Designing Interactions: Adopting Technology

Chapter Takeaways

• Three phases of adoption - Enthusiast, Professional and then Consumer.
• Importance of enjoyability and easy-of-use grow with each phase.
• Aestheics also come into play more and more with each phase.
  
• Talk to the users for unique design insights.
• Once interaction design is adopted by large group of people, hard to change.
• Design for the experience, not just the product.
• Think about packaging service with product.
  
• A good prototype can serve as a selling demo to client.
• Invite engineers and designers to observe the usability testing.
• Interaction Design is making technology fit people.
• Future products will react to the environment and people around them.
• To build good products, you must have a solid technocal foundation.
• And of course, engage passionate people!
  

David Little

• PhD in Electrical Engineering.
  
• Interested in designing graphical interactions.
• Designed display for the Alto.
• Project leader for Star.
• In 1982, left Xerox to form Metaphor Computer, which was acquired by Microsoft in 1991.
• In 1992, set up and lead a new research lab, Interval Research, to stir up new thinking for commercial possibilities.
• Now a venture capitalist.

Three Phases of Adoption

1. Hobby: Enthusiast Phase - "Exploit me!"
2. Work: Professional Phase - "Help me work!"
3. Life: Consumer Phase - "Enjoy me!"

Enthusiast, Professional, Consumer

• Enthusiast - even a single inventor can design for them.
• Professional - much more stringent requirements on performance, reliability, usefulness and usability. Does not need to be easy to use. Does not need to be enjoyable (I don't agree).
• Consumer - Enjoyable and easy to use.

Learning from Kids

• In 1994, sent out a touring test at "Lollapalooza".
• One finding contradicted many prior assumptions. Adoption as children may not lead to use as adults. Example - talking on the phone 24/7 is cool as kids with curfews and seen a uncool as 18+ w/ lives.

The Car

• Many attempts to devise a steering mechanism before a steering wheel was established.
• Enthusiast phase between the time that the engine was attached to a carriage to 1908 when the ford first came out that could serve both consumers and professionals.
  
• Once a complicated set of interactions is learned by a large population, resistance to change sets in.
• Interactions have incrementally become easier & safer, but largely the same.
• We now love exercising our driving skills. Take pride in it and enjoy the experience.
  

Digital Photography

• Enthusiast - 35mm camera that was taken into space by early astronauts in the fifties.
• Consumer - point a shoot (not replacing professional, but simply adding to it.)
• Experience of photography is much broader than the camera itself.

Mat Hunter

• Studied interaction design at Royal College of Art.
• Joined IDEO in 1995, key to the development of an interaction architecture for Kodak.
• In 1999, became head of Interaction Design @ IDEO London.
• Currently head of the London office of IDEO.

Interaction Architecture

• When asked to redesign the Kodak carema, Mat knew that they needed to look beyond the device and into the entire photo taking/printing/viewing experience.
• Needed to build an "Interaction Architecture", a framework on which developers would add cameras and services over time.
• Jane, a Human Factors researcher, summed up the opportunities for consumer digital photography:
1. Readiness to capture.
2. Information at capture.
3. Creative control.
4. Organization.
5. Ways to display.
• Techniques used in Human Factors work:
• The system perspective - camera at the center.
• Scenarios.

User Experience Prototype

• Mat could not work with developers on the camera.
• As a solution, the team aimed for 3-5 year out technology, hoping the dev team would down-sample as needed.
• Developed a working prototype so that the engineers and designers would feel engaged.
• Three modes, not to overwhelm the user at once.
• Show the images on the display.
• Reviewers sighted is as easy-to-use, "a camera for the rest of us".

Rikako Sakai

• Won scholarship to attend the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea.
• BA in Industrial Design.
  
• Thesis on "wearables".
• Gained experience in Interaction Design and Human Factors through Canon.

Canon PhotoStitch

• Brought in to develop the 3rd version of PhotoStitch.
• Prior to her, the engineers did not work with Interaction Designers on product.
• To start, she had all the engineers observe a usability test.
• Improved navigation by allowing back and fwd at will, rather than strictly linear.
• Watched the user behavior and adapted the device to it.
• Fought with designers on individual icons, winning some, loosing others.
• Once the adoption of technology reaches the consumer phase, the skills of Interaction Designers and psychologists are much more essential.

Printers for Digital Photography

• Printers evolved from noisy machines to quiet gray boxes to consumer maintainable devices. Next came the aesthetics that fit into the domestic environment.

David Kelley

• BS in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon.
• First worked at Boeing in Seattle where we was to design the lavatory "occupied" signs.
• Left for MS in Product Design at Stanford, graduated in 1978.
• Started a design agency with friends from Stanford which later became IDEO.
• Left in 2002,and now is at Stanford while staying connected with IDEO as chairman.

Design Adopts Technology

• Interaction Design is making technology fit people.
• First started designing a lot of input devices. Excited because it was new and personal.
• Significant development was the integration of hardware and software into products in which the way people interact with the product could drive the whole solution (i.e. PDA, cell phone).
• Wanted the product to meet the behavior and need.
• Then along came the information appliance - the idea being that technology-enabled devices would start to fit into everyday lives. Believes yet to come. Products that react to us.
  
• The Internet makes the market more perfect - find the people who want the products and services more easily.
• Believes the number of places where the entire experience is in play, is growing.
• Teach designers to be interrogators.
• Designing experiences, rather than just objects.

Paul Mercer on the iPod

• The complete service : ipod + itunes was key to success.
• Programmer.
  
• Worked for Apply since 20-year-old in 1987.
• In 1991, explored concepts for hand-held macs and the software to go with them.
• In 1994, left to found Pixo.
• Clients included Nokia & Samsung for phones and Apple for iPod.
• Apple acquaired Pixo after the 1st generation of iPod.
  
• In 2002, found Inventor to create enabling structures for ubiquitous computing.
• (update from web, in 2007, Paul joined Palm).

Pixo

• Paul Mercer was always passionate about building postable electronic devices.
• In 1994, thought that the capability at Apply was no longer the differentiating ingredient.
• Left to start up a company called Pixo to create the building blcoks for the next generation of devices and to build the UIs for those devices.

iPod and iTunes

• Why is the iPod so great compared to the competition? The culture of being able to build good products.
• Apple started workon music by acquiring SoundJam to build iTunes and improving it over the years.
• In 2001, launched iPod that synchronized through high-speed bus with iTunes.
• In 2003, launched the iTunes music store.
• Very slowly developed iTunes for Windows.
• Claims that Pixo did not design the iPod, simply the building blocks for it.

The Interaction Design Challenge

• Recently started Inventor.
• Wants to democratize the design of better user interfaces for portable devices.
• Develop tools for developers.