Losing Context - Bryan Haggerty

Rise of the Switch Control

One of the interesting user interface elements which Apple introduced with the iPhone was the switch control. It has a unique place on the iPhone due to its user’s primary method of interaction–a blunt index finger.

It is not surprising that many of the points of interaction on the iPhone are over sized. Lost, is that precision of a mouse pointer. More importantly, on touch-screens, due to the size of a person’s finger, it can obscure useful information in the interface. For controls such as checkboxes or radio buttons, it can be difficult to determine whether the finger press has resulted in the desired action without having to move the finger away from the screen. As such, the switch control is a cleverly appropriate control, due to that as the user operates the switch he can see the state of the control, without removing the finger from the screen.

What is interesting to see is the influence which this control type is having on user interfaces–ones that are not on the iPhone or even on touch-screen devices. Apple itself, took this over sized control and implemented it in its new Time Machine preference pane in Mac OS X Leopard. Adobe implements it in its photo management application, Lightroom, as a means of toggling photo development options

Left: Apple Time Machine, Right: Adobe Lightroom

Switches in Web Applications

Top: Powerset, Bottom: Brightkite

The switch control is also making its way into web applications. Powerset, a new entrant in the search field, utilizes the switch control as a toggle between a wikipedia article’s table of contents and a more expanded view of the article’s sub-sections.

Brightkite, a location based social network, uses the switch as a preference control to indicate the privacy level of who can see your current location.

The switch does not provide any control that couldn’t be gained from using a select list, radio buttons, or even tabs, but it does offer a stronger visual state, one which is akin to the commonly known light switch. But like a light switch and many other physical switches, they are limited in what they can convey (i.e., on and off). Powerset’s use of the switch control certainly pushes the boundaries of how the control should be used.

The switch control is something to keep an eye out for.

Dying Maps and Their Successors

I am a lover of maps. I have books about maps, my walls have been covered in maps (even a 5ft x 5ft MTA map at one point), and I’ve even written about maps. Which makes it not surprising that this past Christmas I received more than one gift which was a map.

In preparation for my move west to San Francisco my mother gave me a Streetwise waterproof folded map of San Francisco. Something to toss in my bag to always have. Yet, the more I look at the map, or rather don’t look at the map, I realize the obsolescing of this map form factor–and likely a chunk of Streetwise’s and other map makers’ business.

Forgoing Paper for Digital

I have all but abandoned paper maps in favor of web based maps and mobile phone maps. The last bastion of paper maps, of which I carry, are small wallet sized versions of New York’s MTA map and a San Francisco transit map. As in many underground trips, getting wireless connectivity can be a challenge if not impossible–hence these wallet maps can come in handy but their days are probably numbered (BART surprisingly has a decent bit of underground wireless coverage).

Software such as Google’s Maps for mobile, with the My Location feature which repositions the map to your current location, have made orienting yourself utterly simple with no additional hardware needed. Also, interacting with the map via search has made finding any address or business all the more easy.

Even many of the traditional niche maps such as those for transit or bikes, which most people would carry in their pocket, have been converted to mobile device ready versions–iSubway Maps or Khoi Vinh’s MTA map for iPhone. We now have more than just “a thousand songs in our pockets.”

Adding a More Physical Connection to Maps

iPhone Map showing a user’s contact near them

It won’t be long before the mobile versions of maps take on a more social component as well, such as being able to see which of your friends may be in the neighborhood or at a particular restaurant or bar near where you are.

And in terms of wayfinding, people often utilize landmarks to get around. Surely, we’ll be seeing Google add their StreetView feature to their mobile edition of maps. Thus allowing users to get an actual visual of the location they’re seeking.

These are all features which no paper map could ever provide. But there are still a few paper alternatives which deserve a mention.

Hangers On

While I find the wallet maps still somewhat useful, SUCK UK’s Tubemap Wallet takes it one step further by turning the actual wallet into the map–clever. There is also Moleskin’s efforts to throw in a few handy maps with their pint size notebooks.

Subtle User Alerts at the Grocery Store

Alerting users in a non-intrusive but informative way requires a bit of finesse. It is about providing information when it is needed but also not disrupting the work flow. When done right, it’s almost a natural assumed experience–seamless.

I was reminded of this in an unassuming place, not on a computer but at the grocery store. There are far more interactions at play in grocery stores than is often realized. In particular, in a grocer’s produce section where they seek to provide customers with fresh from the farm vegetables, the produce is kept clean and fresh by misting water on the produce–hopefully when a customer is not picking out vegetables.

In the past there used to be a person who would mist the produce with a water hose but today this process is mostly automated. But with the grocery store employee gone, customers don’t know when this misting is going to occur. The method employed to alert these customers of the misting, to possibly stand clear for a moment, is subtle but maps to a metaphor which requires no language, just an understanding of nature. Moments before the misting occurs the noise of a thunder storm rolls through. Thus informing the customer of the approaching rain showers, or mist in this case.

There are no spinning lights, bells, or muffled voices from a speaker to harshly grab the customer’s attention. Those are the obvious, thoughtless, and likely distracting methods. The thunder storm alert masterfully achieves its purpose unobtrusively of informing the customer but also plays into the whole experience of fresh produce, by pulling in other elements of nature.

Reducing the New York City Subway Map

As a New Yorker and avid subway fan, each day I admire the New York City subway map, designed by Michael Hertz. It is certainly a great piece of graphic design and a cultural icon of the city. Its representation of subway lines and geography is burned into many of our heads. I sought to reduce the map to its simplest form, the contouring lines which depict each subway line’s route. To remove the geographical context in order to expose the grand complexity of this weaving system of people movers.

This reduction evokes an interesting view into the history, sprawl, and the expansiveness of New York City’s subway. Through abstraction of the subway map, the often spoke of, subway as the arteries of the city, is made unequivocally clear. No borough or neighborhood is given prominence, only its veins are shown, almost like a medical illustration of the human circulatory system.

Through breaking down the gestalts of the subway map, with each layer different interpretations can be made. The map below could certainly be broken down more to emphasis different components.

Thanks Jeannie for the illustrator help

Keep To The Right

I can’t tell if I have a predisposition to sitting with walls to my right, but I seem to consistently find myself in that awkward position of trying to overextend my MacBook’s power cable to connect it the left side of my MacBook. Often the power cable is just too short or gets disconnected due to the MagSafe connector detaching as I pull it tight in an attempt to compute comfortably.

My first inclination was that due to the annoyance of this situation, I was perceiving it to occur more frequently than it actually was. But when I began to keep this mind, I was noticing this issue each time I plugged in: at the office or on my couch. Maybe I’ve set up all the spaces I work within backwards. I think it seems to come down to MacBook Feng Shui.

Exiting the Subway and Finding Your Way

All too often, exiting a subway station and getting your bearings can be a bit disorienting, especially in New York City’s grid. Gothamist.com reports on a new wayfinding system, developed by New York City’s Department of Transportation and the Grand Central Partnership, to assist people on finding the right way upon exiting a subway station. It is about to be tested around the MTA’s Grand Central Station subway exits. The sidewalk decals feature a compass image displaying which street is in what direction.

It’s interesting to see that the decals will not be placed in actual N,S,W,E orientation (Manhattan actually points Northeast), but placed according to what New Yorkers correlate to North and South (i.e., Uptown and Downtown).

It’s a great start, but now we just need the subway map, local street map, and “Next Train” notifications posted at street level. Not too mention the one shortcoming of the MTA’s subway map, depicting which trains are express and which are local. Even I still have a bit of trouble remembering which of the N,R,W,Q trains are express.

Looking Back at Futurism

Earlier I had spoken about what I had thought about the state of current user experience books and that if I am seeking to find new knowledge I would have to look elsewhere. Oddly enough that elsewhere may be in the past. Which as I write this, seems utterly obvious but I think Alex Wright sums it up nicely in his book Glut:

“For all the barrels of ink and billions of pixels spent chronicling the rise of the Internet in recent years, however, surprisingly few writers seem disposed to look in any direction but forward.”

We owe a lot to those who came before us and I’ll be perfectly honest, I cannot say I know a great deal about those who laid down the path, which is the basis for my career today. The work of these visionaries or futurists when looked at today, the hits are amazingly accurate and the misses well, while amazingly interesting have yet to come to fruition.

But this makes me wonder, are we more caught up in the day after today? As opposed to, who is laying the ground work for that true tomorrow? Yes, working day to day is an iterative process and you’ll get anywhere one step at a time. Some of the works of earlier futurists describe ideas which are far beyond anything they ever had, and I’m not talking about looking at a bird and envisioning all humans in flying cars. So where are today’s futurists? I assume it is only negligence on my behalf to find them, hopefully.

Drag, Drop, But Not There

Dragging and dropping files on a Macintosh has almost always felt limitless–drag a file onto an application in the dock, over a folder, onto a window, and things just work as you’d expect.

Living the dual life that I have–Mac at home, Windows at work–I often run into oddities between the two operating systems. While a long time Mac user I use my Windows computer more frequently so we can rule out the idea that I’m just too used to the Mac.

I recently attempted to take an action which I expected no resistance, dragging a JPG onto the Photoshop icon in my task bar. My thinking was that I wanted to open this file in Photoshop and what better a way than to simply drag and drop. Certainly would save me the time of clicking on Photoshop, selecting Open from the File menu and then navigating to the file’s location.

The error message I received was odd in that its tone came off almost as if they knew what I was doing was certainly what any normal person would try to do. So instead of doing what I needed, it gave me some instructions on their way of doing it. It’s strange due to that the only action which could take place, would be to open the file. Had I wished to drop the file into a particular window I would have done so.

A Lot of Hot Air

The majority of computer users use a right-handed mouse, even if you’re a left-handed, the industry has pretty much almost forced you to be a right-handed when it comes to a mouse. Which is why I’ve become a bit baffled by a design decision made by Dell in their laptops.

Laptops are becoming more and more the choice for computing over desktop computers and often people like to hook up a mouse to avoid the usable but straining trackpad. Yet when I hook up a mouse to my Dell laptop I’m greeted by one of the most uncomfortable sensations while attempting to use the laptop, a constant stream of hot air breathing down on my mouse hand from the laptop’s fan.

There are three other sides which Dell could have put the laptop’s fan on, but they decided to place it right in the spot where most people will be putting their hand as they operate a mouse. This particular Dell laptop not only has a trackpad but also an “eraser-tip” style mouse in the keyboard, seems like they really don’t want me to attach a mouse.

I’ve come up with some ingenious methods to combat this issue, many at the expense of possibly frying my company’s laptop. Often it is some kind of air funneling system created out of easily accessible office supplies.

Cheap In More Ways Than One

This is just one of the unseen costs when opting to purchase cheap products from companies that do not prioritize user experience design. Which leads to the common saying, “you get what you pay for.”

You Need To Be Mad As Hell

I recently discovered that my co-workers have been secretly keeping a running list of how many usability rants I have a day. I won’t lie, it is a fairly common occurrence and an activity I recommend for anyone in the industry. Often my rants are five minute manifestos on why something is designed poorly and what needs to be changed to rectify the situation.

In order to push that agenda for designing more usable products you need to be as mad as hell and let it be known–in the politest manner possible. Being irked on a daily basis, as frustrating as that sounds, I find to be paramount in the ideation process.