Loving the Inanimate: The Heritage of Design
As a lifetime Mac user, I’m not a stranger to loving technology. I loved the first Mac I ever used, the SE. I loved my portable MiniDisc player/recorder, my Grundig digital shortwave radio, my Chrysler LeBaron, my Handspring Visor. Today I love my Sentra, my iPhone and the unibody MacBook Pro so thoughtfully provided by my employer, Full Sail.
There are those who view this fondness as peculiar, but loving a built object isn’t love of the inanimate at all. People design and build things for different reasons: profit, necessity, curiosity, even the simple love of creation. No matter the reason, in every object ever built there lies a profound and individual expression of the need to create. The need to create a something, where once there existed nothing.
Where we find ourselves loving an object, we find ourselves connecting with the innermost convictions of that object’s creators. No object is born without painful compromises. The places where a creator refused to compromise, worked ragged until the problem area yielded and conformed to the desires of the creator, those are the places where our love is born. When a creation adds to our lives and does so with competence and certitude of purpose, we feel a bond with whomever made that creation real. You can’t help it. To find utility in an object made by someone who is not you implies a commonality of existence that transcends anything you can ever feel from most other forms of human interaction. It is the knowledge of shared problems, shared challenges, shared frustration with a world unaccommodating of your needs.
When looking at the early history of humanity and its progenitors, the sophistication and composition of tools is used to measure advancement. Built objects are deep in our shared heritage. It is surely in our nature to feel a deep and abiding attachment for the those objects that most improve our lives, as our forebears have also felt for millennia.
This knowledge is a warm and reassuring blanket as I create my own tools and share them with others, participating in a grand and universal tradition. At the same time, it is daunting to know the depth of the footsteps in which any creator must walk.
To love a tool that is built well and that makes your world better isn’t unnatural. It’s one of the most quintessentially human responses imaginable.
The Lure of Best
I do not know why anything works. English, electronics, cooking, driving, name anything. In middle school, when it was time to learn about subjects, predicates and all those other sentence diagramming miseries, I got some of my worst grades ever. Writing was definitely my strongest suit at that point, but when it came to understanding why writing worked the way it did, I was hopeless.
The reason for this is because I function almost entirely on intuition. I’m the ultimate learn-by-doing kind of person because the theoretical substance of any given thing is simply not something I am capable of grasping without considerable effort. With repeated exposure to many books and magazines, for example, I knew how a sentence should flow and what words belonged where. I didn’t know why. I could just sense the rightness or wrongness of the details.
This quality of existence is a curse in school since the bulk of studies rely on the absorbtion of theories or factoids. In a world where results matter, though, intuition serves me well. I make many mistakes in the process, but intuition lets me accomplish a great deal with minimal starting information. It also means I can fix any configuration of technology, short of breaking out a soldering iron (although even then, sometimes).
So it goes with usability. I don’t actually know what makes for good application usability, beyond obvious things like button size/placement and readable text. I do know what feels right, though, and more importantly, I know what feels very wrong. When I build an interface, it usually starts out pretty wrong. I beat on it and beat on it until all the suck goes away and I sense that it’s what it should be.
This is work. I can’t muster the effort to do it without a very specific lure: I need to know that the resulting product has a shot at being the best at what it does. This made Tallymander in particular very seductive: the competing products were so shockingly awful, both in appearance and usability, that all I had to do was apply love and attention to my own solution and I could easily ship the very best counting app in the whole store.
I have a hole in my soul. A deep, ragged, sagging, gaping wound in the very core of my being. The only way I know to fill this hole is to provide exceptionally good solutions to whatever problems I encounter. This makes product design an obvious vocation for me. (Incidentally, it also makes me a brutally effective salesman when I’m aligned with an array of products I love.)
Today I got this review in the UK App Store:
5 Stars
Very useful, well made.
I tried other counting programs and this one came out on top because of :
- Ability to count multiple things at once.
- Email feature.
- Ability to label subjects.
- Nice, pleasing interface.
A polished program. Thankyou.
I didn’t build Tallymander because I thought it would be a blockbuster moneymaker. I built it because I knew someone, somewhere needed to count things, just like I do. When that someone went searching for a solution to that problem, I wanted Tallymander to satisfy their need without annoying them or worse: leaving them with the nagging feeling that something about it could have been done much better. For a customer in the UK, I seem to have made that magic happen. Even if I made not another cent off of Tallymander, it has done what I hoped for it.
With that pleasant surprise, the wound in my soul heals a little further.
Time to get crackin’ on 1.1.
The Internet Never Forgets
You need to stop being a jackass. And I mean yesterday.
Know why?
No one is going to let you get away with it anymore.
Today, whether you’re an individual or a large business, you need to treat people exactly the way you want to be treated. Better than that, even. A force has emerged that encourages the golden rule and punishes transgressions against it better than any social or religious system previously devised.
As usual, I’m talking about the internet.
Let’s step back in time to January of this year. Mass Effect, one of the best and most successful gaming titles of 2007, trickled back out into the awareness of ignorant people who don’t actually play video games. This, of course, means that Fox News had to get a piece of this action.
To discuss Mass Effect, they invited pop psychologist Cooper Lawrence to appear on-air. She villified the game, indicating that its overt sexuality would train boys to view women as sexual objects.
The only problem is that Mass Effect doesn’t contain any overt sexual themes or even nudity. The game includes an optional side-plot that culminates in a less-than-racy sexual encounter. That didn’t stop Cooper from running her mouth. Speaking after the appearance, Cooper said,
Before the show I had asked somebody about what they had heard, and they had said it’s like pornography. But it’s not like pornography. I’ve seen episodes of ‘Lost’ that are more sexually explicit.
Oops.
But it was too late. I’ve written before about how passionate constituencies carry powerful messages online. There is perhaps no more passionate a group than those who play video games. Long misunderstood and unfairly stereotyped for their interests, gamers have built vast communities for themselves on the internet. Trumpeting the call to battle against Cooper Lawrence, the gamer response was swift, vicious and very public.
Hundreds of negative reviews poured into the Amazon page for her latest book. Discussion forums, news aggregators like Digg, and every tech-savvy blog under the sun buzzed with indignation. This was, gamers felt, an unjustified attack on a supremely talented game developer who had provided tens of millions of hours of enjoyment to so many.
Cooper recanted and expressed regret for her remarks. Shitstorm over.
Yet there are longer lasting effects. Nearly half a year later, scars still cover Cooper’s online presence.
Although hundreds of obviously abusive 1-star reviews were purged by Amazon, 68 still remain on her book’s page. Amazon is as much a product research tool as it is a sales channel. Cooper has lost countless opportunities to sell her book thanks to this gaffe.
The more telling after effects come when searching “cooper lawrence” on Google. Her third search result is the above Game Politics article that dryly reports that Cooper Lawrence is someone who is not too particular about speaking without first knowing her facts. She says so herself. Below that is a charmingly-titled YouTube video, Cooper Lawrence is a Bitch. Counting her Amazon book, her first page of search results contains seven negative entries. That first search engine impression is 70% negative.
Think about that.
Now, being a firebrand and stirring up controversy thanks to genuine, well-considered opinions can be good for one’s career. There’s plenty of negative response that can come from that online. That’s not what we’re talking about here. This is someone being very publicly and brazenly ignorant, pretending to be an authority and then getting caught without a fact to stand on. That hurts your credibility, which hurts your ability to sell yourself.
Mass Effect is a good game and a proud achievement. Over a hundred people worked very long hours for a very long time to ship it. Millions more people bought it and loved it and felt a debt of gratitude to the developers whose toil had so enriched their lives. Then Cooper Lawrence showed up and very publicly slurred it.
And she’ll never do it again.
If you do things that are unkind to others and you do them publicly, just remember that the internet is watching.
It never forgets.
On the Value of Valuing People
I browse the Orlando craigslist on a pretty regular basis looking for side technology work to help knock some more holes in the ol’ student loan debt. Craigslist postings for jobs and gigs generally fall into four categories:
- Bona fide help wanted ads, with cash in trade of services
- Value-for-value trades, like unpaid modeling where the photographer will give the model a DVD-R full of pictures from the shoot
- Scam/spam posts
- Wanted: talented individual I can fuck over
Number 4 posts enrage me a great deal. Let’s look at one.
Character Artist
Reply to: see below
Date: 2008-02-01, 6:22PM EST
I am looking for someone to create me a 3D Character of a virtual human/avatar. The character is a woman age 18-21… I want this character to be shown in several different outfits…And I am hoping to find someone that knows how to draw the character in several different positions to animate walking.Please email me for further details, I have some examples of what I am looking for.. I will be glad to send those pics to you. This is a position for fun, a student who is just looking to gain experience.. I will put your name in my credits, and link to you.. if possible.Thanx! DanielleDanielle_Nicolle@hotmail.com
Let’s break this down. I am going to begin by translating it.
“I have very specific requirements for a highly-detailed, advanced-level computer animation project. Instead of paying you for your work, I will provide you with recognition within the tiny sphere that will be exposed to this project. I value your skills enough to give you credit for them, but not enough to pay you for them.”
Now, to be fair, there is plenty of work that creative or technical people sink dozens of hours into for fun rather than for pay. What these projects have in common, though, is that they almost always spring from personal inspiration and motivation. Working with a client for no pay isn’t fun — it’s a pain in the ass. Someone interested in sharpening their chops is much better off following their own muses.
This is just one of hundreds. I see it for gigs in photography, computer repair, web design, writing and plenty of others. Sometimes they get generous, though, and offer a few bucks:
Motion Graphic Needed
Reply to: gigs-536221998@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-01-11, 8:23PM ESTStartup company seeks a motion graphic (animated logo + tagline) for website. It will be the primary graphic on the homepage of the site.The total animation time will not be long (probably 15 sec or less) and the output file will be either a flash file or a flash movie file.The only downside is I don’t have much to offer as cash is minimal right now.This is a good project for a student or someone looking for a quick gig.Those interested should send me an email with at least 1-2 samples of animated logos or similar.
- Location: Orlando, FL
- it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
- Compensation: $25
You know what, dude? You can’t afford motion graphics. Any sort of reasonable designer isn’t even going to plug in his tablet for $25, much less do the dozen hours worth of consultation and work it’ll take to turn this out. Let’s be ridiculously conservative here and say that it takes only five hours, including consultation and revisions. Designer, who has unique job skills and probably a college education, is making $5 an hour, less than minimum wage.
Homie could go and work at McDonald’s for an afternoon and get a better deal.
This one is my favorite:
Needed: Web & Photo Person!
Reply to: mark@s31national.com
Date: 2008-01-22, 11:01AM ESTWe are looking for someone to expand and upgrade our website as well as work with various photo editing programs. We do events and need photos uploaded for sale and viewing. The project will be ongoing and you will be able to grow with us… We are noT looking for someone looking to score a huge payoff or a corporate way of thinking. If we did we would hire a company. We want to give a newcomer a chance to grow with a company that is fun and flexible. If you have mad skills and like getting outside now and then for a change…let us know.
- Location: Orlando
- it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
- Compensation: no pay
I don’t even know where to start with that one. I mean, clearly, anyone who wants to get paid for their talents is some sort of icky suit, right?
It’s not unique to craigslist, either. People with technology talents are constantly set upon by vultures who think that credits or a link back are fair compensation for hours or days of work. My suspicion is that the people who expect this kind of trade have no idea the sort of work that goes into learning and discharging the skills they’re asking for.
Yet, even people who should be savvy fall prey to this. A couple of years ago, when I was just out of college, Ramit Sethi reached out to me across the interwebs and offered me a remote internship with his startup, PBwiki. Sounded pretty sweet, I thought. Then I asked him about the pay. He gave me the classic line about it being unpaid at the start, but hinted at the possibility of paid opportunities down the road. This is akin to a philanderer telling one of his mistresses that at some point in the future, he’ll leave his wife for her. It sounds very compelling but very rarely is it actually true. More problematic is that once you and your employer agree that your value is $0 an hour, it’s very difficult to move your payscale into the appropriate range.
I had just started my career and had a job that paid well, so didn’t take the offer. Still, it took me a year to get used to being compensated for my talents before I could look back and see the offer for what it was: insulting. These days, Ramit is a self-styled personal finance blogger. Hopefully he advises people to sink their time into work that actually pays. Update 2/4/08: See Ramit’s comment and my response below.
To be sure, there are times where working for free can be an incredible opportunity. Working for the White House, Conde Nast, Playboy, Google or other luminary organizations is a privilege early in one’s career. But these guys aren’t Hugh Hefner or Josh Lyman looking for talent. They’re just cheapskates.
Whatever the cause, these people come off looking like assholes. You have to think that they’re getting no responses at all or the work they’re getting is shockingly awful. Word of advice, kids: next time you ask someone to do hours of work for you, ask yourself how much you would honestly expect to be paid for the same time commitment. Then you should probably double it, because if you can’t do it yourself you’re probably asking for a rare commodity.
Only you can stop yourself from looking like a dick when you go in search of good help.
Web 2.0: It’s not about tools
Want to come out for dinner with me? It’s going to be really nice.
We’re going to suspend ourselves in elevated surfaces approximately three to four feet above the ground. In front of us will be a platform constructed from wood with metal fasteners, covered with laundered cotton. Glass vessels will be filled with liquid so that we’ll have a reason to move the vessels to and fro. Meanwhile, ceramic disks will be placed on the table. We’ll pass metal tools back and forth above the ceramic for about an hour while we make conversation.
Sound like a good time?
Of course not. It sounds absurd. But this is what comes to mind as I hear people talk about social media. The entire conversation is about tools and platforms, forgetting completely about the heart of the matter: people!
It’s not unlike describing a nice meal while leaving out, you know, the food. Even smart, savvy people can easily fall into this trap. They can be forgiven, as the press has (unsurprisingly)Â failed to expose the value of today’s web philosophies and the companies themselves play along. By not talking about the users, except as abstract components of their vague business models, companies and their rock star principals get more time in the spotlight. Social web is about people, not technologies, corporate celebrities or glassy logos.
The emergence of today’s interactive, cooperative online experience came from a primal desire for interaction. Fancy widgets and platforms served an existing need rather than creating that need from scratch.
How to escape the trap:
Plenty of companies screw up their social presence online because they me-too their way into using tools that are popular with other people. They see the tools as popular, rather than the unique value of interaction that users get from using those tools. Me-tooism is a popular argument against social strategies for the very same reason: seeing the tools rather than the interaction.
Many companies place an emphasis on paying attention to their customers’ concerns and making things right when possible. Is a company that adopts such a practice being a copycat? Absolutely not. It’s just an obviously -good idea.
The same applies here. The notion that people enjoy the opportunity to share their thoughts and ideas easily is, well, a new one, despite all the hints dropped by the invention of the printing press. A company that creates opportunities for its customers to have a public conversation featuring the company isn’t being unoriginal. It’s giving people what they want.
No one ever went out of business for giving people what they want.
Instead of seeing social media as tools to be exploited, ask yourself what you can do to make your customers, your fans, your public, work for you while making themselves happy. People want to create, they want to talk, they want to believe. Ask yourself how to provoke these passions in the audience that is important to you. When you have an answer to that idea, you’ll know which tools to use.
At that point, feel free to knock yourself out with AJAX and rounded corners.