California is a pain in the ass.  They have these propositions and initiatives and special elections ALL THE TIME.  Every single time we have to vote, they ask us questions that we can not answer.  It is terribly designed user experience.  Never ask a question that has significant implications that the user has no way of knowing.  It makes it so that they can not effectively answer the question.  Example:

Prop 92
This proposition is to lower the cost of community college.  I went to community college and really appreciated what it did for me.  I support higher education for low income students and want to do my part to support community colleges in the state.  HOWEVER, it does not say how it will pay for this.  So there are a couple of possibilities.  Raise taxes or cut spending.  If republicans are in charge, I imagine they will cut spending to programs that I love dearly. They will cut public transportation, healthcare, k-12 education and even cut community college support funds.  They will gut the system.  If the democrats are in charge, they will probably raise taxes somewhere else, but I have no idea where.

How can I possibly answer the question?  Why are they asking me in the first place?  We elect legislators to make the laws and decide the spending.  The people are not informed and can not possibly make a wise, complex decision based on 3 paragraphs of information.  My message to California:  STOP ASKING ME!  Go figure it out yourselves!  We elected you to make these decisions, not to pass the buck!

In your application, there is a very real corollary,  Dont ask questions that have implications that the user can not disinguish. Example:

Permanently delete.  Does this mean that all the data can never be recovered?  Does it just hide it?  Are there implications for other items that use this first item as a dependency?

Be sure to give options to the user, but try to figure out a system where the user can undo anything and can make decisions with minimal consequences.  It’s hard, but you can do it.  The user elected you to design the system, not to ask them endless questions.

I had a crazy weekend. Funeral in Florida, then holiday preparations. I am so beat. however, I had an interesting conversation with Bill Johnston about the state of technology. Bill worked for Lawrence Berkeley labs, Nasa and the department of energy running a major network, so I always appreciate his views on technology.

The question arose, “Where is all the great stuff?” Some examples:

1. Nantubes. I haven’t seen anything come of nanotubes. They were supposed to change everything. Bill said IBM is “quietly” making a nanotube processor that will be a huge jump in speed, but they are keeping it under the covers.
2. Solar panels. Why don’t every household in America have solar panels on them? Can’t we generate decent electricity this way? There was that post before about the solar cells you can spray on. California was supposed to have some initiative. I want solar power! Where is it?
3. Hydrogen Fuel Cells. Bill says they have some cool stuff in Japan that works. But for some reason it hasn’t penetrated the U.S. How long must we keep paying 3-4 dollars a gallon?!
4. Stem Cells. I am waiting for ONE single breakthrough using stem cells. Anything! Cure athelete’s foot for all I care. Just something!
5. Voice Recognition. I guess they have some stuff working on call centers and voicemail systems. And maybe a tiny bit on cars, like to play music. But they work like crap and haven’t really changed the world. Where is the system that I don’t have to yell at. I speak to voice recognition systems the way I speak to someone who doesn’t speak english. I speak loudly and slowly. HELLLOOOO!
6. WiMax and highspeed. I want a network that is free and covers the whole city. WiMax was supposed to be it, but nothing is working. Cities are giving up! And where is the kickass bandwidth I was expecting? I get 3-4 megabits downstream and 300-500 kilobits upstream. That is the same speed for about 8 years. What the hell? Where is faster speeds? I want 100 megabit download and upload! I want to video conference in full motion HD. What is the holdup?

All in all, I am wondering, “Where is all the cool stuff I was expecting?” Of course, I am impatient and want the world to innovate faster. But how will I ever get my soul transfered to a nanobot swarm collective at this rate?

I had a dream last night.  Someone asked what was the coolest thing on the web.  I interpreted the question to be specific to a web service like Gmail, Yahoo, Wikipedia, or anything “hosted”.  The question to me was, “What is the thing on the web that changes the world the most?”  It’s amazing to me that some compilation of programming can have that sort of effect, but it does.

Lots of sites were yelled from the crowd.  In my dream, my answer was “The Way Back Machine” (Archive.org).  Now that I am awake, I was thinking about it a little more.

The Way Back Machine is really great to keep a real record of every website in the world.  That is truly awesome.  However, does it change the world?  Probably not.  Google is awesome, to search the entire web so effectively, but it doesn’t seem quite “the coolest”.  Hotkoko used to be the coolest thing on the web, but alas, no more.

Youtube is pretty cool, but so is amazon and eBay.  What about linkedin?  Naaa.

Maybe, in the end, it is a silly question.  Maybe the web is more than the sum of it’s parts.  Maybe a bunch of “pretty cool” sites makes something in total that changes the world.  But individually, each one is just “kinda cool”.  Did I miss anything?

The last two years has been a major education for me in Marketing.  First at Intuit, where I felt the entire organization is run by the Marketing Department.  I felt that the main goal of marketing was to project (micro)manage incremental changes in high volume processes.  In other words, there was a marketing person in charge of the shopping cart.  Another marketing person in charge of the download process.  Another one for Quicken.  Etc etc.

I resented alot of their efforts because they did not let the designers help the process.  Rather they assumed that design was subjective and their opinion counted just as much as anyone else’s.  In the end the HiPPO (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion) ruled the day.  Anyway, the point is the “marketing” at Intuit was not about generating demand at all.  It was ALL about changes to the websites or the products.

This last year, I have been at Marketo.  Marketo is launching a new marketing automation system. I have been tasked with alot of things, but one of them is to talk to all the marketing people and help them get started.  This has totally opened my eyes to the other side of marketing.  Demand generation and lead nurturing are huge issues for hundreds of thousands of businesses.  Being able to do simple things like “Send them and email and then follow up next week” is really hard when you are dealing with thousands of incoming leads.

I understand now how direct mail and pay-per-click are just the first steps in a long series of events.  I understand how events and newsletters and advertising fit in.  It has really opened my eyes and given me new found respect for the marketing field as a whole.

As UX Architect for the product, I hope that I do them right and make something that exceeds expectations.  I don’t just want to automate the mundane tasks.  I want to make it enjoyable, like a game.  I want them to have fun.  Right now, it looks like it’s alot of work.   Well, back to the task at hand.  How can I improve the world of Marketing today?

At dinner, Jared likes to pick a “theme” that we can talk about.  I asked the family, “What was your favorite present ever?”  Jared looked at me and thought.  Finally, he said, “George Washington!”  It took me a minute to get it.

Matthew had the Croup this weekend.  Katie felt compelled to bring him to the hospital at 3 in the morning.  They didn’t do anything.  He doesn’t have RAD.  We should give away the nebulizer to someone who really needs it.

We also bought a tree in Half Moon Bay at Santa’s Tree Farm.   The place is ok.  You cut down your own tree and they have good variety.  But I like the place in Sonoma better.  It had a better view.  Maybe the tree is always greener on the other side of the fence.  Apparently, all the good trees have been chopped down early this year.  I went with Jared and Ethan and our selection was meager.  It took us over an hour to find a decent tree.  But in the end, it looks good.  It’s so much fun to have a tree inside the house.  It makes me feel like a real pagan!

I set Katie up with Wordpress. She thinks the “theme” is too christmas-y, but I like it.  When she has time, I am sure she will pick out another theme.

We are making frequent stops at Toys R Us to buy a Wii.  Man, that thing is the hot gift I guess.  Ok, back to work.

Just finished watching Superbad from Netflix.  At first I thought it was funny.  There were some scenes that I laughed out loud.  Couldn’t breathe sort of laughing.  Katie was laughing too.  Then after a while, I started feeling bored.  Something else too.  I was feeling like, “This is way too much like high school, except high school had no excitement”  Something about it made me remember all the awkward times of my teen years.  It was painful.  I was a complete moron in hindsight.  My god, what was I doing?

Maybe I am still stupid in some of those ways.  I am still obsessed with the same base things that I was at 16.  Am I out of the ordinary?  Do other adults really think differently than me?  Yes, I have changed.  I don’t know.  How can you compare yourself as a teen with yourself as an adult?

This is the first “teen movie” I have seen in years.  It really was a bad idea.  This movie wasn’t good.

As a kid in my teens and twenties, I often was the designated driver.  Mostly because I didn’t trust any one to NOT drink.  Maybe there was something else.  Anyway, the point is, I often watched my peers get hammered and then laugh their asses off at anything.  I, being sober, would roll my eyes, knowing the joke wasn’t really funny.   Superbad was just like that.  It was like I was sober and everyone in the movie was drunk.

Anyway, the movie was bad and made me feel lame about my pre-Katie years.  Plus it made me annoyed with the possibility that I am still lame.  Plus there was zero nudity in the whole movie.  What is up with that??

Yes, I am clearly still lame.

In technology development, there is a famous triangle.  It shows how you prioritize your efforts.  By focusing in one area, you mess up another.  It is a brutal game that never has a happy ending.  No matter what you choose, something suffers.  Even the “balanced” approach has flaws.

I created a game to play with the Magic Triangle concept. The game has a bug right now, because you can’t MOVE a coin once you place it.  The numbers get messed up.   This was a fun project, that I whipped together in an hour.   I believe it is important to do things like that once in a while.  It helps clear your head so you can focus.  I probably could have done a better job with it, but this looks good enough for now.

Marketo is starting to launch into beta, bringing on a few customers at a time.  It’s a stressful time for all as there is so much left to do and so many details.  I really appreciate how good Katie was at this sort of thing.  Keeping track of a million details.  She kicks ass.  Meanwhile, I am wearing alot of hats and trying to keep my head on straight.

Christmas is right around the corner.  We have no tree, no presents, no decorations, no nothing.  We are way behind.  We were thinking about the Wii for the kids, but they are out of stock everywhere!  Seriously, what is going on over at Nintendo?  I would think it would be a major disaster if people wanted a Wii and got a playstation because they were out of stock.

Jared had croup cough.  Matthew is screaming lately.  Not in a unhappy way, he is just LOUD.  Ethan is REALLY good at math.  Crap, I have to get to work.  Damn these hats!

Katie and I were in bed talking after a long day.  The door was not shut all the way, just most of the way.  We had a light on and were chatting.  I heard the pitter-patter of little footsteps (Matthew) come down the hall.  I mentioned it to Katie.  The funny thing was that he did not enter out room.  He walked up to the door and stopped.

So we kept talking.  All the while, I heard his breathing outside the door.  He wouldn’t come in.   After about 10 minutes, I said to Katie, “You know, Matthew is outside the door, but he won’t come in.”  She wondered what was the hold up.  I said, (using my powers of user experience) “He knows that if he enters now, I will take him back to his room.  He is waiting until the light goes out so he can sneak in and climb in on your side.  He knows you are a pushover.”

She laughed and we continued chatting.  About 20 minutes later (He was waiting the whole time), I said, “If I turn out the light, he will come in, within 30 seconds.”  Katie took the bet.  He had been waiting outside the door for about a half-hour.

CLICK, the lights went out.  I started a whisper count.  1, 2, 3, 4, nothing, it was as quiet as the night before Christmas.  10,11,12,13, still nothing.  I started to get nervous.  How long could he hold it?  18,19,20,21, creeeeeaaaaakk, step step step.  I knew he had took the bait.  I waited another three seconds and then BLAM, I turned on the light!

His eyes were like deer in the headlights.  His back was up against the wall like a ninja spy or something. Both Katie and I burst out laughing. I could see he was torn, “Do I laugh too?  I mean, I am so busted!  What do I do?  How do I spin this?”

We gave him a big hug so he started laughing, then I picked him up to go to his room.  He started crying.   “noooooo!!”  I could see in his eyes accusing me, “Do you have any idea how long I waited out there?!?  How dare you!!  I will get you for this you balding nerd!  Just you wait!”

It was one of his more adorable moments.  Anyway, we went to sleep.  Of course,  I woke up with his feet in my face.  He always has the last laugh.  He will wait until 3am if he has to.  But come hell or high water, he will be cuddling with mommy.  Oh yes, it shall be his.

In a side story, Matt has lately turned everything into a ninja battle cry.  Just now he screamed, with sword in hand, “TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!  CHARGE!”

CompUSA is closing it’s doors.  Apparently they are being liquidated.  So now is the time to purchase electronics if one is near you.  Maybe a color printer!

It’s amazing to me how long it takes for predictions to come true.  In the 80’s they said, “Computers will make a paperless office”.  We still aren’t paperless, but we are alot closer than we used to be.   The other prediction in the 90’s was, “The Internet will kill the brick and mortar store”.  It has been very slow on that front too.  First Tower closed all their stores, and then that game store and now CompUSA.  Barnes and Noble is still doing well, maybe surprisingly.

Personally, I got confused between CompUSA, Circuit City and Best Buy.  They all look the same to me.  Maybe Best Buy looks a little nicer.  And of course, online, they all look the same.  The UX of these shopping experiences has stagnated in the last few years.  Besides reviews, it seems that the experience is boring and routine.  I also don’t trust the reviews.  Too often, they seem like shills.  And the experience with lunarpagesreviews has made me diminish trust for all reviews.

Boy, all this cynicism.  I am usually the glass is half full sort of guy.

UX Wish list for electronics online stores:

1. Virtual use.  Some sort of robot that i can control and try out the interface of anything.  Especially stuff with a software component like a firewall.
2. High Res Zoom.  Stop showing me tiny pictures.  I want giant pictures.  Bigger!
3. Reviews that can be grouped and searched independently.
4. Richer UI for shopping.  Come on, I was promised Flashy cool shopping.  Someone work it out!   It’s been 10 years and I am still clicking “add to cart”!
5. Better visual design.  Who designs these sites?  They look like 1998 crusty lameness.

Katie is making Hanukah Latkes (potato pancakes) tonight.  She is nuts.

My mind is all over today.  Too much multitasking.