The Web is Becoming Less World Wide

Remember when newscasters would say things like the "World Wide Web" and the "Information Super Highway"? In that time period, people also used to spell out addresses starting with "h, t, t, p, colon, slash, slash, double u, double u, double u, dot". Most people don't use these terms anymore nor the "http://www" to start a site address. We refer to "the web" instead, having dropped the "world-wide" part. Is this just semantics, a desire for parsimony, or an advancement in browsers which no longer need the "www" explicitly specified? Of course, it's all of those things but it's also more in my view.

When the internet started and after that, the web, it was truly world-wide and it had the promise of transcending national boundaries. I consider myself to be a citizen of the world and don't find much use for borders. In fact, borders and fights over them have pervaded human history. The web had the promise of making borders irrelevant in important ways. Despite its early promise, I'm finding that the web is getting less world-wide every day.

Much has been made of the controversy over censorship of the web in China but restricting access to specific web content goes much deeper albeit for commercial rather than political or cultural reasons everywhere else in the world. I'm writing this while the 2010 Winter Olympic Games are going on and am able to view the games streaming in my browser from a Canadian site but others elsewhere in the world aren't able to access it. My friends and colleagues in the US have been able to watch television on hulu.com whereas nobody else in the world can. My friends and colleagues in the UK have been able to watch amazing content via the BBC iPlayer but again nobody else in the world can.

The lack of worldwide access isn't restricted to video content, it is also pervasive for other online content like books and apps. Audio books offered on audible.com aren't available universally and free offers are usually restricted to the US. Amazon similarly has a different collection by country and also offers other products in the US than it does elsewhere. Apple's iTune store creates the most frustration for me lately because it is the most US-centric, especially regarding apps. At least half of the time I hear or read about a new app coming out only to find that it isn't available outside of the US. It doesn't help that the majority of the tech media and pundits are US based and have a worldwide reach but don't typically acknowledge that fact and only talk about what is available "in this country" which means "the United States".

I'm sure you're thinking that there are ways around these electronic national borders involving the use of proxy servers but that just reinforces my point that we have to pretend we live in another country in order to have access to their content. We have to pretend to have gone to that country in order to access content on their worldwide web.

So, what's the underlying problem here? When the web initially became popular most websites were little more than online brochures about a company. Most companies had very little problem sharing their brochures electronically. In fact, it made things much less expensive not having to create as many glossy brochures. The next phase of the web involved doing actual commerce via sites. Many of the products sold online during this period were physical things such as computers and as long as you could figure out how to deliver them, things still weren't all that different. The real change came when everything went digital and almost overnight companies that sold music, books, movies, newspapers, applications and the like had to adapt not only to the challenge of copies of their material being made available for free but also the challenge that most of their business was governed by agreements that are country based. It used to be the case during the second phase that websites would have to be clever in how they showed the cost of products in different currencies. The third phase that we're in now has given up on that and simply created separate websites per country. Amazon has an entirely separate website per country and so does the iTunes store. Have a look some time to see how different the iTunes store is for various countries. I sometimes check these sites for comments that have been made about one or the other of my podcasts. In order to see them, I have to go to each country's iTunes store and, interestingly, a number of countries don't actually offer any podcasts and other countries don't provide access to any apps. If you live in your own country's version of iTunes you'd never be aware of that fact.

So where is all this going? Without any attention given this, I think we're going to see an ever increasing balkanization of the web. With the increasing use of geo-location, we could even see more filtering of content in search results and even social media serving personal and commercial interests. However, this will further reduce the worldwide nature of the web.

So what's so wrong with not being worldwide? Well, that's what we were before we had these technologies and I happen to think that the world would be a better place if the web were more worldwide. I think tensions between the peoples of different nations are lessened if they are better connected with one another. I think the sharing of news, media, and culture fosters the sense of a global village. If we all feel more like citizens of the world, we're more likely to collectively care about it and prevent its destruction. If you think that sentiment expressed in the previous sentences in the paragraph is too soft and idealistic, then let me make the point too that ensuring that the web stays worldwide will mean vastly larger markets for the companies on it. We need to fix the antiquated contracts, distribution rights, and laws so that companies will be able to derive the huge benefits of a worldwide market.

Part of the reason why I wanted to write this post is that I'm not sure how many people are aware of these changes happening to the web. If you live in a country like the US, you'll have heard of filtering and lack of access in countries like China and Iran regarding political issues but you likely haven't heard of the filtering and lack of access right across the globe for largely commercial purposes.

Sorry for the length of this post. I hadn't intended to write this much. I'd like to now turn it over to you to ask you to start the conversation on this by contributing your thoughts via comments to this post.

Mobile Usage Trends

I've noticed a dramatic change in how I use technology. I used to have a desktop computer many years ago but then switched to a notebook computer exclusively (mostly a ThinkPad). Over the past few years I've increasingly used a hand-held device as well (first an iPod Touch and then an iPhone). In addition to these changes, most of the data I work with is now stored in the "cloud". All of this has resulted in my being able to do certain types of tasks on either of my devices while some are still done better on one or the other device. I find this amazingly liberating.

Most of the tech pundits I read and listen to also talk about this type of transition in their use of technology. However, I wondered how pervasive or representative this change in usage was. As I often do, I decided to turn to Twitter to ask the followers of my @ibmdesign account to take a brief poll answering the question, "Please indicate the devices you use to do your e-mail during a typical day (check all that apply)" and giving the options of "Desktop Computer, Notebook Computer, Smartphone, and Other". I chose e-mail given that it can be done reasonably well on any of these devices.

The poll was completed by 228 people (thanks to those who responded!) and the results showed that 39.5 percent of e-mail was done using a Notebook Computer, 38.2 percent was done using a Smartphone, and only 22.4 percent was done on a Desktop Computer. Although there was an "Other" category, most of the responses could have been placed into the other categories so I did that to simplify the analysis. So it appears that Notebook Computers and Smartphones are used almost equally and Desktop Computers are used relatively little. Who would have thought just a few years ago that we'd be doing half of our e-mail using our phones? It's important to point out that the poll asked respondents to "check all that apply" so the results shouldn't be interpreted as indicating that 38.2 percent of respondents exclusively use their Smartphones for doing e-mail. In reality, most people likely do some of their e-mail on a Smartphone and leave a certain portion of it to a time when they have a Notebook or Desktop Computer at their disposal. I find that I don't deal with e-mails that are more involved, have extensive attachments, or require me to write a lengthy reply on the iPhone but leave those to deal with on my ThinkPad.

It'll be interesting to see what will happen to these trends when Apple's iPad is introduced into the mix. How do you think these trends will change as a result? Please use the comment mechanism to provide your thoughts on this.

Mobile Work

I've observed colleagues for years walking around with their Blackberries staying connected with their work. While I've stayed connected with work via cellphone and texting, I haven't until very recently used a smartphone to connect to work e-mail, intranet, and other work applications. I've just installed IBM Lotus Notes Traveler and I absolutely love it. I now have my work e-mail, calendar, contacts, to do lists all directly integrated seamlessly into the relevant apps and services on my iPhone. Through VPN on the iPhone, I also now have access to the company intranet and services like chat messaging.

I find it amazingly convenient to be able to quickly check my work e-mail while in line at the coffee shop and to look up where my first meeting of the day is when I'm running late and don't have time to take out and open up my notebook computer. It's an amazing time saver and uses the form factor I so love.

When I think about the convenience of having work information available like this on the device that's always in my podcast, I can imagine the utility of having it available on the somewhat larger but equally enjoyable iPad. I'm looking forward to that. There is one feature that I haven't heard anyone mention with regard to these devices that I think is critical for accessing work systems and that's fingerprint recognition. That would be so useful and Apple cool.

As always, I'd appreciate any thoughts you may have on my thoughts. By the way, I also wrote this post on my iPhone.

Specialization of Sites

Almost a year ago I decided to integrate my podcast sites into this single blog site. The thinking was that I would eliminate the other sites over time and have everything I do integrated into this site. I would provide an overview of the podcast episode and a widget for playing the podcast right on this site. I've been doing that but I didn't get rid on the other sites and ended up simply doing more work and perhaps not providing much value to you the readers/listeners of my stuff. I also observed the communities that interact with the two podcasts and on this site and determined that they are to some degree quite different. While the UXDesignCast podcast has listeners who are in the user experience design set of disciplines or planning to be, the Life Habits podcast has an amazingly diverse audience of listeners only a small portion of which overlap with the audience of the UXDesignCast one. Although I'm the common denominator, the two different audiences shouldn't necessarily hang out at the same place nor would they want to. It's like throwing a party and inviting all of your friends even though one subgroup of friends has very little in common with those in the other subgroup. I think we need to start to think about social sites like this not only with regard to the information they provide and the users consuming that information but also the community or communities who provide input and share their own information as well.

I'm now planning to back to reserving this blog for true blogging and keeping the podcast show notes sites for the specific communities who listen to those shows. So, the Life Habits podcast can be found at lifehabits.net as well as on iTunes and the Zune Marketplace. The UXDesignCast podcast can be found at uxdesigncast.com as well as on iTunes and the Zune Marketplace as well. In addition, we now also include the UXDesignCast podcast episodes on the ibm.com/design site as well in the resources section. In the end it may well be less work for me and simpler and more enjoyable for you. I also still have the UXDesignCast and Life Habits podcast latest episodes available on this site in the right column.

As always, I'd greatly appreciate any thoughts you may have on this.

Is Blogging Dead?

I was shocked when I realized that I hadn't blogged here since November 6th last year. Of course I've mini-blogged via Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and audio-blogged via UXDesignCast and Life Habits podcasts. I've even hosted a webcast or two. The problem is that I always argue with others who say that blogging is dead having been replaced by these newer alternatives. I argue that we still need the longer format so that you can express deeper, wider, and longer thoughts than a 140 character space affords. However, my own behavior has betrayed me.

I refuse to give up on the concept that blogging is important for the following reasons.

1.  Bloggers need to write the material that everyone else can write tweets and Facebook updates about. It's bad enough that we seem to be losing investigative journalists who can spend time to get into depth and truly investigate a story. If we lose bloggers, we'll have even fewer sources of original material. I did some investigation some years ago into the practice within academia of citing journal articles without actually reading them. I tracked down the original article that virtually all journal articles in a particular research area cited and found out that it didn't say at all what people thought it said. I then proceeded to do the actual research properly and published it in a prestigious journal and now that paper is often cited at least as often as the original. My point is that we now have many, many people on these social networking sites looking for things to communicate which is great if there is enough source material to communicate about. With newspapers decreasing and if blogging also declines, there's is very little source material left. What are we left with then? Celebrity gossip. Argh.
2. We need original thought and a mechanism to express it openly using as many characters, words, and paragraphs that are needed. I often listen to podcasts that are longer versions of radio programs. I don't listen to live radio or TV for that matter. I find it interesting that the hosts point out that the full interviews are available only in the podcast form. I prefer to hear the whole story, not some edited down few minutes. I listen to audio books and always download the unabridged version. I can't imagine not wanting the whole book. That's how I see blogs - the full, unabridged version. I still like to read tweets or Facebook updates that point me to interesting blogs - that's how I now find them by and large. I also still use an RSS reader but don't use it as much for getting pointers to blogs to read.

So, blogs are still important but there's still a problem. There are still only 24 hours in a day (although a Facebook friend showed me how to increase it to 26 hours BTW). If you're tweeting, Facebooking, podcasting, and reading tweets, Facebook updates, and listening to podcasts and audiobooks, when do you have time to blog? The answer is one that I give regularly in episodes of my Life Habits podcast: determine your priorities and plan your time accordingly. I sometimes load up my iPhone with an episode or two of my own podcasts, particularly the Life Habits one and listen to my own advice. I'll do that in this case too and, in turn, devote some more time to thinking, writing longer than 140 character thoughts, and thus contributing to the content others can tweet about.

As always, I'd greatly appreciate your thoughts on my thoughts using the comment capability of this blog or via Twitter, Facebook, my podcast shownotes sites, or wherever you'd like.

Thanks for doing your part in contributing to the survival of the blogosphere.

Social Software

We're all familiar with Social Software like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and blogs in the consumer space but little is often said about making this capability available in the enterprise space. I post regularly to all these systems and have done for some time but have been looking forward to a complete solution to use inside a company and behind its firewall as well. The latest release of our IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 product does just that. Listen to my interview with two of the lead designers on the project in this podcast.

Micro-blogging, Typography, Clouds, and Browsers

Joining me on this episode of UXDesignCast are Jay Trimble (Group Lead for the User Centered Technology Group, NASA Ames Research Center), Keith Instone (Information Architecture Lead, IBM CIO’s Office, IBM.com), and Eliane Tozman (User Interface Designer, IBM Media Design Studio). The panel discusses the new way of using Web 2.0 including micro-blogging behind corporate firewalls with IBM Lotus Connections 2.5, the recent typography choices make by IKEA and what impact they may have, the need to consider the total cloud user experience importantly including ISPs, the implications for designers of Google’s Chrome Frame, key principles for and examples of effective Rich Internet Application (RIA) design, and planning for World Usability Day.

Multi-sense and Multi-tasking Experience

There was a time not that long ago when people would use a single sense and carry out a single task in a single place. We now tend to use multiple senses and carry out multiple tasks while moving from place to place.

There are advantages and disadvantages of the technologies that make this possible. Fans of technology, like myself, tend to focus on the huge benefits of essentially doing more and having a wider sensory experience while doing it. Critics of technology focus on the negatives involving safety, health, and overall quality of work and life. The fans and critics are both right and we as users of technology (and some of us as designers of technology) should periodically take stock of whether the right balance has been struck given the particular context of use.

For example, I started writing this post on the treadmill while listening to a podcast. The ability to do three things at once when we all have so little time in a day is so tempting thanks to these technologies. I find that listening to music, podcasts, or audiobooks while on the treadmill or driving is the perfect combination. Listening to podcasts or audiobooks while answering email or tweeting also works but I typically have to switch to instrumental music while writing something more substantial that requires more thought and attention. For certain types of work, I have to turn off all sound and instant messaging/texting clients and focus on a single-task. I got off the treadmill and switched to instrumental music to finish this post.

We all have different thresholds when it comes to what we desire as a minimum level of multi-sense and multi-tasking as well as what the maximum level of these that we can handle. In addition, certain situations and types of work should further determine the optimal level. I think we need to find those thresholds and consider contexts to determine the right level in a particular situation.

Of course, then we all also need to take the occasional sabbatical from technology entirely to think freely and fully experience the world and people around us. I worry that we don't do that enough with the ready availability of all this technology all the time.

As always, I'd greatly appreciate your thoughts on this via the commenting mechanism.

Cloud User Experience

I first wrote about the concept of the Total User Experience some fifteen years ago. Back then it was all about finding out about a product, going to a store to buy it, actually buying it, unboxing it, installing it, using it, getting help with using it, getting additional support when the help didn't help, and upgrading or uninstalling it. During this time virtually all applications ran right on your computer and the resulting files created were saved there as well. We've witnessed a gradual evolution of that total user experience with more and more of it involving the web. Advertising went online, then buying and directly downloading products. Increasingly, help and support have been available over the web too. The last aspect of the user experience to move to the web is the application itself and its data.

The move of all aspects of what used to comprise the total user experience to the web has, interestingly, created a new total user experience focussed on the online experience itself. Perhaps the most important aspect of that experience in staying connected online.

Most people's concerns regarding so-called cloud computing center on the uptime of the cloud vender's service. While this is important, the service interuptions from the major vendors have been very infrequent and relatively brief. However, an often overlooked aspect of the cloud user experience is the uptime of ISPs and company and home networking systems.

I had a disruption of service from my ISP yesterday for about five hours. This prevented me from doing my work and anything else online. The support staff, while friendly, didn't seem to understand or appreciate how serious a problem like this is when you're using cloud computing. ISPs have to realize their importance in the total cloud user experience for it to work effectively. This is an aspect of cloud computing that is often disregarded. I believe it is critically important and may well turn out to be the weak link in the cloud computing strategy unless ISPs come to understand their new role in the total cloud computing user experience.

As always, I'd appreciate your thoughts on this topic via the comment mechanism.

Future UI Directions

We used to have server computers, desktop computers, and notebook computers. Life was simple. We still have all those but we now also have the iPhone, iPod Touch, and Palm Pre. We're also soon going to have a whole bunch of tablets and possibly one from Apple too.

From a design perspective, we're seeing two entirely different user interface paradigms and interaction styles currently--computer and mobile. On the computer side, we have three basic flavors all of which are pretty well the same--Windows, OSX, and Linux. On the mobile side, we have the iPhone/Touch and the Pre operating systems which are also quite similar to one another. When tablets are introduced, they'll likely have a UI much more similar to the mobile than the computer paradigms. Given the hype about the tablets before any have been released and Apple hasn't even confirmed they're working on one, they'll likely be highly successful. If so, it'll be interesting to see what happens to computer OS UIs. Add into the mix the fact that most applications will be in the cloud, have a browser as their app container, and the fact that Google is developing an operating system optimized for this environment and we have a dramatically changing environment.

All of this suggests that we're in for an interesting and exciting time over the next while given this evolution of user interfaces and interaction styles. I believe the future will involve a combination of what we see in the mobile space today together with what we see as cloud-based Rich Internet Applications in the browser. What we know as computer user interfaces and interaction styles today will be a thing of the past and won't be carried into the future, although this may take a while to be fully realized given the install-base of traditional computers and operating systems. I believe designers need to stay on top of these paradigm shifts in user interface and user interaction because the rate of change is increasing dramatically. We may even see a reemergence of voice, possibly large gesture (beyond touch with fingers), and hopefully a sixth-sense style display sometime in the near future too. We may get that Minority Report dream yet.

As always, I'd greatly appreciate hearing any views you may have on this via the comment facility below.

Designing Business Space

Joining me for this podcast episode are Davis Neable (User Experience Professional, IBM Software Group) and Cale Vardy (Visual Designer, IBM Software Group Media Design Studio) talking about the design of IBM Business Space Powered by WebSphere. After introductions, the user research that was carried out is outlined as is the development of persona and user stories, the early wireframe designs and over time high fidelity designs, and the user feedback that was collected throughout the project. Design challenges are summarized together with the innovative design solutions. In addition, the pros and cons of distributed design and development were discussed as well as the technologies the team used to optimize their design work.

Producing a Podcast - Part II

I covered everything to think about, plan, and get in order to produce a podcast in Part I a number of blog posts ago. I'll cover the actual recording and post-production in this post. The recording setup is a little different for the case of recording a podcast with only me speaking versus the case when I have one or more guests. I use Audacity for the former and Pamela for the latter. Audacity is an amazing Open Source tool for recording and editing audio. It is also free. You can get it at SourceForge.net. Pamela is a call management tool for Skype which also does an amazing job of recording one or more Skype calls. Pamela isn't free but isn't very expensive.

When I record a podcast with just myself using Audacity, I ensure that my microphone is appropriately selected as the capture device in the operating system as well as in Audacity

itself by selecting Edit, then Preferences, and selecting the Audio I/O tab. I set the recording volume level as high as possible without distorting which for me is about the seven mark on the gauge. I also watch the visualization of the recording to ensure that levels don't get to high or too low. If I make a mistake, I simply leave a pause and then start again. I look for pauses during post-production in order to remove the sections with any errors.

When I'm doing a podcast with guests, I get them all to download and register with Skype. Computer to computer Skype is free and provides the best possible recording quality. I also have Skype-out which allows me to call a land line or cell phone from my computer but I try not to use that option too often because it lowers the quality of the sound. I get the sound levels right by recording my guests and I while we talk informally before the call about planning and logistics. That type of discussion is normally important anyway but also provides the ability to adjust the Pamela and Skype recording levels. I also send out the following checklist to my podcast guests a week or more prior to the actual recording.

Please take a few minutes to go over these instructions and

guidelines well before the scheduled podcast recording.

• Install Skype if you don't already have it or if you already have it installed, make sure you have the latest version (via Help -> Latest Updates)
• Search for and connect with Skype userid "******" - that's the account that will call you on Skype just prior to the recording session
• Use a wired internet connection if possible although wireless will work if fast enough
• Make sure there are no other computers in the house (if you're recording from home) that are using the internet during the recording session
• Stop all resource intensive applications running on your computer
• Use a good quality headset and test it with the "Echo/Sound Test Service" in your Skype contacts list - (the computer mic is of insufficient quality)
• Make sure to participate on the podcast in a quiet setting with no background noise or distractions
• Please turn off all messaging clients (Sametime, MSN, etc.)
• Turn the ringer off on a phones and cell phones within earshot - even vibrate can be heard on the recording
• Keep a 3-6 inch distance of the microphone from your mouth and do not touch the microphone while we're recording
• If you need to adjust the microphone or headset during the call or cough, use the mute button on Skype, and remember to turn it off before talking
• Podcasts are quite informal so feel free to speak naturally in the way you would normally have a conversation with someone at a conference
• Make sure to sign-in to your Skype account a few minutes before the scheduled recording

I go over this checklist with my guests prior to the recording session to ensure that phones are turned off in particular.

At the conclusion of the recording, I save the session in Pamela as a wave file.

Whereas the two types of podcasts are recorded using different technologies, I edit both using Audacity with the same techniques. I first delete any discussion before and after the actual recording. I next look for any mistakes, obvious undesirable sounds (lip smacks, pops, ums and ahs), and long pauses. I select them and delete them, often first listening to them while selected to ensure I'm getting the right section.

After the editing is complete, I run the full audio through several filters by selecting All on the Edit menu and then selecting the filters from the Effects menu. I first Compress, then Normalize, and finally Amplify. This ensures that I'll have a reduced file size with consistent quality and volume of audio. I next put in the introductory music segment via the Project menu and Import Audio. I position the two audio tracks by using the Time Shift Tool. I next generate the mp3 file by selecting Export as mp3 from the File menu.

Now I've got the full mp3 file but need to add album art and text to the file so that visual identifier

for the particular podcast shows on the iPhone or iPod and that the information about the podcast shows when the screen is tapped. I mentioned the Apple products but I actually try to make my podcasts available to as wide as audience as possible and use the mp3 format for that purpose. Apple's own aac format has the advantage of being able to include multiple images throughout the podcast but acc files can only be used on Apple products. The mp3 format is much more pervasive and can be played on virtually all systems. I use iTunes to add the album art and text by copying the mp3 file into iTunes and then right mouse clicking on the entry, selecting Get info, and then using the Artwork tab and the Lyrics tab to add the album art and text respectively.

The last stage involves uploading the file using FileZilla, another great free Open Source program. I use Podbean for my podcast hosting. They have a free version to get started. I use Podbean to create the requisite rss tags. I first had to submit my podcasts to iTunes (and the Zune Marketplace is available to do that too) but after that, the podcast episodes automatically appear in iTunes and are delivered directly to subscribers as well.

I've tried to be detailed in my description but if any of this wasn't clear or you'd like to contribute your own experiences and recommendations, please feel free to use the commenting facility below to continue the discussion. Happy podcasting!

Accessible Kiosk Touch Screen Design

My guest for this UXDesignCast podcast episode was Bill Curtis-Davidson of the IBM Ability and Accessibility Center. Bill describes the IBM’s kiosk business, outlines the accessiblity challenges with kiosks, details the innovative solution he designed, and summarizes the feedback he’s received on the design. We also discuss the generalizability of the solutions discussed to other touch-based user interfaces beyond kiosks. Additional information on this project is available in the Design Gallery section of our Design@IBM site.

Social Networking: The Walled Garden

Like many of you, I'm on the major social networking systems Twitter and Facebook and also contribute content on this blog, two podcasts, and two websites. The problem I see is that each of these systems is a walled garden. Podcaster Leo Laporte has been talking about this in general lately too. When I write a post here, people read it and make comments on the blog itself. I also tweet about it on Twitter and send it as a link on Facebook. The latter two also often generate further discussion within Twitter and Facebook. The blog content is picked up by other sites and blogs which leads to further discussion there. The problem is that nothing pulls this all together. Readers of this blog don't see some of the great comments followers have tweeted on Twitter or friends have left on Facebook unless you follow me on Twitter or are a friend of mine on Facebook. Add to that, the comments regarding podcasts which are in iTunes and on the respective show notes sites.

It is interesting to point out that this mostly relevant to comments made rather than the originating content. Tools like TweetDeck allow you to post content to Twitter and Facebook accounts and blog posts and podcasts themselves are syndicated via RSS but the comments about any of this content remains within the social networking walled gardens. To continue the analogy, it is like the hosts of garden parties freely walk from one garden to the next but their guests have to stay within the walls of their designated parties.

A solution here isn't obvious and likely is being worked hard by people at Facebook, Twitter, and Google. The challenge is that some of these systems are wide open like Twitter while others are closed like Facebook. While Facebook is working on making itself more open (and the recent purchase of FriendFeed will likely expedite this), I still think that it needs to tread carefully. Rather than making everything wide open on Facebook, my vote would be to have a checkbox on a post or comment indicating that it can be shared or perhaps a more pervasive option but one that is still under the control of the user. Then we also need the ability to aggregate all content related to a particular topic. For example, all comments about this blog post whether they were written in the comment box here or a reply on Twitter, or a comment in Facebook would appear or be directly accessible from each of those sources.

As always, I welcome your thoughts - using whichever walled commenting system you'd like.

Browser Design

Operating systems are becoming less important and browsers more important as data move into the cloud and virtually all our interactions whether we're using a computer or a smart phone are through a browser. Even though we often read market share numbers for the various browsers in the press, I was interested in learning what readers of this blog and followers of my Twitter accounts used. Readers of this blog are three times more likely to use Firefox as they are to use Internet Explorer or Safari and those browsers are used about equally by the blog readers. Chrome is about half as popular as IE and Safari. Opera use hardly registers. Let's now look at browser use by the followers on Twitter. As shown in the pie chart, Firefox is used by 61% of followers, Chrome by 12%, Safari by 11%, IE by 10%, and Opera by 4%. Firefox leads by a large margin is browser use when considering blog readers or Twitter followers. Safari and IE are clustered together in second place and Chrome is in that pack based on the Twitter results too. Opera doesn't appear to be in the running.

What leads to these results and why are they so different from the numbers typically reported in the press? Many argue that the higher numbers in the press reported for IE are due to users of computers running Windows who simply haven't or don't know how to use a browser other than the one that came installed on their computer. Readers of this blog and followers of the Twitter account are likely more advanced users who have made a choice of which browser they want to use. Incidentally, the Safari numbers are likely increasing due to the increase in Macs, iPhones, and iPod Touches with the latter two having only Safari available as a browser and Macs have the choice currently of Safari and Firefox (with half the blog readers who use Macs using Safari and half Firefox). Interestingly, only one reader in the past month used Safari on Windows.

If the readers and followers are more discerning, what are they using as their primary criteria for choosing a browser. I asked my Twitter followers to list their top three criteria and here's what they said:

• easy and clear GUI, low memory usage, amount of available addons that are useful
• speed, tabs, does it behave with applications like a web meeting
• Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, in other words standards based
• speed, speed, and speed
• speed, organization of my info such as downloads/history/bookmarks, and lack of Microsoft influence
• availability of add-ons, speed, tab browsing
• speed, fewer buttons, customized extensions (zotero); as a result I am most often using FF, and waiting for zotero on chrome
• security, speed, compatibility with the sites I visit (aka adherence to web standards)
• starts fast; loads pages fast; flash and java support
• my company standard (IE), what my web visitors use (IE), habit (IE). Chrome is nice but IE has my cookies
• it's not IE, it's not IE, still not IE
• it is what my users use based on web logs, same, same (always ends up as IE)
• speed, security, apps
• speed, reliability, developer tools. only since chrome have I considered speed to be really important
• that it's not written by Microsoft, speed, support for social services (delicious, twitter etc)

A pretty interesting set of responses. There are a few common themes. The importance of speed was mentioned 12 times and people tend to feel pretty strongly about IE both positively and negatively. Web standards was mentioned several times and, interestingly, as a reason to use IE. Add-ons and extensions were a factor too and mostly in relation to Firefox.

I personally haven't used IE for a number of years other than for the one or two applications that I need to use which only work in IE. I've used Firefox as my primary browser on Windows and Mac until very recently when I've moved to Chrome on Windows and am waiting for it to be made available on the Mac. The speed of Chrome, particularly in rendering JavaScript, the single search/address bar, the minimal browser UI especially in application mode, and the addition of themes recently motivated me to make Chrome my default browser. I'm very pleased with it. I hope that all those who develop browsers will follow Google's lead with its Chrome browser. As always, I'd very much appreciate it if you would use the comment feature of this blog to share any thoughts you may have on this. Thanks.

Open Source Design

Open Source Software (OSS) is an interesting phenomenon. The idea of having many developers working individually and together for free to create an offering for others to use is truly intriguing. I'd recommend reading Chris Anderson's new book, "Free: The Future of a Radical Price" for an explanation for the motivation behind this type of free contribution. I've been interested for some time in the aspects of Open Source software that are done well and the aspects that aren't done as well. I've also been interested in the related issue of the relative contribution to Open Source projects by developers versus designers. Let's first start with the general interest in Open Source Software. I asked my Twitter followers to take a poll asking them what type of software they preferred and fully 65% indicated that they prefer open source software. The reasons given included the fact that it is free and that they like the philosophy behind it. However, the reasons often given for preferring proprietary/commercial software is better design and support. When I asked the followers who are designers whether they had contributed to an open source project, only 11 percent said that they had and 95 percent were of the view that we needed a better system for having designers contribute to open source projects.

Many of the open source projects I've seen do need help in the area of user experience design. There are exceptions but most of those involve design contributed from a company that directly funds that work and often that results in a commercial offering. In fact, some would argue that it is the addition of good user experience design that provides the business value to create a commercial product from an open source project. Is that the only way to improve the design of open source projects? I'd very much appreciate it if you would use the comment section below to provide any ideas you may have on how to improve the design of open source software.

Electronic Communication Podcast

I've been thinking a lot about the various types of electronic communication that we deal with everyday and have blogged about aspects of it here as well. I've put together my thoughts and advice on everything from Facebook and Twitter to texting, instant messaging, e-mail, conference calling, and video conferencing in a podcast episode in my Life Habits series. I discuss my thoughts on how to effectively use these mechanisms as well as how to limit them as well. You can subscribe to the series via the iTunes store as well as the Zune store. You can also listen to the podcast episode right here on the blog. As usual, I'd very much appreciate any feedback you may have on the podcast episode via a comment on this blog and/or on the relevant pages within the iTunes and Zune stores.

Business Landscape of Design Podcast

Joining Karel on this episode are Val Fox (Director, Innovative Technology Solutions, Ryerson University), Keith Instone (Information Architecture Lead, IBM CIO’s Office, IBM.com), and Eliane Tozman (User Interface Designer, IBM Media Design Studio). The panel discusses the recent announcements of Bing and Chrome OS, followed by a description of the Ryerson Digital Playground and the poll results relating to the design impact on purchase decisions. The interesting link for this month is the what is a browser video and the community news regarding the call for papers for CHI 2009 and the new UX Book Club initiative.

Design Impact on Purchase Decisions

Most people involved in user experience design spend the majority of their effort on honing their skills and applying them in creating a great look and feel for the offerings on which they work. However, it is often necessary to clearly communicate the business value of that design work. The most important business metric is often the impact of the design on purchase decisions. Similar to the surveys I've conducted in the past on this, I recently decided to poll the followers I have on my @ibmdesign Twitter account. I asked them the question, "what percentage of your product purchase decisions are typically based on the look and feel of the user interface?" and received the responses visualized in this pie chart. A total of 88% of respondents reported that look and feel was the basis of the purchase decision more than half of the time and 32% reported that it was the basis of their decision 76-100% of the time. These results corroborate and further extend previous findings which indicated that half of purchase decisions are based solely on the look and feel of the user interface.

As usual, please feel free to provide any thoughts you may have on this using the comment mechanism provided.

Mobile Blogging

I have a mobile device with me at all time and a computer only some of the time. I therefore thought I should try out writing and uploading blog posts remotely. I'm writing this post using my iPod Touch while I'm on vacation.

I'm finding that I'm doing more and more using a mobile device. I do the majority of my tweeting, a significant amount of my e-mail, as well as rss reading, facebooking, and even checking my Google Analytics on a mobile device. So, blogging makes sense too.

I'd love to hear about your experiences in using mobile platforms via the commenting mechansim below.