systematic viewpoints

It’s a bit of irony that the day RIM’s service interruption caused angst across North America was the same day my former employer turned off my Blackberry service. It gave me a chance to reflect on just how life-changing pervasive connectivity was for me. I was an early adopter of both email and Blackberries, and I’m one for whom the ability to work away from the desk was in liberating. My work-life balance improved greatly by being able to communicate remotely. During 9/11 and the eastern seaboard blackout my Berry was the device that remained functional and allowed me to stay in touch with the people and things that needed me.

My initial discomfort at being untethered has resolved itself. I’ve stopped considering upgrading my personal service to cover it - it’s not too costly, but I’m not convinced that I need it as a mere mortal. Most of my family and friends are nowhere near as wired as I. It does have me thinking about how to best wrangle my multiple personal email accounts - I had everything forwarded to my Berry and I miss the convenience, I need to re-jigger that setup.

After next week my notice period ends and I begin collecting severance. Over the last month my days have established a new rhythm that I’m happy with. It begins early with the flurry of getting the kids up and out for school. I follow by reading the physical news while I eat and then I’m able to move to the online world for emails and feeds. Research follows and after that the day is mine.

When my daughter was born I took a three-month leave to stay with her after my wife returned to work. It was the first extended absence from my job I’d had in 15 years and it looked like an incredibly long time but it was over in an apparent instant. While I’m entertaining a certain low-level anxiety about my next career phase, I am aware of that reality and trying to savor this time. Maybe the lack of signal will help.

(tracking data follows, nothing to see here…)

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I use Google’s personalized home page. This week Google enabled ‘themes’, an interesting break in their graphical standards. I find myself wondering why they went forward with this - notwithstanding a few playful tricks they’re little more than window dressing. The selections are limited and lean towards the cartoonish. I’m not critiquing the designs; my point is that if Google is going to allow us to tweak the UI I’d like to see more substantial controls like allowing modules to span multiple columns for better readability or changing font sizes, backgrounds or colors on a per-module basis.

Google liked me enough to ask me if I’d move to California instead of working in New York. They claim the NY office just isn’t ready for my skills yet. Tempting, yes…but it just isn’t in the cards.

It appears I did well in my first interview with Google. While the NY recruiting committee hasn’t met yet, I’m assured that it’s a green light and the next round is likely to be be a trip to Mountain View to meet the home office people. Although their process can be pretty lengthy and I’m just at the beginning, that’s very exciting.

Two weeks ago I picked up Audi’s new Q7 SUV. It’s my third Audi, having had an A6 sedan for the last few years and the A6 Avant (wagon) prior to that, along with various euro-SUVs. I love Audis and the Q7 seems to be a great vehicle on all counts except for one glaring problem. German automakers like Audi, Mercedes-Benz and BMW have adopted a master controller for many functions in the car. Audi has MMI, BMW has iDrive and Mercedes calls it COMAND. The thinking is to provide access to controls and settings while reducing the ‘confusing’ array of dashboard controls.

Changing a radio station or CD track requires multiple steps. At worst the driver needs to select a function via one of eight buttons surrounding a knob, turn the knob to select a menu item and press the knob to select the function. If you are already in that function, you eliminate the intial button push but still have the turn and click. I have to take my eyes off the road frequently to check my selections. No matter how close to my line of sight the display is I’m no longer aware of what’s happening around me.

I acknowledge that these systems are known to require either long or steep learning curves. I want to give it a chance, but I hate it. Controls for vehicles need to be direct and avoid visual diversion beyond feedback for aiming at a control. I acknowledge that these systems are known to require either long or steep learning curves. I want to give it a chance, but I hate it. A system that complicates simple actions and requires learning to perform the same funtions I perform simply and directly in my other vehicles is flawed and is exposing me to risk. My wife is completely intimidated by it.

(tracking data follows, nothing to see here…)

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I’d been with my last employer for almost a decade so I had no presence as a candidate online. Within hours of posting for two jobs on two major boards I received solicitations from recruiters with offers that were more or less on point to my experience,

It’s interesting to be on the consumer side of an industry or service that one has experienced as a provider. I’ve had that experience in the medical/dental/veterinary space, I always end up talking shop with my doctors and now I can’t talk to recruiters without wanting to stick my nose into their process.

I heard today that I’ll be interviewing with Google. Their hiring practices are well documented, NDAs notwithstanding, so that should be an interesting process. I’m talking with a group in my current company (or is it former? I’m still on payroll so current is appropriate) about a strategic sector-level role involving our custoner-facing online experience. I’m looking into someting at SAP, and have a few other targets to follow up on. And I have no excuse to not paint my kid’s bedrooms now.

This morning I learned that my position is being eliminated and my team will be reorganized along with many others as part of a large effort sweeping our company to reduce operational expenses. Since my role had become 80% user experience/interface and 20% operational regarding the Portal, it was an easy target to hit.

I’m not certain how this will resolve. It looks like my package will carry me for a comfortable amount time, so it’s time to assess my future and plot a new course. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know at systematicviewpoints*at*gmail.com.

Yesterday was my son’s 11th birthday. He got a few new games for his Nintendo DS, and when he went to check them out he yelled out for me to “check this out!”

In the setup of the DS you enter your birth date, and it very dutifully displayed a splash screen when he started it wishing him a Happy Birthday, replete with famous Nintendo game characters. Needless to say he was absolutely delighted by this simple bit of ‘personalization’.

Why don’t our applications do this? Why is it so hard to build anything beyond the most basic and broad personalizations into our systems? We know a lot about each user, and we can infer even more. Besides adding efficiency and eliminating unnecessary distractions, why can’t we delight our users? Until we have the same narrow-margin mindset that makes Nintendo and Amazon go our of their way to keep their users happy we will continue to be broccoli, as Thomas puts it.

I’m still trying to work it out, but in no order:

• Complete UI alignments
• Schedule ongoing usability testing of key apps
• Standardize delivery and presentation of learning, ‘help’ and documentation
• Scope out a review of customer experience with the service centers and action the results
• Re-architect HR intranets to support personalized information delivery
• Strengthen the role of the usability team within the SDLC

I fully expect to find myself looking at this post later this year and being in some way amused by it!