turntable / as the table turns

The What’s UP 2007 event was good fun. I met some really nice, well clued-up people. Here are the slides from my predictions (use the < > keys to navigate). The day after UP, I headed out on our family summer holiday.

As I write, I’m in the exquisite Northland region of NZ (in Oakura Bay to be precise). It’s been ideal in every way. Swimming, kayaking, bbq-ing, reading and sleeping. It’s warm here day and night, and there’s no wind. It’s really been making us question why people (us included) live in Wellington.

At the holiday house I perused the book shelf and noticed The Google Story. I tend to have a strong aversion to business books. However, I’ve really been enjoying it. It’s a good piece of storytelling. The thing that’s sticking out for me is how Larry and Sergey have always had the tenacity to do things their way, along with the perseverance to execute first and foremost. Ultimately, it’s really about having the conviction to relentlessly pursue what you believe is best and have fun doing it.

At the UP event, I noted that several of my predicted future platforms could easily be generated out of NZ. Foo Camp is coming up this weekend and I’m really hoping to see strong evidence of that same type of tenacity, conviction, guts, plus the ambition to build something big and important and useful from this beautiful country, something that the world needs and NZ can deliver. Peter Jackson did that for the film industry. Who will do it for ICT?

I’m no hardcore gamer. That said, I do love a good video game. As a lad, I certainly spent a fair few quarters and hours at the arcade. I’ve even had a few game systems over the years.

Emory and I are currently playing our way through Lego Star Wars II. We’ve been eagerly awaiting the game, ever since completing Lego Star Wars I, last year. It’s easily one of the best games I’ve ever played.

What’s so great about Lego Star Wars? And what can an interaction designer learn from the game?

• Drop-in / drop-out co-op. This ought to be a required feature for all games. When two people are playing together their characters must combine abilities and coordinate movements to solve problems and access new areas. That level of cooperation is fun and clever. Better still, either one of the players can casually drop-in or drop-out of the game at any time – there is no frustration, absolutely no interruption of game play. It’s absurd that no other game offers that functionality.

UX Lessons: There are important advantages to collaboration, but it should always be easy and painless to participate, or not participate, whenever you want.

• Character switching. The game provides great replay value since you have to complete every level several times, in different ways, with different characters. This may sound dull – it’s anything but. You can switch between a range of different characters, on the fly. In fact, in order to access different areas and solve puzzles you need to switch characters, using each of the different characters’ different abilities when and where appropriate.

UX Lessons: Different roles have different strengths, cater to those strengths when and where appropriate.

• Flying and driving. In the new game, the flying experience is really thrilling, intense, and varied.

UX Lessons: Being in the driver’s seat is fun and powerful.

• Comic book experience. The beauty of playing Star Wars as Lego pieces is that it has a comic book quality. Instead of judging the realism, you simply enjoy the play. It’s a true comic book adventure. That’s far more in tune with the spirit of the original movies than any other Star Wars game ever produced before. Most games fall into the age old trap of focusing on special effects, at the expense of the story.

UX Lessons: Spirit and personality are way more important than looks.

• The environments are rich in depth and texture. Despite the relatively blocky and crude Lego character graphics, the environments have layers of depth and texture that make it really compelling to explore. The fact that they’re familiar from the movies also makes it special and fun. You feel like you’re living in a movie or a dream.

UX Lessons: Looks do matter – symbolism, familiarity, and visual texture give an experience deep resonance.

• It’s easy, but the trick is learning to make connections. It’s always pretty obvious when there’s something you need to do or find. There are a variety of visual and audio cues attracting your attention and prompting your reaction. The trick is to learn the meaning behind the clues. You need to know when and how to apply your different character abilities, partially based on your previous experiences, and partially based on your imagination. It’s most fun when you have to use your imagination to solve a problem.

UX Lessons: You can lead a horse to water, but people eventually have to apply their own creativity and imagination. Find ways to support and encourage creativity.

• The essence of wit. There is cheeky humor spun throughout the game. The cut scenes are clever and silly. And all of the characters do an occasional silly maneuver or have a goofy pratfall. It’s really cute and endearing, sometimes hilarious.

UX Lessons: There is soul behind a smile – giving people something to smile about builds trust and compassion.

If you want some more evidence of the passion that the game inspires, just read some passages from Emory’s school journal.

There is a great batch of insights in the presentations given at the Carson Workshops Future of Web Apps event.

In particular, I highly recommend the making of Google Calendar (PDF). I’m particularly mindful of the advice regarding “Build products for people who don’t want to use them”.

Cal’s preso (PDF) is chock full of excellent tips (own the process, not the feature).

Ryan Carson’s preso (PDF) is visually really nice and has some great tips (obsess about your website copy), but also some tips I definitely don’t agree with (work with people in the same time zone – I know from experience that there are many advantages to working with people in different time zones).

Another visual treat is Tom Coates’ preso (HTML). Again, full of great ideas (Doing more together than we could apart, Expose every axis of data that you can).

All of the presos are also available as mp3 podcasts, which I haven’t had a chance to listen to yet (please comment with recommended items if you do listen to them!).

There are recurring themes that really resonate strongly with me:

• prototype, iterate, and stay agile
• release early, release often
• track everything and be smart about how you track usage
• always communicate with users clearly, directly and politely

I just came across another UX designer looking at magic in UI design. It was really interesting coming across that post. For one, because I’ve recently been considering ways of injecting ‘magic’ into user experiences.

The other big reason that the post hit home for me is that he refers to General Magic throughout his presentation (630K PDF). I happen to have been the first intern at General Magic. One of the first things I did when I arrived was user testing. I absolutely hated everything about it. They laughed at my feedback, treating it as the rantings of a naive kid. Didn’t I realize that the legends of Silicon Valley can do no wrong? The kool aid was being consumed in heavy doses by everyone there, it seemed. Seeing that magnitude of arrogance in action has been an important life lesson I reflect on often.

One of my design concepts at General Magic.

A screenshot from MagicCap (not my work)

The interesting thing is, Sony was one of the partners in General Magic. I spent a bit of time with the engineers from Sony and told them honestly how I felt. I pleaded with them to forget about the lame psuedo virtual reality concept. Instead they should use the technology to build a digital Walkman that can download music wirelessly: any song, anytime, anywhere. Those pesky naive kids, what do they know, eh?

As it turned out, I also worked alongside Tony Fadell while at General Magic. Tony is often credited as the father of the iPod. To me, it was an obvious idea that clearly many other people must have thought of as the technology emerged. I’m always amazed that it took so long to happen, and that so many other bad ideas were pursued instead. That’s been another important life lesson.