To answer that question we can start by identifying what mobile is not.

Mobile is not about phones.  In fact, it’s not about any particular device, whether that be phones, laptops, tablets or otherwise.  Sure, the term “mobile” as we know it today has its roots in the development of mobile phone devices, starting back in the early 1970’s.  The evolution of these mobile devices, from those giant tethered bricks of yore on up to the smartphones so pervasive in the market today, along with the evolution of the term “mobile” in describing them and their functionality, is a fascinating topic unto itself.  But today, mobile has evolved to take on a whole new meaning.

Dr. Martin Cooper of Motorola with a 1973 mobile prototype model.

In case anyone hadn’t noticed, it’s 2010, and we’re living in a digital age, and mobile has become something more, something bigger, something more important.  It’s drastically changing that way we do things.  Mobile is affecting social connections and interactions, opening up new avenues in terms of communication and consumption, and altering consumers’ expectations of the content and goods they consume.

With mobile I can at any time read and send email, browse the web, and send text messages to my friends.  I can buy a book on Amazon.com or bid on a piece of artwork on eBay.  I can read the news, and I can look at recipes from Epicurious.  I can make a shopping list.  I can read restaurant reviews and make reservations.  I can play a game with friends.  I can buy and listen to music, and buy and watch television shows or movies.  I can look up movie times.  I can take photos.  I can write on my blog.  I can read your blog…

Obviously I could go on and on with all the things possible with mobile.  Put simply, mobile is an emerging philosophy that’s providing an entirely new way of living in the digital age.

But what does this new attitude, this new theory, mean exactly?

First and foremost, it means that, if we want to be, we are always connected, no matter when and no matter where we are.  It means never being chained to a single location ever again.  It’s having a window into the cloud at all times.  There once was a time that in order to access digital content or services, or each other, we had to go to a specific location like a desktop computer and plug in to a network to browse and consume and communicate within the narrowly defined confines of a then-limited world wide web.  That is no longer true.  Mobile has freed us from these confines forever.

Mobile is comfortable, efficient and natural.  Or at least it should be.  As connected consumers in a digital age, we now demand the best experience from our interactions with brands, the way we communicate with each other, and from the ways we work and play online.  Our devices, and the interactions they provide, are not only extensions of ourselves, but also, and perhaps even more importantly, reflections of ourselves.  And as our devices become smaller, more portable and more powerful, our expectations for our experiences with them seem to increase and become better defined.

Mobile means more lazy afternoons at the park.

Mobile provides data and functionality specific not only to each form factor but also to each unique use case.  Now more than ever before, each individual can govern how and when they digitally browse, consume, digest, communicate and purchase, no matter the device or location.  This consumer empowerment places an onus on every brand operating in the digital space to step up their game to provide the expected experience.

But really this is good news for businesses.  Mobile provides additional touch-points at which to interact with consumers, and a completely new way of extending your brand into the lives of your customer base.  It also provides a powerful network to leverage for marketing endeavors viral in nature.  Most importantly, it provides you a space to reach out to your clientele that is defined by them, where you can speak to them on their terms, and in their language.  Mobile brings you closer.

To sum up, mobile is the computing metaphor that is replacing laptops, just as the laptop was the computing metaphor that replaced desktops a decade or so ago.  However, there are two distinct, albeit connected differences between these evolutionary jumps.  One, the mobile metaphor revolution is happening in the consumer space (whereas the laptop shift occurred first in the enterprise, then slowly made its way to the consumer as prices dropped and wireless networks grew).  Two, the mobile shift is happening much, much faster.

For the consumer this means nothing but good, good, and more good.  Mobile, and the speed at which it is evolving our lives, gives each of us power and voice and access like never before.  It gives us choice in how and where and when we do what we do online.  It makes us efficient and gives us convenience like we’ve never known.

For companies and brands operating in the mobile space, it means new, unique opportunities to connect with a new audience, on their terms.

And for mobile app-dev providers, the new mobile philosophy clearly means more opportunities, but also perhaps greater risk.  Obviously as consumer demand drives mobile application development, the opportunities in providing mobile services rise.  But because mobile is exploding at such a phenomenal rate, these companies must be able to react quickly and provide solutions on a variety of platforms as the market continues to evolve.  The company that is slow moving or that can specialize in only one device or OS is making a gamble, and a risky one at that.  As mobile continues its rapid evolution, companies that make the wrong gamble could very well find themselves extinct.

Be nimble to avoid extinction.

Photos via Wikimedia Commons.  Credits:

Dr. Martin Cooper: Rico Shen
Woman on cell phone: Ildar Sagdejev
Araripesuchus fossils: Sereno PC, Larsson HCE

Work isn’t always fun. If it were, it would be called “fun” instead of “work”, and our unemployment rate would probably be much lower. But no, even if you are lucky enough to have a job you honestly love doing, you will still encounter hardship, frustration and disappointment. There are a lot of reasons for this, and obviously the nature of most of our work has to do with problem-solving and overcoming challenges, and frankly hardship and frustration are just part of the deal.

But I think there are other reasons why work isn’t always fun, reasons that are perhaps not as well understood, and in my experience, often overlooked entirely. I believe each and every one of us has passion and interests and abilities, both inside and outside our defined roles within the companies for whom we work, and that more often than not, our individual passion is not being realized during the third of our lives we spend making a paycheck. And that sad fact is the source of our discontent.

It goes without saying that happy workers are productive workers. Any good manager knows this, and most successful companies do what they can to keep their peeps relatively happy. However I would posit that this endeavor, to keep employees productive and engaged, might be easier than conventional wisdom may dictate. Maybe it’s not so much about free Snapple in the break room or pinball machines or foosball tables. Maybe that XBox and HD TV and keg-O-rator that gets rolled out each Friday at 4:00 in the afternoon isn’t really cutting it. Perhaps those things are mere bandaids, temporary fixes at stemming an inevitable tide. Perhaps they even do more harm than good, coming across as condescending or even appearing as gross bribery.

So, what then?

Passion. I truly believe that for us humans to be happy, really happy, our passions must be realized daily in our lives. The message here is really two-fold. I alluded earlier to the notion that we all have passion and interests and talent, both in and outside of our work. Sometimes these two realms (for the very lucky among us) can overlap. Regardless, both are equally important.

If a company wants to keep its staff happy, loyal and productive, I argue that they must find a way to harness each individual’s unique passion. But that’s only half of it. Secondarily, I would also argue that the company should, as much as it can, support each individual’s interests outside of work as well.

By engaging the employee’s particular talents or areas of interest and expertise inside the workplace, you are guaranteed a higher level of production as a direct result of his or her increase in personal satisfaction. Sometimes this means creating a new role to fit the individual, but that’s ok. I’d much rather break an org chart than lose a valuable employee. It can also mean shifting or modifying the company’s business goals to accommodate an area of focus or interest, but that’s ok too, as long as it’s within reason. I’d rather give a couple talented employees a shot at proving their particular idea than have them leave and try it out elsewhere.

By supporting employees’ out-of-work interests as well, you not only help increase levels of happiness and production even further, but you also build trust, loyalty, and even maybe a sense of family. If the message to employees comes across as “you are recognized as unique individuals with talents and interests in life that we want to support”, and you follow through by acting on this sentiment, you will see a happier, healthier workforce. And acting on this idea can be as simple as allowing flexible schedules, within reason, to, for instance, accommodate Bill’s training for that triathlon, or Jill’s once-a-week afternoon judo class. Whatever your employees’ extracurricular activities are, find them out and figure out a way that the company can support them. In the long run, you’ll be glad you did.

So yes, I suppose free beverages and an XBox in the workplace are pretty cool, and sure, they’ll go a certain distance in keeping folks happy, at least for awhile. But for companies truly interested in attracting the best talent out there, getting them on board, and then keeping them engaged, productive and happy, more has to be done. Each individual’s passion must be realized and harnessed, to both benefit the company and the individuals themselves. Areas of interest at work must be identified, encouraged and nurtured. Outside interests should also be recognized, supported and accommodated as much as possible. Doing so will only make us all that much healthier and happier.

After all, we are all just trying to live our lives one day at a time, together. There’s no good reason why we can’t all try to make “work” just a little more “fun” too.

So here’s the deal: I purchased one of your new magical iPads, and overall I’m enjoying it. I’m loving the digital drawing/sketching apps, being able to consume magazines and books (despite previous misgivings, see previous blog post), and the ability to catch up on my favorite television series at my leisure, commercial-free, and from the comfort of, well, wherever I damn well please. Magical indeed.

All of that is well and good. I’ve been able to consume content and utilize apps relatively without issue. Great job overall, once again. Where I’ve run into a bit of a snafu though, is with the purchasing of content and subsequent synchronization with my device. This has been, by far, the most frustrating and disappointing shortcoming that I’ve experienced with Apple in the past ten years. Let me explain:

1. I decide to test out the experience of watching television shows on my iPad. I currently despise Comcast and their antiquated business model. It pains me that I pay $125 a month for an HD television package (and the ability to record it) that includes hundreds and hundreds of channels, four or five of which i regularly watch. Seriously, your technology is hideous Comcast, and you need to figure out a la carte pricing ASAP, or you will be tits up within five years. Coincidentally five years is the time frame within which I’m also predicting Microsoft will drop below a 50% share of installed OS on new devices. And that’s probably generous. But I digress.

2. Rather than purchase seasons one and two of AMC’s Mad Men via iTunes on my iMac, I decide it would be more efficient to just purchase directly from my new magical device, this here iPad. Think about it. It takes many hours to download an entire series of HD quality television (and yes, if I’m going to purchase it, it’s gonna be HD). Why would I do that, and then on top of it have to spend hours syncing it to my iPad after? Better to just cut out the middle man and purchase directly to the device, right? This was my decision, and in fact it worked beautifully. I purchased the shows right on my iPad that evening, set it on my nightstand, and by morning the glorious HD content was there ready for me to enjoy. Perfect!

3. A few days later is when my digital utopia began to crumble. I was working on my iMac and decided to fire up iTunes to listen to the new Broken Bells album while I worked. Lo and behold, and much to my chagrin, iTunes decided that it was going to download two seasons of Mad Men to my machine. Again. And by again I mean for a second time, because clearly the content that I’d purchased had already been downloaded to my device, but now, for whatever reason, it was being downloaded again to the iTunes with which my iPad is synced. Weird? Yes. Time-consuming? Most definitely. Unnecessary? Um, I would say absolutely. Why download 40 Gigs of something twice? At least ask me first? You know, maybe give my wireless network a courtesy reach-around before you bend it over for hours on end once again?

4. But that wasn’t even the worst of it. No, I made it through that ridiculously duplicated effort more or less unscathed. I’m not going to lie, iTunes did freeze up a couple times during this second download, requiring me to force quit and restart. But shit happens. No harm, no foul. But about a week later I decided to plug my iPad into my iMac to sync it and, well, can you guess what happened? Yes, iTunes decided it needed to sync season one and two of Mad Men, which again took several hours to accomplish. Absolute rubbish! And i’m not even sure which way it was syncing things, from iTunes to the iPad? Or from the iPad to iTunes? Prior to me connecting my iPad to my iMac, the content already existed in both places! There was no need to sync anything. But apparently Apple for some reason disagrees. *sigh*

So, in summation, in attempting to purchase HD content to watch on my iPad, I had to download it twice and then sync it once, essentially tripling the total time it really should have taken. My dearest Apple, please fix this. You are the embodiment of great user experience, but this experience was anything but great (read: confusing, frustrating, bewildering, disappointing, et al). I know the iPad is a new device and you have a few wrinkles to iron out. Please make sure you address this one. Purchasing and consuming content seamlessly is going to be vital to the success of the iPad, and my experience in doing so was anything but seamless.

Cheers!

P.S. Also, while your at it, fix the iTunes store, it kind of sucks too. Very hard to browse and find content, especially apps. Thanks!

As for the Tapscott book, quite interesting so far as well.  I’m betting I’ll get through the entire thing in no time.

http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/

My team at IdentityMine was responsible for coming up with initial concepts (which started out as rough white board sketches and mood/concept boards) for the entry point of the experience and for navigating the content.  The client wanted us to leverage all the bells and whistles of Expression Studio 3 to create a dynamic and immersive interface.  To do this, we started by toying around with several different 3-dimensional visual metaphors that we thought would work well both for navigating content and in telling the story about how “Silverlight is lighting up the web”.  Some of these early ideas included constellations in a star field, a disco ball throwing light onto a surface, and a crowd of fans holding placards.  Ultimately the final UI design was mostly inspired by the disco ball metaphor, however I don’t think one would necessarily see the connection between the two!

I also want to mention that once again our crack developer/integrator team did a superb job of translating our vision into a working interface that functions extremely well within the browser.  I really am lucky to work with such talented folks.

Below are a series of snapshots that capture our design process from initial brainstorm to final design.  But first, here’s the official Microsoft-approved press release, which I think is quite nice:

“The Silverlight team at Microsoft worked closely with IdentityMine and Zaaz to develop the new showcase that serves as a display into the various Silverlight experiences available on the Web today.

“IdentityMine’s knowledge of Silverlight gave Microsoft full confidence it could maintain the fidelity of Microsoft’s vision for the Silverlight Showcase,” said Brad Becker, director of rich client platforms and tools in the Developer Division at Microsoft Corp. “IdentityMine is a great example of how companies can make the most of Silverlight 3 and the Expression Studio 3 to deliver design and engineering excellence.

“The first step in understanding a new technology is to experience it via existing applications and the new showcase allows companies to view a wide range of implementations built on the Silverlight platform.”

And now, those screen captures:

Initial white board sketches.

Close up of white board sketch showing "star field" idea.

"Star field" mock up/mood board.

"Disco ball" mock up/mood board.

"Fans with placards" mock up/mood board.

The final user interface.

A mockup showing the dispatchers’ workspace, with a traditional flat screen monitor, along with an angled touch-enabled map interface.

Dispatchers take emergency calls and have to be able to document information from their callers as well as access additional information from their data servers extremely quickly and accurately. It’s no joke—these people save lives, and their software needs to work seamlessly and be highly intuitive so as to minimize errors and mistakes.

Our task was straightforward, but by no means an easy one: integrate a touch interface into the current system and work-flow in such a manner that it would enhance the dispatchers’ user experience and improve their overall work performance. Our touch-enabled solution had to be user-centric, have a sophisticated interface design that could accommodate large amounts of data, and yeah by the way, it also had to actually work for the client’s demo.

Distilling the information we gathered from numerous user interviews and stakeholders, and then conducting many internal brainstorm meetings, we ultimately decided on a solution direction that incorporated the use of two monitors working in conjunction with one another. One monitor would be a standard flat screen panel that would house the data entry interface, and the other would be a touch-enabled flat panel that would serve as an interactive map interface. Both interfaces were connected and running off one Windows 7 box, and had to be able to “communicate” with each other. That is, actions carried out on the touch screen map instigated pieces of workflow on the data-entry screen, and vice versa. It couldn’t be two interfaces cobbled together, but rather had to be one seamless, natural experience.

Essentially our goal was to improve the overall workspace by centering the user’s focus, ensuring an ergonomic interaction in regards to a person’s typical range of motion, and to “extend the keyboard” with a touch-enabled surface. We learned in our interviews that the keyboard is a vital tool for dispatchers and that it wouldn’t be something they’d want to give up. So rather than replacing the keyboard with a fully touch-enabled solution, we compromised and settled on the idea of extending the keyboard through touch instead.

The touch screen itself houses the map of the area the dispatcher is responsible for, and allows them to customize their view, locate calls, and track police and aid units. Through the touch interface we were able to simplify many parts of the dispatchers’ traditional workflow. For example, to assign an available police unit to a new event, the dispatcher simply taps and drags the police icon on the map to the event icon associated with the call and voila, the unit is assigned.

Touch-enabled map screen showing how a dispatcher can access a slide-out menu to turn various layers on and off.

Map showing a call and units having been assigned (and now en route).

Ultimately we delivered a fully functional demo that the client shared at a conference in Washington D.C. in June of this year. The demo was very well received and generated a lot of excitement and interest in touch-enabled interfaces. Certainly touch-enabled interfaces will continue to replace traditional solutions as the technology advances over time. The next several years are going to be very exciting, and I think all of us at IdentityMine feel pretty lucky to be working in such a cool industry.

Nate and Jamey give the demo a whirl before shipping the solution to the client.

You can find out more about integraph at www.intergraph.com and on the website for their most recent conference in Washington DC at www.intergraph2009.com.

The Surface application we built serves as an interactive healthcare product browser, allowing customers to get detailed information on devices like blood glucose and heart rate monitors, try out the devices if they so choose (displaying the results from the device on the Surface unit via Bluetooth!), and then save their results to their HealthVault card with the simple swipe of a finger.  Cool stuff!

From a design standpoint there were several challenges in addition to the tight time frame.  The design needed to have a healthy, friendly, accessible feel, yet also convey the clean, almost sterile feel associated with the healthcare industry and healthcare devices.  At the same time, the experience needed to be efficient and push the boundaries of Surface technology.  And finally, we also had to take into account and include in our user interactions the new features of SP1, namely the new library and menu controls.

Below are some screens showing the design process from whiteboard brainstorming to the final product.  More information on the Healthcare Product Selector can be found on the IdentityMine website.

Early whiteboard sketch showing how heart rate results can be saved to a Healthvault card.

An early design—boy that sky sure is… blue!

Final design shot showing the element menu feature. Note how we incorporated the z-axis in our UI by pushing cards back in space to bring focus to the menu when activated.

Final design shot indicating how a user easily saves device results to their account with a simple swipe of the finger.

Hyuk, hyuk.  I know, old joke.  (Thanks Jonah!).  Seriously now, what is a metaphor?  And how does it play a role in visual design and user interaction?

A metaphor is a comparison of one thing to a seemingly unrelated other thing, generally implying that they are indeed alike in some way, shape or form.  Metaphors are usually employed to help make a point, but also are often utilized to better illustrate that which might be unclear or to relate complex subject matter in a way that is approachable and more easily understood.  Additionally, metaphors can be used to flower a diatribe, add flourishes to the contents of a story, or make an argument that much more compelling to ones audience.  But what does this mean for visual interaction design?

First off, in design a visual metaphor makes things more interesting.  And for us, this is a good thing.  Because let’s face it, digital interfaces aren’t exactly clay waiting to be molded by our hands, or a blank canvas begging for the paintbrush.  No, rather, our interfaces are made up of pixels, pixels on a flat screen of a certain size and aspect ratio, pixels that are either on or off, and that silently await our input so that they may, in turn, respond.  But the pixels are our slaves.  And it’s up to us to make them tell a story.

It’s the story that is vital in capturing your audience.  The compelling interface will make the user think (in the good, want-to-make-sense-of-this way, not the bad, what-the-hell-is-this-crap way).  Most of us like solving puzzles and riddles, even on a sub-conscious level.  I would wager that this has to do with the human intuition to constantly attempt to make order from chaos.  But that’s the subject of another blog post.

A good interface employs a good story.  This visual story can range from subtle metaphorical interactions (a very simple example would be a button on a website–not really a button at all, but merely a digital representation of a physical object we are familiar with) to all-out, full-blown extended metaphors.  An over-the-top example of an extended metaphor used in a digital interface can be found in the infamous 1995 Microsoft Bob.  The goal of the software was to provide for the home user a familiar alternative to the usual technical interface seen in desktop computing at the time, quite an ambitious undertaking, given the hardware and software limitations back then (this was 1995, after all).  It was slow and clunky, and honestly, perhaps a bit too patronizing.  Needless to say, Bob was a flop.

Microsoft Bob

So Bob was a failure, sure, but does that mean that extended metaphors should never be used in web or other digital interfaces?  Of course not.  There are countless examples of great interfaces that successfully employ solid visual metaphors, metaphors that tell us a good visual story (without going over the top) and that bring us in, but also provide us with an intuitive means of navigation that is at once familiar and enticing.  Two great examples can be found at SectionSeven and Urban Silo.  Both design portfolio sites are perfect examples of the use of visual metaphor, and each strike a good balance between story and functionality.

Section Seven uses a simple book metaphor.  Once the site has been loaded, the viewer is presented with what appears to be the cover of a book.  Indeed, the title centered on the cover image reads “SectionSeven Cabinet of Selected Works.”  There are a few things at play here already.  The playful wording makes us think we might be browsing an old literary magazine rather than a web-based design portfolio.  The cover-of-a-book image makes us want to open the book, as we are wont to do when encountering covers of books.  Clicking on the cover causes an animation of pages to fan out from beneath, revealing themselves in a neat row to be the numbered chapters of the book, each with a table of contents listed beneath their associated title.  Clicking on a title page spawns yet another animation, this time of pages folding out in sequence, each revealing a rich screen capture image detailing the particular work that is being showcased.  The overall interaction is rich, yet simple.  We are all familiar with books, so it only takes just a few clicks before we get it.  In fact, I’d wager that for most visitors to the site the book metaphor is quickly forgotten for the content that it showcases.  In my opinion, this makes the site all that more successful.  It employs a powerful and familiar visual metaphor to help tell its story, but it doesn’t do it at the expense of the content that it is presenting.  Double bonus.

SectionSeven website

Urban Silo (a site developed by the folks at SectionSeven) utilizes metaphor a little bit differently.  In fact, one could make the argument that overall the site is actually an example of a mixed metaphor.  I’ll leave that up to those who like to argue semantics.  Whatever the case, the site is successful in its design for a number of reasons.  Upon coming to the site the visitor is greeted with a brief rising-sun animation and the sound of a crowing rooster.  This is quickly followed by a file-loading sequence, represented visually as wheat stalks growing upward in order as the files load.  All of this does a couple things.  One, it somewhat disguises the fact that we are having to wait for files to load before we actually see anything.  That is, we’re not waiting for files to load, we’re watching the sun come up and listening to the rooster greet the new day.  We’re watching wheat grow, ok?  Oh, and the site is called Urban Silo.  Get it?  Silo, as in the thing that holds all the goodies on a farm, but with an urban twist!

Urban Silo loading animation

Ok, so the whole farm metaphor should be pretty clear.  However, I have to stress that they’ve done a great job of keeping it subtle.  Visit the site and you will see for yourself it’s not cheesy at all.  The name of the company/site is really quite clever (it sticks out in a sea of design agencies, don’t you think?) and in light of that accomplishment I think that carrying the theme out just a bit further with a visual (and audio) metaphor is appropriate.  However, I’m happy to report that the whole farm thing, for the most part, stays pretty dialed back from there on.

Once entering the site proper, the visitor is presented with a handful of cards, each representing a section of content, suspended from strings, hanging down and casting shadows on a surface beneath.  They are hung in a circle, going back in space on the z-axis, but the user can easily rotate the ones in the back to the foreground by using a horizontal scrubber located toward the bottom of the page (the sun icon from the opening sequence).  So here again we have a few things going on.  They’ve added another metaphor, that of physical cards representing content, not unlike tags that you find hanging off clothing when you go shopping.  Additionally they’ve added the metaphor of three-dimensional of space in which to move to browse content.  The dual-device of cards and three-dimensional space continues throughout the site as the user drills down to explore content.  This works great because these tags are familiar to us as sources of information, and, well, we operate in three dimensions all the time every day!

I should mention that the original farm metaphor isn’t completely abandoned once you get into the site.  For instance, the print work of the company lies within the hanging card entitled “Print Silage,” which features quite prominently as its icon an ear of corn.  Other icons are based on wheat and eggs, and another section title is “Web Fodder.”  Examples of a few sub-headers:  “Organically Grown”, “100% Natural” and “Bio-Degradable.”  They definitely stick with the farm metaphor, but do so in a subtle fashion with mild visual cues and clever copy writing.  Because of this, the site succeeds where others fail.  We all understand the farm story, and initially it’s sort of this cute thing that we take note of as we come to the site, but again, once we begin to explore the actual content, the metaphor takes a back seat, as it should, and doesn’t overwhelm what the site is really trying to do, in this case present a portfolio of work.

Urban Silo website

To wrap this up, I’ll just say that metaphor is a powerful tool in interface design, but that one must strike an appropriate balance between it and the actual purpose of the UI that is being developed.  Telling a story is a powerful way to entice users into your experience and keep them there, and using a good visual metaphor is a great means of accomplishing this.  We are very visual creatures, and a recognizable visual story that we can relate to (a book or a farm, for instance) will be more successful at bringing us in and keeping us interested.  However, there is a fine line between a good, solid metaphor, and a big, cheesy bomb.  Just ask Bob.