Gerry Gaffney

Is Melbourne Bike Share doomed?

2012-02-08T17:02:00.000-08:00

The problem

Mandatory helmet laws are crippling Melbourne's bike share scheme.

I love bike share (and car share) schemes. They are an elegant and efficient application of technology, and epitomise the promise of the "internet of things".

My tag loses its place on my keyring

As soon as I moved back to Melbourne from Sydney, I signed up for an annual membership, which cost me around $50. This provided me with a little tag that I could use to unlock a bike at any docking station.

Because helmets are mandatory in Melbourne, I decided keep a spare one in my locker in the city centre. The law is enforced, and I've even seen a cyclist being ticketed - by bicycle cops - on a shared footpath. (The fine is considerable at $146.)

I found, however, that my intended usage of the bikes was invariably stymied by the fact that I, or those accompanying me, did not have helmets at the time of intended usage.

The journeys on which I would have used the share bikes could be described as opportunistic. For example, going between client meetings during the week, or between shopping or entertainment areas on weekends. On several occasions, I was with friends or family, and we would have used the bikes were it not for the helmet requirement.

I've also observed and spoken to several prospective users of the system, many of whom were visitors, and who ended up not hiring bikes. One Norwegian gentleman who asked me for advice did the Krone/Dollar conversion, figured he could afford the fine if caught, and rode off happy and bareheaded. I hope he survived his journey along the gentle banks of the Yarra River.

The workaround

The people who run Melbourne Bike Share are, of course, well aware of the problem. Indeed it was flagged by many commentators as a significant risk when the scheme was proposed. In an effort to address the problem, helmets are available at very low cost form convenience stores, and two of the bike hire stations have dispensers allowing users to puchase helmets.

In design parlance, this is a "workaround".

Workarounds are always indicative of a design problem, and tend to be inefficient. They can however be effective. In the case of the Melbourne Bike Share scheme, the ability to get helmets has probably resulted in a small increase in usage. However, many stations are not adjacent to convenience stores, and do not have dispensers. On one occasion the nearest "convenient" source of helmets for me was was 10 minutes' walk away. The need to walk for 20 minutes in order to hire a bike for a 10-minute trip is an unattractive proposition.

The usage rates of both the Melbourne and Brisbane schemes remain pitifully low when compared with usage rates throughout the rest of the world (utilisation rates are around 10% of London's "Boris bikes", for example).

The solution

If we accept that the helmet requirement is a major disincentive, and that the current method for providing access to helmets is an inadequate workaround, I see three alternatives:

Provide very inexpensive or free helmets at every bike share station at all times. This is still a workaround, but may result in improved usage rates. The people who run the bike share scheme presumably have data on whether installing dispensers at docking stations (at Southern Cross and Melbourne University) has resulted in increased usage from those stations. Speaking from my personal experience, immediate access to helmets would have resulted in some increased usage, although I would be reluctant to purchase multiple helmets (which is what I would need to do to meet the opportunistic nature of my requirements). Dispensers might need to support a "return for re-use" system.
Exempt users of the bike hire scheme from mandatory helmet requirements. This has been suggested by Chris Rissell, Professor of Public Health at University of Sydney, who wrote: "Given there is clear evidence from around the world of substantial health benefits and minimal risk from public bicycle share schemes, Australia should allow an exemption of the mandatory helmet legislation for such schemes."
Shut down the scheme. While I personally feel it would be a great shame to do so, it's an option that should be given careful consideration.

I've specifically avoided discussing the advantages and disadvantages of mandatory helmet laws - this is a contentious issue and generates much heat and both sides. However, it's important to be clear: The only significant difference between the unsuccessful Melbourne (and Brisbane) schemes and the very successful schemes elsewhere is the existence of the helmet laws. The difference in usage rates cannot be explained by hardware, climate, topography, traffic conditions or any other identifiable factor.

As for me, with regret, I have allowed my membership to lapse, and taken the little blue tag off my keyring.

The Steve Jobs biography

2011-11-01T17:13:00.000-07:00

Walter's Isaacon's biography of Steve Jobs is big (a fact I didn't really appreciate untilI I saw the physical book in my local bookstore). At over 600 pages it doesn't lend itself to rapid reading. However, it's certainly worth the effort.

The historical detail on the personal computer industry is fascinating. Jobs was ideally situated in time and place at a nexus where technology, much of it funded by US military expenditure, was becoming sufficiently sophisticated and accessible to enable truly revolutionary developments. Companies like Hewlett-Packard, Westinghouse, Intel and Fairchild were locals. (A young Jobs phoned HP CEO Bill Hewlett when he needed some parts, and ended up working for the company in a junior role.)

Steve Wozniak and others were building rough-and-ready machines that they showcased to their friends. Jobs had the business acumen to see that there was a market beyond the special-interest groups.

Jobs was also at another nexus, that of technology and the liberal arts, and this was a space he consciously and deliberately occupied throughout his adult life.

Of course the book is not primarily about technology, but about Jobs, and the author provides plenty of detail about his origins, including the fact that he was adopted, and that he had a full sister whom he met only as an adult. There is some discussion of whether Jobs' need for control and his tendency to latch onto father figures had their origin in a sense of abandonment.

Jobs learned at least some of his desire for perfection in design from his engineer father's focus on craftsmanship. His father taught him that it was important to craft properly even the parts you could not see, such as the backs of cabinets. Later, Jobs would insist that the internal parts of Apple devices were pleasing to look at, rejecting for example a circuit board in which the lines were not straight. We might consider it obsessive, but this perfectionism is very much at the core of what made Apple such a successful company.

From a user experience perspective, the book is fascinating. An early partner in Apple, Mark Markkula, wrote "The Apple Marketing Philosophy" which stressed empathy, focus and imputation. The need to impute - to assign a value by inference - was enormously influential. Jobs embraced the concept, and it is apparent in the attention to detail, presentation and branding that has epitomised Apple for most of its existence. For example, the packaging on your new MacBook Air or iPhone imputes the quality of the machine it contains. The little folded cloth that came with your iMac is not just a nice touch, but the essence of how Apple would attempt to communicate a message not only through the product itself, but through the entire customer experience.

The book is full of fascinating stories (the lifelong interest in Zen, the interaction with Sculley, the relationship with Disney, the obsessive diets and issues of personal hygiene) and quotations ("I hate the way people use slide presentations instead of thinking." "We make progress by eliminating things, by removing the superfluous.") It's also an interesting exploration of two conflicting philosophies; open or closed systems. This is particularly relevant at the moment with the release of iCloud - will Apple be able to move the digital hub to the cloud, and still maintain a closed and controlled environment for its users?

The author is clearly sympathetic to Jobs the person, although he doesn't shy from discussing his negative and destructive characteristics. Jobs was frequently bullying in his behaviour. His focus on delivering a high-quality user experience didn't often extend to the people he had to deal with. He could be cold, hostile, destructive or distant.

It's a telling point that when he was close to death, he told the author that the reason why he'd cooperated with the biography, despite being worried about it, was that "I wanted my kids to know me. I wasn't always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did."

The book is thorough, and reading it will take you on a journey though a great deal of key moments and decisions in the recent history of IT, personal computing, movies, music and publishing. I forgave its length because none of the content was irrelevant. It is well structured and clearly written.

It's also an important book, because Jobs and the people with whom collaborated, or with whom he competed or fought, have been key drivers of the technology that now pervades our environment.

Two rules for social media engagement

2011-10-30T17:59:00.000-07:00

There are two rules for businesses establishing or maintaining a social media presence:

1. Monitor the channel

2. Respond to commentary.

A few months ago, I tweeted a somewhat acerbic comment about @museumvictoria. They'd emailed their members an offer for discounted tickets, but when I followed the link, the destination page was missing some functionality required to make the booking.

Within a few minutes my phone rang. A staff member from Museum Victoria wanted to know what the problem was, and how they could help. They sorted out my problem efficiently. A little later they tweeted a general "sorry for the email problem - it's fixed now" comment.

I was impressed.

More recently, I tweeted about CityLink in Melbourne:

"Gobsmacked. @citylinkmelb KNOWS website broken. Will be fixed in a MONTH. They let users go through the hoops rather than tell them!"

Several people responded to me, generally saying they'd had similar problems, but there was no reply of any sort from CityLink.

My friend and colleague Fergal Coleman at Symphony3 told me of a discussion he had with a local council that was establishing a social media presence. They were concerned about exposing themselves to negative commentary. "Would you rather not know about the issues," he asked them, "or would you like to have a forum where you can identify and address them?"

I think this is at the heart of social media as a channel for businesses to interact with their customers. To be successful, social media must be treated as enablers of conversation. Seeing social media as one-way channels misses the point. It's the equivalent of saying; "Let's have a conversation. I'll talk."

Photo: johnsnape on Flickr, creative commons license

Rule 1: Monitor the channel

Never before have companies had the opportunity to get such ready access to first-hand unsolicited input from customers. However, it does require that someone within the company has the task of actually listening. Turning a deaf ear is senseless.

The extent of the attention a company needs to pay depends on the nature and amount of feedback, and a clear plan is required. It may be as simple as having one person who is assigned the task of monitoring mentions on an hourly, daily or ad-hoc basis.

Rule 2: Respond to commentary

Responding to what people say is the essence of the necessary conversation. Thanking people for nice comments is both polite and brand-enhancing. Acknowledging faults, deflecting unwarranted criticism, or explaining why problems may persist all engender trust.

Ignoring commentary, on the other hand, suggests either arrogance or incompetence.

Reviewing the Velorbis Churchill Ballon

2011-10-21T01:44:00.000-07:00

In April 2010 I wrote about my Gazelle Aristo “citybike”.

I was very happy with the Gazelle, but being a bit of agadget nut I was also keeping my eyes open for other choices. It’s easy tojustify a new bicycle every year or so. In fact, myback-of-an-imaginary-envelope calculations tell me that even if I buy areasonably expensive commuter bike, it pays for itself in less than a year inpurely monetary terms.

In November 2010 I bought a Velorbis bicycle (the “ChurchillBalloon” model) from Morgans Bicycles in Sydney.

For many people who are considering such a bike, the firstquestion is whether it’s heavy. The answer is definitely “Yes.” At just shy of18kg, it’s a heavy machine.

It’s certainly possible to carry it up a flight of steps,but I wouldn’t like to do it on a regular basis.

Some enthusiasts will tell you that the weight of a bicycleis of little significance in terms of ease of riding. In my opinion this isnonsense. The Gazelle was much lighter,and consequently took less energy to ride.

The weight of the Velorbis is offset by the fact that it has7 gears, so it’s not unreasonably difficult to ride up hills. I rode the bikein Sydney, which is not exactly flat, for some months. Although I never got offand walked (unacceptable loss of face) I did use the lowest gear fairly often,and found riding up from Bondi Beach, for example, to be challenging.

When compared with the Gazelle, the Velorbis also has a lessrefined feel. The Gazelle is thoroughly modern, and beautifully engineered andconstructed. The Velorbis is more reminiscent of the traditional old blackbike.

The Velorbis was also a few hundred dollars cheaper than theGazelle, so I’m not really comparing like-with-like. Nevertheless, I think these impressions give an idea of an essential difference between the two.

Incidentally, I sold my Gazelle very recently, and the new owner is very happy. Ironically, he got its first puncture (ever) within a week.

For several months I had both the Gazelle and the Velorbis(somewhat to Gina’s annoyance), but I found myself using the Velorbis almostexclusively. Despite being heavy and, to my mind, a tad clunky, the Velorbis isjust an all-round beautiful machine. If you look at the photos, you’ll see whatI mean. It has the classic handlebars, an extremely comfortable Brooks leathersaddle, and leather hand grips. It has a certain presence, I think. Sam Butler said that it was like a Daimler, and he thought a police escort would suit it.

The drum brakes are integrated into the wheel hubs. There’sa dynamo integrated with the front hub, and this powers front and rear lights.There’s a capacitor (or something equivalent) that stores the charge, so the lights stayon for plenty of time after you’ve stopped riding (for example, at trafficlights).

There’s a built-in wheel lock. Again, this is much clunkierthan the Gazelle equivalent, requiring a bit of fiddling at times, whereas theGazelle lock always slid into place without demur. These locks are great forparking at the shops, but someone can still carry the bike off, so for extendedparking, or in areas with a high theft risk, I use a bike lock to attach thebike to an immovable object. The Gazelle had a chain that was well-engineeredto attach to the wheel lock, but the Velorbis doesn’t have that capability.

Mudguards are built-in, and work really well. Even whenriding through gravel on wet days, I've been spared getting splattered.

The carrier is sturdy. The spec (PDF file) says the load capacity (which I presume means the amount of stuff you canput on the carrier, but I may be wrong) is 50kg. Certainly I frequently giveMarcus a ride on the back (which is illegal in Australia. Of course), andalthough it’s not the most comfortable way for him to travel, it’s convenientwhen he’s not riding his own bike. The carrier doesn’t have the Gazelle’sbuilt-in elasticised straps (which I miss - they were very handy). It has a little latchsticking out of the right-hand side, supposedly for affixing an attaché case.For me, this merely serves to make it impossible to attach a pannier to theright hand side. I’m always tempted to hacksaw it off, but that feels likevandalism. But one of these days…

Filmed under controlled conditions

I had to replace the pedals after only a few months. One of them had an annoying jiggle on each revolution. A trivial fault that many would probably ignore. I had to do the same thing on the Gazelle. Maybe I'm particularly hard on pedals. I do like to dismount and stand on one pedal while coasting to a stop, so maybe that's got something to do with it.

There’s a built-in kickstand, which is very satisfyinglyclunky to operate. It provides pretty good balance, but I have had the bikefall over a couple of times. Well, actually, more than a couple. So I try to bea bit more careful about being on level ground and not leaving a loaded pannierattached.

It came with a really nice, old-fashioned two-tone bell.This was eventually destroyed because of allowing the bike to fall over on thatside, so I replaced it with a somewhat unsatisfactory substitute. Most bikes in Australia have a really crappy little thing that makes a little ding when struck with the spring-loaded lever. The two tones are cheerful and polite, but when rung repeatedly and with enthusiasm can also convey a more strident message. (Thanks to Morgans Bicycles for sending me a replacement bell after reading this.)

One of the very noticeable features of the bike is the bigtyres. Gina (being the visual design expert) told me to get the shop to fitwhite ones instead of the brown or black that they suggested, and of courseshe was right. Again.

The big tyres (Fat Franks) are certainly a factor in making the bike verycomfortable to ride, although no doubt they add to the weight and are probablynot particularly efficient.

However, I have experienced four punctures in the pastseveral months, which is four more than I’d had for the previous several years, so Imay consider changing to tires that are a bit tougher. Then again, maybe not because it's so nice to ride on them.

The gears (SRAM seven-speed hub gears) are, again, clunkierthan the Gazelle’s Shimano Nexus eight-speed. There’s a little pause when youchange before the new gear engages. I like it, but then I also prefer cars withmanual transmission.

Since the Gazelle, I’ve become a fan of hub gears. Noawkward ugly derailleurs to bang into things.

(Eunan reminded me that In Flann O’Brien’s brilliant andbizarre novel “The Third Policeman”, there is a discussion of the benefits anddisadvantages of the “new-fangled” three-speed gear:

- “It is a power for the hills,” said Gilhaney, “as good asa second pair of pins or a diminutive petrol motor.” -)

Although I’m sure the bike would be largely invisible inmany European cities, here in Sydney and Melbourne it’s sufficientlyexceptional to attract a lot of commentary and questions, and not only fromcyclists. A very polite driver waved me ahead on the hill out of Bondi on a very narrow road, and then politely followed me at 4km per hour as I panted to the top. When he had an opportunity to pass, he rolled down the window, not to remonstrate about the delay, but to admire the bike. I think the bike strikes a nostalgic chord in a lot of people who nolonger ride. At Marcus’ primary school, he telle me the bike is considered“cool”. The closest I’ll ever get to that status, no doubt.

I wouldn’t attempt serious hill climbing on the Velorbis. For example, if I were going for a weekend ride in the Otways (which I haven’t done for ages) I'd borrow someone's mountain bike.

For me, it’s an ideal bike to get around town in a relaxingfashion, and I’m comfortable with the fact that I’m one of the slower peopleon the road. Yesterday I rode my old Scott “flat-bar road bike” (now Brian’s),and realised that I don’t think I could ever go back to that style of bikeagain (not that there is anything wrong with the Scott).

Since I wrote my review of the Gazelle a year-and-a-halfago, the cycling situation has changed significantly in Australia. There arefar more commuter bikes on the road now, and bike shops that denied theirexistence two years ago now have a large part of their floor space dedicated tothem.

Of course, many of the cheaper models are of relatively poorquality, but it’s nice to see the bicycle rapidly re-emerging as just a regularmachine for getting around, rather than something that has to be hurled alongat maximum velocity and with legs shaved to minimise drag.

If you’re looking for an elegant, comfortable and utterlypleasant way to commute, I can thoroughly recommend that you consider aVelorbis.

Me, I’ve got my eye out for its successor, but I think it’sgoing to be hard to beat. Any pointers would be appreciated.

Sustainable data centers

2011-10-13T15:17:00.000-07:00

Originally published in print format in User Experience magazine, 2009.

Photo: IBM

Information Technology (IT) looks clean. Individually our laptops and mobile phones consume only small amounts of energy and there are no apparent emissions. However, IT is not without environmental impacts. Our high-tech devices require vast amounts of water and energy to create, contain materials that are hazardous to our health and the environment, and are costly to recycle. One example (from PE International GmbH) showed the carbon footprint of a small laptop to be approximately 400kg of CO2 , including manufacture and four years of usage.
Apart from the individual devices, however, there is also the overhead of providing the always-on, always-available access to data that we have come to consider the norm. This information is stored in data centers and accessed via the telephone network.
Individual requests for data appear insignificant. For example, Google stated in January 2009 that one Google search “is equivalent to about 0.2 grams of CO2 .” It is, of course, the sum of all the requests that shifts our perspective. Imagine for a moment that you could see the information flowing through the wires and the airwaves. Most of us would be surrounded most of the time by vast streams of data, mostly emanating from data centers.
It’s hard to know how much energy is used by data centers, and security and competitive factors mean that owners are tight-lipped. But the United States Environmental Protection Agency estimated that U.S. data centers and servers accounted for 1.5 percent of the total U.S. electricity use in 2006.
Perhaps because of the perception that doing things online is “greener” than doing things in the real world, there has been, until recently, relatively little consideration of the impact of all this computing.
When I interviewed Tom Raftery in June 2006 about social media, he mentioned almost in passing that he was building a hyper- energy efficient data center in Cork, Ireland; it sounded like a rather quixotic undertaking Tom and his partners at the Cork Information Exchange (CIX) focused on ways to minimize energy use. For example, they used cold aisle containment—completely sealing the cold aisle in the data center so that cold air goes only to the servers. They also used extremely efficient, uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), sourcing units that had an efficiency of up to 98.4 percent (compared with a more traditional 75 percent). CIX now promotes itself as “a leading provider of green, mission-critical colocation services.”
More recently, Sam Ng at Optimal Usability in New Zealand investigated hosting options for Optimal Workshop (their usability software-as-a-service application), and tried to calculate their carbon footprint. Provider RimuHosting persuaded them that using semi-dedicated servers in preference to fully dedicated would be a more sustainable solution. A fully dedicated server would mean having one computer permanently assigned to their application, whereas semi-dedicated would mean sharing the computer with others, with concomitant savings in energy use (and price). According to RimuHosting, a semidedicated server would save approximately 1 tonne of CO2 emissions per year, or the equivalent of 24 trees.
Liz Quilty at RimuHosting says the company believes it has “a responsibility to the environment as well as our customers,” although she adds that most clients still don’t inquire about environmental impacts when purchasing.
Of course, large companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Yahoo, with huge server farms, have a very strong interest in reducing energy costs. This is an area where the dual goals of sustainability and profitability are strongly aligned, so it’s likely that good progress can be made.
For example, Google touts a five-step plan to move toward a more sustainable model:

Minimize electricity used by servers
Reduce the energy used by the data center facilities themselves
Use recycled water instead of fresh water
Reuse or recycle all electronic equipment
Engage with peers to advance smarter energy practices

Microsoft has a similar set of steps:

Use recycled resources whenever practical (including water)
Use renewable resources whenever available. For example, the Microsoft data center in Dublin, Ireland, uses outside air for cooling (perhaps no great surprise to those of us familiar with Dublin’s climate!)
Reduce waste in operations (for example, ordering servers literally by the truckload to minimize packaging required when servers are delivered individually or in racks).
Take part in industry environmental groups

Many of the steps being taken by data center operators are hardware-related (for example, improving power conditioning to minimize losses and using more efficient cooling).
Microsoft has also identified ten business practices for environmentally sustainable data centers. These highlight the strong connection between environmental and economic goals. The first item on the list of practices is to “provide incentives that support your primary goals.” Microsoft points out that while technologies and practices that support energy efficiency already exist, industry adoption has been relatively low because “data center managers are typically compensated based on uptime and not efficiency.”
There are now many bright people working on the problems of energy efficiency in data centers. James Hamilton, vice president and engineer at Amazon Web Services, in his keynote address at the Usenix technical conference in June 2009, presented a fascinating and practical analysis on power usage in high-scale data centers. He pointed out that as computing power gets cheaper, the cost of power and infrastructure are likely to become dominant. This provides additional impetus to reduce these costs.
Because up-time is such a key measure of success, there has been a tendency to overspecify. Hamilton and others have pointed out that most of the components in server farms are specified to withstand temperatures much higher than the ones to which they are exposed. Reducing air conditioning may often be possible without detrimental side effects.
Utilization is also an important factor. Feeding electricity to servers that are not operating at near capacity is inherently wasteful. Steps such as Optimal Usability’s use of a semidedicated server can help reduce waste, but the real solution is for data center design to be leaner, with operators making better decisions about how much computing power is actually needed to meet required service levels.
Besides all of these supply side issues, there are also issues of demand. As designers, we frequently have some control over data calls. For example, I’ve often castigated banks and similar organizations for failing to provide adequate historical data (which have frequently been bound by legacy decisions). On the one hand, I’m pleased to see that in recent years they have made more historical account information available. If we want to minimize server usage, however, we would request a sensible subset, and retrieve additional information only on demand (rather than retrieving and caching for possible display). Thinking about simple problems like this may help us to consider end-to-end issues—not just in physical or visible manifestations, but also in the ways that we store and retrieve data.
Creating efficient data centers with significantly lower environmental impacts is attainable and highly desirable for economic reasons. Hopefully we can continue to be ravenous infovores while treading ever more lightly on the planet.

Brevity

2011-08-16T20:57:00.000-07:00

I received an email from the company I use for my infodesign.com.au mailing list. It provides a good example of some of the things to think about in customer communications. I'll start with the original email, unedited other than removal of the company's name.

***

Dear Gerry Gaffney,

  You are receiving this email because you have chosen to prepay for [company name], and your prepay balance is running low.

Please be advised that if your account balance is less than the actual amount due for any invoice, your account will automatically be switched to a monthly payment plan and you will be billed at standard monthly rates.

To check your balance on account, login to your account today and select "My Account".

To add funds to your balance on account, choose the "Add Funds to My Account" option available from the "My Account" screen.

We appreciate your prompt attention to this matter. Be assured that we are working hard to make your use of [company name] as enjoyable and productive as possible. As always, thank you for your business.

Best Regards,

***

A first pass is to delete unnecessary text. For example, expressions like “please be advised” are, at best, useless and at worst a source of confusion and ambiguity.

This leave us with the following:

***

Dear Gerry Gaffney,

Your prepay balance is running low.

If your account balance is less than the amount due, your account will automatically be switched to a monthly payment plan and you will be billed at standard monthly rates.

To check your balance, login and select "My Account".

To add funds, choose the "Add Funds to My Account" option available from the "My Account" screen.

As always, thank you for your business.

Best Regards,

***

This is better, but the key paragraph explaining why I've received the email is unclear. What the email is trying to tell me is that if I don't take action, I'll be switched to a more expensive rate, but it hasn't stated that explicitly.

In addition, the advice to log in and then navigate somewhere is problematic, since once I've followed the link I'm likely to have forgotten where I'm supposed to go next. It would be much better to give me a direct link (which I should reach after providing the appropriate credentials).

Further, there should be no need to both check my balance and top up my account; if the destination Accounts page is well designed, my balance will be clearly displayed while I'm logged on.

So a further refinement leads us to:

***

Dear Gerry Gaffney,

Your prepaid balance is running low. To avoid being switched to more expensive monthly charging, please log in to top up your balance.

As always, thank you for your business.

Best Regards,

***

This verges on being too short, and there's an argument for having more information of a marketing or explanatory nature. This could some immediately before (or instead of) the “thank you” sentence.

By ensuring that the opening paragraph is brief, instructive and actionable, companies can maintain the option of providing further information, while still catering to the needs of the busy customer who just needs to jump into the required action (in this case, topping up the account balance).

The ineluctable modality of the cloud

2011-07-18T02:43:00.000-07:00

A long time ago, records (those grooved vinyl discs) were replaced with compact discs.

The music industry was very keen on CDs. The superior sound quality, it was argued, would make them difficult to “pirate”. Presumably there were other reasons for the enthusiasm. For example, selling something you’ve already sold, but in a new format, may well have been an attraction. CDs would, we were told, be next to indestructible (and indeed when compared with records, they are quite sturdy).

I always felt that the music industry did a disservice to itself, and its customers, when it embraced the jewel case as the packaging for CDs. The jewel case was peculiarly inadequate. It limited the amount of printed material that could be squeezed in with the CD, forced publishers to use fonts that were too small to read, broke easily, failed to protect its content and failed to differentiate its content from everything else around it.

I don’t want to gloss over this; it’s a critical, illustrative and seminal occurrence. Prior to the CD, music packaging was quite individual and identifiable. An “album” or “record” (a double-sided vinyl disc usually containing several tracks or songs) was typically 12 inches (30cm) in diameter . (There were variants, which I’ll ignore to avoid unnecessary detail.) Albums were packaged in readily identifiable and highly individual “sleeves”, usually made of cardboard, often with distinctive artwork, and often containing multiple pages of text. There was plenty of room for innovation and differentiation. For example, a Rolling Stones album (“Sticky Fingers”) had a zipper, which enabled one to reveal the underwear beneath the jeans depicted on the cover. Even low-budget musicians could achieve interesting results. Irish band Horslips used an octagonal cover (representing a “squeeze box” or accordion) as the cover of their first (brilliant) album, “Happy to Meet, Sorry to Part”.

I don’t lament the demise of the album. They were tricky, subject to wear. Each time an album was played, it deteriorated. Albums would also warp irretrievably when left in direct sunlight, loaned to careless friends or handled when in party mode.

Of course, the CD was merely a step on the road to the true digitisation of music. While CDs store music digitally, they are still subject to the disadvantages of their physicality. They can be lost or damaged, and are confined to existing in only one place at a time. Some artists create bespoke packaging that is beautiful, but the appalling jewel case is still the norm.

The next logical step is from the CD to an online medium. Although one can still buy CDs, there are many music purchasers who have never done so and never will. There will probably remain a niche market for some years (as indeed a niche market for vinyl discs remains) but it is relatively insignificant.

Delivering music directly to the listener on demand is wonderful, but let’s not pretend it’s an unmitigated improvement. Most people old enough to grow up on vinyl will attest to the fact that sometimes the very difficulty of finding an individual track meant that you listened to music you would otherwise have skipped, and that sometimes that was a rewarding experience. Songs that seemed difficult or unappealing unfolded gradually to reveal that they had qualities worth hearing. Sometimes. The richness of the medium – the vinyl disc, the sleeve, the accompanying booklets or artefacts – created a rich experience beyond the aural. Sometimes the artefacts were peripheral and irrelevant, but frequently they were not.

More recently, books have been moving online. Without an intervening milestone, they have leapt from the bookshelf to the iPad, Kindle, Kobo or whatever.

I’m a big fan of the digital book, but I’ve always been a fan of the book as physical entity. When I go to someone’s home for the first time, my initial impressions are informed by what’s on their bookshelves. There is no equivalent for the online library. (“Excuse me, can I see your eBook reader?”)

Our personal images are also moving online. Flickr and Facebook and a dozen other services store our memories. No longer do we pull out photo albums and shoeboxes; instead we gather around an iPad or other device to view the “precious memories” we’ve stored.

Since the digital is what I do, and how I work, and where I live, I’m not inclined to dispute its value. However, there are factors to consider.

Digital media have also provided the ability for small operators (publishers, artists, authors and musicians) to access audiences and markets previously beyond their reach.

What do we lose by putting our books online? In many cases, very little. Excepting “coffee-table” books or books produced specifically as printed artefacts, most can be put online to great effect. They are rendered portable, searchable and transferrable (malleable, too, once we grow out of our attempts to restrict them). They are pleasantly convenient to purchase and access. On a recent short holiday, I read four books, three of which I didn’t even have with me when I left home.

What I’ve found I miss is the sheer physicality of the book. Not its shape or size, its smell or heft or tangibility, so much as the very fact of its existence. A physical book reminds me: “I am here”, “You haven’t read me yet”, “You’re half-way through me”. My online books have no such power. They lie un-viewed, unopened and unregarded. They have no power and no presence. If I do not actively attend them, they do not exist.

One could envisage an über-book or an ur-book that morphs at random or at predefined intervals or in response to the emotional state of the (potential) reader into a specific book – now a classic, now chick-lit, now sci-fi, now a political biography.

One could envisage a virtual bookshelf that looks as if it were occupied by books, but whose spines instead open up online representations of their masters. Or a photo album that contains images relevant to the people in the room it occupies. Or a wall-mounted photo collection that responds to mood.

Whatever form it takes, I would predict that the more we move our texts, images and sounds online, the greater will be the attraction and the desire for a physical manifestation.

What form that manifestation might take, I have only the vaguest idea. But I do feel sure that we will not accept that the modality of the cloud is ineluctable.

(The title is stolen from Joyce’s Ulysses. Stephen Dedalus, walking on Sandymount Strand, thinks: “Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust: coloured signs.”)

Why is Dublin a cycling city?

2011-04-01T04:07:00.000-07:00

In September 2010 I was in Dublin for a few days. It seemed to me that in a period of around 18 months (since my previous visit) the city had experienced a cycling renaissance. There were lots of bike on the streets, and every fixed object seemed to have an array of attached bicycles.

What had happened?

To my entirely unscientific eye, it seems that a few factors contributed.

The Dublin Port Tunnel connected the port to the motorways, and took heavy goods traffic out of the city centre.

Speed reductions have made roads safer, although the city-wide 30km/hour attracted criticism and was not necessarily being observed (as this article in the Irish Times attests).

The introduction of bus lanes (some of which cyclists can use) has provided a clearer and largely uncontested route for many cycling journeys.

A government scheme designed to encourage pople to cycle to work enables employees to buy bikes (and accessories) up to €1,000 (around USD $1,400) through their employer, and gain tax benefits that offset the cost.

Although not cited by anyone I canvassed, the financial situation (with Ireland going through a crisis, unemployment rising and major banks being effectively nationalised) may have prompted people to forego their cars or reduce driving to economise.

Perhaps there's a predisposition towards bicycles in Irish culture. When I interviewed iQ Content's Morgan McKeagney for the User Experience Podcast (primarily on entirely unrelated matters), he suggested that "we're all bicyclers inside us, you know, given the opportunity we'll jump on the bikes". So maybe it's as simple as that.

A bike share scheme has proven wildly popular.Unlike the scheme here in Melbourne which has been crippled by mandatory helmet laws, the Dublin scheme has been adopted with gusto, and there are plans to increase the number of bikes from 500 to 5,000.

One thing that impressed me in my short time in Dublin (where I rode as a young adult as cyclists were being marginalised), was the diversity of people using the bike share scheme. I took the accompanying photo down the docks, but it doesn't depict a "typical" user, because I don't think there is one. Users seemed to encompass students, business people, fashionistas, factory hands and drug dealers. There was also a good gender balance (there's a general consensus that cycling cultures only become established when there are as many women as men on bikes.)

Incidentally, when I asked this rather dapper businessman, who was en route to a meeting, whether I could take his photo he said "It's not going to be in the paper or something?" and I assured him not. I hope this usage is acceptable.

Publishers mangle books

2011-01-25T23:47:00.000-08:00

Most of my books are in traditional format, printed on paper. I have a growing collection of online books; I began using an Amazon Kindle over a year ago, and more recently have been using Kindle and iBooks on the iPad.

The online format is particularly suited to technical and text books; these generally don't arouse a significant emotional response, and a purely utilitarian approach suggests that the online format is often the most appropriate. However, I've also been reading (and in some cases, re-reading) novels.

Being of a mind to re-read Flann O'Brien's darkly comic classic, "The Third Policeman" recently, I purchased a copy through Apple's iBooks (since my printed copy is in storage in Melbourne somewhere.)

To my great disappointment and annoyance, it was littered with errors, apparently introduced by optical character recognition (OCR) failures and perpetuated by negligence and a failure to effectively proof-read the final result.

How can Harper Perennial Modern Classics have the temerity, I wonder, to publish an edition of any book - let alone a classic - with such woeful inattention to quality?

Some of the errors were relatively trivial, in the form of omitted opening quotes. Others were more egregious. One of the De Selby commentators is variously referred to as "Hatchjaw" (the correct rendition) and "Hatch jaw". The word "rap" appears in place of "rat". I didn't bother counting, but I estimate that there is an error every 3 pages or so.

Publishers are understandably moving to provide online versions of their catalogues, but treating it as some sort of free lunch is surely an encouragement to potential purchasers to engage in piracy instead. I felt incensed that I'd paid $10 for this flawed version. Unfortunately this is not, in my experience, an isolated incident. I've also encountered quality problems with other books from other publishers.

"The Third Policeman" is extremely funny, dark and bizarre. Flann O'Brien (one of the pseudonyms of the brilliant Brian O'Nolan) was admired by both James Joyce and Samuel Beckett.

I highly recommend the book. Just don't buy the mangled Harper version.

A note-taker's tool

2010-11-07T03:25:00.000-08:00

The law of unintended consequences describes the fact that many actions have results that are unplanned, and frequently undesirable. Economists also talk of "perverse incentives", whereby legislation or market manipulation intended to produce one outcome result in another. For example, when my company, Information and Design, owned motor vehicles, my accountant on one occasion suggested that I might "take a spin to Canberra" (a 1,500 km round trip) to clock up an odometer reading that would result in a tax benefit.

Unintended consequences are not necessarily negative, however.

Last week I bought an Echo Smartpen from Livescribe. It can record and play back audio, but I wasn't interested in that particular feature. What interested me was its ability to record my handwriting and, with the aid of add-on software MyScript, convert it to text.

In my work, I spend a lot of time talking to people in a variety of locations - homes, workplaces and, currently, schools. I take a lot of handwritten notes, and generally need to convert them to electronic format for further analysis (such as coding or affinity diagramming). It would be ideal if I could take notes directly into a computer, but this is inappropriate for several reasons, primarily the fact that it lowers the quality of the conversation and interferes with flow. So there's no real substitute for handwriting. (Audio recording can be useful but is inefficient and frequently inappropriate.)

As soon as possible after each interview I sit at a computer and type in my notes. It's not entirely wasted time, since it's an opportunity to revisit the conversations and consider what I've learned, and to make notes about issues, design implications and so on. However, it's overly tedious and time-consuming.

Any system that would allow me to automate the process, at least to some extent, is attractive. A few years ago I had a brief look at a pen-based recording system (perhaps an earlier iteration of the Echo Smartpen; I don't recall) and decided it was inadequate.

In the week since I bought the pen I conducted around ten interviews over the course of two non-consecutive days, and it was an opportunity to trial the system.

I should mention that the pen uses special paper. Apparently you can print your own paper on a laser printer, but the purpose-made notebooks are not overly expensive so I just used one of them.

On the first day of interviews, I used my "printed" handwriting, and the results were less than adequate. While I saved some time in transcription, the recognition rate was low, and the effort in fixing up my notes was significant.

My printed handwriting produced poor results

On the second day, I switched to cursive "joined-up" handwriting, and I took some care (certainly more than usual) in trying to make my writing legible.

My handwriting has never been brilliant, and I've been using keyboards almost exclusively since my mid teens. I remember my father's handwriting being particularly legible; he was a civil servant in the days prior to computers, so it was a necessary skill. Gina's handwriting is also generally excellent, especially when she uses a drafting style. She tells me that everyone in her industrial design course could write well, because it was still a necessary skill in the days when engineers and drafts-people were on the cusp of having ready and affordable access to tools like Autocad (which, incidentally, Wikipedia informs we was first released in 1982).

In any case, when I try, I can write in a passable readable script, and I found that my Day 2 notes were rendered acceptably well by the MyScript software. I spent around one hour cleaning up and revisiting 21 pages of hand-written notes - much less time than I would normally spend.

Purely from the point of view of conducting ethnographic research, then, the Smartpen and MyScript software are indispensable. The 4GB version of the pen cost less than AUD $250, and the software around AUD $30 (roughly the same in US dollar amounts at present), and they've already paid for themselves.

If you take field notes, and are willing to put some effort into ensuring your handwriting is reasonably legible, this is a revolutionary tool. Mind you, if you buy the pen, expect to be irked by the extremely ugly pen lid. This must be detached to write, and since it can't be attached to any other part of the pen, you're pretty much guaranteed to lose it. In acknowledgement of this fact, a spare cover is included, which you can lose at your leisure.

The pen is not as nice to hold as, for example, my Cross ballpoint, but it's acceptable. I imagine that there is room for later generations to become more compact and elegant.

As for the unintended benefit, my handwriting has improved for the first time since I was in primary school. I expect further payoff and further improvement, although perhaps not to the point where the quality of my handwriting approaches that of my father's.

Cursive gave better results - but still with room for improvement!

A failure of empathy

2010-10-13T01:05:00.000-07:00

Telstra is a major Australian telco. CEO David Thodey has a stated goal of making the organisation more customer focused. This is laudable and necessary. Thodey suggested in June that it could take 5 years to achieve.

It occurred to me recently that Telstra exhibits a failure of empathy. Take as a fairly typical example the notice shown in the image. It informs the customer (me in this instance) that their account is overdue, but it fails to tell me the relevant phone number.

I find it amazing that an organisation can fail so utterly to speak the language of its customers. When I first saw this notice, I didn't know whether it was for my mobile phone or my home phone. I associate my phones with phone numbers, not with account numbers.

Telstra may argue that it's necessary to use account numbers, since some customers will have multiple phone numbers on a single account. This explanation has some credibility when it comes to businesses, but even in that circumstance I would expect to see at least one associated phone number listed.

If anyone involved in the wording of this notice had put themselves in the place of a customer, it would surely have occurred to them that providing a phone number would be extremely useful, and that failing to do so creates (or reinforces) a perception of Telstra as an uncaring monolith. The idea that I should have to go through my records to do the cross-referencing is ludicrous.

In user experience design, we use very simple techniques (such as scenarios and personas) to help put us in the shoes of our users.

On its path to become customer focused, a useful step for Telstra would be to examine at all its outgoing communications, consider the context in which they may be received, and adjust them accordingly.

Post-release usability testing

2010-10-10T02:25:00.000-07:00

I've often said that everyone does usability testing - but some do it post-release.

These days most organisations tend to do usability testing, at least of important functions, before release. I was surprised, therefore, when Crust Pizza (who do very nice pizzas, by the way) updated their online ordering with a flaw that prevents it working on the iPad - surely an increasingly typical device from which to order. As you can see from the images below, there's a scrollable area in the middle of the screen from which to "customize" one's pizza. This is bad enough on a regular browser (as many people will not notice the scroll bar), but on the iPad the scroll bar doesn't appear at all.

Of course Crust will eventually become aware of this problem (although there is no mechanism to contact "head office" from the website, people can contact individual franchisees). But it is rather an expensive and public way to conduct usability testing.

Diving into The Shallows

2010-10-02T10:34:00.000-07:00

I've often been blasé about the ability to offload memory to the net. Though not a “digital native”, I've been an intensive user of computers for so many years that it's difficult to imagine life without them.

When I started to come across references to Nicholas Carr's book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains, I confess to an initial negative reaction. Perhaps reinforced by some of the reviews I scanned, I had the impression that this might be a book complaining about “young people today” and their dependence on the internet.

When I picked up the book, however, I realised that last year I'd read a previous book of Carr's, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google. That's a brilliant discussion of the significance of cloud computing, in which Carr compared the advent of the cloud to the advent of the electric grid, which freed manufacturers from the need to be located adjacent to sources of power (typically running water) and from the need to have in-house expertise in non-core technology.

Perhaps it's telling that I'd forgotten the author's name, since Carr's book focuses much attention on the topic of memory.

Without wanting to do the book an injustice, it's probably fair to summarise it as follows:

The tools we use change our brains and the way we think
Human memory is not analogous to computer memory
Our use of the internet is detrimental to the ability to reflect and synthesise.

The tools we use

The book includes a very detailed analysis of the way in which our tools affect us. Carr contends that tools have a physical affect on our brains, in the way that London taxi drivers develop an enlarged posterior hippocampus due to demands placed by their need to navigate and remember.

He also suggests that those of us involved in the design or deployment of internet technology are not equipped to understand the profound changes that the internet will enable. “The intellectual ethic of a technology is rarely recognized by its inventors,” he writes. “Our ancestors didn't develop or use maps in order to enhance their capacity for conceptual thinking... Nor did they manufacture mechanical clocks to spur the adoption of a more scientific mode of thinking. Those were by-products of the technologies. But what by-products!”

Looking at how the internet may be “re-wiring” our brains, Carr suggest that it presents us with a self-reinforcing medium, encouraging us to think and respond rapidly, but with limited depth. “Links don't just point us to related or supplemental words; they propel us towards them.”

The internet disrupts our concentration and feeds our apparently insatiable appetite for what is new – with email, RSS, updates from Twitter and Facebook, and instant results from Google all feeding an ongoing fascination with the ephemeral.

Carr himself admits to being an addict, and describes the process of temporarily weaning himself away from the constant chatter, as well as the process of readmitting it as he finished his book, when he bought a Blu-ray player with built-in Wi-Fi. “It lets me stream music from Pandora, movies from NetFlix, and videos from YouTube... I have to confess: it's cool. I'm not sure I could live without it.”

Memory

The “offloading” of memory to the net is an attractive idea. Why bother remembering boring stuff when we can Google an answer at will? It seems almost perverse to attempt to recollect a trivial detail.

Many of us treat the internet as if it were an extension of human memory. There is an implication that our memory is similar (but perhaps inferior) to silicon. Carr cautions against this view, and states that people who hold it “have been misled by a metaphor.” “Biological memory is alive. Computer memory is not”.

The book contains a fascinating discussion of the role of human memory and its relationship to the ability to think deeply and synthesise.

Using the internet

Carr suggests that there are many pitfalls in our internet usage. Although he is quick to acknowledge – and celebrate – the boons, he also cautions that our tendency to skim has complications. For example, he quotes research suggesting that the ready availability of online sources has resulted in a narrowing of research, with researchers choosing from a a relatively small range of sources whose popularity is further amplified by this very phenomenon.

For a critical look at the machine we're building and the ways in will change our lives, read this fascinating and thoroughly researched book. Carr doesn't suggest how we can retain the benefits while minimizing the risks, but this marks the beginning of a fascinating discussion.

Repeating email addresses

2010-09-19T01:22:00.000-07:00

A few days ago James Hunter and I were talking about why forms often require the user to repeat their email address. I've always found it irritating, although I'll happily concede that for people who don't spend an inordinate amount of time filling in online forms, it's at most a petty annoyance.

There are two reasons for requesting the repetition:

The email address is a key piece of information, without which it may not be possible to complete the transaction (such as a registration process)
The email address may be a relatively complex string, and a high degree of precision is required for it to be used successfully.

However, these apply equally to a credit card number or card holder name (for example), even though I can't recall a form asking me to repeat those fields. In fact I have mistyped my credit card number on occasion, but the resulting error, or non-confirmation of the transaction, has alerted me to the fact.

The credit card number is a slightly different case, of course, since it is more amenable to parsing and, consequently, error trapping. (Some email address parsing is also possible if the address is not "well formed".)

I find the requirement to repeat the email address patronising and unnecessary. If I really want something and I mis-enter my email address, I am likely to notice I haven't received the service I requested. I don't actually need the sort of hand-holding that a repeated email address implies.

When I run design sessions, and a registration is required, I find that initial designs almost always require the email address to be repeated. When questioned, people generally don't have a rationale other than the fact that it's common practice, and that users "might make a mistake". However, there's seldom any concern about making a mistake with any other information.

There's also an underlying assumption that having a user enter their email address twice will eliminate errors. It won't. Some users are unsure of their email address, and will dutifully enter the wrong address twice.

I've observed many people use copy-and-paste to copy the address from the first field into the second. In my experience, the presence of such workarounds is invariably a sign that there's something amiss from a user experience perspective.

Some implementations take the even more patronising approach of disabling the ability to paste the address into the confirmation field.

Amazon and Facebook both require new customers to repeat their email addresses, although Amazon does not do so until the second step (thus keeping the initial form simpler).

Google doesn't require Gmail users to repeat their email addresses (at least in the selection of processes I checked).

It would be very interesting to know what data on user behaviour informs these different approaches. What does Google know that Facebook doesn't (or vice versa)?

I don't have enough data to support my opinion on this, but, for me, being perceived as patronising is likely a poorer outcome than risking the occasional failure due to mis-typing.

The future of car ownership?

2010-09-11T06:56:00.000-07:00

Informal car sharing must have existed from the earliest days of personal motorised transport.

A few months back I signed up to GoGet, one of the two major Australian car share schemes (the other is Flexicar). I chose GoGet because they have more cars near our Sydney apartment.

With GoGet, users pay a regular monthly fee and a usage fee, with variants based on usage patterns. Because I’d signed up out of curiosity, I chose the zero monthly fee option, which attracts the highest usage rates.

In fact I’ve never used the service in Sydney. Gina has a perfectly serviceable little Peugeot diesel, but we’d probably average no more than 10 or 15 km per week.

Recently I used the GoGet service when we spent a weekend in Melbourne. I flew down on Thursday evening, checked into our hotel, and then picked up the share car from a car park about 5 minutes’ walk away.

I’d booked online, choosing a a Mini Cooper, and the whole process was very simple: Book the car, place my membership card near the windscreen to unlock, and drive away. When we were finished, I returned the car to its dedicated spot, and walked away.

The next day I also booked a car. The Mini Cooper wasn’t available, so I got a rather boring (sorry, Toyota) Yaris.

Proponents of car-sharing schemes make much of the fact that the average car is largely unused – parked, in other words. I think this argument is somewhat spurious, since it could apply to pretty much any purchased objects. Our apartment, for example, is unused for at least 30% of the time. However, cars are somewhat amenable to more efficient usage, and car-share schemes are a step in that direction.

Car-sharing dovetails nicely with a trend away from minimum parking and towards maximum parking. Traditionally, local government regulations have specified that new developments – commercial or residential – must meet certain minima to ensure there is sufficient parking of residents or customers. Recently, in several countries (even in parts of the USA), local governments have specified maxima instead, effectively restricting the number of car spaces available.

Car-sharing schemes also coincide with enabling technologies – GPS, RFID and Web 2.0 self-service models.

The economics of car-sharing are very attractive from a consumer perspective. For a relatively small fee (compared with cost of ownership), urban dwellers can have convenient access to a car when needed.

There are still improvements to make. For example, the ability to drop a car at a different destination would be useful, but this is at least partly dependent on having a sufficient volume of share cars in operation.

And I’d like a little more choice - a manual transmission rather than an auto, for example, and something a little gutsier than a Toyota Yaris.

It would also be convenient if a standardised approach existed, so that customers could readily get a car when outside their home area or country. This is analogous to the way in which we now expect to be able to use our mobile phones when we travel with a minimum of dislocation.

My statement from GoGet in the month I used their service suggested that I had saved almost AUD $700 compared with the cost or owning a car. "If you still own a car, and didn't use it at all this month", said the statement, "it would have cost you $639.93. Why not get rid of it?"

Why not, indeed.

Bike share as service design

2010-07-30T07:15:00.000-07:00

Recently Melbourne launched a bicycle share scheme. The uptake so far has been low. There have been suggestions that this is due, at least in part, to the launch taking place in winter.

However, an important factor is that in Australia it is mandatory to wear a helmet when cycling, and the scheme does not provide helmets. The first photograph contains, to my mind, both question and answer. The tag is "Short trip? Why not take a bike?". At the bottom right is a "safety first" image of an encased head, showing precisely why it is inconvenient to take a bike for that short trip.

I don't want to join the debate about whether bicycle helmets should be mandatory, but for those not familiar with the debate, it can be summarised as follows:

Advocates of mandated helmets state that individual cyclists are offered some protection in the event of an accident. Opponents point out that cycling rates go down when helmets are made compulsory, that accident rates increase when cyclist numbers decrease (essentially because more cyclists leads to better awareness among drivers as well as better socialised behaviour by cyclists themselves), and that significant health benefits to society are accordingly sacrificed when fewer people ride. At the end of the page there are some links you might want to follow, but let me warn you in advance that the topic is muddy, and that there is considerable vehemence on each side.

In any case, I was in Melbourne for a day to listen to Mikael Colville-Andersen, a Danish film-maker and photographer who runs an extremely popular cycling blog called Copenhagenize, and whom I interviewed recently for the User Experience podcast. He was in Melbourne as part of Victoria's "State of Design" festival.

It seemed like an ideal time to try the bike hire scheme. I'd first seen it on the day it opened, back in June, and indeed had a brief introductory spin, sans helmet, at that time. Since then the number of stations has been increased, and the central business district is liberally supplied with bike stations, as the map shows.

Being a bit geeky, I actually have a bicycle helmet in a locker in Melbourne, so I didn't have the problem of finding a helmet, nor of risking a fine for not wearing one. Ironically, my locker is at the RACV club. The RACV operates the scheme and, also perhaps ironically, is a motoring association (the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria), although it has advocated for cyclists and transport alternatives in recent years.

I spent a couple of minutes at each of two bike hire stations, and saw three groups of people approach, read some of the material, and leave specifically because of the helmet issue. The comments I overheard were "Where do you get the helmets?" and "Oh, you need to have helmets" (twice). Of course my small sample is not sufficient to estimate the extent of the problem, but to have seen clearly demonstrated instances of people being in effect actively turned away should be a great cause of concern for the scheme's success.

The actual process of hiring a bike is relatively straightforward, although one station rejected my credit card and then apparently crashed.

I was amused to see the terms and conditions screens (pictured). Anyone who has observed real people interact with online forms and websites (I've done so several hundred times in the course of my work) will know that nobody except people like me ever reads them. They're a great example of the triumph of fear and legal opinion over logic and common sense. As the picture shows, reading the terms and conditions would require the user to scroll through 72 screens - surely some sort of world record. While this is a minor point (since people can just skip them instead), it does perhaps indicate that the design has not been entirely free of political debate.

Once I'd paid my money and received a PIN to unlock a bike, I had some trouble recognising that the implied rectangles (1, 2, 3) on the bike docks were actually buttons. After a bit of flailing, I finally figured out that they were the only possibility. A few days later when going through my pocket detritus I noticed a little image on my printed receipt did show this, but painting button-like icons on the panels would make it easy to interpret without the need for instruction.

To the bikes themselves:

They are comfortable, and have an adjustable saddle. I did what many people probably would, choosing one that was about the right height, and didn't bother adjusting it.

They have three gears, using the now very common Shimano Nexus hub gears. The gearing is perfectly adequate for cycling around Melbourne. I went up and down several of the few minor hills that Melbourne city centre has to offer. First gear was perfectly adequate for going uphill, and third gear was fine for pedalling along comfortably, though not at great speed (and I never had the feeling of "Oh my God, I'm glad I'm wearing a helmet").

Being too much a cheapskate to go beyond the half-hour limit (after which a timed usage fee applies), I just rode around the city centre, including most of the main streets. I also cycled along the Yarra river through Southbank, and along parts of St Kilda Rd, before returning the bike.

During that time, I saw no other rider on a shared bikes, although there were plenty of people riding. The weather was cool and dry (it had rained earlier in the day) and pretty much ideal for riding. Several people commented on the bike. "There's one of the new bikes" was the general theme, and the bike was the topic of a few conversations when stopped at traffic lights.

I used the term "service design" in the title of this post because to me it's clear that the scheme provides a fine bike, but fails to complete the job and provide a service. In order to provide a service, there are really only two options:

Agitate for mandatory helmet laws to be repealed, at least for the shared bikes, or
Provide helmets.

Some links

On the morning of the same day that I tried the bikes, Mike Rubbo led a helmet-free ride to protest the need for helmets.

The Age, a Melbourne newspaper, has an article on the scheme and the helmet issue.

The Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation is an organisation set up to "to undertake, encourage, and spread the scientific study of the use of bicycle helmets". It's probably fair to say that its stance is anti-helmet, and it's not clear whether the site is actively maintained, but it has plenty of links.

The Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute is the "helmet advocacy program of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association" and is strongly pro-helmet.

And finally, check out the inspirational little video that Mikael did for the City of Copenhagen.

Don't blame it on the sunshine (Blame it on the user)

2010-05-09T18:32:00.000-07:00

I think overtly hostile error messages are less common than they used to be. Years ago I was closely involved in an application that included, to my embarrassment, the prompt "Incorrect" (even though the application was supposed to be for exploring people's preferences for categorisation).

But such messages are still out there. Here's one that says "You've entered something incorrectly, you stupid idiot". Actually, it doesn't say "you stupid idiot"; that's implied.

In the real world, there are probably more examples. There's a shop in Melbourne with a door that slides to open. A sign on the door says "Slide! It's not a freaking Rubik's Cube". (I'm not making that up.)

Finally, I came across this friendly little message at an airport. To paraphrase, it says "We have crappy tables and things fall off them. If that happens to you, then tough! Oh, and by the way, have a nice day."

Celebrating the unnecessarily difficult

2010-05-06T20:58:00.000-07:00

I have a nice collection of screen grabs, error messages and the like. Here are some that fall into the category of the unnecessarily difficult.

The party of the first part shall be known as...

I encountered this when filling in a registration form. The form asked (not unreasonably, I thought), for my first name and last name. This often causes designers angst because of the fact that either first name or last name may be the "family" name. There are various workarounds. But this one intrigued me because it actually had a message that if I was "not sure how to divide" my name into first and last, I could read a Help article about it.

And indeed there was a whole help article on the topic. I was a tad surprised, but when I saw that one of the names used to illustrate how to divide one's first and last name was Kurt Gödel, I realised that I had stumbled into a deep philosophical warp - a chronosynclastic infundibulum, perhaps.

Almost everything I need to know
When Telstra BigPond was my ADSL provider, they would occasionally send me a notification that I was approaching my monthly limit, but they never stated the date on which it would reset. I had a somewhat lengthy correspondence with them on the topic. I would suggest they improve their information, and they would send me an automated response that ignored my suggestion, and so on. Eventually we concluded on this note:

"...I was stating (and am restating for the third and final time) that
BigPond would improve its customer service if its email notifications
specified the relevant dates. If you'd like to pass on my suggestion
to someone who cares about improving customer service, please do so.
If not, please don't bother sending me any more vague communications
with links explaining how usage is calculated..."

Miracle of miracles, BigPond subsequently began to include the key information (reset date) in their notifications.

When I switched one of my mobile accounts to Telstra, I was reminded that there are organisations that learn, and organisations that don't. I received a usage notification that failed to specify the reset date.

Messages can usually be improved by removing information. And indeed this one would benefit by the omission or simplification of the unnecessarily detailed usage limit, and by shortening the "Call Telstra..." sentence.

Less often, they can be improved by adding information. Here, the omission of one simple piece of information (the reset date) has converted what could have been useful and simple to something annoying and virtually useless (not to mention counter-productive).

Incidentally, the lack of this vital piece of information is a classic example of designing for the organisation's needs instead of those of the customer.

Much more than I need to know

This complicated table and associated text explains when the settlement date will be for trades done in a holiday period.

It took me a while to figure out what this table was trying to tell me, which was:

Trading date Settlement date

Wed 30Tue 5

Thu 31Wed 6

Fri 1Thu 7

Mon 4Thu 7

The desire to provide a lot of information often subverts the need to communicate clearly. In most cases a simplified view is better - you can always include a link to more detailed information for the truly interested reader.

Check box? No, let's do things the hard way
My final example is just weird. Instead of using a check box, this site wanted me to actually type either "Yes" or "No". When I failed to do so, a dialog box reprimanded me.

I really don't know why a check box wasn't used in this instance. I do remember years ago having a discussion with a legal department that wanted to be "sure" that users had "really read" some terms and conditions, but for signing up to an Arts House program? Surely not.

Rude onerous forms

2010-05-03T04:29:00.000-07:00

When I talk professionally about websites, I’m often asked for examples of good and bad design. I’m reluctant to provide examples of bad sites, primarily because it’s so easy to sit on the sidelines and snipe, without knowing the full circumstances and constraints of the design team.

In my personal life, however, I’m quite happy to whine, and I do so frequently when something irks me.

Recently Marcus’ teacher recommended to the kids that they get a magazine called "How your body works". Each week you get a different part of the body, and in the end (after thirty-something issues and a re-mortgage) you have a 1m tall skeleton with various organs and you’re ready to be a surgeon.

We bought the first issue at the newsagent. It included the lower half of the skull, with 32 teeth to be individually inserted. Marcus (and I) loved it, and the accompanying text was good, so we decided to take up the included subscription offer and order online.

That’s when things started to go awry, because the process of subscribing was painful.

Why? Where do I start…

Firstly, I had to register. That’s a pain, but I can understand the business rationale, even though it's funny that in the real world everyone is much happier to take your money. Even Amazon makes you register.

In order to register, I had to create a "login name". I already have a name, and I’m quite happy with it. I’ve had it for years. But now, apparently, I needed a new one (and it had to be a maximum of 10 characters). (Amazon doesn't force you to take a new name; I guess they're happy with a more casual relationship, and aren't insisting on marriage.) I also had to specify a security question. Why all this? Presumably because in my ongoing relationship with Bissett Magazine Services I would occasionally forget my user name and have to be reminded of it. Perhaps I'm being naïve, but I can't imagine that there are all that many customers who order lots and lots of things from Bissett Magazine Services.

When specifying the "deliver to" details (and bear in mind I was ordering for a child), I had to specify date of birth and gender. Why Bissett Magazine Services consider themselves to be entitled to not only ask for this information, but make it mandatory, is beyond me.

Thankfully Marcus, despite his tender years, is an aspiring privacy activist, so he instructed me to falsify his date of birth and gender.

(Guideline 1 for online empowerment: When forced to answer inappropriate questions, always lie).

At the bottom of the form, there were no fewer than 6 checkboxes. I always feel it’s antisocial to default to the option that disadvantages the customer, particularly if you bury the key information so deeply in the accompanying text that the customer has to put effort into decoding it.

In any case, having waded through this unnecessarily intrusive form, I clicked "Confirm".

The next page told me that my chosen user name (the entity formerly known as "login name") was "…not available. Please try a new login and password". That was bad, but what was much worse was that my new paramour had thrown out most of the information I’d already provided. (What was your name again?)

This is incredibly rude. It’s the sort of behaviour you might expect from a vengeful bureaucrat in a centrally planned economy. Making people do extra work because you’ve been too lazy or incompetent to do a decent design job is unacceptable.

At this stage I would normally shoot off an angry email to the organisation in question and forget about it. However, Marcus was at my side with his education at risk, so I went back and tried again.

And again was rejected.

You can see in the image the user name I finally used.

I would bet good money that Bissett Magazine Services has a database full of user names like this. I’d also bet good money that lots of people lie about their date of birth and gender, so their database is at least partially corrupt.

I’d also bet good money that many people quit in frustration because of the unnecessarily difficult process they’re forced to go through.

The magazine better be damn good.

Riding a Gazelle city bike

2010-04-30T07:54:00.000-07:00

My father taught me how to ride on my mother’s bicycle, an old black ladies’ bike, probably a Raleigh.

Not the bicycle of an old black lady. The bicycle was old and black.

Soon I had a bike of my own, racing style, with narrow tires and drop handlebars. Years later I switched to a mountain bike when they became popular, and later a so-called flat-bar road bike.

A bike was always, for me, a utilitarian possession. I’ve probably owned around a dozen, but rarely more than one at a time. As a kid, I rode to school, and explored the surrounding countryside. As a young adult, I commuted and got to know Dublin and, to some extent, London.

When I moved to Melbourne, the bike helped me learn the new city, and provided a pleasant way to enjoy the beachfront. Weekend rides around country Victoria were fun.

And without necessarily realizing that I was doing so, I accepted poor design decisions made on my behalf by people who did not understand my needs. I bought bicycles that were uncomfortable. I spent money on things like lights, locks, racks and mudguards, all of which, mysteriously, were not supplied as standard.

And all the while, I rode in a hunched position. Bike shop personnel would sometimes tell me that I could buy an extension to raise the handlebars, but it was clear they didn’t think that was a good idea. After all, if we were meant to ride in comfort, God would have given us longer arms.

I gradually became aware that the old black bicycle had not actually disappeared. That is, it had not disappeared in countries where people used their bikes as general-purpose transport. In Europe and in Asia, there were many countries where people sat upright on “old-style” bicycles. These are often referred to as “city bikes”.

Eventually, I started to look for such a bike. Staff in most bicycle shops in Melbourne appeared to be unaware that they even existed. Or they would warn me that such bikes were heavy, poorly geared, expensive, and unsuited to Melbourne conditions.

On the net, sites like Copenhagenize suggested that there were indeed such bikes, and that they represented a thriving and growing market. Eventually I decided to go actively looking.

(As an aside, if you are thinking of buying a city bike, I would suggest that you avoid any bike shop where the staff are unaware of what you’re talking about, or where they try to persuade you that such bikes are unsuited for local conditions. A good warning sign is any indication that staff eat energy bars and do triathlons.)

I found someone selling Danish Velorbis bikes, and rode a couple of them, and was impressed. Following a reference to Dutch Gazelle bikes, I found the website of Commuter Cycles in Melbourne, and one day on my way back from the airport had my driver drop me there. There, the ever-friendly and helpful Huw showed me a Gazelle, and suggested I take it for a spin. He didn’t bother with asking me for ID or a deposit, just gave me a beautiful bike and sent me out in the street. (He did neglect to mention it was a one-way street, but a friendly driver pointed this out.)

While I rode around the block, I was transported back to my earliest experience of the bicycle as freedom machine. The upright stance widened my field of vision so that I was a child again, with the city spread out around me, and the world at my feet.

I mulled a purchase for a while. I was somewhat concerned about the relatively small number of gears, and about suggestions from “real” bike shops that commuter bikes were not for “real” cyclists, and with the fact that my Scott bike was only a year old (and that I was quite happy with it).

Eventually (and after some helpful advice from Paul at Gazelle Australia) I bought a Gazelle Aristo from Huw. By the time I’d ridden the 10km home, I was very happy with my purchase. Six months and two cities later, I’m still happy.

I was trying to explain the user experience to Gina, and the best (poor) analogy I could think of was to say: Imagine that you had an iPhone once, but then for some unspecified reason switched to lesser phones for 20 years, and that one day you picked up an iPhone again, but in 20 years it had been improved so that it now not only had the characteristics you originally liked, but was vastly improved by various enhancements during the intervening period.

The Gazelle I bought has 8 gears (my Scott bike had 21. Or was it 24?) For the technically minded, it’s a Shimano nexus hub. It has mudguards as standard (on my Scott bike, the bike shop used cable-ties (something that always bothered me) to fit mudguards as an “optional extra”. It has a rack as standard (optional extra on the Scott). The bell is built in to the left handlebar, so you can ring it without moving your hand (optional extra on Scott). It has automatic lights (lights of any sort were an optional extra on the Scott). It has a chain guard and coat guard, so that you don’t have to do something really dorky with your trouser legs.

It also has a built-in lock. If you are old enough, you may remember when bikes that had these locks as standard – they would stop the rear wheel from moving. The Gazelle is a fairly high-tech version, with an (optional!) chain that integrates with the lock. The built-in lock is great – I generally park right at the door of wherever I want to be, and only use the chain if I’m in a neighbourhood where the bike might be a target for thievery.

When we moved to Sydney, some people warned me that it was not suited to city bikes (the existence of hills was the main reason given). However, I’ve had no problems, although I use the lowest gear from time to time (I’d never used it in Melbourne). For example, there’s a hill on the way home from Bondi Beach that I would walk up were it not for my pride.

Is it slower than a road bike? Yes, somewhat, and on three counts. Firstly, the upright stance is not designed for “putting your back into it”. Secondly, the highest gear is somewhat lower than you would typically have on a road bike (although I can still comfortably do 25km/h or so). Thirdly, and most importantly, the thing is so damn comfortable that it makes you want to cruise around, and is so well balanced that travelling slowly is easy.

I’ve found myself frequently taking the long way for the sheer pleasure of the ride, and the thought of driving to the shops is anathema if I can ride instead.

An unexpected side-effect of the upright riding style is that it seems to make for a better relationship with motorists. I’m quite willing to accept that this may be a personal bias, but I’ve found that sitting upright results in more eye contact with drivers. So even in Sydney, where cycling is relatively poorly supported (though improving), I’ve found drivers to be courteous. I know that many Sydneysiders would disagree with me.

The Gazelle is not the only “European style” bike available. There is a growing range here in Australia, and, I believe, worldwide.

A few months ago, in Melbourne, I parked my car next to a young lady who was about to cycle away. I noticed she had a Kronan, a Swedish city bike. When I asked her what she thought of it, she said “It makes me happy every day”. I could say the same about the Gazelle.

What a perfect accolade.

Note: If you're interested in this review, you might also want to read my later comments on the Velorbis Churchill Balloon.

Handedness

2010-04-16T00:37:00.000-07:00

Being right-handed, I'd seldom considered the problems faced by left-handed people, except in a purely intellectual sense.

Young Marcus is very strongly left-handed, so I now have a more personal connection - particularly when I see him execute an awkward manoeuvre (opening a door that favours right-handed people, for example).

I got some first-hand experience recently when I had to use the ironing-board shown in the photograph (in the upstairs change room at the RACV Club in Melbourne). I hope it was installed by a left-handed person seeking revenge on society. I can tell you that it's extremely awkward for a right-handed person to use, as its location pretty much precludes using your right hand to iron. Standing on the "wrong" side of an ironing board is a strangely unsettling experience. Shane Morris would undoubtedly use the term "cognitive dissonance" to describe it.

Incidentally, there's a very nice Australian term for a left-handed person - a mollydooker (unfortunately seldom used). In Irish, a left-handed person is a ciotóg (pronounced kithogue). I'm not aware of any specific words for right-handed people. Barack Obama, incidentally. Marcus seems to identify with lefties in general; it's one of the reasons he likes Rafael Nadal.

Inadvertent tweeting (on being stalked by supermarkets)

2010-04-10T18:43:00.000-07:00

In March 2010, I received an email thanking me for shopping at the Woolworths Bondi supermarket (in Sydney), and asking me to complete a short survey to "rate [my] shopping experience". I was slightly taken aback, although perhaps I should not have been. I did complete the survey, and when asked how likely I would be to recommend the store in future to colleagues and friends I chose "extremely unlikely" (as they probably wouldn't want to be stalked).

I tweeted about this, and posted a photo on flickr, and a few people agreed that it was a somewhat freaky experience. I then more or less forgot about it, until yesterday, when I received another identical invitation.

I recognise that participation in most "rewards" or "awards" programs implies a degree of disclosure. However, I'm not entirely comfortable with my shopping being so actively tracked.

I'm also unaware of the extent of that tracking. For example, does Woolworths have an inventory of the actual items I purchased? If so, to what use will that information be put?

Occasionally I hear clients OK certain actions because they were "disclosed" in the terms and conditions. However, in many years of active observation of users interacting with paper and online versions of various "Ts and Cs" (as they're often called), I have yet to see someone read them. Most people blithely scan them and click the "Accept" button. To pretend that information buried in such documents has been "disclosed" is quite simply that - a pretence.

The Terms & Conditions, incidentally, contain over 4200 words - I've included a screen grab of it at the bottom of this post (if you're really fascinated by all this, you can read the full text).

I wondered what was in the Woolworths Ts and Cs. I couldn't actually find where I'd agreed to be tracked and polled. However, I did find the following statement:

"We will only use your personal information to operate and to provide you with the membership benefits of the Everyday Rewards Program (including our member newsletter), and the Qantas Frequent Flyer program (if applicable), and to bring you Other Benefits from the Woolworths Group."

My definition of a "benefit", even an "Other Benefit", is apparently somewhat at odds with the Woolworths definition.

Kindle book reader (global wireless version)

2009-11-26T22:39:00.001-08:00

User experience people (like myself) usually talk about the need for technology to support how people do things, but of course the technologies we use also change what we do.

Recently I've been using two devices that have the potential to change the way I do things.

The first is the Amazon's electronic book reader - the Kindle (international version) and the second is a Gazelle bicycle (which I’ll detail separately and later).

Now that the Kindle is available in Australia, several people have asked me whether they should buy one. My response has been generally equivocal, because I'm undecided about its value to me.

The act of reading is as about as easy on the Kindle as it for a book. Unlike LCD, there’s no problem with glare, the contrast is comparable to most books, and the font is generally adequate.

Eight-year-old Marcus says it's actually easier to read using Kindle than a real book, because you don’t have to turn the pages, and you don’t lose your place as easily. He also loves the fact that he can resize the font to the reasonably large one he favours. The progress indicator (showing percentage of the book completed) also provides him with an incentive. He was very happy that he was 75% of the way through his bedtime book ("Fantastic Mr Fox" by Roald Dahl) when I was only 5% through mine ("Wolf Hall" by Hilary Mantel).

As you'd expect from someone his age, he has now co-opted the technology and his expectation is that any book can be obtained instantly (a major convenience indeed, and a dangerous facilitator of impulse buying!).

I don’t want to review the Kindle's user interface or controls in any detail. However, I would note that I find them clunky but adequate, with a major point of confusion being the relationship between "Menu" and "Home".

What’s more interesting to me is the ways in which the process of reading (as opposed to the act of reading) changes on the Kindle. One key aspect is the absence of a page number. Instead, there is a progress indicator at the bottom of the virtual page. Although Marcus loves this, I find it somewhat inadequate. Perhaps if I were brought up without the concept of a page being a real-world object, this would bother me not at all (and after all, on the web a page is frequently a fluid and dynamic thing).

Other, more physical cues are also absent. For example, I was surprised when I saw a copy of Wolf Hall (which I was reading at the time) in a bookshop – it was so thick! I tend to be a reluctant purchaser of thick books, but hadn't really considered how long the book was when I began reading it on the Kindle.

Similarly, when reading "The Big Switch" by Nicholas Carr I somehow had the impression that it would be a relatively quick read. Instead I’m ploughing through it with a sense of "are we there yet?" – even though the book itself is provocative and interesting. Perhaps the very thinness of the Kindle itself is shaping my expectations.

And there are a few specific things I miss about the real world equivalents. I won't talk about the feel, smell and richness of layout of physical books, because almost by definition the kinds of books I’ll read online are not the kind I want to own in the flesh, as it were.

For example, I often want a reminder of an author's name – but on the Kindle I can’t simply flick back to the cover or spine and read it. It’s an odd sensation to think that if I need to be reminded of the author, I will have to click a button and go "somewhere else", and then return to my reading – an enormously disruptive process when compared with the equivalent in the real world.

Another common interaction for me is to scan back a few pages in a physical book – to something that appeared, say, "half way down a left hand page". Reading online simply doesn't support that.

With books of a technical or academic nature, I'm also in the habit of reading with highlighter in hand, to mark up notable topics. That’s particularly useful if I want to refer to the book in the future or if I want to share it with colleagues. While Kindle does allow me to mark passages, it's much less fluid.

And of course the social nature of books disappears almost entirely with the Kindle. I can’t mention a book in conversation, get it off my shelf and loan it to a friend. All I can do is to describe it or talk about it. This is reminiscent of where we've been with digital music until recently, with the publishers treating every sale as a unique, one-off event, instead of seeing it as an interaction within a social ecology.

But in fairness, I would never envisage the Kindle as occupying the same metaphorical space as my bookshelves. These support browsing, reflection, conversation, and sharing, while the Kindle is for... well, just for reading.

At times the text on the Kindle is downright ugly, with poor formatting and inappropriate hyphenation. I don’t know to what extent that’s down to the publisher, and how much to the Kindle itself, but it’s disconcerting.

I've deliberately to this point in my usage (and I’ve now read several books in full or in part) avoided exploring the functionality in detail. After all, I want to read, not learn a new gadget. I haven’t bothered reading blogs, and I’ve only played with converting one document via Amazon’s free automated service to Kindle format (which worked well). I did subscribe to The Irish Times, but cancelled it within the two-week grace period as it is inferior to the free online version (not to mention the fact that it costs US $23 per month, which seems a tad inflated).

I did go to the inbuilt browser, only to be told that it "is not available in all countries". I found this disingenuous. I wanted to be told specifically that it didn't in my country if that was the case (and indeed this is what the message meant).

This brings me to a gripe with Amazon in general. Amazon is highly regarded its quality of customer service, but their internationalization has typically been poor.

For example, a quick trawl through some (non-Kindle related) emails from Amazon shows that they've offered me free shipping which didn't apply because I'm outside of North America, written to me about Black Friday (similarly meaningless in my region), sent me "winter prep" information in November (that ain't winter here), and so on.

If I go to Amazon.com on my iPhone, I'm told that only US customers can order Kindle products, and despite references to a Kindle app for iPhone in the Kindle documentation, in Australia the iPhone app store contains no such listing.

These may sound like gripes, but to me they indicate a strategic weakness that Amazon needs to seriously address as the balance of world trade and power shifts.

There is also a limited range of books available (well over 200,000 in Australia). This is because Amazon had to negotiate country rights with publishers, but it may lead to frequent disappointment. For example, I was unable to purchase Margaret Atwood's latest novel, although a Kindle version is available in USA.

From an Australian consumer's point of view, the price of books makes the Kindle potentially attractive. I purchased "Canon DSLR" by Christopher Grey for around AUD $35 (including my bank's gouging fee); it would have cost me AUD $61.95 at the local bookstore.

My recommendation for Australians thinking of purchasing the Kindle is to put a toe in the water by downloading the free Windows version. If you like the range and the service, you can make the leap to the Kindle itself for the convenience of carrying lots of books around in what is, after all, a very attractive little device.

Alternatively, they might want to wait until Amazon or a competitor delivers a more seamless and less restricted experience.

Myki and the garden path

2009-10-22T05:31:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of stored value cards for public transport (for example, I raved about Hong Kong's Octopus card in an episode of the User Experience podcast).

So I've been looking forward to myki, which is Melbourne's version.

Naturally I tried to sign up recently. Unfortunately, the application form allows me to fill in the entire form before telling me that myki is "not available" in my area. Perhaps they could have mentioned this earlier and saved me some trouble.

To add insult to injury, I was encouraged to re-visit the website "for regular updates", rather than being offered a notification of when myki would be available.

Caroline Jarrett and I wrote about this sort of thing in "Forms That Work", where we emphasized the importance of understanding three layers of forms design - Relationship, Conversation, and Appearance. Our publishers are offering a 20% discount on the book currently.

Connections

2009-07-28T23:30:00.000-07:00

A few nights ago I was thinking about the connection (or lack of connection) between an artist and their work.

What brought this to mind was that Marcus had a little trouble sleeping (poor parenting on my behalf facilitated an over-indulgence in chocolate). Unusually, he requested patting to help him sleep. Most parents would, I think, describe this as a very pleasant activity – lying next to a drowsy child and patting them until they fall asleep. Marcus has pretty much grown out of it, but Gina and I still get to fight, occasionally, for the honour.

Marcus also requested “Enya”. Since he was very little, Enya’s “A Day Without Rain” has been a preferred CD to fall asleep by. When he was really little (and extremely stubborn), I stumbled across its magic powers.

There’s something very personal about being sung to sleep (if we’re not in the mood for Enya, he sometimes gets my singing instead). Of course, Enya has no idea that a little kid on the far side of the planet has listened to her CD hundreds of times, to the extent that it has an immediate calming effect on him.

I was also reminded of the cartoonist Gary Larson, who has written as follows about the fact that he doesn’t like his cartoons to be reproduced without permission:

These cartoons are my "children," of sorts, and like a parent, I'm concerned about where they go at night without telling me. And, seeing them at someone's web site is like getting the call at 2:00 a.m. that goes, "Uh, Dad, you're not going to like this much, but guess where I am. " (http://bit.ly/8jCXe)

It’s increasingly difficult for artists – and indeed anyone who publishes anything – to keep track of their children. I remember Ken Carroll at ChinesePod (www.chinesepod.com) saying to me that you have to accept that anything you put on the web will be clipped and copied, and accordingly look to make a living from “edge competencies” instead of getting income directly from your primary work.

Anyway, I can assure Enya that at least one of her children has been in the best of company for the past few years, helping my child to drift into a peaceful sleep.

About a bicycle

2009-04-08T23:54:00.000-07:00

Recently, I was a volunteer counter for Bicycle Victoria’s “Super Tuesday”. This is the day on which the organisation conducts a census of bicycle usage in Melbourne and Sydney during peak commuting times. The information is supplied to council and government planners, to “guide investment in paths and facilities for bike commuters”.

I was in a very quiet inner suburban street, from 7am to 9am.

Because it’s a quiet junction (outside the Flying Duck pub in South Yarra), the amount of traffic is minimal, so I had plenty of rumination time. I wasn’t counting cars, but there was probably one bike for every 9 or 10 cars. (Bicycle Victoria says that over 35% of all traffic on Princes Bridge – a major entry point to Melbourne city centre from the south – now consists of bicycles).

The bikes approached and passed in almost complete silence, which emphasised by comparison the unwieldiness of the motorised traffic. The cyclists themselves were commuters. Some were dressed in work clothes and travelling at a leisurely pace, some were clearly using the commute as part of a fitness program. All were looking alert and awake.

By most measures, the bicycle is a great way to travel in inner suburban areas. Noiseless, emission-free. And social – it’s common to strike up conversations with fellow cyclists or pedestrians when waiting for the lights to change.

I’m also a driver (and indeed was sitting comfortably in Gina’s lovely Peugeot 308 diesel while conducting my count), and I know that there is a tension between the two transport modes. Tom Vanderbilt, in his fascinating book Traffic: Why we drive the way we do and what it says about us quotes Henry Barnes, traffic commissioner in New York in the 1960’s, who said that “traffic was as much an emotional problem as it was a physical and mechanical one”.

However, I’ve found that Melbourne has become more bicycle-friendly since I first rode here over 20 years ago. Partly this is because infrastructure has improved – there are more and better maintained cycle lanes and related facilities. Partly it’s because people are more health-conscious and cycling is seen as a healthy alternative. Partly it’s a realisation that cycling is an environmentally sensible choice that allows individuals to have a smaller environmental footprint. For me, it’s a mixture of these, and also the fact that the suburban train system has been sadly neglected to the point that it’s an unreliable way for me to get to work and meetings, whereas I can time my bike travel accurately to within a couple of minutes to any city destination.

As more people take to their bikes, drivers become more aware of them, and cycling becomes safer. The Victorian state government recently announced AUD $115 million funding to “further establish cycling as a viable, sustainable, affordable and safe transport option”, and that should help.

Cycling is simple way to get to the local shop, but it’s also a great way for us city-dwellers to get a better taste of season and climate. Instead of going from the box we live in to the box we work in in the box we drive in, we can immerse ourselves in the smells and sounds of our city, and in the moods of the changing seasons.

It’s clear that cycling in many cities is on the brink of a major resurgence. In places like Copenhagen it’s well established, as you can see from reading Mikael Colville-Andersen’s Copenhagenize blog, or the equivalent Amsterdamize.

And what a peaceful and poetic way to travel it is.

When we talk about computers, we tend to talk about them in terms that imply sophistication. However, another way to think about computers - and information technology in general - is to view them as primitive. I've been thinking about this since a recent visit to the new Westfield shopping centre in London. (Gina works for Westfield in Melbourne, where they've just finished the Doncaster project, so a visit to the London centre was a must.)

I don't spend much time in shopping centres, but I liked Westfield London. It's airy, bright and spacious, and easy to reach by public transport. (It also has 570 bicycle parking spaces, which says something about how London is changing, but that's a subject for another day.)

We'd arranged to meet some people at a specific store, and on entry to the centre went to a conveniently located information kiosk. This was a sleek and attractive stand-alone pedestal, with a touch screen on either side, so that two people could use the kiosk at the same time.

A lady in front of me was trying unsuccessfully to locate the Jo Malone store. She had a few difficulties. Firstly, she was wearing gloves, so the touch screen didn't register her attempts to press buttons (gloves are quite common in a London December!)

Secondly, once she’d entered the first couple of letters and instigated a search, the results displayed were scrollable, but it wasn’t clear what the scope of the results were, so that she was attempting to scroll down past the end of the results list. I watched several other people make the same “mistake”.

The scroll-bar itself was somewhat awkward, with a very small target area; again, this was something that several people struggled with.

I also noticed that when people managed to get a map with the required destination, it was difficult for them to orient themselves. There was a “you are here” indicator, but the map was in a fixed orientation. People would typically swivel around trying to figure out what local landmarks were shown on the map, so they could decide which direction to travel in.

I watched people using the kiosks several times during the course of a morning, and estimate that the overwhelming majority of users were unsuccessful. They typically turned to a staff member, or got a paper map, or just wandered off.

Now, kiosks are a difficult design challenge, and it would be unfair if I were to just complain about these ones – particularly since I spent only a short time watching them being used. However, a few points are worth considering:

Usability testing would have uncovered most of the problems I saw (it may be that usability testing was done, but if so I would have to question why some easy fixes were not carried out).

Some of the issues were trivial, in that an effective fix would be readily apparent and relatively easy to address.

Some of the issues are to do with the way in which the technology works. For example, re-orienting a displayed map to reflect the user’s point of view is certainly possible, but it’s just not the way such displays are designed.

This final point is the one that made me think that we have, in fact, a very primitive technology. Certainly it can do great things, but frequently in day-to-day applications it is awkward, confusing, and difficult to use. That’s why, in a brand new shopping centre that cost £1.7 billion (GB pounds), we can still have a highly visible piece of so-called “information” technology that does not effectively enable customers to find their way to their destination.

Irish rain

2008-12-21T10:20:00.001-08:00

Visitors to Ireland are frequently struck by its greenness. The locals will tell them it's because of incessant rain.

In Melbourne, it's either raining or not raining, generally the latter in the recent years of persistent drought. In Ireland, the distinction is not quite so clear. Certainly there are times when it is indisputably raining, but there are many states between that condition and the one in which it is undeniably not raining.

Mist is the most pleasant. It feels entirely beneficent, like walking through lightly moistened air, and indeed a local term for this type of weather, "soft", is an apt description.

However, this has the ability to degenerate into drizzle, which may appear innocuous but can soon soak you to the skin. Going out for a walk in mist can see you coming home through driving rain.

I noted the weather forecast from "the Met" (Met Éireann is the national meteorological service) over a few days, and it probably serves as a succinct description of what you might expect:

"Misty at first, with rain at times."
"Mainly dry."
"Occasional rain later in the day."
"Well scattered showers."
"Some showers. "
"Rain and drizzle."

Meteorologists probably feel safer ensuring that some sort of rain is included in the forecast.

Ireland is a small country (around twice the size of Tasmania, not very much bigger than Texas) - and its weather reflects the influence of the surrounding seas.

The prevailing winds are from the South West, from the Atlantic Ocean, and the changing skies are beautiful to watch, although they can be depressing if you are planning an activity requiring a degree of dryness.

I was surprised to read that climate change is likely to bring drought conditions to south-eastern Ireland.

Travelling by train across Ireland in mid-winter would tend to convince you that there is an abundance of water.

In fact, there is no charge to households for their water usage. Average usage, according to Wikipedia, is 160 litres per person per day. In Melbourne, the aim is 155 litres per person per day - although this presumably includes watering of gardens, an activity not frequently required in Ireland.

Average hourly rainfall in Ireland is quite low, but that means that to reach the average annual rainfall of between 750 in the East or 2000mm in mountainous areas, it has to rain quite often.

Melbourne's average rainfall is around 650mm a year - not all that different to Dublin.

Gina was always amused at my parent's constant attention to the weather. They would look out the kitchen window in the morning, over the fields and trees behind the house, and say "It looks like rain". Gina used to say, "Why are they so surprised? It always looks like rain, because it's always raining or about to rain!"

Travel

2008-12-14T12:04:00.001-08:00

My natural inclination is to stay at home. Travel is supposed to broaden the mind, but it's also been said that "an ass who travels will not return a horse".

Travelling for work frequently has little to do with broadening or enlightenment. I've been guilty of going to Stratford-on-Avon and entirely failing to see, hear, eat, think or do anything connected with Shakespeare.

I'm sometimes embarrassed to admit - especially to those who say that they love the challenge of travel - that I find it an effort to take the first steps out of my hotel and into the street outside. This is particularly true if I can't speak the local language.

People brought up with English as their first language often envy those whose lack of a sufficiently influential local language required them to learn at least one more as a matter of course. Perhaps in previous times the English speaker could feel complacent in the superiority of their native tongue, but in this more politically aware era it seems rather backward to fail to switch smoothly from language to language.

I stopped over in Rome, and the receptionist in the downmarket hotel switched smoothly between English, Italian and French during the few minutes I was there, and the ease with which she did so made me think that she could probably have managed German, Spanish and a few others with equal facility.

I studied Latin for a few years, and that makes Italian both relatively easy and deceptively easy. Because the words are largely familiar, I can read street signs, and get some sense out of menus. Vino is wine, pizza is pizza...

But it's also a trap. On the way to an exhibition in Turin, I asked for directions. I was quite pleased with my almost fluent question in Italian, and it was only when I started to receive my reply that I was reminded of my complete inability to understand what I was being told.

An ass who travels will not return an Italian speaker.

Gerry Gaffney

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