A great design solution usually doesn’t show up first in line. It doesn’t have a T-Shirt that says “I’m the best answer”. It’s hard to know when you struck gold and when you struck plain dirt. This is the same for hiring employees. Who knows if the “next” candidate will be even better than this one? What about spouses? How do you know the next spouse-candidate won’t be even better than the first one? (note: 500 days of Summer is a good movie on that last question).
Satisficing requires that you accept the first answer that meets the criteria for acceptance. Sometimes, this is the right approach, but for a key feature or employee (or spouse), you sometimes need to raise the bar higher. Maximizing isn’t fun either. So how do you know?
Personally, I went through this in the last few days with a design challenge. I had a design that felt “acceptable” but didn’t feel great. It felt slightly awkward, like an ill-fitting suit. It satisfied the requirements, but that was all. Should I have accepted that design? It was like an itch in my mind that wouldn’t go away unless I kept designing through it.
I found another solution, which felt better. Yet, still I had this itch. I changed course again. Each try was a wild departure from the previous. All were acceptable, yet none were satisfying the itch. Finally, on the 4th or 5th rev, I stumbled upon the right idea. My brain suddenly switched gears and said, “Ahhhh, that feels good”. No more itch.
You have to trust your instincts when things aren’t right. Keep iterating or switching to new strategies until your unconscious gives you the green light. Sometimes this takes a little longer, but the end result will be much better for your users.
Google ranks pages according to really strange algorithms. I don’t do any active SEO on my blog. However, Google ranks me very high for certain searches. They often distract me from understanding my traffic. See illustration below:
You can see all the traffic in the middle was when my posts on Windows 7 and Office 2010 were driving a huge amount of traffic. I removed the pages from Google and the traffic dropped. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. Maybe I should have just laden those pages heavily with Google Adwords.
Now on the right, you see that big spike? It’s for a search query called “The Alphabet Trick”. I had written a post on helping people remember names or words when they are on the tip of your tongue. Apparently, the urban dictionary also defines this as “When you draw letters with your tongue while making out with someone or eating a girl out”. This was originally proposed by Sam Kinnison in a comedy bit.
That post is 8 months old. Why did they increase the rankings of it yesterday? What was special about yesterday that Google would bump this up? How the heck does Google work anyway?
What should I do? It’s not my fault “lick the alphabet” morphed into “the alphabet trick”. That traffic is bizarre. Putting Google Adwords on it is not quite right. Maybe I could ask Google to de-index that page? Why am I stressing about the traffic to my site? Why can’t I just ignore it? I’m becoming a traffic-neurotic.
This is The Trees by Rush on Rockband 2 with Jared (8 yrs old) on drums. Expert mode means that he is required to hit the drums exactly the same frequency as the real drummer Neil Peart. He doesn’t get it perfect at all (89% accuracy), but still I am really impressed.
He is just getting better and better. Soon, I will have a video of Ethan playing ukulele, which he is becoming pretty good at. Still very excited for Rock Band 3.
StackOverflow is a really awesome movement on the web that is revolutionizing Question & Answer forums. Experts-Exchange.com is really being left in the dust mainly because of the user experience of this new upstart. There is an elegance to the overall design that I enjoy very much. The use of reputation points and badges is breakthrough stuff. I am the number #1 reputation on UXExchange.com, but then StackOverflow changed the game and now there is a new site with a similar mission. (Goodbye points)
However, I do have one major problem StackOverflow. When you ask a question there is this text on the right side of the screen:
We prefer questions that can be answered, not just discussed.
I hate this. Especially on forums that are dedicated to user experience. I want to discuss the topics and let the best ideas rise to the top. The fact that the ideas get out of order because of voting is GOOD. It forces each person to come up with a self-contained single answer that stands on its own. Typically people do not answer more than once. There are comments for talking about a single answer, which provides an extra outlet for conversation. This is much better than an opened ended threaded discussion. There is a limiting force based on the structure which makes each answer more potent. You have one shot, you better make it good.
I love StackOverflow for discussion AS IS, yet they actively shun this type of activity. They will literally shut the question down. People are hard-core getting pissed that people like me want to have discussions. I think it is actually ruining the overall user experience to not have the option of discussing in the same context as answering. The UI works for it perfectly. It would be smart to mark or tag the question as open-ended. That way, people who are annoyed by it can skip those questions. However, to eliminate them completely makes it impossible for the rest of us to have satisfaction.
This issue is like Gay Marriage. If you say it can only be one way (Man/Woman), then you are happy with your one way. If someone else LIKES MARRIAGE but wants it another way (Man/Man or Woman/Woman) then they are S.O.L. They don’t want some messed up “third way”, they want to be married! Stop being control freaks and let people do what they want to do!
Why is this so hard for people? Jeff Atwood, please come over to the good side of the force. Add a flag for open-ended questions and leave the UI alone. We like it very much.
A non-UX post. One of my kids, Ethan, ran for Student Body President of his elementary school. He was up against a dozen other kids. I don’t know the vote tallies, but I will just assume it was a victorious landslide! (Why not?)
He said, when he heard the news that he won, it hit him in the chest and he couldn’t breathe. He didn’t stop smiling for 2 days. I did help him out a bit with the poster and the speech, but the key decisions were all his. I don’t want to do his work for him, but at the same time, I want to teach him all the things I know. I hope I struck the right balance.
I kept telling him to remember 3 things in your speech: Slow, Loud, Clear. He didn’t quite remember any of those things, but it was clearer than the other kids speaking. Two kids saw the room full of students listening and bowed out of the race.
I am very proud of him and still feel a fatherly glow. All of my kids have so much potential. I hope I don’t mess them up so much they squander it. Fingers crossed!
