Isn't Usability Wonderful?
The motto of Menlo Innovations is "Ending human suffering as it relates to technology." I admire that.
A machine that becomes like an extension of your fingers is a thing of beauty. Some software makes you feel like you have palsy. Ever get that feeling? That's probably because the person who paid for it is somewhere higher than you in the company and will never have to use it, so they don't even know it's difficult to use. But I love finding a new piece of really usable software. I don't even care what it's for, I'll use it just to get that feeling, that it's just an extension of my body, it's made for users to use!
Have you ever handled the controller of a truly well-designed marionette? I don't mean two sticks nailed together. I mean if a puppet were a violin, this would be a Stradivarius. That's usability. I've been tinkering on one for a decade, and it's not to that level yet, but someday. Someday.
Have you ever looked at a board game in progress and you knew, you just got the gist of what was going on? That's usability.
You're looking for information, somebody creates a publication for you. An annual report, a schedule book, a dictionary. Your attention is in limited supply, so it's like a form of currency, and they have no need to grab your attention, because you want something and you're going to go hunt for it in that book. You're pushing, you're not being pulled by somebody's message. And what if it's laid out in such a way that you find it, like an extension of your memory? That's usability, and that's a happy user. I'll tell you what sir, I'll tell you what ma'am, it's a day like that to make my heart sing.
You know what users don't seek after? Ads. Billboards. Direct mail.
Marketing pollutes your information ecology, and sir, ma'am, I don't want to do that to you. I've made a piece of paper with ink on it, and held it in my hands, and known the sadness of having paved paradise to put up a parking lot. I don't mean I had a "creative vision" and somebody tampered with it. No, I'm not attached to any creative vision, it has nothing to do with that, it has to do with my users. I mean that there were times in my career when I was paid to make a document which was anti-user because it was intended to be and I used my talent to deliberately make it exist. Too much marketing is defective by design, as if it were Digital Restrictions Management. Annoying users by attracting their attention-- no, by confiscating their valuable attention with a message they don't want, about something I don't use myself, is no way to live out my life. I don't sell, I evangelize. That means if you don't want anything I advocate, you can go your merry. Go with a smile on your face and another one on mine. Ain't nobody trying to change you. I just love what I love and that's why I've got to tell everybody about it.
I want people to feel that way about me. My ambition, what I want to advocate to someone who would pay me, is my passion for the user. I keep looking for business models in which users pay me because they're happy users, or a business will pay me for publications that give readers what they want. For my work to hit your eyes and ears, I want you to be better off, not to use you to enrich somebody else. If you don't want it... if you only have it because somebody paid me to "target" you, to "get" you... well. There may be money in sales and marketing, and that's cool and nice and I congratulate those making it on a craft well done for those who can pay. But they can see the writing on the wall as well as I can to that way of life. See it coming, off in the century of internet search? Maybe that's the century when you "pay" attention to an ad, and it's treated as an actual form of literal payment that gets you an ad-supported web service, and the culture changes so you no longer regard it as "free". So that you'd rather pay money for something usable, than pay your valuable attention for something cluttered with unwanted messages. Maybe that's the death of getting paid by somebody who isn't the user, to make things that the users don't want.
Raise a toast with me, because it's going to be awesome and we're going to love it.
Comments
Anonymous on Feb. 4, 2008 4:25 PM
You just wait and see the diabolical things advertisers will do with technology. Cheap, flexible displays will make it possible to put video ads on any surface. RFID, loyalty cards with punitive non-use prices, database sharing and data mining to track your every purchase. Orbiting billboards. Cones of sound to direct audio ads directly to your ears, wherever you go, personalized for you.
Print publications that rely on static ads will disappear, but that doesn't mean print publications will all disappear. Some will have dynamic ads, personalized for you, even if you picked them up to browse at the news stand. And by doing so, you've added data to the system.
Ain't technology grand?
atropis on Feb. 4, 2008 8:57 PM
i love it that romanticism is all over your career plans. the world could use a lot more of that.
rbradakis on Feb. 6, 2008 5:27 PM
I'll drink to that. And again.
Leave a Comment