Cowboy Funk
I’m sitting here listening to Pearl Jam’s version of “Love, Reign O’er Me”1. And I’m feeling the cowboy funk2. I’m on spring break and W. is somewhere in downtown New York and I’m…well, like I said…I’m sitting here feeling a funk
Leveraging the power of ITunes, I just downloaded a song I heard in the grocery store the other day. Joe Cocker’s, “You are so beautiful.” What an impressionable singer. All rasp and passion and bridled energy.
So there is this funk that I mentioned. You can probably tell that something has been on mind given my latest rants. Sometimes circumstances encourage me to concentrate on certain things. This place is a convenient way for me to circle and probe ponderables of interest.
Recently I’ve received input and guidance from others that knocked me a little off balance which in turn made me zoom out to assess the situation at a higher-level3. It is never what I think.
The last two posts were boring as hell. I know this but I needed to find some clarification in my self.4 I can tell myself that I’m not thinking about readers or numbers…but in a way I am. Attention is a scarce resource and whether you reach this sentence or not, I may never know. Unless I survey you … and you take the time to answer. But really, who does that? Surveys are for marketing and they don’t matter do they? If asked what you think, why answer? Even if others are interested why share a word with them?
Nothing happens in an instant. What happens over time can be guided to some degree but there is a significant part of circumstance that result from the unique variables involved. Often similar, always unique, IDs should not be reused. And Ruby doesn’t suck. It must be something else.
“Any day now, any day now, I shall be released.” – Nina
Image: This weekend I climbed through the scuttle hole into the attic of my garage. From there I climbed like a monkey into the attic of my house. Rising 25 or 30 feet, my attic is a jungle gym of 2x4s. I was investigating a water spot on the ceiling of our living room but didn’t find anything. This is a picture I took of myself in the attic above the garage before I entered the Cathedral of Wasted Space. I have a flashlight on my head and one hanging from a belt loop. I used a bandanna over my mouth and nose for when I’m sweeping paths through the insulation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ From the movie, similarly named. [↩]
- Cowboy Funk is the title of a Cowboy Bebop session that I watched earlier this night. I know how Spike felt. And no, I’m not named after this guy, though it would be cool if I were. [↩]
- I know thats all nerdy sounding but I walk a thin line here sometimes and being obtuse is all I got. [↩]
- And I’m observing traffic patterns. Not a lot of readers. [↩]
“Convenient and practicable for use.”
The definition of usability is “convenient and practical for use.”1 In the domain of information systems, this is of particular importance and should be the measure of all things designed, developed, and released to the Internet.2
Consider the opposite of this; inconvenient and impractical for use. In another word: useless. Break it down to “use less” and we are closer to the point I’m trying to make.
Anything that is inconvenient and impractical to use does not get used.
Developing information systems that are practical is certainly a goal of information architects, developers, designers, and programmers. But this doesn’t always happen. When it doesn’t, it is usually by accident and more times than not the inconvenience is not that significant compared to usefulness. In a time where online experience and awareness is growing fast, the little things, the inconveniences, are becoming more noticeable and annoying.
As an experienced web developer3 and graduate student studying information systems and principles of information architecture, it is my (somewhat) informed opinion that overall, the quality of online applications I have encountered is a 5.7/10.0. If the same people using applications are building them, there is opportunity to improve quality. Humans are inclined to pursue quality as are developers and architects.
The Internet population as whole is in a perpetual process of training itself and as a result is becoming more adept at noticing subtle usability issues. In a general way, those patterns that accomplish tasks in a quick and efficient way become favored by the majority.4 As a result, certain interface and interaction standards emerge.5
Does this all seem obvious? It should. It is natural to favor what is convenient and practical. So natural that we invest a considerable amount of time and money in our pursuit of convenience and practicality. As a developer and emerging information architect, I’m realizing how important it is to understand and study these patterns. By doing so, that unexpected but significant discovery can be teased from truth. From such discoveries comes innovation and new ideas.
Image: I took this on Sunday in Ann Arbor while walking to the library to meet with one of my groups. It was sunny out and my camera loves sunny days. I put it with this post because it made me wonder if people, over a large sample of time and street crossing within say, 100 feet, actually use this location to cross the street. Probably I would say. Does the sign help?
------------------------------------------------------------------------ As defined at Merriam-Webster. [↩]
- The exceptions are those systems meant to be intentionally inconvenient and impractical for use. [↩]
- Worth mentioning: I am sort of ‘specialized’ as far as web developers go. I work on a specific web-based system whose existence depends on desktop applications that serve an accessible, defined audience and are used to accomplish very specific tasks. [↩]
- Examples include the shopping cart pattern, the wish list pattern, the search interface pattern, error handling patterns, navigation patterns, wizard patterns…etc. I may have started to make some up at the end, but only because I see them myself. [↩]
- The research of countless university professors, ph.d and graduate students focuses on understanding emergence of behavior, patterns, and trends. [↩]
Information Architecture and Building Stuff
What is an “Information Architect”?
Information systems are things1 we use that give us information. They are called systems because they have complex inner workings that typically don’t matter to you, the user. You just want the information the system can provide. Consider your car. It is a complex information system and you need it to tell you certain things about what information it knows. For example, suppose you are about to embark on a five hour drive through a desert. Knowing how much gasoline is in your tank is pretty important.
The Internet itself is an information system composed of many equally complex information systems. All are based upon the ability to access, share, and store information. The internet is a network of physical computing devices. The Internet, with the capitalized “I”, suggests higher level processing and interaction with other systems. Namely, humans in distinct social systems.
Information feeds the system similar to how blood carries oxygen and vitamins throughout the body. It flows through routers, switches, firewalls, network cards, motherboards, CPUs, memory, display adapters, and monitors. Circuitry and software exist as the scaffolding upon which more meaningful systems exist. It is the interaction between people and information that makes for a more meaningful system.
An Information Architect in today’s Internet industry is tasked with envisioning and building systems that are personal, proprietary, secure, scalable, and user friendly. The information that flows through their systems must be useful2 and easy to get. Task completion is of significant importance. Consider what you need if you are trapped in a 30 foot hole. You need a rope so you can climb out. Getting out is the task. Where the rope comes from, what it is tied to, and what the rope is made out of…you don’t really care.
Being an Information Architect means caring about what the rope is made of, how it is made, where it is stored, the conditions of its storage, its accessibility. It means caring about how it is tied and to what it is tied before it is tossed down to the person who will be putting their life on the line when they’re fifteen feet off the ground and only halfway out.
Using software for things like chatting, shopping online, doing your taxes, collaborating remotely, is not a life or death situation as in the rope example, but the use of information, the task driven processes, the need to be useful, are still there. It is clear that people can figure out how to do something given enough time. Once you learn how to do something, you can incorporate that learning into the greater picture of what you’re doing. Over time and use, experience grows and you develop a greater awareness and an appreciation for useful innovations in usability. Locating the nearest gas station and displaying directions to get there would be an innovative way for a car to inform you that you need to get more. Behind the scenes a programmer had to tell your car to study it’s location in relation to nearby gas stations and to calculate whether there is a enough gas in your car to get you to the next gas station based on the general direction you’ve been traveling over the last N minutes.
The driver just needs to know when to get gas. A fuel gauge is useful. An information architect considers what it means to make a fuel gauge that can leverage the assets of other systems such as the Internet, data storage, and flexible displays.
An Information Architect seeks to understand what it means when it is said “in a way that makes sense to them.” In order to understand that, a different type of information is needed; the type of information that you can only get by studying how a person works, how they use information, what type of information they need and when they need it. Ideally this is done in real time while reading their thoughts. Ha.
Image: Took this in the middle of lecture on Friday in a course on evaluating information systems. This lecture focused on principles and strategies behind doing usability testing of information systems like word processing programs, online portals, or big commercial programs like Microsoft Money and Quicken.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ I’m loosely defining “things” as any item, machine, application, or interface. Basically, anything that was designed for use. [↩]
- By useful I mean, what the person needs to know when they need to know it. [↩]
Thumb and forefinger learning.
Most mornings I take a few moments to eat breakfast, drink coffee, and read a little. Not something for school, but something good for my brain. I’m now about one third the way through a book titled, “Wanting Englightenment Is a Big Mistake.” It is the compiled and edited teachings of Zen Master Seung Sahn. Good morning material. Kicks crossword puzzle ass.
The chapter I read this morning was about this reporter trying to interview this Zen master. He keeps asking him what Buddhism is, what enlightenment means…lots of questions. And the Zen master keeps making the same gesture with his thumb and forefinger together. Frustrated he goes to the head of the monastery and asks that fellow what the gesture means. This guy opens his mouth and clicks his teach together three times. The reporter, confused, writes his article, without any notes, concluding that he is thoroughly confused. A woman reads it, becomes inspired, and seeks the Zen master. She hits him with a ton of her own questions. He replies to her with a question, “Why do you have only one mouth?” She didn’t know how to answer, her brain was completely stuck. She shaved her head and became a monk.
You are lucky to find the right question to get your mind stuck. A stuck yet struggling mind is strong. Head shaving is totally optional.
So the lesson in that chapter made me think of something that one of my professors asked me yesterday after I showed her the free business cards that the offers it’s masters degree students at the School of Information. It says on it, “Master of Science in Information.” She looks at it and asks, “Are you a master yet?” I pause, chuckle, then reach for my card back saying, “Actually no.” She hands it back. Two more years yet.
Image: This is another picture of the rows of books in the library I’ve been frequenting for my Wednesday night group meetings. The rows of books are so calming for some reason.
The Evolution of Creativity
The subject of lecture this week1 was “creativity.” Turns out, some believe that there is such a thing, and it can be measured, while others consider it something that can’t be measured. Problem is, defining creativity is the problem.
Research suggests2 that creativity needs “consensus” to be recognized. I posed the question in class whether there is any other way to determine if something is creative or not? Consensus or opinion?!? Are they different? Does majority win? Dualistic, all those questions. Can there be another way? In the end I didn’t really get an answer but managed to get a chuckle from some off-hand crack I made at the cricket sound that followed my question.
One of the papers we read suggested that we could only imagine things that were comprised of exemplars of experience. Besides loving the word “exemplar”, I can’t help but agree. But at the same time, not totally. To say that “there is nothing new under the sun” is to say that two separate moments can be identical. Um, hello? What a ridiculous notion! After all, are not moments in time wholly and entirely unique3? I recall a Zen saying, “You never step in the same river twice.”
It has been bitingly cold lately and mornings find our furnace running for long periods as it heats our house. I had to grab this picture of Ozzie, our beloved cat named after Chris Osgood, finding a few moments of warmth curled in front of a heat vent. Yes, I was jealous.
Kind of late, given my recent timestamps. But that latte before class and the first 3 episodes of Cowboy Bebop4 and I felt it was time to give a little love to the blog. So I upload pictures, fill-in hyper-links, and crash with a grin. Sort of. Should I not have delegated that request?
Image: I took this today on the 3rd floor of the UGLi. Napping last week in the rows of books is so nice I thought later how cool it would be to get a good picture of all those words, thoughts, and knowledge.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ In my class, Fundamentals of Human Behavior. [↩]
- Sorry, but if this were super serious, I’d have to cite the research to which I’m alluding…but alas, it is after 11 PM and this is a blog for Fatori sake. [↩]
- What then are “moments in time” you ask? A subject of another blog post…at the very least! [↩]
- Thanks Pearl Master for loaning me his TVDVDs. [↩]
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