Bernardo A. Huberman has been, so far, the most impressive speaking in a very impressive series. and, lucky you, they just just posted the video of his talk.
The web mediates interactions among distant people on a scale that was never possible in the physical world. From vast social networks, to grass-root amateur creativity and the creation of encyclopedic knowledge, a collective intelligence is at work in ways that differ from traditional communities in style, intensity and effectiveness of interaction. I will present the results of several studies of social dynamics in the web, as well as mechanisms we have designed to access this collective intelligence while improving users experiences with digital content.
If you didn't catch it in the New Yorker, take some time to read Dangerous Minds
"The fact is that different offenders can exhibit the same behaviors for completely different reasons," Brent Turvey, a forensic scientist who has been highly critical of the F.B.I.'s approach, says. "You've got a rapist who attacks a woman in the park and pulls her shirt up over her face. Why? What does that mean? There are ten different things it could mean. It could mean he ''t want to see her. It could mean he doesn't want her to see him. It could mean he wants to see her breasts, he wants to imagine someone else, he wants to incapacitate her arms—all of those are possibilities. You can't just look at one behavior in isolation."A few years ago, Alison went back to the case of the teacher who was murdered on the roof of her building in the Bronx. He wanted to know why, if the F.B.I.'s approach to criminal profiling was based on such simplistic psychology, it continues to have such a sterling reputation. The answer, he suspected, lay in the way the profiles were written, and, sure enough, when he broke down the rooftop-killer analysis, sentence by sentence, he found that it was so full of unverifiable and contradictory and ambiguous language that it could support virtually any interpretation.
Astrologers and psychics have known these tricks for years. The magician Ian Rowland, in his classic "The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading," itemizes them one by one, in what could easily serve as a manual for the beginner profiler. First is the Rainbow Ruse—the "statement which credits the client with both a personality trait and its opposite." ("I would say that on the whole you can be rather a quiet, self effacing type, but when the circumstances are right, you can be quite the life and soul of the party if the mood strikes you.")
And it continues on, listing more tricks and how they dupe the hopeful. As we all ache for answers, it's good if we remember all the ways we can be fooled as well.
It's a recursive old world we live in these days, in which ideas are put up on one blog only to be refined and realized by the next several blogs. I've been giving a building community talk that is starting to do what I want it to, i.e. connect theory and practice, and Josh Porter's slides on slideshare had influenced my thinking. Now he reports on my talk, moving the ideas forward further still.
Different views of self We expose different views of self. Our home self, our work self, and services each represent a different view into our lives, different relationships, different interests. Our Facebook profile, for example, shows a different window on us than our LinkedIn profile does.Interesting question: if all of our online profiles were added together, would it be representative of the *real* us?
(this is a very pertinent question given the recent claims that Facebook is trying to map *the* social graph…it’s not clear at all that anybody but a single individual knows the extent of their own social network....)
This reminds me I have not been a good girl and reported on one of the two things I found more revelatory at Graphing Social. Facebook is the next Google (unless they mess up.) When I saw them speak, I was really surprised at their point of view. They are obsessively driven to map the social graph. Your goal very much defines you as a company. Corporate missions are often doublespeak, but if you can take a mission and boil it down a sentence, like "making the world's information findable and useful" then you can create a collective mindset that will move the needle. It must be big enough to be aspirational, small enough to make progress toward.
If Facebook's mission is to map the social graph, they will have a data asset that they can monetize. They do not need to worry about missed opportunities enjoyed by the application makers, they don't have to worry about an unclear ad business. Or at least, they shouldn't (and their valuation certain suggests it's a non-issue.) They will own a core piece of data that is so useful and more important, so novel that their business model should make itself visible as the Social Graph gets built. They are waiting for their adsense. Maybe, like Google, they'll spot a company doing it half-right and because they understand the social graph they can connect the dots. Or maybe once they understand how people connect, a new model will become obvious.
Perhaps there is a very obvious 1:1 relationship between Facebook and Google simply in they are both mappers. What's left then, to map out? It would be a good thing for a start-up to know.
I said one of two things... the second is not so big, but still very interesting. This new generation of developers are radically more user centered than any of those before. Slide, RockYou, and others hammered home over and over in their talks the value of both user testing and A/B testing. I know many larger corporations that can't manage to do qualitative and quantitative research affectively, and here are these tiny companies launching products in a handful of days, and they manage to squeeze it in. As Porter (Michael, not Josh) says, "What gets measured, gets managed." These kids have their eyes clearly on the end goal, and know how to get there: through the good auspices of their users.
Diet and Fat: A Severe Case of Mistaken Consensus - New York Times
If the second person isn’t sure of the answer, he’s liable to go along with the first person’s guess. By then, even if the third person suspects another answer is right, she’s more liable to go along just because she assumes the first two together know more than she does. Thus begins an “informational cascade” as one person after another assumes that the rest can’t all be wrong.
Sometimes the crowd is not so wise. Please pass the ice cream.
from Paradox of Choice. this explains so very much to me.
And the answer is yes, it's getting better, though he still beats every point within an inch of its life.
The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > For Technology, No Small World After All
"For its part, Intel relies on a cycle of design that begins with high-level prognostication about potential markets. Then ethnographers like Dr. Bell and market researchers are sent to meet those people. The resulting information is incorporated into portraits of individual users. These portraits, called personas, describe a person's life."
Intriguing article-- thanks for the pointer, Zap.
from California legislator moves to block Gmail - News - ZDNet
"A California state senator said Monday she was drafting legislation to block Google's free e-mail service "Gmail" because it would place advertising in personal messages after searching them for key words.
"We think it's an absolute invasion of privacy. It's like having a massive billboard in the middle of your home," said Sen. Liz Figueroa, a Democrat from Fremont, Calif. "
from Boxes and Arrows: Deliverables and Methods: Special Deliverable #8
Client: I want tabs across the top of my homepage, like my favorite site, [fill in high-profile ecommerce site here].You: We can look at using tabs, but we first need to establish the main purpose of the site.
Client: Can the tabs be green?
You: Once we figure out the main navigation categories, we can make some decisions about how the page should look. But we can't even figure out navigation categories until we understand the kinds of information you'd like to make available.
Client: We have a lot of information, but I only want one row of tabs.
good article.. funny section!
Go to CS547 Human-Computer Interaction Seminar and watch the first archived talk, Scott Klemmer's. Do not be fooled by the title, he demonstrated a new wall-sized GUI, a smart whiteboard. It blew me out of the water. The attention to understanding the nature of design that allowed this new tool to come into existence... well, that's the way it's supposed to be.
BTW, Terry's Winograd's seminars are open to the public. If you are ever in the area, it's well worth making an effort to attend.
More on Design Outpost project: the chi paper and the overview, with videos, etc.
Anyhow, it's not only a cool product, but a good talk as well for thinking about the nature fo the design process and how tools support modes of thinking. Oh, and it's in english, not academic jargon. At least I could follow it.
Excited!
A CHI-WEB post pointed at the Customer Experience workshop notes, written up by Kevin Doohan. Lots of great stuff, includign this story
"Phillips electronics gathered a group of teens in a room and asked them "What color boom box would you prefer? Black or yellow?". Teens to a person said that yellow was it. Black was conservative and old. Not hip at all. Yellow is definitely the color for them. Later in the afternoon, the teens were informed that they could each take a boom box home with them. Boom boxes were stacked at the exit in two piles, a pile of black and a pile of yellow. All teens selected black. What customers do is more important than what they say. We can watch and influence what they do online like never before."
and this anecdote on simplicty
"A Webvan holiday package was a great idea but had a very low uptake by customers. The promotion had 150 items to choose whether to include in the package or not. Kozmo.com holiday promotion had 5 items to choose from. It was a tremendous success and had greater than expected uptake. The assumption is that a package that is easier to navigate leads to more conversions."
Nothing like storytelling to illustrate an idea.
From parc history "In 1970, Xerox Corporation gathered together a team of world-class researchers and gave them the mission of creating "the architecture of information." "
Jakob's been mourning the big research labs and looking at the list Parc complishments, I can see why Parc's quiet (and confusing) passing/mutating might be alarming. Will the new Parc be as innovative as the old? I hope so. It's always been my fantasy to work there, even though I know I have a deficit of letters after my name. I'd like it to continue on the hill to fuel those dreams, though.
Location, Path & Attribute Breadcrumbs was Keith Instone's poster at ASIS&T's IA summit. If you dont' mind holding yoru head sideways, it is a very interesting read.
I like breadcrumbs-- they are both a navigational widget and a way to broaden your search.
Listen to To the Best of Our Knowledge - Sweet Dreams, Sleepless Nights -- Bob Stickgold's experiments with sleep and memory are facinating. Not getting enough sleep could be interferring with your ability to learn. And the idea you can "catch up on your sleep" later is a misguided one. This radio program may stop you from ever saying "sleep is for the weak" again.
Low-Tech Research in a High-Tech World
a gentle and sensible introduction to old fashioned research. We are not yet at a point where we can completely give up paper and pencil; it's good to know how to get the most out of these simple tools.
Consuming Rituals of the Suburban Tribe takes us on an anthropological adventure into the exotic land of the consumer bathroom.
Rethinking Corporate Research: Why does the world's biggest chip maker outsource so much research?
Rethinking Corporate Research: Why and how IBM restored its world-class labs to business relevance.
Gomez Advisors: Online banking increasingly popular in US
"There are 13.6 million US Internet users that actively use online
banking services, according to Gomez."
'Web Bugs' Are Tracking Use of Internet
"Many people who have personal Web pages are unknowingly tracking people who visit and sending the information to third parties, according to a new report."
"How are new technologies changing our public identities, both formal
and informal?"
NetValue: Germans heaviest users of online porn
"More Germans visit adult sites, and spend more time at them, than
people in any other European country, according to NetValue." no comment from frau wodtke...
Parks Associates: More US homes to use broadband
"Parks Associates predicts that 10.7 million US households will have
broadband Internet access by the end of this year, up from the
current figure of 8.6 million."
Venture Economics: VC funding remains buoyant
"Latest research from Venture Economics and the National Venture
Capital Association indicates that US venture capitalists have USD45
billion available to invest in companies." give it me. I'm starting a German porn company.
they get it: quite a while on the Jupiter site, there was a terrific article on relanches and the dangers that lie with them (such as massive user bailout at the horror of trying to learn something new, no matter how much "better" it was) One of the ways to mitigate this was to inform user of an upcoming redesign and solicit feedback on it. Amazon did it for their new navigation. Alta vista does it here
redesigns are in the air: adobe.com
from newmedia.com "BROADBAND Walkthrough: Adobe.com
(Thursday, 3 August 00) Adobe completely sheds its old corporate image
with a dramatic redesign of its Web site. Aimed at fostering a sense
of community, the site features expert QuickTime tutorials, interviews
with noteworthy designers, online galleries, forums, and a free
virtual portfolio area. By Jeff Burger."
Speaking of Jupiter, and their research compatriots, I'm reading "how to lie with statistics" that appears to have been written in the 30s and makes quite entertaining light reading.
also found this
Salon: From September 2, 1999; Jupiter shoots for the moon
and
Boston Globe: Fortunetelling.
Ideas, visibility, and marketing drive that image. Forrester's researchers are
paid based on a complicated formula that considers their involvement in
closing sales and appearances in the media.
lately the CHI-WEB list has been talking about exercises in pointlessness (sites that are pure marketing tools and provide no value to user)
included were
http://www.eu.levi.com/LEJ/
http://www.myautogarage.com
here is a resource to make your life saner: standard banner sizes
HCI Resources: Bibliographies and Publications
Kristiina Karvonen has written several papers on creating trust in cyberspace from an HCI viewpoint. check it out!
Was pointed to this article by the CHI-WEB list: Text and Margin Width Influences which helps sort out the #1 question that comes from liquid design: are those long lines of text interfering with people's ability to read?
the infamous and hard to find cheskin-studio archtype study on trust. print it out for it goes they way of studio archtype..
Just tumbled over a new resource that will keep me reading for quite a while. Check it out!
cria: papers to read
Well, everybody is doing it, so I may as well too.. time to get on the weblog bandwagon and put my thoughts down on the web for all and sundry's approval/dismay. www.blogger.com is a truly amazing site... I can't resist.
Eleganthack is supposed to be devoted to Information architecture (as opposed to devoted to my resume, as it is right now)
So, to start the dialog...
A while back there was an article on a study that showed men and women navigate cities differently. Men tended to use maps to form a cognitive model of a space, then expresses directions in this way "go south 1 mile,
then turn west for 2 miles..." Women however used landmarks for wayfinding "turn left at the red house, then right at the Denny's.."
I never saw the original study, and I'd be curious to read it..
That said, I wonder how this can apply to wayfinding in information spaces. How, as web designers, can we create landmarks to assist navigation? How can we make our structures transparent so they can be used to navigate? Should
be design differently based on our understanding of our audience's preferred navigation method?
A friend and I were discussing this over lunch, and we thought that breadcrumbs actually help both styles of wayfinding...
Entertainment>Humor>Bitterness>Things_That_Suck_
(yahoo, natch)
this both conveys a hierarchy and provides language that is vivid enough to act as a landmark.
Thoughts? Are there any studies/papers on this topic?