The Machine Goes

“The landscape as well as the city are both highly structured, and our existence is furnished with many different kinds of devices and technological systems. These are what instruct people in contemporary societies ‘how to live.’”-De Vries

There is a wealth of design and social science literature that suggests that the artifacts we use shape our thinking and living. That means that even benign things like computer interfaces, navigational structures, and information architecture have embedded values that inform us how to live and how to think. The problem is that, what is usable is sometimes at opposition to what we value. Here are 2 quick examples:

Example 1: Amazon Country Selection

On Amazon.com’s shipping menu, you have to have to specify what country you want your purchase shipped to. Currently the drop down menu looks like this:

The U.S. is on the top of the list, with the rest of the countries below it in alphabetical order. This arrangement has implicit values relating to world power structures, global business, and which customers Amazon values. On the other hand, if the majority of Amazon.com’s current customers are from the U.S., perhaps this arrangement was done in the name of usability. A more egalitarian arrangement would have all countries listed in alphabetical order, but this will slow down registration for Amazon.com’s U.S. customer base.

Example 2: CNN’s Top Navigation

Above is a screenshot of the top menu on CNN.com. How the information is categorized and what is in this top menu is full of values. Beyond that, just the order of the topics in the top menu has implicit values. Taking in to account research that people look at websites from left to right, and the left is more important, CNN is implicitly suggesting that Entertainment news is more valuable then Health or Living news. Using the same general content, I may re-arrange the menu to look like this.

As you can see, I rearranged the menu to put more emphasis on health and living, and less on entertainment. Although this may make the interface less usable, I made this change because I believe a society should value news on medical breakthroughs and education more than news on Britney Spears’ most recent break up. But who am I to tell people what they should value?

Usable Artifacts Are Not Value Free

So, should designers push their values on to people? The truth of the matter is, right or wrong, as designers we already do this with every artifact we create. Even if we create a product that fits exactly what the users ask for, we are still embedding a value, a value that re-affirms that status quo. Designers have to realize this, and take responsibility for the values embedded in their products. The phrase ‘I am just giving people what they want’ does not absolve responsibility.

Why Values & Usability Don’t Always Match

Ideally there would never be a conflict between giving people what they want and giving them the ‘right’ thing. But unfortunately, there often is a conflict. Here are a few reasons why:

Ideal World vs. Real World: The ideal world and the real world are often two very different places. (Amazon shipping country example) In the ideal world all people from all countries would have equal purchasing power and it would make sense for Amazon to list all countries in alphabetical order. In the real world, citizens from certain countries have much more purchasing power than those from others. Should the design reflect the world as it is or the world as we you want it to be?

Ideal Self vs. Real Self: The ideal me reads tons of interesting literature and volunteers at the homeless shelter. The real me is fascinated with Britney Spears and loves to watch The Real World.

Business Values: The values of the business don’t always align with the values of the people. (CNN Menu Example) Prominently featuring the travel section may be in CNNs best interest because they generate more revenue from ads within that section, but people who read CNN may not care about travel.

Different People: Different people have different values.

Approaches To Balancing Usability & Values

Balancing values and usability is a complex issue that I am only beginning to understand. At this point I am just throwing around ideas, but it seems as if there are a few ways to approach this balance.

Design for the User: Card sorting, user research, and testing tell the designer what to do and how to design. This seems to be the dominant view in the HCI community.

Customization: Customization takes some of the everyday values vs. usability decisions off of the designer and allows designers to believe they are creating value-free designs. Google homepage is a good example. Customization has its own set of values, like individualism, autonomy, and others.

Design for the Ideal: Design for the ideal world or the ideal self. This may lead to some serious usability/usefulness problems and your design may never be used. This is also problematic because people’s ideal worlds and selves can be drastically different from each other.

My main criticism is of these approaches is that ideas like usability, user-centered, and customization allow designers to believe they are not responsible for, and don’t need to reflect on, the values they embed in the design. By following user-centered procedures, and giving people what they want, designers believe they absolve themselves from responsibility for the values embedded in the artifacts. I see this as problematic.

In the end, I really have no idea how to approach this balance. So what do you all think?

Note: This entry was originally written for the interaction culture group blog. The original post (and comments) can be found here.

Today a classmate of mine, Aaron Houssian, presented his research plan for a serious game framework. His well-done presentation and this interesting discussion prompted me to think about serious games of all varieties.

According to Wikipedia, a serious game is a software application developed with game technology and game design principles for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. The goal of serious games may be advertising, education, persuasion, simulation, or marketing. I would argue that this definition needs to be expanded to all games, even those with the purpose of pure entertainment.

Games are artifacts, and like all artifacts they have cultural (and other) values embedded in them. These games then subtly shape the thinking of the people who use them. Thus, video game designers (perhaps unconsciously) embed values in games that ultimately shape the thinking of millions of people.

Note: When I say shape games shape our thinking, I don’t mean that after you play GTA you will rob a car. It is more subtle cultural things that we might not even notice at the time but may affect our thinking in the long run. For example: In The Sims 2 it is impossible to cross dress you character.

The problem for me is in the terminology ‘serious games.’ Calling games whose primary purpose is other than pure entertainment serious implies that other games are not serious. The assumption is that the designers of other games should entertain people, not persuade or educate them. But all games do these things, whether they mean to or not. It is very important that ‘non-serious’ video game designers realize this.

So, I propose that we deem all games serious games, even if their main goal is entertainment. This will hopefully encourage game designers to be reflective and critical of the values they are embedding in to the games.

Note: This entry was originally written for the interaction culture group blog. The original post (and comments) can be found here.

Here is a presentation I found last year when I was Marty’s RA, looking for new material for his course. - http://web.archive.org/web/20040407205056/www.richgold.org/SMART/HTML/slide2.html

This guy, Rich Gold, was a researcher at PARC before he passed away. Pretty cool stuff, my favorites are: [Read more →]

Recently, Heidegger’s concepts of present-at-hand and ready-at-hand have been mentioned in readings for both Jeff’s class and Erik’s class. I find the implications of these concepts interesting for interaction designers and want to examine them further. A fundamental question for an interaction designer being introduced to these concepts is:

Should products be designed to be ready-to-hand, or to be present-at-hand?
Most software tools should be ready-at-hand so that the person using them concentrates on the content or task and not on the tool. Ready-at-hand is the state of most tools, until they break down, and I think that most of us don’t want to be designing tools that are constantly breaking down. I also see some relation between Heidegger’s concept of ready-at-hand and Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow. I think a tool being ready-at-hand is a prerequisite for someone to get in to a flow state, although just because a tool is ready-to-hand, does not guarantee a flow state. [Read more →]

This summer I read an interesting article by Jerome Bruner about how we (humans) are actively creating narratives of our experiences. He argues that narrative is really the only way we can understand experiences and the only way we can communicate our experiences to others. While we are experiencing something, we are thinking about how it will be narrated to others, which then affects the experience itself.

For example: Getting very lost in Old Delhi can be narrated as humorous incident befalling the clueless international traveler, a tragic incident that ruined a trip, or a challenge that the heroic world traveler overcame. Let’s say the person subconsciously decides, for various reasons, that this narrative will be a comedy. [Read more →]

For my capstone I am working on a frog sound website (strange, I know). Part of the project involves me creating simple interactive learning content for the site. This design will be informed by user research and a thorough literature review of related topics. Along with these, and other interaction design methods, I am thinking about using structuralism to analyze other well-liked interactive learning applications, hoping this will ultimately lead to a better design.

Why & How I think structuralism can help:
In interaction design we have many methods that help us create compelling, usable designs, but the best designs often seem to involve a bit of luck. Or sometimes it may not be luck, but some tacit knowledge the designer has. Neither literature, nor user research can immediately give us this luck or tacit knowledge. [Read more →]

In Buxton’s book ‘Sketching User Experience’ he talks about the nature of sketches. He says sketches are fast, cheap, plentiful, ambiguous, etc. He also talks about how sketches have their clear vocabulary and distinct gestures. Examples of this vocabulary and gestures would be how lines extend through endpoints and how they are not tight or precise. As designers, we all recognize what these early sketches look like. I think that non-designers also recognize the distinctive look of early sketches.The attributes of sketching all seem to be inter-related and I would argue that the vocabulary and style of sketching is influenced by the attributes that are central to iterative, explorative nature of sketching, like being fast, cheap, and easy. For example, it is important that sketching is fast, easy, and cheap so that designers can explore their designs in many iterations. So designers draw loose-lined, ambiguous sketches on paper because it is fast, easy, and cheap.

The question is: When (and if) it becomes easier, faster, and cheaper to create representations on a computer, rather than on paper, will the vocabulary and gesture of sketching change?

One could argue that sketching on a computer will never be easier, cheaper, and faster than sketching by hand. [Read more →]

Our discussion this week in class reminded me of the ideas of technological determinism. Last year I learned about, and explored, the interesting ideas of technological determinism in a research methods class and an art class.

In short, (according to wikipedia.com) technological determinism is a reductionist doctrine that a society’s technology determines its cultural values, social structure, or history. The social construction of technology is the opposing theory. It argues that technology does not determine human action, but that rather, human action shapes technology. [Read more →]

I have been thinking about Erik Stolterman’s lecture about design. A large part of the lecture was about the tools and materials used by designers. He used a carpenter analogy and stressed that the skilled designers, including carpenters, carefully select the tools they use for a task.

As interaction designers, one of the most important tools we choose is our prototyping tool. [Read more →]

Technology is no longer the benign desktop computer in our basements. Technology is now integrated in to all parts of our lives and many tech items double as status symbols and fashion accessories. The distinct style and customizable features of some tech products allow the consumer to express him or herself in unique and interesting ways. This change in technology also means a change in consumer adoption.

In Gillian Smith’s intro to Designing Interactions she talks briefly about David Liddle’s view on technology adoption. I looked at this model, and Everett Roger’s diffusion of innovation model, to analyze how these models fit current technology adoption practices of consumer products. [Read more →]