Data to Information: Hans Rosling's TEDTalk

When Professor Rosling spoke about the disparity between his expectations of his students' understanding their actual understanding:

The problem for me was not ignorance, it was preconceived ideas.

I thought, "Wow, what a deeply analytical thinker." There's a fine distinction between ignorance and preconceived ideas - a distinction most people probably fail to make.

Rosling's simple statement appears to be a personal reflection about his students but it is really the point he is trying to make in his presentation: we don't necessarily need more data to battle a lack of knowledge (ignorance) when instead, we could make sense of existing data and pit those findings against what we think we already know (preconceived ideas).

Anyone can still watch Hans Rosling's TEDTalk about the availability and use of publicly funded data. Hans Rosling founded Gapminder.org and has a personal blog. Anyone interested in the way our world is developing socially and economically should definitely watch the talk. Of course, the information visualization techniques are spectacular and really illustrate the points he makes about global quality-of-life trends.

Regarding the more technical details of the talk, I had three main thoughts. Firstly, I found myself continuously amazed by the communicative efficiency of each of his animated diagrams. Just when I thought I had seen all the info vis tricks, he'd pull out a few more! No doubt, his narration added to the effectiveness but I couldn't help wondering what kind of and how many people were behind the design of the visualizations and how difficult it was to code it all up.

Secondly, the strive towards improving accessibility, organization, and retrieval of the world's publicly-funded and supposedly publicly-available data is paramount. The true value of achieving that would be to inform the policies which aid those in need. It appears that the whole range of aid, from planning to implementation, could benefit from a clearer understanding of the state of affairs today. Want to talk about a plan for AIDS in Africa? If you recognize the vastly differing situations within Africa, perhaps you'll realize more specific plans would be more effective and even regional plans may seem too generalized and ludicrous.

Third and lastly, to maximize on the existing mountain of data, it should be available and easily searchable. Why? Besides the obvious benefits of accessibility, open data would allow so many more minds and hours poring over it, increasing the possibility for more good stuff to float to the top. I doubt that needs any explanation or justification.

Not that its possible life-changing benefit is anywhere near decreasing infant mortality or halting AIDS epidemics, but the whole discussion reminded me of APIs and the Web 2.0 liberation of data. Oh man, the thought of vast uncharted potential gets me pumped up!

A side note about TEDTalks I've seen so far: The presenters are brilliant for sure, but they also seem to be quite humorous. I wonder if brilliant and humorous people tend to get invited to talk or if brilliant people also tend to be humorous. If humor and brilliance travel in the company of each other, I guess that would mean people pick up on it and would assume funny individuals are brilliant individuals. Better brush up on my jokes :-o

Ethnography at Thornton Hospital

On Monday night, I went to the gorgeous Thornton Hospital and did two hours of ethnographic observation with my classmate Laura. I know plenty of purists might say what we did doesn't qualify as true ethnography, but whatever.

The experience was fantastic. We showed up at around 7:30 PM and were feeling a bit unsure of what to expect but we left at around 9:15 PM and we were smiling all the way to the car. It was so much fun and there is so much data out there in the wide-open world! The nurses we observed in the Med Room were super nice and I'm very fortunate for that. I can only imagine how stressful and unpleasant the experience would have been if the nurses were unwelcoming.

I took a lot of photos (123 total) and it seemed to make people more nervous than if they were just being observed and notes are being written. Laura did a fantastic job of taking notes and that really helped to ground my photos to the storyline and give them deeper meaning.

On occasion, we'd feel like we wished there was a video camera rolling. Those moments included: fleeting activity too quick to take photos of, too much simultaneous activity to accurately record, significant sequence chunks of actions or interactions, and delayed or lengthy interesting activities. Possibly, the pronounced clicking noise of the mechanical shutter in my hunking mass of Nikon D70 was more disruptive than a quietly whirring camcorder would have been.

The overall goal of the study is to consider some improved designs. More specifically, the project is interested in examining information flow on this particular floor. Although I think we've got some exciting observations, I'm going to hold off on making them public at this point. Tomorrow (a.k.a. later today) I'll get to see the data collected by the other groups in this project - it should be interesting. I'm stoked!

Unlikely Cognitive Enhancers

According to neurological and psychological research referenced in Don Norman's Emotional Design, objects that make us happier are, in practice, easier to use (all other things equal). The explanation is that when we are happy, we are more creative and patient. Being creative and patient leads to reduced terminal errors and improved perception of usability. Fascinating, considering the usable aspect of the object need not be the only design variable contributing toward overall usability.

Thus, one is led to consider this: if we are happier, we're more creative and patient and things around us are easier to use and understand. Besides being motivation for living happily, I wonder if this also implies that mood enhancers are also forms of cognitive enhancers. I've seen recent news reporting that some very fascinating ability enhancing drugs which include reducing the needed amount of sleep and increasing cognitive abilities. A "smart pill," if you will.

I wonder how direct or indirectly these smart pills enhance cognitive abilities. Do they directly act on physiological, chemical, and electrical needs for cognition or do they do it more indirectly, for example, through mood enhancement? I love that no matter how you cut it, the human is a complex animal with a very "messy" cognitive system.

Throw UI to the Dogs

Assistance dogs are using ATMs! According to the article, the dogs can retrieve the card, cash, and receipt. Besides it being a neat trick, this reminds me that good designs can have surprising effects and benefits.

Although the design might not be especially good or intended for use by dogs, it's nice to know that at least the design doesn't make it impossible for dogs to use them. Of course, now that we know some dogs are retrieving things from ATMs for their owners, it would be a fun project to study the usage and find ways to make the ATMs more dog-friendly.

Now I just have to make sure the assistance dogs don't embarrass me by using the ATM next to me more accurately or faster than I do.

From the Metro.co.uk article: I thought this was Bark-lays bank…

Disaster by Committee

I already know Information Dashboard Design by Stephen Few is going to be a decent read because by page five, I'm greeted with this remark:

Customers are expert in knowing what they need to accomplish, but not in knowing how software ought to be designed to support their needs. Allowing customers to design software through feature requests is the worst form of disaster by committee (Few, 2006).

It's been a while since I first unsuccessfully tried articulating why plain old customer feedback and feature requests don't guarantee great products. What makes a human factors specialist's interpretation of user needs more useful than the user's own voice?

I've seen more specific (but less elegant) arguments than Few's. One of my favorite answers relies on the fact that most users you'd encounter have no idea about what your company can and can't produce - they're not qualified to define product specifications.

I think what we learn from users is more useful for defining product requirements. What are the goals of the users? What do they need to accomplish these goals? What kinds of tasks do they perform to achieve their goals? Human factors specialists should elicit and then organize the answers to these questions, helping to define the actual product specifications.

A common area of contention is, "Why do we need so much interaction with the users?" This is a valid question considering we might have: "obvious" design needs, feature requests, and clear customer feedback.

In response, I would say that a keen observer watching users can not only get user information with much higher fidelity but also with much greater validity. I suppose it's worth mentioning that users report incomplete and/or misleading information - watching users actually using the product gives you the whole picture and that picture is more contextually situated.

Food: The Original Tommy's World Famous Burgers

I had a cheeseburger meal that was pretty tasty. The burger had chili in it, as does most things they serve. The fries seemed a bit too raw and they kept snapping or bending. This is a place that opens late. Our local Tommy's opens until 1 AM. The first Tommy's opened way back in 1946 and has had chili in the burger as a signature. Apparently, there have been attempts to copy it so they coined the slogan, "If you don't see the shack, take it back!" When we ordered our meal, the server asked if we wanted chili on our fries - we opted for no chili. The chili itself was a bit unusual to me - very thin and sticky. According to Michael, this is "good" chili because it is the expensive kind made with meat, as opposed to "cheaper" bean chili. I didn't know that but, I suppose it makes sense. The tomato was the most surprising part. They use fresh, really thickly cut tomatoes and it aids in creating a unique texture. The default drink size is quite massive by typical fast food standards and was welcome because the chili really made me thirsty. Bonus: They don't charge extra for extra tomatoes, pickles, etc.


SAN DIEGO
7415 Clairemont Mesa Blvd.
(858) 715-0075

Update (May 15th, 2006): We went for Tommy's anniversary today and there was a sweet deal on cheeseburgers if you bought fries and a drink. Today the fries were so good and super hot and crisppy. Eric ordered the chili fries which were really good and I think I will get the chili cheese fries next time (they cost about $1.10 more than plain fries). Tommy's started to feel like it could be habit-forming but when we all got home, we felt a bit queasy and we weren't sure why.