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Which and What Data, When?!

Updated April 15, with thanks to Georgina Ibarra for proof reading and edits and David Anning for links to the UN and Forbes.

I’ve noticed a common reaction to the word “data” when observing commentators delivering news stories or politicians evangelising the benefits of open data initiatives. While some of us implicitly understand data use in context from our domain expertise and regular exposure to the varying types of data (including how hard it is to get at times) generally speaking, people get freaked out because they assume the worse.

Granted, there are nefarious types out there collecting and selling personal details that they shouldn’t and this is sort of the point – to educate people about the data in use in a way they can grasp easily. Once we remove this knee jerk reaction about the word data, people can focus on what they can do with data rather than what someone else might do to them with it.

I was at the KnowledgeNation event at the ATP yesterday and this kind of hit home when Angus Taylor (Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation) talked about the “open data” initiative underway. After he finished his speech the first question from a member of the audience was about citizen’s personal details being released. He of course answered it expertly, but at first I was quite astonished at the leap the audience member made from “open data” to “personal data”. But afterwards I thought: well should it be that astonishing considering the vast ocean of “data” out there and how little most of us know about it?

So that got me thinking – how can we provide clearer descriptors for data that deliver an expectation of use and immediately set the tone for the ongoing discussion? As a user experience professional I see this as a responsibility and am now embarking on a proposed solution to try it out.

Like Eskimos have with snow, we might need more words for data or be more conscious of the type of data we are referencing when we talk about it (and when we talk about the stories we tell with data).

I think we’re all in agreement that the term “big data” is vague and unhelpful so I’m making some suggestions to introduce a commonly used vernacular for different types of data:

  • Private data – the citizen owns it, gives permissions, expiration times, and it’s protected from any other use
  • Secure data – sharable but with mind blowing encryption
  • Market data – anything used to sell products to you
  • Hybrid data – some kind of private and non-private mix
  • triangulated data – those seemingly harmless sets that are used to identify people
  • Near-to-Real Time data – because real-time is rarely actually real-time
  • Real Time data
  • Legacy data – old stuff
  • Curated data – deliberately created data sets serving a single purpose
  • Active: Photos, Videos, Searches (search terms) Communications (email, text, comments, blogs)
  • Passive: Health, Financial, Spending, External environmental, Domestic environmental, Location, Logs

Examples in use could be –

“Google are tracking your Real Time Location data when you use maps”

“The Australian Open Data initiatives makes Curated data from the ABS available”

“Private and Secure Financial data will not be shared with any third parties”

At Data61 we are face to face with this too so it will be part of our UX work to discover patterns in attitudes and communication.

I’m currently investigating this idea, and I’d love your thoughts! Is there anything published, either academically or otherwise that might have attempted to do this already?

Refs: http://www1.unece.org/stat/platform/display/bigdata/Classification+of+Types+of+Big+Data

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About the creative process within user experience design

I have always struggled with the discord between creative design and user centred design.

I went to design school and learned colour, form, typography, layout, flow and how use visuals to capture the imagination of the audience. Over the years working in tech it got hammered out of me because software was built by engineers, then after a while it was designed by researchers. My problem is that empirical always trumped creativity and there is room for both, not one hiding behind the other. Yes, UCD is creative in the problem solving side of things and this is extremely important but the creative is devalued unless it’s championed by a visionary. That so many UXers have a creative and visual design background is important to note, a dirty secret that I think needs to be aired. We do, and we are good at what we do and we can make up well considered stuff in the absence of research and its ok.

Until now I couldn’t quite articulate the creative value of design in technology, usually falling back on feeling left behind, misunderstood or just some hand wavy “some of us have intuitive skills” (intuition being highly refined skills crafted after years of experience).

This was really causing me a serious amount of professional and then also, personal depression. I kept upping my workload, hoping I’d find that missing spark in the next job – that moment when you hear the brief and get really excited about the potential – but of course, with even less time to do anything, it just got worse and worse. Also, working in a scientific research company, it’s really hard to communicate any kind of user research unless it’s published or attached to PhD. My attempts at talking their language fell on hard ground and I found that leveraging creativity got me way more traction.

So I dropped a whole bunch of projects to focus on one large one (as well as manage and grow a design team).

Meanwhile…

A weird series of events occurred. Sitting in my department director’s office, where I have sat many days each week, in the same chair, I spotted for the first time “Design Driven Innovation” by Roberto Verganti, and asked to borrow it. “Yes!” he said, “Tell me what you think, I dunno about it.”

I started reading it, and after just the first chapter it all clicked totally into place. I finally felt permission to be the creative leaning UX designer I am, using UCD activities as well. I felt validated that I deep think, work immersively and reframe, and because there is precedent for it. I only have to adjust my skills slightly, not re-learn extensively and can now refer to an established document to back up my approaches.

A few days later, the head of the Machine Learning research group who is very encouraging of UX and who graciously shares his ideas with me sent me an email suggesting I read a book, which he had found an electronic copy of and attached for me. Same book.

Late that week, I was involved in an experimental workshop, hosted at our lab which challenged (successfully, I’ll add) the traditional way Government will develop a particular digital solution. After the first day I went home and decided to step away from the entire days work and think about the “meaning” of the work we were doing. How humans as community and messy creatures might handle the issue in an non-technical way. How geographical information and community updates are linked, and how to get away from bureaucratic procedure and the feeling of surveillance by “big brother” governmental mindsets. (Unfortunately I can’t share the details in full.)

I pitched the idea to the organisers and the next day we created a splinter group to examine and create a pitch for the new idea. The reframing and alignment of human meaning to an incredibly boring and laborious task was immediately taken up with excitement when I presented it to the senior executives in the room and created quite a buzz around the potential. The preceding two solutions also pitched which we had all worked on and while they were extremely well considered and quite achievable, they were met with challenging questions and a bit less enthusiasm.

I’ve used this approach many times, not knowing there was a name for it in most of my work and the times it’s failed is when I am unfamiliar with the domain, when I’ve relied too much on asking user’s what they want/need and when I am unclear of the meaningfulness and hoped someone could provide this for me (either as their vision or from research). When I redesigned iView, in 2010, I used this approached. It tested well and had incredible uptake. (Since then it has been redesigned).

Approaching digital solutions with mindset of an artist is really freeing. It is why in my hiring and building out the UX team at NICTA that I look for people who have non-performance type creative and artistic pursuits outside of work. Ego can get in the way of performance artists, while solo creative pursuits are more suited to deep thinking and exploration.

In deep research driven tech, I find the best starting point is examining and structuring a proposed workflow that makes sense using the tech and data; then observe the actual operators and beneficiaries of the current tech workflow practices and tool chains. From there we can “imagineer” potential solutions to then test against. Because it’s really hard to interview users about what they want and/or need in emerging, deliberately disruptive tech. They respond with conventional mindsets and speak in conventional solutions. I think this can “dumb down” the final results which as we all know suffer enough compromises as it is. Using a design driven approach frees up the the limitations and steps back to behavioural observations.

This now leads back to software no longer being a tool but an ecosystem. Read more here: Software Isn’t A Tool

 

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Software isn’t a tool

many kinds of hammer
many kinds of hammer
We know tools by their affordances.

There is an interesting yet uneasy agreement, a deal that was struck between humans and technology, where at some point technology promised ease and comfort. And yes, the tools we started making provided this. We know tools – they are obvious by their affordances. You can pick up a tool and pretty much use it straight away. There are of course experts that wield tools like magicians (like a sushi chef, fine artist or a chainsaw sculptor) but we understand that it takes a lot of practise, experience and mistakes to get that good.

With the evolution of technology (and proliferation) to the digital, this notion of tools and the contract of making life easier has become a bit unstuck. From the simple ones like phones that dial themselves to software that doesn’t take the right data format and environmental sensors that require coding experience to enable, its all gotten a bit hard and complicated.

I propose the notion of a tool is no longer appropriate for software (including applications and websites) and therefore, the idea that it is “easy” to use digital technology is no longer valid.

Software is a ecosystem and a transient micro-community that connects humans to other humans either directly or via artefacts created by humans (usually data and images).

CIty street
Stepping out into an unfamiliar street, in a new city

When we think about these relationships and how software is a facilitating conduit then perhaps other metaphors are more useful, like a city or a market, or a machinery shed or a plane cockpit.

You can’t step into any of these environments and immediately interact with them unless you have a frame of reference and time to explore or training and experience. Like a city or a market, we reach for similar patterns in our memories and use these as initial templates for navigation, adjusting as we go and understand the differences in the new environment. In the case of a machinery shed or cockpit, expertise is expected. If we take the metaphor further, we can say some of these systems house sub-systems therefore adding complexity.

But when we watch users interacting with digital technology they are usually quick to anger or frustration when things don’t work because they expect it to. And we keep reinforcing this.

Is this evidence of an unspoken agreement between a human and machine? Why are we so mean to these selfless creations?! How did this happen? Answer me Steve Jobs!

So yes, there is some beautiful work in digital tech that eases the pain and delivers on the promise of an elegant, frictionless user experience. Until you get locked into a walled garden and start getting cranky again because each time you start iTunes it asks you to download a new version that has removed that feature you relied on all so often.

Communities, if we think about them have unwritten contracts. They are healthy when there is:

  • mutual respect: eg we provide a means to post your photos, and I won’t own your image
  • a notion of benevolent hierachy: eg Information architecture, reduction of clutter to ease decision making
  • respect for personal space: eg fork this code and run wild
  • assistance when needed: eg responsive help desk
  • reliablilty: eg reasonable performance
Busy farmers market
A new market – feels familiar but where to start!

When this contract is out of balance, people feel trapped, angry, unsupported and resentful. Then they leave or rebel, depending on age and wisdom.

The UX designer is tasked with assisting humans working with digital technology and I wonder if we as the creators of digital technology stop thinking about software as tools and reframe the work as creating communities and ecosystems where technology is the glue, rather than the goal.

If, when we refer to the systems we are building, we speak more about the connections not as abstractions but find appropriate metaphors to flesh out this weird magic box that fixes, finds or connects us.

If we speak about the community we are creating, not in a social media way but a genuine arrangement that benefits the contributors and consumers of the software.

If we think of the software or system as a conduit to allow people to move freely through, to explore without punishment, with gentle leadership or wayfinding so they can fulfill their tasks like they do in the physical world.

If you’re a designer, then I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know but hopefully this metaphor will help you to convince the others who don’t quite get it.

Who wants to go to a market where the apples advertised are missing, or the light is poor, the ground is uneven, all the deliveries are late, or the people can’t hear because there is too much noise? When you turn around you can’t find the way out or you get hassled to buy stuff you don’t want? Your purse gets pinched or your followed around by someone and you know it’s not your imagination?

The physical world makes no promises to be easy so maybe software shouldn’t either. We can keep striving to bring good manners and respect into these systems as its so easy to just overlook them. But this does require a shift from the concept of a tool to something else that accommodates more variables.

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UX Maturity

I have been reflecting on the level of UX maturity within NICTA over the last couple of months. From inside it, it can be a bit hard and the unusual culture of NICTA makes it a bit hard to lock down, but the evidence is all around.

We now have 2 part time designers taking up the ever rising number of projects passing across my desk requiring help. Some are deep engagement and some are more small start-up style short bursts to help get a prototype out for validation.

At the ETD retreat last month, I proposed a separate design stream to run in parallel to the coding exercises… and we had a 13 engineers jump ship to join us!

Screen Shot 2014-05-12 at 3.05.16 pm
Meena displays from her ideation workshop at the ETD Retreat

Projects are engaging me at much earlier points so there is time for considerations of the workflows, organisation cultures within the industry, exposure to the raw data, platform explorations and efforts dedicated to problem definition rather than requesting help when a presentation layer is needed to help sell an idea.

At CeBIT several of projects that I was involved in were on display (see previous post) and such a highly public place with a high turn over of interested people is a great way to catch instant feedback.

We regularly host VIP visits from government, especially at the moment with the funding conversations happening. Each visit has a stop by the design space for a quick presentation of user experience work going into our work and how that makes impact into industry. Each guest, which over time has included both federal and state senior ministers and advisors has been deeply interested in the work we do in consideration with customers, audiences and clients. They ask a lot of great questions and really appreciate the information we have presented.

Image
Bill Simpson-Young and I present how user experience design assists technology making impact in industry to Angus Armour DDG Industry, Innovation, Hospitality & the Arts

In project meetings, I not only hear engineers and academics discuss “users” but also challenge each other on which “users” in particular. And I don’t even bother posting up persona’s anymore to help them!

And today, our CEO mentioned UX specifically in the all hands, with an example of how it has contributed to the Air Quality Prediction Service project, currently going out to market for validation and interest. When the CEO singles it out for special mention, it’s is clear that UX is understood as tool for strategic engagement.

Image
Hugh Durrant-White makes particular mention of my work and UX at NICTA

 

So where we sit on any maturity measure is difficult really say, but it’s most likely midway between superficial and reactive to fully integrated and strategic. Unlike most other companies, NICTA isn’t in the business of creating a suite of products and services which benefit from a unified approach. But we definitely work towards a level of quality and have the very real potential of creating change at an industry level through well considered user experience product design. And this is most definitely achieved by a shared mindset which is clearly emerging within the company.

I am really pleased about the efforts I have worked hard at for the two or so years. Building credibility by providing what teams think they need while gently adding in what I have identified as needs for users; education and skills workshops, regular presentations of successes and well placed, highly visual communication devices (posters and the like) have all produced a shift that I am really proud of.

Maturity refs:

http://uxmag.com/articles/how-mature-is-your-organization-when-it-comes-to-ux

http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2013/12/applied-ux-strategy-part-1-maturity-models.php

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CeBIT 2014

CeBIT is always a great reality check and well worth getting along to for a day.

I remember the first time I went I was at the ABC, and having worked in online media for quite a while it really struck there was so much more out there for ux designers to work with. And thus my goal to get back to software was born.

I’ve attended as a NICTAreen 3 years running, and use the opportunity to gauge interest in the work we do, specifically anything I am working on in context with whomever is checking it out (competitors, potential customers or just interested scientists).

The NICTA stand was well placed this year, right near the entrance and we had some great demo’s and MVP’s on display. While there  I also found time to interview more Start Ups for my upcoming talk at UX Australia about my adventures with Start Ups.

This year I was also full time presenting one of my projects, the EPA Air Quality Prediction System which had a lot positive feedback and clear use cases for much further development including from the senior NSW Government ministers who stopped by to see our work.

A few of other more matured projects were part of the disply, some pics and my contributions in brief below.

Image
Structural Health Monitoring (RMS)
– Iterative UX and product design, IA, GUI, testing, style guide
Image
Air Quality Prediction Service (EPA)
– Initial UX, IA, running the trial release, project management
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ePASA Performance Assurance, Jon Gray the project lead is demonstrating the visualisaton of networks and their performances under load.
– Initial UX, GUI, IxD, Data Viz, style guide
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Start up alley – Space Tech!!
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Comment to blog by Dan Turner

Boxes and Arrows wont’ let me post (I get stuck in a duplicate post error message loop) Here’s the article:http://boxesandarrows.com/we-dont-research-we-build. Really good to read and I would like to contribute to the conversation, so my response is below 🙂

I’ve written a few blogs on this topic also, so won’t reiterate those same ideas here:

http://hilarycinis.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/ux-advice-for-start-ups-especially-in-emerging-technology/

http://hilarycinis.wordpress.com/2013/10/10/171/

http://hilarycinis.wordpress.com/2013/10/30/ux-activities-in-australian-startups-tech23/

I have many strong feelings on this topic, and the startups themselves are only a part of the machine.

VC’s aren’t asking for ux evidence (in Australia, anyway) and so are making assumptions it’s included in the business and marketing plans.

The startups are often very confused about how to talk to customers and don’t understand they will have a range of needs from multiple user types. Blank and Ries are great reads but I also feel they have repackaged user experience work where it could sound like we are nagging about stuff the start ups feel they are already doing. I often go to great lengths to unpack the segments in the BCM where UX fits, and how these activities are extensive in order to get a clear picture.

I have quite strong feelings about marketing strategies having too large an influence in this conversation. Marketing comes later when the business knows it’s product or service and how it fits in with people’s lives. It’s totally arse-about.

I also suggest that business school educators start to look at user/customer experience seriously as part of the curriculum. I find it very difficult to get traction in conversations with business mentors about how early ux activities can assist in selecting a direction with more confidence, rather than setting up a business around a feature or a product and hoping for the best. The jargon used obscures the pain that startups can experience – pivoting and the culture of failure are nice terms for very difficult periods of time.

I see many similarities between StartUps VC activities and the entertainment industry funding machine.

We know that ux isn’t a magic wand to ensure success but when added to domain expertise and customer/user feedback it can add structure and assist with decision making when there are too many unknowns.

Maybe incubators need a ux on staff full time to assist across the teams. I work with Incubate doing this in Sydney, although not full time but I do run a workshop and follow up each round they do and I have found it really educational and I get some good feedback. I guess the proof is in the success of each business.

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Is your MVP hackable?

It has occurred to me recently that several start-up MVP’s releases have a high requirement of hacking (eg via API’s) to enable them to be truly useful eg Ninjablocks, LeapMotion, PebbleWatch, versus a simple ‘plug-and-play’ approach more suited to technical lay people.

The amount of included functionality varies across them and they all start with a basic set of interactive “samples” either as build kits or an app store style library.

I am curious if this is a deliberate choice as a certain kind of prototyping in the wild – to keep the offering lean while still determining the uses for it; is is a deliberate decision by developers to create a platform because they see the potential for a multidirectional business model; or is it a subconscious outcome due to the developers because they a tinkers by nature?

The marketing material appears to sell these items as having lots of potential for folks to build their own activities and with an ease of language that assumes a familiarity of the work to do that. So I’m assuming it’s a deliberate choice… but for then to evaluate the potential for further development resulting in an off-the-shelf product line, or as a specific goal that provides a self scaling platform based business (contributor and consumer) rather than a simple consumer fed one.

As a ux designer I really enjoy seeing how these offerings shake down over time into use by their creators. Do they make further development decisions to support the desire-paths described by their customers? Do they investigate the gaps for further development opportunities?

I’d love to hear thoughts on this, it’s likely to be any or all of the above.