Average 1999 PC
CPU Speed: 200mhz
RAM: 32mb (max 256mb)
Storage: 3.5gb

Average 2009 PC
CPU Speed: 2.3ghz
RAM: 1gb (max 4gb)
Storage: 160gb

Average 2009 Server
CPU Speed: 2ghz
RAM: 8gb (max 128gb)
Storage: 73gb (max 1tb)

Our response:
K size of websites triple!
Layout now 1024 x 768!
Ajax! Flash! Flex!

Dan Saffer
Kicker Studio
Designing
Smart and
Clever
Applications

Smart (adj.):
1. Prevent users from making mistakes.
2. Prevent users from working harder
than they need to.
3. Do things that are easy for computers
but hard for humans.

1. Prevent mistakes

Poka-Yoke
Ensure that proper
conditions exist before
a process begins,
preventing problems
before they happen.

Error messages
The system should never present an error
message to a user unless the user has done
everything right but the system itself cannot
respond correctly.

Give users info or tools
to fix problems

2. Prevent users from
working harder than
they need to
Take over some (if not all) of the
complexity of the task.

Tesler’s Law of the
Conservation of
Complexity
1. In every process, there is some
inherent complexity.
2. There is a point beyond which you
cannot simplify a process any further.
3. At that point, you can only move the
complexity from place to place.

Find the complexity the
system should handle
1. Figure out what the core complexity is.
2. Figure out what parts of that complexity
users might want control over,
and when.
3. Put in those controls (out of the way
if possible).

3. Do what humans
have trouble doing but
computers can do easily:
1. Rapidly performing computation.
2. Doing several tasks simultaneously.
3. Infallibly remembering things.
4. Detecting complicated patterns.

Several tasks
simultaneously

Clever (adj.):
1. Predict the needs of users and then
fulfill those needs in unexpected,
but pleasant ways.
2. Create the “Long Wow.”
3. Release delight via adaptation.

1. Predicting and
fulfilling needs
1. User research
2. Product testing
3. Data
4. Be a really good designer
(heuristic evaluation)

User research

Product/prototype
testing

Data

Fixing pain points
1. Too many clicks/actions/steps.
2. Huh? Why am I doing this?
3. What just happened?
4. Did anything just happen?
5. I can’t find what I’m looking for.
6. I don’t know where I am.
7. You just did what to my data?
8. If I click this, what happens?
9. I didn’t see that button.
10. What do I do now?

2. The Long Wow
A means to achieving long-term customer
loyalty through systematically impressing
your customers again and again.
Brandon Schauer

3. Release delight via
adaptation

The Glass Wall (BBC)

The rules of adaptation
1. Appropriate for context.
2. Nothing dumb (meaning un-Smart).
3. Value subtlety.
4. Evolve over long periods of time.
5. Use what the user is already doing.
6. Use what the userS are already doing.
7. Look for places to use system memory.
8. Do more than is required.

What changes?
XML, Copy, Graphics
RSS, SOAP
CSS, AJAX,
Controls
APIs, Functionality,
Middleware
Servers, Databases

Use existing user
behavior
Settings suck.
Forms suck.
Beware The Last Mile of Data!

Smart (adj.):
1. Prevent users from making mistakes.
2. Prevent users from working harder
than they need to.
3. Do things that are easy for computers
but hard for humans.

Clever (adj.):
1. Predict the needs of users and then
fulfill those needs in unexpected,
but pleasant ways.
2. Create the “Long Wow.”
3. Release delight via adaptation.

Thanks.
dan@kickerstudio.com
@odannyboy