Where things meet

Some UX musings when the end (of the year, that is) is nigh

2015 is coming to an end, and I really feel the need to stop for a couple of hours and summarize. This year, in my professional life, has really been about summarizing things — I’ve been busy laying the foundations of a design team at a tech company and teaching some really talented young designers the basics of what I believe in. Both of these activities require one truly important thing: to know what I really believe in as a UX professional. I spent countless hours thinking about the ideal role of a designer in a product company, the future of this profession, the philosophical foundations of my decisions and motivations. So I decided to share some of these thoughts with you. It won’t be an essay — just some random thoughts to end the year with.

Dasein over Design

Consider how the practices of UX have been evolving in the past couple of years. We had really great tool sets and frameworks for the web. UCD was a great place to start from. When our focus switched from the big screens to the small ones we have in our pockets, for some time we were able to use the same ways of thinking. Focusing on the user, keeping our attention on the tiny amount of time when direct interactions occur, have been quite okay.

I believe that with ubiquitous computing becoming reality, we have reached a point of singularity. Our basic methods are designed for handling focused attention, being in the foreground.

Actually, there is a concept very close to ubiquitous computing that I believe better describes the way interaction with technology is evolving, called calm technology. This term was coined by Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown about twenty years ago, describing an approach where interaction with information and technology mostly occurs on the periphery of the attention, and it’s the person who creates the flow of interaction between the periphery and the center by having control over it.

This new world of technology creates some shortcomings of our methods. Instead of thinking about the act of interacting with a system, and adding some context to better understand it, the primary design space should be the context, adding a layer of direct interaction when applies.

There was one really interesting book this year about the changes in the interfaces we design that I believe did not get enough attention, and this book is Thomas Wendt’s Design for Dasein. Wendt revisited some really interesting philosophical concepts (mostly from Heidegger’s thinking, which should be a great inspiration for everyone dealing with experiences, by the way), but what is really interesting is the way he suggests context, meaning and practice should be approached:

A common example Peter-Paul Verbeek provides for a hermeneutic object is a thermometer. We read the thermometer to understand the world. And as a system of measurement, it is embedded in social, cultural, and linguistic norms. We experience temperature simply by existing in an environment, but the thermometer is our way of making sense of that experience. Another example might be Twitter. It is certainly a means of conversation, but it continually calls attention to itself by imposing rules such as a maximum length for each tweet or the inclusion of advertisements in a user’s feed. In addition, we read the world through Twitter in a similar way as the thermometer. We experience our world from a single point, but Twitter allows us to consider multiple points of view from people around the world, thus providing the user, in some cases, with a much broader perspective on a particular topic.

Really, just read it, every word there is gold, that, I believe can help anyone designing experiences get a better mindset for tackling the problems of calm computing with a truly humanistic and purpose-driven approach.

We are in the prosthetics industry

There is one analogy I have been using for years now to demonstrate my understanding of designing interfaces. It was inspired by Mitchell Kapor’s definition of design:

What is design? It’s where you stand with a foot in two worlds — the world of technology and the world of people and human purposes and you try to bring the two together.

How I see it, designing interfaces is a means of coping with evolution — or the lack of it, actually. The world around us has evolved really quickly in the past couple of centuries, and we, humans, are just not able to keep up with that. We are creating technologies that we are genetically and functionally not able to interface with — steam engines, cars, computers, etc. In an ideal world, people should be born with build in interfaces, that can connect them to these technologies seamlessly, and maybe, at some point, that will be the case. But for now, we are stuck with levers, pedals, and GUIs —our prosthetic extensions that connect us with the core power we want to manipulate with.

I believe this analogy is getting more and more true — as the focus of design is shifting more and more from making business and conveying information to empowering people to do more than they are genetically determined to, seamless integration is becoming more and more important as a foundation for any good design.

Do you know what a contact patch is?

It’s that tiny area of a tire that is actually contacting the road under you. And by tiny, I mean 2–300 cubic centimeters. That’s about the size of an iPad mini per tire. That’s all the area where all the technology, research, power in your car takes effect — and that’s actually the area you are trusting your life with every time you drive. That is where the magic actually happens — and also where most of the disasters happen. And this is probably the least magical part of a ride — it’s just rubber, traction, and asphalt.

Sounds familiar from technology? Something that is, in comparison with the technology beneath, is small, simple, and technologically, well, kinda boring, but works the same way? Yes, it’s the interface.

As people of interfaces, it’s hard to take responsibility for our actions. It’s just a really tiny part of the product, and usually, it’s not the most innovative, cutting edge, or mind-blowing tech. But remember. However great the engine is, if the tires suck, people will die. However great the engine is, if the interfaces suck, business will fail. And, if you are designing for critical environments, people will even die. Just check this classic: https://medium.com/tragic-design/how-bad-ux-killed-jenny-ef915419879e#.7vj9gi2ck

There’s even a song that can help you do the responsibility mantra, but it’s from the golden ages of advertising, so once you’ve listened to it, you will never be able to get it out of your mind. Consider yourself warned.

Let me know your thoughts. Really. And you can also follow me here or on Twitter @csertanakos.