As the year 2000 approached human computer interface labs all over the world were hot onto studying what comes after the desktop and handheld computer. Some were doing tablets, but others were wondering what happens if you combine a phone that happens to talk to the Internet with a camera, what happens if you have a radio equipped watch with a display on it, what if a fairly powerful computer can be shoehorned into something handheld with a wireless Internet connection, what if that little powerful wireless computer knows where it is .... My lab was involved in several of these as well as what happens as computing becomes more invisible and ubiquitous.
You could make reasonable predictions based on Moore's Law and some educated guesses on mobile phone technology. Designing interfaces was extremely difficult, but just as important was how acceptable to the public would it be. Some of these devices would be worn. What had good design and was fashionable? Could the design be so good so as to be aspirational?
The social dimensions of the problem were, and still are, enormous. We were making all kinds of observations and performing simple tests. It wasn't science by any means even though some called it that. People were learning bits and pieces of a larger problems. We were learning more about the problems so as not to appear totally stupid.1
Some of the trials produced location dependent results. A lab in Cambridge using a located ID badge found its employees building any number of useful applications for themselves. A sister lab in Palo Alto had a near revolt with the same devices even though they had similar backgrounds. The culture of the two different labs rendered the badges aspirational in one location and a pox in the other. Sorting out why was non-trivial.
There were a lot of crazy leaps being made based on small amounts of work. It was a real disease in labs that did not have a diverse range of skills.
Oh yeah - the post's title? That's Latin for "with this, not because of this" and is found in statistics to emphasize that correlation does not imply causation. It is one of the first things taught in any statistics class to warn about jumping to conclusions. You run into nearly everywhere these days - except in science. It turns out to be a phrase that almost guarantees the speaker isn't a scientist.
An explanation is one of degree. People without a statistical background jump to conclusions - we're pattern recognition machines and historically have come to some very wrong conclusions. Not only that, we're still doing it. A good statistical background gives you some tools to calculate correlations, but caution is advised. A scientist subjects their work to very elaborate testing measuring and taking into account errors along the way and producing a result in terms of how likely it is. If they don't their competitors will do it for them and there is little tolerance for mistakes.
But back to the phrase ...
To a scientist correlation suggests causation. It is an early clue that there is something worth pursuing. You might quickly rule the linkage out or perhaps there is something wonderful to be learned that generates a shower of new questions. You don't want to eliminate possibilities early out of hand.. Much of science is playing with any number of ideas seeing if they are worth going deeper. As in many other fields you develop a talent for it.
Too frequently it is invoked to dismiss something out of hand even though the person who uses it often has no sense of the depth of the statement they are dismissing.
All of that the device and interface/interaction exploration in the late 90s was probably good as it was creating a space of interesting questions. Except for a few technologies like camera-phones, smartphones and high capacity mp3 players it wasn't essential that anyone understand them deeply right away. Some of those who worked on the near horizon problems were richly rewarded. But now it is time to begin to understand issues associated with wearables.
It seems daunting as we haven't yet worked out social conventions for the use of smartphones. Technology often outruns the understanding of its consequences.
In the past few weeks at least a half dozen have been in touch to ask for my opinion on Google Glass. A fascinating area, but they're well over their heads. Not only does the user interaction model need considerable work, but the design and social issues are daunting.2 They aren't going to pull it off by having a designer put together a frame for them.
People may develop appropriate interaction and social conventions - that seems to be what Google is counting on - but the company that introduces a new social technology rarely has a change to ride the wave very long. Deeper thinking is required and it will be more demanding than ever before as we're going well beyond conventional engineering and technology. I suspect something approaching real science will need to be done and people from a wide range of fields will need to be involved.
A few years ago I tried to put together some one line descriptions for each component of STEM .. it is far from perfect, but here's what I said:
° Science is the study of nature. Some useful insight becomes available as a result, but that is not the driver
° Math is language of science and also of engineering. It is beautiful by itself.
° Engineering is the art of building tools and
° Technology is the tools and their use
We need to understand fashion, design and aspirational design, human nature, local and global cultures, and several other areas. I've been trying to become a student of design and fashion and have been reaching out to people in these and several other areas, but am only getting to the point where my questions aren't completely foolish. Hopefully one can get to the point where they can have useful connections with enough diverse people to make a dent in the problem. I'll probably be writing much more on the subject as time goes on. In the meantime I wish Google luck, but this is a really deep people and the Silicon Valley engineering notion of solving everything with technologies is insufficient and broken.
1 I look at my own record and find it mixed after 15 years. There were some solid hits - particularly with location aware services and a large number of misses. One tends to remember the hits and forget the misses.
2 from an email I sent last week
Google has a habit of asking designers to come in at the end of the process … they have a reputation for driving HCI types and designers crazy .. they like to just bolt it on at the end. So this isn't surprising. It will be essential to make the things look presentable.
Their approach appears to be taking a vocal command with a specific interrupt, but such approaches have failed in the research world (not for technical reasons). What is needed is a nice set of orthogonal out of channel communication commands - what linguists call phatic interactions (the communications we all use not to carry core information, but rather are meta commands that kept the channel open. If I say "you're breaking up" on a cellphone call, I'm giving a phatic vocalization. There are any number of phatic signalings that are non-verbal - your phone vibrating to let you know there is a text message for example)
They use verbal phatics like "ok glass", but that can be socially awkward and is fairly unnatural.They really need to crack that one - or find some work that has.They may be interested in having the public solve it for them. Just like hashtags on twitter.
Waldorf salads are delicious, but hardly healthy. I threw together this one that was delicious and healthy. I like to add some dried fruit like cranberries or cherrys
Heart Friendly Waldorf Salad
° 1 tbl white-wine vinegar
° 1 tbl walnut oil
° sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
° 1 Granny Smith apple, cored, quartered, and thinly sliced
° 1 cup seedless red grapes, halved
° 2 celery stalks, thinly sliced, leaves for garnish if you like
° 50 grams coarsely chopped toasted pecans and or toasted walnuts
° whisk together the vinegar, oil, some salt and pepper to taste
° add celery, grapes, apple, and nut to the bowl, and toss to coat with dressing.