My Curious Life

I have a confession to make. My son, Caleb, is from Mars. Or maybe Pluto. He doesn’t have antennae or a glowing finger, nor does he live in an egg-shaped bed. He does, however, live in a world all his own and only occasionally in this one. It’s those rare moments when he’s here with us, though, that make it all worthwhile. You see, Caleb has autism.

Not only that, he also has pervasive developmental disorder — a form of mental retardation.

A couple of months ago my wife and I went to see the latest John (and Joan) Cusack movie, Martian Child. The simple story is about a boy who’s different. Very different. A boy who believes he is from Mars. A boy whose needs and differences challenge and inspire his widower foster father (John Cusack) to come to grips with his own differences. A boy who exposes how cruel the world at large can be to those who are truly different from the norm.

Shortly thereafter, I heard a story on NPR about a film being released that tells one child’s story of special needs and inclusion.

As an interaction designer, I’ve found it particularly meaningful to have a child with special needs. I think it makes you even more sensitive to the world around you and how those of us who fit the norm so unknowingly take simple things for granted. I find it amazing to watch my almost 8-year-old son work through problems that my “normal” 3-year-old breezes through with ease.

Small buttons that require excellent fine motor control (remotes/telephones), handles and knobs that operate counter to their purpose (car doors and 3-way switches), and frustrating tools that expose rather than hide their underlying complexity (AV systems). These are just a few of the many things that confound my son day-to-day.

It’s an adventure that is constantly changing the way that I interpret the world.

So, as we start 2008, what (or who) has caused a change in the way you think/act/perceive over the course of the past year?

Last night’s inaugural Ignite Portland rocked! 18 speakers, each with 20 slides and 5 minutes to present before the collective buzzer went off. The topics ranged from knitting to rewilding, giving good TXT to free beef and clean bathrooms. Unicycling, chickens, and how to be Japanese. Kudos to everyone who helped organize the event and to all of the presenters … for a first time event, it was quite impressive.

Wieden + Kennedy hosted the event in their fantastic office space downtown. The architecture of the building is wonderful, and W+K have put some nice touches on the space to make it their own. I have some questions about that, though, like what’s up with all of the “mice” on the stairs? And who are all of the people in the black ‘n whites on the entry wall? If those are the W+K staff, no wonder they’re considered an exceptional company.

Ignite was essentially a chance to be with like-minded local folks and get the ol’ grey matter fired up. The diversity of topics made for some fantastic brain food. I came home buzzing with ideas and inspiration, and while I don’t think I’ll be raising chickens anytime soon, I do have some great resources and ideas to work with for the immediate future.

All in all, a great time in a great locale with some very interesting people. I regret not mingling a bit more, but my co-conspirator Ryan did introduce me to some of the PDX Web Innovators group and start putting names with faces for a change. I’d hoped to meet Rick Turoczy of the Silicon Florist at some point and tell him thanks for keeping tabs on all the local Portland happenings, but in all that time I didn’t spot one person with a name tag that said “Rick” on it. Hey Rick, were you hiding someplace? Rick has the best collection of posts and links from the event that I’ve seen so far.

Here are links that I’ve collected to sites and presenters that were mentioned … keep your eyes on the Ignite Portland site for upcoming photos and more presentation links:

• Adam Duvander’s Simplicity Rules!
• SkinnyWhiteGirl Crystal Beasley
• Bill DeRouchey’s History of the Button (check out his slidecast from UX Week 2007)
• Urban Scout on Rewilding
• Michael Jones of the Unicycle Bastards
• Audrey Eschright on Geeks Knitting

I can’t wait to see what’s up when Ignite fires up again in January!

Chris Chiacchierini is a person who has found a way to make a difference in his own special way. He’s making a one year, one-thousand-and-one-mile journey to help children with cancer and their families.

His goal is to raise money for the Children’s Cancer Association by committing to run about 20 miles a week for the next year. Businesses and individuals can pledge a per mile amount toward his cause, and he’s journaling his runs on the website. It’s a great idea, since even a penny per mile equates to $10.01.

His journey started on September 29, 2007, and so far he’s raised a little over $4,000 in pledges and run over 50 miles.

It’s heartening to see someone take something they’re doing and use it to benefit others. It can seem so overwhelming when looking at a problem in its entirety, but by each making our own best effort to help, we can make a big difference in this world.

Chris has my best wishes, heartfelt thanks for taking the initiative, and of course, my pledge of support.

Oh, to have been at Ben’s talk at the Applied Green conference last week. Aside from all of the interesting facts and ideas about “going green”, he wrapped it up with a statement that I think gets to the essence of my frustration with both my current work environment and various industries in general:

I’m a designer. Use me better.

So many issues facing companies these days are due to a lack of design thinking … it’s too easy to either squeeze more profit (or fewer losses) from an existing process or make small, iterative changes to an existing product in order to make more money or grow an organization. The problem is, the increase in profits or growth is insanely small. You don’t get big benefits without stepping back and re-evaluating all that you do and why you do it. More often than not the answers are surprising. I’d bet that at least half of the time, the answer is, “Well, we’ve always done it that way.” A close second might be, “It’s too difficult (or costly, or bothersome, or risky, or … ?) to change that.”

The sad reality is that the costs up front to remake your process, service or product would most likely be recouped tenfold by re-envisioning the whole thing with good design in mind.

Anyone know a story of a company that’s done this well, especially if they’ve had to take apart the prior structure to do so? I’d love to have a couple of little-known, real world examples to delve into here.

For those of us in the design field, this should be a call to arms. I’m going to start finding more ways to tell others, “I’m a designer. Use me better.”

The Memetic House in Dromahair, Ireland is truly amazing. While I personally think it might be a bit disconcerting to live in, you have to appreciate the creativity it took to create something that really does “blend in” with the environment around it. A very inspiring design by Dominic Stevens.

Dan Saffer of Adaptive Path led off the day with a great keynote on new sources of inspiration for interaction designers. He pointed to three specific sources of inspiration:

1. Architecture
2. Film
3. Mechanical devices

He did a great job of covering a ton of potential material in a very tight timeframe … lots of things to consider as inspiration in each of those areas. I was especially impressed by his insights in the realm of film … I’m not a big movie buff, nor do I get the chance to watch many movies. As a result, I’ve never really gotten a chance to study much about film, other than some basics about transitions and sound effects. Dan brought to light some interesting techniques and information about various classic and modern films that I had noticed but never understood their significance.

I highly recommend looking through his slides (PDF) … the visuals alone are inspiring.

Bill DeRouchey of Ziba followed Dan Saffer with an excellent presentation of his own on learning interaction design from everyday objects. Bill brought some humor and open-ended questioning to his presentation that was refreshing, and it was nice to see how his examples complemented the prior presentation. His site, No Ideas But In Things, is a collection of interesting and intriguing things that inspire.

Rather than ramble, catch Bill’s slides (PDF) and grab the audio, too.

Just after Bill’s session finished, I had a chance to speak to him and introduce myself. In typical fashion, I introduced myself, mentioned that I was impressed with his presentation and noted the local connection (Ziba is located in my hometown, Portland, Oregon) and then promptly ran out of things to say. Ugh! So much for good impressions.

The conference wrapped up with a presentation by Cybelle Jones of Gallagher & Associates and Robert Freeland of Quatrefoil Associates, both of whom teamed up to design the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.

While their presentation was interesting, the “field trip” to the museum was fantastic. My guess is that just about every adult male in the building reverted to a 10 year old boy, geeking out on spy gear, stories and gadgets from around the world. The museum itself is well organized and covers a lot of ground (physically and informationally). The format is such that it caters to both kids and adults, with interactive exhibits and lots of background information on all of the objects in the collection. Any subsequent trips I make to D.C. will likely include a brief stop at the museum, just for fun.

All in all, UX Week was well worth the time and money. I’ve got a notebook of ideas, sketches and trivia that will inform the work I do in the near term, as well as some longer term material to learn from. I’m looking forward to next year.

Capping the whirlwind that has been the past couple of weeks, I’m in Washington, D.C. now for UX Week, which promises to be a pretty exciting and inspiring event. Adaptive Path has a great series of speakers lined up and the locale is quite nice.

I’ve followed a number of these folks’ blogs for some time now, but there’s a whole depth of communication that comes with in-person, live public speaking that you just don’t get in the written word. I’m always been amazed at how the personality of a speaker adds so much more to what they have to say … and once you’ve heard their voice in the real world, it’s easier to pick up the subtleties in their writing that you might have otherwise missed.

Come on people, let us hear your voices!

It’s always great to find a new blog that just resonates with you … as Bill DeRouchey’s History of the Button did for me today. He’s making it onto my regular reading list.

I especially enjoyed this post of his … a collection of computer objects (like keys) that have been transplanted or translated into other funny and entertaining objects of day-to-day life. In fact, I may just have to buy the Delete eraser for myself.

Brought back fond memories of receiving these Panic buttons:

They bring a smile to my face every time …

Aside from feeling like I’ve been out of circulation (in the design community sense) for way too long, I’m also finding that the whole co-working thing is reminiscent of the time I spent in my high school years hanging out with other like-minded creative folks (shout out to Eric, Nabeel and Dean … why don’t you old farts blog?) and my time in Europe, where you didn’t know anything unless you hung out at the coffee shops. It’s really amazing how the presence of other inspiring people can bring out the best in yourself and the work you do.

I came across a great video on co-working thanks to Tara Hunt’s blog, and I’m shamelessly using a quote from the video by Chris Messina for the title of my post. I think that co-working (or any shared, in-person meeting of open minds) can be a great petri dish for growing new ideas or helping older ideas grow and flourish. Chris nailed it by calling it accelerated serendipity … a beautiful description!

So, waking from my collaborative slumber only recently as part of Fourio, I think I’m going to have to check out the local co-working place, CubeSpace, and see if the next Fourio group think should be held in a more serendipitous locale.

A good friend (thanks, Glenn!) passed on a link to Results Through Integrity to me today, and the title of Douglas Ross’ blog caught my attention.

It would be an interesting exercise to ask developers and producers of technology tools to identify the ways in which their products demonstrate integrity. I’d bet that most would instantly jump to the looser definition of integrity as “integrated” or “complete”, rather than as a consistently applied set of principles. Good visual or graphic design integrity means that the presentation is consistent. Good technical integrity means that widgets and data are cleanly shared and/or connected and do not generate errors. Even with both of these in place, experiential integrity may not be present.

Experiential integrity should be a (if not “the”) key goal of any technology project, since a product or service that has this integrity will represent itself truly and accurately, allowing a consumer of the product or service full understanding of its intentions before committing to use it. Wikipedia links integrity with responsibility, citing that “implementation spawning from principles is designed with a specific outcome in mind.” This implies a willful and intentional design of desired outcomes — the experience. If these outcomes are clear throughout the product or service, it demonstrates its integrity. This integrity builds trust, because the consumer knows what to expect from the product or service.

Demonstrating this integrity by no means prevents failures from occurring, nor does it mean that a product or service will be well liked or respected. It does, however, mean that when failures do occur, the product or service should “fail” with a specific outcome in mind. It also means that even products that are not intended to be “pleasurable” to use can have experiential integrity — they provide clear and intentional outcomes as designed.

So the challenge seems to be, above and beyond developing our own personal integrity, building tools and technology that have integrity, too.