Yahoo India Maps!!!

Yes!!! Its out. Maps for India. You can check out the site at http://in.maps.yahoo.com/

Good UI ideas need not come from designers; but good ideas should also translate to good design…

Good UI ideas don’t just come from UI designers; they come from any where; at any time and by anyone. So why do you need a designer? Good question indeed. There is good reason why you should…

Now first thing to look about these “AHA! good idea” moments is there timing. If these ideas come very early in the conceptualization stage they are easier to accommodate. But the real problem comes when these ideas come at later stage. As I have been saying before design is built on decisions and they are like a pyramid of cards. If you try to replace a card placed some where at the bottom the whole pyramid can collapse. It becomes harder to design as we move up the pyramid. There are lots of dependencies that one has to take into account to add anything new to the design. Every thing in a UI is interrelated. Adding or changing can have a severe impact on the UI; a lot can change in order to do even some small changes.

This is where the designer comes into picture. Yes any one can get good ideas but what any one else can not do it to “translate” a good idea into good design. A good design fits into the scheme of things and blends perfectly with its interrelated elements. A good idea may look good in a specific use case; but may also spoil a bunch of others. A designer can make sure (if he’s good) to make that good ideas look good in all use case/scenarios/conditions. What designer can bring in is that multi perspective analysis to make sure it doesn’t conflict with any other elements on the UI and that the communication is not hampered. This is the beauty of design “make good ideas look good always”.

Thinking!!! Is all what ‘design’ is built on…the more you can ‘think’ the better (& more complete) design you can build. If you can think hard, your are already a designer :)

Built on decisions

Design is all about design decisions…at every stage you are trying to decide what will work for your designs. These decisions came very early in design – be it deciding what product you want to make to how would it look to how would it work…

At all step you are involved in taking decisions; and success of your design closely depend on these decisions.

The most important part of design decision is how many parameters are involved in that decision. The more the parameters you are using to take the decision the probability of creating a good design is more. What it means is that your designs are designed for all those parameters. It like you have to create a protective cover for an art work; so you want to make sure that the cover takes care of ALL those things/conditions that “will or may” damage that art work. The same is for design; you try to make sure you cover all aspects that are going to affect the product you are designing.

Another critical aspect of design decisions is their “interdependency”. What do I mean by that? Well I mean is all along the design process you would be taking certain decisions at say ‘stage 1’. Now when you move to ‘stage 2’ you would be taking another set of decisions. But now these decisions will be highly depended on what you decided at ‘stage 1’. Thus all along the design you would be taking decisions which you be so inter depended that if you try to change a certain decision that you took at a lower stage the whole design would fall into pieces. It’s like a pyramid build of cards. If you remove a lower card the whole pyramid falls apart. This is because of these interdependencies of the design decision.

If you take one wrong decision you land up with a wrong design…and if you realize is late – you are dead!. Thus design is one profession where you need to be very sure of what you are doing. And to add to the complexity the decisions that are involved are very “subjective”, with each path/decision having certain pros and cons. This is where the real adventure lies? Is it?

But with thorough logic, analysis and understanding you can to a large extent reduce the unknowns of design and bring in some objectivity in design decisions. Thus design is not about creativity it’s also about analysis and research…find out the problem and the solution will find you…

'Degree of Freedom' in design depends on…

We have come close to launching a product in some time now. When I look back I realize that what I realize that my “degree of freedom” to design closely depended on – Product Manager and the Front end/Web developer.

The reason I say this is because these are the two important people who really defines what you can do as designers. The Product Manager is product owner of the product thus he is the one who take the final decisions in terms of Business strategy, Engineering and also Design. When I look back I realize that I could ‘explore’ so much because the Product Manager allowed me to do that. It’s very important for a designer to have confidence of the Product Manager and the team. How much you can explore depends on how much “trust” they have on the designer/design team. This is very critical. Also if the product manger is willing to experiment there is a lot of freedom that the designer gets. What’s important here is that both the Designer and to some extent the Product Manager should “own” up the experimentations and their decisions. The most difficult part in design is this ownership of design decisions because of the subjective nature of design. So both Designers should own both the success and failures of UI. And I know its easier said than done; it’s a great responsibility. But the PMs should also own a bit of it as they are also part of most decisions.

The reason I have mentioned the Web/front end developers is because s/he is the person who is responsible for the implementation of the designs. Design doesn’t end by building JPEG screenshots but in final HTML (that what people actually see). And I know building the Front End is whole new ball game. They are essentially two different set of operations with both work with “different parameters and different decisions”. Design is subjective while Web development is very much mathematical. If you are lucky to get a good front end developer you can experiment a lot; else you are restricted by the web devs limitations. Thus the degree of freedom closely depends on the web devs also.

There are a lot of other people also who influence designs. But I guess these are the two very important people who really define what a designer can do. Over all as I have been saying…

The product is as good as the people who build it…to build innovative product you need creative people all along the product cycle.

Designing for the New Age Web

I recently spoke in “National Conference on Web 2.0” held in Bangalore. The topic that I touched was about the challenges for designing for Web 2.0 products. Web 2.0 has essentially changed the way we now have to think about UI design. It has added a lot more to think about now in terms of designing. I’ll touch upon some of them in this article.

Web is changing

Web is changing; and why should we be surprised by the change? Even the environment of the users is changing. Their economic, social and cultural environment has changed; and we web has been one of the instruments of this change. Even the other technologies have brought in new needs for web products. The famous examples are – Flickr and You Tube; if there hadn’t been digital cameras = digital photography/video these won’t have been existed.

These new found needs are pushing the way we have to think about the next generation of products. What’s important to know for designers is to be able to see these upcoming ‘needs’ and track these changing environment of users.

Designing for Web 2.0

Looking at the changing trends and evolution of web technologies are pushing the limits to how we design on the web. The two important aspects that AJAX have changed are the –

• interaction design
• information design
• One critical aspect that has been added to the arsenal of the design is TIME.
  

A better control on time has brought in a whole new change in the way we have to think about Design. Now with power to control elements in time a whole new concept of animation comes to picture. And with animation comes Story. Story that can be used to effectively inform the user about the change in the state of the system.

Let’s look at this new design paradigm change:

• In-context Operations
• Animation / Story
• Continuity
• Multilayer of information
• Multitasking
  

In-Context Operations

Operations that needed another screen now can be done “in context”; user can be present in the state where s/he wants the operation is done.

Animation / Story

A good example of animation is from My Yahoo! When the user click on the ‘Close’ button the section blurs out and is removed. The lower block moves up.

These 2 set of animations – blurring + movement is what builds the story. The story saying “I have closed and now the place emptied by me is taken by another section”. In this case the user doesn’t actively participate but witnesses the change of state of the system. Now when you are implementing this the developer will ask how much time we should give for this to blur and the lower block to move. Then suddenly you realize that you are now dealing with “time”. This brings in a whole lot of thinking.

Continuity

What In Context features have brought are a lot of controls on the screen for a user. User can do multiple operations on the same screen. What it means is there are now multiple “trigger points”. Trigger points are objects/behaviors on screens that trigger operations like buttons, hover actions, roll over actions etc. Not the designs have to thoroughly understand the various states of the UI.

• What if the user starts an operation and clicks on some other trigger point mid way through the first operation?
• What are the dependencies of one operation to another?
• Will or how will the other trigger points change if one operation is done?
• How will they conflict with one and other? How to solve it?
• How will the one operation conclude and how the next one will appear? What should be the feedback?
  

Multilayer of information

Now with AJAX the same component/place holder/ information holder can be used to convey more information. The two basic ways of deign are –

• Either the additional information came in a different layer
• It can be animated - removing one and showing another after an interval of time.
  

Multitasking

New web technologies are allowing the designers to think about allowing user to do multiple tasks at the same time. The one famous example is the new Yahoo! Mail which allows the user to do multiple tasks at the same time through its Tab design.

What does it mean for designers/product managers?

This means that the “Degree of Freedom” to think about design has drastically increased. The new aspects have added a lot for designer to think before they find a solution. Also it means that now there is more probability to go wrong in design.

• So as the degree of freedom has increased there is more need to think about design in product development cycle.
• More is the need to conduct User Testing to make sure you are on the right track.
• Create new set of Web 2.0 patterns for designers.

Design an Adventure?

Can design be adventurous? Yes of course, it actually is. When you actually work on design there are a lot of decisions that one has to take. And for most of these the designer doesn’t necessarily have user research data. Thus most decisions are built on intuition, experience, understanding etc. So for most of this part there is complete “Black out” about how will the users reacts to it. You can never be sure till you launch the product and start to get feedback. Thus design is pure adventure…you don’t know how the design will go with users. You will be biting your nails till the design goes out.

A lot can go against this as well; that ideally you should know every bit about the user and should design for it. But practically speaking this is impossible. My little experience in design has showed me that “most” UI designer are afraid of taking decisions in these case. I feel that’s the best part – a little “sensible” and “logical” experiment is what makes design so exciting, right?

Failure is just a step forward to success :)

Be a responsible adventurer…and enjoy your designs.

Chain is as strong as its weakest link

I was reading some article when I read this line “Chain is as strong as its weakest link”. It suddenly struck me how relevant this is to product development. Working on product at Yahoo! I have realized that product can’t be just pulled in by any one team or person. It indeed is a collaborative effort where different expertise comes together and makes their dream a reality. Every one involved in this chain of building the products effects and influences the outcome of your product. So if the backend team is weak your system is weak; your design team is weak, your communication is weak; your front-end is weak, design is screwed up and the list goes on.

What’s important to identify which the weak links in your product development chain are? If you can identify those then you can make extra effort in those areas to bring it up. Give more time to that areas/teams/person or try to pull in some expert who can balance that team.

As being in design team I can say how important a front end team is. Design doesn’t end by making mock or JPEGs. It ends with the product being finished. So it’s that much more important that the designers and front end engineers work in sync with the other. What users see is not the JPEG but the HTML…design ends at HTML and not on JPEGs. So if your design team is weak make it strong if your front end is weak make that strong.

Conquering the Interactive Map: notes from my dairy

Creating properties like Google Maps, Yahoo Maps or MSN Maps is quite a challenge. I’ll take you through the various issues that are involved in designing such properties. Lot of people seems to be now a days interested in such products; so I thought I’ll write about some design issues that one needs to understand and solve. These are from my working dairy/notebook.

Objective & Approach

The most basic thing to start the design is to be VERY sure of what the purpose of Maps. Next comes the audience as this defines the kind of approach you can take in building the UI – communication.

Communication elements - building the UI Layout to connect the Map with the information and Search elements.

• This is the most important connection as these three basic elements combine together to make sense to the user. How one compliment the other is critical. Just for your thoughts – “how do you connect the search box with search results? – Proximity? Think about the current Layouts being used “any chances of improvement?”
• How one places the elements helps the user connect the information that appears on the screen. Information Placement and Visual design could easily help you to establish the connection of the information on the page.

Designing and defining the Map – sequential information: connect the zoom but still be uncluttered.

• The most critical part of the Map based products are the Map itself. One very basic difference between a printed and the interactive web map is the ‘zoom’. Zoom adds simplicity to the user but significantly adds complexity for the designer.
• Design the Maps involves a lot of ground works in terms of what is or can be shown to at various zooms. There is practically no mathematical trick that can define what information will come at each zoom level. All this has to be hard coded with a thorough understanding of the local geography and popularity of places.
• Golden rules –
• What is popular should be available at higher zoom
• There should not be clutter in the page; thus proximity of places is an important aspect.
• Area with higher population should be on available at higher zoom
• Area with higher area should be at higher zoom.

• Skelton (the Data) and Visual (the skin) : Map deals with primarily two aspect one is the data – should the National Highway be shown at Zoom 10 or 11 etc? The other aspect is how to show the National Highways (what color? what font? etc). They both are side of the same Coin. They TOGETHER allow you to keep your map in FOCUS. What I mean is that with data and visuals you can play around with what information you what to highlight at what zoom level. Also the visual can help you creating the ‘sense of zooming in or out”.

• Effect of Zoom without information overload: The most complex part is that each zoom level should have a connection with the next higher and lower zoom; it should appear to the user that he is zooming in; at the same time each zoom level should not clutter the map with too much information. I can tell you there is no short cut to getting this right it’s PURELY iterative; but if you are smart you can reduce the levels of iteration significantly.
• Golden rule – define a purpose for every zoom – what have you established in the previous zoom what you want to establish in this level.

Elephant don’t fit in a Rat’s pit

Maps can not solve every problem. The biggest problem is the space that is available. One might argue that this can be increased; yes but it can make the product complex. This might kill the whole purpose of Maps and also the simplicity. Treat Maps as a gateway to finding information- this does not mean that every information has to be provided in the Map itself ;)

There is lot to write…but you have to wait.

Output versus effort trend: When to stop design

I have been involved in two products and both have been pretty extensive in terms of design. One of the important things I have been noticing about the way it is shaping up is the way I have been working. The trend is that at a point the enhancement or improvement in the design ceases to slow down and the effort involved in bringing those enhancements is much more.

What happens is that in the initial phases the output to effort is less as most of the effort goes in getting a hang on the problem. Once the problem is somewhat understood the output shoots up. That’s because the designer understands what are issues or problems that need to be addresses. As the progress goes on there reaches a point when all the problems at a basic level is fixed. Now it’s the turn for enhancement or small improvements. At this level the output that comes is much less that the input required as this deals more at a detail level.

That’s the critical moment; if you ask me there is no end to improvement - it can go for ages. But as a professional we have to decide what is “just good enough”. At a certain level it becomes very difficult for an untrained eye to find a difference between enhancements. So why do we need such an effort which can not be noticed by our user. Now the “golden question” here is WHEN TO STOP. That’s a critical question. A bad decision on this can lead to a poorly finished product. While if you don't stop at a point the product enhancement may not be so much while you might be wasting a significant about of energy and resources. This may sound trivial, but is also one of the critical design decisions – one that can make the difference between a good and a bad product.

Why should I break my design???

I have been repeatedly asked not to provide or think about visual designs for the Products that I’m handling and follow the process. These processes break the design into multiple steps as if it’s a manufacturing unit – like an assembly line. I’ll fix one screw; the next person one will fix the other one without knowing why I fixed the first one.

Design is a complete thing. It’s a complete solution to a problem. I don’t think one can segregate it in a process. Working in a team which works together to solve a problem is a different thing; but I don’t understand how can someone who hasn’t worked on the problem before can jump midway and design a solution; without know the whole problem.

Visual design is a critical aspect. On one hand it adds visual pleasure to the page ‘simultaneously’ is also dictates the presentation of the information on the page. One bad visual balance can totally screw up the objective of the page – communication. These are so intricately woven that I don’t think it can be segregated. One needs to understand the importance of visual design – it’s just not about experience. Its power is much beyond it…one should not think about interactions, information and visual separately. They all come together to make sense…

Understanding design decisions: Testing begins where the Logic ends…

One the most complex part of design is its subjectivity. For every step or parameter there lies multiple solutions. Starting from the deciding essential features to layout to the last pixel there lies so many options that it becomes really complicated. Every step calls for a design decision and these decisions are the one that decide the outcome of a design. I often used the term ‘parameters’; what I mean by these parameters is the list of priorities that a designer builds while designing the product and which directly influences the design decisions s/he take. If the product objective says that the product has to be easy to use then the kind of priorities that will be built will be different for the objective that says the product is meant to give a nice experience.

One of the biggest problems that I have seen is that most designers loose their objective while designing. It’s so easy to get lost in making design decision and sway from the path because of the multiple solutions available to him. Designing is not only about exploring and coming up with ideas. Its also about managing your design – you have to manage your self to stay on track. All good designer that I have seen or read about were very clear till the end what they where trying to do.

Coming back to my discussion on the design decisions – there are decisions that can be taken by using Logic. From a communication point of view we can take some decisions – will this make sense to user? Will he understand the context? What is it that will tell him that this button will take him to another page? What will make him click? Etc etc…

But even after using the most refined logic (which has to be aligned to the logic that the user will use in understanding the page) you will often come up with 2-3 solutions. Every solution will have some advantages and disadvantages. That’s the most critical moment; if you keep using logic you will land up going round and round with decisions without any result. That’s the moment when you have to go to the user to test your assumptions and take the right decisions. Logic alone ‘can not’ complete a design; one has to go to the user to refine and complete it…in an architectural term I guess we can say that logic is the core foundation while testing is the upper superstructure. Foundation dictates how the superstructure will shape up - Sometimes the superstructure also refines and defines the foundation. But essentially the foundation has to be strong for the building to stand the test of time.

Looking at Google product this can be clearly seen. Their designs are smart because their Logic is solid; and to make it stronger they heavily rely on testing.

So if you are stuck up in design take the refuge with the user…he’s the one who can bail you out… :)

Passing on ‘Passion’ to the team

I’m the product owner of user experience designs for 2 upcoming products for Y! India. How we work here is that mostly the interaction designer owns a product (equivalent to UI Lead). The ID works closely with the Product Manager to build the concepts, features (from user point of view) and UI wireframes. This is then passed on the Visual Designers for the visual design part.

I have been owning 2 products & have to constantly pass on visual design aspects to the visual designers. This is very critical aspects of design. People who have worked in a team would realize how difficult it is to pass on the ‘information’.

One thing that I have figured out is that if you don’t just pass on the information but pass it along with your PASSION and COMMITMENT there is a drastic improvement in designs from the team. Showing your passion and commitment for your product really motivates the team to put their passion to the designs. Design is not about ‘data’ and ‘observation’ alone it’s also about ‘emotions’. If the designer himself is not excited and passionate about the designs how will the users be?

Task based to Communication based approach

We have all been trained to design for Task. Most UI books talk about Task analysis and Task based designs. This might be useful for enterprise software or admin tool software. But at any or every level there is a communication that is happening. Why not look at the UI design from Communication point of view rather that from the view of tasks.

Communication approach will break a problem based on what is to be communicated and what needs to be established before moving on. For products like Yahoo! I guess this methodology is very useful. The product should be broken down into step of information. How should be communicate with the user? This is to be broken down into logical steps – like;

Step 1 : establish the purpose of the product.
Step 2 : what can a user do with it
Step 3 : What is the extent of information that is available to him.
Step 4 : How all can a user access it
And so on…

Once the communication is established then comes the tasks, operations and screens. This communication then has to be distributed into screen. One screen can be enough for all communication or it be distributed into steps based on the needs. To be on track it’s good to define an objective to every screen so that you know what is to be achieved in terms of communication (what has been established and what should come next).

There may not be anything new. Most of the people have already said all these things. This is all common sense; Isn’t it? But if you are a designer ask yourself how much you understand design and how much of it do you actually follow.

Can Creativity be illogical ?

I was recently sent by Yahoo! to attend the stakeholders meeting for structuring a new course for National Institute of Design. All the bigwigs were present there from the industry. Some one in the open session made a statement that “…engineers are less creative because they are more logical...”. This implies that designers are creative because they don’t think logically. I have strong disagreement with this myth. How can something which is USEFUL & USABLE be illogical?

Creativity is an out come of knowledge. It’s a different ‘point of view’ of looking at problems. But we can’t call it illogical. To make sense the users uses ‘logic’. The logic of the ‘design’ should be in line with that of the user. If both logics don’t match the communicability of design is compromised. So the design is built on logic but what solution that it presents can create a ‘surprise’ in user. Presenting a solution which doesn’t use a ‘Standard and Expected’ logic is what we know as ‘creative solution’. Creative solution can be ‘consistently’ created by one’s ability to understand users, by using some logic which creates a surprise and accurately solving a problem. But definitely creativity in design is not illogical. Every element (or pixel) has a reason to be there – either for communication or experience.

On the contrary ‘ART’ can be illogical because art is about ‘expression’ and ‘feeling’ more than communication. Expression itself is communication in Art but not in design; because design is meant for others unlike art.

Another point that I would like to mention is that there was a lot of emphasis to add “Design Processes” to the course. It seems that there is mindset which thinks that creativity comes by following a Process. Does following UCD ensure a creative solution?? Creative solution comes from individuals or a groups’ understanding (of problems, user, business etc… broadly ‘the complete environment’) and their ability ‘explore’ different points of views.

Creativity comes from knowledge (about user, problem, art, drama,….any thing and everything under the sun or beyond). Design uses logic of anything that can be used and understood (by others) to make sense to others. It’s convergence. It’s the highest forms of logic; but logic ‘without boundaries’. Not only can Design use existing logic but also can ‘create’ new ones by convergence.

Creativity doesn’t come from an alien planet its here amongst us – one just needs to see it. Creative people have an eye to see it unlike the rest who ignore it.

Concluding...(Design- Part 1)

My last articles (Moving from Needs to Problems & Design: Simultaneous Processing) had some interesting comments from friends. Most of the time I have been told to break the design to disciplines and processes. But that’s totally contradicts to what I’m saying. These disciplines have been existing for sometime now and most of you “might” agree that though they have been able to make a ‘workable’ solution any ‘innovation’ hasn’t happened from it. Innovations don’t happen by Process or Methodology or by distributing design; it happens by understanding problems and convergence.

These Processes have been there for sometime now I’m also aware of it (to make myself clear). For implementation, Process or Methodology 'is' needed; even I’m a firm believer in that (In Praise of Methodology). What I have been recently writing is about ‘approach’ or ‘attitude’ to design. Most of us at the first instance want to break the ‘Design’ into processes. The whole point is not to break the ‘Design’ but break the ‘Problem’ (why is the design needed? What is the problem it is going to solve?). Any big enterprise/complicated UI Design can be broken into smaller but ‘related’ problems. What we design should take into account all the parameters that influences or shapes up the design. The more knowledge we have about them the better design we can make. The best approach is to think of ALL the parameters that affect a design and if it becomes unmanageable then start Priorities them and then remove. Removing it consciously is a better approach than skipping it altogether.

Afert the understanding is developed on the problem, break the design solving into ‘Processes’. Processed don’t give solutions they just keeps you on track. Breaking the design in Disciplines comes at the ‘implementation level’ - once you know 'what to solve'. It’s the last leg of DESIGN.

What I have been advocating is to THINK and ANALYSE before starting to ‘sketch’/ ‘draw’ / ‘solve’ (I won’t say Design because its the analysis phase that shapes up the end product; its as much design as the rest of it). What I’m saying is not fundamentally different from what other Design Gurus have said. My approach to solving design is to understand the very core of WHY? WHAT? and then to HOW? And to look at the Problem ‘holistically’ first than fragmenting design into steps and disciplines. I hope this ‘CAN’ help me innovate or look at designs a little differently (hopefully rightly).

I do accept the fact that I may be wrong...but what the harm in trying. Failing is another form of learning...

Moving from finding NEEDS to PROBLEMS

I recently went to see a presentation. The presentation was about an overview of a Research Group of a company. The presenter stated an interesting point “…look for NEEDS and design for it”.

This is quite interesting. I’ll just take a philosophical route (if you want to say its philosophy) and talk about NEEDS and PROBLEMS. We designers are “generally” trained to design for “needs” and researcher are trained t solve “problems”. How these words change the approach is interesting.

There will be people who will argue that NEED may not be existing and an introduction of a new gadget might create it – say like – iPOD or SMS in mobiles or Miss Calls or Mobile phones itself so on and so forth. When we look for need we bias our self to a solution; when you look for ‘need’ you have an idea about the solution. Let’s say to argue – “There is a need for a gadget that could allow people to listen to music while they are mobile”. We already have defined the need; so at psychological term we jump to finding solutions.

What PROBLEM does it; it opens up the issue for investigation. Lets say “People get bored while they are mobile for a long time”. The problem may have multiple solutions. The statement asks to investigate deeper into the problem. This means that the designer would have more scope to understand the problem thus may come up with a more appropriate design solution (or even multiple solutions) to the problem. To be better designers the approach should be…to look for PROBLEMS than NEEDS.

Though one may argue and say that both are just a play of words. It may be a play of word but they definitely change the approach and attitude towards design. The “problem statement” defines the route you would take to solve it…

The design doesn’t start at the drawing board but it ends at the drawing board. It had started with the time the designer was (actually) born. Because what he understands about people, their needs, his observation of the behavior or environment, his experience of handling the previous projects etc is all that basic data that he will use to design it. The more rich it is the better design can one make.

So if you are observant and can see the problems from you day to day life (or related to your) the better designer you can be. So pick out problems and keep your database building – you never know what may come handy in your next project. If you are a designer – you works 24x7; this world if your Labs (the best you can ever have).

Beyond Observation...

In my earlier blog “ BIG IDEAS come from small thing around us…” I had written about need and importance of observation. Continuing on that I want to add few more aspects to it. No doubt that the eye for observation is needed; but there is a need to go beyond and understand the reasons for that behaviors/situation. Observation is just the introduction of a problem; its analysis is the thing that leads to solution…

I saw a demo of an experiment by taking the Table Desktop as an example BumpTop 3D Desktop Prototype . They observed how people manage their Desktop and tried to come up with a software that replicates it. Now the question here are 2 – why replicate the real life into another medium (Learnings from History of Architecture ) and secondly it does not try to understand why do people manage their work like that.

This to my understanding its just an observation. We need to understand why people do that. This is not the problem; it’s an outcome of some need/problem. If we know what is it that people want we might be able to solve it for the ‘Screen Interface’ (a different medium) and hopefully the solution would be very different from the one tried here.

(Say) People generally don’t go shopping alone. This is an observation; but the reason why people this way may be that they want someone to assure or help them in decision making…or it may be a psychological need…If we know the reason the solution we try to achieve would me more appropriate…

I’m not sure if I’m able to express clearly here…hope you understood :)

Design: Simultaneous Processing

Though the title might look technical the subject I want to talk is not. Though what I write may be a bizarrely philosophical; that it means may not be so absurd. They are all a reflections of my thinking both about UIs and Design in general. Design - I’m sure you will agree - is a continuous learning. Every project/product thrown up different challenges; so every new project is built on the experience and learning of the previous one. So one should keep their ears, eyes and more important the mindopen to learning. Writing is my way of learning.

Let’s come to the point. Why do I say ‘Design as Simultaneous Process’?? any thoughts?

Taking UI Design as an example; lets try to see what builds it – there are two primary aspects Communication and Experience. The main aim of UI is to help human operator to communicate with the machine; but at the same time this communication should be interesting and engaging for the human operator. This helps him in doing his work efficiently and effectively. Now the big challenge is both communication and experience should be in sync. What do I mean? What I mean is if either of the two are lacking in their role; the over all communication and experience is not achieved. Which means a FAILURE OF DESIGN. So as a designer one needs to do parallel or simultaneous processing – taking care that 'both' not only individually are efficient but when they combine together also create a greater impact. Communication is supported by experience and vice versa. Which one will dominate or if they be equal will depend on the ‘Context of usage’ of the application. If design is good in experience but bad in communication it fails and vice versa

Its here that my earlier thought about Research and Design fits in; communication is one which is driven more by research while experience is what is more driven by creativity. Now you would ask where will I place Interaction design or Visual design or even elements like navigation etc; what category are they – Communication or Experience? Well; they lie in both; every element has both communication value and experience value.

Isn’t it complex? Yes it is. That’s where the knowledge of a designer comes into picture. The more and more parameters a designer can process the better and more complete design he can make. If I can think of 1000 parameters at one time; means that I am taking all those 1000 criteria for designing and that I’m designing for those 1000 parameters. This should ensure that the design has taken care of those 1000 criteria. These criteras are nothing by parameters; mentions in my earlier post.

Pheew. That’s why I call it Simultaneous Processing.

Looking at in a very detailed level – the UIs is a set of elements. Not only do the individual elements have to be good but when they combine with other elements in the UI - the whole UI also should look good. Same is the case with products – if the packaging is not good; even if the item inside is good; people wont like to buy it; is the packaging is good but the item is not good them; they might buy it once; but they wont buy it later.

Thus design is complete system; to work effectively it has to take care of each and every element – Simultaneous Processing.

There are Processes which break all this into disciplines - Interaction, Visual etc. But what I talk is not UCD Process but an 'Approach' to design. Approach should be to design for all the parameters available rather that dividing it into sub part. No doubt with division we can make the design process simpler; but it compromises the completeness. Individual design disciplines can care for their own part but even in UCD Process there could be people who should think about the connections - the over all design.

Design Portfolio

My old NID portfolio now goes online. You can see it by clicking on this link PORTFOLIO.

Learning from History of Architecture

Architectural history shows us some similar trends across regions and periods. Whenever there has been an introduction of a new ‘material’ in building construction; artisans and architects have tried to use them in a way they used the older materials. We humans try to impose previous knowledge on anything ‘new’ we encounter. If you look back at history lanes in architectural development you will find how much influence an old style has on anything new. When stone was introduced in construction along with wood the type of carvings done on stone was a clear reflection of the carvings done on wood before. Not even that; the kinds of shapes in wooden architecture also influenced the shapes of stone architecture buildings. Another great example we can find in Buddhist rock cut cave architecture – Not only the carvings but also the use of pillars was influenced by previous styles. As we know that rock is monolith and one doesn’t need pillars to make it stand. With only time do we understand the true potential of any new medium/material.

To some extent it has been true to even UI design. With this a new medium (UI) we tried to impose different known understandings to build our designs – metaphors, 3D environments etc. But sometime we forget the fact that we are dealing with a different medium altogether. They have their advantages but also create that much more problem for us. We need to understand that it a new medium, which has its own qualities. Rather than looking and forcible molding different medium for it we should understand the uniqueness of this medium and design for it. I know these are noble thoughts and easy to say and write but difficult to do. But the only thing I’m trying to do it to mold my attitude towards this thought. Cautioning myself to judge the need and utility of leveraging other older knowledge to suite UI design. Previous understandings of other fields do help in some situations but it should not be overdone. The attitude and approach should be to design for UI (new medium) and not to look for metaphors in architecture, fine art etc. every time.