Bring on the guppy people

Oh yes, it has been over half a year since I posted. As many people do, I had the blogger's dilemma - do I post about sincere work-related topics with a professional tone and helpful bent? Or do I post short blurbs with random ruminations on life, the universe, and everything? I tried the former and to be honest, I'm much too random to keep that going. So here's to starting an attempt at approach #2. Hey, maybe professional help will be involved in some way after all...

This weekend marks my first foray into an event that the anthropologist in me is drooling over. I'm going to Fangoria, a conference for horror fans. Although I'm a bit disappointed that my first con is NOT going to include storm troopers and Darth Vader (I'm assuming), I do think I'll make up for it with the people who will be wearing guppy makeup like Alice Krige here - oh wait, she's a full fledged member of the Borg... and with the people who don't have to wear makeup to look really creepy, like our man Tom Savini here who's kind of like a young Svengali... or this guy Robert Z'dar who looks like both the ax and the chopping block at the same time. On top of that, there will be many of the ingenues that get killed for messing around with the camp counselor, sporting names like Misty Mundae. And the spooky, hairy girl from the Ring. Hurray!

Of course all of this gushing is a thin mask for the real reason I'm going - my new obsession with Firefly/Serenity, Joss Whedon's cancelled TV show-cum-movie. (Shout out to Matt and Michelle for getting me hooked). The man who plays the main character will be there to promote his new movie, and if I'm lucky I'll get close enough to him to embarrass myself thoroughly in his direction. If I'm VERY lucky I'll also get a chance to embarrass myself in front of George Romero, director of Night of the Living Dead. And if YOU'RE lucky, I'll have photos of all of the above. Keep your fingers crossed!

Between this and the fact that Jon Stewart is hosting the Oscars, my head may explode from dorky happiness this weekend. So I'll try to post one more time before that happens. Given my current rate of posting, you're better off ducking than waiting.

Hotels on the Internet May Be Cheesier Than They Appear

During a recent user research trip to Calgary in Canada, I took the opportunity to stay overnight in beautiful Banff nearby. My change was relatively last-minute so I didn't do a large amount of research - just picked the first hotel I found on the internet with nice photos, and with availability, at an ok price. They said they had an available internet connection, and asked if I wanted to pay a little bit more for a room with a view. Why not? I thought... when will I be in Banff again?

I knew the hotel was going to be a wee bit cheesy when I picked up the key - it was the punch-card type, if you've ever seen that (no swiping here - you insert the plastic tab and turn the handle of the door to open it). Turns out, the extra I paid for the view just upgraded me from a brick wall view, to one of the Domino's pizza across the street. Well, a tree was visible so it was an improvement I suppose...

And, the internet connection they promised? When I asked, the person at the front desk pointed to a chair nearby. "If you sit in that a certain way, you can get a wireless connection. It comes in from the hotel next door."

The silver lining? When you throw out class, you make room for convenience - in the form of a beer bottle opener attached to the bathroom sink.









And yes, of course I used it!


And it was very satisfying.

What is "Satisfice?"

"To accept a choice or judgment as one that is good enough, one that satisfies. According to Herb Simon, who coined the term, the tendency to satisfice shows up in many cognitive tasks such as playing games, solving problems, and making financial decisions where people typically do not or cannot search for the optimal solutions."
Source: The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology, © Arthur S. Reber 1995.

First and foremost, this site will be concerning the practice of designing systems that are satisfying for people to use. Satisfaction can stem from many things – very simple products can be very satisfying, and very complicated products can still lead to satisfaction if the end results of using them are positive enough. However, some of the best-loved products on the market balance both, presenting a simple interface – one that provides just enough features (at the surface level) to perform a few powerful functions. The number of choices suffice to satisfy the core need or goal, and extraneous features do not greatly compete with this. Apple in particular is a company that understands this very well.

This is my goal – to help develop products that demonstrate the elegant balance of simplicity and power.

The term “satisfice” itself is based on the observation that users often chooses the first item that seems to satisfy their need, rather than reviewing every choice – especially when face with a large number of items and/or several clicks. This means that they are likely to waste time (and become frustrated) if presented with a complicated and indistinct set of choices. Unfortunately, folder structures that grow organically are a perfect example of a hierarchy that is likely to be large and complicated, with a large amount of redundancy. And, due to past usage and an inherent love many people have for creating their own categories, it’s difficult to move people to something that may be less structured. In my opinion, this is one of the greatest User Experience challenges facing the field of Enterprise Content Management.