Planning for Serendipity?
I just stumbled across a post by Dave Rogers of UXCentric from about a year ago where he plays with the idea of misdirecting users. Reacting to some thoughts from Peter Morville about ambient findability, Dave worries that we are on an “inexorable march to make everything on the Web plodding and pedantic.” He offers misdirection and intentional ambiguity as a way to bring magic and enjoyment into the experience of using information systems of all sorts. Based on his example of trying find a hotel for a business trip, it sounds like he really is just bemoaning boring old search interfaces and the (possible) loss of serendipitous discovery in a time when everything is findable. He seems to want to build in ambiguity and misdirection as means of creating contexts for serendipity. I see where he’s coming from but I think he is missing a few important points.
The most important point is that the flexible, user-centered Web 2.0 paradigm that everybody and their mom is talking about will never be “plodding and pedantic” because it is — or should be — so inextricably tied into the mess of social and cultural systems. Having done a bit of academic sociology and read a lot more, I can say with certainty that the unexpected ALWAYS happens when people interact. Thus, by concentrating on creating flexible, responsive, socially-oriented interfaces and systems, we’ll get more misdirection, ambiguity, and serendipity than we know what to do with. (Dave touches on this in a comment to his post.)
Secondly, there are some tasks that really should be completely straightforward. (Dave doesn’t deny this but he also doesn’t address it specifically either.) Misdirecting users or making things ambiguous while they are doing their taxes, ordering their groceries, or communicating with friends and family would likely have disasterous effects. I think that’s why it might be “safer” to concentrate on the importance of serendipity in browsing rather than misdirection and ambiguity per se. While they are clearly related, I see the former as less likely to send designers in the wrong direction.
Of course, adding some sense of play or mystery is important. For more on the importance of play, check out just about everything Anne Galloway has been talking about for the last few of years. For example, this and this.
February 1st, 2006 at 9:17 pm
Hi Todd,
Thanks for the reference–and for the update. “Web 2.0″ was still a gleam in the buzzword eye when I wrote that post.
I wholly agree that its paradigm is excellent news for users–if only we can pull it off (and our site clients/sponsors)
will let us).
The one thing I regret in my post is that my example wasn’t spot on. As you note, it was too close to “browsing and
serendipity” versus “searching and findability”–which really wasn’t my point. Serendipity is not ambiguity–
although ambiguity might produces something serendipitous. Ditto for misdirection.
As you say, it is “safer” to concentrate on serendipity–and therein lies the danger. “Drive fear out,” said Deming,
referring to the business world. Fear is also an enemy of breakthrough design, of taking risks to delight your users and
customers.
There are situtations, like those you list, where misdirection, ambiguity and serendipity are inappropriate. Oddly
enough (given my advocacy of misdirection), I’m noted for designing very straightforward processes like e-store
checkouts. Yet even there I believe we need to design in a little “magic” to keep users engaged–and even to enhance
their experience.
The real key, as I see it, is that we don’t dumb down our sites to such a gruel-like simplicity that there is no
chance for the magic of human interaction to occur. I love what you say: “The unexpected ALWAYS happens when
people interact.”
BTW, Joshua Porter of UIE blogged the other day on “Success by Indirection.” A good read!
http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2006/01/30/success-by-indirection/
Regards,
Dave
February 2nd, 2006 at 6:52 am
Thanks for the link to Joshua’s post. It and your comment helped clarify what you were driving at with the misdirection and ambiguity discussion. I think I was thrown off a bit by the example you gave and was thinking you were referring mostly to designing micro interactions. In the context of Joshua’s post, I can see that you are thinking at a slightly higher level and advocating that we keep our design processes open to criteria other than simplicity and efficiency. It’s a matter of giving up some control as designers as well as feeling free to break standards and conventions when you have good reason. Your Deming quote is apropos.
February 2nd, 2006 at 4:08 pm
UIE is apparently very interested in these issues right now. The latest post from Christine Perfetti talks about “disruption” which is right in line with Dave’s thinking about misdirection.