SensoryMetrics

For those of us in the software business – particularly those employing Agile and Scrum management methodologies – we’re looking forward to the Chinese New Year next month. Yep – it’s the year of the pig!

Until then, HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Popularity: 14%

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User Experience

This was a concept that tried to break the rules of cell phone design. The industrial design was created by Laura Mahan. It featured a number of wearable options (shown here configured as a necklace.) The strap also embedded soundbeam-type speakers which provided private, headphone-less audio. The UI avoided the typical boxes, pointers and menus – replaced by more organic, multi-modal UIs. The interaction blended animated graphics, touch, and 3-D audio.

In our promotional pitch to raise development funds for PeopleLink, we wanted to showcase it as a truly new generation of communication products for a new generation of mobile users. The “big idea” was to demonstrate PeopleLink as an extention of body art (yeah – body art – piercings, tattoos, etc.) To us, we thought that PeopleLink would fit right into the young nomadic culture. Unfortunately at the time, conservative Nortel wasn’t too impressed with the target market – or our PG13-rated slide presentation!

Popularity: 14%

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Geek Wear, User Experience

Whether it’s a buddy list, phone directory, or hosted contact manager – the UIs fail the user. Why? Because in all examples I can think of, the tool sucks the context right out of the directory items. Most force everybody into lists – alphabetical or most recent. Sure you can separate people into different folders. But what is lost is the relationship between these people. If a directory tool allowed me different organization structures depending on the group, i would be able to preserve context. For example, I could choose clustering to organize my family members. This would match the mental model I have to represent the various members of this group. Suppose I’m part of an after-work softball league – give me a baseball environment to organize the people. This directory could then fade away once the season ends. Corporate directories could follow a similar hierarchal model that matches the org structure. The possibilities are endless.

Popularity: 17%

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Innovation, Usability, User Experience directories, relationship-based-ui

Quiz time: which of these two logos cost nothing and the other $70,000USD???

When Jobe and I started anbiun- we spent very little money getting our pitch together for VCs. We designed our first logo ourselves. It served us well through two rounds of financing. Heading into round three, our investors couldn’t spend money fast enough. They insisted we hire a west coast design firm to help shape our brand. Relunctantly, we agreed. We then chose USWeb in Portland. A few weeks later and a huge money burn – new logo. Was it worth 70k? You decide. The round logo is the freebie… the other logo (blowing bubbles) is the professional creation.

Popularity: 21%

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User Experience

A few weeks back I wrote a post about improving Google’s search engine by allowing users to blackball search results. I surmised that allowing users to vote on the results would improve the search results. Now Jimmy Wales, the man behind Wikipedia plans to launch a new search engine named Wikiasari which will allow users to rerank search results. Each new search will then be reordered based on the most popular order. I think it’s an interesting idea and can’t wait to start using it when it becomes available. Furthermore, Wikiasari’s search engine will be open source exposing the search ranking formulas.

This is an excellent start, however I can already think of some ways to improve it further. It seems to me that everyone is different. In my original post, I spoke of a Google blackball option which would be specific to me not to everyone. What I see as off topic might be exactly what others see as on topic. I think the way to solve this would be to allow people to take on different roles when they are searching the web for content. For instance, when I’m searching for things to buy, I’m in a very different mode than when I’m searching for news to read. Of course, the usual way to solve this using Google is to be as specific as possible and to put as many words as possible into your query. Most of us quickly learn that if you type the word ‘apple’ into Google you’ll get several pages returned about Apple computer, if you want to information about the fruit, you need to type in ‘apple fruit’. It works for the most part. Most people get the hang of it pretty quick. What I’d like to see is how Wikiasari will handle results for ‘apple’. Will the fruit come up first or will it still be Apple computer? Will it be a diverse list of results, or will it be very narrow? This is where having different roles might come in very handy. I think there might be a big difference between what a person is looking for if they’re an electrical engineer, a poet, a doctor, or a six year old. And I’m not saying you always have to be an electrical engineer or a poet, I’m sure there are plenty of engineers out there that are both. Having the results filtered to a specific role might be very useful. I think it really depends on whether the search tool is being used to browse the web or search the web for a specific thing. Google is already very good at finding results if you’re looking for a specific thing. The more narrow the search, the more specific the keywords, the better the results. However, I wouldn’t use it to browse a given topic. Here I’d much sooner turn to Wikipedia to give me a decent starting point for exploring the subject matter. No doubt, Wikiasari will find its place as it’s community base develops.

Popularity: 19%

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User Experience Google, wikiasari

Just like many of my tech friends, I subscribe to a number of great tech-related magazines. Some of my favorites include Baseline, e-Week, Information Week, Edge, IT Canada, Communications and Networking, Computing Canada, IT in Government, Small Times (nanotech) and those are just some of the print ones. Add to those the excellent daily e-newsletters from groups like Fierce, VoIP, Wireless, SOX etc.

But as you all know, to get the free subscriptions to these you have to answer a profile survey correctly. If you don’t qualify, or you don’t reside in the US or Canada the subscription price is in the hundreds $.

So for those of you who get these magazines, you know the typical questions, what’s your position? CEO? CIO? What’s your company’s annual revenue? It’s gotta start at least at a million or 10 million. How much are you going to spend on servers next year? $500k?? When are you going to be replacing your storage equipment? Are you the final decision maker? It goes on and on, so if you’re like me you just click on the ‘whatever’ answers just to get through it.

I just don’t get the purpose of these surveys. If you’re the final decision maker on everything your company isn’t pulling in $100M in revenue. So to get through these horrible surveys. I just click random answers. I’ve polled 4 friends who have similar subscriptions and all just make up answers to get through the survey. That’s 5 of 5. Better stats than dentists!

I don’t think anyone is trying to be deceptive but these surveys are poorly designed, intimidating and/or not-applicable to many people. I’d probably be horrified to find out how this ‘data’ is used and interpreted.

Popularity: 14%

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User Experience

There’s a lot of talk about how incumbant telcos are rapidly losing ground because of internet-driven forces like Voice 2.0, and VoIP. STL Consultants, headed by Martin Geddes(Telco2.0 guru) has just released a study identifying trends that are disrupting the established industry. The main message is that “old-style” telcos can’t shed their monopolistic management style and reinvent themselves in an IP world. The study does point to a few providers that are getting it right. The sole Canadian entry is Rogers. This isn’t surprising. Rogers has been a visible supporter of voice 2.0 – they even sponsored the recent OCRI Voice2.0 conference in Ottawa.

Popularity: 31%

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User Experience

In the concluding chapter of my talk at BarCamp Ottawa2, I demonstrated the marvelous SoundBeam as part of the Great Technology, Horrible Products series. Here’s Baxter wearing the infamous Nortel Neckset!

The technology was awesome developed by a brilliant inventor, Andre Van Schindle. He modified the cones of speakers and messed around with some fancy phase shifting to produce a very narrow focused beam of sound. The SoundBeam was born and 150 prototypes were built.

The neckset sat on your shoulders. You could hear sound as clearly as if you were wearing headphones. But you weren’t; it’s a cool feeling listening to a phone call or voice mail and still be able to hear sounds around you. The beam was so precise that someone standing beside you would not hear a thing even in a quiet room. The technology was manufacturable and relatively inexpensive so why don’t YOU have a SoundBeam today?

First problem Nortel wanted to make it into a phone; a cordless phone with 46/49 technology poor quality, bulky electronics, limited range. Also the design was awkward it wasn’t one size fits all! Finally the functionality was limited, no dial pad, you still had to be beside a phone to initiate a call.

The product was sunk before it became a product. Most of the Beams were destroyed. Many people tried to apply the technology to different applications. Lisa Fast, the SoundBeam’s product manager worked tirelessly to try and find this technology a product home, but to no avail.

Right now, I’d kill for a Bluetooth Soundbeam for either my laptop or iPod! (oh right I don’t have an iPod.) Does Santa read blogs?

Popularity: 13%

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User Experience

Encouraging a sustained culture of innovation in any size company is a challenge. Beyond internal PR campaigns, and “HR motherhood statements”, if there exists no tangible program to push innovation it just won’t happen. Why not? Look the the basics of the psychology of work. A person is going to continue to do their job exactly the same way because it’s easier (no new learning required, and expectations of management can be met). Why upset the apple cart if their’s no incentive to do it?

If a company is serious about innovation management, it has to make the rewards tangible. This starts with money – not salary but bonuses. Cornell University just published a study showing that between an equivalent pay raise and one time bonus, the bonus will motivate the employee 10 times more! This type of incentive has not been lost on large companies who take innovation seriously – like IBM, Google, and Nortel. At one former company I worked at, the patent bonus structure worked like a charm! On initial patent filing each inventor received $3800USD. On granting, the inventor got another $1500USD. At each interval of 5, 10, 15, 20 granted patents – extra bonuses were paid in the range of 5000-20000USD. As well, the companies paid for the production of patent plaques which were handed out at a formal “innovation gala”. This kind of money is obviously “big company” budgets. Early stage startups already thrive on a culture of innovation. But, as the startup grows beyond the founders and initial employees, it would be important to formalize innovation management. It doesn’t have to be with large cash bonuses – but at least a formal recognition.
To encourage sustained innovation:

1. reward the effort

2. celebrate the innovation!

Popularity: 14%

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User Experience

I’ve been playing with Google’s patent search engine. It’s a nice alternative to the restrictive search provided by the US Patent and Trademark Office. As an added bonus, the main search page features “fun” patent drawings such as this one for the invention of the pocket protector – in 1903. Now that’s retro-geek!

Popularity: 23%

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User Experience Google, Patents