Neologism for a neologistic age: "Minimum viable user"
In my recent comments on Google Chrome, I tossed out a phrase describing the lowest-skilled user a product might feasibly accommodate, or if you're business-minded, /profitably/ accommodate. The hazard being that such an MVU then /drags down/ the experience for others, and in particular expert or experienced users. More to follow.
First, this appears a new coinage:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22minimum+viable+user%22
#tootstorm
1/
There /are/ cases where reasonable accomodations should be considered, absolutely. Though how this ought be done is also critical. And arbitrary exclusions for nonfunctional reasons -- the term for that is "discrimination", should you ask -- are right out.
Accessibility accomodations, in physical space and informational systems, is a key concern. I don't generally require these myself, but know many people who do, and have come to appreciate their concerns.
2/
I've also come to see both the increased imposition, /and/ benefits, this offers by way of accommodating the needs.
It's often underappreciated how increased accessibility helps many, often all, users of a product or space. A classic instance would be pavement or sidewalk kerb cuts -- bringing the edge of a walkway to street level, rather than leaving a 10cm ridge. This accomodates not just wheelchairs, but dollies, carts, wheeled luggage, and more. Benefits materialising after use.
3/
For information systems -- say, webpages -- the accomodations which are most useful for perceptually-challenged users are /also/ almost always beneficial to others: clear, high-contrast layouts. Lack of distracting screen elements. A highly semantic structure makes work easier for both screen-readers (text-to-speech) /and/ automated parsing or classification of content. Clear typography doesn't fix all copy, but it makes bad copy all the more apparent. Again, positive externalities.
4/
When we get to the point of process-oriented systems, the picture becomes more blured. The fundamental problem is that an interface which doesn't match the complexity of the underlying task is always going to be unsatisfactory. Larry Wall has observed this with regard to the Perl programming language: complexity will out.
In landscape design, the problem is evidenced by the term "desire path". A disagreement between use and design.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path
5/
@maradydd Awesome! No, I didn't.
I've whacked Google upside the head with the concept so often that my clue-by-four is getting sore.
At its heart, a desire path is the failure for designer to correctly anticipate, or facilitate, the needs and desires of their users. Such paths reflect emergent practices or patterns, some constructive, some challenging the integrity of a system.
Mastodon Tootstorms are an example of a positive creative accomodation. Mostly.
On other services, the lack of an ability to otherwise dismiss content frequently creates an overload of the spam or abuse reporting mechanism. G+ comes to mind.
6/
@RefurioAnachro Circles ... done right.
I'd prefer to have "audiences" and "sources" specified, somehow.
It's complicated.
> better than [... g+] circles
@dredmorbius, how so? Circles are sets. They can represent everything! But since such a feature would hopefully come as an api, let me say I'd happily implement any missing operations or other conveniences myself.
@RefurioAnachro G+ circles aren't specified as /audience/ or /sources/. They play both roles. Without regard to content. And blind the source or target to how they are classified by the Circling user.
If I can specify:
1. Standardised topics
2. By sending or receipt
3. Sources of interest
4. Audiences for distribution
Then I can filter my /incoming stream/ to topics of interest, from specified authors. Say, "personal posts" from "friends".
And I can filter my /outgoing/ stream similarly.
@RefurioAnachro This solves the specific problem of, say, following Linus Torvalds, if:
1. You're a member of his family.
2. You're interested in scuba diving.
3. You're interested in Linux.
4. You're interested in Portland, OR, regional matters
With standardised topics, you could include, or exclude, his public personal posts. Or he could limit personal posts to some non-public distribution, whilst Linux and Scuba would be. Regional filters might include Portland or Oregon. Etc.
me>> g+ #circles
dred> standardized topics
@dredmorbius, ah, that's what they are for! Cool. Is there a self-organizing alternative, or a good democratic variant you can think of?
Why would my mental picture of word2vec be harassing me right now... Bzzz!
@RefurioAnachro The more I consider this, the more the the Library of Congress Classification System seems the only logical choice. An alternative would have to strongly resemble it:
* Unencombered
* Extant
* Widely standardised
* Comprehensive
* Hierarchical
* Numerous tools
* As coarse- or fine-grained as desired
* Extensible
* A well-established process for extending, or retiring parts of, the classification
* Multi-organisational adoption
* A large extant set of practitioners
@RefurioAnachro Contrast that with the inverse:
* Encumbered (e.g., Dewey Decimal: a proprietary system)
* Greenfield: newly-created -- would have to be created, designed, and worst of all, sold to adopters
* Unstandardised
* Non-comprehensive -- it would have to be built out. And the design failures addressed.
* Non-hierarchical -- flat spaces suck
* No tools
* Unflexible
* Unextensible
* Poor/no processes
* Single-site
* No practitioners
Thanks for gathering these points, @dredmorbius! Hierarchies are cool. But having them curated not very. Btw, a (binary) tree gives a (is iso to an) ordering of a set. I imagine preferring a position on this line/spectrum, and the tree might catch up later.
A tree is basically a line! Although one may blow up arbitrary portions of it I feel a higher-dimensional representation might turn out more natural.
However, all this doesn't make it self-organized (nor standardized).
I wonder, @zalexz, what could be the cause for such an explosion of complexity? We can already subscribe filling a single list, now all we need to do is allow each user to map list items to labels to group them.
Oh wait, mastodon does have lists by now, and it seems to work well. Except that some clients don't support lists...
Yes, mastodon has lists. I have used circles on google+ to follow my engagers and organically keep my relationships slim and relevant. In theory you can do these things with pen and paper, but having some ui support makes these kinds of interaction with one's relationship graph available to a wider audience, and I think that's a good thing! Negative listings are much more controversal, but I believe they're important, too!
If a side-effect of reporting content is that it is removed from my view, and there is no other way to accomplish that goal, then that feature becomes the "remove from visibility" function. I've ... had that conversation with Google for a number of years. Or monologue.
Software programming is in many ways a story of side-effects and desire paths, as is the art of crafting system exploits. PHP seems particularly prone to this, though I can't find the character-generating hack I've in mind.
7/
There's the question of when a system should or shouldn't be particularly complex. Light switches and water taps are a case in point. The first has operated as a simple binary, the second as a variable-rate flow control, and the basic functionality has remained essentially unchanged for a century or more.
Until the Internet of Broken Shit that Spies on you wizkids got ahold of them....
And modulo some simple management interfaces: timers or centralised large-building controls.
8/
Simple tasks benefit from simple controls.
Complex tasks ... /still/ benefit from simple controls, /but no simpler than the task at hand/
A good chef, for example, needs only a modicum of basic elements. A good knife. A reliable cooktop and oven. A sink. A cutting surface. Mixing bowls.
Underappreciated: /measuring equipment/. Measuring spoons, cups, pitchers. A scale. Thermometer. Timers.
(At this point I'm overlapping to the Ontology of Technological Mechanisms, noted.)
9/
The chef /also/ may have call for some specific processing equipment: cutting, chopping, blending, grating, and mixing tools. Powering these increases throughput, but the essential controls remain simple.
And other tools I'm omitting here, say, a frosting tube, but which generally share common characteristics: they're individually simple, do one thing, usually a basic transformation, and do it well.
The complexity of the process is in the chef, training, and practice.
10/
@dredmorbius "Unitasker Wednesday": https://unclutterer.com/category/unitasker-wednesday/
I remember reading this column while I was living in the US (2009-2011). Apparently it's still going strong.
"PancakeBot – the world’s first 3D pancake printer": https://unclutterer.com/2017/01/04/unitasker-wednesday-pancake-bot/
@oswriter @dredmorbius Oh wow, the "Electric Mac and Cheese Maker" was one of the most puzzling items I saw on the blog! Not only because "Mac and Cheese" isn't such a big thing here in Germany...
On the other hand, I'm guilty of owning this unitasker:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11voSl3ty8Q
I've somehow stopped using it, but I had a lot of fun with it for months.
@oswriter @dredmorbius It won't take long anymore, I guess: http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.de/2016/11/more-things-that-just-shouldnt-be.html (it's a great blog, by the way, even if some of the engineering-related posts are a little too technical for me)
I think the IoT Mac and Cheese maker should also be on the blockchain, if only to control the supply chain for pasta, cheddar, milk and butter.
@stefanieschulte And: https://xkcd.com/1205/
On single-use tools: if that single use is /saving your life in conditions of readily forseable peril/, then it may well be worth having. Lifeboats. Seatbelts. First aid kit.
That gets down to a risk assessment and mitigation calculation problem though, which may be error-prone: over- and under-estimating risks, and/or the efficacy of mitigations.
Pricing risk and risk as an economic good is another long topic.
@dredmorbius I remember the first xkcd, but didn't know the second one!
One the other hand, I usually try to automate tasks with software even if doing this takes me as long as performing the task manually. It's less boring, and it might provide me with a learning experience.
@stefanieschulte Extending Randall's concept in 1205: if you can share that effort with multiple people, then the time-on-task can be increased.
Of course, you've also got to take into account the Jevons paradox: reduce the costs of the activity and you'll increase the amount performed.
I also have a strong tendency to automate.
The antithesis of this is "cooking gadgets" -- tools or appliances which are complicated, fussy, achieve a single and /non-general/ result, or which integrate (or attempt to do so) a full process. This is the stuff that clutters counter space and drawers: useless kitchen gadgets. A category so egregious it defies even simple listing, though you're welcome to dig through search results.
If you can only use it on one recipe, it's bad mkay?
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=useless+kitchen+gadgets
11/
There are times when you absolutely should be aiming for the minimum viable user. Pretty much anything that sees widespread public use, for example.
I shouldn't have to read the user manual to figure out how to open the front door to your building. Automatic, sensored doors, would be an entirely MVU product.
I've mentioned elevators, automobiles, and telephones. Each is highly complex conceptually, two can maim or kill. All can be relatively safely used by most adults, even children.
12/
A large part of what /makes/ elevators, automobiles, and telephones so generally usable is that the controls are very highly standardised.
Mostly.
Telephones have deviated from this with expansion of mobile and even more complex landline devices. And the specific case of business-oriented office telephones has been for at least 30 years, a strong counterexample, worth considering.
It takes me a year or more to figure out a new office phone system. If ever. A constant for 30 years.
13/
@dredmorbius Don't even get me started about utility device UX. I was always mystified that they didn't start shipping VCRs with mice (so they could use a standard menuing system), once mice became a thing that most people understood. I thought of that in 1987.
It seems clear that "the market" has not been selecting for usability for some decades now.
@dredmorbius I may in fact have basically shot my wad with the VCR-mouse thing, though it could certainly be extended to Blu-Ray and, fer cryin' out loud, modern digital TVs.
We somehow ended up with a Roku in the house, and it turns out you can set it up so your smartphone is a remote control -- and what does the interface look like?
Yes, that's right: a traditional pushbutton remote. With very few functions.
(There's *probably* more to be said...)
@dredmorbius Just on a whim, let's look at phone systems again.
You've ranted about office systems; let me rant about home phones. You can buy a smartphone -- with color touchscreen and substantial CPU, by ~2005 standards -- for $30 at Kroger, but a $100+ cordless phone system (more or less unchanged for the past decade or more) still uses pushbuttons for navigation and has a tiny monochrome LCD display? I sense we are being toyed with.
@woozle So, let's see ...
* TVs, VCRs, DVDs
* Microwaves, stoves, ovens, refrigerators
* Washing machines and dryers
* Apartment intercom systems
* Residential management: HVAC, alarm, security, video
* Alarm clocks
* Stereos / sound systems
* Automobiles & automobile subsystems
* Retail self-checkout systems
* Public information / transaction kiosks, generally
@dredmorbius 1/
I'm willing to defend existing UIs/hardware for:
* microwaves, stoves/ovens
I am probably not sufficiently familiar with the following UIs to comment intelligently:
* refrigerators (our fridge has a purely mechanical UI)
* public info/trxaction kiosks (the ones around here tend to be static)
(more...)
@dredmorbius 2/
I can probably comment with some degree of technological informitude, albeit not thoroughly, on:
* residential mgmt: HVAC, security, video
* intercom systems
* alarm clocks
* automobile consoles
* retail self-checkout
Do they still make:
* stereos/sound systems (that aren't basically media centers)
I think that covers everything you listed...
(Will attempt actual commentary next.)
@dredmorbius 3/
* residential management systems: HVAC, alarm, security, video
My experience is limited, but....
A. Thermostats
Ours looks like this: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Honeywell-7-Day-Programmable-Thermostat-Works-with-Iris/999914795 and costs $100.
For $100, I should be able to get something more like this: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Honeywell-7-Day-Touch-Screen-Programmable-Thermostat-Works-with-Iris/999914799 -- but that's $200
(more...)
@dredmorbius 4/
...but really, my main complaint about home thermostats -- AND off-the-shelf security cameras, while we're at it -- is how closed they are (bearing in mind that this is largely inferred from what I read, having never owned one). I can't write my own software to talk to them. (...as far as I know.)
(Hypertwin Manor is now accepting grants for the further study of these matters.)
(more...)
@dredmorbius 5/
B. Security systems
I know very little about modern security systems in general, though I do know one thing: my client is innocent.
Wait... wrong thing...
(I meant to say) I do know that there are some open protocols out there, and equipment which uses them, but they're not generally available in IRL stores. ...and my information may be dated.
Of security UIs, though, I know pretty much nothing. Our security system is called "people are always here".
<TBC...>
@dredmorbius 6/
B1. Security cameras
I do have some recent experience with off-the-shelf security cameras. Two, to be exact.
One of them I couldn't get to work - http://htyp.org/User:Woozle/Amcrest_webcam - and returned to the store.
The other one... plz excuse, I'm being pawed by a cat. BRB. <TBC...>
@dredmorbius 7/
Other camera: no review because all I did was get it working; someone else bought & installed. Don't even know the model number.
To keep it short-ish: web UI kind of awful and sluggish, Android UI basically the same, though both had all the main fx()... but you could only record to the onboard chip; no way to download video. WTF.
My conclusion: it's basically a sales device for their cloud service. Should have been free.
(cont...)
@dredmorbius 8/
Security cameras, bonus comment:
I found a free app that lets you turn a smartphone into a security camera, and can be accessed via open video-streaming protocol.
Using my old phone w/ bad screen, We now have a monitor camera for our main entrance, which I view through VLC. I occasionally have to restart the camera-side software.
A pretty good system could probably be built on this, using entirely open software (except for Android stuff).
(more...)
@dredmorbius 9/
* Alarm clocks:
We have three:
#1 I was given for xmas in the early 1980s. Given tech of the time, UI would be difficult to improve. Separate LED segs for time and alarm time, fwd AND back buttons for everything...
(Cont...)
@dredmorbius 10/
#2 we bought 5-10 years ago for its ceiling-projection ability (dim enough not to wake up @Harena but easily viewable by by both of us).
(Does this series qualify as #TechTMI yet?)
Is supposed to set itself from shortwave, but still hasn't updated for DST (even though DST mode is on). Manually compensating for DST tends to result in unpredictable behavior. Pushbutton UI is generally counterintuitive and awful.
There is a color version now; tempting.
(TBC...)
@Harena @dredmorbius 11/
#3 is the Moto X(?) mine sister gave me a couple of years ago because Google gave it to her and she didn't need another smartphone.
We've never activated it; @Harena uses it for bedtime entertainment and, yes, an alarm clock. She can comment on the UI better than I can, but I haven't heard any major complaints. The Moto-specific tweaks to the OS UI in general are more annoying, e.g. the lack of control over the "dreaming" (standby) screen.
(more...)
@dredmorbius @Harena 12/
* Automobile consoles
I haven't had much opportunity to use these; our *newest* car is vintage 1995... but I seem to understand that they control everything, including radio/media player -- which means, unless there's a new standard I don't know about, that you are now prevented from buying your own in-dash media unit.
Which sucks, if true.
(More...)
@dredmorbius 13/ last one?
* retail self-checkout
We use these a lot. They have improved since they first came out, though they still make a lot of silly assumptions and don't give you necessary information. Presumably this is somehow justified by security concerns -- though as w/ most security theatre, pretty easy to imagine ways around.
What I can think of quickly:
- can't enter qty
- always calling attendant, blocking further scans, no reason given
@Harena -- comments?
This wasn't the case as of the 1980s, when a standard POTS-based phone might have five buttons, and the smarts were in a PBX generally located within the building.
By the 1990s, though, "smart phones" were starting to appear. Rolm was one early vendor I recall. These had an increasing mix of features, not standardised either across /or within/ vendor lines, but generally some mix of:
* Voicemail
* Call forwarding
* Call conferencing
* Other random shit to inflate marketing brochures
14/
Feature #4 was a major problem, but the underlying one was, and remains, I think, the mismatch of comms channels and cognitive capacities a phone represents: audio, physical, textual, and short-term working memory.
The physical interface of most phones -- and I'm referring to desk sets here -- is highly constrained. There's a keypad, generally 12 buttons (not even enough for the impoverished Roman alphabet, let alone more robust ones), and a handset, plus some base. Cords.
15/
More advanced phonesets have perfected the technology of including a display for text which is simultaneously unreadable under any lighting conditions, viewing angles, or capable of providing useful information in any regard. This another engineering accomplishment with a decades-long record.
Phones are relatively good for /talking/, but they are miserable for /communication/. Reflected by millennials.
https://www.inc.com/john-brandon/why-millennials-dont-like-to-make-phone-calls.html
16/
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