What’s Wrong with this Picture?

Damien Hirst exhibit at Gagosian Gallery NY 2012, Photo: Robert Egert

Damien Hirst new paintings represent an oppressive combination of cynicism and opportunism that should make us all run for fresh air.

These painting are in the continuing tradition of production-oriented work that (arguably) begins with Duchamp, continued through Warhol, and on into the present day.

Located at the confluence of image-making and social critique, this modality is exemplified by factory-like production methods and disregard for craft. But more importantly, it engages the means by which value is produced: Its true subject is the mechanism by which society assigns a dollar value to art.

The production of value is ultimately the only subject.

Hirst’s dots would be impossible without this tradition, yet they go beyond for sheer opportunism and disregard for meaning. What was disruptive about Warhol’s factory silkscreens in the 1960′s has apparently become a vulgar trope for a well-established artist bent on cashing in while the money is good.

It is one thing to challenge accepted conventions and another to simply take advantage of them.

Given the degree of wealth-hoarding among the rich, and our rapid path toward a two-class society, these paintings have a moral repugnance that surpasses even the interspecies degradation that Hirst relied on in the past.

As the collectors line up to purchase the dots we can only imagine the financial advisors behind it urging the super wealthy to put a larger percentage of their investment into art to avoid the hyper volitility of the stock markets. Given that Hirst’s work is represented in so many major collections, there’s every reason to believe that these pieces will become canonized too. This, because the investor class has a vested interest in keeping it that way.

And here come Hirst to the rescue, having his art elves produce objects devoid of all meaning save as receptacles of financial value.

Photo: Robert Egert

Published on February 20, 2012 2:21 am.
Filed under: Art, Reviews

Search as a Social Morphology

 

Its hard to remember the days when search engines were the first killer web apps.

Before anyone was talking about the programmable web, search engines were functioning as the meta-applications that worked across the web, bringing content and people together in a meaningful way.

Flash forward to 2012 and the search paradigm has exploded and along with it the thinking around how to match people with things has fragmented. This not only impacts how advertising dollars are spent but also impacts how consumers will find consumer goods and services.

Here are just a few of the current models that are in play:

Video as search

More and more people are starting the search queries in youtube, vimeo and other video portals instead of traditional search engines. This is not only when they are looking for entertainment. Whether it is research for a school project, health information or trying to find reviews of consumer products, Youtube is rising in popularity, especially among younger demographics who are developing a higher regard and reliance on video than print.

Social as search

Social recommendations are playing an increasingly relevant role in driving search behaviors. In some instances, searches are begin essentially replaced by socially assembled content—content that has been collected through the process of recommendations from friends, followers or networks. Besides the direct application of this on sites such as Pinterest and Quora, we also see how Google has integrated recommendations from friends into the search results, creating a hybrid result that is part search algorithm and part social push.

Predictive search

Predictive search has been around since the beginning of ecommerce, and like Boolean search will likely be around for while. Its strongest application is around selling products to consumers based on their purchase history or related behaviors, such as shopping cart contents or product viewing history. This technique is more useful to marketers or publishers (who want to keep their audiences engaged for the advertising or subscription revenue).

As the programmable web becomes more sophisticated it’s likely we’ll see more fragmentation and experimentation–hybrid solutions that synthesize different search paradigms together.

Image: Kenny Cole,  ”Dwight Knew,” 2008, ink and gouache on paper, 22″ x 30″

Published on February 20, 2012 1:29 am.
Filed under: Technology, Truths, UX

Adapting to Agile UI

Pastel on paper by Steve Buckley 2009-2010

User Interface designers face unique challenges in an agile development environment but with the right design approach and production stream great results are still possible.

First let’s look at team structure. Agile teams are usually smaller than traditional development teams and–importantly for UI designers—the engineers play a more decisive role than in traditional development groups.

In this context, there’s a lot of variability in the role of ux. Because requirements and beta are in flux it’s just not possible to create a complete design and then hand it off to the development team. Instead there’s a fluid process that requires coordination and sensitivity to time constraints.

Just because the engineers lead the charge doesn’t mean that UI design has to take a back seat. Quite to the contrary, it is even more critical for the UI designer to establish key patterns and visual memes that will be recognized and understood by the user.

One key learning is that developers and ux look at application design from entirely different perspectives: The developer looks at the system from the bottom up as a result of the fact they have to create functional components one at a time. (I am not aware of any top-down method for development, but perhaps someone can clue me in if there is.)

Conversely, ux designers have the responsibility to look at the design from the outside in: How to surface concepts and processes in way that is transparent to he user. Software design is one field where form does not follow function.

For example, developers in an initial build will often construct a pyramid like trajectory for end users: users enter information through a series of data-centric steps before they get a glimpse of the end result.

Our role in ux is, in a sense, to invert the pyramid and allow users to literally or conceptually see the end result from the beginning so that they are motivated, and engaged throughout the process.

Image: Steve Buckley, Untitled pastel on paper, approx. 18″ x 27″, 2009-2010.

Published on February 10, 2012 6:08 pm.
Filed under: Design, Technology, UX Tags: , , , , , ,

Agile Process and UX

Patty Fabricant, Diamond Fade, 2003 Watercolor 22" x 30"

As agile methodology gains traction, challenges to adapting are emerging.

Today at any given moment I am simultaneously working on projects with agile and waterfall methodologies. As a consequence, my teams need to switch mindsets and approaches as they move from project to project. This adds an additional layer of management complexity to our workflow and communications. And a big part of it is about managing responses and expectations.

“Now, not only do we need to balance multiple accounts, working groups and projects, we also need to change the way we respond to design challenges.”

In the projects that adhere to traditional waterfall method our response usually begins with scheduling a meeting while int he agile method we immediately jump to problem-solving. The former is consensus-based while the later is improvisational.

“The agile teams that I work with are smaller and more accepting of individual creativity.”

In an agile environment, individual members of the team are more empowered to solve problems without getting approval or seeking consensus in advance. And importantly, rarely is any formal documentation required. Instead the team-member comes up with a solution, implements it and then asks the rest of the team to review and comment. Most often, the other team members will adapt their own work to the new development and integrate this into the project on the fly.

For organizations that derive revenue from change orders, account management and recurrent meetings this can obviously create challenges. In the more traditional designed and planned projects, the team is often stuck seeking approval and consensus in lengthy meetings for a new idea, enhancement or revision. Downstream there must be documentation updates.

“While part of this is a consequence of working in a regulated environment (healthcare), it is also related to the fact that the development teams are fragmented and geographically separated.”

It’s probably not possible to create using an agile method in an environment where the development and design teams are on separate continents and time zones, but it sure would save a lot of time and money.

 

Image: Patty Fabricant, Diamond Fade, 2003 Watercolor 22″ x 30″

 

Published on February 5, 2012 1:57 pm.
Filed under: Design, Healthcare, Technology, UX Tags: , , , , ,

Designed in California, Built in Hell

FIlm Still from Cocteau's Orpheus

 

Inhuman working conditions within Apple’s manufacturing supply chain stand in stark contrast to the superlative usability of Apple designs. It should give ui designers and software design engineers pause—especially those of us that talk about user-centered design.

“As our society becomes increasingly focused on accessing and manipulating information and on communicating digitally, it’s very easy to lose site of the physical reality right around us, let alone on the other side of the planet.”

Right here in New York we use our iphones amid crumbling infrastructure while the best design and engineering talent is applied to the next generation of handhelds and software.

Now we learn that the sleek Apple products we’ve come to love and depend on are produced in factories with exploitative policies and dangerous working conditions, routinely exposing workers to toxins, dangerous machinery and numbingly long shifts that exceed reason.

The fact that these conditions are an integral part of Apple’s pricing structure—and, thus, their profitability—has been widely commented upon. What has not been discussed is how this implicates the design community.

Q: What does it mean to talk user-centered design philosophy and then ignore the manufacturing and supply side of the process?

A: It implies an inherent bigotry embedded in the assumptions. It would seem that we believe that users of the products are entitled to the best possible user experience while those involved in manufacturing the product are not entitled to any consideration whatsoever.

And it points out the extent to which user experience design has become obsessed with the interaction between some humans and computers at the expense of other humans and the physical world.

Public knowledge of working conditions may build and exert pressure on the industry to clean up its manufacturing act.

Physicists and basic technologists are on the path to developing ever-smaller transistors, and progress in nano-tube transistor technology is moving ahead as I write this. It is predicted that one day soon processors will be small enough and cheap enough to embed in everyday objects, allowing us—perhaps—to truly realize an intelligent world.

“Perhaps this will enable us to reconnect the world of pure information with our physical infrastructure.”

And perhaps the brilliant designers who are now working on yet another redundant mobile app will turn their focus to making our physical world more humane.

 

Published on February 1, 2012 7:13 pm.
Filed under: Design, Mobile, Technology, UX