.com … a meme tag is a kind of rolling writing assignment that you pass on to other people. And somehow all the cross-linking benefits everyone’s Google visibility. So here, by request, are Eight Things I Know:

1. It’s all about Family - and you get to choose your Family
2. The camera doesn’t lie, but it doesn’t tell the truth either
3. Can’t decide? Go for the one that makes your heart beat faster
4. The time to leave a job is when it has no more to teach you
5. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
   what is essential is invisible to the eye. (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

6. You’re only as good a driver (or ______) as you are at THIS MOMENT
7. Compassion exercise: imagine yourself in the place of the one who is suffering
8. The Universe experiences itself through you

Not sure who to tag with this, but instead of eight people I’ll go for just two for now, my old friend Ruben at slouching toward lumbini… and the enigmatic Marcus at BigBlackCat

28 May 2007 – Bad design has been a lifelong pet peeve of mine, and I’m usually quick to blame industrial designers, software programmers, and marketing mavens for making life unnecessarily irksome for consumers. But, just as TV viewers’ tastes encourage network execs to greenlight stupid shows, it may be that consumers, by demanding products with ever more features, are ensuring that those products will be difficult – often impossible – to use.

James Surowieki, in the 28 May 2007 New Yorker, says that companies are struggling with the conflicting demands of consumers, who, as shoppers, prefer feature-heavy, complicated products, and then, as users, require simplicity.

“It seems odd that we don’t anticipate feature fatigue and thus avoid it. But, as numerous studies have shown, people are not, in general, good at predicting what will make them happy in the future. As a result, we will pay more for more features because we systematically overestimate how often we’ll use them.”

Seamlessly integrating power with ease of use requires the kind of savvy that is all too rare; only a few names, like Apple, come to mind. Surowieki believes there’s a good chance that Apple’s highly anticipated iPhone will be another grand slam, packing tons of tech into a sleek product with a zen-like interface. But he wouldn’t be surprised if, this time, Apple drops the ball.

“The strange truth about feature creep is that even when you give consumers what they want they can still end up hating you for it.”

Here’s a shot I took of Milt with Martin Mull (left), then starring in “America 2Night,” a spin-off of “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.”

One afternoon, deep in the farthest reaches of Channel 20’s basement (the Art Dept) I was throwing the I Ching with my supervisor, Art Director Phil Engelke, when Milt made a surprise appearance, wearing a scowl of deep preoccupation. He was trying to decide whether to run “The Bionic Woman” at 6 or 6:30. When he saw what we doing he demanded an explanation, and aimed the full force of his laser-like attention on the ancient divining ritual. “Predict the future…” he repeated thoughtfully. He then ordered us to ask the I Ching whether “The Bionic Woman” would do better at 6 or 6:30. “Have a report on my desk first thing in the morning.”

The I Ching actually seemed to have an opinion on the subject, and as I recall it recommended 6:30; whether or not that influenced Milt’s decision, 6:30 it was, and the show did quite well there.

My 4-year stint at WDCA plays back in my memory like episodes of
“The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” with the same kind of zany personalities
and funny situations. We had one versatile guy, Dick Dysel, who was our “Creature Feature” vampire (Count Gore DeVol), Bozo, and Captain 20 (a Spock knockoff).

My very first assignment in TV was taking this portrait of Count Gore DeVol, which he still uses on his fabulous T-shirts.

It was at Channel 20 that I designed my first set, for “Space Race,” a gerbil race. We had to propel the lazy gerbils with vacuum cleaners in reverse… other highlights of Channel 20 days: I met Elizabeth Taylor; tried to eat chittlins on the “Petey Greene Show” (couldn’t do it); used newfangled “computer animation” at Image West in LA to create promo animation; commissioned the Starland Vocal Band (”Afternoon Delight”) to sing our jingle, “Good Time Twenty, the Great Entertainer…”

Some of those who worked with Milt Grant refer to the experience as “Grant University.” Indeed, Milt always pushed beyond the limits, and urged – no, required – everyone around him to do the same. The lessons I learned at his school of broadcasting help me every day, and I mourn his passing with respect and gratitude. Thanks Milt.

In case you have trouble viewing the video in your browser (or if you have a dial-up connection), you can download it to your hard drive as a Flash Video file here, and, after it has completely downloaded, double click it to play it back in the Flash Player application. (If you don’t have Flash Player, you can get it here.)

Downloading the video file may take a while, but it’s worth the wait. While it’s downloading, you can open a new browser window (or tab, if you’re using a browser with tabs) and continue surfing the web…

12 February 2007 - One of our readers, Hilyard Decker, has suggested that the City of Virginia Beach’s website is a good candidate for our Museum of Bad Design. Says Hilyard:

Try to find the jobs postings. Even if you know what you’re doing, it takes five clicks.

And he’s right. To look at the jobs available you have to run quite a gauntlet:

1. On the homepage click CAREERS (and then select Human Resources dropdown option) … no mention of JOBS
2. Now you’re at the Human Resources homepage. You have to scan lots of options to find another CAREERS link: CAREER OPPORTUNITIES … which is right next to CAREER INFORMATION … again, where are the JOBS?
3. At the CAREER OPPORTUNITIES page we are told all about a new program, WAVE, that lets you set up an account and submit job applications online. Sounds rather involved, given that I haven’t been shown a single job listing that I might be interested in. After forcing visitors to think about this program, the site offers a glimpse of daylight: “Click here to access our career site and to submit a City of Virginia Beach application.” This is the point at which smoke starts to come out of my ears: after three clicks and lots of irrelevant reading, I’m still not AT your “career site?” And why presume I want to submit an application, since I haven’t seen job one?
4. Okay. Click again. Now we’re at the WAVE homepage. That stands for Web Application for Virginia (beach) Employment. Pretty lame acronym. But still no jobs. Plenty of confusing options though. And a suggestion: “To search positions, click the SEARCH POSTINGS link at left.” Hm. Do I smell jobs nearby?
5. The SEARCH POSTINGS page confronts us with a search engine with four drop-down variables: Job Type, Posting Type, Job Title, and Department. Whew! By now feel like I’m already on the payroll! These search criteria are not all that helpful: why would I really care about all these variables if I’m just browsing? And the “Job Title” dropdown contains dozens and dozens of titles. I guess if you’re looking for ONE specific job opening in ONE department it might be helpful. But PLEASE, just let me look over your open positions!
6. Luckily, there is a hint here: “You may view all open postings by not specifying any search criteria and clicking on the Search button.” It’s counter-intuitive though, requiring us to use their Search Tool, but not to search. To view all. Hm. How about a VIEW ALL JOBS button? And how about putting it 5 clicks back, on the City Homepage?

Virginia Beach’s bad user design is not attypical. This kind of painful process is usually a sign that the site was designed by its programmers, who may be so proud of their gizmos (like the search engine) that they force people to use them. In this case it looks like there’s also undue influence of the bureaucrat or department that came up with this WAVE thing, and mandated that it be an unavoidable roadblock.

Congratulations Virginia Beach, for being our Bad Design of the Week!

A few good stories today related to user design: a piece on the increased priority of good user design, The human factor in gadget, Web design on C-Net… and a Macworld editor’s rant, On meaningless hyperlink graphics about the new link pop-ups appearing these days that serve no purpose other than to drive us crazy.

Again, if there’s a poorly designed or ugly product, web site, software or anything else that is working your last nerve, tell me about it! Leave a comment or drop a line to: museum(at)mjvilardi(dot)com.

From the press release in the April 2003 issue of Food and Drug Packaging:

[the] coffee creamer’s redesigned package has an ergonomic shape, allowing for convenient one-handed open and pour. The new bottle design replaces a paperboard carton that had a pour spout with a screw-on cap. The new one-handed open design helps alleviate consumers’ morning chaos with a package that’s easy to use.

The key to the package is its closure, supplied by Owens-Illinois. The curved blue lid Is made from polypropylene (PP) and has a dispensing button that is pushed to release the product.

But the sleek new bowling-pin-shaped package has a serious flaw: it dribbles. A lot. And the cream accumulates around the spout lip, so that when you snap it open sticky white droplets spatter whatever surface you’re aimed at. I guess I should remember to wipe it down after each use, but in my pre-coffee stuppor it’s easy to forget… Why would marketers and designers inflict such a sloppy bottle on us? What’s the rationale here? The packaging industry seemed to like the new design, and Morningstar even received the 2004 DuPont Packaging Award:

Morningstar, a Dean Foods subsidiary, says the new package and closure were created in response to consumer research, and were highly rated in tests. “Dispensing closures such as this are [serving] a growing convenience market category and are enthusiastically embraced by consumers,” says Owens-Illinois’ Timothy McAshlan, of Closures & Specialty Products. “They are becoming a focus for consumer products companies. Food products continue to be at the forefront of exploring new package shapes, package concepts and materials.”Designed by Morningstar’s marketing team along with input by Lipson Alport Glass & Associates, the 38-mm closure features a toggle-style end that cleanly cuts off the product with minimal dripping and no residue and securely seals the bottle for refrigerated storage.

– Packaging Digest, August 2004

“Minimal dripping.” Yah. Bet those “consumer tests” didn’t go past a single use. Oh, and here’s the spot in the fridge where my International Delight lives (I cleaned it right after I took this shot, honest!)…

As always, if you have candidates for the Museum of Bad Design, please offer them in a Comment… or drop a line to: museum(at)mjvilardi(dot)com   …thanks!

These incidents are not flukes – we have all encountered digital systems that seem to have been designed by idiots. And as more aspects of our lives are controlled by computers, how can we help but worry? Ruben ponders the implications for a critical function of a sharply divided democracy: those damn electronic voting machines…

“What kind of software design results in this kind of crash? The answer is pretty clear to anyone who has worked with software. While they may have tested the system exhaustively, they probably did not test the possibility of putting credit cards in two different machines at the exact same time. Which brings me back (as usual on this blog) to voting machines. They may be tested and tested and certified and verified and validated. But, if on Election Day something unusual happens, a scenario that was not anticipated, something might go very wrong. And, if there is no tangible, physical record of the votes that were cast on the machine, then votes might be lost in an unrecoverable way.”

My bank keeps badgering me to “go paperless” and forego monthly mailed statements and cancelled checks. But what if there’s a dispute or discrepancy? I’m totally dependent on their electronic records, which, in the fine print, they only promise to keep accessible for 18 months. I have a trust problem…

The Culture of Software Development
When the same people who wrote the software or engineered the hardware are tasked with designing the user interface, it is almost always a disaster. In his seminal 1999 book The Inmates Are Running the Asylum, Alan Cooper decries the arrogance and insensitivity of many programmers, whose attitude is “Be kind to chips and cruel to users.” Accustomed to being revered for their arcane technical knowledge, they’re dismissive of anyone with suggestions on how to make their work user-friendly. Even when interaction designers are involved, it has traditionally been after the functionality has been locked in.

“The single most important process change we can make is to design our interactive products completely before any programming begins. The second most important change is to turn the reponsibility for design over to trained interaction designers.”

Concern for user experience has caught on lately, in large part due to the success of Apple’s intuitive iPod, and the fierce loyalty of its growing user base. But we’re still buying a lot of poorly thought-out crap, and I don’t just mean digital crap. “User delight” should be built into everything. But it’s not. And the rising tide of bad design is getting on my nerves…

So I’m starting a new blog category: The Museum of Bad Design. Every Monday I’ll feature a new exhibit of unusable dreck. Feel free to contribute candidates by offering them in a Comment… or drop a line to: museum(at)mjvilardi(dot)com

So it was with some delight that I discovered this excerpt from Dawkins’ Unweaving the Rainbow which he quoted in a recent radio interview, and which will be read at his funeral someday:

“We are going to die and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they’re never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place, but who will, in fact, never see the light of day, outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. …In the face of these stupefying odds, it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. Here’s another respect in which we are lucky. The universe is older than a hundred million centuries. Within a comparable time, the sun will swell to a red giant and engulf the earth. Every century of hundreds of millions has been in its time, or will be when its time comes, the present century. The present moves from the past to the future like a tiny spotlight inching its way along a gigantic ruler of time. Everything behind the spotlight is in darkness, the darkness of the dead past. Everything ahead of the spotlight is in the darkness of the unknown future. The odds of your century being the one in the spotlight are the same as the odds that a penny, tossed down at random, will land on a particular ant crawling somewhere on the road from New York to San Francisco. You are lucky to be alive and so am I.”

Poetic as it is, his Wonder takes the clinical tone of “Gee, what are the odds?” and “Aren’t we lucky.” Feels a little chilly. But this is one expression of how a scientific mind ponders the Infinite, and I find it fascinating.

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.
I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow-creatures happy.
But . . . I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

These views made him something of a pariah in the country he helped liberate. In his later years he was reviled as a godless drunk, lunatic, and lost soul. Founding Father John Adams (always jealous of Paine’s popularity) called Common Sense “a poor, ignorant, Mailicious, short-sighted, Crapulous Mass.” Years later Teddy Roosevelt would call him a “filthy little atheist.” Yet in our own time Paine has made a comeback, and is regularly (if carefully) quoted by conservatives and liberals alike.

The same (16 October 2006) issue of The New Yorker contains a delightful profile of the crunchy, complex Christopher Hitchens. Sadly, it’s not posted online, but well worth looking for if you enjoy Hitch. This issue reinforces my affection for the magazine; if you only subscribe to one print mag, The New Yorker is the one.