Occasionally, amidst the rapid rise and fall of trends, fashion and fancy, we are faced with true revolution: paradigm shifts that throw out excess baggage of some kind and usher in new ways of thinking and seeing altogether. The catch is that you need to have the benefit of hindsight to truly measure their effectiveness. With this in mind, I believe that the interaction design community is witnessing an important revolution — an ‘IxD Bauhaus’ of sorts.

I’d like to start with architecture and its recent history, and then compare it with current changes in the way interaction design is being conceived and made. Lastly I’d like to discuss the effects of such a revolution in architecture, and provoke thought on what the implications might be for the design of user experience.

Remembering the Bauhaus:  a call to end ornamentation in the built environment

The Bauhaus Movement (1918-1933) was based on a German revival of a purer, honest design representation in architecture, art, typography and product design. Its philosophy celebrated an austere functionalism with little or no ornamentation. It advocated a use of industrial materials and inter-disciplinary methods and techniques. The  Bauhaus aesthetic and beliefs were influenced by and derived from techniques and materials employed especially in industrial fabrication and manufacture. Artists included Paul Klee, Wassilli Kandinsky, and Feininger. Architects and designers included Mies Van der Rohe, Phillip Johnson, Walter Gropius, Lazlso Moholy-Nagy and several others.

Walter Gropius who at Columbia University (March, 1961) clarified the intention of the Bauhaus saying -

“The Bauhaus was not concerned with the formulation of timebound, stylistic concepts, and its technical methods were not ends in themselves. It was created to show how a multitude of individuals, willing to work concertedly but without losing their identity, could evolve a kinship of expression in their response to the challenges of the day. Its aim was to give a basic demonstration of how to maintain unity in diversity, and it did this with the materials, techniques, and form concepts germane to its time. It was this method of approach that was revolutionary…”

This movement was a true revolution because prior to its time, the built environment had bloated in stimuli, caused by an excess of decor and ‘pastry-work’. As early as 1908, the Austrian architect Adolf Loos had said that architectural ornament was criminal, and his essay on that topic would become foundational to Modernism and eventually trigger the careers of Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Alvar Aalto,Mies van der Rohe and Gerrit Rietveld and other Bauhaus masters. The Modernists embraced these equations—form follows function, ornament is crime—as moral principles, and they celebrated industrial artifacts like steel water towers and other ‘Machine Age’ construction as brilliant and beautiful examples of plain, simple design integrity.

The Bauhaus liberated construction from the excessive need for ornamentation as a means of expression, be it in art, typography, graphic design or architecture. One of the main objectives of the Bauhaus was to unify art, craft, and technology. It freed itself from the shackles of historical ‘styling’ and attempted to create a fresh order of primary principles. Such radical thinking enabled a celebration of the purity and honesty of structure and looking for truth in things be it on a 2-dimensional canvas or a building. Anyone who’s marvelled at the Barcelona Pavillion or the Barcelona Chair (both designed by Van der Rohe) has experienced the essence of what the movement stood for.

The Bauhaus’s philosophy was that form should follow function and all other distractions and decoration should be avoided. It wanted space to be experience for its purity, stripped off all the ‘dirt’ and clutter of decor. This is something that’s been happening recently in the field of visual interaction design.

Cantilevered chair by Marcel Breuer

What’s the ‘IxD Bauhaus’ about?

If you’re the kind of interaction designer who starts getting a gradient-itch or delights in making buttons look like glass – think again. The times they are a-changin’.

There was a time when our sense of ‘modern’ in the user-interface was driven by concepts like these -

Concepts for the Windows Media Player by frog

Examine the words used to describe such a concept – “… a rich palette of visual surfaces for the media player and taskbars, giving XP a unique, consistent design language that challenges the traditional digital media experience. Analog-style, “rubberized” buttons on the skin of Windows Media Player offer classic, intuitive navigation and avoid the hyper-technical feel of other online players. Brushed aluminum textures, rich colors, and dimensional lighting add a satisfying tactile quality to the user’s online interactions, lending the experience a sense of the real.” The term often used to describe this kind of UI is skeumorphic. If pre-industrial revolution construction suffered from ‘nature-envy’, skeumorphic visual user experiences suffer from ‘object-envy’.

To quote an explanation from FastCompany’s article on it – Skeuomorphic apps take pains to reference or mimic physical, real-world features in their user interfaces. Apple is the current king of this design style, enshrining skeuomorphics in its Human Interface Guidelines: “Whenever possible, add a realistic, physical dimension to your application. The more true to life your application looks and behaves, the easier it is for people to understand how it works and the more they enjoy using it.”

Skeumorphic UI

It’s tough to compete with a force as dominant as Apple, in the realm of beautiful user-experiences, but the release of the Windows Phone 7 design guideline (codenamed: Metro), an impending revolution has been made official. The new IxD Bauhaus’ basic principle is that ‘Form follows Data’.

The Windows Phone 'Metro' Design Language

Windows Phone’s new design language is inspired by print in the digital age. Let’s examine the words used by their team (extracted from Mike Kruzeniski’s blog) to describe their UI design principles -

• Clean, Light, Open and Fast
• Alive in Motion
• Celebrate Typography
• Content, Not Chrome
• Authentically Digital

One could almost use these words to describe Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavillion, for example -

• Clean, Light, Open and Fast (Open space, pure exposed beautiful material)
• Alive in Motion (through albeit static sweeping horizontal lines in the design language)
• Celebrate Typography (celebrating structure – making it boldly present)
• Content, Not Chrome (no decor, just beautiful clean spaces)
• Authentically Digital (authentically physical)

Visual motion in the Barcelona Pavillion

There are so many examples that are beginning to exemplify this philosophy, some better than others. Examples of this ‘IxD Bauhaus’ (to name a few) are -

Flipboard for iPad, The Puma Phone,

The Fluid App for iPad and iPhone, Wired app for iPad

Some design their visual interaction with fiercely reductionist vigor. Others still show hints of a gradient itch. The revolution however, is definitely underway. Increasingly, our apps and OS’s hint on letting us focus on our lives and tasks and ‘getting the job done’ by focussing on ‘content rather than chrome’.

Increasingly, our apps and OS’s hint on letting us focus on our lives and tasks and ‘getting the job done’ by focussing on ‘content rather than chrome’.

This is an exciting and most welcome change in visual interaction design. It is also a huge challenge for designers, content-providers and business groups.  Inorder to see the revolution thrive and prosper – all these interest groups need to work even more closely. We need to learn lessons from history and not make the same mistakes.

The Good, the Bad, and the Boxy: What can visual interaction designers learn from the Bauhaus?

The point of this article is not to acknowledge revolution. That’s been done already and perhaps more eloquently. This stream of thought would like to probe the consequences of such a ‘reductivist’ philosophy and draw parallel lessons from history.

The Bauhaus movement had immeasurable value in shaping modern architecture and design to what it is today, but it also faced severe criticism. After living in them, or owning Bauhaus furniture – several found them to be too impersonal, sterile and devoid of any emotional value. All houses started to look vaguely similar, offices became cubicle graveyards while Bauhaus masterpiece-inspired furniture design knock-offs looked tacky and boring. Since the moved was fuelled by World War II and an industrial wave of mass production it killed ‘craft’ and ensured a sameness in the objects we started seeing around us. This was both good and bad.

Jacques Tati’s ‘Playtime’ (1967) was a brilliant cinematic critique of the ‘glass and steel’ forest that modern life had become as a result of the Bauhaus.

Jacques Tati's Playtime

Lets quickly summarize why the Bauhaus was important for design history, but was frequently criticized in people’s lives -

• Not all material is worthy of celebration, not all content is beautiful too.
  The Bauhaus movement was a huge challenge not only to designers but also to the people providing engineering, construction and material services. Everyone needed to up their game in order to make a beautiful chair, poster or building. Any compromise in quality ensured that material/content was revealed as poor in quality and tacky in appearance.In today’s times business owners, content-providers and other interest groups need to do some serious soul searching to ensure that their content alone will carry their online experience through? Just like in the Bauhaus movement, bad quality wood looked tolerable when it was decorated or concealed. The moment one stripped them off decor – it exposed nothing but ugliness.
• Beauty is in the details, construction, and structure.A bad visual experience will now be judged, not by the beautiful ‘glassiness’ of its buttons, but by its inherent structure and little details that are made to manifest from inside out. Interaction designers and developers alike need to collaborate more closely to ensure that experiences are built inside-out, rather than designers applying ‘skins’ to a detached user-experience development platform. Wireframing experiences in close collaboration with developers and content-providers, detailing points of interaction without applying visual clutter will suddenly become a bottom-line in interaction design.
• Ensuring familiarity without losing brand value and character.
  Visual interaction designers will now be faced with the stiff challenge of creating identity, character and uniqueness without the easier palette of ‘decor’. A failure to create differences could lead to familiar ‘Bauhaus problems’ of sameness and monotony.
• Industrial processes drove the Bauhaus, software development processes are driving the ‘IxD Bauhaus’.
  Mass production, industrial fabrication, pre-cast components and material technology spurred the Bauhaus movement to fruition in its time. Today, we need to acknowledge that the reductionist IxD revolution is being caused by a larger understanding that ‘apps’ might be the way forward in a ‘Cloud’ computing world. Designers, engineers and developers would need to ensure that pre-cast components were designed well, almost as ‘toolboxes’ in the design of user experiences so that parts were repetitive without being too rigid. Visual interaction designers would need to think big and small simultaneously – keeping overall architecture in mind while resolving smaller details.
• When all facades are glass, its hard to know where the door is
  Knowing when and how to provide cues for interaction becomes even more crucial for the design of a good user experience. Windows Phone does this through minimal, yet intuitive animations that delight and inform users. Other app-experiences and platforms need to think of their own ways of solving this problem. Since buttons need no longer look like buttons, designers need to ensure clarity in design language using color, typography, or other material to differentiate interactive elements from static ones.

Conclusion: How much of less is more?

The main question here is not when or where the ‘IxD Bauhaus’ movement began. Or if it exists at all.

It is more important to recognize this reductionist behavior as a refreshingly welcome change in how we plan and design our visual interactive experiences. While we can no longer conceal mediocre interaction design behind the facade of decoration and fluff, several questions remain unanswered. How much can we reduce, without compromising on usability , cognition and emotion? How much can we strip experiences of cues (formerly done through decor) without making them sterile?

Even though the movement is in its early days in mobile, table and desktop visual interaction design, its implications will be broad and deep, regardless of commercial performance. A lot of the movement’s success depends on how users accept such a reductionist approach to visual interactive experiences where there are many hidden cues and authentic digital behavior. It remains to be seen how users respond to the lack of familiarity in the new UX metaphors that were formerly mimicking the physical world.

We all like personalization, customization and a feeling of ownership of the objects and services that we interact with and consume. The Windows Phone Design Team has done a great job of showing the user their relevant content on an interactive start-screen experience. How will others respond, without setting off another clone assembly line that mimics rather than acts authentic? While personally praying for the success of such a school of  thought and action, there are hurdles that we need to be clear about and prepare ourselves for that would rush to quash the revolution at the first signs of duress.

If the Bauhaus movement in the early part of last century failed to resonate with users for reasons that we’ve discussed – can we as designers prepare ourselves to meet the challenges ahead?

——-

Marcel Breuer chair from Wikipedia
Skeumorphic UI from Fastcodesign
Concept sketches from frogdesign
Barcelona Pavillion from Travel with Frank Gehry
Barcelon Pavillion details from Sketchucation

Have you ever needed a user manual to sit on a good chair? Probably not. When we see a good chair, we almost always know exactly what to do, how to use it and what not to do with it. And yet, chairs are made by the thousands, and several challenge these base assumptions to become classics in their own right. The chair is one of the most universally recognized archetypes known to us. In light of recent events in the mobile realm, I believe that the stage is set to probe notions of archetypes in the mobile space.

Archetypes

Archetype: An archetype (pronounced /ˈɑrkɪtaɪp/) is an original model of a person, ideal example, or a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated; a symbol universally recognized by all. (wikipedia)

[Note: There is a deep philosophical definition of archetype as proposed by Carl Jung. This article is not based on that form of definition.]

The word archetype has its roots in architectural theory. It also deals with cognition at its most basic level. In a very generic way—points, lines and planes are archetypes in graphic design. Columns, walls, floors, roofs are archetypes in architecture.

When we see a flight of stairs, our cultural memory and experiences kick in. They teach us that stairs signify climbing, doors represents portals between zones and chairs are (usually) something you sit on. We seldom think much about them. Experience makes us learn, encode and remember these archetypes, making us react spontaneously to them. The degree to which archetypes are understood varies greatly between cultures. Interestingly, archetypes can always be deconstructed, challenged or probed since they merely act as starting points of reference. There are innumerable examples of archetypes that have been reintroduced to us in the most puzzling ways in order to question our own understanding of them; for example Escher’s illustration below, which turns the stair archetype on its head.

… archetypes can always be deconstructed, challenged or probed since they merely act as starting points of reference.

Escher deconstructs the chair archetype

Archetypes vs Metaphors

With all the press that metaphor gets in UX, it’s worth pointing our how it is different from the archetype. Metaphors are analogies between two objects or ideas, conveyed by the use of one word instead of another. In interaction models, metaphors are different from archetypes in the sense that they are the conceptual transference of an idea/archetype into another more tangible form that becomes more easily understood. The archetype is the original idea/model in itself.  An obvious example of metaphors in industrial design are when chairs are inspired by nature.

Tulip Chair inspired by an obvious metaphor

Further Reading on Archetypes

For more information on archetypes, the book Form, Space and Order by Francis D. Ching is a good introduction to archetypes in architecture (for lateral understanding). My graduate research thesis in architecture also dealt with archetypes, and it is this understanding that motivated me to seek and understand archetypes in interaction design.

Mobile UX Archetypes

Our ever-increasing mobile interaction with our World implies that we are creating, consuming and sharing content constantly on the go. We already have about 1 billion net-enabled cellular devices, according to the Hammersmith Group report on the Internet of Things. We’re checking mail, updating statuses, sharing personal data and browsing constantly using little computers in our pockets. Over time, one could expect a certain familiarity to set in with the different mannerisms and modes with which we find ourselves interacting. Can we look at a user interface and guess what it’s going to do for us? If the answer is a tentative yes, it probably means its interaction model is based on a common archetype.

Can we look at a user interface and guess what it’s going to do for us? If the answer is a tentative yes, it probably means its interaction model is based on a common archetype.

A few months ago, my experience of mobile archetypes at a macro-level appeared predictable. The iPhone and its subsequent ‘cousins’ seemed to be what you’d expect from a mobile operating system. Without any qualitative leanings to its effectiveness, the recent release of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 series and Kin phones inspired me to examine the differences in mobile archetypes that I’d encountered.

In the absence of academic definitions, one could define Mobile User Experience (MUX) Archetypes to be ‘prototypes’ that are or might rapidly become models for future everyday mobile interaction behavior. They are overarching experience patterns that we, the Mobile Generation, will have poked, prodded and swiped countless times during our lives. Over time, these interactions would most likely have formed cognitive roadmaps in our cultural memory, paving the way for more thought-free acts while using technology. We would expect interactions to occur in certain ways, and would be surprised and often annoyed when they would not meet our expectations.  When someone reinvents an archetype (like Facebook did to email), it makes us pause, think and readjust our behavior.

My criteria for selecting these archetypes were:

1. These are archetypes on the foundations of which a part or whole mobile user experience can be conceived.
2. Most exist out there on mobile devices, while others seem destined to enter this space soon.
3. They are mostly screen-based interactions (for now).

The groups and examples chosen are sub-sets as well as super sets. For example, Facebook is by itself a super-set of many smaller metaphors and archetypes. These would be subsets of the Facebook family, but might have UX archetypes of their own.

Archetypes as subsets and supersets

The MUX Archetypes I propose are:

1. Application Centric
2. Activity Centric
3. Timeline Centric
4. Context (Location) Centric
5. Process/Task Centric
6. Emotion Centric
7. People/Identity Centric

1. Application Centric

In such a MUX archetype, the applications make the interaction experience. The OS of the software are predominantly engines that can run and manage applications or ‘apps’. These ‘apps’ become the tools with which the device is made useful to us. App-centric OS’s like the Apple iPhone/iPad platform result in the interaction being likened more to a Swiss-army knife. The ‘start experience’ or the archetype that one is greeted with most while using these app-centric platforms are usually some form of smorgasbord of the apps that are on the device.

iPhone

G1 Android Phone

Samsung bada

(Examples: Google Android, Samsung bada, Microsoft Surface)

2. Activity Centric

In activity-centric MUX archetypes the focus shifts to the activities that one intends to perform with the interaction. The activities make the interaction experience. These are usually represented visually and placed in an easily accessible sequence. The most obvious example in recent times has been the Windows Phone 7 series, which advocated a direct ‘content-first’ approach. It mapped the most important activities of the user on its ‘start experience’, with a secondary emphasis on ‘apps’.

Windows Phone 7

(Examples: Windows Phone 7, Zune, the original iPod, Sony PS3)

3. Timeline Centric

Timeline centric MUX archetypes focus on time as a material. In these archetypes, the user is invariably manipulating, tweaking, dragging and experiencing data with time as a prime focus. The latest example is the release of the Microsoft KIN phones where the stripped user interface focuses on timeline centric features like the Loop and the Spot.

MIcrosoft KIN

The Whale Hunt by Jonathan Harris

Nike+ stats

(Examples: Microsoft KIN, ‘The Whale Hunt’ by Jonathan Harris, Nike+ stats, Mint, EDI monitors, MIDI-channel mixers etc.)

4. Context (Location) Centric

Contextual/location centric MUX archetypes ride the wave of GPS and its interweaving with social networking. In these archetypes, the user is invariably ‘checking in’ (or actually checking out) places based on GPS mapping and other ways of stitching locational data together. A great example of this is the Photosynth, which takes a user’s photos, mashes them together and recreates a 3D scene out of them that anyone can view and move around in. Applications like Layar use information about your location to augment the real world as seen through your mobile phone.

Gowalla

Photosynth

Layar

align=”alignleft”
(Examples: Foursquare, Gowalla, Photosynth, Layar etc.)

5. Process/Task Centric

These MUX archetypes enable a user to achieve certain tasks by describing the process in a sequential way. These archetypes invariably carry a ‘trail of breadcrumbs,’ enabling the user to journey back and forth through the process while following instructions. These archetypes would usually resort to a tying element of some sort during a process of educating the user. This thread would lead the user by the hand (or eye!) through the process.

20 minute meals

Popular Science+ iPad app

(Example: Jamie Oliver’s ’20 minute meal’ app, Tutorial section of the Popular Science+ iPad app etc.)

5. Emotion Centric

Jonathan Harris’ We Feel Fine project epitomize an emotion-centric interaction archetype. Even though this model has not (to my knowledge) been implemented on a mobile platform yet, it seems loaded with potential. Jonathan Harris describes the interface to the data collected on ‘We Feel Fine’ as “a self-organizing particle system, where each particle represents a single feeling posted by a single individual.”

We Feel Fine

(Example: ‘We Feel Fine’ by Jonathan Harris etc.)

6. People/Identity Centric

This MUX-archetype is most familiar with users of any social networking platform. Your identity and the identities of the various contacts in social networks to which you belong to are the prime focus for such an archetype. They are almost invariably centered around ‘status updates’ of some kind, leading to a stream of news about different identities.

Vodafone 360

Twitter API (as used in TweetDeck)

(Examples: Vodafone 360, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin etc.)

Why do these archetypes matter?

It is not as important to debate the accuracy in grouping these archetypes as it is to imagine the possibilities of interchanging an expected archetype with another. Thinking in archetypes gives us a unique overview of interaction models and their intrinsic behavior patterns, making it possible to ask interesting what if questions and examine consequences. Archetypes and the overview they provide also help us critique experiential bottlenecks when they occur in designed interactions. Thinking laterally, if the form of a chair did not entice a user to sit on it, then perhaps the form or the formal archetype needed rethinking.

Thinking in archetypes gives us a unique overview of interaction models and their intrinsic behavior patterns, making it possible to ask interesting what if questions and examine consequences.

Our interaction experience of a product or service can vary drastically with the chosen archetype. For example, Twitter status updates are predominantly people/identity centric. What would happen if this archetype were to be inverted to say an ‘emotion-centric’ Linked-In? It might yield a very different experience of how our professional networks are feeling over time.

These are early days in the field of interaction design (especially in the mobile realm). Several MUX models are hugely successful, while most fail to remain relevant. The discussion regarding mobile interaction archetypes must be an ongoing, iterative process with a hope that experience models will mature and stabilize with time and refinement.

I believe that, in the near future, complexity, diversity and an almost ubiquitous presence of mobile interactions are certain. With mature, universal archetypes our designed interactions cold become more intuitive, leaving user manuals obsolete and making experiences more joyful for everyone.

——-

Images:

Escher print: Meridian ; Tulip chair: Design Heaven;  IPhone: GeekWhat; Android:  Blogoscoped; Samsung Bada: Gadgetvenue; Windows 7: All Touch Tablet; The Whale Hunt: Jonathan Harris via Andy Polaine; Nike: Electronica; Photosynth: Architecture Blog; Layar: Layar; Jamie Oliver iPhone App: CBS Interactive; Popular Science: 144Apps; We Feel Fine: We Feel Fine via Change the Thought; Vodafone 360: Geeky Gadgets; Twitter: The D’Alesio Blog

The disciplines of interaction design and architecture share a number of common traits—such as a focus on solving problems for people and encouraging people to interact with products and environments in new and exciting ways—and each discipline can learn much from the other.

These eight videos highlight the work of people who see and celebrate the connections between interaction design and architecture.

The SENSEable City

Carlo Ratti, director of the SENSEable City Lab at MIT, presented this talk at Lift Conference 2009.
Original video

Stewart Brand on the Long Now

Stewart Brand, who is working with computer scientist Danny Hillis to build a 10,000-year timepiece called the Clock of the Long Now, presented this TED talk in 2004.

New Soft City

Dan Hill, a senior consultant at Arup in Sydney, presented this keynote at Interaction ’10. Hill’s presentation was too beautifully described to paraphrase it.

Muti-sensory interaction design now merges with architecture, planning and an urbanism informed by a gentle ambient drizzle of everyday data – and so a new soft city is being created, alive once again to the touch of its citizens.

Changing Things: The Internet of Things is not what you think it is!

Usman Haque, director Haque Design + Research Ltd, founder of Pachube.com and CEO of Connected Environments Ltd., presented this talk at Lift Conference 2009.

The City as an Interaction Platform

In this panel discussion from PICNIC ’09, Ben Cerveny, Greg Skibiski, Adam Greenfield, Beth Coleman and Atau Tanaka discuss how the technology of today and the near future will transform the experience of living in cities.

The Long Here, the Big Now, and Other Tales of the Networked City

Adam Greenfield, head of design direction for Nokia and author of Everyware, presented this talk at PICNIC ’08.

Future urban life will thrive on new modes of perception and experience, based on real-time data and feedback. What will the networked city feel like to its users? How will it transform our sense of the metropolitan?
-Adam Greenfield

Cameron Sinclair on open-source architecture

Accepting his 2006 TED Prize, Cameron Sinclair demonstrates how passionate designers and architects can respond to world housing crises. He unveils his TED Prize wish for a network to improve global living standards through collaborative design.

Architecture that repairs itself?

In this 2009 TEDGlobal, Rachel Armstrong says we need to outgrow architecture made of inert materials; instead, she proposes a not-quite-alive material that repairs itself.

For more videos on UX, don’t forget to check out Johnny TV

———
Header image taken from Dan Hill talk

Great interaction design is a delicious soup. You boil a variety of different ingredients and spices in the right proportion,  and voila – pure bliss! Unlike other branches of design, however,  it’s extremely hard to write a recipe for interaction design. By its very nature, the interaction design process needs to be fluid and dynamic.

Interaction design tingles the complete experience over time. It tastes most satisfying in conditions when multifaceted flavors and ingredients are brought together. The bigger the challenges are —the more diverse and mixed the ingredients need to be. This beautiful paradox sits at the heart of the interaction design menu, very differently from other design cuisines.

During my time as a Master’s degree student in Interaction Design at Umeå (Sweden), I often found our group repeatedly doing the following:

• Obsessing with finding the ‘perfect’ solution to a problem.
• Frequently questioning the value of having mixed, diverse groups of professionals studying Interaction Design together. Were frustrating debates stemming from disparate backgrounds and differences of opinion really the most efficient way to designing interactions?

I haven’t found ’the perfect solution’ yet, but I do believe the process is a lot more interesting. Having experienced the inherent value of a multifaceted approach professionally, I believe that mastery in the interaction design process lies in perfecting those moments when the room is packed with people who won’t share your views and probably don’t have your skills.

Mastering the science of ‘We, not I’.

The quest for perfection and the myth of genius are timeless aspirations that meet with sporadic and rare success. Genius chefs (like genius designers) never seem to be able to cook the same dish twice.  Some modern authors, such as Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers: The Story of Success, debunk the notion of genius altogether. According to Gladwell, even geniuses like Mozart, The Beatles and Bill Gates had more than 10,000 hours of practice at doing what they did—iteratively—constantly improving their craft while focused on process. I believe that a mastery of interaction design process does not rest in divine inspiration and confined sketching (read: genius!). The key probably rests in learning to churn together – a pool of motley professions, backgrounds, skills and interests. Interaction design is a team-sport at its most intense, meaningful climax, and we need to change the way we train for this sport. We need to rearrange our kitchen in order to cook this soup – and we need to do it often, depending on what we’re cooking.

The big hurdle – we’re conditioned to think and act as individuals, not as groups. Could this be the un-learning needed in order to be able to synthesize truly well-rounded experiences?

As a former architect, the process of design was inevitably intensely personal. My colleagues in architecture were all inspired by the singular genius of Corbusier, van der Rohe and Gehry. Moments of solitary and inspired sketching were thought to be the catalysts for the ‘eureka’ moment. Graphic and product design Masters of that era worked in much the same way. Processes in interaction design, on the other hand, seemed to work in quite stark opposites. After migrating to interaction design, students from very different backgrounds were thrown amidst multifaceted peer groups—something many struggled to cope with. A group of motley backgrounds, each with their own stubborn opinions, conflicting ideas, dissimilar skills oft resulted in frustrated groups and heated differences of opinion during projects. Many were left questioning the value and efficiency of such a process. Product and transportation design classmates seldom faced this problem. They were still relatively blissful in the peaceful confines of their work-spaces, diligently pursuing that perfect sketch.

Wouldn’t too many cooks in the interaction design kitchen spoil the broth?

Craters and pinholes in the design of experiences

Our worlds of experience are riddled with commonplace examples of things that we buy and use, only to discover how miserably they perform and disappoint. Products alone seldom bring us delight by existing in isolation—we want them to link well with all other touch-points that a service/experience provide - offer us the complete experience! This is especially true of experiences that marry the behavior of people with physical and digital worlds a.k.a interaction design. In recent times, even architects and urban planners have acknowledged a need to collaborate with policy makers and service providers to create harmonious experiences at architectural, interior and urban scales.

While designing interactive experiences for tomorrow, we are all keen to create usable and desirable experiences that cause viral social innovation. Once perfect solutions are understood as mere aspiration, our goals as designers become the discovery and reiteration of newer methods that reduce ‘craters into pinholes’. I use ‘craters and pinholes’ as metaphors for the relative measure of how well knit the fabric of a designed experience can or should be. My hunch is that craters get reduced to pinholes when you’re working closely and constantly within diverse, multi-faceted teams. By encouraging creative friction – rather than avoiding it, focus is made to shift alternately between the bigger picture and the smallest details.

The interaction design community today is entrusted with creating seamless experiences that focus not just on a product or user interface, but the entire system and its surroundings. This need for holistic experience is rapidly shifting the way teams are being built. A closer look at the diverse compositions of teams at the Nokias, Microsofts and even smaller global design teams across the world and  would confirm this shift in paradigm. No one product, digital experience or pretty user-interface seems to satisfy. We seem to need and delight in experiences that are complete, well-rounded.

A holistic approach to the design of experiences

A holistic approach to design is definitely not alien to us. It involves a simultaneous attention to the bigger picture and the smallest details. Any successful user experience we use today would invariably embrace this practice. Throughout history, master-builders were often architects, painters and craftsmen alike. Post 1950’s, architects and designers like Charles Eames, Mies van der Rohe and Alvar Alto designed cities and chairs with the same design philosophy infused in both. Now more than ever in increasingly complex, transient times, the need for holistic experiences is vital.

Interaction designers sculpt time and data as critical materials (to quote Matt Jones), revolving primarily around understanding the needs of users/cohabitants, technology and business. To approach such design as a ‘whole’ – we need to understand the varying concepts of time and data through the perspectives of cohabitants, technology and business interests alike. We need to become sensitive to the different tastes involved, by bringing the right ‘spices’ closer into our kitchen. A holistic solution begins when we acknowledge that all parts of the triangle have something equally valuable to add to the process. We must constantly re-think our process to become melting pots of ideas, perspectives and skills that not only drill deep, but also wide.

We must constantly re-think our process to become melting pots of ideas, perspectives and skills that not only drill deep, but also wide.

Perfecting the craft of thinking and doing as a whole.

The team I now work with (at Ergonomidesign) has solved problems through design for over 40 years in a vast number of areas. Having solved design problems of various shapes, sizes and complexity, recent clients have frequently entrusted us with transcending realms of problem solving and instead design ‘cultural innovation’. “Think about the bigger picture” is a common task that comes our way. We are increasingly thinking about systems, experiences and objects that might co-habit our World tomorrow.

As the profession of interaction has grown and evolved, so too have our own methods. Our recent projects involved the design of holistic experiences mostly focused around medical systems. However, the lessons learnt from them have been beneficial to us in all our projects. For the projects being discussed our process relied heavily on the Agile method, which necessitates iteration and constant ’design by doing’. We often found ourselves playing a game of calculated ‘musical chairs’ when it came to design discussions. Our team comprised design—strategists, product and interaction designers, cognitive scientists, communications, medical experts, programmers and a host of other professionals—an approach that proved highly fruitful in ensuring the craters were reduced to pinholes.

Here are some experiences that I’d like to share:

• Remove hierarchy, acknowledge specialization – Building multi-faceted, diverse teams bringing different skills and perspective to a project, inevitably led to more comprehensive, well-rounded solutions. This is especially valid when working on service-design or complex systems. While working on design of ‘the bigger picture’ for our medical portfolio, our team ensured that we had enough representation from cohabitants (users), designers, medical experts, technical experts etc. The constant participation of these interest groups was maintained throughout the design process—for creative input and feedback. This caused several disagreements and debates – but the outcome would always nudge us closer to the goal of holistic design. This way we methodically reduced metaphorical gaps and craters.
• Zoom in and out between the bigger picture and the smallest details- Visualize, visualize, visualize! Don’t just talk about an idea—build, test and iterate them! Once we had a motley group of professionals working together, we combined our knowledge and skill to iterate and evolve our concepts. While developing a recent natural user interface (NUI), ideation began with 1:1 scale paper prototypes on A1 sketching blocks. We used transparent papers for UI-components. Once things made sense to everyone, our UX and programming team coded blocks out so that we could test it for real. Tests were shown to specialists within the team for feedback. Our final solution was a hi-fidelity prototype meant for commercial use as well as detailed, well-rounded scenario that showed our clients the bigger picture they so desperately craved. Working with the Agile method made iteration inevitable even when the end goal was not clear (something which is common during the design process, right?) The method also ensured that we were constantly made to zoom into details of a system’s behavior.
• Alternate between individual and collective ideation sessions; create transparent channels for cross-referencing and feedback - During the project, plan enough short sessions of iteration, constantly bringing in other eyes to review and discuss parts of the idea. As a interaction designer, it is almost futile and counter-productive to spend days alone and finally showing it to someone (we tend to do this as designers sometimes).
• Bring in the perspective of inclusive design thinking (critical users) to reduce massive craters – True to our roots as Scandinavian design group, we swear by a participatory, inclusive design approach. Design groups must plan meticulously to include the creative and critical involvement of user groups throughout the process. Even though the term user research and user-tests are now commonplace, it takes great skill for interaction designers to know how and when to collaborate with users. It takes even more insight for a design manager to facilitate their ideas and feedback into the design process.

Open-source culture (among other socio-technical developments) has given the World a successful honest, democratic model where the role of the individual is invariably participatory. Accountability and transparency are the foundations in open-source systems. It is inevitable that while designing for such a World, the essence of open-source is imbibed in the design process. The multifaceted, holistic roller-coaster ride to Interaction Design is definitely an intense challenge, often catching the most experienced professionals off-guard. It requires great planning, understanding and flexibility. Like collaborative efforts in theatre and the performance arts, it involves a close feeling of synergy with those involved. It requires the individual to shed ego and become flexible role-players in diverse, dynamic groups.

In conclusion, while the perfect outcome and solution must always be an aspiration—it is a mastery of this holistic approach to interaction design that helps create the well-woven fabric of an experience. Despite initial frustration, the process inevitably enriches everyone and leads to a superior design and a more enjoyable design process.