Ghost in the Pixel

Fresh off my unfortunate experience of having my GMail and Facebook accounts hacked–resulting in an overwhelming task of simultaneously allaying fears, changing passwords, and canceling credit cards–I’ve lately been wondering how to design for panic. In the sense of, how does one design a software interface (especially web-based UI accessed by literally millions per day, say like…Facebook or GMail :-) towards supporting that once-in-a-lifetime, super rare but incredibly urgent use case of “oh crap! i’ve been hacked! now what??”. I grant it’s not a common use case, but it’s perhaps the most urgent one when it does happen.

When you’re panicked, your body and mind start to shut down, fueled by surging adrenaline and so forth, focusing like a laser beam on your immediate survival and defense goals. No patience for dancing clowns across my screen or banner Flash movie ads, or survey pop-ups. Nor any patience to “figure out a UI”–I just want that damn “emergency button”–whatever that may be, RIGHT NOW!! In that powerful, all-consuming time of panic, I want a gigantic red loud Staples Easy button, screw aesthetics and elegance and all that. Because when you’ve been hacked, speed and timing are of the essence to get things back under your control. To relieve anxiety and stress. To regain that comforting normalcy of just everyday clicking links and scanning pages. To know that everything is OK.

How can a design (and the designer) address such a hopefully rare yet urgent case? In my situation, I had to go through every site’s navigational structure (menus, tabs, links) to ascertain where I could quickly a) change my password and b) report a hack/phish attack on my account. Or if there’s a search field, I just used that to short-circuit the confusing navigational paths, and hopefully get “the right link” that i desperately needed!

A few quick, easy fixes come to mind for making all this smoother:

** On the login screen below the usual credentials fields, have explicit links for “change password” and “been hacked?” (in addition to “forgot my password”…b/c when you’ve realized you’ve been hacked the first thing you feel you ought to do–out of fear– is try to change your password and get access back in.)

** Standardized universal location in upper left/right a link for “change password” and “been hacked? click here”

** Duplicate those links in the page footer as well

** Robust search field where typing in “change password” or “i’ve been hacked” calls up the correct links. That really should be use case number one, IMHO.

Of course, there should be multiple levels of security for changing your password, or reporting suspected hack/phish attack on your account. The form for filling out a phish/hack attack should be extremely short and sweet, with all required fields at the very top, boldly labeled, in large field type size (again, physiological affects of panic, pupils shrink, small type harder to parse, with your heart racing 100 mph, simply got “no time to think”, you just want to get it done ASAP!) and any optional fields below the fold, or in a separate collapsible section.

I found the Google hack/phish report form way too long, with required fields all over the page which I had to scroll down, etc. asking things like “last 5 email addresses used” and “when I started using GMail”–huh? who remembers that when you’re freaking out??

Also of great help would be some friendly, empathetic “counseling tips”, about what to do if you think you’ve been hacked/phished and how to protect yourself RIGHT NOW. It’s a traumatic crisis situation. So what are the top actions you should do RIGHT NOW? Call the FBI? Call your credit card companies? Call home and let mom/dad know you’re not really mugged and stranded in London? All three? Whew!

Another idea: How about helping the hapless victim by sharing the burden of notifying key people via SMS or email from a temporary “emergency account” or sending out a voice recorded message (your voice) to your friends’ phones? Of course all of this will require multiple security levels to prove it’s you and not someone monkeying around creating more chaos. I’m just brainstorming on the fly, but there must be ways to handle these situations, simply, efficiently, and creatively.

Being hacked/phished may sound like a minor annoyance that only happens to Internet newbies with hillbilly accents, but if and when it happens to you (and it will), it’s an incredibly serious violation of trust, confidence, security, etc. (And more on that soon…) It can be an emotionally traumatic moment of dire panic as you realize potentially EVERYTHING is now in the hands of someone who could be highly sophisticated and malicious or just a bored teenager. But at that moment, you don’t care. You just want to fix things NOW. So as designers we should leverage our empathic and imaginative abilities to help shape a smooth handling of those moments of online panic whenever they occur.

Here are a couple very thought-provoking pieces from this past week that deserve some extra attention, on the role of design research and the nature of interaction design in practice. Enjoy…

** Don Norman: Technology First, Needs Last

I’ve come to a disconcerting conclusion: design research is great when it comes to improving existing product categories but essentially useless when it comes to new, innovative breakthroughs. I reached this conclusion through examination of a range of product innovations, most especially looking at those major conceptual breakthroughs that have had huge impact upon society as well as the more common, mundane small, continual improvements

[Note: Steve Portigal has written a rather eloquent and insightful post, as he says, to “reframe, rather than refute” Don’s statement, located here.]

** Jon Kolko: Our Misguided Focus on Brand and UX

If there is a future for designers and marketers in big business, it lies not in brand, nor in “UX”, nor in any colorful way of framing total control over a consumer, such as “brand equity”, “brand loyalty”, the “end to end customer journey”, or “experience ownership”. It lies instead in encouraging behavioral change and explicitly shaping culture in a positive and lasting way.

Last week I visited the newly opened Walt Disney Family Museum in the Presidio in SF, as part of my client’s UX Team offsite. What a remarkable visit it was– simply very inspiring for a team pursuing compelling, emotionally engaging innovation. To those fearing something overly sugary and smarmy–fear not! It’s quite understated in overall style and indeed, frankly “Un-Disney”, at least how Disney “the brand” is popularly conceived. Disney “the man”, however, was quite a character and pioneer, along the lines of Edwin Land (Poloroid), Henry Ford, or even Steve Jobs. Indeed a few of us wondered aloud afterwards–“Was Walt Disney the Steve Jobs of his day?” Hmm! Overall, highly recommend it for any designer or product/service innovator.

A few key takeaways:

** Circular process/organizational chart: There’s a fabulous chart of the Disney studios which starts with Walt at the top and a giant circular flow of inputs/outputs to “production” and “management”, ending with the “audience broadcast” at the bottom. But Walt is firmly the firestarter, the visionary, the driver.

** “It’s a nice film sequence but not essential to the story”: One of the film clips shown among the various monitors/TV screens throughout the museum relayed the story of someone laboring for over 8 MONTHS on an amazing little animated sequence which didn’t make the final cut b/c as Walt said, it didn’t fit the story. Sounds like a good director/brand manager/leader at work!

** Snow White was a make or break high risk achievement. And it worked. It was the first feature film of its kind and was a major risky adventure but again Walt stuck to the story and motivated the team to forge ahead, not go through a “death march” of feature cuts and so forth like in software. Sleeping Beauty apparently took 6 yrs and 6 million dollars (a massive amount back then) b/c it had to be done just right, including novel multi-plane camera systems, etc. Sound familiar? Kinda like Pixar’s film projects! Hmm…

** Lots of concept art: Tons of paintings, sketches, illustrations of characters, scenes, and especially facial expressions were done for each Disney studio production. The faces in particular are what make an animated character come to life, conveying emotions that we as viewers can resonate with and empathize, in support of a powerful yet simple story. But it all starts with sketches and explorations.

** Prototyping: Walt even coined a fancy acronym based upon the notion of a community dedicated to prototyping new technologies and futuristics, progressive lifestyles of life enhancement / enjoyment — EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow). It was originally meant as a place for the big companies of the day (IBM, Xerox, GE, etc.) to continually invent new products and services, a living lab of sorts.

At long last my article arguing against data-driven design methods in favor of aesthetic, soulful digital experiences has been published in ACM Interactions (Nov/Dec 2009): Data, Design, and Soulful Experience. Extra special thanks to Co-Editor in Chief Jon Kolko for asking me to contribute some thoughts on this critical topic. Indeed, in the magazine’s table of contents, you’ll see that my article is just one among several excellent pieces concerning the authenticity of experience and theories of humanity. Because, in the end, that’s what it’s all about–striving for that enchanting, delightful, and authentic engagement that makes us that much more…human.

OK so I’ve been quietly lurking and observing and shaking my head (and fist sometimes!) as I read through the recent fierce & incessant debates raging on the IxDA list over “UCD” vs “ACD” vs “genius” or “beauty vs usability”…Sigh. Folks, let’s give it a fracking rest. Geez!!

Maybe because I was trained in a highly pluralistic environment at Michigan and CMU (where the focus wasn’t about defining your own unique style for a slick portfolio, but learning how to interpret multiple viewpoints and models) but I for the life of me just don’t understand why designers in 2009 (with having over 200 years of design history to learn from) don’t get the fact that a good design involves a balanced set of qualities. It’s not a “versus” per se, like a zero-sum game with one ultimate winner, but rather a kind of dialectical synthesis.

Every praised example of “good design” (whether it’s Apple’s iPhone, Google Maps, OXO Good Grips, IKEA’s stores/wares or Adobe Lightroom or Mint.com) embodies multiple simultaneous qualities of genius AND talent AND analysis AND data AND activity-centrism AND goal-task centrism AND engineering focus and oh yes, business savvy–in all kinds of different ratios. The problem here isn’t about which “model” wins out–whatever the heck that means. The challenge, as I’ve repeated a few times before–as inspired by Dick Buchanan’s Rhetorical Approach–is a “negotiated balance” of values & attitudes tuned to the particular context and circumstances and…the designer involved!

It really just comes down to purpose. What’s the purpose to be fulfilled by the proposed solution, by this endeavor, by this designer? Quite simply, what are we striving for? A sophisticated lifestyle image a la Apple, or an earthy yet futuristic humanitarian quality a la Prius, or a nuts-and-bolts can-do product like Google Docs?

A quick point about “the hired designer”: I believe an experienced designer brings a diverse set of ideas or “postures” to the table, informed by years of judgment and evolved skills and reflective insights. This is just natural. Yet for some reason, rabidly pro-UCD defenders seem to dismiss this as just “designing for yourself”, which reveals how little about designing –the actual activity itself– these supposed design experts really know!

Indeed, the fact is there are multiple design “postures” that can be assumed in the course of a designer’s involvement with a project, and indeed various designers may develop a solid posture as their philosophical outlook, over the course of their career and life. Just look at architects! It takes them decades to achieve their position, like Frank Gehry or Zaha Hadid or Renzo Piano, etc–each evolving and establishing their signature style, yes, but also their process, philosophy, principles, values, and goals that defines who they are and their problem-solving approach or “posture”.

So what do I mean by “posture”?

One posture (let’s call it “existential” or “ego”) might be where the designer projects his own interpretation of the problem and solution, through the force of personality and vision. Typically this is often referred as “designing for yourself” or “genius design” or being Philippe Starcke (ha!) but it is one approach, sometimes legitimate in many cases where there’s so much organizational chaos or marketplace desperation that a bold defiant striking vision must be commanded.

Another posture (let’s call it “contextual”) could be where the designer focuses on the perceived implicit relations of elements (components, widgets, tasks, content, features, etc.) and how they should be framed, organized, choreographed per some deliberately detailed analysis of a specific context of its own meaning.

Yet another posture (let’s say “participatory” or “cultural”) may be where a designer stages a conversation for direct, multi-layered engagement with users, cultures, and values towards understanding the problem and solution spaces, where meaning/purpose is constantly shifting, arising from an ongoing dialogue shaped strategically.

And I could go on and on…but the fact remains that in any design effort there’s always a mix of many of these postures and qualities in varying proportions, maybe even just a sliver of one posture, but it’s there. Any design situation features a blend, mixing and jumping about different viewpoints and approaches, not strict rigid adherence to just one way. I think this echoes what Dan Saffer mentioned in his IxDA’09 keynote about “moving among frames” as a valuable skill in these here modern digital times :-)