Elements of Influence: The User Experience

A lot of people in the Information Architecture and Analytics fields talk about the term user experience. What this basically means is engineering how users feel when they use a particular object - planning ease-of-use, intuition and fun into the design of things.

Now a lot of people have a lot of opinions as to how this works but none of them really matter right now. You see a web interface is not a touch interface and is certainly not a multi-touch interface. Yes, there are certain insights we can gleen from the usability experts and information architects that have come before but the experience users get from a multi-touch interface is largely right now undefined, unrefined and untested. It's not a technology accessible to joe common user (and likely won't be for another year or so) so that means opinions have yet to be formed on how it should be used.

I'm all for showmanship - the pretty lights and shiny baubles of current touch interfaces are revolutionary but will eventually grow to be "old hat." Eventually people will focus away from the fact that we can interface (light shows) with a computer this way and begin to focus on how we do it.

The key to this is to get into the head of the common person. What are they using your program for? What do they expect? What can they learn? What will amaze them? What will turn them off to the experience and never come back? What's boring? Those are the questions that will drive people to your applications. These subjects (which I hope to cover in time) are:

• Typography - How font affects the user
  
• Gestures - Why defining gestures to make sense is important
  
• Layout - How to build layouts that people can understand
  
• Color - How color affects the user
  
• Transition - The importance of transitions
  
• Information Access Channels - How people look for and access information
• Design Stories - Stories are told to be linked in to your life - it's called critical thinking. Somtimes stories of design from other fields can inspire you in yours. It's not about solid information it's about critical thinking.

So get those brain juices flowing. Before you start a project figure out the nitty-gritty.

Low Self-Esteem

My life is a constant fluction of low and high self-esteem. It's an odd paradigm really where I believe I can do anything only to realize upon begining to do it that it is too easy to do and, in the end, a worthless idea. I'm happy to inform you that this problem is quickly remedied by half a ruffie chased by three liters of gin.

Now I jest except for the fact that often times I look at the amazing shit other people are doing with talents I just don't have and begin to realize a sad fact: I'll just never be that good. Really? REALLY. But the simple fact is that for one to be successful in any community you don't have to be particularly good at what everyone else is good at, you just need to find a particular niche that others can respect and burrow in like a tick.

Therefore I'm proud to announce that this little experience you are having right now will not be about me designing awesome shit for you to gaggle at but instead will focus on:

• The community
• The awesome shit other people are doing
• Design theory
• How to Guides

Frankly that world does not need another great developer - it has plenty. It needs someone to talk about them.

Life Mocks Satire

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Community

So I've been lurking out in the nuigroup forums, pouring over information as I tend to upon first inspection and I have come to two conclusions:

1) I don't have a damn clue as to how any of this works since I'm not a programmer.

2) They have something damn special going on over there community wise.

Now in the real world I am in digital advertising (big firm with management duties) and have done some good PR work (client on Good Morning America/Early Show). This means I sold my soul a long time ago.

I try to earn it back a bit by supporting communities. This has ranged back from the days of warcraft 2 guilds all the way forward to getting in on Seth Godin's new tribes program. I consider community development my strongest suite. However I'm amazed at the cohesiveness of the community as it stands. It's the uncooked raw pioneer spirit that you can't find anymore. It typically doesn't last long but it's wonderful while it does.

If you're not familiar with nui go here.

All the people on their are amazing.

1. Extremely Friendly
2. Intelligent Programmers
3. Pioneers

Yet it's kind of sad because I know what typically happens and I've seen it before. Here's how it usually goes down.

Microsoft and Apple and godknowswhomelse will have different nuanced standards that will divide people up and start carving the community. The original creators of these awesome tech bits people are developing will get awefully frustrated as their work will start getting used by people who aren't in it for the love of the medium but for the love of the money. I don't mean to sound like a crazy SOB with an "end of the world" sign but that's how it goes down. There are two remedy's for NUI's survival and one long shot.

1. NUI Picks A Side - Right now NUI has something corporate America wants: developers. Look at the utter bolloxing failure of the PS3. Shiny awesome hardware but not enough talented developers making games for it - utter failure. NUI can pick a side and bring a chunk of the community with it, get a few pats of the head and publicity angles from Microdellplewhoever and probably sustain on for quite some time.
   
2. NUI Rebrands as community hub - Nui can diversify and take up supporting the multi-touch community as a whole, realizing it probably won't be able to keep up with the giants who will all want to develop a piece of the pie. This will keep nui in the game as a player and would probably attract a lot of interested companies to partner with it.
   
3. The Linux Solution- The third option is NUI becomes the linux of the multi-touch world and cater touchlib to all platforms. This will probably work at first until Microsoft pushes a button that says, "No thx bye now." Open source communities tend to attract the most hardcore of people but become some of the least successful/profitable (see linux's marketshare). Unless they rebrand as also a standards commitee and gather the big talking heads under one roof with promises of community <3,>

My point is, nui/touchlib has a commodity, community. It's a community of smart people these other companies want/will want to recruit. And that may not last long considering the $$$ corporate America can pour in. Nui needs to foster community and focus a direction as well as get some sort of publicity campaign going to up their clout and attract the attention of the major companies.

If community isn't coming to big business, big business will come to the community.

For now, enjoy this little spitfire photoshopped image of me in 20 or someodd years.

How to Build A MultiTouch Display

Here's some starting points:

• http://www.instructables.com/id/Interactive-Multitouch-Display/
• http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2007/06/interactive_multitouch_di.html
• http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?ch=specialsections&sc=futurebiz&id=20703&a=f
• http://www.nuigroup.com/touchlib/
  

The terrible problem currently with the dell latitude seems to be a sketchy compatability with touchlib. Disparity between touch libraries hopefully will not become a growing problem...

Know of any other good resources? Let me know.

Collaborative Models: Turn-based Collaboration

The second model for us to take a look at is more geared towards gaming than any other - Rules Guided Collaboration. In this model each person takes a turn at the screen. This is a great system for a game like chess where only one player takes action at a time.

Limitations
This is the polar opposite of the software guided collaboration system. It only works based on turns or simple actions. This is guided by rules so while multiple-gestures can be used (finger-spread, double tap, ect) only one person can theoretically be doing them at a time. The strongest limitation is the lack of true collaboration.

Recommendations
Great for turn-based games.

Collaborative Models: Software Guided Collaboration

Your rig, no matter how pimped does not have two mice. It does not have two keyboards. It's just not very damn feasble space-wise to have a true collaborative environment.

But what we've been seeing from early developers is an eagerness to create true collaboration using these interfaces. Annoying music warning:

Multi-Touch Pong



The primary problem with true collaboration is going to be how the computer understands who is doing what. Let's say there's two people who want to use a tablet to edit an image. That's great but what if one of you wants to paint in red while the other paints green? How is the interface going to know?

That's the challenge.

The first model we'll look at is called software guided collaboration model. Why? Because the software is determining which parts of the environment are affected by which tools. This way two people can effect the same environment.

But this goes beyond pong where each half is its own piece and there are no connections. Let me give you an idea of what I mean...



Amazing stuff, huh? Were I a powerful company (like Adobe) I'd start patenting this stuff now (like they tried to do with layers).

Limitations
The primary limitation of this model is that it reduces screensize by half making it much harder to get work done - everything has to shrink.

Recommendations
This model is great for games that need fast reaction times. I'd also recommend it for collaborative software with complex menu options.

Community Infancy

Communities are very cool orgasnisms. I've spent far too much time looking into how they evolve and what makes them tick. Right now the community is in it's infancy, there are only a few community members and they're all doing their own thing. It's not selfish, it's just publicity.

These people and institutions aren't trying to share or advance the medium - they're trying to show off. But the truth is they haven't figured this medium out yet - none of us have. We all have these different pieces and parts but none of us have put them together yet. It's great.

If the medium is going to evolve then some smart people are going to need to get together. Standards need to set and people need to get together to work out best practices. For the group to evolve it can't be just individuals doing their own thing. When the higher-minds don't get together we have the disparities we have with current browser standards.

Six Basic Rules of Multi-Touch Design

Let's set some ground rules this month. I'm all for charging head-first into something but I like to know what it is I'm getting in to first - so should you. Here's some common-sense rules:

1. Follows tested guidelines to help the user have a great experience.
2. Knows when to break the rules to amaze and surprise people.
3. Creates a brand experience.
4. Common users will find fun.
5. Is intuitive. USERS SHOULDN'T NEED A MANUAL TO "GET IT."
6. The design should not interupt content, it should make it MORE accessible.

Designers are great people but a lot of the time they are design-centered rather than functionality-centered. When designing an interface my best bit of advice is to get the users to the core of the experience as quickly as possible. You can create all the shiny functionality you want but don't bother unless it's actually helpful to the user.

A Very Brief history

Revolution, that's what I'd like to talk to you about. Specifically the revolution that's about to happen to your home computers. It's wonderful, it's scary, it's multitouch interfaces.

"But wait!" you say, finger pointing straight up in the air with zesty exclaimation, "I think you're another pedantic blogger with self-righteous intent and a finger up his ass.
"Yes." I shall reply, yes I am.

Let's go back in time, shall we, a time to computerized punching cards.

We'd toss these buggers into giant computers and what would be spewed out would be the simplest of calculations. "PERFECT!" the scientists cried. But not very practical.

Then came the revolution of the keyboard, a wonderful device that allowed us to actually not have to use giant cards to input information. "Perfect!" cried the early programmers. But not very practical.

Then the mouse came on to the scene. We could actually interact with the stuff in the screen! WOW! "Perfect!" now yell the common men and women of the world. Functional but not very practical.

I believe the future to be in touch. Let's see if I'm right.

Who is Scrabble?

My name is Jim Bruno, I'm a digital producer and quality engineer for a major advertising agency. In my spare time I lead a normal life as one would expect grinding through the days and nights as most people would - bored to tears.

Frankly I've begun to find this rather boring and decided to take up a cause: multitouch interface design. I intend to be completely blunt and honest when it comes to these posts - I don't want to waste your time with bullshit and quotas like some other blogs I've read.

I'm coming at this completely green - I have absolutely no experience with this sort of thing and if you want to bail-ship now I can't really say I blame you. I intend to treat you like idiots because, frankly, that is what I am myself.

To give you an idea of where I'm starting from here's my skillsets:
- 12 Years on the Net
- BA in Communications (Advertising)
- 1 Year in the Digital industry as a producer
- Photoshop/Dreamweaver/Flash

So obviously I'm not starting from a naive point but one that could be improved. I love design and I love the idea of multi-touch. I'm very eager to see where this will go and I hope we can take the journey together.