Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Andrew Otwell

Andrew Otwell — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:27:28 GMT

Nice! I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read so far a lot.

Andrew Otwell — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:28:31 GMT

It does sound a lot like faceted searches. You should check out the stuff that Marti Hearst has done at Berkeley; I think she’s explored some of the concepts here pretty rigorously. Really I think the word that’s missing here is “winnowing”: a method of refining a large set of stuff into a small and precise set of stuff.

Also look at the examples at http://64.220.144.86:8080/facetmap/index.html where you can look at an example using wines or create your own facetmap to try it out. (when did that cool feature get added?)

For the “empy node” problem: we’re building a faceted search interface for a large product database right now and decided that any nodes with 0 results in them would simply not be shown as navigation options. (They of course appear in the CMS for content creators, and would appear with results if content is put in them).

I’m wondering about the real value of this for small screens, as you suggest. Part of the power of it is taking advantage of people’s ability to scan large bodies of information quickly and to decide how to process it. Without being able to actually *see* the large set of items being refined, winnowed, or filtered, I don’t really have any idea about what I’m getting.

Andrew Otwell — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:28:31 GMT

Small addition to my comment above:

The URL for the FacetMap demo is better written as http://facetmap.com

Travis has done added some impressive things here, including the ability to try out different navigation interfaces for the facetmaps, including a drop-down menu system almost *exactly* like what Clifton is describing in his article.

Andrew Otwell — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:39:11 GMT

>I’ll answer Lyle’s question by re-iterating that taxonomies
>simply do not work. Period. They are fundamentally flawed
>because they ultimately rely on a subjective (human)
>interpretation of which category/ies (from the taxonomy)
>to use. The more complex the taxonomy the greater the
>degree of confusion.

Of course, taxonomies have helped to solve information organization and retrieval problems for hundreds of years. We might not have developed approaches to quickly and accurately apply them to intranets yet, but there’s certainly nothing special about intranet information that makes it inappropriate to classify with taxonomies.

As to the “problem” of human subjectivity, forget it. You think that just because you’re using (for example) an automated classification tool that you’ve eliminated or even reduced it? You’re simply moving the responsibility for decisions from the human information classifier to the equally human programmer.

As to the one time and under budget claim, well, I need you as a project manager! Unfortunately I’ve never seen an intranet, under budget or not, which was useful or usable. Never. I bet the MS Intranet is still a god-awful hard thing to use, despite improvements made by the techniques in the article.

Andrew Otwell — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:25:36 GMT

Nice. A lot of IAs still don’t know this kind of stuff. A really great explanation of basic visual principles is in Scott McCloud’s first book “Understanding Comics.”

Andrew Otwell — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:32:25 GMT

David, don’t forget that the majority of “stuff” moving around on the web is basically still text and images. For many IAs, HTML is and appropriate and effective way for organizing and displaying that content.

”...the time has come to create a new system that is low bandwidth, utilizes a single code base for all platforms, and is componentized enough to make updating and customizations easy using internet-based distribution.”

Sounds great, let me know when the software industry and human nature allow this for *any* technology segment. Telecom hasn’t done it in a much longer period, even consumer electronics have barely managed to accomodate standardized remote controls.

Considering that just displaying HTML is a fairly straightforward task, even the browser makers haven’t done too well, as you mention. Who do we entrust with a truly long-range idea like yours? Realisticly, it would have to be Microsoft, given the difficulty of designing, building, marketing, and killing-off of competing standards that would be needed.

Andrew Otwell — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:38:48 GMT

Paul Ford, over at ftrain.com, happens to have just written a really nice article about considering a geneology of computers which among other things touches on why deterministic technology ideas like “we need a new standard format starting now” don’t work.

Andrew Otwell — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:38:48 GMT

The URL seems to have gone from that last post. The article on ftrain.com is

http://www.ftrain.com/archive_ftraintwo_15.html

Andrew Otwell — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:38:49 GMT

“here are two companies that could rebuild their products as real desktop apps…Amazon.com and eBay.”

Good point, although we really ought to stop using these as the only examples ever offered in the IA/usability universe. :-) I think a flight-reservation app from Travelocity would be also popular, for example.

Ebay *does* in fact offer at least two stand-alone desktop apps, I helped usability test one of them. They’re not Buyer-side apps, though, they’re Seller-side. Buyers don’t need a standalone app. The eBay site can handle searching, browsing, and credit card taking just fine. Besides, lots of people will bid on items at home, then again at work the next day, and then check an auction and make a final bid at an internet cafe—a standalone doesn’t help them.

Many sellers though will put dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of items up for sale, and for that task the site falls down. The ebay seller tools (which have *lots* of third-party competition) speed this up and add tons of features that high-dollar Sellers need.

I still think that although it’s interesting to speculate about the next application-development environment, that we’re spitting in the wind here.

You think that companies or programmers or designers will be able to do any better than they’ve already done in terms of developing standard, cross-platform, highly functional tools? Not that I love Flash, but as a software development and marketing achievement it’s about as impressive as you’re likely to see: it runs adequately on several platforms in reasonably predictable ways, provides a reasonably sophisticated programming environment, and lots of people seem to love using it. Let’s not forget that the company that made it is struggling to stay profitable after years of working on this and similar tools, so the market is hardly great. Yet Flash clearly not at the level that David’s proposing we need.

I really think that if people want a system like David’s proposing, that we’d have to allow Microsoft to do it. No one else has the combination of software dev skill, marketing power, and the legally-sanctioned ability to kill all opposition.

Andrew Otwell — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:39:11 GMT

Look, anytime you find yourself saying something like “Flash MX doesn’t quite do it, but we should wait for SVG, *then* we’ll have the right thing”, ask yourself: how often do standards bodies achieve something truly “standard”? How often do determinist, top-down, know-it-alls really create something that changes the tide of user & customer preferences?

This is the same kind of misplaced confidence that the little “social software” movement has right now: we think we know what works and doesn’t with “community”, so let’s just start at square one and “do it the right way.” Even if SVG or whatever comes out and is “better” in some sense than its competitors, we’re still looking at years of varied levels of application support, branching interpretations of the standard by various parties, and ad hoc changes based on fads and politics, just like HTML.

If you want to fix it, look at manufacturing or engineering: create ISO standards that practicioners and engineers are bound to by law, create liscences and organizations that penalize people and products for failing to meet the standards. Make software builders legally responsible for product quality and compatibility just like the maker of my car, or even my bicycle.

Let me put it another way: no one will ever solve the technology problem David is describing. Never. And, yes, that *does* mean we shouldn’t try to solve it.

Andrew Otwell — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:32:00 GMT

“I’m wondering if we could go even one more step before Problem-Understanding? Perhaps even a conceptual process for locating a problem”

Interesting thought, but I’d be careful proposing that to clients. “You mean you want to figure out how we’re going to figure this stuff out?” I have nightmares where I find myself saying things like “this is really a higher-order problem” in front of clients…sort of like pointing out that their business strategy doesn’t actually incude making money.

Re: the “can’t the tabs be green” discussion: I think IA and ID needs to develop methods that accomodate that kind of client behavior; it’s just not going to go away no matter how patiently you explain things. Surely graphic designers have been dealing with this problem for hundreds of years, no?

Andrew Otwell — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:32 GMT

We put together Design Engaged, a more designer-oriented un-conference the last two years. I’ve been pleased to find that you can organize something for about 30 people that they really enjoy, feed them decent lunches, and cover many other costs, for a few thousand bucks. More people should be doing these things.

I specifically did not want something quite as freeform as BarCamp, although DE is about 1/2 semi-structured or unstructured work. The other half is traditional presentations-at-podiums, which seems to provide a good foundation for a weekend of discussion and other work. I’ve written some blog posts about structuring DE 2005 (http://www.heyotwell.com/heyblog/archives/2005/11/design_…) and DE 2004 (http://www.heyotwell.com/heyblog/archives/2004/11/design_…), and the main DE site (http://www.designengaged.com) has links to others’ thoughts.

Andrew Otwell — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:54:11 GMT

I’d be interested in seeing where Victor takes this discussion as an article. There’s one comment above that I want to call out. “I would gladly accept a little less salary if evangelism of UX/IA wasn’t an expected part of my job.” I understand this feeling completely, and there are many days when I think the same thing, but I’m not sure it’s a reasonable attitude to take, certainly not for a senior level (i.e. $100k) designer.

I’ve started to find that evangelism, also known as “sales”, is not only an expected part of my job, but possibly the bulk of it. And I’m an in-house designer at a large company known for being customer-centric. I don’t have enough experience in other fields to say, but I’d bet that *any* process-oriented specialty field like design will require you to do a lot of evangelism. It’s not just about selling yourself to win the job, but convincing a client (or boss or co-worker) to value certain things, possibly teaching them the criteria with which to judge your designs, and then selling them on a solution.

True or not, design is always perceived as mostly a subjective thing: what do you say when your boss replies to your deeply thought-through workflow with a “yeah, but I’d rather do it this other way?” It’s sales time, folks. I find that when I’m feeling frustrated that my design idea is misunderstood, that I have to treat that as an evangelism opportunity (or else my idea sucks, and I have to come up with a better one). Good work is not nearly enough, unfortunately.

Clients pay for good solutions of course, but they also pay for authority, confidence, and the elimination of bad options on the road to success. If you can’t evangelize successfully during *all* phases of the process (sometimes gently of course), you probably aren’t in a position to ask for $100,000 a year.

Andrew Otwell — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 15:19:06 GMT

The comment authors’ names and reputations still overlap the left-side nav in Safari. List bullets are also pulled outside the left margin of their containers in Safari, too.

Andrew Otwell — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 22:26:24 GMT

Ujay writes “rich has become the de facto buzzword…”. I’ve actually been pleased to see that the use of that word seems to be on the decline recently. Compared to other experiences – like the example of a dinner with friends – even the richest experiences on the web still seem pretty impoverished.

Michael makes a great point in his comment here: thinking of “rich” as basically a synonym for “enhanced marketing” feels like a very limited definition of the idea. Ujay suggests on his blog that we “re-imagine the design as a speech to the user, convincing the user this product is best for meeting specific goals…” I do think that this rhetorical approach to certain interactions is appropriate, but truly “rich” online experiences do not do this. Who wants to “make speeches to users” anymore?

There are some truly rich experiences on the web that are totally different from the ones listed above. I’m thinking of alternate-reality games like those that sprang up around List (http://www.thelostexperience.com/) or the new Nine Inch Nails album (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Zero_(alternate_reality_game) ), or World Without Oil (http://www.worldwithoutoil.org/default.aspx).

Those experiences are *actually* rich and fit Ujay’s definition above really well: they appeal to reason and emotion, they involve mental effort, real human interaction, and (gasp!) offline activities. But the technology and design around these experiences are about as Web 1.0 as you can imagine, basic HTML, email lists, maybe some phone calls. Often the design around them is ugly and clunky. They rarely if ever include what Adobe/Macromedia has tried to claim as “rich media”: a lot of snazzy drop-down menus and drag-and-drop. “Rich” doesn’t mean being compelled to click on a zooming, fading UI widget.