Today's lesson is not about how long it takes to drive to Newquay and why it rains when I am driving but not when my partner is. That would be yesterday's lesson (and that would explain why I didn't post yesterday). The surf was quite impressive in Newquay. As always, I wish that I'd gone down into it rather than stayed up on Pentire Point with the wind trying and failing to get me off my feet and face-first into the gloopy mud.
Today's lesson is from John Seddon, and it's about what work is worth doing. He splits the work people have to do into value-demand and failure-demand. Value-demand is when your customers/clients/ citizens ask you to do something for them that you want.
Failure-demand is when your c/c/cs ask you to fix something for them that they didn't want.
So, selling someone a piece of software that does the job they want is a value-demand. Responding to a support call is a failure-demand.
Registering their details, is that a failure-demand or a value-demand? I think it's a failure-demand. Most customers don't want to fill out their details unless they can see the point. Yes, they're happy to provide a delivery address, that enables you to give them something they want. They may or may not be happy to register the software, depending whether they can see the benefit. They want to provide the minimum of information to do so. I.e, if you hang your marketing questionnaire on the registration document, they want want to complete it. And every time they make a mistake filling out a form and you ask them for more information, that's a failure demand. You're not asking them to fix their problem, you're asking them to fix your problem.
Back in the days when I used to train people in using software, we used to provide a questionnaire so that people could comment on the training. At the end of it was a comment box, asking people what sort of training they would like. Some people wanted online training that they could access as and when they wanted. Some people wanted a member of staff to come and sit with them and help them through the problem. They didn't want training, they wanted a good fairy.
There is a question. If someone wants help are they asking:
1. Please can you make this problem go away (that's a failure-demand)
or
2. Please can you show me what to do in this situation (that's a value-demand)
Many of our current problems are because people are in situations that they don't want to be in in the first place. The usability problem is how do you design things so that they help people not to be in the problem in the first place?
Sometimes that's done by changing the product's interface. Sometimes it's done by changing its function. And sometimes it's done by changing its marketplace. The water pouring down on the West of England this December would be highly desirable in other circumstances. Unfortunately, the only desirable aspect I can think of at the moment involves a steep slope and a mud-slide (followed by a bath, a fire, and a lot of washing).
Monday 31 December 2012
Saturday 29 December 2012
My solution to all society's problems
"Be nice"
There you are. That was easy, wasn't it.
I started reading the book on Systems thinking in the public sector, and my heart has already sunk into my boots and then slightly further, when it began with a quick summary of the basis of monetarism in game theory. Not because I'm not interested in the subject matter, but because of the discounting of altruism as an important motivator in human affairs.
When I think about my life, the key thing is how I spend my time. Time is something that we know is a limited resource. We all have some and we all share that knowledge. Other things, such as family, money, status, justice, friends, stuff, individuals have more or less of, depending on circumstances. How they value them can be measured in how much of their time they dedicate to them.
Each time you make a choice in how you spend your time, you are unconsciously stating your values. So, if you're not sure what you think is important, then see how you spend your time. And if there's a mismatch, you are probably not at your happiest. Anybody who visits me knows that I put a higher value on drawing than on housework, but they also know that a certain level of housework is done before I can start drawing, because otherwise I have fears that the evil monster who lives in the back of the fridge and sows mould on cold leftovers will come out and eat me. (Yes, I know that mould spores, don't attempt to out-pedant me).
Well, how societies encourage their members to spend time gives us an idea of what that societies values are. So, if we're encouraged to sit in traffic jams rather than use public transport, what does it say about society? Does this mean that we somehow value traffic jams? Is it the opportunity to meditate that they provide us with? Is it the conversion of fossil fuel directly into pollutants without any side-benefit of transportation? Is it the fact that it's a community activity that many people can take part in.
Suggestions in the comments box please.
There you are. That was easy, wasn't it.
I started reading the book on Systems thinking in the public sector, and my heart has already sunk into my boots and then slightly further, when it began with a quick summary of the basis of monetarism in game theory. Not because I'm not interested in the subject matter, but because of the discounting of altruism as an important motivator in human affairs.
When I think about my life, the key thing is how I spend my time. Time is something that we know is a limited resource. We all have some and we all share that knowledge. Other things, such as family, money, status, justice, friends, stuff, individuals have more or less of, depending on circumstances. How they value them can be measured in how much of their time they dedicate to them.
Each time you make a choice in how you spend your time, you are unconsciously stating your values. So, if you're not sure what you think is important, then see how you spend your time. And if there's a mismatch, you are probably not at your happiest. Anybody who visits me knows that I put a higher value on drawing than on housework, but they also know that a certain level of housework is done before I can start drawing, because otherwise I have fears that the evil monster who lives in the back of the fridge and sows mould on cold leftovers will come out and eat me. (Yes, I know that mould spores, don't attempt to out-pedant me).
Well, how societies encourage their members to spend time gives us an idea of what that societies values are. So, if we're encouraged to sit in traffic jams rather than use public transport, what does it say about society? Does this mean that we somehow value traffic jams? Is it the opportunity to meditate that they provide us with? Is it the conversion of fossil fuel directly into pollutants without any side-benefit of transportation? Is it the fact that it's a community activity that many people can take part in.
Suggestions in the comments box please.
Thursday 27 December 2012
The smell of brandy lingers
Coming down to the kitchen this morning, there was a definite odour of brandy. This may have been from the left-over Christmas pudding (flamed in brandy) or the sundry articles involved in flaming. The new Christmas experiment this year was playing Snapdragon. We didn't research how to play, so merely put raisins on a plate, poured flaming brandy over them and then snatched raisins out of the flame. There was a certain excitement in watching raisins re-ignite. Apparently we should have put raisins in a bowl of brandy and then set light to that. Oh well, maybe next year. We still have some brandy left, and it's not high on my list of liquids for easy drinking.
I am feeling slightly jaded this morning, and pondering the pleasures of doing things that are difficult and entertaining and challenging. Playing music and singing, well, all the arts in fact, are not improved by making them user-friendly. User-friendliness is about tools rather than skills.Many human pleasures involve setting oneself challenges and putting barricades in one's way (otherwise called rules).
I went to the public library before Christmas to stock up on reading material for the festive period. I was very entertained when I realised that my heart had leapt in excitement - not from the new Barbara Kingsolver or Martin Amis, but when I saw a newly returned copy of John Seddon's Systems Thinking in the Public Sector. Just what I needed. Admittedly I've read the new Barbara Kingsolver and am in the middle of Rupert Everett's second volume of autobiography, but I'm sure that once the mince pies have been digested, I'll be telling all my friends about how to set up systems in a better way - because usability applies to organisations as well as objects. Yes, my new year's resolution - do a blog post on systems in my company and how to improve them.
I am feeling slightly jaded this morning, and pondering the pleasures of doing things that are difficult and entertaining and challenging. Playing music and singing, well, all the arts in fact, are not improved by making them user-friendly. User-friendliness is about tools rather than skills.Many human pleasures involve setting oneself challenges and putting barricades in one's way (otherwise called rules).
I went to the public library before Christmas to stock up on reading material for the festive period. I was very entertained when I realised that my heart had leapt in excitement - not from the new Barbara Kingsolver or Martin Amis, but when I saw a newly returned copy of John Seddon's Systems Thinking in the Public Sector. Just what I needed. Admittedly I've read the new Barbara Kingsolver and am in the middle of Rupert Everett's second volume of autobiography, but I'm sure that once the mince pies have been digested, I'll be telling all my friends about how to set up systems in a better way - because usability applies to organisations as well as objects. Yes, my new year's resolution - do a blog post on systems in my company and how to improve them.
Thursday 20 December 2012
I'm not bitter, honestly
I would like to know how people agree on a vocabulary for interface items.
Do they have a style guide (wonderful but under-rated and unappreciated) that lists all the features in the product and what are used to describe them.
Then, if they do, do they have a system of checking whether the term they're using already exists in it with a totally different definition?
For example, I can now get on my hobby horse. One of my bugbears is the way that computers have hi-jacked the words data and information.
There's a whole philosophical argument that it isn't data unless it has meaning. It certainly isn't information unless it has meaning. Information technology is a total con. You can waggle a wire in a box and get something. Now, how do you work out what is noise and what is signal? That's question one. You've separated them out, but the signal doesn't have any meaning, you can have a morse key being blown by the wind and it will send signal, but it won't necessarily send data, let alone information.
Information only exists in context. For example, I cannot display a web page on the radio. The radio can pick up wireless signals. The signals representing the web page can be transmitted using wireless, so why can't the radio show it. It can play sound transmitted using that medium, so why is light any different? Well, duh, it's obvious isn't it. It's like saying that just because a computer uses heat it can boil water to make tea.
More fun to think about is "does a book contain information if it's written in a language you can't read"? How about, does a USB stick contain information if it's been encoded with an uncrackable code and you've lost the password? Yes, you can think in terms of systems which would enable you to access the information, but if you don't have those interfaces, does the information exist?
A lot of what people do is try to give meaning to the world around them. And one of the ways they do it is to take words and overload them with meaning in different contexts. So a sheet on a sailing ship has one meaning which is different from a sheet in a laundry or a sheet on a printer. And we normally decode these multiple meanings by context. But when you are in a known context, you really, really don't need people using the same word twice with different meaning.
So, how do you get people to think if the new term they're using is in fact an existing term. That already has meaning in this context? Judging from my jaundiced view of humanity, you don't. But if you're lucky, you can point it out to them and they realise that they have made life a little bit harder for everyone who uses the product.
Do they have a style guide (wonderful but under-rated and unappreciated) that lists all the features in the product and what are used to describe them.
Then, if they do, do they have a system of checking whether the term they're using already exists in it with a totally different definition?
For example, I can now get on my hobby horse. One of my bugbears is the way that computers have hi-jacked the words data and information.
There's a whole philosophical argument that it isn't data unless it has meaning. It certainly isn't information unless it has meaning. Information technology is a total con. You can waggle a wire in a box and get something. Now, how do you work out what is noise and what is signal? That's question one. You've separated them out, but the signal doesn't have any meaning, you can have a morse key being blown by the wind and it will send signal, but it won't necessarily send data, let alone information.
Information only exists in context. For example, I cannot display a web page on the radio. The radio can pick up wireless signals. The signals representing the web page can be transmitted using wireless, so why can't the radio show it. It can play sound transmitted using that medium, so why is light any different? Well, duh, it's obvious isn't it. It's like saying that just because a computer uses heat it can boil water to make tea.
More fun to think about is "does a book contain information if it's written in a language you can't read"? How about, does a USB stick contain information if it's been encoded with an uncrackable code and you've lost the password? Yes, you can think in terms of systems which would enable you to access the information, but if you don't have those interfaces, does the information exist?
A lot of what people do is try to give meaning to the world around them. And one of the ways they do it is to take words and overload them with meaning in different contexts. So a sheet on a sailing ship has one meaning which is different from a sheet in a laundry or a sheet on a printer. And we normally decode these multiple meanings by context. But when you are in a known context, you really, really don't need people using the same word twice with different meaning.
So, how do you get people to think if the new term they're using is in fact an existing term. That already has meaning in this context? Judging from my jaundiced view of humanity, you don't. But if you're lucky, you can point it out to them and they realise that they have made life a little bit harder for everyone who uses the product.
Tuesday 18 December 2012
How many boxes do you need to be incomprehensible?
Calculating tax isn't easy, I agree. So why not make it as difficult as possible. Yes, we are in the wonderful world of options.
And my favourite set ever are the binary boxes. Yes have three boxes that can be checked. Hence you don't merely have three possible states, you have 2^3 states.
You can have no box checked. That, apparently is the default behaviour. Let's call it run payroll(monthly)
Then you can have one box checked. That means update payroll to today
Then you can have another box checked, that means calculate payroll to date x
Then you can have both of them checked, that means calculate payroll between date x and today
Then you can have other, which means calculate between whichever date it was and the next day that payroll would have run in the normal course of things (I think - or maybe it means do it but using offshore tax rules - or maybe it means do it without public holidays unless you are in the southern hemisphere) .
How am I supposed to explain how stupid that is? That just because something is efficient and delivers the maximum options in the minimum space doesn't mean that it is useful.
Sometimes I hate my job. Sometimes I want to groom dogs or persuade the NRA that guns are not a basic necessity of life.
And I want a Ben Goldacre t-shirt saying "I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that"
(look Ben - I'm putting in a link http://www.badscience.net/2008/12/i-think-youll-find-its-a-bit-more-complicated-than-that-and-other-excellent-christmas-gifts/
Like anything else, computers are easy if what you want to do is easy. What's hard is finding the easy way to do something.
And my favourite set ever are the binary boxes. Yes have three boxes that can be checked. Hence you don't merely have three possible states, you have 2^3 states.
You can have no box checked. That, apparently is the default behaviour. Let's call it run payroll(monthly)
Then you can have one box checked. That means update payroll to today
Then you can have another box checked, that means calculate payroll to date x
Then you can have both of them checked, that means calculate payroll between date x and today
Then you can have other, which means calculate between whichever date it was and the next day that payroll would have run in the normal course of things (I think - or maybe it means do it but using offshore tax rules - or maybe it means do it without public holidays unless you are in the southern hemisphere) .
How am I supposed to explain how stupid that is? That just because something is efficient and delivers the maximum options in the minimum space doesn't mean that it is useful.
Sometimes I hate my job. Sometimes I want to groom dogs or persuade the NRA that guns are not a basic necessity of life.
And I want a Ben Goldacre t-shirt saying "I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that"
(look Ben - I'm putting in a link http://www.badscience.net/2008/12/i-think-youll-find-its-a-bit-more-complicated-than-that-and-other-excellent-christmas-gifts/
Like anything else, computers are easy if what you want to do is easy. What's hard is finding the easy way to do something.
Friday 14 December 2012
Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible
Mr Grumpy has been off work for the last three days. Cold, flu, job interviews? I have no idea. David has been rushing round the building in a blue silk suit pretending that he is a media medico, ready to reassure and persuade. And Gavin and Jiri have had a full head-on shouting-match. (I could possibly insert another couple of hyphens into that sentence but I'm not quite sure.)
Remember all that happy excitement when Jiri agreed that redesigning his section of the interface was a good thing? That was then, this is now. Gavin wandered through, saw that Jiri had messed with his code, and suggested that now was a good time for a review meeting.
They went into the presentation room, with the screen and the white board and the digicam and the video conferencing facilities. They shut the door, but after a few minutes noise and steam began to emerge from round the edges. And I knew that Jiri had finally cracked and started telling Gavin that he was wrong, that his approach was wrong, that his code was inefficient, and that a design path that consisted entirely of Gavin and David sitting together and feeding sharks was not effective.
I also knew that if any of the other developers had been in there, they would have crumbled by now. Beardy Nick would do anything to avoid a row, up to and including coming in at 8am every Sunday morning for six months while the system went live. And CJ doesn't really believe that he knows enough to disagree with anyone, about code. And Ian likes working within the realms of the possible. But Jiri, whether it's because he's Czech and has been through National Service, or whether it's because he is unutterably stubborn and weighs as much as a small car, will pick his corner and come out fighting.
I knew the obvious thing to do was to leave them to it. Instead, I wondered if there was anything I could do to influence the outcome, at the very least, distract David so that he couldn't weigh in on Gavin's side.
It was surprisingly easy to persuade Lulu, the receptionist, that it would be a good idea to put an announcement over the intercom that it was such a lovely day we were all going to head for the pub.
Remember all that happy excitement when Jiri agreed that redesigning his section of the interface was a good thing? That was then, this is now. Gavin wandered through, saw that Jiri had messed with his code, and suggested that now was a good time for a review meeting.
They went into the presentation room, with the screen and the white board and the digicam and the video conferencing facilities. They shut the door, but after a few minutes noise and steam began to emerge from round the edges. And I knew that Jiri had finally cracked and started telling Gavin that he was wrong, that his approach was wrong, that his code was inefficient, and that a design path that consisted entirely of Gavin and David sitting together and feeding sharks was not effective.
I also knew that if any of the other developers had been in there, they would have crumbled by now. Beardy Nick would do anything to avoid a row, up to and including coming in at 8am every Sunday morning for six months while the system went live. And CJ doesn't really believe that he knows enough to disagree with anyone, about code. And Ian likes working within the realms of the possible. But Jiri, whether it's because he's Czech and has been through National Service, or whether it's because he is unutterably stubborn and weighs as much as a small car, will pick his corner and come out fighting.
I knew the obvious thing to do was to leave them to it. Instead, I wondered if there was anything I could do to influence the outcome, at the very least, distract David so that he couldn't weigh in on Gavin's side.
It was surprisingly easy to persuade Lulu, the receptionist, that it would be a good idea to put an announcement over the intercom that it was such a lovely day we were all going to head for the pub.
Sunday 9 December 2012
The joys of getting it right (and Janet)
I am so, so happy. I sat down with the lovely Jiri last week (yes, Jiri, if you are reading this, you are totally lovely and I will keep my promise to buy you a two litre bottle of Diet Coke to drink at the Christmas party) to go through a little featurette that he had been adding. It wasn't an amazing thing: it was just an infographic tool so people could see exactly what proportion of people had taken sick days against standard benchmarks. You could compare people to other people in your practice, other people in that role in the UK and other people of your age, gender etc. So the practice manager would see (this is a random example that has no basis in statistical truth) that nurses in their practice take more sick days than GPS, and try and track it as to whether that was because nurses in general take more sick days than GPs, and if so, is that because nurses are women of such and such an age, whereas doctors are a different demographic.
So we're going to market it as a tool to see where you might be able to improve things: see if there are particular problems in your practice where people might be overly stretched, or to see whether there are things you could do to make things a bit more adaptable, or whether someone is consistently taking off more days and so on and so forth. It's not full on accurate stats, but it gives overviews and places to look.
And Jiri had set it up so it would virtually do somersaults with a sugar cube balanced on its nose. But, to be able to get it to do the somersaults, you had to be incredibly precise and accurate and lay out the exact mix gradient, including opacity, xy grid lines and the exact height of the Great Pyramid in pixels.
And he demonstrated all of this stuff too me, and we discussed what the average user... as tribute to one of my best and coolest friends ever, I'm going to call her Janet. Janet is, of course, clever and funny (just like the real Janet) and a dab hand with numbers (ditto), but she's got into practice management from a nursing background (ok, real Janet, this is veering a little bit from reality) and while she is brilliant at the HR side of it, she would prefer not to have to fiddle with computers. Her ideal is that she sets things up once a year, and they then work. And she doesn't have to set up anything she doesn't need to. So Janet would love the idea of a quick overview of where her nurses were doing against the UK norm (because she obviously knows who's actually doing what on the ground), but she doesn't have the time or interest to waste on tweaking grayscales (and if she did, she would point out that's not what she's supposed to be doing or what the practice can afford).
And Jiri, (yes, you, I'm so happy....) understood. And I did a nice big poster for the Janet persona, and stuck it on the wall, and there is this new mantra in the office, "Would Janet care?". And there are basic sensible defaults for everything, and all the tailoring is tucked behind a big curtain so it's only there if you actually want to look at it and it's grouped by function and it's lovely. And I am bouncing up and down (must be all the additives in the diet coke) because it's working, it's working and I feel I have actually done something useful.
So we're going to market it as a tool to see where you might be able to improve things: see if there are particular problems in your practice where people might be overly stretched, or to see whether there are things you could do to make things a bit more adaptable, or whether someone is consistently taking off more days and so on and so forth. It's not full on accurate stats, but it gives overviews and places to look.
And Jiri had set it up so it would virtually do somersaults with a sugar cube balanced on its nose. But, to be able to get it to do the somersaults, you had to be incredibly precise and accurate and lay out the exact mix gradient, including opacity, xy grid lines and the exact height of the Great Pyramid in pixels.
And he demonstrated all of this stuff too me, and we discussed what the average user... as tribute to one of my best and coolest friends ever, I'm going to call her Janet. Janet is, of course, clever and funny (just like the real Janet) and a dab hand with numbers (ditto), but she's got into practice management from a nursing background (ok, real Janet, this is veering a little bit from reality) and while she is brilliant at the HR side of it, she would prefer not to have to fiddle with computers. Her ideal is that she sets things up once a year, and they then work. And she doesn't have to set up anything she doesn't need to. So Janet would love the idea of a quick overview of where her nurses were doing against the UK norm (because she obviously knows who's actually doing what on the ground), but she doesn't have the time or interest to waste on tweaking grayscales (and if she did, she would point out that's not what she's supposed to be doing or what the practice can afford).
And Jiri, (yes, you, I'm so happy....) understood. And I did a nice big poster for the Janet persona, and stuck it on the wall, and there is this new mantra in the office, "Would Janet care?". And there are basic sensible defaults for everything, and all the tailoring is tucked behind a big curtain so it's only there if you actually want to look at it and it's grouped by function and it's lovely. And I am bouncing up and down (must be all the additives in the diet coke) because it's working, it's working and I feel I have actually done something useful.
Friday 7 December 2012
The problems of legacy code
Did I tell you that Gavin had written most of the original code for the system? A solid mass of C++ with unlimited overloading. For any of you out there who don't know the full joys of C==, it works on the idea of creating objects with associated behaviours. So if you say "Go!" to a car object, it drives, and if you say "Go!" to a horse object, it gallops, and if you say "Go|" to a bird object if flies. That is, they can either use a default "Go!" behaviour (say, run) or you can write a special "Go!" behaviour for them if running isn't the right thing to do.
But this can mean that you don't know what they're actually going to do. And you might not dare change it, because perhaps someone's "Go!" behaviour is skate, and when you take out all that pointless skating rink code that someone has put in there, the whole program breaks because at some point, something needs there to be a skating rink, but you don't know which one or why or what.
Anyway, this is the reason why they never bloody change anything. They daren't. Because if you try and change it the whole damn thing might fall down arse over tip on that damn skating rink.
Anyway, there was a team meeting today, with me and Ian and all of the other lovely lovely lovely developers. And we were reading the customer comments to try and decide what are actual priorities. And it was blatantly obvious that they just wanted something that was dead simple to use and connected to all the other dead simple things they wanted to use. And Gavin said "But they need to be able to do X". And I lost it. And I siad "No, they don't" Maybe one person does and makes a big fuss about it. But they are not our customer base. They are a sad geeky person who you like going drinking with."
Our customer base has too much else to do to spend any time being geeky.
OK, I admit it, that was a very very poor exhibition on my part. I should be endlessly diplomatic. It did make Mr Grumpy laugh. I could hear him sniggering happily in the corner. And bearded Nick tried to tie himself in a knot because he always gets terribly uncomfortable if people disagree with the god of impenetrable code who is none the less the big boss. And Jiri just wants to re-write the whole thing from scratch because he despises messy code. He doesn't want to make it any less impenetrable as far as I know, he just wants to make it superbly efficient. Christian Jack (maybe I should call him CJ) goes into a bit of a "let me dribble sort of bouncy bouncy puppy who wants to fetch the ball" look. And Gavin lost his temper.
But this can mean that you don't know what they're actually going to do. And you might not dare change it, because perhaps someone's "Go!" behaviour is skate, and when you take out all that pointless skating rink code that someone has put in there, the whole program breaks because at some point, something needs there to be a skating rink, but you don't know which one or why or what.
Anyway, this is the reason why they never bloody change anything. They daren't. Because if you try and change it the whole damn thing might fall down arse over tip on that damn skating rink.
Anyway, there was a team meeting today, with me and Ian and all of the other lovely lovely lovely developers. And we were reading the customer comments to try and decide what are actual priorities. And it was blatantly obvious that they just wanted something that was dead simple to use and connected to all the other dead simple things they wanted to use. And Gavin said "But they need to be able to do X". And I lost it. And I siad "No, they don't" Maybe one person does and makes a big fuss about it. But they are not our customer base. They are a sad geeky person who you like going drinking with."
Our customer base has too much else to do to spend any time being geeky.
OK, I admit it, that was a very very poor exhibition on my part. I should be endlessly diplomatic. It did make Mr Grumpy laugh. I could hear him sniggering happily in the corner. And bearded Nick tried to tie himself in a knot because he always gets terribly uncomfortable if people disagree with the god of impenetrable code who is none the less the big boss. And Jiri just wants to re-write the whole thing from scratch because he despises messy code. He doesn't want to make it any less impenetrable as far as I know, he just wants to make it superbly efficient. Christian Jack (maybe I should call him CJ) goes into a bit of a "let me dribble sort of bouncy bouncy puppy who wants to fetch the ball" look. And Gavin lost his temper.
Monday 3 December 2012
Organisational accidents. Who needs them?
Boring post alert. In fact extremely boring post alert. I've just read this through and realise this is probably the most boring post I have written so far. I'll leave it up so that I have a standard to measure my ennui against.
I've been diminished on the humour front and distracting myself by thinking about organisational issues (the subject of this post) because David has just required another feature in the software. Even though the code base was supposedly frozen. So the product release is going to be delayed a bit longer. The interface is being changed as well. Instead of creating pictures, they're providing ambiguous text comments - because it's so quick to dash off an email saying move that button over to the left a bit. Create a picture, fellows. Yes, it takes a little while (not long, honest) but it's one person's time. And it will save the other person's time trying to decipher your comments, and your own time while you explain them in greater detail and then come over and waste their time while you show them exactly what you meant. Draw the picture - or even just print a screen shot and scribble on the damn thing.
OK. That's the end of the software process rant. Now there is a bit of uninspired writing about the individual/system model of error.
I've just received a book that I ordered:"Managing the Risks of Organisational Accidents" by James Reason. James Reason is famous in the world of ergonomics and safety management, especially for the Swiss Cheese model. (Swiss cheese, in this case, referring to the sort with holes in it rather than any other type of cheese from Switzerland. If you fancy imagining it as a series of bubbles in a fondue, I won't stop you.)
I have no specific reason to buy this book, but I wanted to re-read it, and that seemed the easiest way of doing it. (Given that for some reason it's not available next to Ian Rankin in the local library.) I was looking for a diagram (and I can't remember if it is in this book or a book by Sidney Dekker) about the requirement to have lots of little accidents to maintain safety. If you have a spotless record, you are then more likely to have a catastrophic accident, as you tend to more and more risky behaviour, cutting corners, because it has all been fine so far. Reason (or Dekker) describes it as those moments when you veer away from driving in the centre of your line, and are brought fully back to attention by a near miss, or the juddering as you go over cats eyes. (I'm paraphrasing here, because I haven't found the specific paragraph yet). So it is that grab at your attention that ensures that you don't drift off to sleep and find yourself meeting a wedding party coming the other way, with extremely unfortunate consequences for the bridal wear.
What is most intriguing about Reason's books (I'm going from Human Error to The Human Contribution) is the movement of the balance point between individual responsibility and organisational/system responsibility. This is a non-trivial question, and goes to the heart of many people's beliefs, politics et cetera. How much do you control your actions, and how much does your environment control you? It can go back to the nature/nurture debate, or even the predestination/free will question.
One of the things you get taught to do when considering UI design is to make it easy for someone to take a specific path. You provide them with clear signposts. Some systems (notably IKEA store design) will make it significantly more difficult to take a route that is not the one intended by the designers. Others (such as some road signage) will merely make it more obvious to take one route rather than another. If you are following the road signs to Cambridge station, and they direct you round the ring road rather than through the town, are you making an active choice to follow that route? If the signposted route means that you avoid a notorious accident blackspot, are the accidents that don't occur a consequence of the signage? Is anyone ever aware that their life may have been saved by though an accident that didn't happen?
What about if the signs take you through that accident blackspot?
Who is responsible for the accident that occurs. The council that accepted the poor road design, the drivers who weren't concentrating, the person who set up the signage that sent people there straight off the motorway? People tend to get stuck on the last part of the chain of factors - like a game of "Touch last". In fact, we are all playing Jenga. The same action that was safe when there was a complete row of blocks beneath your block is no longer safe. The action itself hasn't changed but the circumstances round it have.
So to go back to my original position, I haven't changed, but the circumstances surrounding me have. For example, the cat is now within strike distance.
Sunday 2 December 2012
All the happy penguins
The penguins, in this case, are those made from two olives, cream cheese and a carrot slice held together with a cocktail stick. They look amazing. They don't taste particularly nice, but that's not really the point.
And that's an interesting question? Why is it not the point? It's party food, made out of edible ingredients, so should the taste not be at least as important as the look of the thing? Well, should it?
What is the function of food? I'm going to wamble a bit here, because I think it out as I go along, and I see no reason why I should refine my woolly thinking for the purposes of a blog post. If you want coherent incisive remarks, you'll have to buy the book, or the report ,or a dinner, followed by a subtitled film and tequila cocktails on every bridge in Bristol.
The obvious function of food is nourishment. You can't survive without it, but equally obviously that's not why we eat. Imagine the simplicity of life if one only ate for nourishment, the same food every day, containing the same necessary ingredients and as easy to prepare as possible so we can spend our lives doing more interesting stuff (I appear to have just described Iceland mini pizzas).
Obviously food is surrounded by a whole set of anthropological rituals and pleasures. Food is a point where human beings interface with the world and each other. It is loaded with sensory stimulation, touch and taste and smell, the way it looks, in some cases the way it sounds (think of the sizzle as something hits a hot frying-pan or the satisfying squelch as your spoon digs deep into the heart of a really rich chocolate mousse). Food manufacturers are attempting to trigger all these responses before you buy the stuff, loading their packaging with pictures and even odours to get you to desire that food, to stimulate memories or associate it with happy experiences.
And there are all the myths about food, whether it is the revivifying effects of chicken soup or the dogs eaten by other tribes. Food defines our bodies, because it is used to build them, but it also defines our identities. It even defines our countries. For example, we have cities that are built close to rivers because people needed water for drinking and transport, and in fertile areas because people needed to farm. In different periods of history, countries have tried to develop food self-reliance (by encouraging people to farm or garden) or use food as a way of balancing payments. There is food as status symbol and class divider. Food is a deep part of our personal narratives. where possible we choose what we eat and we think that this choice is integral to our identity.
So what is the function of decorative penguins? Well, they give pleasure, they make people smile, they are a talking point. There are equivalent to the butterfly garnish (also constructed from a carrot) that I saw in Amsterdam. They delight the eye. And they are satisfying in their transience. You can't keep an olive penguin for very long. They make few demands on your life. They make few demands on your cooking skills. They show respect for your guests (some human being has spent the time constructing these items).
I agree, it would probably be better if they tasted superb, but you're not going to be disappointed in the taste, because you would not have had many expectations. They're so obviously an amusement, that you know that you have been satisfied by the sight of them.
Of course, if they were all you had to eat, you might want a little more - perhaps some seasoning. And a better quality of olive. But until then, we can enjoy food that is not food, it is a ritual object symbolising party values. So long as there is something that tastes nice as well. Pass along those Iceland mini-pizzas please.
And that's an interesting question? Why is it not the point? It's party food, made out of edible ingredients, so should the taste not be at least as important as the look of the thing? Well, should it?
What is the function of food? I'm going to wamble a bit here, because I think it out as I go along, and I see no reason why I should refine my woolly thinking for the purposes of a blog post. If you want coherent incisive remarks, you'll have to buy the book, or the report ,or a dinner, followed by a subtitled film and tequila cocktails on every bridge in Bristol.
The obvious function of food is nourishment. You can't survive without it, but equally obviously that's not why we eat. Imagine the simplicity of life if one only ate for nourishment, the same food every day, containing the same necessary ingredients and as easy to prepare as possible so we can spend our lives doing more interesting stuff (I appear to have just described Iceland mini pizzas).
Obviously food is surrounded by a whole set of anthropological rituals and pleasures. Food is a point where human beings interface with the world and each other. It is loaded with sensory stimulation, touch and taste and smell, the way it looks, in some cases the way it sounds (think of the sizzle as something hits a hot frying-pan or the satisfying squelch as your spoon digs deep into the heart of a really rich chocolate mousse). Food manufacturers are attempting to trigger all these responses before you buy the stuff, loading their packaging with pictures and even odours to get you to desire that food, to stimulate memories or associate it with happy experiences.
And there are all the myths about food, whether it is the revivifying effects of chicken soup or the dogs eaten by other tribes. Food defines our bodies, because it is used to build them, but it also defines our identities. It even defines our countries. For example, we have cities that are built close to rivers because people needed water for drinking and transport, and in fertile areas because people needed to farm. In different periods of history, countries have tried to develop food self-reliance (by encouraging people to farm or garden) or use food as a way of balancing payments. There is food as status symbol and class divider. Food is a deep part of our personal narratives. where possible we choose what we eat and we think that this choice is integral to our identity.
So what is the function of decorative penguins? Well, they give pleasure, they make people smile, they are a talking point. There are equivalent to the butterfly garnish (also constructed from a carrot) that I saw in Amsterdam. They delight the eye. And they are satisfying in their transience. You can't keep an olive penguin for very long. They make few demands on your life. They make few demands on your cooking skills. They show respect for your guests (some human being has spent the time constructing these items).
I agree, it would probably be better if they tasted superb, but you're not going to be disappointed in the taste, because you would not have had many expectations. They're so obviously an amusement, that you know that you have been satisfied by the sight of them.
Of course, if they were all you had to eat, you might want a little more - perhaps some seasoning. And a better quality of olive. But until then, we can enjoy food that is not food, it is a ritual object symbolising party values. So long as there is something that tastes nice as well. Pass along those Iceland mini-pizzas please.
Friday 30 November 2012
Yay, it's Friday
It's late. I've just been to see Jeremy Hardy in Cirencester. I remember seeing him many years ago and what saddens me is that his targets haven't changed. Because things have just got worse around them. It's Friday night so I'm not going to write about usability, I'm having a party tomorrow and I have been making vol au vents. This was entirely inspired by a trip to Waitrose where a pack of twelve mini vol au vents cost £4.99. "I can do that for a fraction of the price" I thought (indeed, but it was probably a vulgar fraction, perhaps even improper).
The big difference between the Waitrose vol au vents and my own are - I bet they didn't make theirs with a scone cutter and a milk bottle top. I would like to claim that I had cut out my vol au vents using a white wine glass and a champagne glass, but being realistic, that would have made massive vol au vents. I used the smaller of my two scone cutters and the top off a two litre milk flask? flagon? plastic bottle? what's the right term? I did want to use a champagne glass. I took a beautiful champagne glass down from the shelf (the only beautiful champagne glass left) and discovered a truth about optical illusion that we had been taught in applied cognitive science. Champagne glasses look slenderer than scone cutters, but actually, the diameter is virtually identical. So there (which explains why Danni Harmer is accused of being fat on Strictly Come Dancing), she's not fat, people, she's short.
And as if inspired by the champagne glass example, the empty vol au vent cases expanded in the oven. They over-reached themselves and curled over like looping caterpillars. Waitroses's vol au vent cases were approximately equivalent to a Norman church. Mine were a cross between the Gherkin, the leaning tower of Pisa and a decidedly detumescent willy. I fear that when I fill them they will dribble.
I also counted up the people I have invited to this party and discovered it is definitely over forty. I admit, I have bought a new flatline telly (see last post) so that people can watch Strictly Come Dancing as the party warm-up experience. That should, of course, be flatscreen. flat-line is a serious medical problem. Actually, a slightly less serious waste disposal problem. However, returning to a small room which already contains, two chairs, a sofa, and enough free space left to insert a TV but not rotate it; I reckon that given an ability to sit with one's legs crossed in the patient posture of primary-school pupils, we could possibly fit nine people in the sitting room (given an ordered arrangement of entry and exit). Forty will be an interesting challenge. I hope they're not Strictly fans.
The big difference between the Waitrose vol au vents and my own are - I bet they didn't make theirs with a scone cutter and a milk bottle top. I would like to claim that I had cut out my vol au vents using a white wine glass and a champagne glass, but being realistic, that would have made massive vol au vents. I used the smaller of my two scone cutters and the top off a two litre milk flask? flagon? plastic bottle? what's the right term? I did want to use a champagne glass. I took a beautiful champagne glass down from the shelf (the only beautiful champagne glass left) and discovered a truth about optical illusion that we had been taught in applied cognitive science. Champagne glasses look slenderer than scone cutters, but actually, the diameter is virtually identical. So there (which explains why Danni Harmer is accused of being fat on Strictly Come Dancing), she's not fat, people, she's short.
And as if inspired by the champagne glass example, the empty vol au vent cases expanded in the oven. They over-reached themselves and curled over like looping caterpillars. Waitroses's vol au vent cases were approximately equivalent to a Norman church. Mine were a cross between the Gherkin, the leaning tower of Pisa and a decidedly detumescent willy. I fear that when I fill them they will dribble.
I also counted up the people I have invited to this party and discovered it is definitely over forty. I admit, I have bought a new flatline telly (see last post) so that people can watch Strictly Come Dancing as the party warm-up experience. That should, of course, be flatscreen. flat-line is a serious medical problem. Actually, a slightly less serious waste disposal problem. However, returning to a small room which already contains, two chairs, a sofa, and enough free space left to insert a TV but not rotate it; I reckon that given an ability to sit with one's legs crossed in the patient posture of primary-school pupils, we could possibly fit nine people in the sitting room (given an ordered arrangement of entry and exit). Forty will be an interesting challenge. I hope they're not Strictly fans.
Usability in your private life
We have just upgraded to a new television. A 32" Samsung smart TV. It feels enormous. I hasten to add that the only reason that we did this was to be able to watch cats falling off sofas in high definition. After all, what other reason could there be? Apart from watching people walk into lampposts.
The sad thing about being a usability engineer is that you look at controls all the time. And the Samsung ones are dreadful. The manual tells you which connector for which input - excellent. Except it does this by having a little diagram of a connector (HDMI, USB etc) and it doesn't tell you where the damn thing is on the television. Or even in relation to the other connections. There is no helpful location information such as - the USB connector is on the side and the Ethernet is the third on the left. And you have to remember that this is a large item and I have a small house. You really want to have it set up and then plug in the cables so you can squeeze them into the available space. Instead, what you have to do is drag this smooth black item over to the light source, stare at all the little slots and try and work out which one is which one, according to the label. Presumably they envisaged it being set up by someone with a head torch in a warehouse, rather than in a small sitting room with subtle mood lighting and no space to turn the screen round.
Anyway, this could generally have been seen to be successful, the TV works, connects to the internet, connects to my netbook, and we can get YouTube on it. But the handset is dreadful. It has an up/down/left/right set of arrows, with an enter button at the centre point of the cross. (No, I'm not going to take a photo and upload it - be grateful that I'm even typing) and there is absolutely no haptic information that tells you which the entry key is. I have already made several million erros by getting the entry key instead of the down key when I am attempting to move from Samsung's default plan (Family TV or something equally inappropriate) and go straight to YouTube. I am developing a hatred for this. And you can't change (as far as I can tell) what the default SmartTV option is. It has the "Samsung-approved" set of options in BIG icons, and the other apps in little icons. And you can rearrange the little icons and put them in folders, but you are stuck with the BIG icons. Pah, I hate it.
But the good stuff is - yes, I can fritter away hours of my life in watching people fall off ladders.
The sad thing about being a usability engineer is that you look at controls all the time. And the Samsung ones are dreadful. The manual tells you which connector for which input - excellent. Except it does this by having a little diagram of a connector (HDMI, USB etc) and it doesn't tell you where the damn thing is on the television. Or even in relation to the other connections. There is no helpful location information such as - the USB connector is on the side and the Ethernet is the third on the left. And you have to remember that this is a large item and I have a small house. You really want to have it set up and then plug in the cables so you can squeeze them into the available space. Instead, what you have to do is drag this smooth black item over to the light source, stare at all the little slots and try and work out which one is which one, according to the label. Presumably they envisaged it being set up by someone with a head torch in a warehouse, rather than in a small sitting room with subtle mood lighting and no space to turn the screen round.
Anyway, this could generally have been seen to be successful, the TV works, connects to the internet, connects to my netbook, and we can get YouTube on it. But the handset is dreadful. It has an up/down/left/right set of arrows, with an enter button at the centre point of the cross. (No, I'm not going to take a photo and upload it - be grateful that I'm even typing) and there is absolutely no haptic information that tells you which the entry key is. I have already made several million erros by getting the entry key instead of the down key when I am attempting to move from Samsung's default plan (Family TV or something equally inappropriate) and go straight to YouTube. I am developing a hatred for this. And you can't change (as far as I can tell) what the default SmartTV option is. It has the "Samsung-approved" set of options in BIG icons, and the other apps in little icons. And you can rearrange the little icons and put them in folders, but you are stuck with the BIG icons. Pah, I hate it.
But the good stuff is - yes, I can fritter away hours of my life in watching people fall off ladders.
Thursday 29 November 2012
The joys of cardboard
Yes, I did not write anything yesterday. I suppose I should start upping the blog's excitement to build up a devoted fan base, but let's face it, why would I want a devoted fan base.
So what happened yesterday that kept me so busy?
I gave a presentation (Yay!). This was supposed to have the twofold benefit of encouraging people to prototype to "define the design space" and also remind people that I do exist, I do care about usability and I am an exciting, rewarding and entertaining speaker.
Any of you people out there want I an exciting, rewarding and entertaining speaker? What, neither of you? Oh well, keep me in mind when you want to enthuse about the joys of cardboard.
Joys of cardboard, you enquire, what could possibly be joyous about cardboard? Well, plenty. It's low-tech, it's cheap, it's flexible, and it's perfect for rapid prototyping. With the aid of a lot of Sellotape and a Stanley knife you can create almost anything. Of course, it won't work, (well, unless it's a cardboard chair or a speedway track for rats), but it gives people ideas. And it clarifies your own ideas. And you can do fitting trials on it.
(Fitting trial, what on earth is a fitting trial, you enquire, that merely recalls the days when my sister was practising her dress-making skills upon me and involved me standing still for long periods while pins were inserted in random places including my flesh). A fitting trial is a practical test to check what can or cannot be reached by the population that you are dealing with. So, you set the percentage of the population that you expect to use your device, age, sex, disability etc, and you check to see if they can, can that unusually tall chap see the screen? Can that bent over elderly person reach the buttons? And so on and so on. There is a useful book called Bodyspace by a chap called Stephen Pheasant that covers much of this. It's physical ergonomics and is important when you're designing a real object to be used in the workspace. Of course, it can apply to virtual objects too. Are they accessible by the colour blind? Are the buttons big enough for clumsy fingers... and so on and so on.
Anyway, as I stated earlier, my main purpose in hymning the joys of cardboard (and paper) were to try and get people to start thinking and expressing their design before they became engrossed in coding it.
Did it work? I think you know the answer to that, no, no and again no. But I did start reading a coursera course book. The course is Design: Creation of Artefacts in Society (so obviously I'd find that interesting) and the book is by the guy who produced the course Design: Creation of Artifacts in Society or go to: http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~ulrich/designbook.html OR http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~ulrich/ulrichbook-10Aug12.pdf
I like design ideas. I doubt that I'll actually do the course, but I have this sad weakness for education. New stuff to learn. Wow!, How much can I sign up for. Yay. And it's free! I'm like a small child offered free sweets - keep stuffing them into all my pockets and my jumper until the scatter all over the floor and I eat so many I'm sick and have to lie down in a darkened room for a while.
But I do hope that I can get people to re-design their way of designing. Even a little bit. Even just to be clear about what they're taking for granted and what question they're asking.
So what happened yesterday that kept me so busy?
I gave a presentation (Yay!). This was supposed to have the twofold benefit of encouraging people to prototype to "define the design space" and also remind people that I do exist, I do care about usability and I am an exciting, rewarding and entertaining speaker.
Any of you people out there want I an exciting, rewarding and entertaining speaker? What, neither of you? Oh well, keep me in mind when you want to enthuse about the joys of cardboard.
Joys of cardboard, you enquire, what could possibly be joyous about cardboard? Well, plenty. It's low-tech, it's cheap, it's flexible, and it's perfect for rapid prototyping. With the aid of a lot of Sellotape and a Stanley knife you can create almost anything. Of course, it won't work, (well, unless it's a cardboard chair or a speedway track for rats), but it gives people ideas. And it clarifies your own ideas. And you can do fitting trials on it.
(Fitting trial, what on earth is a fitting trial, you enquire, that merely recalls the days when my sister was practising her dress-making skills upon me and involved me standing still for long periods while pins were inserted in random places including my flesh). A fitting trial is a practical test to check what can or cannot be reached by the population that you are dealing with. So, you set the percentage of the population that you expect to use your device, age, sex, disability etc, and you check to see if they can, can that unusually tall chap see the screen? Can that bent over elderly person reach the buttons? And so on and so on. There is a useful book called Bodyspace by a chap called Stephen Pheasant that covers much of this. It's physical ergonomics and is important when you're designing a real object to be used in the workspace. Of course, it can apply to virtual objects too. Are they accessible by the colour blind? Are the buttons big enough for clumsy fingers... and so on and so on.
Anyway, as I stated earlier, my main purpose in hymning the joys of cardboard (and paper) were to try and get people to start thinking and expressing their design before they became engrossed in coding it.
Did it work? I think you know the answer to that, no, no and again no. But I did start reading a coursera course book. The course is Design: Creation of Artefacts in Society (so obviously I'd find that interesting) and the book is by the guy who produced the course Design: Creation of Artifacts in Society or go to: http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~ulrich/designbook.html OR http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~ulrich/ulrichbook-10Aug12.pdf
I like design ideas. I doubt that I'll actually do the course, but I have this sad weakness for education. New stuff to learn. Wow!, How much can I sign up for. Yay. And it's free! I'm like a small child offered free sweets - keep stuffing them into all my pockets and my jumper until the scatter all over the floor and I eat so many I'm sick and have to lie down in a darkened room for a while.
But I do hope that I can get people to re-design their way of designing. Even a little bit. Even just to be clear about what they're taking for granted and what question they're asking.
Tuesday 27 November 2012
Marketing, what marketing?
Someone asked me if there was a marketing department at this company, because they thought it was a bit implausible that there were that many engineers but no marketeers. Well, yes (you know who you are), but I'm not totally au fait with what they do.
Obviously I know about what they do: they redesign the website, they write blogs, they keep up a presence on twitter, they go to shows, they take out advertisements in appropriate places, they check whether it's worth being in google AdWords, they buy lists of GPs, they talk to previous customers and so on and so on.
But I'm not sure what they actually do. Is this because I'm incredibly lazy? Or incredibly uninterested? Or because the summaries that appear in the company newsletter are not terribly informative? Or because (whisper it) communication in this company is absolutely dreadful.
To be fair, communication in most companies is absolutely dreadful. People always thinks there are secrets going on behind their back. The urgent strategy planing meeting that had the head of marketing (Jeanette), Gavin and David in it and we never heard what decisions were made. This may, of course, be because no decisions were made, but I know that Jeanette was trying to get GandD to commit to what was going to be in the next product so she could splash out for ads in the Lancet...
And GandD wouldn't bite.
Jeanette is one of those women who make me feel tired just to look at her. She's slender and blonde and wears boots and looks amazing at all times. She can sell hot air to Parliament and bull terriers to babies. And she seems to be permanently on a motivational high. "Come on team, let's see if we can get another ten orders by tonight" she'll say, "Who's with me?" And when she has a spare minute she'll be running marathons for cystic fibrosis research or jetting off for a spa week on a Greek island to cheer up her sister-in-law.
Jeanette is busy seeing how we could alter the product so it would be suitable for care homes and private secure units. She's looking at what regulation is coming out of the government about what these people will need and she reckons that there's a huge untapped market.
And David agrees. There's a whole lot of legislation that needs to be chewed down and flagged up, what your levels of staffing need to be, how many people you have on your books, where you can make things more or less efficient, how you rotate your on-call staff, how you can manage handovers effectively. We could integrate it with a little mobile note-taking system that doctors could carry with them when they go on call so they could.... And so it goes on. Questions of data security and encryption and touch screen infection issues....
And Gavin loves all that. He's quite keen on encryption and security and new ways of setting it up. And can we get secured prescriptions sent directly to a chemist for an out of hours call... and so forth and so on. I don't know the ins and outs of it. I would love to shadow a doctor or two and see what they actually did and what was really needed, but we don't have time for that, says David, we know what they do, we know what they want, we just have to produce it. And if you developers weren't so inefficient we'd have a product by now. Didn't you estimate that it would be finished by September so we could test it in time for the New Year and it would be ready to go when people are spending their budgets left over from this tax year?
"Yes" says Ian, "But you've changed the spec four times since then."
Obviously I know about what they do: they redesign the website, they write blogs, they keep up a presence on twitter, they go to shows, they take out advertisements in appropriate places, they check whether it's worth being in google AdWords, they buy lists of GPs, they talk to previous customers and so on and so on.
But I'm not sure what they actually do. Is this because I'm incredibly lazy? Or incredibly uninterested? Or because the summaries that appear in the company newsletter are not terribly informative? Or because (whisper it) communication in this company is absolutely dreadful.
To be fair, communication in most companies is absolutely dreadful. People always thinks there are secrets going on behind their back. The urgent strategy planing meeting that had the head of marketing (Jeanette), Gavin and David in it and we never heard what decisions were made. This may, of course, be because no decisions were made, but I know that Jeanette was trying to get GandD to commit to what was going to be in the next product so she could splash out for ads in the Lancet...
And GandD wouldn't bite.
Jeanette is one of those women who make me feel tired just to look at her. She's slender and blonde and wears boots and looks amazing at all times. She can sell hot air to Parliament and bull terriers to babies. And she seems to be permanently on a motivational high. "Come on team, let's see if we can get another ten orders by tonight" she'll say, "Who's with me?" And when she has a spare minute she'll be running marathons for cystic fibrosis research or jetting off for a spa week on a Greek island to cheer up her sister-in-law.
Jeanette is busy seeing how we could alter the product so it would be suitable for care homes and private secure units. She's looking at what regulation is coming out of the government about what these people will need and she reckons that there's a huge untapped market.
And David agrees. There's a whole lot of legislation that needs to be chewed down and flagged up, what your levels of staffing need to be, how many people you have on your books, where you can make things more or less efficient, how you rotate your on-call staff, how you can manage handovers effectively. We could integrate it with a little mobile note-taking system that doctors could carry with them when they go on call so they could.... And so it goes on. Questions of data security and encryption and touch screen infection issues....
And Gavin loves all that. He's quite keen on encryption and security and new ways of setting it up. And can we get secured prescriptions sent directly to a chemist for an out of hours call... and so forth and so on. I don't know the ins and outs of it. I would love to shadow a doctor or two and see what they actually did and what was really needed, but we don't have time for that, says David, we know what they do, we know what they want, we just have to produce it. And if you developers weren't so inefficient we'd have a product by now. Didn't you estimate that it would be finished by September so we could test it in time for the New Year and it would be ready to go when people are spending their budgets left over from this tax year?
"Yes" says Ian, "But you've changed the spec four times since then."
Monday 26 November 2012
Why do I think it happens like that?
When you're creating a new product, it's like the band's first album, or a first novel. You can put all your best work into it. All those hours of sitting in a back room, thinking of how it should work while you're supposed to be doing something else. All those evening hanging out with your mates and discussing it (for a band) or those rich ideas that have bubbled up for years (for a novel).
Then comes the new release. It's the follow-up; the second album that flops or the second novel that arrives with hype and leaves with its tail between its legs and an apologetic wet spot on the floor.
(Of course some of it is straightforward regression to the mean: great one time means more likely to be not so great the next.)
In both cases, you normally have a clue what it's like when you make it, but it's only when it's bought that you really understand. People react to what you've done. And software is interesting, because it's a tool. Users use it. They don't just listen to it or read it. They want to make stuff happen with it. And what they want to do may or may not be what you think they want to do: or even what they think they want to do.
They find bugs. They find things that they want to do and can't. And if you're lucky they phone up the support desk or email in or write on forums so you can find out what their problems are.
So, in your second release you fix the bugs (obviously) and you add some of the features that youwanted to put in the first release but couldn't, and you put in some of the features that you discover that users really want that you never thought about. And that is where it all starts to go horribly, horribly wrong.
Let us imagine our basic Dalek with exterminate facility. You have choices when working on the upgrade design:
a. add levitation to deal with the "cannot conquer a world containing steps" problem
b. assume that wheelchair access will become normal so that Daleks will learn how to campaign for it c. point out that Daleks were never designed to conquer the world, they were designed to be defeated, so use them in the way they were intended
d. redesign the sink plunger
e. offer people a re-badged helicopter that can carry Daleks
Gavin, obviously, wants to add levitation, because that is the correct solution and it has interesting coding challenges. David wants all the other things because they are fast and cheap and there is a massive mark-up on the helicopter. Nick would like to work on levitation because that is an interesting problem, but he designed the first sink plunger so he knows that he will be the sink plunger re-designer. Mr Grumpy and Jack are supposed to be fixing bugs. Both of them have a talent for introducing new bugs. This is because they don't realise the side-effects of their fixes. Mr. Grumpy doesn't always bother to find out how the code he is debugging is supposed to work, so he breaks other bits while getting the first bit to run smoothly. In Jack's case it's just because he writes it badly. Jiri has already started researching levitation techniques and has found an interesting paper that implies it can be done very efficiently if you can redesign the Dalek so it doesn't require a sink plunger.
Ian tries to find out whether there is going to be levitation or not. He knows that Gavin and David are arguing about this and whichever one he meets in the corridor will tell him something different. He sits down and writes the spec as he understands it, so at least there is something for all the developers to do until the decision is made.
And I try and find out if users actually want levitation, or whether they really want to use the Daleks as pest controllers and would like a fumigation option.
Then comes the new release. It's the follow-up; the second album that flops or the second novel that arrives with hype and leaves with its tail between its legs and an apologetic wet spot on the floor.
(Of course some of it is straightforward regression to the mean: great one time means more likely to be not so great the next.)
In both cases, you normally have a clue what it's like when you make it, but it's only when it's bought that you really understand. People react to what you've done. And software is interesting, because it's a tool. Users use it. They don't just listen to it or read it. They want to make stuff happen with it. And what they want to do may or may not be what you think they want to do: or even what they think they want to do.
They find bugs. They find things that they want to do and can't. And if you're lucky they phone up the support desk or email in or write on forums so you can find out what their problems are.
So, in your second release you fix the bugs (obviously) and you add some of the features that youwanted to put in the first release but couldn't, and you put in some of the features that you discover that users really want that you never thought about. And that is where it all starts to go horribly, horribly wrong.
Let us imagine our basic Dalek with exterminate facility. You have choices when working on the upgrade design:
a. add levitation to deal with the "cannot conquer a world containing steps" problem
b. assume that wheelchair access will become normal so that Daleks will learn how to campaign for it c. point out that Daleks were never designed to conquer the world, they were designed to be defeated, so use them in the way they were intended
d. redesign the sink plunger
e. offer people a re-badged helicopter that can carry Daleks
Gavin, obviously, wants to add levitation, because that is the correct solution and it has interesting coding challenges. David wants all the other things because they are fast and cheap and there is a massive mark-up on the helicopter. Nick would like to work on levitation because that is an interesting problem, but he designed the first sink plunger so he knows that he will be the sink plunger re-designer. Mr Grumpy and Jack are supposed to be fixing bugs. Both of them have a talent for introducing new bugs. This is because they don't realise the side-effects of their fixes. Mr. Grumpy doesn't always bother to find out how the code he is debugging is supposed to work, so he breaks other bits while getting the first bit to run smoothly. In Jack's case it's just because he writes it badly. Jiri has already started researching levitation techniques and has found an interesting paper that implies it can be done very efficiently if you can redesign the Dalek so it doesn't require a sink plunger.
Ian tries to find out whether there is going to be levitation or not. He knows that Gavin and David are arguing about this and whichever one he meets in the corridor will tell him something different. He sits down and writes the spec as he understands it, so at least there is something for all the developers to do until the decision is made.
And I try and find out if users actually want levitation, or whether they really want to use the Daleks as pest controllers and would like a fumigation option.
Sunday 25 November 2012
How did I get into this anyway?
A quick summary of my trajectory into user experience:
My current problem (the one that is making me consider taking a quick chew on the washable wool/acrylic shagpile) is how to get people to think about what a user does as opposed to what they do.
In fact, to understand that users are people too. I sometimes feel as if I'm trying to explain to a Daily Mail reader that there might be a reason why people are in debt that doesn't involve feckless spending on alcohol, tobacco and Sky sports.
Yes, users are not interested in how wonderful and clever your product is. They don't care. They just want to do their job and then do something that they find interesting (which may, of course, involve feckless spending on tobacco, alcohol and Sky sports). They may have to run their payroll while a patient is vomiting in the waiting room and two doctors are off sick and someone has forgotten they're the on call doctor that day and their car has broken down and they're thinking about their snowboarding holiday. They do not have a calm uninterrupted environment to set up the best possible way of doing it. They just want it done and out of the way as quickly and effectively as possible: in their terms, not ours.
OK. Developers might agree with this, briefly, but they don't have time to make it any simpler because they have to get a new release out. And they need the new release out because the sellers have to have something to sell so that we have money coming in which will ultimately pay for my tobacco, alcohol and Sky sports habit. And how does it get decided what's in the new release?
It gets decided by David and Gavin, chatting about what they can do and what they think is cool and what they imagine people might want because one of them saw something like this last week on a website and thought that's a good idea and our competitors are doing it anyway. If they were designing Daleks they'd have vampire teeth and a six pack because they'd heard Twilight was making a fortune. And they'd produce a full working prototype of a Dalek with vampire teeth and a six-pack. Not a wireframe or a sketch or even a mock-up. No, because it will be brilliant and they need it by Christmas so they can't afford to waste time. And they'd get all the engineers to stop what they were doing to redesign the Dalek head set to fit in those vampire teeth. And to rewrite all the libraries to make them incorporate a blood-drinking ability. And then look at the results and say "That's not what we wanted at all".
At which point the temptation to fling myself to the floor and get a mouthful of tufts is quite high.
- Write embedded programs to control freezers. Try and make them suitable for maintenance engineers to use: i.e, give clear info easily
- Describe programs and write manuals
- Become a full-time tech author
- Train and write training courses
- Become very aware of what users had problems with
- Work for software companies
- Realise that whenever I couldn't describe something easily, that meant it was poor design
- Try and persuade engineers of this
- Do an MSc in Human Computer Interaction and Ergonomics in an attempt to convince engineers that I really did know what I was talking about
- Lie on floor and bite carpet.
My current problem (the one that is making me consider taking a quick chew on the washable wool/acrylic shagpile) is how to get people to think about what a user does as opposed to what they do.
In fact, to understand that users are people too. I sometimes feel as if I'm trying to explain to a Daily Mail reader that there might be a reason why people are in debt that doesn't involve feckless spending on alcohol, tobacco and Sky sports.
Yes, users are not interested in how wonderful and clever your product is. They don't care. They just want to do their job and then do something that they find interesting (which may, of course, involve feckless spending on tobacco, alcohol and Sky sports). They may have to run their payroll while a patient is vomiting in the waiting room and two doctors are off sick and someone has forgotten they're the on call doctor that day and their car has broken down and they're thinking about their snowboarding holiday. They do not have a calm uninterrupted environment to set up the best possible way of doing it. They just want it done and out of the way as quickly and effectively as possible: in their terms, not ours.
OK. Developers might agree with this, briefly, but they don't have time to make it any simpler because they have to get a new release out. And they need the new release out because the sellers have to have something to sell so that we have money coming in which will ultimately pay for my tobacco, alcohol and Sky sports habit. And how does it get decided what's in the new release?
It gets decided by David and Gavin, chatting about what they can do and what they think is cool and what they imagine people might want because one of them saw something like this last week on a website and thought that's a good idea and our competitors are doing it anyway. If they were designing Daleks they'd have vampire teeth and a six pack because they'd heard Twilight was making a fortune. And they'd produce a full working prototype of a Dalek with vampire teeth and a six-pack. Not a wireframe or a sketch or even a mock-up. No, because it will be brilliant and they need it by Christmas so they can't afford to waste time. And they'd get all the engineers to stop what they were doing to redesign the Dalek head set to fit in those vampire teeth. And to rewrite all the libraries to make them incorporate a blood-drinking ability. And then look at the results and say "That's not what we wanted at all".
At which point the temptation to fling myself to the floor and get a mouthful of tufts is quite high.
Friday 23 November 2012
That elusive work life balance
I was going to post about all the wonderful people in development in that Suffolk company, but I felt the need to side-track for a moment. Why is it when talking about work-life balance it's all about picking your children up from school, taking them to dentist's appointments or watching the little dears at the school play. There's never trying to get yourself into balance after being told "I wish you'd fuck off and die" by your teenager before they storm off for school and you have to go to work. Everyone else's children are amenable little things, who might possibly be ill and need a lovely caring parent to hold their head while they voimited into a bucket, or need to be ferried between their violin lesson, their karate and their advanced programming course.
I look round at the developers and I wonder what will happen to them. Most of them, (four out of six, if you include Gavin), are single. Whether this is because they are painfully shy or whether it is because they have not yet found a woman who is deeply interested in Star Wars X-wings modelled in lego, I have not, as yet, been able to find out. Of course, that might be a hunt for another man who is deeply interested in Star Wars lego. I wouldn't like to make assumptions about any of these people's sexuality. For all I know they are secret furries.
OK. Here are the developers. In order of developoriness. Most extreme is Jiri. He is from the Czech Republic. He likes wearing black. There is a rumour that he is from Transylvania and cannot go outside in daylight, but apart from that he has nothing in common with film vampires. To start with, he has bad hair. He loves algorithms. And Diet Coke. He sits as far away form the other developers as he can. This is possibly to justify the way he shouts very loudly when he wants to encourage people into sharing his point of view on such matters as the level of code indentation.
It's at this point that I feel that I should point out that the developers haven't all been men. There have been women. They just leave. Generally after about a year. They come in bouncy and bushy-tailed and confident, and you can see the sparkle go out of their eyes and the gloss leave their hair. When it returns you know they've had a successful interview, and they will soon be moving on.
Then there is Nick. Nick has a beard. It's not a very successful beard in the world of beards. He's not going to manage Father Christmas or even Charles 1st. But it is definitely a beard. Nick probably has a point of view on many things, but it is very hard to extract it from him. He has been working for the company almost since start-up, and has found his niche. Extracting him would probably be like extracting an unwilling kitten from a wellington boot; it can be done, but at severe cost to all concerned
The first one in the non-single stakes is Jack. He is still quite young. He roller-blades. And has bouts of enthusiasm for all sorts of things, ranging from software to apple pie recipes. He's not really a very good coder, but he has a girl friend. And he's a Christian. I still haven't worked out what sort, but there is no doubt that he is a firm believer and goes to church.
Jack has the good fortune to sit next to Mr Grumpy. Mr Grumpy is divorced. He has worked as a contracter and resented paying a large section of his pay as alimony, so he has moved into the world of paid employment on the grounds that his ex-wife has no rights whatsoever to his pension contributions and his private health insurance. Mr. Grumpy knows that whatever innovations have been suggested have been tried in one of the other myriad companies that he's worked in and they didn't work there. He does at least have a scathing sense of humour and a willingness to do what he has been asked to do (on the principle that it won't work anyway so he might as well waste his time with that as anything else).
Then there is the lead developer, Ian. Ian is married. And has children. And is calm and competent and willing to try and make things work. Ian is probably the wheels on which this company runs (and I am sure that his children will never swear at him before he leaves for work).
And finally, of course, there is Gavin, he of the fast cars (he has just bought an Aston Martin), high dividends and absolute knowledge that he is the cleverest man in the building. He has a weakness for designer shirts that look like Mao jackets. Because Gavin owns half the company, Gavin's opinion carries quite a lot of weight. And did I mention that he is the cleverest man in the building? Jiri might fight him for that position, but Jiri is handicapped by not owning half the company.
These are the people whom I must persuade to redesign their interfaces so that they can do simple things easily, instead of complicated things ingeniously.
I look round at the developers and I wonder what will happen to them. Most of them, (four out of six, if you include Gavin), are single. Whether this is because they are painfully shy or whether it is because they have not yet found a woman who is deeply interested in Star Wars X-wings modelled in lego, I have not, as yet, been able to find out. Of course, that might be a hunt for another man who is deeply interested in Star Wars lego. I wouldn't like to make assumptions about any of these people's sexuality. For all I know they are secret furries.
OK. Here are the developers. In order of developoriness. Most extreme is Jiri. He is from the Czech Republic. He likes wearing black. There is a rumour that he is from Transylvania and cannot go outside in daylight, but apart from that he has nothing in common with film vampires. To start with, he has bad hair. He loves algorithms. And Diet Coke. He sits as far away form the other developers as he can. This is possibly to justify the way he shouts very loudly when he wants to encourage people into sharing his point of view on such matters as the level of code indentation.
It's at this point that I feel that I should point out that the developers haven't all been men. There have been women. They just leave. Generally after about a year. They come in bouncy and bushy-tailed and confident, and you can see the sparkle go out of their eyes and the gloss leave their hair. When it returns you know they've had a successful interview, and they will soon be moving on.
Then there is Nick. Nick has a beard. It's not a very successful beard in the world of beards. He's not going to manage Father Christmas or even Charles 1st. But it is definitely a beard. Nick probably has a point of view on many things, but it is very hard to extract it from him. He has been working for the company almost since start-up, and has found his niche. Extracting him would probably be like extracting an unwilling kitten from a wellington boot; it can be done, but at severe cost to all concerned
The first one in the non-single stakes is Jack. He is still quite young. He roller-blades. And has bouts of enthusiasm for all sorts of things, ranging from software to apple pie recipes. He's not really a very good coder, but he has a girl friend. And he's a Christian. I still haven't worked out what sort, but there is no doubt that he is a firm believer and goes to church.
Jack has the good fortune to sit next to Mr Grumpy. Mr Grumpy is divorced. He has worked as a contracter and resented paying a large section of his pay as alimony, so he has moved into the world of paid employment on the grounds that his ex-wife has no rights whatsoever to his pension contributions and his private health insurance. Mr. Grumpy knows that whatever innovations have been suggested have been tried in one of the other myriad companies that he's worked in and they didn't work there. He does at least have a scathing sense of humour and a willingness to do what he has been asked to do (on the principle that it won't work anyway so he might as well waste his time with that as anything else).
Then there is the lead developer, Ian. Ian is married. And has children. And is calm and competent and willing to try and make things work. Ian is probably the wheels on which this company runs (and I am sure that his children will never swear at him before he leaves for work).
And finally, of course, there is Gavin, he of the fast cars (he has just bought an Aston Martin), high dividends and absolute knowledge that he is the cleverest man in the building. He has a weakness for designer shirts that look like Mao jackets. Because Gavin owns half the company, Gavin's opinion carries quite a lot of weight. And did I mention that he is the cleverest man in the building? Jiri might fight him for that position, but Jiri is handicapped by not owning half the company.
These are the people whom I must persuade to redesign their interfaces so that they can do simple things easily, instead of complicated things ingeniously.
Thursday 22 November 2012
So this is November
I've just been to the IEHF careers fair. It wasn't exciting. To be frank, it was extremely unexciting. The high point was a discussion of the ergonomics of samurai armour. Who knew that the shoulder flaps were to confuse the eye?
I came back from it in the rain, determined to record something about life in a company that isn't really interested in a better user experience. Or rather, is only interested in a better user experience for the director.
I expect there are a lot of companies out there like that, so we'll invent the company. Let's say it's a small company in, oh, pick a random place in the country that I know very little about - let's call it Suffolk. We'll assume it's a software company, because I know quite a lot of software companies. Let's pretend that they make something which is used occasionally by a lot of people who aren't really interested in it. I know, it can be some small business accounting package, which is marketed to doctors' surgeries and the like and is specially geared to people working all sorts of weird hours.
The company was set up by two guys. (No question, they're guys.) They've known each other since school. One is glamorous and good-looking and all that sort of stuff, but is really rather interested in money and success. Let's call him David (any resemblance to anybody currently in power is totally coincidental). He feels pretty confident about his software ideas because his mate, Gavin, is a really, really techy person.He's not a total geek, he skis and likes fast cars, but there's no doubt that he loves coding and he loves cool stuff and he is very, very bright.
And it's been a success. David is good at selling ideas and knows about the issues around small practices and large patient numbers and how you manage all the shifts and payroll and stuff like that. And Gavin is a whizz at software. Their company has expanded and they've now got sales people and a human resources person and about six developers. And they've rolled out more products and they are happy happy people.
But, their client base has changed. They're no longer dealing with people who are spending a lot of their time in setting up systems and running systems. They're dealing with people who want to run a payroll program once a week or a report once a year amid a ton of other things that they need to do.
And they want their program to be whizzier and faster and cooler and better. BUT even though their program is amazing and you can set it up to do everything you want to for ever and ever in the most complicated ways possible so that their clients can personalise it down to the last acorn, they're losing market share.
So they sort of realise that they need to make it easier to use. And that is where I got involved.
I came back from it in the rain, determined to record something about life in a company that isn't really interested in a better user experience. Or rather, is only interested in a better user experience for the director.
I expect there are a lot of companies out there like that, so we'll invent the company. Let's say it's a small company in, oh, pick a random place in the country that I know very little about - let's call it Suffolk. We'll assume it's a software company, because I know quite a lot of software companies. Let's pretend that they make something which is used occasionally by a lot of people who aren't really interested in it. I know, it can be some small business accounting package, which is marketed to doctors' surgeries and the like and is specially geared to people working all sorts of weird hours.
The company was set up by two guys. (No question, they're guys.) They've known each other since school. One is glamorous and good-looking and all that sort of stuff, but is really rather interested in money and success. Let's call him David (any resemblance to anybody currently in power is totally coincidental). He feels pretty confident about his software ideas because his mate, Gavin, is a really, really techy person.He's not a total geek, he skis and likes fast cars, but there's no doubt that he loves coding and he loves cool stuff and he is very, very bright.
And it's been a success. David is good at selling ideas and knows about the issues around small practices and large patient numbers and how you manage all the shifts and payroll and stuff like that. And Gavin is a whizz at software. Their company has expanded and they've now got sales people and a human resources person and about six developers. And they've rolled out more products and they are happy happy people.
But, their client base has changed. They're no longer dealing with people who are spending a lot of their time in setting up systems and running systems. They're dealing with people who want to run a payroll program once a week or a report once a year amid a ton of other things that they need to do.
And they want their program to be whizzier and faster and cooler and better. BUT even though their program is amazing and you can set it up to do everything you want to for ever and ever in the most complicated ways possible so that their clients can personalise it down to the last acorn, they're losing market share.
So they sort of realise that they need to make it easier to use. And that is where I got involved.
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