Tag Archives: technology

The End of the Desktop?

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Part 1 – The Enchantment

I was actually in the room at CHI 2001 when Bill Gates introduced the Tablet PC.  Taking notes on my Pocket PC, mobile and tablets, I was all over it.  I became an early adopter soon afterward, using my convertible notebook/tablet doing UX design consulting.  And let me tell you that in those days, jaws would drop in amazement when folks saw you draw on the screen.  Nothing impressed the natives more.  “Look, him draw on screen!  Him must be a god!” Alias sketch, Microsoft OneNote, and all those new app user interfaces that were going to change the way we interacted with computers,

Part 2 – The disappointment

except that it didn’t happen.  None of the MS Office apps ever budged to utilize pen input, nor did Adobe, or anyone else. Instead Microsoft abandoned us early tablet adopters like freedom fighters at the Bay of Pigs.

Then a few years later, Apple invented both the pocket PC and the tablet. And everyone swooned. And for good cause, this time it worked. Plus it had the Apple and third party support to make it really productive and price point lower, not higher, than a regular laptop.  Google joins in the fun steeling Microsoft’s role as the “other leading brand” to be compared with Apple, mimicking their every move, yet with an open hardware platform.

Part 2b – More Disappointment

Fast-forward again to 2012. Microsoft introduces Windows 8 and the Surface.  There has probably never been someone so late to their own party and awkwardly dressed for the occasion.  Microsoft launches an Apple-esque store in the mall with Kool-Aid drunken sales people mimicking the weirdoes at the Apple store.  So I stopped in to check out the Surface.  The name itself speaks of another great concept that couldn’t find a market and so left its name to be adopted by this iPad wannabe.

Somewhere in the windows 8 mix, I was hoping to find my old tablet PC reborn with a contemporary vigor.  No such luck. What I discover is a lesser knock off of tablets that are already too dumb for my professional taste. That may sound lofty, but this was my daily work tool for four years, constantly with me in airports, airplanes, hotels, coffee shops, and offices everywhere.

Part 2c – Even More Disappointment

Windows 8 — Disappointing Usability for Both Novice and Power Users  http://www.useit.com/alertbox/windows-8.html

Disappointment.  The word that Jakob Nielson uses to describe the Windows 8 experience.  I am compelled to agree. Not that I am or have ever been a firm Jakob follower. I just hoped that we would see the high end supported with trickle down impact to the lesser demanding users.  Instead what I see at every turn is the computing environment reduced to a contest between Dumb and Dumber.

Looking at Nielsen’s article, it is confirmed.  Power users have been thrown under the Windows 8 bus. Nielsen’s description of the modern style induced usability problems in Windows 8 sound all too familiar. It seems that Microsoft has confused minimalist with primitive. Can you say pre-Win 95?  No, wait, more like pre-Win 3.1!   It’s like Microsoft has unlearned all the lessons of the past twenty years. I wouldn’t mind except that I depend on their products to do actual work, not just goofing off.

Makes me think of the “Apple Wheel” as reported by the Onion

http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/05/macbook-wheel-revealed-by-the-onion-news-network/

It feels like Microsoft is sacrificing the power user desktop which is still dominates to become a tag along in the tablet space. It seems, there may be a clear opening for a high performance user experience Operating system environment.  Silicon Graphics Irix, where are you?

Part 3 – The Enlightenment

On the other hand, if Microsoft believes that the desktop is vanishing from the earth no matter what, then it might seem prudent to use their window of time to convert that desktop lead while it exists into a tablet contender. It still leaves many of power windows users in a hard way and opens the door for a new aggregator to jump in and direct the larger virtual platform.

Pondering this a bit more, this may indicate a milestone in the abandonment of the desktop by Microsoft as something that they see that cannot be held onto. The computing environment that was once the virtual desktop metaphor invented at Xerox PARC is now being replaced by a ubiquitous heterogeneous environment that exists both in real space and in the cloud.  An aggregation of real and virtual devices is needed to perform the same role that the proprietary desktop once played.  I see that mobile devices may have their own avatars in this virtual space.

Who will define this space? Who will own it? How about me and you?

I am pretty sure this is the theme of my next techy art piece. “MyFavoritemachine, In the Cloud” or maybe “Escape from Desktop’.

- roger

copyright 2012 r.e.belveal

On Hammers & Nails

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A visionary is someone who understands the problem at a level of abstraction such that when a potential solution appears, he can spot how it might fit the need, even though it isn’t packaged in a box with a label that says, “Solution to the problem”.

Back when the web happened along, I happened to be studying ways to deliver large amounts of maintenance data to airlines online. The problem was complex. Airlines wanted updates immediately; an updated CDROM every 90 days was not sufficient. Large data transmissions were tedious and error prone. All the client reader solutions required that customers buy and install certain hardware and software.

When http and the Mosaic browser appeared, I instantly saw in it solutions to many of these problems. What’s more, the more I looked at the potential capabilities, the more I saw of possibilities for solving other problems that I had familiarity with. The list seemed to be endless.

At that time, the official word on the web from all of my management was that it was just a fad and would never be a company standard. Somewhere in the archives of the Boeing Commercial Airplane Company is a request form with my name listed as the petitioner recommending that http and the web browser (Mosaic was the only one at that time) be adopted as an architectural standard. Attached to it is a copy of my long list of potential applications / problems we could solve using it. That list had been forwarded around the company so much that today, it would certinly be caught by a spam filter for all to fwds in the subject line.

Resistance to such a vision seems like nonsense now, but at the time, I was speaking heresy. And i was speaking it anyone and everyone that would listen.


A colleague chided me saying “To the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. He was right. And now, after nearly two decades of the World Wide Web, it is plainly evident that everything was in fact, a nail.

I saw the future corectly; even my outlandish vision was a gross underestimation.  My only regret is that I was in an ill position to capitalize on it properly. I didn’t start or join a dot.com and I struggled to find a niche among others who shared the same vision.  As the sci-fi stories often conclude, seeing the future and being able to do something about are two different things. I have, however, gotten a little better at it than before.

These days, I have a large box of hammers and like collecting news ones. Some I discover, others I make. Nails come in all shapes and sizes. I still spend a lot of time studying them. And I when it comes to solving problems effectively, I hit the nail on the head on a routine basis. It’s what I do.

If you have a good hammer, don’t be shy. But do study about nails.

- roger, a self-proclaimed visionary and nail hammerer

Lean UX & Chihuly’s Glass Team

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Lately I have been pleased to have found Lean UX to be very successful, meaning an hour spent at the white board with some gifted programmers is worth a week wire framing and documenting. Instead of a clear handoff of a fully documented design, we are joined at the hip. I direct in real time while they code. Like artist Dale Chihuly does a quick sketch, then directs his glass craftsmen in the execution, we create UI in real time. We can’t work in this mode all the time, But when we do, it kicks ass

To see the Chihuly example, go to  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRJXZcSslao&feature=related. At 1:30 Chihuly explains how he conveys his designs and directs his team of glass blowers. See my photos of Chihuly’s art on my blog at http://belveal.net/?p=1496

The following photos show how he creates initial images in colorful sketches then directs the team in the execution.  This is the essence of Lean UX, the UX designer creates designs in a low fidelity media, such as hand drawings on paper or a white board, simple and very changeable to explore concepts quickly, then directs the programmers who are able to execute fluidly in html5 and CSS or othe similar code.  It works!

 

 

 

What year is this?

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Ya know, when I was three years old, I knew how to watch TV.  Now its a struggle.  I’m a technology guy and I can’t figure out the stupid menus on this TimeWarner DVR.

I have conducted enough analysis to determine that the primary usability problem stems from the odd mixture of on-screen menus, which are incomplete, sort of randomly dependand upon unorthodox controls on the remote. Who came up with this stuff?  And what was their basis for this design soluttion (if you can call it that?)

Certainly, I’m not the first person to complain?  Do they have a clue?  how do they stay in business delivering crap like this?  I’m going to ask my question (that I ask when I feel things are not what they ought to be).  “What year is this?”

Geek Iconic MyPhoneStone

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So is this MyPhoneStone on steroids? Ouch, sore subject these days.  Coincidentally, the first of these pieces go to a bicyclist friend of mine from Texas.  No, not who you’re thinking of.  This Guy is also a motorcyclist and techy UX design geek,  AND one of my Kickstarter supporters.  Remember Kickstarter?  Yes, I am still diligently fulfilling my promises and most of them are met. And here’s one more.  And this one is cool!

I like it when I get excited about something I’ve created.  Trust me; it doesn’t always happen on the first try.  Much sweat and bruises and burns and ideas tried and tweaked and tried again until it gets to the cool.  I’ve got an abrasion from the wire brush wheel to prove it!

Making things that have function almost makes this into work.  But rest assured, though these are functional, they are ART first.  And that is what makes this fun.  Art + geeky tech stuff has to be fun!  Isn’t that one of the laws of thermodynamics?

Practical minded thrifty people – If you just want a thing to set your phone on, I’m sure Radio Shack has something just right for you. And be sure to show your card for your free battery.  Hmmm, do they still do that?  BestBuy has a whole freaking aisle or two of plastic gizmos and stands for your smartphone.  And you can borrow my Reward Zone card!  This is not that.

What this is? Remember when you went to see the Eiffel Tower or the empire State Building, or Statue of Liberty, or some other big thing?  Anyway, remember as you were leaving, you forked over a twenty for some plastic or tinny molded mini-me of the thing to commemorate your visit?   This is more like that.  To those who attended BIG(D)ESIGN either of the past two years and saw MyPhoneHenge or MyFavoriteMachine up close in person, owning a MyPhoneStone is like the mini-Eiffel tower experience except for one very important difference.  We are pretty certain that cute little tower you brought home from France was not actually made by Mr. Eiffel himself. Get it?

Every one of these MyPhoneStones is unique art, signed by the artist, numbered, and photo-documented.  No two are identical (How boring would that be?) The supply is limited to until I get too caught up doing other kinds of art to spend time on these.  And know that I have LOTS of other even more fantastic ideas in mind!  So here’s a tip – don’t count on there being an endless supply of original MyPhoneStones.

In case you still don’t quite get it (I’m sure you do, I just want an excuse to talk more about it) the motif blends the tall monolithic image of the large scale art with the icons that were contain in each one. Remember those icons made from real world objects that were intended to make fun of the metaphorical iconography of virtual devices? Its “physical virtual, low tech rendering of high tech subject matter, ironic, iconic art“.  I know, it seems I am having way too much fun with this!

Imagine making your own little arrangement of MyPhoneHenge using real phones!  They also work great for the classic iPod and totally killer for showing off your business cards!   And please please whatever you do, have fun!

- roger

“Make your own pie” music

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Beck ‘Produces’ A Genius Innovation That Appeals To The User-Generated Generation

http://www.forbes.com/sites/willburns/2012/08/09/beck-produces-a-genius-innovation-that-appeals-to-the-user-generated-generation/

As artist, Beck, foregoes the recording step and issues new music in sheet music form.  Yes. Just read it, play it and now you can listen to it.  lol.  It’s a Kramerism: “Make your own pie”.  However, not quite so fast.  This is someone with a large fanbase.  Hmmm.  That gives a little twist to this thinking about what is to come.  Its the wave of posted YouTube covers of a song not yet recorded that makes this interesting.

In the end, Beck can use these “covers” in a mash-up to create what would have been the “original” recording after the covers have had their play.  Let the audience take the stage while Beck runs the lights and sound.

Evidentally, the author of the article agrees. He posted: “Awesome idea, Roger. Love the mashup idea.” – Will Burns http://blogs.forbes.com/people/willburns/

- roger

 

A Steve Urkel moment on Mars?

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Well, it seems this week, everyone’s “favorite machine’ is a little robotic off-roadster called Curiosity. Take a look at what he sees from his little vantage point on the red planet. Yes, I am personifying this little creature. I can’t help it. Anything that travels that far to send photos to the folks back home deserves our love and affection. It is without a doubt in the Favorite Machine Hall of Fame next to Lunar Rover and Robbie the Robot.

Link to Panoramic 360` pan

Pretty spectacular. We didn’t have images anything close to this with the moon landings and there was a photographer on site to shoot it. As you pan around ponder the tracks resembling some kind of crop circle style drawing in the sand to space men (Us?) that I wonder, will it ever erode away?, and I fancy Curiosity, upon seeing it (slightly personified) has a Steve Urkle moment. “Did I do that?”

Is this personification?  Anthropomorphism?  Or is it really Steve Urkel on Mars?

- roger

Steve Urkel in Wikipedia

Built-in Contradictions

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Show me a place where minimalism is most prized; be assured that undue complexity is nearby. And vice versa. People seek minimalism as a refuge from undue complexity. That is understood. That the opposite is also true gets missed. The dynamic tension between minimalism and complexity, modernism and postmodernism, is explained in the maraschino cherry, having flavor and color removed only to have other flavor and color added back.

In the Article Where Microsoft Has ‘More Taste’ Than Apple the author is critical of Apple’s Skeuomorphic designs where UI designs go clearly overboard in appearing to mimic the appearance of real world things. I agree this can come off as cheesy. I have referred to it before as ‘brick patterned wallpaper”. Yet people love it. Why? I am not defending it, only explaining it.

People are sometimes confused by the apparent contradictions in my tech-expressionist art. It has been called a crude representation of the real thing, worse in every way. I say they are starting to get it.

Questions: Is it a celebration or a parody of technology design. The answer is both. The contradiction is a major part of the art. If you don’t get that then, you are trapped in your own mental box of either or. Worship of something often brings with it a backlash of irreverence of some kind. A great drama needs some comic relief if we are to stand it. Otherwise, it risks becoming tis own parody, ala Leslie Nielsen deadpan seriousness.

Built-in Contradictions, ironic twist, and some light-hearted self- parody are a safety net of sorts against the hazards of taking oneself too seriously.

That Apple sets up an intolerably slick and pious motif, then clashes against it with cheesy overblown superfluously visual metaphors is not a surprise to me.  To not do so is to invite an onslaught of parody railing against the pious self-importance image. This occurs quite a lot already. Cheesy, campy, or clever, it is at least an attempt to achieve some balance in what would otherwise be hollow ivory tower snob design. Proof is in the fact that it seems to work for them.  Like I said, I’m not defending, just explaining. I’m jus’ sayin’

- roger

Thanks Kickstarter Backers! and Pick out your MyPhoneStones!

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A gigantic THANK YOU to all of MyPhoneHenge backers!  After many long hours, the art was completed on time for BIG(D)ESIGN 2012.  Electronics, media, and lots of metal hardware, and my heart and brains went into this art.   Making something that topped MyFavoriteMachine in scale and magnitude in every way was challenging, but we managed to pull it off.  It was a huge hit!

Transporting it to the event was done by me, with help from my #2 son, a pallet jack, and a truck with a hydraulic lift.  Due to their size and weight of the pieces and a limited setup window, my goal was to move them mostly assembled from my studio to the location.  Keeping them intact would save time, labor, and avoid some of the risk of something going wrong during final assembly on site where tools were limited.  And since cranking up a welder or a noisy grinder in a hotel lobby would be out of the question, everything needed to be absolutely right before it went into the truck.  Only the electronics were hauled separately to be installed on site along with the steel icons.  The large monitors and the steel icons were carefully boxed along with all of the electronics hardware and cables, etc. It filled the truck to capacity!

An unexpected challenge emerged when we arrived at the hotel.  Though we had verified the loading dock and freight elevator in advance, we soon discovered that the only path between the large ample spaced loading dock and equally generously sized freight elevator was strangely through the hotel kitchen which involved a narrow corridor only 36 inches wide.  Who thought that was a good idea?  I’d like to have a word with them.  Well, it was a very tight squeeze and some floor molding that looked plenty scraped up already got scraped even more, but in the end, the score was: belveal art: 5 and kitchen corridor: zero.  We pallet-jacked the monoliths in place and began assembling.

The process was very physical and I got more sweaty than you would care to hear about, but the art parts all went together exactly according to plan and MyPhoneHenge made its debut to a crowd of conference early birds and trade show exhibitors.  Onlookers immediately gathered around asking questions and wanting to touch the art pieces, which I gladly welcomed. When the inquirers faded, I continued fine-tuning the audio and video and interactive elements into the evening for the large crowd that would arrive the next morning.

The next two days were the fun part. Getting to stand of in the background and watch people’s reactions to the art was such a kick.  Everyone is a child, exploring this set of monoliths of steel resembling familiar things in a totally unexpected motif.  Objects coming out from behind the glass inhabiting our world is a surprise that pleases unexpectedly.  It satisfies an unarticulated appetite, though previous unvoiced, is certainly not unfelt. Many great conversations, too many to post here.Once again, the iconography proved to be the big delighter. In spite of the interactive media that everyone agreed was cool along with the mini TV sets in the icons, etc., there is something just deliciously simple and appealing about the real ordinary objects from daily life embedded in those large steel icons that always brings a smile, usually followed spontaneously by a touch.   People just like them.

There were many special moments, audience reactions, great conversations, even live video interviews using the art as a set.  The highlight for me, however was when one of the ADA design consultants who herself happens to be blind, came by to experience the art.  I offered to provide a guided tour, which was really just me directing her hands from one monolith to the next, hitting the most tactile areas along the way.  It was an awesome and most unexpected adventure.  We both became Bilbo Baggins discovering mysteries beyond the Shire.  She was thrilled just touching and dentifying these objects from the virtual world,  for the first time represented in a form that she could actually perceive in real-life three dimensionally.  The cold, the rough, the jagged, the abstract, the concrete; it was a thrill seeing it all through her hands.  I had been living, eating, breathing this art for the past six months to bring it into existence; I knew every inch of it, and yet it was as if I was seeing it for the first time through her hands acting as eyes for us both.

See more photos at http://belveal.net/?p=1189

And also at http://belveal.net/?p=1116

I’ll be posting video too. But that will take longer.

Okay, its one month later.  Now I’m focused on making sure that all the appreciation gifts are received accordingly.  I have created more MyPhoneStones especially for my Kickstarter contributors and posted photos on my web site.  So, please go to http://belveal.net/?page_id=37&wppa-album=13&wppa-photo=225&wppa-occur=1  to pick the one(s) you like.  People are asking for these, but I am determined to serve my Kickstarter supporters first.

Also, because of complications working with the print shop, there has been a delay in the printing of the t-shirts.  Rather than make people wait further I am offering additional MyPhoneStones in place of the one t-shirt.  An extra MyPhoneStone means you can have one for the office, one for home, or share with a friend!  They also work great as an IPod stand or for business cards.

If this is agreeable to you, please go to the web site and pick the one(s) that you like and email me their numbers along with your mailing address  to contact@belveal.com so I can ship them to you.

I have settled up with some of you.  Some right at the conference.  For others, please hurry to pick the one(s) you like and let me know so I can get  them to you.  It might be good idea though to pick some alternates in case some other early bird picks your favorite MyPhoneStones first.

I would love to send you the MyPhoneStone(s) you want.  So please respond soon.

Thanks again.  I really appreciate the support!

- roger