Airplanes, Seattle, and Visualizing It All

This quarter I started a really fascinating independent study project with a Foster School of Business professor, Dr. Richard Nolan. I get to do some research for him on people, places, and time - all related to the aeronautic-powerhouse Boeing and its role in the Seattle/Puget Sound Area.

Specifics aside, I've really enjoyed learning about three specific things.

1) The idea of the "industry commons"
This is an idea that seems to in part come from the medieval practice of sharing a common space for the good of a community. Sharing resources and ideas in a collective space is a way for an industry to innovate and strengthen itself. There is the idea that the movement of tacit knowledge happens more readily in geographically bound spaces through more informal transfers - in short, similar people are drawn together in one place and share their knowledge with each other in non-professional settings such as in a bicycling lunch group. When an industry has certain geographic concentrations, there is a tendency to see others of the industry (individuals and companies) drawn to that location.

2) Visualization of non-linear information
This has been my biggest challenge. I have done a lot of research over the past 8 years or so, and yet this is the first time I have to "visualize" my findings. I can create lists and draw conclusions no problem - but finding a way to visually represent the data is quite a daunting task. I've taking classes with design elements, but this is actually having to create meaningful visuals. Today I discovered MindNode which will hopefully help me out as I map out pretty complex relationships between people, places, organizations, and time. Hopefully they'll turn into something interesting and clear at the end, because right now they're kind of confusing. The first draft is always the hardest, they say, and then the following iterations should hopefully become easier to improve.

3) Airplane and Seattle knowledge
This has been a side bonus of the project - I've been reading lots and lots for this, and I find myself discovering very interesting little facts and tidbits about Seattle and its history. I love it - I've been out here almost every year of my life before finally moving here in 2009, and this city continues to enchant me. Learning about the richness of its people and places has been wonderful.

The other thing is that I get to learn about airplanes - I retain less of the information but it's still a cool subject. I've always loved traveling, and now it is quite cool to know more about the giant beasts that get me from one place to another through seemingly impossible conditions.

PS: Don't research airplanes if you're nervous about them already.

Changing the World With Design

Since starting my graduate degree in Information Management, I've discovered an entire new and fantastical world called "design" that has entirely changed the way I think and view the world. The principles that make up the foundation of "user-centered design" can also serve not only to design better systems and stuff, but provide a framework through which to view the world.

One of the cooler applications of design to "everyday" life is the work that is being done by Emily Pilloton in North Carolina. Co-founder of ProjectH, a nonprofit design organization, Pilloton has taken on one of the scarier systems ever formed in the US - formal education - and has begun to tackle it with design.

Thinking about how to "fix" our underfunded, outdated, bureaucracy-laden public education system is a difficult, convoluted and systemically heartbreaking effort. But Pilloton has armed herself, and works to create "Design initiatives for Humanity, Habitats, Health, and Happiness". And it's working. They are doing some really awesome things over in North Caroline.

Check out her TED talk on "Teaching Design for Change". It is one of the most inspiring TED talks I've seen in a while. Often the people who speak for TED have these wonderful insights, challenges, and ideas, but this one is particularly strong because this a snapshot into work that is creating sustainable change in behavior and attitudes. And that's just cool.

More About Emily Pilloton:

A visit with Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report (1/18/2010)

Writing for Design Mind about the need for design to "Get Local", a reflection around the one-year mark of their project in Bertie, NC.

The Beauty of Data Visualization (David McCandless TED talk)

I have to do a quick post about this TED talk from earlier this year. David McCandless talks about "The Beauty of Data Visualization". And it's beautiful. I've been digging around the newest website, "Information is Beautiful" having a lovely time examining all the truly lovely visualizations they've created.

I really do believe that pictures/visuals really are the next sets of vocabulary for communicating data. We have spent a lot of time in using words to describe data (and believe me, I love words), but there's so much power in a picture. And the visualization of data can give you an immediate grasping of context (accurate only if done right, of course) that words just can't quite capture.

For example, McCandless et al. produced a "Billion Dollar-o-Gram" in 2009 to give some context to those billions being thrown around. Go look at that for a second, and then come back after finding the cost to "Wall Street Revenue 2009", "Cost of Obesity Related Diseases", "Eradicate AIDS worldwide", and then "Worldwide cost of financial crisis".

McCandless talks about how the sometimes quoted "absolute figures" don't give you a whole picture - the relative presentation of data through visualization can give you a better view of the landscape. Visualization creates an information map for people to explore, and helps expose the hidden patterns among the data.

One comment he makes was interesting - he challenges the saying "data is the new oil" with a slight modification: "data is the new soil". It is this rich resource, and there is so much of it. We just have to figure out how to ask the right questions of it to get the answers.

"Let the dataset change your mindset" - the use of visualization is definitely a part of making sound decisions that can be backed up by data.

Design & The Platinum Rule

We have Alix Han (@uxkungfu) talking to students today about user-experience (UX).

You know the "golden rule": Do unto others as you would have them do to you.

Alix tells us the platinum rule of design: Do unto others as they would have you do to them...

What?

Well, it goes like this - you might like to be kicked, but that other person might prefer hugs. Seems a bit simplistic, but ....

Stealing some of the main points from her presentation, there are a few key elements that make up the desires/needs of humans and their interactions.

Talking About Emotional Design

Certainty: I want to know that things will work the way I expect them to

Variety: I want fresh, entertaining content

Significance: I want to feel special and important in some way

Love & Connection: I want to feel connected to someone or something

A designer's job is to research/discover how these come together and make a user's experience awesome.

Norman Strikes Again

You know it's going to be interesting when one of the most well known names in HCI design write a blog post called "Design Thinking: A Useful Myth".

Don Norman's post this past June is well worth the read, not only because it is well written but because it has some interesting points that might make for good discussions amoung "designers". Norman talks about the fact that the idea that designers somehow have mystical powers of intellect and perspective can be a useful myth, but that this idea of "design thinking" is simply a myth. He makes the point that it really isn't a unique characteristic to this profession. Breakthroughs simply occur "when people find fresh insights, new points of view and propagate them". Creative people are all around. But the design community, across all sectors, has a vested interest in perpetuating the myth that designers somehow have the monopoly on design thinking, which is according to Norman really simply "a public relations term for good, old fashion creative thinking.

1) The myth helps fight against the confusion that "design" equals "making things pretty". Design is so much more than that, and every little piece that might change the popular mind helps.

2) It helps get designers into the door at organizations. "Hire us, they say, and we will bring the magic of design companies to you, working wonders upon your dead, stilted, unproductive company." Ultimately, Norman points out, the "design thinking" pitch is akin to claiming a secret weapon that has to power to solve big problems, and that is a valuable tool.

Norman wraps up the post with an interesting challenge to designers:

"So, long live the phrase 'design thinking.' It will help in the transformation of design from the world of form and style to that of function and structure. It will help spread the word that designers can add value to almost any problem, from healthcare to pollution, business strategy and company organization. When this transformation takes place, the term can be put away to die a natural death. Meanwhile exploit the myth. Act as if you believe it. Just don't actually do so."

Video of Jesse Schell: "Designing Outside the Box" DICE 2010

Last night I watched this 28 minute video of Carnegie Mellon University Professor Jesse Schell talking about "going beyond Facebook" and the emerging game development trends. I thought I'd share some of the key points that I took away from watching it - though it might make more sense to watch it first!

Some of the key takeaway points:

1) The unexpected force by which Facebook et al. stormed the world. The list of games (ClubPenguin, Wii, WiiFit, Guitar Hero) that were these huge hits that traditionally seem completely impossible. And I still don't see the appeal of Farmville. Apparently I'm too traditional.

2) That these phenomenon are all breaking through into reality. The blending of virtual and reality are on the path to blurring together almost indistinguishably. Interesting psychological reasoning that because we're cut off from nature and "we live in a bubble of fake bullshit" we're seeking out the "real" relative to our experiences. Maybe it's just because we've finally realize how artificial so many of our interactions have become.

3) Technology is going to continue to diverge in some respects, rather than unify into the happy box. Loved the idea of the iPhone as the Swiss Army knife.

4) Games are creeping into daily life more and more. I can totally see this, and I liked the examples he pointed out. These things have turned accepted and traditionally established processes and behaviors into something more.

• Fantasy Football - Even your grandmother does it.
• Geocashing - Because taking a walk is better when there is treasure at the end of it!
• Fox & The Simpsons - Watching TV has become a game.
• DARPA's red weather balloons - We'll do the work for them!
• Weight Watchers - Points are like a game.
• Ford Hybrid Car - Grow the plant leaves, save on gas. This has changed the way people drive!

5) Imagine if skilled game designers were involved in the development of these emerging "games". It would really change things up. I think that the marketing department in the way of hiring designers for a while, because marketers seem to always think they know what is best. Strength of game designers is that interaction-design emphasis.

6) We're heading towards a future where creepy sensors are always recording everything. Schell suggested that this potentially could be a huge behavior changer. A little big-brother-ish, but I think I like it in theory.

7) Disposable technology. I think we're already a good ways there. Think about how quickly we go through things. Schell makes an interesting point - the technology in a Furbie is greater than the technology it took to put a man on the moon, though that is true for almost any electronic these days.

8) Huge danger for games to turn into serious commercialized schmuck. Penny-Arcade made a comment or two about this trend in the game "Alan Wake". I haven't played it, but it is reported to have some serious crazy ass product placement in the game, perhaps the most blatant yet. Anyways, I thought of that when he was talking about the REM cycle device for some reason.

Wii Games - E3 2011 - Guitar Hero 5