Blog: Observations on Design + Usability

This spring my family and I went to New York City for vacation.

A highlight for me was Ellis Island. Both my wife and I had relatives come through Ellis Island so it has a personal significance like it does for so many Americans. One of the interesting rooms at Ellis Island was the room that showed off the statistics of people coming to Ellis Island. They did a great job of using infographics to convey the diversity and scale of people who came through there in the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

As I rub the sleep from my eyes, feeling the morning sun hit fluttering eyelids while pupils adjust to streaming light, I grope for that familiar rectangular piece of my life that fits in the palm of my hand. Squinting at a blue screen as I slide a thumb across smooth plastic to disarm its vibrating alarm, it is the first thing I look at every morning. My phone never leaves my side. It sits on desktops in corners of the library, counting down the hours and minutes until the next study break. It houses conversations of dinner plans and blossoming relationships and typed words that would never find the courage to be said aloud. It plays music on walks across campus and flights home. It tells me what time that movie is playing and ends the quarrel over checkable facts. I sleep with my phone. When it is lost, friends offer sympathy.

My parents did not have cellular phones strapped to their bodies at all times when they were my age. In college, they answered phone calls from home with large handled receivers pressed to their ears, a twisting cord wrapped absentmindedly around their fingers and the flush of embarrassment stinging their cheeks as they talked in the middle of crowded dorm hallways. They didn’t Skype with friends from their hometowns, but left them behind as they befriended new neighbors and peers. There were half-hearted letters and winter breaks where no one seemed the same. Now, I call my best friends once a week. My thumbs pound out hundreds of text messages on a daily basis. Every moment of my life is shared with someone in an instant. Social life ceases to exist when technology is lost.

The infamous argument for simplicity that stems from “When I was a kid…” has become meaningless. Life has adjusted to the constant outpour of technology. It is almost impossible to go backward. Though living without a cell phone or the internet is liberating in theory, and can feel good for short periods of time, it isn’t realistic. I want to believe that my connections and communication would remain strong without the aid of artificial devices, but the truth is that I have come to depend on them—learning to use them to express myself and to create my identity. We are a generation of little privacy and constant connection. Every form of communication has etiquette to learn, and this etiquette changes every moment. Does this party deserve a mass text or a sanctioned Facebook event? Wall post, status comment, or inbox message for the boy I’ve got a crush on? Text message or phone call? Abbreviation or correct grammar? We are incredibly transformable beings. Our social norms change with the bat of an eye, and we adjust.
Is this malleability a good thing or a bad thing? I wonder often if we are losing a sense of our past, and becoming too enveloped in a faster and faster paced America. We hardly have time to breathe anymore. Everything is planned, and we know what everyone is doing at every moment. To a certain extent, we have lost the ability to lie. And yet, these metamorphoses have occurred throughout history. Can tradition be true? Culture and society are always mutating. We repeat ourselves, but we also constantly extend. I want to recognize and understand the past to inform the modern world I inhabit, but I also embrace the changes in technology. In an age of global warming, over-processed products made in the name of efficiency, and blooming, horrifying images of oil spills that threaten to kill, technology may easily be associated with disillusion. When we can learn to evaluate and use technology with both benefits and consequences in mind, working to maximize the former and minimize the latter, we will be in an ideal situation. We must exercise moderation. We must use our technological knowledge to build windmills and solar farms rather than continuing the development of coal mining and oil drilling. We must use endless resources of information and communication always at our fingertips to foster relationships rather than to micromanage our lives and withdraw ourselves from the reality of the leaves on the trees. These notions are broad and lack evidence or analysis, but they are still important. Visionaries must continue to exist. Too often we dismiss dreams of improvement and sweeping solutions with the statement that they are “unrealistic.” We have to remember that every idea begins with the “unrealistic.” If this weren’t true, the notion of progress would be impossible.

Reflecting on the way Facebook has altered my behavior and influenced the construction of my identity, I wonder if the way I depict myself on Facebook is actually authentic. Did I put that picture up because it actually meant something to me, or did I do it so that my ex-boyfriend would see me in a tight blue dress with a boy very much the opposite of him? Are the lyrics posted as my status a reflection of what makes me hum along and ponder life, or are they what I want people to think they represent the way I think? It is a circle of confusion and a web of connections and influences in which I can’t figure out who I actually am. In a Time Magazine article by Laura Locke called “The Future of Facebook,” Mark Zuckerberg comments on this idea of authentic identity on Facebook. Discussing his goals in starting Facebook and concerns about misrepresentation in a cyber realm, Mr. Zuckerberg states;

“Our whole theory is that people have real connections in the world. People communicate most naturally and effectively with their friends and the people around them. What we figured is that if we could model those connections were, [we could] provide that information to a set of applications through which people want to share information, photos or videos or events. But that only works if those relationships are real… We’re not thinking about ourselves as a community—we’re not trying to build a community—we’re not trying to make new connections.”

Due to my experience with Facebook as a first year student at an elite private college, I found this statement conflicted. Facebook as a connection with pre-existing friends and family is a believable and valid original intention for the site, but I don’t think that this is the function of the site any longer. Facebook does help to build a community. It forms relationships between people that never would have existed before. My experience one night on a darkened dance floor of a college dance, pulsating beats thudding in my chest as I moved alongside a mysterious guy, getting to know him through our exaggerated and somewhat bizarre dance moves and without words, exemplified this. Without Facebook, my time with that mystery man would have likely ended that night (and even with Facebook…it still might.) We left the dance without even exchanging names—just the memories of our spontaneous interaction. Asking around that night, I learned his name from a friend who remembered him from one of her classes. This scant knowledge in hand, I added my dancing partner of one Friday night as a Facebook friend. I did what is referred to as “Facebook stalking” as soon as he accepted my request. I quickly knew what kind of music he liked, what friends we shared, the places he’d been, and analyzed his gallery of photographs.

Mark Zuckerberg claims that Facebook is meant for furthering communication within already established relationships, but he doesn’t mention the sorts of interactions on Facebook that happen without any previous face-to-face connection. Countless first impressions are made through his site. Facebook was a huge part of my process of creating a circle of friends when I first came to college. Before even stepping foot onto my hilltop campus of limestone buildings and brochure-worthy-book-toting students, I already had several Facebook friends from my Freshman class. They found me in a group set up for incoming students, and, after approving of my interests and personal information, established a connection before we ever had the chance to run into one another in our student commons or the cafeteria. Facebook formed relationships between us that may never have occurred in just our daily real world interactions. Furthermore, the information presented in a Facebook profile allowed the opportunity to manipulate a relationship and an identity with it in mind. If I decided that mystery-dancing man (mentioned previously) was someone I wanted to be interested in me, I could use the information in his profile to influence the way he perceived me. He loves the film Memento? I could watch it and bring it up in conversation later. His favorite band is Bon Iver? I could make their lyrics my status. This sort of name dropping has occurred for decades in dating to impress the opposite sex, but Facebook allows it to happen at an entirely different level.

This brings me back to the cyclical notion of authentic identity in such a technologically advanced world. Have we become more or less individual with the addition of social networking sites like Facebook, personalized advertising, and consumerism that allows you more options than ever before and instant gratification? Are we using technology to more fully express our true selves, or constantly alter ourselves to fit the perception of the rest of the world? How will our methods of forming relationships change in the future? These are the kinds of questions I intend to continue to ask and explore. I study the dynamics of the street corner, the restaurant, and the vastly expanding alternate reality of the World Wide Web. All lead to potential answers to the one over arching question: Why is it that we do what we do?

There are 1000 channels… what should I watch on TV? This word document is not enough to hold my interest for more than thirty minutes. iTunes plays in my ears to encourage productivity, and there will be breaks to check statuses on that famous social networking page. It is likely there will be a digression to one of those advertisements in the side bar that always appeal to my penchant for vintage clothing and equestrian gear. In a National Public Radio interview on May 23, this type of personalized and malleable advertising (which so often sidetracks and sculpts my time spent online) was determined dangerous by Ryan Singel, a staff writer for Wired. Attacking Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg, Single stated that Mark Zuckerberg “wants to change the way the Internet works, and he wants Facebook to be the place where everyone defines themselves. It’s an amazing vision, and he’s brought some great things to the Internet, but that vision worries me deeply.” Are the selves we portray on social networking sites our true selves? Have I defined myself through Facebook? I believe that to a certain extent I have. My life in the Facebook world undeniably transforms my life in the real world. Getting dressed in my dorm room to go out with friends on a Friday night, mascara in hand, Pandora generated music playing from my MacBook speakers, my four closest friends chatter excitedly between glossed lips and vow not to “tag” each other in pictures deemed unsuitable for Facebook. Arms around waists and wide smiles in backgrounds that show where we’ve been, the photos in our profiles boast of our true “college experiences.” There will inevitably be constant flashes from pocket sized digital cameras tonight. Every event is a photo-op. At any moment, you must look the way you want your hundreds of friends to perceive you. You are constantly the person you want the world to see.

Hurrying across sidewalk squares in high heels and weaving through the morning rush hour traffic while glancing sideways at the illuminated green digits that dictate life, the woman pauses at a brightly lit vending machine. She inserts her credit card with a quick flick, and receives her morning dose of caffeine in a coffee cup. No personal interaction required. One block over, she presses buttons on another vending machine, but this time grasps a new designer blouse, or make up that will cover her work-induced dark circles, or fresh produce for the dinner she plans to make this evening, or the newest gadget that promises to make her life easier and allows her to control the digits on her dashboard. Her computer tells her what she likes, and where to find it. Everything she owns is fit to her personality—or at least what the advertisers presume it to be. There are no department stores or retail employees. There isn’t time for that anymore. As the mysterious woman goes about her day, flitting between technologies, she has all she wants and needs.

This scene, though admittedly exaggerated, is a portrait of a potential America in the not so distant future. Technology has come to define us. This morning I sat across from my Mom at our local coffee shop. She read the New York Times on her brand new and reaction evoking iPad, while I leafed through the paper copy that suddenly felt obsolete. The front page boasted an article entitled “The New Touch-Face of Vending Machines.” Reading about tobacco vending machines in Tokyo that scan wrinkles for age recognition, Canadian rest rooms with flat iron machines for late night hairstyle touch ups, and European machines dispensing everything from underwear to strawberries, I imagined a future reality of vending machine lined-streets and extremely personalized consumerism. I thought of the mentality of our country of millions—a mentality of instant gratification. I replayed in my mind the countless moments I’ve sat in front of a computer screen, tapping my toes impatiently as the internet page I was trying so desperately to reach takes more than 10 seconds to load. My attention span in this era of self-service, contradictory communication that says more and less simultaneously, music without album covers or tangibility, Facebook pages checked dozens of times a day, and the necessity an appearance of “business,” is that of a small child. However, unlike a small child, my attention deficit is not due to dueling desires to play on the swings and participate in a game of tag, but is instead the product of the overwhelming possibilities on so many screens.

Over the next couple weeks we have a guest blogger, our college intern, Andi Gomoll. Welcome Andi!

I remember when missing a TV show meant that I had to scour the TV guide for months waiting for the re-run to come back on, and if it was a serial TV show like Twin Peaks, I’d have to call my friends to see who had watched and could catch me up. Trying to watch a serial TV show before Tivo and the web was a real act of courage.

No longer, of course.

I never watched LOST but was always interested. [Spoiler alert: if you haven’t watched the finale of LOST, you may not want to read further.] After the finale this May, I decided I would plow through the series, as it was available via Netflix streaming.

I got through Season 5 last week and was very excited about Season 6. It was after midnight but I decided I would just watch the season opener and then go to bed. To my chagrin, episodes 1 through 15 of Season 6 were not available. Seasons 1 through 5 were all available and the last 3 or 4 episodes of Season 6 were available (on abc not netflix), but 15 episodes of Season 6 were not. Perhaps in one of Lost’s alternate universes this makes sense, but not mine. As someone who was as invested as a fan could be, putting in 100 hours over the last month into the show, it was to say the least a bad experience. I ended up going to the Lost Wiki and read Alan Sepinwall’s reviews of the episodes not online.

To see the last episodes I used the ABC player on my iPad. Now, when you watch Netflix you are paying a monthly fee for the service, so you do not have to watch commercials. On the ABC site the service is free, but they have commercials.

And here’s where we arrive at my questioning title for this blog post.

I’m a sap when it comes to this type of television show. There’s not many things that can make it misty in the man-cave but a tugging-at-the-heart-strings-finale is one of them. When I watch shows like this I really WANT to immerse myself and suspend my disbelief. So I am sitting there watching a Sawyer and Juliet reunite, or Jin and Sun see their baby, and I’m getting a little teary-eyed, and the scene fades to BLARING CHEEZ-IT commercial.

It was a jarring experience. It pulled me completely out of the experience of watching characters I cared about, to watching a made up show with actors and cameras, and commercials.

I’d humbly like to suggest that for a future series finale that has impacted TV and culture, that the execs be forced to watch these shows with the commercials. Perhaps they could find a way to put commercials that fit more stylistically with the content.

Links:
Lost Wiki
Alan Sepinwall
Cheez-it

One answer to this question is that companies require a signed copy of a form and therefore require a fax. If there is a contact name on the form, I will often contact the person to see if I can scan and email. But this is an arduous process requiring me to print the document, sign the form, scan back into my computer, and email. And, most often the company requires the entire document to be scanned and sent, not just the signature page.

Until now.

I discovered Zosh. It is an iphone app that allows you to sign pdf documents with your finger on your iphone and email back. I tried it on my iphone and really struggled signing with my finger as the form factor was just too small for me. But, with an iPad, this becomes a must-have app for anyone who has to sign and send documents.

How does it work? You download Zosh and create an account using your email address. From this email address you can send a pdf document to mydocs@zosh.com. You receive a reply when the document is ready. Open the document within Zosh, find the signature area and insert your signature. You can insert other text as well, including dates. With the 2x zoom on an iPad the size is no longer an issue and is quite easy to write a signature. I’ve done this three times in the last week and it’s been terrific.

The UI for this is quite simple. The list of documents is the home page. Select the document and click on the Insert button. You can insert a signature, text, date, or image. After that, click Transmit (they should have called it email) and send the document.

That’s it. It’s brilliant in its simplicity and purpose.

View the Zosh website.

Loved this quote from Steve Jobs today at the WWDC

“Everybody loves to talk about the things that are tangible when it comes to photography, like megapixels. But we tend to ask the question: how do we make better pictures?”

Apple recently stated they sold two million iPads in the first two months of the iPad release; and, it seems, half of those buyers have posted reviews, but I’ll add myself to the list nonetheless. Today will be about the purchase of the iPad.

My wife and kids and I went to New York for spring break and were there on launch day of the wifi iPad. Knowing this, I had reserved an iPad at the 5th Avenue Apple Store (an amazing store architecturally by the way.) We walked through Central Park and arrived around 11:00 am. There was a long line so my wife decided she and the kids would go to the FAO Schwarz store (home of the life size piano keys from the movie “Big”, a reference everyone within 10 years of 40 should get, and ten years in either direction might not.)

I walked back over to the Apple Store, a scant 20 yards from FAO Schwarz. I asked where to go if I had a reservation. I was pointed to an alternate line than where I had been looking. Turns out, the really long line was for the general public release at 3:00pm that day. The reserved line was much shorter. I asked the Apple employee standing at the entrance to the line how long he thought my wait would be. “Thirty to forty minutes before you’ll be out with your iPad.” In classic under promise and over deliver style, I was in the Apple Store within ten minutes. The employee got me my iPad and I was out of the store in another five.

This was my first time in line for a first day launch and I must say it was fun and odd. After I walked out someone asked if they could look at it. Realizing the improbability of this person running off with my iPad, I showed it to her. Moments after that, a reporter asked if I cared to be interviewed. It was all very surreal.

Apple did a great job at creating a good experience for me. I got the feeling of being rewarded for having a reservation by having that line separated and around the back from the main line. They over-stated my wait time so I would be pleasantly surprised when I was in and out in fifteen minutes. And they had plenty of employees there inside and outside the store to answer questions and keep things orderly yet fun.

Over the coming days / weeks, I’ll post about my impression of the iPad as well as specific apps that I enjoy. Several of us at Gomoll have iPads and like many others believe the tablet, whether from Apple, Google or others, will represent a shift in how people experience the web, and computers. And we’ll be there to help design the apps for it.

Note: Of course one of the great things about this experience, and one of the themes of using my iPad, is that by going so quickly I was able to enjoy some family time, namely, my kids playing on the giant piano.