Q: What do you call a guy who hangs out with musicians?
A: A drummer.

We like to put people into boxes–roles that are defined by simple rules. Like: a musician is someone who makes “complete” music: melody and harmony and rhythm. If a person doesn’t make melody or harmony, how can he be a musician?

Designers? We like to say that we are problem solvers, but the larger culture thinks that we make things beautiful. Fashion designers make beautiful clothes, and interior designers make beautiful rooms and graphic designers make beautiful printed materials. And even when we know that it’s more complicated than that, we still tend to buy into the broader cultural definition.

I’ve thinking about this recently as I read and considered the responses to my previous post. People–even other interaction designers–seem to want interaction designers to fit into some pre-conceived box, some well-sanctioned model. I certainly understand this impulse: the more I am exposed to traditional wisdom–especially traditions of craft–the more I see that they contain wisdom that is not immediately apparent. But I also believe that as the world changes, models that were once apt can become less so. New people work in new ways in new conditions. These people bring new combinations of skills to the table. They are of a new shape. Can we honor the shape of the individuals who do this new work while at the same time working within and learning from the tradition?

***

I’ve been thinking about the parallels between my work and music, especially in terms of the creative collaboration typical of most music-making. Listen to this Billie Holiday recording of  ”All of Me.” This song has been recorded literally thousands of times, mostly by people who choose to treat the song as an exaggeration, a pop trifle built on a slim lyrical conceit. Listen to Sinatra’s recording, or Louis Armstrong–both capable of very sensitive interpretation–and you can almost hear the songwriters’ glib Tin Pan Alley studio banter: “you took the part that once was my heart, so why not take all of me?” It’s pure schmaltz!

But Holiday’s vocals do something simple and amazing with the song. The force us to take the lyric seriously. The result is raw, the cry of of a lover who cannot bear the burden of her broken heart.

All of me
Why not take all of me
Can’t you see
I’m no good without you
Take my lips
I want to lose them
Take my arms
I’ll never use them
Your goodbye left me with eyes that cry
How can I go on dear without you
You took the part that once was my heart
So why not take all of me?

Listen to the sax playing (Lester Young, I think) that follows the first chorus, how sensitive it is to the mood Holiday sets. Listen to the band behind Lester, how it drops out to nearly nothing, just drums, bass and guitar as if it too can’t bear the burden of its body. This beautiful collaboration transforms the songwriters’ framing work–whatever their intention–into a devastating piece of art.

So here’s my question: who is responsible for the success of this collaboration? Are some of the musicians here more “real” than others? What can we learn about the way we think of our roles from this model?

Bike Hugger posted recently about the poor coverage on DesignBoom and other design blogs of the Victor Bike concept by Christophe Robillard. (You can read my comment here.)

I think about this problem frequently, because it is often the case that my own work is invisible to non-specialists. I design the behavior of systems. How can you see that? How can I show it? It’s a problem I haven’t solved, and one that hurts my bottom line: just take a look at my portfolio. Do you think it does a good job of communicating the work I do? Other types of designers can showcase gorgeous hero shots of sexy product designs. But me? Ecology models, behavior models, wireframes. Not so sexy. Or even so comprehensible.

Traditionally trained designers say that you can’t be a designer if you can’t draw, because visual communication is so important to our field. Well that cuts two ways. On the one hand, that training can develop an unbalanced expertise: a training that promotes visual literacy beyond all else. When that happens, you get conversations like the one at DesignBoom regarding the victor bike: so focused on the visual as to be completely inane. On the other hand, it ignores the work done by designers that work in difficult-to-visualize media. Work done by specialists like me can remain invisible because it is so unconducive to visual representation.

Or maybe I just need to work on my drawing skills

Wooden labyrinth puzzle

I played a game with my niece and nephew this weekend. Actually, we played a lot of games. Isaac, 4, made things disappear by throwing them over his head. And Hazel collected green acorns in her front yard and gave them to me. I tried to teach her to whistle using an acorn cap, but she didn’t have the dexterity in her little hands to do it.

Later, we went inside and I took out my iPad to keep the kids entertained before dinner. We tried a lot of video games, they were either too hard for them, or the rules were too far out. One great pleasure of video games is the way they introduce us to experience beyond what is possible in our physical dimensions. But this pleasure is lost on those who are still discovering the real wonders of the physics of our world. When even the basic rules are up for grabs and you can make things disappear simply by throwing them out of sight, why turn to Tetris for magic?

Labyrinth 2 HD

When we finally found an iPad version of the old wooden labyrinth games called Labyrinth 2 HD, I was relieved to find a game the little kids could relate to. In fact, it was a revelation to me to see how natural the game interface was–so natural that it took me back to an earlier era of play.

I had a labyrinth game when I was little, and I loved it. I probably got it when I was about the same age as Hazel and Isaac–I think my grandmother gave it to me. I can remember how difficult it was, but also the pleasure of sitting on the rug trying to master it. Labyrinth 2 HD is designed to evoke that experience. The game graphics render the pine board box and steel ball bearing faithfully. The sound effects are quiet and lifelike. But the iPad’s motion sensing systems are what makes the experience work. The “real” labyrinth games of my youth forced you to interact with the game through knobs that moved the game board up and down on the x and y axis. But the iPad allows you to simply tilt the playing surface–direct manipulation in near native format.

Other games have used this type of control mechanism. Super Monkey Ball comes to mind as the prime example. But the fantasy setting, outrageous graphics, and vertigo-inducing physics of the game create a very different experience–one that is too frantic for my taste, and too difficult for Hazel and Ike.

The quiet wood and steel aesthetic and calm pace of gameplay you find in Labyrinth works for pre-schoolers though. Combined with the motion-sensing, the game becomes something uncanny, a high-tech rendering of one of the simplest games in the world. And in this simple gamespace, old truths emerge. Little Ikey struggles to complete a level that Hazel can finish. Real world motor skills translate to this game, in fact, they more than translate. They matter–they are the entire point. The line between “real” and computer-mediated shrinks every day.

A palette from OmniGraffle for Mac

Omnigraffle for Mac has always been a clunky but useful product. It’s optimized for arranging pre-made shapes (called stencils) relative to one another. This makes it easy to create basic drawings, and makes the product very useful in certain phases of the design process. Flowcharts and wireframes (schematic user interface drawings) are this app’s sweet spot.

But Omnigraffle for Mac has always had a weaknessin its interaction model. Although most of the basic work in the application can be done by direct manipulation, you very quickly find yourself working in a chaotic blizzard of palettes–secondary windows that allow you to set the properties of a selected object. To be fair, this is a problem that a lot of drawing programs share, but some manage it better than others. And many have refined palettes to the point where the major problems (window pollution and mode shifting) are reduced or eliminated. Omnigraffle palettes are old-school by comparison.

Omnigraffle for the iPad though takes this basic structural problem and simply ports it to iPad. There’s a problem though: no palettes on the iPad. The result? Palette interactions are now handled as “popovers,” essentially modal pop-up property windows. Some of us remember the days before palettes were invented, and we remember our pleasure in first using them because they were so much better than modal pop-up property windows! But now we’ve taken a giant leap backwards!

Omnigraffle for iPad should be so much better. It would be lovely to be able to take my graffle drawings with me on my iPad. But to make the app successful, Omni is going to need to radically rethink the interaction model, kill all of those popovers, and aggressively replace them with interactions based on two-handed multi-touch direct manipulation.

Like dust in front of a broom,
this state-sized pile of rubble
Like the lip of dust you can never quite
sweep from the floor.

And the ice age passed
And the now age is here
And you’ve washed up in the middle of it
Not for an age
for a moment

You come every year
of your advancing age
and stand on the lip of dust

watching the waves
one
another
a third
on the shore
one
another
a third
four

And wash away.
The age of that wave
over,
the age of the next
breaking o’er.

First swim, originally uploaded by jseiden.

Summer started today for me with a cold swim in Cape Cod bay. The
winter storms hit hard this year: you can see the remains of the storm
fencing at the foot of the bluffs.

The day was a jewel of sun, water, sky and air.

The first thunderstorm of the season came through the other night,
cooling off the 90 degree day and knocking down trees.