Archive for the ‘Usability’ Category

Posted on July 1, 2001 - by deCadmus

Mediums Writ Large

When Thug the caveman first scrawled an image of himself on a wall of stone, we can imagine the prehistoric critics — “Arg! Ick dannae throg!” Which, roughly translated, imparts that the cave art lacked passion, and what’s more Thug would be better off spearing dinner. Little did the critics know that someday we might define the dawn of recorded history by Thug’s efforts.

When, in the Middle Ages Gutenberg created the printing press, the voices of his critics echo still… “What’s the use! The people cannot read! And if they could they would not understand without us to tell them what it means!” Which suggests that Johannes’ critics may have had some idea how the printed page would usurp their power, though even they could not know how profoundly it would change the world to come.

When Bell uttered his first words through his electrical speech machine, his critics were dumbfounded… “Who would you talk to? And won’t you disturb their dinner?!” True enough, dinner would never be the same. What’s more, dinner would never be the same wherever you might go, as one day everyone over the age of 12 would have a phone in his or her pocket.

When Zworykin [or Philo T. Farnsworth] patented his kinescope, his critics were confused. They argued amongst themselves whether the thrust of their criticism would be the tried and true, “It’ll never work” or the more obscure, “Mid-season replacements will confuse your audience.” In either case, they surely couldn’t imagine a live broadcast of man taking his first steps on the moon, or Ally McBeal’s dancing baby.

When Berners-Lee made the Internet accessible to everyone, the critics on Wall Street were frantic. “Buy!” they screamed. And then, “Sell! Sell!” Which suggests that critics haven’t changed all that much through the ages… they still don’t understand the creation of a medium any more today than they understood it in Thug’s time. Or Gutenberg’s. Or Bell’s. Or Zworykin’s.

A medium has the capacity to not only change our thinking, but to change how we think… how we communicate, experience, and understand. And to tell the truth, we still don’t know what the implications of the Internet and the Web really are. This much is fairly certain, though — we’re not finished. We’re only just begun.

A medium has the capacity to not only change our thinking, but to change how we think… how we communicate, experience, and understand.

So what is this invention, this medium, that has evidently caused us fits throughout the ages? Is it a tool? A toy? A myth? A medium is vehicle for communication. It’s a transport for the expression of ideas… a means for transmitting a message from the sender — the person who wants to express something — to an audience, those who might receive that message. This could be an audience of one, or an audience of thousands, or even millions.

Even as a medium transports a message, it also shapes it, and manifests in that message properties that are unique to that given medium. Likewise a medium lends the message its own limitations. The stark lines of a rock chip scratched against a cave wall, the gilded manuscripts of the thirteenth century, an analog broadcast beamed through the airwaves — each has its strengths and its limitations. To master a given medium it’s critical to learn what those strengths and limitations are. Which is precisely why the Internet — and in particular, the Web — is such a mess today.

It’s not immediately apparent how a new medium is best used. If our early cave artist were given a paintbrush would he paint a prehistoric Mona Lisa? More likely he’d try to use the handle to scratch on the walls. It’s no surprise, then, that early television broadcasts were little more than televised radio plays, or that today’s web sites try so hard to look like television screens with hyperlinks. We’ve got a new set of tools, but we’ve yet to master the techniques required for the medium. For that matter, we’re still trying to discover what they are.

So what do we know about this medium–this Internet? We know that there are three laws that govern the Internet, and none was penned by a legislator. The first of these is Moore’s Law — a nifty bit of insight offered by Gordon Moore, the founder of Intel. Moore’s Law states that every 18 months, processing power will double, while costs remain constant. It’s the principle on which Gordon Moore built his business, and it’s proved remarkably accurate. Moore’s law has been essential not only in terms of how it has driven innovation, but in how it’s made basic computing capability more affordable for a mass audience.

That brings us to the second law that governs the Internet. Metcalfe’s Law, offered by Bob Metcalfe — a guy who knows quite a lot about networks — he invented Ethernet, and founded 3Com. Metcalfe’s Law states that the utility of a network equals the square of the number of its users. Consider the computer you’re looking at now. Imagine it unplugged from the network. Alone. Isolated. It’s still a computer. You can run a spreadsheet, edit a document, play a game. But once you connect that computer to even just one more, the power of your own computer increases dramatically. You can now share those documents, or send messages to the other computer on your network. The utility of your computer continues to increase — geometrically — with each additional node that is introduced to your network.

And that brings us to the third law that governs the Internet. At a certain point — critical mass — the power of the computing network is so great that it extends beyond the realm of technology alone, and affects the social, economic and political worlds in which it operates. This is the Law of Disruption, described by Chunka Mui in Unleashing the Killer App. Between the accelerated curve of technological change and the incremental curve of human change there is a widening gap — a vacuum — and a vacuum is a powerful force. I believe that both the fundamental cause for that gap, and the vehicle that will fill it–the agent of change–are one and the same… the Internet.

And so we are where we began, with the birth of a new medium — the invention of a vehicle for communication that disrupts as it transforms. The effects of this particular medium will be especially powerful, and likely unusually disruptive. While other mediums have empowered the individual to communicate with the masses, to do so on a large scale has always required an intermediary — an art gallery, a publisher, a theatre or broadcast company. These are powerful organizations, groups that are rarely content merely to replicate a message, when they can edit and augment it as well.

The Internet, however, is inherently a many-to-many medium. Virtually anyone who has the ability to browse the web has the capability to publish on the web, without the services — or the editorial predilections — of any intermediary whatsoever. It’s interesting to imagine what might have transpired if Thug’s cave art were instantly transported to every cave that chose to tune in. Or if there had been a printing press in every kitchen.

It’s just as interesting to imagine where the Internet will lead us. I don’t claim to know. But I expect it’ll be a helluva ride.

Posted on June 27, 2001 - by deCadmus

Mediums Writ Large, Part III

[In which the author attempts some closure on this accidental essay--three parts released over two weeks? how rude!--and after which will bundle the whole mess up and place it in the articles section, where it rightly belongs.]

So what do we know about this medium–this Internet?

We know that there are three laws that govern the Internet, and none was penned by a legislator. The first of these is Moore’s Law–a nifty bit of insight offered by Gordon Moore, the founder of Intel. Moore’s Law states that every 18 months, processing power will double, while costs remain constant. It’s the principle on which Gordon Moore built his business, and it’s proved remarkably accurate. Moore’s law has been essential not only in terms of how it has driven innovation, but in how it’s made basic computing capability more affordable for a mass audience.

That brings us to the second law that governs the Internet. Metcalfe’s Law, offered by Bob Metcalfe–a guy who knows quite a lot about networks–he invented Ethernet, and founded 3Com. Metcalfe’s Law states that the utility of a network equals the square of the number of its users. Consider the computer you’re looking at now… Imagine it unplugged from the network. Alone. Isolated. It’s still a computer. You can run a spreadsheet, edit a document, play a game. But once you connect that computer to even just one more, the power of your own computer increases dramatically. You can now share those documents, or send messages to the other computer on your network. The utility of your computer continues to increase–geometrically–with each additional node that is introduced to your network.

And that brings us to the third law that governs the Internet. At a certain point–critical mass–the power of the computing network is so great that it extends beyond the realm of technology alone, and affects the social, economic and political worlds in which it operates. This is the Law of Disruption, described by Chunka Mui in Unleashing the Killer App. Between the accelerated curve of technological change and the incremental curve of human change there is a widening gap–a vacuum–and a vacuum is a powerful force. I believe that both the fundamental cause for that gap, and the vehicle that will fill it–the agent of change–are one and the same… the Internet.

And so we are where we began, with the birth of a new medium–the invention of a vehicle for communication that disrupts as it transforms. The effects of this particular medium will be especially powerful, and likely unusually disruptive. While other mediums have empowered the individual to communicate with the masses, to do so on a large scale has always required an intermediary–an art gallery, a publisher, a theatre or broadcast company. These are powerful organizations, groups that are rarely content merely to replicate a message, when they can edit and augment it as well.

The Internet, however, is inherently a many-to-many medium. Virtually anyone who has the ability to browse the web has the capability to publish on the web, without the services–or the editorial predilections–of any intermediary whatsoever. It’s interesting to imagine what might have transpired if Thug’s cave art were instantly transported to every cave that chose to tune in. Or if there had been a printing press in every kitchen.

It’s just as interesting to imagine where the Internet will lead us. I don’t claim to know. But I expect it’ll be a helluva ride.

Posted on June 27, 2001 - by deCadmus

Smart Tags?

Microsoft plans to introduce a new hyperlink widget in Internet Explorer on the Windows XP platform, expected to be released in October. I imagine you may have read quite a lot about these tags already. In case you haven’t, here’s a distilled version… The XP version of Internet Explorer automatically places “Smart Tags” on web pages you call into the browser window. These tags underline key words and phrases that have been identified by Microsoft, and link to sites that Microsoft believes you should be aware of. The Smart Tag links appear as wavy purple underlines, so they can be distinguished from the regular sort of links placed by the author of the material you’re viewing. Microsoft has released corresponding software development tools so that third party developers can also insert Smart Tags in your browser window–though you’d need to download tag libraries that weren’t produced by Microsoft and its partner companies.

As you might imagine, Microsoft’s critics are crying foul. As for me–once a Microsoft fan and now more or less ambivalent to Redmond–even I think this one smells. It’s bad enough to introduce yet another browser-dependant extension that flies an extended digit in the direction of the W3C [yet again]. In this case, Microsoft has gone far beyond exploiting a derivative of a proposed standard. Instead, Microsoft appears to be jockeying for editorial control of the entire Internet.

Does Microsoft–or anyone else–have the right to insert their editorial or “advertorial” viewpoint into web sites and documents that they do not own? Of course not. Whether or not editorial gerrymandering was ever the intent of the Smart Tag feature, it offers far too much opportunity for abuse to be released in its present form. Chris Kaminski has offered some great advice on making Smart Tag technology palatable to site owners. Frankly, I’d like to see more.

First, implement the W3C XML Linking Language [Xlink] proposal to provide more sophisticated link capabilities to site authors: technologies like two-way links and link descriptors which are, frankly, long overdue. Second, put your inestimable engineering talent to work providing users the ability to create local and remote hyperlinks, annotations and other private mark-ups on web pages they browse. Bookmarking [sorry, the Favorites folder] was a workable start, but it’s entirely inadequate to the task of connecting relevant dots between billions of available web pages.

Link technology has remained virtually unchanged–that is to say, underdeveloped–since the release of Mosaic. Updates to link technology should be squarely focused on improving the lot of the user. Not Microsoft. Not even the web site owner.

That, Mr. Gates, is where I want to go today.

Posted on June 25, 2001 - by deCadmus

Mediums Writ Large, Part II

So what is this invention, this medium, that has evidently caused us fits throughout the ages? Is it a tool? A toy? A myth?

A medium is vehicle for communication. It’s a transport for the expression of ideas… a means for transmitting a message from the sender–the person who wants to express something–to an audience–those who might receive that message. This could be an audience of one, or an audience of thousands, or even millions.

Even as a medium transports a message, it also shapes it, and manifests in that message properties that are unique to that given medium. Likewise a medium lends the message its own limitations. The stark lines of a rock chip scratched against a cave wall, the gilded manuscripts of the thirteenth century, an analog broadcast beamed through the airwaves… each has its strengths and its limitations. To master a given medium it’s critical to learn what those strengths and limitations are. Which is precisely why the Internet–and in particular, the Web–is such a mess today.

It’s not immediately apparent how a new medium is best used. If our early cave artist was given a paintbrush would he paint a prehistoric Mona Lisa? More likely he’d try to use the handle to scratch on the walls. It’s no surprise, then, that early television broadcasts were little more than televised radio plays, or that today’s web sites try so hard to look like television screens with hyperlinks. We’ve got a new set of tools, but we’ve yet to master the techniques required for the medium. For that matter, we’re still trying to discover what they are.

Posted on June 13, 2001 - by deCadmus

Mediums Writ Large, Part I

When Thug the caveman first scrawled an image of himself on a wall of stone, we can imagine the prehistoric critics� �Arg! Ick dannae throg!� Which, roughly translated, imparts that the cave art lacked passion, and what�s more Thug would be better off spearing dinner. Little did the critics know that someday we might define the dawn of recorded history by Thug�s efforts.

When in the Middle Ages Gutenberg created the printing press, the voices of his critics echo still� �What�s the use! The people cannot read! And if they could they would not understand without us to tell them what it means!� Which suggests that Johannes� critics may have had some idea how the printed page would usurp their power, though even they could not know how profoundly it would change the world to come.

When Bell uttered his first words through his electrical speech machine, his critics were dumbfounded� �Who would you talk to? And won�t you disturb their dinner?!� True enough, dinner would never be the same. What�s more, dinner would never be the same wherever you might go, as one day everyone over the age of 12 would have a phone in his or her pocket.

When Zworykin patented his kinescope, his critics were confused� they argued amongst themselves whether the thrust of their criticism would be the tried and true �It�ll never work� or the more obscure �mid-season replacements will confuse your audience.� In either case, they surely couldn�t imagine a live broadcast of man taking his first steps on the moon, or Ally McBeal�s dancing baby.

When Berners-Lee made the Internet accessible to everyone, the critics on Wall Street were frantic. �Buy!� they screamed. And then, �Sell! Sell!� Which suggests that critics haven�t changed all that much through the ages� they still don�t understand the creation of a medium any more today than they understood it in Thug�s time. Or Gutenberg�s. Or Bell�s. Or Zworykin�s.

A medium has the capacity to not only change our thinking, but to change how we think� how we communicate, experience, and understand. And to tell the truth, we still don�t know what the implications of the Internet and the Web really are. This much is fairly certain, though� we�re not finished. We�re only just begun.

Posted on June 5, 2001 - by deCadmus

What’s in your shopping cart?

Jessie, the abominable golden retriever, is a fertilizer factory.

Of course she produces the usual carpet bombs that any large dog is terrifically equipped to manufacture. She appears also to have an unlimited capacity to produce nitrogen, that elemental stuff that makes lawns and flowers happy. Happy that is, so long as there isn’t too much of a good thing. And, if you’ll recall from previous episodes, to Jessie there’s never too much of a good thing.

So I’m browsing the Drs. Foster & Smith web site for a nitro neutralizer. If you’re not familiar with the good doctors and have a critter in your house, you might want to visit. They have the stuff you’ll find at your local pet superstore, and some products you’ll probably find only at your vet… at prices that are usually below what your vet would charge.

Anyway, I discover G-Whiz [for dogs only it says... don't feed this to house guests, I guess] and put a couple bottles in my basket, fill in shipping and payment details, and submit my order… and get a page that says “Your shopping cart is empty.”

Not “Thank-you,” or “And that completes your order,” or even “Done!” It says, “Your shopping cart is empty.”

Well, yeah, I guess it’s empty if my order is complete, but… why not just say so? Tell me I succeeded. Tell me when you’ll charge my card. Tell me when you’ll ship it! Even better, tell me all of the above… but don’t make me wonder if you actually received my order, or whether some glitch emptied my shopping cart.

Usability matters. Really.

Posted on June 1, 2001 - by deCadmus

A tale of two searches.

A tale of two searches.

While plotting a gift for my wife, I recalled an Oprah episode featuring interior design. [For the record, I wasn't actually watching Oprah, I just happened to be in the same room while it was on. Glad we got that cleared up.] One of the guests had written a book about decorative wall painting that looked to be good gift material… except I could remember neither the name of the guest, nor the name of the book, save for “painted” something or other.

Plan A… Oprah.com. I plugged away at the site’s search engine, using virtually every related key word I could think of–painted, walls, decorating, design–and while I believe I found an abstract of sorts for the show in question, I still couldn’t uncover the name of the guest… or the book.

Plan B… Amazon.com. Plugging in the search terms “painted walls” returns a very small, targeted set of results, with Debbie Travis’ Painted House at the very top of the list. A home run with my very first swing.

So what’s the difference? Why would Oprah.com fail to return usable results after several minutes of searching and a dozen terms, while Amazon.com found my target in 3 seconds and two terms? I can’t be certain, but it may have something to do with semantics. First, Amazon can reasonably expect that most searches will target book authors and titles. Oprah’s web, by contrast, likely hosts a much broader variety of searches… show topics, guests, causes, what have you. Second, I’d expect that Amazon employs key word targeting, so that searches that are similar to a particular book’s title–especially searches that previously resulted in the selection of a particular title–are programmed to return precisely that book. Oprah’s site clearly doesn’t employ targeted searches… or doesn’t do them well.

It *is* possible to find the book in question on Oprah’s site. It requires a minimum three clicks down a very specific path, and you need to know when the episode that featured the book aired. Probably not the best way to track down a book….

Posted on May 17, 2001 - by deCadmus

Searching Search Results

While engaged in the search for Evan Chan’s killer I recently stumbled across a nifty search engine enhancement, iLOR. iLOR is not itself a Net index… it’s licensed Google’s search technology. What iLOR does is aid in the process of sorting through the results–especially useful features include opening new windows for task lists, and “anchoring” a particular set of search results so that you can chase down the particulars of a page without having to “Back” your way out of it. In other words, iLOR does the same things you already do today… just more easily than you’re able to do it now.

Does it understand the meaning of the search results? Not yet. But it’s a small step toward making Google’s search results–already the most relevant on the web–even better.

Posted on May 14, 2001 - by deCadmus

The Cost of Free

Silenced by software…

Blogger–the engine that drives my [sometimes] daily updates–has been down for most of the weekend. This is bad. Blogger remains free to use, but it’s increasingly clear that, lacking reliability, free is costly in its own right.

I don’t know why Blogger hasn’t migrated to a subscription model. I’ve expected it–looked forward to it, even–since December 2000. Blogger is a victim of its own success, with scores of thousands of users overwhelming its servers. And it’s a bloody shame, because there’s no reason–none that I can see, anyway–that they couldn’t charge even the most nominal of fees and find a model that’s sustainable… maybe even hugely profitable.

Blogger! Please! Sell me a reliable service!

Posted on May 11, 2001 - by deCadmus

Net Hunt II

Net hunt redux…

Or coincidence, part deux. There’s a new, alarmingly huge Net hunt underway, surrounding the release of the movie A.I. If you wanna start at the beginning, go stare at a movie poster for a while. If you want to catch up to the Net hunt community, visit www.cloudmakers.org. There’s little one-upsmanship in this one… it’s a hugely collaborative effort… or “social, organic parallel processing.”