Werkzeuge (Tools) Victor Lombardi November 2007

Me I don’t want to educate for yesterday or today, I want to educate for tomorrow, so I’ve been thinking a lot about where the industry is going and how our roles are changing.

I don’t want to educate for yesterday or today, I want to educate for tomorrow, so I’ve been thinking a lot about where the industry is going and how our roles are changing.

First, an Exercise What’s the hardest design problem you have? Write it down. You have 30 seconds.

What’s the hardest design problem you have?

Write it down.

You have 30 seconds.

Deutsches Museum On a recent visit to the Deutsches Museum in Munich…

Electric 3-Speed Hand Drill, Model GMAS C. & E. Fein, Stuttgart, 1903 I found as many as half of the artifacts on display were tools…

Taxonomy at the Deutsches Museum Kommunikation Informatik Mikroelektronik Telekommunikation

Kommunikation

Informatik

Mikroelektronik

Telekommunikation

Sender “ Terminal” Receiver

Sender

User Interface? Software?

Maybe the museum was telling me that our tools are not museum-quality yet

Is there a pattern in how other fields made progress?

Photography as Science http://historyforkids.utah.gov/fun_and_games/photos/history.html

Photography as Profession

Photography as Everyday Tool

Publishing as Craft http://ulibnet.mtsu.edu/SpecialCollections/CMSPrinting/

Publishing as Profession http://www.prioritylabel.ca/Aboutus.htm

Publishing as Everyday Tool

Information Architecture as Craft

Information Architecture as Profession

Information Architecture as Everyday Tool Edit Navigation… Optimize Navigation… In the future, website owners will have administrative functions with intelligent information architecture options

Why Tools?

Because People Want Technology That Fixes Problems An email I received last week: Is there a technology that will allow us to give control of the content to our business owners and allow the content to be dynamic enough to support the dynamic nature of our content? <name deleted>, Software Architect Financial Services Company My reply: Yes, it’s called a designer . Probably not the answer he wanted.

An email I received last week:

Is there a technology that will allow us to give control of the content to our business owners and allow the content to be dynamic enough to support the dynamic nature of our content?

<name deleted>, Software Architect

Financial Services Company

My reply:

Yes, it’s called a designer .

Probably not the answer he wanted.

Because we won’t have time to design interfaces for all the technology yet to come Number of Microsoft Certified Professionals in the world 1 : 2,176,764 Number of Java programmers in the world 2 : 3,000,000 Number of designers in the world 3 : 720,000 1. http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/certified.mspx 2. IDC Report 3. Extrapolated from http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/insight-doubling-membership?pff=2

Number of Microsoft Certified Professionals in the world 1 : 2,176,764

Number of Java programmers in the world 2 : 3,000,000

Number of designers in the world 3 : 720,000

Because we can build in constraints “ There is a wide gap between designers' articulation of constraints and designers' effective implementation of them.” (We don’t do what we say we’re going to do. Ahem.) ( Chevalier & Ivory) http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=766320

“ There is a wide gap between designers' articulation of constraints and designers' effective implementation of them.”

(We don’t do what we say we’re going to do. Ahem.)

Constraints like Principles…. Greenfield's principles of ubiquitous computing: 1. Default to Harmlessness 2. Be Self-Disclosing 3. Be Conservative of Face 4. Be Conservative of Time 5. Be Deniable http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/all_watched_over_by_machines_of_loving_grace_some_ethical_guidelines_for_user_experience_in_ubiquitous_computing_settings_1_

Greenfield's principles of ubiquitous computing:

1. Default to Harmlessness

2. Be Self-Disclosing

3. Be Conservative of Face

4. Be Conservative of Time

5. Be Deniable

Because we already know what artifacts we want to design Still from the film Minority Report

Smart Board http://youtube.com/watch?v=OP3ehdgLcMw And because it’s fast becoming reality

Because better tools enable progress Excerpt from the film Sketches of Frank Gehry highlighting the software used to create his architectural work

Because we no longer wait for Microsoft and Apple to create the foundation “ The richness of rich Internet applications often exceeds that of desktop applications.” - Dave Malouf, Interaction Design Association

“ The richness of rich Internet applications often exceeds that of desktop applications.”

- Dave Malouf,

Interaction Design Association

Because of the growing power of prototyping tools Ease of Use Fidelity DRAWING TOOLS Axure, Intuitect, Fireworks…

Ease of Use

Ease of Use Because of the growing power of prototyping tools Fidelity DRAWING TOOLS Axure, Intuitect, Fireworks… CODING TOOLS Prototype, Scipt.aculo.us, Dojo…

Ease of Use

Ease of Use Because of the growing power of prototyping tools Fidelity DRAWING TOOLS Axure, Intuitect, Fireworks… CODING TOOLS Prototype, Scipt.aculo.us, Dojo…

Ease of Use

Ease of Use Because of the growing power of prototyping tools Fidelity DRAWING TOOLS CODING TOOLS

Ease of Use

Ease of Use Because of the growing power of prototyping tools Fidelity DRAWING TOOLS CODING TOOLS Programmers design Designers “program” Wireframes obsolete Consumers can play too

Ease of Use

Programmers design

Designers “program”

Wireframes obsolete

Consumers can play too

Such as Thermo Demo of Adobe Thermo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGdr3dCmxe4

Medicine Because when we can grow replacement organs, ambiguous information problems might become a bigger challenge than medicine

What Does All This Mean for Designers?

Our Process Will Change IA Designer Developer Now:

IA

Designer

Developer

Our Process Will Change IA Designer Developer Very soon:

IA

Designer

Developer

Our Process Will Change IA Designer Developer Eventually:

IA

We’ll Give Up Control of the Interface 1987 1994 1997 Desktop Publishing WWW Google 2007 WiMAX “ Free” Hardware Digilarity Messy, but Productive Too many interfaces to design for

Roles Slow Design A small minority will continue to make artifacts by hand in an artisinal fashion Information Engineers Most of us will assemble tools to create new tools

Slow Design

A small minority will continue to make artifacts by hand in an artisinal fashion

Information Engineers Most of us will assemble tools to create new tools

Tools We Can Create Now

Adaptive Interfaces, Stephen P. Anderson http://www.slideshare.net/stephenpa/the-conversation-gets-interesting-creating-the-adaptive-interface

Put our search knowledge to work Zipfr Report for the Current Month Empty Results: 10% Synonym Suggestions: 58 Create Best Bets Create Synonyms

Zipfr

Report for the Current Month

Empty Results: 10%

Synonym Suggestions: 58

Multivariate Testing for Designers (Riff on Google AdWords)

Simulate and test navigation (e.g. Transitional Volatility) 4. Incorporate 1. Predict 3. Reorient 2. Navigate

4. Incorporate

We already model perception pretty well… .mp3

Your Tool You know that problem you wrote down at the beginning? Rather than solve this problem, how can you create a tool that helps everyone solve this problem?

You know that problem you wrote down at the beginning?

Rather than solve this problem, how can you create a tool that helps everyone solve this problem?

Thank You Victor Lombardi http://victorlombardi.com/

Victor Lombardi

http://victorlombardi.com/