An almost love letter to Haruki Murakami
Dear Mr. Murakami,
the first time we met, I was very angry at you. I had just finished reading the Wind-up Bird Chronicle, which I had received as a Christmas gift. I’m a slow reader in English, but a mysterious force pushed me to go through the 607 pages of the Vintage International paperback edition like a maniac, turning page after page as if a gang of rabid dogs were chasing me, making me forget about my family, my work, and the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. And here I find myself, on the last page, out of breath, exhausted, sweat on my forehead and eyebrows. I’m puzzled. I look for the missing pages. Where are the answers to all my questions? What about of all those lose ends that I hoped to see neatly tied up?
“Who do you think you are, Mr. Murakami?” I cry. “What am I supposed to do now? Chase you in Tokyo to ask you what happened?” (I’m not the only one to feel this way, Mr. Murakami) This is it, I tell myself. The end. No more Murakami. Ever.
A couple of years later, my sister read Dance Dance Dance, and fell in love with your books. She even created a website for you. Then one day, I walked in a bookstore, I saw Dance Dance Dance, and I bought a copy. It was winter; a cold, dark, rainy, and unforgiving New York winter day. I found myself reading the book and sipping hot black tea in a coffee shop in the West Village. The handsome young man sitting at the next tiny table noticed the book and said: “I read all Murakami’s books. Dance Dance Dance was the last one. It’s different from the others, almost hopeful.”
I had my laptop with me and I showed him the site that my sister had created for you. He smiled. “It’s fate,” he said. “You had to read this book.”
“People fall hopelessly in love with you, Mr. Murakami,” I thought. They don’t just read your books, they spend hours and hours with you. There is something in the atmosphere you conjure in your books that captures us and keeps us prisoners. There is something in your characters that we want to keep with us. We love their company.
Get real: How to design for the life of others?
In Getting Real, Jason Fried writes: “design for yourself.” The first time I read it, I cringed. People who design using themselves as the only audience—this is how a lot of bad software is created. But then I thought more about it, and realized that Jason was just stating a truth. You may well disagree with him, but this is exactly what happens. We can only design for ourselves. And to be fair, great products have been created by people who uncompromisingly designed for themselves.
This is one of the genial intuitions of Alan Cooper. We do design for ourselves, so why don’t we create alternative personalities—the personas—that can expand our “ourselveness” to encompass new dimensions and reveal new perspectives?
Usability folks point at usability testing as a way, among other things, to become aware of other perspectives on a design or a product. Ethnographers and contextual designers swear by their site visits. Others propose behavioral interviews, listening labs, and other methods that can shed light on other people’s experiences.
I’m always amazed at how good people can be at role playing. You tell this 25-yearl old guy that he is an older woman trying to do X, and they will be able to make some good predictions of how they would behave in that situation.
The limit of role-playing, though, is that we can only identify with what we know. If my mom resembles the woman in the scenario, I may be able to identify with her and predict how she would behave in that situation. But if I don’t know anybody like that woman, it’s going to be hard for me to understand what means to be her.
Some time ago I talked to Casey Malcolm (now at Refinery) about teaching usability to designers. She pointed out how important is to make designers experience what it’s like to be their users. To teach them how to design usable products for an older population, for example, don’t tell designers to take in account seniors’ lower visual acuity and decreased motor control. Let young designers wear glasses that impair their visual acuity. Tie two of their fingers together, to mimic what it means to have arthritis or lower motor control. Then put them in front of a computer and a mouse. Only after going through this experience they could start understanding what it means to be 70 and use the web application they have designed.
So, perhaps Jason Fried is completely on target. We can only design for ourselves. Being aware of it, making it explicit can make us find creative ways of designing for people who are different from us. Perhaps we need to hire people like the ones we are designing for, so we can continue to design for ourselves and still create a great products. Perhaps we need to create experience labs, so that for a while we can live the life of the people we are designing for.
As an added bonus, being in the skin of others for some time will probably make us better people. Definitely a win-win…
[About Getting Real: Jason Fried preaches what he practices. The book is never boring and sports an essential, fast writing style modeled on the "Elements of style." It's opinionated and at times dogmatic, but always interesting and thought-provoking. As all 37Signals products, Getting Real leave us wishing for something more: more examples, more stories from the trenches, more how to, more insights. I'm sure that Jason is fine with it: better let your users/readers craving for more than getting bored or overwhelmed.
On the Getting Real website you can read a free HTML version, download a PDF version ($19), or buy a paperback self-published version ($29). ]
Update 4/20/07
- After reading “The art of the start” I think that Jason Fried should have called his book “Everything I know I learned from Guy Kawasaki, then I tried it out and it worked.”
- In his latest post, Andrew Hinton suggests to think of personas as a mindset, not as a methodology.
What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas
I’ve just arrived in the city of “Lost Wages” (Southwest airline humor) for the IA Summit. I’ve been here only one hour and I already love it!
Pure wild entertainment without the annoying burden of culture and history. Visit Paris without having to go to the Louvre! Visit Rome without the interminable Vatican Museums!
I know that Andrew, Richard, Patrick, and Jared are here. Perhaps Eddie is here. New Yorkers? Everybody? Let me know if you are here too.
Magritte at Whole Foods
Ceci n’est pas fromage.
Back from BarCampNYC2
I’m back from New York City where I attended BarCampNYC2, the unconference where everybody is invited, everybody presents, nobody wears shoes, the rules change at least twice a day, people understand what you do for a living, and you get to spend the night in a Microsoft conference room.
Barcamp is highly equalitarian: not for political reasons but for geeky effectiveness. Things work when ideas flow freely and build on each other without obstacles. The rules (everybody presents, no shoes, sleep-overs, and the “two feet rule” or “If you’re not interested, change the conversation or use your two feet to move to another one”) conjure a social environment where barriers between individuals and social hierarchies crumble down and the flow of ideas is nurtured.
The BarCampNYC2 discussions were about coding, privacy and openID, social software, open source, the future of web apps, and entrepreneurship. But they were also about creating humane work practices (such as coworking) that allow smart and independent young individual to work, earn money, and have a career without selling their souls or renounce beauty and freedom.
Thanks to the organizers who did an amazing job keeping things going, finding sponsors, and feeding us; and thanks to Microsoft, that graciously and generously accepted Barcamp’s friendly takeover and let us sleep on the grey carpet.
[Read blog posts on BarcampNYC2, see what was discussed, look at pictures. Chris took pictures of my presentation and Tanya immortalized my fashionable socks.]
Technorati Tags: barcampNYC2, New York, technology
The TED Conference is online
Every year, the brightest and most influential gather in Monterey for TED. The theme of this year’s TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, was The Future We Will Create….
Google Video has a set of video recordings of some amazing 2006 TED conference talks. Al Gore was there and you can feel his presence in many of the videos. If you only have time for one, watch Majora Carter, MacArthur “genius” grant winner and founder of Sustainable South Bronx, talking about environmental justice and explaining why green is the new black.
For more videos, visit the TED site and YouTube; you can also find photos from the TED conference on Flickr and visit/subscribe to the TEDblog for more information and video updates on the conference.
No, you cannot attend TED 2007. The conference is by invitation only (although anybody can apply for an invitation) and it seems to be already sold out.
Technorati Tags: TED, conference, TEDconference, 2006
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