Darrel Rhea of Cheskin has published an article in business week outlining an innovative user-centered approach taken by Milliken to develop a new line of stain resistent textiles for automobiles. Two big take-aways: 1) even companies that generally don’t sell or market directly to consumers can benefit from making them central to the design process and 2) iterative design including protyping and regular testing works.

Just reading through Shirky’s essay on Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality where he talks about the relationship between choice and inequality. Essentially, the more choices in a system where people have the freedom to choose whatever options they want, the more inequality (i.e. a minority of options getting the vast majority of choices). Or even more simply, many options + freedom to choose –> inequality. It’s a purely structural analysis with no focus on subjective thoughts, feelings, or experiences of life in a culture of choice. It focuses on the shape of the system that results with some small attention to the mechanisms that influence that shape.

This talk about increasing choices made me think a lot about the The Paradox of Choice. In that book, Barry Schwartz argues that the abundance of choices in our modern society actually decreases subjective happiness, especially for “maximizers” who are focused on always making the best choice possible. Simply, many options + freedom to choose –> unhappiness. A psychological and subjective account of life in a “culture of choice”.

I think this points to some real possible pitfalls in the future Web 2.0/long tail/etc. world. The inequality may or may not be a problem depending on your moral position but the unhappiness is of great import, especially to those of us working in the field of user experience. Are there ways that we can design systems to take advantage of the many choices people have while limiting the subjective feelings of unhappiness that seem to come along with them?

Well, I’m back from a trip to the Bay Area for an interview that I think went pretty darn good. I think the general impression on both sides is that I would be a good fit for the company. If there was any hiccup, it’s that it is very difficult to communicate one’s competency and approach to interaction design other than just doing it. I mean, I showed some deliverables (e.g. task analysis, research summaries, flows, etc.) and talked about my process but I think this only goes so far in communicating what kind of a designer someone is. This has gotten me thinking a lot about how someone can package and communiate their interaction design skills. Some companies prefer to contract someone before hiring as a means of gleaning this knowledge. Try before you buy, so to speak. Other companies like IDEO or Google will have people do projects, essays, or tasks as part of the application or interview process. My guess is that this latter approach is often not entirely effective because it’s often very artificial. While the former is probably very effective but can end up being a bit of a barrier in some instances. What can a practicioner do to facilitate this process? I updated my portfolio — the Epinions section in particular — in light of this thinking. I’d be interested for some of you folks to take a look at it and tell me what you think about it. What questions do you think are left unanswered by my write-up? What other materials would be good to have?

“In the universe now there was no longer a container and a thing contained, but only a general thickness of signs superimposed and coagulated, occupying the whole volume of space; it was constantly being dotted, minutely, a network of lines and scratches and reliefs and engravings; the universe was scrawled over on all sides, along all its dimensions.”
- Italo Calvino, Cosmicomics

There’s a very interesting piece on how people use different channels for different types of communication. This is a perfect example of how ethnographic techniques can really add to our understanding of use. I also think it’s interesting how many design/tech folks I talk with are convinced that technologies like SMS are drastically increasing the network of people we communicate with. I think this is primarily based on watching teens (primarily Asian) and tech enthusiasts use the technology. Based on this study, normal folks only SMS with 4 or 5 people. It’s an intimate network.

I had originally planned to post specifics about the jobs I was looking into but I’m having second thoughts. It’s some combination of not wanting to compromise the privacy of the various places I’m talking to and not wanting to jinx anything by talking about it too soon. So for now y’all will just have to be satisfied to know that I have a few very exciting possibilities and we will likely end up in Portland (OR), the SF bay area, or Chicago. The first bit of interview travel should put me in SF around Feb 17. More to come as other trips get finalized.