There is one key reason why I love professional wrestling: seeing that one moment where I can still suspend disbelief.

After reading two articles about what designers can learn from Ghandi and the Red Baron, I thought, wrestling taught me a lot more than this! So, what can designers learn from Professional Wrestling; a set of guys running around in their underwear? Actually a tremendous amount. I’ll share three key insights. Prepare yourself and set aside your judgements that this is white trash entertainment.

1. The Story

This is the most important part is wrestling, as well as design. In wrestling, without a story, you have just two guys rubbing eachother in their underwear, which is less than exciting. The story is what people buy into and makes them tune in. A great story has people wanting to see what happens next. You see the same thing in design. When you present to a client, executive, or team, you don’t present just a design; you present a story. You tell them how everything is set up and how it has all fallen into place; sharing the problems and the opportunities within this design. You tell them why the design matters and find that hook to pull your client in.

Walking into a client with no story is inviting them to give their opinion and random comments. Setting the stage for a story focuses their feedback. It gives them rails. It tells them you have a vision and a rationale and end point with the design. It empowers you with more to control over the direction and outcome of the design.

2. The Promo and art of selling

One of the most important parts of getting a story across in wrestling is the promo. You can have an amazing story and amazing wrestling, but without the ability to connect to the audience, it’s useless. If you can’t make people buy into the story and believe it, you’ll go no where. How many times have we all seen great designs crushed. Part of our role when we go in and present, is to take ideas, protect them, bring life to them, and sell them. Get the design, the potential and the story across to the client. Being dynamic and connecting in presentations is just as critical as the design itself. Not only that, but you have to believe in what you’re selling. You have to buy into your own story, you can’t just fake your way through a great presentation.

The best wrestling promos are the ones that are extensions of personalities. It’s the same with presenting your designs. The best designs are the ones that are extensions of what you love. Why would a client buy into something if you can’t even believe it. You have to be excited and enjoy what you do, because if you don’t, why would other people?

I can never stress how important it is to be a great presenter, and be “on” each time you’re in front of a client, no matter how simple the presentation may be. It’s something I see a lot of designers drop the ball on because they see the designs as selling themselves. The bad news is most often, they don’t.

3. The Patterns and spots

After watching wrestling for 20 years, and training (yes, I trained) for a few years, you learn there are patterns and spots. To simplify, patterns are common elements and spots are usually predefined moves that wrestlers have worked out before the match. Patterns are used to develop the way matches are put together.  Spots often represent a high point in a match to get the crowd moving.

Both regular patterns, and the ability to break patterns when needed are critical in great matches. In our design world, we hear about patterns non-stop. Desktop patterns, mobile patterns, gesture patterns… and we stick to those. We’ve heard presentations and read articles on those. Then we see new designs that come along and twist them or break them and create a new pattern. Or create a one-off for their design; but it works. We can’t always be a slave to patterns or we just end up the same as everyone else, but using them is what makes it comfortable and soothing. Just remember that sometimes we need to throw things out and say “what are we going to do for this to support our story, our goals, and how do we make people fall in love with this”. Don’t be afraid to change even the most common elements.

A spot, by contrast, a more of a signature element. A unique piece that brings the design together. You have the story, you’re presenting it, and now it’s time to pull out the piece that people cheer for. Most wrestlers have spots they perform exclusively. These are their signature moves, and out of respect, other wrestlers don’t do them. In the design world. This is like the animated control on the Path mobile application, or the genie window effect on a Mac. Moments that those designs are known for. In each story, and subsequent design you create, what are your signature elements? What are the moments that people see in your design that they connect to emotionally. That they do a little cheer for when it happens and they tell other people about about. Don’t have any? I’d recommend thinking a little more.

In closing, when you need inspiration for design, it’s not always looking at Apple or the obviously products that are there. Look for the non-obvious sources and what they can teach you. Pull from everything and bring something no one else has to the table.

The question I’ve started to wonder is why don’t they? At what point in forming the Foundation did they decide to not employ or utilize designers? Microsoft employs designers. In fact in the last decade designers have become increasingly important in shipping products at Microsoft. Products like Windows Phone, Xbox, Lync, and their core product Windows, employs hundreds of designers. So what happened? When did our roles get almost solely confined to software, furniture, and websites?

We got stuck

I left my role at Microsoft almost a year ago to work for frog; a Global Innovation Company as it’s defined. In our office in Amsterdam, where I’m based, we tend to do mostly software. In fact, across frog we do a lot of software. There is also the occasional impressive hardware item that showcases our roots of things like the NeXT Cube. We get strategy projects to help companies define road maps and how they might want to enter a market. That’s where things tend to get interesting, but once it’s all said and done, it’s mostly off to another piece of software. Most design agencies I know across the world end up in software, websites, and of course classic graphic design, but our role has become stuck in this niche that we need to break free from. IDEO and a few others try to do this from time to time, with projects like the Aquaduct concept vehicle to help transportation and water needs in developing countries. However most projects like this get stuck at the concept level. In fact, it seems like some of the great designs I see that help people just come from grass roots action, like the “Liter of Light” project from the Philippines, using Coke bottles for light. How many projects like this could we come up with that could help people and benefit communities, if we had the chance.

IDEO Aquaduct – http://www.ideo.com/work/aquaduct
Liter of Light – http://isanglitrongliwanag.org/

We can think beyond the grid

My thoughts and opinions of design have slowly been changing in the last few years. A few months ago I spoke at a school in Guadalajara Mexico and met a fellow designer who was starting discussions around the worlds economic issues and how designers could help that. Now I’ve long time been a fan of education reform and figuring how to produce a better education system, but the idea that designers could retool the entire worlds economy wasn’t something I had contemplated at length.

We sit in our offices, studios, or cubes designing websites, layouts, software. We stress empathy, and design thinking. We showcase the synthesis of information based on observation and ethnographic research. Yet none of this is particularly helpful to anyone. As Philippe Stark mentioned in his TED talk, it’s a shame that “Design is just a weapon for marketing”. Now being in an agency, it’s something I’m understanding all too well.

Fixing the System – https://www.facebook.com/groups/fixingthesystem/

Let’s break our shell

Why can’t we as designers break out of our current shell and figure out methods to reform education, stop the spread of disease, create sustainable agriculture, plan disaster recovery, or help governments. Nothing more than some simple design thinking helped stop a lot of the Guinea worm infections in Africa as people figured how to filter water to make it safe. Nothing specifically prevents us from doing it, with the exception of poor people don’t have a lot of money to hire great designers. It’s sort of a harsh reality to understand that any of us, much like photojournalists who spend their lives to show struggles across the world, can actually save people with our brains and with our thinking. Yet the people who can help support us, like the Gates Foundation, don’t appear to fully understand we can provide that, and most of us don’t want to give up a decent wage to provide those services free of charge. I know this is changing. IDEO is partnering with the Acumen Fund, and small agencies like Project H are coming up, but these are small pockets. In the entire world of design, this is a fraction of a percentage. We can do more.

This isn’t to say I’m leaving my job, selling all my stuff, and will now lead a new nomadic design life helping people build eco-friendly houses that solve all the worlds problems. After all, I can’t give up my perfectly designed iPhone and Bose headphones. But hey, given that there seems to be a drive to change a lot in this world, perhaps we can have an impact for the better. Perhaps a few of us have the guts to break away and blaze a trail. I wish I were brave enough to do that and I hope I’m lucky enough in my lifetime to do something amazing enough to truly help the people around me. In the meantime, I’m going to keep my quest of having foundations like the Red Cross, Acumen, or Gates to understand our value can travel beyond the two dimensional screen. In the meantime, I’m hoping I can get groups like the Right Brain Initiative or Project H to allow me to volunteer during parts of my vacation.

My ask of everyone reading is pretty simple. How do we help move our discipline out of the realm of software, websites, furniture, and aesthetic based work to the realm of the type of thought, synthesis, and observation we can provide. We’re not designers of aesthetic, we’re not designers of marketing tools, we not designers of landfill materials, we are designers; period. We are critical thinkers who can help provide less disease, better education, better housing, and better solutions. In the end, we can help. When people ask about you profession, don’t just speak of posters, websites, and iPhones. Take notice of the humanitarian design efforts happening. Find ways to integrate our jobs into other professions and career paths. Find ways to show people what we have to offer.

I hope this can be the start of an interesting discussion! Thank you for your time!

Over roughly the last 10 years, China and India have given way to a huge rise in technology outsourcing. Jobs are outsourced from companies like Microsoft, Google, T-Mobile, Honeywell, and many others. In Microsoft I’ve worked with teams in both India and China developing software for a variety of uses. Having our headquarters in the US, I usually work with small satellite teams in these countries. I couldn’t help but wonder why these countries who had become huge in the area of software technology, struggled so much in the area of user experience and UI innovation.Note: this article refers specifically to software UX. Both of these countries have very innovative and creative aspects in other areas of their culture, and I’m not expressing these comments as blanket statements.

Specifically I noted a series of different challenges with each team. For example the team in India has appeared weaker in developing the details in their work. While they grasp large issues, nuances often have to be explained in painstaking detail, which more or less involves giving all the specifics of those nuances.

Justin Maguire, a Creative Director as Frog has dubbed this the 70/30 effect. The first 70% of the process around big and broad thinking is great, but the last 30% of the details is like squeezing blood from a rock. Even with these explained down to “dotting the i‘s and crossing the t’s” we often found ourselves coming up short in the last 30%.

The China team has several similar shades, but in a slightly different flavor. While the nuances we needed often had to be detailed out in exact specifications, China seemed to be great about copying those details in an amazing and precise method. The last 30% was pristine when given all the specifics. When design specifics were enumerated out, the team could carry through the task with a level of detail rarely seen. This was especially apparent in visual UI work. Conversely the initial 70%, or big thinking, was slightly rougher to achieve. Two countries, both huge in technology, with somewhat opposing problems. This became my curious head scratcher, and I wanted to learn more.

Given the issues and connections I was seeing, I decided to go straight to the source and start to ask the offices I had worked with, as well as other designers I found through my various networks about these issues. These are just the initial thoughts I’ve started to gather. I plan to interview many more people with what I’ve deemed my curiosity research project, but thought it would be interesting to share a few of the insights I’ve gathered thus far to give a view to others who work with these countries. Given the format of Johnny Holland, I’ve kept these short, but often there are great (and sometimes very amusing) stories behind each point.

India

In interviewing people thus far there have been three points that have so far come forward

1. The “Does it work?” principle: This appears to be the strongest rationale the attributes to the lack of detail I discuss above. In talking with designers in India they stressed that with Indian culture, given their daily life, the details are often a luxury. For example, in the morning they must think of how to get work, making food, washing clothes, getting fresh water, and taking kids to school among other things. Simply from a cultural and living conditions standpoint there is a strong focus on getting by. Details are a luxury that many don’t have in this society. Europe and America have the basics taken care of, which allows them to culturally focus on the details of what a water bottle looks like, having a specific cut to jeans, or separate forks for salad, soup, and cereal.
2. Schools have become a common thread in most of my interviews. For the most part I’ve only found three schools named when discussing design and user experience specifically, with the National Institute of Design (NID) being the top. This school was more of less started by C&R Eames during their work with the Indian government. Secondarily within schools that exist for teaching design, there appears to be a lack of process and design thinking, with a stronger weight on the final product. This type of oversight may account for the lack of innovative software UX. In the end, there just isn’t a strong student community or education around design, which would then carry into the workforce culture.
3. As a last and very logical point, we just haven’t used India as a country to outsource software and technology design experiences, so there has been no reason for them to exercise that muscle, as a result, it’s never been grown. The corollary I was presented with when talking with a designer in India was to think of UX in the US around the 1980’s. It was there, but just barely. It had just started to be cultivated as a solid field.

In the end, we’re asking India to apply Western techniques that have been developed from specific cultural surroundings but have never been part of daily life in their culture. While we tend to overlook it, when I hear people talk about it, it’s almost a “duh, how did I miss that” moment. To be reminded of this, has certainly been an eye opener.

China

With China I’ve been able to get to less people, but found these two points of interest.

1. Waiting for commands/chain of command/questioning commands. I’ve seen this in several Asian countries, so it’s not without expectation that China has the same issue. Chain of command and management plays a very strong role in corporations. When you’re handed a command from your manager, you are attentive to that command, and you are more or less at the mercy of your superior in a way. In addition, decisions made by superiors are often less questioned. This means less room for rigorous debate of ideas or pushing back on potential bad decisions. Often with the UX field, the debate can make or break a product. It gives way to new ideas and innovation. Without that, it’s somewhat expected that products may not be as innovative and strong as they could be. If your ultimate goal is to please your manager, it’s easy to see how the details can play a big factor. Ideas and principles are hard to measure, but the physical details are much easier, making a UX culture ripe for lack of conceptual play, and tight on measurable specifics. With the focus on details, can often come a lack of being able to see the 10,000 foot view, playing into the idea of the last 30% is strong, whereas the broad 70% can be a struggle.
2. Second, I’ve found in my discussions, success is often achieved from mastering old techniques. For example, calligraphy is mastered successfully from studying old masters, but there isn’t high praise given to striking out your own path and finding new innovative ways to approach the discipline. Therefore, the desire is to achieve parody of something, not strike out to create something new. With what I’ve seen working with various teams, this echoes true for me. The ability to create great work from a detailed system is amazing, but to blaze new trails is a long, difficult, and tough road.

I’ve discovered a wealth of cultural information from these discussions and as I mentioned, these few points are just the start and the most interesting I’ve found. I’m not exactly clear what my desired outcome is, as this started as a simply curiosity issue, but I hope it’s also piqued others interest from reading this.

Global focus

If we really want to move towards a more global focus in our teams, and a better age of thinking and design, we must develop a strong appreciation and understanding of the other cultures we work with. It’s not a nicety, but a necessity. Especially if you manage teams across these countries. The rise of these two specific countries, with cultures so different from Europe and the US, points to a specific need to understand what drives them, and why they have developed into what they are. This understanding will help everyone in finding the path to greater partnerships.

These links may provide some additional thoughts for those interested

• Hans Rosling talking at TED about Asia’s rise
• Devdutt Pattanaik discusses east vs west; the myths that mystify
• Charles and Ray Eames on design for India

Do you feel I’m incorrect on these cultural statements? What to give your perspective? Are you part of the workforce in one of these countries mentioned or worked with them? Let me know and I’d love to set up some time to chat over the phone and continue collecting information.

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything for Johnny, which I apologize for. I’ll keep this as a short observation piece on what I’ve seen in the last several years and what I’d like to see moving forward. I’m Interested in any comments others might have.

Stereotypes

Sometime ago, I watched a video of a Microsoft developer conference where one of the speakers was discussing the Expression Blend applications; tools to help the designer/developer workflow. When it was time, the presenter turned around, put on a beret, turned back around, and pretended to be a designer. Referencing arrive to work at 10am, doing 15 minutes of work before it was time for an espresso and a break before lunch. The talk and subsequent online video infuriated designers at Microsoft [and other companies], who accused Microsoft of not understanding design; what we did, how we worked, and ultimately our value to the company.

Three years later I saw a talk from a design group at a software company with several other people from Microsoft. The presentation discussed how the group worked separate from the rest of the team (Project Management, Development, QA). How they had a cool office with coffee makers, Eames chairs, and different spacious layouts with designer desks. They talked of taking funny pictures of themselves with mustaches and goofing around with each other at work. They noted it was a “designer” culture.

The irony of the two talks seemed to escape most people…

All the designers at the second talk were enamored and wanted to be part of that team… except me. Perhaps I was the odd man out. It’s not that deep down I wasn’t slightly jealous of the cool space and fancy presentation, but I’ve found that creating a separate culture in a team can create animosity between internal teams and can separate the desired outcome (what design wants) from the real outcome (what the team can build).

All-inclusive teams

The best teams I’ve worked with have been inclusive of all disciplines. In the case of my company, we’re all here to raise the price of our stock and we do that by making great products that sell. In that way, I look at myself as a designer who ships things, not just creates them. Steve Jobs once said “real artists ship.” I’m not surrounded by Eames chairs and typographic magazines. It’s not that I don’t want those things, but I don’t require them to be creative. Great creativity comes from a great team, not great things. It comes from great partnerships, and with those, it determines the quality of the product and experience. It’d be great to have a creative area for my team, but it’s also be great to have a creative building for the entire product team. Why limit it to just a few people?

Great creativity comes from a great team, not great things.

My ask to fellow designers is simple. For those of you who work in software companies, or any large corporation where there is more than a design team. Think of your success measured for what you do with the entire team. Don’t state success as the coolest concept you can make, how much design furniture your office has, or how the design team in particular has a great culture. Don’t segment yourself or think you somehow deserve something special because you’re creative. Create a culture that focuses on the creative and experience. Create that atmosphere, that feeling, for the entire team. Measure your success on bringing great products to market and creating amazing experience. Get creativity from great partnerships. Give other people a chance to be creative, give other people a chance to share ideas and inspiration. Let in the ideas from the developers, from the marketing team… don’t worry that you’re not creating it all. Yes, we are unique, but so is everyone else, and we need to leverage that. A lot of people have really good ideas, and sometimes we miss them because we get so wrapped up in where the idea comes from. Use everyone around you to be more creative. Form those great partnerships, and change the culture.

Everyone reading this knows what a brainstorm is (I hope). I want to review a bit about the process I’ve used to find success in brainstorms, why they are helpful, and how they can be more successful in a corporate environment. If you work in an agency, this may not be as helpful, but might offer an interesting perspective. For those in the corporate environment, I hope this will help give you new ideas and erode old beliefs.

At a basic level, if done well, running brainstorms can show leadership and faster ROI for a team. If you can help the team create and develop ideas in a short session instead of weeks sitting alone, it makes you pretty valuable asset. Brainstorming is also great for engaging the full team and solicit their ideas. By “the full team”, I don’t just mean Design or UX, it’s also development, test (or QA), Project Managers… everyone. It’s important that designers get rid of the idea that we’re the only creative people on a team. Everyone is creative, some people are simply more creative, and others show it in different ways. People think in all different ways, but a good idea is the same no matter who says it.

Win them over

After accepting the fact that everyone can be creative, you can start to collaborate with people more productively. In addition to the great ideas you can get, you’ll also win over people. Many times developers or QA aren’t asked for their ideas, so the simple act of asking can get them excited and involved. Plus they will most likely be more dedicated and work harder when they’ve got the feeling they were involved in the early proces of the product.

Many times developers or QA aren’t asked for their ideas, so the simple act of asking can get them excited and involved

Let me assure everyone reading that I’m not telling you to allow a developer or someone else to make a design decision, but to simply get their ideas. In the corporate environment, another fallacy to wear away is that the designer always has to come up with the idea. This puts a lot of pressure on designers, but if you believe good and great ideas are hidden anywhere on the team, all you need to do is find them. Once you find all the ideas, the job of a designer is to tell a great story, make it simple, usable, and culturally relevant. That process and thinking is where the real design work comes in. Good ideas can be cheap, telling a great story takes a lot of time and thinking… but let’s get back to the ideas.

Involve people who want to be involved

When you do brainstorms, don’t involve people who don’t want to be involved. I’ve run a few sessions where people didn’t want to be involved or didn’t think they could contribute and sit quietly. Since I’m not in an agency, it’s not on my shoulders to try and make everyone look good in a meeting. So when someone isn’t interested, I leave them out, but let them know as an FYI in case they change their mind. A session with one negative person can quickly take the whole session down and drain the energy in the room.

It’s also important to get people to feel inspired. On the last project I worked on, we all went to see Wall-e to kick off the project. In addition to that we reviewed sites, objects, or products we all enjoyed and thought were cool. Somewhat of a warm up exercise to get us thinking broad so we didn’t stay in a software mindset. I’ve seen IDEO, Frog, and a few other companies put toys and object on the table during the brainstorm. Whatever the team finds helpful; if it works, go for it!

On the last project I worked on, we all went to see Wall-e to kick off the project.

Types of brainstorming

There are two style of brainstorming I most often use for corporate teams. One is what I call Improv Brainstorming, and it pulls from… Improv comedy. The second is a simple round robin approach, which I’ve seen many times. For any brainstorm, these are general rules of engagement I have. Several are pulled from IDEO.

• Be visual
• Defer judgment
• Stay focused
• One person talking at a time (I’ve heard people dispute this, but it works for me)
• Defined agenda

For improv brainstorming I use these rules and processes:

• Start with a single idea
• Build on that idea
• Offshoot other ideas or just start with a new concept
• Use a moderator to help guide ideas and conversation
• Have ideas in your back pocket to restart things in case they get stalled

For round robin brainstorming I set it up in the following way:

• Everyone has N minutes to sketch a few ideas on their own
• Everyone presents their ideas
• Team votes on a few core ideas
• Another individual round for N minutes dedicated to those ideas
• Present again / repeat

Hopefully all of that will give you one idea to use in your work place. I’m simple, so if you walk away with just a single idea, that’s enough for me. Someone once told me that it’s not what you know that’s important, it’s what you don’t. If that’s true, brainstorming certainly is a way to get to the important stuff fast.

Image by Jakob Botter

Over the last few years, social computing has been relegated to asynchronous websites like FaceBook and Twitter, where users connect with many people and their collective information is harvested for the larger group. However these are still largely individually actions, not synchronous… yet we call it “social”. I would like to expand that definition.

Think of a computer where you sit down and work simultaneously with your friend. Imagine you and your friends all playing a game or solving a problem at the same time on the same computer. This has been one of the key aspects of our vision at Microsoft Surface. As I’ve presented over the last year on Surface, I’ve talked a lot about the aspects of social computing. Initially when I started on the team I was skeptical of social computing as Surface defines it: multiple people working around a single computer. Since that time, I have seen some of the great innovations and situations that Surface style social computing allows. With its vision system (instead of capacitive or infra-red), Surface can recognize 52 simultaneous points of touch, as well as physical objects, making it a computer for a truly social environment.

Social computing is described as the intersection between social behavior and computing systems, and often in somewhat ambiguous computational terms. I question how much of what happens on social sites like FaceBook [et al] is really social (I don’t often come to work sharing a list of 25 personal oddities about myself). The only real social aspect is that you’re sharing items with other people in an easy way across geographic divides. Although the web seems like a macrocosm of that definition. I’m not sure why things like instant messaging are not considered social computing, but they are more social than most sites bearing that label.

I would like to implore readers to expand their definition of the term social computing and realize it can apply to many more situations than it currently is; those being actual social situations. I would describe that as what Surface is aspiring to be, the first true social computer. It provides context and use for multiple people, on all sides. Although true social computing can be done with a single computer and two or more people, it may not be optimal. Below are a few of the ways I’ve come to think about social computer usage:

• Driver as a presenter: this happens when you’re showing someone a YouTube video
• Driver (w/ an influencer or back seat driver): this happens when you’re searching the internet for someone and someone is telling you what do type in
• Turn taking: passing a laptop back and forth to share information
• Simultaneous: both playing a game on Microsoft Surface. I’ll call this synchronous social activities. Very different from the three above it

Of course none of what I describe here is the current way we define social computing, which is why I’m asking people to expand their thinking. Perhaps there is another word to describe these situations? Whatever happens, it’s become clear to me that the computer cannot simply stay as the personal device it has been and designers should begin to think about social proximity activities and behaviors. As technology becomes more pervasive and cultures become more acquiesced to computers, there will be a need and desire to continue and expand the social aspects.

As an aside, while I bring up Surface several times in my posts, please don’t take that for blindly selling the technology. I am very aware of its flaws and issues, and part of my opportunity at Microsoft is to make those better. For those interested, here is my talk from MIX09 on Surface and touch computing where I discuss both my love and discomforts on those topics.

In my first article I laid some ground work discussing touch as part of an ecosystem and the matrix of inputs available for people to interact with systems. In this article we’ll look at making things a little more complicated by adding in different technologies, form factors, and the cardio effect of touch.

Even when narrowing the input method solely to touch, designers are still faced with a complex matrix of issues that they may not yet be aware of. Let’s consider orientation the first variable in this equation. Are you designing for a horizontal, vertical, or tilted system? In the media today, such as CNN, we mostly see vertical touch walls. A few years ago you could barely find companies developing these, and now the field is fast filling up with companies using different technologies, sizes, price points, and interaction techniques to develop their systems. Until touch walls are really commoditized, I don’t see them moving much beyond novelty and “cool” factor. Not that I’m complaining, anything that gets touch more into the public eye is good business for me. Although as designers we must not become jaded to the fact that most people have not used touch walls… or touch computers beyond an airport kiosk or ATM, despite what we may think.

Continuing on vertical systems, I’m not sure how many readers here have tried one, but while they are cool for show-off factor, there is one key piece of information people forget. Holding your arms up to use a vertical touch system makes you tired. It’s not easy, and not much fun after a few minutes. Hence why none of these technologies are made for serious personal use at this point. Of course the other aspect besides the cardio work out, is accuracy. When holding your arms out, people tend not to be super accurate because they must fight gravity. A horizontal system can produce better accuracy in that respect [although there is still the fat-finger concern], but may have issues from wrists or elbows acting as accidental inputs. Extrapolating some basic starting points, use Fitts’s law, make things large, try to determine accidental contacts, and utilize transient tasks for vertical orientations.

All that in the simple aspect of vertical and horizontal, and we haven’t even begun yet. In addition to orientation, designers must start to think about technology and form. With Windows 7 introducing touch, designers will now see touch becoming a more common interaction commodity on personal computers. Looking at the mouse and keyboard, the positive aspect is they’re standardized technologies. A mouse is always represented with a cursor, the same way every time. The keyboard has the same keys and same layout [within a given culture]. Despite different technologies and hardware manufacturers, there are constants in these tools. Unfortunately touch, manipulation, and gestures do not get the same ease of consistency. Consider the chart below.

This is a small portion of what is available on the market for touch PC’s. Since there isn’t a standard way to provide touch input, different companies are presenting their methods in new and separate proprietary ways. This means tough problems for designers of touch and gesture working across various systems; in other words, anyone designing a touch application for Windows 7. In addition to the basics, like the number of simultaneous touch inputs systems can accept, the difference in technologies means all touch inputs are not created equal. A capacitive system, like the iPhone, relies on energy generated from a person’s body, it needs a person to make a touch. An infrared camera systems, like the HP Touchsmart, relies on having an object break a “blanket” on infrared beams. This means an object (not necessarily a person) can create a touch contact point. Additionally, varying numbers of simultaneous touch inputs means gestural interfaces can be more difficult to design and develop. Adding to these issues, people who design cross platform applications must consider the ability for direct touch on Windows 7 and indirect track pad gesture interactions on an Apple MacBook.

I wish I could offer great suggestions or solutions for how to tackle these problems, but we’re searching for the answers as well. For now I’ll just have the leave with the thought that designing systems for touch will get harder before they gets easier, and I look forward to it. New challenges, new interactions, and adapting the worlds behavior to a new type of input. We have some of the toughest problems around. This isn’t the mouse, this isn’t the keyboard, this isn’t controlled. It’s design in the wild, sometimes out of our control… how will we all work to solve it?

For additional discussion and insight on these topics you can view my interview for the MSDN Channel 9 site.

Initially we only had a keyboard for the command line and text entry. Then the mouse appeared for navigating two dimensional plains of UI. Now the field of computing has a new input toy to play with; our hands. Touch, multi-touch and gestural computing, also known as Natural User Interface (NUI) has become the newest input craze. Excitement around this has even spurred comments predicting the demise of the mouse in the next 3-5 years1. Computer designers (and engineers) have become engrossed with the ability to touch the screen with multiple fingers and control software by waving their arms. However in this excitement, have designers overlooked how to properly engage users and use multi touch to create useful, innovative, and interesting experiences? Perhaps touch and gesture are simply the new shiny objects in the room, soon to be discarded for the next new thing. In my next few articles for Johnny Holland Magazine I’ll look at some of the details of touch and gesture computing and what I’ve learned as a practitioner in the field.

Before I dig in, I want to plug Designing Gestural Interfaces, by Dan Saffer. The book is a great starting guide and reference for anyone looking to get engaged in this field. I’d suggest grabbing a copy if you’re new to the ranks of touch and gesture design.

Touch is but one slice of the pie

Let’s start the journey here. As a designer on Microsoft Surface, we’re uncovering and discovering things as we go. In my work I’ve come to learn quickly that touch, gesture, and NUI are not right for everything. As obvious as this sounds, it’s often overlooked. They should be considered part of an input ecosystem. Each type of input below has unique attributes that make it good for certain types of interactions between users and systems. This is not a comprehensive list, but here are some of the most common input and interaction methods.
•      Keyboard
•      Mouse
•      Stylus
•      Voice
•      Single Point Touch
•      Multi point touch
•      Gesture

Each of these methods have pros or cons associated with them. Text input is a perfect example of a task that touch is rather inadequate for. There is no haptic feedback upon pressing the keys, and there isn’t tactile feedback to touch type. Touch also falls short in applications that require precision, such as Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Office Excel. A mouse would be able to cover ground quicker across the screen and not make the user reach back and forth, as well as more precise in its actions. However when people begin their design of touch, they forget all this, and seemingly everything else.

When not done properly, touch and gesture can appear as a step backwards..

A belief I’ve heard is touch can be so compelling, people will forget the inadequacies, when in reality, it only serves to shine a light on the downfalls of touch. When not done properly, touch and gesture can appear as a step backwards. The (design) problem takes a back seat to the “innovation” of touch. My advice for any designer approached by a client in need of a touch system (holding pictures of Tom Cruise in Minority Report) is make sure to evaluate the problem first. Make sure the interaction fits the needs. Again, the key point is to consider touch as part of an input eco-system, and not view it always as the sole method of device interaction. Not all input methods are equal.

This early thinking has led me to squarely declare that tap is not the new click, which is something I’ve heard thrown around, and anyone who believes so lacks an understanding and respect for how to approach different problems and searching for the best method of interaction between a user and a system.

Systematic approach of gesture integration

Most systems utilizing touch are purely touch based with no addition methods of interaction. This leads to touch being sequestered from other interactions, thus making it more of a user burden to learn. When a new behavior is introduced into a working knowledge system, it can be easier to absorb. In their recent laptops, Apple has taken an approach of incorporating touch into their behavior and input systems by using the track pad. In doing so they have managed to introduce and teach people touch and gesture behaviors in a method users already accept (the track pad). In addition, they are beginning to train people to move between input modes, from track pad mouse, to gesture, to keyboard, depending on the task. These types of associations allow for a better learning and input experience. On the flip side, the gesture actions are secondary to the main system, so they can be ignored fairly easily. It will be interesting to see if this makes gesture and touch easier to adopt, or if people will disregard it.

Top image by pinksherbet