DESIGNING *for humans

Understanding Analysis

 

Steve Baty has written a gem for JohnnyHolland.org on Deconstructing Analysis Techniques.  Essentially a primer on various types of data analysis and organization methods, this meta-analysis is succinct, clear and readable.  Baty did a great job of defining and differentiating terms that all to often are used interchangeably or imprecisely.  He is assisted by the simple, but effective graphics of Jeroen van Geel, which serve as a data visualization to accompany the text.  For example, on "Aggregation":

  In one respect aggregation is simply the process of bringing together data from a variety of sources and adding it together. In an analytic context it also carries with it the connotation of combining those sources together into something new...

...We combine data from each of these sources and arrive at some single figure - based on some form of calculation (we’ll save the ‘how’ of that for another time). That single figure - which we can track year-to-year - is our aggregate. Unlike a summary, which characterizes a single piece of data, you can see that our aggregate is a composite value.

In short, a beautiful little article...I wish I could write like this once in a while.

Checklists as a Design Tool

The humble checklist has been receiving a good deal of attention in recent years, particularly in the context of medical error avoidance.  For example, earlier this year the New England Journal of Medicine published A Surgical Safety Checklist to Reduce Morbidity and Mortality in a Global Population.  The international study reported a nearly 50% decline in patient deaths when a combined written/verbal checklist was used in conjunction with surgical procedures.  The authors diligently point out several possible sources of error that may have contributed to the results, including the Hawthorne effect, a "short-term improvement caused by observing worker performance." 

But rather than seeing the Hawthorne effect as a source of error, I see it as a source of performance.  That is, the checklist process serves as a continuing form of performance observation - by having to refer to an external reference, the surgical teams were consistently self-aware and performed better as a consequence.

Self-awareness is an important issue in successful design as well.  A major challenge in user research is communicating recommendations or guidelines to a design and/or engineering team, with the goal of affecting the team's behavior towards a desired design outcome.  Design guidelines are typically communicated in a number of ways - reports, presentations, working sessions, collaborative discussions, etc. - but the checklist format might be an even more effective communication tool.  This is because of both the way checklists are created, and how they are used.

The checklist format requires that information is presented in specific, succinct and actionable terms.  For example detailing the size of touch points, the labeling of a control, or the diameter of a handle.  This forces the checklist creator (i.e. the researcher) to come to specific recommendations.  Those items that cannot be boiled down to a single point should be further discussed or researched until they can be, and if not, considered for removal.

For the checklist reader, the benefits of a structured list over a more vague presentation or lengthy report should be clear.  But its also important to keep in mind the verbal component of checklist usage in the medical study.  The check-and-balance approach of having open communication is probably as important, if not more, than the checklist itself. 

Comparing the benefits of a checklist in the highly structured, rigorous surgical domain with the creative, diverse world of design may be a stretch, but I expect that the value of clear communication is consistent across all human endeavors.

Human Factors of Imaginary Objects

Bruce Stirling's new undertaking, The Imaginary Gadgets Project, has re-inspired my thinking around the human factors of imaginary objects.  Stirling describes his project as "a catalog of the weirdest things imaginable."  Compared to real-life gadgets, imaginary ones include everything from "futuristic gadgets" (pictured above), to "radically impossible gadgets" and "gadgets of the fantastic and the occult (crystal balls, magic wands); the personal hardware of the saints and the gods", to name a few categories.

What interests me about such devices is not their obviously incredible and/or supernatural capabilities, but rather the more mundane aspects of how a user would interact with them.  For no matter how complex, esoteric or unfathomable the capabilities of an imaginary object, there must be some connection between the user and the system, be it tangible, telepathic or otherwise. 

I said I was re-inspired to look at this area because in 2007 I had looked at the human factors of nonobjects, nonobjects being branko Lucic's forthcoming design fiction book.  For example, I examined the ergonomics of dialing the Tarati, a touch-less phone, pictured below, that has spaces instead of buttons (ergonomic issues included lack of tactile feedback and need to accommodate a range of finger diameters).

Curiously, the nonobjects book has yet to be published, making it something of an imaginary object itself.

So what's the value of this imaginary human factors & usability beyond intellectual curiosity?  I think there are at least two relevant benefits.  The first is inspiration - thinking about how people might interact with a crystal ball or time machine takes us outside of our everyday human-computer interaction thinking, and can give us ideas, if only metaphorical, about how to design a user experience.  I don't have any proof, but there's a good chance that the Wii controller was influenced by light sabers.

The second benefit is more subtle, but perhaps more important - motivation.  Consider that virtually every product a designer works on prior to its development and launch is an imaginary product.  It's really just a question of degree.  A new online form is not much different than an existing one that it might be replacing, but whatever small details need significant enough changes to require a designers input are imaginary until they are designed and realized.  Similarly, determining the appropriate human factors for the controls on a new car is necessary because the controls for that car do not yet exist.  In other words, the very nature of human factors design is making the imaginary concrete.  Studying the hypothetical human factors for imaginary products is really just an extreme version of what we do as designers every day. 

I plan to follow Bruce Stirling's thread and find out what practical ideas might come from these fantastic gadgets.  Now there is the other side of the coin...an imaginary human factors - but that's for another discussion.

Appearing on Design Forty

I'll be the guest on this Wednesday's (Feb 11th) Design Forty to discuss design research blogging (what else?).  Design Forty is a weekly 40-minute conference call hosted by Dan Rockwell of Lextant.  It's open to anyone, but requires registration to join in the call via Calliflower.

Upcoming Research & Design Conferences

I have a pet peeve with unique names/themes for recurring conferences.  Rather than just calling this year's conference "The 2009 XYZ Conference", we see putatively clever or intriguing titles, which may be useful for branding the conference web site, but typically have little do to with the conference content.

With that said, here's a couple of upcoming conferences that promise to be worthwhile, because of, or despite their names:

• Exposed - A Design Research Exchange will be at Arizona State University in just a few weeks (March 6th and 7th).  "Students, professionals and academics will engage with Exposed participants from organizations such as Intel, Smart Design, Herman Miller, frog design, Gravity Tank, Brooks Stevens Inc, Adaptive Path, Flamingo International, ReD Associates, Arizona State University, Lextant and more!"  This is the follow-up to last year's From Here to There conference.
  

• Project Infusion is the working title for 2009 international IDSA conference that will be held in Miami in September.  It's still early in planning for this one, but the call for submission abstracts is only until March 6th.

IDSA Updates

The Industrial Designers Society of America has launched their new web site at IDSA.org.  In addition to an improved visual layout, the site takes a direct approach to user-centered design by providing navigation options for three targeted groups: public, members and media.  Once you select your group, the relevant sub-set of primary navigation options appear.  This is one of those information architecture approaches that is often discussed but rarely applied, so I'm curious to see if it works out effectively.

{note the site design was up as of 4 Feb, but then went back to the old version and a note that the updated design would be back soon}

In other IDSA news, Human Factors section chair Steve Wilcox was voted as IDSA President-elect.  Therefore I am taking over as section chair until the fall elections, so please contact me (robtannen at hotmail dot com) with any questions or suggestions. The full list of IDSA interest sections and chairs is listed here.

Asterisks *2 Feb 2009

Asterisks - our new label for brief notes of interest.  In this case, items that relate to the visual, auditory and tactile senses.

• Visual - Rafe Needleman of CNET writes about "The Myth of Width: When widescreens don't work".  He takes on the ongoing trend of widescreen format displays in a range of consumer products, a presentation form that isn't always task approrpriate:

One area where I believe we should (but probably won't) see continued releases of consumer portrait-mode displays, though: personal navigation devices. Recently the PND companies have started to offer wide-screen navigation units. How does this make sense? When we use a computer-generated map that's always rotating to show us where we're going at the top of the screen, why do we care what's out the side windows? It's what's coming up that matters. Serious navigation products for back-country hikers are portrait mode. The wider you make a map display the more you sacrifice useful information for distraction--although, again, it makes the devices look cool.

 

• Auditory & Tactile - File this one under why didn't I think of that?  Carnegie Mellon University researchers are using simple microphones and software to turn virtually an surface into a gestural-based controller.  From a tabletop to your leg.  See the video for a clear technical explanation (from the interaction-focused site johnnyholland.org)