The hi:project: empowering you, empowering us, with a more human web

www.hi-project.org / 26th Mar 2015 / CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
the hi:project
Document owner
Philip Sheldrake | me@philipsheldrake.com | +44 7715 488 759

Illustrations by Nic at Karoshikula.

Lall the time. And whether there’s a plan for it or not, it’s all
being squirrelled away. But to become something more
useful, we need to rethink that interaction.
Yes we invented the UI. Well done. Good job. But what
since? The world has moved on but the essence of UI
hasn’t. How can we make our interactions more useful,
more interesting, more valuable all round?
et’s talk about data, how we interact with it
and the organizations who collect it. One
minute there was hardly any data, but now

it’s bubbling up out of everything, everywhere,

Yneed usability. We need our data to make
sense to us. Otherwise we’re left in the dark,
unsure of what’s known about us, and uneasy
of those who know it.
es we need change. Especially in
the world of personal data where
UIs are tailored to the fictitious
‘everyman’. We need clarity. We
Yneed usability. We need our data to make
sense to us. Otherwise we’re left in the dark,
unsure of what’s known about us, and uneasy
of those who know it.
es we need change. Especially in
the world of personal data where
UIs are tailored to the fictitious
‘everyman’. We need clarity. We

Ainstils doubt. But a UI designed for ‘everyone’ is
not so great for anyone. We’re individuals, not
averages.

To have an interface we can understand
demands one that understands us.
nd as for those organizations
collecting the data, well, this is their
problem too. People judge them by
the interface. It earns our trust or

I
t’s time to get personal. It’s time for
an interface that makes sense to
us. One that’s every bit as unique
as we are. One that knows us,
helps us, talks our language.

We call this the Human Interface (or HI
between friends). And it works like this …

F
irstly, it gets to know you a little.
Nothing creepy, just aligning to your
way of thinking. And once it’s familiar, it
works with those organizations you do
business with to assemble your personal service and
personal data into your perfect personalized
interface. One that’s neither too this or too that but
one that’s just right for you.

You may be a visual thinker, a pie chart lover, a list
junkie or trend addict. Whatever it is that does it for
you, your HI can do. No bother.

Narranged into broader lifestyle topics, allowing
patterns and behaviours to reveal insight and
discovery.
ext comes context. The service and
your data can no longer be seen as a
detached compartment of your life
but as a facet of a whole that can be

50 year old construct fit for

20th Century computing
for the pervasive digital environment
of the 21st Century
up close to the machine up close to the individual
designed for an ‘average’ user created uniquely for the individual
the organization’s the individual’s
the user must fit to the machine fits the products to the individual
provides interactive information enables knowledge building
degrees of awkwardness ideal, so ‘disappears’
largely static design dynamic, in the moment
‘the interface is the product’ the product is the product

Sparticipation, trust and loyalty, freeing up their time and
money to focus on what they actually do for you.
ound good? Of course. Everyone wins. You
get the most from your personal service and
data and the organizations get to delight
you at less cost and with less risk, building

A
So be gone days of the user, welcome back the human.
nd because this is an open platform, this
love-in will just go on and on and on. Its
potential is only limited by the imagination
of the community that believes in it.

UI / UX & HCI
more broadly
social business
& digital
transformation
digital
inclusion &
accessibility
decentralized
architecture
vendor
relationship
management
quantified
self
organised
self
internet of
things
education &
learning
future
public
relations
data protection,
privacy & trust

The individual’s problem, our opportunity
Today, people are unsure of and uneasy about the
information organizations hold on them, or what sort of
monitoring is going on in the background.

Clarity and comprehension are thwarted by multiple,
inconsistent and too often poor user interfaces, none of
which are tailored to our specific digital, numerical,
information and visual literacy. And very few adapt to
more than a narrow range of disabilities.

What’s more, with the advent of the Internet of Things,
there are ever increasing things to interface with.

And last but by no means least, there’s no way to
visualize or contextualize information spanning
organizations. It’s as if your life can only be viewed as a
collection of brand oriented siloes.

The organization’s problem, our opportunity
Organizations view UI as a costly risk encompassing
different devices and different users with different
expectations and abilities, yet they must also build brand
trust by being more open, more accessible, and more
helpful, particularly as trust correlates to customer loyalty
and future revenues.

They’re wondering how to deploy new technologies
without effecting hyper-surveillance.

When greater simplicity is offered to organizations
today it’s typically accompanied by intermediation –
an entity getting between the organization and the
people that matter to it, and probably one that puts its
own motivations first.
EU operations must comply with
the General Data Protection
Regulation from 2017. The
hi:project turns this challenge
into an opportunity.

The hi:project interfaces cover all manner of services
constituting the major facets of life. Developed openly and
freely in collaboration with anyone who wants to join in, the
project can be considered in three parts:
Developing the hi:framework
The framework details the dynamic
of the hi:engine, the personalization
data and hi:components available to
it, and privacy parameters.
Developing the hi:engine
The personal software platform that
assembles the interface that aspires to
be perfectly yours based on your
individual needs and preferences,
familiarity and proclivities,
progressively enhancing and reducing,
adapting to device and context.
Developing hi:components
The materials the hi:engine works
with: data and information models;
graphical libraries; methods for
adapting information appropriate to
the topic, the individual and context.

We enable organizations to provide services through HI.

An organization’s established suite of UI is more costly and
more risky to maintain than adopting our HI, and switching
costs are less than an iteration of their current solution. It’s
our dynamic to get this show on the road. National and local
government may see similar appeal.
Would you like to give customers a far superior
experience – one that builds participation, trust
and loyalty, and secures market differentiation –
with no loss of control, no capital expenditure,
reduced risk and lower operating expense?
And comply with data protection regulations?

We’re first, we’re synonymous with this development,
and all instances are linked by trademark.
Once individuals have experienced one of our trademark HIs we believe
they’ll demonstrate a preference for other products and services adopting HI.
The individual becomes increasingly invested in their hi:engine’s
understanding and servicing of their needs and preferences.

From the 90s
Organizations present websites
and apps customers can
interact with. There’s limited or
zero facility to wield data or
personalize the experience and
users must like it or lump it.
From the 00s
Third parties connect users to
each other and organizations,
centralizing and intermediating
relationships. Their UI and
policies do not correspond with
ours here. As the saying goes,
the users are the product.
From the 10s
HI is simple and powerful – the
interface that’s ‘perfectly yours’.
The network is decentralized

and relationships are
disintermediated. Data / info
spanning organizations can be
visualized and contextualized.
Organization Interface Individual Relationship

The hi:project helps address
some of the most pressing
challenges facing our use of
the Internet and the Web,
today and tomorrow.
http://hi-project.org/champions
CLICK HERE

Open and voluntary We are open to all persons willing to volunteer and accept
the responsibilities of membership. Sociocratic We are member-governed based
on consent-based decision making and decentralized autonomy. Participation
Members contribute value knowing the value derived by the organization and
society more widely will be maximised when we all contribute more together.
Autonomy and independence By members for members, end of. Transparent
All information is open and public, excepting respect for individuals’ security and
privacy. Learning and education Information and knowledge is most valuable
when made open and accessible to all. Co-operation We seek to work with
others who subscribe to similar values and principles. Community We care for
humanity and environmental sustainability; the two are inseparable.
Due respect to the Rochdale Principles.

We cherish unity of purpose but not unity of thought;
consensus best follows dissensus.
Our members hold dear the values of self-help, self-
responsibility, democracy, equality, equity, honesty,
openness, social responsibility and caring for others.

Document owner
Philip Sheldrake | me@philipsheldrake.com | +44 7715 488 759

Illustrations by Nic at Karoshikula.
Supported by:
www.webscience.org
www.linaro.org

Visit www.hi-project.org Join the project Tell your friends Participate
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