Where does design start?

I'm sorry to have to break it to all you software developers out here, but people do not get up in the morning and say "I need a computer-based solution to solve my business problem".

Chop the first bit and you are left with the bit that matters. 

"I need to solve my business problem."

Yes, we may use a computer-based solution to help in the process, but that is not the whole solution. There are other steps in every solution's set of tasks that rely on steps executed offline.

People don't go online to buy a book. They go online to find something to read. People don't use iTunes to download music. They use iTunes to find something they want to listen to. Buying the book and downloading the music is how they reach their goals. The technology is an enabler, and enablers work best when that enablement is as frictionless as possible. 

Good design does that.

So, where am I going with this. I try to look at every problem first as a design problem. Even though I work in software development, I don't see software as the solution. It never is. It is an enabler to the solution. 

I've worked on so many software projects where the business requirements are often based on what they think they need based on just moving their offline process online and not even leveraging the power of the online tool to improve the process itself. And that is as far as they can see. It is like saying "I want the same as I have now but I want it to suck less!" They rarely actually look at the original problem the system they are replacing was supposed to solve. 

In some cases they may already have software once solved a problem years ago when it was first launched, but over time the problems that needed to be solved became more complex and the software no longer covered all of the bases. The answer for many businesses is to either add more features to the existing mess, or just use the bits of that mess that still work at a pinch with a bit of work-arounds thrown in, and create another system to fix the bits that don't work anymore.

In both cases the thinking is to use software processes and the problem is solved. The software will enable a solution, yes, but good initial design before the developer even starts coding can make the whole thing frictionless.

Good design does that.

The new sport of Apple bashing

Harking back to the mid 1990s I well remember the doom and gloom that PC users heaped onto the poor Apple Mac user.

Remember these gems of wisdom of the time?

"It'll be dead before the year is out."

"Microsoft won because they have a better product."

"Apple only make toys; they are not serious !"

Yes, "dead by the end of the millennium" company Apple have built a company on the back of good design and only releasing the best products that just work.  The "i" products we know and love - iPod, iMac, iPhone and iPad.

And now we have Apple, the second largest company in the USA by capitalization, having to defend itself against every man and his dog ripping off their designs and, and a new idiotic chorus of clueless pundits saying that Apple is "this big powerful bully suing the little guy"..

Well, first, I wouldn't say Samsung is a "little guy". I even own some of their appliances and home entertainment products. But I would say that the Galaxy family of tablets and smart phones is definitely riding on the backs of Apple's design and innovation.

But the really sad part is that Samsung's designers actually have the industrial design chops to have gone their own way. They have done it before, so why be a follower now?

I'd say it is because of the gutless and vision-deprived company wannabes who manage "brands" these days, rather than put in the effort to build a company that has soul, knows where it is going and tries to excel in everything it does. It just degrades the efforts of staff who really want to prove to their bosses and peers that they have the talent and commitment to produce great design and great products, but aren't given the chance to prove it.

The same can be said for companies that would rather poach gun-for-hire talent with no 'skin' in the game than actually train staff in the "way" (to paraphrase HP,) that they "do" design.

Designers don't design to shift boxes, they design to enrich lives. Apple designers get to do that, but not many others are part of something as vibrant and dynamic as Apple.

Pity.

Flood Relief and Online Collaboration

I must say I've had a wonderful, if stressful week, and of course it involved building web sites, but this time I was pleasantly involved in a rather unique musical adventure.

A mate called me from Brisbane - yes his building was flooded out - and asked if I could help a friend of his put together a web site in only 1 week in aid of the flood relief efforts up there.

We've been affected all around Australia by the floods first in south east Queensland and now in north west Victoria. After 10 years of drought  in Australia it is both welcome but also awe-inspiring to witness the power of nature, and how she can really bowl a yorker at you.

So this group in Brisbane was getting together a group of 20 bands and musicians to donate a "b-side" song each to help raise awareness for the official Premier's Flood Relief Appeal. The idea was to enter an official receipt number into the home page of the site and they donator could then get access to a whole album of downloadable songs from the unlocked downloads page. I was asked if I could help out, and as always I said yes before thinking about the amount of work involved, or how to actually achieve what they wanted.

Now initially it made sense to me just to run the campaign from Facebook and Twitter, and this was great for promotions and spreading the word, however we still needed a site to host the downloads, the band information and links to their MySpace sites, so I went looking for a content management system (CMS) aimed at unlimited downloads and one that had a stable of musicians.

I found several sites pitched at the music industry but the one that fitted the best - with a little manual tweaking - was the FourFour platform.

So, for most of my spare time over the last week I've project-managed the whole job on Basecamp and along with the group in Brisbane I helped build the site using its templates and some custom coding.

Now I'm quite used to Basecamp - I've had an account for about four years now - and it always amazes me how people who I invite into using it just "get it" pretty well straight off. It is a wonderful collaborative tool that allows all messages to be in one place, and since the team members all worked at different places, and the organisation of who was doing what was very casual - a milestone would be set and somebody would just volunteer within an hour or two and it would be done.

I also worked with a graphic designer from Brisbane (who was shanghaied just like me I suspect ;-) who did the logo in a very tight deadline and with an amazing amount of options in the couple of days we had to get the look of the site right. The only hiccup was a last minute change to the maroon of the Queensland rugby team from the original colour that was a little closer to the AFL football team's colours. As always in Queensland, rugby won!

The site is now live, and we did miss the friday deadline, but we did hit our next one which was before Australia Day. So if you want to have a look at a weeks' worth of collaborative work that started with a phone call on a Monday and was live a week later, check out Bsides4Brisbane.com!
Bsides4Brisbane.com!

Dear Sony...

Those of you who know me know I'm a bit of a gadget freak. I also love all things Apple and until recently have had a bit of time for Sony, however I think I may have made my last Sony purchase.

Sony have always been a design-lead company and I've owned a few design classics from that venerable Japanese company. I've owned various Walkmans, both for cassettes and CDs, as well as a couple of rather nice TVs - including a very nice mid-model pre-digital 26" Bravia LCD that is still going strong with a set top box to take care of the digital TV conversion.

So I've always not minded paying a little extra for a quality product. Sony have always delivered and their products always work well, are well designed and generally are solidly built. Sony has never let me down.

Until now.

The story starts at my local big box movers store and trying to find a replacement for my clock radio/iPod dock which was purchased before iPhones came out. My new iPhone was unsupported by this unit so it needed to be replaced.

I also wanted to get a dock with a decent sound quality - not a normal quality of a clock radio - so I looked at the mid to upper price range this time.

I took my iPhone along with a selection of tracks ranging from Beethoven's '9th' to White Zombies' 'More human than human', and proceeded to test a number of different units at high and low volume in the store.

I was impressed by a couple of units and was not surprised that one of the best sounding units was by Sony. The blandly named 'Speaker Dock / Clock Radio for iPod and iPhone' (way to go to the Sony naming department!) fitted the bill, was under my budget figure and I got a deal lower then RRP for it. So far so good.

I took it home, unpacked it and set it up, added my iPhone to charge and played a few tracks to see how good it sounded in my bedroom. It was perfectly suited to the space and worked as well for heavy rock and classical guitar. Perfect.

Well, perfect until it got dark.

I had noticed the bright display when I set it up, but the instructions said it had a brightness control, so that seemed to be covered.

So lets talk about the brightness 'dimmer' settings on the Sony Speaker Dock / Clock Radio for iPod and iPhone. There are, in fact, three. They are bright, brighter and Searchlight mode.

Yes, if you are looking for a clock radio that provides a nice nightlight so that you can walk around your bedroom at night without turning on your bed lamp, this one is for you. If you actually want to sleep in, like, the dark of the night, then sorry this one only works if you have a thick book to sit in front of the display to cover it's searchlight-like illumination.

So Sony had really stuffed up on setting the design parameters for light levels in a bedroom that is the most common place you would put this kind of product. I don't mind having ONE bright setting, but three bright levels and no low light settings? Product design fail.

Now let's look at how Sony handles this problem. They have on the "Support for this product" button that goes to a Support webpage for this

I asked the following question on what I though was their support forum. It has the header "Ask a Question":

"I have one of these models - is there a way you can dim the display right back darker from the three very bright settings it has. Can the display be turned off in any way? It is far to bright to be used in a bedroom."

To which I got the reply: "There are no matching results for ICF-C1IPMK2 - I have one of these models - is there a way you can dim the display right back darker from the three very bright settings it has. Can the display be turned off in any way? It is far to bright to be used in a bedroom."

Yes, it was not in fact a support site, but only returns a FAQ result IF that question has been previously asked and addressed. I had tried asking a question. There was no result and no next task path offered - such as - would you like to submit this question to somebody who actually cares?

So how do I get a question into the Sony online support system in the vain hope of it actually being answered?

Well I did a bit of lateral thinking and saw that in the Support area and saw a prompt box with the heading "Latest FAQs" - and a question about resetting the time in daylight saving mode. Not what I wanted, but maybe the link would take me into an area that had other FAQs. One can only hope with this web site.

And I was right - I did get to a page with ONE FAQ item and - joy of joys - a button that had a label "Can't find what you are looking for?"

Pressing this button got a pop-up with a text box to put your question in. I was dismayed, however with the information about this facility below the box:

"Please describe what you would like to see as detailed as possible. Though a personal response will not be provided, we value your suggestion. Sony will continuously strive to improve the usefulness of the information provided on this site."

Well, I'm sorry Sony, your information so far is as useful as tits on a bull.

This happened because... (a conversation with customer support)

I have an account with a credit card attached that offers loyalty points, but since I don't really do much purchasing using this card I've not really bothered with it - until I got a points statement recently and realised that over time the points can add up, and they also can disappear if you don't use them.

So I decided to try and find my logon account details for these rewards and see what my points could get me.

Not much, really, considering how much I'd spent using this card over the last two years.

Oh well, I thought I'd have a look anyway, especially since the site also offered a Points/Pay system that seems to allow you to pay the remainder when you don't have enough points and there was small home theatre system I thought looked nice that I could get with my points and a little cash.

The Points/Pay option was indicated by the following text just above the Add to Cart button on EVERY product page:

"Don't have enough points? You can use your credit card to pay for the remainder."

So I click on the "Add to Cart" button.

But it didn't work. There was no option for Points/Pay in the cart, even though I have been told on the previous page that I can do this.

Writing to the support email for the site, I got back the following reply:

"Unfortunately you need to have 70 percent of the products points to be able to use the Points/Pay option."

To which I returned the following:

"Fair enough, there is a condition that wasn't met, however there was NO indication WHAT this condition was. One page says I can do something and the next tells me I can't - with no indications why not. I could not find any information on the site on the 70% points rule - it was not in the FAQ or the Terms and Conditions.

BTW, as a user I was looking for a way of setting a points + pay level such as that which is used on my bank's rewards site and assumed that it may be offered once you got to the checkout. They provide this; You don't.

Good user interface design helps your customers by providing timely useful information. In this case the your Rewards site has failed."

In the end they failed to provide relevant information - telling me I can do something and then stopping me AFTER I'd made a purchase decision does not give me a good purchasing experience on this site, and also takes away from normally good relationship with the issuer of the card.

In the end it has meant that I have wasted about 30 mins of my time trying to shop on this site, and now my complaint has aded to the card issuer's support costs - all through bad user interaction task design that really shouldn't have gone live.