Nudge

I just finished reading "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness" and attended an interesting UX Book Club meeting where we discussed various details. The meeting itself was much more engaging than I expected as I don't consider myself much of a reader. The book goes over a number of findings around how people tend to react better to suggestions or nudges rather than mandates. I recommend the book to anyone who is designing anything that involves user response.

As a very brief overview of the book, Nudges are contextual design decisions that aim to maintain choices for the users. Instead of mandating that users select a specific item, the better choice is defaulted, positioned or socially associated in such a way that will lead the user towards it. As you might imagine, the "better option" is difficult to define and is extremely contextual. How much you should nudge is also a delicate balance, but one thing that is clearly spelled out in the book is how important these nudges end up being. Intentional or not, the way we present options has a huge effect on the outcome.

One of my biggest take-aways was the scenario where users fail to answer because they either forget or because the options are too complex. Many times, the designer or choice architect at they refer to it, can make an educated nudge as to what the answer should be. In certain situations, no decision can have a devastating result, while an educated default answer will be right 90% of the time. The book uses extreme examples with topics such as health care and retirement investments, but the nudges are still relevant at lower level options fond in software.

Another very interesting point was how people make automatic and reflective decisions. People want to be good, but in the heat of the moment bad decisions are sometimes made. Nudges made during reflective moments, when people think straight, can affect decisions during automatic or impulsive moments. I can see this affecting impulsive online purchases or frustrating moments with software. Perhaps help options can be introduced earlier when the user is in a calm, reflective state. Inevitably, the user will hit some road block and become frustrated. If they are already familiar with the help options and structure, they may be more likely to find the help topic rather then jump straight to the more costly phone help support.In turn the software company does not have to charge for phone support because call volume is maintained lower.

I've always looked at the world through designer goggles, but this book has given me an extra view into how my designs WILL affect outcomes to people's goals. The simple decision of default option is not so simple anymore.

UI as a Craft

It looks like advanced product interfaces have extended beyond the Apple campus. B&O launched the BeoSound 5 System and it really holds up the interface on a pedestal. Not only the digital UI but the physical controls as well. A metal wheel eats into the screen real estate as if to say, I'm rich enough to loose those pixels. It may sound funny, but no other products sacrifice pixels for style.

The thing that really caught attention is the quality of the interface, I feel that it actually meets the quality and design of B&O products. It's not frequent that you see this happen. If you look at nav systems in luxury cars, they never match up to quality of the leather upholstery. The Nissan GT-R may be the one exception. They actually pulled in some video game designers to help them design the car's interface. The result is an immersive, gear-head (what's the tuner version of a gear head?) experience.


The things that these two companies have done effectively is pay for the craft of the UI. It is well understood that a product has to pay for real metal parts or fine leather work, but it is not yet understood what fine UI work is. There aren't very many examples out there to refer to for starts. Secondly, there is miss understanding that glossy graphics will accomplish this. Craft goes beyond appearance, it is engrained in the material and gives the perception of extreme effort and skill.

The business needs to want and be ready to pay for craft and the designer has to remember how to produce craft. Aside from the usual "breaking the mold" and "blood, sweat and tears" bit, craft is a team effort, a skilled craftsmen effort. It cannot be handed over to some guy to complete, only the most trusted engineers can carry through with you vision. The whole team needs to be truly onboard with the desire to produce craft.

Embed Widgets

You know widget embeds have gone mainstream when the government starts using them. When I went to the FDA's web site to find the list of peanut butter products being recalled, i found this.


One huge realization is that this organization is relying on the community to spread the word on bad products instead of JUST the FDA pushing out the information and finding people.

Livescribe Pulse Smart Pen

MeetUp A.I.

I was doing a search in MeetUp.com for a running group today. It automatically narrowed the search to LA because that is where my profile has me pinned to. I didn't find any group that suited me so i though I'd create one. The new group form came up with the default group name reading "Los Angeles Running MeetUp Group" and the description defaulted to "Meet others in your local area to Run with. Plan group runs and participate in various long and short distance running. Discuss safety and more."

I had to pause for a second. I thought that maybe I had been on auto pilot and had magically typed it. But I hadn't. Not only did the new group form remember that I was looking for a running group, but it had also pulled my location info and typed out a logical title and description. I'm sure these templates are limited to certain topics, but I was really impressed that they had something smart to propose and not some funky fill in the blank description.

It's got to be one of most enlightening experiences I've had on the web.

Paperless IxD

Can IxD encourage green behavior? We can promote digital usage over printing. Yes people want to print, but if we give them better alternatives with computer aided deliverables, we can persuade people not to print. iRise pushes the iDoc or interactive document. Once you print it, you loose 50% of it's value, maybe more. Other apps and sites can do the same.

Make it portable.
Allow users to take the artifact off line or to another on of their computers. In a pinch users need to review it on the road or at home, if it is not portable, printing is the knee jerk reaction. Mobile device compatibility may be part of this equation as well.

Make it shareable.
Allow users to show it to others. While not all the editing options may be required, commenting or some form of mark up is common. If this feedback system is then harnessed into a sliceable dice-able list, the computer aided element can be pushed.

BackUp
Safety is another reason people tend to print. What if your system is not around in 5 years. They may still need their data, after all is it theirs. Provide export options or other back up means.

Defining a Product

What role should an interaction designer take in defining the product? In some cases, the designer is given all the parameters that the final product needs to have. The more parameters are handed down, the more the IxD's role becomes not only production, but a translation exercise. The solution that produced can only be as good as the translation. In some processes, this is intentional. "Request a wireframe from the IA and then pass it on to the visual designer". This then leaves project management as the cornerstone of the project in turn producing process centered design.

While is the issues seam painfully obvious, some companies end up in that rut. The main issue is simple, the end user interacts with the product not the project. The teams effort should be focused on the product, not the project. TImelines, resources and politics should be peripheral and should not drive the product.

So if the project manager is not in charge of the product who is? I propose that the interaction designer should own the project. They are the ones designing the end product and the ones that know goals and tasks that the user needs to be able to accomplish. Again, those points can be communicated to somebody else, but they become translations. This does extend the interactions designers responsibilities. They need to wok with business owners, end users, tech, QA, visual design, copy, etc. But the greater understanding of each of these with lead to a better product. Specialties can still exist and grow, but they should all live under one person that truly understands the product, FIRST HAND.