Mobile Context - As a Road Sign

Okay, I think this went poorly. But I am too lazy to try again, and no one else wants to take the videos again either. Poor camerawork is from the 14 year old down the street, and I periodically look like I have Parkinson's or something, because... I have no idea why. A transcript, edited to make it a bit more sensible, is below the video, if you hate video (like I do) or just can't stand to watch any more after a while, but want to know where I am going with this. Context is something we talk about a lot when designing mobile applications, websites, interfaces, services and even phones. But somehow, it never gets really understood by a lot of people. They say "what do you mean by context?" And we end up explaining it to blank stares, and using lots of examples. I think this is because everyone is still used to the desktop. Context on the desktop computer means this window is on top, and this other one is sort of underneath that first one. But that's all it means. Because the rest of the time I am just sitting here, in a comfy chair, facing my computer. There's lighting, you are indoors, the screen is at eye level, arm's distance away, there's a full keyboard centered below it, and a pointing device off to the side.
A lot of people talk about mobile being "little glowing rectangles." But I think that frames the whole discussion wrong, because "little" isn't the key aspect of the device. And "rectangles" makes it too similar to the desktop, which is just a bunch of smallish rectangles (windows) inside a big one (the screen). What's different about mobile is the environment. I can be walking down the street, having dinner with friends, riding in a car. Or watching TV, and I keep wondering "who is that guy?" and instead of not knowing, or referring to a book, or going and getting on the computer, I can just pull out the mobile handset and look up this, or any other type of information, any time I want to. Mobile is contextual, in the sense that it works all the time, wherever you are, within your social environments, within the structure of the rest of your life.
The reason context is important is that it's what we live in all the time. Walking down the street, or driving to get a new license plate for your car. Putting aside your phone for a moment, you can understand context with analogies to other, actual interactions with the world. Like driving down the street, trying to understand traffic signs. Very near my house is a County building, where they do lots of stuff. Vote, get public health services, day care, crime lab, etc. And most people know it as the place where you go to get your new license plates, and pay the taxes for that each year. Most people who live in the area come here, but maybe once or twice a year. They come down the little street that passes by it, and as they approach it rings a bell. They can see the building, and they see a nice wide driveway to a parking lot. When they pull in, they see this: Actually, one on either side of the driveway. Off to the side is another that warns "Sheriff's Department Parking Only!" But how does anyone driving down the road know that. Because it was not placed usefully for the context of Driving Down the Road. The sign is aligned with the driveway, and is almost totally invisible (edge on) to people driving down the road.
If you aren't thinking about mobile design the same way, you are going to do the same thing. You are just putting up road signs in useless places also. It's easy to break up projects into pieces, and inherit process. It's easy to design for the way products are developed or built, or the way the old business process or legacy datastore gives the information to you. Or even just because you are designing it on a desktop computer, in that environment. And if you do this, you can easily forget about things like lighting conditions. Or the fact that minimum touch targets are only for sitting still, and people walking or in a bus have wobbling and vibration to fight with. You have consider the way people will actually use not just mobiles, but your mobile product specifically. Failing to do this will cause errors, frustration, and eventually people will stop using it. Sure, draw on the desktop, and use emulators and simulators to get the gist of things. But try your products out in real life. Bring paper mockups outside if you have to. Try competing products. But put them on phones and take them home, on the bus, and onto the street. Try them in the sun, in the dark before you go to bed. Take the bus or train for a change. Think about your users. Think contextually.

No snowplows would have been better

Big snowfall this morning. And that's normally good, cause we like snow. But apparently every city in the area fired all people who know how to watch the weather report. So, it was almost un-driveable all the way from my driveway to Lawrence. Very little evidence of plowing, and mostly quite dumb. Like, the ramps from K7 to K10, not plowed. Barely passable at 5 mph. In fact, I only saw two plows the whole time, both on K10. And both were being marginally useful, severely impeding traffic and one actually tried to kill someone; dropped a side blade almost on top of a Civic who was about to pass, that threw so much snow in the air I (50 m back) had zero visibility for way too long. Then the plow veered from the left lane all the way to exit on the right. All in all, it might have been more helpful to just have zero plows and we make our own way entirely.

Form and style, when driving

Most of the time, when I am driving behind a vehicle with a large overhang – lumber sticking out, a crane, or today the backhoe end of a construction tractor, I find it hard to keep a safe distance. It feels better to tighten up the space, so the inter-character counter-form is a clean, consumable shape, instead of this gaping void. Someday, this will presumably kill me.

Now, the story can be told

Now that my boss has told everyone at Sprint, I can post about my new job! I'm going to be the Interaction Designer for Little Springs Design. They do mobile design, mostly software and "WAP" site work, I gather. Mobile means handhelds, like cellphones or whatever you know it by. Somehow "mobile" doesn't resonate with everyone I tell about it. The FAQ about my job, based on the 50+ emails and IMs I have so far:

• Last day at Sprint is 8/17. First day at Littlesprings is 8/20.
• Its located in Lawrence, and I'm not moving. Its an observed 35 minutes door to door, so that's no big deal.
• Some telecommuting. Not sure how much yet, but some. Maybe lots.
• Some travel. Barbara wants to stay home more, so I'll get to be the face of the company sometimes. Maybe I'll be able to get interviewed and all that sort of stuff.
• Its less money. Not moving for the cash, but for the work. (and, until further notice, dinner is on you)
• Of course I'll answer the phone or maybe even email if anyone has a question about old Sprint days. I cannot, however, be contracted back at all for a year, so no actual work at Sprint after 8/17.

And everything else is TBD. I haven't worked the job yet, so its hard to say exactly what's involved. Presumably, broadly what I do now, being a designer of interactive systems, just for (mostly) mobile and handheld devices.

Wyoming

I'd forgotten how much I like Wyoming. I came here several times when I was younger to backpack thru the mountains, and we saw plenty of the state while driving thru it, and touristing a bit in and outbound. Hard to say what I like about the towns and people (a certain genuineness I suspect, but its hard to put my finger on) but the landscape is cool because its amazingy varied. One place we were today went from desert southwest looking with red buttes and rolling desert, to sharp gray snow-capped mountains, all within like 2 miles.


The Wind River range was always where I went years ago, and the detour of late exposed us to more of that range. We'd always previously driven up the west side, but this time we actually followed the Wind River itself. That was neat as well, as we watched it go from river to a stream you can cross on foot.



Anyway, we woke up this morning in Thermopolis, and went to the hot springs itself. This was pretty neat. The hotel was built in 1918 -- but has been recently renovated very nicely and is right on the grounds of the park. The park itself is very nicely done, and there is a beautiful state-run bath house thing. We used these facilities, but there are a few private concessions and yipes, do they crap up the place.



Alison tried to break into William Krueger's hotel room. Yes, the mystery writer. Okay, we'd never heard of him either, but he mentioned it because he was thinking horrible, improbable things when someone tried to break into his room. Nice guy, apparently, as I barely saw him. If a fan, ask Alison. Oh, and his next book is based in Thunder Bay, and I presume will be called the same thing, if you look at his other titles.


The drive itself was nothing much of note. Not as dramatic as yesterday, but plenty of scenery. As I mentioned above, the variability is amazing. We're in a narrow canyon of dense, dark rock, running thru tunnels is so steep and dense and... its done. 10 miles of that and it instantly becomes gentler red rocks. Such a weird place, I gather from the relative youth of the geology.


Stopped for lunch in Dubois. Nice working town, that has managed (on purpose) to keep its original feel. There's an old downtown strip that could be out of the 40s, if it wasn't for the newer cars. Not to mention the food; I cannot suggest the Cowboy Cafe enough.

I really missed the backpacking now that I am here, and think the wife is only getting so much exposure to the mountains with driving thru them, so I picked a random Forest Service road, and tried to get up in the hills a little so we could hike at least out of sight of the road. That didn't work, and we got about 200 yards before the road went to hell. Its very snowy still up here. Regardless, we hiked about a mile up, and got some nice scenics, saw a bird or two.


That wasn't as exciting as I wanted it to be, basically because we couldn't take the car back far enough. Shoshone, at least on the side we were on, seems to all be about grazing concessions. But when we entered Bridger, there seemed to be be actual recreational activities. So, we took one of those down a couple miles before... it also petered out in impassable snow and mud. Fair bit of reverse driving, then come back out. And we both see

Now, I've been right next to a less than happy moose before, and even at this range I am amazed how huge these are. Shy, also. We're like 70 yds away with difficult to impassable terrain in between and they got up and left. Sorry, mooses (meese?).


Another random photo to show off the scenery. This is the Teton range, facing west from around Moran Jct. Grand Teton is 20° off the frame to the right.


Tonight we are in Jackson, left of that last photo about 15-20 miles. Despite expected wonderful scenery across Idaho and Oregon (which I have never seen), we have to move to make 10+ hours of driving, so probably no adventures and little sightseeing tomorrow, sadly.

Oh, one more note. Its Jackon, WY. Not "Jackson Hole." That's the name of the valley in which, among other things, the town is located. Alison was wondering why I kept saying it like that, so asked some townies, and that's right.

Changed our minds again

First off, despite the promises...

...no internet access yesterday. And my warranty replacement aircard will not work either. Jackson has no native Sprint service, so I cannot call and debug, so... grrr. So, now I post yesterday's info, and in a few hours I'll tell you about today.

Anyway, we touristed a little in Rapid City, bought a few things, walked down their "art alley" and saw the nicest, cleanest, best-stocked gun store I have ever seen.



Ellsworth Air Force Base is about 5 miles from Rapid City, and has a free air museum, so right before leaving town, we went there. Turns out it was some security status thing, so there was a huge line to get in. For everyone, not just the museum. We lucked out, and the gas station let us park and walk, and the AF Security guys were mostly very nice and didn't mind at all as we walked thru their security cordons (they were doing the car searches in the museum parking lot). Interesting assortment of gear; from LC-2 and helmets worn to the kevlar, to aftermarket armor carrier vests. The best dressed was the dog handler, and Alison actually asked if we could take a photo (she liked the dog). To my total lack of suprise, he said 'no.'


Alison saw the phrase "hot springs" on the highway map and it turns out she has always had a secret dream to visit one, so we suddenly reconfigured our trip on the fly, and went to Thermopolis instead. This worked out, and we'll tell about it in the next post.

We also stopped in Deadwood for a sort of lunch/dinner. Cool that its right in a tiny mountain valley, but that's it. Everything is ruined by the faux-history, and way-too-new buildings to take advantage of the tourists, and apparently the lax gaming laws in SD.


Because of the two-lane US routes, Alison wanted to drive. Because its fun, and reminds her of home. Really dramatic scenery, and I took far too many photos to share now.



We also saw some wildlife. While still on the plains, there was a herd of antelope. We got a video of them milling, then running away. Its cool, but I am not gonna bother uploading it from the road so you'll just have to take my word for it.



A reasonably lovely, casual vacation travel day, rounded off nicely with a speeding ticket for Alison...

...and a late dinner at a nice, local hamburger and ice cream stand in Thermopolis.