It really is as simple as that. As a software developer, business analyst, or even project manager, you will find yourself tasked with designing user interfaces no matter how hard you try to avoid it. Clients will tell you how they want it to look and act, others on your team will provide input, and at the end of the day you’ll have to come to some decisions. This process may not prove all that difficult, but I want to provide you with a handy trick I use when assessing whether a UI design decision is the right move. Ready for this? Here it is:

Look at each decision you’ve made, and simply ask, ‘Why?’“

Links should be blue, you’ll decide. Next action: Why?

Each time we use the word MagicTouch in a headline, it should be followed by an ® symbol. Next action: Why?

A client will say to you, “I think it will look better if this text is center justified, rather than left aligned.” Next action: Why?

Stopping to ask why? will force you and others to think about the actual intended use of a feature. It will push you to think about user behavior, instead of random decisions. And most of all, it will teach you that you actually believe in what you’ve designed, because you’ll know you’ve thought it through. If at any point you can’t answer the Why? intelligently, you’ll know you have some rethinking and potentially redesigning to do.

This concept should be applied outside the world of design, as well. When you come to a decision, it’s never a bad idea to test it out with a well thought out Why?

In the end, it’s all about finding purpose. In everything, find purpose.

And with that message, I would like to share the news that I have decided to move on from ThoughtWorks. My time here has been tremendous and purposeful, but it is time for me to go try something new. If you read my blog via ThoughtBlogs, I invite you to subscribe to my RSS feed, because it likely won’t be displayed here much longer. Thanks, ThoughtWorks. I’ll miss you.

This weekend as Israelis and Palestinians clashed again in Gaza, and it seemed like everyone had a reaction to the violence.

As I consumed the popular media, I began to think about the more pedestrian views out there. It is important to understand what the everyman thinks, even if one does not agree with him or her (and I certainly do not agree with many of the opinions out there). After all, it is only by understanding others’ points of view that we will ever get ourselves out of these international confrontations. Peace comes when people understand and interact with one another.

A great place to get at peoples’ opinions is the popular new communication tool: Twitter. Twitter allows users to post messages, opinions, and thoughts 140 characters at a time. Each post is a tiny glance at a person’s thought. If you’re not a member yet, you should give Twitter a try. It’s quite fun and addictive.

So, as I set out to glance at what people were saying about the situation in the Middle East via Twitter, I decided to build a tool that would help with this task. And so I did just that, with TwiddleEast.

Here's what TwiddleEast looks like

TwiddleEast allows you to quickly glance at what people on Twitter are saying about a few of the Middle Eastern countries in the news today.

Check it out, and I’d love to hear if it is helpful to you. If there is anything I can do to make TwiddleEast better, don’t hesitate to let me know, and while you’re at it: follow me or TwiddleEast on Twitter.

So the big news on the internets today is Google’s new browser: Chrome. It’s only available for Windows as of today, and since I’m on a Mac I haven’t been able to play with it yet. But that’s ok, because Google hasn’t completely left me out of the loop. I have access to the comic interpretation of their engineering decisions.

Google Chrome Design Comic

Comics have been a topic of discussion in the Interaction Design Community for a while now. With Scott McCloud providing the art for Google’s message, they really couldn’t go wrong. McCloud has quite literally written the book(s) on creating effective comics. (Of course, you can create your own design comics too, thanks to projects like Martin Hardee’s Design Comics.)

One thing that I’d like to applaud Google for with this comic is their use of actual Googlers as the narrators of the story. Naming names like this gives credit to the actual thinkers behind the work. All too often in the business world today, we hide individuals behind a big corporate brand. In this example, these Googlers will feel real ownership and responsibility for their product, and they’ll be motivated to continue working on the project even if (and when) they leave Google. Of course, I’d also like to call out the fact that no User Experience team members were named in this document, even in the section titled “Search and the User Experience.” This is strange, and I hope there was a User Experience team dedicated to this project.

And another thing Google did well here was in not trying to over-engineer their explanations of highly technical processes. They simplified their message down to bare essentials, and I felt enlightened after reading this document. Most technical documentation talks down to people, assuming that all the basics are already understood. Google removed some barriers to entry by explaining their new technologies in a way that almost anyone with a little technical know-how can understand. This is something almost every other open source project out there fails at. Technical documentation is far more than simply documentation…it’s an implicit invitation to take part in the experience.

Browser Threads Vs. Processes

At the end of the day, I’m really impressed at the quality of this documentation. I actually read the entire thing, which is much more than I can say about the technical documentation for any other software I use. Who knew that I could find the difference between multiple threads and multiple processes interesting?

Well done, Google. Now I just have to find a Windows computer…ugh. I swore off those things months ago…

What if we could travel 5 miles in less than 5 minutes?

I hope you noticed that, in fact, we can do all these things today. However, a mere 100 years ago, these questions would have been dismissed as pipe dreams by most people. But dreamers dream, designers design, technologists build, and before you know it, really difficult problems find solutions.

This is why I try to take the long view when thinking about design problems. Today’s technology is ephemeral, it will be gone before you know it. But when you find solutions to the big problems, those interactions can last for centuries. So the next time you start a project, instead of asking, “What would the UI look like to solve this problem?” (or even worse, “What will the architecture of the software look like?”) ask “What if we could ________?” And fill in the blank with a really challenging problem.

After all, if you’re like me, you didn’t get into technology to solve tiny little problems. You got into technology to make lives better & jobs easier. You got into technology because there are challenging problems to be solved. What if you solved them?

Jono DiCarlo at Mozilla Labs documented his feelings about user interface design in a great post titled These Things I Believe. While I do not agree with him across the board, he does make some interesting points, and helps guide software developers toward the (great user experience) light. I’ll call out a few of his assertions here:

Software is for humans, not computers

This is the only absolute truth in the world of technology. Software architectures change, programming languages go through cycles of popularity, and code design patterns will be preferred by some over others. At the end of the day, though, the software we build is always being built to help some human be more productive, happy, or both, even if it literally has no user interface. Before building your next piece of software, I implore you to ask yourself how this software will make the world a better place, as Jono suggests.

People use computers to connect with other people

’nuff said. This is the only reason 99% of people use computers at all. (If you’re reading this, you’re probably not part of the 99%. That’s ok though, because you are not your user.)

There’s no such thing as free software

Open Source software is, by and large, really difficult to use. I would never leave my mom alone in a room with Linux, it’s just too cruel. Like Jono says, “Linux is only free if the value of my time is zero.”

The job of the UI Designer is to provide what the users need, not what they say they need

This paradoxical statement succinctly defines what it is that I do for 40+ hours every week. There are various methods that provide clues as to what users really need, other methods that design for those clues, and still other methods that test whether the users’ needs have been fulfilled. What I do at work all day is carry out those methods.

User interface design can be approached scientifically. But usually isn’t.

This is where Jono and I will disagree. He lays out a list of metrics that can bring about statistically significant results when it comes to usability testing software. My clients frequently argue to me that if we drive down the number of clicks in an application it will be easier to use. I don’t care about click counts. I’ve seen well liked software with high click counts, and hated software with low click counts. On top of this, while gathering metrics based on click counts, frequency of use, time on task, error rates, and error frequency may get you some information about your software (which is good), these methods never tell you how to fix the problems. Real world, in-situ usability testing will tell you these problems, and suggest solutions.

It is a sin to waste the user’s time, break the user’s train of thought, or lose the user’s work.

Yup, sin is the right word to use here. Have you sinned lately?

Thanks to Jono for creating this list. Maybe one day I’ll make one of my own.

As your local Interaction Design opinion one-stop-shop, I feel obliged to weigh in on Aurora, Adaptive Path’s newest concept series in collaboration with Mozilla Labs. First off, if you haven’t watched the videos they’ve published so far, do that first:

Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Aurora (Part 2) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Aurora (Part 3) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

There are a few more videos on the way, but those should be good enough to kick off a little commentary.

First off, it should be noted that envisionment videos like these have become an often used tool for Interaction Designers. When you’re intent on creating an experience that does not yet exist out in the world, an envisionment video invites viewers to see how people might be impacted by new technologies, and allows technologists to begin to build the future. Bill Buxton describes Envisionment Videos in his already classic Sketching User Experiences:

As their name suggests, these are clips that are created to communicate some holistic view showing an envisioned system in context. Unlike many of the examples that we have seen, they go beyond just presenting a demo. Rather, they usually are built around a narrative that tries to capture a way of working with technology, as opposed to the design specifics of the device itself…Overall, they are very much part of the story-telling tradition of design.” - Bill Buxton

If you’d like some more examples of envisionment videos, I recommend checking out the ones Buxton discusses in his book:

• Sketch-a-move
• Office of the Professional
• Apple Computer’s Knowledge Navigator
• Clearboard

One of my favorite envisionment videos is HP’s Cooltown, which is extremely polished, but a cool look at the “future” nonetheless. Unfortunately, it seems that the concepts in HP’s video have not come to fruition, at least in a way that impacts HP’s wallet. That’s the way of many of these videos, though. They tend to be so forward looking that one company could not hope to build tools to enable all of the concepts in the sketch, at least in the short term. But, the videos can be used as a guide to the company’s long term future. For example, we’re seeing concepts from Apple’s Knowledge Navigator come to fruition only now, many years after the release of the video.

When it comes to long-term vision, I believe that the “just-in-time” philosophy causes Agile methods to fall apart. See, from the Interaction Design point of view, technological innovation occurs to solve big & ugly human problems. Agile methods encourage developers to build the simplest thing that works in the hope that incrementally (and sometimes iteratively) big & ugly human problems will be solved. But the whole solutions to the big & ugly problems are often not the sum of their parts. More often than not, it takes a long-term strategy to solve these issues.

I’m not saying that the Interaction Design and Agile Development points of view are too incongruous to come to terms. Quite the opposite, in fact. Long-term visioning Interaction Designers and just-in-time Agile developers should be able to come together to solve those big & ugly human problems, but must agree that their day-to-day goals are not the same. I’ve seen too many Interaction Designers called in (myself included) to tweak an already developed application’s interface when the entire vision of the product is unclear.

I just returned last night from the Agile 2008 conference, and if there’s anything I learned there, it’s that Interaction Design and Agile Development are friends, not foes. However, we need to work together to understand our separate goals and outputs. At the end of the day, both groups need to be successful if we want to build great software.

So Agilists, let’s think about long-term vision a little bit. Let’s create some quick & dirty visions of the future. Then let’s build the heck out of them.

And finally, to return to Aurora, I simply want to say that I am really enjoying the videos. Is this what the future of the web browser will really look like? If the other videos I mentioned are any indication, probably not. Still, there are some fantastic concepts packed into those short videos, and we have a lot to learn from them. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of those concepts do see the light of day, and at the same time I won’t be holding my breath.

The last few days I’ve been reading Richard Florida’s Who’s Your City? In this book he talks about how populations centers have changed since the rise of the creative class. For the most part, Florida refutes Thomas Friedman’s theories in The World is Flat. Florida believes that where you live still matters, despite today’s advanced communication technologies. I definitely agree with this thesis. One can only do so much over a phone or internet connection. I have had my most rewarding moments in the workplace when I am able to sit and think about something with a coworker on a shared whiteboard.

Florida’s site has a Place Finder survey that attempts to rate which cities you should consider moving to. Here are my results:

1. San Francisco, CA
2. Chicago, IL - My current residence
3. Tel Aviv, Israel
4. New York, NY
5. Los Angeles, CA

I’m not so sure I agree on all counts, but it is quite an interesting result. One that I wasn’t expecting.

Of course, the survey is all self-report, so it’s definitely bound for some level of error. But still…it’s interesting to think about: in this ever so mobile era, where will any of us live a year from now?

If you’d like to take the survey, you can do it right now! Check it out:

So often we assume that the problems we are solving for are “pure”, even if they are somewhat complex. The images we see in advertisements help this base assumption survive, and so we don’t think to go a little deeper in our analysis of a problem before we jump right in to offering a solution.

The things we see in an Ikea showroom assume “pure” use patterns

But problems in the real world are almost always more complex than we can initially imagine. Deep down, we all know this. Our actions and activities are filled with complexities that we rarely think about. Real patterns of use are never represented the same way as they are on the Ikea showroom floor. We all accidentally leave books on the table…to the disappointment of those we live with. Sometimes it helps to look at an extreme case. Check out Possessed, a video about people who suffer from Hoarding:

POSSESSED from Martin Hampton on Vimeo.

Sure, these people are an extreme case, and as such they make up a case that is rarely ever considered by Ikea. Still, I’d imagine that there is a little Hoarder in all of us. This is why I recommend that my clients do user research before we begin designing solutions. I want to see the imperfections that exist out there…all the little “tricks of the trade” that people use to get things done. Yup, the real world is messy, but by getting out there and seeing some of the mess, we can design solutions to better support our users.

Did a little upgrading this morning. If you find any bugs, hiccups, errors, etc. please let me know.

The install itself wasn’t all that difficult - assuming you’ve got a degree that has something to do with Computer Science. I wish I could say it was as easy as clicking a few buttons, alas it was not. But now, after a little sweat and work I’ve got built-in spam blocking, automated database backups, and autosave as I write posts. Nice.

One of my little delights in life comes when I see a website or tool that I use has been refreshed. This morning, I was surprised to notice that LinkedIn has a new look. Check it out:

There’s a nice entry up on the LinkedIn Blog that talks about the three major changes:

1. System Navigation
2. Profile Snapshot
3. Customizable Widgets Panel

Of course, I don’t think the redesign can really be summarized by these 3 independent features. The fact is that the site has a completely new feel, and I doubt if you asked an everyday user what changed since yesterday they certainly would not list those three items. Instead, they would likely remark about the sweeping changes overall…then they would perhaps notice the feature changes.

Fighting the Backlash

Redesigns like this can be extremely challenging to implement for a company like LinkedIn. Not so much in the sense that they’re difficult to build technically, but for the backlash that is sure to follow. Already one user has commented on the blog asking for the ability to access the old version:

I was shocked by the new interface cause I was addicted to former layout for 4 years as I was shocked by the new layout of Office 2007 … I’m still using Word 2003.

So … Is it possible to have for some time to come (3 or 4 months) the choice to switch on and off the new interface.”

Carmelo Cutuli
Technomanager
www.cutuli.it

I never really understood the mentality that one would want to switch back and forth between old and new versions of a tool in order to learn the new one. So often in the physical world we leave our old junk behind, like when we trade in an old car for the updated model. But I guess that’s the difference between physical and digital: if you really wanted the old version back you’d be able to get it. Alternatively, there’s no way to get the old version of LinkedIn back. It’s completely gone (until LinkedIn decides to give access to it).

I’ve often thought about whether it would be possible to truly incrementally release design changes like the ones LinkedIn did. If they released small changes each week, would it have the same desired effect? I doubt it. Sometimes you just need to release a new design upon the world…it is jarring to some, but others will be impressed.

Count me in among the impressed. Well done, LinkedIn.

View Josh’s LinkedIn Profile