Tiles, Widgets and Icons

Ever since I read Itai Vonshak's tweet about John Dvorak's article on "the serious flaw" with Windows 8, I've been vaguely annoyed by this misunderstanding of how an interface should or could work. Windows 8 is, conceptually, at the presentation level, an offshoot of concepts we've first seen in Windows Phone. And Windows Phone (like everything else in the world) has been evaluated (by tech columnists) as a straight-up iPhone competitor. I gather that Dvorak thinks some people sat in a room in Redmond and went "I've got it! We'll make all our icons square, and blue! That'll differentiate it from that darned iPhone. We'll show those meddling kids!" I don't work for Microsoft, and didn't do any work on any of this UI. In fact, before we go further, I don't own one of these, and don't particularly have a warm place in my heart for Microsoft. But fair is fair, and I'm judging this on it's merits, as I see them. As soon as Windows Phone was announced (as I recall, even before we saw images) it was pretty clear that they were taking a quite different, not just putting their spin or skin on the "compete with Apple." I think it's a rather good approach. If you design the system (any system, of any size) to be entirely about running applications, then your application discovery method better be solid. When Dvorak talks about how he recognizes icons, or accuses Microsoft of all but switching to a DOS CLI, this reveals his misunderstanding of how mobile (and some other clever systems) can work. Instead of finding and running apps, you can be served information immediately and contextually. Skipping the bigger discussions of push messaging and contextual surfacing, Windows Phone (and I presume from the images, Windows 8) tiles are widgets (ask me later why this links to "icon"). Widgets, in this context, present little snippets of data, or even useful bits of data next to other bits of data. Immediately. Without having to explicitly launch them. Aside from generally observing everything I can about mobile, I have a Windows Phone user right next to me at work. I asked him today to demonstrate, and he demonstrated exactly this use of it.

I can just open it up, and look at it, and scroll to get more information. If I need to know who did that, I look to the side and there they are.

And no, he's not a designer, or particularly a mobile guy, and I didn't set his phone up for him. I've never even touched it. Based on many other observations I have made of all sorts of mobile users, a lot of them use their devices this way. You don't drill into the app, or even launch it. You just un-sleep the screen and glance at it. Maybe, just maybe, you have to scroll a little ways. Or, I claim from all these, they want to. I still feel the same way I did about Widgets in 2007 , and increasingly think they are not just a good thing to have available, but a key attribute, and may become (like Windows is now pushing towards) the one best way to get to information. There are other platforms that have widgets. My Android handset is almost entirely widgets, using icons only when there is no good widget. There are related ways to work in this sort of mentality, like WebOS which leaves the application as a sort of widget/tile on the desktop; the set of them changes moment to moment, but they aren't just launched and then disappear when you go to launch another application. Not perfect (or even much alive) but another approach, certainly. I'd talk about Symbian, but that would stretch my "near-death OS examples" to the breaking point. Forcing users to scan a grid of icons is, to me, not just a failure on mobile, but is a demonstrably secondary action in desktop systems. Think of the Applications folder on OSX, or the All Programs link in Windows. This is not the high use case, and is a simple fallback for when you need to get to something obscure, or which you cannot find otherwise. And how to get around this? Search, launch bars, recently-used application lists, and other methods to allow the user to find the most likely applications. With a distinct move towards doing this automatically for users, instead of assuming they will set it up for themselves (because they won't). Someone will probably see this as an assault on iOS. And I am fine with that. Aside from being comfortable with fanbois interpreting everything non-glowing as villainous, this is behavior I have observed; satisfaction does not always correspond to task completion, much less efficiency. And it's not evolutionary. This is a twisting path. A lot of stuff much older than this let you prioritize better than just "what is on the first page of the app listing," like say S60: Darn it, I did mention Symbian after all. Oh, well. But since we're comparing to Apple, let's talk about another common refrain against Windows Phone – that it's over-designed. In the sense that it's designed to look good to executives approving it, to focus groups, or is just a misguided visual designer's wet dream. There are a number of ways in which I disagree with this, and find it to clearly have been well thought out by some pretty clever UX designers and IxDs. The first has even been pointed out by some who dislike it. The device has pretty notable, integrated teasers of additional function or content. Tiles are partly displayed on the edges, animations help communicate what the interface can do. Even that big dead space to the side is about leading you to change panels to the right. Another key one (there is lots of hate) is about the density of information. Those big words bug everyone, because they are not efficient. Compare the number of characters, lines of info or anything else you want to almost any other device and it comes out behind. Or does it? When I think of a lot of the use of mobile, even though context doesn't matter anymore, I see a lot of glanceable use. My co-worker, for example, will regularly use his phone on the way to a meeting. Large text and images as iconic representations helps him use this on the go. I have noted, a lot more than any of the devices I am using. I sometimes have to stop to read where the room is, on my high-density information display. While we're at it, those giant, wasteful black gutters between tiles, they seem to help reduce click errors (and improve confidence of clicking) in all environments. I have seen the design of Windows Phone disparagingly described as being like poster art. Which I say is a good thing. Posters work.
A question I assume many of you will ask is: Why isn't Windows Phone the market share winner? Well, lots of the usual reasons. Marketing, price, distribution, hardware, networks and operators, and so on. By no means does the best device win. Everyone seems to now be comfortable with OSX devices selling in their non-dominant market, so think about that. I'll tell you that a lot of these relatively niche devices (like WebOS or Windows Phone) are beloved by most users of them that I know, or have interviewed for research. They give them up due to unavailability, or lack of key apps or some other aspect outside the core interactive design paradigm. But also, we may be getting there. Android is doing rather well, and if you were inclined to, you could say it's because they support widgets, and this flexibility of layout is at least part of the success. I actually cannot find a useful "reason I chose Android" study to say that, and it's possibly untrue, but everyone else lies about statistics to prove their point. So I say that Android wins because the idle screen is more flexible and can be more mobile-optimized (I actually /do/ talk to end users who say this is why they chose it). And even more importantly, tomorrow is the future. Mobile, more than other technologies, changes all the time. And often in unexpected ways. On Thursday, a new head for HP. Is WebOS on the way back? Or this recent InfoWeek survey of mobile OSs (available at their site, but thru a subscription wall so the link may or may not be good) that shows Windows Phone perceived as just a tidge less useful to the IT professional than iOS. The future doesn't even have to be a variation on what we have today. There are OSs on the market off in other corners of the world you might not have heard of. Speaking of Itai, his Else phone prototype was a shockingly amazing piece of design in every way; I see no reason something that radical cannot make it to market sometime and surprise us all. Or maybe the web will take over, and the device OS won't matter. Or… something else. I have no idea what tomorrow will really bring. But it won't be more grids of icons.
For more on designing widgets, or just making those bog-standard lists and grids the best they can be, check out our forthcoming book Designing Mobile Interfaces. Pre-order from Amazon for a significant discount, or read the content online right now.

Interactive Criticism and the Cult of Clean Design

This discussion of minimalist posters got me thinking of some of the design problems I have been encountering lately. And that got me to thinking that I have been seeing a variation of this for years and years.

 Unlike much of the graphic arts scene, it seems that interactive design hasn't gotten over it's trend of simplicity and whitespace for their own sake. If anything it seems to get worse year after year. While I won't quite blame Apple – and everyone else who follows that design ethos of spartan minimalism in everything – this is the design I am talking about.

 But the problem isn't really that we're stuck in a design rut. We are, but it's much more that not everyone evaluates everything the same way, with the same depth. People use a cool new product (on their iPad), then come to work the next day and say we should make a product as clean and easy to use as this.

 But "clean" and "easy to use" are different things. In the same way that "look and feel" are two different phrases (hence the "and"). "Clean" rapidly becomes misinterpreted as "low-featured." "Easy to use" becomes misinterpreted as "easy for every single person in the world to use." "Simple" turns into "simplistic," and we cut features not to get to core principles, but because they are visible.

We cut features not with a knife, but with an axe. And rapidly, any feature is worthy of being assailed not on it's merits, but on it's immediate visual appeal in a wireframe, or comp. But it's a false argument. Anything, – anything – can be assailed as cluttered, complex, or any number of adjectives that are, really, meaningless. There is no way to argue against "you don't want to confuse the user..." on it's merits, because there is no internal logic to this argument; it has no merits, really.

I routinely want to challenge such arguments and bring us back to principles, or to the scientific underpinnings of the practice. "Hard for which users?" or "But this feature is required to meet objective 2…" or "But the research proved that 100% of the participants prefer…" So maybe we can win the argument by counter-attacking their premise, and getting to the core of the issue like this. At least on the face of it.

Because really, we're missing a key point by calling it a design issue. It's a communications issue, or maybe (as Alexandra Lange responded in the comments on that Design Obsever article), an issue of design criticism. I admit that I would not have made any of these connections without her article. As practitioners of IxD, UI and UX, we try to make decisions based on provable knowledge. You could even characterize it as a scientific approach to design.

But it's not always true. Opinions still abound in discussions amongst ourselves. About interpreting what actually happened in a test, or what situation we are really looking at, so what heuristic should be applied. If you were to watch a design (or art) critique session, you might think it's just a conversation, but really this is a fairly formal construct, with rules that make it work to everyone's advantage.

You cannot complain about a work without merit; "I don't like it" doesn't fly. You better have a good, reasoned argument as to what you don't like, in what manner you don't like it, and maybe even suggest a solution. It better address the intended audience, or the purpose of the object. Assuming use outside of this may be irrelevant.

 As the creator, you better accept all criticism, and I don't mean passively; you have to engage in the conversation, to make sure everyone understands each other, and so group discussions can help reach consensus on the best course of action. Note that I didn't say "solution." One individual still ends up cutting the wood, or painting the line, or placing the pixel. Iterative critique gets it closer to the intended goals. Mostly, you cannot perform design criticism alone, or as the only proper practitioner of it; everyone has to participate and follow the rules. 

 Interactive design doesn't have any of this. Sure, your studio might work fine. And I have absolutely been on teams – or led teams – that worked exactly like this and had terrific group design critiques (and terrific products came out the other end). But as a whole discipline we do not have a method of critique. We argue, cajole, express opinion, refer to previous solutions, and our favorite products. We make deals, and end up splitting the difference so we can stop arguing and get to the next point. We decry ornament (especially when we bow to the altar of Clean Design) and insist we evaluate based on interactivity and process.

All while we draw comps and complain about crowding objects, and demand white space be added or everything align to the grid. We carry out common practice, and build what is easy, instead of finding and defining what is truly, demonstrably best practice. We do not share, or tell anyone else about our design solutions. Maybe not even the guy in the next pod, but almost never to the design community as a whole. We design in isolation, take criticism as insults to our work, and believe there is design that cannot be improved upon. We perceive openness to opinion, fuzzy concepts or acceptance of change as weakness. We are simply confused (and maybe assume it's a trick or insult) when a designer offers to change to an alternative design when a good point is raised by others. And we cannot fathom why our clients do not respect interactive design and user experience as evidence-based, consistently-applied, professional fields, and express sorrow every time they insist we change something based on whim.

 We need an ethos of design criticism. Not a process. The existing ones for fine art and design work fine. And we must not stop disagreeing with each other. We must not stifle creativity, or reduce iteration, or work more in isolation from fear or as a res Of course you know that arguing with the client never really works. I said that up above because that's what I want to do, but another approach is needed.

 So, if you agree, what next? Well, it's simple. Do this. Tomorrow. Okay, it's the end of the week. So, Monday. The next time you bring the team together, lay out the ground rules and tell everyone this is how we're going to talk to each other. In several ways – but especially in becoming a seasoned practitioner of art and design criticism – going to art school was maybe the best education I could have gotten. I've been thinking for a long time we need to teach not just what you should know, but how to do it and how to do it with a team. Not every field of study or school does this. You can make sure to teach your junior designers the skills they need, and not just assume they will pick it up on the way. And you can try to get the right feedback from everyone.

When you walk to someone's desk, and they give feedback, ask them to justify it, very precisely. Nicely, but get to the heart of it. Anyone can answer these questions if pushed to it. Not naturally, but they can. Even your clients. If you are told "why not more like how Amazon does it?" then pull up that part of Amazon, and ask in what manner this solves the need. Ask how this meets the goals of the product, ask questions you know that there are answers to, or which they will enjoy answering. As much as it's been talked about, there is no certifying organization for IxD.

As much as some people get to write books (now me!) and get followed by thousands of people every day, there is no one guru who can change the whole field. We all do it, every day, as we work with each other and improve interactive products. If you like this idea, do it. If you have a better one, do that. But if anything ever bothers you about how our field works, talk about it, find a solution, and put it into practice. This is how we improve ourselves, and our little part of the world.

This is what I sound like griping about pixels vs. boxes

For those few who have forgotten to remove me from your feed list, the absence has been totally worth it. Writing (half of) a 460 page book on mobile design was very interesting, and hopefully will be something important and helpful to you all. Buy a copy when it comes out, presumably in a few months. Last year I was on a panel with, among other people, Luke Wroblewski. He was "defending" his then-new concept of mobile first. I was supposed to be the naysayer. But it takes me a while to warm up to people and be abrasive, harsh and disagreeable, so I ended up looking like I agreed with him. Everyone else did, so it was a rather boring panel. We're sorry it wasn't exciting. I did agree with the principles – which I'll get to eventually – but I didn't fully understand how much, or even really why I disagreed with the practice at the time. At the time, I thought I had a nice cynicism baked in, but in fact I'd worked in or with organizations that more or less bought into the concept of UX practitioners and let us do our jobs. Some encouraged it. Since then, I've had to leave that job, and as it turns out that whole world. Not the design world, but the happy design world. Before I go further, I should mention to anyone who works with me, you may or may not know what I am talking about. I have a day job which is separate from my freelance clients, who don't know each other. Though it probably decreases my ability to network and sell, I respect client wishes and do not generally even imply who I am working for. I also have friends, and keep track of former co-workers, and talk to others about their new jobs. And with the writing I have been very much keeping up on the world of mobile (and other interactive) design. So if this sounds like you, and you are offended, there's probably someone worse, or at least it's a composite. Don't get in a huff about it.

It's like I never left

I'll hope we can all agree that the end goal is good, useful design for the end-user, and the way they work. But from there it all falls apart. Let's get right to the heart of the matter. A lot of people use this as the basic unit of design, for all interactive work: I see it used by those who distribute involved raster PSD templates for designing on a specific device, or write up long explanations of how to use Fireworks for mobile design, or who push or promulgate pithy catchphrases like "mobile first," (or "CLI first") really. They often routinely conflate interaction and interface design, or just call themselves "designers" without distinction. Many work at companies who hire designer/developers, or cannot fathom what a designer does if not also writing code, or at least prototyping everything, as soon as possible. Yes, I am enough of a taxonomist to know that generalizing results in generalizations. I don't much care about individual cases. But if you want to talk specifics, I have seen at least three well-meaning, otherwise mostly-useful repositories of information refer to 44 px as the right touch target size this year. If you are not horrified by that, turn in your HCI credentials. You may have noticed that people cannot be measured in pixels. So it was dumb a couple years ago when there were too many Apple fanboi designers. But now even iOS has multiple resolutions. Saying "44 px" without caveat, in 2011, should be tried in the International Criminal Courts at the Hague. It all reminds me of 1999. That's when I started seriously – in front of clients – rejecting the concept of the "page fold" in web design. By way back then even the desktop was becoming too fluid or fragmented to pick a screen size for everyone that was the same. Anyone who starts with a single resolution for mobile is fooling themselves, and wasting opportunities. Without over-emphasizing the point, designing in pixels is dumb. Anything that reinforces or just trys to improve designing in pixels is also dumb. Note that I didn't say we don't need Photoshop. It's open alongside InDesign all day, every day. And I in no way said we don't need visual or graphic designers; I have an art degree, and have won awards for digital art and illustration, but it's not my day job today, and I need that sort of designer to collaborate with. I said "designing in pixels" is bad. Don't over-reach and miss the point.

So, what's your point?

My basic element of design is this: I like words also. If I can get them, well-formatted bullet lists are nice, but if I have to just boxes and words will do nicely. Two pixels together are two pixels. But two boxes together are nested. or adjacent, or overlapping. They interact. They can move. One can conditionally disappear. Don't even get me started on the possibilities offer up by three boxes. The mind boggles. What size are they? It doesn't matter. Or: it depends. On rules we don't just assume, or constrain by declaring a resolution, but by determining some what size and what items stay on each page in which position as the design progresses into addressing different platforms, different devices, and different aspect ratios. This is all based on every other type of design or drawing or illustration I have done or learned. You start with basics and move into details. You start with sketches and settle on aspect ratios, orientations and sizes. Details get filled in as it evolves. So few artists start their work at full detail in one corner that it's generally studied as a condition. Whereas I have seen an awful lot of interface designers start by laying down a gradient bar at the top of the page, pick the color and type the title in, then proceed from there.

What catchy phrase can I use to remember this?

My mantra would be something like "do your job first." Yeah. I am not that great at catchphrases. But I still believe in it. Don't jump to final designs, and don't jump to even wireframing of any one platform and resolution. Let the process unfold. Analyze existing products. Ask clients and customers, then build goals and objectives. Put Post-Its on the wall, then start drawing. With whiteboard markers, and sharpies. Eventually you get to make boxes and they evolve, and branch to the needed interfaces. Doing it all like this might even help you identify which devices and modes in which it should operate. And remember to design for people first. I once was in a meeting at a Fortune 50, who had hired a respected and well-known design firm to do some interactive design. They brought some "mood boards." That's what they called them, but they were single images just ripped from magazines and blown up. Starting your design by copying the last thing you did, the standard OS template, or the coolest new thing, locks you into that first pretty picture in the same way, and everything will be a variant of it, instead of your own design. Let IAs do IA, let Information Designers design the information, let IxDs design the interaction, and yes let the VizDs do everything they do to assure it's all tied together as a cohesive interface. Respect all the jobs, and don't fall for shortcuts, but do your job first, last, and always.

I wish we had a manifesto

If this strikes you as totally the opposite of the way you work, rest assured I am not just some nutjob screaming in the wilderness. I've worked with or for plenty of others who believe in this. There are whole, large, respected organizations who work like this. Ones you've heard of, and who are too cool to hire me. But we all spend more time doing our work, or arguing with each other to get together and realize our similarities and write up a public, non-proprietary process to get noticed. You, no matter who you are, probably believe at some level also. Ever done a whole design session with just sharpies and Post-Its? Ha! I caught you. Try that for a few more layers of design and see what happens.

You probably shouldn't listen to me

I mentioned up front that I can be abrasive and disagreeable. If you don't think so now, you haven't been reading closely enough. I get along with a lot of people well, but (I have been recently told) not always, not with everyone. Don Draper (and his ilk on every TV show) gets away with a lot more than I can, or you probably can either when selling to the client/patient/judge/etc. The right idea doesn't always win out in the real world, so even if you are ready to join the revolution and start that manifesto, you need your day job still. Be ready to lie to keep the clients. I do this all the time. They want to see the home page, so we make one up, with gradients and icons and banner ads that are better integrated than they'll ever be in reality. Then we ignore it (rarely does anyone keep them around) and get back to developing the design the right way. I am sure some people are bugged by the morality of this, but I certainly think the end user and the end deliverable is still more important than a short-term deliverable. I am willing to stretch the truth a little bit. It's in everyone's best interest.