engineered idea viruses

Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert):

Ideas are a lot like viruses. Neither a virus nor an idea is alive, technically, but both reproduce though contact with other people. And both are hard to eradicate. For example, 20% of the American population believes Obama is a Muslim. That's actually an increase since he was inaugurated.

Most idea viruses are the bad type. But I see no reason we couldn't engineer good idea viruses. Such a virus would have three traits:

1. It must be catchy, so you never forget it.
2. It must be something you are inclined to share.
3. It must cause a positive change in the world.

Andy Ihnatko's Sheldon Moment

human nature in a nutshell (and why designing things that are new or different is always so challenging to get acceptance of):

I was having a true Sheldon Moment. I couldn’t come up with any credible reason why the sudden change to this familiar layout bothered me. Yet I found myself wanting to tell the person at the register “But that’s not where those tables go. Why would you do that?” in a calm but very firm voice.

Cool Singapore Urban Open Space Practice

Singapore's 'void decks': social engineering through empty space [via Kottke]

From 'Wayfinding' to 'Thingfinding'

Rez talks about how users are often looking for many things in a location typically over-looked by traditional wayfinding approaches and how to approach that broader goal [via Wayshowing]

interesting maps of the results of the post-WWII US racial-segregation exodus

fastcodesign.com (summary of the history of White Flight, etc) [via The Infratructurist]

brain-dump thoughts on bridging the gap between 'leaders' and 'public'

[Presumably this will be turned into coherent english at some point, but for now I wanted to get my thoughts down and I figured some of you might be interested to see one of my brain-dumps edited just enough to be semi-comprehensible to others. Amusingly-enough turning this from my shorthand into something I figured you could actually follow more than quadrupled its length...]:

Very common problem with any organization: general 'public'/membership don't know what's going on with the leaders/who the people in any given possition are (elected, appointed, hired, volunteered, conscripted, blackmailed), what they're up to, what current business is being transacted
--> public too lazy to bother to find out or to listen when that info is shared - is somewhat their own damned fault
--> but as with all design issues anything that's "user-error" is almost always a faulty design that influences people to behave in an undesirable manner - if widespread is (almost) always structural design flaw (see The Design Of Everyday Things by Norman - READ IT NOW!!)
--> leaders/people in specific positions don't advertise this enough, don't distribute info widely enough in dif mediums, don't run things "open source" enough
--> depending on demographics, learning styles, lifestyles people have differing mediums to learn info that do/don't work as well - relying on just one medium will leave out too many
(side/related issue: email vs phone vs text vs im vs face-to-face - each mediums have strengths/weaknesses - each medium preferred by dif people depending on their learning styles, lifestyles, familiarity, context - dif mediums inaccessible to dif demo's and disenfranchise certain groups - need to understand this to communicate effectively w/ various people)
--> examples: umASS residence life, umASS bureaucracy in general, town govs, smaller obscure gov agencies, etc
--> need to offer as many oportunities for public to interact as possible - will get more active involvement, people will feel more empowered, will have better respect for the work that is getting done, will be more willing to pay for the work being done
--> can never reach everyone, too many people don't care, don't want to know - what's the right balance? when leave them to their bliss and tell them to shove off when they bitch unjustifiably?

Gruber on idealogues and zealots

Gruber's piece on Pilgrim switching to Linux resonated with me so much that I want to write about it some more. The key quote:

You’re doing yourself a disservice if you dismiss an argument like Pilgrim’s simply because you believe he’s an open source/open format ideologue; ideologues aren’t necessarily irrational zealots. (And even irrational zealots or fanatics aren’t necessarily wrong; cf. Henry Kissinger’s quip: “Even a paranoid has some real enemies.”) An ideology is an organized system of beliefs; just because you don’t share them doesn’t mean they aren’t valid.

Ideological conviction doesn’t necessarily imply a rigid, quick-to-judge closed mind (even though, admittedly, that is often the case). You can be an ideologue with an open, honest mind — to believe otherwise is to say that someone with an open mind can never reach an uncompromising conclusion.

This is an issue that I have faced many times lately. I have a tendency to make very strong opinions - if I'm not confident in my thoughts on a matter I will wait until I have enough information to come to a definitive decision, and even then I will always reassess my conclusions when compelling evidence appears. But I often run into the bias that because I have a firm conviction I must be an 'irrational zealot.' (Which is strongly compounded by the fact that many of my deeply-held beliefs run counter to mainstream society's and can really bother some people. I also still have a lot of work to do on expressing myself in a way that is accessible by my audience...) While it is certainly true that I have very strong and deep biases, the idea that I am close-minded couldn't be farther from the truth. I know my biases better than anyone, and the reason I keep them is because they have served me well - they are gross simplifications of my overall opinions, and serve as a basic guide in making new decisions - they are a gut instinct to listen to but not be trapped by.

I come to firm convictions specifically because I have considered the issue at hand in depth over a long period of time and am confident in my decision. I am the sort to deliberate over the simplest decision like whether or not to buy some trinket for way too long, but once I've come to a decision I rarely regret it specifically because I was so careful in my deliberations. I only have firm convictions about things I feel I know enough about to make an informed decision (in large part simply because why bother wasting the energy on things that don't matter to me). You'll note that while I can rant endlessly about government policies for railroads, why the UMass Sylvan dorms were designed wrong, or my thoughts on abortion, I have very little to say about, celebrity x, religion y, or whatever else. Are my opinions right for you? Of course not, we have inherently different priorities and values, but to dismiss mine simply because the are so firm, unwavering, and sometimes disturbing, is an insult to both you and me.

on the Facebook redesigns...

Many many people hate change - they train themselves on a given system (good, or more often bad), and then resist even the tiniest little change with a religious fury bordering on lunacy. Now, this is perfectly understandable, and is a critical aspect to consider in any redesign process. When in doubt, go with the established conventions unless there is a strong reason for change (AND DO PROTOTYPE USER TESTING DAMNIT!!). This is one argument for not releasing a product until the interface is set (or keeping it in beta for a long time... Google...).

The problem is that the establish, and quite effective general design process is to iterate and tweak as you gain user data and feedback. The challenge is to find a balance between useful improvements to enhance the user experience for new and existing users (which will sometimes mean major revisions of key elements of a design) and keeping the interface familiar enough for existing users to remain comfortable. The highly variable factor here is what "familiar enough" means - for different user demographics this will mean very different things. To me for example, Facebook has never had a 'major' redesign - every revision to date has been a fairly straightforward tweak that has retained their existing design language and conventions, but clearly this opinion is not shared by all...

I want to simply dismiss those objecting to the redesigns as inflexible whiners who need to grow up. And it is certainly true that if they were in charge nothing would ever be improved and the product would die out as competitors and innovators passed it (Myspace... pretty much all of 'Old-Media'... Ebay... Republicans... and for that matter Democrats even... the US railroad industry post WWII until the 70s/80s... American automakers...).

The problem is, the single most important part of design is meeting the needs of your users in the 'best' manner possible. Usually this means in the most elegant manner, but there is the very strong argument that satisfying your existing users at the expense of a stagnant, gradually worsening UI makes sense. I think the key is understanding who your users are, and who you want to satisfy. Do you want to innovate and stay competitive for the early adopter market that will jump ship when something better comes along if you stagnate, or satisfy your growing population of stick-in-the-muds?

In theory you should be able to do both by designing an intuitive-enough UI for everyone, but in practice people have such diverse learning styles, skill levels, and usage needs that this is beyond impossible. So what's the answer?
--Compromise and make fairly minor incremental changes gradually? (I would argue that this is functionally what Facebook has done, although it would have definitely helped if they had made more frequent but smaller changes.)
--Have multiple interfaces for different users? (phase people over to the new one gradually, or have user-selectable interface choices - far more complicated and difficult)
--Stagnate and sacrifice some users for more of the mainstream ones? (I would argue that doing this will inevitably lead to failure since the mainstream will eventually follow the early adopters to something better when the innovators come along, but this is debatable.)
--Keep refining the design with the goal of satisfying most of the users and to hell with the whiners? (this is certainly the most emotionally-satisfying one, but probably not the wisest - it would be the appropriate solution for a younger product still early in development with strong competition, but for a dominant force like Facebook far more problematic.)

Most of this boils down to who you are trying to serve, something that is less clear now that Facebook has grown so far beyond it's original core. Facebook does have a terrible track record for bone-headedly implementing new features/designs 'suddenly' with what looks to be very little user-testing and being shocked by the inevitable backlash. Certainly they could do a better job of implementing redesigns, but I don't feel like they have made any UI changes that are radically-different and confusing (poorly-researched, perhaps, but always in keeping with the existing design language and conceptual interface model). I think this is important if they want to keep users like me invested in stalkerbook indefinitely, but if they do want to go after the larger, but debatably-valuable mainstream market then they should be more careful.

using Facebook data to analyze geographical social patterns and regions in America

From Stayathomia to Mormonia... [via Kottke]

tech chances driving faster generation changes

Not buying all the conjectures and conclusions he draws [via Joe S], but I definitely agree that my freshman come from a distinctly different generation than the upperclassmen, despite being only a couple years apart. I see huge behavioral differences between groups less than five years apart based largely on when a given technology or service came into prevalence and their particular habits where formed, because once those habits are formed they tend to be more rigid for most people. It's also interesting seeing the blurring of these generation gaps with the geekier early adopters versus the resistant hold-outs. There are entirely different internet subcultures based simply on when people started surfing on a regular basis - it's all incredibly fascinating!

the predictability of spontaneous footpaths

These unplanned 'rule-breaking' footpaths that cut through open grass and quickly wear to a regular hard-pack earth are highly predictable and seen in exactly the same patterns worldwide. It's not a new phenomenon, or one that hasn't been studied in depth, but it's been largely ignored outside of academic settings. Just at UMass I photographed some dozen or so of these established informal paths for an anthropology class in under a half hour of looking. The problem is that the people designing and maintaing the formal paths never seem to take into consideration the realities of how people walk and refuse to compensate for them. Instead of providing adequate paths every year the same established footpaths are reseeded and roped off in a frustrating exercise of futile ignorance.
[via the Project for Public Spaces Blog]
(I've been meaning to do a photo-series on people's unplanned adaptations of designed objects and spaces...)