Category Archives: Interaction Design

I sure hope this is what SxSW is like

I’m getting ready to go to SxSW, so I’m packing and picking up things in my apartment. I go into the kitchen to straighten up and put the dishes away. I pick up the large cast iron frying pan and discover that the metal has dissolved and oozed all over the counter. I’m irritated with myself because that pan should have lasted a lifetime.

When I arrive at SxSW I go down to the hotel lobby to wait for some friends. I bring with me a bed pillow that I hold by the edge of the pillowcase, and I carry a pair of tan boots in my other hand. (I’m wearing shoes.) Sitting in the lobby as people start to arrive, I realize that this whole pillow-and-boots combo is going to be a bit awkward to carry around with me all day. I make some excuses to run back up to my room so I can drop them off.

My room is actually in a cabin on the edge of the event space. To get there I have to walk across a beach, which is where all the events will be held. The weather is warm and sunny, and I think “this is a great place to hold a conference.”

The cabins where I’m staying are in the woods on the edge of a fairground. The fairground is a bit seedy, like a combination of gas stations, trailers, and improperly maintained carnival rides. I stop in a gas station convenience store to pick up a few items, one of which is a pink dildo. (If you must know, it was rubbery.)

I use the dildo as a pointer during my talk, beating it against the table when I want to make a point. Very effective!

Conference

I’m at a conference (aren’t I always) and everyone I know from high school and work is giving a speech. The room is set up like a conference with chairs but the stage looks like a stage in a grade school gym, with a red curtain and a flag. The speaker is wearing a navy blue suit and a red tie.

I’m miffed that I haven’t been asked to give a speech. I get up to walk out of the room and the speaker calls down to me and asks if I’d like to speak. I act condescending and say that I’m too busy. Later, as I’m watching people talk, I wonder why I said that. I should have just admitted that I wanted to talk. But it seems like it’s too late.

I set out boxes of thank you cards on a table at the side of the conference. They have the Bond logo on them. I encourage people to take a card and write a thank-you note to someone they want to give thanks to.

Later, I am working on a project with Friedman. I want to make changes to something on a website but I can’t figure out how. He comes over and shows me the edit link. It’s too small to see.

Broken iPhone

I’m at a party and my friends start making fun of me. I walk outside and Susie follows me. She’s accusing me of doing something I didn’t do. I drop my iPhone and it breaks into two pieces. It’s cheaply made plastic, and the two halves split apart with a tongue and groove to fit them back together. As we stand there talking, I try to fit the two pieces back together.

Email on a t-shirt

I’m really proud of my new t-shirt that has a picture on it. (In my dream I couldn’t see the picture, but for the purposes of this discussion just assume it was a picture of some wolves howling at the moon.) I email a copy of the picture to Friedman so he can appreciate how awesome my new t-shirt is.

He decides he likes the picture as well and wants it put on a t-shirt of his own. He sends it off to have a t-shirt printed. When he gets the shirt back they have not simply printed the picture on it, but rather have printed the entire email on the shirt.

A representative from the t-shirt company shows up to give him a demo of his new shirt. While he’s wearing it she points out some of its key features, including the email text and then the picture he asked to be printed on it, which unfortunately was cut off at the bottom of the shirt.

(In response to hearing this dream, Friedman says “your dream was basically the whole premise of Cakewrecks.”)

Twitter, Finally

Twitter finally develops a business model. They install a Twitter machine in the restrooms of restaurants and bars. By inserting 26 cents, you can send one tweet.

The New Bond Website

I am in a large lecture hall with a number of younger students. The room has long black writing tables and an area at the front for the teacher to lecture. I am sitting at one of the classroom tables, drawing sketches for the new Bond website. I have a clear idea of how I want the site to work, but I am having trouble getting it down on paper. It seems like every drawing I do has something wrong with it.

Josh is up at the front of the room, discussing ideas for the site with the rest of the students. At a certain point I become alarmed because people are talking about ideas that I don’t agree with and aren’t what I’m envisioning for the site. I decide to go up to the front and share what I’ve been working on. When I review my sketches I try to find the one that is closest to what I’m imagining, but they’re all not quite right.

At the front of the room, Josh and I are seated behind a black panel with windows cut into it. From the perspective of the students, it looks like the teacher is talking to them directly, but behind the scrim we can talk privately, consult our notes, and even have snacks. Josh has a nearly full bottle of vodka and some sandwiches back there, and I help myself.

The students are getting quite agitated about our plans for the website. I can’t quite tell if they’re in junior high, college, or even if they’re young employees of Bond. They are shouting and arguing with both me and Josh. He’s pretty calm but I get increasingly frustrated. I yell back at them that their ideas are too boring an ordinary. I tell them that if they don’t understand why our vision is right for Bond, then maybe the problem is that they are not a good fit.

This makes them very upset and they decide to protest. The entire third row stands up and lights cigarettes. While they smoke, I call down to the main office to ask for help from security. The secretary in the office sounds bored and tells me they can’t really help solve this problem.

Friedman’s gifts

Friedman likes a girl with short brown hair. He decides to buy her some gifts to show how much he likes her.

He buys her nine different presents. Instead of wrapping each one up and watching her open them, he makes a video of the gifts and posts it on YouTube. When I ask him why he didn’t just give her the presents, he says that isn’t necessary anymore, and this new way is better.

Sarah Palin is a Marxist

I decide to make a website to educate the people of Alaska that taxing oil companies and redistributing the wealth to the citizens is a Marxist economic policy. I try to register the doman “SarahPalinisaMarxist.com” but it has already been claimed by the Alaska government. I make three Wikipedia-style pages for the site. The first is a page about Karl Marx, the second discusses some of the key principles of Marxist Socialsim, and the third explains how Sarah Palin’s policies are similar to Marx. The highlight of the site is an animated GIF that morphs Marx’s face into Palin’s.

Shopping for Aprons

I’m in an industrial type building, kind of like a warehouse and kind of like a school. The rooms all have old doors on them, like in a classroom or a library.

I’m talking to Kristina about how I first became an IA. I feel a sense of urgency, like I need her to understand how and when I started working, but I’m also embarrassed, as if I think it’s unseemly to call too much attention to myself.

We have stacks of books that we have to take back to the library. I ask Susie, Jake, and Randy for help. They are annoyed at the inconvenience. They make fun of Kristina’s enthusiasm for what she’s doing.

Then I’m in a grocery store, it’s like a Dean and Deluca, with prepared foods and kitchen supplies for sale, but very large. I head to the back of the store because I want to buy an apron. I pick out a red apron that has racist iconongraphy, like cartoon representations of black people, but they’re so tiny as to be invisible to the naked eye. I also pick out a blue apron. The rack that holds the aprons is long, like the entire width of the store, and there must be hundreds of aprons to choose from.

When I try to remove them from the rack and take them to the register, an alarm sounds. The rack has an electionic sensor with a screen, and it shows me that I’ve done something wrong and security is on the way. I wait around for the security officers to come, but I’m bored and not worried because I know I didn’t do anything wrong.

My mother comes to meet up with me and we browse around while we wait. Finally the security guards arrive and they confirm that I can take the aprons to the register.

The new Bond blog

We are all working on a new blog for Bond. We don’t seem to have mastered the use of templates for the blog, so everything is one big long stream of text and we’re formatting each post individually. This is frustrating because everything is inconsistent.

I’m going through and formatting all the post titles. Josh T sits next to me and tells me that I should hit cmd-B to make the text bold, and I’m insulted that he thought he needed to tell me that. Then Mira has some new ideas for how it should be designed, and we have to reformat it all again.

Plastics make it possible

I go over to visit Luke and his son. I have some work to do and he is babysitting.

I go and meet with a potential client. This client is something like a high-powered PR firm, and all the women who work there are older and somewhat icy and forbidding. They don’t have offices, but instead all the women sit at a long front desk, like a reception area, and greet people there.

The woman I talk to has a 3-D printer at her desk for prototyping. We discuss a project and she prints out a blob of plastic for us to review. I walk down the line of desks and pick up business cards from everyone.

I go back to my house on Prescott Drive and go into the basement. I look up K.V.s blog and realize that I had written him a note on his blog asking if he wanted to get together, and he had replied on the blog so I hadn’t seen it. He had also commented about Tamara’s blog. I write back to him that if he’s interested in plastic flies (like toy rubber houseflies) then I know where to get some.

Then Luke comes down the stairs and I quit working to talk to him.

Great Dane

I’m working with Codename, which is located in a big warehouse structure. I get up on a stage and announce to everyone that we’re going to start doing user testing on a weekly basis. I tell everyone to give names of friends and family to James, and he will be responsible for finding four people for us to talk to every week.

I’m walking around the warehouse and a couple of policemen show up with a giant Great Dane. The dog comes over and bites my head, basically engulfing my whole head in its slobbery mouth. It drools. The cops tell me to stay calm so they can get the dog to stop biting me.

Wireframes

Bob L. asks me to give a presentation to Disney, which is a client of the Los Angeles office. I’m unprepared to do so, but I try and wing it.

I go up to present and it takes me a long time to pull up the wireframes I need to show. A big group of people is watching me and I’m embarrassed that I don’t have anything to present.

I start presenting by saying that I worked with Disney nearly ten years ago and at the time they really didn’t understand what wireframes were. I had to educate people about how they fit into the development process.

Today, they’re using wireframes but I’m concerned that they’re not being used to focus on the right things. I show an example of a wireframe that looks like a designed page, with all sorts of images and shading in the background, except it’s in black and white. I try to explain that wireframes should really be used to help focus the discussion on the interaction model and the architecture, and should not try to replicate the desired visual design at a lower fidelity.

For the love of god I am dreaming about Powerpoint

I am reviewing a slide presentation with Ed. The slides have a heading at the top and the bottom of the page, and Ed has created an animated circle that moves between the headings to call attention to them. Everyone who reviews the deck agrees that the effect would be nicer if he had used a square instead of a circle. I volunteer to reformat the slides.

I am working in a restaurant or a bar that is crowded with people. It’s hard for me to get it to work because people keep jostling me and I don’t have a mouse. I am frustrated by trying to get it to work the way I imagine it.

The presentation is about Prince, the pop star. He looks radically different in the photos, he’s not as made up and his hair is long. The document includes a lot of information about his charitable activities.

The Young Dean

I’m at a college and I am talking to the dean (an older man) about information architecture and tagging. I tell him the term used now is “folksonomy.” While I am talking to him he turns into a younger man who starts flirting with me. He tells me he went to Harvard in a tone that implies I should be impressed.

I am staying in a dorm that is not unlike a hotel, with a large grand lobby and security that checks your ID before you get to the elevators. I go back to my room and I fear I have lost my keys. I go to the college bookstore and start looking around for them. I am reorganizing the book bags and backpacks when a salesclerk comes over to help me. I tell her I am looking for my keys.

I get a small knife for my keychain. It is just like the Cryovac penknives my father used to have, but it’s only about an inch long. I get it because they will let me take it through airport security.

I run into the young dean at the bookstore and he takes me back to my dorm in his car. He’s not quite sure where to go and he makes a wrong turn. We drive down a residential street with tiny houses on it. They are shaped like normal houses with shutters and a roof, but they appear to be only one small room. He says he doesn’t understand why students would live in a dorm room when they could have their own home.

I tell him I keep a blog on the internet where I write down all my dreams. He seems surprised and interested so I give him the address.

Working at Apple

Evan and I are working in-house at Apple. Toby and Anne L. work in the same building as we do and I’m trying to network with them to get advice.

Toby is really helpful to me so I want to send him a token gift. I decide to send one of the Chinese Christmas ornaments I bought last winter. I pull the top off of the globe and wonder if I could stick a joint in there for him as well. But I decide not to and just send the package via interoffice mail.

To mail the gift I go and sit at my “real” desk; I don’t usually sit there because I’m always in meetings. While I’m there I decide to clean up some papers and generally organize things. I find a document about designing Macs that I think is terrible. I try to complain about it to HR but the bureaucrats there don’t understand what I’m talking about.

Michael Eisner (who has some connection to Apple via Disney) takes me to Disneyland to ride on the rides. But they aren’t really Disney theme park rides, they’re more like old-fashioned county fair rides.

I call Anne L and ask her for help with recruiting. We start discussing the recent rise in the stock price, and she makes it sound like she really made a lot of money. While I am on the phone with her, I can also omnisciently see her stock trades. She made about $2800, which is a nice dividend but it’s not like she’s rich.

I put on lipstick so I look nice before one of my meetings. I’m too fat and I can’t squeeze by someone in the hallway and I’m embarrassed.

We have lunch in Steve Jobs’ office. I’m very nervous about meeting him, but no one else is. Lunch is set up on a table in his office, and I am unsure about where to sit. I change places and accidentally drink someone else’s water.

Mobile blogging with bloggers and dog

I’m at a conference. I’m surprised how few people actually do mobile blogging.

I’m staying on the same floor as Robert Scoble and Kathy Sierra.

Simon keeps biting my fingers.

Yet another Facebook job

I’m working at Facebook AGAIN. Talking to the engineers there.

Fighting with my mother about fabric. Yelling at her that everything is always her point of view, like it’s a bubble around her head she can’t see past.

Elderly family members  dying.

Missed Hotel Reservation

I am trying to enter a password into my iPhone but I can’t remember what it is. It’s a six digit alphanumeric password. I keep trying the same code repeatedly because I’m sure that’s what it is, but it won’t work. Finally  I try a different, really obvious password and it works.

I call and make a reservation at a hotel. The hotel is about $350 a night. I call back later and cancel the reservation. I call a second time and make another reservation. I tell them Sherri is going to be staying in the room with me.

When I don’t show up the hotel sends me a bill for $700+ for the two rooms. I try to get out of paying the bills by talking with people at the desk. I am trying to demand that I not be charged, but inside I’m nervous that maybe I really do have to pay them, that I am obligated to pay the bills. One of the desk clerks says that Sherri was in the hotel and that they know she wasn’t going to stay with me, and they accuse me of lying.

A/B Testing

I am working for a new company that has a product kind of like Amazon.com. JP recommended me for the position. They’ve hired me to improve the usability of the product, I’m supposed to be their user experience expert.

I go out to lunch with some of the executives on my first day. I tell them that we’re going to do A/B testing to evaluate the changes we’re making. I explain how this will work, using Amazon as an example.

I tell them several times that the product might get worse instead of better. I describe how Amazon uses A/B testing to evaluate how new features help them sell more products, but that each additional feature makes the page harder to read and less visually appealing. I’m trying to tell them that even if we make the site more appealing, they might see an initial drop in sales.

I keep talking about this as we walk back to the car after lunch. I get my things out of the trunk of the car.

Jurassic Technologies

I have a green-screen iPhone. There is a green-screen command line interface that sits underneath the regular menu interface. I talk about how the iPhone interface is really just like a hierarchical menu. The iPhone has a stylus touch sensor thing like on the Treo, but it’s in green and really pixillated.

I’m speaking at a conference and my mother is in the audience. She helps me get dressed. I’m wearing a long black dress that I’ve hung dangly earrings all over, kind of like ornaments on a Christmas tree. I try putting on a pair of long purple and turquoise socks with the dress and my high heels, but I decide that’s too much.

I give a presentation about an old computer system that was used by the phone company. The computer was intended for operators to use when they answered questions from callers. It operated using microfiche. Some of the dangly things hanging from my dress contain pieces of microfiche. As I’m headed up to the podium I try to add one more earring to my dress, a brown beaded number, but a woman stops me and tells me it’s better without it.

In my presentation, I show a video where I walk down a long dark alley to get to a garage. The alley is dangerous and there are giant rats running across it. At the end I get to a normal suburban house with a garage in the back, where the computer is located.

There are two guys there who are dressed like sitcom characters from the 60s, sitting in lawn chairs in the yard. One is a black guy in a hat, who’s smoking a joint. They explain to me how the computer would pull up different responses to questions when an operator responsed to a call.

The computer is laughably bad. I comment that no one apparently gave any thought to the types of questions that people would be likely to ask when they called in.

My presentation runs long and when I’m done, most people have left for lunch. The people who are still there clap and say it was great. I start to remove the earrings from my dress.

One of the technicians is a tall curly haired guy wearing heavy glasses. He comes over and says that my presentation was great. I find him attractive and I’m trying to figure out how to give him my business card, when he throws his arms around me and says "I’m available!" He kisses me but he’s a bad kisser and smells like cigarettes.

Checkout Button

I’m in a big cafeteria or grocery store, someplace with aisles and they’re selling food. I’m trying to design an interface to this physical space, so I’m walking through it and trying to document it.

There’s a big group of people who have to review the drawings. They’re really critical of it and I feel stupid. I’m annoyed and fighting back at them. One woman is particularly harsh and I start talking up my qualifications (which makes me feel sort of embarrassed.)

I realize as I’m arguing that I really have screwed up the interface. The whole top nav of the diagram needs to be revised. And I keep walking back and forth repeatedly across the physical space with different objects, but I realize that the wireframe just needs a big checkout button on the top.

Bar games

I’m with Scott. I have a sick feeling that he’s cheating on me. He’s lying to me. There’s a party at a roadside bar. He’s off drinking beer and partying.

There’s an arcade game that has a skeleton head. I’m trying to program the game and substitute one thing for another in the display.

Philadelphia University

I am arranging a visit to a design department at a university in Philadelphia. Some people from Boston want to come but they say traffic is terrible. I ask if they can fly. They talk about expanding the highway to 8 lanes.

When we arrive the head of the department is cold and imperious and tells us to come back later.

The staircases and escalators are like an Escher painting. I see my mother go down a staircase that’s between two escalators. I try to follow but my leg gets stuck. I cry for help. When I try to extricate myself I wind up hanging by my hands, sort of upside down. I ask a stranger if he will catch me and he says he will, but it turns out I can just drop safely to the floor.

We go back to the design department office. We’re playing Yahtzee to pass the time. Except it’s different, it’s not called Yahtzee and you want to get a series of 8. The dice still have 6 sides, though. I roll once and get some 6s, and roll again and get four 6s and a 5. I’m trying to decide what to do with that, where to put it.

There is a bathroom in the office that has been decorated by Sony Playstation. I remember seeing a similar one on campus and I assume Sony is branding bathrooms now. The decor is kind of ridiculous, all red, hanging mobiles of the Sony logo. I think about calling to see if they would do ours.

The department head comes back and we are all discussing what we’re going to ask her. I decide to ask about designing computer games. Do the principles of design remain the same? How do you account for game play and screen displays? I note that it used to be heresy to talk about screen "design."