Persuasive Technology

I’ve been reading through the book, Persuasive Technology by B.J. Fogg, and have found his systematic breakdown of technological adoption very interesting. I just finished the chapter on Social Learning Theory which defines two ways in which we are influenced by others —Normative Influence and Social Comparison. Simply put, when it comes to adoption strategy, Normative Influence is dependent on peer pressure and Social Comparison is dependent on an individual’s assessment of themselves and how they compare to others.

Personally I’ve never been a fan of peer pressure and oftentimes find myself pre-maturely jumping on a grenade to disrupt the hive mind—not always a good thing (Google the importance of job security). I’m wired to see Normative Influence as a bad thing no matter what the moral intentions behind it is. That is why a non-smoking campaign such as ‘thetruth.com’ annoys me in its attempts to counter peer-pressure with peer-pressure. It has all the disingenuous plasticity of the ‘goth’ movement, where its cool to be uncool.

Status-based grouping by any name is one of the most base examples of ignorance and intellectual devolution. It has a short lifespan and quite ultimately fails to persuade as any form of independent thinking appears. Why? Because any form of group mentality is directed by an individual who is motivated through self-importance and has a clear agenda. Though it may be born of good-intention its susceptibility to the tyrannical is inevitable, and when it is revealed through resistance it breaks down.

Fogg writes, “In sum, while connected technologies can leverage conformity dynamics, they also can undermine the pressure to conform by providing non-conformists with an awareness of others who have resisted this pressure. This is a liberating use of persuasive technology, helping people choose what they want to choose—not what a peer group chooses for them.”

I hate to keep using the iPhone/Android example to defend my stance, but its a great and very relevant argument to make these days. The biggest criticism that will continue to plague Apple is that iPhone users are beholden to the ‘Apple way’. This is a PR nightmare that Apple will always have to deal with. Apple is no longer a company that encourages people to ‘Think Different’, but have crossed over to Microsoft territory where the scarlet letter is permanently etched into every product they sell. I don’t know about you, but I can’t help but feel sympathy for John Hodgman’s PC character in the ‘Get a Mac’ advertising campaign. Justin Long’s Mac character is such a snarky, evil little creep under his fluffy-white sheep’s clothing.

Design by Dylan Roscover

Becoming a victim of their former selves, and trying to convince consumers otherwise, is a fail. Perhaps that’s why Apple has begun to embrace their inner-Marxist by claiming they’re providing the best user experience by sacrificing individualism and choice. This is commendable. At least they’re being honest.

How to choose your designer

I’ve recently been asked by a colleague how she should choose a designer for a branding project.

Here are a couple of rules I would follow:

If a designer gives you a price quote or flat fee right away, don’t hire them.

Brand design isn’t an item that can be ‘bought’ off a shelf. It is something that is unique and crafted to suite a particular audience, and should speak to them in a way that is engaging and relevant. Because of this, time spent on researching and understanding is most likely to vary depending on a designer’s familiarity with the audience —and as we all know, more time = more money.

Test them

The perception of a company’s brand plays a huge part in their consumer’s decision to buy. Therefore, before hiring, you need to make sure that the designer understands your audience enough, and has the requisite skills necessary to make an impactful first impression. The only way to do this is to request that they share initial ideas/sketches with you before you commit to hiring them.

Simply looking at past work isn’t a solid indicator of ability. There are a lot of ‘coat-tail designers’ out there —designers who claim to have designed something, but may not have been an integral part in its outcome. This happens a lot with people who have worked on a team responsible for creating a brand, but didn’t necessarily create what they promote as being their design.

You need to be sure that the designer you hire can deliver based on their own experience and talent, or what you ‘see’ isn’t going to be what you get.

Expect, or rather make sure, that the designer wants to work with you.

Similar to job interviews, the decision to hire and commit to work depends on what both sides can give to one another. The designer needs to see investment in your company. Making sure that the designer you hire has a stake in your company —whether through personal growth or interest, etc., ensures that the work will be professional and that it not only meets your needs, but the standards that the designer holds themselves to.

Simply put, money should never be the motivating factor —if you find it is, realize that you’re throwing integrity out the door.

Open for Business

There has been a lot of talk about ‘openness’ in the technology sector. Ironically,  the definition of ‘openness’ itself is ‘open’ to interpretation. However one thing everyone seems to agree on is that openness is the ‘white-knight’ of, well, everything. Companies are fighting to convince us that closed-system is the epitome of all that is evil. It allows companies to dominate and control the way we think and act —its communism, and should be put on trial without question. What people forget is that, when you take the ‘company/man’ out of the equation, when you start thinking more ‘openly’, you start to notice that ‘closed-systems’ of the past have created innovations which ultimately defines humanity’s relationship with technology today.

Apple’s iOS has been criticized as being a closed system because it restricts developers from creating applications not abiding by Apple’s rules of ‘user interface guidelines’ and development tools. In their defense, Apple has gone so far as boldly stating that they’re the ‘first major computer company to make Open Source development’, and that they ‘remain committed to the Open Source development model’. While this is true of OSX, it is not for iOS. When it comes to developing an application to run off any of their touch-devices, developers have to go through the process of code review by Apple before it is made public. Along with this, the developer is only allowed to sell their product through Apple’s AppStore and/or iTunes Store. In this respect, Apple as a company is not one-hundred percent ‘open’, and not nearly as committed to Open Source methodology as they claim to be. When it comes to iOS, they defend their ‘closed’ stance with a means to ‘quality-control’ and a consistent user-experience. I for one don’t have a problem with this. I don’t want to go back to the days where shareware from no-name companies would crash my computer, and I certainly don’t want to have to learn a new way of interfacing with my iPhone. What I have a problem with is the inconsistent and false marketing tactics they use to spin the definition of ‘open-ness’.

With that said, there is a justified fear that arises from having a completely open-system run on a myriad of products. This has always been true, however it hadn’t surfaced as a major issue until touch-screen devices started saturating the market. Because touch-screen interaction is in its infancy when it comes to adoption, it is extremely important time to define the user experience —when it comes to defining gestural behaviors, Apple has the upper hand. They control/restrict the market due to patents, first to market, and early adoption.

Like it or not the Android OS may have won the numbers war, but Apple has won the user experience war precisely because of their ‘closed-system’. For example the ‘pinch gesture’ has become an expected way of zooming in and out, so much that any attempts to stray from it will ultimately fail. In many ways, Apple has defined what is a ‘natural’ way of interacting with touch screen devices. This is an example of how a ‘closed-system’ can succeed in outweighing ‘open-ness’ —and its not necessarily a bad thing.

Concluding that a ‘closed-system’ will always succeed over an ‘open’ one is like comparing ‘democracy’ to ‘communism’. We’re simply thinking of both in the wrong way. We’re judging broad terms, and not what defines them. Simply put, a closed-system still outputs positive results. You can have democracy built on capitalism, which ultimately, is defined by an individual’s choice to buy. Companies don’t control what product sells. If this were the case, the stock market would be much easier to predict. Amidst, Apple’s solidified definitions of user interactions, there is still room to innovate. When we remind ourselves that we are individuals the notion of a controlled-environment is a fallacy.

History has shown us that there will always be the right to choose, and that our fears of company-dominance are unjustified. Think of it this way, if there wasn’t, we’d all be using Internet Explorer.

Am I pretty?

When you design for emerging technologies you’re able to live life in fast-forward. Designs which take months to create are replaced with new technologies and ideas in a matter of days. Designing within the realm of impermanence has given me an insight to life that would normally take a lifetime to learn.

I’ve built my career, somewhat unconsciously, focused on ‘virtual inspiration’. I create structures that exist beyond an electronic window into a world that isn’t physical. I have been inspired by other creators in this realm. I have experienced its power to captivate and change the paradigm of thought and reason, of art and design. Unfortunately, I have also experienced the impermanence of technology, for technology, by its very nature, can not exist without change.

History teaches us that everything has a beginning and an end —in human terms, ‘a lifetime’. As individuals our experiences, as well as our contributions are limited. As a collective we live forever through ideas.

Recently, I walked by a shop which sold trophies and commemorative plaques. I visualized the seams in the hollowed plastic, the areas where the foil painting had either failed to cover or had chipped off. I saw hundreds of golden angels standing on silver-plated columns with marbled pedestals. They had no nameplates.

How many of these idols have we built our careers on attaining? The question is simple. Do you define yourself by creations built on impermanence, or are you engaged in the creation of ideas that ultimately contribute to the collective of humanity?

Praise and appreciation are important to creators. They remind you of your worth, and that you are making a difference in the lives of others. They help to keep you moving forward. However, just remember that at the end of the long journey, your ideas —these things that aren’t awkwardly glued to a flock of gold-plated angels, will ultimately shape the future.

If you’re in online marketing and strategy, this will piss you off

I’m just going to say it. I have yet to see a successful example of online company marketing.

Marketing campaigns may work for posters and commercials, but are distractions on the web. Some may challenge my notion when it comes to Apple, —but you know what the difference is between Apple and other companies are? Simplicity. Its all about the product. The imagery is of the product, the message is geared to their audience and everything is said in one sentence. When I’m looking to buy something from company ‘X’, I don’t want to presented with a paragraph of generic adjectives such as,

“Discover breakthrough interactive design tools that enable you to create, deliver, and optimize beautiful, high-impact digital experiences across media and devices. —etc..”

I want to see features, and I don’t want to have to search through a site to find them. Compare the above example to the following:

“An expanded ProRes family. Powerful new ways to collaborate. Even tighter integration between applications. The leading post-production suite just got better.”

Both quotes are taken from landing pages describing a suite of products. The difference? The first example can be used to describe most creative, digital media applications. The second starts with a feature specific to the product being sold (ProRes), and speaks to the viewer in more specific terms. Words and phrases such as ‘collaborate’, ‘tighter integration between applications’, ‘the leading post-production suite’ shows that the company, knows their audience, isn’t condescending, and very specific. What makes Company ‘X’ fail even more is that it adds more text to the example shown above, before showing the product. On top of which it pushes the actual products being sold and their calls to action below the fold.

Let’s face it, most people on the internet have a form of ADD when it comes to clicking through sites. Unless they’re on a site geared towards content (news, blogs), they scan and navigate to where they can find exactly what they’re looking for. Throwing marketing pages in the midst are roadblocks to information, and slow the process down. Especially when they’re not relevant. Sure, they can be awesome and inspiring, but it rarely helps to sell a product if its built on metaphors. It’s noise —especially to repeat visitors. Its disingenuous and transparent —a painted wall that bottlenecks the process of getting to information.

My advice? Hold your breath for as long as you can and, upon exhaling, describe your product as best you can.

UPDATE: Marketing has an important strategic role in shaping a company and seeing it succeed. However, they should not be given complete authority over design. Trust the people you work with.

Fear and the Yes Man

When I worked at Apple I sketched out a picture of Steve Jobs. Mind you, it wasn’t a caricature, but a legitimate portrait. I sent it out as an email attachment to a group of folks asking ‘Do you know who this is?’. I merely wanted to know if my drawing was accurate enough to be recognizable. As expected I received no response. I then printed the illustration out and brought it to one of my colleagues asking the same question. His response was ‘Yes, I know who that is, now take it off my desk’. This was my first real view into the ‘fear’ that a lot of people, especially within large corporations, feel when it comes to upper management. Admittedly Steve Jobs is a particularly strong entity to be trifled with, but the story is the same for the lesser known ‘gods of management’.

Here’s my problem with it. It sucks. It reduces productivity, and sacrifices one’s integrity. As an employee you are hired to give your input -or at least should be. It does nobody any good to be ‘agreeable’ for fear of losing ones job. Job security is important, but what’s even more important is that you contribute to a team.

As children, we’ve all known that one kid who agrees with everything and doesn’t express their own negations nor opinions on a particular subject. For instance, one day Stevie says his favorite apple is the green one, to which Jonny exuberantly agrees. The next day when Stevie says he’s changed his mind and likes the red ones, Jonny proclaims the superiority of red. While this may be part of growing up for some, it unfortunately carries into adulthood for others.

I’m not saying that one should be disagreeable for the sake of it. However, they should be able to express their own opinion without fear, even if it may differ from that of their ‘superiors’. Good leaders don’t rule by fear, but through trust and collaboration with those who are experts in their field. Dictating through fear, while it may work for Steve Jobs, is harkens back to a sense of childish superiority.

I understand that there are a lot of factors involved. I understand that fear stems from the need for job security, and that in some companies (bad ones in my opinion) it is a necessity to survive. To those who find themselves in such predicaments I place no blame. Circumstance can be a bitch. However, for those of us who are in a position to speak up and don’t, those who are afraid of having a CEO’s illustration placed on their desks, there is no excuse for such fear. These are the folks that bitch about their bosses behind their backs and do nothing about it. They’re miserable and, quite frankly, useless.

As an employee your role is to influence and to be part of a team whose goal is to push your company towards success. And VPs be damned if they don’t recognize the contributions of those that work ‘under’ them for they will ultimately fail.

Rant: Nokia, a case of no clue

I get paid a lot of money to dig graves

Nokia is making a serious mistake in refusing to use established platforms such as Android. It is a simple fact that developers would rather not have to learn a new language to publish for a limited set of users. It’s true that Nokia has a huge share of the European market, but this is sure to change due towards their arrogance (view article link where Nokia VP mentions that adopting Android would negatively affect Nokia’s ‘destiny’). Seriously, what is MeeGo and why would anyone want to develop for it when Android has been adopted by hundreds of companies world-wide? This is clearly a case where VP’s of companies don’t have a clue of what’s going on in the current market. It doesn’t take a business degree to know that this is going to be a major mistake. No wonder why their CEO is being ousted. Too bad their VPs aren’t any better.

CNN Fortune Article: Why Nokia’s Android snub is a big mistake

Android, the people platform

I now am in possession of two phones. I place them in either side pockets of my jeans which leaves my keys to go in the back. Admittedly its a bit uncomfortable and asinine, but such sacrifices must be made for ‘usability studies’. They take up all the room in my pockets, and, as a friend reminded me, are giving an equal amount of radiation to my hanging fruit.

After one week of having both, I can say with absolute certainty that there will be an ongoing coexistence between the iOS and Android platforms. They both have their faults, however what they do well they really exceed in.

The ‘HTC Sense’ UI is amazingly easy to navigate through once you spend some time with it. However, notice I said ‘spend time with it’. The iPhone on the other hand is intuitive from the start -you just can’t beat the ‘one button to rule them all’ feature. I admit that when switching between the two devices, an act which in public makes you look like a total douche, I find myself reminding myself to press the back button on the Evo 4G.

Amidst usability differences, I’ve found that camps have formed around each platform not so dissimilar to that of Mac and Unix/PC users. I suppose this is natural being that each platform has been independently created by Mac and PC/Unix developers, however its the alarming adoption rate of both which has been unrivaled in any device for a while.

I find it interesting how the news reports on how much larger the adoption rate of the Android platform is opposed to iOS given that the iOS is limited to Apple devices and because of this, can’t possibly compete when it comes to the open-environment Android provides to any manufacturer. I’m not an economist, but I feel that this ‘fact’ falls under the ‘duh’ category.

Being a designer, what I am interested is in how each platform goes about usability. How do you get from one application to another? How to switch between them? What is the buying experience like?

The iPhone definitely has the upper hand when it comes to how to input queries and get desired outputs. However the Android, especially when interacting with the ‘Sense’ UI is coming very close and that says a lot for it.

The reason for this is because Apple has had control of the market for nearly five years. In such time, it has successfully ‘defined’ gestural navigation, making it so any divergence is perceived as being unintuitive. Apple deserves all their accolades for making a device that even a grandma can use (believe me, I’ve seen a few). And that is a huge accomplishment. Being first, and being smart about it has its rewards.

On the other hand, the fact that the three-year old Droid is compared, and in some cases seen as superior to the iPhone, means a lot more. There have been plenty of companies which have tried to compete with Apple in the past and failed, such as Microsoft’s Zune (and various other Microsoft products). Google’s Android is not one of them. I can’t stress enough how important it is to consider its time to market vs. Apple’s two year lead start. In tech-years this is an insane accomplishment. Sure there are a lot of things that could be better, but the fact that Android is an open platform means that it isn’t anchored to any ‘bad ideas’. For instance don’t like the way you input text? Then download Swype. Don’t like the experience of the default Android UI? Create a better one like what HTC has done with Sense.

The Android platform allows for more experimentation not only for developers, but also visual designers. Sure, there will be mistakes made along the way, but we’ll learn from them as a collective and not behind the locked doors of 1 Infinite Loop.

Pleasing the Burger King

Emergency. Sense of Urgency. Project A. Project B. Project C. Needs to be done yesterday. Stress moves us, but also exhausts. What is Project B, and how does it compare in urgency to Project C, or A? Am I going to even remember what any of these projects were which made me feel as if my life were on the line? Will they fulfill on their promise to change the world in some way? How many projects have an impact -a long lasting one that deserves an exchange for my life? The stress of every project takes a bit out of me. I believe that it eats away at my life span just like smoking cigarettes.

Who am I working for, and why are they so important in my life? Some leaders know what they’re doing. Most leaders are driven by self-righteousness and impose projects which have no purpose, and provides no value to society. Millions of dollars are spent on one person’s half-baked idea. An idea with no research. An ill-informed idea out of touch with what their audience is concerned about.

At Adobe, thousands of dollars are spent on the color of buttons, 4 pages, fake benchmarking graphics. Who are the people who are spending this money and how many jobs are affected in their failure? We call them ‘stakeholders’, but is it really their jobs that are at stake or those who ‘fail’ to meet their baseless projects?

Names. We are a corporate society which puts a lot of weight into names. We stress about pleasing ‘Anne’, ‘Andy’, ‘Jonny’, without question. The only thing that matters is that they make decisions which they are inclined to think are ‘golden’, regardless of those who may know the market better than them. We forget that they are individuals. Individuals carry with their own aesthetics. The smart ones know how to separate their aesthetics and to trust those who understand the market better than them. They are the ‘gods’ of our industry and we must please them in order to ‘survive’. We sacrifice what we know is right based on numbers, and from being ‘in the weeds’. Most of us know how to separate our aesthetics from understanding. And yet we ‘stress’  because we are forced to do work that is based on ignorance.

Workload is not necessarily in proportion to stress. However, workload has become synonymous with stress because we are forced to do work without understanding or the belief in what we’re doing is right. To a person who believes in their work, that their work has a purpose, the amount of time put into it yields not stress, but a huge sense of accomplishment upon completion. For this person knows the virtue of their toil. They understood the purpose from the beginning and have come to an agreement with its value. These are the projects that will have/deserve true names and memories associated with them. For these are the projects from which they grow.

The leaders of these projects are those we come to respect. They come down from their perch, and speak to us in a language we can all understand. They trust us, and we trust them. They know that they are not designers. They know that they are not experts at information architecture. They trust us and create projects, and spend their money on informed sources, on people, not on numbers. If you give those a choice between A or B it is still your A or B they are deciding on. There is no C, D, E, etc.. Intelligent leaders understand this, and are not afraid to take risks, not afraid of challenging the ‘Bean Counters’ who have somehow made it to the top. They also understand that the perpetually changing societal events which shape our world shape business, and that adapting their business model must follow in synch. And thus, consultation with those whose expertise they lack must be part of an evolving workflow.

Anyone who watches ‘A day in the life of Adobe’, being one of the ‘Top companies to work for’, can see that it is not about the work, but about the life outside of work that our workplace provides. Shouldn’t it be more about believing in the work that we do?

“The Things We Think and Do Not Say: The Future of Our Business”

Currently there is no company that provides a great way to find usable, relevant, and immediate customer support. (Company A) needs to tap into this market, by creating a community through the use of their applications.

In the future, software companies are going to standout from the competition by creating a social network based on their existing user-base. Since there are millions of customers that use (Company A) products, such a network will be available instantaneously and will include a massive knowledge base from which users can tap into. Because of this large user-based-model, solutions to users problems will be answered instantaneously, and satisfaction levels will grow. As satisfaction levels grow, (Company A)’s brand equity will become more positive and increased sales will naturally follow.

Most software purchases are hindered by fears related to adopting new technology. Adaptation and sales, especially in our current economy, hinder on (Company A)’s ability to answer and calm these fears. To these companies, its not about saving a relatively small amount of money, but about the assurance that the product being sold will ‘work’ seamlessly within their current infrastructure.

The online experience, the inspirational ‘wow’ factor, helps, but is attributed more to the company/firm who provides the experience. When one finds a site, which inspires them, that augments their experience, they don’t think about the software that built it, so much as the company/design firm who created it.

That’s not to say that (Company A)’s online marketing isn’t important, but that it plays a smaller role in sales. The same can be said for ‘saving time and money’. It is important, but it doesn’t address the fear of adopting a new technology, for even if a product is shown to save time, the data is relative to a company’s ability to quickly implement and learn it.

In conclusion, (Company A) must focus on assuaging the fear that customers have when upgrading to their products. They need to tap into the huge user-base that already exists and turn it into a knowledge base that is both usable, easily accessible, and quick.

(Company A) already has the means to gather information. Application installations provide relevant information about their customer and specific needs. There are product user forums, (Company A) ID, etc. However nothing is centralized. The fragmentation of user groups makes searching for support on (Company A).com a terrible experience, which leads to poor customer satisfaction levels.

(Company A) needs to refocus on the customer, letting them know that the company cares about their post-purchase needs, and understands the issues they may encounter. (Company A)’s customer base is intelligent enough to understand the difference between marketing campaigns and are therefore conditioned to ignore most, if not all if it.

The first step (Company A) needs to take is to consolidate their user-base thereby strengthening their knowledge base. Future installations of software will automatically provide each user, not only with an ID, but a centralized area on (Company A).com, which is personalized to their needs. They should be able to input questions within applications, and get instant notifications without having to go back and forth between the browsers/email-clients. This solution streamlines the process and addresses the sense of immediacy that our society has come to expect.

(Company A) needs to be the leader in this. As it currently doesn’t successfully exist in the market, the immediacy of (Company A) to address and implement such a solution is of utmost importance.