Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Matthew C. Clarke

Matthew C. Clarke — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 00:56:58 GMT

Patrick, I read Austin Govella’s idea and don’t understand what he’s getting at. Maybe I’ll write a comment over there to pursue that. But I don’t think anything in my article would make him think “Damn, he beat me to it”.

I might add some comparison of “Unfreeze, Transition, and Refreeze” with “continual incremental improvement”, though maybe that would be an interesting article in its own right.

Matthew C. Clarke — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 01:00:10 GMT

Christina: thanks for the comment. The article certainly hasn’t appeared anywhere else. I spoke with Lou Rosenfeld about the idea of such an article for B&A back in 2002 and starting writing it. Then got distracted—for 5 years!!!—and just returned to it.

So do I email it to someone, or does an editor contact me?

Matthew C. Clarke — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 03:32:02 GMT

You might like to contact James Breeze of http://objectivedigital.com. A major thrust of his consultancy is to provide tools for rapid usability testing.

Matthew C. Clarke — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 16:40:52 GMT

_But metaphors appear to succeed best when they are imprecise and the user has to fill in the gaps from their own understanding._

I think you can take that idea further. As you noted in different words, a metaphor is a map that captures certain correspondences between one domain and another. A metaphor only works if the user already understands one side of that correspondence. In terms of interaction design, the metaphor maps elements of a pre-existing mental model onto the internal computer model.

Going deeper, it is essential that the metaphor maps *some* features but not *all* of them. The balance between which elements are mapped and which aren’t is crucial. The elements where there *is* a correspondence are those that give the metaphor its evocative power; but it is the elements where there is no correspondence that highlight the usefulness of the interaction.

For instance, the Trash Can metaphor is so helpful to understanding because throwing something into a physical trash can corresponds to the operation of dragging a file to the on-screen image of a trash can. Similarly for taking something back out of the trash prior to emptying it. But there is nothing in the on-screen behaviour that corresponds to uncrumpling the paper once you’ve retrieved it from the trash, nor to the dirt stains on the paper. (I heard this example from someone else, most likely Donald Norman.)

If the application of a metaphor was completely accurate, there would be no advantage in the computerised interaction. The computerised interaction needs to reproduce the features of the metaphor that people want, but the value of computerising the task depends precisely in those features of the metaphor that are *not* reproduced.

Matt.

Matthew C. Clarke — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 11:18:44 GMT

Patrick’s right—its very hard for a lone IA to make any difference without a senior patron. But perhaps you can try to cultivate such a person.

Do some good work in your own domain. Choose an area that has some business benefit, i.e. not just a fancy bit of UI, but something that saves employees time or generates additional revenue. Look around for managers to show the system to. Find a supporter who can put in a good word for what you are doing. Build relationships with others who might be interested so that you have a group how can (a) introduce other good IA practices and (b) bring the benefits to the attention of decision-makers.

Oh, and pray a lot!

Matt.

Matthew C. Clarke — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 02:45:41 GMT

Thanks Santy. NextPage addresses one part of a much broader collaboration process. I want to discuss that “shared document editing” task within a bigger picture that incorporates meetings, project schedules, issue tracking, goal setting, allocation of responsibilities etc.

Matt.

Matthew C. Clarke — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 19:59:19 GMT

Can you describe a couple of ways that Social Exchange Theory would change the way you did IA in practice? How would a web site, for instance, look or function differently if the designer had taken account of Social Exchange Theory?

Matt.

Matthew C. Clarke — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 05:41:01 GMT

_The more mechanisms that you provide for those sub-networks to flourish, greater the overall network growth._

That’s a good point: the IA of a social network does not need to emphasise a merging of everyone into the “giant component”. The disconnected sub-networks are important too.

On the other hand, I’m very sad for all those singletons. A singleton in a social network is an oxymoron. And yet that’s how we all start out: a newbie with no friends. Identifying singletons and assisting them to form connections is one of the most important processes for building the network. If a new user can’t do that easily, they don’t come back—and typically leave an unused account behind. Can the theory help IA’s to improve that process?

Matt.

Matthew C. Clarke — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 04:46:13 GMT

It’s unfortunate that David’s comment is virtually unreadable—if you paste it into a text editor you can see that he makes a great point. Without a clear idea of the goal of collaboration, the imposition of some “collaboration” software is unlikely to achieve much that’s of value.

Even when you do have a clear goal, however, it seems to me that you’d be very unlikely to find any software that fully supported the collaboration process. You find software for pieces of the process, but nothing that brings a unifying metaphor to the whole.

—Matt.

Matthew C. Clarke — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 23:25:32 GMT

Thanks for the encouragement.

That’s a good point Debra about the IA’s special knowledge of users. We should be able to act as spokes-people, representing the interests of the user to the rest of the development team.

Matthew C. Clarke — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 02:59:34 GMT

Terry says “But I think it’s worth emphasizing that producing a product that requires our customers to change is a Bad Thing, and whenever we hit that situation we should immediately step back and ask ourselves whether we can change course so WE change instead of the customers.”

I think I agree with the sentiment, but not the detail. It’s a great principle to make the computer model of a task match the existing users’ model as closely as possible. And asking ourselves whether we can do so is the right thing to do. The problem is that the answer is often “No”. There are (at least) two reasons why we can’t avoid the need for the customer changing their behaviour.

The first is perhaps pedantic, but the introduction of *any* new tool must change the way the task is achieved. Even a change to an existing tool means that people have to use the tool differently. So even a minor front-end IT change necessitates a change in user behaviour, even if its just clicking in one part of the screen rather than another. Even small changes in the tool mean that the user has to learn something new and leave some earlier behaviour behind.

The second reason is a practical one: the current state of technology often doesn’t allow it. Computers are in the early stage of their evolution and in many ways are very primitive. There are ways we’d like to implement applications that are not (yet) possible. Language parsing is an important example. We’d love to allow people to communicate in a way that is most natural to them—i.e. using their natural language. But we have to force other UI metpahors onto them and make them change the way they communicate because current technology cannot match their preferred behaviour.

Matthew C. Clarke — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 01:17:19 GMT

Joe: yes there is a lot of value in the Soft Systems approach. And you’re right that the notion of seeking equilibrium does not always apply. In most cases where there is a different dynamic, I wonder whether the reason is that the system’s _natural_ tendency to equilibrium has been over-ruled by some imposed structure or goal? One example is a leader who deliberately sets new goals and effectively keeps the organisation unstable. And that links closely with Pauls comment on organisational culture and inertia.

Matthew C. Clarke — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 01:23:10 GMT

Paul: I only just discovered UXMatters a couple of weeks ago. I wish I’d seen your article earlier. It’s got many good suggestions.

Matthew C. Clarke — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 09:37:15 GMT

Another dynamic is the frequency of change that is imposed on users by version upgrades. I attended a research seminar once about the relationship between version frequency and usage competence. You can imagine a productivity v’s time graph. When a user meets a new product, there is the “steep learning curve” followed by a plateaux where a user has learnt the 10% of the product they need to get by and isn’t learning anything new. Whenever a new version is introduced, there is a short term drop in productivity, but that is (hopefully) followed by an net increase once the user gets used to the change. That’s all fairly standard.

But the added aspect that this researcher had noticed was that if you leave the user for long enough, without changing the system, there is often a second learning curve when they are confident enough to stretch themselves and actually start becoming masters. The biggest downside of introducing new versions too frequently is that this second learning phase is never reached. The user has just become comfortable with the functionality they need for the task when along comes a new version. The disruption prevents them ever gaining mastery. We see the results everywhere—a mass of users who barely scrape by and virtually no-one who confident or competent enough to make the most of the wonderful features we built in there for them.

Matthew C. Clarke — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 03:03:46 GMT

Daniel, you’re right that theory is easier than application. I’ve heard it said that in theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is!!! Your aim of empowering youth is admirable and I wish you well.

Matt.