The Invisible Interface

In "Understanding Media," Marshall McLuhan writes that the technologies we create extend some function of our physical selves. A lever extends our arm. A bicycle extends our feet.

When it came to mass media, he classified print and radio as electric media. Electric media, he wrote, are primarily extensions of our central nervous system.

By thinking about TV and radio in this way, he was able to deeply understand much of the nature, significance and the impact on human perceptions of their world through the use of these media. In fact, so deep was his understanding that a lot of what he wrote about the significance TV and radio really seem to apply more to the World Wide Web than to TV and radio. He was ahead of his time; he died before the Internet was fully born.

Seeking Perfection In Interface Design

I've been thinking a lot about this idea lately, and what it means for what I do, as an information architect. I've been thinking about what interfaces will look like in a thousand years. Because I have no crystal ball, what that means, really, is I've been thinking about what a perfect (by today's standards) human-computer interface would be like.

Today we primarily use buttons and pointers to interface with a machine. And these buttons and pointers themselves interface with several layers of software that control hardware that connect to the Central Nervous System that we call a computer network, or the Internet.


Compared with our actual central nervous system, this is an extremely clunky interface, requiring a significant amount of training and cognitive skills. Amongst other things, we have to know how to read and write to be able to operate a computer. And that's just the beginning... we need to know how to turn it on, connect it to a network, operate a pointer, understand software conventions, etc.



Our own interface with our central nervous system is completely invisible. As I'm typing this, there is very little barrier between my thoughts and the actions of my fingers. I don't have to access pulldown menus or hierarchies like Movement-->Digits-->Index Finger-->Push-->Letter D. (And that's oversimplifying the task of typing the letter D).

And even though there is no visible interface, we still manage to get a lot of things done.

If you accept that computer networks are an extension of our central nervous systems, then it stands to reason that the perfect interface with such a technology would be an invisible, completely smooth interface, perhaps the kind of interface we may see in a hundred or even a thousand years.

Eventually, we'll get so pissed off with keyboards, mouses and even multi-touch interfaces that we'll ditch them in favor of, oh, I dunno, holographic or cybernetic interfaces controlled by gestures, words or thoughts.

We may even modify our bodies to be more compatible with our technologies. Computers will have shrunk infinitesimally small, and the age of ubicomp will truly be here. It's quite possible, as well, in that kind of timeframe that we'll do away with the binary base that our technology uses today and use something based on a dna-like biological technology. Something that delivers on many of the advantages of digital, without the complete stupidity of it.

It's interesting to think about a completely smooth or even invisible interface that mimics what we would consider telepathic-like capabilities. Interesting structures would need to be in place to filter out messages from other people, in much the same way we create software structures like groups. It's also interesting to note, supporting the central nervous system theory, that messages are getting much shorter and more "thought-like" (I'm thinking twitter here).

Thinking about this kind of a future puts designing software interfaces into perspective. The implication, at this kind of timescale, is that if you're trying to develop something to stand the test of time, you should be looking deep inside the minds of human beings to understand how they work, and not limit yourself to how technology works today. In the end, it's all about people.

Free Idea to Solve the Texting While Walking Conundrum

I was having lunch with some friends this week when the topic of the dangers of walking while texting came up. In case you're unaware of this important public safety issue, there have been a number of incidents of people colliding with things on the sidewalk while texting on their cellphones.

This has prompted the powers that be in London to wrap lamp posts and other sidewalk obstacles in marshmallow cushions, and the American College of Emergency Physicians to issue an alert about the dangers of texting while walking (and of course driving).

It's all fine and well to say, "um, just don't do it, dummy," but we all know we're going to. It's an occupational hazard.

But I'm particularly concerned, since iPhone sales are going through the roof, about all of my friends with their first iPhone. They're all so engrossed in playing with the shiny slick interface, that they haven't thought the dangers of this activity through.

Anyway, I like the idea of wrapping street objects in fluffy marshmallows. I think it'll make cities feel a lot more... soft and friendly. But the more pressing issue for me is what to do about fast-moving objects. I mean, should you be walking through an area of frequently falling objects (e.g. pianos, 500 lb weights, sticks of ACME dynamite, etc.), you can't really rely on those objects being padded. Even if they were, a padded piano dropping from 50 feet above street level is still a piano dropping from 50 feet. It won't be pretty.

So that's where my idea for a little technological assistance comes in.



Basically, it consists of a simple add-on device and an app. The add-on device is a little holder for a convex mirror that allows the phone's camera to survey a wide swath of street and identify potential dangers. The software app would calculate vectors of objects and identify when those objects were likely to intersect with the person's path.


When a danger is identified, the camera takes over whatever application the user (cough idiot) is using and displays the realtime footage of the street, plus a very large warning, telling the user what course of evasive action to take. I had considered putting an "ignore" button in there as well, so that the user could choose to ignore the message, but if you think it through, it's really not required :-). Actually, on second thought, I think there should be one in there, but instead of ignore it should look like this:

My Introduction to A Timeless Way of Building

At work I was recently asked to conduct a workshop for a general audience on using design patterns.

I planned the workshop to be largely focused on the USING aspect of that topic (more on that in future posts), but to frame it up I prepared a short presentation on the origins of design patterns.

I have to confess that until I was preparing for this presentation, I had never heard of Christopher Alexander, the architect who, in the 1970s, first came up with the concept of patterns and pattern languages, (even though I had been using design patterns in my work for a long while now).

Learning about his work on these topics was a revelation to me, and as I began to read more, I experienced a kind of epiphany, the result of a confluence of ideas and thoughts I’d been having recently around how to work better, how to have more fun doing it, and, ultimately, how to build better things.

For the presentation I didn’t have the time to read his books, but I read whatever I could turn up in Google searches online. Here are some of the better links I discovered that discuss his work:

• Gardenvisit.com - 'A City is not a tree': It is a landscape
• Summary of A Pattern Language
• Pattern Language.com
  
• Dion Hinchcliffe's Web 2.0 Blog - A Timeless Way of Building Software

Now that the presentation has passed, I’ve had some time to source and read his books (a good chance they’re in your local library system, by the way). To get the full benefit, you really do have to read at least “The Timeless Way of Building” from cover to cover. It’s brilliant. You won’t look at anything built by humans quite the same way again.

“A Timeless Way of Building” is still, after all these years, applicable and relevant. Most importantly, I do believe that his ideas are not fully comprehended by the majority of the community of people who are building things on the web, (and I'm using the term 'community' broadly here).

In future posts I’m going to delve into the details of his concepts and how they have related to me personally in the work that I’ve been involved with. Including how a bunch of us, working on a project unknowingly rediscovered his pattern language process, without knowing anything about him.

The Unionville Sprints

I live in a place called Markham, which is about an hour outside of Toronto. I commute in to the big city using a commuter train called the Go Train. I've been doing it for over a year now, and there are a lot of things I really love about it.

One thing I particularly enjoy is that everyday I get to spectate a unique form of competition in which scores of commuters returning home rush as quickly as they can to their cars in an effort to beat the bottleneck of traffic. The best example of this on the particular line I take occurs at Unionville station.

As a race venue, Unionville has a number of unique elements that make it particularly rife for competition.


First, there is the large parking lot which hosts quite a lot of baking cars. The lot is free to Go Transit users, so there's no incentive to taking public transportation to the lot (actually public transportation users are actually penalized because they have to pay the fare for the bus to the lot). The lot is almost always at near capacity.

Second, there is the fact that the train only comes once every 30-40 minutes, which helps to concentrate the number of people into large competitive fields. (The most popular heat is the 5:20 train.) Third, there is the platform, (towards the bottom of the diagram), which is raised above the level of the parking lot, forcing people to navigate down a limited number of staircases. Finally, and most importantly, there is only one way out of the parking lot, down a road, at the end of which is yet another bottleneck otherwise known as a traffic light.

Conditions couldn't be better for creating a competitive atmosphere. Bottlenecks for commuters leaving the parking lot can be excessive if you are not in the top ten. The further back you are, the worse it gets. Pretty much the only things missing are medals and medal podiums. The prize for the top commuters? The ability to get on your way without the daily 20 minute traffic jam.

How the Game is Played

There is actually a lot of strategic thinking that goes into being the first out of the gate. At the start of the day, competitors need to carefully place their car to balance how far they run with how far they drive. This is not as simple as it seems, as it depends in large part about how large a load you're carrying, what your physical condition is, and how fast you can start your car. (It's even more fascinating during a snowfall in winter, when brushing your car off comes into play.)

It may seem to make sense to park as closely as you can to the train doors, but remember then that you'll have to avoid other people running for their cars, which will slow you down. But if you park on the far side of the lot, you'll have to contend with the risk of others who park closely mowing you down. So it seems as if it's best to park a little ways away from the train platform, so you can outrun your competitors and not have them in your way.

And competitors must align themselves to be first out of the train doors. Which means they actually have to select a good seat on the train or at very least must move themselves (within the bounds of social etiquette) to the best train door at the earliest possible moment after the previous station.
Because of the limited numbers of staircases that lead down to the parking lot, it's key for any Unionville sprinter to know exactly which train car they're on and remember where their car is in relation to the door that will be opening. Because if you're not one of the people closest to the door, you may want to consider giving up.

Here's a video taken of the last race I witnessed.

What's the Point?

Well there are a lot of interesting things about this from an experience designer's point of view. First of all, it's a fascinating set of circumstances that have led to this level of competitive atmosphere associated with going home from work. Go Transit couldn't have designed a better race course.

But Go Transit likely didn't design the parking lot with the idea of creating as highly a competitive atmosphere as they have. In fact, I think they probably had it in their minds to have a safe and convenient way for people to access their cars and get home at the end of their workdays. But through the compounding bottlenecks they've actually created a more stressful environment for people going to work.

Lessons can be learned from this when designing interactive experiences as well. Lessons about the importance of participatory design, walking a mile in your users' shoes. But also how design choices, conscious or unconscious, can create either an atmosphere of competition or collaboration, and how those choices can have a ripple effect throughout the system you're building.

Because it's not just the parking lot design that's lacking in this case. There are a whole host of interrelated factors that create the environment - the frequency of the trains, the propensity for people to drive rather than take public transportation to the lot, the long traffic light cycle, etc. And these factors, this unintended competition, spills over into people's lives and into the life of the city. People are actively worrying about how they quickly they will be able to get home for their kid's recital, or to make dinner. In other words, they're worrying more about how to figure out how to do a trivial activity quickly and simply than on being able to fulfill their actual goals and live their lives.

Not/Just Another UX Blog

I want to get my first post out of the way. So I thought I'd explain to you (and to myself) what this blog is intended to be.

It's intended to be just another blog discussing user experience design and all that stuff. But it's also intended to be not just another blog about that stuff. It's both. Depending probably on who you are and what you think of my ideas. And also probably on the quality and strength of those ideas.

See, I've always had this kind of distant perspective about the work I do, no matter what that work may be. Taking the long view, I think the idea that there's a profession that designs experiences and interactions for people is kind of funny. But I love it. I love being part of it. It's fascinating to me.

Lately I've been developing some deeper ideas about what this thing that we do is. And I've been doing a lot of reading and following of blogs and trends. And I've started to consciously notice all the things I notice about experiences, their qualities and how they could be better. So this blog is a place to explore that stuff.